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Leo blinked bleary eyed at the teacher droning on and on, then around the room for something to keep him from literally dying of boredom. His gaze landed on Markus, and peeked over the other boy’s shoulder at what he was doing. He then glanced back to the front of the class and snickered. “Creeper.”
Markus belatedly tried to cover up his sketchbook. “What? It’s for art class.”
“You’re turning that in for art class?”
“…His socks have fish on them.” Ever since the incident at the principal’s office, Connor had started wearing some really wild socks. Maybe it was just because he had Connor's shoe from their last encounter in his bag (he really needed to give that back when he plucked up the courage) that he noticed. It wasn't creepy. They weren’t usually visible, but when Connor straddled the Biology classroom’s stools, his perfect dress shoes hiked up on the foot rests, Markus just caught the flash of color peeking out under the cuff of his slacks. Markus couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to draw it: the rangy arch of his back, the fade in his hair, all his perfect boring clothes all done in shades of gray…and the colorfully-besocked ankles. Markus did some highlights around the pink and blue fish with colored pencil. The Victorians they were learning about in History class had it right. The curve of Connor’s lateral malleolus, which the teacher was lecturing on at this very moment, was frankly obscene.
Okay maybe he was a little bit creepy.
Leo rolled his eyes and despaired for Markus’ soul. Of course Connor was unaware of the semi-familial drama unfolding behind him and flaunted his socks, just for himself. His missing shoe had been entirely forgotten, since Amanda bought all his shoes for him and he had identical pairs at home. However, after the incident at the principal's office, he'd bought several weeks worth of colorful socks from the specialty shop that was on his bike route to school, and Amanda was none the wiser. But he had a plain pair in his bag to put on when he got home. Maybe it wasn’t Markus’ brand of rebellion but who cared. Markus probably didn’t even remember him.
Markus, however, spent all day trying to get Connor’s attention to compliment his socks, give his shoe back, and get Leo to stop calling him a creep. He tried to catch Connor at lunch but it appeared Connor spent his lunch hour in an extra-dimensional space. Markus casually strolled by the specialty sock shop after school, but knowing Connor and his foster mom, he probably did his illicit sock trading at midnight, in cash.
Or maybe he just didn’t remember Markus and had his own life to live that did not revolve around a delinquent he barely talked to once. Which was fine, totally… totally fine…
“What made you feel alive today?” Hank asked while they were all at dinner. Hank made sure all his foster kids always had dinner together (at least as often as you could with a house full of teens). It was probably more depressing the way Hank saw this daily question, but Markus saw it as a great philosophical conversation starter. Not so today.
Leo said, “Connor’s socks.” Markus kicked him under the table, and Leo kicked him back.
“Hey hey hey!” Hank growled. “Not at the table. Who’s Connor?”
“Kid from school,” Markus said, then glared a thousand threats at Leo.
Leo smiled, and added, “Markus has a crush on him.”
Which got Markus an hour lecture about the birds and the bees, and not the kind that appeared on socks. Markus, who never wanted to hear such a lecture from a foster parent and Hank, who never wanted to provide such a lecture, both left the encounter psychologically scarred.
“You owe me,” Markus growled at Leo, and dragged him out the door to help him look for Connor. This just cemented Markus’ creeper status in Leo’s mind. They could be doing something useful after all, like helping Leo with his homework!
“Hey,” Leo suggested, basically once he got sick of Markus doing his little stakeout in the sock aisle at Target, “If you can’t track him down, make him come to you.”
Markus fiddled with his backpack straps. “How?”
“Oh my God, dude! Supply and demand! Come on, you were supposed to pay attention in Econ so I didn’t have to!”
…So Markus actually went into the specialty shop and sweet-talked the owner into selling him some limited edition calf-high socks showing an entire school of fish that would give an aquarium a run for its money. Then, during lunch the next day, he conspicuously rode his bike in front of Connor with his ankle strap worn high to show them off.
He waited eagerly for a compliment that never name. There was yet again no sign of Connor at the sock shop after school to buy the last pair, and some other guy got them.
Not that Markus needed compliments to feel validated but—come on!
Connor did see Markus’ socks, of course. The ankle strap, too, which he’d never seen before, which would protect his uniform slacks from the bike chain and also show off his socks just a little bit more. Immediately after school he forwent the sock shop in favor of the bike shop so he could buy himself one.
Markus, desperate, wandered around school, hoping desperately to see Connor involved in some extracurricular activity or other. He had the socks and Connor's missing shoe wrapped in some nice paper from art class, a little note carefully folded like the ones you snuck friends in class taped to the top of it. But he wasn’t rehearsing with the drama kids or assembling with the band kids.
“Hey Markus!” Chloe and her two identical sisters called from the art building. Markus rode over and endured their giggles (thank God they all went to different schools, the giggling was deeply scary). Chloe did have art class with him, though, and wasn’t she in Connor’s group for their science project?…
“No, sorry,” Chloe said.
“Connor goes home right after school,” one of the other triplets added.
“We know where he lives, though,” the third said. “We picked him up to work on our project yesterday. It’s not far!”
Markus took their instructions and ignored their whispered giggles as he rode away. It took him three passes down the street to identify the right house, which the eye refused to look at directly out of self-preservation. It was, to put it mildly, the most boring, soulless house he’d ever seen. He stared at it and thought, ‘No,’ hopefully. No teen could survive here. He walked up to the front door anyway.
“Hi!” he said to the woman that answered. “My name’s Markus—I’m one of Connor’s classmates.”
“Yes,” she said. “Connor’s told me about you.”
“Really?” Markus forced himself not to ask what Connor said about him. “I was just hoping to drop this off for him.”
He held up the package with a smile, feeling a bit like Prince Charming and waiting for Connor to maybe come down the stairs so they could see if it fit.
The woman took the package, however, and neatly cut the tape on his note with a long fake fingernail. Markus’ blood ran cold as she read his stupid teenage note that was really only meant for Connor…
“That’s for—” Markus started, but she was already cutting open the paper. Markus had led a sheltered life all things considered, and did not know that parents, even foster parents, like this actually existed.
Connor was biking home, the ankle strap up, socks out. And they said fish couldn’t fly! He soared down the street, lost in the rush of being alive, so he didn’t notice his foster mother standing alone on the porch in time, Markus’ gift and note already in the trash. She didn’t need to yell at him or even mention that when Connor had been caught red-handed—or at least fish-socked. It was just one in a long series of mistakes. It didn’t make any difference. Connor listened as Amanda forbade him from visiting that specialty shop again, and stayed in his room studying while she threw his sock collection away to join Markus’ gift and note.
Markus was halfway home by that time, so he didn’t hear about any of it. He guessed it’d be bad. His guess was confirmed when the next day, Connor arrived to Biology wearing gray socks. There was nothing dynamic in the curve of Connor’s back today. Markus was not aware that someone could feel guilt like the kind gripping his stomach. He tore his drawing of Connor’s socks out of his sketchbook and threw it away.
Leo, with more sense and fewer scruples than Markus, easily fished one out of the trash can like an expert angler. Leo was, it had to be said, great at stealing art.
“What did you do?” Markus hissed when he found out—which, you know, he was bound to find out, since all Leo did was sneak the drawing onto Connor’s seat in Biology while they were picking up lab reports. Leo shut Markus up with a flick to his ear, then held him still as Connor noticed the picture, stared at it, then quickly looked around—Leo yanked Markus around so they could pretend not to be spying. It wasn’t like Markus signed it or anything (he learned his lesson from that time they graffitied the gym).
When they risked a glance back, Connor was smiling at the picture, tracing the fish with a fingertip. They watched as he carefully folded the picture and put it in his inner jacket pocket.
“Bro, I owe you no longer,” Leo decided and gave Markus an affectionate noogie, which Markus, feeling a hundred pounds lift from his shoulders, quickly returned.
When it came time time to do animal reports for the class, Markus chose the Dwarf gourami that had been featured on the socks in his drawing. Connor did not seem to notice.