Chapter Text
"You look glum," Gwen chirps when she falls into her seat next to Miles at their usual table. Miles grunts into the hard acrylic, his face pressed up against the tabletop, eyes closed. "Sounds tough."
"My life's tough," Miles complains.
Gwen eyes him. "What, things not working out with the, uh…" she leans in, eyes widening a little unsubtly. "Y'know. Complicated stuff?"
"What complicated stuff?" Pavitr asks, joining them, and Miles fights the urge to jolt up in his seat and give the game away. "Is it the math assignent? I haven't really looked at it yet."
"Yeah, the, uh… trig stuff," Miles lies badly, picking the first thing that comes into his head.
Pavitr stares at him, puzzled. "We have calculus now, though?"
Gwen reaches over to pat Pav's shoulder. "Just goes to show how much it's troubling him."
It's kind of dumb. Miles doesn't like the idea of people thinking he can't tell the difference between trigonometry and calculus, but pointing that out means blowing his really tenuous cover. Instead he just slouches down further, continuing to sulk. "I need a holiday," he grumbles, chest squeezing with how much he misses Mr O'Hara.
He can't dwell on it too long, though, because then a shadow stops at their table, and Miles looks up to see the tallest boy he's ever met. He's not dressed in uniform, and he's lugging a guitar half out of its case behind him, grinning down at Gwen with pierced lips.
"Hobie!" Gwen greets, cheeks going pink with joy, shooting up in her seat and throwing her arms around him. "I thought you were still suspended?"
"They ended it early," Hobie tells her as he pats her back, voice tinted with an accent Miles can't immediately place. When they let go, Hobie turns to face Miles curiously. "Who's this?"
"Miles, Hobie; Hobie, Miles," Gwen introduces them.
"Uh, hi…" Miles says, shooting Gwen an unsure look. "Suspended?"
"Yeah, he's a little bit of a trouble maker," Pav says brightly, getting up to hug Hobie as well.
"Only a little bit?" Hobie scoffs, and Miles thinks he's British. Probably. "I'm offended, bruv. I didn't get suspended in the first week of school for nothing."
Gwen looks at him, pulling a face. "You know you can't hang out with us during school if you're going to immediately get yourself suspended again, right?"
"Bollocks," Hobie says, waving a hand as he sits down, tugging a chair out to straddle it. "They won't even know I'm here."
Considering he sticks out like a sore thumb, Miles doubts it—but Hobie seems friendly enough, and Miles trusts Gwen's judgement. So he relaxes, following the conversation and trying to join in occasionally as he ignores the Mr O'Hara-shaped hole in his chest that feels an awful lot like homesickness.
Hobie's a year above them, interestingly, so they don't share any classes, but Gwen assures Miles they meet up every break to hang out.
"He's a really cool guy," she tells him when they head off to their respective classes, eyes wide and earnest. "A great friend, and super smart, too. Helped me keep my grades up after…" she trails off, and Miles nods wordlessly in understanding. "Yeah."
Miles believes her.
"Alright, class!" their chemistry teacher calls as she walks in, dropping her papers on the desk with a loud smack to startle the room into quietude. "I hope you enjoyed your break, because it's time to get back to work. Now, I have the pleasure of announcing to you that the next two weeks, we will be moving chemistry class to our school's Alchemax lab. This is in order to let you young folks get your hands dirty in a reasonably safe and professional environment, and is made possible courtesy of our on-site project leader, Mr Parker."
She glances at the door, which stays determinedly shut.
"He doesn't seem to extend his enthusiasm for this project to punctuality, but that's fine. He can explain it to you when we get there." The teacher stares at them from over her glasses, unimpressed. "That means you get to pack your bags back up and move out. Follow me."
She waits just long enough for most people to have shoved everything on their desks back into their backpacks before striding out of the classroom, barely looking behind her. There's murmuring as the kids follow, and Miles meets Ganke's eyes slightly nervously.
"You'll be borrowing lab coats from the facilities themselves; it's the intention that you leave them in the same place you got them, and not take them home," the teacher says loudly as she guides them though the building. "Next time you have class with me, I expect you all to gather in front of the lab access door to be let in at the designated time. Latecomers will not be let in, and attendance will be taken at the labs, so make sure you're there. Don't want your grades to slip."
They enter the independent research wing without much fanfare. It's huge, and shiny, and strangely futuristic looking. Hexagonal LED chandeliers hang from the ceilings, reflected in the mirror-like concrete floor. The walls are white, maybe obscured glass or acrylic—Miles can't tell—and the opaque colours occasionally part into clear windows offering a view into each lab they pass.
They slowly come to a halt at the end of one very long, squeaky-clean hall, everyone crowding carefully into the small space in front of a door. An older man stands there, a half-eaten wrapped sandwich in his hands, a smear of sauce on his chin. His labcoat's undone, showing off an ugly red and blue sweater and a rather pronounced beer belly.
"Oh great, you're here," he chirps around a full mouth, tired eyes bright as they scan over the assembled group. "I was just about to head over."
"We've got a limited schedule, Peter," Miles' chemistry teacher drawls. "But I digress. Are you going to let them in? I believe we're a bit of a fire hazard, like this."
"Yeah, of course," the man—Peter—says, gesturing at the door. "Be my guest. But first—uhh, just put your bags and such against the wall outside, we'd prefer if they didn't take up space inside, and you won't need them anyway. John's inside, let me just—" he interrupts himself, cramming the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. Miles looks away, struggling not to cringe in disgust, and follows the rest of his class into the lab.
"Good afternoon," a new voice says, belonging to another man with a straggly beard and slightly longer hair. He's got large, drooping eyes, and his lab-coat is closed properly but covered in geometric black squares and lines. "My name is Dr Ohm."
Dr Ohm stands at the front of the lab, next to a whiteboard covered in barely legible scribbles; Miles thinks he can make out a few chemical structure notations. The class murmurs good morning back haltingly, and Miles takes a second to look around, noting strange, box-like structures perched at the inner corners of desks, next to walled-off sinks. Dr Ohm smiles, and it looks a little stilted.
"I assume you've met Mr Parker," he continues, "who's outside taking his lunch. As much as he annoys me sometimes, he does follow protocol. The most important rule of this lab is: you don't drink or eat inside. You don't take food or drinks inside, either. If you must consume anything, I'd prefer you did it outside, in the hallway." Dr Ohm sweeps his gaze over the group, eyes lingering nowhere in particular. "I see Mr Parker already instructed you to leave your bags outside; that's good. Alright; we've got three people to a table. You're free to make your own groups."
Miles ends up with Ganke and another boy he doesn't quite recall the name of, crammed a little awkwardly into the corner between the whiteboard and the windows leading outside, furthest from the door. Just as they've gotten settled, Peter—or Mr Parker?—enters the lab again, labcoat now fully closed, no more sauce on his face.
"Oh good," Mr Parker says, "John's got you into groups. Great. You'll remember who you're with, right?" He doesn't really wait for an answer, instead walking up to some cardboard boxes underneath some cupboards at the sides and pulls them open. "Okay, lab coats. We've got a small, a medium, and a large. If you don't fit into those—well, uh." Mr Parker stares blankly at Dr Ohm for a second, then shrugs. "You really should, the large sizes are honestly far too big. John fits one just fine, and he's a six-foot-tall monster."
Dr Ohm clears his throat, colour rising to his cheeks in blots. "That's Dr Ohm, Parker."
"Ah, right. Professional in front of the kids." Mr Parker rolls his eyes, wiping roughly at his mouth and several day old stubble with the palm of his hand. "Ohm is such a serious-sounding name though. I think it'd be a bigger hit with the kids if they get to call you Spotty."
"Parker," Dr Ohm hisses, jaw clenching.
"Labcoats," Mr Parker says as if he heard nothing, patting the cardboard boxes and beaming at the class. "Come and get 'em."
The rest of the class—lab, whatever—is strangely hectic despite being really quiet. Miles finds he can't really focus on the assignment, which is to use the pipettes to obtain a specific volume of water by weight. Dr Ohm and Mr Parker bicker back and forth pretty much the whole time, first about the weird nickname—"Spotty"—and then over whether Mr Parker could play the radio. And then, really weirdly, about bagels.
Miles leaves that day's class a little off-kilter, although with a vaguely better understanding of how mechanical pipettes work, having gotten to practice it himself. He doesn't think he's ever had one teacher restrain themselves nearly as hard from yelling at another as Dr Ohm had with Mr Parker. Especially because Mr Parker seemed blissfully oblivious the whole way through. Maybe he was even enjoying the fighting.
"Mr Parker's weird, man," he complains to Ganke when they're back in the school section of the building, and Ganke nods, looking a little shell-shocked as well. "Hey," Miles asks him then, pulling at his blazer's lapels. "Do you ever just feel like sneaking home to your parents' some nights?"
"Not particularly," Ganke answers. "I get tons of food and snacks and pictures from my mom, so it's hard to miss that."
"Huh," Miles says, not having thought of that. Then again, it's not really his parents he's considering sneaking off to. "Maybe I should ask for something like that, too."
That night he's lying in his bed, curled into a comfortable ball with his covers all around him, staring at his phone, at the last texts he and Mr O'Hara exchanged that day. He's thumbing another one out before he consciously realises it.
Miles: i miss you
Miles kind of regrets it the second he sends it, but he can hardly undo it now, can he? So he sighs, turning the phone off and deciding to ignore it for a bit. It's strange, not hearing Mr O'Hara's heartbeat underneath his ear as he sleeps, not having the man's scent in his nose all the time. It's barely been a week, but Miles got used to being trailed after in the apartment, only having to turn his head ever so slightly for Mr O'Hara to press a kiss against Miles' lips. For getting picked up and carried into that bedroom every time he wanted.
He sighs, rubbing his knees together. A thought strikes him—he hasn't really… jacked off recently, has he? Not now that Mr O'Hara was so eager and willing to help him every time Miles so much as twitched. When hands several times more skillful than his own were always ready to take his place.
Now that he's thinking about it, he feels his stomach clench, just a little, warmth pulling into his lower abdomen. He misses Mr O'Hara—he does. He hasn't seen the man since Friday, since Mami insisted Miles come back for the weekend before he goes back to school, and it was a little embarassing navigating the arousal hitting him like clockwork just after lunch and dinner respectively when he was near his family. They've texted every day, but it just isn't the same.
Miles closes his eyes, breathing out a sigh, tucking his palm between his thighs so he can press his cunt firmly against the hardness of his wrist, wishing it were Mr O'Hara's instead. His minds jolts back to some weeks ago, when Mr O'Hara climbed into his room and held him in his arms. He thinks about the man doing it now, climbing in to hold Miles like he did, pausing in the windowframe when he realises what Miles is doing.
He groans, hips starting to roll in a firm rhythm, losing his patience before long and shoving a hand inside his underwear, fingers pressing inelegantly at his clit—jolting at the sensation—before he pushes further down, seeking the wetness just below and pushing his finger in to the hilt with barely a pause.
They haven't spoken about Mr O'Hara asking Miles to finger himself on the man's birthday, and Miles wonders about Mr O'Hara finding out what Miles has been doing almost every time he jacks off by himself, how he's been feeding his own fingers inside of himself, imagining they belong to someone else. A very particular someone else.
Miles grinds up against his own palm, hand wet with slick and sweat, his pubic curls ticking his wrist. He repositions a little, resting a second finger just at the outside of his entrance, letting it rub there every time he shifts his hips, moaning dizzily at the way his blood rushes to his head, clouding his thoughts. Would Mr O'Hara be content just to watch? Would he want to join in? Would he crawl over Miles, smile at him in that soft, proud way, and coax Miles' fingers from himself, leaving him empty for just that smallest moment before Mr O'Hara replaces them with his own?
Their hands… Mr O'Hara's are much bigger, Miles thinks deliriously. He's never tried two fingers, hasn't been brave enough to—but he just knows that even one of Mr O'Hara's fingers would stretch him out the same.
Miles rolls over, panting into his pillow, humping his hips down like he's fucking, and his grip slips just a little—enough for the second finger to push in just a little, and Miles startles, whining at the sharp pinch of pain at the stretch, fingers tensing up and curling and striking something inside him—
And he shakes apart, drooling into his pillow as his legs fold up, toes curling as he comes, hunching into his own hand. He rides it out, shivering, the ache in his entrance, tight like a rubber band around his fingers distracting but not enough to break his orgasmic haze as he drools into his pillow.
Mr O'Hara would kiss it better, he thinks irrationally, shifting so he's braced with his forehead against his pillow, so very carefully starting to withdraw his fingers from inside himself. Despite the low ache still lingering right at the entrance, Miles now feels… empty. He's tempted to push a finger back in just to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling, but he pushes the urge away, rolling onto his back instead, eyes finding the window. It's empty, closed—curtains drawn almost fully, just a peek left from Miles' angle that lets him look out the slightest bit over the street.
He needs to check he hasn't injured himself, first.
Reluctantly Miles untangles himself from his sheets and climbs down his bunk bed ladder, extremely aware of how his cunt feels with every little movement, and pads—well, hobbles awkwardly, really—over to the bathroom, slapping the lightswitch on with his clean hand and squinting against the light. When his eyes adjust he stares at his hand, covered in slick and cum and probably no shortage of other nasty stuff, trying to see if he sees any blood. Nothing, on first glance, so Miles sighs, heading over the sink to wash his hands thoroughly and dries them before discarding his dirty underwear and sitting down on the toilet, tentatively prodding between his legs. It's a little sore, like a muscle ache, but there seems to be nothing immediately wrong.
Miles sighs, sitting back and thumping his head against the tile wall, the toilet tank digging into his upper back. He's never doing that again. It hurt, and even though he came, it hurt.
Mr O'Hara would probably know how to do it properly. He'd make sure Miles doesn't go too fast, that he's taken care of all the while. He's never caused Miles pain, and Miles—
Miles thinks he never will.
A little conflicted at the thought, Miles shrugs the line of reasoning off, instead focusing on peeing and cleaning himself up carefully. The bathroom comes back into focus. Miles considers showering, but he's not sure if he wants to without being able to sit down. If he were at Mr O'Hara's…
Frustrated now, Miles instead settles for running a washcloth over the worst areas and heading back to bed. His telephone lies there still, innocently, screen black. He picks it up, turning it on.
Tío: I know. Sleep well, mijo. I'll see you soon.
Miles sighs, closing his eyes and tucking his phone to his chest, burrowing into the still-warm covers.
Time passes as normal until Wednesday, when they've got the lab assignment again. Miles gathers with his class at the entrance to the independent research wing well on time, waving at Gwen when she passes him on her way to her class. Gwen grins and waves back, Pavitr behind her.
"I wonder what we're gonna do today," Ganke comments as they walk to the lab behind their teacher. "I hope it's not related to pipettes again. They made the margin of error way too small. I think nobody actually achieved the numbers they wanted us to."
Miles hums noncommitally, dumping his bag outside of the classroom before heading into the lab and grabbing a small labcoat. "I just hope it's more interesting," he says, settling into the same corner as last time. Ganke slides into place next to him: the third boy hasn't entered the classroom yet, it seems. "There's only so many ways to press a plunger, right?"
"It seems the field of chemistry is not for you, then," Dr Ohm says behind Miles, and Miles lets out a manly yelp, practically jumping out of his seat as he turns.
"W—What?" he asks, frowning.
"Chemistry is an art of precision," Dr Ohm says, staring at Miles like he's offended the man's mother. "'Pressing a plunger' is a very important part of that."
"…Okay?" Miles asks, smiling awkwardly, glancing back at Ganke, hoping he'll… Miles isn't sure. Back him up, or something? It feels weird, being singled out like this. "Cool. I'm just gonna…" Miles points a thumb over his shoulder at the lab table. "Y'know."
Dr Ohm scoffs, but moves to the other side of the lab to go bother someone else, and Miles lets out a breath.
They're working with the air flow units today, one at a time, diluting ethanol from ninety-nine something percent to seventy inside the big glass boxes.
"Trust me," Mr Parker says when explaining why they don't just do it out in the lab, "you do not want ethanol vapor poisoning. It's not like getting drunk—okay, it is like getting drunk, but only the worst bits of it. Headaches, dizziness, vomiting, fainting… All the bad stuff. You do not want that. And if I catch any of you trying to sneak some of the ninety-nine or even seventy percent into your mouths, I will send you straight to the hospital and make sure you're in for at least a week of suspension." He looks each of them in the eye for a second, and Miles nods imperceptably when it's his turn.
Despite the laminar air flow units being in use, before long the whole room stinks of alcohol, and Miles starts to feel a headache forming. When it's his turn to dilute, things go fine—but as he heads back to his table, he has to shift to squeeze past some other classmates talking, and he stumbles a little, dizziness slamming into him. His rolled up sleeve catches on something, and Miles reaches out blindly to catch himself. His hands find some machine—and it rattles. He hears something glassy smash, and Miles winces.
The whole room turns to him, and everyone goes deadly silent. In the ensuing silence, there's another sound of glass breaking inside the machine.
Dr Ohm stares at the machine, white as a sheet, before his face turns slowly, incrementally more red with every passing second.
"You!" Dr Ohm bellows, stalking over to Miles, one finger pointing right into Miles' face. "Do you realise what you've done?"
Miles backs up, heart shooting into his throat, headache increasing tenfold with his sudden panic.
"John—" Mr Parker says, jogging over to where they're standing, before hovering just behind the man. "Hold on a second—let's talk about this—"
"No," Dr Ohm snarls, eyes not leaving Miles' for a second. Miles shrinks back, shoulders drawing up to his ears, and his breathing picks up, blood rushing in his ears. "That's—that is months of research in the making, ruined. That is a several thousand dollar piece of equipment, which you have now broken. I'll get you expelled for this," he threatens, voice low.
Miles whimpers so softly he can barely hear it himself, cold sweat beading on his neck, his face, armpits prickling. "I don't—" he starts, then feels himself start to sway again. "I don't feel so good," Miles manages weakly, just before his legs give out.
Mr Parker lunges to grab Miles before he collapses, pulling one of Miles' arms over his shoulders to hold him up. "Crap," he says. "Alright—I'm gonna get this guy to the nurse's office. Uh… clear out the room, make sure we get the vents going. We don't want a second casualty if we can help it, do we?" The joke is weak, and clearly falls flat from the hushed murmurs around the room. "Right," Mr Parker says, a little pained, as he begins to walk. "Off we go, buddy. You're light for a kid your age, but I'm not an athlete, so I do need you to use your legs as much as possible."
Miles nods, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to find his bearings, and they slowly make their way to the nurse's office.
An hour later, Mami's rushing into the rest room where Miles is recovering, still in her scrubs and keys in one hand.
"Oh, papa," she sighs, dropping to her knees next to Miles' chair. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Miles mumbles. "Water helped."
"Yeah, I heard they took care of you." Mami smiles at him, curling one hand over Miles' cheek, caressing him carefully. "Ethanol poisoning, huh? That's no fun."
"I thought it was fine," Miles says, strangely desperate to explain himself. "I had a headache but—and he said that was one of the symtoms, but I was already done with the work and was just heading back to my seat. And the air flow things were on."
"I know, baby," she says, warm golden eyes meeting Miles' earnestly. "I'm glad you're okay."
Miles grimaces, turning his face out of her grip.
"Miles?" Mami asks, concerned. "Are you… you're not hurt anywhere else, are you?"
"I dunno," Miles begins, then hesitates, shame heating his face and making his eyes prick. He powers on, slowly. "I fell against a machine and banged my arm up a little. It's fine, I don't think it'll even bruise, but… But I broke something. And the guy—Dr Ohm…" Miles purses his lips, vision blurring. "He said he was gonna get me expelled."
Immediately Mami straightens up, face steeling. "I'm glad you told me," she says, lips pursed tightly, before she deflates again, just a little, concern winning out over righteous indignation. "But we'll worry about that later. Let's get you home first, okay?"
Miles looks up at her as she stands. "Home?"
"Yes, home," Mami confirms, holding her hand out. "For once we're not understaffed for the shift—a true miracle—so I am using my PTO to take you home." Mami smiles at him, and Miles takes her hand gratefully, pulling himself up on far steadier feet than earlier. "I think we're going to make a stop at Lenny's on the way too, to get your blood sugar up."
Miles likes that idea—so he nods, squeezing her hand just a little. Mami grins at him, pulling him closer, and hums as she leads him out of the school and toward home.