Content Warning: Mentions of abuse and emotional unrest; youthful angst; language
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With the end of second semester came the beginning of spring, and hordes of grateful students— wide eyed and pale-skinned like so many sun-starved mole people—poured out of their dorms and into the quad, some barefoot and some scantily clad.
A number of the students had been shirking their work all term, only just now scraping themselves together in panicked hopes of salvaging some passing grades. They had cheated themselves out of some playtime in a pleasant youthful haven. Jonathan Crane, a shining example as always, was not among that clot. He had a bit of free time now, and for once, he didn't feel compelled to spend it holed up in his room, in fact quite the opposite. He went out.
A recently anointed twenty-year-old very nearly through with his second year of college, Jonathan had always had more than enough time to reflect on himself—time in excess, he was practically a hermit. There were a lot of things he'd always felt he had to keep clandestine: his ugly visage, his shame, his doubt, his fears, himself. Jervis too. Jervis wasn't supposed to have happened, but being such a violently repressed thing at the mercies of a boy as pushy as Jervis Tetch, Jonathan scarcely had a chance. He kept a lot of painful secrets, what was one more?
No one would know. No one would ever know. Not that they cared to, probably, but why test those dangerous waters? Better safe than sorry./p
p class="MsoNormal"They'd gotten together in the middle of freshman year, which led into a winter spent arguing and mutually abusing, which bled into a summer apart, which became many hours spent at the on-campus therapist's office come September. Crane had come to terms with his status as closet case, among other things.
A big, shitty closet case.
It had been tough, just like everything else had been tough (except for the actual schoolwork, maybe), and it wasn't over either, of course not. Not by a long shot. You don't get to waltz out of an abusive upbringing scot-free, and not one measly speck of his had been kind: not his family, not the church, and certainly not the other children. But ducking into college had been good for him, it was the small saving grace he'd secretly hoped for.
True, the specky student hadn't expected to be packing up for a liberal arts school come August; his preference had been more in line with a prestigious, nationally recognized university. He didn't care which, any one of them would do. But Gotham Institute of Liberal Arts was nationally recognized for its psychology department, and moreover it was hundreds of miles out from Georgia. Crane had to concede that it had been a good choice, feeling all the more secure in this assertion as he lay resting under a barely budding tree in the quad, his head nestled gently in Jervis's lap as they read in silence. Jonathan was tentatively learning not to care who saw them together, though it was a grindingly slow process. It was difficult not to focus on how frightening it was, being out, even as gentle fingers combed through his hair, or as a well-meaning kiss was pressed sloppily into his lips. For once, he didn't shy away, but his… emboyfriend/em was so playful and overt that it made him ever so slightly sick to his stomach. Feeling romantic, Jervis then shifted, dragging Jonathan down to the grassy floor below to cuddle and nuzzle as he pleased, pecking his chest in a gratuitously public display of affection. His slender beau grudgingly accepted this, focusing on his book with pointed intensity.
"Mind," he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus-flower — "Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency — the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force…"'
Jonathan lost his concentration again. Beside him, Tetch twitched impatiently and snuggled further into his chest, baiting for a reaction, and he wouldn't be satisfied until he received one. Crane forced himself to shrug inwardly and squeezed his companion back, ruffling his hay-colored hair with a knobby, haggish hand. The blond chirped at the gesture, ever bubbly and tender. This gentle kind of weather suited him nicely, and he'd long since set his philosophy textbook aside to settle in for a nap. He hummed contentedly, partnered with someone at last.
Jonathan wasn't a happy kid by any means, but lately he'd been feeling better than he ever did before.
