Work Text:
It takes far too long for Four to realize what's going on.
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"You have got to be kidding me."
Four closes his eyes and takes a very measured breath, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. His papers are strewn across the floor, the angry blue scrawl of a marker covering at least half of the print. Scattered fragments of ceramic catch the light of the sun starting to peer in through the half-opened blinds, and they cast little blips of brightness across the papered hardwood, really selling the whole scene. Four scans the wreckage of the shards and a few dozen homework assignments, trying futilely to spot anything even remotely salvageable, and he strangles a sound at the new dent in his wall, shaped perfectly for one of his grandfather's coffee mugs.
He takes another breath and sighs, reaching for the hand broom someone had shoved into the top drawer on his desk nearly a week ago now. He suspects the purple one. He doesn't see much of them, but whether that's because they don't come out much or because they're sneakier than the others remains to be seen.
Four picks up the papers one by one, careful not to fling any shards across the room. Then, he sweeps the pieces into the dustpan in a well-practiced move. Honestly, he should consider getting a part-time job in housekeeping considering how expertly he's honed his domestic skills this year. From sweeping to mending to scrubbing sharpie off the walls, he's accrued a fair bit of experience. He brushes the last bits of ceramic into the dustpan and scurries out of his room and down the hall like a particularly frazzled mouse, sticking close to the walls and keeping a careful hold on the dustpan.
Four breaches the kitchen with a single-focused determination, and he softly smacks the dustpan on the inside of the trash to shake off the fine, looser particles. His grandfather looks up from his newspaper and glances at the pan and the binned, cracked pieces of ceramic for a moment, an eyebrow raised questioningly.
"Dropped it," Four lies. His mouth is dry, and his throat feels a little rough when he swallows. "Sorry."
"That's the third mug this month," his grandfather says, no accusation anywhere to be found.
Four finds it anyway. He nods, and the tips of his ears and the high planes of his cheeks burn a blistering red. His fingers twist around the handle of the now-empty dustpan.
For a moment, it almost looks like his grandfather means to press the matter. Instead, with a gentle sigh and an uncomfortably knowing look, the old man says, "S'pose we oughta have our mugs made of sturdier stuff."
"Yeah," Four agrees lamely, shame curled in his gut, "Suppose."
He looks around the kitchen uselessly, willing himself to move but feeling rooted to the spot. The buzz of the fridge crawls under his skin like ants. His grandfather says nothing for a long moment, and Four shifts uncomfortably under the weight of the silence between them until it's lifted.
"Now, listen here," his grandfather says with a kind but stern tone, "if you need anything, you best let me know. Don' care if it's for school or what. You wanna paint, I'll buy you paints. You wanna keep smithin', an' I'll keep runnin' the forge. An'…an' if you need somethin' to break, I can get you that too."
Four blinks, processing several things at once. Amidst his short-circuiting brain, he feels something click pleasantly into place. Something to break, huh? His grandfather might be onto something there.
"Thanks, grandpa," Four says with a small smile. The feeling of being loved drowns out the fear and shame of his secret for a moment or two, and Four wanders back into his room with a smile still on his face.
It fades a bit as he catches sight of the rest of his room. He picks up the stack of homework and begins to sort through it, already resigned to his tanking grades and disappointed teachers. He reorders the pages of his latest essay and swallows down the hurt that comes with looking at the whole thing ruined, pages of blue sharpie scratched into the letters leaving the whole thing unreadable. His fingers curl into his palms and he has to breathe with intention. It's fine. It's always like this. It's just, they'd spent so much time on that one.
It had taken literal hours just to draft an outline he was content with, and writing the actual paper had taken hours of work for most of the class, which decidedly meant it had taken him days. All of it, all of that time, gone. All of that effort, ruined. Normally, he'd just go in early on Monday to print a new copy. Only, his teacher had already warned the class that the printers would be down Monday morning for maintenance. She had also, while looking pointedly at Four, reminded the class that only printed copies would be accepted.
The libraries aren't even open on Sundays, and he's hardly going to have his grandfather drive him down to the local office supply store after already catching his attention with the stunt with the mug; the last thing he wants is to make this everybody's issue. At this point, he should probably just buy his own printer and be done with it. Only, he's sure someone would find a way to ruin that for him too, and printers are probably more expensive than mugs…or repeating the tenth grade.
Four sighs. He can already tell it's going to be another long year.
---
One of them gets him out of detention.
He doesn't know which one it is, or how they manage it. He tries not to worry too much about the details. One minute, Four is swallowing down a curse as his math teacher slaps the detention slip on his desk, and the next he's blinking at his open locker as the bell rings. He checks, and there's no slip in any of his pockets or tucked between his books.
He worries for a minute that one of them threw it away, but despite his initial impressions of them, he doubts they'd bother getting him into any serious trouble on purpose. Ruining his grades and social life and making his days miserable until he drops out is one thing, but playing around with actual punishment is another thing entirely. Talking their way out of a detention on his behalf isn't impossible, especially considering the bones they've thrown his way before.
Four breathes a sigh of relief and lets the detention, and the absence of it, fall to the bottom of his priority list. He hurries on autopilot, switching out his books and wishing he could bring his backpack to class instead. He's no stranger to being late, always running for some reason or another on legs too short to keep up. He's lucky his teachers understand, for the most part.
He moves down the empty hall toward his next class, and silently thanks his endurance.
He shoves the door to his English class open with his shoulder exactly seven minutes after the bell rings, if the clock in the back of the class is to be believed. His teacher is already at her desk, having already finished outlining whatever assignments or exams are due. Four only hopes he didn't miss anything important as he slips into his seat quietly, his gaze darting around the rest of the room. Fortunately, his classmates are either uninterested in him and focusing on their conversations or uninterested in general and focusing on their phones. The only exception is his table partner who just raises a brow.
"Are you ever not going to be late?" Legend asks, rolling a pen between his hands.
"It's a long walk," Four defends. He flips his textbook open and tries to find the readings outlined in black marker on the whiteboard. His fingers glide over the edges of the paper, never quite catching on the skin. His nails are no help either, the edges of them stopping well before the edges of his fingers. He really needs to invest in some of that gross-tasting polish if he wants his nails to still be attached to his hands by the end of the year.
Legend reaches over and flips Four's book open to the right page with little more than an eyeroll. Distinctly unimpressed, he says, "My last period is on the other side of the building and I have literally never been late to this class."
Four tries not to bristle, and immediately fails. "I've got smaller legs, jackass."
Legend snorts.
"Fair enough," he concedes, though it really isn't.
Legend isn't that much taller than Four, and he's got whatever condition makes his joints pop and creak whenever he moves. Honestly, Four's not entirely convinced that he doesn't have something similar, what with how the biting winter cold has his hands locking up.
"Did you bring your essay?" Legend asks disinterestedly.
Four winces.
"Again?" Legend demands, immediately proving that he is, at least a little, interested, "You're going to fail this class, you know."
"I accidentally ruined the print," Four admits, his ears hot and face red.
"Didn't you print an extra?"
"I didn't think about it," Four says, groaning internally. He should have. He really, really should have.
"Are you sure?" Legend asks skeptically, his eyes narrowed. With the look of someone who's started to put something together--a look Four's seen on his face far too often, lately--he directs, "Check your binder."
Four rolls his eyes, but flips his binder open without protest. Sure enough, there's a copy of his essay.
A sticky note pasted at the top reads, 'Just in case - v'
He doesn't remember printing an extra copy, or writing the note. Though, to be fair, he only really remembers writing a few parts of the essay itself. He'd never sign off as 'v,' but he tries not to think about it too hard as he crumples the sticky note in his hand.
"Well, what do you know, I was right," Legend scoffs.
Four doesn't dignify that with a response, and instead hurries out of his seat and up to his teacher's desk, shoving the crumpled note into his pocket.
"Yes?" she asks, and he can already tell that she expects him to shakily request a deadline. Again.
Instead, he presses the essay into her hands and scurries back to his seat without a word.
---
English class is honestly really boring.
He doesn't mind writing or reading, but the tedious way they have to pick over text like it's some holy artifact makes him want to smack his book into his head until his ears ring. Fortunately, his table partner seems just as fed up with their busywork. Legend groans when he reads over the assignment and lets his head thunk lightly against his desk.
Where Legend is so far ahead that the work is almost childish for him, Four has no idea what he's looking at. Words like "pedagogy," "delineate," and "allusion" start to blur across the page, and he has next to no idea how any of it is supposed to relate to the actual text they just read. Four presses at his eyes like he can rub the stupid out of his brain, and Legend glares at the paper like it personally offended him. Though they're on complete opposite ends of the issue, their shared distaste for work like this unites them.
"We can do this after school," Legend decides, the same way he always does.
Four nods agreeably, grateful to push the task off. For a moment, he lets himself wonder what they actually get up to when they meet at the library. Then, Legend starts filling him in on Ravio's latest scheme, and he finds his attention suitably taken. They chat amicably, pretending to scribble at their papers when the teacher--rarely--glances at their corner of the room. It isn't until the conversation really starts to lull that Four is reminded why he doesn't hang out with Legend after school.
"Red?" Legend asks, teasing, "What, is that your girlfriend or something?"
Four rolls his eyes. "What are you even talking about?"
"The note?" Legend asks, raising a brow with a smirk when Four freezes, "What, are you embarrassed?"
He'd been so sure he'd crumpled the sticknote quickly enough, but…hadn't they signed off as 'v' there anyway? Four follows Legend's gaze down to his own wrist, and, sure enough, there's yet another message left for him. This one is scribbled onto his skin in shaky handwriting, and the letters are small and tilted, the message half-obscured by the sleeve of his shirt. He pushes it up and frowns.
'no detention maybe counselors ofice sry - red'
Four tries not to spiral about what that might mean.
"So?" Legend demands with a look far too sharp to be casually curious, "That from your girlfriend, or what?"
"I don't have a girlfriend," he says, because he has no idea what else there is to say that wouldn't damn him outright.
Legend raises a brow. "So, you're just getting random messages from girls then?"
"This isn't a--no, it's--I just--" Four's flustered stammering cuts off to the sharp tone of the bell and, avoiding Legend's gaze, he mutters, "I'll see you at the library."
Legend narrows his eyes.
"Yeah, sure," he says with a false air of casualness, "See you."
---
It's fine. Everything is perfectly fine.
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Fuck.
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