.au fic: The Hours of Instruction - D/M (eventual NC17) 4.?
Title: The Hours of Instruction
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13 for now; R/NC17 eventually.
Disclaimers: If the boys were mine, this season would not be happening.
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. For wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).
Chapters: 01; 02; 03.
Notes: This fic has officially eaten my brain. I can't remember the last time a multi-part fic cooperated so well for me.
CHAPTER FOUR
“On what major point of doctrine, Mr. Fitzgerald, did the Council of Nicaea anathematize the Arians?”
“That the Son was not consubstantial with the Father?”
Professor Rose stared at him unblinking for what felt like an eternity.
“Very good, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
Martin slid back in his seat, limp with relief. He’d only stared at their textbook for ages last night, trying to work out the microscopic differences between Arianism and orthodoxy to the exclusion of all else. And Danny, watching him from across the room, hadn’t helped at all.
Professor Rose continued with his lecture as though one of his students was not having a heart attack, droning, nasal voice a definite cure for insomnia; half the boys in the class were staring vacantly, and Martin had given up on taking notes an hour ago. The only person still going strong was Joseph Preston, the boy who’d sat next to Martin at orientation, writing away like Professor Rose was God or something.
“As Mr. Fitzgerald,” Professor Rose said, “has so correctly pointed out, the Creed as formulated in 325 stipulated that those believing the Son was of a different hypostasis and thus not- what, Mr. Fleming, is the Greek word for consubstantial, as we know from Origen?”
This, in addition to boring his students to death, was another one of Professor Rose’s favorite activities: ambushing them with questions.
Ryan Fleming, who sat next to Martin, sighed miserably. A tense moment followed, with all the students in the class staring at their books, their hands, the clock, at anything but Ryan and Professor Rose. Martin tried to will the word into Ryan’s head, but apparently his telepathy wasn’t working, because after a long and horrible silence, Ryan said he didn’t know what the Greek word for ‘consubstantial’ was, and in a tone that implied he didn’t care.
“Homoousios, Mr. Fleming, homoousios.” Professor Rose looked around at all of them, tense and aggravated at the stunning breadth of teenaged ignorance, and Martin knew they were all going to suffer for Ryan’s misstep.
And, sure enough, Professor Rose pronounced judgment a heartbeat before the bell rang for next period:
“In light of your difficulty in grasping the foundations of Catholic doctrine, for next week I would like - in addition to your scheduled reading on the post-Nicene years - a five-page essay discussing the significance of the Nicene Creed as orthodoxy’s reaction to heresy.”
“God, Fleming…” Zach Bryson, who sat on Fleming’s other side, muttered, exasperation barely hidden by the frantic clatter and shuffling of twenty boys escaping from hours of searing torment.
“Like you knew what it was,” Fleming said.
The other boys continued to torment Fleming in between laments over the essay assignment and complaints over the utter pointlessness of the course, and while Martin thought knowing where a belief came from might be important, he had to agree with them. The course was pointless.
“It’s not like I’m going to have to know about homo-whatever in the real world,” Fleming complained to Bryson as they walked by. ‘I mean, what’s the point?”
Martin left his classmates behind, turning down the side stairs of Owen Hall - an actual hall, the humanities building - and heading for Raine. Fifteen minutes to make it to the locker room and change for swim team tryouts, and what sadist made these schedules anyway? Completely unreasonable. Some sort of penance, probably, or maybe the administration realizing that if they kept the students exhausted they - the students - wouldn’t have the time or energy to get into trouble.
He was so busy musing over the twisted, evil logic of the people in charge of Trinity that he needed a moment to realize Danny had fallen into step beside him. Careless and disheveled as ever, walking the very edge of respectability, with his shirt untucked underneath his jacket and his hair spiking up defiantly.
Thick, nice hair, either black or the kind of brown that passes for black, and Martin wondered what Danny would say if he told him he’d like to run his fingers through it.
“Having fun?” Danny asked, smirk plastered firmly on his face, the bastard, not having to take Rose’s class.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how much.”
Danny laughed, quick and bright, and fell silent again.
“So, is there an actual reason you’re talking to me or did you just want to make sure I was suffering?” Martin risked a glance from the corner of his eye, saw Danny looking at him, smirk still in place, but looking-looking, and why he was doing that and what he was seeing, Martin had no idea.
“Mostly the second,” Danny admitted, “but I was also wondering, y’know, where you were going, what you were up to.”
Considering that Raine was set off from the two main quadrangles and only one path led to it, Danny’s first question was pretty well answered, so Martin simply said “the pool” - which was, he realized, a mistake (even if it was the truth), as Danny’s grin widened into something positively… lascivious was probably the word.
“It’s tryouts for the swim team,” Martin added, which only made it worse.
“Really?” Danny’s grin was wicked, triumphant, like he knew exactly what he was doing to Martin and enjoyed it. “Maybe I’ll come watch.”
“Don’t you have better things to do like, I don’t know, study or sacrifice kittens or something?”
“Not at the moment, no.” Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking, closer than probably necessary, close enough for Martin to catch the scent of hair gel and laundry detergent, feel warmth and electricity when Danny’s elbow brushed his.
Martin’s life really sucked sometimes.
Other times, though, it was really good, and for the life of him, Martin had no idea which one of those times this was.
* * *
The Raine Athletic Center was massive, neo-Gothic complete with saints and gargoyles on the outside and inside dazzlingly sophisticated. The aquatic complex sported a fifty-meter main pool, a smaller one for divers nearby and, like all tiled places, swallowed up sound and spat it back as weak echoes - splashing, low conversation, Coach Dombrowski shouting at someone to get a move on.
Martin knelt at poolside, brushed fingers across the surface of the water. Water usually brought clarity for him, the clarity of not thinking, one of the few places he could be like that - be breath and action and nothing more.
Today, not so much.
After warm-ups, Coach Dombrowski had interrogated all ten of them on their distances, best times, how long they’d been swimming competitively, and that was fine, expected, and Martin was confident enough in himself to know Dombrowski approved, and very nearly sure that he’d make the team with little difficulty.
But as they filed into the pool area to start time trials, Martin caught sight of Danny lounging in the bleachers, eyes seeming fixed on a notebook balanced on his knees - utterly transparent, because even from that distance Martin knew Danny was looking right at him, hot prickles of awareness coursing over his body, and never mind there were a few other boys scattered here and there so it wasn’t like Danny was the only one watching.
He was the only one looking.
“Fitzgerald, Lane Four!” Dombrowski barked. “You’re after Garner.”
Garner, the boy in question, had just started on his hundred meters. Martin obediently tried to loosen up, checked his goggles, tried very hard not to acknowledge the fact that he was wearing only, like, a gum-wrapper sized scrap of fabric and that Danny was not fifty feet away, watching the whole proceedings.
And goddammit, he’d never had a problem with this before.
Deep breath. Garner was on his return trip back down the pool, plowing through the water like a locomotive, and Martin needed to focus. He could practically hear his father, the one time he’d bothered to show up for one of Martin’s competitions - Visualize, Martin, visualize - and resolutely shoved that memory and voice aside. Tried to think about not thinking, about only himself and the water, no distractions, no Danny - utterly ridiculous that last, but he had to try.
Then Garner was hauling himself out of the pool, breathing heavily, and Dombrowski gestured for Martin to step up.
He did, pulling his goggles into place, stared down the blue corridor between the ropes marking off his lane.
Was off at the buzzer, not enough awareness to be relieved that Danny hadn’t distracted him badly enough to miss the start, long, shallow glide through the water - a blank space before he surfaced, already on his rhythm, and God it was good, stroke and stroke and stroke, breath even though he felt like he could keep going forever, and not just good, great.
Racing turn at the wall, pushing off, and another space before picking up the rhythm again, breaths a little deeper now as the pace began to tell, though Martin had no idea how fast he was going, had no idea about anything except the water and the flex of his body and the burn of breath in his lungs, warm against liquid coolness, and -
- and his outstretched hand hit the wall hard enough to sting.
The water rocked gently around him, soothing his breath into something more manageable, and distantly, Martin heard Dombrowski congratulating him.
“C’mon, get out.” The coach clapped his hands, bringing Martin back to the here-and-now. “Michaels, as soon as Fitzgerald gets out of the way, you’re in.”
Martin hauled himself out of the pool, the motion automatic, because that’s what you do when you’re done swimming and someone else needs the lane. His gear was piled along the wall with everyone else’s and he wandered over to it, pulling off his goggles as he went, half-acknowledging the compliments of the other boys and Dombrowski’s order to stick around.
Chlorine stung his eyes and he impatiently shook it away, reached for his towel.
Thought, the second he picked it up, of Danny.
Reflexively, he looked up, and yeah, there Danny was, looking back.
* * *
“Like a fucking bullet,” Danny was saying at dinner that evening, gesturing in a way that Martin supposed was in imitation of a man with a nervous twitch firing a pistol.
“Shut up,” he said, feeling his face go hot.
Danny had been unexpectedly enthusiastic, prideful almost, about Martin’s performance, as though he had some sort of personal stake in Martin making the swim team. It was good in a way Martin couldn’t identify, better than good maybe, but also disconcerting, Danny bouncing from sarcastic tormenter to cheerleader.
“What? It’s true.”
Maybe it was a different form of torment. Danny could not possibly have missed Martin’s embarrassment or his obvious unwillingness to talk about how he’d done in tryouts. Yeah, that had to be it, a new way to make even the best parts of Martin’s life a living and excruciating hell.
Kieran and David had offered quick congratulations before turning back to a fantastically complex chemistry problem. Matt was listening tolerantly, for what reason Martin couldn’t determine, and Ashley…
“So, like, do they make you shave your legs?” Ashley asked around a mouthful of chicken.
“It reduces drag,” Martin mumbled, and poked at the risotto while Danny and Ashley laughed.
* * *
“You don’t advertise much, do you?”
Martin almost froze in his tracks. That question could not possibly mean what he thought it meant. Oh God no, Danny had already figured it out and was going to call him on it.
Danny must have taken his terror for bewilderment, though, because he added, “I mean, it really bugged you, me talking about your tryouts.”
Oh, thank God. Not that then.
“Yeah, kind of.” Martin shrugged, no more comfortable with this conversation than Danny’s dinnertime enthusiasm. “Why?”
A shrug of Danny’s own in answer. “Fleming says you’re kicking ass in Rose’s seminar, and you’re like… like…” He trailed off, actually looking apologetic. “You’re pretty smart, y’know?”
“Um, thanks.” And Danny complimenting him? Had he stepped into an alternate universe where good was evil and Danny was nice to him? Martin took a deep breath, trying to be discreet about it as he struggled for a way to deflect the conversation, turn it somewhere else. “Cassell thinks you’re, like, the god of pre-Revolution history.” Which was true enough.
“Eh.” Dismissive, but Danny still sounded pleased.
Silence settled around them, comfortable for once, sun sliding down toward late evening, and Martin thought: I could get used to this.
“You looked really hot in your Speedos, y’know.”
Or maybe not.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: All the stuff Professor Rose is lecturing on? Don't ask how I know it.
By: HF
Email: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13 for now; R/NC17 eventually.
Disclaimers: If the boys were mine, this season would not be happening.
Advertisements: Catholic school AU. For wordclaim50 challenge #01 (AU) and philosophy_20 challenge #08 (Faith).
Chapters: 01; 02; 03.
Notes: This fic has officially eaten my brain. I can't remember the last time a multi-part fic cooperated so well for me.
CHAPTER FOUR
“On what major point of doctrine, Mr. Fitzgerald, did the Council of Nicaea anathematize the Arians?”
“That the Son was not consubstantial with the Father?”
Professor Rose stared at him unblinking for what felt like an eternity.
“Very good, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
Martin slid back in his seat, limp with relief. He’d only stared at their textbook for ages last night, trying to work out the microscopic differences between Arianism and orthodoxy to the exclusion of all else. And Danny, watching him from across the room, hadn’t helped at all.
Professor Rose continued with his lecture as though one of his students was not having a heart attack, droning, nasal voice a definite cure for insomnia; half the boys in the class were staring vacantly, and Martin had given up on taking notes an hour ago. The only person still going strong was Joseph Preston, the boy who’d sat next to Martin at orientation, writing away like Professor Rose was God or something.
“As Mr. Fitzgerald,” Professor Rose said, “has so correctly pointed out, the Creed as formulated in 325 stipulated that those believing the Son was of a different hypostasis and thus not- what, Mr. Fleming, is the Greek word for consubstantial, as we know from Origen?”
This, in addition to boring his students to death, was another one of Professor Rose’s favorite activities: ambushing them with questions.
Ryan Fleming, who sat next to Martin, sighed miserably. A tense moment followed, with all the students in the class staring at their books, their hands, the clock, at anything but Ryan and Professor Rose. Martin tried to will the word into Ryan’s head, but apparently his telepathy wasn’t working, because after a long and horrible silence, Ryan said he didn’t know what the Greek word for ‘consubstantial’ was, and in a tone that implied he didn’t care.
“Homoousios, Mr. Fleming, homoousios.” Professor Rose looked around at all of them, tense and aggravated at the stunning breadth of teenaged ignorance, and Martin knew they were all going to suffer for Ryan’s misstep.
And, sure enough, Professor Rose pronounced judgment a heartbeat before the bell rang for next period:
“In light of your difficulty in grasping the foundations of Catholic doctrine, for next week I would like - in addition to your scheduled reading on the post-Nicene years - a five-page essay discussing the significance of the Nicene Creed as orthodoxy’s reaction to heresy.”
“God, Fleming…” Zach Bryson, who sat on Fleming’s other side, muttered, exasperation barely hidden by the frantic clatter and shuffling of twenty boys escaping from hours of searing torment.
“Like you knew what it was,” Fleming said.
The other boys continued to torment Fleming in between laments over the essay assignment and complaints over the utter pointlessness of the course, and while Martin thought knowing where a belief came from might be important, he had to agree with them. The course was pointless.
“It’s not like I’m going to have to know about homo-whatever in the real world,” Fleming complained to Bryson as they walked by. ‘I mean, what’s the point?”
Martin left his classmates behind, turning down the side stairs of Owen Hall - an actual hall, the humanities building - and heading for Raine. Fifteen minutes to make it to the locker room and change for swim team tryouts, and what sadist made these schedules anyway? Completely unreasonable. Some sort of penance, probably, or maybe the administration realizing that if they kept the students exhausted they - the students - wouldn’t have the time or energy to get into trouble.
He was so busy musing over the twisted, evil logic of the people in charge of Trinity that he needed a moment to realize Danny had fallen into step beside him. Careless and disheveled as ever, walking the very edge of respectability, with his shirt untucked underneath his jacket and his hair spiking up defiantly.
Thick, nice hair, either black or the kind of brown that passes for black, and Martin wondered what Danny would say if he told him he’d like to run his fingers through it.
“Having fun?” Danny asked, smirk plastered firmly on his face, the bastard, not having to take Rose’s class.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how much.”
Danny laughed, quick and bright, and fell silent again.
“So, is there an actual reason you’re talking to me or did you just want to make sure I was suffering?” Martin risked a glance from the corner of his eye, saw Danny looking at him, smirk still in place, but looking-looking, and why he was doing that and what he was seeing, Martin had no idea.
“Mostly the second,” Danny admitted, “but I was also wondering, y’know, where you were going, what you were up to.”
Considering that Raine was set off from the two main quadrangles and only one path led to it, Danny’s first question was pretty well answered, so Martin simply said “the pool” - which was, he realized, a mistake (even if it was the truth), as Danny’s grin widened into something positively… lascivious was probably the word.
“It’s tryouts for the swim team,” Martin added, which only made it worse.
“Really?” Danny’s grin was wicked, triumphant, like he knew exactly what he was doing to Martin and enjoyed it. “Maybe I’ll come watch.”
“Don’t you have better things to do like, I don’t know, study or sacrifice kittens or something?”
“Not at the moment, no.” Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking, closer than probably necessary, close enough for Martin to catch the scent of hair gel and laundry detergent, feel warmth and electricity when Danny’s elbow brushed his.
Martin’s life really sucked sometimes.
Other times, though, it was really good, and for the life of him, Martin had no idea which one of those times this was.
* * *
The Raine Athletic Center was massive, neo-Gothic complete with saints and gargoyles on the outside and inside dazzlingly sophisticated. The aquatic complex sported a fifty-meter main pool, a smaller one for divers nearby and, like all tiled places, swallowed up sound and spat it back as weak echoes - splashing, low conversation, Coach Dombrowski shouting at someone to get a move on.
Martin knelt at poolside, brushed fingers across the surface of the water. Water usually brought clarity for him, the clarity of not thinking, one of the few places he could be like that - be breath and action and nothing more.
Today, not so much.
After warm-ups, Coach Dombrowski had interrogated all ten of them on their distances, best times, how long they’d been swimming competitively, and that was fine, expected, and Martin was confident enough in himself to know Dombrowski approved, and very nearly sure that he’d make the team with little difficulty.
But as they filed into the pool area to start time trials, Martin caught sight of Danny lounging in the bleachers, eyes seeming fixed on a notebook balanced on his knees - utterly transparent, because even from that distance Martin knew Danny was looking right at him, hot prickles of awareness coursing over his body, and never mind there were a few other boys scattered here and there so it wasn’t like Danny was the only one watching.
He was the only one looking.
“Fitzgerald, Lane Four!” Dombrowski barked. “You’re after Garner.”
Garner, the boy in question, had just started on his hundred meters. Martin obediently tried to loosen up, checked his goggles, tried very hard not to acknowledge the fact that he was wearing only, like, a gum-wrapper sized scrap of fabric and that Danny was not fifty feet away, watching the whole proceedings.
And goddammit, he’d never had a problem with this before.
Deep breath. Garner was on his return trip back down the pool, plowing through the water like a locomotive, and Martin needed to focus. He could practically hear his father, the one time he’d bothered to show up for one of Martin’s competitions - Visualize, Martin, visualize - and resolutely shoved that memory and voice aside. Tried to think about not thinking, about only himself and the water, no distractions, no Danny - utterly ridiculous that last, but he had to try.
Then Garner was hauling himself out of the pool, breathing heavily, and Dombrowski gestured for Martin to step up.
He did, pulling his goggles into place, stared down the blue corridor between the ropes marking off his lane.
Was off at the buzzer, not enough awareness to be relieved that Danny hadn’t distracted him badly enough to miss the start, long, shallow glide through the water - a blank space before he surfaced, already on his rhythm, and God it was good, stroke and stroke and stroke, breath even though he felt like he could keep going forever, and not just good, great.
Racing turn at the wall, pushing off, and another space before picking up the rhythm again, breaths a little deeper now as the pace began to tell, though Martin had no idea how fast he was going, had no idea about anything except the water and the flex of his body and the burn of breath in his lungs, warm against liquid coolness, and -
- and his outstretched hand hit the wall hard enough to sting.
The water rocked gently around him, soothing his breath into something more manageable, and distantly, Martin heard Dombrowski congratulating him.
“C’mon, get out.” The coach clapped his hands, bringing Martin back to the here-and-now. “Michaels, as soon as Fitzgerald gets out of the way, you’re in.”
Martin hauled himself out of the pool, the motion automatic, because that’s what you do when you’re done swimming and someone else needs the lane. His gear was piled along the wall with everyone else’s and he wandered over to it, pulling off his goggles as he went, half-acknowledging the compliments of the other boys and Dombrowski’s order to stick around.
Chlorine stung his eyes and he impatiently shook it away, reached for his towel.
Thought, the second he picked it up, of Danny.
Reflexively, he looked up, and yeah, there Danny was, looking back.
* * *
“Like a fucking bullet,” Danny was saying at dinner that evening, gesturing in a way that Martin supposed was in imitation of a man with a nervous twitch firing a pistol.
“Shut up,” he said, feeling his face go hot.
Danny had been unexpectedly enthusiastic, prideful almost, about Martin’s performance, as though he had some sort of personal stake in Martin making the swim team. It was good in a way Martin couldn’t identify, better than good maybe, but also disconcerting, Danny bouncing from sarcastic tormenter to cheerleader.
“What? It’s true.”
Maybe it was a different form of torment. Danny could not possibly have missed Martin’s embarrassment or his obvious unwillingness to talk about how he’d done in tryouts. Yeah, that had to be it, a new way to make even the best parts of Martin’s life a living and excruciating hell.
Kieran and David had offered quick congratulations before turning back to a fantastically complex chemistry problem. Matt was listening tolerantly, for what reason Martin couldn’t determine, and Ashley…
“So, like, do they make you shave your legs?” Ashley asked around a mouthful of chicken.
“It reduces drag,” Martin mumbled, and poked at the risotto while Danny and Ashley laughed.
* * *
“You don’t advertise much, do you?”
Martin almost froze in his tracks. That question could not possibly mean what he thought it meant. Oh God no, Danny had already figured it out and was going to call him on it.
Danny must have taken his terror for bewilderment, though, because he added, “I mean, it really bugged you, me talking about your tryouts.”
Oh, thank God. Not that then.
“Yeah, kind of.” Martin shrugged, no more comfortable with this conversation than Danny’s dinnertime enthusiasm. “Why?”
A shrug of Danny’s own in answer. “Fleming says you’re kicking ass in Rose’s seminar, and you’re like… like…” He trailed off, actually looking apologetic. “You’re pretty smart, y’know?”
“Um, thanks.” And Danny complimenting him? Had he stepped into an alternate universe where good was evil and Danny was nice to him? Martin took a deep breath, trying to be discreet about it as he struggled for a way to deflect the conversation, turn it somewhere else. “Cassell thinks you’re, like, the god of pre-Revolution history.” Which was true enough.
“Eh.” Dismissive, but Danny still sounded pleased.
Silence settled around them, comfortable for once, sun sliding down toward late evening, and Martin thought: I could get used to this.
“You looked really hot in your Speedos, y’know.”
Or maybe not.
-tbc.-
Post-fic notes: All the stuff Professor Rose is lecturing on? Don't ask how I know it.