Chapter Text
The days were long, never-ending, never stopping. An endless loop of sleeping and waking. The days without Schteve were pure torture, even the days in the window were better than these. No one to talk to anymore, it was mainly Schteve that he talked to. Not the other stools. They were nothing compared to his beloved Schteve.
The days were brighter, partying was more enjoyable, the air he breathed in was clearer, the sun shone the right way, his sleeping wasn’t deserved, he at least got one foot on the ceiling before falling off ‘gracefully’. The world was horrible without Schteve. Schimon simply could not live without him.
*
Sunlight was pouring in from the windows, lighting up C11, ignoring Schimon’s foul mood. This time, he couldn’t sleep. Lately, after the incident Schimon had been sleeping most of the time, not knowing where he was, what day it was, or what time he was alive in.
So he was awake when the students came running for form, for all the lessons and beyond. It was hell.
They were all heavy and too warm for his liking. One of the few lessons where he didn’t get sat on was during the lesson with Arden & Ellen. His name givers. They sat on the stools either side of him and just rested a bag or blazer on him sometimes, which was less than what other people would do, so it was at least something. And they even talked about him! He couldn’t hear what they were saying most of the time, as he blocked most sounds out. But he couldn’t exactly respond to them, could he?
They would freak out, and not want to sit near him, and not want to set foot in C11 again. So he couldn’t do that to them could he.
He couldn’t get rid of the thoughts in his head. Schteve was nowhere to be seen. All was lost without his other half.
Nothing would set him out of his stupor. Only Schteve. But Schteve was gone…
*
The days were less crazy now after that stool he found on the countertop, THEN got caught in the windows he swore he locked. There were no marks on the wall shaped like weird circles leading to the ceiling then stopping abruptly. All was well.
Except, that same stool in particular was always oddly warm even though no one had sat on it all day, or was slightly damp in the side facing the front despite there being no liquid to come into contact with that stool.
It was odd, more so than when he found the stool in the window, or on the countertop. He couldn’t tell anyone or else they would think he’s crazy, and he couldn’t have that, he LOVED teaching his students physics in C11, he loved his job.
There may be a deviant student here or there but overall it was a good job. In most classes he had, the students behaved well, as they respected them. Some were not so like the majority.
His classroom was mostly tidy, but ever since that stool was found in the window, it was properly tidy.
He could’ve sworn that before he found that stool there, that he had seen its legs move an inch or so every so often. But now, it was always peaceful in his classroom, a stark contrast to the days he first started teaching at the school.
There was always a nice little drawn message on a scrap piece of paper, as if it was drawn by a toddler. He thought it was just students messing about trying to spook him away or something, so he started to lock his door every time he left. But it persisted. Always in the morning right in front of where he sat at the front, on the floor as if the person either couldn’t reach up to the high tables or was just fooling with him.
On the paper with a random pen found next to the paper, was a little love heart with a vague human like shape in it, an arrow pointing at the vague shape labelling it Mr Smears. It’s well known that he has a wife and kids despite the accusations against his heterosexuality.
So who would do such a thing?
But the sweet messages stopped abruptly one morning when a stool in C11 broke and had to be replaced with another. He didn’t know why it stopped, who did it, or why. But he knew it was connected to the new stool.
The stool that broke was nothing special, just one near the back on the left hand side, so why that made the perpetrator stop the notes he had no clue indeed.
If there was one thing he remembered of those days he did get a note, there were the same weird circles he had been finding on the walls but this time on the floor, leading to a very specific stool at the front.
That same stool that was suspiciously damp and warm.
*
During the beginning of Mr Smears job at the school
*
The new teacher was nice, he taught the students better than the last, actually tidied the room unlike the last teacher.
He was called Mr Hencher, specifically Samuel Hencher. He looked, acted, smelled like a rat. It was disgusting, he was sacked for being a pedophile, and all Schteve could think was good riddance and hoping the next teacher would be at least a little bit better than him.
Albeit it was pretty easy to be a better teacher than Mr Hencher, he taught a mixed muddle of science, never telling you which is which, the powerpoints he’d use were 100-ish years out of date. Teaching you the plum pudding model by J.J. Thompson, instead of the newest model.
And always looked under the girls skirts, and his touch lingered a bit too long on everyone. Making everyone dread all his lessons, encouraging people to do A-level Physics while his eyes were not looking at their eyes, and somewhere else entirely.
It was hell. But then, Mr Smears arrived to teach and it was like an angel had saved Schimon and blessed him.
He decided to ‘court’ him, they still did that nowadays right? And so he left little gifts for him everyday in hopes he would give Schimon at least a little attention. But there was nothing from him, no knowing glances towards him, just confused looks around him.
He continued to do so, he wasn’t one to give up so easily. Until he got moved to C11. A random stool at the back broke during a lesson, so Mr Smears needed a new one to fill in the gap.
And it was the most beautiful stool Schteve had ever seen in his life. He had to befriend him. But, the stool wasn’t sentient like him. It was like being in love with someone and they don't even know you exist.
*
That was Schimon’s world, all rose tinted glasses. But then he got bored. He thought about the world. He asked questions. He got hurt.
It all went wrong.