Chapter Text
It was Wednesday of the first week of the fall semester, and Marco was fifteen minutes early to his physics lab. The class before hadn’t let out yet, so he leant against the wall next to the door between a flyer for the orienteering club and a fire extinguisher case, pulling out his phone to pass the time.
From: Numbah 21
Did you eat yet
Tues Aug 14, 6:14 pm
From: Numbah 5
Oh right I should do that
Tues Aug 14, 6:16 pm
From: Numbah 21
Honestly how are you not dead yet
Tues Aug 14, 6:16 pm
From: Numbah 5
Honestly I have no idea. Im making a hot pocket
Tues Aug 14, 6:18 pm
“Y’all lost or something?”
Marco looked up from his phone at the voice. A skinny white dude with bleached, spiked-up hair and a button down stood there, hand on his shoulderbag strap and thick eyebrows knit together. Marco smiled and shook his head as the door next to him opened and the previous lab poured out.
“No, I’ve got a class here next, but thanks.”
Spike raised his eyebrows and stepped aside to let the others by. “Huh.” Spike flicked his eyes over Marco’s football jacket, the sports bag at his feet, and shrugged. “All right, whatever.” He breezed past Marco into the now-empty classroom, leaving Marco blinking in the hallway before he shook himself out and followed.
Spike was talking to the previous class’s instructor about something, but Marco tuned them out as he found a lab table with a good view of the board and enough space to move the computer mouse to the left side of the keyboard. The other instructor left as Marco slung his jacket over the back of his chair, dug for a pencil, and juggled his phone as he beat some vegetable-related sense into Eren, the freshman quarterback he’d been assigned to as the babysitter by their coach. Eren was a ball of explosive talent just waiting for a fight, and Marco was the only one on the team Smith trusted to keep him from making local headlines before he had a chance to make national ones. If only the kid would eat actual food without Marco having to badger him into it.
From: Numbah 21
That barely counts. Dont you have anything healthy
Tues Aug 14, 6:20 pm
From: Numbah 5
Sources say no
Tues Aug 14, 6:21 pm
From: Numbah 5
Maybe ill just eat the whole box
Tues Aug 14, 6:22 pm
From: Numbah 21
Eren no you are NOT eating four hot pockets
Tues Aug 14, 6:23 pm
“So, what’s a football player doin’ in my physics II lab?”
Marco looked up from his phone again. Spike was leaning against the chalkboard, getting chalk dust all over his nice shirt, arms crossed as he stared at Marco, eyebrow cocked. Marco smiled, one corner higher than the other.
“Well, it’s a required course for my major?”
The grin fell off Spike’s face. “You mean you’re not coppin’ out on exercise science or some shit?”
Marco shook his head. “I figured if I’m doing this college thing, I might as well do it right.”
Spike frowned, fingers drumming on his arm. “Huh.”
A group of students came in the door, jerking Spike’s attention away. Marco rolled his eyes and went back to his phone.
From: Numbah 5
What makes you think its a four pack
Tues Aug 14, 6:24 pm
From: Numbah 21
EREN NO
Tues Aug 14, 6:26 pm
From: Numbah 5
EREN YES!!!
Tues Aug 14, 6:28 pm
From: Numbah 21
If I wasnt in lab atm id smack the jesus out of you
Tues Aug 14, 6:29 pm
From: Numbah 5
Too late for that bro jesus left a long time ago
Tues Aug 14, 6:30 pm
The class was clattering around Marco now, as lively as it got for a three-hour lab that starts at six thirty. Spike at the front smacked an open palm on the chalkboard and made everyone jump into silence. Spike grinned.
“Now that I have your attention.” A vague chuckle. “Thanks to all y’all for signing up for the shit spot. I know getting out after nine is never fun, but hey, at least you don’t have to grade papers afterwards like I do.” Another, less-vague chuckle. Spike dug in the tray for chalk. “A’right, so I’m Jean, your lab instructor. It’s my first time teachin’, so cut me a little slack.” He wrote out his full name on the board – Jean Kirschstein – as well as the section number for the lab. “I’ve got office hours in the Lindsay room Friday mornings, and I expect to see none a’ y’all there.” He scrawled ‘FRIDAY – 8-10 AM ’ on the board before dropping the chalk back in the tray and clapping the dust off his hands. “A’right, let’s get down to business.”
Jean leant forward on the front lab table, reading out from the syllabus the stuff he had to say or ‘the prof’ll shoot me’, the fluorescents winking off the bar through his cartilage. Marco bit the inside of his cheek and watched the way Jean’s face shifted as he spoke.
Even though his Wednesday went from ten in the morning to after nine, at least he’d have a pretty face to look at for the last three hours.
The dog days of summer in the Appalachian Mountains were hot and heavy, a clinging heat that drew out every drop of sweat to bead on the back of people’s necks in the beating midday sun. Football practice was right in the thick of that, drills run in the stifling humidity of four in the afternoon. Hydration was something every coach on the fifteen-person staff beat into their players’ heads, and water breaks were as encouraged as proper stretching and working hard enough to puke.
Water cooler gossip wasn’t just limited to a white collar cubicle world.
“Hey Bodt.” A clap on the back that made Marco choke on the Gatorade he was downing. Reiner, one of the offensive guards, patted him again to get it out before pouring his own paper cup from the cooler. “How’s babysitting the new kid going?”
Marco coughed and wiped his mouth on the hem of his undershirt. “It’s all right. Kid’s all kinds of crazy, though.” He glanced over to where the quarterbacks were still going, Eren and his vitiligo skin standing out like an evergreen in winter. He was getting chewed out for something by the tiny spitfire of a quarterback coach – as a running back and therefore closely tied to the fates of the quarterbacks, Marco had been on the receiving end of enough of those lectures to wince in sympathy.
Reiner followed his gaze and chuckled. “Looks like he’s a handful.”
“He needs, like, five handlers, I swear to God. He’d leave his head behind on the bench if it wasn’t attached to his neck.” Across the field, Eren opened his mouth in the middle of the quarterback coach’s speech. Both Marco and Reiner grimaced. “He’s got a lot to learn.”
“You said it.” Reiner finished off his Gatorade and crunched the paper cup into the open trash can waiting for it. “You wanna hit the weights tomorrow morning? I got a free Friday.”
Marco bit the inside of his cheek – he liked Reiner, a lot, but working out with someone a hundred pounds over his weight class had never played out well in the past, and Reiner had a competitive streak that would get him into the first round picks. “Uh, can’t. I got – office hours to go to.”
Reiner made a face. “Already? Damn, that sucks, dude.” The whistle blew for the call away from the sidelines back to practice. Marco tossed his cup into the trash can and shrugged.
“It happens. Sorry.” Marco took a rag from the bucket by the bench to wipe down his sweaty hair. Reiner had shrugged and turned away by the time he emerged again, going to harass the center, Bertl, about weightlifting instead. Marco’s shoulders dropped a fraction, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then he thought about what he said and wrinkled his nose.
Well, it was early in the semester to be going to office hours, but he’d barely squeaked through his first physics lab on the second go-around, and taking both of them twice didn’t fit well in his plan to graduate on time. It couldn’t hurt to follow through on his last-second excuse and get a good start on the semester. He dropped the rag over the back of a bench and jogged onto the field.
When Marco opened the door to the Lindsay room just after eight on Friday morning, Jean was asleep at the conference table, head propped on his arms and bleached hair falling in his face. Marco snorted and let the door slam behind him, jerking Jean out of his doze and almost out of his chair.
“Jesus fuck!” Jean groaned and rubbed down his face, sprawling back in his rolling chair. Marco laughed and dropped his backpack in a chair catty-corner to Jean as he recovered.
“I thought you’d be more awake for this.”
“N’ I didn’t think I’d see anyone today.” Jean looked at him from between his fingers - had his eyes been so orange on Wednesday? “Fuck, it’s the first week, Muscles. I thought I’d have to baby you, but really?” Marco crossed his arms and leant a hip on the table.
“Muscles?” Jean blinked a few times, ears going red. Marco bit his lip on a laugh and fell in the chair between his backpack and Jean, who put his face down on the table. Marco propped his temple up with two knuckles and waited for Jean to recover again. When Jean’s orange eyes peered out from beneath his bangs, Marco raised an eyebrow.
“M’Sorry.” Jean raked a hand through his hair, sitting back. “I’ve just gotten so used to nerds, I’ve got no idea what to do with an honest-to-God athlete.” Marco chuckled.
“Well, if you want the truth, I’m mostly here to get out of weightlifting with a monster, so I don’t actually have two hours of silly questions for you.”
Jean sighed, deflating across the table. “Thank God, ‘m not ready to deal with that shit right now.”
Marco crossed his arms and leant back. “You’re the one who made their office hours as early as possible.”
Jean waved him off. “I had a late night.” He tugged on the metal stud in his earlobe. “So, what’s your name, Football?”
Marco smiled. “Marco, although I kinda like Muscles.” Jean wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue, ears blazing.
“Yeah, make fun of me all you want, but I’ll remember that when I’m gradin’ your lab reports.” Marco laughed, chin to his chest. Jean leant in, elbows on the table. “So, I’m dyin’ here. What major’re you in that requires my class?”
“Environmental science, pre-law.” Jean blinked, heavy eyebrows hidden under his hanging hair. Marco grinned. “I’m gonna save the whales.”
Jean snorted, eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Well, maybe not whales, but, yeah.” Marco drummed his fingers on the table. “What about you, Spike the Nerd?”
Jean’s lip twitched, but he just flipped his (un-spiked) bangs from his eyes. “Double math-physics major. I’ll be here forever.”
Marco raised his eyebrows. “Wow, you are a nerd.” Jean kicked his ankle under the table.
“Yeah, but I’m a nerd that’s gonna keep your ass from failin’.” Marco smiled at him; Jean coughed and tugged on the baby hair at the back of his neck. “Y’sure there ain’t nothin’ I can, like, go over with you or somethin’? I mean, while you’re here. And I’m here.”
Marco rubbed the side of his nose. “Well, truth be told, I didn’t do so hot in 1150, so - hopefully you won’t have to baby me, but-”
“Hey.” Jean frowned at him, orange eyes pinning Marco to the seat. “Look, I’m here for you. For y’all. That’s literally what’m gettin’ paid for. I don’t mind holdin’ your hand through some things.” He winked. “Even if you skip the gym every now and then.”
Marco’s smiled quirked up, and he unzipped his backpack to fetch the textbook he’d thrown in there half for the weight. “Well, if you’re offering, I’m kinda rusty after a summer of training, so can we just go over a few things as a refresher?”
Jean smiled, a nice one that clashed with his haircut and his piercings, and spun a pencil on top of his thumb. “No prob, Muscles.”
The football team lived in a parallel world to the rest of campus during the fall semester. Most of the university was wrapped in their tie-dye shirts and Patagonia hammocks until the snow kicked in, but the players wove through the hackeysac circles in beelines from class, food, practice, and sleep. A few of them fed into the hippie lifestyle, but most of them didn’t know Radiohead from the Grateful Dead.
Marco had gladly lived in his pigskin bubble for two years and change. White people with dreadlocks had always made him reel, and being worn out from practice or a game had been a great excuse to stay in his dorm on the weekends and catch up on his homework while the campus got drunk in the snow. The previous two years, he’d roomed with a baseball player who had a girlfriend in town and was in their room approximately five minutes a week, which worked just fine for Marco and his homebody introvert tendencies.
The baseball player’s parents had finally figured out about their waste of housing money, though, and made him move out of the dorms onto his own dime. No one on the team who Marco would consider living with was free, and his only friend who wasn’t affiliated with the team was now bunking in his girlfriend’s rental house. Marco had had to sign on to the potluck roster at the last minute, and naturally, he’d gotten tossed into the haunted East Hall, in a ground floor room above the basement with the suicide ghost girl. Marco didn’t really think the idea of lingering spirits held water, but his new roommate didn’t have the same point of view.
“Marco! Hey, Marco!”
Marco groaned and rolled over on his cheap mattress to a bright phone screen in his face. “Wha’ - th’hell, Connie?”
“Look! C’mon, look, look!” Marco shaded his eyes from the glare and squinted at the screen.
“Wow. ‘T’sa pipe.”
Connie groaned and hung off Marco’s lofted bed, head flopping back. “C’mon! Look harder!” He zoomed in on one corner of the picture and held it in Marco’s face again. Marco blinked.
“’m’I s’pposed to be seeing somethin’?”
Connie shook the bedframe, growling, and Marco was about to be his cause of death. “It’s the ghost! Can’t you see the distortion?” Marco stared hard at him.
“Go to sleep, Connie.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible! If you just came down with me, you’d feel her presence-” Marco rolled over and hauled the blankets over his head. Connie huffed and jumped off of Marco’s desk. “I’ll turn you around, just you wait!” Marco turned his face into the pillow as Connie’s computer powered on behind him, light filtering through his thin sheets.
Fuck this year.
The unspoken puzzle of the team’s August training camp had been Eren. He was a fully ambidextrous quarterback, a miracle on two legs never before seen in collegiate football – or on the visible spectrum. He’d been scouted since he could drive; he was the only thing any coach who visited his small North Carolina high school could talk about for months afterwards. He made recruiters shake with anticipation when they watched his plays switch around at a blink, the whole field open to a pass – but he wasn’t tackle-shy and rushed the line of scrimmage as often as he passed over it. He’d been on the hot list of half the country his entire senior year of high school. They were already talking about Heismans in the downtime of ESPN talk shows.
And then he’d stunned them all by signing onto a school that wasn’t even in the running for the National Championships.
The head coach, Smith, was the most stunned of all, as he’d thought Eren’s interest in them was purely in-state safety net security, but Eren’s binding early decision application was pretty final proof. Smith didn’t ask any more questions after that, and after calling his mother to share the good news, he’d pulled every string possible to get this crazy kid the fullest ride the football program could offer.
Having Eren on the field changed the team in ways that only a stellar athlete could. Marco hovered at his left shoulder for most of August, just trying to keep up with his eyes and not get left behind. Eren was a freshman who had never played in a stadium bigger than a thousand people, but his natural talent and demonic dedication meant that he was two steps ahead of even the most experienced players on the team. He wasn’t obnoxious about it, though, which is what everyone had expected when they’d first heard about him – big fish in little ponds tend to get too big for their britches pretty fast. He just really liked to play, with an intensity that startled everyone but the quarterback coach, who was the only one unimpressed with the new star of the offense.
Marco wasn’t the prying kind. He was curious about Eren’s motives, of course, but he’d learn them in his own time, at Eren’s pace.
Eren lived off campus in a rental house neighborhood a lot of college kids shacked up in. Sunday they had no practice, but if Marco spent another minute with his ghost hunter roommate he was gonna add another spirit to the count. He invited himself over to Eren’s to make tamales so Eren could have at least one un-frozen dinner in his life. He went to the grocery store on Sunday to buy the ingredients, though, half because only he (and his Guatemalan family) knew the recipe, but mostly because he knew Eren’s fridge had ketchup and American cheese in it.
From: Numbah 5
Get enough for 4 housemates are here
Sun, Aug 19, 12:48 pm
Marco frowned, grocery basket hung over one elbow. Housemates?
From: Numbah 21
Football or non?
Sun, Aug 19, 12:49 pm
From: Numbah 5
Non. So more like 3
Sun, Aug 19, 12:51 pm
From: Numbah 21
Cool. Be there in 20
Sun, Aug 19, 12:53 pm
Marco showed up at Eren’s front door a little under half an hour after that, arms weighed down with grocery bags (weightlifting in the gym was so much different than carting corn and tomatoes across town) as he kicked at the door in a harsh knock. Voices called on the other side, Eren’s scratchy crow call carrying over the others. When the door opened, however, a new person was there – a short blond guy with a ponytail and peach fuzz. He smiled up at Marco, round blue eyes bright. “Hi! You must be Marco!”
Marco’s smile quirked up on one side. “Yeah, uh, who’re you?” The new guy rolled his eyes.
“Eren forgot to tell you, didn’t he? Figures.” He stepped back so Marco could come in and closed the door behind him. “I’m Armin, Eren’s keeper.” Marco snorted.
“Well, if anyone needs a keeper, it’s that kid.” Marco hefted a grocery bag. “Where can I dump this?”
Armin led him back through the house (nicer than he’d expected from a college house, but not crazy fancy) to the kitchen, where Eren and an Asian girl in a softball shirt were sitting around a breakfast table covered in bills and textbooks. They looked up at their entry; Eren jerked up his chin in a greeting.
“Yo, Marco. When do we eat?”
Armin and the girl glared at Eren in unison. He made a face back at them, almost a snarl. The girl kicked him under the table. “Don’t be rude.” He kicked her back. She rolled her eyes and stood, taking a bag off Marco’s arm with a slight smile. “I’m Mikasa. Thank you for not killin’ him yet.”
Marco chuckled and set the other bags on the kitchen counter. “Not for lack of trying.” He stepped back and evaluated the kitchen. He’d worked with worse. “So, what’s the biggest pot you got?”
Marco’s tamales became a family affair, all three of them helping him mash corn, slice up tomatoes, and wrap them up in elephant ear leaves from the backyard (the closest things to plantain leaves they could find at such short notice). Eren’s housemates were friendly, Armin in a bubbly, laughing manner, Mikasa the quiet rock to her wild boys. Marco picked up that they were all old friends fast, but it took a few hours of dedicated eavesdropping to figure out that Mikasa and Armin were sophomores, not freshmen like Eren, and that they each had their own pocket of campus they dominated in. They were all Erens, although Armin’s field was the social activism booth outside the food court, and Mikasa was the champion of both the softball team and the cadaver classroom. They were triplets of overachievers; the only thing that didn’t make sense about them was why in the world they’d trapped themselves in this hipster mountain school.
When the tamales were ready, they took them to the patio in the fenced-in backyard to eat, Eren and Marco devouring three times as many as Mikasa and Armin together. All four of them were vegetarian, a discovery that had startled out the first group laugh of the evening. They’d stuffed the tamales with tomatoes, bell peppers, raisins – whatever Marco could find in their locally-sourced grocery store’s produce section. They weren’t quite the way his mother and aunts made them, but the other three were happy, so he could be content.
“You should come over more, Marco, if it means we’ll eat like that again,” Armin said with a sigh as he sprawled back in his iron patio chair, fork clattering to his plate. Mikasa nodded.
“That’s the most action that stove’s seen since Armin broke up with Annie.” Eren choked on his water; Armin laughed too loud, face red. Marco just raised an eyebrow. Mikasa winked at him, face a stone otherwise. He laughed, chin to his chest and eyes closed.
“I’d love to come over again,” Marco said, wiping a tear from his eye. “Just say when.”
Eren disappeared during dish clean-up and came back with a football that was more beat-up than any bottom of the bin reject in the football shed. Marco took one look at Eren’s puppy-dog face and laughed. “Levi’s gonna kill you if you throw out of his supervision.”
“What he don’t know won’t hurt him.” Eren bounced on his toes, spinning the ball in the air. Marco glanced at Mikasa and Armin, who shrugged him on.
“We’ll finish up in here. He’s like a dog, you gotta exercise him every few hours or he’ll chew up the furniture.” Eren flapped his hand in a mockery of Armin before he dashed out the back door in front of Marco, who followed at a walk.
Eren always started throwing with his right hand, then shifted to his left as he warmed up. Marco was hoping that he’d stay on the right the whole time, but it only took three passes for Marco to regret not bringing his gloves – any gloves. Even when it was just casual backyard passing, Eren threw like a wrecking ball slamming into Marco’s hands.
“Your friends are nice.” Bam. Marco shook out his arm before throwing it back.
“Yeah.” Bam. “I’m glad they like you, ‘cause they never like people I bring home.”
Marco laughed. “So are they your roommates or your parents?”
Eren caught his lazy pass and shrugged. “Kinda both, I guess.” Bam.
They talked like that as the sun set over the mountains, Marco’s hands tingling, then going numb. Mikasa made their pattern a triangle once the dishes were done; her passes were less like construction equipment and more like a bullet, stinging less and covering less ground, but with a pinpoint accuracy as terrifying as Eren’s sheer power. Armin sat at the patio table with a textbook he didn’t touch as he offered commentary on their game that had Marco missing a few catches from laughing. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday. He could get used to this.
Marco’s first week of his junior year was, overall, unremarkable in its events, like most college days. Lectures all blurred together eventually, hours of cold rooms, dirty chalkboards, and staring at the clock beside the projector screen as it ticked along. College is a series of images that melt into impressions of the buildings, of the walk between classes, of the people you see and the places you meet.
The first weekend fizzed out straight into Wednesday, another long day running from ten to nine. Wednesday practice was brutal, since it was the last week they had without a game, and Marco felt like limping across campus to his physics lab after three hours of pounding sweat. He and the other football players who had the ill luck of class after practice dragged themselves up the hills of campus towards the academic buildings. Outside of the stadium, a lone girl was struggling on the sidewalk with some… art project, maybe, through the tide of linebackers. It was haphazardly constructed out of plywood and chicken wire, and didn’t look like it shouldn’t be shedding pieces in its wake. Marco didn’t get it, but what he did get was a tiny Indian girl in pigtails struggling with an object twice her size. When it started to wobble, he rushed forward to support the other… end.
“Whoa there!” He caught it before it could fall apart. He leant to the side to smile at the girl, who owl-blinked at him. “You okay?”
She beamed at him, too wide. “Yeah, doin’ fine.” His smile bent up as she cleared her throat. “I mean, uh, I-I’ve got to get this across campus, but it’s so heavy, and weird-”
He laughed her off. “I can help you, no worries. Where you headed?”
She chewed on an errant strand of hair that had blown into her mouth. “Well, uh. I dunno. I kinda – got lost.” Marco leant a little more to see around the thing – the lanyard around her neck marked her as a piece of freshman meat. “I think it’s around the duck pond?” She laughed, too high and too loud. He smiled at her as softly as he knew how.
“That’s all right, I remember my first semester, too. Maybe you remember the name of the building?”
She texted her big to find out the building before they launched the failed chicken coop on its way. As they shuffled the contraption away from the edge of campus where the football stadium was up to the center, Marco learned that her name was Mina, that she was from Augusta, Georgia, and that she had no idea what this art project was supposed to be, either. She had pledged to the Alpha Phi sorority that Monday, and now had gotten stuck doing grunt work for the seniors. He laughed at her nervous jokes called around the wood-and-wire mess and told a few of his own while giving her a stumbling tour of campus through eyes unclouded by PBR.
They were coming around the street corner that framed the duck pond, a water feature whose main attribute wasn’t the fountain spout in the middle, but the hordes of attack ducks lining the algae-infested water, when a gaggle of other sorority girls swarmed down the hill behind it, shrieking. Marco and Mina stopped on the sidewalk; Mina peered through a hole in the chickenwire at Marco, whites of her eyes visible all around her dark irises. “I’m really sorry about this.”
Marco blinked, project slipping out of his hands as Mina dropped it and stepped away. “What?”
The girls knew they only had surprise and their numbers against anyone who fought three hundred pound muscle mountains daily. One second, Marco was holding a one-by-four and a few honeycombs of chickenwire. The next, three freshman girls in Nike shorts had knocked him off his feet and sent him and his football bag tumbling down the hill into the duck pond, dirty water squelching at his impact and getting all up in his nose. He floundered and sputtered, slipping in the moss of the pond bank, while shrill voices and angry duck quacks cawed above him.
“Git it, Lucy, git the picture, git it!”
Marco looked up through his dripping bangs (he’d just taken a shower, damn it all) as two of the girls snapped pictures on their phone. They high-fived; he struggled out of the pond and up onto the grassy bank, socks squishing. The girls laughed and ran, sprinting back up the hill to whatever Elle Woods hell they’d sprung from. Mina’s ‘art project’ was abandoned on the sidewalk when Marco dragged himself up to it. He squeezing his sopping jacket over it and kicked it for good measure. The ducks around the pond were still irate at the intrusion into their zone - one waddled up to nip at his ankle. He kicked it away and honked back before stomping away, leaving wet footprints for the lucky observers to follow.
He wasn’t even half dry when he finally hauled his ass to his physics lab, half an hour late and pissed off. Jean looked up with a frown from across the room at the door slamming open; the frown shifted to a gape, then a grin, as the whole class turned at his appearance. Jean cackled.
“What happened to you, Muscles?”
Marco shook his head, water splattering onto the chalkboard. “I was learning my lesson - don’t be nice to people. Ever.” Jean snorted, head falling, before he pushed himself off the desk and weaved through the tables to Marco. He made a face back at the class as he went.
“Hey, who told you to stop?” A flurry of paper and chatter as everyone went back to the lab. Jean narrowed his eyes at the before turning back to Marco, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “Who took advantage a’the poor innocent football player this time?”
“Some sorority girls pushed me in the duck pond and documented it.” Marco shivered - the physics floor was always five degrees too cold. Jean rolled his eyes, sighing. Marco frowned. “Is this a common thing?”
“Sometimes they mix it up and kidnap people instead.” Jean pursed his lips and gave Marco a once-over; Marco’s internal temperature rose a few degrees closer to usual. “Kid, you’re in no shape for this shit. Go home and clean up, and you can make up the lab in office hours on Friday.”
Marco blinked. “Really?”
Jean snorted. “Nah, I’m gonna make ya get pneumonia instead. Get your ass home, kid, ‘fore I hafta drag it home.”
Marco held up his hands. “No, thanks, I’ve had enough of the dragging around for the day.” Jean grinned, then furrowed his eyebrows.
“Seriously, do you need a ride or somethin’? I know I shouldn’t leave these idiots alone, but that’s better than our star running back coughing up blood.”
Marco smiled. “I didn’t tell you my position.”
Jean flushed, ears red, and tugged at the stud in his ear. “I was curious, ‘kay?” Marco chuckled. Jean coughed. “Anyway, get the fuck home, I’ll see you on Friday.”
Marco nodded, still smiling. “See you Friday. And, thank you.”
Jean grinned. “No problem, waterboy.” Marco punched his shoulder and left.
It was a Friday morning two weeks into the fall semester, and Marco was five minutes late to Jean’s eight am office hours.
He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be late for this, since office hour times are more like guidelines anyway, or on time, since he was making up a three hour lab in a two hour time. Five minutes was his compromise.
This time when he opened the door to the physics resource room, Jean wasn’t asleep at the conference table, but setting up a tension stand on it, rolling chairs pushed back to the wall. He looked up at Marco’s entry – his hair was back in its spikes today. He grinned.
“Hey waterboy. Good to see you high and dry again.” Marco dropped his backpack in a border chair and fished for his lab notebook.
“Good to see you awake this time.” Marco shot a look over his shoulder. “What, forget your coffee last week?”
Jean stuck out his tongue at him, then stood back from the equipment to admire his work, running a hand through his hair and sticking it in all directions. “All right, I think that should do it.” Jean smiled his mismatched smile at Marco. “Ready for your lab instructor to be your lab partner?”
Marco coughed. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
Jean waved him off. “Rules are for wimps. ‘Sides, Momma won’t care.”
Marco raised his eyebrows. “And why would your mom care about this?”
Jean blinked. “Aw, shit, I wasn’t supposed to talk ‘bout that with y’all.” He twisted a hair spike around a finger, huffing. “Uh, well, don’t tell, anyone, but yeah, my momma’s the professor. Surprise.” Marco snorted.
“Dr. Rhodes is your mom.” Jean flapped his hand.
“There’s a thing about academics not changing their names when they get hitched, but really it’s that she’n Daddy didn’t want to have two Dr. Kirschstein’s in the house.” Marco chuckled, and Jean grinned. “Daddy’s a dentist.”
“Two doctors in the family, huh? So are you some kinda Kim Possible in your spare time?”
Jean choked on his laugh, head ducking into the cavity of one shoulder. “Nah, I’m not bendy enough for a cheerleader.” He glanced up at Marco, then shook his head. “C’mon, let’s knock this lab out so I’m not late to Quantum.”
Marco flipped open his lab notebook and watched Jean’s face as he set out on a layman’s explanation of the lab – something about density – as the early sunlight filtered through the windows and bounced off of Jean’s piercings. Marco chewed on his pencil as he watched Jean’s hands work.