Archive of Our Own

“I am an island. I am bloody Ibiza!” — Will

Before Hank was shipped off, Mum made him pack his rainbow jumper for the plane and a nut loaf for snack.

Will took him to get a haircut and tossed the nut loaf in the bin. He warned about the hazards of singing in class and said the Americans were more ruthless than the Brits.

“I haven’t done that since primary school,” Hank protested, remembering the pounding silence when he realized his own voice was rendering a cover of the Carpenters’ ‘Rainy Days and Mondays.’ He hadn’t known he was doing it at the time, but people are pretty unforgiving about that sort of thing.

Will eyed him for a moment, eyes widening slightly like they did when he was thinking something offensive and trying not to say it out loud. “You hummed something during that meeting on Sunday,” he said slowly. “Your voice cracked. I think it echoed. It was a bloody ear-sore.”

Hank thought back. “You mean at mass?”

“Yes.” Will aimed finger guns of success at him. “There.”

Hank despaired that he’d ever thought Will cool. “Those were the psalms. Everyone’s supposed to sing.”

Will shrugged. “Right.” He gestured for the barber to trim a bit more off the sides.

Hank watched his hair fall with a sense of detachment. The disappearance of an inch of hair wouldn’t rid him of his glasses or his vegan diet or his gawky new height, least of all the fact that he was British and being shipped off to fend for himself in the wilds of rural America.

Will eyed himself in the mirror, brushing his own carefully disheveled hair back a bit. “You should practice thickening up your accent. American girls go into a frenzy for it.”

“Sure,” Hank had agreed, because he had no knowledge of such things. He wished now he’d recalled the first time Will had given him girl advice.

Instead, he’d laid the accent on thick at gym on his first day of term and got a football in the face for it.

__

“…but that's life, isn't it? There's nothing I can do about it.” — Marcus

American schools didn’t seem to have proper infirmaries. They had little offices with beds and Red Cross signs plastered across cupboards and posters with dinosaurs telling you to brush your teeth. They smelled the same though, like antiseptic and sweat.

Though, the sweat mainly seemed to originate from the boy across from him. Hank was merely dripping blood all over the place.

Alex Summers sat on the opposite bed with his knees apart, arms across his chest, and his cut-off shirt displaying his stupid muscles for the world to see. It was like he had to show off how tough he was, as if it weren’t perfectly evident already from the blood clogging up the towel Hank held under his nose.

“You shouldn’t have tried to catch the ball with your face,” said Alex. There was a quality to his blank expression that made him seem strangely vacant rather than stoic.

Hank pressed the towel harder against his left nostril and didn’t reply. He fingered the crooked rim of his glasses.

Alex uncrossed his arms and began flexing his fingers by his sides. “I mean, you said you knew how to play.”

Hank had meant regular football. Of course he’d meant regular football. He’d said at the time, “Sure, I’ve played a few times back at home.” Home, as in England, where he hailed from.

The way Hank figured it, he’d been pegged with enough of those in primary school that he ought to have been able to deflect them the most easily of all other sports projectiles. It should have been obvious that he hadn’t meant American football. Turned out those were faster and harder and pointier than regular footballs.

Hank pulled the towel away to prod carefully at his nose. There was a painful scratch on the right side of the bridge where his glasses had cut into skin. “You knew what I meant,” Hank said under his breath, because he was apparently a masochist.

Alex’s hands froze over his knees. “I — ”

Then Vice Principal Shaw stepped in. He took in Hank, with his bloody face and shirt and towel, and Alex, with his cut-off tee and cracking knuckles. He appeared to sum up the situation correctly.

“Mr. Summers,” said Shaw with a put-upon sigh.

Alex rested his palms on his knees and sat back, as if in a yoga pose, calm, focused. His gaze was aimed resolutely at the wall over Hank’s left shoulder.

“This would be strike three.” Shaw peered over his glasses. Hank wondered if he could use his own lenses to work as an intimidation tactic in just that manner. “You do remember what that means?”

Hank didn’t. He hoped Shaw would say aloud.

After a prolonged silence, Shaw went on as if he hadn’t been waiting for a response. “I’m afraid we’ll have to call in your father to discuss the terms of your suspension.”

Surprised, Hank pressed the towel back to his nose too hard and had to stifle a shout. Both Alex and Shaw looked at him like an afterthought.

“It hurts worse than it looks,” he muttered.

Shaw raised a brow.

Alex resolutely stared at the wall over Hank’s shoulder.

Hank sighed.

“Though it’s really not that bad, Principal Shaw. An accident, really,” he said.

__

“I'll tell you one thing. Men are bastards. After about ten minutes I wanted to cut my own penis off with a kitchen knife.” — Will

Raven carried his books home.

“Aren’t I supposed to do that for you?” Hank asked. He wondered if he looked like a charity case, though he did feel a bit like one with his bruised nose and bloody shirt.

Raven turned to him, her hair slipping smoothly over her shoulder. She was the only girl he’d ever met who made him feel like standing straighter. She was tall enough not to be dwarfed by him, at the very least. For another, he was boarding with her family for his Erasmus exchange term, and she seemed to have adopted him as a younger brother for all that they were in the same year.

“If you saw yourself right now,” she said, squinting down the road, “you’d let me carry your bag too.”

Hank lightly pinched the bridge of nose where the worst of the swelling was. “I thought my glasses helped to cover the worst.”

She laughed and hit him with the stack of books. “They barely stay on your bloated face,” she said. Then she tilted her head to the side. “And — I think that’s Alex Summers over there, and he’s stalking you. Just a little bit.”

“Where?” Hank asked, whipping his head around. That only hurt his head, so he cradled his nose with a frustrated sound.

Raven dropped the books, but Hank was too busy trying not to act flustered or like his nose was fucking killing him to berate her for possible literary damage.

“Didn’t Nurse Rachette give you a pass to leave early?”

Hank glanced over his hands, which he held protectively over his nose.

Alex’s own hands were stuffed into his denims, and his shoulders were up around his ears. It was like he was trying to emphasize how broad and intimidating they were beneath that ridiculous cut-off tee.

“I had class,” Hank replied shortly.

“That’s what the pass is for, bozo,” Alex said. Then he looked strangely peeved, as if it was Hank’s own fault he’d been pegged in the face mid-day instead of after class let out.

“Hi, Summers. Didn’t see you there!” Raven said loudly. She was grinning in a way that, in only a few short days of making her acquaintance, Hank realized meant she was up to no good.

Alex looked at her, his expression smoothening out again. “Oh. Hey.”

Anxious to get away, Hank gestured to his spilled books. “Mind moving?”

“Oh,” Alex said again, stepping quickly back. But then Hank bent over to pick up Evolutionary Analysis, and Alex seemed to be trying to steal his books away, and then their heads collided.

Hank got a face-full of hard head covered in soft blond hair and nearly blacked out from the pain.

When he came to, he was sitting on the pavement. Raven was holding a cloth to his nose, Alex seemed to have lost his shirt, and Hank’s mouth tasted like copper.

“Oh my god. You hit me. Again,” he said incredulously.

“Calm down, Hank,” Raven said, taking his hand and pressing it to the cloth. “Summers picked up all your books. It’s not his fault you got in the way.”

Hank sputtered indignantly at the charming smile she threw in Alex’s direction.

“Look,” Alex said, raising his voice. “You shouldn’t have told Shaw that.”

“What? You maniac,” Hank sputtered. “You hit me in the face — again — because I didn’t report you properly for hitting me in the face the first time? Are you deranged?”

“No, I — ” Alex stood quickly, then looked down at them with a rapidly transforming face. “Yeah,” he said coldly. “That’s it exactly.”

Then he dropped the books on Hank’s shins and stalked off.

__

“You don't give a shit about anyone, and no one gives a shit about you!” — Marcus

“I think this is all just a big misunderstanding,” Raven said as she leaned next to his locker.

Hank carefully arranged his books in alphabetical order, and then in reverse alphabetical order, so he could pretend to ignore her and the stained shirt on the top shelf of his locker.

“No, seriously.” She nudged him with her hip. “I think he just wants to be your friend.”

“My friend,” Hank repeated dryly, staring at Developmental Psychology with skepticism. “Last night I had to place an international call to my mum to ask for new lenses. And then I had to explain why. And then I had to talk to her through Will’s video chat machine so she could see for herself my bruised shins and grotesquely disfigured face. And then Will laughed at me.” He turned away from his locker and met her bright expression with a scowl, which hurt, by the way, because of the being grotesquely disfigured. “And you’re telling me I suffered through all that because Alex Summers wants to be bestest ever pals?”

Raven laughed. “Got it in one.”

Hank shook his head and shrugged jerkily. “I’ve decided that you aren’t really my friend,” he said dismissively. “You just enjoy watching me suffer and squirm.”

Raven reached into his locker and pulled out the shirt. Pushing it at his chest, she said with a sweet smile, “What the hell did you think friendship meant?”

As they headed to class, he’d hoped she’d act as a buffer, or a shield, really, but as soon as they saw Alex, Raven saluted and headed off early to her own classroom.

Hank took a deep breath and adjusted his knapsack. Alex was loitering by the psychology room with a friend. He seemed the like waiting until the bell began to ring before heading in.

Hank approached as slowly as his long stride would allow. “Alex?”

Darwin waved. Alex straightened his shoulders. Hank thought, if that was an intimidation tactic, it was working quite well.

“How’s it going, Hank?” Darwin greeted. He was one of the friendliest people in the school, and he was not only captain of the track team and the football team, but president of the senior class.

“Hi,” Hank replied. Unsure of how to broach the subject, he stuffed the shirt in his pocket and shuffled from foot to foot.

Darwin’s smile didn’t falter, and he finally said, “Hey, so you’re a smart guy — Ms. Frost was really grilling you about the prereq topics yesterday.”

Hank nodded once, flushing slightly at the praise.

Alex appeared to be having some sort of fit with his arms.

Darwin expertly dodged his series of elbow jabs. “I was just talking to my buddy here, Alex — you know Alex, right? — and he barely made it through Intro. to Psych,” he went on. “He gets the concepts down better than anyone, but it’s just the terms we have to memorize and all that brings his grades down on the tests. I was thinking you could maybe help him out.”

Hank’s mouth dropped open slightly, and he wasn’t sure if it was more from the shock or the dismay.

“It’s just that I’m a bit tied up this year, with the school government and everything, or I’d really love to help,” Darwin said, shrugging modestly. Hank thought Darwin was one of the few people who could make such a gesture modestly. “You understand, right?”

At the irritation so obviously painted across Alex’s face, somehow Hank’s masochistic side thought now was obviously a good time to speak up without his consent. “Of course,” he said. “I guess I can do that.”

Darwin planted a warm hand on Hank’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. It was such a friendly gesture that, for a moment, Hank got over his dismay, even as Alex glared at the floor. “You’re a good guy,” Darwin said with a grin.

The bell rang. Darwin nodded and headed in.

Hank began to follow, but Alex blocked him. Hank looked down at the hand planted on his chest, then up at that once again expressionless face.

“Is that my shirt in your pocket?” Alex asked. When he looked up, he had an eyebrow raised.

Flushing, Hank fished it out and shoved it at him. “I couldn’t get all of the blood off it,” he said gruffly.

Alex lifted it and eyed the light brown splotch over the otherwise white collar.

“I don’t know why you thought it necessary to strip outdoors,” Hank said, feeling his face heat up. “Then again, I don’t really understand why you thought it necessary to head-butt my already injured nose.”

Alex’s face once more creased in a scowl. “104 Chase St., tonight at 7,” he said tersely, before turning away.

As Hank followed him into the classroom, he felt vaguely as if he’d been given an appointment for a duel.

__

“I was in some strange territory. Was I frightened? I was petrified.” — Will

For some reason, Raven had thought it necessary to invite her friends Angel and Sean over once she heard Hank had accidentally agreed to tutor Alex for psych class.

“Really. Alex Summers,” said Sean again with a full mouth. He was hoarding the silver tray full of small sandwiches. Hank didn’t honestly care though, because he felt a bit like puking. “Really.”

“Stop pouting, Hank,” Angel said as she rifled through his luggage. “I can feel the emo from over here, and it’s embarrassing for you.”

“I’m not pouting,” he said, looking quickly away.

Angel had truly spectacular leather knee-high boots over thin black tights with flower patterns. They were quite nice, really. It was the short skirt and her bending so far over that made him a bit uncomfortable, really. Sean didn’t seem to have any qualms about getting an eyeful though. And when Angel glanced around, she didn’t seem to mind either.

“You are,” Raven said. “You definitely are.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I think this is a good thing. Summers needs friends and so do you,” she added, poking him in the side.

“You’re my friend,” he protested meekly, glancing down at her blond hair.

“I’m your only friend,” she replied.

Hank glanced at first the quickly diminishing sandwich pile, then at Sean, who was nodding in agreement.

“And that’s because you’re living with me this year.” Raven lifted her head and looked at him earnestly. “On the other hand, Darwin is Alex’s only friend, because they’re foster-brothers. And when you look at it that way, you’re both in the same boat!”

“No,” Angel said, surfacing from his bag with his rainbow jumper, “when you put it like that, they sound like destined emo lovers from a Fall Out Boy song.” She waved the jumper around like a flag. “Please, please wear this to your tutoring date.”

“Dude, that’s an awesome sweater,” Sean said. Hank eyed the necklace and bracelet accessorizing Sean’s person, which looked to be made from some sort of plant, and felt mildly insulted.

Raven was laughing. “Oh, guys. You should have seen him actually wearing that in real life. Charles took me to pick him up from the airport, and even he was laughing before Hank walked up to us and he got all civilized again.”

Hank jumped up. “That’s my favorite jumper!” he protested, tugging it away.

“That’s my favorite jumper!” the others proclaimed, mimicking his accent.

Hank returned to the bed dejectedly, prompting Angel to say, “Emo face.” He scowled instead.

“Better,” Angel said. “Now you and Summers have matching angry mating faces.”

Hank plopped down onto the bed and stuffed a pillow over his face, wondering over the others’ laughter how awful it would be to smother himself to death.

__

“In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age.” — Will

When Charles and Raven took him to their manor, Hank had been too overwhelmed to continue feeling homesick or thrown by driving on the wrong side of the road.

Everything had seemed bright with their infectious affability, and all the curtains were thrown open to let in the sunlight. There were so many windows overlooking the expansive grounds, people bustling about to care for every inch of the household, most of which though seemed to remain untouched by company.

But then night came. Charles drove off back to uni. Raven stormed off to a friend’s house after a row with her mum.

And Hank was lost in what he now thought was likely the west wing of the manor, but he still wasn’t quite sure.

The house was just as grand in the dark, though like a museum – or perhaps more like a museum after hours, when the dead things lost what little life they’d gained from the crowds.

As the sun set behind 104 on Chase St., Hank thought this place was the complete opposite of the Xavier household.

Alex and Darwin's foster home was a squat two-story house on an acre of land. Whereas the manor was nestled in the woods on gated property next to other gated mansions, this house was wide open in a field alive with tall stalks of wheat and assorted livestock. It was loud and constantly moving even as the dark set in, and Hank almost felt welcome.

“You planning on standing there all night?”

Hank jumped. When he turned, Alex was leaning against the post of the open doorway. He was backlit by the lights within, and there was a tiny boy seemingly hooked to his leg, one arm snaked around the thigh with a small hand clasping at his trousers.

“Sorry,” said Hank, rubbing the back of his neck.

Alex didn't reply, merely leaned down to pick up the boy at his side before walking into the house.

The home's interior was just as warm-looking as its exterior. There were small, homemade items littering every open surface and picture frames of all sizes hung on the walls. Hank saw photos of Alex, Darwin and a number of other children of varying ages.

“Room,” Alex said sharply. “Now.” Hank looked over his shoulder, indignation at the tip of his tongue, but then Alex set the boy down and nudged him with the toe of his shoes. “Now, Damon. We need quiet.”

The boy planted his feet. “I’m quiet! Always!”

“What’d Ma say about lying?”

“I’m not!”

“I'll watch him.” A girl, recognizable from one of the photos with Darwin and Alex, stepped lightly down the steps. She looked to be only a couple of years younger than him. “He's going to watch my soaps with me and learn how to be one of the nice guys. Right, kid?”

“Yeah,” said Damon, voice defiant as he entangled his fingers in her dark brown curls. She winced over her fond smile when he tugged on her hair.

“Two to one. That means we get the living room this time,” said the girl.

Alex sighed loudly and snatched a backpack from the kitchen table. “Fine. Christ.”

When he stalked briskly out of the house, Hank turned to look at the girl in question.

“Hank, right?” Her grin was friendly full of braces. “That big baby — you’d best follow him out there. We call it his self-imposed solitary confinement,” she explained.

“Cranky,” said Damon.

"Right," said Hank. He nodded to them in thanks and jogged off after Alex.

By the time he finally caught up, he found himself out of breath and being locked into the barn. Alex seemed to be using a great deal of strength to pull the huge, weighty doors shut.

Hank didn’t have much experience with the outdoors, having grown up in the city with its smog and car horns and horde of obnoxious pedestrians, and the natural sounds here seemed so loud in comparison.

As well as infinitely more awkward and terrifying, considering the company he was keeping this evening.

For lack of anything better to do, he planted himself reluctantly down amongst the sparse spread of hay in the center clearing, setting his knapsack in his lap.

After shutting the doors with a creaking sound and a thump, Alex headed to a stall to fish out an old-fashioned type of lantern. Despite its decadent appearance, it had an electric bulb that turned on with a switch.

Alex brought it over and sat with his legs drawn up, arms crossed over his knees.

The comfort of the lamp’s glow allowed Hank to ignore Alex’s stare and relax enough to unzip his bag to draw out his study materials.

He cleared his throat. “Darwin said the memoriz — ”

“Darwin’s kind of a liar,” said Alex. His voice sounded strangely loud here in the barn with the rest of the world excluded behind those great doors.

“Um,” said Hank, holding a stack of freshly cut flashcards uneasily in one hand. When Alex didn’t explain further, Hank perused the blank faces of the cards so he wouldn’t have to look up. “So you don’t need — ” He haphazardly waved the cards around in question.

“Oh. No, those are OK,” Alex said, sounding slightly surprised. “I meant — Darwin could have helped me out. He doesn’t even have practice today or anything.”

Hank glanced up, shrugging uncertainly. “Then why’d he ask me to — ”

“Because I hit you in the face,” Alex replied with a shrug of his own. “Twice.”

Hank nodded slowly. “So he thought, ‘why don’t we let the new kid suffer more time in the company of his attacker?’ Right. Brilliant, that.”

Alex was frowning now, but his lips seemed to be going through a type of palsy.

Hank wondered if that’s what constituted Alex’s particular mode of repressing a smile or if he was about to be bitten for his cheek.

“Actually, yeah. Something like that.”

Silence grew on Hank’s end until Alex, who Hank thought could possibly sit in the same position for hours without expression, finally tapped the book on Hank’s lap. “We gonna do this or what?”

Confused by the show of amicable interaction, Hank shuffled the cards nervously and drew out a pen. “All right, then. Let the suffering commence. Do you have the list of vocab words?”

__

“And there I was — killing them softly with my song. Or rather, being killed. And not so softly either.” — Will

Because Hank’s life was always easy and comfortable, Alex’s foster mother arrived home just as they returned to the house and she invited him to dinner.

Hank was never able to think quickly on his feet, so he stuttered incomprehensively while Alex declared simply, “No.”

This of course meant that Ms. McTaggert — Moira — insisted he stay, and Hank’s masochistic side once again reared its head and said despite him, “I’d love to.”

Darwin was out somewhere or other (“So busy being president of the school,” said Moira loudly over the din of everyone preparing for supper. “That fucking liar,” said Alex under his breath.), which meant that Hank ended up penned in between Alex’s foster siblings. Damon kept clutching his sleeve with a grubby hand while the girl, Anais, beamed at him from his other side.

“We’re glad you could join us,” Moira said as Alex brought in boxes of pizza from the kitchen. “Alex never invites friends over.”

“Darwin’s over all the time,” Alex said, dropping the boxes on the table and sitting across from Hank.

“Darwin’s your brother,” Moira replied smiling affectionately at him.

Anais opened both boxes and took all the jalapeños. “Alex doesn’t have any friends,” she explained.

Hank looked with dismay at both open pizza boxes. They were slathered with sausages, pepperoni, ham, and other small bits of animal.

“Alex won’t have any sisters either if — ”

“Kids,” Moira scolded, cutting Alex off. As everyone dug in, she eyed him curiously. “Are you not hungry, Hank?”

“I’m — um.” He felt his face heat up with a doubtlessly glaring red flush.

“Oh yeah,” said Alex, his mouth full, pointing at Hank’s face. “You’re diseased or something right? Can’t eat meat?”

“No, it’s — I’m a vegan,” Hank replied, frowning across the table.

“Oh, dear,” Moira said. “I’m sure we could order — ”

“No, no. It’s fine, really,” Hank cut in, feeling horribly uncomfortable. “I’m sure it won’t kill me.” Probably.

He remembered with a climbing sense of dread, however, the one time Will had taken him to McDonalds on the sly and stuffed him full of Big Macs and soda. His mum had been furious, but Hank had thrown up for a decent enough period of time that she directed the majority of her ire at Will.

Shouldn’t have thought of that, he said to himself as he drew a pie slice onto his plate.

He meant to swipe the cheese and all the animal bits off of it, but four pairs of eyes were trained heavily on him.

He took a bit and, as he attempted to force his throat to remember how to swallow, he said, “Delicious.”

Damon clapped. Anais slipped another slice onto his plate. Alex sat back with a smile. It looked strange on his face, and for some odd reason, Hank found himself taking another bite, and another.

Things didn’t seem so bad, after that. Sure, there was an odd taste in his mouth that made him feel a bit queasy, but it wasn’t anything too terrible. Damon picked off the worst pepperoni bits and Anais talked enough for three families, and Alex — well, Alex ate an entire pizza on his own and watched Hank force himself through a second slice.

It was all very peculiar, but also strangely ordinary.

His hand ached because Alex made him write on all of the flashcards on his own, and his legs itched a bit from sitting on the hay, but it was all right, really.

Everything was warm and pleasant and not so horrible as to make Hank wish his mum would traverse across the pond to berate them all about slaughtered animals and their suffering.

Of course, before he was able to make his escape, he ended up vomiting in their quaint little kitchen.

__

“…because once you open your door to one person, anyone can come in.” — Will

At lunch the next day, Sean sat down across from Hank, his expression inquisitive and his eyes wide. “So you’re just hiding the bruises under that little sweater, right? Is there going to be some kind of court case?”

Hank looked at his brown and maroon jumper before regarding them all once more. “Come again?”

“Are you,” Sean said slowly, “going to be deported?”

Angel was smirking at Sean with an expression that was a bit too fond for Hank to feel comfortable with.

Raven bumped his shoulder with hers. “Cassidy’s looking for the evidence of your date yesterday. Though I specifically told him you made it back home last night with all of your limbs intact.”

Hank did his best to hide a grin. “I’m touched by your concern, Sean.”

“Oh, don’t let his questions fool you,” Angel said, taking a delicate sip from her chocolate milk carton. “He thought you’d either be: a) beaten to a pulp, or b) would turn into a slasher beast and dispose of Summers’ body somewhere.” She jerked her thumb at Sean. “Cassidy here has an overactive imagination.”

Hank watched as Sean slowly and steadily devoured his meatball sub. “Right.” He picked up his drink.

That was, of course, when somebody wacked him on the back hard enough that he spilled juice down his shirt front.

“Shit. Sorry.”

Hank sighed at the familiar voice and accepted the napkins Sean and Angel held out for him. “You know,” he replied easily as he mopped ineffectually at his shirt, “I’m actually coming to terms with the fact that being in your company means I will inevitably suffer some sort of difficulty in one way or another.”

When he looked over his shoulder, Alex was looking at him uncomprehendingly.

“It’s all right,” Hank clarified.

“Oh.”

There was a moment of silence during which everything became awkward. Hank noticed Alex was wearing a real t-shirt, with sleeves and everything, except his shoulders still looked a bit intimidating.

Sean stuffed a meatball in his mouth, Angel rested her chin on her hands, and Raven’s smile became like that of the Cheshire Cat.

Then Alex said abruptly, “You still coming over tonight?”

Hank had thought that was the plan, but all he said was, “I — ”

And then Alex cut him off because he obviously had no manners whatsoever. “Darwin’ll be home.”

Utterly confused, Hank shook his head, unclear about why that would matter when Alex insisted on sequestering them in that infernal barn.

Alex frowned. “And Moira bought all these vegetables and stuff for you.”

“No — yeah. I mean — I’ll be over. Thanks.”

Alex just nodded. “Good.”

For lack of anything better to do, Hank nodded back.

“Hey, Summers. Nice to see you,” Raven said loudly.

Alex looked away from Hank to take in his friends with a rather blank expression. Then he raised his eyebrows in what likely constituted ‘goodbye, everyone’ in Alex-speak, before turning and walking away.

When Hank went back to his meal, he saw that Raven was peering at him with her head tilted to the side, and Sean had focused once more on his meatball sub.

Angel sighed and sat back. “God,” she said in a bored voice. “Make out already.”

“Yeah,” Raven said slowly. “I take back what I said about him just wanting to be your friend.” She raised her brows up and down suggestively.

And for some reason, Hank blushed.

__

“He fancies you. he told me.” — Marcus

“Wait. What?” Hank set down his half of the flashcards on his knee to avoid defiling them with barn dirt. He realized after quite a few of these tutoring sessions that there was a lot less tutoring going on than off-topic conversation. But really, what?

Alex nodded. “Yeah. I definitely can’t understand a word you say.”

“What, am I thinking I’m speaking English and having my words come out in — what, Mandarin?”

Shrugging, Alex said, “Might as well be.”

Hank despaired.

He’d thought he’d been fitting in rather nicely here. The school had a Vegan Club, Raven forced her friends to be his friends, and all that running away from bullies back home meant he was actually quite fast, which made Darwin recruit him onto the track team. After practices now, Hank headed over to the farmhouse to study with Alex.

And now, apparently it turned out he was entirely incomprehensible and was probably just fanaticizing that his life was finally on track.

Alex slugged his shoulder in a way that Hank was coming to realize was likely a form of offering a friendly gesture, but it actually really hurt. He pursed his lips and tried not to let it show, because Raven said he ought to be friendlier. She also said that Alex was perhaps as socially stunted as Hank was, which made Hank think that, yes, perhaps he really ought to try harder.

“Use your words, Alex. Not your fists,” Hank said lightly, shuffling the flash cards.

There was that surprising grin again, which Hank still wasn’t used to. It seemed to entirely transform Alex’s face, made him look like a little boy. It almost made Hank feel like laughing back, but he wasn’t sure that would be taken too kindly.

Alex slugged him again, harder, then waved the take out bag at him.

Rubbing his shoulder, Hank finally set aside the flash cards onto his bag. “You know, Summers,” he said, “you’re really not entirely awful, deep down in there.” He reached for the proffered vanilla milkshake, took a sip, and stuffed a hot chip in his mouth to accompany it. “Deep, deep down in there.”

Alex squinted at him while he unwrapped his burger. “Bozo,” he said.

Only mildly insulted, Hank grinned brightly and laughed internally at the mustard stuck above Alex’s top lip. It had been very nice of Moira to get them take out. She and Darwin had attempted to fashion together a vegan meal just for Hank, but it turned out that gourmet cooking was not one of Darwin’s many strong suits. They’d ended up sending Anais to the barn to hand-deliver them two bags full of fast food.

It really was quite delicious, the ice cream and chips combination. Raven had suggested it. She and Angel might have also laughed and mentioned ‘phallic symbols at every opportunity,’ but by now Hank was becoming rather accustomed to their non sequiturs and constant laughter at his expense.

“I mean that sincerely, Alex. Really. Not entirely awful at all. Especially when you ply me with ice cream and chips.”

Alex swallowed and pointed at his face with two fingers. It looked like an aggressive gesture, but Hank forced himself to relax and figured everything Alex did merely seemed aggressive because of his muscles. He had quite a lot of them.

“See,” said Alex, “that’s what I was saying earlier. When you talk really fast like that, your words get all stuck together. And what the hell are ‘chips’?”

“What?”

“Yeah. If you just spoke English like normal people,” Alex went on, stealing some of Hank’s chips, “I wouldn’t have played catch with your face.”

Hank couldn’t tell if he was more upset about the stolen chips or the bit about how he apparently didn’t speak properly. “These are chips,” he said, going with the former and waving the food demonstratively. “These bits of sustenance you’re depriving me of to feed your humongous muscles.” He stuffed his mouth with the last of the chips and adjusted his glasses to cover his embarrassment over mentioning said muscles. Fuck.

Alex just smirked.

Then something hit Hank. This time it was yet another surprising thought, which he wasn’t sure was any better than a physical projectile. “Wait. What do you mean? About ‘playing catch’?”

Alex tipped his head and replied, “Darwin keeps saying I bullied you on your first day here.”

Hank stared at him incredulously. “Because you did.”

“I didn’t.”

“No, you definitely did! Look at my nose!” Hank said, pointing. It was still slightly bruised, but no longer awful, really. He just kind of liked rubbing in it Alex’s face because it made him uncomfortable. Hank thought it was good for Alex to feel uncomfortable about such things.

Shrugging in reply, Alex frowned into his ice cream. “Oh, that. I said I was sorry.”

“OK — that you did not do. I’d remember. I’d be dead from the shock, most likely.”

“Fine. Sorry.”

Alex didn’t seem to be well accustomed to apologies, so Hank gave a jerky shrug of his own and grinned with all of his teeth. Then he shut his mouth over his straw, because he’d read somewhere that you weren’t supposed to bare your teeth at aggressive animals. “It’s fine,” he said around a slurp.

Then Alex said abruptly, “Hey.”

Glancing up, Hank said easily, “Hello.”

Again, that grin. This time, Hank couldn’t help but grin back.

“It’s Friday.”

“I don’t know how to reply to that. Yes?”

This time, he got a laugh. Hank was so shocked that he didn’t even make a crack about the fact that Alex was carefully mussing his hair back with a hand, just like Will did when he was being conscious about his appearance.

“Yeah,” Alex went on. “So there’s a party at nine at this kid Sean Cassidy’s house. You want to go?”

“Sean Cassidy?” repeated Hank, indignation rising within him. “I know him!”

“That’s good.”

“No, I mean. I didn’t hear about any party!”

Alex frowned. “Do you go to parties? I wasn’t sure — with your sweaters and stuff.”

“What’s wrong with my jumpers?”

“Nothing,” Alex said, and finished up his burger in one big bite.

“All right then.”

“What?”

“I mean, all right,” Hank said again, wondering if that awful feeling climbing up his neck and onto his face was a blush appearing again for no reason whatsoever. “All right to the party. Should I go home and change out of my jumper, since it so obviously offends everyone in the universe?”

“No, yeah,” Alex said, shaking his head slightly, that spasm running over his lips again as if he might be either repressing a smile or ready to bite Hank’s face. “It’s fine. Your sweaters are OK.”

“Oh. Good then,” Hank replied, and he was awfully sure that, this time, he was blushing to the roots of his hair.

__

“Yeah — you've heard about sex, right? It is kind of a big deal.” — Will

The thing about Hank was that he hadn’t had many girlfriends, let alone boyfriends. He’d only had the one girlfriend in primary, who hadn’t actually been his girlfriend at the time, per se. His strange crush had eventually petered out when he realized he didn’t really want to have her as his girlfriend so much as have her as a friend, period. He hadn’t had many of those either.

She had truly sharp hair, was really clever, and was about twice his size because he’d been a bit of a shrimp back then.

Will had said at the time, “It just looks a bit more like owner and pet than boyfriend and girlfriend,” and thinking back on it fondly, Hank couldn’t help but agree, really.

It was perhaps that he had a type. He was taller now, taller than most people, and there was something about others who weren’t intimidated by his height that maybe got to him.

Now, as he struggled out of his jumper, because it smelled like vomit, with Alex holding him steady with one large, firm hand on his elbow because Hank was about to fall over, he thought, yes, yes it really did get to him. Possibly also lots of muscles.

Hank wondered if Will would approve, now that Hank was taller. Raven certainly did, at any rate. When Alex had driven them up to Sean’s, she’d tried to force him out of his jumper but had given in when Hank noted that Alex didn’t mind them.

“God,” Raven had said. “You would find the only tacky sweater fetishist at school.” Then she’d given him a red cup full of watery beer and told him to gain some liquid courage and make it happen.

Sean and Angel had found him then and plied him with more beer, and Hank now thought he’d caught up too quickly as he continued to struggle out of his jumper.

“This — this is the second time I’ve puked in front of you,” he said, voice muffled by said jumper.

His head finally made it through the collar, and he realized that Alex giving him a hand with that was the only thing that made it possible.

“First time you’ve actually puked on me though.”

“This could be true,” Hank replied, eying him carefully. Alex didn’t actually seem too upset by this incident.

“No, it’s totally — ”

“However, if you think about it,” Hank said over him, swallowing heavily, “it’s your own fault.”

Alex balled up the jumper and wiped his hands with it. When he straightened, he looked taller than Hank, which was a new sensation. It might have been because Hank was hanging over his knees, but he didn’t analyze that too closely.

“You are the only person in the world who uses the word ‘however’ when drunk,” said Alex, swinging an arm around him and effectively locking his neck in a chokehold.

Hank struggled, but he merely ended up being swung around and stumbling over his long legs. Alex laughed. Hank sputtered. “Ugh. I will not apologize for being literate.”

“No one asked you to, bozo,” said Alex, tugging on Hank’s hair.

Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt at all. Hank peered up at him curiously. Alex let him go.

Hank steadied himself on Alex’s shoulder. “Why are we outside?”

Alex shrugged, but he didn’t quite do it roughly enough to dislodge Hank’s hand. “Cassidy kicked you out — for puking everywhere.”

“So,” Hank said loudly, suddenly, for no reason at all as he looked at his vomit-covered jumper in Alex’s hands and thought about how Alex had said they weren’t so bad after all. “I don’t like girls.”

“OK, random,” said Alex, shrugging again.

Hank pulled his hand away. “No. No, I mean,” he paused, trying not to puke again. “I mean I like blokes, and if you’re going to be nice to me all of sudden — which is really weird, by the way — and then turn into an arse again once you find out, I’d rather just get it over with before my nose heals completely,” Hank said in a rush. “So there.”

Alex stared at him.

“Oh great!” Hank exclaimed, adjusting his glasses because they’ve obviously failed in allowing him to see such important things. “You are good-looking and an ace footballer and beginning to act like less of a gigantic arse, which clearly means you must be a homophone. And I knew Raven and her stupid friends were just winding me up! Wonderful.”

Alex stared at him. “I don’t — what? Homophone?”

“Phobe!” Hank cried, exasperated. “Phobe! You know what I meant!”

“I didn’t!” Alex yelled back, spreading his arms out. “I can’t understand what you’re saying right now! Speak fucking English!”

“I am speaking bloody fucking English!” Hank yanked his jumper out of Alex’s hands. “I’m fucking British! I fucking speak fucking English better than you!”

“Oh my god. Stop yelling,” Alex said. “You’re freaking out and drunk and saying you like people and hate people or something and — ”

“I’m not!” Hank yelled. He stepped forward and placed his hands on Alex’s face and — it was stubbly and soft all at once and his jaw had really great lines under his palms and — kissed him.

But then Alex jerked backwards and Hank jerked back in response, and then Alex bent his head forward and ended up banging his forehead into Hank’s nose, which caused all the blood to start gushing.

“Fucking shit,” Alex swore, staring at him.

It was a good thing Hank’s jumper was already ruined with all the vomit, because adding blood to the mix didn’t really seem to matter, after that.

Because then he ran off.

__

“No, no. You've always had that wrong about me. I really am this shallow.” — Will

At school the following Monday, Hank still felt like he was recovering from his little bender at Sean’s party.

He set his head down on his desk and avoided looking at anyone. Of course, Raven’s hair fell over his shoulder, immediately recognizable by its shine and the citrus scent.

“Morning,” she said.

“Hi,” he said.

“Just because you can’t see anyone doesn’t mean we can’t all see you.”

He turned his head to the side and looked at her. “Thanks for that.”

“You should just go talk to him,” Raven said, petting his hair.

“I don’t know whom you’re referring to,” he replied.

She began tugging on his hair, which hurt enough that he was forced to look up. The bell rang. Alex and Darwin walked in just before the sound ceased.

When Alex glanced his way, Hank hurriedly bent over his desk and pretended to clean his lenses.

Raven sighed and moved to her own desk.

__

“My life is made up of units of time. Buying CDs - two units. Eating lunch - three units. Exercising - two units. All in all, I had a very full life. It's just that it didn't mean anything.” — Will

“Hey, McCoy. Catch!”

Hank turned in time to have a football slam right into his temple.

Alex sure had impeccable aim most of the time. It must’ve been an off day, since the ball missed Hank’s nose.

When he picked himself off the track tarmac, the football had bounced lightly away and Alex was running back to practice. On the other end of the field, Hank saw Darwin shooting him a surprisingly dark look and had to turn away.

The rest of his run was strangely uncoordinated. It could’ve been due to a mild concussion from the football, or it could’ve been the moments his gaze drifted back to the football pitch that made him stumble over his legs every so often.

That evening, Raven tutted over his scraped knees and palms and introduce him to a site called Fuck My Life to make him feel better about his life, and when Sean and Angel came over, they tried to pretend they hadn’t totally hooked up at the party last Friday.

All in all, things seemed to be back to normal.

__

“ I mean, he's a special — very, very special — boy, and he's got a special soul, and I've wounded it.” — Fiona

“If you feed them any more of that stuff, you might kill them.”

Surprised out of a daze, Hank nearly toppled into the pond behind the school.

Darwin laughed and steadied him with a hand to his shoulder before plopping down, the brown summer grass crackling beneath him as he made himself comfortable. “Cafeteria food isn’t healthy for people, let alone unassuming geese,” he explained.

Hank looked down at the hard cafeteria bread in his hands. He’d been sequestering himself in his room at the manor, so he hadn’t made himself a take-away lunch, and the school system didn’t much cater to vegans. He therefore had the loaf with a few packets of ketchup in his lap.

“I killed a duck once,” Hank replied for lack of anything better to say. “With my mum’s nut loaf.”

Darwin raised a brow. “Ducks are allergic to nuts?”

Hank couldn’t help smiling a little bit at that. “Just rock-hard loaves of vegan bread, apparently,” he said.

Darwin just grinned back. It was quiet for a moment then, but for the muffled din of the other students in the cafeteria. It was too hot to be eating outside, but Hank wasn’t really in the mood to interact with other people. “You are a little weird, aren’t you?” Darwin asked slowly.

Hank sighed. “I see you’ve been talking to Alex.”

“You might have heard, but we’re kind of brothers. Who live together.” To take the edge off the comment, Darwin bumped his shoulder with his own. “And he never really said that.” He paused. “He’s doing really well in Psych, by the way. Or was.”

“Not anymore?” Hank asked, surprised.

“Not really. See, he kind of lost his tutor.”

Hank blew out a breath and rested his chin on his knees. “Are you trying to guilt trip me into tutoring? Again? I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you, because you kind of rule the school with the friendliest and strongest iron fist in history — that’s inclusive of Stalin, yeah? — but you’re a bit of a manipulative arse.”

Darwin laughed loudly. “Man, Raven is right. Subtlety is totally lost you, McCoy. I think we all figured you were playing hard to get, because you have an accent and are smart and all and were probably too good for us, but you’re seriously a little out of it, aren’t you?”

Hank stared at him. “Hard to get?”

“Christ,” Darwin replied with another laugh. “OK. I’m going to spell this out for you, and if you tell my brother we had this talk, I’ll dump your body in the pond.” Hank leaned away from him, causing Darwin to wave his hand in a dismissive gesture. “The thing is, Alex can hold his liquor like a champ.”

Hank made an awful, strangled sound. “That — is not what I was expecting you to say. What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s just — so we were all kind of spying on you guys outside,” Darwin said, ignoring Hank’s second, terrifically embarrassing sound. “At the party. And you ran off, right? I think you might’ve sent Alex the wrong message, there, being a sloppy drunk and running off before you saw the painfully obvious look on his face. And tell me if I’m wrong, but the message you meant to send was that you want you want in my brother’s pants.”

At that, Hank ended up choking on his own spit. It took some really bruising force on Darwin’s part as he patted Hank’s back before he could actually form a coherent reply. “Those are perhaps not the words I’d have chosen,” he said finally.

“I’m summarizing here.”

“Ah, fuck,” Hank said, dropping his forehead onto his knees, blocking out the sunlight. He coughed pathetically, wishing Raven were there to hug him and hide him from the world with her shining hair. “This means I ought to go talk to him, about feelings and stuff, doesn’t it?”

Darwin patted him on the back, and though it wasn’t as hard as Alex’s usual, it still rather hurt. Hank tried not to make a pained sound. “Got it one,” Darwin said.

Hank sighed, wondering what Will would say about this mess Hank had gotten himself into this time. He figured it probably wouldn’t be anything good.

__

“Every man is an island. I stand by that. But clearly some men are island chains. Underneath, they are connected.” — Will

When Hank walked into the cafeteria with Darwin, Raven, Sean, and Angel all craned their heads around to smile at him. He thought their expressions were meant to be encouraging, but they actually made him feel a little nauseous because they seemed rather expectant, as if a truly great show was about to begin.

And wasn’t it just like Hank’s life, to be put right up front and center for the students to laugh at. Last time, Will had gotten an apple core thrown at his head.

Raven nodded toward where Alex was walking to the trash bins. Darwin gave him one of his athletic shoves, which almost sent Hank sprawling, but he pin-wheeled his arms a bit and recovered without incident.

“Hey, Alex,” Hank said, when he was near. He gingerly tapping the boy’s shoulder.

Alex turned abruptly, his tray landing face forward on Hank’s shirt.

These sorts of situations really should have stopped surprising Hank at this point, but he wasn’t a forward thinker in the best of circumstances, so he stared at the spaghetti noodles and sauce dripping down his front and onto his shoes with despondent disbelief.

“Brilliant,” he said.

Alex eyed the mess with an impassive expression. “I would say sorry, but — ”

“No, it’s all right,” Hank said, cutting him off. “It’s just, I think I’m the one who’s supposed to apologize, here.” He caught the tray when it slipped off his shirt and held it awkwardly, self-consciously aware of the audience they were beginning to attract. He drew a breath. “Um. So, I’m sorry.”

Alex shook his head, and for a moment Hank thought all would be well, but then the boy spoke. “We’re not talking.”

“But — ”

Alex raised his brows and stepped forward, and Hank resolutely held his ground. He’d learned over the past few weeks, while tutoring and going to class and slowly becoming less intimidated and more in — like — with the guy, that Alex came across as cold and intimidating but was really neither, except for the intimidating bit.

It was the muscles, Hank had decided long ago, but it wasn’t on purpose, anyway. So he stood there, and Alex stepped closer, and Hank felt the edge of the tray press into his stomach from the pressure of Alex leaning threateningly in his space.

“Look — OK, just wait,” Hank said, gripping Alex’s arm to hold him steady

He tried his best not to focus on how firm it was and how he was perhaps getting spaghetti sauce on Alex shirt, and tried to focus instead on looking Alex directly in the face. That didn’t help his concentration either, though, because Alex’s expression seemed to be warring between looking unfairly attractive and terror-inducing.

“I said — ”

“You just — you caught me off guard,” Hank explained in a rush. “At Sean’s party, I mean. It was like you pegged a football at my head, except it was your head that time, and all for my trying to kiss you. I thought you were committing a hate crime against me for coming onto you. Honestly. My nose is bruised all over again.”

Alex stopped trying to pull his arm away. Hank had the sneaking suspicion that if Alex truly had wanted to escape, all he’d have had to do was knock Hank over with a light shove. The thought gave him a dash of courage. Although, it may actually just have been the adrenaline — like that stimulated just before a disastrous car crash.

“I was just surprised,” Hank said, shrugging jerkily. “If my nose hadn’t started bleeding and the others hadn’t forced me to drink all that disgusting American beer earlier, I reckon I’d have stuck around longer to give it another go — um — after realizing you were actually trying to kiss me back. If you wanted to still kiss me, that is, because I’d just puked and all, and it maybe would have been a bit disgusting.” He paused. “Also, I think the alcohol may have contributed to the inordinate amount of blood. My jumper was ruined.”

“Christ,” said Alex flatly. “You are so weird.”

Hank stared, unsure about how to take that. With Alex, it was a bit hard to tell whether he was trying to compliment or offend you with his insults.

He did, however, realize it was the former when Alex stepped forward and kissed him, right there, in the middle of the cafeteria.

This time it was less a blow to the face than one to the back of the head. And to the gut, because the tray pressed against Hank’s stomach and kind of forced the breath out of his chest. At least, that’s what Hank thought caused that sensation.

He felt drunker than the last time they kissed, a lot warmer even though he hadn’t worn a jumper that day, because he seemed to ruin his own and others’ clothing whenever around Alex.

Not that Hank minded, really. Not that he’d mind losing a lot more clothing sometime in the future, but preferably not in front of the entire student body in the grotesque and highly unsanitary school cafeteria.

Somehow the tray disappeared, and in its place, Hank felt then the firmness of Alex’s torso against his own. It wasn’t the firmness of it that caught his attention, though, but the warmth of it, through their shirts, despite the artificial cold blast of air from the school’s cooling system.

When Alex let him go, Hank perhaps forced himself closer, if only to remain steady, because he was embarrassed and had also just had an amazing kiss, and also because Alex was grinning at him in a way he hadn’t really done before.

“You know you’re a bozo, right?” Alex asked. “Like, the biggest one I’ve ever met.”

It was like Alex couldn’t seem to see everyone staring, most of them laughing too, or hear the catcalls and whistles. Or maybe he didn’t care, which suddenly made everything else seem to fade away for Hank too.

And when Hank said, “I know. I’m glad,” he found he was fighting with his own lips to speak around the hugest grin he’d ever felt on his face.

He might have heard Angel saying, “Oh my god, fucking finally,” and that was maybe Shaw’s voice reprimanding her for her language and saying this was a major PDA violation, but Alex was laughing, and Hank was laughing, and then he was being kissed again.

He didn’t even mind that Alex’s nose was pushing against his own bruised one – and that hurt — and he didn’t mind that their shirts were likely stained to the point of being irreparable, and he didn’t mind that they were slipping on the linoleum floor a bit due to the spilled sauce.

Because things seemed pretty much back to normal again, but just a little better. He thinks Will would probably approve of this particular kind of mess.

__

Fin