I didn't know what the meaning of a shit-eating grin was until I walked into my dorm that afternoon.

The entire ordeal of getting myself into the Welsh boarding school of St. Gerard's had been nigh on unspeakable. That day had been probably the easiest for me out of all of it, and even then, trying to pass off my forged note saying that I wasn't gonna drop dead in the next 48 hours was difficult, mainly because nobody had heard of Doctor Read before. Nevertheless, they let the humble orphaned boy known as James Kidd pass the final stages of registration, and I was assigned to room 104 in Jackdaw Hall.

Piss poor name for a building.

I had wanted to start my eleventh year somewhere better than the fucking public schools that my foster families had sent me to, so I had found a loophole in the laws for residences of underaged orphans, and tested into a scholarship at St. Gerard's Private School for Boys in Swansea, Wales. Shitty place to have a boarding' school. Swansea isn't exactly renowned for… anything, really. At least from what I had heard. I'd spent so much of my life alone, usually working odd jobs that neighborhood families needed help with, but never having more than the minimal interaction. Was anymore than that necessary?

I walked down the oak paneled hallways of Jackdaw Hall to where I knew my room, and roommate, awaited me. Our room was at the end of the first hallway, and as I drew near, I could make out our last names stenciled on the top of the doorframe. Kidd and… Kenway? My brow furrowed. I didn't like the sound of that name. Sighing dramatically, I noticed the muffled sound of…

You've got to be fuckin' kidding me.

I opened my door and was greeted with a dubstep remix of "Seven Nation Army."

"Oy!" I shouted before I had even fully stepped inside. A tanned boy with messy blonde locks tied behind his head looked over from a bookshelf that he was apparently attempting to organize and raised an eyebrow.

"You're Kidd, I presume?" he began, attempting to be neutral. He had a noticeable Welsh accent.

"Listen here, ya cunt-hole," I snarled, starting upon him, "Seven Nation Army is a wonderful fuckin' song, and I'll be blasted to hell and back twice over if I'm ta let ya ruin it for me, ya hear?" I ended with my eyebrows knotted together and my finger in his face.

And he gave me that shit eating grin.

The tension was palpable, until the ethereal crooning of Florence and the Machine replaced the other shit. He chuckled low in his chest, and my eyes narrowed as I straightened up, and resumed normal greeting procedure. "Aye, I'm James Kidd. And before you ask, yes, I'm related to the captain. Now who's shit goes where, you deaf twat?"

The blonde stood up and dusted his hands on his jeans, more out of habit than of any real need to do so. He was only wearing socks on his feet, but since he had apparently been here long before me, it seemed only right. His jeans looked like they had seen a few years, and his white T-shirt sported a red stylized bird flying from his left hip to his right shoulder. His hair, had it not been tied back, probably would have just brushed his broad shoulders. He had a whalebone necklace and tattoos on his arms that would probably have made more than one professor raise an eye, were they not covered by the uniform that would be required when school started. Small scars could be found on every inch of exposed skin, the kind that were gotten only from physical labor. His eyes, the dark blue of the North Atlantic, had a simultaneous air of arrogance and mischief to them, and his face had a bit of a beard on it. I guessed that might also cause a bit of a problem, but you could never tell with these Welsh schools. Fucked right up the ass, each and every one of them.

"I'm Edward. And as you can see-" he gestured about the room "-I've all but finished unpacking, so it's up to you to put your stuff where you want it. My bed's by the window." He pursed his lips, and obviously remembered what else there was to say. "Communal bathrooms for this floor are down the hall. We have a sink, but toilets and showers are down there."

Shit. I'd have to watch myself in there.

He must've noticed that I had changed something, because he offered, "They're kept awfully clean, so it's not like you'll be pickin' up anything too nasty in there."

I grumbled and turned my back to him to set about unpacking. I could almost hear him shrug, and he sat down and went back to his bookshelf just as a driving piano melody began.

"I must go on standing.

You can't break that which isn't yours.

I must go on standing.

I'm not my own,

It's not my choice."

I didn't recognize the song. Maneuvering my trunk to the foot of my bet, I gritted my teeth as I began to think of ways to survive the rest of the night, let alone the entire year.