Short Order Cook

[microwavelength]

He hates it.  From the noise to the brightness to the level of prettiness, this school is absolutely the worst he's ever been at.  And he's been at some pretty fucking bad ones.  Mom moves him around a lot.  He gets into trouble and sometimes it's just easier to get a job at another hospital and take her son away before he gets a wrap sheet for the

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[microwavelength]

Dark eyes follows the flamboyant boy out of the room before they turned up towards the school's favorite underdog with the buttery popcorn hair. "Thanks for the pass then, teach," Luke says, grinning a bit crookedly as he follows a stream of kids into the hallway. Let it not be said that Luke Campbell failed every class his junior year of high school, and all because some stupid teacher thinks he can be guilted into doing an assignment with a partner? Nope. Kurt will be left alone to do it all.

Sounds perfect!

So does skipping the rest of the day. Luke climbs the stairs to the library and parks himself in the corner, iPod on loud, dark and terrible songs drowning out the sound of his own breathing. He doodles in a notebook (not half bad) and curls the edges of the books behind him with a knowing smirk because he knows he can.

[microwavelength]

Luke holds Kurt's eyes for a moment before his gaze flickers back to his drawings. He's trying to get Schu's hair just right, but it's a struggle, probably because he's also trying to make it look like his eyes are boiling out of his face too. Luke sighs when he realizes that Kurt hasn't moved at all.

Jesus Christ.

Pulling the bud from one ear, Luke tilts his head back again. "What? I don't have pockets full of glitter so I can't help you with a recharge, champ."

[microwavelength]

"Jesus Christ, you're not my mother!" Incensed now that the lovely high of artificially stimulated adrenaline is wearing off, Luke is done being a different sort of punch drunk. He gives Kurt a little shove to get him out of the way and exits the stall, only to realize that he really is in the girl's bathroom. "Wow, dude...you use this one? What the hell is wrong with you? You're not a fucking girl."

Not a girl, not his mother, not his friend, not some kid he stood up for... Kurt is a whole lot of 'nots' and very few 'ises' to the other boy. He glances at his bookbag under the sinks and then at his face in the mirror.

"Fuck!" He promised no more fights. "She's gonna murder me."

[microwavelength]

Luke's head bows towards the sink, forehead an inch from the mirror. "Unless it magically removes the bruise all together, I'm fucked no matter what." What's he going to do now? It's not that he really cares about being grounded or any of that stupid nonsense, it's just that he can't stand the look of disappointment.

There's only so much that lying can do.

But wait. Kurt's gay. And in glee club. And dresses like a girl. And prances. "Do you have...any stage make-up?"

[microwavelength]

"Okay, listen. Pull out the glitter from your ears and the feather boa from your ass and pay attention to me." Luke holds Kurt's gaze, unwavering, his eyes partially lidded so that he can look up at the other boy through dense eyelashes. Its a common technique with bullies. It makes them look menacing, brow ridge jutting out. Interestingly, it's also a tactic girls use to flirt.

They tend to smile while doing it. There's nothing smiling or jovial about Luke's mouth at the moment.

"I am not going to do this assignment. If you're that worried, get another partner."

[microwavelength]

"Is that suppose to be a threat? Go. Right. Ahead." He didn't care a smidge about his grades. Ohio was worse than Indiana and that was worse than San Francisco. Actually, every place that his mom had moved him since he was ten happened to be shittier and shittier.

Luke went back to contemplating how he could draw sparkles in black and white when he looked up to see a very unamused teacher looking down at him.

"Principal's office, Mr. Campbell. I'll be keeping the notebook."

Ten minutes later, Luke was left rolling his eyes as he sat opposite Figgins, Schu next to him and his mother on speaker phone since she couldn't get herself out of work. "You're drawing what, Luke

[microwavelength]

"Yeah, that's one of my options. Hobo, grease slinger or comedian. Sort of the same pay and each one stinks." Was that a grin rather than the usual scowl? Maybe. It was hard to tell when Luke was grinning to be a douche or when he was actually amused at something.

Shoving aside the plate, his eyes sort of crossed on the first paragraph.

"Uh... Paulo goes...went..to the fuck it." Back to eating then. "Fuck all of it." His shoulders hunched. He was frustrated. He felt stupid. Luke knew he wasn't, he just had absolutely no motivation. "Why does anyone give a fuck about Spanish? Learn our language, Mexico!"

[microwavelength]

The 'basics' ended up being right back to pronunciation. Luke wasn't an idiot, he just didn't pay attention. How he managed to get far enough in his high school Spanish career spoke only of how truly wonderful the public school system of America was in letting kids fall through the cracks.

Or, more likely, how good Luke had been at cheating up until that point.

He picked up the lessons quickly, he already knew all of the curse words, but the task seemed almost impossible. He ought to have had two years of the language under his belt and he knew what approximated to nothing.

At least he was honestly trying by that point, and trying harder when he realized he wasn't actually all that bad at it.

[microwavelength]

"Oh yeah, totally dying to do Spanish verbs. What's the verb 'to do'?" Take that however you want, Kurt, but knowing Luke, he meant it the less than perochial way.

Luke slid over a dish of yogurt for Kurt that was at least five servings and he had an even bigger bowl of ice cream. Of course, Luke did burn off quite a lot of calories. Oh, he amused himself by his jokes. Smirking around his spoon, he flipped open his book just as the front door slammed open. "Shh, shh, he's probably in bed." A woman. Obviously Luke's mother.

"He's probably out robbing something," a decidedly male voice followed the woman. "Honestly, Mary, I don't see why you don't just put him in some sort of boarding school."

"It's not that I haven't thought about it, but he is--"

Two figures came into the kitchen and Luke just smirked. "Hi mom." He waves his spoon at the adults. "This is Kurt. Say hello to my mom and her asshole fuck friend... I'm sorry, don't remember what this one's name is."

[microwavelength]

Kurt didn't sound like the sort of boy that Luke would have around. He didn't slouch in his seat. His eyebrows and hair were perfect. Luke saw the oportunity, and while he ought to have asked, his mother was looking dumbstruck and her boyfriend was stuttering out his name.

Which Luke didn't really care about. So he didn't listen.

"Luke! You can't talk to my friends like that! You'll need to have your friend go now." The word 'friend,' when said to her son, obviously felt awkward and unwieldy to everyone involved.

So what did Luke do? He put his hand over Kurt's hand and grinned rather sweetly. "He's not my friend, mom."

And she thought exactly what he wanted her to as evidenced by how wide her eyes got.