Work Text:
Bruce had stopped paying attention ten minutes ago, set his textbook on top of his face, and fallen asleep. Roman didn’t say anything for those ten minutes, then slowly reached up and shoved him off the retaining wall and into the rosebush on the other side. Bruce grabbed the wall in scramble, but the motion was a complete half measure, and he ended up standing on the other side of the wall, grabbing the retaining wall columns like a disheveled cat.
Harvey’s head jolted up and he turned to look between them for a long moment before snorting into hysterics. Then, finally, Thomas stopped reading the rubric word-for-word and looked between the other three.
“Brucie fell asleep,” Roman clarified, and Thomas’s shoulders slumped.
“You know,” he said, “we’re not going to get any of this right if we don’t know the criteria.”
“Counterpoint: I already know how to read,” Roman argued. “We all got the same rubric, Tommy.”
“Bruce, did you read the rubric?” Thomas asked Bruce as he climbed back up onto the retaining wall.
“Uh, no, no I didn’t,” Bruce lied. Roman had seen him reading it before anyone else had gotten there. Still, Thomas—who had not and would never figure out when Bruce was lying—gestured to Bruce like that proved his point.
“Tommy, I think you’re missing a key aspect of this group setup,” Harvey pointed out.
“And what’s that?” Thomas sighed.
“No one’s expecting Bruce to do shit.”
“I thought we made a group with him because we were friends,” Thomas protested.
“We did, everyone else would make Bruce do things,” Roman argued. “With this setup, Bruce offers the most valuable service of all without having to do a shred of work.”
“And what’s that?”
“Safe meet-up space.”
Thomas opened his mouth to argue, then slowly closed it and looked at the rubric in his hands. Slowly, he lowered it and set his head in his hands. Roman set his jaw and rolled to his feet, this was about to get way too emotional for him and he needed to get out of dodge fast. Before he could make it just the two steps out of his grasp, though, Harvey grabbed Roman by his jacket and yanked him back into his seat.
“Sorry Tommy,” Harvey offered.
“No, no, don’t apologize,” Thomas let out a sharp laugh and sat back, tossing his hands up. “Roman’s right, Bruce’s house is the only one that isn’t completely fucked. I mean, why would anyone want to risk your dad coming home plastered?”
Harvey’s attention found his feet and his lip started wobbling.
“It was a joke,” Roman argued. “You don’t have to drag our parents into it. You certainly don’t need to attack Harvey. He didn’t do anything.”
Thomas snorted and sat back, rolling his eyes.
“I’m kinda glad you guys like hanging out here,” Bruce piped up. “When you guys aren’t around, it’s just me and Alfred. It’s always super quiet here otherwise. Plus I think Alfred likes having an excuse to make more food than just for two people.”
Thomas shrank in, setting his mouth in an even deeper scowl. He did concede, though, in his own way. He didn’t argue, which was better than nothing where Thomas was concerned. Roman could’ve apologized. The joke had been thoughtless, even if it was true. They talked around it, Harvey’s dad, Thomas’s mom, Roman’s entire family. Thomas, at least, probably saw Bruce’s lack of real supervision as freedom, but that was an especially rotten fruit to pluck. Freedom…but that price… Even if he hated his father, Roman could never quite imagine killing the man.
Roman stood and pushed himself up onto the wall beside Bruce. Bruce shoulder-checked him, a small bit of revenge for being shoved, but he was holding back. If he had actually shoved Roman, it would’ve sent Roman careening into the rose bushes. Even if he pretended to roughhouse with Roman the same way he did with Harvey and Thomas, he never actually did. Roman was the “frail” one, and Bruce seemed intent on treating him like he was made of glass.
“It’s not like Bruce has a perfect life either,” Harvey said, softer than a ghost. “At least we have parents, right?”
Thomas snorted derisively, and Roman heaved a deep sigh. That was Harvey alright, always trying to put a silver lining on a mushroom cloud.
“I don’t know if I’d like Bruce if he was Mr. Perfect,” Roman said, tilting back to hang backwards off the wall, staring out across the garden. “Perfect is boring. Worse than boring, it’s annoying. You know how much airbrushing has to be done to my face to make it look ‘perfect’ for my mae? I look like a white baby.”
“Like a white-colored baby or—“ Thomas tilted his head to one side and knit his brow.
“I said what I said.”
Bruce snorted and leaned a little ways back to look at Roman where he was hanging. “Sounds a bit like you think Normal is a setting on a dryer,” he pitched.
“It is, but it’s also not perfect,” Roman countered, sitting up. “Honestly, sometimes I’d give anything to be a normal kid. I don’t want to be some rich pretty socialite. I want to exist without needing a piece of metal in my chest.”
Thomas shifted slightly in his seat and looked down at the notebooks scattered across the table. He seemed pensive for a moment, then looked up at the three of them.
“If my mom knew I was hanging out with you, she’d flip,” he noted. “Not if I said ‘I’m in a group project with Roman Seung’, just if she heard you say anything out loud.”
“I am often the golden child until I open my mouth,” Roman dipped his head in a small bow. “My dad only lets me around you and Bruce because he wants me to be friends with the well-connected.”
“I don’t think my dad knows what any of you look like,” Harvey admitted.
“He locked me in a closet once,” Bruce countered.
“I punched him in the face,” Roman added.
“He doesn’t remember the sucker punch,” Harvey said.
“Then he can’t get me on assault charges,” Roman replied, tapping his temple.
“You’re going to get arrested one day,” Thomas argued.
“They’d have to catch me,” Roman said.
“Just as I have caught you and Master Bruce on that wall for the fourth time?” Alfred asked, approaching the group with a tray. “I must assume you’re better at evading the police than me, Master Roman.” Roman perked up and hopped off the wall to inspect the tray, then snatching a cookie off it before hurrying back to his seat. “I supposed we cannot end the crimes with light destruction of the rose bushes, can we?” Alfred sighed, setting the tray down.
“I think it looks better like that,” Roman offered, “has a perfect viewing hole when I hang upside down.”
Alfred shook his head and walked away, and Bruce shoved Roman as he returned to the table.
“You don’t need to antagonize him,” he whispered.
“I’m not antagonizing him,” Roman waved him off. “He thinks I’m funny.”
Bruce shook his head just like Alfred and sat down. He started going through the rubric, pretending to read it for the first time while asking Thomas a litany of questions he didn’t need answered. Roman leaned on the table and stared at him.
He was an odd duck, Bruce, but then again none of them had space to talk.