Chapter Text
[Detention Room]
“So, Web, why are you here?”
He slowly turned toward the voice behind him. His eyes met Joseph’s. Webster tilted his head slightly and brought a hand to his neck; he was embarrassed to have to explain to Joe why he was there, but he tried anyway.
“Um… it all started with a little argument with Professor Sobel that got a bit out of hand,” Web began; his voice was barely audible in the nearly empty room at that time of day, except for him and Joe, who, of course, were in detention.
Webster’s shoulders tensed slightly after that brief explanation; he took a deep breath to calm the nervousness that came with maintaining eye contact with Joe’s brown eyes, which were staring at him with too much curiosity.
“Are you serious?” Joe quickly flashed a mischievous smile at Webster’s blunt honesty.
“Very serious…” David replied automatically. He licked his slightly trembling lips.
Shortly afterward, soft laughter echoed off the classroom walls and reached David’s ears; the boy blushed instantly. Liebgott didn’t notice, as he had already turned his attention back to sweeping up the paper balls and potato chip wrappers from the floor. He swept all the trash into a small pile in front of the desks.
“How did that happen?”
The curiosity in Joe’s voice was genuine, which prompted Webster to go into the details of the story.
“Well… I think the wisest thing would have been for me to keep quiet and accept the failing grade Sobel gave my project without protesting.” Webster cleared his throat before launching into the terrible impression he’d decided to do of Professor Sobel’s voice.
The boy paused for half a second to focus on completely peeling off the piece of gum that was stuck to the inner armrest of the first seat in the row—the one closest to the desk; Webster was crouching down in the meantime.
“Are you serious about what you just handed me, Mr. Webster? This? Is this what you call a decent final project? Because it doesn’t look like it to me… You know what it looks like to me?”
Webster’s blue eyes followed the hardened gum’s descent toward somewhere under the desk as he finally managed to peel it off.
Liebgott deftly picked it up with the broom’s bristles and carried it over to the rest of the pile. He glanced quickly at Webster and smiled amusedly as he watched him scrunch up his face, seriously focused while, Joe imagined, he was vividly recalling the events.
While Webster was recalling this, Joe got to work and took the opportunity to wipe the chalk marks off the board with the damp cloth.
“I think this is a mediocre final project that fails to meet the minimum standards of the grading rubric, as well as the basic criteria of ‘research methodology.’ “For the level of your program, Mr. Webster, you should be ashamed that you don’t know how to cite secondary sources correctly. Two weeks. You had two weeks to work on this, and you decided this would be your final submission.”
Web gestured with his hands, as if he were giving a lecture in front of a large audience.
Joe glanced at him over his shoulder as he struggled to scrape off the chalk, and when he saw Webster gesturing with his hands. He found it quite funny; he couldn't help but smile once more and tease him good-naturedly.
“Did he really use those exact words? I’m not surprised. Sobel is a truly detestable professor when he sets his mind to it—which is to say, all the time.”
Webster took advantage of Joe’s interest and continued to make his point; he stood up, turning his back slightly on Liebgott so he could dust off the books on the desk.
“I agree, Liebgott, it’s just that… instead of just accepting it, I started arguing with Sobel and accidentally called him, among other things, an idiot…” he admitted, not proudly, but simply honestly.
Liebgott laughed. “I can’t believe it’s you, Web. The sweet guy insults authority.” Well, I’m not judging you because it’s Sobel. I’d do the same thing.
Webster blushed. “Like anyone else.” He looked away.
“Like anyone else.”
Liebgott nodded.
Webster’s eyes lit up as he recalled more and more details of the same story.
“Okay, I also said that his class was crap and that he could go to hell whenever he wanted! Right in front of the whole group…
David paused to reflect on his own words for a moment and naturally came to the most logical conclusion about the situation.
“Sobel didn’t exactly take that well, so he reported me.”
Joe paused, looked at Webster for a second, and then hummed in agreement.
“You made a great discovery, Web.”
Joe said this, imitating the boy’s intellectual manner of speaking—without malice, but with a touch of humor. Liebgott found his classmate David’s unusual way of expressing himself amusing. Joe walked lightly over to him, sliding the damp rag across the desk until it came to rest in front of Webster.
Joe leaned against the side of the desk, his eyes searching for Web’s.
The boy, however, seemed too preoccupied with wiping down the cover of the same book over and over until it gleamed—whatever it took to hide his embarrassed face.
Joe forced a smile.
“So that’s how you ended up wasting an hour of PE, grounded in the same room with yet another troublemaker. The twists and turns of life.”
Then Joe pushed off the corners of the desk with his arms to stand up.
Webster followed his gaze to the classroom window, where Joe had decided to focus his attention; he was watching the students walking by in the hallway outside, oblivious to any disciplinary action taking place inside the detention classroom.
Webster swallowed and blinked a couple of times in quick succession, carefully lowering his book.
«I think I talked a lot about myself. Did I bother Joe with my complaints?»
“I guess so… What about you, Liebgott?” Joe turned his attention to the blushing Webster standing by the desk. “Speaking of which… How come you’re here, too?”
Web asked in a timid voice, and Joe smiled at him from where he was sitting.
“To be honest, for reasons less surprising than yours, it got me thinking… Am I finally being outdone by the apprentice?”
It took David a couple of seconds to process: “And was that… a good thing or a bad thing?” Liebgott, seeing him seriously pondering the question, laughed again.
And he added good-naturedly, “It was a joke, apprentice! Take it easy!”
Webster looked at him in puzzlement; Joe stepped away from the window, grabbed the broom, and swept the pile of trash into the bin while telling David his story.
“Just this week I was late to the same class four times. So that was the main reason they listed in the report; the other was because Mr. Winters caught me trying to pull off a potentially deadly stunt on my skateboard on the stairs of Building E.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But Winters just gave me a warning not to do it again; the second time, he wouldn’t be so understanding, so Prefect Lipton didn’t find out about it that time, and he just marked the ‘punctuality’ box in red.”
“Oh,” Webster replied almost automatically.
«What a silly answer, but it was the only thing that came to mind… I wonder if he took offense?»
“Oh,” Liebgott repeated in Webster’s tone. He leaned the cleaning supplies against the wall before returning to Webster and sitting down at the desk.
“Did you hurt yourself? On the stairs, I mean.”
Webster tensed. «What was that question?»
Liebgott tilted his chin toward him, smiling a little too broadly.
“Not at all. I have good balance.”
“I see. That’s… great.”
The boys looked at each other for a few seconds and then looked away; Webster stared at the gleaming desk. Liebgott looked at the freshman walking by outside.
Liebgott cleared his throat and wandered around the room, looking for something to do.
Webster checked the to-do list and set about checking off the boxes.
After that, there was a brief moment of silence during which no one said anything; they were each simply focused on completing the remaining tasks.
From time to time, they exchanged brief remarks such as, “How’s it going?”, “I’m done with this,” or “Let me help you with that.”
Ten minutes later, the bell rang, signaling the end of the period.
“Look at that, Web, the torture’s over! We’re free now!” Joe declared cheerfully after Webster had been startled by the bell. “Want to go grab a bite to eat?”
As was his custom, Liebgott took the initiative in making the suggestion.
It took Webster a couple of extra seconds before he could reply with a barely audible “Yes.”
“Sure.”
“Great, let’s go then. I’m starving.”
The rest of David’s body tensed when Joe wrapped his arm around his shoulders to lead him out of the classroom. Neither Liebgott nor Webster bothered to make sure the classroom door was closed properly as they left; detention was over, and Joe complained the whole way about how hungry he was.
Webster let Joe drag him toward the cafeteria, while he wondered to himself how Liebgott seemed to be having such a good time even though he was grounded for an hour.
Breathing the same stifling air as him.
“Oh, look at that, Web! They made spaghetti today!”
Joe let go of him to run to the line behind the counter.
“When did we even get to the cafeteria?”
Webster took charge of carrying his tray and Joe’s, dodging Frank and George Luz, who were staging an epic pitched battle, using their trays as shields and weapons.
Webster hurried to catch up with Liebgott in line and made sure to keep an eye out for an empty table while they waited to be served.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Joe had also ended up in detention that day—albeit purely by coincidence—Web would have spent that hour mulling over the argument with Sobel; he would have felt a little down about it.
Surprisingly, Joe managed to make an hour of detention feel like an hour of free time, and Webster felt indebted to him for that.
*Bonus panel.
Joe slowly looked up, his cheeks full of spaghetti and his brow furrowed in confusion.
Webster had set the container of grape Jell-O on his tray without saying a word.
“Don’t you want some?” he asked after swallowing a mouthful of food.
Webster felt his cheeks grow hot and shook his head.
“It’s not that… It’s just, I thought you liked the grape ones, and, well, I…”
Joe understood, nodded, and smiled at the boy.
“Awesome! Thanks, Web!”
Web watched him silently enjoy the Jell-O for a few seconds and then, his cheeks burning, looked away toward another part of the cafeteria.
“Looks like he liked it.” Web smiled slightly.
“Ouch! Dude, what the hell?!” Frank shouted.
Webster turned to his right.
George Luz had just smacked him on the head for some reason, from the table next to them.
To be continued!