I learned writing this that I really loved writing North, something that I thought I knew in Recovery None, where he's one of the majorly featured characters, but it got really eye opening here. Mostly because I learned I love writing him as a teacher so much! It was just really fun to explore him in that environment.
Special thanks to the support of nogoawayok, sroloc–elbisivni, fasterthxnyou, notatroll7, secretlystephaniebrown, analiarvb, washingtonstub, ephemeralelysium, Yin, locrianrose, and staininspace from AO3 and tumblr!
New Jazz Age
Chapter Three: No Longer a Soldier
Things are distant for North.
Perhaps that is the difference at the end of the day. The distance from everything. There's a gap between him and the spaces occupied by everyone else.
The distance between himself and battle. The distance between his end of the hall and York and Carolina's. The distance between the ages of himself and other night class students. The distance between him and the smiling faces of the fifth grade class he substitutes for now.
Distance defines North.
He doesn't like it when things are in his face. Like the way a smiling look from the annoying rookie leaving the mess hall with him after lunch is right in his proximity. Or how the explosion of York's truck right in front of their jeep. How that same smiling rookie is standing in his seat, not horrified and screaming like the rest of them.
"This is it! We're in war!" the kid cries out, not mortified by the real possibility that York is blown to smithereens right in North's face and–
North punches his alarm clock loud enough it lets out a mechanical wail. It's nothing like the kid back on the battlefield when North took it upon himself tocorrect behavior. Or the wailing the kid gave their superior officers in the confusing aftermath.
It's more real. It's more now.
So North obeys it as such.
Surviving on instinct to carry him out of bed, North crosses the room, avoiding the desk chair York left in the middle as a safety hazard. He makes it to the closet door where his dress shirt and slacks are pressed and already hanging.
He grabs his other necessities from the dresser, makes his way to the bathroom, ignoring the mutterings from Carolina's room that are probably coming from two people who don't know how to not hear themselves even in their sleep.
North doesn't think at all while he showers and fixes his hair, brushes his teeth, gets dressed for the day to come. He just does and he looks in the mirror and his own eyes make him tired.
As he heads down stairs he faintly recalls the problems of the day – Miss Lecky still has not sent him a lesson plan despite being out for the rest of the week, he needs to get the newspaper and circle wanted ads for York since the man seems uniquely stubborn on the job market situation, he needs to check his class syllabi again to make sure there's no assignment due.
They're the sort of list that makes each of the larger problems seem weightless and distant. How North prefers to keep them.
It's easier to think about winging the lesson plan than how at the end of the week he doesn't know if he'll be working in the school again outside of tutoring for weeks. It's easier to think about the trouble of getting York some odd jobs than it is with dealing the impending issue that is whatever York's brain thinks its doing. It's easier to think about maintaining a four-point-o than it is that his career is still not officially started until the end of the semester.
It's easier. More comfortable.
Just like making breakfast.
"Enough for everybody?" Carolina asks, crossing into the kitchen casually. She's wearing office wear – hair in a ponytail, a minimalist effort on makeup. North likes the necklace, though the fact she wears it every day has probably left it less remarkable to her coworkers.
"Ideally," North shrugs. "Depends on certain people's appetites."
She watches him scoot the eggs off the skillet and onto a plate, her lips pressed to a thin line.
"There was a bit of commotion this morning, huh?" Carolina asked without truly asking. She brushed past North's backside on her way to the coffee pot.
"In our house there always is," North replies without any intention of carrying further than that.
Carolina leans back against the countertop with her mug up to her lips. She hums as her eyes bear suspiciously into the back of his head.
But North is nothing if not good at deflecting attention. "Do you want to get the newspaper today or should I?"
Switching to the York issue almost immediately draws a thoughtful look from Carolina and she lowers her mug to consider the question. North has known Carolina for several years now and it doesn't take a psychologist to see that she near thrives on not letting things go.
"Oh, here's an idea!"
They both glance toward the door as York walks through, rolling his eye as he pulls at his pajama bottoms' drawstring. "How about we let York deal with the newspaper so you two can stop circling things that draws through what I'm reading."
"With a highlighter, York," Carolina goes immediately for combative. "You can read through highlighter."
"Yeah, but my contrary nature makes me uninterested in what I'm reading by default then," York replies. "Seriously. I've got it. Both of you stop acting like I'm about to trip another landmine."
Both of them flinch and watch as York lets himself out toward the front.
"Also the lady across the street loves when I get the newspaper and mail shirtless!" he calls over his shoulder.
"She's also ninety-three!" North yells back before glancing to Carolina. "I was mostly being facetious, but maybe we should let him sort this out on his own." Seeing the way Carolina's shoulders moved up, North sighs and holds up his hands. "Suggestion, Carolina. Suggestion. I'm not here to argue about it again."
"You just don't want to confront him, but he needs some tough love," she says firmly. "And he's not going to get it from anywhere but us."
He's more than ready to change topics again when York returns from his shirtless endeavors, looking at the newspaper.
"Do you think they'll stop making these soon?" he asked. "I think I'm the only person on the block besides the lady across the street who gets the local."
"The lady who's ninety-three," Carolina reiterates. "So it's good to know you two have so much in common. You want to ask her if she'd like to move into the closet?"
"Ha," York replies, "so funny. So full of sensitivity." He talks distractedly, his eye scanning the ads rather vigorously. "These are all crap. I need to just take jobs on Craigslist if you two would just get over it."
"Get over the skeeviness of you wanting solicited jobs on the internet," North restates closer to the actual situation.
"You two act like I was applying to be an escort," York groans.
"The ad you showed us was asking for illustrious, uncommitted adult male between twenty-five and twenty-eight who works out at least once a week,"Carolina reminds him.
"Only because that one was a joke," York defends with a shrug. "I mean, she wasn't even ninety-three, there was no chemistry."
North finishes his own eggs before reaching under the newspaper in York's hands and smacking it up to bap him in the face.
"We'll continue this later," Carolina decides, looking to her watch before making a beeline for the door.
"Which just means that she'll keep bringing it up and we'll keep ignoring it," York surmises as Carolina heads out the door with only the faintest of goodbyes left in her dust. "It's such a defeating cycle."
"She has a point," North says as he starts gathering his own things. "If you're not going to talk to us, you should talk to someone else, York."
"That's a new complaint, I'm not talking enough," York replies, purposefully obtuse to the point of obviousness.
"You hate to admit it but you have the same problem the rest of us have these days," North sighs, grabbing his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulders on the way out.
"That being?" York asks, following with a plate of eggs in hand.
"You don't know how to say the things you need to," North answers on his way out. "See you in a while."
"Yeah," York says, oddly reserved for himself. "See ya."
He's early to class – early enough to meet the janitor as he unlocks the classroom door. Before the bussed students are released from the cafeteria or gym to come upstairs.
North's mindful of all the clutter on Miss Lecky's desk, takes note of things he'll have to move so that he can use the facility properly.
There's a smartboard behind the desk he's supposed to be able to use, but the projector is hooked up to the computer and his temporary access still hasn't started working. Probably won't until he complains three times to the front office, which he won't because he'd like to stay on the secretaries' good sides.
Fortunately he can move to the sides of the board and there's still dry erase markers for the old school method of things.
He puts up his name and email in the corner.
The first bell rings and he can hear students racing to get upstairs.
It's one of the reasons he can't imagine going higher than middle school – watching students lose that enthusiasm for school. He remembers it even from before the military, when it was from being the son of two teachers.
North stays seated, pulls his laptop out of his messenger bag, and checks on his own schoolwork after messing with the finicky wifi.
Children file into the fifth grade homeroom, whispering and buzzing with gossip and excitement and the curiosity that is their mysterious substitute.
By the time the last bell rings, North stands up and points to the board.
"Hello, I'm Mister Dakota. Yes, it's a funny name. Miss Lecky is at a conference this week so I'll be your lit teacher until she gets back," he informs them all with practiced insecurity.
"Good morning, Mister Dakota," about a third of them say back.
And North offers them a small smile. Small smiles are more comforting and calm.
They're also easier to fake.
With all the years that North has put toward education, the last several months of tutoring and substituting has taught him more about the realities of being an educator more than any class. Mostly that the people in education could probably benefit from some time growing up themselves.
No one necessarily has a problem with North to his face. There's a certain stilted kindness to all interactions in this nothing town of theirs, but North grew up in the middle of nowhere. He knows that the talk happens only when he's out of the room and ends the moment he steps inside of it.
Really, the kids are the best part of teaching.
So when he walks into the staff's room and notices a bit of a commonality in their forced smiles, North just takes a practiced breath and moves to the fridge for his packed lunch. Then he walks back out with a gentle nod and that same small smile he gave his students.
The question, he's sure, on everyone's mind in town is about the living arrangement. And being from a small town, North knows to not expect much different.
It also helps to know that the likelihood of anyone actually asking him about living with two other people and whether or not there is something worth the questioning is slim to none.
No one wants to look crass in a small town, no matter how crass they all really are.
Oddly enough, North thinks as he unwraps his sandwich and bites into it as he walks down the eggshell colored hallway, if anyone does get the courage to ask, North can't imagine he'll say anything other than the simple truth.
Yes, of course it's a relationship. But hell if any of the three of us know what kind.
He is more familiar with the school's layout than the previous times he's worked for a day, which is a good sign for the rest of his week as he sits in for Miss Lecky. It also means that while he holds a sandwich in one hand and his phone in the other, he can almost trust his feet to carry him the right way to the playground.
His fingers work practically on their own, dialing a familiar number with practiced ease, as he takes another bite of his sandwich and eyes the rest of the contents of the bag hanging by his wrist.
There's a dial tone in his ear for a moment, then the ring, and a predictable voicemail the moment he backs into the doors to let himself out to the grounds of the school.
"No one's calling this unless you're my brother. If you're my brother you've probably already left a message today. If you've already left a message today,would you leave me alone already? If you're not leaving me alone, go ahead. Say it."
He waits for the beep, feels the first genuine smile to cross his face since he arrived at work that morning, and responds as he always did. "Sis, you're always a pleasure to get a hold of and, right now, to not get a hold of. If you find it within yourself to actually call me back instead of text, I would be forever gratified." He tilts his other wrist up enough to check his watch before sniffing slightly. "Slight amendment to that request. I'm working until three fifteen this afternoon. So if you can give me a call back after then, I will be amazed at the fact you listened this long. Heart you," he added only halfway sarcastically and then hung up.
The air outside the school's walls is thick, muggy from the recent rains.
On tour, North had all but forgotten what humidity even felt like. Touching down on alien soil was enthralling, captivating, and fearful beyond compare.
For a moment North stands still, orienting himself just under the arches of the school entrance, looking through the wire fencing toward the playgrounds.
The sidewalk's worth of distance between him and the screaming, running, excitable students might as well be an ocean. He looks at them through the fence and wondered how many of them were little soldiers.
His teeth click together as his jaw sets to the very thought.
He hopes none of them.
Moving forward, North counts his breaths. It is an old exercise, one that usually was performed with a rifle strapped over his back, but it was soothing all the same.
In the mouth, out the nose. One two. One two.
His steps fall into rhythm and he reaches out for the fence's door to open it without ever realizing how close he'd gotten to the playground to begin with.
The basketballs hit metal rims and chains with thunderous clacking and North wondered if anyone saw how hesitant he was to enter the area of hot tarmac and screaming children. How unsettled those very basic things a teacher shouldn't even blink at made him.
He chews on the inside of his mouth just before his pants vibrated and he looked to his phone, pulled gratefully from the moment.
When he pulls out phone he can see all he needed from his sister's response in the preview window.
STH: No. Call me weekend. Loser.
And it is the nicest correspondence they've had this week.
Running a hand through his hair, North can't help but laugh at the message and considers sending her a stupid emoji back when a figure in the distance catches his eye. He glances up more directly and, sure enough, finds himself being waved to by York.
"Again?" he asks with a sigh before moving forward, stuffing his phone back into his pants pocket.
"Hey," York says, leaned against the fence and watching the playground. "Shouldn't you be in there? Herding the livestock or something? They look like they're running amuck."
"You obviously don't remember playground time much," North replies, joining York on the fence. "You trying to get me a stern talking to from the office ladies? About visitors and school safety and all that?"
"I thought they like you," York marvels.
"They love me. They love gossip more," North answers, watching the kids.
His breaths are even without even trying, and there's a certain gentleness to his gaze he was searching desperately for earlier in the day. He's calmed. The screams don't feel like a call to terror anymore.
North even watches a kid fall onto the wood chips from the monkey bars, dust herself off, and continue toward the newly opened swing she desires without feeling like he's going to have a heart attack.
But that doesn't make it any more right that York's there now.
"What trouble are you up to?" he asks York somewhat seriously.
York points at himself. "Me? Trouble? Perish the thought," he says with feigned astonishment.
"York," North sighs.
"I wasn't having much luck on the job search," he answers. "So I was walking around town and making a good name for myself. I'm sure if you talk to the office ladies they'll tell you all about it."
North blinks a few times before glancing toward York skeptically. "What did you do?"
"Hm," York hums, holding up his fingers. "I helped a lady with her groceries, I helped some dude with his blown tire, and I asked around some of the local antique stores if they needed movers and gave them my number to call if they did."
He squints at York. "You did all that in four hours after searching for jobs?"
Tapping his fingers on the fence, York hums and looks away. "Maybe I didn't spend as much time job searching as I thought."
"Uh huh," North says. "So what? Twenty minutes? Thirty?"
"What's the rush anyway?" York grumps. "I made fifty bucks today!"
"Oh, that'll cover a lot," North sighs.
York's eyes narrow and he pushes off from the fence. "Hey, could you and Carolina for maybe five or ten minutes at some point stop reminding me that I don't have my shit together. Celebrate little victories with me for once and all that shit? This quiet disapproval thing makes you way more of an ass than I've ever been."
North shakes his head. "You don't have the powers of self-reflection I once thought you did."
"Fuck off–" York catches himself and coughs awkwardly into his fist before glancing toward the kids. None of which seem to even notice there's two men in an intimate discussion just yards away from the playground equipment. "I mean…"
"You're right," North interrupts. "We're not being fair. We'll try to do better."
Surprise masks York's face for a moment. He blinks before scratching at his jaw. "Oh. Uh. Well… Thanks. I'd appreciate that."
"I'll start by giving you a ride home as soon as I'm done today," North continues. He points toward the parking lot. "I'm in the guest spot at the end. Just, whenever you finish up with whatever you're doing, just meet me at the car and–"
"Nah," York shrugs. "I'll be home before you. Gotta make dinner and all that junk."
North crosses his arms. "But–"
"Hey, ask your office lady friends," York says with a wink. "I'm the guy who walks, after all!"
They hold each other's gaze for a long moment and North thinks he knows York's ready to move on with whatever plans he has for the day before York does. He can see the twitchiness in York's gaze, already ready always in motion. It unsettles North even more than the screams of the children because – that eye still isn't done scarring.
York's face is a lot closer than the explosion ever was to him, and North hates that a little bit more than he can express. So instead of expressing he grabs his partner's wrist and pulls him forward into a hug.
The other veteran immediately stiffens, caught off guard. It's very rare for York to not be the one initiating such things between the three of them.
"Um," York laughs awkwardly.
"Don't get caught in the rain this afternoon, don't be cocky and walk too close to the road," North orders right in York's ear.
"See, my plan was to just paddle through the rain and walk right down the median," York replies sarcastically.
"Don't be an ass," North warns.
"Too late."
The moment North lets go, he's stuck watching York walking backwards with a satisfied grin and an easy salute to him. And he thinks I followed this guy out into the middle of nowhere.
The kids are yelling and playing and falling off gym equipment like no tomorrow but North isn't panicking at the noises and he doesn't feel his throat closing off as he walks toward the fence door.
That alone might make following York's inane plans just a little bit more worth it.
His day drags after lunch, but only in the way that it always drags for the last three hours of school. And North actually finds it somewhat a relief – thatnormal sense of dragging on as opposed to the heightened awareness he's had the whole morning that he's not quite as functional as he likes to think he is.
It's the sort of success one relishes in privately as the last bell rings, as he returns the classroom key to the secretaries, makes small talk until the after school rush leaves the parking lot, and makes his way back to his car.
The sort that he lets fade behind his facade as he pulls into the house with his name on the lease and is content to just see everyone else is home and unawares to his very trying morning.
At least he's happy about it until he opens the door and smells pizza again.
Carolina smirks at him as she sits on the kitchen island, business wear disheveled and hair down from her ponytail – a true rarity.
York is standing nearby with a happy wave to the pizza dish sitting uncomfortably close to the edge of the counter. "Ta da!"
"Hm," North says, a small smile on his lips as he undoes the first few buttons of his shirt to loosen up for the evening. "Not to bring into question your culinary skills, York–"
"Here's the but," York stage whispers to Carolina.
"But," North continues with an affectionate flick to York's ear as walks by and takes the paper plate Carolina offers him. "I feel like this is, oh, the fifth pizza in two weeks."
"I thought you liked pizza," York replies.
"Everyone likes pizza," Carolina agrees. "But I think North is showing concern for variety in our diet." She then makes no bones about taking a bite of her own slice.
"Exactly," North agrees, looking at York's nonchalant reaction to the critique.
Purposefully obtuse, York pops open his beer and tilts his head. "So next time you want what? A Hawaiian pizza? Can do."
"Vegetables are our friends, guys," he reminds them, reaching for the available slices. "If I need to bring the Health Ed chart with me tomorrow, I will. Don't tempt me to steal from the school. Those obnoxious colored posters make themselves tempting enough to tear down."
"Wow, that's a sign you're fit for your profession," Carolina teases.
"And here I was going to suggest, just for you, we could paint all the rooms in primaries," York joins in, waving his hands around in the air despite spilling some beer on the tile. "We could get all the neighbors to start calling us theCrayola House. I kinda like it already."
Both North and Carolina shiver.
"Please, no," North attempts to plead with a laugh just as a rapping on the door draws all their attention.
They look to the door in joint confusion before North glances to his partners.
"Are you guys expecting someone?"
"No," York replies quickly.
"I don't even know anyone outside the office," Carolina marvels.
"Well, I'll get it," North says, putting his plate down and heading toward the door. "Last to get food never eats in this house, I swear."
It could have been anyone at the door, and North wonders briefly if small towns like their still have the plague upon the earth that is door to door salesmen when his blood begins to run cold.
He takes a moment to stand in the foyer, looking at the distinctive blue flashes of light coming in through the living room window before looking to the door and opening it.
When North opens the door and sees the somber faces of the two officers standing there, his heart all but stops. He barely even processes the sounds of York and Carolina dropping their dinners with a clatter.
North is just staring at the police in horror, his mind racing with one thought.
South.
He is taken by complete surprise when the officer up front tilts his head and asks, "Is this the Church resident?"
Mouth dry and still trying to remember how to work, North looks back instinctively toward the kitchen before glancing back to the officer. "A Churchdoes live here," he finally manages to get out just as Carolina brushes up to his side.
"I'm Caroline Church," she says, face as hardened and wary as the day North first saw her in uniform.
"Ma'am," the officer says, though North thinks none of them needed to hear it to know what is coming next, "I'm afraid there's been an accident."
North turns just enough to see the icy coldness to Carolina's eyes, the lack of reaction or surprise. He then looks to see York's complete confusion to match his own.
And North wonders why he's been so satisfied to think that he's the only one in the house keeping secrets.