[UNI AU]

[homosexuals]

CAMBOY UNI AU

tell me and i forget, teach me and i remember.

Comments

[homosexuals]

[tim doesn't realize that hawk has played that fateful morning over in his head as if on an old, rickety projector - damn near memorized everything that was exchanged between them before he'd left his student out in the cold - literally and metaphorically. most of his break was spent strategizing, wondering how he was going to mitigate this disaster and frankly expecting that not to be the end of it. not because he didn't trust tim's honesty and principles - but because it's just ingrained, second nature never to trust anyone, especially not with the kind of secrets that get you fired or worse, plastered on front page news. loose lips, as they say. but seeing tim now, the way he hesitates to meet fuller's gaze - there's something more eating at him from the inside out. it's not the rejection, which hawk still doesn't fully understand, it's -

oh. of course.

of course timothy laughlin would worry that hawk thought him to be dishonest in some way, that he was disgusted by the idea of his outside activities. it's been a clear misunderstanding, and hawk shakes his head adamantly even as tim's voice escalates and wavers slightly between these raw, heartfelt confessions. if he felt like the air was sucked out of the room before, now it's downright suffocating. these emotions - aren't what he has ever signed up for. not to say that he hasn't offered a box of tissues to a student going through a mental breakdown, or having unexpectedly lost a family member, but this? this is a whole different ballgame, an intimacy created between them that frankly neither signed up for. something he's never navigated, and hopefully never fucking will long after tim graduates.

but for now, he's not going to let the boy just walk around thinking he's dirty because of it.]

Tim.

[he looks up from his desk, pushing the drawer shut before walking back towards him and slotting in close once more. it's almost too easy the way it feels right to be here, just shy of inappropriate. but they're long since past that now, aren't they? hawk tips his head, glancing downward at where tim's eyes are glassy behind his thick lenses.

it'd be a lie to say he didn't see something of himself in there, from once upon a time. a boy who liked pretty things, sensitive friends, grew too attached to them both and lost all of it, along with his father's respect and whatever foolishly optimistic future he thought he might have back then. instead he'd locked it all away and thrown away the key, barricading himself between easy charm and skin-deep connections. his own journey clawing to the surface was a solitary one too, lonely at times - but the difference between the two of them standing here in his office is that hawk refuses to let himself feel it. it would be much easier to tell tim he doesn't know what he's talking about, to give him a generic note of sympathy that he's struggling in matters both personal and professional, give him the snacks and send him off into that same cold and unforgiving world.

but he's not his father. he's not going to do that.]

That's not what I was implying. I needed you to know that I had no idea it was you the whole time - no reason to suspect. None of this was on purpose.

Do you get that?

[even knowing what he does now - it didn't make his mind wander or fall to the worst case scenarios. he doesn't think tim is whoring himself out, doesn't think he's running with disreputable crowds or letting himself fall down some immoral drain.]

I am sorry I made you feel that way. It wasn't the intention. And even if you can't reconcile both of those people - I can. That's why I said nothing has to change. Nothing is changed in the way I think of you.

[but then again, hawk's best skill is his ability to bifurcate the things he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to feel, and keep moving. it's why he refuses to let himself linger on the why you don't want to part, as if he hasn't already spent a few nights with his hand down his pants thinking about all the what ifs - what if he had thrown caution to the wind, what if he'd taken tim to some motel and decided to keep his boy all semester? he shakes his head slightly, partly to clear his head and mainly to refute tim's declarations yet again, leaning in without realizing.]

Eyes on me.

[another order, but this is the most important part.]

You have nothing to be ashamed of. You're doing the best you can. Surviving, the only way you know how. Nothing disappointing about a boy who wants more for himself and strives to make it happen. Quite frankly, there's nothing I respect more.

[hawk reaches up, fingers hesitating for the barest moment - wanting to swipe at the hint of a glistening tear track left behind along tim's nose. instead he reaches into his breast pocket, pulling out a kerchief with a navy HF monogrammed in the corner. his voice lowers, into that rich, graveled timbre of sincerity.]

I trust you - [skippy.]

Do you still trust me?

[apologetics]

[ i had no idea it was you the whole time

of course he didn't. just like tim had no idea the man behind the screen was hawkins fuller, professor at georgetown. he knows he should accept it for the honest confession it is, and yet tim still can't help but wonder if it had been a different, pretty-faced student - would fuller have slept with him? would they have spent the day in a fierce battle of wills? a man and his boy?

tim thinks it might have been easier to deal with all of this if they had. a fuck and go, where the hotel room door shuts behind them and closes all of this up into one dingy, dark place.

but that's not what they did, and instead tim stands in the middle of hawk's office feeling a little foolish, a little angry, a little hurt. mostly at himself, really, than anything else. that he let himself crack like this under the pressure when he's done so well for the past few years. no one would know that timothy david laughlin, work-a-holic, eager beaver, model student - was struggling. ]

I get it, yeah.

[ but professor fuller closes the distance between them again, just outside the edge of propriety and tim finds he's holding his breath against the intensity of the older man. he's half expecting a raised voice, unearned sternness, or a critique. but there's another command and it is like he was all but born to do everything this man tells him as his eyes track up almost immediately, a little surprised, no doubt that it shows in the faint flush creeping up his neck, to his jaw.

tim wants to close his eyes the moment he sees the man's hand move, imagine the touch he'd felt on his cheek that day in the cold morning air. it's stupid, how much he craves even the smallest hint of affection, and stranger so that he desires it from this man of all people.

instead, he's offered a kerchief, and at first tim doesn't quite know what to do or think of it, stunned instead by the man's words. he glances at the kerchief, but then like a boy realizing his mistake and being caught, his eyes snap back up to hawk and he swallows hard. he's quiet at first - uncomfortable and unsure at first if he truly wants to answer, to reveal one more card in his hand. and yet: ]

I trust you.

[ it's quiet, and the most calm he's sounded throughout this whole conversation. like that little crack he'd discovered in his chest has healed, and the warmth pouring from it feels less like endless despair and fury and more like hope. he reaches for the kerchief, the fabric rich and soft beneath his finger tips and though he knows he should turn away and clear the tear streaks from his face, he can't.

instead, he keeps his eyes on hawk, as he'd been so gently told to do as he removes his glasses and wipes sheepishly at his eyes, the bridge of his nose. only when he's sure the tears have been swept away does he put his glasses back on, then delicately fold the kerchief, and his eyes raise once again to meet the striking blue of fuller's.

(he will think a great deal about how the skin of his cheek bone will smell like the man's cologne - or the way the bridge of his nose will be blushed red from the press of the soft fabric, and the faint scratch of the stitching in that delicate HF. embarrassing). ]

I never stopped trusting you. I'd do whatever you told me to do. [ he offers the kerchief back between them, then, and gives a faint, sheepish smile.

something has changed between them even here, but tim's shoulders feel lighter, his chest more open, his heart slowing. he feels more embarrassed for his outburst now than furiously desperate, but to have said all of it out loud to someone who he knows will keep it as private and safe as it was meant to be in the first place is strangely freeing. no one else here knows his story. and no one ever will. he sighs a little, pinching his lips to one side, his nose wrinkling up, almost admitting to the awkwardness of it all now that they've waded through it. ]

Sorry. [ he says finally, shrugging one shoulder and tearing his eyes away, anywhere but the blue of those eyes. ] I didn't mean to unload on you - that wasn't fair. I really didn't. Break was just really lonely here, and then I guess everything else caught up to me.

[ he looks down now at the snacks from before, the smorgasbord of things he'd offered for him to take to eat on the way to lonigan's class. the clock on the wall in hawk's office tells him that he won't make it - five minutes to run across the other side of the campus isn't worth it, anyway. he shouldn't take the snacks since he's not going to class, and yet he can't help the way he knows how empty his stomach will feel later. and so he reaches for at least the package of energy bites - whatever the hell those are.

he worries the edge of the wrapper between his fingers for a moment before he looks back up at hawk, earnest and sincere, his shoulders shrugging in a way that matches the delicate crinkle of his nose. ]

But, um. Thank you. For not judging me - not unfairly, anyway. And listening. I can... I should get out of your hair.

[homosexuals]

[the answer is no, he wouldn't. that's a line no face could make him cross, a risk that can't be taken back once it's been completed. the part tim doesn't understand (and hopefully never will), is that this...relationship that was developed without his face? is the longest thing he's had going since he was in high school. and he absolutely shouldn't know that tim is the living embodiment of his physical preferences - sweet-faced, dark hair, big brown eyes, and a body he'd have no qualms committing many, many sins with, regardless of his earnest catholicism. and that's the part that he won't let himself think more about either: that at this point, it's not just tim's body and the raunchy shit he gets up to outside of class for a few bucks to feed himself and stay enrolled here. hawkins fuller noticed him because of his mind, his headstrong nature in between the easy teases and obedience, the desire to do something good both behind and in front of a camera in the world.

his pulse has quickened, inexplicably, while tim's answer hangs in the balance and he's confronted up close by dark lashes against pretty pale skin. god, what he wouldn't give to touch him again, to give himself a reminder of just how soft and supple it was beneath his fingertips even when it was ravaged by the unforgiving cold. somehow it kicks up another notch as he watches tim wordlessly obey every single command, drinking in those three little words: i trust you. he nods, silently, and feels the tension in the room pop as if stabbed by a needle, slowly hissing into something more manageably comfortable. they're going to be alright.]

Good.

[he watches as tim wipes away his tears, putting as much approval as he can muster into the expression along with the softest of smiles - only if someone knows what to look for on the contours of his face, the slight differences in his mouth.

(there is a resolution that he will absolutely not run those words through his head later tonight: i'd do whatever you told me to. surely he knows the implication...?)]

You're alright.

[he looks down at the handkerchief, considering for a few moments before pressing his hand gently over tim's and pushing it back towards him. if his thumb brushes against the back of tim's fist clutched around the woven fabric, there's enough plausible deniability to pretend it's accidental. or just a force of habit.]

Keep it. Just in case things get caught up again.

[but he has a sneaking suspicion they won't - that he's managed to salvage this enough for them both, and he tries to suppress the small swooping sensation in his stomach. a few small steps back, and hawk sits back down with a creak of leather into his high-backed desk chair, fingers tapping idly against the armrests as he watches tim shake off some of the awkwardness and considering the mismatched feast in front of him. hawk follows his gaze to the clock with a mutter of ah, shit, before shaking his head.]

Starts in five, doesn't it? Listen - I'll put in a word with Lonigan. Tell him I kept you late to discuss your thesis. Which we should set a meeting for, by the way.

[it feels almost like business as usual, and he offers one last amused smile in response to to the way tim's nose scrunches.]

You don't have to thank me for doing the decent thing. And - just remember, my door is always open.

[the implication is that it's for anything - not just schoolwork. but vocalizing the idea that tim might still have those bouts of loneliness or struggling would just be rubbing it in at this point, so he's not going to press it any further. they've crossed a bridge today, and that was the best he could hope for. his gaze slips back down to the paper that's been left behind, and then the obnoxious orange from a bag of chips on his desk draws him back before he slides it across the surface towards tim's end.]

Hey - do me a favor and take some more of this with you. Seriously, it'll never get eaten otherwise.

[that, and he knows the boy probably needs it a hell of a lot more than he does.]

[apologetics]

[ the bad thing about all of this is that up close, tim is able to see all of the things he imagined the man on the other side of that camera screen would be. firm, tough, domineering when he had to be - and yet there's something in the sharpness of his eyes that belies just how clever he is, how hard he works to build and create and weave his words, laying out everything perfectly and carefully.

this close, he can also see the faintest quirk of his lips, and it only serves to make tim's smile broaden just a little more, make a little more life come back into his eyes, like a flower offered water and sunlight for the first time after days of darkness. maybe he is icarus, tired and scalded by a sun he tried to reach. the sun warned him off, but it's the little kerchief that has his wings fluttering still in flight.

tim curls his hand around the fabric, but it's the press of hawk's broad, warm hand that startles him. it makes the little hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and his eyes flit up again to watch the man as he rounds back toward his desk.

the moment is broken between them, the distance made and the armistice met. it doesn't change that the flush that had crept up his neck before now easily works its ways to his cheeks - faint and pink, drawing out the little, faded freckles sunkissed into his cheeks from a warmer than usual fall on campus. (it feels like the back of his hand is on fire itself - the wax of his wings dripping, dripping, dripping and scalding him). ]

Thank you.

[ he huffs a little, shaking his head as he carefully raises the flap of his satchel and slides the kerchief in alongside the energy bites. ]

If you don't mind? I know it's not honest, but - I don't think I could focus if I went now, anyway. [ and for once, tim will concede this to the other man - a lie to another faculty member, to protect him. he doesn't accept favors easily, and accepting this one is just an attempt to show his gratitude - to give space where he'd not allowed before. ]

I'll stop by your office hours tomorrow. For the thesis. I actually think I want to include a segment on the degradation of bipartisanship and how our inability to find neutral territory in the Senate and the House is undermining our democratic success, especially since we struggle with two-party politics when the race really is wide open.

[ the words come out with ease, and it's obvious for a moment that the gears are already turning again like they should be - the cogs greased and whirling - tim laughlin brought back to life. his brow furrows, a hand comes up so that his finger can tap idly against his bottom lip all the while he looks up in thought. ]

But I think there's more to unpack there - it's too broad. But it's all so complex it might be just as easy to get lost in the weeds, too. Oh -

[ another peace offering - the bag of chips. tim takes it with little rebuttal, and even opens it as he wanders a step backward, still thinking to himself as he pops a chip into his mouth. (it's also silly how he blinks in surprise and hums at the sharp, cheddar flavor). ]

You're missing out, you know. Maybe we give these out to Congress and all our problems will be solved. Then what would I write about?

[ he heads for the door, eating another chip, but he turns at the last moment, peering over his shoulder at hawk. ]

Thanks again. Honest.

[ a sheepish duck of his chin and he's turning, headed out and into the quad's open air. ]