This is a snip for Bronze Moose as part of the Cauldron Discord Valentine's 2022 Give-a-Fic-a-Thon and is based on their request for a fic centered about Chris being forced to change schools to Winslow and saving Taylor from the locker.
Chris tries to put it out of his mind. He needs to focus. The English essay on his desk wouldn't write itself.
All he can think about is the math test in his bag.
Chris lowers the tip of his pencil towards the paper, where it wobbles precariously. He stares at the words he's written, trying to figure out what comes next. He knows the pencil marks on the paper are words, but his vision blurs, the letters devolving into nonsensical squiggles.
No, not squiggles. Numbers. Numbers and equations, covered in red.
"Okay, time's up, pencils down," the teacher announces, prompting Chris to jerk awake. He eyes his essay. It's by liberal estimates a third done. "Everyone pass your essays forward."
Chris shakily hands his essay to his classmate, doing his best to lie to himself. It's just one grade. He can make it up later.
The math test feels like a lead weight in his bag as he walks to lunch, his head hung low.
"And so I told her, that's not pepperoni—it's pastrami!"
"Ha," Chris says, trying to fake a laugh as his eyes sweep over the Boardwalk, looking for any signs of trouble. He notices Dennis' expressionless white faceplate turn to look at him, and he quickly fakes a grin, hoping it looks genuine.
Apparently not. "Dude, are you okay?"
"Yeah, of course." No stutters, no hesitation, but even to his own ears, Chris doesn't sound convincing. It's easier to lie when the question is expected, but that does not mean it is easy. Still, how did the saying go? 'In for a penny, in for pound'? "Why?"
Before Dennis can reply, a couple of tourists approach asking for autographs. Chris gives them an honest, if small, smile as he and Dennis pause their patrol to oblige. While some of the other Wards don't care for public relations, Chris doesn't mind it.
The tourists move on a minute later, and Chris and Dennis resume their progress.
"I gave you the punch line with no lead up."
Oh. "Did you not hear how sarcastic my laugh was?" Chris replies, trying to salvage the situation.
Dennis sighes. "Except I did. I told you the whole joke, and you didn't realize."
Chris winces, knowing he's been caught. Neither of them say anything for the remainder of the patrol, the silence awkward and heavy. It's only once they've made it back to the break room that Dennis breaks it.
"Look, if it's something I said..."
"No, Clock, it's not that," Chris assures him without offering any further explanation. He starts towards his lab to recharge his equipment.
Dennis follows. "Because I'd understand if it was."
"Clock."
"I know my jokes aren't always... Well, you know."
Chris pulls to a stop. "I'm being transferred."
Too late does he realize how that sounds. "What?! To where?!"
"No, I— not to a different city."
"Oh." That brings Dennis up short. "Then what...?"
"To Winslow." Chris is tempted to leave it at that but knows he needs to come clean. "My grades, they're... They're bad, Dennis."
"So? Dude, I nearly bombed that quiz in—"
"I did," he interrupts. "I bombed everything. I... I don't meet the minimum GPA for Arcadia anymore."
"There's a minim—? No, never mind. Maybe Piggy can—"
"It's done, okay?" Chris interrupts again. He feels bad about that and about the hints of anger that slip into his voice. "Mom and I already met with the principal. It's done."
He retreats into his lab to cool off. Dennis doesn't follow.
Lethargic and apathetic, Chris misses his bus transfer on his first day to Winslow. He corrects his mistake but realizes he's going to be late. His concern doesn't last long, sinking into his thoughts and altogether forgotten by the time he walks through Winslow's front doors.
Classes have already begun, and the halls are empty. He can almost imagine his footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Almost. Someone is crying out, punctuated by metallic banging.
It takes Chris several moments to process he is not imagining it and several more to pinpoint their origin. He moves to help and nearly falls, a brief dizzy spell coming over him. He grows more concerned when the person inside falls quiet and swears when he finds a lock securing the door.
He has a tool to remove it—a Tinker's tool. He almost leaves to get someone else. His unfamiliarity with the halls gives him pause. The continued silence of the person inside has him furtively checking for anyone watching as he cuts through the lock.
A person falls out, bloody waste in their wake. Chris inadvertently breaks their fall, his tool slipping from his fingers.
"Are you okay?" he asks while fighting the urge to vomit.
No response. Ants crawl over his skin as he scrambles for his PRT phone and dials 911.
Taylor Hebert was taken to the hospital, comatose. Chris' mother brings him fresh clothes to change into. She doesn't offer to take him home, and he doesn't feel brave enough to ask.
A miserable beginning to a miserable day.
Chris shares math class with an empty seat, and the teacher asks the class for a volunteer to take Taylor her homework. A pretty red-haired girl suggests Chris should. 'A familiar face might be best.' The teacher doesn't seem to hear—or perhaps care about—Chris' protestations that he doesn't know Taylor.
The hospital is dreary, an aged, worn establishment. Chris imagines it hasn't looked good since before he was born. Taylor's father is there and, upon learning it was Chris who found and released Taylor, he smothers the boy in his gratitude.
Miss Militia arrives shortly after, and Chris takes advantage of the distraction to leave the homework and flee. He still needs to report to Armsmaster and Director Piggot regarding the incident, the use of his tool, and especially its loss.
Chris returns the following day, more homework in hand. The girl's father is by her bed, lulled forward onto the sheets, asleep. Free from undeserved gratitude, Chris finds his eyes drawn to Taylor herself. His gaze deflects off of her bug bitten, angry red skin, and he drops the homework atop the previous day's.
He comes back again the following day. And the day after that. The girl's father is no longer there, and if anything, she looks all the more broken for it.
That Friday, Chris visits for the fifth time. Dark, sharp eyes blink owlishly at his arrival. Oddly, she seemed to have been watching the door intently. Waiting for one of the nurses, perhaps?
"You're awake," he remarks unnecessarily. They are alone, and if she were not awake, she would hardly need him to inform her so.
"Yeah." Taylor pauses. "Thank you."
"It's nothing," Chris replies, setting the homework atop that of the previous three days. He hesitates then adds. "I'm sorry that happened to you."
He knows the words are insufficient before he says them, but he likewise knows he cannot not say them. It would be a faux paus in the extreme to visit someone in the hospital and not express that you wished they had not needed to be there.
He hopes it helped that he meant the words when he said them, that his honesty carried through.
"Thanks..." Taylor sounds more hesitant this time, and Chris fears he has hurt this poor girl even more than she already was.
The words escape his lips before he can second guess them, "I should go."
He leaves before she can reply.
Chris morosely takes a seat at an empty table and pulls out his lunch. He knows he should be making more of an effort to make friends, but he is still mourning the loss of his social circle at Arcadia. It doesn't help that the few times he tried last week, he was laughed at or outright ignored.
Nobody would want to be friends with someone as stupid as him anyway.
"Uh, hey."
Startled, Chris looks up and finds Taylor standing there. She isn't looking at him, or not just him. She's fidgety, her dark eyes sharply darting around, each turn of her head causing her black hair to shift around her shoulders.
He starts to work up the nerve to ask if something is wrong, or at the very least why she is talking to him, but she is already speaking again. "I think I, um... might have given you the wrong impression at the— on Friday."
"Did you?" Chris blurts, confused. It's only after he's said the words that he realizes how ineffective a response it is.
Taylor's head cocks ever so slightly to the side, her eyes lingering on him for seconds longer than expected. "That's why I'm here. I think I came across ungrateful. And I'm not. Ungrateful, I mean."
Chris slowly nods. "It was my pl— well, not pleasure, but... I mean, you're welcome?" A ghost of a smirk flits over Taylor's wide, expressive lips before vanishing.
Her gaze shifts over the cafeteria again, and Chris musters up the courage to ask, "Is everything okay?"
"No," Taylor replies, only for her wide eyes to snap to him with a snapped correction of, "Yes!"
He hesitates to bring up what he has to imagine is still an open wound. But if she is still worried about what he suspects... Better to save her the worry, right? "The perpetrators were caught and expelled."
Taylor's jaw drops. "What? How do you—? Did they make an announcement?"
Too late Chris remembers the school did not, in fact, make such an announcement. He doesn't like lying, but he knows he needs to deflect. "I was involved, and I found out in the fallout." The truth, albeit with key details omitted. It felt better to dress up how he came by his privileged information than an outright lie.
Taylor doesn't seem to know what to make of that if her distant stare is any indication. Eager to fill the silence between them, he finds himself saying, "You can sit with me, if you want."
Stupid. Why had he said that? She undoubtedly had somewhere to be. A table with actual friends.
"I need to go," she replies, confirming what he already knew.
She leaves, and he eats lunch alone.
Chris is surprised to find an addition in his math class that afternoon. While the pretty red-haired girl seat is empty, Taylor walks in to the sound of the class' whispers and claims the previously empty seat next to him.
She doesn't meet his eyes as she slips into place, and he tries to not stare. It becomes easier when class begins, and the dread of math class properly settles over him, a mantle of anxiety that fully ensnares him. Ninety minutes later his torture is finally over, and he leaves with his head hung low.
Tuesday is full of more whispers, anxiety, and the unexplainable sense of being watched. Wednesday, Chris catches Taylor quickly looking away when he glances over at her. There's a pop quiz in math on Thursday, and he panics when the teacher announces five minutes remaining. He has only finished half the quiz, and in a distressed frenzy, he scribbles down guesses for everything left.
That evening, Chris is distracted and makes a mistake while on patrol that lets two gangbangers escape. Unsurprisingly, Miss Militia is waiting for them when they return to PRT headquarters and asks to speak with Chris alone. Dennis looks his way before leaving, but his faceplate makes his expression impossible to see.
"You're on console duty until further notice," she explains, her tone sympathetic and her eyes sad above her mask. "I'm sorry, but our hands are tied."
"Youth Guard?" He vaguely remembers the regulations. Wards who are failing aren't allowed to do more than training exercises in order to give them more time to focus on their studies.
"That too, yes. I tried to argue in your favor, but after your near outing..."
Chris winces. He still remembers how angry Armsmaster and Director Piggot were about that. He'd been lucky the janitor who found hadn't recognized it for what it was and had simply turned it over to the principal, who was already in the know.
"We'll be arranging for tutors." She places a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezes. "But more than that, it's clear the recent changes are weighing on you. We're concerned for your safety and want to give you time to acclimate."
Time to acclimate to being a failure.
Chris pulls away.
Friday brings with it a surprise to bookend the one from Monday. While sullenly unpacking his lunch, Taylor walks up and nervously asks, "Is... this seat still open?"
"Y-Yes," Chris fumbles to say, caught off guard. "I thought you—" He stops himself from completing that sentence.
She carefully sits. She looks uncomfortable, but she's no longer looking over her shoulder every other second. "Sorry I ran off before. I, uh... I didn't believe you."
He frowns, trying to remember their last conversation. "Didn't believe me about what?"
"The bullies. They were never caught before, so the idea that they had finally slipped up... but I've heard rumors, people whispering about phone evidence... I'm sorry I didn't believe you."
"Oh, right. Sorry, it's been a long week. And uh, I get it—not believing me, I mean." He fiddles with his sandwich, trying to peel away the saran wrap. "I'm sorry that happened to you."
Taylor gives him a small smile. "Thank you."
The bell rings, and Chris sighs. Math class is over, which is a relief, but the weekend is here. In the past, that meant he could focus on being a hero, on making a difference. Now though, the thought of his upcoming console duty left a bad taste in his mouth.
"Stop me if you don't want to talk about this, but..." He turns to Taylor, who is watching him with trepidation. "How did you do on the quiz?"
Chris considers refusing to say. She is his first friend—Is she a friend?—at Winslow, and he doesn't want to lose her when she realizes what a failure he is.
Better to get it over with, he thinks as he admits, "I failed."
He expects her to look at him in disgust, scorn, perhaps pity. If anything, she looks unsurprised. "Math isn't my best subject, but I can try to help you with it, if you want?"
"You don't have to do that," is Chris' immediate response.
"I want to though." He looks to her in disbelief, and Taylor gives him another small smile. "Think of it as payback for you helping me before."
"But that was the right thing to do!" he insists. "You don't owe me anything!"
"I said I want to, not that I have to."
He thinks about his coming shift on console duty.
"Okay."
Chris apprehensively munches on his fries as Taylor looks over his graded quiz. He's nearly at the bottom of the basket and close to giving this up as a bad idea when she finally speaks.
"You aren't bad at math."
He briefly wonders whether he misheard because of the not insignificant ambient noise of Fugly Bob's around them. He stretches his arm across the table and silently taps a greasy finger on the red 'F' at the top of it.
Taylor winces. "What I mean is what you did, you did fine. Just slowly."
"Huh?"
"Chris, do you see the trend here?"
She slides the test over to him, and he stares at it blankly, trying to see whatever pattern she sees in the numbers and red marks. "I don't follow."
"Almost all of what you got wrong is at the end." He frowns, realizing she's right. "You didn't show any work for these, and you're nowhere close to correct. You guessed at the end, right? Ran out of time?"
His frown twists into a scowl. "Yeah. Because I have dyscalculia. I'm bad at math by definition."
"I would argue being slow doesn't mean you're bad," she disagrees as she flips open a notebook and starts writing something. "It means we need to figure out how to help you do things quicker. Like this. How would you solve this? Walk me through it."
Taylor is part of Chris' life for almost every day that week, and a little under a week later, judgment arrives—they have another quiz in math class. As the tests are passed out, she turns to him and whispers, "You can do this."
He knows he will fail. He always does. Not wanting to disappoint her though, he puts on his best face and resolves to try his hardest, thinking he can perhaps manage to at least not fail as hard.
Chris glares at the curves and lines on the quiz, trying to remember the drills Taylor put him through. Math class seems to drag on longer than usual, but eventually the dreaded, "Five minutes left!" is called out.
Except something is different. Chris realizes he is more than half done. He is tempted to begin guessing, but he distinctly remembers Taylor stressing it would not be worth it, so he does his best to shake himself from his stupor and try to solve another problem before time is up.
All weekend Chris reminds himself to not get his hopes up. It was an easier quiz, he thinks—a fluke. Even as he tells himself it didn't work, he keeps using the tricks Taylor showed him while running the console at PRT headquarters.
Monday afternoon eventually arrives, and with it comes math with Taylor. The beginning of class should have signaled the return of the graded quizzes, but the teacher launches straight into the lesson instead. Class stretches on forever, and when the teacher begins assigning homework, he sighs in frustration. Another night of wondering wh—
"Oh, I almost forgot!" the teacher abruptly exclaims, picking up a pile of papers and frantically beginning to distribute them. "Here are everyone's quizzes."
Chris and Taylor sit near the back, so it takes time for the teacher to reach them, but eventually Chris is handed his quiz.
He stares, incredulous at the D+ at the top of the page.
"Oh..." Chris distantly recognizes Taylor's voice. His stomach clenches a bit at how upset she sounds. "I'm so sorry. I'm sure you did your best... This is on me. I'll do better to prepare you for next—"
"I've never not failed," he interrupts, his eyes still locked on the D+. He's afraid it will disappear if he looks away. "I've always spent hours on homework to make up for it. I just... I can't..."
"Chris?"
Doubt worms its way into his thoughts, reminding him the test could have been easier than normal—that it could have been a fluke...
He knows there is only one way to be sure. "Taylor, would you please keep tutoring me?"
Over the next several weeks, Chris realizes he is genuinely beginning to improve in math. Yes, he still has to work hard to keep up in math class, but now that he is managing C's—that he is passing—the struggle finally feels worthwhile.
His dread of math has more or less subsided, but a different dread has taken hold instead, and it requires a different kind of tutor.
"Please still be here, please still be here," Chris mumbles as he arrives at PRT headquarters, promptly heading straight for Dennis' room.
His frantic knocking earns him a muffled 'One second!' from inside and makes him sigh in relief. A moment later, the other boy answers the door in his bodysuit and half armored.
Before Dennis can as much as ask what's up, Chris is begging, "Dude, you have to help me. Remember how I told you my tutor's been helping me get my grades up?"
"Uh, yeah," Dennis replies, bewildered. "What, did MM already give you permission to go on patrol again?"
"Oh, um, not yet, but she said if I keep it up, she'll strongly consider it in a month or so."
The other boy scratches his head. "That's awesome. I'm definitely lost now though. Why're you bringing up... Wait."
Many things could be said about Dennis, but unobservant isn't one of them. "Yeah. I've gotta try, man."
"You do remember I've literally never succeeded at this before. You should definitely ask Dean or Carlos."
Chris is of the opinion Dean may not be the best choice, given his track record with Vicky, though he quietly agrees about Carlos. Still, "I need more than good advice. I need my best friend, man."
Dennis grins, and Chris can't help but grin back, even with what's on the line. "Let's brainstorm."
"Hey, how was English?" Taylor greets him that Friday as she slips into the seat next to him, her curls bouncing as she turns to give him one of her wide smiles.
"Boring," he bemoans dramatically, doing his best to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. He has no idea if this will work, but it's now or never, and he knows he won't be able to forgive himself if he doesn't try. "I will never understand the obsession with Jane Austen, but at least I got a B on my essay."
Taylor's eye twitches, and Chris can't quite resist the urge to swallow nervously. "I'm obviously happy to hear about your good grade, but you know my mom was an English professor. I can't let you denigrate Jane Austen!"
Yes. He remembers. He's counting on it. "You mentioned, I remember. And hey, you know I'm willing to be convinced. Are you free tonight? We could talk about it over d-dinner?"
He had stumbled right at the finish line, but if Taylor had noticed, it isn't obvious. Unfortunately, there's a different issue. "I'd love to, but my dad and I have an appointment downtown after school, and I don't know how long it's going to take."
The butterflies in Chris' stomach flit away, leaving a lead weight in their wake. "Oh. Okay, s-sure. Another time..."
Taylor frowns, clearly noticing something is amiss, but the teacher chooses that moment to begin lecturing. Class lasts an hour and a half, an objective fact that nevertheless feels inadequate a description for a period of time that always seems to stretch on forever. When the bell finally rings, Chris mumbles something he's not even confident is English and practically flees out the door.
He had tried not to get his hopes up, but it was still crushing to realize he wouldn't be spending Valentine's Day with her.
"Dude, you've gotta look on the bright side," Dennis consoles Chris, as the forlorn boy mopes on the Ward common room's couch. "She said she would have, right? That's gotta count for something."
Chris sighs, dragging his hand down his face. "I know that, but... I dunno, will it have the same impact if we do it tomorrow? Like, even if I can reschedule the reservations I made and convince MM to give me tomorrow off too, would it really have the same punch?"
Dennis flops down onto the couch next to his friend, throwing an arm around him. "You are asking way too many what-if questions. Do I look like the sort of person who worries about that sort of thing?"
"Absolutely not," Chris replies with a snort and a small smile that worms its way through his depression to the surface. "You're the sort of person who blurts, 'Hi, my name is Clockblocker,' at his introduction."
"Precisely," Dennis agrees as he leans forward to scoop up a controller. "Now stop moping over maybes and play some games with me until patr—"
An abrasive sound fills the air, prompting Chris to scramble for one of the spare masks in the drawers under the coffee table. That sound meant someone not approved to know the Ward's identities is about to enter with an escort. The door whirs open behind them, and Chris turns to check who it is.
The girl standing next to Miss Militia is wearing a domino mask to conceal her identity, but Chris would recognize her dark curls and wide, expressive mouth anywhere.
Taylor gives him a small, nervous wave. "Uh, hey. I kind of suspected, but... I guess this confirms it."
Chris grins, while Dennis and Miss Militia look between the two of them with varying degrees of understanding. Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad Valentine's Day after all. "Hi yourself. You know, you were my plans for tonight. I'm down to stick around until you're done with paperwork, if you're still up to talking about Jane Austen?"
Taylor's mask does nothing to diminish her wide smile. "I'd love to."
"Great, I'll call the restaurant to see if we can push back our time."
"Restaurant? What're you— Oh my god, it's Valentine's Day." Seeing that flustered blush almost makes up for the depression he'd been fighting all afternoon.
Their date that evening, however, more than makes up for it.