Chapter Text
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your eyes whispered, “have we met?”
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The last person he expects to see when he walks into detention is Gale-fucking-Cleven.
It’s not that he doesn’t like the guy; it’s just that he finds how perfect he is to be incredibly annoying. Him and his cheerleader girlfriend both look like they walked right out of a literal magazine. And the fact that he’s the student body president, captain of the football team, and has been Homecoming King for the last two years was just doing too much in John’s opinion. Not to mention that blinding movie-star smile, with those two rows of flawless white teeth John swears he’s seen literally twinkle and a fan club to match those Hollywood-worthy good looks.
Well… now that he thinks about it, you could probably say he doesn’t like the guy.
However, much to his dismay, there’s nobody else in the room today. And John, always vibrating with too much energy, can’t stand the thought of two hours spent in utter boredom. He wanted someone to play with, so Gale Cleven would have to do.
He plants himself in the desk right behind Gale despite there being at least thirty other options. Gale doesn’t react to this, much to John’s disappointment. He clears his throat obnoxiously. Gale still doesn’t turn around.
He drums his fingers across the wood of his desk and tries to think of something to say. Ultimately, he decides to go with the first thought he’d had upon seeing the quarterback here.
“So how did King Cleven end up in a place like this?” He asks, and the King part just slips out. But it felt right, so he goes with it.
He sees the blond pause in turning the page of the book he’d been reading at the mocking nickname, but he doesn’t turn around. “Does it matter?” He responds coolly.
John shrugs even though Gale can’t see it. “Not if you don’t want it to,” he tells the boy. He didn’t really care that much, anyways. “By the way, my name is J-“
“I know yuh’ name,” Gale says, interrupting him with a hint of that southern drawl of his that drives all the girls at the school crazy. He turns around to face him this time and, oh.
John gets it now.
He’d seen the sixteen-year-old from afar, like across the hall or from his seat in the audience of school assemblies as the blond made some long and boring speech on stage, but never really up close and personal; the two didn’t really frequent the same areas. The closest they came to interacting was when John actually showed up to the English class they had together, which was rarely.
But none of that is the point. Point is that the dude- the dude is literally breathtaking. Like, Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum level of breathtaking.
His skin is perfectly tanned and sun-kissed, eyes bluer than the sky itself, and his hair falls effortlessly in place.
The guy looks fucking photoshopped, Jesus Christ.
He schools the starstruck expression off of his face, because the last thing Gale Cleven needs is another person telling him how attractive he is. He can only imagine how big of an ego the kid must have.
“Course you do,” he replies with a smirk.
Gale rolls his eyes and turns away from him to go back to his book.
John studies the back of his head. If he’s being honest, he was surprised that Gale knew his name. He didn’t really think he registered on the guys radar with how popular he was.
The two sit in silence for a minute. The teacher still hasn’t come.
“You know,” John starts, having zero idea where he’s going with the conversation; the loud boy just could not stand how quiet it was in here. “You look… you look like a guy I knew back home in Wisconsin.”
Gale cocks his head slightly to the side in acknowledgment but his eyes don’t stray from his book. “Is that so,” he asks.
“Yeah, his name was… Buck, I think.”
John has literally never met anybody named Buck in his entire life.
“Yup, you definitely look like Buck from Wisconsin.”
“How fascinating,” Gale says flatly.
John grins at the younger boy’s sarcastic tone. Oh this is gonna be fun.
He opens his mouth to say some more nonsense, but unfortunately Mr. Huglin finally makes his entrance and the first thing he does is zero in his eyes on John. Or Colonel, as John liked to call him, because the guy was high-strung as fuck and one of the biggest assholes he’d ever met.
“Egan, I swear on my entire career, if I have to tell you to be quiet more than once today I will make sure you are here after school every day for the next month.”
“You can just say you miss me when I’m not here, it’s okay. I won’t tell anybody.”
“Egan.”
John brings a flat hand up to his forehead and gives the teacher a cheeky salute.
There’s a smile pulling at Gale Cleven’s lips that he catches out of the corner of his eye, despite the blond trying to conceal it from him.
It feels like winning a trophy.
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It’s only thirty minutes into the two hour detention ahead of them and John is already restless. His leg jiggles up and down under the table, 100% aware that it’s jostling his jail partners desk in front of him. Gale shoots him a warning look over his shoulder.
“Would you quit it?” He says so quietly that he’s basically just mouthing the words.
John gives him a thumbs up and nods in the most serious way he can.
The second Gale turns around, he starts up with it again. There’s a loud scraping sound as Gale pointedly moves his desk forward out of frustration.
He laughs at this and puts his hands behind his head in a relaxed demeanor. Staring up at the ceiling, he leans back in his chair so the front legs aren’t touching the floor anymore.
When he turns his head, he sees that the clock on the wall says it’s 3:30. Thank fuck.
He lets his chair fall back to the ground and it makes a satisfyingly loud sound that makes the tips of Gale’s ears go red.
When he leans forward, he sees that he’s gripping his book tightly with white knuckles. “Any minute now,” he tells his very, very irritated classmate.
“Any minute now until what?” Gale asks exasperatedly. As soon as he finishes, a loud snore rings out through the room.
John whistles happily. “Right on cue!”
Gale looks at Mr. Huglin who is now slumped over his desk incredulously. “Is he- is he sleepin’?”
“Happens every time like clockwork, baby,” John tells him as he gets up from his chair. He looks down at Gale expectantly. “So you ready to get out of here or what?”
Gale looks at him like he’s from another planet. “There’s still over an hour left!”
John just stares at him. “So?”
“So?” Gale all but sputters. “We’ll- we’ll get in trouble!”
“We’re already in trouble,” John points out.
“We’ll get in more trouble.”
John shrugs at this. Whether Gale came or not, there was no way he was sitting here for even another minute more than he had to. “Suit yourself, pretty boy.”
He saunters up to the Colonel’s desk in a way where it’s obvious he’s done this before and starts rummaging through the drawers. Gale is watching him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
“He’s gonna wake up,” the boy hisses at him through gritted teeth. John can tell he’s stressing the poor kid out.
“Relax,” John tells him. “He’s not gonna wake up. See?”
He picks up the heaviest textbook on the desk he can find and lets it drop to make his point. Gale jumps at the noise it makes, but good ol’ Huglin doesn’t stir.
“Jesus,” Gale mutters because, well, that wasn’t normal.
As he continues going through the passed out man’s desk, he hums in agreement at the blond’s remark. He digs out a bottle of unlabeled pills from the desk, brandishing it so that Gale can see. “I’m pretty sure it’s a combination of these, and…” John trails off as he tries to locate the man’s Stanley.
He lets out a triumphant little ah-hah when he locates it and picks it up.
“A combination of the vodka that’s always in his water bottle,” he says, making sure to use air quotes where it feels appropriate.
Gale looks absolutely horrified. The look of concern only intensifies when John shakes a little white pill out of the container and chases it down with Huglin’s ’water.’
“Let’s hope it’s something good this time,” he says, coughing at the bitter aftertaste of the most-likely cheap alcohol.
He then reaches into their teachers pocket and fishes out the man’s keys. They jingle as he tosses them up and down in his hand, raising an eyebrow at Gale. “Last chance.”
Gale looks like he might have an aneurism. “Do you even have a license?”
“No.” John definitely has a license.
He just also knows that Gale has a license.
“You really shouldn’t drive,” the man in question says warily, like witnessing John’s reckless actions in the past five minutes had just aged him thirty years.
“Probs not,” John concedes, but he starts to make his way to the window regardless. He slides it open with ease, one leg hanging out when he hears Gale Cleven swear and push himself up out from his desk.
“I’ll drive.”
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