Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The backroom of Jackie’s bar was startlingly quiet. Izzy was fairly sure she’d installed soundproofing at some point for her own reasons and he had been steadfastly not asking about those reasons for over a decade. What it meant, as far as he was concerned, was that he could sip pretty decent whiskey for free while he fixed her inevitable bookkeeping problems once a month without hearing the general cacophony of the front room.

Her arrival into his temporary domain was heralded by the sharp smell of cigar smoke,

“Find it yet?”

“Yeah,” he held a receipt out that was very wrinkled and had a mysterious brown crust stuck to the bottom. “Danny has been buying all your limes from the grocery store instead of the bulk order.”

“Why?”

She sat down beside him at the long table she used in lieu of a desk. It had a lot of nicks, scars and graffiti scrawled on it. Too many years being handled by too many careless people.

Izzy could relate.

“I don’t ask for reasons, just hunt down the money. You’ll have to retrain him on the ordering system.”

“I’ll get Geraldo to do it,” she waved that away. “He and Danny get each other.”

One empty headed fool to another, that checked out.

“Organized the receipts, should be ready for the taxman next month,” he told her instead of risking his neck saying that out loud.

“Thank fuck. Honestly, Hands, why don’t you just get certified already and then I can just pay you properly to do the taxes and things. Make my life a fuckload easier.”

“And you know I do everything for your convenience,” he rolled his eyes.

“Maybe you should. What the fuck else are you doing?”

Izzy picked up his whiskey and took a long sip.

He had this waking nightmare, an anxiety dream that played on loop in his head while he stared sightlessly at his walls at the apartment. In it, he’s walking down a sidewalk with nowhere in particular to go. He sees Eddy across the street. She spots him and before he can hide, she’s waving, cheerful as anything. She looks happy, full of good news and good things that have happened since he was unceremoniously ejected from their life together.

That’s bad enough, but the worst part was that after telling him about every good thing, including every detail of Bonnet’s ass-ugly mansion and collection of gold appliances, she asks him sincerely,

“So what’ve you been up to?”

And Izzy will have to say ‘nothing’.

He didn’t really need to work. The jobs they ran may have been questionable in their legality, but they’d paid in real money. If he lived frugally, he could be retired for all his days and Izzy was frugal by nature. But he didn’t have hobbies, never had time to cultivate any, didn’t have many old friends to spend time with, most of them were dead or in jail or had taken Eddy’s side when things ended. Even if he wanted to, he had no idea how one went about making new friends.

He’d spent the last six months fixing Jackie’s books because she’d never much liked Eddy and had always been his friend alone (and lonely in that job) and trying to get the feral tomcat that lived in the alley next to his townhouse to get close enough that he could nab it and have someone castrate the damn thing so it’d stop caterwauling at all hours of the night.

“You need a degree,” he said into his whiskey. “To get certified.”

“Didn’t you go to college?”

“Dropped out after two years. Started the business instead.”

“Bet they’d still take the credits,” she shrugged. “Throw in some ‘life experience’.

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “Tell them I graduated from the school of hardknocks.”

Bonnet was a professor of something, he was pretty sure. He’d had a lot of books and talked about classes anyway. English, maybe? That sounded right. Eddy had liked how he spoke.

“Should be worth something to someone,” Jackie’s cigar smoke curled out of the corners of her mouth. “Can you imagine? I’d already have a degree in business if they took it out in years.”

“And in matrimony,” he raised his glass to her and she laughed, fortunately. In a good mood.

“A full on masters in missus,” she grinned and he had to smile back. Jackie was good for a laugh even when he wasn’t much in the mood for one.

Izzy walked home not much later. She’d stuck a cigar in his jacket pocket on his way out with a wink, so instead of going all the way inside, he sat down on his stoop and lit it. It was a mild summer night and he hadn’t actually sat out here yet. It was a good cigar, but mostly it just made him miss cigarettes. He’d given them up fifteen years ago and sometimes he still craved the taste.

Mostly he craved how it had tasted bleeding into him through Eddy’s lips, but that wasn’t worth thinking about. Think about how the smoke reached for the cloudy night sky, he directed himself. Think about the warm air on his face. Think about how grocery shopping, meal planning, laundry, all the things that life required to keep the wheels rolling forward.

The tomcat padded up to the stoop, just out of reach. He was a big fellow, orange as anything with a ragged ear and proud bearing.

“You’re a son of a bitch,” he told the cat, even as he reached into his coat and pulled out the treats he’d started keeping on him as a bribe. He placed one on the bottom step then returned to his spot at the top.

The cat could clearly smell it, nose going and tail lashing, but he didn’t move from his spot until Izzy got up and opened the front door. Even then, he just darted in, nabbed the treat then ran off back into the alley. Figured.

He watched the news, barely taking it in. Went to bed and didn’t sleep.

In the wee hours, he got his laptop and opened up a website.

***

“Annnnd there we go!” His advisor beamed at him. The guy was maybe twenty-five and he said ‘nontraditional student’ like he meant ‘geriatric dumbass’. Izzy had had to draw on every minute of his ancient court-mandated anger management class tips to keep quiet.

“Yes,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “I know how to get into the system. Got myself set for the next semester, but I’m closed out of anything that satisfies the arts requirement.”

“Ooooh!” His advisor blinked wetly at him. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

Breath in. Breath out. I don’t want to go to prison, I don’t want to go to prison, I don’t want to go to prison. It probably wasn’t what Cindy, his anger management trainer, had meant by a mantra, but it had done him a lot of good over the years.

“What can I take that’s still open?” He said through only slightly gritted teeth and, more remarkably, without swearing.

“Let’s see! Ooooh there’s ceramics!” He said after some clicking. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want to go to prison.

“No.”

“It can be very therapeutic, my Nana loves making pots.”

I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want to go to prison.

“What else is there?”

“Uh...closed...closed...” The bright smile started to dim a little. “Closed...wow, the arts are popular...mmm. There’s Drawing 1 still open. Do you want to learn how to draw?”

“Is quartering involved?” he muttered.

“Hm?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Great!”

Which was how Izzy found himself walking into an airy room filled with color-splotched surfaces, and the smell of paint hanging in the air. There were a few students milling around already, settling in front of easels. Some of them were chatting with each other or fussing over their supplies.

In his first semester, Izzy had attempted to gravitate toward the back as he would’ve with Eddy back in the day, but quickly it became apparent that he needed to be closer to the front to read the powerpoints and then he found it was easier to pay attention that way. If he wanted privacy, the front tended to be better for that too. No one wanted the very front. He usually had the entire row to himself.

Of course in this ridiculous class, it meant that everyone behind him would probably be able to see his work, but what the hell did he care about a bunch of kids knowing he couldn’t draw worth a damn? He just needed to get this class out from under him so he could fill his schedule with the remaining accounting coursework and get out of this godforsaken place as quickly as possible.

So up front it was. He set down the required sketchbook and pencils, tossed his much battered leather jacket over the back of the seat, set his travel mug to one side (just water, but he preferred it as cold as possible for as long as possible) and settled in with the expectation of suffering.

One of the students was buzzing around at the front of the class, clicking around on a laptop and then moving to shuffle papers. He was tall and dark-haired, dressed exactly like Izzy imagined a flighty art major would be: fashionably loose and hideously bright shirt, wide legged pants and a ridiculous silky bit of material tied around his throat. He was wearing an actual watch though which was unusual. The kids around Izzy seemed to either rely on their phones, smart watches or just not know what the hell time it was at any given moment.

“Hi,” the maybe-a-T.A. chirped right at him. “Thanks for sitting up front. I start to worry that I smell the way people avoid it.”

“I like to actually see shit,” Izzy shrugged.

“Important in any class, but doubly important in this one.”

“Think there’s a lot of powerpoint?” He asked, resigned.

“Nah,” the guy smiled brightly. “Why do you ask?”

“Something about the words on the screen gives me a headache after a while.”

Izzy waited for a comment about his age which seemed to be everyone’s go-to conversational topic, but the guy just nodded.

“Everyone needs a screen break sometimes. One of my friends uses these blue tinted glasses or something, swears by them to help screen headaches for what it’s worth.”

Before Izzy could ask a follow up question, a student ambled up to maybe-a-T.A.asking something about paper weights that Izzy didn’t care to follow. He checked his email on his phone, and then googled ‘blue tinted glasses’. They looked ugly as fuck.

“Okay!” maybe-a-T.A. said from the front of the class. “Nice to see a few familiar faces, but most of you are new to me. I’m Dr. Lucius Spriggs, welcome to Drawing 101. If this isn’t where you’re supposed to be, take the opportunity to find the exits located at the back of the room.”

Izzy closed his eyes for a second. This kid was the fucking professor. He had been fortunate enough in the first semester to at least be in the same age range (even once notably younger) than the teachers.

Maybe they handed out art degrees faster than ones in accounting. Izzy re-opened his eyes and accepted his fate. At least the syllabus made sense, set up practically as Dr. Spriggs went over it. He sat on the edge of a table as he did so, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle.

“So that’s the boring stuff,” Dr. Spriggs tossed his copy of the syllabus over his shoulder with an impish smile. “Here’s the important thing. Art is all about creativity and experimentation and I love all that. I encourage it in any of your free drawing assignments, but here and now, in this class, my job is to teach you some fundamentals. That means I’m going to give you bowls of fruit and all that jazz and I want you to draw bowls of fruit. You can’t experiment until you know what you’re experimenting with.”

Izzy sat up a little straighter. That seemed remarkably straight forward.

“Art isn’t just making beautiful things,” he went on. “It takes dedication and practice like anything in your life you want to be good at. This class focuses on that part of it for your benefit. You know all that stuff about learning outcomes? That matters to me. I want you to leave knowing you can draw....yes?”

A girl timidly put her hand back down, “What if we can’t? I’ve never been able to draw anything before.”

“Then I get to look particularly impressive,” he said with a grin. “You will draw something before you leave my class, okay? But only if you put the effort in. Promise?”

She nodded shyly, pinking up. Izzy’s initial hopefulness faded. He was going to die of boredom or of triteness here.

“Cool. Okay, we’re going to do attendance to make sure everyone is actually in the right place and so I can put faces to all your names. If I get the pronunciation wrong, please correct me. If your pronouns aren’t in the system or recently changed, let me know either during roll or shoot me an email if you’d prefer.”

And then it was the tedious listing off. When Dr. Spriggs said, “Israel Hands?” He just lifted his hand enough to be acknowledged.

He assumed that would be it for today. Most of the professors seemed to prefer their setup classes to be short and sweet, but Dr. Spriggs put down his laptop and picked up a pencil.

“So for today, we’re going to start out humble. Let’s talk about posture and saving our wrists.”

Izzy hadn’t thought about his posture in a long time and how he held a pencil hadn’t been a conscious thought since kindergarten. It felt good to stretch a little though and then Dr. Spriggs went around the room as they made lines on an initial sheet of paper.

“Oh, good,” Dr. Spriggs stopped by him last on his way back up to the front. “You’ve got a good natural hand position, but you can turn your paper to get a good angle instead of your wrist.”

Izzy frowned, but adjusted his page. “Yeah?”

“Great! Israel, right?”

“Izzy,” he corrected absently. Moving the paper was easier. Huh.

“Izzy,” Dr. Spriggs repeated. “Did you use a ruler?”

“No?”

“Wow,” the laugh was gentle. “You’ve got a good eye and a steady hand.”

The compliment landed like a worm in his gut, squirming and wriggling uncomfortably.

“Thanks,” he muttered and almost hunched his shoulders, catching himself at the last second. Thankfully, the professor moved back to the front of the room and started wrapping up, talking about their first assignment.

He escaped without further incident.

The tomcat didn’t show up when he sat on the stoop that night. He’d taken to doing that more, even as it got colder. Sometimes the cat would sit just a few steps beneath him now, waiting patiently for the mouthfuls that Izzy would provide.

Alone, he went through the homework for what the school called ‘Corporate Finance’ and Izzy had already mentally dubbed ‘Rich Fuckers Get Richer’’ class. Jackie would love his takeaways. It was not at all how he pictured himself approaching fifty: sitting on the stoop like his father used to, chewing on a straw instead of smoking, doing homework like he was the obedient teenager that he’d never been.

Then again, he’d pictured himself in a grave at fifty for most of this life, so what the fuck did he know? This was probably better than that.

***

Izzy’s apple is lopsided. Not the actual apple which Dr. Spriggs had presented to everyone with a wry,

“Opposite day! Teacher has an apple for you. Actually, no one’s ever given me an apple, what’s up with that? Get on it, people! I like honeycrisp if anyone’s asking.”

The actual apple was a perfectly normal apple. The one on his paper looked like it had fallen down a flight of stairs.. He’d already erased it four times and the paper was starting to look weary with him. Izzy was weary with it, so at least they were on equal footing.

“How are you getting on?”

Dr. Spriggs came to stand beside him. He wore some kind of cologne. Izzy had noticed it during the second class. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was noticeable. He had no idea about fragrances, only that this one was becoming recognizable.

“It’s fucking deflating,” Izzy grumbled, then winced. He couldn’t figure out how acceptable swearing was here, some of the kids did it all time, some of the professors even did and then in other classes it was like a nunnery where he received glares over it.

“Yeah, one of your curves is kind of severe,” Dr. Spriggs tilted his head, “but you know...we’re going to talk a lot about this next class, but honestly I think you just need some shadowing here.”

He reached over Izzy, the scent of his cologne and a tinge of sweat filling Izzy’s senses along with the vibrant check pattern of today’s shirt. It threw him so entirely off guard that he missed the first half of the explanation.

“...so it anchors it,” Dr. Spriggs was saying. He didn’t actually do anything with his pencil. He apparently had a strong rule about not touching student’s work. “Shadows can give it depth and I think that’s what you’re feeling like is missing.”

“It is missing, not a feeling,” he said, but he was already following the gestured space with his pencil.

“Subjective,” was the airy response. “I think it was actually a pretty nice apple, but once you smudge that a bit, it’ll be a nice apple that casts a shadow.”

Izzy obediently smudged the marks with his thumb. He preferred touching the paper right from the start, when the professor had talked about tools and finding what worked best for you. The shadow did anchor things right away. It gave his weird ass apple some gravity.

“We’re going to do draping cloth next class,” Dr. Spriggs voice was still very close to Izzy's ear though he’d moved back some. “I think you’ll get a lot of that.”

“Yeah,” Izzy said blankly.

After that class, he went right to Jackie’s.

“You look like you need a stiff one,” she laughed as he sat down heavily beside her at her usual table. Her latest catch was on her other side, counting cash very slowly. Jackie did like them a certain way.

“It’s been a fucking day.”

“Aw, those kiddies giving you a hard time?”

“No,” Izzy barely talked to them. He’d probably need to acknowledge their existence to be given a hard time. “Fucking drawing class.”

“Why’re you drawing to become an accountant?”

“I’m not. They have all these ‘requirements’ for getting a degree. They want you to take all sorts of shit with no use.”

“Huh,” Jackie signaled for two drinks which meant Izzy was getting whatever her current favorite was. They rotated as often as lovers. “What else?”

“Taking a history class. Supposed to do science at some point.”

“What kind of history?”

“Survey. So far it’s a lot of people with stupidly long names doing boring shit, but I can memorize dates and shit, it’s fine.”

“I used to like English class,” she accepted a glass from Danny. “I wrote good poetry.”

“Like what?” He stared at her. Jackie writing poetry was hard to picture. She was a practical person.

“Can’t even remember. Maybe I should dig it up. You're going back to school, kind of inspiring.”

“Oh fuck,” he groaned. “Don’t.”

She cackled, “I’ll put you on a poster or some shit.”

“Fuuuck off,” he gritted out. “Inspirational. Not a dying dog in a ASPCA commercial for fuck’s sake.”

“In the aararms of the aannngels-” she cracked herself up too hard to keep singing.

“I hate you,” he told her, but he was smiling a little too.

That happened sometimes now. He’d almost laughed at one of Dr. Spriggs’ jokes the other day. He couldn’t remember that happening for a long time.

The cat was waiting for him when he got home. He sat down beside him on the stairs and the cat stayed right where he was. They sat together in the dying light.

***

Most of the time, Izzy didn’t give much thought to drawing class outside of it. He had homework for it, mostly drawing the same thing in different ways and things like that, but it was something he could do while listening to the news which he felt barely counted as homework. It was harder to slough through his rusty writing skills to put together a coherent essay on shit he didn’t care about or do the bizarre skill building exercises that had nothing to do with finance for the corporate finance class.

Dr. Spriggs was another matter.

And it was useless thoughts too. Izzy would be grocery shopping, gathering together the makings of his usual four or five dinner choices, and he’d see fruit leather and wonder if Dr. Spriggs ever ate that because he’d joked about only like fruit in dried form. Who cared? Why was Izzy retaining that information?

Or he’d see someone in a loud patterned shirt and think ‘Dr. Spriggs would wear that’ like he had any idea about fashion or anyone’s taste let alone the professor’s.

Or he’d be about to fall asleep and he’d think, ‘how does he sleep? Side? Back?’ And before he could analyze that he’d be out like a light.

“Today we’re going to start on subtractive drawing.”

Dr. Spriggs had on pink today. It was a delicate shade and the shirt was scattered with black polka dots that started out sparse around the shoulders then gained density down to the bottom. Like black snow on a pink field.

It was ugly as fuck. The first button of the shirt was undone, revealing a dusting of hair. When he turned to his paper to demonstrate how to lay down a layer of charcoal, the edge of the shirt had clearly accidentally gotten stuck in his waistband. Usually Dr. Spriggs wore his shirts loose. Today it showed off a patterned brown belt and pants that were snug enough that his wallet was very apparent.

“Oookay, so once you have that down, you’re going to go in and sketch. For today, let’s get a cube, a cylinder and a pyramid, arrange to your liking and go. The fun part is then....” he reached and the edge of the shirt tugged free, erasing the belt and wallet from view as he grabbed up the eraser. “You add light and shadow by removing instead of adding.”

“Why?” Someone called out. “Couldn’t you do the same thing with additive?”

“You could,” Dr. Spriggs said calmly. Only Izzy, right at the front, could see the eyeroll he made at the paper. It was the first crack in his nice-professor persona Izzy had caught and it was fascinating. “But we’re learning different techniques so that we have lots of tools at our disposal. And sometimes doing things in a different way can show you new truths about it. Today we might be concentrating on shapes, but it’ll force you to think about how light interacts with those shapes differently. For your sketchbook this week, I’ll want you to do your own hands. You’ll see what I mean.”

Subtractive drawing met a lot more charcoal dust than Izzy had been prepared for, but dressing all in black had its advantages. Some of the kids in their bright colors were moaning over their clothes immediately. He smugly went about his work, uncaring.

After though Izzy took his time packing up, all too aware of the smudges he was leaving on everything. Dr. Spriggs was talking to another student who kept emphatically waving his sketchbook around so that the professor had to duck out of the way. One one wild pass, Izzy huffed a quiet laugh. Dr. Spriggs’ attention landed on him with narrowed eyed annoyance that quickly morphed into an answering laugh.

His whole face changed when he laughed. Izzy dropped his gaze to his bag and grabbed his travel mug. He needed to get the fuck out of here. The place was getting to his head. Probably the residual paint fumes from the oil class that cleared out just before them.

Outside in the hall, a girl was crying. It was hard to miss. She was sitting on the ground and weeping so hard that her shoulders shook. Her bag was in front of her, taking up half the hallway. There was no one else around. Izzy considered his options, then stepped around her bag and headed out.

He made it about five steps before cursing himself and turning. He’d probably just scare the shit out of her even asking. The words spat in the middle of one of their last fights still sat in his head though you’re a heartless piece of shit. Heartless. Wouldn’t it be fucking nice to be heartless? If you didn’t have one, it couldn’t ache all the goddamn time.

Heartless. Fuck. He didn’t want to be heartless, anymore. It had never done him any fucking good.

Izzy squatted down.

“What’s wrong?” he asked and he knew it came out as a demand, but fuck, he was trying.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” She bawled harder. “I didn’t mean to be in the way.” She grabbed at her bag pulling it into her lap.

“Not what I said. What happened?”

“It’s stupid,” her breath caught, skittered and then she was crying again. He’d seen her class before. Short chopped hair, one of those undercuts that half the girls seemed to have, a metric of metal in her face and baggy clothes that swamped her. She was the only one that wore as much black as he did.

“Probably,” he agreed. “Most shit is, but it’s making you sit down on a floor grosser than a bathroom’s, so I’d guess it’s something.”

She stopped a sob in its tracks to look at the floor, “You think?”

“Never seen anyone mop the place, have you?”

“Gross,” she made a face and got to her feet which meant he could stop trying to hold a squat. He really needed to get back to the gym regularly. “Ugh, okay so me and my roomates split up the bills and I took the power which was fine, except our heat went on last month and it spiked up and I don’t know how to pay it. I can’t afford it and eat and they have money, but they're dicks about it and don’t get that I have to work instead of just asking my parents.”

Shit. She was wailing again.

“Okay, did you look into payment plans?”

“W--what?” She sniffled.

“Most companies want money more than they give a shit about you, but you can’t pay them if you don’t have it, so they have payment plans. Power companies definitely do.”

“They do?”

Fuck, what did they teach kids?

“Probably RGE, right?” When she nodded, he got out his phone and pulled up their site. It wasn’t organized well, but he found the right thing eventually. “See? You can tell them here. Better to call though.”

“I hate making phone calls,” she glanced at the screen, her breathing slowing a little. “But what about this month?”

“That’s why you’re going to get the fuck over hating phone calls. You call and you tell them and they’ll work with you. They want money, not your suffering. That’s just a fucking byproduct.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips. “Uh...what do I say?”

So that was how Izzy wound up staying in the hallway, coaching ‘Just call me Read’ through straightening out her account.

“Thank you so much!” When she hung up, her eyes were red, but clear.

“Just don’t forget to set up that direct payment.”

“I won’t! Shit! I gotta go or I’ll be late for my shift!” And then she was gone in a blur

So that happened. Izzy headed home. Or at least almost all the way home. He passed a restaurant that he’d half-forgotten about. He must’ve passed it nearly every day since he’d gone back to school, but today he actually noticed it. They had good naan bread. Maybe they still did. He stopped and put in an order.

Once and a while. A treat.

He could have that. There was no one here to tease him about asking for as mild a spice as possible. No one else to share it with either when he took it home and realized he’d over ordered. But he could eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The naan was still really good.

That night the cat meowed at him for the first time and it sounded almost conversational. It was a deep scratchy sound. He’d remember that with the flavor of curry in his mouth. Something to overwrite a hundred other memories vying for his attention.

Back inside, he took out his sketchbook and put down a layer of charcoal. He laid his hand out flat and tried to take in all the different lines of it. It was complicated. It was messy. There were scars and his tattoo, bleeding into the skin, going soft around the edges.

He got to work.

***

“Hands are the worst!” Someone wailed when Dr. Spriggs walked in the door.

Izzy suppressed a twitch. Not his name. But this was going to be a long session if they kept bitching that way.

“Are they?” Dr. Spriggs had a puckish smile as he made his way to the front of the class.

“You know they are! I went online because I thought I was alone, but I found so many things of people complaining about them,”

“Whoops.” Came the deadpan response. “I know it’s tough, but I also know you probably all worked hard at it and came in with something that you put time and energy into, right?”

There was not a very enthusiastic response. Dr. Spriggs only smiled harder. Izzy was starting to wonder what kind of man he was. Because he seemed a little more like the kind of guy that Izzy used to know a lot of when he did that.

While everyone was working on the piece from last class, the professor came around, checking on sketchbooks. Izzy reluctantly opened his. The first few classes Dr. Spriggs seemed to choose a starting point at random, but the past few times, he always started in the back and ended with Izzy, so he waited and tried not to erase half his piece while he did so.

“Okay, I think you need to put the eraser down,” Dr. Spriggs said as soon as he stepped up to him.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “But we have time left.”

“So? Start something new.”

“You told that frizzy haired kid he couldn’t.”

“I did,” he didn’t elaborate. “You can. How’d you do with the hand?”

“Not sure it came out,” he shrugged, shoving the sketchbook toward him.

“Oh...oh Izzy,” Dr. Spriggs said softly.

“I know you said ours, but I just- I don’t know.” He shifted in his seat. He preferred to just follow directions. It was easier in most of the classes to just give people what they asked for.

But he’d stared at his hand and he couldn’t see it resting flat. It was too much and not enough all at once. He’d gotten up to pace, restless with it. His eyes had caught on his jacket, hanging on its hook. The coat hooks that he’d taken with him, unscrewing them from the wall because he had picked out and bought the rough hewn iron piece at some antique store. He’d hung it.

The jacket, the hooks, the memory of cold and peeling away layers at the front door revisited on him like acid reflux. All he could see was a hand that wasn’t his own.

He’d still used himself as a model for the angles and all, but it wasn’t really his hand. He’d never worn fingerless gloves, never painted his nails black then let them chip slowly away. Google images has provided some help there.

It wasn’t a quick homework assignment like the others. He’d spent hours on it. He didn’t want to think about how many. It had felt like throwing up, like coming through a fever. It was probably awful, he couldn’t really even see it anymore, but he felt better then it was done, just like throwing up come to think of it.

The hand was fisted, clutched around nothing, nails digging into the leather covered palm.

“Supposed to keep it flat too,” he said when Dr. Spriggs made no further comment, just looked down at it. “I can do it over.”

“This is amazing work,” Dr. Spriggs turned to him.

“The proportions are wrong.”

“Yes,” came the easy agreement, “I can find a lot of things wrong with it because as far as I know you just started drawing four weeks ago, is that right?”

“Yeah,” he breathed a little easier.

“But I’ve seen people take a lot more classes than that, do a lot more work than that and not put so much feeling into a picture. I don’t know what was going through your mind and you certainly don’t have to tell me, but there’s a lot here. You conveyed it to the viewer.”

“Oh.” Shit. He had? Someone could tell just by looking? Story of his fucking life, thinking he was revealing nothing and apparently everyone else could just read him like a book.

“Since you’re done with that piece, you can do the actual assignment now if you want,” Dr. Spriggs was looking at his piece again, then shook his head as if coming out of a reverie. “I’m curious to see how it differs.”

There was no class that Monday, but Izzy spent the weekend drawing anyway. He did the assigned work, then moved on. He went down to Jackie’s for lunch and he sat in a booth instead of in the back. She was busy, which was fine. He hadn’t come for the company. He came to sit in the booth they had always sat in. It wasn’t hard to settle where he had always settled, even if there was no other body to be in relation to. Jackie might change out men and drinks, but the bar was the same.

He did a light sketch, ate the subpar hamburger, very slowly sipped through a beer. Then he added things in. It wasn’t really the order that Dr. Spriggs had taught, but Izzy wasn’t doing this for class. He was seized by that same feeling though less intensely. There was something in him that needed to come out. He could do that by sketching in the aging posters, the framed art, the series of curved booths and the slice of the bar.

Eventually, he had to go home, but he had the memory set by then and the photo he’d taken. He sat on the stoop. The neighbors were getting used to seeing him out there by now. Sometimes they waved. He didn’t want to wave back, but it seemed to be making more of a show of himself if he didn’t so he did. Pulling the sketchbook back out felt like deploying a shield. They understood if he didn’t notice them when he was working on something.

He worked until he lost light. Until the cat came by for his treat.

Classes started again on Tuesday, but there was no drawing until Friday. Which was fine, the piece wasn’t even for class.

Or would’ve been fine if it would leave his mind, but he couldn’t get it fixed right in his head. The angles were off somehow.

Dr. Spriggs had office hours. He knew that, but was this what they were for? He hadn’t gone to the office hours of any other professors before, except to pick up materials.

“Read,” he came up alongside her as she walked to class.

“Fuck!” She jumped a foot in the air. “You’re quiet.”

“You’re blasting music, not hard to sneak up on.”

“Not blasting,” she popped out an earbud. “It’s a podcast. About Jonestown.”

“...right,” he chose to ignore that. “Have you ever gone to Dr. Spriggs’ office hours?”

“Yeah, once when I had a question about an assignment. He seemed pretty happy to see me, I don’t think a lot of people use his office time and he looked kind of bored.”

“...when were they again?”

She seemed happy to tell him. “Hey, a couple of my friends meet up after class sometimes for coffee. You could come with.”

“Rather lick the fucking hallway floor.”

“Wow,” she rolled her eyes. “Nice. But seriously. You should.”

He walked off rather than answer.

The office hours were on Wednesday. Izzy left his corporate finance class and dithered for nearly ten minutes about going. It didn’t matter. None of this actually mattered. He was a bored old man, filling his days with fucking nonsense so he didn’t have to think about his life.

But if none of it mattered, then none of it mattered. It wouldn’t matter if Dr. Spriggs told him that wasn’t what office hours were for or whatever potentially sarcastic thing he might say. (Not cruel, Izzy could admit that he didn’t think Dr. Spriggs was interested in real cruelty. He couldn’t make him that way even in his worst playthroughs of the conversation).

Dr. Spriggs office was in the same building as the classroom. It was crammed in the middle of a hallway of small offices and it was his name and a ‘Dr. Black’ on the door. Izzy knocked and from inside he heard a clatter then,

“It’s open!”

He stepped inside. The room was as small as it suggested on the outside, but it was startlingly well organized. Dr. Spriggs was behind one desk and arrayed behind him were beautiful wood shelves with careful labels for different materials and sets of books. His desk had several bins of paper, but they all looked like they belonged somewhere.

There was a second desk which was equally neat though it had a large drafting setup on top of it. There were similar shelves behind it though the objects and books were more unfamiliar. In the window was a delicate wind chime that might be made of...nails and screws?

“Pete did that,” Dr. Spriggs said warmly. “He’s an engineering professor. Don’t ask how he finagled his way into an office here, it’s a whole thing, but he keeps me from drowning in my paperwork. He built all the shelves too.”

“Yeah?” He said vaguely.

“Yep! But you didn’t come here for an office tour, I’m guessing. Have a seat,” he gestured at a chai set on the other side of the desk. “What’s up?”

“I..” Izzy sat down. There was a mug sitting in front of Dr. Spriggs that said ‘Not Paint Water’ on it. “That a problem you have?”

Dr. Spriggs followed his gaze and barked a laugh, “From time to time. Once you get to painting classes, you’ll see.”

“I’m an accounting major.”

“Sure,” Dr. Spriggs nodded. “That sounds...actually I won’t lie to you, numbers both scare and bore me, but I’m glad someone knows how to use them. You came back to school for accounting?”

“Always done a bit of it. But if I want to be certified, I have to have a degree,” he finally looked at the professor full on. He was in a riotous plaid today, blues and greens and yellows and reds. The fabric around his neck was a matching green.

It was furiously ugly.

Dr. Spriggs was not.

Fuuuuuck. Why was even Izzy’s own brain dead set against him? He could not be realizing this right now.

“No reason not to enjoy the getting of it though,” he picked up his mug and took a sip with a sly smile. Like he knew what Izzy was thinking. He couldn’t though... could he? Fuck. “That’s not what you came in here for though, I’m guessing.”

“I was trying something out, not an assignment and it's just..wrong. Don’t know why,” he gratefully pulled out his sketchbook to have a second to look away. Get it together, Hands, jesus fucking christ. He laid out the sketch of the bar for him. “It’s the angles or something.”

“Is this Jackie’s?” Dr. Spriggs asked immediately.

“...yeah,” Izzy frowned. “You know it?”

“It’s not that big of a town. I like a drink now and then,” Dr. Spriggs laughed. “And I’m not having one where the students hang out, so yeah. I know Jackie’s place. The poster is a dead giveaway. Not a lot of places have male cheesecake on the wall in this town, but I’m very into it.”

“She’s a friend,” Izzy said, then wanted to thump his forehead on the desk. Who cared? It was a bar that the guy went to sometimes. He didn’t give a shit who Izzy’s friends were.

“No way!” Okay, maybe he did. “She scares the shit out of me and you’re just what...buddies?”

“We go back.”

“You know, that makes total sense actually. So you’ve lived here for a while? Jackie’s is an institution.”

“I know. I was there when she opened the place,” which was a confession of some years, but unless Dr. Spriggs was a tenth as observant as Izzy gave him credit for he’d probably noticed that Izzy was no kid.

“Amazing,” Lucius shook his head. “I figured the town had been built around it.”

“Think it was a hair salon before she bought it actually.”

“All my carefully constructed myths...okay, let’s see,” Dr. Spriggs studied the sketch. “Yeah, ok, your perspective is a little off. Some people like that, do it on purpose, but I’m not really surprised you’re not one of them.”

“No?” Izzy frowned. “Why not?”

“You like a photorealistic image. When we talk about the textbook, those are the ones you gravitate too. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m with you there. I love looking at more impressionist pieces, but for myself, I only do realism. In which case,” he whipped out a pencil and held it just above the page. “Can I mark this up?”

“Want to redo it anyway,” he nodded. “Go ahead.”

In the space of about five lines and a minute of explaining, the professor fixed everything.

“I stared at this for like five fucking hours. How?” Izzy demanded.

“You may have a few years on me, but I’ve been making art for a little bit longer,” Dr. Spriggs smirked. “Hence me teacher, you student.”

“Fuck off,” Izzy growled then winced.

“Oh my god,” Dr. Spriggs paused and Izzy considered self-immolation. Was that possible? “That’s hilarious. Did I touch a nerve?”

“I’m not used to all this polite teacher authority figure shit,” Izzy groaned. “I mostly just keep my mouth shut.”

“Listen, you swear at me at class and we’d have a big fucking problem,” Dr. Spriggs said with every evidence of glee. “But here, you can razz me a little, I don’t mind. Hell, call me Lucius.”

Some of the professors were like that right off the top, wanting to feel familiar and it had made Izzy itch, but this felt different. Like he was being extended a branch and he could take it or leave it.

“You sure?”

“I already call you what’s pretty clearly a nickname and I don’t think I need to assert my authority with you,” Lucius shrugged. “You know what the deal is and you’ll be respectful or you won’t. With some of the teenagers, they need that distance, I doubt you do.”

“Don’t think I’m an unruly asshole kid?” Izzy raised his eyebrows.

“I bet you were one once,” Lucius raised his right back. “Right or wrong?”

“Right,” he admitted reluctantly, then hazarded, “You were good at school, shit with the teachers.”

“Oooh excellent guess. How’d you know?”

“Liked school enough to get a doctorate, but don’t think you like getting told what to do.”

“Mm, I do have an authority problem,” Lucius agreed, then gently pushed the sketchbook back to Izzy. “If you do another pass at this, I would love to see it. Maybe go a little easier on the shadows. It’s dark in there, but it’s not THAT dark.”

“Yeah, okay,” Izzy gathered the sketchbook up. “See you on Friday then.”

Then he saw it. He didn’t know how he missed it coming, maybe because it was on the wall next to the door and the frame was the same color as the wall, but when he stood up it was right in his face. The painting was gorgeous and visceral. It focused on the prow of a wooden boat of some kind as it headed towards a richly colored sunset. A long figure stood at the end with his back to the viewer, a man maybe with light colored hair and in a simple white shirt and dark pants that could’ve been from any time.

In the corner were the initials ‘LS’ in white paint.

“This is yours?”

“Yeah,” Lucius leaned back in his chair. “I usually work smaller. Absolutely no room in storage or on my walls at home for it, but Pete likes it. What do you think?”

“It’s lonely,” Izzy said without complete permission from his brain. “He looks lonely.”

Lucius said nothing for a few seconds and Izzy was sure he’d somehow insulted him.

“You know, no one’s ever said that about it before? Everyone says it makes them think of adventures or excitement.”

“Guess so,” Izzy looked at it again, but all he saw was the slope of the man’s shoulders and the way he held onto the railing as if it might shake him loose.

“I was so lonely when I painted that though,” Lucius sighed. “Like, painfully, deeply lonely. The person that modeled that for me was my boss at the time, not even a friend. Though we’re friends now. Maybe because of the painting.”

“You became friends because of a painting?”

“Art brings people together,” Lucius’ smirk reasserted itself.

“Sure,” Izzy said vaguely, then he really did leave.

If he went and got a drink at Jackie’s that night even though he knew she wouldn’t be there, so he could take a second stab at his sketch then that was his business.

***

There was blood on Izzy’s hands. He was good with blood, he reminded himself. He’d certainly drawn enough of it in his day and seen enough of his own in places it didn’t belong. But he’d never held a towel to an animal trying to kill him as fervently as he was trying to save it.

“It’s a good thing you brought him in,” the vet tech said as they handed him bandages and antibacterial ointment, “But you need to wash those scratches out thoroughly.”

“Will he be all right?”

“I’ll have the vet come out to you after she gets a good look at him,” the tech gave him a tight smile.

Izzy washed his hands thoroughly, put the ointment on them and bandaged the scratches. Then he waited.

The tom had come to him, was all that went through his mind. All those months of trying to catch the little bastard (and a few weeks of not even trying very hard as the cat agreed to settle closer to him) and in his time of need, the dumb thing had come straight to him.

It was a good thing it wasn’t a night where Izzy had gone for a wander or gotten adventurous with food. He’d come home on time and found the cat on the stoop, fur matted with blood. It had come to him then panicked when he tried to help, probably delirious with pain. Izzy had always been more forgiving of people that used physical violence against him. He understood that. It was clean, that kind of hurt. Simple. It was even simpler with the cat. The tom just wanted to live.

Izzy really wanted him to live too. He put his head in his hands.

“Mr. Hands?”

“Yeah?” He shot up out of his seat. The vet had a clipboard and a brisk look. That calmed him a little. Professionalism was always appreciated.

“I had to sedate him, but we got the wound sewed up. It looked a lot worse than it was, really. You said he’s feral?”

“Yeah, just hangs out in the alley. Been trying to trap him to get him neutered for awhile.”

“A good idea,” she nodded. “We can keep him for a few days, get rid of some of the fleas, vaccinate him and such. There’s a shelter in the area, but they’ve been pretty full and I’m not sure what kind of pet he’d make, but he’ll need a place to recover at least. And someone to bring him back in to make sure he’s healing properly. Though...”

“What?” Izzy frowned.

“Like I said. The shelter is very full.”

Fuck. Izzy could read between those lines. “I can take him inside for a few days.”

“Are you sure? Feral animals really don’t make good pets.”

They made eye contact and the vet didn’t ask anything further. She must have known an easy mark when she saw him. She probably couldn’t give him permission to catch and release a cat like that. Could she?

“I’ve got an empty room, what should I do?”

The cat stayed in observation for two days, but when Izzy came to get him, he was very awake and very upset with his situation. There was a streak of fur missing from his side where they’d shaved him and he had a cone around his head.

“To keep him from licking the stitches,” the vet tech explained. “Try to keep it on him.”

“Yeah,” Izzy stared into the box. “Right.”

Dignity mattered, Izzy thought as the cat hissed at him.

He kept the cone on, but he didn’t take any funny little pictures. Not that he had anyone to send them to anyway. Jackie didn’t care for animals much.

The empty room on his first floor was not strictly empty. There had been a scattering of boxes, remnants of his hurried move, piled up in one corner. He’d spent the last few days finally going through them and realizing he had no idea why he’d left them. There were no bombs inside, just the dish towels he hadn’t been able to find and a couple of framed photos that he put into a drawer where he still didn’t have to look at them.

He’d bought a litter box, food dishes, a cat bed with a cover and toy mouse because it seemed like the thing to do. After a quick prowl, the tom duked into the covered bed and informed him at length that he was to fuck off.

“Fuck you too, buddy.” Izzy headed out, closing the door carefully behind him. He had corporate finance assignments to do anyway.

When he went in to feed him the morning, the tom hissed at him again, this time from the window sill he was precariously standing on.

“Yeah yeah, I got the fucking message. You need to stay put until you’re healed and then out you go, don’t get comfortable,” Izzy informed him, dropping kibble in the bowl. The litter box had been used to, thank fuck. He scooped that with a wrinkled nose, making a note to get a garbage can in here, then ducked back out before the cat could think about escaping.

He was a little preoccupied in classes that day, but no one noticed. Until Lucius. Of course. It would be nice if Izzy could have discrete crises instead of multiple at a time.

“Hey,” Lucius said at the end of class, “Izzy...is everything all right?”

“Yeah. Fine,” he sighed. “Why?”

“Your hands? Looks like you lost a fight with a blender or something.”

“Cat scratched me.”

“You’ve got a cat?” Lucius asked, clearly delighted by the idea.

“No.”

“Oh.” Lucius stared at him. Izzy stared back. Lucius rolled his eyes, “then how did you get the scratches?”

“Oh. Uh, feral tom that lives in the alley lost a fight. I brought him in to get fixed up and now he’s freeloading until his stitches are healed.”

“Freeloading?” Lucius grinned. “Is he supposed to be earning his keep? Get a tiny paper route?”

Izzy snorted, “He could pay me back by not pissing on my carpet.”

“Demanding. Do you need any supplies or anything? One of my friends has a cat or two, he might have some spare things.”

“Think I got everything.” That was a weird offer? Wasn’t it? From a professor to a student? Or did Lucius just like cats?

“Okay. What’s his name?”

“Whose?”

“The cat’s, Izzy. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Doesn’t have a name. He’s feral.”

“I know a bunch of feral people, and they all have names.” Lucius gave him a pointed look. Was he implying Izzy was feral?

Was Izzy feral? He had bitten people a few times. Maybe that counted. But Lucius couldn’t know that. And all those assholes had deserved it.

“No point in naming him, he’s not staying around to learn it.”

“Okay,” Lucius shrugged. “Glad you’re alright.”

“Yeah. Fine,” he hesitated. “...bye.”

“Bye.. Have a good afternoon.”

Izzy went back out into the bright light of day. Feral. Motherfucker.

***

“Hands!” Jackie yelled from behind the bar when he walked in. “Get back here.”

“Why?” He asked, even as he crossed the room. Jackie, unlike some people, rarely made demands that didn’t make sense. They weren’t always nice, but at least he could see her logic and usually agree with it.

“I’ve had to piss for a half hour, it’s busy as fuck and I can’t find Danny. Pour beers. I need ten minutes.”

Izzy had done his time behind a tap more than once. He came around the bar and pulled beers. It was almost relaxing. Jackie’s bar wasn’t a nice or calm place. He was allowed to growl and bark as much as he wanted. Not to mention he wasn’t being paid, so he’d give whatever level of customer service he damned well pleased.

To her word, she was back at ten minutes on the dot, but he stayed there, pulling beers while she mixed drinks until Danny showed his sorry face and in revenge they both left him there alone. They headed into the back with their own drinks.

“Thanks,” she sat down heavily. “I hate Friday nights....so do you, come to think of it. So why are you here?”

“Got to draw a person for class and I need a fucking person to do that, don’t I?”

“You’ve upgraded to people? What happened to the chairs?”

“Chairs are bastards,” Izzy shook his head. “Anyway, it’s an intro class, they try to jam the kitchen fucking sink in there.”

“So you came here to what? People watch?”

“Can’t. Need someone who’ll actually sit still.”

“Izzy.” She said flatly.

“Jackie.” He said with the same tone.

“Are you actually going to ask me or just hope I sat down for long enough?”

“I’m asking.”

“I don’t hear a question.”

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” he groaned.

“Takes one to know one.”

“Can I draw you?” he asked reluctantly.

“As long as it’s from my good side.”

She insisted on smoking a cigar, but there was a game on, so she was content to put her feet up and watch, staying still enough for him to try. Her face was interesting, but Izzy missed having straight lines. He erased a lot.

At some point, he stopped needing to look up so much as he filled in shading and added in details. When he glanced up to capture the way her hair was laid on her forehead, he found her looking back at him, a small smile on her face.

“What?” He braced himself to be laughed at.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so quiet.”

“No?” Izzy frowned as he added in the gelled curl.

“You don’t always talk a lot, but you’re a fidgeter. Your body is loud even when you’re not shooting off your mouth. This is quiet.”

“So?”

“So. It’s interesting. I can’t notice shit?”

“Who’s winning?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what sport it is. Don’t look now.”

“Rugby,” he guessed. She loved rugby for reasons he didn’t entirely understand.

“Soccer. Let me see the drawing.”

He turned the book towards here and she lifted her eyebrows,

“You know what? That doesn’t suck.”

“I’ll do better next time. Got to ask Lucius about some shading stuff,” he decided.

“Who’s that?”

“Professor.”

“Uh huh,” she took a puff of her cigar with a lay grin. “What’s he like?”

“Dunno. Smart and a smart mouth.”

“Tall?”

“Ish. Why?”

“No reason,” she leaned back in her chair. “I know some of the teachers, they come in here to slum it.”

“He said he likes to avoid the students,” Izzy recalled.

“One place to do it. I’ll keep an eye out for him, if he’s going to be grading my face.”

“My work, not your face.”

“Better do good, still my face.”

When Izzy got in he went straight to the cat’s room. When he opened the door, he found the tom in the window sill where he’d taken to watching over the alley he’d once called his domain. The cone lay in the corner and Izzy kicked it further to the side. The cat had figured out how to wiggle out of it the day before and it wasn’t worth Izzy’s life to wrangle it back on again. When the cat saw Izzy he jumped down with a great thump and came to his side. He shadowed Izzy as he cleaned the litter box and then as he got a scoop of food into his bowl.

Izzy meant to leave. That’s what he usually did, but tonight, he felt a little heavy and sleepy. Probably from the chicken sandwich Jackie had foisted on him along with the twice baked fries that one of her older beaus had taken to making. He slid down the wall and sat down a few feet away from the cat as he crushed kibble into oblivion.

The room smelled different now, animal and claimed instead of dusty and unused. He wasn’t sure which was worse. He should get up and get to bed, he told himself. What was he even doing?

The cat stepped back from his bowl, cleaning his face with a surprisingly dainty paw for such a bruiser. Then he regarded Izzy with his amber eyes.

“What?” Izzy asked tiredly.

The cat ambled toward him and to Izzy’s shock, the animal headbutted his shin a few times, leaving behind a trail of ginger fur. Tentatively, Izzy held out his hand beside his leg. The cat politely sniffed his finger, headbutted those too, then darted away before Izzy could touch him.

“You’re going soft,” Izzy hazarded as the tom darted into his bed and watched him from the depths.

When he got to his feet, some of his fatigue drained away. Maybe he could finish up the portrait, which still needed some refining, before bed.

On Monday, Jackie’s face went carefully into the pile Lucius designated on his desk with sheets of tissue paper between everyone’s work. When he took a seat, he was startled by a figure in his peripheral vision, then winced when Lucius shot him a look.

“All right?”

What was he going to say? ‘Don’t mind me, years of living on edge means I’m easily startled, including by my own image in a mirror?’ Because that’s all it was. Lucius had affixed small mirrors to the corners of the easels.

“What’s with the mirrors?”

“I’ll explain when everyone gets here,” Lucius said then laughed. “Your face, honestly. It’s a drawing class, Izzy, I’m sure you can get there.”

Oh. Right. Faces. This was worse than having to draw his hand, he decided immediately. He should probably keep that to himself. That’d be the respectful thing to do.

“Do I have to?” He asked instead, aware that a slight whine had entered his voice, but unable to erase it.

“Yes,” Lucius said gravely though his eyes were dancing with suppressed humor. Motherfucker. “I think it’ll be good for you, actually.”

“I’m almost fifty, I don’t need to take vitamins anymore.”

“Wow,” Lucius nodded once slowly. “That was so wrong on several levels, but I’m not a medical professional nor do I play one on tv, so I’m going to just hope you drink orange juice sometimes so you don’t get scurvy.”

“Who the f-”He stopped himself in the nick of time, then continued. “Who gets scurvy in this day and age?”

“Misinformed freshman,” Lucius sighed.

“What...no. Really?”

“It’s happened.”

On that disturbing note, Read came up to the front. At some point since Izzy had last seen her, she’d dyed the sides of her undercut a truly heinous green. It looked like mold. She was probably targeting Lucius, hoping he would acknowledge it, he decided.

But she swerved at the last second.

“Izzy, I need your help,” she said urgently.

“With what?” He asked, taken off guard.

“My friend Anne is trying to get the school to reimburse her for a class she dropped and still got charged with and we’re pretty sure we’re in the right, but they keep talking about this document she signed when we started. Apparently we all do? But we can’t find it and it’s not on the portal like they say and she’s been texting me all morning about trying to work more shifts.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re in accounting classes and you’re...” she gestured at him, “an adult or something.”

Over her shoulder, Lucius mouthed, ‘adult or something’ to himself looking even more amused than before. What a fucking asshole. Izzy did not smile at him. It was a close call.

“Fine. Wh-”

“Amazing!” She rocked back on her heels. “I told her you could help. So you’ll come to coffee after class and look at it? I’ll buy you something.”

“No,” he frowned, but it was too late. She was already headed back to her easel, typing away on her phone.

Lucius opened his mouth and Izzy sighed, “Don’t say a word.”

“That’d make teaching interesting.”

After that, staring into his own face was relatively uneventful. It still sucked and he still didn’t like the results. While he knew he’d aged, he mostly pictured himself somewhere around 30 when he thought of his own face, and while the bathroom mirror said otherwise it was a brief encounter day to day while he shaved. This was an excruciating deep dive into places skin has shifted, discolored a little, the dash of grays in his eyebrows (one of which had a slightly wild hair that he would be trimming as soon as he got home, how had missed that?) and a softness to the edges of his lips was highly disconcerting.

But he was here, he thought, as he shaded in around his nose. So many others were gone. All of his parents’ generation of family members for the most part, not that he kept up with them, and even some of his own. The people that he and Eddy had worked beside that were less lucky or had given into the siren calls of the vices they’d all been steeped in.

He was here, in a drawing class, living. He tried to concentrate on that.

“Went a little hard on the shading again,” Lucius said from behind him. “Especially under your eyes.”

“I didn’t,” Izzy shook his head.

“You did,” Lucius said gently. “Okay. I was going to tell everyone to finish theirs for homework, but I want you to start over.”

“What? Why?” He groaned.

“Because I want you to look at yourself the way someone who actually likes you would look at you.”

Before Izzy could ask what the fuck that meant, Lucuis was headed back to the front of the class, already talking about lightning and how to recapture it. Izzy took the paper off the easel and folded it into quarters, shoving it into his bag. Lucius hadn’t said he needed to start over before. He didn’t much like the feeling.

There was no chance to wallow in it though, Read was back at his side as soon as class was over like she thought he might slip away. Clever girl. She hovered as he packed up his things and someone else cornered Lucius demanding his attention. Yet, when Izzy glanced back to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind, he caught Lucius’ eye.

Lucius winked at him.

What the fuck?

There was no time to process, Read was talking at him rapidly already and he was barely following it. When they got to the student union, she all, but danced to a table that was already occupied. There was a girl in a sports uniform of some kind, a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her red hair pulled back into a high ponytail. She was sitting on the lap of a guy that Izzy could only describe as an obvious loser: he was wearing pajama pants in the middle of the day with animated beer bottles dancing with animated pot leaves paired with a hoodie that had fading letters for a high school eam on it and had the kind of mustache that college guys apparently grew ‘ironically’ now. His hair hadn’t seen scissors in who knew how long, hanging into his face without shape or form. He looked like he smelled bad.

“Baaabe!” He called as Read approached.

“Don’t call me that,” Read laughed even as she leaned down and kissed him. The girl in his lap made gimmie hands at her until Read gave her a kiss too.

Izzy’s head hurt.

“Izzy!” Read gestured him closer and he saw no reasonable way to escape. “This is my girlfriend Anne and this is our boyfriend Jack.”

“Hi,” Izzy said instead of demanding several answers or just fleeing the scene. Why had he brutally murdered his flight or fight response? It would be genuinely useful right now.

“Oh, you were right, Read, I have seen him around,” Anne said merrily. “Hi, come and sit. We put in our order already, but if you want something Read-”

“What do you want?” She demanded of Izzy.

“Nothing,” he told her.

“Come on, get something,” she scoffed. “How about a muffin? The muffins don’t suck. A coffee? The coffee isn’t bad either. What about a granola bar?”

“A seltzer,” he said reluctantly, already certain she’d keep offering things until he said yes. His sole experience with the campus food had been disheartening at best.

“Can do!” She whizzed off.

Anne and Jack both looked at him. Jack had a huge, disturbing grin under the ironic mustache. Anne studied him like a bug.

“You should sit,” Anne pointed to a chair imperiously.

“Thought I was here to help with paperwork.”

“You stand while you do paperwork?” Jack asked, eyes wide. “Wild.”

Izzy sat down, “All right, show me the email.”

Anne didn’t hesitate. Nor did she get off of Jack’s lap. Jack seemed pleased with that, keeping one arm around her waist, the other roaming up and down her thigh. Every so often as she explained to Izzy what had happened, she would idly reach down, slap Jack’s hand, he’d laugh and move it back down to her knee. Then he’d start creeping up again.

“You’re such an asshole,” Read said as she set a seltzer in front of Izzy and did the slapping for Anne.

“Switch,” Anne decided, sliding off his lap and into the seat next to Izzy on the other side and Read sat down on Jack’s lap like that was normal.

“Heya, greenie,” Jack nuzzled into Read’s undercut.

“Hey, shithead,” she kissed him again then turned her attention to Izzy. “Can you fix it?”

“I’m not a magician.” he gritted out, but... “Yeah, the school fucked it, you’re right.”

All three of them cheered and Izzy sighed. They were fucking loud. Like he had with Read, he didn’t actually do the work. He talked Anne through a phone call, then a follow up email.

“Mostly you’ve got to just stay on their ass. Don’t let them forget you or pretend that you disappeared. If they don’t produce the refund in thirty days, tell them you’re retaining a lawyer.”

“I don’t have a lawyer.”

Anne was writing down what he was saying, neat little bullet points in her notebook. Her nails were short and squared off, the skin calloused. She worked with those, he’d guess.

“You probably won’t need one. They don’t actually want to deal with a lawyer. We’ll see how it goes.”

“So I can text you if I have a problem?” She asked.

Which was how he wound up giving his number to all of them, mostly by accident. Anne typed it into her phone and it was only when he looked up that he saw Read and Jack busily typing too.

Great.

“No,” he sighed.

“Don’t worry, bro,” Jack said solemnly. “We’re great fucking friends to have.”

“I mean Anne and me are,” Read laughed. “Jack is a great weed hookup.”

“Yeah, which is a great fucking friend to have, isn’t it?” Jack rubbed his mustache over Read’s neck while she wrinkled up her nose and smiled. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“Thanks,” Anne touched Izzy’s wrist so lightly that he could barely feel the press of her fingers. “I know you’ve got better shit to do than help us, but we’re all like..uh. Orphans, but not really? Some of our parents are alive, they just suck. There should be a word for that.”

“Bastards,” Izzy offered and she grinned widely at him.

“I don’t think that’s what that means, but I like it.”

“Bunch of bastards,” Jack grinned. “Hear that Read? He’s mean, can we keep him?”

“No,” Read rested her head on Jack’s shoulder, eyes on Izzy’s face. Accessing. “But we can arrange a lease.”

He managed to escape after that, but he wasn’t even home before Read texted him, but not just him. He’d been included in a group chat with her, Anne and Jack.

Read: We’re having a potluck dinner thing at my apartment before spring break. You should come.

Anne: I’m making stew and soda bread. Read is baking dessert.

Jack: I’m on party favors.

Anne: We’re not actually going to do drugs! Promise!

Jack: We’re not?

Izzy sat down on his stoop heavily. Why the fuck did these kids want him to come over? Didn’t they know he was old enough to be their father and not a very good one at that?

Izzy: no.

Read: Don’t let Jack scare you off. It’s just dinner and we’d like to have you over to say thanks! You don’t even have to bring anything.

Anne: Please?

Izzy didn’t say anything else. They sent him a date, a time and an address anyway.

***

“Soooo,” Lucius slid up to his desk a week later. “I couldn’t help, but notice when I went through Monday’s assignments that I don’t have a self-portrait from you.”

“Forgot,” Izzy didn’t look up.

“Yeah, no,” Lucius tapped the desk with a finger in his peripheral vision. “Try again.”

“Started one. Didn’t like it. Started another. Didn’t like it even more.”

Lucius didn’t move, he didn’t say anything and Izzy considered just flipping him off and walking out. He didn’t need this shit. He started to shift in his chair and Lucius said,

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” Izzy’s head flew up. Lucius wasn’t grinning or smirking or anything. His face was schooled to blankness.

“I overstepped. And your first one was pretty good. It’s not my business how you look at yourself. I’m going to mark it as a pass and we’ll move on to the next one. All right?”

Izzy frowned, but nodded, relief easing in his chest. It wasn’t that he cared about getting a good grade, but he didn't like the idea of Lucius finding him wanting.

“Good. I like that one of Jackie, by the way.”

“Thank fuck, cause she was gonna be pissed at me if you failed her face,” he said before he could stop himself.

Lucius’ grin returned, “You’re all good. In fact....” he went back to his desk, wrote something, then returned with Izzy’s sketch of Jackie. He’d attached a note. A+ work on an A+ face, can I get a free drink now? -L.S. “Give that to her next time you see her?”

“Why would she give you a free drink?” Izzy took it back, placing it carefully inside his sketchbook. “I drew it.”

“Transitive gratitude?”

“That’s not a thing. At least not with Jackie.”

“Worth a shot!”

It was the last class before the break and Lucius had them doing a sketch that had ‘include three elements that you’ve learned about’, followed by a promise,

“When you get back, we get into color. If you didn’t get the recommended color pencils before or you’re not sure you can afford them, come talk to me after class. I have some options for you.”

The pencils had been more expensive than the Crayola bullshit in stores, but not that much more expensive. Yet after class a few students milled around Lucius’ desk in various stages of dejection. Including Read. God fucking damnit.

Izzy: I bought two sets by accident, just take my spare.

The phone rang once, obnoxiously loud and Read took it out of her pocket. When she saw the text, she frowned at him. He reached into his bag and pulled out two unopened sets. It hadn’t been an accident. Izzy tended to overprepare, but she didn’t need to know she was benefiting from his compulsive need to have ‘enough’ whatever the fuck that was because his brain refused to define it.

“Awesome!” She crowed and scooped up the second box. Then she leaned over and popped a kiss on top of his head like he was her fool boyfriend. “Come get coffee!”

“I don’t drink coffee this late in the day,” he grumbled.

“Cool, come have your boring ass seltzer then.”

“Why? What do you need help with?”

“Nothing,” she rolled her eyes. “We just like you.”

Izzy was so dumbfounded that he sort of blacked out and the next time he was aware of his surroundings, Jack was drawing a diagram in a notebook next to him that was either a very complicated bong or an oversimplified engine.

“And then, bam!” Jack slammed his hand over the diagram.

“If it explodes, it can’t be at our place, babe,” Anne told him gently.

“Aw, really?”

“Really. But you can build it in the lab if they’ll let you.”

“Oh, Dr. Black might,” Jack brightened back up.

Izzy connected two dots. Straight line. He was good at straight lines.

“You’re an engineering student?”

“It’s why it’s taking him forever to graduate,” Read offered Izzy a mini blueberry muffin from a bag of them. He shook his head and she drew them back. “He’s double majoring in chemical and mechanical engineering.”

“Wait, what?” Izzy turned to look at Jack, who having abandoned his diagram, was now attempting to hold his pen between his upper lip and his nose. His mustache was in the way.

“He was a child prodigy,” Anne nodded. “It’s a whole thing.”

“No it’s not,” Jack shrugged, pen rolling away and into his hand. “I just want to build cool enough shit that I can break into pyrotechnics and tour with a cool band while I make shit blow up.”

“What about you?” He asked Anne.

“I’m going to graduate early next year. Hopefully. I’m getting a degree in marketing. Once Read is done with her graphic arts things, we’re going to team up and do advertising for local businesses and stuff. We do it for some really tiny things already, just online or whatever.”

“It’s gonna rock,” Read agreed, leaning over to bus a kiss on Anne’s cheek. “We’ll have a home base and Jack can tour or whatever, come home to us when he wants.”

“All the time,” Jack assured them.

“Graphic arts?”

“Yeah!” Read got out her sketchbook. “So drawing is foundational, but I’m kind of going a little backwards because I took some stuff at community college before I came here. See?”

In the back of the book, there was a drawing of a milk carton with a tiny grim reaper smiling up at him, pointing to a label that read ‘Black Milk: Start Your Day The Way You Mean to End It’.

“What the fuck?”

“Isn’t it cool? It’s made up, but it’s my favorite fake product to do assignments for,” Read said merrily.

“Do you have a business plan?” He asked before he could stop himself.

Apparently they did. Apparently no one else had actually asked that before. Apparently Jack, despite all appearances, had helped them put it together and had several coherent thoughts on the matter and several absolutely bonkers ones.

Izzy asked follow up questions. The girls bubbled over with answers. He found himself opening up a spreadsheet on his laptop and showing them the budget template he’d used years and years ago when he and Eddy were first starting out.

“Okay see,” Anne scribbled furiously in her notebook. “Now you totally have to come to the potluck. We owe you so much dinner.”

“You don’t owe me shit. Not like this wasn’t all lying around. Not doing me any fucking good anyway.”

“Okay, but if you did come, we might still need some sides,” Read mumbled as she typed into her phone. “Jean is definitely going to flake. Again.”

“He is not,” Jack frowned.

“Bet you twenty he is. Always does.”

“Man, that bites,” Jack sighed. “I always show up to his shit.”

Anne put an arm around him, “I know, babe. Your friends kind of suck.”

“Izzy doesn’t suck,” Jack declared. “Or he won’t if he shows up.”

“I’m not coming,” he repeated and then was met by two angry female faces. Read gestured at Jack, who looked genuinely crushed. “....you don’t actually want me to show up to your rave or whatever.”

“It’s dinner, first of all,” Read rolled her eyes. “Second of all, no one has raves anymore. You need us to update you on like everything ever because that is just sad. Third of all, if you can’t cook, just say, someone needs to bring soda or whatever.”

“I can cook,” he said defensively.

“Great!” Anne beamed at him. “So sides. Probably need a veg, right?”

Godfuckingdamnit.

The cat had no commentary as Izzy ranted about presumptuous kids to him that night. The cat did sweep by, butting into his shin again and once more investigating his fingers before slipping away.

***

Read’s apartment was in a shithole of a building and the actual apartment was small with yellowed walls and shabby secondhand furniture. It smelled good though, a spread of food on paper plates along the cramped kitchen counter promising to be edible. She opened the door with wide doe eyes when she saw him.

“You came!” She gushed and the knot in his chest unraveled a little. “Is that a green bean casserole? Amazing. I haven’t had that since I was a kid. ANNE! IZZY BROUGHT GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE!”

“Izzy came?” Jack was on the couch, apparently putting together some kind of speaker, wires spread out in front of him. “Oh, man, you’re going to love this, once I get it back together.”

“Did a television vomit or something?” Izzy took in the mess.

“No, man,” Jack laughed, “it’s a digital vinyl record player. Sort of. It was. It will be. I dunno. Give me a half hour.”

“Party starts in twenty,” Anne chirped from the kitchen. “And if that shit is still on the coffee table, it’s going in the garbage.”

“I paid fifteen bucks for this!” Jack protested, his hands starting to move faster.

“And we told you to do it like a week ago,” Read reminded him. “You can store it in my room if you can’t finish.”

“Thanks, babe,” Jack said with evident relief even as he pressed forward.

“So wait,” Izzy looked between them, “Who lives here?”

“Me,” Read shrugged. “Anne and Jack got together last spring and I started dating Anne over the summer, then it turns out that I really like Jack too, but it was too late to get out of the lease. I’m going to take over Jack’s part of the rent next year since he’ll hopefully be on the road.”

“Yeah, me and Anne would host, but uh...” Jack got two wires soldered together, then went on, “our place is kind of a dumpster fire right now.”

“My fault!” Anne called from the kitchen. “I got us a rent discount because I said I’d reno the kitchen, but it’s taking forever between school and work.”

Izzy nodded like any of that made sense. “So you’re roommates...”

“Already left for spring break!” Read grinned. “Awesome, right? We’re expecting more people, but they might run late. I’m going to hang up some ‘No Entry’ signs on their rooms, can you make sure Jack doesn’t electrocute himself again? Thanks!”

Then she went back into a dark hall. Izzy looked down at Jack, who was making the nest of wires worse as far as Izzy could tell.

“Again?”

“Sometimes you make mistakes,,” Jack shrugged. “Pull up some couch, it’ll be fine.”

It was, somehow, actually fine. Within ten minutes, Jack conquered the wires, and got them nestled into a box that was actually a turntable. Jack produced a record and Bobby Darin’s voice filled the room.

“This is your party music?” Izzy blinked.

“We’re trying to be classy,” Anne called from the kitchen. “Sounds great, my love. Had total faith in you!”

“Thanks, liar,” Jack laughed. “And yeah, classy. Apparently. I dunno. Sounds okay to me though.”

Not long after that. Izzy was glad he’d gotten a spot on the couch because of the flood of people crammed into the tiny apartment and there were not that many places to sit. Food circulated and Izzy wound up with a full plate without getting up, passed over to him by Anne with a wink as she turned to herd a guy away from the turntable.

Talk swirled around him and it would’ve been very very easy to feel horribly out of place and creepy just for sitting there, except that Jack didn’t leave his side and pretty soon Read alighted on the arm of the couch on his other side. The two of them seemed intent on filling him in on the gossip about all these people he’d never met. Booze circulated and Jack got steadily drunker, but Read stayed sober. If anything though, she got funnier instead of Jack though it did have the effect of making Jack laugh uproariously.

Eventually Anne shoved in on Jack’s other side and he put his arm around her and kissed her temple so sweetly that Izzy had to look away. To Read who was watching them both with a soft look on her face. When she caught Izzy looking, she shrugged, then said,

“I thought you’d be weird about it.”

“About what?”

“About the three of us. Some people our age are weird about it, let alone...” she waved at his whole body as if that said something. It probably did. A lot of things.

“Don’t get it,” he allowed. “But I don’t get much anymore. Figure it’s just one of those things. You seem okay. Happy. Treat each other all right. Right?”

“We do,” she agreed.

“Could do worse.”

A lot worse.

“Thanks,” she brought one knee up to her chest, resting her chin on it. “Can I ask? Why you came back to school?”

“Get my degree. Get a better job. Why does anyone?”

“Yeah, but a lot of the second career people go to night classes. I’m taking one this semester because of my work schedule and it’s full of people who are older. Why didn’t you do that?”

Would it have been better to do it that way even though he had days free? Maybe. He tried to imagine being around other people his age. It probably would’ve been easier. Or harder. Less of an excuse to keep to himself.

“Prefer to have my nights free,” he settled on.

“Huh,” she didn’t ask him more. She did hand him a cookie. “I made these. My mom’s recipe. She’s a fucking monster, but she could make a peanut butter cookie.”

The cookie was good. The way Jack’s arm was stretched around the back of the couch and Read’s foot pressed against his knee was better. He felt weirdly anchored, settled in his skin. It felt familiar, an echo of twenty years ago when he’d been the sloppy asshole with half a bottle of whiskey in him and Eddy would be draped over his lap, his hand resting on her bare stomach while she regaled a crowd of strangers about some story that was half-true, half-beautiful lie.

“I should go,” he decided as the noise level ratched up. He could already see some of the kids eyeing him up speculatively. He knew that look. He was no narc, but they had no way of knowing that.

“Wait wait wait,” Jack’s hand dropped his shoulder, squeezed once. A baggie slid into Izzy’s shirt pocket. “For the road, my man. Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah,” Read smiled and as Izzy got up, she slid easily into the gap he left behind. Her legs went up on the arm of the couch, most of her torso draped over Jack’s lap and Anne’s hand brushed over her hair. “Hey, text me if you want to work on the assignment together. I’ve got no ideas for ‘fantasy architecture’.”

“I won’t,” he waved them off.

He probably would. He didn’t know what the fuck Lucius was on about with that one either. But he needed the practice on perspective anyway.

And maybe Read would let him draw her face. He didn’t like the feeling that he’d failed somehow with the self-portrait. Maybe if he did more faces he’d get there.

The cat twined around his ankles while he fed it. As he bent over to fill up the water dish, the baggie slid out of his pocket and landed with ‘thwip’ on the floor. Inside was a single gummy bear, coated in granulated sugar.

“What the fuck?” He asked the cat, who just settled in to eat.

The days of Izzy taking anything that was handed to him were long in the past. He’d never really cared for the uppers much, always making him twitch and tenser than he already was, but sometimes pot had been okay.

Izzy: whats in the gummy

Anne: 15mg of THC. aprox. Jack makes them.

Read: hes very proud of them. No worries if you don’t want it though, just give it back to him. He’ll remember not to shove another at you.

Jack: izzzzyizzyizzy chew on my bear

Izzy rolled his eyes and sat down on the floor, back against the wall while the cat ate. He considered the bright gummy. He had nowhere, no real idea of what to do with himself with the bottom falling out of the structure of school for the week.

And he was alone. The cat wouldn’t tell if he acted weird.

Izzy ate the gummy. It was sour watermelon and surprisingly good just as a piece of candy. He was not going to tell Jack that though. The asshole was insufferable enough as it was.

He woke up the next morning on his couch and his chest was covered in a fine layer of orange fur. The cat was sunning himself in the living room window sill as if he’d never touched Izzy in his life and certainty hadn’t used his altered state to escape his enclosure.

All Izzy could recall was getting up off the floor, deciding he could feel no effect, showering and getting into his pajamas and then...here. Apparently. He checked his phone, but it was quiet and he had no outgoing messages. None of his booze had been touched. His computer and his school bag hadn’t moved.

He’d just...slept. Peacefully. For about fourteen hours if the clock was right. Fuck, no wonder he was starving. As he made himself eggs, he felt strangely light. As if someone has scrubbed a layer off of him. Maybe he needed to go to sleep earlier from time to time if this was what rest felt like.

Around 2, when he was stretched back out on the couch and the cat, who refused to be corralled back into the spare room at great cost to the integrity of the skin on Izzy’s arms, was slumbering on the floor beside him, his phone vibrated,

Read: fantasy architecture is bullshit and my apartment is really messy. Can I come over?

Izzy: no.

Read: pllllllleeeeeeeeease

Izzy: clean your place. Anyone ever told you it’s rude to invite yourself over?

Read: no, I was raised by honey badgers. If I clean my place first, then can I come over?

Izzy: no.

Anne: omg can I come too? I have got to get through my econ shit and Jack is not a good study buddy. Mostly cause he’s still passed out.

Read: help us be academic achievers!

Izzy: no

Read: I have so many leftovers, I’ll bring dinner.

Izzy gave them his address. The girls appeared an hour later, Anne clearly in one of Read’s sweatshirts, a black hoodie with white lettering that read ‘Let’s Bone’ underneath a skeleton standing in front of a pride flag. Her makeup from last night was still smeared around her eyes. Read was in a shapeless squishy black pile of fabric that he was hoping had shorts under it, considering it was cold as fuck and she was showing a lot of thigh.

He was braced for a nightmare, but they were both startlingly quiet, respectful of the cat when he said ‘he’s feral, leave him alone’ and neither of them asked for music. They really did just settle into his couch and do their homework while he took the armchair. He tried to do the assignment, but gave up halfway and just asked,

“Can I draw your face?” to Read.

“Yeah!” She grinned. “Going for extra credit with the teacher?”

“No,” he said mulishly and watched in mute horror as Read elbowed Anne.

“Professor Spriggs totally makes eyes at Izzy all the time.”

“Oooooh, Spriggs is the cute one with the dark hair and sideburns, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“He does not,” Izzy snapped, pencil tip pausing at the arch of Read’s much pierced eyebrow.

“You two talk like all the time,” Read shrugged. “No one else can get to him at the start of class cause he’s so focused on you.”

“He talks to other students all the time,” he frowned. “And it’s just about the work.”

“Wow, we are having really different experiences,” Read laughed. “But okay sure. He definitely does not stare at you while we’re working and he definitely doesn’t save you for last every time.”

“Just where I sit,” he muttered.

“Sure,” Read shrugged. “I mean, no one thinks he’s being creepy if that helps. Maybe he just wants to sketch you real bad or something.”

“You’ve talked about this?” The thought was like being stabbed in the gut.

“I’m on your side!” She protested quickly. “Some of the others just love gossip and because you guys are both, you know, older....”

“I’ve got twenty years on him. At least.”

“Oh come on. You’re what...late forties?” Anne guessed.

“...forty-nine,” he admitted. How had she guessed that? Most people pegged him as older.

“And he’s got a doctorate, so even if he’s one of those guys that races through everything without problems...”Anne made a face. “He’s like thirty probably?”

“Bet I can find out,” Read decided.

“It doesn’t matter,” Izzy said stiffly. “Older enough.”

Though thirty was certainly a man grown. Old enough to make his own choices. Which was why Izzy should cut that part of his brain out and set it on the shelf immediately. No guy like Lucius was looking for a chewed-up ex-criminal, who had nothing better to do with his empty life than try to become an accountant more legally. Maybe he looked because Izzy was unusual or maybe it was all in Read’s head.

“Guess it doesn’t matter as long as he’s our prof, right?” Read nodded. “But you know. You live around here. And you won’t be his student forever. Like six more weeks, right?”

“Leave it alone,” he said tiredly and to his surprise, Read said nothing more.

He was used to being needled. Pushed, but Read and Anne took his denial at face value and went back to their work. His shoulders came down. He rotated his paper instead of his wrist. He added in an eyebrow ring, shading it so it gleaned in the imaginary light.

***

“Okay, I think there might’ve been some confusion about the word ‘fantasy’ here,” Lucius looked despairingly over the classroom. He was not making any kind of particular effort to look at Izzy, which made him feel both vindicated and a little empty. “I’m glad some of you tried some experiments, but I was, in fact, looking for an actual building-like structure. Not dragons and zeppelins. SOOO, if you did not actually make something that is recognizably a building, add that to your list of home assignments this week. Hope you all had a good break, you D and D weirdos.”

“Did you have a good break?” One of the middle row students asked as if this was a conversation.

Izzy would’ve yelled or insulted them to put them in their place. Lucius smirk just deepened.

“I went into cold storage and came out seven years younger and meaner. Hope you’re all excited to learn about color theory from a regenerated zombie. That fun enough for you nerds?”

A ragged cheer went up and the smirk smeared into a genuine smile. “God help us all. Get out your pencils and let’s talk about blending and the spectrum.”

They got as far as putting down patches of color when there was a loud ‘bang’ in the center of the room. Izzy was on his feet, adrenaline dumping into his veins before anyone else made a sound. One of the boys, part of a set that all had similar chunky black glasses and wore blazers over t-shirts every day for some reason, was on the floor spasming.

“Shit,” Izzy pushed through the dazed crowd, peeling off his sweatshirt, folding it up and getting it under the kid’s head. He looked up at everyone else, crowding around in displays of horror and concern. One of the girls was wailing. Read’s eyes were big, but her eyes were on Izzy instead of the boy. Waiting.

“Read, start a timer, they’ll want to know how long the seizure went for,” he swept the crowd again and there was Lucius, hanging at the edges, looking panicked. “Doctor Spriggs. Spriggs...Lucius!”

Lucius blinked as if coming out of a long sleep. “What can I do?”

“Call 911,” Izzy barked. He looked at the group. “Everyone else, unless you’re secretly a fucking doctor, get the hell out of here. Class dismissed.”

Lucius frowned, but didn’t argue with him, already shoving the phone to his ear. No one moved.

“Go!” Izzy yelled again “This isn’t a peep show.”

“He’s right, clear out people,” Lucius said more softly. “I’ll send out makeup work later.”

Most of them go the hell out, except for the other chunky glasses boy.

“He’s my friend,” the guys said when Izzy glared at him. “Can I stay?”

“Is your friend epileptic?”

“No,” the boy fisted his hands into his sleeves. “But he had a concussion over the summer.”

Izzy nodded, “Okay. Don’t touch him for now. Take a step back.”

“Has he had a seizure before?” Lucuis asked the friend.

“No. Not that I’ve heard about or seen anyway.”

Izzy concentrated on moving things out of the boy’s thrashing radius. It seemed to go on and on, Read watched her phone’s clock carefully. When he stilled at last, she announced,

“Four minutes, twenty seconds.” Which Lucius relayed over the phone.

Izzy got his hands under the boy’s body and turned him on his side. “Okay, you,” he pointed to the friend, “talk to him. Calmly.”

“About what?”

“Whatever the fuck,” Izzy got to his feet. “He might be confused when he comes back around, helps to have someone chat to him.”

Then Izzy got off the floor, headed back to his desk and with shaking hands, got all of his things back in his bag. The EMTs came in as he headed for the door and he just missed being run over as he made his escape. Izzy got as far as a bench outside, before he said down heavily, cold leeching instantly through his jeans.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. His phone buzzed a few times, a distant annoyance.

“Are you okay?” Someone asked.

“Fucking fine,” he bit off, and made to stand so he could escape the prissy good samaritan shit.

“You’re shaking, Izzy.”

Shit. That was not a random citizen. Lucius was standing before, concern all over his face.

“Just getting a breath of air,” he tried to say as casually as possible and go around him.

“Sam is headed to the hospital, but he was breathing all right when he went. You did a good job in there.”

“Didn’t do shit,” Izzy denied.

“You did,” Lucius said firmly. “How’d you know what to do?”

Izzy wanted to run, but Lucius had him fixed with a look, and he was as pinned as a butterfly in a collector’s careful fingers.

“My old job...things got rough sometimes. No one else had the patience to learn, so I went to first aid classes, got CPR certified. It sticks.”

“You’ve dealt with a seizure before?”

“No,” he shoved his hands in his pockets so they wouldn’t give him away. “Stuff like it though.”

Like gunshots, stabbings and head wounds. Like holding Eddy in his arms while he tried to keep her blood inside her body and he’d won that round, but dreamed about it as a loss for months after. That was towards what he now knew was the end, when they were both more angry than careful.

He’d stopped thinking about it ages ago. Or so he’d thought. He knew he’d dream about it tonight.

“Well, you could’ve fooled me. Come on, I think you’ve earned a hot drink and you’ve been sitting in the cold. I’ve got a Keurig in the office.”

Izzy wanted to go home. He followed Lucius anyway. The little office was at least familiar now and cozy in its way. Izzy dropped into the guest chair, watching as Lucius turned on an electric kettle and dug out a second mug to go with his ‘Not Paint Water’ one. The second was plain, but nicely made, a thick clay chunk of a thing and when Lucius set it in Izzy’s hands, the heat leached out into his fingers. When had they gotten so cold?

“Milk or sugar?”

“No,” Izzy clutched the mug closer, pressing it to his chest.

“All right,” Lucius took a seat behind his desk and let out a long gust of air. “Maybe I should take a first aid class. That took a year off my life, seriously.’

“They don’t make you?”

“Nah. Not really something that comes up every day.”

“Once is often enough and kids are fucking stupid.”

“They can sometimes have poor impulse control,” Lucius corrected, “Not a lack of brains. And it’s not like this was Sam’s fault.”

“Yeah, I know,” he grimaced and took a sip of his coffee. “Shouldn’t have dismissed the class. Wasn’t my place.”

“Oh,” Lucius screwed up his face. “I don’t really give a shit about that, honestly. I should’ve done it, and I would’ve if I hadn’t been surprised. I mean, don’t do it again or anything, but it’s fine.”

“Your authority-”

“I’m a college professor, not a dictator. I need exactly as much authority as it takes to get everyone over the finish line of the semester with at least a passing understanding of drawing techniques. It’s fine, Izzy, I promise.”

He sank deeper into the seat. “All right.”

“You’re not one of the people that has to redo their fantasy architecture, by the by. I saw your face, but a castle is definitely an actual building. It’s fine.”

“Yeah, I figured that,” but he relaxed another notch.

“You’re friend is in the clear too, don’t think I didn’t catch that someone helped her with the angles on that clock tower.”

“She asked,” he brought the mug up to cover his face. “And she’s not my friend.”

“Does she know that?” Lucius grinned. “Cause I asked and she said ‘Oh, my friend helped me’. I had a hunch it was you, but didn’t know for sure. You’ve confirmed it now.”

“That’s...fuck.”

“I think it’s nice, for the record. Intergenerational friendships are really underrated.”

“You make a lot of friends with grandpas?” Izzy challenged.

“Okay, not sure if I’m more offended for myself being lumped in with the students or for you for lumping yourself in with grandpas,” Lucius tsked. “You’re not THAT old. And for what it’s worth, I do have a lot of friendships with people older than me. Hard not to, as an academic.”

“Read and her people make me feel old sometimes,” he admitted.

“Yeah, well, me too. I get it,” Lucius sipped his coffee. ”But they know a lot of shit too. Best to listen sometimes.”

“They absolutely do not,” Izzy snorted.

“Then you’re not paying enough attention.”

The door brushed open and a bald man in a much patched jean jacket and a green flannel button up, walked straight in. He had a stack of folders in his hands and was already talking.

“Luc, you will not believe what the hell the Dean just tried to- oh shit. Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Lucius smiled. “Pete, this is Izzy. Izzy, this is Pete or Dr. Black if you have the misfortune of falling into an engineering classroom.”

“My class is a delight,” Pete corrected and stuck out his hand. Izzy shook it. “You’re in Luc’s intro class, right? The one who did that cool picture of Jackie?”

Izzy took his hand back and glared daggers at Lucius.

“I didn’t show him!” He protested. “It was just on top of my desk.”

“Jackie once punched me,” Pete said dreamily. “It was awesome.”

“Why the fuck did she punch you?” Izzy demanded, now considering if he would have to punch the man on principle. Jackie did punch a lot of people, but she had her reasons.

“It was an accident,”Lucius scoffed. “Pete was carrying a beer back across the room and got between her and some assholes.”

“Yeah.” Pete nodded. “I got a free beer to replace it though!”

“With her prosthetic or her other hand?” Izzy checked.

“Other hand.”

“Got lucky. She cracked a guy’s orbital bone with the prosthetic one once,” Izzy shook his head. “That was a noise.”

“How long have you known her? Luc, how come you've never hit someone with yours?" Pete’s eyes went wide and he was getting a chair from his desk, dragging it across the room.

"Because it's expensive," Lucius drawled, eyes very much on Izzy's face. Izzy had clocked the finger ages ago.  Lucius seemed used to it, even utilizing it to steady paper or tap more loudly if he was trying to get a student's attention. Must be old news.

“Known her a while,” Izzy watched him warily.

“Pete,” Lucius was suppressing a grin. “It’s been a long afternoon. I don’t think Izzy is up for storytelling.”

“Not even a little?” Pete pouted. “Cause I knew Jackie’s old rival, I could tell you some stories about Teach.”

“Could you,” Izzy said blankly, trying to place Pete. He was a little familiar around the eyes now that he was looking. They were very bright blue and his speech impediment was particular. “Oh fuck me running.”

“What?” Pete dropped into his chair.

“You were the courier....’03, right? Little of ‘04? Until you fumbled the package.”

Pete gasped, hands going to his chest like a 40s movie heroine, “I was!”

“Wait wait wait,” Lucius cut in. “That isn’t bullshit? Pete, you worked for Teach for real?”

“I told you I did!” Pete nodded. “Did you not believe me?”

“Honestly? No. But okay...so Izzy, you worked for Teach too?”

“Hands!” Pete blurted. “I didn’t see your last name and the guys only called you Hands. But that’s you, right? You didn’t have the-” Pete tapped the spot on his cheekbone where the unfinished star sat on Izzy’s face. “Or the gray, no offense, I mean I had hair back then, different time.”

“That’s me.”

His stomach twisted. He was proud of who he had been. Or...if not proud, at least not ashamed. They had been good at it. They had survived it. But now he was here in this land of soft hands and graphite instead of out in the world and his old life looked shabby when held up to this refined light.

“You were so fucking cool!” Pete gushed. “I mean not as cool as Teach, but who was?”

“No one,” he had to agree.

“You still friends with her?”

“No,” Izzy clutched the coffee cup harder.

“Aw, too bad. She made this thing once...kind of homemade scope? I would have her do a guest lecture about it, it was so badass.”

“I forgot about that,” Izzy blinked.

He could see Eddy bent over a table with her quick fingers and the spare parts that she’d gathered. She’d just do that sometimes. She’d fiddle with things and usually it came to nothing, but once and a while she’d tug on his arm and fill his hands with something amazing.

“It’s kind of what put engineering in my head when I left,” Pete went on. “I wanted to make cool shit too and then I got here and now I do get to make cool shit all the time. Always wanted to thank her for that.”

“Yeah?” Izzy shrugged. “If you see her, tell her, she still lives around here.”

“We know,” Lucius smiled thinly. “I’ve met her.”

“You have?” Izzy tried to imagine how that would go. Eddy was weird with people. Unpredictable.

“Still jealous,” Pete sighed.

“She tried to kill me,” Lucius said aggrieved, like this had come up more than once.

“The lake isn’t that gross, babe and I don’t think she meant to.”

Babe? Izzy paused on that, but the image of Eddy pushing Lucius into the lake was louder.

“Why’d she push you?”

“I would also love to know,” Lucius grimaced and took a sip of his own coffee. “But I haven’t seen her since to ask.”

“It was at the cardboard regatta,” Pete explained as if that was illuminating.

Izzy’s confusion led to a very detailed explanation of a campus tradition of attempting to make boats out of cardboard and duct tape followed by a race to the other side. Apparently Pete spearheaded the race every year as a way to attract new freshman to the engineering department (or so he claimed, Lucius drawled ‘and it’s funny as fuck’ and Pete had agreed vociferously).

When Izzy finished the coffee, Lucius was got to his feet,

“I’ve still got my Representational Painting class. Sorry to run, but thanks again for this afternoon Izzy.”

“Yeah,” he got up too, then hovered, unsure of what to do with the mug.

“Oh, I’ll take that,” Lucius plucked it out of his hands. For a moment, his fingertips brushed over Izzy’s hands, fleeting and gentle. “See you on Friday! Toodles!”

And then he was gone. Izzy picked up his bag.

“You should stop by when I’m here again some time,” Pete said gamely. “We can talk about the old days.”

“Rather not,” Izzy mumbled.

“Yeah,” Pete’s voice dropped, softening and he sounded a little like Lucius. “That’s okay too. Come by just to say hi then. Shoot the shit, huh?”

“I’m a student.”

“Yeah, students happen to be people. Novel idea around here, I know,” Pete grinned. “Lucius got me into it. What do you think?”

“....yeah,” Izzy conceded. “Not a bad one.”

They were people. He plucked his phone out of his pocket as he walked back to his car.

Read: that was scary! Where are you?

Read: did you run off like batman, you fucking weirdo?

Read: seriously, are you ok? We’re having coffee, come be with us.

Read: fuck are you dead?

Izzy: spriggs wanted to talk to me. Fine.

Read: want to get dinner with us?

He should go home. Decompress. Have his terrible nightmare and get it over with.

Izzy: y. Where?

***

On the cat’s return trip to the vet, he still drew blood and hissed.

“He healed beautifully!” The vet said cheerily as the cat attempted to murder her. “Great job. We’ll neuter him tonight and he’ll need another recovery period. You still okay with hosting him? The shelter situation is likely only getting worse. It’s kitten season.”

“Yeah, what’s another go around?”

His place was quieter without the cat which didn’t make any damn sense. The thing was soundless most of the time unless he was howling out to his potential girlfriends. That noise had been worse in the townhouse than out of it and Izzy had come close to kicking him out and letting him get to it. Only the idea of more cats showing up had prevented him.

At least he could take out the colored pencils without going to war with curious paws. Color didn’t really intrigue him the way it seemed to some of the other students. He missed the gradients of gray. Especially when Lucius was making up seemingly arbitrary assignments like ‘only use red and green’. ‘Complementary’, Izzy’s hairy ass. Everything looked like a Christmas themed nightmare.

Nightmares. Blood. Blood was red. Vividly, ludicrously red. Izzy’s hand started moving. He lost hours again until the newly added text tone on his phone announcing one of the throuple’s attempts to reach him sang out:

I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby

They probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but it made him laugh, so fuck it.

Read: sos

Izzy: for the last time if you smell rotten eggs just call the damn gas company

Read: no we fixed that. Probably.

Anne: it was actually rotten eggs, for the record. But yeah, a different problem.

Read: Jack came back to their place and locked himself in the bathroom. He won’t come out.

Izzy: and?

Anne: he hasn’t done this in a long time and usually I can sweet talk him out, but he’s really upset. I think he’s doing a three hour bath and we don’t have that much hot water.

Izzy: jimmy the lock.

Read: how?

Anne: he won’t talk to either of us, but maybe he’d talk to you? If it’s about us he won’t talk to us.

Read: what if he wants to break up?

Anne: I don’t want to break up!

Izzy rolled his eyes.

Izzy: doubt it. Fine. text the address.

He’d been expecting another trash fire apartment building, full of students living in substandard conditions like Read’s place, but instead, he parked in front of a pretty Victorian recently repainted in spritely pastel colors. It had clearly been subdivided, but the number they gave him was for the front door. When he knocked, Anne answered. She looked unusually tired, her shellacked shiny jock facade cracked open with her hair in a fraying braid and one of Jack’s many weed-patterned shirts pulled over her jersey.

“Thanks for coming over,” she said softly. “I tried to talk to him again, but no dice.”

“I’m not good with upset people,” he warned her.

“It’s just Jack, not a rando.”

She walked back through the living room which was crowded with boxes of wires and metal plates alongside a comfortable looking couch. The kitchen, the one she was renovating, actually looked nearly done. It was pretty, mostly dark woods with brass colored finishings. The sink was still waiting to be installed apparently, but the other appliances were in.

There was a skinny staircase that led up to what must be a divided second floor, just two doors accessible from their apartment. One was open, revealing a messy, but generously sized bedroom. Izzy recognized half of their wardrobe from where it was draped over the footboard of the bed, despite there very clearly being a large wardrobe in the room.

The other door was closed. There was a sloshing sound on the other side. Sad sloshing. A very identifiable kind of slosh if you were already acquainted with it, which unfortunately Izzy was.

“I’ll...yeah,” Anne sighed. “Just do what you can? I’ll be downstairs.”

She headed down head low and Izzy scrubbed at his face with a groan. Then he knocked. No answer. Figured.

“Jack, you waterlogged idiot, you’re making your women upset.”

“Izzy?” Jack asked. He sounded stuffed up. “What are you doing here?”

“If I knew, I’d fucking tell you,” he sighed. “I’ve been nominated to scrape you off the floor, I guess.”

“I’m in the bath, not on the floor.”

Izzy closed his eyes. He’d ask some higher power what he’d done to deserve this, but the list was very long and he was intimately familiar with most of it.

“I’m coming in.”

“Door’s locked,” Jack told him, sing-song.

Izzy studied the lock for all of a minute. Then he was in, shutting it behind him. He got out a card from his wallet and a second later he was in the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Jack was, in fact, in the bath, but had blessedly filled it with bubbles that smelled like flowers and covered him enough that Izzy didn’t feel the need to talk to him with his back turned.

He leaned on the small sink instead. .

“You look like a pathetic walrus,” Izzy decided. The mustache had drooped some in the steam.

“Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you,” Jack muttered. He slumped a little lower into the water, knees coming up as his chin dipped in.

“Anne thinks you’re freezing in here.”

“Water heater kicked back in a few minutes ago. Just refilled,,” Jack informed the bubbles.

“Great. So I’ll just go tell her you’re not going to die of being a melodramatic idiot and go home,” he decided.

“No! No wait.”

Izzy hadn’t actually moved. That one hadn’t worked on Eddy in years. Nice to know it still had some effect.

“Talk then.”

“I’m going to ruin everything,” Jack said miserably. Then he blew bubbles into the water like the world’s saddest four year old.

“Specifics, Jack.” Okay, maybe Izzy had tortured a few people, but they hadn’t been good people. Truly he hadn’t earned this.

“I’m failing English Lit AGAIN and that means I won’t graduate like we planned and I’ll be a fucking laughingstock. Super senior is one thing, but another year? I need to be done with this place. Anne and Read have plans and I need to have income so they can do that. I’ll be letting them down AGAIN. I was supposed to be done last semester, and the only reason I can even still use the lab is because Dr. Black sort of lets me T.A. even though he technically shouldn’t,, but this is the last time he can even do THAT. So I’m FUCKED and it’s all FUCKED. I should just become a dealer full time, at least then the girls would have money for their business.”

Izzy watched Jack sink lower until he was basically talking into the water, each ‘f’ bomb exploding across the surface, sending up ripples. His hair floated around him like a pathetic jellyfish.

“You’ve got three weeks before the end of the semester,” Izzy shrugged. “You don’t have to fail.”

“I am though, I suck at all that shit. I got through the rest of the requirements by finding the slacker profs and sometimes being their hookup if they were into that or at least, skating by, but this one dude is super rigid and no one else teaches this class and it’s the same guy over the summer and I don’t have enough financial aid-”

“Stop,” Izzy exhaled. “Fuck. Do you go to class?”

Jack moaned piteously.

“Jack.”

“It sucks so hard, dude.”

“Do not call me dude ever again, first off. Second, from here on out you are a model fucking student. You show up to every class. You take notes, you ask questions.”

“I can’t concentrate! It’s just blah blah blah blah.”

“Pretend. Act. You’re playing the part of Jack Who Isn’t an Asshole. What are you supposed to be reading right now?”

“Some poet fucker. I dunno.”

“Get out of the bath.”

“What?”

“Right now. Out.” Izzy grabbed the first towel that looked reasonably clean and held it in front of himself like a shield.

“But-”

“You’re not drowning yourself over a problem that’s fucking fixable, dumbass. Let’s go. On your feet.”

“Why-”

“Don’t question me. Let’s go.”

Historically, Izzy had not been able to really compel anyone to do much of anything unless he held tangible power over them. Today he had a towel and frayed nerves, but apparently that was sufficient. Jack got out of the bath. With a combination of closed eyes and towel flailing, he even managed not to get an eyeful of whatever Jack was working with.

“Great. Go get dressed. Clean clothes. Then brush your teeth, go downstairs and kiss your girlfriend and tell her you’re not breaking up with her.”

“I would never!” Jack’s mouth fell open.

“She didn’t know that.”

“Oooooh shit.”

“Yep, you done fucked up Jackie-boy. Clothes. Teeth. Anne. Then we’re looking at your syllabus.”

Jack nodded, then a glimmer came back in his eyes. Izzy made for the door, but he didn’t close it fast enough to miss the return salley:

“You’re kinda hot when you’re bossy!”

Disgusting. Izzy went downstairs. He could hear Jack pacing into the bedroom. So could Anne apparently because she dropped the wrench she hadn’t been using when Izzy got into the kitchen.

“Is he okay?”

“No, but it’s fixable idiocy. Not curable in the long run though.”

“Oh, that I knew,” she said with relief. “Thank you.”

Izzy shrugged, “Water? It was hot as fuck in there.”

He drank his water on the couch and twenty minutes later, Jack appeared still a little pink around the cheeks from whatever affection and talking to Anne had given him. He was brandishing a very wrinkled set of papers and a thick paperback.

“Okay, here’s everything.”

“...a pen, Jack?”

Jack produced one of the clicky pens that had several different color inks, including pink. It functioned, so Izzy decided to let it go.

Together, they waded through the syllabus and Izzy went through Jack’s book ticking off things he could reasonably skip, the things he could look up on wikipedia and the few things he should actually read to put into an essay.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“You want to pass or you want to be moral all of a sudden?”

“Okay, but the prof already hates me.”

“Yeah, get ready to fucking grovel,” Izzy shrugged. “Go to office hours. Tell him how sorry you are that you haven’t been putting enough effort in and you want to make it up.”

“He sucks though.”

“Yeah, motherfucker, what do you think being an adult is? Figureing out how to deal with people you fucking hate.”

Jack gave him an incredulous look, “So....how the hell did you make it?”

“Didn’t. Do as I say, not as I do, asshat.”

“Call me more names, Izzy. It’s starting to give me a new kink,” Jack waggled his eyebrows at him.

“I wish I’d let Read drown in her own tears, so I never met you.”

“Aw, don’t hate on my girl.”

With a plan, Jack’s regular confidence resurged. He called Read and apologized to her too (his apologies were...inventive.) and then somehow tricked Izzy into staying for dinner. Dinner was chocolate chip pancakes and bacon, apparently one of the few reliable meals Jack could produce.

“I like it,” Anne said serenely. “And I hate cooking.”

The cat still wasn’t there when Izzy came back home. Obviously. He cleaned out the bowls and redid the litter box. The tom would need clean things for his recuperation. Before Izzy put him back out on the streets where he belonged.

It was still early enough that he could sit down with his finance assignments. When they were done, he idly picked his red/green color sketch back up.

Just a few adjustments maybe.

****

“Listen,” Lucius used his prosthetic finger to push the admittedly mostly red, red and green drawing, back towards Izzy like he didn’t want to touch it with his skin. “This one is...”

“Bad?” Izzy guessed. Everyone else was busily doing heinous purple-yellow sketches. Izzy hadn’t started out of protest (and a lack of ideas).

“It’s very visceral. And...uh...” Lucius floundered, then blurted. “It’s gross, Izzy. Please tell me you know that this is really really really upsettingly gross. Like you do you, Pickachu, but this is the kind of thing that gets you labeled as ‘edgy’ at an art show if you’re lucky.”

Izzy looked down at it again. He had maybe over detailed the wound a little. It was just very vivid in his head and once he’d started, it’d been hard to pull back. The shirt around it had actually been blue, but the green did pop the red, he had to give it that.

“Do I have to do it over?”

“No! No. I mean. Art is...subjective. It satisfies the requirement,” Lucius said hurriedly. “Just maybe have mercy on me for the next one?”

“Just a drawing.”

“Vivid. Very...vivid. Take it as a compliment.”

Weirdly, Izzy did. Turning someone’s stomach hadn’t been the goal, but it was pleasing to know his art had actually made someone feel something that strongly.

“Okay.”

“Not up to today’s?” Lucius glanced at his empty paper. ”Not going to do a bruise?”

“That's typical?”

“More than you’d imagine.”

He had been thinking about bruises, but now it would be predictable which was annoying.

“Can’t think of anything.”

“It doesn’t have to be something that’s literally violet and yellow,” Lucius reminded him. “Pick anything and think about it through that lens, you might surprise yourself.”

In the end, he just picked the window that was right in front of him. He didn’t surprise himself, but it was done at least. Maybe that was art too sometimes,, he thought, as he packed up. Just being done.

“Dr. Spriggs,” Read came up to his desk which halted Izzy. He was supposed to get coffee with her after, check on Jack and maybe get some insight from Anne on a summer course he was eyeing up. “Can I ask what you were working on?”

“You can always ask,” Lucius closed a sketchbook. Izzy hadn’t even noticed him opening it. Had he been working on it while they worked? Come to think of it, Lucius hadn’t actually come around today after the initial look at the assignments. Must’ve gotten distracted.

“Uh..” Read blinked. “What...were you working on?”

“Doodling,” Lucius said brightly. He was flushed. Was it hot in here? Izzy wasn’t particularly warm and he usually ran hot. “Why, what were you working on?”

“...a flower?”

“Good. Good. That’s...good. Can’t wait to see it finished.”

Read smiled as if she’d won something. What the fuck?

“Mr- Uh. I mean...shit. Izzy?” Someone said behind him.

When he turned, it was the chunky glasses boy, who had had the seizure. Izzy had vaguely noted he was back in class and left it there. He looked...fine.

“What?”

“I wanted to say thanks. Uh. For helping me.”

Izzy shrugged, picked up his travel mug. “Glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too!” A smile cracked over the boy’s face. “And that I didn’t hit my head again, so thanks...again for that.”

“Yep. Read, are we going?”

“They can come with us!” She jogged up next to him. “Sam, right?”

“Yeah, and this is Palgraves,” he waved at the other boy.

“Family name,” Palgraves said wryly. “Please don’t shorten it, it only makes it worse.”

“Why not go by last name?” Read, queen of last names asked.

“Because I hate my Dad.”

“You’re going to fit right in,” Read exclaimed. “To the student union!”

Sam was a business major, with vague plans of a startup, so he bonded with Anne and Read immediately. To Izzy’s profound relief, Palgraves was an English major, who looked over Jack’s paltry notes, made a soft tsking sound and started explaining why Donne was a ‘pervert for Jesus’ in a way that made Jack actually listen.

Izzy could’ve left, except every time he thought of a reason to go, someone asked him something or said something so profoundly wrong that he had to correct them. He wound up arguing with Sam over pirating music and he was pretty sure by the end that Sam actually agreed with him, the little asshole just liked a debate.

He only wiggled away at last when he had to go get the cat.

“Don’t any of you have another class today?” He rolled his eyes when they protested him getting up.

“Nope! It’s Friday and I’m in love,” Sam chimed, throwing his arm around Palgraves, giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek.

“In love with your own ego maybe,” Palgraves scoffed. Sam cackled and ran a hand over Palgraves ‘hair so it stuck up in all the wrong directions.

“You’re right, I’m saving myself for marriage to myself. It’ll be a beautiful wedding.”

Palgraves’ smile wilted around the edges a little.

And that was all familiar, in a way that Izzy had no interest in reliving. He was glad of the excuse to go.

“He’s doing fine,” the vet told him. “Healing well. Should be ready for anything soon enough.”

“Yeah,” Izzy shrugged. The cat would stay a few more days, then his place would be free of orange fur again.

When he stopped at the desk to pay, the assistant asked casually,

“What’s his name, for our records?”

The cat was a stray. He didn’t need a name. Unless he managed to get himself beat up again and then what? Izzy would be right back here, giving all his details again because he hadn’t named him.

But what did one name an asshole, caterwauling, bruiser, ginger cat?

Izzy didn’t watch a lot of shows, but he’d been forced to sit through most of Game of Thrones like half the rest of the world.

“Tormund,” he decided, then spelled it out for her. The cat hissed inside the carrier. “You want a say, you come up with something.”

The assistant dutifully wrote it down. Izzy and Tormund went back to the townhouse. Tormund clawed off the cone as soon as he was out of the carrier and Izzy didn’t bother closing him up in the room. The cat had figured out how to escape it anyway. Let him shed around the living room, the vacuum would get most of it once he was gone for good.

Izzy polished off his corporate finance assignment, outlined his final paper for the history class and then picked up his sketchbook. The next assignment was supposed to be going out into the town and sketching from something he’d seen. He figured he could do that tomorrow without anything else on his plate.

Turning on the news, he idly did the warm up exercises Lucius always encouraged. Lines and circles, lines and circles. He had a strange itch to draw. To keep going with the lines and the circles until they became something.

Read had come out all right. Another portrait maybe, to keep trying.

One face came to mind. He had to do some careful googling, but he found a decent reference picture. Without much further thought, he got to it. The room got dark. He turned on the light. The news gave way to late night television, to infomercials.

The smile came out all wrong, the eyes too flat.

He went to bed late, hand aching, the drawing in shreds in the wastebasket. He’d try again another day.

***

“He gave me an A!” Jack told Izzy. At volume. For the fifth time.

Izzy was on Anne and Jack’s couch. Read as sitting next to him, her hands buried in Anne’s hair, who was sitting on the floor between her legs. They were both beaming at Jack like he’d solved world hunger.

“Yep,” Izzy agreed, not looking up from his drawing of Anne’s face. She had a bit of an upturned nose that was giving him trouble.

“I’m going to pass!”

“Yes.”

“And I’m totally gonna kiss Palgraves. That’s okay, right ladies?”

“Sure,” Read’s thumbs smoothed over Anne’s temples. “Long as it stops at making out.”

“And you tell us about it later. I bet he’s a good kisser,” Anne giggled.

“Leave him alone,” Izzy said, still not looking up.

“What? Why? My man did right by me,” Jack’s whole voice frowned somehow.

“So get him a gift card. He doesn’t need randos making out with him.”

“What do you know that we don’t?” Read asked.

“Nothing,” Izzy sighed, and set down his pencil. He carefully stretched out his fingers.

“It’s Sam, huh?” Anne guessed. “I was wondering about that. You think they’re together?”

“No,” Izzy’s wrist cracked.

“Yeah me either. Kinda sad. But Jack is a pretty good kisser. He could maybe show him the light?”

“Leave him,” Izzy repeated.

“Fiiiine. Gift cards are boring though, I’m going to make him something,” Jack decided.

“Something he wants,” Read reminded him. “Not something that blows up.”

“I know, I know,” he waved them off.

“Speaking of random crushes,” Read started and Izzy picked his pencil back up again. He had zero interest in their gossip. “I caught Professor Spriggs sketching during class again.”

“He’s an artist, Read,” Izzy rolled his eyes, and tried some shading to make Anne’s nose right.

“Yeah, but he wasn’t doing it so much before,” Read grinned. “And he is now.”

Izzy went on drawing. Anne cleared her throat, “So...what do you think he’s sketching?”

“I dunno, but he keeps hiding it.”

“Who cares?” Jack cut in and Izzy could’ve actually kissed the man himself. “Do you think Palgraves would want a frisbee launcher? He plays frisbee, right?”

“He’s allergic to sports,” Anne snorted. “So I doubt it. But I want one.”

“Anything for you, darlin’.”

Read didn’t bring it up again as the conversation meandered away. Izzy definitely did not think about it. He had a portrait to work on. For...something. Maybe so he could start over with the one he’d begun over the weekend. That still didn’t look right at all.

When Lucius started off the next class by announcing: “And we’re going to talk about our final drawings today.” Izzy actually checked the syllabus. How was it almost over already?

“I want you to think about everything we’ve gone over. I don’t expect you to show all of it in one drawing, I wouldn’t even want you too. But aim for something that feels complete, that captures at least two or three things we went over. We can workshop it in class and you can work on it here, but really put some time and effort into it at home too. We’re looking for your best work here.”

Izzy did warmups until Lucius reached him.

“Can I do Jackie’s bar again? Additive this time, maybe.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Lucius blinked. “You don’t need permission for that or anything. It would work on a lot of the techniques we did. You going to add any color?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Mm,” Lucius nodded slowly. “I think...well. I was going to wait until the last day, but that can get a little hectic. I just wanted to say I know this fulfills your art requirement, but I think it’d be a shame if you stopped here.”

“What? Why?”

“I mean I’d say it to anyone, really. I think art is important for the soul,” and somehow in Lucius’ dry sarcastic way, it still sounded sincere without being cloying. “But you’ve got real talent, Izzy. And a voice. And something to say.”

“Even if it’s too gory?”

“Especially then,” Lucius laughed. “I’d just like to see you follow that. I’m teaching life drawing over the summer if you’re taking classes then.”

“I am,” Izzy conceded. He’d already enrolled for two, but they were all just in the afternoons. “When is it?”

“Three mornings a week, two hours each session. It’s intense, but students pick up a lot.”

“I’ll think about it,” Izzy said in a way that even he knew sounded like ‘yes’.

“Great!” Lucius pointed to his easel, “I look forward to seeing something on there a few more times then. But for now...”

“Yeah yeah concept sketches, I got it.”

***

Izzy sat on the stoop with the front door open. He watched as Tormund trotted out into the sunlit afternoon.

“Go on,” Izzy gestured at the street. “Try not to get killed.”

The cat sat down beside him. Very close. Close enough that Izzy could touch.

“Now? Fuck, you’re an asshole,” Izzy determined, but he did gently run two fingers over the cat’s head. Tormund pressed his cheek into Izzy’s hand until he scratched it. “Okay, okay. Now go. Get.”

The cat did not get. Tormund sat beside him, then lay down in the sun. When Izzy figured he might as well go in, the cat got up with him.

“Bye,” Izzy said quietly, feeling ridiculous as he walked back into the house.

Tormund followed him in. Izzy stared at him.

“Your alley is that way,” he pointed.

Tormund stuck his tail in the air and headed for his food dish. Izzy hadn’t cleaned it up yet. Finding it empty, Tormund sent Izzy an accusatory glare.

“You can go eat mice to your heart’s fucking content, you dumb beast.”

“Mew,” said Tormund in rebuttal.

Izzy let the door close. He got out a can of food that he’d planned to just give to the vet or something. He spooned it into the bowl.

When he sat down on the couch, Tormund jumped up beside him and took the cushion he’d claimed as his own. Carefully Izzy touched his head again. Tormund purred.

“You’re feral,” Izzy reminded him.

The cat purred louder.

***

“So your grades will go up in the portal within a week,” Lucius sat on the edge of his desk like he had that first day and in many subsequent classes. Today’s shirt was yellow and lavender like it was a personal attack. Izzy wanted to rip it off him. To burn. Obviously. “Thanks everyone for really turning in a stellar slate of final drawings. You should all be proud of your work. I hope you’ll all consider taking another arts class in the future. Dr. Lafitte will likely reopen their oil painting class which I’d highly recommend. If you’re around over the summer, consider the sculpture seminar. Try something new.”

Not life drawing, Izzy realized. Lucius wasn’t recommending they take his class. The one that Izzy had already enrolled in.

Read hadn’t mentioned any suggestion of such a thing. She had some computer graphics seminar this summer, but would otherwise be working and moving into Jack and Anne’s place. Izzy had already been coerced into lending his car to that effort which was certain he’d regret.

“Any questions?” Lucius asked for the last time. There were a few stray ones about half-finished late assignments and then it was over.

Read approached Izzy, “We thought we’d do drinks instead of coffee today since all of us are done with finals now.”

“Where?”

“Tortuga?”

“...I will buy you the first round if we at least upgrade to a place that doesn’t do dollar jello shots. Scorpio’s?”

He was not bringing the troop of them to Jackie’s. She’d kill him for opening the floodgate to students for one thing, and then she’d tease him for the rest of his life for attracting this hive of toddlers for another.

“Done and done,” she agreed happily. “Meet you there in a half hour?”

“Fine.”

Perfect. He went to the bathroom, took his time washing his hands. He was listening more than anything, waiting for it to go quiet.

He had redone his sketch of Jackie’s for his final assignment as planned. Even to his critical eye, it had looked like an improvement, especially with the additions of deep purple shadows and hints of green in the lamps.

But he had another final drawing. He had considered forgetting about it. It wasn’t important. It hadn’t even been an assignment. Every time he worked at it, he found a new problem, something not quite right. He’d erased it, restarted it. Dozens of drafts had wound up in his recycling bin. But Lucius had wanted something with effort and Izzy had arguably put more effort into it then anything else he’d ever worked on.

There was no need for it. It was just....it was just he wanted to give it to Lucius, if not for a grade, then just to feel like it settled something. An end to the hangnail feeling of the failed self-portrait. He would just leave it in the receiving acrylic box that hung next to Lucius’ office door.

Izzy went up the backstairs when he was sure the building was mostly empty. No one saw him go up. It was quiet in the hall. Lucius’ office door was open, but the box was on the side closest to Izzy. He could just drop it in and go. It’d be fine.

He steeled himself, quieter than he had thought about being in some time. He held the paper over the box along with the more tongue-in-cheek accompaniment. A last minute impulse at the grocery store that had made him laugh. It probably wasn’t funny. He doubted Lucius even remembered saying anything about it at all.

Someone inside the office giggled as he dropped the sketch into the box. Startled, he held still. He glanced through the small opening.

Pete was sitting on the edge of Lucius’ desk, a pencil over one ear, one hand gesturing and the other....the other was firmly on Lucius’ hip.

“We could just spend the night in...” Lucius was saying with a flirtatious grin.

“You read my mind,” Pete’s gesture was arrested midair. “Who needs a beer with the guys?”

“Aw, I forgot about that. You should go. Not stand them up. Maybe I’ll go out too. Have my own ‘night with the guys’.”

“Hot,” Pete’s smile was blinding as he reeled Lucius in.

The kiss was soft and sweet.

The honeycrisp apple rolled out of Izzy’s hand and into the mailbox. It might’ve made a noise. Izzy didn’t hear it. He was gone before Lucius would ever register it.

Read: you coming? First round is already on me, btw. Jack ordered you a whiskey sour. Do you drink those?

Izzy: yes.

He would have a few drinks. He would go home to his cat. He would dump his entire semester’s notes into the recycling bin, along with his sketchbook. What did he need that shit for anyway?

He’d call the registrar's office on Monday. He’d get out with his degree faster if he took a science class this summer instead. Something easy. Jack would help him pass it if it got tricky. Kid owed him.

He stepped out of the art building and into a warm spring afternoon. It was already too hot, his shirt quickly sticking to him and sweat in his eyes, making him blink too much. Not a promising omen for the summer.