Chapter Text
The digital clock in Stanley Snyder’s pickup truck glared 7:02 PM. He was twenty-five minutes into what should have been a fifteen-minute drive, navigating suburban traffic that was somehow worse after dinner than during the evening rush. It was utterly unacceptable.
“We’re going to be late, kid,” Stanley grumbled, gripping the steering wheel. He wore a hastily buttoned, slightly wrinkled olive-green polo shirt—the closest thing he owned to business casual— Lets just say he felt monumentally out of place.
“Its fine dad” His 12 year old son Gen said from the passenger seat, his tone a lazy, musical drawl. He was dressed in a pristine black hoodie, his two-toned hair looking deliberately windswept.
“Besides, you’ll want to be fashionably late. It throws them off their rhythm.”
“I want to be punctual, get this over with, and go home,” Stanley countered, turning sharply into the brightly lit parking lot of the school
Stanley parked in an empty slot marked 'Faculty'—he figured the rules were mostly suggestions anyway. He glanced at Gen. “Look, this is serious. You’re maintaining high A’s in everything except chemistry, where you’re currently earning an 63. That’s a D. We don’t get D’s, Gen. We get B’s or higher. What’s the issue?”
Gen smiled, a flicker of genuine calculation in his eyes. “The issue, my dear father, is that Mr. Wingfield knows I could get a hundred and is using the grade as psychological leverage to see if I buckle. It’s a very transparent negotiation tactic.”
“ negotiation that involves my time and tuition money,” Stanley muttered, slamming his door shut.
The middle school halls smelled of old gym socks and industrial cleaning fluid. Stanley followed the directions Gen had given him,past the trophy case and down a long, dimly lit corridor. At the end, a single room was illuminated: Room 303 – Mr. X. Wingfield.
As they approached, Stanley could hear a deep, Soothing voice booming through the slightly ajar door.
“...and, frankly, if the standard Middle school curriculum does not permit me to fully explore the applications of advanced fluid dynamics in the creation of personal jet packs, then the curriculum, my dear Ms. Davis, is merely an obstruction to the propagation of genius!”
Stanley pushed the door open. The room was not a standard classroom. It was a sprawling, chaotic laboratory. Countertops were littered with beakers, wires, and models of astronomical objects.
In the center, standing over a terrified-looking guidance counselor and holding a piece of chalk like a tactical weapon, was Mr. Xeno Wingfield. He was tall, impeccably dressed, and possessed a wild shock of white hair and large, unsettlingly intense dark eyes
Xeno paused, turning his gaze on the newcomers. His eyes narrowed, fixing instantly on Stanley's military bearing. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
“Ah, Mr. Snyder. Punctual, almost. I had hoped to have a few more minutes to educate the administration on the pitiful state of our science budget. Alas,” Xeno swept his hand towards a vacant seat. “Please, do sit. We have much to discuss regarding your son’s potential… and the subtle sabotage he attempts to perpetrate on my chemistry class.”
Stanley sat stiffly in the offered chair, the metal legs screeching against the tile as if protesting his presence. Gen, meanwhile, leaned casually against the desk beside him, hands tucked into his hoodie pocket, eyes gleaming with mischief.
Mr. Wingfield twirled the chalk between his fingers like a conductor’s baton, pacing before the blackboard where half-finished equations sprawled in chaotic elegance.
Xeno resumed pacing, his shoes clicking like he was conducting a lecture and a symphony at the same time. Gen watched him with that infuriatingly serene expression he wore whenever chaos aligned with his personal aesthetic.
“For weeks,” Xeno began, tracing a looping equation that definitely looked illegal for a middle school classroom, “your son has been delivering immaculate lab reports, demonstrating flawless comprehension… and then, with the theatrical flair of a stage performer, includes one catastrophic error.”
He snapped the chalk in half. Dramatically. Almost gleefully.
Stanley blinked. “Catastrophic how?”
Xeno leaned forward, palms pressed to the edge of the teacher’s desk, eyes glittering like he’d smelled an academic crime. “As in, he writes the boiling point of water as ‘Depends on how bored I am.’ Or lists his safety goggles under emotional support items instead of equipment.”
Gen lifted a shoulder in the laziest shrug known to humankind. “It was a perfectly valid answer.”
Stanley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gen. Please.”
Xeno turned sharply, white hair swaying like a storm cloud mid-tantrum. “No, no. Don’t discourage the theatricality. I am merely uncertain whether he is mocking me or courting intellectual war.”
Gen smirked. “Can’t it be both?”
Stanley elbowed him. “Stop antagonizing your teacher.”
Xeno tapped the chalk against the blackboard. “Your son is brilliant, Mr. Snyder. Brilliant and infuriating, a combination I suspect you are intimately familiar with.”
Stanley opened his mouth to respond, but Xeno’s attention suddenly landed on him with a level of intensity that felt… targeted. Like Stanley had just been pinned to a specimen board.
“You have a background in structure and discipline, don’t you?” Xeno asked.
Stanley stiffened instinctively. “I—well. Yeah. Former Marine.”
Xeno hummed a low note of satisfaction. “That explains the posture. And the air of responsibility you wear like a uniform.” His gaze flicked down, then back up. Not inappropriate, just… observant enough to make Stan’s pulse kick like a startled engine.
Stanley felt the back of his neck heat up. Not the normal “I’m being evaluated by a science teacher with too much starch in his spine” kind of heat, but the “this man sees too much and I hate it and maybe also kind of like it” variety. Gen clocked it instantly, because of course he did. The kid had the emotional radar of a smug cat.
Xeno didn’t let up. “Discipline is a fragile art form,” he continued, sweeping across the room like an actor avoiding an imaginary spotlight. “It requires clarity, conviction, and the willingness to correct one’s course when variables shift. Most parents either collapse under the pressure or perform it with the rigidness of outdated machinery.” He flicked a glance at Stanley. “You, however, seem… adaptable.”
Gen raised a brow. “Sir, that’s my dad you’re analyzing like he’s a Renaissance painting.”
“I analyze all things,” Xeno said, dismissive but not unkind. “Nothing is exempt from curiosity. Not even your father’s spine.”
Stanley choked on absolutely nothing.
Xeno paused mid-ramble, tilting his head at Stanley with a look that was half clinical assessment, half something warmer. “Are you alright, Mr. Snyder? Your face has gone… flushed.”
Stanley cleared his throat and straightened, trying to fold the heat away. “It’s… it’s warm in here.”
The room was cold enough to refrigerate yogurt.
Gen just grinned like a little gremlin. “Right. Super warm.”
Xeno, in a rare moment of mercy, pretended not to hear that. He swept toward a cluttered table, rummaging for something among the scattered papers and Newton’s cradles that appeared to be fighting for their lives. “Your son possesses both an extraordinary mind and an extraordinary willingness to test my patience,” he said, lifting a stack of graded assignments like they were sacred texts. “A dangerous combination, but not an unmanageable one.”
Stanley leaned forward slightly. “So what do you need from me?”
Xeno paused, the question hanging in the air like static before a lightning strike. He turned, meeting Stanley’s eyes again. “Support,” he said simply. “Consistency. Encouragement. And perhaps the occasional reminder that brilliance is not a substitute for discipline.”
Stanley nodded. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“And I,” Xeno added, adjusting his glasses with an amused flick, “will continue to ensure he doesn’t blow up my classroom. Or the school. Or the district.”
Gen exhaled dramatically. “One time I heated the beaker too long.”
“You liquefied my thermometer,” Xeno shot back.
“It was an experiment within an experiment!”
Stanley gave Gen a look. “You’re not supposed to experiment with extra experiments.”
Gen smirked. “That’s literally what science is.”
Xeno muttered something that sounded like “philosophical hooligan,” then gestured for them to follow him deeper into the lab. He pulled out a stool for Stanley with an absentminded courtesy that felt instinctual rather than polite. “Sit. I want to show you something.”
Stanley hesitated before taking the seat. It placed him closer to Xeno than he’d expected, close enough to notice the faint scent of something clean and sharp, like mint and ozone. Xeno pointed at a diagram pinned to the board: an outline of Gen’s academic performance mapped with far too much enthusiasm for a normal human being.
“His trajectory indicates exponential growth,” Xeno said. “But he sabotages the curve for amusement.” He narrowed his eyes at Gen. “Your son is the only student I’ve ever met who sabotages his grades recreationally.”
Gen wiggled his fingers. “Keeps life spicy.”
Stanley rubbed his forehead. “He’s twelve. Everything he does is for spice.”
Xeno’s mouth quirked. Just slightly. “He has potential for greatness. Both in intellect and in chaos. The latter, I suspect, he takes from…”
His gaze cut sideways to Stanley again, lingering a touch longer than necessary.
“…genetic influence.”
Stanley looked away fast. “He gets the chaos from his mother.”
Gen snorted. “Dad, mom’s chaos was tax fraud. Yours is emotional repression.”
Xeno’s shoulders shook once. A quiet laugh. A surprisingly warm one.
They spent the next ten minutes discussing personalized study plans, extracurricular science contests, future coursework. The kind of conversation that should’ve felt stiff and transactional but somehow didn’t. Not with the way Xeno leaned in when Stanley spoke, or how his eyes softened, or how his fingers drummed lightly when he was thinking.
Eventually, the topic drifted toward long-term goals. Xeno seemed almost delighted. “College readiness begins earlier than most expect,” he said. “And if Gen continues on this path, he will have his pick of institutions.”
Xeno launched into a whole galaxy-brain monologue about academic scaffolding, and Stanley tried to follow despite feeling like he’d been dropped into a TED Talk held at warp speed.
“College readiness,” Xeno continued, “is less about the accumulation of facts and more about cultivating the tenacity to pursue inquiry even when the world tells you to settle.” His voice softened as he said it, drifting toward something almost vulnerable. “Most students struggle with that. Gen does not.”
Gen kicked the leg of the desk lightly. “Facts are boring if you can’t bend them.”
Xeno pointed at him with the chalk nub like he was brandishing a tiny, dusty sword. “Facts are not to be bent. They are to be… negotiated carefully.”
Stanley bit back a smile. “He’s gonna hear ‘negotiated’ and think that’s permission.”
Gen already looked smug. Very smug.
Xeno ran a hand through his hair, the white strands flaring out like chaotic static. “Mr. Snyder, your son requires structure, but not confinement. Encouragement, but not flattery. Challenge, but not punishment. It is a delicate balance.”
Stanley nodded slowly. “I get that.”
Xeno’s eyes flicked to him again. And this time, the look wasn’t an assessment. It was… softer. Curious. Like he’d discovered an unexpected chemical reaction and wasn’t sure whether to step back or lean closer.
Stanley’s chest tightened, a weird fluttery thing he really didn’t want to unpack here. Definitely not in front of his son. Definitely not in front of the eccentric science teacher who talked like gravity was something he argued with regularly.
Xeno cleared his throat. “I appreciate parents who take education seriously. Many do not.”
“Yeah, well,” Stanley said, rubbing the back of his neck like he could erase the pink rising there, “Gen’s all I’ve got. I try.”
Xeno’s expression warmed. Just slightly. “That… is admirable.”
Gen made a little choking sound, which was probably a suppressed snort. Stanley shot him a dad-glare, the kind calibrated to stun preteens into silence for at least two minutes.
Xeno, either oblivious or pretending to be, gestured toward a side table overflowing with student project prototypes. “If Gen maintains focus, he could take advanced placement courses in eighth grade. Then dual enrollment in high school. And if discipline remains consistent, he could be ready for top-tier universities before his peers have even selected their extracurriculars.”
Gen perked up. “Top-tier? Like… Ivy-tier?”
“Ivy-tier,” Xeno confirmed, hands clasped behind his back like he was delivering divine prophecy. “Or higher, depending on where science advances in the next decade.”
Stanley tried to picture that. Gen in a crisp blazer at some fancy college. Gen, the same kid who once taped a spork to the Roomba and called it “domestic evolution.” It was surreal. And kind of awe-inspiring.
“You could do all that?” Stanley asked, unable to hide the pride creeping into his voice.
Gen puffed up like a smug balloon. “Obviously.”
Xeno nodded. “He certainly can. The question is whether he will. Discipline is—”
Gen cut him off with a little groan. “Bro. You’re always saying discipline.”
Stanley raised a brow. “Bro?”
Xeno’s lips twitched. “Discipline is essential, Gen. Whether for academics, research, or adult life. One cannot—”
Stanley shifted on the stool, leaning forward a little without realizing he’d done it. “It matters,” he said quietly. “You can be brilliant, but if you don’t know how to stick with something, you’ll burn out. Or quit. Or… waste what you’ve got.”
Xeno went still in that way he did when someone surprised him. His gaze settled on Stanley, slow and intent, as if he were cataloguing something new. Something important.
Gen looked between them like he’d just realized two NPCs were about to start a side quest romance.
Xeno cleared his throat. “Quite right, Mr. Snyder.”
Stanley swallowed. His heartbeat felt stupidly loud.
Xeno reached for a clipboard, flipping through pages until he landed on one particular graph charting Gen’s quarterly scores. “With proper guidance,” he said, tapping the peak of the curve, “there is no reason your son cannot excel at every level of education.”
Gen rolled his eyes dramatically and let his voice slip into a whiny drawl. “Dad, he keeps talking about college like it’s inevitable.”
“It kinda is,” Stanley replied.
Gen pouted hard enough to make his hoodie strings tremble. “You never went to college.”