Chapter Text
If you gave a dollar to Grace every time he started a club due to peer pressure and then ended up enjoying it, he would have two dollars. Not a lot, but still weird that it's happened twice, right? He leaned on a bookshelf. Students scattered around the room looking for parts and pieces for their experiments. The intoxicating smell of hot glue filled up his nostrils. He had recently taken up hosting a STEM club in the media center, because, why not?
Rocky, the school counselor, had suggested the idea. He'd often tag along with his partner Adrian, or just by himself. At the moment, the kids had scrambled into groups to build bottle rockets, as well as some other kids working on other projects.
Was it childish? Sure. Was it boring? Absolutely not. And safe to say, Grace makes a mean bottle rocket. Any kid who challenges the idea ends up losing every single time. He didn't study science for nothing. Even if a PhD was made for professional conferences and scientific documents, he'd settle for this. Losing his job for this one was (sort of) a fair trade, honestly.
"Livia! Why are you all in the back? I can't see you when you're hiding behind all the shelves."
"Shh! I'm trying to read!" She holds up a book about aerospace engineering. What the heck is she meant to use that for? "We're using it so we can beat your record!" Livia grins. Fine. If she wants to do it that way, Grace can handle that. He's not going to get defeated by a middle schooler. Livia walks off somewhere eventually after seeing another cool rocket. He speed-walks towards the shelf, and grabs the book.
Grace walks off to talk to Adrian, who is currently working with Rocky. "Adrian! I'm gonna go get something. Keep working on that though!" Adrian nods curtly, before returning to their work. He paces over to the librarians office, which is shoved behind the check out desk. The librarian that Grace is looking for—Mr. Fischer—is conveniently right where he needs him to be. "Hey, Mr. Fischer! You're new here, aren't you? Must be nice in this office. I'm Mr. Grace. Or Dr. Grace. Grace, if you prefer? Anyways, this might be a bit much, but can you do me a favor?" He fiddles with a loose string on his cardigan.
Mr. Fischer was recently hired, after Mrs. Smith left to retire. His hair is put up into a half up half down style, with tendrils of hair framing his face and glasses perched on his nose. He looks up from his computer, where he's typing on some document. He’s typing with his right arm at a quick pace, making up for the loss of his left arm.
"You can just call me Simon. It feels weird to hear adults call me that," he deadpans. "What do you need?" He looks up at the teacher and crosses his arms. Grace feels nervous now that he's caught under his gaze.
"I was just wondering…teachers can borrow up to three books, right? I have two books already checked out." he pauses. "Can I borrow this book as well?" He gently places the book on the desk.
Is it petty to be borrowing books to make sure kids can't beat him at a stupid contest? Yes. Does Grace care? Not much. His dignity was thrown away at a certain conference in Denmark.
"Yeah," Simon mumbles as he pulls up the library system on his desktop. "Any reason why you need a book in aerospace engineering?" His eyebrow twitches up.
Before Grace even gets a word in, Emilia—Livia's friend—has her head sprouted out from the doorway and calling out for a teacher. "Uh, Mr. Grace? We have something to show you." The corners of her lips tilt upward, as if she's holding back a laugh. It's easy to tell that she wont tell more until Grace checks it out himself.
Grace turns back to look at Simon, who has raised an eyebrow while looking back and forth from the student and teacher. The piercing gaze from Simon gives him a strange warmth in his chest, but he doesn't pay much mind to it. He leaves the book on the desk, walking up to the doorway to look at the room.
The room doesn't offer much to see. The media center is cozily decorated, but nonetheless, clean. There's Rocky and Adrian hot gluing things together, Kevin fooling around with another kid, an exploded bottle on the floor, and there's also—
Wait. an exploded bottle?
Fuc—Fudgesicles.
Grace rubs his eyes. Yep. Still there. Alexander—one of Grace's students—widens his eyes, his hands shaking as they're raised up like he's been caught commiting a crime. The bottle sits on the floor as the fuel mixture fissures on the carpet. The stain takes up a big chunk of the floor. His nose scrunches up at the foul smell of vinegar. He really hopes Simon won't kick them out.
"…Alexander."
He refuses to look at Grace. "…Yes?"
"Why would you launch the rocket when we're inside!? Especially when we're not in my classroom!" He takes a deep breath, trying to think of how to elaborate the scenario to Simon. "Just…go clean it up. I'm gonna talk with Mr. Fischer for a bit."
He turns around and inches towards the librarian's desk. "Hey! Simon. There's a small inconvenience. There's a spill on the carpet, and the room smells like vinegar." Grace winces. "I can move the club to my class instead, to make it up. If you want, I can use baking soda to get rid of the smell too, or I can also just—!"
"Grace. It's fine. I don't have anything to cover up the smell once it's cleaned up, though. Do you have any Lysol in your class?" Grace nods. "After club, could I borrow it? I don't wanna go off scaring the kids from the library from the smell." Simon chuckles.
Grace chooses to ignore the amount of attention he pays to Simon's laugh. He has more important things to focus on! Like teaching, science, club, and whatever else he has to do. Unfortunately, he's gonna have to wrap up this conversation to go back to the life of duct tape and plastic. "Yeah! I can stop by later once I'm done with…" he gestures through to the other side of the door way, "this."
"Thanks. Good luck dealing with them," he snorted.
After a long scolding on why it "isn't a good idea to launch rockets indoors, especially in Mr. Fischer's library," club eventually simmered down until it ended. The kids waved their goodbyes and had all walked out. Eventually, Rocky and his partner left too. Then it was just Grace and his thoughts.
Grace didn't really like being left alone with them. His thoughts always wandered to places that were weird, or just weren't relevant. Had he left the stove on? Would he buy a pet soon? He wouldn't, since he was allergic to most dogs (sadly), but his thoughts still brought it up time to time.
And now, he needed his thoughts to remind him of what he was about to do. Grace has been standing in his classroom for a good minute now, but not a single thought comes to mind when he thinks of what he needs. Come on, brain! Just one more thought.
Hm, I wonder what I'll have for dinner tonight.
His brain has clearly failed him. I mean, it's like helping a kid remember where they left something, right? Think backwards, or something like that. Where did he just come from? Well he was just in the bathroom, which was after the stairwell, which was the one leading from…
The library! He needed to grab Lysol! Right. Lysol for the spill. The one from club. STEM club. He's getting a grip on his memories now.
Anyways, he grabs the Lysol and hurries back to the library. Since club had just ended, students were rushing out of the doors and now crowded the hallways. It took Grace a while to get back. Simon is at the check-out desk, and he seems to be leaning down to write something on a piece of paper. The smell of vinegar has slightly died down, but still pungent. It makes Grace's nose scrunch up a little and perks up the question of how Simon was able to be so content with this.
"Are you sure you don't need anything? I'm so sorry for that earlier, and I just wanted to make sure the kids didn't do anything stupid because…well you know how kids are—" Grace stopped talking when Simon looked up at him. "Sorry."
"Do you always do that?
"Pardon?"
"The apology thing. You apologize a lot."
"Oh, just force of habit, you know?" Grace has never really thought about the amount of times he says sorry. Guess it just came out of nowhere. Or it came out of the fact that the last time Grace didn't say sorry, he lost his job and ended up teaching kids for a living.
"Right. Mind giving that to me?"
Grace hands him the Lysol. "Hey, did you decorate the library? I don't remember seeing any decor last year." Mrs. Smith—the old librarian—didn't care much for decorations like the ones currently up. She was a scruffy somewhat middle aged woman with blonde hair and a thick Swedish accent. Making the library comfy and aesthetically pleasing wasn't on her bucket list.
"Yeah. First thing I did when I got here, actually. What about you?"
"What?"
"Is your class decorated?"
The question makes Grace question if he isn't being flashy enough with the unnecessary amount of decorations he has. He has a paper mache model of the entire solar system, for fudges sake! "It is. Almost too much, actually." Grace's lips curl upward in a smile. "Ms. Ilyukhina thinks I'm trying to win them over with posters and scientific models. I'm not, just so you know."
Simon sprays the Lysol around the library. "Ms. Ilyukhina says a lot of things. She says I'm an old man. A lot." Grace can't help but laugh at that. Now that he looks at Simon, they might actually be around the same age.
"Since we're talking about age now, how old even are you?"
"Wow, a couple minutes in and you're already asking my age?" Grace sputtered to say something, but was cut off. "I'm thirty-two. You?"
"Wait. Ilyukhina calls you an old man and you're thirty-two?! Oh gosh. I'm thirty-four. And thirty-four is quite young, but now I'm gonna be called an old man! "
Simon snickers at that. "She's like in her twenties, so don't believe her. Either that or I suppose we're both just old then, huh?" He pauses. "How long have you been teaching here?"
"Oof, I wouldn't know. Maybe like…five or six years here?" Grace's eyes dart around the room. "Hey, this might be a weird idea, but would you mind if I sat over there and worked on grading? The kids are always complaining about how slow I grade their work." He points towards a desk and bench, usually made for students reading or other clubs hosted in the media center.
"I suppose you could. Sometimes Ilyukhina comes to do the same thing too, but with math work. Maybe she'll bother you instead of me." Simon nearly smiles. Grace isn't sure if it was considered a smile or not. Is there a way to determine that?
He smiles back and walks over to the desk, placing down a thick stack of papers and opening his laptop. Recently, he had been teaching his kids the different types of wavelengths. They'd gotten the hang of it pretty quickly! However, this meant that Grace also needs to grade the work that he gave them. Then he would be transitioning his lessons into life sciences—which was his favorite, and always caused Grace to go on a tangent. But he would have to grade all this work first before even thinking about prying open a textbook.
Minutes flew by as Grace worked diligently. The room descended into a calming ambiance with clacking keyboards and pens hitting paper. His pen certainly felt the time pass too, as he had been chewing on it for the past 20 minutes. Has he been staying too long at the library? It'd be really concerning if Simon saw Grace working like a dog to grade a stack of papers. His eyes dart over to Simon.
Who is very much staring at Grace. Glaring, even. Maybe he was just zoned out? Or maybe there was something on his face? He could've sworn he looked fine in the mirror when he was in the bathroom a while ago. That probably means he's been here for too long, right? Gosh darn, he hasn't even finished the last couple papers left!
"Simon? If you need to leave now, I can just go," Grace utters softly; it's almost like he's talking to a student. It's been quiet for a while, so speaking any louder feels out of place. He doesn't want to bother him too much, especially since Simon's been nice to him.
Simon's face flushes as if he's been caught doing something. "If you want to, you can. I'm gonna be here for a bit longer anyways. I like having company. I can walk you to your car, if you'd like that."
Now it's Grace's turn to blush. "Y-Yeah! Yeah. That'd be nice. Really nice, actually." He doesn't bother telling Simon that he rides a bike to school. Why would he? People nowadays use cars like everywhere, so telling someone that you ride a bike to work—and not because you're eco-conscious—is quite embarrassing.
Grace would rather focus on the conversation instead of bikes.
"I was actually gonna finish the rest of the last couple of these papers first. It'll take me like…ten minutes? Is that okay?" It's a very thin amount, considering that he had quite a lot before. Well, time to finally finish his work so he can go lay in his bed and reflect on his life, or whatever it is that people usually do.
Grace rubs his very strained eyes and closes his laptop. The smell of vinegar has cleared up and replaced with the smell of clean linen. All of his schoolwork has officially been graded! However, all that work has officially drained his soul. He can tell it did.
Simon probably could too. Every time he looked up while grading, there was a pair of warm brown eyes staring through his soul. Grace wasn't flustered. He wasn't. He didn't immediately dart his eyes back down and force himself to trudge through work.
Because that would mean that Grace was affected by it. And he wasn't. He still needs to put the papers back in his class. And walk with Simon to his fictional car. He also needs to get his hands on some coffee.
Grace adjusts his glasses, opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it back up to finally speak. "I'm gonna put this back in my classroom. I'll be right back!" Grace quickly stands up, and immediately regrets it. Black dots blur his vision. His head whirls as if it was thrown in a blender. He plants a hand on the desk, another on his head.
"You good? You've been working for a while." Simon is now standing next to him. "I think you should drink some water."
Okay. Yeah. Grace can drink some water. He shakily picks up his water bottle, sipping through the straw. The feeling of someone watching him returns again. As if someone's looking out for him. Simon's gaze stays still on Grace.
His consciousness promptly returns back after standing. Teachers occasionally walk past the library with wandering eyes. Grace still needs to return his papers back to the classroom.
"I think I'm good now. I'll just go return these papers to my classroom. Do you wanna come? If you want. I could show you my classroom decor," Grace offers.
Simon nods and starts following Grace as they walk out the media center and up the stairs. They don't speak, comfortable in the tranquil silence. It's nice. Grace doesn't remember the last time it's been so quiet in this hallway. The rest of the students have went to other places in the school, by now. At the end of the hallway, Grace stops walking and turns to a door.
The metal frame glistens in the fluorescent light. On the wooden door are big, bold, colorful letters spelling out Mr. Grace! A banner with little planet charms perches on the top of the door. Corny science joke stickers and photos of his class are littered throughout.
The door practically screams Grace, all in all. The door squeaks open after the key is jammed in, and boy, is it decorated. Science equipment is placed in multiple nooks and crannies of the room, posters are on the walls, and the whole thing just looks like a mad scientist's lab. The desks are quite neat, which he prides himself on. A bookshelf was cluttered with specimen jars of animal parts in formaldehyde, and Simon tries not to look at the one with spaghetti and a boiled egg inside.
One could argue that the jar looked at him first. Simon is not the one.
Simon looks up, and notices the big model of the entire solar system protruding from the center of his roof. It's made of paper mache, and attached by string. Pluto's included too, for moral support. Grace spent hours making it, but that's a secret between him, Rocky, and his paintbrush.
The whiteboard is covered in formulas, diagrams, and reminders. Written in red marker below a formula for volume, says Think Zebras, Not Horses in all capitals. Grace doesn't quite remember writing that.
"Isn't the saying meant to be 'Think Horses, Not Zebras'?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Not sure why I wrote that there. I was probably telling the kids to be creative for their project, or something. Did I tell you about that?"
"About what?"
"Their projects."
Simon shakes his head. Grace has a knack for hands-on projects, like models and diagrams. They were fun, creative, and he also just wanted to see what the students could conjure up.
Which also explained the big keyboard placed on a desk, connected to a microphone and vibration table. Grace giggles just looking at it.
"What's up with the keyboard?" The corners of Simon's lip tilt up.
"Nothing. Just a funny memory," Grace says with a lilt. He tries not to think of the students making fun of him singing. The teacher's desk creaks as the stack of papers is placed down. "We should go head down, right?"
"Can I look at your classroom?" Simon's eyes are gleaming with curiosity. Grace nods slowly, taking a swig from his water bottle. He tucks his hands into his cardigan pockets, watching Simon walk around and observe the room.
Simon looks at the different projects placed on the wooden table. There's models, posters, all of the sorts. He stops to look at a corkboard behind the science teacher's desk, filled with Polaroid photos of Grace's friends and students. One photo has two kids grinning next to Ryland, holding up a board that says 8th Grade Record for Longest Paper Chain! Another photo has Rocky—the school counselor—posing with Grace, who has been pied in the face. That one makes him laugh.
Next to that one, is a photo of the science teacher seemingly younger—college age maybe—with a paper hat and sunglasses ledging off his nose, holding a bottle of beer. White paint marker is scrawled over the photo, giving him chain necklaces and bracelets. He was a party animal, to say the least.
"Oh, yeah. Just—uh—don't question that photo. I was probably drunk. Or high. Probably both, actually," Grace admits without hesitation. An impressive accomplishment considering he doesn't remember that night at all. "I was a different person back in college."
"Evidently. Didn't you say you have a PhD? Why are you working as a teacher instead of being at some like, big science conference?" Simon tilts his head.
Grace swallows, recalling the "big science conferences" that he's been to. "Well, that's a long story. Let's save that for another time!" He laughs nervously. "We should probably head downstairs."
He refuses to lose more connections because of a stupid incident. So what if he called someone a "staggering waste of carbon"? That was one time! If it wasn't for Rocky helping him, Grace would probably be rotting away in a dumpster or something. He has no friends—other than Rocky and Adrian, he doesn't have immediate family, and not even a dog!
Well, he had immediate family.
Grace would like to move on from that.
"Yeah, we should," Simon rasped.
After a couple of minutes, they'd reached the lobby. The presence of students lingered around. There was a group of kids that were stapling posters on the bulletin board. The front office worker—Carl, was typing away on his desktop, with the only thing separating him from them being glass walls and a door. The band room was loud enough to hear across the building, which was due to the amount of students who overstayed their time during rehearsals. The noise was what kept the school going, like a pulse. And without a pulse, then what was the use of a heart?
Anyways.
What now? Simon would just walk him to his (imaginary) car, then they'd probably go back to talking to each other every once in a blue moon? Go back to being a little science loser again?
Well, yeah. Probably.
"Simon? I think I forgot to tell you, but I don't have a car. I bike to work. Did I tell you that, actually?" Grace's eyes dart back and forth between Simon and his suddenly now fascinating shoelaces. Was there always a scuff on his shoe? Probably not, but—
"Shit, really? It looks like it's about to start raining again."
"Well, I'm pretty sure I have a raincoat in my bag somewhere…" He starts shoveling through the navy blue messenger bag. It's covered in pins and patches, as well as the occasional stitching due to the fact that he has other priorities than a new bag. The sounds of jingling keys and occasional shouting from the pickup loop fill Grace's ears.
"Are you sure you can bike through the rain? I can give you a ride in my truck. The bike should fit in the trunk," Simon offers. "I just don't want you to go out in the rain, especially on your bike."
Oh. Okay. That's not something people normally offer, but alright.
"What? Are you sure? That's really nice, but I don't want to like, waste gas or something—"
Grace is interrupted before he can finish. "Just follow me to my car, alright? I can drive you home."
So, that's where he is now. Grace is about halfway to his apartment, sitting in the passenger seat next to Simon. He'd been right after all. It really did start raining. A lot, actually! If Grace decided to bike home, he would've been drenched.
But to be honest, being stuck in the car with your coworker isn't much better. At least Simon has good music taste, though! Grace nearly jumped out the window after carpooling with Rocky once. He likes it much more in Simon's car. Some of the songs playing are also on Grace's playlist, which he usually plays during class. Grace caught himself humming along with the music, occasionally.
"So…you ride a bike to work?"
"Yeah!" He chuckles. "Gas is just too expensive, and it's nice to see all the nature and stuff, I guess. Eva asked me if I wanted to carpool, but I said no."
"Eva? Like Ms. Stratt? The principal?" Simon raises an eyebrow, but keeps his eyes in the road. The car screen displays the route to Grace's house, where Simon occasionally looks at to make sure he's not lost. "Ilyukina thought you guys were hooking up, I'm pretty sure. She told me like a week ago."
Grace nearly chokes on his spit hearing that. "What?!"
"Is it not true?"
"No! Not at all!" There's no way people thought that was true. "I know it isn't! Eva barely even goes on dates with people! And most importantly, she likes women!"
…
The music keeps playing regardless. What, like it was gonna magically pause out of nowhere? Grace can feel his face flush red. Did people really think they were hooking up with each other. Well, he can see where it's coming from. Eva doesn't talk to much people, other than Grace, Rocky, Adrian, and Carl sometimes. They're all good friends. Hell, they've had board game nights before!
So, despite that fact that they are completely platonic friends, it does make sense. Grace wouldn't consider dating Eva in any scenario whatsoever, but it makes sense.
"I'm assuming you didn't known that."
"I didn't know. That's like, the only reason why I asked if you two were hooking up." Simon's eyes don't move around as much as Grace's. His vision is planted on the road, and the road only. Grace looks at his shoes, the side mirror, a random cat on the road, and then finally at the guy sitting next to him. "Just to make sure…you aren't hooking up with anyone, correct?"
"Correct," Grace pants. The air conditioning soothes the heat running through him. Was it always this hot? Probably not. It's about ten minutes until they get to Grace's apartment complex, and he's sweating his boots off. Maybe it's the jacket? He takes it off. Nope. Still hot. His sleeves are rolled up. Yep. Much better.
Rain is still pouring through the roads, which makes it very amusing for Grace to look at all the big uproars of water that are rucked up by the cars. Simon's car is quite average, compared to Grace's bike that is covered in stickers.
Grace pulls out his phone to read a couple of emails. Nothing very interesting in them, unfortunately. He promptly puts his phone back into his bag. They've been waiting at a red light for a little longer than expected. The feeling of his glasses digging into his head is very uncomfortable, however.
His glasses fall into the cup-holder immediately after he hangs them off his ears. Man, he really needs to fix them, doesn't he? Instead of pouting about it, he decides to pick them up.
Unfortunately, Simon has also chosen to do the exact same thing. Their hands briefly touched, then pulled away as if they were electrocuted. Simon's gaze on the road almost falters. Almost. Grace just grabs his glasses back and hastily puts them back on his face.
The drive back to his apartment speeds by before Grace even realizes he's reached his destination. He's been staring out the window for a while now, so maybe he just didn't notice it? Either way, he's at where he needs to be.
"Just to make sure, this is your apartment complex, right?" Grace nods at that. "Good. Right, so do you want me to get your bike out?"
"I can get it perfectly fine! I don't wanna burden you more than what I already have. Thanks a lot for driving me!" Simon waves at Grace, then suddenly the car door is shut and he's wheeling his bike into the building. He shoves his keys into the door, opening it. Suddenly, he's in clean clothes and laying face-down into his bed.
Grace doesn't realize he left his coat in the car until Simon had already left.