Work Text:
Running water mingled with the occasional clinking of glass dishes before being shut off. The ticking of a clock filled the newfound silence as Angeal dried his hands on a kitchen towel. He had done the dishes from dinner to allow his pupil time to do his work on his own.
" Perhaps ," Angeal had thought, " If I give him the chance to do it himself, he'll actually do it. " He had to admit though, it was wishful thinking from the start. He had hoped that if he didn't pressure the young teen that he would actually work. However, he could hear a distinct lack of writing. With a deep breath the 1st Class SOLDIER turned to face the dining table behind him.
"ZACHARY!"
The young teen at the table startled violently, sending the pencil that had previously been perched between his nose and upper lip flying across the kitchen.
"You're supposed to be working!" Angeal scolded.
"I was!" The youth exclaimed with wide eyes.
"On what? Your balancing act? Have you even done anything since I left?"
"Yes!"
Angeal didn't wait for the raven haired teen to go into detail. He marched towards the table in time for Zack to flatten his arms across his papers.
"I did, I did! Go away!" He panicked.
"Let me see." Angeal said frowning, a hand held out expectantly.
"No, I'm- still working!" Zack exclaimed as he scrunched his papers towards his chest to hide them.
"Let. Me. See." Angeal responded firmly. A concerned look mixed with momentary fear crossed Zack's face before he sighed and flopped back gracelessly in his chair, resigned to his fate.
Angeal picked up a now crumpled paper. It took little more than a quick skim to see that there was no new writing from when he had last seen it.
"What have you been doing?" He asked in annoyance. "30 minutes Zack, this paper should've been done!"
"I don't know! It wasn't even that long!"
"Right, because I did the dishes in 10 minutes." Angeal said in pure sarcasm.
"You could have!" Zack argued.
“Zack, it isn't hard. Go get your pencil and finish this .”
With a strong pout the young teen got up from his seat to retrieve his pencil.
“I don't see it.” He moped.
“Just look.” Angeal instructed tiredly. He sat heavily in the chair opposite Zack's, rubbing his temples in frustration. This had become a regular occurrence. Zack would come home with homework, a lot of homework. Every day. And every day they would sit at the kitchen table, arguing. He just didn't understand. Zack would do everything in his power to not do the work. Angeal swore he had heard every excuse imaginable at this point, but Zack somehow managed to come up with something new every time. Speaking of. The slippery kid hadn't returned with his pencil yet. Letting out a sigh, Angeal turned around in his seat to see what was taking so long.
“Zack!” Angeal scolded again. Flat on the floor, not far from him, lay the normally energetic boy. “What are you doing!?”
“I'm looking for my pencil!” Zack exclaimed as if it were obvious.
“You're laying on the floor !”
“I can't see where it went if I'm standing!”
The reasons Zack came up with for his foolish behavior. He had to have a list tucked away somewhere. And Gaia help him if Angeal ever found it.
It was hard to reset every night. The frustration and stress from the mere thought of Zack doing his homework instantly made the air heavy with tension. An unspoken battle ready to be waged the second dinner was finished. By now Angeal was fed up with the act. Fed up with arguing, lack of progress, and exhaustion. Every night his patience grew thinner and thinner, ready to snap at Zack the second he tried slacking. He didn't understand. Zack was bounding off the walls almost constantly. Chatting, pacing, rolling, any verb you could possibly think of, Zack was doing it. The only time he stopped was when Angeal could get him to be completely still. Bedtime. Then, a few minutes later, the 3rd class SOLDIER would be knocked out. Sleep, and homework. Those were the only times Zack wouldn't move.
Angeal stood from his chair sharply, his patience nearly gone. He snatched a new pencil from a junk drawer before grabbing Zack by the waistband of his pants. Squawking in surprise, Zack was dropped unceremoniously next to the table.
“Sit down, and work .” Angeal demanded, slamming the pencil on the table. Zack groaned in response, taking his seat again before slouching and glaring at his paper. If SOLDIERs could shoot lasers out of their eyes Zack definitely would've done it by now, torching the papers before him.
“Come on.” Angeal said impatiently.
“I don't want to.” The puppy argued. For all the seriousness and determination he flaunted throughout the day, now he was reduced to nothing more than a pouting child.
“I don't care what you want , Zachary. You need to finish this.”
“I'm thirsty.”
The mentor wasn't even surprised by that. Needing a drink was always one of Zack's go tos. So much so that Angeal had taken his cup away before. Ten refills within an hour was a little ridiculous. That was quickly followed suit with a bathroom break. One that definitely lasted longer than it needed to.
“Where's your cup from earlier?” Angeal asked, referring to when they had eaten.
“I put it in the sink.”
Angeal let out a frustrated sigh. “Just, go get a new one.”
Zack slowly stood from his chair, not slow enough to be obvious, mind you, but slow enough that it didn't go unseen with his mentor. Rubbing his temples again, Angeal didn't know what to do anymore. He was at a complete loss. He'd debated calling his mother for some advice. But he hadn't been too troublesome of a child, so he doubted she had very much wisdom for him.
The teen was stood by the sink, a cup in hand as he took small drinks. Too small of drinks. Angeal stared at him intently. He had given him too many chances. He would count to five in his head before getting onto the boy again.
“Zack, I'm not gonna tell you again.”
“Okay!” Zack said in annoyance. He brought his new cup to the table and took his seat again. He picked up his pencil and stared intently at the question before him. He actually looked like he was working for once. The hope that was slowly building in Angeal's chest didn't last long however as Zack began shaking his pencil back and forth in his grip.
“Hey, you know that pencil spinning trick?” Zack suddenly said as he lay his pencil on the side of his finger. “You flick it and it spins around in your hand.” He proceeded to attempt it, the pencil falling onto the table. “I don't know how to do it, but my friend-” he cut himself off mid sentence as Angeal's hand grabbed his own, preventing anymore spinning pen il attempts.
“How about I help you.” Angeal said. It wasn't an offer so much as an instruction. Said in a tone that held no arguing. Zack's time was up.
Half an hour later and Zack was almost done with his paper. It had still been a fight, sometimes Angeal just flat out gave him the answer. He knew it wouldn't help the kid actually learn anything, but it had been well over two hours since Zack had started. He may not have been tired, but his mentor was exhausted. There were a couple more questions remaining, ones that Angeal had decided to let him do on his own.
“Okay…” Zack muttered as he stared intently at the paper. His brow furrowed and he bit his lip, looking for all the world like a star student answering the hardest question of his life. He started writing his answer, and Angeal would've sworn on his sword that he was about to witness the miracle of Zack finishing his homework before midnight. Unfortunately, he would've lost that bet.
“I need to sharpen my pencil.” Zack said suddenly, looking up at Angeal.
Angeal took a slow, deep breath, fingers threading through his hair as he propped his head up. “It's fine, just finish these last two and you can be done.”
“I don't like the way it feels.” Zack tried again.
“What are you talking about?” Angeal asked, exhaustion clear in his voice.
“On the paper. It feels weird. I need to sharpen it so it'll write better.”
“It was fine for all the other problems, why does it need to be sharpened now?”
“Because I don't like it!”
“Zack, you have two more questions, come on.”
“It’ll only take a second-” Zack started to scoot his chair back to get up.
“Sit. Down.” Angeal immediately instructed. They'd come way too far to start up the shenanigans again.
“It won't take that long!” The frustration in Zack's voice was evident, his normally happy demeanor long gone and replaced with an increasingly angrier one.
“The problems won't take that long either, just do them.”
“No! I wanna sharpen my pencil!”
“Zack! Enough! The pencil is fine! Just finish it!”
Their voices raised, anger and frustration fueling a pointless argument over a pencil. Angeal had seen Zack’s temper before. It usually took a serious upset to bring it out of him, but once it was out, he was an entirely different person. Defiant, loud, rash. Everything he normally wasn't. Unfortunately, now was one of those times.
Putting the tip of the pencil on the table top, Zack pushed down, snapping the lead off. His eyes held a challenge in them, an unnecessary one as Angeal wasn't going to play his games any longer.
Standing from his chair and towering over the younger, Angeal lowered his voice as he stared back at his feisty student. “Room. Now.” he said firmly, finger pointing to the general direction of Zack’s bedroom.
The young teen slammed his hands on the table before shoving himself away from it. His stomps were heard all the way to his room before being punctuated with a slamming door.
Silence filled the room in his wake, and Angeal sat back down in his chair, hands being the only thing holding his head up. He took another deep breath before sitting back in the chair, eyes closed as he worked to reevaluate the situation. From the direction Zack had gone, an extremely muffled scream could be heard through the door as he yelled into his pillow.
Angeal had meant it when he had considered calling his mother for advice. He didn't know the first thing about child rearing, and even though Zack wasn't exactly a kid, he was still going through a difficult phase of growing up. “The Dreaded Teen Years” definitely made sense to the 1st class SOLDIER after taking the boy under his wing. Although, he should've known Zack would be a little challenging considering he wasn't even able to shake him when he first started hanging around.
Pulling the papers to himself, he noticed half an answer written on one, leaving one and half problems left. Homework be damned. He'd let Zack turn that in, and hey, this one would actually be turned in on time.
Sitting the homework back down, Angeal replayed the instance in his mind. They'd had their disputes before, sure, some of them were homework related, but never like that. Zack had never slammed his door, he'd never yelled after getting into an argument, and Angeal had never been so demanding and short with him. If anything he'd lost count of the times he'd been teased by his friends for being too easy on Zack.
How long had it been? 15, 20 minutes? Was that enough time to let each other cool down? Angeal had to check on him. To see the other so upset and know that he was the one who had caused it didn't sit right with him.
Knocking lightly on the door, Angeal waited a moment before cracking it open and speaking.
“Zack?”
Curled up in a ball on his bed, practically merging with the wall, Zack lay with his back to the door, his arms wrapped around a pillow.
Not saying anything, Angeal went to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I'm sorry for upsetting you.” He said. “That was never my intention.”
Zack remained still. Silent. Not even the twitch of a muscle to acknowledge Angeal. And he couldn't blame him. Homework wasn't supposed to be a tactile battle, and it didn't help when Angeal had such a short fuse after dealing with it night after night. Surely there were alternatives to help make the process smoother. He took on the role of Zack’s mentor, it was time for him to find alternative ways to teach.
“I-” a small sniffle cut off the already cracked voice. “I'm sorry…” Zack continued, wobbly. “I don't know why I'm like this. I don't want to be!”
Angeal frowned. Just as Zack didn't tend to get angry, he also didn't tend to get upset. His sunny and joyful disposition was always on display.
“Hey,” the 1st class comforted, placing his hand in the clump of black spikes. “It's nothing to get upset over.”
“But I always do it! I always make you mad or my teachers mad, and I'm the only one who does bad in class!”
“You do fine in your classes.”
“Yeah, in the SOLDIER ones!” Zack turned around to face the other, a frown marring his features, eyes watery from unshed tears. He sat up as he continued his rant. “I'm not good at anything else! That's why I left! That's why I joined SOLDIER! So I wouldn't have to do school anymore!”
Angeal found it funny that Zack had assumed he wouldn't have classes, even though he joined at 14. Not that it mattered. If he became a first class or a commander he'd still have paperwork to do.
“You should've never become my teacher…”
The mumbled confession jerked Angeal's attention back to the boy. New tears had started to fall as Zack lowered his head back into his pillow.
“Hey!” Angeal grabbed Zack's arm, getting his attention as he pulled him closer. “Don't you ever say that. I chose to mentor you. I didn't make a mistake in that. I'm here to help you get better and stronger, and if that means finding a way to make school easier then I will.”
Angeal could've sworn he saw Zack's bottom lip quiver, but he didn't have enough time to dwell on it as he was body slammed by the boy. Zack's arms wrapped tightly around his waist, face buried in his chest. Angeal awkwardly held his arm out from his side, his other behind them to keep from falling off the bed. The last time he had hugged someone was probably when he had hugged his mom goodbye before going to Midgar, and that was completely different compared to some random kid he, well, took under his wing.
“Thanks, Angeal.” Zack said softly, grip not loosening in the slightest.
The man couldn't help as he softened at the words, hand coming to thread into Zack’s hair once again.
“Anytime.”