A/N: The italic section is a flashback to Jeff's high school life. Warning for language. Pretty damn angsty.
"You're lying," Rachel accused Nick five minutes until the end of their tenth period class. "I don't believe you were kicked out of your own house."
Nick rolled his eyes and glanced at the front of the room, where the boring PowerPoint was flickering on the board. Nobody really cared about the Great Wall of China anymore, and the teacher could obviously tell.
"I wasn't allowed in my house for about ten hours" he informed Rachel. "Yes, I was kicked out."
Rachel sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of her nose. God, sometimes Nick hated Rachel. She was so naïve, just because her dads were perfect, didn't mean everyone else's parents were fan-fucking-tastic.
"You need to man the heck up and stand up to your parents, then."
Nick curled his hands into fists and dug his nails into his palms. He wanted to yell at Rachel so badly. Standing up to his parents was the whole damn reason he was kicked out!
He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding once the bell rang, hopping out of his seat and rushing to get as far away from Rachel as he could.
Sometimes, he wondered why he was even talking to her.
Maybe it was because neither of them really had friends. Rachel was the queen of obnoxious, so nobody really liked her or wanted her around. And Nick was, well, Nick, and nobody wanted anything to do with him.
So they just kind of bonded though that.
Nick climbed up the stairs to his last period class quickly, thankful for biology and Mr. S to cheer him up.
Jeff. What if he accidentally called him Jeff during class? God, how embarrassing. Could Jeff tell Nick was crushing on him? If he could, his life was basically over.
"Hey, Nick!"
Nick's eyes widened slightly as he felt someone slamming him into the lockers, a pain shooting up his spine almost instantly as his books and papers scattered over the floor.
Gritting his teeth, Nick straightened up. "What the hell did I ever do to you?!"
The group laughed—Nick figured they would—and one of them (Jake? Nick didn't know, nor did he care) rolled his eyes.
"You're different. It's weird."
"Why does that change anything? You're so fucking judgemental, and it's getting annoying."
Jake scoffed, stepping closer to Nick and grinning. "What are you gonna do about it?"
Nick bit the inside of his cheek, silently hoping that they would all go fall off a cliff and die.
"What are you gonna do, huh? Hit me?"
The rest of the group laughed, Jake included, and Nick didn't notice his fist clenched at his side.
He was furious. They've been teasing and taunting him since grade seven, shoving him into lockers and laughing at every little thing he ever did. He was not going to let this one slip by him so easily.
"Fuck you," he hissed, gripping the front of Jake's shirt and punching him square in the jaw. The rest of the group's jaws dropped, all of them yelling at Nick and Finn grabbing Jake to take him to the nurse.
Nick stumbled back and swallowed thickly. What had he done?!
Next thing he knew, Mr. S was out of his classroom and screaming at Nick, The rest of the group were rushing to get out of there, and he was scrambling to grab his books.
"Nick. In. Now," he heard Mr. S shout, Nick hurrying into the classroom.
"After class."
Nick nodded stiffly and kept his head low the entire class. The low murmurs of the rest of the class were obviously about him and Jake, and Nick was still furious. He wanted to strangle practically everyone in the classroom for being idiots.
But of course, he couldn't.
Jeff let the class leave as soon as the bell rang, crossing his arms over his chest and signalling for Nick to come over.
And Nick...well, Nick was terrified.
Jeff could tell, it was pretty obvious. The other boy hadn't looked up from his desk the entire period, shoulders obviously shaking, not doing any work or taking notes.
Jeff couldn't help but feel bad.
"I have to say, you've got a mean right hook."
Jeff smiled slightly when Nick cracked a smile, going to sit at his desk.
"Tell me what happened."
"Jake or whatever shoved me into a locker, and I guess I just kind of...snapped."
"How long has it been going on?"
"Since grade seven."
Jeff's jaw dropped a little bit. "Six years? And you haven't done anything? Jeez, I see why you punched him."
Nick let out a soft chuckle and shrugged.
"Do you want to stay after? Because I'm going to have to write this up and I need to know the truth."
With a nod, Nick pulled up a chair next to Jeff's desk and started explaining.
It hurt, listening to all the things that had ever happened to Nick. Jeff glanced over at Nick every so often as he wrote it down, wanting to hug the boy and never let go in an attempt to make him feel better.
But he just kept writing, nodding in understanding every so often.
"It's a shame. You're so nice, I don't see why this has to happen to you," Jeff said softly once Nick was done explaining. "I was gay-bashed in high school, too, but it wasn't nearly as bad. I guess bad things happen to good people."
"What happened?"
"I'd much rather not talk about that..."
Jeff walked through the hallways carefully, his hair and height making it virtually impossible to hide and duck into the sea of students.
Which was part of the problem for him.
An unknown foot sent him toppling forward into the crowd, books landing on the ground with a thud and papers flying everywhere. He kept his head down as he picked them up and everyone laughed.
He was then shoved against the lockers, hard, which just dropped his books again and made a dull ache rise in his side.
"Kill yourself, fag!"
It seemed like the entire hallway laughed at that. Jeff might've been one of the tallest kids there, but never did he feel so small.
"Get the fuck up, pussy."
"Why do you still go here?"
"Just fucking die, nobody cares anyway!"
Jeff bit his lip and willed himself not to cry. He was so weak when it came to these types of things, people making fun of him and shoving him around. Really, he was just an all-around weak person.
"Man the fuck up, you pussy," a passerby spat-quite literally-and Jeff wiped his face off and stood up shakily.
He couldn't wait to graduate and get the hell out of here.
As he turned to walk to class he was met with an iceberg slapping him in the face, the bright blue slushie that left the tips of his bangs blue for a good three days. He spat out the bits that got into his mouth and ducked into the nearest bathroom, cleaning himself off with a sigh.
After a brutal confrontation in the bathroom with a guy who insisted Jeff was staring at his junk, Jeff stumbled out of the bathroom and hurried to get to class. Hopefully the teacher wouldn't notice how he was limping and his hair was blue.
He just wanted out.
"Let's just say that I was called names. Nothing too bad. And then I went to the Marines."
Jeff finished, swallowed thickly, and put his pen away.
"Thank you for staying, though. I'll get back to you tomorrow with what you and Jake's punishments will be. I'll fight to get you as little as possible."
Nick mumbled a thank you and headed out of the classroom, Jeff shamelessly watching him leave the room before pinching the bridge of his nose.
He cared far more than he should about that kid.
He shouldn't care, he knew that, Nick was another student with average student problems.
But not really.
Jeff assumed that it could be because he didn't want Nick's story to be like his own. Nick shouldn't have to suffer, he such a caring, nice, fairly attractive kid.
The last point made Jeff groan out loud.
It was his student he was talking about there, not another thirty year old male that is content in life and working a good job.
Which made things even worse when Jeff deemed, later that night, that Nick was totally bangable.
"What the hell is wrong with me?" he wondered aloud, rolling over in his bed and sighing.
'Nick is a student. Nick is a fairly attractive student. No, Nick is an extremely attractive student. Nick would look amazing sharing this bed with me...'
Jeff buried his head in his pillows and cursed under his breath.
Nick was a student.
Nick was just a student.
Jeff had never been more happy that he had a whole weekend to get his shit together.
"No way."
Blaine laughed through the phone, and Nick rolled his eyes.
"Yes, way."
"In the face?"
Nick rolled over his bed and looked at his nightstand, where the pictures of him and his family were flipped upside down-the result of a sleepless night where his father kept yelling at his mother about Nick.
"His nose was bleeding."
"I find that hard to believe."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Nick could hear Blaine shuffling around.
"You're not the type of person I would deem the fighting type."
"Neither are you, but you do fight club."
"But I'm different."
Nick grit his teeth. Who the hell did Blaine think he was?
"What?"
"Well, I'm a more angry person. You...you're as intimidating as a pink butterfly landing on a marshmallow."
"So, am I just not allowed to be angry?"
"No, no, it's just weird. Like, you don't have anger."
"Oh, no, totally just a happy fucking person all the time."
"That's not what I was say-"
Nick rolled his eyes and hung up his phone, throwing it onto the other side of the bed and sighing loudly.
It was one of those times where he wished he was friends with Jeff.
Jeff seemed like the person to tell him everything would be okay, and not to worry. And hold him and rub his back and murmur words of encouragement into his ear.
"He's also your fucking teacher," he mumbled to himself.
He really had to get over this silly crush. And fast.
But that proved impossible when he had to see him every day, and every day he was the same, caring, humble Mr. Sterling he knew and loved.
"Fucking dammit."
He was in love with his biology teacher.
