Chapter Text
Aster
Math was not one of his favorite subjects. It made his head hurt and he didn’t see why it even really mattered. For some people it was probably important, the people who were going to be engineers, or computer programmers, or whatever. But he wasn’t going to be any of those things. It felt like a huge waste of his time. And to make things worse, this semester there was an alpha kid in his algebra II class that wouldn’t leave him alone.
His name was Beau, apparently, and he came from a huge family of alphas and found omegas interesting for some ridiculous reason. But Aster wasn’t some animal at the zoo for him to gawk at. And he’d learned through experience that most people only talked to him because they felt bad for him, or because they wanted to make fun of him. He wasn’t interested in either option.
The whole class was working their way through some practice sheets for a test coming up when Beau, who infuriatingly insisted on taking the desk right next to his, turned and started trying to make small talk with him.
“So what kinds of things do you do for fun after school?”
Aster stared at him, eyes squinted in annoyance, then went back to his worksheet.
He’d seen Beau around school before, he seemed pretty aloof and always stuck with his small group of friends. Aster definitely wouldn’t have described him as an outgoing or friendly person, so there had to be a reason he kept trying to make conversation, and it most likely wasn’t innocent.
“You probably aren’t into sports I’m guessing?” Beau asked, laughing nervously.
Yes, point out the cripple’s prosthetic leg, very original. Was the alpha trying to piss him off?
“Or maybe you are!” Beau said, whispering frantically. “That’d be totally cool. I’ve never been into sports myself but-”
“Mr. Montrose!”
Aster shrunk further into his seat as their teacher stared at them in the back row. Beau cringed and went back to working on his sheet of math problems. Aster sighed in relief. But only seconds later a small square of torn off paper was slid onto his desk with scribbled writing.
‘So what sport do you play?’
Aster took the paper and crumpled it into a ball then let it fall to the ground, glaring at Beau pointedly who didn’t seem offended at all. But at least it had got his point across, and Aster was blessedly left alone for the rest of class.
If there was any upside to his semester so far it was that he had his art class directly after algebra II which gave him time to decompress and relax before lunch. They were working through a unit on pointelism and he really enjoyed being able to check out mentally and fill in a large section with different colored dots that would eventually create a cohesive image.
His art teacher, Ms. Layton, was also one of the only teachers at school who bothered to learn anything about his diagnosis and made accommodations for him in class. If he had an episode in his other classes the teachers just got onto him for “zoning out” or “daydreaming”. Ms. Layton actually recognized that it was something out of his control and was patient enough to re-explain things and give him space to recover.
He didn’t experience focal seizures all that often anyway, but when he did it was nice to have someone who understood. To his relief he’d also managed not to have a full blown seizure during his high school experience so far. The idea was mortifying and he was thankful that his medication kept him stable in that area at least.
Aster worked steadily and patiently on his pointelism piece, letting his mind slip away as the others in the class worked in silence. The room was quiet except for the dull taps of oil pastels against paper.
The rest of the school day went by pretty uneventfully and he left orchestra practice to walk home, feeling like it had actually been an okay week.
And then the alpha caught up with him.
“Hey! Sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you during lunch. Henderson spent like, the whole time going on and on about this comic we’re working on together and I totally lost track of time. What’s that, a violin? Are you in band?”
“No.” Aster said as he continued to walk, begging the alpha to just leave him alone.
“Viola then? It’s way too small to be a cello, I know that much.” Beau said, keeping in stride with him easily.
Aster sighed heavily and gave him a suspicious look before responding. “Yes, it’s a violin. No, I’m not in band, I’m in orchestra.”
“Is that not the same thing?”
“No.”
“Oh…” Beau said, scratching at the back of his head awkwardly. “So you play violin then! That’s cool! I didn’t know omegas did that.”
Aster turned to respond then flinched when he heard someone shouting from the street.
“BEAU!!!” A girl shouted from the open back window of a black suv. “GET IN THE CAR! I WANT TO GO HOME! DAD SAYS UNCLE SIMON BROUGHT HOME A FRIEND!”
“SO?!” Beau shouted back, causing Aster to hunch his shoulders at the volume.
“SO GET IN OR DAD SAYS YOU’RE GROUNDED!”
“HE DID NOT SAY THAT VALENTINA!!”
Beau huffed off toward the car without saying another word to him and Aster shook his head incrediously. He really couldn’t figure out the guy’s goal in trying to be friends with him.
~
The house was empty like usual when he got home from school and he sent his mom a text letting her know he made it. She insisted on it still, even after three years without an incident. He supposed he could understand her more recent worries. He’d had to switch to a different medication because their insurance changed and wouldn’t cover what he had been taking. Which was stupid. But he’d been on the new stuff for nearly a month and it seemed to be working just fine.
She sent back a heart emoji and he set his backpack down and opened the fridge to get a snack. They were kind of low on most things, he was pretty sure this was grocery weekend though, so he grabbed the last yogurt cup. He checked the schedule on the fridge as he ate, noting that his mom wouldn’t be home until late that evening, which meant they were on their own for dinner, which probably meant his dad would be making spaghetti.
His parents were both scheduled to work Saturday as well, which meant he’d only have Sunday to get homework done because he would be on ‘Baby Desmond Duty’, which didn’t happen all that often because it worried his mom to make him be in charge. But Desmond was an easy baby, so he didn’t really mind.
He finished yogurt and rinsed the spoon in the sink before heading to his room. Sitting on the edge of his bed he leaned down and pressed the release button on the prosthetic socket and slid it off before peeling off the silicon liner. His skin was damp with sweat despite the cold weather and he let it air out for a few minutes before sliding on a compression sock to help with some of the swelling from all the walking he’d done at school.
He reached for his phone beside him and then grabbed his earbuds, popping them in before flopping onto his back. He sighed in relief as the music started playing and relaxed into the bed, glad to be home.
His room didn’t have windows, which technically meant it couldn’t be classified as a bedroom. He was pretty sure the last owners had just walled off what once was a second livingroom. But he didn’t mind. It meant he could keep his lamp low and rest in a cozy, dark environment whenever he needed to.
After about half an hour he heard the sound of the front door closing and sat up, removing one earbud.
“Aster! We’re home!” His dad called from down the hall.
Aster grinned, hearing the sounds of Desmond babbling happily. He put both earbuds away and then rolled out of bed and hopped to his door, poking his head out to surprise his baby brother as his dad brought him down the hall.
“Dezy!” He said, making an over exaggerated happy face and reaching for him.
His dad handed Desmond over and carried the diaper bag with him to their bedroom.
“How was work?” Aster called after him, which wasn’t hard to do in such a small house.
“You know, the usual!” His dad called back with a slight laugh.
Aster sighed and then turned his attention back to his brother, putting on a silly voice. “And how was daycare?”
Dezy cooed some incoherent babbling and then giggled. Typical baby behavior.
“Well that’s good.” Aster said, balancing against the doorframe as he bent over to set Desmond down.
The kid was getting pretty good at crawling for his age, probably because he had such a good example to follow. Aster crouched down onto his hands and knees and proceeded to race his brother down the hall to the kitchen, knowing Dezy liked to have a snack after getting home just like he did.
“What do you think about some banana puffs, huh?” He asked as he stood and used the counter tops and kitchen island to swing his body over to the pantry. He poured a generous amount of the baby cereal into a bowl and set it on the ground for Dezy to pick at. His mom always got onto him for that, saying that his baby brother wasn’t a dog. But Aster didn’t get what the big deal was in sitting on the floor to eat, he did it all the time.
“How do you guys feel about spaghetti for dinner?!” His dad asked predictably as he walked back up the hallway to the kitchen.
“Sounds great!” Aster laughed, propelling himself through the kitchen with counter support again.
“How was school? Is that kid still bothering you?”
“It was fine.” Aster said, sitting at one of the barstools where he could watch his dad cook and still see Dezy munching his cereal on the floor. “And yeah, I still haven’t figured out why he’s taken an interest in trying to talk to me.”
“Maybe he just wants to be friends.” His dad shrugged, turning on the stove to start boiling the water.
Aster rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah, kids at school don’t really do that.”
His dad smiled sadly. It had been hard for Aster to make friends all through middle school and he’d basically given up on trying in high school. Aster didn’t mind the solitude, but it seemed to upset his parents.
“You never know…maybe you should give him a chance.”
“Maybe.” Aster said noncommittally, not really wanting to talk about it anymore.
Hopefully Beau would just give up soon and then Aster wouldn’t have to worry. Things could go back to how they’d been for the last three years. The occasional pitying look in the hallway, eating alone at lunch, being generally left alone. That’s how he liked it.