Illogical [Secret Santa for IcyFlame] (1/3)

January 3, 2017

@IcyFlame ! I'm so honored I got to write for the editor of Guardian Angel, ahaha Anyways, this is super super late, please forgive me! I've been working on this original fic for awhile now, but I just got into one of your listed fandoms (I... accidentally binge watched the whole show literally just today), so I completely abandoned this fic and spent a few hours trying to cram out a oneshot for that fandom instead (since I thought you might enjoy that more). But it's really late right now, and I realized that I won't be able to get that fanfic out on time. So. I'm posting this first, just so you can have something to read, and I'll post (or PM you?) the fanfic later this week. If that's okay with you. This is all out of order, sorry. I hope the original fic is okay. 😧

---

It’s on a Monday when his English teacher drops live hell into his life.

It’s ironic, really, that Raymond was actually having a decent day before this happened. He’d slept through his morning classes and not gotten caught, then no one had bothered him at lunch (which is surprising, considering that his math teacher directs everyone who has questions to him). His school is packed to the brim with idiots, and keeping his head above the rest of the crowd barely requires any effort at all.

Except, then his english teacher goes and ruins his day by assigning the project. He’s heard of it before, whispered in the ears of upperclassman every year at this time. It’s the dreaded English project - two months of research, followed by a twenty-page paper and a painstaking presentation on a mundane subject. If he’s completely honest with himself, twenty pages isn’t all that bad. He’s pretty skilled at whipping up pure crap, composed of overused ideas thrown in alongside paragraphs of academic jargon: he’ll probably still get a decent grade even if he procrastinates this until the week before it’s due.

But he’s certain that the teacher has gone out of her way to make him suffer just as much as the others when she announces, “This is a partner project.”

Like every occasion in the past, his hand shoots up. “Can I work alone?”

Because it works out flawlessly. Because the class has an odd number of people and groups of three are never productive, because he’d rather be a loner than put up with someone who can barely comprehend what he’s saying. He’s perfectly capable of handling partner projects by himself, and he has the grades to show for it. Besides, if he doesn’t have to work with anyone, that gives him the excuse to slack off – he can use class time for more productive things, like writing computer programs for his personal convenience.

Except, unlike every other occasion in the past, the professor stares him straight in the eyes and says, “no.”

His response is immediate. “Why?”

“Because,” she says, arms crossed, “there is now an even number of students in the class.”

...Right. Some girl from this class recently transferred to a different period. He’d just forgotten to consider it because her absence meant absolutely nothing to him, but now, he realizes that it’s a bigger inconvenience than he had thought. “I’d really prefer to work alone,” he asserts, “can’t some people form a group of three?”

“It’s a long term project.” Rejection, again. “A group of three will have a significant advantage over a group of two, and I’d rather not change my grading procedures.”

“But–”

“This is not up for debate. If you have problems with it, we can discuss your needs after class.”

He’s heard that sentence enough times to know what it means: he’s not winning this argument.

Raymond watches, idly, as the people around him get into their usual groups. The girl that had left this class had been quiet enough to ignore - who had she usually been paired up with? He searches his brain for any information about her partner, but all that comes up is an equation about time dilation and one about Euler’s law.

“Hey.”

He glances up. Standing next to him is the boy whom he’s presumably working with. Well, that answers his question. He takes in just enough information about the person’s appearance to get by: light brown hair, soft cheeks, scattered freckles that form a bridge across his nose. Irises that are green on their perimeter but brown nearing the pupils.

“Hello,” Raymond answers flatly, then scoots his chair so that the boy can slide his own seat in. He doesn’t want anyone awkwardly hovering over him while he works.

“So... you’re Ray, right?”

“It’s Raymond,” he corrects automatically. He doesn’t want people calling him nicknames. Having to process multiple different titles is inconvenient.

“Right. Ray.” Great. “I’m Alessio.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t assume you knew.”

The heated eye contact that follows isn’t exactly comfortable, and Raymond glances away quickly. “Just so it’s clear, I don’t actually intend on working with you on this.”

Alessio raises an eyebrow. “You seem to misunderstand the definition of a ‘partner project.’”

“I’ll do all the work by myself,” Raymond clarifies. “You’ll just need to put your name on it, then learn the script for the presentation.”

It’s an offer that close to anyone would accept. Raymond’s known for getting good grades, and he’s basically offering for Alessio to get out of this without doing any work at all. That’s why it surprises him when the brunet states, as plainly as he possibly can: “No.”

“What?”

“I appreciate your offer, but I actually intend on working with you.”

“I… I don’t think you know what you’re saying.” He’s frustrated, now; all this discussion is wasting his time. “Trust me, I’m not an easy person to work with.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m going to disapprove of all of your ideas.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll delete your slides off of the presentation.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll rewrite all of your paragraphs.”

“But you’ll look at them first?”

So, is that what this is? Some twisted way of getting self-assurance? He clenches his jaw, releases an unconcealed sigh. “Sure, I’ll look at them.”

Alessio smiles. It’s warm and naive, like the smile of someone who’s never been hurt before. “Let’s pick a prompt, then.”

There are ten prompts on the list, and some of them clearly require more work than others. “We should do the first one,” Raymond suggests. “It’s the easiest.”

“2 and 9 are more interesting.”

Technically, his judgement isn’t wrong. The second prompt is much more interesting than the first in that it’s far more narrow: it’s detailed and precise in a way that Raymond knows will be a pain to research. And the ninth - the ninth is the type of controversial prompt that actually interests him, but there will be so many different opinions on it that unbiased sources will be hard to find.

“They’re too time-consuming.”

“We have two whole months. Can we do 9?”

Raymond leans his chin onto his hand. Blinks. Adjusts his glasses, scans the list of prompts for a better alternative, searches his brain for a convincing excuse. But Alessio’s right - they have enough time, and if Alessio’s really serious about this, perhaps Raymond can just dump the burden of the project right onto his shoulders.

“...Fine.” He tells himself that the decision is entirely in his own interest, not in any way to appease the person sitting next to him. “We can do 9."

~•x•~

He doesn’t appreciate it in the least when, during lunch on Thursday, the boy somehow finds him behind the math building. Not only that, but Alessio actually sits down next to him and observes in silence as he works through a calculus problem.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

The question startles him. Raymond shrugs noncommittally, his gaze never leaving the page in front of him. “Once I finish.”

“Okay,” Alessio says, and at least he has the decency to stay quiet while Raymond works. The silence is surprisingly easy to adjust to, despite Alessio’s looming presence. It’s strange. Maybe he’s just growing insensitive to these sorts of things.

The problem isn’t especially hard, and Raymond finds himself disappointed when he solves it far faster than he’d anticipated. He shoves the piece of paper back into his backpack, not bothering to shelve it into a binder. “Why are you here?”

“Why shouldn’t I be here?”

The words aren’t spoken in an unfriendly manner, though Raymond thinks that perhaps they should be. “You usually sit at one of those crowded tables in the cafeteria,” he points out. It’s not that he’s been paying attention – he hasn’t - he’d noticed it by complete chance, of course. It’s just one of those useless facts his brain won’t let him forget.

“And I can’t sit somewhere else for a change?”

“It’s... louder there. And more interesting.” He exhales, fingers tracing a crack in the ground. “I’m boring.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Whatever. Don’t come bothering me again.”

Alessio doesn’t.

~•x•~

For someone as reckless and straightforward as Alessio is, he’s actually remarkably good at doing research. Every time he shows up for class, he has something new – an insight, a source, an idea – and he starts writing the actual essay just a week in.

Raymond reads over his work, as promised, and ends up deleting and rephrasing most things, but he doesn’t change the basic ideas. As ideas go, Alessio’s are actually surprisingly decent. Maybe their finished paper will actually be something worth reading.

Outside of class, though, they barely speak at all. Alessio doesn’t come find him at lunch or in the library, and Raymond doesn’t go out of his way to speak to his partner either. It’s a comfortable amount of distance, and if things persist in this manner, perhaps the whole experience won’t be half as painful as Raymond had anticipated.

~•x•~

It’s on a particularly cold Tuesday that he walks to school with a throbbing headache. It’s annoying. The dull pain is interfering with his thoughts, and the air around him is uncomfortably cold, even through the extra hoodie he’s wearing.

He goes through his morning classes in a daze. He has math in the morning, but it’s not the type of math that interests him: it’s methodic and brainless, and he lets the lecturing in the background disintegrate in his mind. During lunch, he sits down in his usual spot behind the math building, too tired to notice much about his surroundings. He isn’t exactly hungry, and it’s an unnecessary burden to keep his eyes open, so he ends up pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his head in his palms. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep. It happens anyways.

He wakes up to someone tapping him on the shoulder. The first thing he notices is that it’s freezing - he’s been cold the whole morning, but that was nothing compared to this. His whole body is trembling; his hair is dripping wet, his shirt soaked through and his arms slick with water.

And then the world snaps into focus, and he realizes exactly how awful he feels. His head is pounding in time with his heartbeat, and his body might as well be on fire – everything around him is disproportionately cold. His limbs ache and his nose prickles uncomfortably. Someone is calling his name, someone has a hand clamped around his forearm, someone is staring at him with eyes that are green on their perimeter but brown nearing the pupils–

“Alessio?”

The word leaves his mouth in a pathetic half-stutter, barely audible over the downpour around him, and he realizes that he’s never actually addressed Alessio by his name before. He contemplates the weight of the word on his lips. It’s a nice name.

“Here.” The person is reaching out, offering him something wires and with thick rectangular frames. Raymond blinks back exhaustion and unwraps his arms from his knees, his whole body shuddering with the sudden drop of heat, and takes the glasses from the brunet’s outstretched hand. “Where– hh’tSCH!”

He fits his glasses onto his face, sniffling, and forgets that he has a sentence to finish. Raindrops are falling all around them, sharp and delicate, but he realizes slowly that the droplets that fall to the ground by his feet are all coming from his own body. He glances up. Alessio is holding an umbrella over him, though it’s really not a large enough space for two people, and the boys right shoulder is getting soaked.

“Your shoulder,” he mutters.

Alessio doesn’t even bother to readjust the umbrella. “Did you pass out?”

That’s when the brunet’s expression clicks – his eyes are unnaturally wide, covered with a glossy liquid sheen that shouldn’t be there: he’s scared. Frightened, panicked, helpless.

Raymond shakes his head, wondering what could have caused him to sport an emotion like that. “I… just fell asleep.” And then it started raining.

That explains things. Raymond curses his own body for being so useless – why hadn’t he woken up when it first started to rain? – and sniffles again. He reaches up to brush water drops from his cheeks, but the delicate motion sets off an inevitable itch in his nose, and he ducks his head quickly, his frame shaking with each outburst that follows. “Hh’TChh! hh’TZcHh!”

“Class starts in a few,” Alessio informs him when he finishes, “what do you have?”

“Bio. I’m going to get changed.” He stands up, ducking out of Raymond’s umbrella. The rain is brutally cold when it washes over him, sending a violent tremor through his frame. How the hell had he managed to sleep through this?

“I can walk you there if you want,” the brunet interjects, rising to his feet. “Or you can just borrow my umbrella. I have a raincoat, anyways.”

But Alessio’s already done too much, and Raymond doesn’t want to trouble him any more. The project is his responsibility. Taking care of Raymond isn’t.

“It’s fine,” he says, even though having an umbrella would be inarguably more pleasant. “I’m already soaked, no harm done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” A beat. “Thanks, you know. For waking me up.”

Then he’s off in the direction of the science building, and Alessio doesn’t have a reason to follow.

~•x•~

It’s fortunate. He has a spare set of clothes located in his locker, and most of the students are still eating, so not many people are around to witness him in his current predicament. His fingers are numb and clumsier than usual, but he still manages to get changed into the clothes before lunch ends. It’s as if the universe is delivering him a halfhearted apology for dumping a few gallons of rainwater onto him.

Raymond uses paper towels to dry off his hair, then wrings out his wet clothes inside the sink. Then he crams them into a spare compartment in his backpack, away from all his school papers, and hopes that they don’t soak through. Even though the dry clothes are exponentially more comfortable, he’d put them into his locker back during the warmer days of fall, so now, they fail to provide him adequate warmth.

Biology goes by in a blur. He likes the subject, but the information from the lecture isn’t something that a textbook won’t provide him. That’s a good thing, because he’s too preoccupied with tending to his headache to process much, anyways.

It’s becoming harder and harder to hide the signs of his oncoming illness – he finds himself sniffling constantly and having to resort to rubbing his nose to quell the occasional tickle. When that stops working, he’s forced to release desperate stifles into the back of his wrist: they start off silent and contained, but after awhile they become messier, louder outbursts that leave him flushing with embarrassment. It’s painful. He hates that his illness contributes to an image of him that’s a complete opposite from the person he’s known for – an impolite genius; spotless, calculated, controlled. The fact that someone like him can’t handle a simple cold is utterly humiliating. It’s not just a public display of vulnerability: his symptoms are frequent and unsanitary and loud, and had he been the one observing such a display, he knows he definitely would’ve been disgusted.

He’s a mess. That fact contributes to his misery almost as much as the burning ache in his skull, or the congestion in his airways, or the fever that he’s certain he has. He rarely ever gets sick, but when he does, the illnesses come on brutally fast and last for much longer than they should. It’s sad, really. Sitting out in the rain for half an hour probably destroyed any last chance his immune system had of getting over this quickly.

He’s never been this relieved when the bell rings, dismissing him from the class. That relief is quickly overwritten with dismay, though, when he steps out under the overhang of the science building and realizes that it’s still raining outside. It’s pouring, actually: the threads of rain splatter like marbles onto the ground, slanted slightly from the wind, and the layered gray clouds overhead show no sign of letting up anytime soon.

He really despises the rain. His parents are abroad again; they usually take trips to foreign countries for months at a time, whether for business or just for their own enjoyment, so walking home after class has become the norm for him. He lives close enough; a fifteen minute walk in the rain should be bearable, but he’s already shivering under the overhang, and he really doubts that he’ll be able to handle another cold shower.

He turns around and reenters the building, feeling slightly dizzy. He’ll wait an hour to see if the rain subsides, and if not, he’ll just have to walk back on his own.

It’s not ten minutes later when he sees Alessio disappear into a nearby classroom. He wonders, vaguely, if the brunet’s offer still stands – would he be willing to lend him an umbrella for the day?

Raymond dismisses the thought at first. He’s already caused more than enough trouble. But then again, Alessio usually drives home, so if he doesn’t actually need the umbrella–

He ends up gravitating towards the classroom door, anyways, just in case. When the boy reemerges from the room, Raymond opens his mouth to call out to him, but Alessio sees him before he has the chance to utter a single word. “Hey,” he says, his usual smile resurfacing, and Raymond has to blink a few times because it’s… a nice smile, actually. It’s warm and bright. Perhaps his fever is affecting him more than he cares to admit?

“Uh,” he stammers, his voice coming out rough and ungraceful. He clears his throat. “Are you driving home today?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“About your umbrella,” he begins, but he has to stop to muffle a few harsh coughs into his elbow. “Can I borrow it? Just for today, I mean. I’m walking home, so I just thought that...” Great, he’s rambling. This was a bad idea after all. “On second thought,” he backtracks, “I don’t know what I was thinking, never mind–”

“Sure.” Alessio’s holding the umbrella out already, his expression as amiable as always. Raymond stares. Blinks. Reaches out and takes the object with uncertain hands.

“Thanks,” he stammers finally. “Really, thanks. I– hhH’TZCHHhh!” The sneeze is sudden and jarring and it catches him completely off guard. He feels heat rise to his cheeks, and he keeps his gaze trained onto the object in his hands, too embarrassed to look elsewhere. “That was gross, sorry. I’ll, uh, try not to contaminate this before you get it back.” Why does he have to embarrass himself now, of all times, in front of the person who’s done nothing but speak to him like an angel?

“I can drive you back if you want,” Alessio offers, raising an eyebrow. “It’s cold outside and you don’t look well.”

It’s spoken plainly, as if Alessio doesn’t even realize how unrealistically nice his own offer is. He’s quick to suggest it, and Raymond’s just as quick to decline. “That’s too much,” he says. “You know, you’re not obligated to be nice to me just because we’re partnered together.

“Of course I know that.”

“You’re not going to gain anything from doing this for me.”

“I’m aware.”

“So,” Raymond begins, glancing up for the first time, “why bother?”

Edited December 12, 2018 by monochrome
the font size was ...... super small