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Chapter Text

Freshly (well, almost) Year 10 student "Captain" exhaled, trying to ignore the anxiety still tensing his muscles and quickening his heart that his sigh didn't quite ease. He planted his arms firmly to his sides, anything to stop fidgeting with the last pencil yet to be packed away, and shook away the senseless muttering. He would have to get rid of this, this silly behaviour. There was nothing to be nervous about, nothing to be afraid of, and he assured himself he wasn't. He wasn't. It was all just first-day jitters, some stupid nerves he would have to solve quickly because he was a Year 10 student dammit! He couldn't be...

He took a breath, trying to forget the feeling of Havers' hands on his shoulders, the support (because that's all it was, friendly, kind, normal support, just like he'd done a dozen times before) slowing his breath and smoothing out the worries. If only he knew...

But he wouldn't. Because there was nothing to know. 

The world was still hanging onto the dregs of Summer, and even this late only a streaked, marbled blue painted the sky. His light was off, his curtains were closed, his bed was made, his bag was packed, everything was orderly. His mind was clear (as it was going to get) and his hands were stiff but still, knotted in his duvet.

Everything was fine.

~

The Headmaster, Barclay Beg-Chetwynde, surveyed his Year 10 students in the courtyard (if the barren expanse of gravel and dead shrubs could be called that), waiting for the assembly hall to be freed up. It wasn't quite a prestigious school, maybe it was once from the way Barclay boasted about it, but it was big, however dilapidated it happened to be. And it certainly still held that reputation despite the reality, since a number of the children were whisked away by very wealthy parents for 7 hours for the best education possible. Think...Julian Fawcett! That twat - politician's son, lakehouse, timeshare, ensuite, trust fund. And an utter dickhead.

The Headmaster tutted in that expectant, impatient kind of way rich men always do when life hasn't continued to be served to them on a sliver platter. It was 8 in the morning, what did he want.

"Year 10!" he turned uncertainly to his Deputy, Heather Button, who nodded assuredly. Thomas sometimes thought he would forget he ran a school, and only showed up for the name it gave him within the town (though the name he received wasn't a very positive one). To be fair, the man hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing (and had been doing for 30 years) and it was fucking obvious.

Plus, like most people in the school, he was an utter dickhead. Not quite how (amateur) poet Thomas Thorne would usually put it, but close enough.

Assembly was first period, which gave him ample time to seat himself amongst the shadows and peeling paint of the back row and work on his poetry while the hour drifted by. He reached for his notebook, the new, intricately decorated one Isabelle Higham had gotten for him his last birthday, and scratched away new lines in pen. Of course when his work was finally appreciated, the world would want to know his process, his genius even early on. He drew a neat black line through the start of one stanza, mulling it over. There was a considerable gap between him and the rest of his form, but beside him give or take 3 seats was Kitty.

She edged closer when she spotted him.

Kitty had known him since childhood, through all his ups and downs and phases. She was kind and honest and maybe a tad too enthusiastic about everything but he didn't mind all too much. They were the only constants in each others lives.

"What's that? Another poem? Can I see- oh, please Thomas! I'm sure it's good," she whispered, eyes lit up and smile unnecessarily wide for 8AM, "Is it about Alison? Pinky promise I won't tell."

Scandalised, Thomas slammed the book shut and gaped at her.

"You wrote all your other poems about her! Or grass."

"Grass?" Thomas asked, smile peeking through his faux offense.

"The door one! From Miss Button's class, remember?" He cringed at the memory. At the time he thought it was one of his best works, but people just kept asking and asking, when clearly, (yes, Captain, thank you so much for your explanation) it wasn't meant to be realistic! Poetry was meant to be his thing. He couldn't help if everyone else was behind him in that.

"I remember..."

"Anyway, if you're over her that's fine," she said, not-so-subtly hinting that he was very much not over her, and if he were to try and deny that, she would be there with a giggled 'I told you so' as soon as he could admit it, "That just means we get to spend more time together."

"Of course, Kitty," he smiled.

"Two in the back! Thorne and Oakley. Can you tell me what our dear Miss Button was introducing us to?" the Head smiled sickly sweet and smug. He stayed silent. Kitty looked to him, clueless.

The Captain raised his hand eagerly.

Thomas looked to the whiteboard, which had quickly been taken to the next slide. He saw the glint in Barclay's eyes even from 12 rows of seats above. Evil.

"Richmond?" He had a habit of calling his students the wrong names, either mixing them up or making new ones entirely. But for some, the last name was enough. Especially for such a high-ranking student. 

"British Values."

"Thank you!" he smiled at the cadet, still eyeing Thomas in a glare that screamed 'I'm going to make this as humiliating as possible.' And Barclay was never one to fail to fulfil your expectations, making his voice saccharine and his face extra punchable, "Thorne, detention. This school deserves your respect."

Begrudgingly, Thomas slumped back in his seat in silence, and Kitty followed suit, still trying to sneak a look at his writing. Between the two of them, Kitty was always favoured by the staff. Her father was quite the influence in the community, though Kitty herself never cared for this treatment much, not nearly as much as her sister relished it. Head tilted just enough to see through the upper windows, Thomas took inspiration from the sky, twisting and testing words and phrases until it clicked. Until it felt smooth, felt like his.

Timetable collected, Thomas glanced to Kitty, who was chatting animatedly and clinging to his arm.

"-and I didn't see her this morning, but isn't she wonderful? We were talking all through Summer, and she gave me all sorts of- Thomas?" He blinked down at her, ears suddenly coming to attention.

"Ah, sorry! What were you saying?" Kitty's eyes trailed from his to the science block enterence. Whatever distracted her lead her to snatch Thomas' hand and drag him towards it. A mass of overlapping voices sounded, only making her more interested. As sweet as she was, Kitty did have a morbid curiosity, and most recently a curiosity concerning the morbid, which resulted in her very suddenly deciding to be a mortician. She wanted to 'see the colourful bits'. 

Kitty craned her head high to see past the taller students, and the ramp leading up to it was almost visible. Before Thomas could worm through, he felt someone barge into him, almost flinging him off balance. A blonde head flew past him. The noise lessened by half as he stormed off. A brown head of hair peeked out, before stiffly getting up and running through the door. He swung his head back to see the blonde, a yell on his tongue.

"And you can tell that wanker to fuck off too!"

Maddocks, the caretaker currently involved in whatever fight they'd caught sight of, sighed, ever calm if not ever annoyed, and followed him. With that, the crowd dispersed up the staircase and down the hallway, leaving Thomas to weave his way through to Kitty again.

"Wonder what that was about," Kitty muttered as they reached the top floor. Julian was a boy of words, however disgusting those words were. It was hard to believe he would attack someone, though with the friends he kept they couldn't be sure. Lined against the wall, Kitty on one side (who had since become much more interested in Alison Button in front of her) and Captain's back on the other, he leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the other students. Pat was the last to arrive, waving to the teacher waiting at the door with a cheesy smile. Robin was ranting rather incoherently to Humphrey, who nodded and offered helpful comments in the few gaps. Thomas was sure nobody but Humphrey could understand him when he spoke so fast and low. Fanny, related to both Alison and the deputy headmistress, was the closest to him, chatting with her head held high to Captain, who spoke in a hushed, low tone. Thomas didn't care to listen in. Mary was leaning on close to Mike while she discussed a basket-weaving technique her grandma taught her.

"What if you do four potatoes? Should be fine then, right?" Mary looked aghast at the suggestion, but smiled as she began to explain.

"Right then. Mr...Fawcett will be arriving shortly, for now the rest of you get into the seating plan," The class collectively groaned. It mustn't have been that bad, if he wasn't even getting isolation for it. Thomas stood in the corner, scanning the board for his name. Next to...oh, Julian.

Of all people? Seriously? 

He sat down, grateful he was in the middle row so having someone like Robin, plus Julian, chattering away in his ear for 60 minutes, wouldn't have to be a problem. It was much too much of a distraction to his work - and not the Chemistry. Kitty turned around from the row ahead, making a sympathetic gesture. She was a very forgiving (often naive) girl, but everyone knew what Julian was like. Certainly a... character.

Ten minutes in, the aforementioned asshole strolled in, smug as ever. He headed to his seat and turned around to one of his friends, a boy who grinned and joked and hit the same as him. With Julian occupied, atleast he wouldn't be bothering him. Hopefully.

The teacher began to drone, and Thomas began to write, head leaning on his hand with the other scrawling away at his notebook. Julian poked at the tea-stained pages. He glanced up, resisting the urge to hit him with it, instead inching it back to the corner of the desk.

"What's that?" he asked, looking over Thomas' shoulder.

"None of your business."

"Oh come on," Realising there was no way Thomas would willingly engage with him, he turned his attention back to the lesson. For ten seconds, "What's more interesting than this...beautifully constructed lesson, eh?" 

Julian was very obviously not gesturing to the lesson, but the teacher herself. Or one specific part of her.

"Disgusting," Thomas muttered.

"What, are you a queer or something? They're just tits." 

Thomas' head whipped around, taken aback.

"Julian, y'can't just say that to people," Pat, who was sitting beside Julian with a page of work done, though he seemed to be struggling understanding it, nursing his head. Thomas tuned out of the argument, slipping his notebook away and beginning to copy the information on the board.

5th September - Introduction to Chemistry

Covalent bonds happen between-

He dropped the pen and turned his focus to the window, sun bright and unburdened by the dreary Autumn weather set to soon roll in. Thomas had always preferred the Summer, or perhaps Spring, when he could see the sun shine gold and bright and feel warmth on his skin. Autumn was just sad. Though he supposed it did make excellent inspiration for his more melancholic pieces. 

He heard shuffling from behind him, and Fanny left the room, face still displeased - Thomas couldn't see why, she was getting out of the gruelling effort that was middle set Science, and the even worse experience that was sitting next to Robin.

"How come she gets to-" he heard from across the class.

"She's playing her flute!" Kitty whisper-shouted, sounding delighted to know something about Fanny Button others did not (she did tell Thomas as soon as she found out, but it's the thought that counts).

"She can play my flute anyday," Julian snickered.

Thomas sank further into his hands.

~

He watched from his place at the back row as more students filed in, and piece by piece, the empty English classroom filled with detention-goers. He recognised Julian, who was immediately directed to sit at the front opposite Miss Button, and from this angle he could see his right fist was bruised. After him was Sophie, a French exchange student who had taken an interest in the vast, vastly outdated library, and had recently (last year) formed her own school-run book club. Which may have been focusing on books containing some...radical ideas, and so she was still catching up on the sanctions. Despite having nothing to do with it, Humphrey took half the fall for it, and was sitting beside her as the one person she tolerated in the school. That was...surprising. Humphrey was notoriously calm, notoriously peaceful. The idea of the Bone kid involved in an anti-monarchy "book club" made little sense, but he didn't know the boy well enough to defend him. He seemed content enough with just a scrap of paper and silence, so with silence Thomas left him. On the other side of Humphrey, Robin sat, a torn sheet covered in scribbles and hatches and marks on the desk. He didn't know what he could possibly be in detention for, he was unpredictable. Other than that, the room was empty.

Good.

Empty meant silence, and silence was good for his work. That was good.

He needed to focus, the quiet helped that-

Sixty minutes takes forever.

In about five, he was bored out of his mind, twiddling his fountain pen between his ink-stained fingers. Stained with biro, of course, because it would be blasphemous to waste such precious ink, again, given by Isabelle Higham, on shitty school paper. In ten, he was tearing scraps off his school notebook and littering it with doodles same as Robin, and, unlike in Robin's drawings, the content of these drawings were much less obscene. And in thirteen, he had begun to listen to the simmering conversation around him, largely coming from the front, where a boy he had failed to notice (because he was just an exact copy of Julian but italicised, perhaps with different hair) was trying to draw Julian's attention.

"Fawcett," he whispered, kicking his chair, "Was that you earlier? With the Captain?"

Julian didn't reply, not with the teacher still staring daggers at him to keep him in check, but he sent a trademark toothy smirk behind him which was enough for the boy to continue.

"The things I'd give to see his face up close as you hit him," he muttered.

Thomas was honestly not the biggest fan of the Captain, or a fan at all for that matter, but he wondered what he possibly could've done to deserve that. It was Julian, though, and Julian's friends. Did anyone really expect anything else?

What he didn't expect was for Pat Butcher to rush through the doors, face red from running.

"Sorry I'm late, Miss. I had to get here all the way from Food Tech," he explained, waiting for the curt nod in return from the teacher before sitting in the seat furthest from the boys at the front.

Which happened to be right beside Thomas.

"What happened to you?" he immediately asked, incredulous.

Pat paled in embarrassment. He wasn't exactly a top-mark student, but he wasn't a bad one, not for this school anyway. And he never got in trouble, never missed a homework, and only ever once lost his PE kit! Well, he did get in trouble once at the gift shop at the Amberley Chalk Pits, but hardly enough trouble to warrant an after-school detention. The scout kept his head hung very low and crossed his arms over his chest while he picked at his fraying blazer. Thomas, as with most people, didn't care for Pat though he seemed nice enough, just not as invested in the arts as him, and it was always hard to find common ground with someone who didn't understand the complexity of the world of poetry. Still, he leaned over slightly to whisper again, obscured by his notebook.

"Pat?"

He shrunk in on himself further.

"I don't want to talk about it," he responded, and in a burst of confidence, at least for Pat, added, "so mind your own."

Thomas turned back to his work, eyebrows raised and lips pursed. On one corner of one page, he outlined the sun, and with his proper notebook, he studied it closely, describing the star in extensive depth.

The Sun

You rise when night is done

Like a big, yellow bun.

The sudden 4PM bell struck him out of his focus, and he joined the others in rushing to pack up. Kitty would be home by now, as would Isabelle, so he would have to walk alone. His parents had long since stopped offering lifts home, given they had recently moved closer. Thomas knew they could only afford the move to the decent, identical suburbia of their small Surrey town because of Isabelle's father, who wanted wanted to show his care for the family. Well, for Francis. Isabelle's father couldn't care less for Thomas.

Following the same run-down route he had walked since primary, he was able to find the smaller, crumbling houses he used to shift between as a child, and cutting through to the scenic paths of the shittier parts of the nice part of town, he trudged (though he would like to believe he had more class than to trudge) down the cracked stone steps of his driveway and into the house. Phone in hand, finally comfortably crammed into the corner of his bed, he unlocked it to find several dozen messages lighting up his screen. He clicked on the first one, Kitty's.

Kitty: did you hear about the captain?

Thomas: No? I was in detention.

Thomas: Kitty?

Kitty: he got excluded!! 

Chapter Text

Captain walked home, stiff and uncomfortable with his heart beating harder than ever before. He smoothed out his uniform, the fourth time in ten minutes. It was something he could control, at least, the constant repetition, the rough sensation of the fabric over sweaty skin, the sound of rustling that drowned out the pounding of his heart and his heavy, ragged breathing. He hung his head low, watching his pristine cadet boots drag in the mud and gravel. At this point, he very much needed something to control.

It started out small.

He had been sitting in his fifth period class (English, and he was certain these upcoming exams would push him to top-set) where Fawcett happened to be sitting beside him. The tory was paying him little attention, just the occasional smirk amongst the chattering and boasting that surrounded him, but he still felt under extreme scrutiny, like every beat and every breath was measured by the boy and his sycophants. Worthy of insult, or not. Worthy of their hatred, always yes. He remembered catching something awful, said so casually as if they were talking about the weather, and he remembered how much his heart stung at the sound of it, striking him deep even though...even though he wasn't. Patrick, his desk partner to the left, sent him a sympathetic look, and muttered something about them needing to naff off. He silently agreed, and tried to hone into the teacher's voice.

"-in his poem Exposure. Wilfred Owen was a poet whose work largely revolved around the First World War. He was also believed to be ga-"

Captain ducked his head. He heard something coming from his right, and it only took the two words 'Captain' and 'poof' for him to bristle, turning quickly to face Pat with an angry frown creasing his face.

"Don't worry, mate," Pat whispered, "they say that to everyone."

"Right," he paused, trying not to listen in, despite them being so damn loud, "Patrick...you don't think-"

"Since when were they a couple?" A voice, one of Julian's many indistinguishable friends, made his eyes go wide and his fists clench at his uniform. Even now, in hindsight, who were they to spread those disgusting rumours? That he- that he and Patrick-

Even in hindsight, the memory made his blood boil. What a horrible thing to even suggest.

"I don't know. Would've thought it'd be him and Thorne-"

"The fucking emo?"

"They're both clearly queer, have you seen them? Bunch of freaks,"

Cap glanced in Pat's direction, but all he got in return was another apologetic look. Thankfully Thomas himself wasn't in the room, because he was not about to be defended by Thorne of all people. And he was not ready for the spectacle Thorne would likely put on.

In hindsight he probably should have prepared for the spectacle he put on himself: the feeling of Julian's nose crunching under impact; the hot wet crimson that still stained his hands exploding from his face; the adrenaline rush as he ran from the classroom, dizzy, his mind drowning out all of the cacophanous noise in favour of repeating the same jumble of words, shock and sick glee coursing through his veins as he pressed himself to the nearest, furthest wall.

And he had just managed to forget who Julian's father was. They had said he was lucky not to be expelled, permanently. He didn't feel very lucky. He felt that if his heart were to get one beat quicker he would have a coronary.

He was worried, yes, not at all for Julian's health, but about what his parents would think. His father, an ex-army soldier, strict and gruff and aggressive. His mother, who had had his whole life planned out since his conception: join the army, just like his father, marry a nice woman and die, not before providing a host of strict, gruff grandchildren if course. If they found out he had not only been suspended, but had been given the sanction for punching another student. Especially one with Fawcett's social standing.

He tried to take a breath, in, out, in, out, and soothe his senseless nerves. No luck. With one hand gripping the door handle, he braced himself.

~

The next day arrived quickly, in a flash of bad sleep and rushed routines, and Thomas slowed his brisk pace to linger outside Kitty's House on the way to school. It was 7:44 exactly, had been for the last six times he had checked his phone, and the girl's voice trailed off on their ongoing call as she gathered her things. The Oakley residence was a relatively large Georgian house off in the richer side of town, though not nearly as far off into that area as some of the Beg-Chetwynde students - Julian Fawcett and Fanny Button came to mind. It was still quite small, the brickwork aged and weathered by years of storms and poor care, and the rest of town still teetered on the edge of view in the horizon. Distantly, he could see Eleanor, Kitty's bitch sister, adjusting her makeup in the window, face sour and resentful as usual. Finally, six minutes late, she opened the door, a bright smile on her face, too bright for 7AM, but he flashed a small smile in return anyway, before letting the anguish of a troubled teenage poet overtake his face again. She didn't notice, choosing to skip over and cling onto his arm. Despite Kitty being perfectly capable of walking alone, and the extra twenty minutes walking being a total inconvenience for Thomas, everyday he waited outside her house and everyday they took the journey together. He didn't really think anything of it - it was just something they had always done.

"Look look!" She shoved her phone into his face, a couple of messages from Alison (whose contact was decorated with two heart emojis, which, he noted, not bitterly at all was one more heart emoji than his) clearly the source of her excitement. Kitty, not that she would admit it, had been harbouring a crush on Alison since Year 9, when the girl had moved here from Clapham. For a year now he had been witness to increasingly obvious lovestruck gazes and midnight rants, which he couldn't blame her for, since he had taken part in the very same rants about the very same girl. She was beautiful, from her feathery brown hair framing her face, just long enough to fall down her shoulders in effortless tresses, to her eyes, which bloomed with a shine that no jewel could ever hope to capture. And so creative too. She had a way of bringing life to even the dullest of moments, in the form of her photo-realistic paintings, or just her energy, like a spark of a flame illuminating a whole room, making it whole, complete, ablaze with her essence. Or at least that was what Kitty thought. He had long since put a stop to that particular desire.

Definitely.

"She's wonderful..." Kitty sighed, and all at once he realised he had lost three minutes thinking about her, and that he had promised he would not do that again. While he was on autopilot, they had gotten all the way up the path from Kitty's and were heading towards the main town, though Beg-Chetwynde's was much further than that, at the edge of a vast and secluded area of land. Yet another thing Barclay decided to do to make life harder for his students.

"She is, Kitty," he started, pausing, toying with the idea of the words on the top of his tongue, "Why don't you talk to her?"

"Oh! I guess you're right! We'd make lovely friends," she considered, smiling at nothing in particular, "Best friends."

Subtle as ever, Thomas tried to google how to tell someone they might be gay because no homo just isn't cutting it.

In five more minutes, they arrived at the poor populated part of town, the atmosphere quiet and slow as it was left entirely empty, save for the smattering of school kids littered throughout. He saw Pat Butcher, a short boy with honey-ish brown hair and a serious people pleasing problem, who was quickly followed by Robin, an animated, energetic individual, covered head to toe in cheap jewellery and messy hair. Thomas had never really gotten along well with either of them. He remembered Pat moving there halfway through Year 7, in the unfortunate limbo of being an extrovert, and being, by some degree that Thomas himself couldn't understand, considered unappealing to all potential friends. And Robin...well Robin was Robin. Closer to an ape than a person, well, according to Julian. Other than that, the street was quiet.

Even if the change didn't bother him before, Thomas felt the obvious presence, or lack thereof, of the Captain as they passed his little semi-detached. It made the street feel a little quieter, without those fucking obnoxious boots.

He hated those boots.

~

Julian reclined in his unstable plastic chair, absentmindedly prodding the computer keys as he waited for the period to end. Of course, his stunt yesterday gave him some kind of punishment, not quite the one he had in mind (none) but still miles better than detention for a week like he usually got. But his father wouldn't let that happen. Seemed to be the only thing that old bastard ever paid attention to him for, getting him out of detentions, or suspensions, or anything really. Still too busy to give him any attention at home, or even be there for that matter.

He didn't care about that. In fact he vastly preferred when he wasn't in, at least then he didn't have to live up to anything. Strict would be an extreme understatement.

But he supposed he couldn't get out of anything. Barclay, that old berk, said that would be "obvious favouritism" which would technically be fair if it wasn't the fifteenth time he had accepted one of his father's bribes. So there he sat, reclining in his chair, on his first day of five in isolation.

Around the corner, the history classrooms were bustling with noise that he could just about here, just enough to be irritating. There was Miss Button's voice, hoarse and shrill, and from the strain in her words he could tell she was trying to rein in the class to no avail. Just above the cacophony was Robin.

"Earth not round, 's flat!" he yelled, and from the clatter of plastic and wood and the influx of muffled laughter and shouting, pointedly stood on the desk, "Can you see the curve? No? Idiot-"

A high-pitched gasp cut Robin off, and before he could argue Miss Button threw him out of the classroom, which remained equally as chaotic as when he was in there. Notably because Robin had sparked a debate about conspiracy theories and Thomas was being bombarded by the whole room, an exasperated Miss Button included.

Julian, being the most bored he'd been in weeks, signalled him over. Robin leaned against the wall of his cell (a bookshelf next to his desk) and stared at him for a long moment, lost in whatever thought he had in his empty head, before speaking.

"How's your face?" he said bluntly.

"Ah, fine now. Should've seen what I gave him that morning though, that was a real punch. Not the measly little tap that earned him, what, a week at home? Sounds like my kind of punishment, actually, anything to get out of this shithole," he grumbled, picking at the wood of the desk.

"Why you hit him?"

"Felt like it, I suppose," he tried not to think about it, "It's not really about the why, more about the who."

Robin didn't respond, just grunting through a nod. A notorious silence hater, Julian filled the space by tearing a piece of scrap paper and writing on it before offering it to Robin.

"Give this to Fanny, will you?"

"What?"

"Just a bit of cheeky fun!" he shrugged, a smirk at his lips, before turning and pretending to focus on his work.

"Cheeky fun," Robin repeated before turning on his heel and returning to the classroom. Even amongst the chaos, Julian could hear Fanny's blood-curdling scream as clear as day.

~

Two hours passed, then a third, and finally he could leave. From his position trailing down the stairs, Julian could see the car park, bustling with cars at this time of day. He tried to shove down the feeling of bitter disappointment as he scanned them, his father's stark black BMW nowhere to be found. Halfway down, he pulled out his phone, lingering over the contact, hesitant for the first time he could remember.

Stupid. He shoved it back into his blazer pocket and approached the front gates, heart heavy and teeth gritted.

He couldn't do one thing for his fucking son?

Julian stopped, sighing, and leaned against a wall, aiming to look casual and failing miserably, pulling out his phone again, just to feel the sting again. It didn't help.

"Hey!" He glanced up, and the familiar acne-ridden face of Robin greeted him. There was a smudge of dirt on his nose which hadn't been there earlier, and his hair was impossibly scruffier.

"What is it now, ape?" he remarked, broadening his shoulders and twisting his face into a smirk.

"Wanna play chess?" Robin gestured to the A4 poster plastered outside the room, a bad graphic of two angry chess pieces trying to tear each other in half with png teeth. Given Julian's upper-class upbringing, of course he played, enough to know that graphic was an awful representation, but with Robin... he couldn't guarantee the savage boy wouldn't let it end the same way.

"Alright." On a whim, one that left him palming his blazer pocket hopefully, fruitlessly, he agreed, following Robin into a spare English classroom, barren save for two neeks in the corner occupying a board. Ah yes, he knew this classroom. He spent many a lunchtime cordoned off to the front desk by the very pleasant (if you catch his drift) new hire, who had left just months into her contract. He couldn't imagine why.

A desk at the very front held a chessboard, pieces already arranged at a starting position. Julian glanced to the open window, giving a perfect view of the emptying car park, the car park that pointedly did not contain his father.

Reluctantly, he sat down, running his hand over the edges of it. It felt like long evenings waiting for his father's study door to unlock, like pushing himself into the corner at parties when he didn't quite know how to make himself big yet. 

"Do you know how to play?" he asked, entirely expecting the answer to be no. It was Robin, he was practically a savage. Chess was not the game of teeth and blood that he expected Robin to associate himself with, but, then again, he had nothing else to do. If his Dad didn't care enough to pick him up, he obviously didn't care what kind of low-lives he was hanging around with. Unwillingly of course! He wouldn't hang around Robin any other day without a gun to his head.

But today, he leaned a little back in his chair, letting Robin's words wash over him, relaxed.

"No but, can try."