Chapter Text
Freshly (well, almost) Year 10 student "Captain" exhaled, trying to ignore the anxiety still tensing his muscles and quickening his heart that his sigh didn't quite ease. He planted his arms firmly to his sides, anything to stop fidgeting with the last pencil yet to be packed away, and shook away the senseless muttering. He would have to get rid of this, this silly behaviour. There was nothing to be nervous about, nothing to be afraid of, and he assured himself he wasn't. He wasn't. It was all just first-day jitters, some stupid nerves he would have to solve quickly because he was a Year 10 student dammit! He couldn't be...
He took a breath, trying to forget the feeling of Havers' hands on his shoulders, the support (because that's all it was, friendly, kind, normal support, just like he'd done a dozen times before) slowing his breath and smoothing out the worries. If only he knew...
But he wouldn't. Because there was nothing to know.
The world was still hanging onto the dregs of Summer, and even this late only a streaked, marbled blue painted the sky. His light was off, his curtains were closed, his bed was made, his bag was packed, everything was orderly. His mind was clear (as it was going to get) and his hands were stiff but still, knotted in his duvet.
Everything was fine.
~
The Headmaster, Barclay Beg-Chetwynde, surveyed his Year 10 students in the courtyard (if the barren expanse of gravel and dead shrubs could be called that), waiting for the assembly hall to be freed up. It wasn't quite a prestigious school, maybe it was once from the way Barclay boasted about it, but it was big, however dilapidated it happened to be. And it certainly still held that reputation despite the reality, since a number of the children were whisked away by very wealthy parents for 7 hours for the best education possible. Think...Julian Fawcett! That twat - politician's son, lakehouse, timeshare, ensuite, trust fund. And an utter dickhead.
The Headmaster tutted in that expectant, impatient kind of way rich men always do when life hasn't continued to be served to them on a sliver platter. It was 8 in the morning, what did he want.
"Year 10!" he turned uncertainly to his Deputy, Heather Button, who nodded assuredly. Thomas sometimes thought he would forget he ran a school, and only showed up for the name it gave him within the town (though the name he received wasn't a very positive one). To be fair, the man hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing (and had been doing for 30 years) and it was fucking obvious.
Plus, like most people in the school, he was an utter dickhead. Not quite how (amateur) poet Thomas Thorne would usually put it, but close enough.
Assembly was first period, which gave him ample time to seat himself amongst the shadows and peeling paint of the back row and work on his poetry while the hour drifted by. He reached for his notebook, the new, intricately decorated one Isabelle Higham had gotten for him his last birthday, and scratched away new lines in pen. Of course when his work was finally appreciated, the world would want to know his process, his genius even early on. He drew a neat black line through the start of one stanza, mulling it over. There was a considerable gap between him and the rest of his form, but beside him give or take 3 seats was Kitty.
She edged closer when she spotted him.
Kitty had known him since childhood, through all his ups and downs and phases. She was kind and honest and maybe a tad too enthusiastic about everything but he didn't mind all too much. They were the only constants in each others lives.
"What's that? Another poem? Can I see- oh, please Thomas! I'm sure it's good," she whispered, eyes lit up and smile unnecessarily wide for 8AM, "Is it about Alison? Pinky promise I won't tell."
Scandalised, Thomas slammed the book shut and gaped at her.
"You wrote all your other poems about her! Or grass."
"Grass?" Thomas asked, smile peeking through his faux offense.
"The door one! From Miss Button's class, remember?" He cringed at the memory. At the time he thought it was one of his best works, but people just kept asking and asking, when clearly, (yes, Captain, thank you so much for your explanation) it wasn't meant to be realistic! Poetry was meant to be his thing. He couldn't help if everyone else was behind him in that.
"I remember..."
"Anyway, if you're over her that's fine," she said, not-so-subtly hinting that he was very much not over her, and if he were to try and deny that, she would be there with a giggled 'I told you so' as soon as he could admit it, "That just means we get to spend more time together."
"Of course, Kitty," he smiled.
"Two in the back! Thorne and Oakley. Can you tell me what our dear Miss Button was introducing us to?" the Head smiled sickly sweet and smug. He stayed silent. Kitty looked to him, clueless.
The Captain raised his hand eagerly.
Thomas looked to the whiteboard, which had quickly been taken to the next slide. He saw the glint in Barclay's eyes even from 12 rows of seats above. Evil.
"Richmond?" He had a habit of calling his students the wrong names, either mixing them up or making new ones entirely. But for some, the last name was enough. Especially for such a high-ranking student.
"British Values."
"Thank you!" he smiled at the cadet, still eyeing Thomas in a glare that screamed 'I'm going to make this as humiliating as possible.' And Barclay was never one to fail to fulfil your expectations, making his voice saccharine and his face extra punchable, "Thorne, detention. This school deserves your respect."
Begrudgingly, Thomas slumped back in his seat in silence, and Kitty followed suit, still trying to sneak a look at his writing. Between the two of them, Kitty was always favoured by the staff. Her father was quite the influence in the community, though Kitty herself never cared for this treatment much, not nearly as much as her sister relished it. Head tilted just enough to see through the upper windows, Thomas took inspiration from the sky, twisting and testing words and phrases until it clicked. Until it felt smooth, felt like his.
Timetable collected, Thomas glanced to Kitty, who was chatting animatedly and clinging to his arm.
"-and I didn't see her this morning, but isn't she wonderful? We were talking all through Summer, and she gave me all sorts of- Thomas?" He blinked down at her, ears suddenly coming to attention.
"Ah, sorry! What were you saying?" Kitty's eyes trailed from his to the science block enterence. Whatever distracted her lead her to snatch Thomas' hand and drag him towards it. A mass of overlapping voices sounded, only making her more interested. As sweet as she was, Kitty did have a morbid curiosity, and most recently a curiosity concerning the morbid, which resulted in her very suddenly deciding to be a mortician. She wanted to 'see the colourful bits'.
Kitty craned her head high to see past the taller students, and the ramp leading up to it was almost visible. Before Thomas could worm through, he felt someone barge into him, almost flinging him off balance. A blonde head flew past him. The noise lessened by half as he stormed off. A brown head of hair peeked out, before stiffly getting up and running through the door. He swung his head back to see the blonde, a yell on his tongue.
"And you can tell that wanker to fuck off too!"
Maddocks, the caretaker currently involved in whatever fight they'd caught sight of, sighed, ever calm if not ever annoyed, and followed him. With that, the crowd dispersed up the staircase and down the hallway, leaving Thomas to weave his way through to Kitty again.
"Wonder what that was about," Kitty muttered as they reached the top floor. Julian was a boy of words, however disgusting those words were. It was hard to believe he would attack someone, though with the friends he kept they couldn't be sure. Lined against the wall, Kitty on one side (who had since become much more interested in Alison Button in front of her) and Captain's back on the other, he leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the other students. Pat was the last to arrive, waving to the teacher waiting at the door with a cheesy smile. Robin was ranting rather incoherently to Humphrey, who nodded and offered helpful comments in the few gaps. Thomas was sure nobody but Humphrey could understand him when he spoke so fast and low. Fanny, related to both Alison and the deputy headmistress, was the closest to him, chatting with her head held high to Captain, who spoke in a hushed, low tone. Thomas didn't care to listen in. Mary was leaning on close to Mike while she discussed a basket-weaving technique her grandma taught her.
"What if you do four potatoes? Should be fine then, right?" Mary looked aghast at the suggestion, but smiled as she began to explain.
"Right then. Mr...Fawcett will be arriving shortly, for now the rest of you get into the seating plan," The class collectively groaned. It mustn't have been that bad, if he wasn't even getting isolation for it. Thomas stood in the corner, scanning the board for his name. Next to...oh, Julian.
Of all people? Seriously?
He sat down, grateful he was in the middle row so having someone like Robin, plus Julian, chattering away in his ear for 60 minutes, wouldn't have to be a problem. It was much too much of a distraction to his work - and not the Chemistry. Kitty turned around from the row ahead, making a sympathetic gesture. She was a very forgiving (often naive) girl, but everyone knew what Julian was like. Certainly a... character.
Ten minutes in, the aforementioned asshole strolled in, smug as ever. He headed to his seat and turned around to one of his friends, a boy who grinned and joked and hit the same as him. With Julian occupied, atleast he wouldn't be bothering him. Hopefully.
The teacher began to drone, and Thomas began to write, head leaning on his hand with the other scrawling away at his notebook. Julian poked at the tea-stained pages. He glanced up, resisting the urge to hit him with it, instead inching it back to the corner of the desk.
"What's that?" he asked, looking over Thomas' shoulder.
"None of your business."
"Oh come on," Realising there was no way Thomas would willingly engage with him, he turned his attention back to the lesson. For ten seconds, "What's more interesting than this...beautifully constructed lesson, eh?"
Julian was very obviously not gesturing to the lesson, but the teacher herself. Or one specific part of her.
"Disgusting," Thomas muttered.
"What, are you a queer or something? They're just tits."
Thomas' head whipped around, taken aback.
"Julian, y'can't just say that to people," Pat, who was sitting beside Julian with a page of work done, though he seemed to be struggling understanding it, nursing his head. Thomas tuned out of the argument, slipping his notebook away and beginning to copy the information on the board.
5th September - Introduction to Chemistry
Covalent bonds happen between-
He dropped the pen and turned his focus to the window, sun bright and unburdened by the dreary Autumn weather set to soon roll in. Thomas had always preferred the Summer, or perhaps Spring, when he could see the sun shine gold and bright and feel warmth on his skin. Autumn was just sad. Though he supposed it did make excellent inspiration for his more melancholic pieces.
He heard shuffling from behind him, and Fanny left the room, face still displeased - Thomas couldn't see why, she was getting out of the gruelling effort that was middle set Science, and the even worse experience that was sitting next to Robin.
"How come she gets to-" he heard from across the class.
"She's playing her flute!" Kitty whisper-shouted, sounding delighted to know something about Fanny Button others did not (she did tell Thomas as soon as she found out, but it's the thought that counts).
"She can play my flute anyday," Julian snickered.
Thomas sank further into his hands.
~
He watched from his place at the back row as more students filed in, and piece by piece, the empty English classroom filled with detention-goers. He recognised Julian, who was immediately directed to sit at the front opposite Miss Button, and from this angle he could see his right fist was bruised. After him was Sophie, a French exchange student who had taken an interest in the vast, vastly outdated library, and had recently (last year) formed her own school-run book club. Which may have been focusing on books containing some...radical ideas, and so she was still catching up on the sanctions. Despite having nothing to do with it, Humphrey took half the fall for it, and was sitting beside her as the one person she tolerated in the school. That was...surprising. Humphrey was notoriously calm, notoriously peaceful. The idea of the Bone kid involved in an anti-monarchy "book club" made little sense, but he didn't know the boy well enough to defend him. He seemed content enough with just a scrap of paper and silence, so with silence Thomas left him. On the other side of Humphrey, Robin sat, a torn sheet covered in scribbles and hatches and marks on the desk. He didn't know what he could possibly be in detention for, he was unpredictable. Other than that, the room was empty.
Good.
Empty meant silence, and silence was good for his work. That was good.
He needed to focus, the quiet helped that-
Sixty minutes takes forever.
In about five, he was bored out of his mind, twiddling his fountain pen between his ink-stained fingers. Stained with biro, of course, because it would be blasphemous to waste such precious ink, again, given by Isabelle Higham, on shitty school paper. In ten, he was tearing scraps off his school notebook and littering it with doodles same as Robin, and, unlike in Robin's drawings, the content of these drawings were much less obscene. And in thirteen, he had begun to listen to the simmering conversation around him, largely coming from the front, where a boy he had failed to notice (because he was just an exact copy of Julian but italicised, perhaps with different hair) was trying to draw Julian's attention.
"Fawcett," he whispered, kicking his chair, "Was that you earlier? With the Captain?"
Julian didn't reply, not with the teacher still staring daggers at him to keep him in check, but he sent a trademark toothy smirk behind him which was enough for the boy to continue.
"The things I'd give to see his face up close as you hit him," he muttered.
Thomas was honestly not the biggest fan of the Captain, or a fan at all for that matter, but he wondered what he possibly could've done to deserve that. It was Julian, though, and Julian's friends. Did anyone really expect anything else?
What he didn't expect was for Pat Butcher to rush through the doors, face red from running.
"Sorry I'm late, Miss. I had to get here all the way from Food Tech," he explained, waiting for the curt nod in return from the teacher before sitting in the seat furthest from the boys at the front.
Which happened to be right beside Thomas.
"What happened to you?" he immediately asked, incredulous.
Pat paled in embarrassment. He wasn't exactly a top-mark student, but he wasn't a bad one, not for this school anyway. And he never got in trouble, never missed a homework, and only ever once lost his PE kit! Well, he did get in trouble once at the gift shop at the Amberley Chalk Pits, but hardly enough trouble to warrant an after-school detention. The scout kept his head hung very low and crossed his arms over his chest while he picked at his fraying blazer. Thomas, as with most people, didn't care for Pat though he seemed nice enough, just not as invested in the arts as him, and it was always hard to find common ground with someone who didn't understand the complexity of the world of poetry. Still, he leaned over slightly to whisper again, obscured by his notebook.
"Pat?"
He shrunk in on himself further.
"I don't want to talk about it," he responded, and in a burst of confidence, at least for Pat, added, "so mind your own."
Thomas turned back to his work, eyebrows raised and lips pursed. On one corner of one page, he outlined the sun, and with his proper notebook, he studied it closely, describing the star in extensive depth.
The Sun
You rise when night is done
Like a big, yellow bun.
The sudden 4PM bell struck him out of his focus, and he joined the others in rushing to pack up. Kitty would be home by now, as would Isabelle, so he would have to walk alone. His parents had long since stopped offering lifts home, given they had recently moved closer. Thomas knew they could only afford the move to the decent, identical suburbia of their small Surrey town because of Isabelle's father, who wanted wanted to show his care for the family. Well, for Francis. Isabelle's father couldn't care less for Thomas.
Following the same run-down route he had walked since primary, he was able to find the smaller, crumbling houses he used to shift between as a child, and cutting through to the scenic paths of the shittier parts of the nice part of town, he trudged (though he would like to believe he had more class than to trudge) down the cracked stone steps of his driveway and into the house. Phone in hand, finally comfortably crammed into the corner of his bed, he unlocked it to find several dozen messages lighting up his screen. He clicked on the first one, Kitty's.
Kitty: did you hear about the captain?
Thomas: No? I was in detention.
Thomas: Kitty?
Kitty: he got excluded!!