When they were kids, Nathan had always felt awkward coming home to Duke, especially if his dad was around. The contrast to his own home was too jarring, and Duke had been so ornery, like he didn't know whether to apologize for the place or defend it. But things had changed a lot since then, and it had been a long time since Nathan had felt anything like happy in his own house. Besides, Duke's grandmother's house was a lot nicer than his father's had been, not tidy like in a TV commercial or anything, but still with clear evidence that someone was taking care of it.

The awkwardness now was of another nature altogether, as Duke stepped inside, before pulling him up the stairs and calling down to the old woman watching TV in the living room: "This is Nathan, he's come to study."

Nathan had expected the kind of grilling his dad would initiate whenever he brought a new friend home, but the woman only raised her eyes from the screen for a few seconds and then turned her attention back to The Price Is Right.

"Does she know you don't really study?" Nathan asked, looking around Duke's bedroom. It was neater than he would have imagined, but sparsely decorated, with a ship in a bottle and an old lithograph of an icy coast as the only embellishment. The single bookshelf unit actually had books on it, which was a surprise.

"That batty old hag," Duke scoffed. "You think she cares? When the teachers call her in, she gets mad at me, tells me I'm grounded, then the next day I do my thing as usual and she doesn't even notice. Believe me, she won't be a problem."

He closed the door and pulled Nathan in for a kiss. Nathan melted into it, his body ready to take up their usual activities, but his brain reminded him that this was supposed to be different, this time he'd get Duke to hang out with him, talk to him, and so he broke off and swung his school bag onto the bed.

"What do we start with?" he asked, getting his books out.

Duke sat down with a sigh. "You're serious. You want to study."

"We can do my homework if you don't want to do yours."

That earned him a laugh. "All right. What have you got?"

"Math?" Nathan suggested, figuring he should go with the safe choice.

To his surprise, Duke groaned and threw his head back on the bed, which exposed a neck that Nathan had trailed with kisses so many times... and this was not the time to think about that.

"Can't we lead up to math with something, you know, lighter?"

"I thought you liked math."

Duke sat up on his elbows and stared at him. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you actually do it. Unlike pretty much everything else."

"I like Mr. Cavanaugh," Duke said. "He expects me to do it, so I do it."

"Mr. Cavanaugh is a jerk," Nathan pointed out.

Affronted, Duke sat up. "Why, because he doesn't hold our hands and treat us like retarded toddlers like the rest of them?"

There was so much heat in that question that Nathan was dumbstruck, wondering what on earth made Duke take the comment so personally.

Duke traced patterns into the blanket on his bed and didn't meet Nathan's eyes when he at last broke the silence.

"He stood up for me. I talked to Becca, her dad's on the staff. She said they were debating whether to expel me, and Mr. Cavanaugh said, 'He did the assignment, fourteen times over. If all we can do with a smart kid like that is kick him out of school, then what kind of teachers are we?' So they let me stay. For now, anyway." Duke gave a shaky little laugh and shook his head. "Can you believe that he actually called me smart?"

"Why did you do it?" Nathan asked quietly, fighting the lump in his throat.

"Because screw them, that's why."

"No, it isn't. If it were, you wouldn't care what Mr. Cavanaugh said about you."

Duke's lips tightened, and there was another stretch of silence.

"It seemed like fun," he said, eyes still on the blanket. "The way she described the sonnets, how to fit the rhymes together, to make a crown and a redoublé, it sounded like fun. Making all the words fit like in a puzzle. Not like all those stupid analyses. 'What are the author's main themes?' Like, ninety percent of the time, the answer is sex, and we're not even supposed to say. Like Shakespeare's too good for sex? A Midsummer's Night Dream is just sex, sex, sex from beginning to end, does she want us to pretend we don't know that? So I figured, I'll make it, I'll make it good, and I'll do it my way, because she doesn't own me. I still wish I could have done the redoublé, but it got too complicated."

Of all the possible answers, Nathan hadn't expected that one, though maybe he should have. He'd always known that Duke wasn't stupid, the work he actually did do in school was proof enough of that, but somehow he'd just accepted that Duke was going to screw up. Was that fair, though? Wasn't the whole point of school to change who you could be?

"Was it worth it?" he asked. "Almost getting expelled?"

"It's gonna happen sooner or later," Duke said with a shrug."I'm a Crocker, right? Gonna end up like my dad – or isn't that what yours always tells you?"

"It doesn't have to be like that."

"No, of course not." Duke looked up with one of his cheeky smiles, though there was a bitter edge to it. "I could be like you. Good boy, gets all the work done on time, heart crushed if he gets a B, because he's got to make Daddy proud!"

Nathan felt his cheeks heat. "Screw you," he said, getting off the bed. "You don't know the first thing about my dad!"

"I know he's an asshole. Why are you trying so hard to impress him?"

"At least he gives a shit! It's not like you've got anyone..." Nathan broke off, knowing from Duke's stricken expression that he'd gone too far. "Sorry."

"No, you're right," Duke said with a forced lightness in his voice. "I don't."

Nathan sat back down on the bed, heavily. "You know," he said after a moment's pause. "I asked to do this because I wanted us to talk, but we suck at talking."

"And here I thought we were having the most sparkling conversation!" Duke gave a quivering smile and pulled Nathan closer, kissing the back of his neck.

Silently, Nathan leaned into the touch and let Duke lay them both down on the bed.

"Let's get to it, then," Duke said, reaching for the book pile. "What's this? History. Also known as tall tales from dead people. Oh joy. Today's homework will be done as a game of distraction." His unoccupied hand moved further down Nathan's body. "How many questions can you get right when I distract you?"

There was no discernible difference in Duke's attitude to Nathan during the schooldays, but just the knowledge that another Duke existed made the cold shoulder a little easier to take. Plus, the lack of interaction or interest made it less obvious when Nathan threw his surreptitious glances. Not often, because Duke usually chose a corner of the classroom out of Nathan's sight, but enough to notice how Duke always talked too much or too little, answered back or not at all, moved around to all his friends or seemed to sleep in his chair. And yet somehow he always seemed to listen and take in what was going on in the classroom. It wasn't the kind of restlessness a kid like Joe would display, because Joe couldn't concentrate if his life depended on it, while Duke could very well do as he was told, and just... didn't. Like the outcome would be the same, either way.

Would it, though? The idea that they were bound to end up like their fathers was unsettling, and Nathan refused to believe it. At home, he dug out old shoe boxes full of photos that had never made it into albums. He watched his mother feed him, hold him, play with him, teach him how to paint with watercolors, how to fold paper and use scissors. She was a part of him too, he had options, and so did Duke, there wasn't just one path to take. Still Nathan kept up the hard work in school, because what would be the point of throwing it all away? That didn't mean he was studying to impress his dad, and he definitely didn't have to go to the academy. He could be anything he wanted to be.

If only he could make Duke believe it, too – but he couldn't change Duke, any more than he could stop him from being such an ass around his friends.

One day in class, as Nathan was lost in thoughts like those, Jeff nudged him and whispered, "Psst, Nathan, poll: hottest girl in class?"

Nathan defensively forced his brain to think about girls and replied, "Nicole," before he had time to realize that the safe choice would have been Denise, or Jeannine, or in a pinch Becca. And if he was going to choose someone less noticeable, would Hannah be upset that it wasn't her?

Jeff's eyebrows shot up as he jotted down the answer. "Nicole, huh? You might actually have a chance there. Want me to put in a good word for you?"

"No," Nathan replied, but judging by Jeff's smile, he didn't listen.

Sure enough, during lunch hour, just as he was about to slip down to Duke in the boiler room, Nicole came up to him with a smile that was both bashful and pleased.

"I heard you voted for me in that stupid poll," she said.

Nathan silently cursed Jeff and said, "Yeah. I did."

"Well, thanks." She scuffed the toe of her shoe slowly against the floor, and then said, "Thing is, I have a boyfriend."

"Oh, me too," said Nathan, relieved. "I mean, not a boyfriend..."

Nicole laughed. "Okay. Good. But thanks anyway."

"You're welcome."

She moved to leave, but paused and asked, "Is it Hannah Driscoll?"

For a moment, Nathan considered saying yes. Having Hannah as his girlfriend would be easy, safe, and he was pretty sure he could get her to go along with it. But no, he couldn't use Hannah like that, they were supposed to be friends.

"No," he said. "I... you don't know her."

Could she tell that he was lying? If so, she didn't indicate it in any way, just nodded and walked off, leaving him free to go to his not-boyfriend.