Archive of Our Own ^beta

Objectively, North Wake is a fine school. Colloquially sure, there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s also what those old writers would call fine in the sense that it’s fancy. Everything is new and refurbished and expensive-smelling. The walls aren’t stained and the tiled floor is polished. They have a metal disc embedded in the floor in the main entryway that has the school motto written in Latin and a crest that doesn’t mean anything to Nathan when he spots it. Seems fancy, though, and it probably means that this school has some pedigree that’s supposed to make it great to go here, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t really care.

He still doesn’t want to be here.

The move, he knows, was necessary and inevitable. But it still feels like being pulled out of a movie before the climax, before the resolution and without any degree of care. He’s in his senior year for god’s sake. They couldn’t have timed it better? They couldn’t have postponed or even...pre-poned? Is that a word? Whatever. Couldn’t they have moved any time other than the middle of the fall semester? He knows how this works. The transition is over. Even freshmen have started to figure things out by this point. He’ll be the odd man out. It’ll be uncomfortable and it’ll suck and it won’t get any better because by the time he gets used to how things work, it’ll be Christmas vacation, which means finding his legs again after the break all over again once the second semester starts.

He wanted to throw a tantrum when mom came to get him up this morning. Please don’t make me go, mama, the other kids will laugh at me. I won’t know anyone and I’ll have to sit alone at lunch. He hadn’t actually tried it, knowing it would only look comical and Mom would give him that Look she has. He’s a big boy, tall and long-limbed despite how small he feels on the inside right now. He’d gotten up without complaint.

Now he’s here, though. It’s a new and unfamiliar world. He’d been here once before, when he was going through enrollment paperwork with Robert in Principal Smith’s office. But the hallways had been empty then, had seemed wider and taller and had given him space to breathe. Now the halls are full of people shuffling from class to class. He’s not sure if he should call it shuffling, though. There’s so much energy here; it seems like a really nice place to go to school.

Gah, it’s hard to wallow in misery when there’s so much innate optimism trying to push its way to the surface of his mind. He’s not a downer, and he never has been. He’s Nathan Allan, sunshine boy and finder of silver linings. It’s never been more annoying. Can’t his own brain just let him be emo for once? Just for a bit. Just to tamp down the anxiety he feels crawling its way up his gut and into his chest as he makes his way to the locker he’d been given, one hand curled tight around his backpack strap like the handrail on a bus that’s going sixty on the highway. Just hang on, just hang  in there. Get to your destination and everything will be fine.

And, of course, it is. He makes it to class without bumping into anyone or getting too lost, he’s on time and his first period teacher doesn’t make him introduce himself by standing up. He even smiles when he talks to her, gives a slight nod to the guy in the seat next to his in the back of the room, and gets a friendly wave in response. All is well, except in the ways that it isn’t.

He makes it through three periods without conflict. They blur together easily considering he spends each one doing the awkward shuffle of collecting coursework and notes and catching up on things he needs to know. He even talks to a girl who seems nice enough in AP Gov and accepts graciously when she offers to send him copies of her notes. It’s still awkward, because of course it is, but it isn’t awful. It really isn’t, except in the ways that it is.

By the time Nathan makes it to the cafeteria for lunch--just to find a table, he’d brought his own food--his cheeks hurt from smiling and his chest feels hollow. He’s already ready for the day to be over and it hasn’t even been four hours.

And of course, this would be the time for autopilot to fail him. The hallways had been overwhelming because they were crowded and seemed too small to hold the bustling stream of manic energy that surged off the  student body as a whole; the cafeteria was no different, except that it was also overwhelmingly large. The ceiling was high up and made of glass, but that did absolutely nothing to assuage the immediate sensation that overcame him upon walking in--it was the sense that he was very small and very exposed, and that he was entering an established flow of movement and action that everyone understood except for him. It made his stomach turn, but there was nothing really to do about it except to find a table to sit at and keep his head down, pretending that the ceiling wasn’t looming in a poor imitation of the sky above.

So he does. He sits at an empty table and pulls out his lunch, which is nothing more complicated than a ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. In the more unreasonable parts of his mind, a flash of worry crops up that maybe he’s doing the wrong thing, like maybe the lunch tables are assigned somehow without his knowing. Maybe there’s a group of friends who normally sit at this table who will ask him to move and stare as he re-packs his lunch box to go sit against a wall somewhere. He takes a tentative bite of his sandwich anyways, trying to convince himself that that’s crazy. That would be crazy. Nobody would do that because that’s something a crazy person does, and he doesn’t need to worry about it.

(He does anyways.)

It doesn’t help that just a moment later, he feels the weight of someone’s gaze and turns around to see someone approaching. It’s a guy with long-ish, deep brown hair and an oversized  purple hoodie holding a lunch box in one hand and a gray backpack in the other as he comes closer. They don’t exactly make eye contact, but he can tell the guy sees him, and that he knows he’s been spotted in return.

In moments, the guy is standing right in front of Nathan, and he actually hazards a bit of eye contact. His eyes are a lighter brown than his hair. He has a thin face and long eyelashes, and his hair curls just slightly at the ends. If Nathan wasn’t a hair’s breadth from panic, he might’ve allowed his body to dedicate just a bit of its energy to feeling something like a flicker of attraction start up in his belly. As it is, he keeps the impulse firmly locked away in the land of gay repression where it belongs.

The guy opens his mouth and Nathan has to fight even harder to keep the gay panic from rising up when he hears the lilting voice that comes out, soft in a promising way. “Mind if I sit?” is all he says. Nathan shakes his head, gestures loosely with one hand, and pulls his backpack off the table and onto the bench seat beside him. The other guy sits not quite at the other side of the table, but not exactly next to him either. When he sets his lunchbox down, Nathan lets his eyes follow his hands, and he notices that his nails are painted a deep forest green that stands out against the paleness of his hands. His mouth twitches at the corner in spite of himself.

“You’re new, right?” the guy says. He pulls a container of pasta salad out of his lunchbox and pops the top quietly. Nathan nods.

“Yeah,” he hears himself say. It sounds cheerful, but it doesn’t feel real. He feels a charming smile start to pull at the skin of his cheeks uncomfortably. “Just started today.” Other Guy nods, shifts, and Nathan realizes his crossed his legs under the table. Looks promising. He takes another bite of his sandwich.

“My name’s Ben, by the way,” Other Guy says, sifting through his food with a fork. Nathan gives a nod and swallows.

“Nathan,” he replies. “Are you a senior?”

Ben smiles, and for a second Nathan is taken aback by the warmth of it. It’s a kind smile, not like the one on his own face--it looks real. “Yeah, I’m in your first period, but I sit on the other side of the room so it’s not surprising if you didn’t notice. Can I see your schedule?”

Oops , Nathan thinks as he fishes the paper out of his bag. Good thing he’s nice .

“Oh cool,” Ben says softly, eyes casting over the page quickly. Nathan tries not to stare. “We have art and English together, too.” He goes back to his lunch, and Nathan takes license to do the same. Is he doing this right? He has to wonder what this looks like from the other guy’s perspective. He hasn’t been on the receiving end of this spiel in a long time.

“That’s cool,” he says. Is it? “You a big artist?”

The answer, of course, is yes. Ben pulls out a binder to show him a flier for an upcoming student art show. At that moment, Nathan notices the little rectangular sticker affixed to the front cover of it, striped with yellow, white, purple, and black. Oh, whoops . He pretends not to feel a flush creeping up his neck as Ben assures him that it’ll be really fun, there’ll be snacks and loads of student artists there to show off their work, but quiet too and not too crowded.

Nathan’s mouth quirks a little at that, and Ben’s eyes soften. He-- they? They lower their voice and explain that Nathan doesn’t look like he’s up for a big intro to student life here, like pep rallies or football games. “This’ll be chill, though,” they say. “Pretty low-key by comparison.” And something in Nathan’s chest swells just the slightest bit at that. It’s friendly, yes, and many people have been friendly today. But this is different--this is better . It doesn’t just feel like social convention, or like something they’re doing out of obligation. This feels like kindness, genuine and warm and more considerate than Nathan would have ever expected to encounter in high school, let alone on the first day.

“That sounds cool,” he says. His tongue trips over the word cool because it really wants to say nice and lovely and a number of other words that feel too dramatic to say upon first meeting. He sits a little straighter in his seat and catches Ben’s eye. It doesn’t feel nearly as dire, though Ben still looks away first. Nathan tries not to feel too strongly about the way their hair falls into their face with just a slight movement. It’s unbearably cute.

They talk more, after that. Ben tells him about moving to North Wake during sophomore year, how one of the teachers currently on lunch duty is their brother-in-law, how they live with him and their sister in a neighborhood that’s not too far from school, how Nathan should try to leave lunch about five minutes early to beat the rush of traffic since his next class is on the other side of campus. Nathan feels his nerves subside as Ben talks him through lunch, occasionally offering bits of advice and subtle encouragement around bites of cold pasta. Just before the time he ought to leave, according to Ben, he even manages the courage to ask after their pronouns, which earns him a small smile as Ben tilts their head to the side just slightly and responds, “They/them. Thanks for asking.”

And Ben is lovely enough to walk him most of the way to class, only splitting off once they’re sure that Nathan won’t have an issue finding the science lab down a long, straight hallway. “I’ll see you in English, you can sit next to me if you want to,” they say before parting ways. They clutch at the strap of their backpack with one hand, using the other to push a lock of hair behind one ear. Nathan allows his heart to skip exactly one (1) beat before insisting that it stays on track.

“Thanks,” he says. He hopes his tone gets across all there is in that one word. Thanks for everything. thanks for your kindness. Thanks for talking to me and staying and for looking me in the eye with a metaphorical hand extended. Thanks for walking me to class.

He watches Ben walk away, losing them quickly in the sea of students and faculty that flood the halls as the period changes. For possibly the first time ever, he looks forward to AP English.