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It started when Lucius collapsed in class.
They had a plan for it if it happened; it was the only reason Raven knew at all. But it was an emergency plan — he’d never really, truly expected it to happen.
He was just as surprised as his students when his phone went off. No one else called him; Lucius’ calls were rare enough, and Raven dropped him off at his own classroom door not twenty minutes before.
He was meant to be in class — it wasn’t Lucius calling.
He barely even looked to the faces of his startled students before he started moving. “I have to take this,” he said, and then he ran.
It was two minutes to cross the faculty at a run. Raven picked up the phone just before the first staircase.
“Um, hi, I’m—”
“I’m on my way.” He didn’t have time to relay instructions, let alone deal with the nervousness of whichever unfortunate soul had decided to handle this. Why oh why didn’t Lucius teach just one medicine student?
Two minutes was, apparently, enough for Lucius’ class to dissolve into chaos. Eighteen year olds loitered outside their classroom, nervous. One of them lit up as Raven approached.
“Um, sir—” It was still October. They’d grow out of that one soon enough, but Raven couldn’t stop to care about it now. He ignored them, pushing into the classroom.
It wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared. No blood on the ground, so hopefully he hadn’t hit his head. Lucius’ eyes were closed, his body arranged in a not-quite recovery position on the classroom floor. His students stood in a loose circle, one holding Lucius’ phone. Raven recognised him from one of his own classes; Lugh.
“How long has he been out?”
“Mr Raven?”
“How long?”
“Um.” Lugh took in a short, shaky breath. “An alarm went off. He pointed at his phone and did something on it and then he collapsed. I looked and called right away, I didn’t check the time.”
“11:21,” a different student supplied. She didn’t explain; Raven could be fairly sure she’d messaged a friend with ‘my teacher just collapsed lol???’
He checked his phone — 11:24. Not long then, but long enough that Lucius should be waking up soon, or… or he’d have to call an ambulance, because it was serious.
“You arranged him on the floor.” He ducked down as he spoke, squatting at Lucius’ side. Fingers to his wrist; he had a steady pulse. Ear to his mouth, and his breathing didn’t sound obstructed, just a little laboured. “Was he having a seizure?”
“Yes.” It was someone else who piped up. “He stopped just before you got here.”
Okay. That was promising — probably. This had never happened when Raven wasn’t in the room. At least, not for a long time. “Thanks. Anything else I should know? Did he hurt himself?”
A chorus of shaking heads. Okay. All Lucius had to do now was wake up. “You can all leave,” Raven said. The students looked uncertain. “In a minute, he’ll either wake up or I’ll call an ambulance. I need one or more of you to go to G104 and tell the class in there that I’m not coming back. Lugh?”
“Um, sure.”
“Great.” He nodded, and Lugh vanished. A little more glaring dealt with the rest of the class, their heads together as they whispered their way out of the room.
Knowing Lucius, he wouldn’t be pleased to see them all gone when he woke. He liked to get up again and keep going, insistent that he was plenty used to it by now and recovered quickly enough to just go back to his life.
Raven wouldn’t stand for it this time. It wasn’t good for him, and Raven hadn’t missed…
Lucius’ stirring interrupted the direction of his thoughts. Raven leaned back, suppressing any relief for now; he wouldn’t relax until Lucius was alert again. “Raymond?” he asked, squinting.
Someone — maybe Lucius, actually — had taken his glasses off earlier, and he clearly couldn’t see a thing. “It’s me,” Raven confirmed, standing to grab them from the desk and handing them over. “Good job it wasn’t Eliwood who got here.”
Lucius didn’t quite laugh, but there was an attempt; it did Raven’s heart good to see him smile, at least. “Priscilla would have been worse. I’d never hear the end of it.”
“How are you doing?”
Lucius touched his neck, winced. “I’ve been better. Did one of the students…?”
“Someone took a first aid course two years ago or something,” Raven said. “One of them called me, panicking. Do you want a chair?”
Lucius shook his head minutely. “Give me a minute. I’m still a little dizzy.”
“I sent them all home.” Better to rip the plaster off now. “My class too. You were out nearly five minutes.”
Lucius frowned, clearly well enough to engage Raven-scolding mode. That was more comforting than it should have been for someone who was about to get a strictly verbal dressing-down. “Raymond! My class, fine, but yours?”
And that was right back into concerning. Lucius was glad that his class was gone? “Of course mine,” Raven answered. “I’m going to help you home.”
“I’ll be fine soon enough, I’ll walk home on my own.”
“I don’t have any more teaching today.”
“You have office hours!”
“I’ll do them from home.”
Lucius pouted. “Help me into a chair, I want to tell you off properly.”
Raven couldn’t help but laugh at that, bracing his arm behind Lucius’ shoulders to help him over to one of the abandoned student seats. He didn’t miss the way Lucius’ legs shook. “My students won’t mind.”
“The faculty head might,” Lucius pointed out. “Performance review in less than three months.”
Raven groaned; Lucius was right, as usual. Skipping would be a really, truly bad idea, even if he wanted nothing more right now. “You’ll stay in the office?”
Lucius huffed. “It’s our office, I’m perfectly entitled to be there unless one of your students wants to say something I can’t be there for. I’ll be fine walking home, but if you’ll worry incessantly…”
“We’re going up to the office. Both of us.” Raven wouldn’t be able to focus with Lucius potentially ill at home anyway; better if they stuck together for now.
Once, many years ago, Raven had complained about Lucius being fussy enough to replace his estranged mother. Now, Lucius would have been perfectly within his rights to say the same was true in the reverse, and that wasn’t likely to change any time soon.
Really, Raven had thought the incident with the seizure during class would be a one-off thing. As a general rule, Lucius’ health was… well, he wasn’t a beacon of mental or physical wellness, and that was putting it mildly. But it was a series of conditions he’d had for most of his life, each managed with as much precision as Lucius could muster. Serious incidents in public spaces were rare.
They stayed that way; but Raven wasn’t a fool, and he and Lucius had been married for years now — and known each other for far longer. Their schedules were inextricable, and when something was wrong, he knew, even when Lucius didn’t say anything.
He wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up, seeing as there was no way Lucius didn’t know, but… Lucius was getting worse. With what, Raven couldn’t hope to guess.
Mostly, he’d been tired. Lucius’ energy pool was limited at the best of times, but noticeably cut lately. He hadn’t wanted to go anywhere or do anything. More than once, he’d cancelled a plan he normally never avoided, or asked Raven to do things he’d usually prefer to do himself.
When Raven asked if he was alright, he’d just say he was a little tired. If he was content to work it out on his own then that was fine, but it wasn’t just energy, and Raven didn’t know if Lucius thought he was hiding the rest or not.
He’d fallen over in the shower once, at least — that was just the one Raven heard, knocking on the door to check on him only for Lucius to act like there hadn’t been a loud crash. Lucius had dropped things in the kitchen, dropped his cane more than once when they were out together, and made an obvious point at making sure he hadn’t forgotten it whenever he left the house. Like he hadn’t been taking it with him most places he went for upwards of a decade now — or, more likely, as if he needed it now more than ever.
He smiled and laughed and did everything in just the way he always did. Maybe no one else could tell something was wrong, that he was strained and tired and stressed, but Raven knew him better than that.
He didn’t like to nag, but he didn’t know how much longer this could go on before it got dangerous.
In the end, it was Lucius who took the first step. One evening, with Lucius practically falling asleep on the sofa when he’d wanted to bake tonight, he finally moved to speak up. “I think something might be wrong.”
Raven strained against every part of himself not to say ‘I knew it’. Lucius loved him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still put his foot in his mouth. “I think you’re right.”
Lucius sighed. “You noticed, then.”
“Of course.” Raven didn’t try to make it sound sappy, but Lucius smiled a little nonetheless. “You haven’t been doing so well lately.”
“I don’t know what it is.” He sounded close to frustration, which meant it was probably worse than Raven had even noticed. “Something getting worse? Something new? It’s messing with my head, and I think… it might be time to get it checked out. Just as a head’s up, if I need—”
“Time, space, lifts to appointments.” Raven nodded. He knew the drill, had known it for a long time now. “Whatever you need, just say the word. I’ll drop everything.”
“Please not everything.” But Lucius sounded amused rather than distressed, and that was what mattered. Raven felt better too, knowing he was going to do something about all this. It was better to know than to wonder.
Or, better to try to know than to wonder. Actually knowing remained to be seen.
“I will not drop fragile objects on your behalf,” Raven answered, leaning in to press a kiss to Lucius’ temple. He smiled again. “I’ll drop kick nurses that insult your veins.”
Lucius laughed. “Please don’t do that either. I’ll be fine without.”
“And I’ll be fine to do whatever,” Raven promised. “So just say the word whenever you need anything.”
“Well, first I try to get an appointment — nothing can happen until then.” So, another week, because Lucius wouldn’t couch it as an emergency even if someone begged him to. “Then we wait.”
And wait they fucking had to, apparently.
“I can’t believe they took so long to get this going.” Raven tried not to clutch the steering wheel too tight as he drove Lucius to the hospital, over a month after Lucius had resolved, after much deliberation, that this might actually be something new to approach the doctors with.
Lucius hummed, still unwilling to say a bad word — typical. Even after weeks of being passed around, told that maybe it was just a brief problem from epilepsy or the migraines or the after-effects of a flu Lucius hadn’t had because he got his vaccinations, damn it.
“But you think this’ll be the last one, right?” Blood tests galore out of the way, check-ups and eye tests and being asked if he could be pregnant no fewer than eight separate times (as if Lucius had ever dated or had sex with anyone who even could get him pregnant). For all intents and purposes, they’d narrowed it down now. That was no guarantee, but there wasn’t much left to try before the doctors threw up their hands and declared it yet another Lucius-shaped mystery.
“Yes.” Lucius’ voice came short and sharp, but Raven knew he wasn’t the problem. Just stress, again. Always stress, these days, to the point that one of their coworkers had asked Lucius if something was wrong with Raven because he kept frowning so much. “For now.”
“Then you just have to get through this one, alright?” It wasn’t really a comfort, and he didn’t expect it to be. But pulling into the car park of the hospital again, Raven hoped it at least counted for something. Lucius’ expression tightened.
“It’s just… I hate MRIs.” Even the fact that he said it like that was a sure sign, greater than anything, that Lucius was getting dangerously close to the end of his otherwise unending patience. Lucius didn’t hate pretty much anything.
Raven squeezed his hand. Right now, there wasn’t much else he could do. He just slipped Lucius’ wedding ring from his finger, setting it securely in his pocket. “I’ll go get some food for when you’re out. What do you want?”
Lucius smiled, but he looked so, so tired. “Anything I can eat with a splitting headache,” he answered, and entirely failed at sounding cheerful about it.
Raven made a beeline for the lift when they arrived for the appointment. Lucius, he knew, wasn’t too proud to take it, but he’d feel conscious if he had to ask.
He knew Raven was watching him. If Raven could lessen the feeling of being perceived, pre-empt the question…
This was as hard for Lucius as it had ever been. If Raven had to do mental gymnastics to make him feel better, he’d do cartwheels all day long.
The doctor was eight minutes late, even just past eleven in the morning. Raven had cancelled his 1pm class too, just in case, and it looked like he’d made the right decision. If Lucius’ intuition was right…
“The good news leads into the bad news, if you’ll let me give that first,” the doctor said.
Lucius laughed lightly. His palm was sweaty against Raven’s. “As long as there’s news at all, it’s good news to me.”
The doctor didn’t react— oh, they were in for a conversation, then. The man must have read enough of Lucius’ medical record to get the picture. “Then you’ll be pleased indeed about the good news — as far as we can tell, and we have no suspicions otherwise, you’re cancer-free. What we have picked up, with some fairly complex meanings… are you familiar with multiple sclerosis?”
Raven was not, because medical research on Lucius’ behalf stressed him out to hell and back. Lucius, however, clearly was. He squeezed Raven’s hand.
“I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“You’ve already kept a symptoms log,” the doctor said. “I’d like you to keep doing that — if your…” He looked at Raven.
“Husband,” Raven supplied. On the marriage certificate, they were wives, and that the question was asked at all was an unpleasant reminder.
“Husband could do the same, or contribute to it when you’re not feeling up to it, that would be useful. As you no doubt understand, MS is a complicated condition with a lot of varied symptoms and phases of severity. As a general rule, you can expect it to be chronic and progressive, but you’ll most likely have periods of remission too.”
Lucius nodded and squeezed Raven’s hand again. “I know a fair amount, but if you have any other recommendations at this stage..?”
“I’m going to make a recommendation for the sake of your health, but it’s far from an order, and you know yourself better than I could,” the doctor said. Raven could see the shape of it approaching like some meteor in a nightmare. “Managing MS is time-consuming and difficult — you’ll have to dedicate energy to it as you get a better understanding of what it looks like for you. If you’re able to reduce your working hours — if you have a job, of course — that would likely be helpful, and…”
Really, Raven had known this would happen before they entered the room. In the last few weeks, Lucius had been sicker than he wanted to admit, even if he tried not to hide too much from Raven. He was struggling, frustrated, and work was contributing to a lot of that.
Work was a lot of stress, generally. But without it…
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucius said. This time, he squeezed Raven’s hand twice. Raven hadn’t actually listened to what the rest of the advice was, but he was sure Lucius had already noticed. “Thank you for your time.”
Time, huh, and a developing disability just to make Lucius’ health juggling act a little more complicated than before. What a treat for them both.
Raven tried (and, perhaps predictably, failed) not to pace outside the window. It wouldn’t help anything if he paced. Lucius would just watch him go back and forth and not say a word if it was just making him more stressed.
Raven sighed and came to a stop. The worry was burning under his skin; Lucius had assured him that everything was fine, that he knew his limits, and Raven trusted him. Raven always trusted him, because no one knew Lucius better than himself, and—
“Are you Raymond?” Raven had never met anyone who worked in the first aid room on campus. When they were both doing their masters, Lucius used to come here if he had migraines while working on his thesis, but Raven never had cause to visit. “Lucius is asking for you.”
“Is he alright?” Raven had been in a meeting with a student about her future supervisor when his phone went off — she’d looked pretty pissed off when he cut it short, but he’d explain later. She’d retract all the annoyance.
Probably. Raven hoped he wasn’t getting a reputation as unreliable.
“He’s had a pretty bad knock to the head, but he doesn’t have any signs of concussion,” she answered. “No sprains either, as far as I can tell, but I’ve told him to be on the lookout and I’ll say the same to you.”
Raven nodded. “So can I see him?”
She turned back to the door, opening it properly. “Of course. Just be careful, alright?”
Raven did not roll his eyes because yes, of course he’d be careful. Lucius just fell down half a flight of stairs, he wasn’t going to start shaking him. “Thank you,” he said instead, because Lucius could definitely hear him and he’d be rightfully annoyed if Raven was rude.
Lucius was half sitting up on one of those uncomfortable nurse office sort-of beds when Raven entered, looking at him through slightly squinted eyes. Had he broken his glasses? He smiled, though, when Raven took a seat next to the bed, and that melted some of the worry boiling in Raven’s chest. He was okay.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I hit my head on the floor.” His words weren’t slurred, and he didn’t wince when he spoke. His voice didn’t catch either — all good. It could have been so much worse. “And like I should have taken the lift.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Lucius sighed. “I was feeling fine, so I thought… it doesn’t really matter. It came over me so quickly, and I thought the dizziness would pass. I won’t let it happen again.”
“Good.” Raven hoped he didn’t sound like he was chastising him; he didn’t want to. He just… fuck, he needed Lucius to be okay. That was all he could ask.
“I think…” Lucius glanced towards the door. The nurse had stepped out, and Raven was glad for the tact. He couldn’t imagine being hovered over right now like he was the boyfriend of some horny fresher. “I was tired and not thinking clearly. I might need to— if you’re okay with it, naturally— reduce my hours.”
“Please.” Oops, that came out a little more desperate than Raven would have liked. “I mean, we’d have to budget it, but I think you should. We can afford it, and if we can’t… we’ll work something out.”
“I’ll drop down to what we can afford. Anything else would be more stress than it’s worth.”
When Lucius gripped Raven’s hand, he was still a little shaky. Raven hated what all of this was doing to him — the pressure to perform, the need to always be here rather than taking care of himself. He could teach his classes from home if they’d let him. He could work on cut hours. It would help him so much, was the most reasonable possible request because surely they couldn’t want this to keep happening.
“There has to be something like that you can do,” he agreed.
Lucius nodded, but he didn’t look half as confident as Raven wished he could. This was so unfair. “So long as they understand that I need it.”
“They have to understand,” Raven said. They had to. Not that the powers that be had ever been famed for being understanding about anything ever (he still remembered, back when he was a student. When he went to the faculty welfare head and poured out his heart about family and being disowned and money stresses, and they said they believed in him to persevere. Like resilience could pay his rent), but…
It had to happen to someone at some point, didn’t it? They had to, just one time, actually get how difficult this was for Lucius, how he needed support and understanding and time to work this out. And if anyone deserved that understanding, Lucius deserved it tenfold for all he’d given the university.
“I hope they will.” Lucius’ tone, though… Raven knew he was already expecting the worst.
Raven knew what had happened from the moment Lucius emerged from the office, expression almost perfectly neutral. If it had gone well, he’d look frazzled, relieved.
As it was, he’d clearly spent most of the meeting pulling himself back together from the worst case scenario. As much as he’d probably fooled their shared boss, he couldn’t fool Raven.
“I’m gonna—” Lucius cut him off with a shake of his head, wordlessly tugging him further along the corridor. That weird guy who only did student hours once a month was using their office right now, so they couldn’t even stop there.
Instead, of all places, Lucius pulled him into one of the study rooms that somehow wasn’t booked up. He sat down in the only chair heavily, leaving Raven to lean against the edge of the desk. “They’d like me to stand down entirely.”
Raven knew it the instant he’d seen Lucius’ face, but it still felt more like a physical blow than anything else. “That’s ridiculous.”
And terrifying. Instead of cutting their income by a quarter, they were looking at halving it. How were they going to heat the damn house over the winter without dipping into emergency savings they might never build back up?
“They’re perfectly within their rights.” Raven knew this, of course — it was why he didn’t say they couldn’t be allowed to do this. Easy come, easy go; that was the way of their contracts, with all the flexibility the university needed to get rid of and hire people whenever they wanted. “I asked for a reduction and they said ending the contract was more suitable.”
“It’s cruel.”
Lucius sighed. “It is.” But he wasn’t frowning, and his forehead didn’t crease with anger. Raven supposed Lucius knew he’d feel all the anger for him.
“I wish I could just give them all a piece of my mind.” He couldn’t, and they both knew it; he needed to have the squeakiest, cleanest attitude known to man if he wanted to not screw them out of the rest of their income.
“It’s okay.” Okay and cruel in one — Lucius really did contain multitudes. That, or the world’s worst case of being a doormat. “I couldn’t stay in the role, and this way someone else will get the opportunities I couldn’t use.”
He had to be crushed by this. Raven had seen it, these last handful of days — Lucius’ listlessness around the house. His careful stacking of library books, getting them ready to be returned because he knew the worst was almost certainly coming. He was overcommitting to events again too, desperate to cram it all in so no student was deprived of the chance to see their kindest teacher one last time.
Raven hated it. He hated that Lucius had to give it all up because the faculty would rather he break than have to bend themselves. Lucius was an incredible teacher and a dedicated researcher, published several times over, but he wasn’t worth anything to them unless they could milk his energy to the last drop.
Most of all, he wished Lucius could find it in himself to be mad about this rather than understanding, forgiving those wronging him over and over again. It wasn’t fair, but Lucius could just smile and take it because that was who he was.
“I hope they get everything they want out of it,” Raven said, and he didn’t even try not to sound bitter at the thought of someone other than Lucius sharing his workspace, trying to talk to him about the students they had in common.
Lucius rested one hand on Raven’s arm, and he wished that could do anything at all to make him feel better about this. It just made him feel worse — Lucius shouldn’t be comforting him over losing his job. Lucius should— he should just—
There was no good answer here, no way they could have reasonably won at the end of all this. They’d both chosen this, their mountains of debt and precarious futures, and now they were paying for it. Raven couldn’t even wish he’d made a different choice, way back then.
‘Dear Dr Cornwell,
We haven’t seen you at the society meeting for a few weeks! It would be great to see you again, your presence is always valued.’
‘Hi Raven,
Are you doing alright? I heard about Lucius, but he’s better at answering emails than you. Just thought I’d check up on you as you’ve been a little quiet recently.’
‘Dear Dr Cornwell,
Your attendance is requested at the annual University of Ostia dinner. This is for early career academics to give everyone an opportunity to network. We note that as you have been in a job for seven years, this is the last year you qualify to attend this event.’
‘Dear Raven,
Could I chase this email, please? I know you’re busy, but would appreciate a response soon so I can make plans accordingly.’
‘Hi Dr Raven,
Can we reschedule our meeting? I’m sorry, I know your schedule is tight, but…’
Carefully, deliberately, Raven closed his email inbox. Technically, these should have been today's emails. His brain hurt so much that he was starting to think they’d need to be tomorrow's emails instead, but that would only make the people waiting on timely responses more persistently frustrated with him over his continual silence.
Every email felt like a tomorrow email these days; and every task a next week sort of task. He knew, logically, that part of it was the exam season rush. People were stressed, the various parts of their lives were moving at ever-increasing speeds, and everyone was tired. Raven was certainly tired.
That, and he didn’t know if he could do this anymore.
It had been months since Lucius was forced out of his job, and Raven’s contract renewal period was coming up. In the following weeks, he’d have to make the usual decision about if he was going to reapply to his job. And yes, with his amount of experience, he was technically meant to be a shoe-in. He was a valued member of the faculty. No one on the admin team would really want to see him go, except…
He’d received hints, lately, that people were concerned he couldn’t live up to the role in the way he used to. He’d spent so much time, they understood, taking Lucius to appointments, helping with all the various bits of housework that they used to just split between them. There were meant to be remission periods in MS, the ones who knew Lucius better liked to say, concern and hope in their eyes in equal parts.
Well, Raven just wanted to snap back, there hadn’t been any sign of one yet, and he wasn’t going to be pushing Lucius to just ‘try a bit harder’ so he could ‘get back to doing his work like he used to’.
Raven was tired and he was tired of being tired; he was frustrated and sick of worrying that he was constantly going to lose his temper. The moment he did, it would be in front of the worst person for his career, he just knew it.
And if it wasn’t that, it would be Lucius — and that was even worse, because they’d both know he hadn’t meant to take all of this out on him.
It was just… they’d made it through the winter, yes. They hadn’t had to dig into their savings too much. But living didn’t get cheaper, inflation didn’t stop, and Raven’s wages sure as hell wouldn’t keep up with all that — even if he did manage to get his contract renewed for another year.
There was only so much he could be expected to take before the allure of job hunt websites started to get to him. He could get paid more to work less, with better hours, and all he had to do…
Well, all he had to do was sell his soul to a different kind of beast and give up what he’d been working for all this time.
Raven had wanted to be an academic from before he actually knew how many degrees you needed to be one. He hadn’t really been bookish as a child, not in the way Lucius had, but there was something— he didn’t know. It seemed cool, to learn and not have to have a ‘real’ job.
He learned better pretty quickly, but it had long since become a lifeline, that thing he was working towards for his future. He could look at the shitshow that was his relationship with his scattered family and say that if they couldn’t love him, they could at least brag about him. If they couldn’t brag about him, at least he could be independent from them.
If he couldn’t be independent from them…
Crawling back wasn’t an option; it never had been. But if that non-option was the only thing left?
Damn it, this was so fucked. He shouldn’t have to choose between something he’d worked for so consistently and being able to eat. He deserved to be secure, to not have to fear a day when Lucius wouldn’t be able to afford his meds or Raven would have to beg his sister to give him money instead of a gift for his birthday, no matter what kind of unholy concern it might bring down upon him.
He’d wanted so badly for this to work out, even after everything fell apart for Lucius. Lucius let his dreams go and he wouldn’t want Raven to do the same, and yet…
The stress wasn’t worth it. Student debt was just a sunk cost into something that would probably never pay out. Raven had seen it happen to so many people he worked with, and he’d always thought it wouldn’t be him — out of sheer determination, if nothing else.
No determination in the world could keep a roof over his head. No matter how much it hurt, he had to solve this. Maybe, for once in his life, he had to choose an easier way forward, rather than brute forcing himself down the path he wanted most.
Raven sighed, took a steadying breath, and opened up a new email.
‘To: Athos Nabata
Cc: HR Administration Team
Subject: Notice of End of Contract
Dear Athos,
I am writing to give my notice that I am not intending to apply to continue my contract when it ends later this year. I will stay until the end of the term to wrap up my remaining classes. If we could book a meeting to discuss this, I would be grateful. As you know…’
Raven made sure, that evening, that he wasn’t any earlier or later than normal. Lucius was expecting him back, and if anything changed, he’d know something was up.
Maybe they should have talked about this before. Maybe this wasn’t even the right decision. Even as he sent the email, Raven regretted it. He knew it was right, but it was so wrong.
He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. It wasn’t fair that it had to. But here they were, and he needed this; Lucius needed this. If he didn’t quit…
Well, it didn’t bear thinking about. He needed to make this change, no matter how much it hurt to walk away.
At least Lucius had been doing a little better lately. No matter how pissed off it still made Raven (he still saw red, honestly, when he saw the name of the person he knew had always had it in for Lucius. Heaven forbid teaching staff have access requirements, like it wasn’t just a student thing to be disabled), not having the job certainly hadn’t hurt him.
Raven was pretty sure he’d be depressed if he was in Lucius’ position, forced out for the sake of ‘concern’. Or maybe he’d be exactly as mad as he still was about it, or more. Or, more likely, oscillating between the two until he was just deeply unpleasant to be around.
Yeah, probably the last one. He didn’t think Lucius was capable of being unpleasant.
So no, Lucius wasn’t angry or sad or much of anything different to usual. He was still doing peer review for the same old places, attending online reading groups for texts he’d read six times before just because he liked hearing students have the most inane (and occasionally fresh; Raven wasn’t so much of a cynic to deny that) takes on the same old writers. He was managing. He was trying, to varying levels of success, not to stress.
He’d be able to stress less when this was done. He wouldn’t have to glance around their room and wonder where the books would go when they got kicked out. They wouldn’t have to think about storage, or work out which friends to beg for a cheap room. There’d be no stress about petrol costs for appointments, or whether they’d need to set up a fundraiser for mobility aids.
This was the right choice. Raven knew this was the right choice, and they’d both feel so much better when it was done.
None of this had any right being so hard.
“Lucius! I’m home!”
Lucius didn’t come to the hall, instead calling from the bedroom. He’d still been exhausted lately, to neither of their surprise — Raven thought he was probably frustrated. Lucius claimed it was fine, and he was managing it.
He probably was; didn’t mean he couldn’t be mad at the same time. He’d tell Raven that not everyone was mad at every inconvenience if he brought it up, though, so they didn’t bicker about it. There were so many better things to talk about.
Raven turned to the kitchen to put away the groceries he’d bought on the way back, mentally cataloguing when he’d need to go again. It gave him a second to collect all the words he needed to say again. By all that was holy, he was terrible at things like this. The words just didn’t order up right in his mind.
“Hey,” he said, which sounded way too forced and absolutely not casual enough; Lucius cottoned on immediately, his brow furrowing with concern. Raven tried not to despair. “Can we talk about something?”
“Are you alright?” Lucius shifted, motioning for Raven to sit next to him rather than on the end of the bed. Raven stayed where he was, and Lucius frowned deeper. “Raymond?”
“I’m fine.” He tried to offer a smile, but he’d never exactly been the best at those. “It’s nothing about us. Well, it is, but not like that, I—”
“Take your time.” Lucius’ face smoothed out into perfect patience, just as always. Damn it, Raven wished he could just get this right. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Raven should have known that by now, but he’d been mistaken plenty of times before. Rarely by Lucius, but still… no, he should get on with it. No more putting this off.
He just had to say it. He had to stop thinking about how crushed he was and how much this was taking out of him. He had to push down the frustration at giving up and the rage at how much this sucked and he just had to tell him, fuck everything that came next.
“I put in my notice to leave my position,” he said. He never cried, but now there was a lump forming in his throat in a way there hadn’t been when he wrote the email. “I’m going to find a more secure job.”
Lucius’ face fell, but he didn’t get closer and Raven was glad for it. He didn’t know how much worse he’d feel if someone, even Lucius, tried to touch him right now. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologise.” It sounded too much like snapping, and Raven shook his head immediately. “No, I mean. It’s not your fault, and you don’t have to say sorry. I made the choice myself.”
Forced by the cruel beast of the economy, but still. By himself. Not forced out literally like Lucius. The way he felt now was, mostly, his own fault.
But no, Lucius still shook his head, heartbreak all over his face. “If it weren’t for me…”
“No.” Raven reached out, sitting a little too far down the bed to provide real comfort; his hand landed just below Lucius’ knee. “It’s not your fault, Lucius, and I mean it. I could never blame you, or anything you need. This was— the academy isn’t built for people like us. Neither of us.”
He knew, logically, that he would have been pushed out eventually. He wasn’t as patient as he should have been with students, not nice enough to cosy up with the right people for networking. He was good, but he wasn’t everything. That career would have demanded more and more from him sooner or later, and he never would have been able to give it — no matter what Lucius’ health was like, there would always be time the university administration would rather he spend writing instead of eating, reading instead of sleeping.
There was no money in an institution for the imperfect trans academic, and it was better Raven cut his losses before it really ended in tears.
“I wish I could disagree with you.” This time, Lucius did shift closer, and Raven closed the distance. He leaned his head against Lucius’ shoulder, just trying to breathe for a minute. Trying to distract himself from the storm within.
“Well, we know I’m always right.”
It was a poor attempt at humour, so sarcastic it fell right through irony into lifeless parody, but Lucius very nearly choked on his laughter. It came out in a series of wheezing, squeaking sounds which were nothing to do with anything concerning and everything to do with the utter absurdity of it.
Somehow, it made Raven feel a little better. Not enough to smile as he was forced to give up on the dream he’d spent his whole adult life chasing, but close enough.
At the very least, it could be a promise of something brighter around the corner. Raven needed that right now.
“Lucius! I’m home!” Raven let the door close behind him as he toed off his shoes, discarding his bag and making his way to the living room, where Lucius would surely be.
“Welcome home.” Lucius looked up but didn’t set aside his book, which was pretty much par for the course right now; Raven knew better than to even suggest tearing himself away when he was so absorbed. “Did you have a good day?”
“I did.” It was still buzzing in his chest, the disbelief-exhilaration-excitement of it all. Saving it to tell Lucius in person had been a struggle and a half. “I have a surprise for you, actually.”
Lucius huffed. “You don’t need to bribe me, Raymond.” He didn’t sound even the slightest bit annoyed.
“I’m not bribing you, it’s more of a celebration.”
“Oh?” Lucius leaned forward a little, setting his book aside. He’d been reading from the university library again, recently — two years out of academia and he just couldn’t stay away. Raven knew the feeling, what with the stack of half-outlined articles sitting on his laptop. “Did something happen?”
“I got promoted.” He accompanied his words with a smile— the kind of thing that got him called hard to please at work sometimes, but Lucius knew what it meant just fine; he was ecstatic.
“Congratulations!” The book was set away in earnest now, Lucius shedding his lap desk to give Raven his fullest attention. “The one you interviewed for?”
Raven nodded. “And that means no more commute for me, and better pay, and a more robust sick leave system.”
“Does that mean..?”
They’d discussed it, briefly, before Raven applied, but he hadn’t seriously thought he’d get it. He hadn’t made plans around it, hadn’t counted on it, but now… Raven nodded. “It does.”
Lucius’ face split into a bright smile, launching himself up from where he was sitting to wrap his arms around Raven’s neck. He squeezed tight, leaning heavily into Raven where he’d overbalanced, but they were both long since used to that. Raven steadied him with an embrace of his own, holding Lucius tight and clinging to the feeling of the moment.
“How long do you think?” His tone was almost more excited than Raven felt, and it was for him. Classic Lucius (not that Raven would say as much— Lucius would only, entirely rightly, fire back that it was exactly why Raven loved him).
“Another year or so until I have enough to pay the surgeon.”
At that, Lucius laughed, delighted, and Raven couldn’t help but laugh with him, caught up in it all. Lucius understood, knew what this all meant, in a way none of his coworkers could. This was everything.
Sitting on Raven’s laptop in the other room, there was a spreadsheet, close to a decade old by now. In it, there were numbers and calculations and budgets rewritten over and over, the goal shifted ever upwards each time inflation pushed the surgery quote up. Buried in all of those numbers was a date— that if Raven didn’t get too unlucky with work opportunities, he might be able to afford top surgery by the time he turned thirty five.
He’d abandoned the spreadsheet along with his academic teaching job. The reminder was still a sad, bitter thing. A broken dream tossed to the heap with so many other things he never lived up to, never quite managed to reach. To be cut off from the future he’d wanted and worked so hard for…
It hurt, in its own specific way. More than anything, he was still angry, but Raven tried not to be. Tried to be more like Lucius in turn, looking forward instead of back, thinking about who might have stepped into a role they could use better than him.
Lucius would — and had, on so many occasions as they whispered that frustration between each other — say that leaving academia opened up the rest of their lives. This was a prime example, something he never would have had the money to do so soon if he’d stayed on the same path.
In every way, it had done wonders, both for himself and Lucius. In turn, it had changed everything for the two of them; for better or worse, as they said at an altar so many years ago now.
Raven leaned down to kiss Lucius and pushed the anger away, for now. Wasn’t this what mattered, in the end? A future to look forward to, and someone to come home to at the end of the day. Nothing else could replace that.