Chapter Text
Race has always had a reputation.
Growing up, with his friends, he’d been the jokester. He wasn’t confident, or particularly interested in school, so he’d overcompensated with comedy, marking himself as the lazy slacker with the sarcastic remarks before anyone else had a chance to. Once his tenth grade algebra teacher had seen through the cheeky smile and the razor-sharp wit to realize he had a natural aptitude for math and had stopped excusing his bullshit, he’d begun applying himself, until he was known as the lazy slacker who, as it turned out, was secretly a genius.
Genius? No. Hardworking? Hell yes.
In college, he’d been intense. Deadly smart, ambitious and determined, with a lot to prove and nothing to lose. A partier, the kind who went all weekend and still got himself up for his eight AM classes. He’d excelled in school, graduating with a degree in mathematics in the top five percent of his class. He’d had his pick of graduate programs, research opportunities, fellowships, but he’d turned them all down for a graduate program in education. He’d become a teacher, something his own professors had told him was a waste of his potential, but he’d never regretted it. Not when it had brought him his best friends.
Not when it had brought him Spot.
He has a reputation now, as the cool teacher. He knows it, knows that his kids like him, even if they pretend they don’t. The pride flag in his coffee mug of expo markers and the picture of him and his boyfriend displayed proudly on his desk make him several students’ favorite teacher automatically. The math memes he posts on his wall instead of the usual motivational posters sway even more. The wall behind his desk is covered in cards and letters and thank you’s that he’s received from students over the years.
He’s a hardass, and pushes his kids constantly, but that comes with the territory of teaching honors and AP students. He’ll assign 50 problems if he thinks it’s necessary, or if his students are being disruptive, but his general work hard, play hard policy seems to work just fine. He keeps protein bars in his bottom drawer for the kids who forget to eat breakfast. He lets them play Kahoot games more often than not. He gives extra credit to the ones who never miss a homework assignment. He only marks students late if they’re rude. He’s a good teacher, a great teacher, even.
These days, it’s getting harder to remember how he did it.
“Allison!” he snaps, glaring across the classroom at the girl in question. “Phone away, or I’ll take it for the day.” He raises an eyebrow to punctuate the threat, hating how uncomfortable she looks as she slides her phone back into her pocket.
He’s been snapping at students more and more lately. He knows they’ve noticed, catches the shared glances and irritated whispers. He’s started avoiding the teachers’ lounge, where his colleagues actually know what’s going on and still whisper about it behind his back. He’s not sure which is worse.
He gives two more detentions before his lunch break, pen stabbing into the pad as he signs the slips of paper. He fixes both students - two of his favorites, called out for nothing more than whispering while he’d switched between powerpoints - with disappointed looks, and they lower their gazes as he hands them their slips. He turns away before they have a chance to say anything, bracing his hands on the desk and lowering his head in frustration.
He hates being the shitty teacher. Hates being the teacher who takes out his problems on his students. He’d always resented those teachers in school, the bitter ones with the family problems who came into the classroom and unleashed their frustrations on their unwitting students. He hates that it’s who he’s becoming now.
He knows Spot would hate it if he could see.
“Too bad he can’t,” he mutters under his breath.
“Uh, Mr. Higgins?”
He spins around to find two of his students, Josh and Ellie, standing nervously in the door. He can’t help the sigh that escapes him even as he’s plastering on a smile. He knows exactly why they’re here.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” He leans back on his desk, keeping the easy smile.
Ellie looks to Josh, who rolls his eyes and pushes forward into the classroom.
“We were just wondering, it’s been a few weeks since GSA has had a meeting… When are you free to supervise the next one?”
He pretends to think, even as he grits his teeth. Being the faculty advisor for GSA is one of his favorite parts of his job. Or, another used to be.
“Umm, Wednesdays are still best, it’s the only day of the week I’m not tutoring. Is lunch or after school better?”
“Lunch is good! Most of us have practice and rehearsals and stuff after school.”
He nods and looks to Ellie, the GSA president, who’s already got her phone out. “Perfect, Wednesday then. You’ll send an email out?”
She gives him a thumbs up. “Already on it.” He feels his phone buzz in his pocket and smiles.
“Awesome, thanks. See you guys in class,” he says by way of dismissal. They show themselves out, and he pushes off his desk, circling the classroom while he thinks. He has lunch and then a free period, giving him an hour and a half before he has to be back to teach. It’s enough time to stop by the hospital, even though he’d stopped by in the early morning before first period
He knows his time is limited. Spot’s improvement has been subtle and slow, not promising enough to bring about any optimism but still significant enough to keep Race from the brink of despair. And yet, the thought of making the trek across town to the hospital is exhausting right now.
He opts for coffee instead.
The teachers’ lounge is blissfully empty, and he cherishes the silence as he pours himself his fifth cup of coffee and nibbles halfheartedly at a breakfast bar. He’s sick of walking into the lounge to interrupt conversations about him.
Four more days.
“Hey, Sir Yells-A-Lot!”
Race sighs and closes his eyes, downing the rest of his coffee before he turns to face Jack, standing in the doorway of the teachers’ lounge, tired resignation on his face.
“What do you want?”
“Don’t snap at me,” Jack says, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut. “Not like I’m one of your students.”
“I don’t need a lecture.”
Jack looks at him incredulously. “Well, your students are complainin’ so much, next thing you know they’ll be startin’ a ‘Get Mr. Higgins Fired’ campaign.”
Race rolls his eyes, stalking over to the coffee machine and pouring himself another cup.
“What, are you not gonna say anything?”
“I told you I don’t need a lecture, and you didn’t listen. Why should I talk to you when it’ll go in one ear and out the other?”
“I should be sayin’ the same to you.”
Race shrugs, exasperated. “What do you want from me?”
“Stop bein’ a dick , Race! You’ve never given a detention in your life, and now you’re givin’ ‘em out left and right. It’s ridiculous, it’s gotta stop! Your kids are good kids, they don’t deserve to have you take your issues out on them.”
“Don’t tell me how to run my classes, how dare you-”
“How dare I? I had a girl cryin’ last period because you gave her a detention for checkin’ her phone when you were answering a call. Apparently she’s never gotten a detention before, until now. Because of you.”
“Shut up, Jack!” Race runs his hands through his hair, biting hard on his lip. “I- I know it’s been rough, okay, I just-”
“Don’t use Spot as an excuse,” Jack fumes. “We’re all dealin’ with shit right now, okay? All of us, don’t act like you’re the only one who’s fucking affected by this.”
Race slams his cup down on the counter, not even wincing as the scalding hot coffee splashes out and onto his hand.
“You don’t get to tell me how to act,” he warns, struggling to keep his voice even. “Not this week.”
Jack’s expression softens.
“Race, no one is sayin’ you gotta be a saint. Especially not this week. But you can’t behave like this either, Spot wouldn’t-”
“Spot isn’t here , Jack!” Race take a deep breath, angry with himself for letting his emotions get the better of him. He’s been good, keeping them turned off while he’s at work, and now...
Now the way Jack’s looking at him now makes him want to cry.
“I gotta go, I have a break, I’m gonna run home, I, uh… I can’t be here,” he mumbles, abandoning his coffee and his half-eaten breakfast bar on the counter and averting his eyes as he grabs his bag and stalks out the door.
“Racer!”
Race debates not answering Jack’s call, continuing down the hall and storming out the front door. He lasts three seconds before he stops short, turning around in surrender to look down the short stretch of hallway at Jack, who’s leaning out the door.
“You’re better than this, yeah?” Race doesn’t say anything. “Fix it.”
Race turns around. Fix it.
He makes it halfway home before he’s changing trains and making his way towards the hospital. He only has a few days left. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost Spot and had to live with the knowledge that he’d had a chance to be with him before then and not taken it.
***
Race’s leg bounces in double time to the slow beeping of the heart monitor as he sits and stares at the screen. After a few days of sitting around he’d looked up what all the numbers were, googling words like ‘systolic’ and ‘diastolic’, trying to figure out what the hell SPO2 meant. He’s not sure knowing is better.
Spot hasn’t improved in too long.
That’s what the doctors keep telling him. At first he’d been improving slightly, and then it had begun to plateau. They’d thrown a lot of medical terms at him, let him be lost, and then explained it all in layman’s terms that made him even more scared.
He’s coming up on his deadline, and now he’s praying for a miracle.
“Why the fuck did we sign living wills?” he mutters tiredly to himself, not for the first time, as he sits with his head in his hands next to Spot’s bed. They’d done it mere months before the accident, giggling as they’d signed them. They’d gotten wine-drunk and slow danced in the kitchen that night, exchanging half-mumbled promises about living forever, together.
He’d bought an engagement ring the next day. It’s still sitting in his bottom drawer.
(He’d thought about returning it, one night, about a week ago. Turned the box over and over in his hands for hours, and then cried so hard he’d nearly thrown up. He hasn’t looked at it since.)
Race knows if Spot were here, he’d tell him to get his head out of his ass. Stop throwin’ yourself a pity party, Racer.
The voice morphs into Jack’s, yelling at him in the teacher’s lounge. Stop bein’ a dick, Race!
You’re better than this.
Fix it.
Race looks Spot over again, at the face that’s healed of most of its bruises but is still utterly blank, emotionless and unscathed except for a deep cut on his right cheek that Race knows now will scar. The sigh that leaves him is long and measured, and he counts to ten as he breathes out. If he doesn’t time himself, give himself rules, he’d never leave Spot’s side, never go to work or see his friends or sleep or eat or do any of the things that he gets to do and Spot doesn’t. So he counts to ten, memorizing every detail of Spot’s face again as he does, mentally resolving to fix it, fix himself before he becomes a teacher and a friend (and a boyfriend) he no longer recognizes, and then stands.
He hates walking out of the hospital room. Hates leaving the ICU, hates stepping foot outside the damn hospital he’s had to make his second home in the last month.
He hates a lot of things recently. He’ll be damned if he lets himself become one of them.
***
Dear all,
Sorry for the lack of GSA meetings in the past few weeks. I haven’t been myself recently, for reasons which frankly don’t excuse the behavior I’ve shown in the classroom. Since we’ve missed a few weeks, our next meeting will hopefully be making up for lost time, so we’ll be covering a lot of ground. As always, it’s up to you guys what we talk about in meetings - if any of you have any ideas you can forward them to Ellie, or bring them to me. If you have any questions or just want to talk, my door is always open.
See you all on Wednesday,
Mr. Anthony Higgins
Mathematics Department (ext. 19)
***
The GSA meeting goes well.
He knew it would - he barely does anything as the supervisor, just double-checks the discussion topics and occasionally steers the conversation away from sensitive topics that he knows from experience lead to tension and fighting and, in one case, the throwing of chairs. He never minds missing his lunch break for this, especially when he has so much to make up for. The thinly veiled bribery apology cookies he’d bought for the meeting had gone over great; after all, the way to any student’s heart is free food. They’re all good kids, and he breathes a sigh of relief as the last one exits the classroom.
He hadn’t fucked it up after all. Maybe things are on the up.
(He should’ve known better than to be so optimistic.)
***
The deja vu as he sits in the back of the taxi is overwhelming.
He’s not the one driving, not this time, but he swears to God the driver is him from a month ago; he blinks and suddenly he can see himself, grip on the steering wheel too tight, shoulders tensed, terror and anxiety rolling off of him in waves. Time is slowed down and sped up all at once, and he’s been in this car for what feels like ages, except when they finally make it to the hospital he’s nowhere near prepared to get out of the car.
Spot’s waking up. Katherine’s voice, on the phone, not even twenty minutes ago. She’d gone with Jack to visit him and somehow, he’d woken up. She’d called him right away. A miracle, she’d called it.
A fucking miracle.
He has three missed calls from Jack but his hands are shaking too hard for him to even think about picking up the phone as he crosses the threshold of the hospital he knows inside and out by now, coming to rest in front of the elevator bank. He presses the button what must be one thousand times before the doors slide open, and he collapses heavily against the back wall of the elevator. A numbness fills him and he knows it’s in his head but he can feel the pressure on his shoulders as the elevator starts to rise.
A voicemail from Jack pops up on his screen and he shoves his phone in his pocket. The elevator is moving too fast, he’s already on Spot’s floor and he hasn’t even gotten his shit together and -
The doors slide open, and Race’s world tilts dangerously sideways as he walks out. He can make out Jack and Katherine are at the end of the hall, surrounded by a bustle of nurses and doctors streaming in and out of Spot’s room. Something’s off, but he can’t place it, can’t pay attention to them, not when Spot’s awake. His feet are lead and his mouth is dry, and he’s standing outside Spot’s door before he can process the fact that he’s taken a step. Jack and Katherine are talking intently with one of the doctors, backs turned to him, and he disregards them entirely, stepping into the room and sidestepping the nurses to take in Spot.
Awake. Disoriented, but awake. Groggy and nervous and confused, but awake. He yanks his arm away from a doctor trying to check his IV and Race nearly sobs, the scowl on Spot's face so familiar and endearing, such a change from the unsettling lack of emotion of the past month. Spot pushes back in his bed, turns his head to the side, and locks eyes with Race.
“Spot…” It’s not even a whisper, a pathetic whimper of a word. Race is at his side now, once again unaware of having moved, and his hands shake as he reaches out to touch him.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Spot snaps, voice gravelly and rough. He dissolves into a coughing fit and a nurse pushes Race away, bending over Spot with a stethoscope.
“Baby,” he tries again, and Spot turns to glare at him.
“Get out. Get the fuck away from me, get the hell out,” Spot rasps out. “I don’t know who the fuck you are. Get out.”
Scared. He’s scared.
That’s Race’s initial reaction, before he’s even processed the words. Spot’s lashing out because he’s scared and confused. It’s one of the first things Race had learned about him - the number of times Spot says fuck in a minute is directly proportional to either anger, fear, or arousal. And this time it’s fear - pure fear in his eyes, even as he glares and yells.
Then the words hit.
Get out. Get the fuck away from me. Get the hell out.
Of all the fucking possibilities, all the resulting traumas, all the outcomes in the goddamn world… Race almost wants to laugh at how fucking horrible everything has turned. At how perfectly fucking wrong it feels.
I don’t know who the fuck you are.
Get out.
He does.