(no subject)
For emilytheodd, a (sadly late) birthday present. It's another scene from my Invention of Love college AU. You asked before if it has a happy ending. I still don't know.
Housman has always been smart.
It's about all he's ever had going for him. His other siblings are attractive, athletic, socially capable--average, honestly. Normal people. And Hous tried not to be bitter that he was a freak. Like so many socially awkward teenage boys, he had taken comfort in his intelligence, in the fact that someday, being smart would become cool. He's been told this happens.
"Your brains are going to open up a lot of doors for you, Alfred," his mother told him when he was a kid.
And he'd believed her.
But Hous can't deal with wanting the future anymore. He wants to be happy now. He wants to stop thinking, to stop being different, to just be able to be, no questions asked. No self-doubt.
"Hous is going to be, like," Mo slurs, gesturing with his shot glass, "Einstein. Only with Latin. Is there Latin Einstein, Hous?"
"Socrates," says Housman, even though he's not sure that's true. Tequila makes him feel pretty normal, brains-wise. He considers. "No, wait, he's Greek."
"Confusing Latin and Greek?" says Mo, laughing. "Hous, you're drunk!"
"But I'm having such a good time," Hous protests. He knows Mo didn't say he wasn't, but it seems important. He wants everyone to know that he likes this. He likes not thinking (even though he's still thinking), likes slumping against Mo without caring, without Mo's caring.
If I weren't so smart, Hous thinks, it could always be like this. I could always be happy. I could always be with Mo.
His finals are in two weeks. His future is laid out ahead of him. It used to look like a magic carpet, but now it looks like a prison hallway, leading somewhere cold and lonely and inescapable.
It doesn't have to be like this.
He has two weeks left of college, and then he may never see Pollard or Mo again. They might move to different places, get different jobs. Hous is supposed to go to graduate school, secure a bright future.
He has two weeks.
Housman has always been smart.
It's about all he's ever had going for him. His other siblings are attractive, athletic, socially capable--average, honestly. Normal people. And Hous tried not to be bitter that he was a freak. Like so many socially awkward teenage boys, he had taken comfort in his intelligence, in the fact that someday, being smart would become cool. He's been told this happens.
"Your brains are going to open up a lot of doors for you, Alfred," his mother told him when he was a kid.
And he'd believed her.
But Hous can't deal with wanting the future anymore. He wants to be happy now. He wants to stop thinking, to stop being different, to just be able to be, no questions asked. No self-doubt.
"Hous is going to be, like," Mo slurs, gesturing with his shot glass, "Einstein. Only with Latin. Is there Latin Einstein, Hous?"
"Socrates," says Housman, even though he's not sure that's true. Tequila makes him feel pretty normal, brains-wise. He considers. "No, wait, he's Greek."
"Confusing Latin and Greek?" says Mo, laughing. "Hous, you're drunk!"
"But I'm having such a good time," Hous protests. He knows Mo didn't say he wasn't, but it seems important. He wants everyone to know that he likes this. He likes not thinking (even though he's still thinking), likes slumping against Mo without caring, without Mo's caring.
If I weren't so smart, Hous thinks, it could always be like this. I could always be happy. I could always be with Mo.
His finals are in two weeks. His future is laid out ahead of him. It used to look like a magic carpet, but now it looks like a prison hallway, leading somewhere cold and lonely and inescapable.
It doesn't have to be like this.
He has two weeks left of college, and then he may never see Pollard or Mo again. They might move to different places, get different jobs. Hous is supposed to go to graduate school, secure a bright future.
He has two weeks.