Awake For 20 Hours Straight
!Kindertines2026 prompt!!!! Day 5: first fight.
Dr. Danner/Mr. scippio.
Arguing Hurt, No Comfort, break ups, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mr. Scippo teaches english, Alternate Universe - College/University, Not Really AU just them in college
Summary:
Scippio and Dr. Danner are in college, and Scippio comes home drunk one too many times and this results in a night that neither of them will forget for a very long time.
TW: ALCOHLISM!
Danner had been awake for twenty straight hours when Scippio, or Steven, as the man had told him, “If you’re gonna call me your boyfriend, I’d rather you not call me my last name, Dennis.” Had stumbled into their shared dorm room, drunk out of his mind.
Dennis had been awake for twenty straight hours when the man stumbled to the bed on Danner’s side of the room, and spilled the open bottle of vodka that was loosely clutched into his hand all over Dennis’s only blanket.
He had been awake for twenty straight hours when Scippo drunkenly laughed his ass off at the sight, and proceeded to take a swig of the empty bottle, then had the gaul to look disappointed when he was met with air instead of liquor.
Danner had migraines when he was in high school, something he took hard medicine for, which he does blame for his grades tipping for short periods of time, and the reason he didn’t get into Stanford. He hadn't had one since junior year, and as a sophomore in college, he could feel the pain start in his right eye.
Normally he could ignore the man, go back to staring at endless words of biology or physics, but he physically couldn’t take it anymore.
Dennis was never a yelling man, his older sister had done enough of that for the both of them when they were younger, but he could feel the anger bubbling somewhere inside of him that he didn’t want to feel. Danner was trained in not caring, being as nonchalant as possible, keeping a straight face and a straight back, and you’ll be fine.
But after twenty hours of classes, and studying, the suffocating library, and the mind numbing smell of chemicals in a lab, he was too tired for some reason.
“Go away!” The man stood from the chair he had been in for the past three hours, and his joints burned like hell. “If you’re going to be drunk and stupid, go do it elsewhere, Scippio.”
The other man looked burned, like Danner had shot him or something. The moon light showed through the curtain, and highlighted the sad features on the man’s face. It also highlighted the scowl growing on his face.
“Oh shut it, I’m not hurtin’ no one Denny.” His thick southern accent rang through the room, he slurred his words and Danner could smell the vodka on his breath from his desk.
“The only person you're hurting is yourself Steven,” he said. “Are you going to drink all of college!? What are you going to do with your life, because if it's this!? Then you have no right to envision me in it.” Dennis was never one for crying either, but he could feel tears built in his eyes.
He wouldn’t say he was in love with Steven, he wouldn’t say he liked him, or wanted to marry the man, but he did like being with him.
Danner had always hated people, being around them, them living, a cold dead body ready for research was always nicer company than a breathing one. But Scippio was different, he could handle talking to him, spending hours upon hours with him, sleeping in the same bed as him.
And he didn’t think that was something that just happened, in his entire 22 years he had never felt like that with anyone else, it wasn’t love, Danner didn’t love, but it was appreciation, and he didn’t want to lose that.
But he also didn’t want everything that he owned to smell like liquor anymore. He didn’t want to wake up to puking - god he hated puking -, he didn’t want to pick Scippio off of the ground outside of his door every week.
“Oh, really!? I’m sorry I would have the nerve to think you’d be there for me!” He stood up now, looking over at Dennis.
“I have been here for you, and I’m sick of it!” Danner felt the need to hit something to prove his point of agitation, but he found the attempt fruitless. “I’m sick of your alcoholism, and I hate it more than anything when you get drunk and come in here and you act like this is normal.”
“What do you know about normal?”
Danner kept a gun in a safe underneath his bed. He could shoot it, and he would if he needed to, and there was nothing scarier than a man with glass in his hand and a southern drawl who didn’t know what he was doing.
Dennis didn’t get scared, but he was scared of this small man who he could probably kill if he had to. Spiders didn’t scare him, dangerous chemicals didn’t scare him, guns didn’t scare him, but if this man walked any closer to him, he would fight for his life.
“What is that supposed to mean Steven, are you calling me irregular for not wanting my boyfriend to kill himself by means of alcohol poisoning, is that what you’re saying?” His voice stayed as stable as he could make it be.
Danner wouldn’t let the man get another word in until he was done speaking.
“Because if it is, you really need to rethink your major in literature, if you live long enough to reach graduation.”
He wasn’t done.
“Steven, If you don’t stop drinking, I’m leaving, and I will not be coming back.”
He was done.
The other man’s eyes looked lost, like he had never envisioned a possibility that Danner would ever leave him over something so trivial to him.
“You won’t leave, because you love me.” Scippio was taught by his mommy that people who love you never leave, even through how tough it gets.
Danner was taught by his mother that you walk out after you’ve tried, and failed.
“It’s good I don't love you then.”
And stomp on everything you can before you do.
Their first and last fight was on a Tuesday night, the same night that Danner was awake for twenty hours straight, the night that Scippio came home to his boyfriend drunk the last time, the night that Danner transferred colleges, and the night they wouldn’t see each other until they were middle aged, and teaching kindergarteners English and science respectfully.
Day 5!!!!
