Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The stars are shimmering, in a way Jesse hasn’t seen since he was a little kid. The light pollution hasn’t overtaken the stars yet, but it will eventually. His hands are crossed over his stomach, with one of Tulip’s hands lying on top of his, trying to slip her fingers in the spaces between his. Jesse looks over to her, the moonlight makes her face shine. Her eyes glitter like the stars.

“We gonna do the plan?” Tulip grabs his hand, her smile makes his heart jump. Her feet are drawn up onto the hood of the car, her back against the windshield. She looks like a model, so at ease and relaxed, the slight breeze blowing her curls around her face and in turn fluffing them up. Jesse got lucky to end up with Tulip O’Hare as his girlfriend.

“Yeah, babe.” He leans into her, kissing her cheek and taking his hands off of his stomach, resting the hand that isn’t tangled with hers on her shoulder. “We’ll be gone in no time.”

Tulip pushes him back, her brows lowering. “You’re serious, right? You don’t get to back out, Jess. Not now.”

Jesse nods, a grimace starting to form. “Yeah, it’s gonna happen. I’m not gonna ditch you.”

Tulip has her grip on his shirt collar, a ratty old grey t shirt his dad used to wear, one he wore more than anything else in his wardrobe. She knows John used to wear that shirt, back when they were little kids, when cleaning up the storage room and the attic of the church.

“Good, Custer.” She grins, letting go of Jesse and sliding off the hood, slipping her plastic, yellow flip flops back on. “Your curfew’s almost up, right? Donnie’s having a party on Friday, and we’re going.”

Jesse crawls off the hood, opening the passenger door to Tulip’s car. “Dad’s not letting my curfew end. So how’re you gonna sneak me out?” He slips his arm around her once they’re both in the car, drumming on her shoulder.

Tulip groans. “Sneak yourself out. I’m picking up Cass and his roaming band of nerds.”

Jesse fakes a gasp of shock. “How could you, Tulip? The father of your child, so rudely dismissed! I can’t walk to Donnie’s in this state!” He grabs his stomach for emphasis, making Tulip giggle.

“Fiiine, I’ll pick you up, too. But you’ve gotta sit on Cass’s lap. He’s bringing three of his friends and he already called shotgun.” Tulip revs the engine, speeding down the road before Jesse can protest. He does try to scream over the sound of her car’s tires whining on the gravel, but Tulip further drowns him out with a Dragonforce cassette.

Cass is slinking against the wall outside the guy’s bathroom, an unlit joint burning a hole in his front pocket. His arms are crossed over his chest, his foot is tapping rapidly against the tile floor. Inside the bathroom, he can hear Donnie and his beef-brained friend’s chattering about which girls got hot over summer vacation, and if any of the freshman girls were cute and worth pursuing.

The bathroom door slams open, and three guys pour out, Cass isn’t sure how they managed to get through the doorway with their bulging muscles.

“Yeah, Tracy Loach got cute. I’ll invite her to your party on Friday, man.” One guy says to Donnie, who nods, play-punching him in the forearm.

“Get it!” The guys chorus down the hall, and Cass slips into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

He fishes through the many pockets on his pants, furrowing his brows at how well his lighter is evading him. While Cass is searching, a bathroom stall opens behind him, which he faintly notices.

The boy goes to the furthest sink from Cass, side-eyeing him while he washes his hands. Cass regards the kid, noting that he looks like a baby. Did a middle schooler get thrown in with the freshmen?

“Yeh might want to leave now.” Cass brings the lighter out of his pocket, flicking it on and putting the joint in his mouth.

“Is that a marijuana cigarette?” The kid piped up, his voice squeaky with hormones. “That’s illegal!”

Cass rolls his eyes, putting it back in his pocket. “What are yeh, a narc?”

The kid starts trembling like a terrified chihuahua, wringing his wrists wildly. “My dad’s a cop, you shouldn’t be doing that.”

Cass throws the lighter in his backpack, trying to play innocent. “Wait. . .Sheriff Root is your dad, right?”

The kid nods in a very exaggerated way, and Cass decides that now is the right time to pack up and go. He unlocks the bathroom door and rushes down the hall, towards the bathroom across the school. What a delight that Cass already ran into the school snitch before first bell even rang.

The cafeteria is full, kids are sitting together and updating each other on their summer vacations. While Donnie Schenck is bragging about going to California to visit family members (neglecting to mention that those family members didn’t live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or anywhere cool like that), Fiore is sitting at his own table, alone, picking at a thin scar on his knuckle. He watches Cassidy across the cafeteria, sitting with a few of the theatre kids and laughing with them. The girl, who wears too much lipstick and smiles too big, is cackling at whatever he’s saying, while the guy, the only guy in school who actively auditions for each play, is watching Cassidy with hearts in his eyes.

Fiore’s been watching their romance play out for four years now, since the first day of freshman year they’ve been flirting with each other yet refusing to let it go anywhere. The only reason Fiore has been so focused on their relationship is that he doesn’t have one of his own. Of course, he can’t say he does want to be anyone’s boyfriend, he’s never had a crush on any girl in class and he’s been more interested in studying and reading than dating. At least studying and reading fit into his sedentary lifestyle.

The guy, who Fiore knows goes by some name that begins with an “E,” though his real name is Michael, places a hand on Cassidy’s knee, looking up at him with that same lovey-dovey look on his face. He says something, Fiore sees his lips move, but he isn’t sure what.

“Hey, dude,” a Southern drawl drags him away from craning his head over his shoulder to the kid in front of him. “Can you get up? Me and my friends wanna sit here.”

Fiore groans, picking up his backpack and going over to the wall, standing against it and waiting for the bell. The preacher’s son and his girlfriend push through the crowds, sitting down with Cassidy and his friends. His girlfriend talks with the lipstick girl, while he talks with Cassidy, ignoring Michael. If he was braver, he’d go up and sit with them. He wouldn’t join the conversation, he wouldn’t even say ‘hi,’ but he would sit and tune the conversation out, his face buried in a book. At least he’d be able to sit, then.

Fiore pulls his book out, and opens it to his ripped paper bookmark, just when first bell rings. Of course.

Eugene’s first period is US History I with Mr. Saint, which Eugene believes to be a good omen. He strolls out to the portables beside the school, his backpack slung over both shoulders, his hands clasped on both straps. So far, high school hasn’t been exactly like the movies. It’s not bad, by any means, but it’s just so casual compared to how dramatic and high-energy that the shows and movies portrayed.

He hasn’t even seen a kid get pushed into a locker, or swirlied, but he’d be the one to be thrown in a locker or swirlied if it was going to happen. He hid in a stall when Donnie Schenck and his friends poured into the bathroom, and sat on the seat, quietly waiting for them to leave.

Eugene slips into the third and last portable, second room, and stands in the doorway. The room is pitch black, it takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once he can see again, he makes out posters of cowboys, more specifically posters of John Wayne. Eugene isn’t very well-acquainted with John Wayne, but he knows his face from some of his dad’s t shirts that he wears around the house. He doesn’t even notice anyone is in the room until he notices movement in the corner.

He gasps, and jumps back, hitting a few desks behind him.

“ Urgh, name?” The figure is holding a clipboard, and Eugene quickly realises it’s the teacher.

“Uhm, Eugene Root.” He has a bit of a lisp from his new braces, with green and black brackets in them.

The man checks him off, and he gestures at Eugene. “Sit anywhere. I don’t do seating charts.” His groans, like he just woke up, which wouldn’t surprise Eugene.

“Okay.” He’s trying to contain his excitement, but he can’t. He feels like an adult, getting to sit wherever he wants in the room. Is this what college is gonna be like?

Eugene sits down in a seat nearest Mr. Saint, pulling out his notebook and three mechanical pencils, unsure whether he wants to use the blue, green, or red one first. His dad told him red and blue were gang colours, so he decides to use green. He doesn’t want to get any attention from gang members, according to Dad, “you wouldn’t last a day, kid.”

He smiles and writes his name, the date, and the class in the corner of his paper. By now, kids are pouring into the class, and Mr. Saint turns the lights on when some guy complains that he almost tripped on a desk. Eugene watches everyone walk through the door, though he diverts his eyes when he sees a boy walk in, Tracy Loach hanging on his arm. She has a bright smile on her face, her eyes are glittering, but that look fades when she sees Eugene. A grimace replaces her smile.

Eugene hunches over, whispering beratements to himself. He sees the shadows of feet underneath his desk, yet a pair remains firmly planted in front of his. “Hey, Root, look up.”

He glances up, practically shaking. “Yeah, Jason?”

Jason Watts is at least twice Eugene’s size, he looks like a massive football player, yet he’s only two years older than he and Tracy. Eugene’s eyes widen, he’s certain now that on day one of high school, he’s going to get killed for looking in Tracy’s general direction on accident. During first period, no less.

“Don’t look at Tracy. You think you can get away with that? You’re disgusting.” Jason walks away after that, returning to Tracy and getting her a seat behind him, where she can’t see Eugene. He hears her say something, but he can’t tell what it is over the chatter.

What was that about? What did he do to Tracy? He hasn’t even talked to her since sixth grade. Maybe she’s upset about that, and that makes perfect sense to Eugene. He’ll try to talk to her on the bus later, or maybe at lunch. She probably has wanted to talk to him but she thought he was avoiding her. Oh, no, he wasn’t trying to make her think he was avoiding her.

Geez, high school really is stressful. The movies got that right, at least.

DeBlanc is new. That is one of the cardinal sins in school, being the new kid. He’s hunched over himself and trying to appear small, so people just glance over him. He can at least get away with that, right? Being invisible for his last year of high school, leaving this hick town and going back to the UK to start university? He thinks that’s a fair way to end high school. Though, the principal isn’t allowing it. Mr. Doggod, one of the strangest names he’s ever heard (though, to be fair, what seventeen-year-old boy was named DeBlanc?), is standing behind him, texting away on his phone.

They’re both standing outside of his first period class, English 12. He tries peeking through the thin window in the door, though all he sees is a window to the outside world and some empty desks. Mr. Doggod looks up from his phone, pushing past DeBlanc and opening the door, stage-whispering for him to follow.

DeBlanc notices a small handful of kids sitting in the class, one of which has the biggest eyes he’s ever seen. He stares at the boy, and they maintain the mutual stare for a second before the boy looks away, looking terrified that DeBlanc returned the gaze. Whatever, he doesn’t like eye contact.

“This is the new kid,” Mr. Doggod whispers to the teacher, a stern-looking woman with a bob. “DeBlanc, uh. . .”

“Lewis. My name is DeBlanc Lewis.” He tries to force a very deep voice, to assert that he’s confident, but it cracks and sounds awkward. He sighs at his voice for betraying him like that.

His teacher shrugs. “Okay. I’m Miss Featherstone. Go sit down.”

The only empty seat close to the front is next to the bug-eyed boy. He is tapping his fingers on a book, presumably one they read over summer holiday.

DeBlanc brings out his notebook, and starts jotting down nothing in particular. All the while, Mr. Doggod is still talking with Miss Featherstone, asking her about something that she obviously has no strong opinion on, but keeps him from having to go back to his office and do anything. He’ll be damned if he has to do anything mentioned in his job description.

The bug-eyed boy looks over at DeBlanc’s notebook, reading his admittedly very neat writing. DeBlanc feels his massive eyes on him, reading everything he’s writing, and he tries to cover his writing with his arm. He doesn’t need to know that the new kid is writing abstract poetry about anatomy.

“Alright, we’re reading Macbeth. We’re going to watch a video about William Shakespeare to start.” Miss Featherstone turns the lights off in the room, and the projector whirrs.

DeBlanc closes his notebook, and finally he feels the bug-eyed gaze leave him. Finally, he can relax his shoulders.

Eccarius and Lisa gather with the other five theatre kids to sit in front of Mr. Hoover. Of course, Mr. Hoover is one of the favourite teachers in school, despite being fairly unpopular among the teachers. Though, students always gravitate towards him.

He claps his hands together, and pulls out an old chalkboard.

Lisa smiles at Eccarius, knocking her knuckles into his thigh. “So, it’s still your favourite musical?”

The annual question. It all started Eccarius’s sophomore year, the first day Lisa appeared in theatre class. She gravitated to him, and the first question out of her mouth was “what is your favourite musical?”

Since freshman year, he’s sternly believed Lestat: the Musical to be the best thing ever put off-Broadway, and he’s admired the romance between Lestat and Nicholas just as well. So, the first thing out of his mouth when Lisa asked this was “Lestat.”

Lisa had never heard of it, but then she went on to ask about it and quickly understand that Eccarius was eccentric (with a name like his, you have to be), and she liked it very much. So, they’ve been friends since day one.

“Of course,” he murmurs in her direction, watching Mr. Hoover scribble down the names of five musicals.

The chalk squeaks against the blackboard, and a girl next to Lisa covers her ears, grimacing. However, Emily Ford is not. She simply sits cross-legged with her hands folded in her lap, perfect posture, and put together like a porcelain doll. While Eccarius knows Lisa would never admit it, she is massively envious of Emily. She gets every lead role in every play, she has perfect pitch, she’s a first soprano, and she’s overall flawless. Though, if he’s being honest, he’s sure Emily is either so perfect that she has no personality beneath, or she’s hiding it behind her prim image. Her hair is so straight and glossy he can’t help but admit he’d like to rip it out of her head and put it over top of his messy man-bun.

“We have five different plays I’ve been dying to do.” Mr. Hoover gestures at his list. Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible, The Outsiders, Cabaret, and Xanadu.

“ Romeo and Juliet? Really?” Lisa’s smile twists, and she raises her hand.

“Yes?” Mr. Hoover calls on her, while the other girls in the class are chattering amongst themselves and Eccarius is vaguely disappointed at each play listed. Of course, they don’t have many options, as their school district banned a good few plays they would have done (of course, The Rocky Horror Show, which Eccarius begged Mr. Hoover to consider, just so he could rope Cass into playing Frank and get him into fishnets). But Cabaret? That’s banned, he knows it. There’s no way that musical would fly. With how lucky they normally are, they’ll do Seussical again to appease the seven-year-olds being dragged to their older sibling’s school play after 7 pm.

Once he goes to New York, he’ll get to act in real musicals. He just needs to remember that it’s only eight more months of watered-down kid’s plays and Emily Ford getting every lead until he’s finally free.

“We did Romeo and Juliet three years ago.” Lisa sounds disappointed, it sounds so unnatural coming from her.

Mr. Hoover sighs, nodding. “Unfortunately, we’ve run out of plays that the school district hasn’t barred. Granted, we can’t do Cabaret or The Crucible, either. Do you have any suggestions?”

Lisa shakes her head, and no one decides to speak up. Eccarius can’t think of what he’d suggest, since a lot of the musicals they were planning to put on were swiftly banned, he’s hitting a wall.

In some fair world, they could put on whatever musical they wished, they’d put on one with a male lead so Eccarius could finally be a lead again for the first time since freshman year. Or anything that didn’t require a first soprano.

“Maybe Cass would know one we could do. He watches musicals too, right?” Lisa leans into Eccarius, and he puts an arm over her, rubbing her arm.

“I don’t think he’d come up with anything.” Truthfully, he knows Cass would only suggest Rocky Horror, or Mamma Mia!, something big and campy like that. Again, Eccarius has hit another wall.

Another year of Seussical starring Emily Ford. How fitting.

The lights in the classroom click back on, and Cass leans over his desk, twisting one of his fingers in Eccarius’s hair. His other hand undoes the scrunchie keeping his hair in its bun, he spreads his hair over his back and starts awkwardly braiding it. Even after Tulip’s numerous tutorials, he still has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to hair. So, even when he’s trying to be gentle and mindful of Eccarius, he still knots his hair and tangles it to the point that Lisa has to untangle it at lunch.

While Cass can’t see the look on Eccarius’s face, he knows it has to be a very coy smile. He loves Cass toying with his hair in English, ignoring Miss Featherstone while she drones on about Shakespeare and the numerous plays Cass has neglected to read, in favour of Eccarius reading them to him in his smokey bedroom after school.

Donnie Schenck sits right beside Cass, so he just watches with visible unease on his face while he braids Eccarius’s hair and whispers to him. Donnie, of course, interprets it as some kind of dirty talk, while really Cass is asking Eccarius if they can just read Romeo and Juliet again, because at the very least he could watch the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.

“Don’t even mention Romeo and Juliet around me,” Eccarius groans. “Besides, Macbeth is amazing. You’ll love it.”

Cas shrugs, twisting up a lock of his hair. “Isn’t that the one with the witches? The ‘double toil trouble’ thing?”

Eccarius nods, grimacing at the feeling of Cass tugging too hard on his hair. At the front of the class, Miss Featherstone is writing something on the whiteboard. Cass can’t make it out, yet Eccarius can.

Sonnets 18, 29, 108 & 130 sits on the board in deep blue ink.

“Each of you will form a group and choose one of these four sonnets to examine. You will present to the class next Monday.” Miss Featherstone retrieves four short stacks of paper from her desk and sets them on an empty table near the front of the class.

Already, it seems that Eccarius has picked a sonnet.

He turns back to Cass, who’s still holding onto his hair.

“We’re doing 108.” He grabs his scrunchie from Cass’s wrist and pulls his hair off his shoulders, gathering it into a bun and tying it up.

“We should pick 130. Wiry black hair, sickly pale skin, it might as well be written about yeh.” Cass gestures at Eccarius, who gives him a faux-icy glare.

“Funny.” Eccarius raises his hand, telling Miss Featherstone that they’re picking 108 before anyone else has even managed to break up into their groups.

He walks up to her, taking two copies of the sonnet.

“Proinsias is your partner?” He’s a bit shocked by her near-perfect pronunciation of Proinsias. He’s even a bit confused for a moment before he remembers Cassidy isn’t just named Cassidy.

He nods quickly, taking the two copies of the sonnet and sitting down.

“You’re going to like this one.” He hands one of the sheets to Cass, who reads over the beginning briefly. It all pours in one ear and out the other, he’s barely processing what he’s reading, but he’ll get it by the time they’re hunkered in his bedroom and Eccarius is reading it to him.

Tulip is the last person to enter her Forensic Science class, and she makes a point to enter bombastically, making sure everyone knows that she’s indeed late, and she does smell like stale cigarettes.

She throws her small backpack onto the counter next to the door and pulls out her notebook she’s using for each class. She’ll just drop this class once schedule changes start, she doesn’t even need another science class, especially one with a new teacher. Tulip has no idea how a new teacher is going to react to her, if she’ll just be allowed to fuck around on her phone and text Jesse and Cass, both across the school from her, or if she’ll basically have to sit perfectly still and perfectly silent to make this new teacher happy.

Tulip finds the new teacher, standing behind her desk and setting up her laptop to put on a powerpoint. She’s tall, and way too pretty to have ended up in Annville. Ex-model in the witness protection program? Maybe.

The teacher grins at the corner of her mouth, pulling up her attendance on her screen. “And you’re Tulip O’Hare?”

Tulip nods. Her voice is deep and smooth, and that only strengthens the case that she was a celebrity in her own right before she ended up as a high school forensic science teacher in the middle of West Texas.

She chuckles once, marking Tulip as tardy and directing her to a seat in the front. Tulip picks her backpack up once again and takes her seat, she feels uneasy around this chick.

“I’m Ms. McDonnall.” She says to Tulip, before she pulls up the presentation, a brief description on what the class will be like.

Tulip tunes it all out, her cheek cupped in her palm and her eyes lazily scanning each slide, though the information on each slide doesn’t resonate with her. The letters are hazy, and she’s already accepted that this is going to be a class dedicated to reading and filling out worksheets, the only kind of class that Tulip can fail no matter how hard she tries. At least a visual class would resonate, and she’d actually understand it. But, most teachers wouldn’t even bother to try to adapt their teaching.

When Ms. McDonnall is sat at her desk, clicking away at something, Tulip pulls out her phone, checking the few texts that Jesse and Cass sent in their group chat.

Shit about how gym class sucks, Coach Nips is as creepy and weird as ever, and how Miss Featherstone is assigning a presentation on the first day of school. She tries to text back that she already got a tardy and she’d be in Doggod’s office in no time, but her phone is quickly plucked from her hands.

Ms. McDonnall is standing in front of her, that same self-satisfied smirk on her face. “I guess you didn't listen to my presentation. You can pick this up from me after school.”

Tulip grimaces, kicking herself back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest. She looks and feels like a fussy child, but she’s more pissed that this is what Forensics is going to be. To think, she was actually excited to learn about dead bodies and blood and whatever. She feels like a total moron.

She watches the clock, despite never learning how to read one, and watches the seconds go by until class is over.

Chapter Text

Jesse is disappointed, but in no way surprised, to see Tulip huffily storming out the front doors, arms over her chest and her face practically red. Her sneakers smack against the cement of the school parking lot, which smells like hot tar boiling in the sun, and she comes up to Jesse, ready to rant about her fourth period teacher sucking.

“She’s such a fucking bitch,” Tulip groans, unlocking her car and letting Jesse and Cass in, both looking fairly upset. “Took my goddamn phone away, I couldn’t read the screen anyway! How was I supposed to know phones were banned! No other classes have them banned!”

Cass leans back in his seat, uncomfortably. Jesse reaches across the console and puts an arm over her shoulder, hoping it’ll calm her down.

“Babe, it’s fine. You can switch out of that class tomorrow. I’m switching out of my fourth period, we’ll hang out.” He tries to sound so casual, but Tulip glares at him, shaking his hand off of her shoulder.

“Okay, I guess that’s fine.” Her tone doesn’t change, however, and she starts the car, speeding off to the new McDonald’s near the school. At least she’ll get French fries, that’ll calm her down. Jesse will ask the drive thru guy if the McRib is back yet, and Cass will dip his fries and chicken nuggets into his milkshake, and it’ll be like she was never angry in the first place.

Lisa holds her flimsy paper plated-cheeseburger like it’s an actual decent meal and not recently reheated sludge on a bun with plastic cheese. The cafeteria is completely packed with freshmen, standing around and talking to their friends. She practically bounces over to her usual table, where she, Eccarius, and Cass normally sit when he’s not off with Jesse and Tulip, or when Eccarius isn’t in the auditorium with Mr. Hoover. But, their table is practically empty, save for a small guy hunched over a math book. He’s scribbling away on some graph paper, and Lisa looks around, wondering if she should ditch trying to find Eccarius and sit down with this guy.

It only takes her a second to slide onto the bench opposite the guy, and she sets down her plate, pulling her yellow water bottle out of her backpack. It’s coated in stickers she got when she, Eccarius, and Cass went to Houston over spring break, all kitschy sayings and cute designs. They slept in her dad’s van outside of a motel that denied their request for a two full beds (she said she’d be fine sharing a bed with either of them, and neither of them would say they’d be happy to share a bed, so they all curled up in the back of her dad’s van—she still has the pictures of Cass and Eccarius cuddled up together), and overall she still thinks it to be the best spring break she’s ever had.

The guy doesn’t notice her at first, until she clears her throat. He looks up, and looks immediately uncomfortable.

“Oh, is this your table? I’m sorry.” He starts to get up, but she shakes her head.

“No, sit down! You were here first, anyways.” She twists open the cap of her water bottle, then holds out her hand. “I’m Lisa.”

The smile on her face is like a ray of pure sunshine beaming directly into his eyes. Still, he shakes her hand back. “DeBlanc. I’m new.”

“Of course! You’re the exchange student from the UK! Hey, have you met any of the other British kids? Well, British and Irish.” She giggles, it’s like she’s too perky to be real. But, it doesn’t come off as fake. So, it’s a bit enviable.

DeBlanc shakes his head. “No, there’s others?”

“Yeah, my best friend Eccarius used to live near the Thames river, I think, and my friend Cassidy is from Dublin City. There’s also Fiore Jenkins, but I don’t really know him. He’s really tall, and he looks really scared all the time, I just always felt like I was making him uncomfortable when I tried to talk to him.” She takes a drink from her water bottle, and DeBlanc immediately recalls the bug-eyed kid from English.

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen him.” Fiore. God, it’s like they were separated at birth or something. It was rare he met someone with a name as bizarre as his. Still, it’s not like he thought they’d be friends, if Fiore’s terrified staring was anything to go off of.

He returns to his math, while Lisa eats her lunch and occasionally asks him what it’s like to move all the way to another country, and why he bothered to come to Texas, of all places. He obliges her, since no one else in the school has even attempted to ask, and he isn’t sick of the question yet.

Meanwhile, Eugene is having a tough time trying to find a seat. He wants to find new friends, but he can’t bring himself to sit down with a bunch of huge seniors and start up a conversation with them, especially when that senior table hosted the massive football players and Jason Watts. In that case, it was just easier to find other people to sit with. He sees Tracy at their table, however, looking bored out of her mind and twirling her hair, waiting for her friends to come back with McDonald’s.

He walks over to her, holding an over-ketchuped hot dog and a water cup.

When he comes up to her, she looks mortified. She looks down, covering her face from Eugene.

“Hey, Tracy!” He practically beams, and it makes her sigh.

“Eugene, just go away, okay?” She murmurs, but he doesn’t catch it.

“Look, I just wanted to apologise—” He starts, but Jason rises up from the table, practically casting a shadow over Eugene.

“What did I say in History, kid? Get the fuck away from Tracy!” He is immediately standing in front of Eugene, and he shoves his plate at his chest, smearing ketchup across his shirt and sending his water cup flying past his face.

A security guard places himself between Eugene and Jason, blocking Jason from pushing Eugene around further. He diffuses the situation in a second, and brings Eugene to the sidelines.

“Hey, are you okay, kid? Do you wanna call your dad to bring you a clean shirt?” He notices Eugene starting to cry, but he says nothing in return. He just walks off to the bathroom and washes off his shirt, wiping away his tears with paper towels. Hopefully today is just bad, and tomorrow will be better. Hopefully.

Eccarius leaves the auditorium, deciding that he was fed up with listening to Emily practice her range and Mr. Hoover practically crying at how perfect her voice is. He texts Cassidy, asking him where he is and if they should just skip and get high at Cass’s. It'll be better than gym and their school’s pathetic excuse of an art class, where they simply drew whatever for an hour and a half and left. If they had assignments in that class, he’d never know, because most of the time their teacher was on a knockoff Ashley Madison site, and when he wasn’t he was sleeping in his office.

He leans against the wall outside the auditorium, pulling out his phone and texting away. Cass doesn’t respond, but he sends a few cheeky texts in the vain of hey, what’s up?, are there any jokes about irish guys besides how you fuck sheep?, oh wait, that’s welsh., still, i’ve got a sheep costume. :p

He’s not sure if that was exactly funny, but Cass likes jokes like that.

Eccarius switches over to YouTube, scrolling through his feed and eventually settling on “Right Before My Eyes,” humming along while he waits for Cass to respond.

He repeats the song three times before he gets three eggplant emojis followed by three water emojis. Eccarius simply sends back a heart, and begs him to stop being a tease. Thumbs up emoji.

Fiore sits in the library like he has every lunch period for the past three years, reading a book and trying to tune out the kid sitting next to him watching low-volume porn on his phone. He tried to watch porn, since Cass talked about watching it practically every day just because he found it “interesting,” but when Fiore tried, he found it to be disgusting. Something about the girls, he just didn’t like to watch them. He didn’t like watching the guys, either, which he had to clarify to Cass when he started proclaiming that Fiore had to be gay. Fiore found the subject uncomfortable and dropped it after that, and so had Cass.

He scoots further away from the guy watching porn, and curled up further into his book. The library door opened, and Fiore initially ignored it. It was probably the librarian coming back from the bathroom, something like that. But, when he turns to look, he notices DeBlanc. He’s carrying a math book, and it looks like he left the cafeteria in a huff, everything is still in his hands.

He sits down at the other table in front of Fiore’s, not even noticing him watching. He probably looks terrifying right now, eyes bugging out of his skull as he watches DeBlanc settle down at the table.

He looks up, feeling Fiore staring, and his expression turns softer. He smiles gently, like he wants it to be very subtle, and he picks everything up, going to sit with Fiore.

“Hello,” his voice is hushed, and Fiore nods, looking back down at his book.

“Uhm, hi.” He murmurs back at DeBlanc, trying to look like he’s reading.

DeBlanc tries to look at what book he’s reading, and but Fiore just covers it with his arms. It’s banned in their school district, he has no idea if DeBlanc is a snitch or not. So, instead of trying to converse, DeBlanc goes back to his math, scribbling away.

Fiore glances over every so often to watch. DeBlanc looks really peaceful solving math problems, like it’s second nature to him. Even despite Fiore being the school’s top math student, he still looks terrified when he’s presented with a twenty problem worksheet to solve in the last ten minutes of class. Sure, he can finish it, but there’s still the fear that he just can’t.

The guy watching porn leaves halfway through lunch, leaving Fiore and DeBlanc alone at their table. They both glance up when the other isn’t looking, but try (and fail) to not catch each other looking. When DeBlanc looks up and finds Fiore staring at him with a less-anxious look on his face, he smiles, even chuckling a little bit. It sounds like a nervous laugh, but who knows, that’s probably how he laughs.

“You remind me of one of my friends from home. He was really quiet, too. And you kind of look alike.” DeBlanc completely turns away from his math. The attention makes Fiore’s chest pound like he’s going to have a panic attack. Fuck, he doesn’t have his meds.

“Goodbye.” Fiore packs everything up and stumbles out of the library before DeBlanc can say anything else to him, and he waits by the door of his next class, hoping the episode will pass quickly.

Sidney settles into the teacher’s lounge, sipping her lukewarm coffee from the Caffeinator 250 next to the sink, a dusty, yellowing machine the school probably purchased when it first opened. It might even be older than her, who knows?

She pulls out her lesson planner, reviewing what assignments she’s planned for Forensic Science and Physical Science I. She doesn’t look up from her planner when fellow teachers pour in, as she’s already established that she just doesn’t want to make friends here. Lara stands by the coffee machine with FJ, who obviously wanted to ask her out but didn't want to violate the district’s rule against dating colleagues. They both presented her with A, a shitty mug, and B, a picture frame from the thrift store down the road at her welcoming party, and she’d met every other teacher in the school. Except for one.

She’d been warned about their gym teacher, Coach Starr, who no one seemed to call by his first name. Like he was that terrifying. She still hasn’t met him, but she’d rather not. Not because she believed the rumours about him held any validity, but because she just didn’t want another welcoming party.

“Hey, Sidney,” Lara gestures at her to come over. “Do you mind if I see your attendance sheets?”

She groans at the thought of having to interact with Lara again. “Oh, I use the online attendance tracker. Unless you want an excuse to look through my computer, then go to Doggod and ask him which kids are in my class.”

Sidney doesn’t understand the fascination with gossiping about students, which is only what she can assume Lara wants to do. It’s just weird to obsess over which students are dating, it feels like they never left high school if they still worry about which kids are hooking up with each other.

“Pfft, fine. Just wanted to warn you about certain students.” She goes back to talking to FJ, and despite her harsh reaction to Sidney, she still looks like she’d rather be talking to her than him.

And what kind of excuse was that? Just like she wanted to warn Sidney about Coach Starr and how “scary” he was? It’s not like the kids had any form of authority over her, no matter how hard they tried to take over her classes, but Coach Starr had a form of seniority, and therefore, authority, over her. The authority is what she has to fear. If he says anything adverse about her, she could be fired immediately. Say he accuses her of inappropriate work behaviour, and she’s out of a job just as quickly as she was in one.

She takes another sip of her coffee, before deciding she’ll finish her lunch in her classroom. At least she won’t feel a dozen sets of eyes on her, watching for her to make one mistake (besides her rather blunt response to Lara).

Lunch finally ends, and fifth period begins. Jesse grimaces at the idea of going to History again. He flunked it last year, he doesn’t want to retake it again. The only good thing about History is that it’s the only class he shares with Tulip and Cass, who both insist on fucking around for the entirety of the year, which led to them also having to retake the class, as well.

The three stroll out to the portable, fully preparing to act like idiots instead of write a paper about World War II again. Tulip insists on papers about feminism, despite it being a topic they never cover, and Cass writes about queer figures in history, which causes even more of a headache since Mr. Saint has to look up the person and see if Cass was even accurate (he always is, but it’s hard to tell sometimes).

Despite the hard outer shell, they know Mr. Saint is a massive softie. He always excuses Tulip’s spelling and grammatical mistakes, and he doesn’t mark them down for writing about something that actually interests them. That has to be why it takes him a month to grade their papers.

The only reason they all flunked last year was that they had a substitute for second semester, who insisted that they write a research paper on their favourite historical figure. Jesse fought to write about John Wayne, and the sub insisted that an actor wasn’t a historical figure. Cass had trouble choosing which Stonewall rioter he wanted to research, and Tulip couldn’t find too many early feminists who also weren’t racist.

The sub, in turn, failed them all for not turning it “sufficient work.” But, they’re not totally upset to repeat, since at the very least they have Mr. Saint.

The three sit together at a table, half the the room had traditional desks and the other a long table, due to the district deciding not to replace any broken desks. Jesse watches Tulip while she takes off her sunglasses and adjusts her crop top. She doesn’t need to get dress-coded on top of everything else.

Cass brings up the texts Eccarius sent to him since the eggplant and wet emojis, and shows them to Tulip and Jesse. They simply read ‘so much for being oblivious :p’ “What the feck is he even trying to say?”

Jesse grins, wishing he could turn his chair around like an adult trying to level with a teen. “You see, he’s calling you a sheep fucker, you sheep fucker.”

Cass stands up, about to dive over the table and strangle Jesse. The utter disrespect of Jesse Custer, the utter disrespect.

“That’s not what I’m asking, Jess. Do yeh think I should just kill him? I think he’s malfunctioning.” He texts back ‘oblivious about what? what do you know that i don’t?’ It’s going to be painful by the time he realises what Eccarius is saying.

Tulip sighs. “God, both of you just need to fuck. We’re coming up on four years of you two flirting with no resolution.”

Jesse nods, but he doesn’t verbalise his agreement with Tulip. It makes Cass visibly upset. This is just their thing, that’s it. They just flirt, and just because they’re the only two bi kids in their friend group it doesn’t mean they have to get together or anything.

“What if I forced you two together, even though you were just friends?” He gets defensive, he doesn’t mean to but he’s not enjoying these accusations.

Tulip rolls her eyes. Jesus Christ, the high school melodrama is getting to him.

“You two practically live together, you’re always texting each other, dear God just admit you’re in love with Eccarius.” Jesse interjects.

Cass hides in his folded-up arms, exhaling loudly. They just don’t get it.

“It’s like you’re forcing me to say I like him when he’s just my best friend.”

The trio gets very quiet after that point. Yet, class continues as normal, besides Cass being uncomfortably quiet.

DeBlanc stumbles upon Fiore again.

While Fiore is putting seemingly dollar bills into the vending machine near the cafeteria, DeBlanc passes by, wondering if he should ask where the nurse’s office is. Of course, he can’t say why he needs to go to the nurse’s office, and he’s not even sure he should go to get help or simply resolve the problem when he gets home. Though, there’s always the chance that Fiore just won’t question it.

DeBlanc goes to stand a little ways from him, staying quiet while Fiore plugs in numbers on the vending machine, getting at least five things. He looks back, seeing DeBlanc and practically jumping. He drops his candy and crisps.

“Shit,” it’s barely audible, but DeBlanc catches it.

“God, I’m sorry.” He has no idea what to do besides help Fiore pick everything up. Fiore takes his snacks back, but he looks terrified.

“Uhm, thanks.” Fiore begins to run away, but DeBlanc stops him.

“Wait, please!” He yells, his voice cracks, and he covers his face. Still, Fiore turns, and stares at him. “Do you know where the nurse is?”

Fiore shrugs, unsure if he’s ever been there. “I think there’s a sign. Next to the attendance thing.”

DeBlanc smiles warmly at him. “Thank you so much. Uhm, I’ll see you later.”

Fiore steps closer, breaking the fairly large gap between them. He doesn’t say anything at first, he just looks at DeBlanc and tries to decide if he wants to do what he’s going to do. He looks through his pile of snacks and retrieves a chocolate bar, holding it out to DeBlanc. “Here. It’ll make you feel better.”

DeBlanc doesn’t like sweets for the most part, but since it’s a fairly awkward, quiet kid stepping out of his comfort zone to offer him something, he’ll take it. Plus, the gesture is more than nice. “Thank you. See you in English.”

Fiore pulls his lips together tightly before he turns and walks away, possibly to class, possibly to the library. DeBlanc nods to himself, and goes to the nurse’s office, chocolate bar tucked safely into his backpack. Maybe Texas wouldn’t be so bad.

Lisa waits outside the school for Eccarius and Cass, they agreed to get a ride home from her since Cass didn’t feel up to catching a ride with Tulip and Jesse. She holds her backpack to her chest, kicking her feet against the school’s brick exterior and humming a song from Six to herself.

There’s got to be a better musical they can do. One where she and Eccarius can actually lead, maybe even one where Cass could join in. The last time he was involved with one of their plays was when they did Clue, and after days of protest, Cass was allowed to play Mrs. Peacock and flirt with Wadsworth, played by Eccarius, or course. And that was sophomore year, the one year they actually had enough boys to fulfill all the male roles. Since then, it’s been Emily Ford as the lead without fail. Lisa had nothing against Emily, she was very nice and they were casual friends, but she didn’t enjoy how Mr. Hoover insisted on doing plays that allowed her to be the lead all the time.

In her senior year, Lisa is going to be the lead, she can feel it. She’s been practicing her singing and acting every single day with her mom, she has to have improved from her last role as the singing telegram (the only role Lisa could fill with her squeaky soprano).

“Hey!” Lisa sees DeBlanc walking out of the school’s doors, munching away on a chocolate bar and smiling. He waves at her, and quickly says “hi” around his chocolate bar. She’s a bit proud she made friends with him.

Following DeBlanc, Cass and Eccarius have their arms linked, and they’re chattering away about something. Lisa grins at them, she’s hoping they’re talking about theatre, but sometimes persistent optimism doesn’t work in her favour.

“He screamed at me for ducking away from the ball.” Eccarius says to Cass, who nods and chuckles in response. Coach Nips. He’s one of the rare people that Lisa simply can’t get along with, no matter how hard she tries. She brought him an apple for his birthday and he threw it away in front of her face because he didn’t like gala apples.

“Ah, he nearly knocked me out with a dodgeball when he noticed Tulip and I switched gym clothes.” Cass turns to Lisa, a shark-toothed grin on his face. “I thought I looked good in those short-shorts.”

Lisa giggles, she’s sure she saw Cass walking to the nurse’s office covering a bloody nose, wearing hot pink short-shorts. It was a sight to behold, and she also learned that day that Cass has a stick-n-poke tattoo on his upper thigh (of a unicorn, of course).

“Do you guys wanna hang out?” Lisa grins, she hasn’t seen either of them since early August, and she suspects that they probably hung out without her, but she didn’t mind that. It’s not like they have a limited period of time to hang out.

Cass gets an awkward sort of look on his face, and Eccarius runs his hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, but we have an assignment for English.”

Lisa’s disappointment flashes across her face briefly, but she tries to perk up so they don’t feel bad.

“Well, that’s fine. I mean, we’re going to Donnie’s party! We’ll hang out then.” She immediately brings herself back up, and it cheers Cass and Eccarius up, as well.

“Yeah, we’ll get drunk—sorry, yeh and I’ll get drunk, Eccarius’ll drink half a beer, get sick, and sit in the bathroom for the rest of the night.” Cass slinks into her backseat, as is second nature for him, and Eccarius sits up front with her. He tries to reach back and hit Cass, which he quickly realises his arms are too short for.

“Don’t we all wish we could be alcoholics like you,” Eccarius replies in a joking manner, but his tone upsets Lisa.

She wouldn’t say ‘don’t joke about that,’ because she didn’t feel like she could act as an authority figure towards two seniors, and Cass was laughing at it. She didn’t want to be a buzzkill.

Eugene is squished and shoved between two kids trying to get onto the bus at the same time as him. While he tries to let them go ahead, a girl behind him is using her arm to shove him forward. When Eugene is finally up the steps and the two kids have gone to the back with their friends, he has no idea where he wants to sit.

He initially wants to sit in the front, but he sees a few kids in his math class that had been giving him death glares. Well, to be fair, everyone in school gave him death glares today, save for the guy with the marijuana earlier. He sits in the front, behind the bus driver. Across from him, a freshman girl scowls at him, and turns back to her friend, whispering something in a harsh voice. Of course, Eugene tries to be as optimistic as he humanly can, so he pulls out his syllabuses for each class, reading them over once again.

He hears people directly behind him whispering the word ‘rapist,’ ‘pervert,’ and ‘he’s acting like he did nothing wrong.’ Of course, Eugene doesn’t assume that’s about him. What would he have done to get that response from practically everyone in school? Still, he sees the girl across from him scoff and turn back to her friend. Obviously, he’s done something, but he genuinely has no clue what.

Maybe he’ll go see Preacher Custer, ask him what all of this could be about.

Jesse looks over at Tulip, who is lying on his bed, stolen communion wine in her hand. His dad is either at the supermarket or got caught up at the Flavour Station proselytising to Jim and Barbara down the road. So, they still have time to get drunk.

“Why d’you think Cass got so upset in History? He likes Eccarius, he just needs to admit it and they’ll be dating.” Jesse has his hand on Tulip’s thigh, and she shrugs.

“I don’t know. He came out pretty recently, maybe he’s still not comfortable with it.” Her even mentioning Cass’s coming out made him uncomfortable.

“Uh, yeah. It was recent, wasn’t it?” Does he need to remember that? No. But, he’ll remember it, anyway. The human brain is fun.

Tulip nods. “Yeah, it was.” Her tone is a bit bitter. Sure, they were drunk, but that wasn’t an excuse to her. What happened was that Donnie held a party during the summer, and the three attended, Lisa and Eccarius in tow. Lisa and Eccarius left three minutes after they arrived, but Cass and Jesse were already wasted twenty minutes into the party. They disappeared ten minutes later, and when Tulip got bored of Jason groping her during beer pong (and resisting the urge to punch his dumbass), she searched Donnie’s house for them both. Eventually, she found Jesse and Cass, lying in Donnie’s room, half-dressed and making out. Tulip flipped her shit, and hit Jesse with a yearbook. He didn’t get to live down that moment where he realised he was making out with Cass and not Tulip, or the moment that Cass was crying on their ride home, admitting that he was bisexual. But, they managed to make up the week after that, and Jesse decided that he could forget he made out with Cass.

Jesse takes the wine from her and takes a swig, grimacing at the taste. “I didn’t like it, and you know that.”

“You had a boner, Jesse. Your hands were everywhere.” She shakes his hand off of her thigh, and sits up, about to pull her shoes back on and go to her car. She feels a bit bad pointing it out, but today has been shit, and she feels a bit justified in taking it out on Jesse.

“I was drunk! I thought it was you! Tulip, please, we already made up.” He lets the wine fall onto its side, spilling onto his carpet, and he follows her out to her car. Tulip glares at him.

“Fine.” She leans against her car, arms folded over her chest. “If you care so much about living that down, force Cass to get with Eccarius. See how he likes it.”

Jesse has nothing to say to that. “Look, at least come back inside and wait till you’re sobre, alright?”

Tulip rolls her eyes, deciding that it probably is best for her to not drive semi-drunk. She’s just pissed off that Jesse decided to be reasonable for once in his goddamn life. Really, it isn’t fair.