Lower Class

by horizon

The Meeting

Two months later—two days before the conversation with Dean White—he stumbled into Tank-Top again.

It was in class, ironically. Harvey was sitting midway down on the left, furiously taking notes about business law, raising his hand occasionally. (Never early enough to be called on. As much as he sometimes burned to request clarification, he was a professional, and he wasn't about to attract attention to his clients. If a question ate at him throughout class, he would discreetly change into another form, and then catch the professor in the hallway as they were walking back to their office.) The period passed quickly, and Harvey gathered his notes, preparing for a beeline to the library photocopiers.

"Harv!" Tank-Top said right from Harvey's side, making him jump, as Harvey climbed the last stairs to the auditorium exit. Harvey realized a bit belatedly that Tank-Top had been sitting right by the exit door. Waiting for him.

"Bro," Harvey said with carefully calibrated enthusiasm, offering this stranger-or-maybe-friend a fist-bump. Showing up in a classroom, he could do without breaking a sweat; navigating unexpected social situations with none of his client's memories took much more finesse. "What's up?"

Tank-Top stood up, fidgeting almost to the point of vibration. "Holy shit, dude. Last night."

And instantly, all of Harvey's nerves went on high alert. The room was awash in scents, so even at arm's length smell told him little, but one thing was unmistakable to his hunger: the flutter of love in Tank-Top's chest.

"Yeah," Harvey said noncommittally, stuffing down his panic. He glanced at the row of students filing out through the packed exit. "Look, man, as much as I wanna chat—"

"Last night." Tank-Top barreled on, stepping in and giving Harv a double high-five he was obliged to follow through on, followed by a chest-bump that seemed ambiguously congratulatory. "Damn, man!"

Harvey combed wildly through his memories. He'd gotten the call that morning, barely in time to scramble to class, and had made a note to charge a rush premium. The actual Harvey had sounded like hell. Was that exhaustion? Hangover? Probably not sickness, given Tank-Top's reaction. Had he partied too hard? Had the two of them been together? Or—adrenaline squeezed Harvey's chest, at Tank-Top making this public of a scene—had they been together?

Fortunately, his paralysis seemed to go unnoticed in Tank-Top's enthusiasm. "That tackle you made! Holy shit, they felt that around the state!"

Wait, right. Tuesday night. Harvey was on the team. He had awesomed at the sportsball.

Harvey's chest loosened in a flood of relief, and he mimicked enthusiasm—no. Smugness. Harvey was a gloater. "Look, I ain't big on taking credit, but when that was 100 percent me, I don't have much choice."

Harvey listened to Tank-Top's glee as they filed slowly through the door line. But as his relief at successfully parrying the situation settled, new worries stirred up. Tank-Top's nervousness was spiking, both in his body language and in his scent now piercing the haze of the crowd. Love was still fluttering in his heart, too—which Harvey, given time to focus, placed as the jumpy, vibrant love of an active crush.

The instant the crowd cleared out, he was about to get hit on.

There was an obvious answer to the problem. Stammer, brush it off, make a crudely sexist comment, and flee. It not only washed Catalyst's hooves of a problem, it was 100 percent what the real Harvey would have done. And in the process, all he had to do was snuff out a love that was young, and terrified, and true, and—worst of all—silently reciprocated.

Harvey's instincts warred, changeling-smart and changeling-hungry. His brain shut down, supplying a few "mm-hmms" to carry the conversation through the doorway. And then they were out into the hall, and he gestured to excuse himself, and a perfectly toned bare arm slammed into the wall in front of his face.

"C'mon, man," Tank-Top said. "You've gotta let me buy you a drink to celebrate."

Harvey blinked, crashing back into reality.

Tank-Top's love and fear spiked. Harvey's mouth watering, his nostrils bathing in raw panic, he locked up. And the only thing he could think of was to reach in his pocket.

"Dude," Harvey said, shooting his other arm forward. He clenched his fingers tightly around the wrist of Tank-Top's free hand. "Bro. Broski. I have never asked you for anything important. But this is… like. Inches from a matter of life and death."

Harvey locked eyes with Tank-Top, who shrank back at the sudden intensity. "Um?" he said, love dissolving into uncertainty and alarm.

Harvey pressed a folded piece of paper into Tank-Top's hand, squeezing his fingers shut around it. One of Catalyst's business cards.

"In five minutes," he said, "call this number."

Comments

[Cerulean Blue]

He had awesomed at the sportsball.

Definitely captures the feeling of not knowing what is going on.

[Scyphi]

He had awesomed at the sportsball.

This sums up my own total lack of enthusiasm for sports nicely.