deluge in a paper cup

       Robert shivered as he hopped off the bus, the cold winter winds nipping at his cheeks. He suddenly regretted not taking his nan’s advice; an extra sweater or two was certainly in need in this weather. There were hardly any vehicles on the roads, and the snow caked sidewalks remained empty save for him. Everyone was undoubtedly in their homes, safe and warm, shielded from bitter grips of winter. And here he was, facing winter head on, at Tennessee’s address (if his phone was at all right), against the better judgement of his nan and their school (something about a storm, and snow days for the next 48 hours), all to share the wonder that is science. 

      The teen tucked his phone into the pocket of his pea coat and trudged through the snow, towards the old colonial townhouse marked with the building numbers Tennessee had provided him. He knocked on the door, before noticing a doorbell just a foot away. Doing his best not to let his teeth chatter, Robert pulled his hands from his coat pockets, and pressed the little white button. Repeatedly, maybe even excessively. Okay, the door pressing was definitely excessively. 

      “Fuck, it’s cold.” He muttered to himself, tucking his hand back into his coat to keep himself from pressing the tempting button again. “Cold cold cold cold coooold.” 

cyndxqvil​

          The boy sprung up from his bed, carefully setting his camera aside as soon as he heard a knock, then a chipper ring of the doorbell. It rang again, and again, and again—despite the exasperated frown marring his forehead, Tennessee did speed up his footsteps as he climbed down the stairs. Honestly, he hadn’t expected Robert to actually make it in this godforsaken weather.

          He wasn’t entirely sure why Robert was so invested in this. To his knowledge, the older boy didn’t get paid or anything. He was doing this per Mrs. Evergreen’s request and her request only. Rob could have easily sent him a text that today’s tutoring session would have to be canceled because of unholy weather conditions, and Tenny would’ve said okay without resistance. However, Robert was here, at his—no, his grandparents’—house, and Tenn had to make sure it looked somewhat decent. On his way to the front door, he picked up a couple of items—magazines, empty coffee mugs, and a pen—and stacked them on the kitchen table in a poor attempt to clean up.

          Opening the door, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, a freezing gust of wind wildly assaulting his face. Fuck. He wasn’t used to this. They didn’t get snow back in Galveston, the winter temperature rarely dropping below fifty degrees. The idea of having a snow day, therefore, was more or less alien to him. Hell, he had never even seen actual snow until moving to his grandparents’ place.

          “Hey,” he greeted, cautious per usual. He took in the older boy’s shaking frame as he slid out of Robert’s way, a clear invitation to come inside, then wondered in disbelief: “Wait, did you walk?”

        With a bow of his head, the blond boy seemed to have surrendered— to what exactly, Robert hadn’t the slightest idea— but the gesture made the raven haired teen all the more nervous about his actions and words. His mind began analyzing every bit of their encounter, searching for whatever it was that turned the boy’s mood. His train of panicked thought derailed as Tennessee’s face returned into view, the air heavy with what felt like a sense of resentment, further confusing the older teen. This was going badly, and worst of all, he couldn’t quite figure out what he had done to muck it all up.

        Watching the blond deposit his books in a fashion he could only describe as pissy, Robert began to wonder if it wasn’t him who upset the teen, but chemistry in general and the fact that he needed tutoring at all. Pulling the nearest chair to him, the Robert seated himself and scooted a little too close to the blond. “The whole chapter?” He asked, peering over Tennessee’s arm to see what they were dealing with for the day. “Oh, finding the atomic mass! This is going to be a breeze. I know they take like…” Robert paused, gently pulling Tennessee’s hand out of the way, counting the pages dedicated to the chapter. “Six, seven, eight—” Pages rustled as he continued to flip through them, suddenly understanding why the boy next to him was having trouble with the topic. “Fourteen, Fifteen— fifteen pages.”

        He frowned, turning to the blond. “They took fifteen pages to explain one simple little topic? They could have easily condensed this into eight— maybe even six— paragraphs.” There was a whole section dedicated to Thomas Thompson, someone he felt was rather irrelevant to the topic at hand. Robert shook his head in disbelief. “Alright, so let’s start off with the easy equation. You know how to find the number of protons and neutrons an element has, right?”  

         The constant anxiety and vigilance tired and frustrated him, but Tennessee couldn’t bring himself to stop. His brain was just wired like that. He’d learned to be as small and invisible as possible, walking on eggshells around the house. His school counselor had said it was going to take quite a while for him to break out of that mentality. Tell me something I don’t know, he’d nearly snapped. All he wished for was to live the life of a normal teenager. A teenager who was comfortable in his own skin; who didn’t wake up in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat; who didn’t flinch whenever someone raised a hand around him. And he was trying hard, he really was, you see, he’d agreed to do this after school tutoring thing because he genuinely wanted to do well in school. He knew he was too cowardly, too selfish, too blunt—but he wanted to get better, though he wasn’t sure if he could, or if he deserved to. He just didn’t want to grow up to be like his asshole of a stepfather. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? (Or was it?)

         The sound of the older boy’s voice brought him back to reality. “Atomic mass, yeah,” he said, sniffling a bit out of habit. Rob continued to speak in that cheery tone of his, but Tennessee could see his expression gradually changing to a confused scowl as he turned the pages over and over, seemingly appalled at the excessive length of the chapter. "That woulda made things a whole lot easier," he drawled, merely shrugging in response. He'd gotten the feeling that a lot of the explanations were redundant and unnecessary as he read the textbook, but how the hell was he supposed to know? Science in general wasn't his strong suit. Any subject involving rules and mechanics, he immediately lost interest in. "Uhm," the blond frowned, tapping the pencil against the desk as he struggled to recall a particularly boring lecture from last Tuesday. "Protons—that's the number thing on the periodic table, I think." He paused. "I dunno what it's called exactly."

          There, you couldn’t get any more embarrassing than that. Well, he could, but he’s only willing to go so low, and unfortunately, this kid was too old for the obnoxious dorky stuff he reserved for toddlers. “I’m just messin’ with ya,” he pulled up the sleeves of his henley, holding out his hand for a shake. Nice, open, and most important of all: harmless. Robert was doing his best to fit in, to be well liked and very, very normal. “I’m Rob, your new— profoundly talented, unbelievably intelligent, and incredibly handsome chemistry tutor.” 

          Denim blue eyes warily surveyed the tall senior—Rob, he reminded himself, pressing it once more to memory—, his fingers still firmly grasping the straps of his backpack. He actually had to lift his chin and look up in order to meet Rob's eyes. His instinct, of course, was to feel intimidated by the height difference and immediately drop his gaze to the carpeted floor like a submissive animal. Giving himself a firm mental bitchslap, Tenn forced himself to raise his head. He was fifteen, he was in his high school library, and there were one thousand four hundred and sixty-five miles between Galveston and Baltimore. He had no reason to be frightened.

          Right. He was here for tutoring. "Yeah," he muttered, shrugging off his backpack and dumping it on the table, then plopped down on the chair. A textbook, a pencil, and a scuffed notebook were pulled out of the bag. Why had Mrs. Evergreen gone out of her way to secure a tutor for him in the first place, anyway? It wasn't like he was, like, totally failing. Just some C's and D's. Tennessee opened the book, spinning the pencil around his thumb. "So, uh, I don't really get this whole chapter."

       There was very few people in this world that could make Robert Falk cancel all his after school plans. In fact, it was safe to say that there were only two people in this world, and Mrs. Evergreen, his old chemistry teacher happened to be one of those two people. He wasn’t sure what it was about the blonde thirty two year old that made him weak in the knees, maybe it was the fact that she was blonde, or that she always seemed to be pregnant, or how terrifying she was when she was angry— but with a few quick words, Robert found himself agreeing to tutor one of her students. 

       He couldn’t blame Mrs. Evergreen for not being able to tutor the kid herself, she was after all a mother of three and pregnant with her fourth. Juggling so many kids both at home and at work must be exhausting. She cared for her kids, students and offspring alike, that much was evident and perhaps it was that motherly quality in her that made it so easy for Robert to agree to the job. She sent him off for the day, letting him know that her student will meet him in the library after school.

       Seniors had the wonderful perk of taking less classes than the rest of the school, giving the older teens a two hour head start on extracurricular or daily out-of-school activities than the rest of the school. For Robert, this typically meant football or baseball, but neither were in season during the winter months, leaving the teen to spend his extra hours on homework. Dropping his blue back bag onto an empty table, the senior settled into a chair, pulling out his notebooks and pencil, setting to work. A ruffling of papers, the sound of pencil against pen here and there, the occasional beep of the librarian’s register, the library’s atmosphere was relaxing, and its near silence wrapped around Robert like a comfortable hug.

                                           RRRRRRRRIIIINNNNGG    

       The bell rang, ugly and long and entirely unexpected, shattering Robert focus. Time had slipped away from the startled teen, and his afternoon’s charge would soon be here. He briefly wondered if he should stand at the front of the library, paper in hand with the kid’s name scrawled across it but decided against it, feeling that it was a tad bit too dorky for their first meeting. Besides, he couldn’t remember what the kid’s name was— just that it was long and had a lot of double letters. Had it started with a P? No, no. The kid was named after a state. A southern state? Yes, I had to have been, because he distinctly remembers thinking about how awful it was and how his parents were probably one of those crazy red necks with an IQ of twelve who think Africa is in South America.         Marking the page of his thermodynamics textbook, Robert neatly slipped his homework into his binder, tidying up the table area he occupied. He stood, leaning against the table waiting for the mystery kid to arrive, trying desperately to remember his name.         Wait, was it Mississippi? Was that his name? It had to have been. Mississippi, good lord, his parents must have hated him. Well, it could always be worse, he mused, at least they didn’t name the poor thing after Alabama, or God forbid— Arkansas. 

       He didn’t, like, hate his classes. In fact, the first half of his sophomore year seemed to be going pretty well. Geometry was okay. He liked the various shapes and lines, his mind working much better with visuals than written equations—still, it was math. Nothing he couldn’t suck up and deal, though. Photography, of course, was his favorite class. There was a dark room built inside the classroom, with film cameras lined up on the shelves for students to borrow. Overall, although he’d never been one of those driven, high-achieving gunners, grades were important to him. The boy genuinely wished to do well in his studies.

       But this was chemistry. Chemistry, he repeated gloomily as he made his way down to the school library. The experiments they did in class were interesting enough, but anything beyond that just escaped his comprehension. Like the periodic table, for instance. Seriously, Mrs. Evergreen didn’t expect him to memorize every single fucking thing on it, did she? Because that was simply a waste of time.

       Nevertheless, his teacher had insisted on him being tutored in a firm, taking-no-bullshit voice. She sort of reminded him of his grandmother (maybe that’s why he hadn’t been able to straight-out refuse her suggestion?). Oh well, it was pointless to keep whining about it now. Tennessee was going to be stuck with some random older kid whether he liked it or not, and complaining about it wouldn't change the facts. Or he could view this as a learning opportunity, a chance to boost his grades up—ha, he snickered internally. A part of his mind was shaking its head and asking if he wanted to fail the class, while the rest of it held up a middle finger to textbooks and handouts and quizzes.

       The blond pushed opened the library doors with reluctant hands, his eyes flickering across the area in a quick scan. He couldn't remember if Mrs. Evergreen had mentioned his tutor's name in passing, and had no idea what this guy looked like. His gaze eventually settled upon a raven-haired male standing in front of an empty desk—that had to be him. Tightening his grasp on the straps of his backpack, Tenny walked towards his tutor in wary steps.

       He cleared his throat awkwardly, eyes darting upwards to meet those of the taller boy. "You're, uh—chemistry?" he asked.