FILL: Running Uphill, 1a/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:19:39 UTC
hope this is something like what OP asked for When Hank gets home he finds a note in his mother’s loopy, scrawling script stuck to the refrigerator with a flower-shaped magnet. It reads:
Honey - How was practice? Run fast, run hard. Quinoa salad inside. Be back late. Don’t wait up. - Mom
He sighs, dumps his book-laden backpack on the tiled floor of the kitchen and crumples the note in his hand before tossing it into the disposal. Practice had been unusually brutal today - two hours of warming up, drilling, and then an endurance run in the lingering summer heat. It felt like early August but was actually late September. One kid threw up at the end of practice, hunched over the green because he hadn’t wanted to get the track dirty, until he was just dry-heaving. Coach Lensherr had smirked, clapped the kid on the back and said, “First time’s the worst.” And then he had set everyone free to do whatever it was teenagers did on Friday nights, with the threat of Sunday morning cross-country practice looming over their heads.
Hank opens the door to the fridge, letting the cold air seep out into the staleness of the room, before choosing a colorful sports drink - one of many - from the highest shelf and letting the door fall closed. He kicks at his backpack until it’s more or less by the breakfast bar around the huge island of their kitchen and then climbs onto a stool. He stinks, but he’d rather get his homework done first before anything else. He wonders vaguely what his mom might be up to tonight, but comes to the same conclusions: she’s either at the gym, at the Ladies’ Society or whatever it was called, or across the tracks in the next town over, volunteering at the local health clinic. Whatever. And his dad’s been away since the beginning of the year, overseas in Abu Dhabi, being the benevolent academic force that he is. So it’s just Hank in this huge kitchen of their huge house, doing fuck-all on a Friday night until something comes along. And, because he’s Hank, something always does.
He feels a sharp buzz in his pocket and fishes out his phone.
Angel just dumped her boyfriend, is Raven’s text. Another follows soon after. Can we use your place to get drunk?
Of course, Hank texts back quickly. He checks the clock on the microwave. 5:13pm. Tell everyone 8. I have to get some stuff done. Work before play, you know.
Raven’s immediate reply is: Ugh. You nerd. I have no idea why you’re popular.
Mostly, Hank thinks, it’s probably because he’s perfected the smirk that goes with his big blue eyes that charms teachers, administration, and students alike. Plus, he’s smart and athletic, but not in an intimidating way. And he’s helpful, for real. And if, in return, the other students fall all over themselves doing whatever he asks, it’s just an added perk. Raven had told him once, “It’s because you’re a manipulative bastard, but you’re nice about it, so no one questions it.” Yeah, Hank had conceded then. There’s that, too.
Hank types, Because I have a big house and my mom is secretly an alcoholic who can’t figure out how to lock a liquor cabinet? He places his phone on the granite countertop then, intent on getting started with his AP History homework, at least. Then, shower.
Oh, right, is Raven’s returning answer. See you later.
x
They manage to keep it small that night. Just the usual crowd of Angel and Raven, Sean and Bobby and John. And Hank, of course, who keeps to his self-imposed 3-drinks-a-night rule but gladly partakes in the joint that Sean procures out of his pocket. He takes a long drag before handing it over to Bobby. It’s a slow and easy night.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 1b/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:20:59 UTC
They talk about Angel’s dick of an ex-boyfriend, about how Coach Lensherr and Mr. Xavier aren’t fooling anyone, about college next year and applications, while rock music plays softly in the background. They’re in Hank’s bedroom, because he doesn’t want the weed stinking up the rest of the house, bodies somehow arranged in a sort-of-circle beside his oversized bed.
“Dude,” Sean says sometime between the hours of ten and eleven. “You’ve got a sick sound system,” slow and drawn-out and definitely high.
Hank smiles to himself. He gets the feeling that nothing they ever talk about is important, but there’s nothing else to talk about, anyway.
x
Sunday’s cross-country practice is a breeze. Coach Lensherr goes easy on them, in part, Hank thinks, because that kid who threw up shows up with his dad in tow, and Lensherr does this thing before he calls out drills that looks like a mini-seizure but is really just a way to get out a sudden wave of frustration. Hank knows; he’s been on the cross-country team since freshman year. Then, suddenly it’s Monday morning, and Hank realizes that he’s seen his mother maybe once all weekend, when she was just leaving for some place (didn’t ask, didn’t care), and he was just returning from practice. But on Mondays he gets to school early to help Mr. Xavier check the sound in the school’s auditorium before their weekly assembly, so he’s got no time to linger.
He somehow manages to tumble into his car - a hand-me-down, but still in perfectly good condition, blue Toyota Camry, and his parents have like three other cars in the garage but this one still drives the smoothest, in Hank’s opinion - with a thermos of coffee and a bagel, his backpack and duffel full of his running necessities, dressed in a fresh black polo and dark, fitted jeans. He’s even got his contacts in, which is a feat for Monday mornings. The engine starts quietly, he hooks up his phone to the radio and presses play, letting whatever song he had fallen asleep to last night pick up again, and then he’s rolling down his driveway and passing tawny white house after house.
He kind of zones out on the drive over to school, because the next thing he knows he’s in the school parking lot, which is still mostly empty, and pulling into spot 37, the spot designated to him when he had signed up for a parking pass. The school has a few lots, and almost all the seniors get a spot, anyway, but Hank really lucked out in getting a spot so close to the auditorium entrance. The main entrance, where all the administrative offices are, is way on the other side of the school’s property, and in between there’s the classrooms and cafeteria and the gym and connecting pool. Another, smaller entrance leads to the cafeteria and is looked over by a statue of their school mascot, the Cougar. The building itself is only two stories, but what it lacks in height it makes up for in space. Behind the main building is a grassy field, and then there’s the football field and track, a few tennis courts, and a soccer field and baseball diamond. North Hills High is definitely not shabby.
Hank shuts off his engine and lets himself finish his bagel before he has to climb out of the car and start the day. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement. A boy is rounding the corner of the building from the direction of the main offices. Hank checks his watch; it’s only a quarter past seven and school doesn’t start for another half hour. The boy shuffles past the statue of the cougar and disappears into the cafeteria entrance. Hank tries to match that blonde hair, the hunch in the boy’s shoulders, with a name and a face.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 1c/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:22:48 UTC
It clicks. Alex…Sumners? Summer. Summers. Alex Summers. His only real memory of him has been from the first week of school, when Alex had crashed through the door of their AP level Physics classroom, just moments after the bell rang, a little out of breath. Hank had quickly catalogued him - blonde hair, blue eyes, square jaw and fit. Baseball, maybe. New, definitely. It was senior year, and North Hills was not known for last minute transfers. Hank had known almost everyone in the entire senior class since elementary school, except for Angel, who had whirl-winded her way into eighth grade, hailing from Los Angeles. All eyes turned to the new kid, who hovered uncertainly by the door before mumbling, “Sorry. Couldn’t find the classroom,” and striding purposefully to the back of the room to Mr. Shaw’s raised eyebrow.
“I’ll excuse your tardiness this once,” Mr. Shaw had announced. “Mr…?”
“Summers,” he finished for him. “Alex Summers.” Shaw nodded, marked him ‘present.’ The boy had planted himself into an empty seat in the back corner, and hasn’t made a sound since.
Now that Hank thinks about it, he wonders why he hasn’t seen Alex around more. He must be the only student taking AP Physics and no other AP courses, which makes absolutely no sense in Hank’s college-oriented mind. Hank has a pretty good idea of how his senior class works - who’s friends with whom, where everyone sits at lunch, who’s planning on going to State and who’s planning on getting the hell out. He can’t place Alex with anyone, though, and that nags at him, only a little.
He’s startled out of his thoughts by a knock on his window. Mr. Xavier, fresh-eyed and donning a shirt-tie-vest combination, smiles at him cheerfully. “Good morning, Hank!” he hears muffled through the glass. Hank smiles back, gesturing at his teacher to move back so he can open the door. He does so, and Hank unloads himself, his backpack, and his duffel from the car. The doors click locked automatically. “Good morning, Mr. Xavier.”
“And how are you this fine Monday morning?” They start to walk to the auditorium entrance, Mr. Xavier’s quick, enthusiastic steps matching Hank’s long strides. He’s got a good head on Mr. Xavier in height.
“The usual,” he replies. “Caffeinated and prepared.” He holds the door open for his teacher when they get to the auditorium, and then Monday really begins when he steps up into the raised blackbox opposite the auditorium stage.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 1d/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:24:47 UTC
Even after all this time, it’s still weird that Raven is Mr. Xavier’s younger sister - adopted, whatever, but still. They’re on their way to room 204 - Raven looking particularly attractive today in a tight skirt that can’t possibly be dress-code - and Raven’s saying, “-and he didn’t get home Saturday night until, like, one in the morning with this hugely stupid grin and when I asked what was up he was all, ‘Oh nothing, dear sister. Why aren’t you in bed, yet?’ And I was like, ‘I’m seventeen, what seventeen year old goes to bed before three on the weekends?’ and he didn’t even bat an eyelash. I’m telling you, something is definitely up, and I’m going to find proof.”
Hank says, “What are you going to do with said proof?” with a well-placed grin of his own.
“Mock him endlessly.”
“Don’t you do that already?”
Raven shoots him a pointed glare but then they cross the threshold of room 204 and into the classroom, and the hush that falls makes even Hank start. It’s always strange walking into Shaw’s room, which he conducts with frightening authoritarian rule. It’s probably the only class in which the students are quiet and working before the bell chimes. Sean waves them over to him, near the front and to the right of the classroom, but Hank catches the glimpse of blonde in the back corner and feels a strange pull in his navel. His curiosity had been piqued this morning. “Changing it up today,” he whispers to Raven and Sean, who take their usual seats and glance up at him when he doesn’t. Raven squints at him, lips pursed, but lets him go with a wave. Sean says, “Whatever, man.”
He takes the empty seat next to Alex, aware that quite a few eyes are following him. Alex doesn’t even look up from his work. A quick glance tells Hank that he’s already halfway done with the problems that Shaw had written on the whiteboard. He’s suitably impressed. “Hey,” he tries, putting on his best, winning smile, and leaning out of his seat. “I’m Hank McCoy. You’re new, right?”
Alex glances up then, the pencil in his hand freezing. He stares for a few seconds, then blinks and mumbles, “It’s been a month, almost.” He goes back to his work.
Hank feels the smile slide off his pretty face. He’s very sure he’s just been dismissed. Which, no. He takes in Alex’s thin grey v-neck and what-used-to-be dark jeans, his beat up black Chucks, and asks, undeterred and more intent, now, “Where did you move from?” even though he’s pretty sure he already knows.
Their school and community is called North Hills, so of course there’s a South Hills, and back in the day before there were two, the whole area used to be called Fox Hills. Then the commuter rail had been built, effectively separating Fox Hills into two parts, and it just happened to be: the rich part, and the not-so-rich part. North Hills grew even richer from the doctor’s offices that moved in, and from the bankers and businessmen and local politicians. A new hospital had been built a few years before Hank was born, and it had been the pride of North Hillers. His mother worked there, now, as a nutrition specialist, and of course in the North Hills there would be a nutrition specialist. South Hills…pretty much stayed the same. The people there definitely weren’t poor, not really, but their houses were smaller, and they were more proud of things like their local fire fighters and their high school’s football team. Incidentally, North Hills didn’t care so much about their high school’s football team, choosing instead to back their lacrosse team, which played against many of the surrounding area’s private schools.
Actually, Hank thinks, he doesn’t know shit about South Hills. The closest he gets to it on a daily basis is on the drive to and from school, where for a two-minute leg of the trip the railroad tracks are to one side of him. Once he drove through their Main Street - and, yeah, it was still small enough to have just one Main Street - to get to a swim meet at another school in the area, and he had been running late and going through South Hills was the shortest way, his GPS told him, and he took one look at the smaller, older grey houses and blinking neon signs in the sorry shops, and he had locked all of his car doors.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 1e/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:25:33 UTC
“I didn’t move,” comes Alex’s reply, which is a bit of a surprise, because if Alex didn’t move, this means he was, ah, forcibly transferred to North Hills. “I still live in South Hills,” he finishes, confirming Hank’s original guess, anyway.
“So, then,” Hank starts, searching, even though he already suspects what this kid’s deal is. “Why aren’t you at South Hills High?”
Alex gives him a look like are you fucking serious, and Hank realizes that no one has given him this look since maybe the sixth grade, and it had been Raven, who doesn’t really count because she’s the only person who ever calls him out on shit. It almost makes Hank want to back off, now that Alex’s face has changed into all hard lines and a scowl. But he doesn’t. He waits, and Alex responds in a whisper, “I was expelled,” but says no more.
Hank nods, yeah that’s what he had thought, and pulls out his own scratch sheet of paper and sets to work on the problems on the whiteboard. Mr. Shaw is seated behind his desk, and he reaches out his hand to start the timer that’s visible to all the students on his desk, right beside his name. When it hits zero, he starts to call on students randomly to come up and explain how they’ve solved one of the problems, and it gives everyone a near heart-attack because you never know if you’ve gotten a problem right or not because Shaw just sits there with that grin on his face while you stumble through your process and answer, and if it’s wrong he lets you go through the whole thing before saying, “That’s not what I got,” and you have to retreat back to your desk, red-faced and stammering. Thankfully, Hank’s almost never wrong, so he almost never suffers. Alex has never been called up, though.
“Hey,” Hank pseudo-whispers when he’s finished the first few problems, turning to Alex. “What’d you get for number one?”
Alex glares again - this time not at Hank but at his paper. “118 joules,” he says slowly.
“Cool. That’s what I got.” They share a glance and Hank smiles, but Alex still looks suspicious.
Mr. Shaw says, “We’re working independently, boys.”
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 1f/?
anonymous
December 14 2011, 02:26:36 UTC
Hank turns, bright smile in place. “Sorry, Mr. Shaw. Alex was just helping me.”
Shaw leans forward, putting his elbows on his desk. “Was he, now?” he asks in a way that makes it not really a question at all. The timer flashes zero. “Then he wouldn’t mind showing the class how he solved number seven?” He picks a question that he knows most of the students haven’t had a chance to get to yet. Hank looks at Alex’s paper; his handwriting is neat and concise, and in the left margin he’s got all the problems listed, one through ten. And they’re all done.
Alex grumbles as he rises from his seat, taking his sheet with him and pausing to shoot Hank a mean look, but Hank just shrugs and mouths, sorry. He watches as Alex picks up the red marker and starts to write a series of numbers and formulas on the board under number seven. He caps the marker and turns around, facing the class. “Uh,” he begins, uncapping and capping the marker in one hand. “I got 4.8 meters per second-squared. And here’s how I did it.” He gestures behind him vaguely. The class titters uncertainly, waiting for Shaw’s verdict.
Shaw’s lips are pressed together as he considers the work. “Only three steps?” he says, finally.
Alex turns around again, pointing to an equation seemingly at random. “Took a shortcut here,” he admits. “Would have been five steps.”
Shaw nods. “All right. Sit down. Although I would appreciate it if, next time, you don’t take shortcuts in my class.” An unnamed threat hangs in the air.
Alex looks nonplussed. Hank’s starting to wonder if he ever looks anything other than angry, suspicious, or bored. “Sure thing,” is all he says before heading back to his seat.
“All right!” Hank tells him in a congratulatory tone, but Alex ignores him for the rest of class. x
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 2a/?
anonymous
December 15 2011, 13:46:02 UTC
At lunch, Raven and Angel pounce on his choice of desk-buddy during Physics class. They sit on either side of him, lunch trays pounding onto the table almost simultaneously, effectively caging him in. Sean and Bobby and John join them on the other side of the long table. It’s the best table, really, right in the middle of the action of the cafeteria.
“What’s the deal?” Raven begins, waving a fry around in the air. “Is this like a pet project you’re taking on? Because we know how well the last one went.”
Angel removes the meat of her hamburger and slathers on ketchup before putting a handful of fries in between the buns instead. “Crazy bitch,” she murmurs, remembering how Hank had thought he saw something in Marie, a freshman at the time when they had all been juniors, last year, and tried to push her to the top of their school’s social hierarchy, perhaps as a future queen bee to rule in his stead. She turned out to have a slight psychotic streak though, and was still under observation in North Hills Hospital’s psych ward after taking a knife to another girl in her year whom she thought was “threatening her position” or some shit.
Hank smirks. “What, I can’t be nice to the new kid? He’s new,” he says, like that explains everything. He can tell no one buys it.
Raven says, “Since when have you been nice for the sake of being nice?”
“I’m nice!” Hank protests. Angel takes a huge bite out of her new sandwich, rolling her eyes. “That time Sean needed a lift from his uncle’s in, like, Boston, and I drove four hours to give him one?”
“In return for drugs,” Sean deadpans.
“Don’t even try to think of other times,” Raven says gleefully.
“I heard he was expelled for brutally beating a kid within an inch of his life,” John contributes a little too happily. He seems more impressed and awed than anything else. Sometimes, Hank wonders about John’s carefully compartmentalized sociopathic tendencies. John flicks his Zippo lighter open and closed under the table, and it makes him think of Alex’s pen action this morning in front of the class.
“I thought he caused an explosion in one of South Hills’ chem labs?” asks Bobby. It’s a wonder how he can say something like that and still make it sound so sweet. Hank attributes it to Bobby’s boyish good looks. If anything, John just looks more excited by this prospect.
“I heard he stabbed a teacher.” All heads turn to Angel. She pauses, sandwich halfway to her mouth, realizing that everyone is staring. “What?”
“Really?” Raven asks, a little apprehensive. “That’s, like, serious.”
Angel rolls her eyes again. “More serious than setting the school on fire or sending a kid to the hospital? Whatever, guys.”
Hank says, “I’ll ask him, next time,” and the reaction is immediate.
“You can’t do that,” Sean hisses to the others’ chorused agreements. “He’ll murder you for asking!”
“He won’t. I’ve talked to him. He’s mostly normal.”
“Which, oh yeah, brings us back to: Why did you decide to talk to him?” Raven announces regally.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 2b/?
anonymous
December 15 2011, 13:47:27 UTC
“Maybe I want his help with physics. Did you see Shaw have an aneurism when he answered his problem?”
Raven scoffs. “Yeah, sure. Help with physics.”
“Just, you know,” Sean says, pointing now. “Keep your phone on you when you’re with him. He really freaks me out.”
Hank agrees to do so, and they let it drop, choosing to talk about more exciting things - like when the next party’s going to be, and who will be invited, and how ugly the cheerleaders’ uniforms are, this year. Hank thinks about Alex’s glaring blue eyes; he probably could have been popular, just based upon his looks, if he weren’t so quiet and aloof and sullen all the time. First he’s got to get Alex to like him, and then maybe Hank can figure out what he can use him for.
x
The week passes quickly. Their high school operates on a block schedule - to, presumably, better prepare the kids for what a college schedule would look like - so they’ve got physics two more times that week, and Hank chooses to sit next to Alex to Sean’s unnecessarily worried glances and Raven’s amusement. They don’t really speak to each other until Friday, when Hank guesses that Alex’s internal wall has finally worn down enough for Hank to peer over the top, or something.
“I didn’t stab a teacher,” is what Alex finally says to him, seemingly out of the blue. They have their desks pushed together to work in pairs over the problem set that Shaw had set up for everyone. At Hank’s questioning glance, Alex continues: “That’s not why I was expelled.”
“So…?” Hank prompts.
Alex sighs. “So apparently I flipped out on another student and started bashing his head against the lockers,” he finishes, head ducked and voice low.
Hank tries not to be shocked. Because, hey, who hasn’t felt like doing that at some point? He says, “Apparently?”
Alex returns, “I blacked out; I don’t really remember.”
For the first time in a long while, Hank doesn’t know how to respond. He bites the inside of his cheek and looks down to where Alex’s hand is gripped tightly around his pencil. It’s a wonder that it hasn’t snapped in half. He’s saved from saying anything, though, when Alex grits, “I’m told it was a fair fight. So you can tell your friends, because I’m getting really sick of them looking at me like that all the time.”
Hank’s about to say, “Like what?” but then he looks to where Raven and Sean are paired together, only to find Raven peering at them, very concerned. So all he says is, “Okay.”
Which is apparently what Alex wanted to hear, because the grip on his pencil relaxes, and he goes back to work. Hank watches him finish the next problem quickly. He finds he doesn’t want to let the silence hang over them, now that Alex has spoken to him. “So,” he chimes, keeping his tone light. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Probably helping out in my brother’s shop,” he hears, though it’s directed toward the paper in front of Alex.
“Oh? What kind of shop is it?”
“He owns a garage.”
“He does? Not your parents?”
Alex freezes again, enough for Hank to think, oh shit, to himself, but then the other boy breezes, “My parents are dead. I live with my older brother.”
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 2c/?
anonymous
December 15 2011, 13:49:06 UTC
A beat passes and Hank gulps. He’s never met anyone without both parents. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he says with as much sincerity as he can muster.
And it’s cliché but Alex replies, “Why? Were you piloting the plane?” His lips twist into something between a grin and a grimace. “No,” he answers for Hank. “Don’t be sorry. It was when I was really young.”
“Still,” Hank cedes. “It must have been hard.” It sounds trite even to his own ears. Alex makes a noise like agreement or acquiescence and Hank tries to focus again on his work, unsure how to continue the conversation. So he decides to reroute it. “You should come to my house party tonight. My mom’s out for the weekend. Everyone will be there.”
Alex finally looks at him, and his face clearly says what the fuck are you doing. Hank plows on, “No, really. You should. You’re new. It’ll be fun and you can meet some pretty cool people. Here - I’ll give you my address.” He rips off the bottom of his paper and scribbles his address on it, handing it to Alex. “Officially starts around nine, but, you know, show up at eleven if you really want to have a good time.”
The blonde squints at the paper Hank had given to him. “Thanks,” he says slowly. “Maybe.” He pushes the paper into his pocket.
“Cool. Great. Hope to see you there, man.” He claps him on the back, friendly, and Alex startles, dropping his pencil and eyes going wide. Hank picks up his pencil for him, and by the time he’s back upright in his seat, Alex has blinked himself out of whatever it was that happened and retreated back into his silence. He mumbles, “Thanks,” when Hank hands him his pencil, but that’s all he says for the rest of class.
x
Alex doesn’t show up to the party. Hank tries not to be disappointed, because everyone else is here and he’s three drinks in and gunning for a fourth, even though he knows he’s breaking his own rules. Also, he’s pretty sure that Sean has mixed some sort of drug into the jungle juice bowl because everything is soft and hazy with halo-lights and colors, and it feels fantastic. His living room is absolutely trashed but he’s not going to worry about that now, because Raven is next to him and saying, “Come on, let’s dance,” and the sequins in her skirt light up when he brushes his hands over them, and the music is in his blood, and he spends the next few minutes or hours just relishing the feather-light tickle of her hair.
He wakes up on the leather couch, skin sticking unpleasantly to the surface, to a mostly empty house and the kind of hangover that doesn’t come at all from alcohol. Raven and Sean are there, already picking up the Solo cups strewn around the living room.
“The prince awakens,” Sean cracks, smiling too sunnily for Hank’s scrambled brain to really process.
“You’re vacuuming,” Raven says. “And treating us to pizza and wine. Just so you know.”
“Sean, you fucker, what did you put in the punch?” Hank groans, head pounding, and Sean just chuckles and says what he always says when Hank asks: “I’ll never tell.”
Cross-country practice that Sunday is hell on earth, but Hank still manages to break six minutes for the mile-run cool-down. Coach Lensherr’s smile is bright when he claps him on the back, saying, “’Attaboy, McCoy.” x
i'm sorry i always turn alex into this huge headcase. be warned, this kid has issues. more next week because, ugh, finals exist.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 3a/?
anonymous
December 17 2011, 12:17:14 UTC
On Monday Hank wakes up to the smell of burnt toast and coffee; a flutter in his stomach when he thinks maybe his mother is in the house, preparing breakfast. He rubs his eyes blearily, takes a shower, and decides to forego the contacts for the day, picking out the Prada frames that his father had sent him over the summer for his birthday. Downstairs in the kitchen, all he finds is a plate of toast, glass of orange juice on the counter, and a note on a napkin trapped under it.
Sorry I missed you this weekend, it reads. Have a good day at school. Dinner Wednesday? -Mom. Hank downs the juice in one go, crumpling the note in his fist. He tosses it out when he puts his glass in the kitchen sink.
Mom, he texts when he hits a red light on his way to school to help Mr. Xavier. Practice runs late Wednesday. He stuffs the phone back into his jeans pocket.
Right when he pulls up into his parking spot, he feels the buzz of an incoming message. His mom has texted back, Oh. Next week then.
Whatever.
He’s clambering out of his car, reaching for his backpack when he just makes out the back of a blonde head disappearing behind the door by the statue. He checks his watch - 7:15, just like last time, and there’s no Charles Xavier in sight. Figuring he’s got some time to kill, he follows, wondering distantly if this is a regular Monday thing for Alex.
By the time he reaches and goes through the side entrance, though, there’s no one in sight in the long hallway. There aren’t any lockers in this hallway, just a series of rooms between walls that have a broad, red horizontal stripe painted on them - school colors - and various pieces of student art and achievements. The rooms here are rarely visited by the regular student body, Hank realizes. This hallway had always been, to him at least, just a direct pathway from the cafeteria to the parking lot. He’d never had to come to any of these rooms, except for once when he sprained his wrist during Adventure Sports (which is what kids in other schools might call Gym or P.E., except their gym classes likely didn’t have rock-climbing and kayaking in the school pool) and he had to make a trip to the Nurse’s Office.
He passes the nurse’s room on his right, its door closed. Across from the nurse’s office is the speech therapist’s room, and then the occupational therapist’s, and then the school psychologist’s. The last room, before the hallway stretches out and becomes the far corner of the cafeteria, is the school social worker’s office. As he nears, he can make out murmuring inside. There’s a window in the door, but it’s been papered over. A plaque next to the door, at about Hank’s eye level holds the words ‘MOIRA MACTAGGERT, LCSW,’ shiny and white. The voices behind the door are calm, smooth. He can make out Alex’s low growl of a voice, and the returning woman’s voice is surprisingly flat but not unpleasant. “I couldn’t just do it,” he hears Alex say to Moira, and unease grips him suddenly by the back of his neck. Alex sees the school social worker on Mondays for therapy sessions. He feels like he’s trespassing.
Without slowing, Hank shoulders his backpack again and walks past, heading to the auditorium. Mr. Xavier will be waiting, and North Hills High can’t start a week right without a successful Monday Morning Meeting.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 3b/?
anonymous
December 17 2011, 12:18:48 UTC
“You didn’t make it,” Hank whispers to Alex during Physics class when he sees him next. The class has started with its usual urgency. Mr. Shaw has just left the room to take care of something and it really just shows the iron fist the man has over the students that everyone is still working mostly silently on the problem set - also, Hank’s pretty sure he’s got a hidden camera somewhere near the front of the classroom.
“Something came up. Was it fun?”
Hank is discovering that Alex has a rather annoying habit of not making eye contact when speaking. Or, it’s not really that he feels like Alex is purposefully avoiding making eye contact, more like he gets caught up in staring and forgets that another person is part of the conversation. Right now, Alex is staring very intently at the back of Sean’s head, who’s sitting with Raven a few rows in front of them.
“Loads, like always. Were you busy with the garage?”
“The garage?”
Jesus, talking to Alex sometimes is like waiting for a video to finish buffering on the internet. He blinks, eyes refocusing on the sheet on his desk. Hank waits expectantly. “Yeah, it was pretty busy,” he says, getting back to work on number six. Hank looks at his own sheet. He’s managed up to the third problem.
“So, how come you’re taking this class?” he asks Alex, who finally looks at him, confused.
“Uh, I like physics?”
“No, I mean, you’re pretty smart, right? How come you’re not taking any other AP classes? At least Calc, or something. What’s the point of taking only one AP class?”
Alex frowns, says, “I don’t understand the question.”
Hank lets out a frustrated sigh. “It’s like this - I’m taking a shitton of AP classes because it looks good and it will boost up my GPA. Plus, I can get a head start on college credit when I test well, because I will test well. But taking one AP class is pretty much useless.” Everyone knows this. His GPA has been well over the supposed highest of 4.0 since before freshman year. Anyone who’s getting out of North Hills has a GPA of at least 4.3. He and Raven and Bobby talk about this all the time.
Alex stares at him. Hank realizes he’s getting used to the staring. Then, the corner of Alex’s twitches up, a ghost of a smirk. “That sounds like bullshit,” he states.
“It’s not,” Hank defends. “Well, I guess it kind of is but it’s the kind of bullshit that’ll get me into Columbia.”
“Hm.” Alex gets through problems seven and eight before he says, “I don’t like to do things I don’t want to or have to do.”
And, well, Hank supposes he has a point. It’s not like Hank has to be taking all these AP classes, and running and playing lacrosse in the spring and volunteering and stuff. But he likes it. He wants to. At least, he isn’t sure what else he would do with his time if he weren’t so busy being the model, popular student. “But,” Hank starts, unable to keep from saying the first thing that comes to mind. “What about college? What about life after high school?”
Alex makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like pffft and then he mumbles, “Rich people problems,” like Hank isn’t sitting right next to him and then he says louder, angling his body towards Hank and suddenly it feels strange to be at the receiving end of Alex’s full attention, like his eyes are holding him in his seat: “What about life right now?”
And Hank has no answer for him because life right now is to prepare for life after high school and it’s always been like that, for him, ever since he was made class-speaker for their fifth grade graduation and his mother had waved off the compliments of other parents gushing, “That Henry of yours, so bright. He’s going places, he is.”
Alex must see Hank’s deer-in-headlights look for what it is because his gaze softens and then he turns back to his sheet. “I’ll probably just keep helping out my brother at the garage. Maybe go to a state school.” Hank exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding because state schools he can understand.
“You’d kill it at a state school,” Hank says, more comfortable now that he’s on familiar ground. Maybe even common ground.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 3c/?
anonymous
December 17 2011, 12:20:00 UTC
Alex gives a noncommittal shrug. “It’ll happen if it happens,” he says, finishing up number ten with a stab of his pen.
Before the end of class, he invites Alex to join their table at lunch. Surprisingly, he does, and for a few minutes he even stays, quiet next to Hank, his food on his tray untouched. The conversation buzzes around him when he stands long before the lunch bell rings, making excuses that he needs to get work done before the next period.
“He’s…nice,” Raven tries to say as they all watch Alex toss everything on his tray into the nearest trash bin and then turn the corner out of the cafeteria. Her face scrunches up like she’s trying to figure out what to do with it. “I guess.” Sean shoves her with his shoulder, chuckling.
“He’s weird,” Angel says loudly. “Shifty. Did you see how he kept avoiding eye contact? He’s got something to hide. I’m from LA so I know these things. And I still think he stabbed a teacher.” She emphasizes this by nodding her head and examining her nails. “Yup. Definitely.”
Hank takes off his glasses, scrubs his hands over his eyes. “Angel. We’ve gone over this.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, emphatic, her accent slipping out. “We know what he told you. And people lie, hotshot.”
He doesn’t want to admit that, in the few interactions that he’s had with Alex, he’s gotten the sense that, yeah, people lie, but Alex doesn’t. Everything he’s told Hank so far has felt like cold, hard truth. His deep voice has a way of making everything sound deliberate, thought-out, careful. He says, “I don’t think he was lying,” and leaves it at that.
x
On Wednesday, his mother is waiting for him in the kitchen when he gets back from cross-country practice, sweaty and exhausted. “How was school, honey?” She sets about getting him a glass of water and a glass of milk as Hank shuffles over to the island counter. His mother is what other people would call ‘attractive,’ but he can’t think like that because she’s his mother, wow. Her hair is as deep brown as his own, and her eyes just as blue. Her obsession with nutrition and healthy habits has kept her trim and fit well into her forties. Even now, she’s dressed like she’s about to go for a jog.
“Good. The usual.”
“And how was practice?”
“Fine. Thanks,” he says, reaching for the water. The milk won’t go down easily after all that running.
“I would ask if you wanted to join me, but you look like you’re about to keel over. Make yourself a sandwich, would you? And do your homework?” She starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. When he doesn’t answer in favor of chugging down the sweet, cold water, she asks, “Hank?”
The glass rings against the countertop when he places it back down. “Sure, sure.”
“Okay, I’m off then.” She gives a little wave and then power-walks out of the kitchen. Hank settles himself on a stool at the counter and spreads out his assignments from his backpack. The only homework worth doing at the moment is his Physics homework. He’s about to text Alex to see if he can just copy off his answers in the morning - because he’s tired, damnit, and running nonstop for an hour and a half under Coach Lensherr will do that to you - but then he remembers that he doesn’t have his number, and then, it feels as though that one hindrance is the final brick in this wall of senioritis that has been slowly building, and Hank doesn’t want to do anything for the rest of the night.
He packs up all his binders and papers and stuffs them back into his bag and trudges up the stairs to his bedroom. He takes a shower that lasts nearly an hour and then lies on his bed, hair still damp and bleeding into his pillow.
He wakes up at five o’clock in the morning with a headache and the realization that he’s done none of his school work and he curses once, a loud, “Fuck,” that echoes in his room before turning on his desk lamp and getting out the binders and papers again. He leaves the Physics alone, though.
Re: FILL: Running Uphill, 4a/?
anonymous
December 20 2011, 13:14:51 UTC
Friday’s Physics class rolls around - Alex had refused to let Hank copy any of his work, but at least Hank had gotten his number and a promise from Alex to help him with it over lunch yesterday, which he did, to Sean and Raven’s skeptical looks - and Hank is sitting in his now-usual seat in the back, waiting, when the bell rings and Alex is a no-show. Mr. Shaw skips over ‘Summers’ during roll call, even, which is weird because Hank is pretty sure he talked to Alex this morning by his locker, and he would have said if he was dropping the class, or something like that.
Raven turns in her seat to raise an eyebrow at him when roll call is over. Hank shrugs in response. Like he knows. Except then he starts to worry, despite himself. Because even though Hank would consider Alex a friend, sort of, he’s still the new kid who’s a little weird and quiet and an easy target. At least, Hank thinks he could be an easy target. But then he remembers how Alex had been expelled for bashing up a guy, so maybe not. What if some jackass had decided that today would be the day to pick a fight with him, though, and now they were both in the nurse’s office, licking their wounds? Or in the hospital. He shakes himself out of these thoughts. If there had been a fight, he would have heard about it.
He spends all of Physics class tuning out Mr. Shaw and finding himself completely ill-equipped to handle the pop quiz at the end that he gives to a groaning class. He scribbles in his answers as quickly as possible - Shaw had said they were free to go after turning it in - and makes a break for it, thinking himself very clever for making his way to Mrs. MacTaggert’s office. The door is closed. He knocks on the papered-over window and it rattles unexpectedly. Mrs. MacTaggert’s voice from the other side - “Come in.”
Hank opens the door but lingers in the hallway. Taking a step in feels both so out of reach and so unnecessary. When she sees his hesitation, she purses her lips and asks, “Can I help you?”
“I’m Hank McCoy,” he says, feeling like a child.
“Yes. I know.”
“I’m, ah, here to ask about Alex? He wasn’t in Physics class.”
The social worker purses her lips even more; it makes her look like she’s taken a bite out of a particularly sour citrus. “He came by earlier,” she says after regarding Hank for years, it feels like. “I gave him a pass to go to the library.”
“Oh, thank you.” He turns to go.
She says, “Close the door on your way out.”
He does, and then he’s surprised by the mass of students milling about the cafeteria when he walks back towards the classrooms; the bell must have rung and he hadn’t noticed it.
The library is way on the other side of the building, by the auditorium, and now Hank has to make a decision: be late for his next class or find Alex in the library. If he’s honest with himself, it’s an easy enough decision - his next class is AP English, and Mr. Xavier’s always inclined to forgive Hank a few tardies.
When Hank gets home he finds a note in his mother’s loopy, scrawling script stuck to the refrigerator with a flower-shaped magnet. It reads:
Honey -
How was practice? Run fast, run hard.
Quinoa salad inside.
Be back late. Don’t wait up. - Mom
He sighs, dumps his book-laden backpack on the tiled floor of the kitchen and crumples the note in his hand before tossing it into the disposal. Practice had been unusually brutal today - two hours of warming up, drilling, and then an endurance run in the lingering summer heat. It felt like early August but was actually late September. One kid threw up at the end of practice, hunched over the green because he hadn’t wanted to get the track dirty, until he was just dry-heaving. Coach Lensherr had smirked, clapped the kid on the back and said, “First time’s the worst.” And then he had set everyone free to do whatever it was teenagers did on Friday nights, with the threat of Sunday morning cross-country practice looming over their heads.
Hank opens the door to the fridge, letting the cold air seep out into the staleness of the room, before choosing a colorful sports drink - one of many - from the highest shelf and letting the door fall closed. He kicks at his backpack until it’s more or less by the breakfast bar around the huge island of their kitchen and then climbs onto a stool. He stinks, but he’d rather get his homework done first before anything else. He wonders vaguely what his mom might be up to tonight, but comes to the same conclusions: she’s either at the gym, at the Ladies’ Society or whatever it was called, or across the tracks in the next town over, volunteering at the local health clinic. Whatever. And his dad’s been away since the beginning of the year, overseas in Abu Dhabi, being the benevolent academic force that he is. So it’s just Hank in this huge kitchen of their huge house, doing fuck-all on a Friday night until something comes along. And, because he’s Hank, something always does.
He feels a sharp buzz in his pocket and fishes out his phone.
Angel just dumped her boyfriend, is Raven’s text. Another follows soon after. Can we use your place to get drunk?
Of course, Hank texts back quickly. He checks the clock on the microwave. 5:13pm. Tell everyone 8. I have to get some stuff done. Work before play, you know.
Raven’s immediate reply is: Ugh. You nerd. I have no idea why you’re popular.
Mostly, Hank thinks, it’s probably because he’s perfected the smirk that goes with his big blue eyes that charms teachers, administration, and students alike. Plus, he’s smart and athletic, but not in an intimidating way. And he’s helpful, for real. And if, in return, the other students fall all over themselves doing whatever he asks, it’s just an added perk. Raven had told him once, “It’s because you’re a manipulative bastard, but you’re nice about it, so no one questions it.” Yeah, Hank had conceded then. There’s that, too.
Hank types, Because I have a big house and my mom is secretly an alcoholic who can’t figure out how to lock a liquor cabinet? He places his phone on the granite countertop then, intent on getting started with his AP History homework, at least. Then, shower.
Oh, right, is Raven’s returning answer. See you later.
x
They manage to keep it small that night. Just the usual crowd of Angel and Raven, Sean and Bobby and John. And Hank, of course, who keeps to his self-imposed 3-drinks-a-night rule but gladly partakes in the joint that Sean procures out of his pocket. He takes a long drag before handing it over to Bobby. It’s a slow and easy night.
Reply
“Dude,” Sean says sometime between the hours of ten and eleven. “You’ve got a sick sound system,” slow and drawn-out and definitely high.
Hank smiles to himself. He gets the feeling that nothing they ever talk about is important, but there’s nothing else to talk about, anyway.
x
Sunday’s cross-country practice is a breeze. Coach Lensherr goes easy on them, in part, Hank thinks, because that kid who threw up shows up with his dad in tow, and Lensherr does this thing before he calls out drills that looks like a mini-seizure but is really just a way to get out a sudden wave of frustration. Hank knows; he’s been on the cross-country team since freshman year. Then, suddenly it’s Monday morning, and Hank realizes that he’s seen his mother maybe once all weekend, when she was just leaving for some place (didn’t ask, didn’t care), and he was just returning from practice. But on Mondays he gets to school early to help Mr. Xavier check the sound in the school’s auditorium before their weekly assembly, so he’s got no time to linger.
He somehow manages to tumble into his car - a hand-me-down, but still in perfectly good condition, blue Toyota Camry, and his parents have like three other cars in the garage but this one still drives the smoothest, in Hank’s opinion - with a thermos of coffee and a bagel, his backpack and duffel full of his running necessities, dressed in a fresh black polo and dark, fitted jeans. He’s even got his contacts in, which is a feat for Monday mornings. The engine starts quietly, he hooks up his phone to the radio and presses play, letting whatever song he had fallen asleep to last night pick up again, and then he’s rolling down his driveway and passing tawny white house after house.
He kind of zones out on the drive over to school, because the next thing he knows he’s in the school parking lot, which is still mostly empty, and pulling into spot 37, the spot designated to him when he had signed up for a parking pass. The school has a few lots, and almost all the seniors get a spot, anyway, but Hank really lucked out in getting a spot so close to the auditorium entrance. The main entrance, where all the administrative offices are, is way on the other side of the school’s property, and in between there’s the classrooms and cafeteria and the gym and connecting pool. Another, smaller entrance leads to the cafeteria and is looked over by a statue of their school mascot, the Cougar. The building itself is only two stories, but what it lacks in height it makes up for in space. Behind the main building is a grassy field, and then there’s the football field and track, a few tennis courts, and a soccer field and baseball diamond. North Hills High is definitely not shabby.
Hank shuts off his engine and lets himself finish his bagel before he has to climb out of the car and start the day. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement. A boy is rounding the corner of the building from the direction of the main offices. Hank checks his watch; it’s only a quarter past seven and school doesn’t start for another half hour. The boy shuffles past the statue of the cougar and disappears into the cafeteria entrance. Hank tries to match that blonde hair, the hunch in the boy’s shoulders, with a name and a face.
Reply
“I’ll excuse your tardiness this once,” Mr. Shaw had announced. “Mr…?”
“Summers,” he finished for him. “Alex Summers.” Shaw nodded, marked him ‘present.’ The boy had planted himself into an empty seat in the back corner, and hasn’t made a sound since.
Now that Hank thinks about it, he wonders why he hasn’t seen Alex around more. He must be the only student taking AP Physics and no other AP courses, which makes absolutely no sense in Hank’s college-oriented mind. Hank has a pretty good idea of how his senior class works - who’s friends with whom, where everyone sits at lunch, who’s planning on going to State and who’s planning on getting the hell out. He can’t place Alex with anyone, though, and that nags at him, only a little.
He’s startled out of his thoughts by a knock on his window. Mr. Xavier, fresh-eyed and donning a shirt-tie-vest combination, smiles at him cheerfully. “Good morning, Hank!” he hears muffled through the glass. Hank smiles back, gesturing at his teacher to move back so he can open the door. He does so, and Hank unloads himself, his backpack, and his duffel from the car. The doors click locked automatically. “Good morning, Mr. Xavier.”
“And how are you this fine Monday morning?” They start to walk to the auditorium entrance, Mr. Xavier’s quick, enthusiastic steps matching Hank’s long strides. He’s got a good head on Mr. Xavier in height.
“The usual,” he replies. “Caffeinated and prepared.” He holds the door open for his teacher when they get to the auditorium, and then Monday really begins when he steps up into the raised blackbox opposite the auditorium stage.
x
Reply
Hank says, “What are you going to do with said proof?” with a well-placed grin of his own.
“Mock him endlessly.”
“Don’t you do that already?”
Raven shoots him a pointed glare but then they cross the threshold of room 204 and into the classroom, and the hush that falls makes even Hank start. It’s always strange walking into Shaw’s room, which he conducts with frightening authoritarian rule. It’s probably the only class in which the students are quiet and working before the bell chimes. Sean waves them over to him, near the front and to the right of the classroom, but Hank catches the glimpse of blonde in the back corner and feels a strange pull in his navel. His curiosity had been piqued this morning. “Changing it up today,” he whispers to Raven and Sean, who take their usual seats and glance up at him when he doesn’t. Raven squints at him, lips pursed, but lets him go with a wave. Sean says, “Whatever, man.”
He takes the empty seat next to Alex, aware that quite a few eyes are following him. Alex doesn’t even look up from his work. A quick glance tells Hank that he’s already halfway done with the problems that Shaw had written on the whiteboard. He’s suitably impressed. “Hey,” he tries, putting on his best, winning smile, and leaning out of his seat. “I’m Hank McCoy. You’re new, right?”
Alex glances up then, the pencil in his hand freezing. He stares for a few seconds, then blinks and mumbles, “It’s been a month, almost.” He goes back to his work.
Hank feels the smile slide off his pretty face. He’s very sure he’s just been dismissed. Which, no. He takes in Alex’s thin grey v-neck and what-used-to-be dark jeans, his beat up black Chucks, and asks, undeterred and more intent, now, “Where did you move from?” even though he’s pretty sure he already knows.
Their school and community is called North Hills, so of course there’s a South Hills, and back in the day before there were two, the whole area used to be called Fox Hills. Then the commuter rail had been built, effectively separating Fox Hills into two parts, and it just happened to be: the rich part, and the not-so-rich part. North Hills grew even richer from the doctor’s offices that moved in, and from the bankers and businessmen and local politicians. A new hospital had been built a few years before Hank was born, and it had been the pride of North Hillers. His mother worked there, now, as a nutrition specialist, and of course in the North Hills there would be a nutrition specialist. South Hills…pretty much stayed the same. The people there definitely weren’t poor, not really, but their houses were smaller, and they were more proud of things like their local fire fighters and their high school’s football team. Incidentally, North Hills didn’t care so much about their high school’s football team, choosing instead to back their lacrosse team, which played against many of the surrounding area’s private schools.
Actually, Hank thinks, he doesn’t know shit about South Hills. The closest he gets to it on a daily basis is on the drive to and from school, where for a two-minute leg of the trip the railroad tracks are to one side of him. Once he drove through their Main Street - and, yeah, it was still small enough to have just one Main Street - to get to a swim meet at another school in the area, and he had been running late and going through South Hills was the shortest way, his GPS told him, and he took one look at the smaller, older grey houses and blinking neon signs in the sorry shops, and he had locked all of his car doors.
Reply
“So, then,” Hank starts, searching, even though he already suspects what this kid’s deal is. “Why aren’t you at South Hills High?”
Alex gives him a look like are you fucking serious, and Hank realizes that no one has given him this look since maybe the sixth grade, and it had been Raven, who doesn’t really count because she’s the only person who ever calls him out on shit. It almost makes Hank want to back off, now that Alex’s face has changed into all hard lines and a scowl. But he doesn’t. He waits, and Alex responds in a whisper, “I was expelled,” but says no more.
Hank nods, yeah that’s what he had thought, and pulls out his own scratch sheet of paper and sets to work on the problems on the whiteboard. Mr. Shaw is seated behind his desk, and he reaches out his hand to start the timer that’s visible to all the students on his desk, right beside his name. When it hits zero, he starts to call on students randomly to come up and explain how they’ve solved one of the problems, and it gives everyone a near heart-attack because you never know if you’ve gotten a problem right or not because Shaw just sits there with that grin on his face while you stumble through your process and answer, and if it’s wrong he lets you go through the whole thing before saying, “That’s not what I got,” and you have to retreat back to your desk, red-faced and stammering. Thankfully, Hank’s almost never wrong, so he almost never suffers. Alex has never been called up, though.
“Hey,” Hank pseudo-whispers when he’s finished the first few problems, turning to Alex. “What’d you get for number one?”
Alex glares again - this time not at Hank but at his paper. “118 joules,” he says slowly.
“Cool. That’s what I got.” They share a glance and Hank smiles, but Alex still looks suspicious.
Mr. Shaw says, “We’re working independently, boys.”
Reply
Shaw leans forward, putting his elbows on his desk. “Was he, now?” he asks in a way that makes it not really a question at all. The timer flashes zero. “Then he wouldn’t mind showing the class how he solved number seven?” He picks a question that he knows most of the students haven’t had a chance to get to yet. Hank looks at Alex’s paper; his handwriting is neat and concise, and in the left margin he’s got all the problems listed, one through ten. And they’re all done.
Alex grumbles as he rises from his seat, taking his sheet with him and pausing to shoot Hank a mean look, but Hank just shrugs and mouths, sorry. He watches as Alex picks up the red marker and starts to write a series of numbers and formulas on the board under number seven. He caps the marker and turns around, facing the class. “Uh,” he begins, uncapping and capping the marker in one hand. “I got 4.8 meters per second-squared. And here’s how I did it.” He gestures behind him vaguely. The class titters uncertainly, waiting for Shaw’s verdict.
Shaw’s lips are pressed together as he considers the work. “Only three steps?” he says, finally.
Alex turns around again, pointing to an equation seemingly at random. “Took a shortcut here,” he admits. “Would have been five steps.”
Shaw nods. “All right. Sit down. Although I would appreciate it if, next time, you don’t take shortcuts in my class.” An unnamed threat hangs in the air.
Alex looks nonplussed. Hank’s starting to wonder if he ever looks anything other than angry, suspicious, or bored. “Sure thing,” is all he says before heading back to his seat.
“All right!” Hank tells him in a congratulatory tone, but Alex ignores him for the rest of class.
x
yay/nay?
Reply
Reply
“What’s the deal?” Raven begins, waving a fry around in the air. “Is this like a pet project you’re taking on? Because we know how well the last one went.”
Angel removes the meat of her hamburger and slathers on ketchup before putting a handful of fries in between the buns instead. “Crazy bitch,” she murmurs, remembering how Hank had thought he saw something in Marie, a freshman at the time when they had all been juniors, last year, and tried to push her to the top of their school’s social hierarchy, perhaps as a future queen bee to rule in his stead. She turned out to have a slight psychotic streak though, and was still under observation in North Hills Hospital’s psych ward after taking a knife to another girl in her year whom she thought was “threatening her position” or some shit.
Hank smirks. “What, I can’t be nice to the new kid? He’s new,” he says, like that explains everything. He can tell no one buys it.
Raven says, “Since when have you been nice for the sake of being nice?”
“I’m nice!” Hank protests. Angel takes a huge bite out of her new sandwich, rolling her eyes. “That time Sean needed a lift from his uncle’s in, like, Boston, and I drove four hours to give him one?”
“In return for drugs,” Sean deadpans.
“Don’t even try to think of other times,” Raven says gleefully.
“I heard he was expelled for brutally beating a kid within an inch of his life,” John contributes a little too happily. He seems more impressed and awed than anything else. Sometimes, Hank wonders about John’s carefully compartmentalized sociopathic tendencies. John flicks his Zippo lighter open and closed under the table, and it makes him think of Alex’s pen action this morning in front of the class.
“I thought he caused an explosion in one of South Hills’ chem labs?” asks Bobby. It’s a wonder how he can say something like that and still make it sound so sweet. Hank attributes it to Bobby’s boyish good looks. If anything, John just looks more excited by this prospect.
“I heard he stabbed a teacher.” All heads turn to Angel. She pauses, sandwich halfway to her mouth, realizing that everyone is staring. “What?”
“Really?” Raven asks, a little apprehensive. “That’s, like, serious.”
Angel rolls her eyes again. “More serious than setting the school on fire or sending a kid to the hospital? Whatever, guys.”
Hank says, “I’ll ask him, next time,” and the reaction is immediate.
“You can’t do that,” Sean hisses to the others’ chorused agreements. “He’ll murder you for asking!”
“He won’t. I’ve talked to him. He’s mostly normal.”
“Which, oh yeah, brings us back to: Why did you decide to talk to him?” Raven announces regally.
Reply
Raven scoffs. “Yeah, sure. Help with physics.”
“Just, you know,” Sean says, pointing now. “Keep your phone on you when you’re with him. He really freaks me out.”
Hank agrees to do so, and they let it drop, choosing to talk about more exciting things - like when the next party’s going to be, and who will be invited, and how ugly the cheerleaders’ uniforms are, this year. Hank thinks about Alex’s glaring blue eyes; he probably could have been popular, just based upon his looks, if he weren’t so quiet and aloof and sullen all the time. First he’s got to get Alex to like him, and then maybe Hank can figure out what he can use him for.
x
The week passes quickly. Their high school operates on a block schedule - to, presumably, better prepare the kids for what a college schedule would look like - so they’ve got physics two more times that week, and Hank chooses to sit next to Alex to Sean’s unnecessarily worried glances and Raven’s amusement. They don’t really speak to each other until Friday, when Hank guesses that Alex’s internal wall has finally worn down enough for Hank to peer over the top, or something.
“I didn’t stab a teacher,” is what Alex finally says to him, seemingly out of the blue. They have their desks pushed together to work in pairs over the problem set that Shaw had set up for everyone. At Hank’s questioning glance, Alex continues: “That’s not why I was expelled.”
“So…?” Hank prompts.
Alex sighs. “So apparently I flipped out on another student and started bashing his head against the lockers,” he finishes, head ducked and voice low.
Hank tries not to be shocked. Because, hey, who hasn’t felt like doing that at some point? He says, “Apparently?”
Alex returns, “I blacked out; I don’t really remember.”
For the first time in a long while, Hank doesn’t know how to respond. He bites the inside of his cheek and looks down to where Alex’s hand is gripped tightly around his pencil. It’s a wonder that it hasn’t snapped in half. He’s saved from saying anything, though, when Alex grits, “I’m told it was a fair fight. So you can tell your friends, because I’m getting really sick of them looking at me like that all the time.”
Hank’s about to say, “Like what?” but then he looks to where Raven and Sean are paired together, only to find Raven peering at them, very concerned. So all he says is, “Okay.”
Which is apparently what Alex wanted to hear, because the grip on his pencil relaxes, and he goes back to work. Hank watches him finish the next problem quickly. He finds he doesn’t want to let the silence hang over them, now that Alex has spoken to him. “So,” he chimes, keeping his tone light. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Probably helping out in my brother’s shop,” he hears, though it’s directed toward the paper in front of Alex.
“Oh? What kind of shop is it?”
“He owns a garage.”
“He does? Not your parents?”
Alex freezes again, enough for Hank to think, oh shit, to himself, but then the other boy breezes, “My parents are dead. I live with my older brother.”
Reply
And it’s cliché but Alex replies, “Why? Were you piloting the plane?” His lips twist into something between a grin and a grimace. “No,” he answers for Hank. “Don’t be sorry. It was when I was really young.”
“Still,” Hank cedes. “It must have been hard.” It sounds trite even to his own ears. Alex makes a noise like agreement or acquiescence and Hank tries to focus again on his work, unsure how to continue the conversation. So he decides to reroute it. “You should come to my house party tonight. My mom’s out for the weekend. Everyone will be there.”
Alex finally looks at him, and his face clearly says what the fuck are you doing. Hank plows on, “No, really. You should. You’re new. It’ll be fun and you can meet some pretty cool people. Here - I’ll give you my address.” He rips off the bottom of his paper and scribbles his address on it, handing it to Alex. “Officially starts around nine, but, you know, show up at eleven if you really want to have a good time.”
The blonde squints at the paper Hank had given to him. “Thanks,” he says slowly. “Maybe.” He pushes the paper into his pocket.
“Cool. Great. Hope to see you there, man.” He claps him on the back, friendly, and Alex startles, dropping his pencil and eyes going wide. Hank picks up his pencil for him, and by the time he’s back upright in his seat, Alex has blinked himself out of whatever it was that happened and retreated back into his silence. He mumbles, “Thanks,” when Hank hands him his pencil, but that’s all he says for the rest of class.
x
Alex doesn’t show up to the party. Hank tries not to be disappointed, because everyone else is here and he’s three drinks in and gunning for a fourth, even though he knows he’s breaking his own rules. Also, he’s pretty sure that Sean has mixed some sort of drug into the jungle juice bowl because everything is soft and hazy with halo-lights and colors, and it feels fantastic. His living room is absolutely trashed but he’s not going to worry about that now, because Raven is next to him and saying, “Come on, let’s dance,” and the sequins in her skirt light up when he brushes his hands over them, and the music is in his blood, and he spends the next few minutes or hours just relishing the feather-light tickle of her hair.
He wakes up on the leather couch, skin sticking unpleasantly to the surface, to a mostly empty house and the kind of hangover that doesn’t come at all from alcohol. Raven and Sean are there, already picking up the Solo cups strewn around the living room.
“The prince awakens,” Sean cracks, smiling too sunnily for Hank’s scrambled brain to really process.
“You’re vacuuming,” Raven says. “And treating us to pizza and wine. Just so you know.”
“Sean, you fucker, what did you put in the punch?” Hank groans, head pounding, and Sean just chuckles and says what he always says when Hank asks: “I’ll never tell.”
Cross-country practice that Sunday is hell on earth, but Hank still manages to break six minutes for the mile-run cool-down. Coach Lensherr’s smile is bright when he claps him on the back, saying, “’Attaboy, McCoy.”
x
i'm sorry i always turn alex into this huge headcase. be warned, this kid has issues. more next week because, ugh, finals exist.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Sorry I missed you this weekend, it reads. Have a good day at school. Dinner Wednesday? -Mom. Hank downs the juice in one go, crumpling the note in his fist. He tosses it out when he puts his glass in the kitchen sink.
Mom, he texts when he hits a red light on his way to school to help Mr. Xavier. Practice runs late Wednesday. He stuffs the phone back into his jeans pocket.
Right when he pulls up into his parking spot, he feels the buzz of an incoming message. His mom has texted back, Oh. Next week then.
Whatever.
He’s clambering out of his car, reaching for his backpack when he just makes out the back of a blonde head disappearing behind the door by the statue. He checks his watch - 7:15, just like last time, and there’s no Charles Xavier in sight. Figuring he’s got some time to kill, he follows, wondering distantly if this is a regular Monday thing for Alex.
By the time he reaches and goes through the side entrance, though, there’s no one in sight in the long hallway. There aren’t any lockers in this hallway, just a series of rooms between walls that have a broad, red horizontal stripe painted on them - school colors - and various pieces of student art and achievements. The rooms here are rarely visited by the regular student body, Hank realizes. This hallway had always been, to him at least, just a direct pathway from the cafeteria to the parking lot. He’d never had to come to any of these rooms, except for once when he sprained his wrist during Adventure Sports (which is what kids in other schools might call Gym or P.E., except their gym classes likely didn’t have rock-climbing and kayaking in the school pool) and he had to make a trip to the Nurse’s Office.
He passes the nurse’s room on his right, its door closed. Across from the nurse’s office is the speech therapist’s room, and then the occupational therapist’s, and then the school psychologist’s. The last room, before the hallway stretches out and becomes the far corner of the cafeteria, is the school social worker’s office. As he nears, he can make out murmuring inside. There’s a window in the door, but it’s been papered over. A plaque next to the door, at about Hank’s eye level holds the words ‘MOIRA MACTAGGERT, LCSW,’ shiny and white. The voices behind the door are calm, smooth. He can make out Alex’s low growl of a voice, and the returning woman’s voice is surprisingly flat but not unpleasant. “I couldn’t just do it,” he hears Alex say to Moira, and unease grips him suddenly by the back of his neck. Alex sees the school social worker on Mondays for therapy sessions. He feels like he’s trespassing.
Without slowing, Hank shoulders his backpack again and walks past, heading to the auditorium. Mr. Xavier will be waiting, and North Hills High can’t start a week right without a successful Monday Morning Meeting.
x
Reply
“Something came up. Was it fun?”
Hank is discovering that Alex has a rather annoying habit of not making eye contact when speaking. Or, it’s not really that he feels like Alex is purposefully avoiding making eye contact, more like he gets caught up in staring and forgets that another person is part of the conversation. Right now, Alex is staring very intently at the back of Sean’s head, who’s sitting with Raven a few rows in front of them.
“Loads, like always. Were you busy with the garage?”
“The garage?”
Jesus, talking to Alex sometimes is like waiting for a video to finish buffering on the internet. He blinks, eyes refocusing on the sheet on his desk. Hank waits expectantly. “Yeah, it was pretty busy,” he says, getting back to work on number six. Hank looks at his own sheet. He’s managed up to the third problem.
“So, how come you’re taking this class?” he asks Alex, who finally looks at him, confused.
“Uh, I like physics?”
“No, I mean, you’re pretty smart, right? How come you’re not taking any other AP classes? At least Calc, or something. What’s the point of taking only one AP class?”
Alex frowns, says, “I don’t understand the question.”
Hank lets out a frustrated sigh. “It’s like this - I’m taking a shitton of AP classes because it looks good and it will boost up my GPA. Plus, I can get a head start on college credit when I test well, because I will test well. But taking one AP class is pretty much useless.” Everyone knows this. His GPA has been well over the supposed highest of 4.0 since before freshman year. Anyone who’s getting out of North Hills has a GPA of at least 4.3. He and Raven and Bobby talk about this all the time.
Alex stares at him. Hank realizes he’s getting used to the staring. Then, the corner of Alex’s twitches up, a ghost of a smirk. “That sounds like bullshit,” he states.
“It’s not,” Hank defends. “Well, I guess it kind of is but it’s the kind of bullshit that’ll get me into Columbia.”
“Hm.” Alex gets through problems seven and eight before he says, “I don’t like to do things I don’t want to or have to do.”
And, well, Hank supposes he has a point. It’s not like Hank has to be taking all these AP classes, and running and playing lacrosse in the spring and volunteering and stuff. But he likes it. He wants to. At least, he isn’t sure what else he would do with his time if he weren’t so busy being the model, popular student. “But,” Hank starts, unable to keep from saying the first thing that comes to mind. “What about college? What about life after high school?”
Alex makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like pffft and then he mumbles, “Rich people problems,” like Hank isn’t sitting right next to him and then he says louder, angling his body towards Hank and suddenly it feels strange to be at the receiving end of Alex’s full attention, like his eyes are holding him in his seat: “What about life right now?”
And Hank has no answer for him because life right now is to prepare for life after high school and it’s always been like that, for him, ever since he was made class-speaker for their fifth grade graduation and his mother had waved off the compliments of other parents gushing, “That Henry of yours, so bright. He’s going places, he is.”
Alex must see Hank’s deer-in-headlights look for what it is because his gaze softens and then he turns back to his sheet. “I’ll probably just keep helping out my brother at the garage. Maybe go to a state school.” Hank exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding because state schools he can understand.
“You’d kill it at a state school,” Hank says, more comfortable now that he’s on familiar ground. Maybe even common ground.
Reply
Before the end of class, he invites Alex to join their table at lunch. Surprisingly, he does, and for a few minutes he even stays, quiet next to Hank, his food on his tray untouched. The conversation buzzes around him when he stands long before the lunch bell rings, making excuses that he needs to get work done before the next period.
“He’s…nice,” Raven tries to say as they all watch Alex toss everything on his tray into the nearest trash bin and then turn the corner out of the cafeteria. Her face scrunches up like she’s trying to figure out what to do with it. “I guess.” Sean shoves her with his shoulder, chuckling.
“He’s weird,” Angel says loudly. “Shifty. Did you see how he kept avoiding eye contact? He’s got something to hide. I’m from LA so I know these things. And I still think he stabbed a teacher.” She emphasizes this by nodding her head and examining her nails. “Yup. Definitely.”
Hank takes off his glasses, scrubs his hands over his eyes. “Angel. We’ve gone over this.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, emphatic, her accent slipping out. “We know what he told you. And people lie, hotshot.”
He doesn’t want to admit that, in the few interactions that he’s had with Alex, he’s gotten the sense that, yeah, people lie, but Alex doesn’t. Everything he’s told Hank so far has felt like cold, hard truth. His deep voice has a way of making everything sound deliberate, thought-out, careful. He says, “I don’t think he was lying,” and leaves it at that.
x
On Wednesday, his mother is waiting for him in the kitchen when he gets back from cross-country practice, sweaty and exhausted. “How was school, honey?” She sets about getting him a glass of water and a glass of milk as Hank shuffles over to the island counter. His mother is what other people would call ‘attractive,’ but he can’t think like that because she’s his mother, wow. Her hair is as deep brown as his own, and her eyes just as blue. Her obsession with nutrition and healthy habits has kept her trim and fit well into her forties. Even now, she’s dressed like she’s about to go for a jog.
“Good. The usual.”
“And how was practice?”
“Fine. Thanks,” he says, reaching for the water. The milk won’t go down easily after all that running.
“I would ask if you wanted to join me, but you look like you’re about to keel over. Make yourself a sandwich, would you? And do your homework?” She starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. When he doesn’t answer in favor of chugging down the sweet, cold water, she asks, “Hank?”
The glass rings against the countertop when he places it back down. “Sure, sure.”
“Okay, I’m off then.” She gives a little wave and then power-walks out of the kitchen. Hank settles himself on a stool at the counter and spreads out his assignments from his backpack. The only homework worth doing at the moment is his Physics homework. He’s about to text Alex to see if he can just copy off his answers in the morning - because he’s tired, damnit, and running nonstop for an hour and a half under Coach Lensherr will do that to you - but then he remembers that he doesn’t have his number, and then, it feels as though that one hindrance is the final brick in this wall of senioritis that has been slowly building, and Hank doesn’t want to do anything for the rest of the night.
He packs up all his binders and papers and stuffs them back into his bag and trudges up the stairs to his bedroom. He takes a shower that lasts nearly an hour and then lies on his bed, hair still damp and bleeding into his pillow.
He wakes up at five o’clock in the morning with a headache and the realization that he’s done none of his school work and he curses once, a loud, “Fuck,” that echoes in his room before turning on his desk lamp and getting out the binders and papers again. He leaves the Physics alone, though.
Reply
Raven turns in her seat to raise an eyebrow at him when roll call is over. Hank shrugs in response. Like he knows. Except then he starts to worry, despite himself. Because even though Hank would consider Alex a friend, sort of, he’s still the new kid who’s a little weird and quiet and an easy target. At least, Hank thinks he could be an easy target. But then he remembers how Alex had been expelled for bashing up a guy, so maybe not. What if some jackass had decided that today would be the day to pick a fight with him, though, and now they were both in the nurse’s office, licking their wounds? Or in the hospital. He shakes himself out of these thoughts. If there had been a fight, he would have heard about it.
He spends all of Physics class tuning out Mr. Shaw and finding himself completely ill-equipped to handle the pop quiz at the end that he gives to a groaning class. He scribbles in his answers as quickly as possible - Shaw had said they were free to go after turning it in - and makes a break for it, thinking himself very clever for making his way to Mrs. MacTaggert’s office. The door is closed. He knocks on the papered-over window and it rattles unexpectedly. Mrs. MacTaggert’s voice from the other side - “Come in.”
Hank opens the door but lingers in the hallway. Taking a step in feels both so out of reach and so unnecessary. When she sees his hesitation, she purses her lips and asks, “Can I help you?”
“I’m Hank McCoy,” he says, feeling like a child.
“Yes. I know.”
“I’m, ah, here to ask about Alex? He wasn’t in Physics class.”
The social worker purses her lips even more; it makes her look like she’s taken a bite out of a particularly sour citrus. “He came by earlier,” she says after regarding Hank for years, it feels like. “I gave him a pass to go to the library.”
“Oh, thank you.” He turns to go.
She says, “Close the door on your way out.”
He does, and then he’s surprised by the mass of students milling about the cafeteria when he walks back towards the classrooms; the bell must have rung and he hadn’t noticed it.
The library is way on the other side of the building, by the auditorium, and now Hank has to make a decision: be late for his next class or find Alex in the library. If he’s honest with himself, it’s an easy enough decision - his next class is AP English, and Mr. Xavier’s always inclined to forgive Hank a few tardies.
Reply
Leave a comment