Inglorious Roomates

Chapter 8

Being stuck on crutches for 2 weeks came with a couple of not so terrible perks.

Notably, Liam made it his mission that Theo's feet never touched solid ground again.

It wasn't even a serious sprain, Theo sat out one lacrosse game and was ditching the crutches soon, but of course, Liam forbid him to lift a finger. His usual tornado spiral of doing 12 things at once, now included 'tend to Theo' swirling around in the mix.

It was fine when Liam made him coffee, or let him pick what they watched on Netflix without bloodshed, or finally showed him how to play their stolen Xbox with (minimal) bloodshed, or brought extra pillows to prop his ankle on, or cleaned the room, whereas Theo normally would.

It was Not fine when Liam used his captain status (dictatorship) to make Theo attend a social sensitivity sap-fest seminar. Or when Liam relentlessly followed him around campus—"Dunbar, if you go into the bathroom with me, I will drown you in the fucking toilet."—insisting on giving him piggyback rides everywhere, having tug-of-war matches to carry Theo's books for him.

Category: Definitely Not Fine.

Maybe Liam was being overly helpful to compensate for... that thing that never happened. 'That thing' being Liam spontaneously hulking out, while Theo had to hold him and sing to him in the shower, so he didn't crush his fists like a handful of grapes.

The Nurse Dunbar act was his way of making up for it, and Theo didn't know how to tell him there was nothing to make up for, so he just accepted it.

Like watching Breaking Bad, winning arguments about who would cook better meth—obviously Theo because Liam wouldn't know the periodic table if it grew legs and kicked him in the balls. Decent coffee. Nice (stolen) pillows.

Category: Not so terrible.

-

While Liam forced the team on a death march through the woods, Theo was enjoying a semi-shitty breakfast at the semi-shitty diner, Relics. Bless you, crippled ankle.

All was well, until one half of the Scissor Sisters, and one half of Rub-and-Tug appeared at Theo's table.

Hayden and Mason slid into the chairs across from him, flashing suspiciously friendly smiles, clearly up to something.

"Whatever you want, the answer's hell no." Theo promptly refused, mouthful of bacon. Then he tried to grab his crutches and make a run for it, but Hayden snatched them out of reach, leaving him stranded. Damn you, crippled ankle.

"Morning, Theo, fancy meeting you here." Hayden's overly cordial tone matched her smile. "How was the social sensitivity class?"

Theo pushed his eggs around with his fork. "Learned some new things that I didn't know were offensive."

"That's good.... I think?" Hayden threw a glance at Mason to double check.

"Might try 'um out." Theo quipped, taking a dig at them for cornering him.

They exchanged a look, faces straining with the effort to keep smiling.

"Okay, that's less good," Hayden digressed, "But at least you're learning something, right Mase?"

Mason visibly struggled to maintain his forced smile, "Uh, totally. You coming to the E.S.A. meeting tonight?"

"No clue what that is."

"The Emotional Support club for—"

"Nope."

Hayden dropped the act and ditched the smile. "Alright, let's cut the shit. We need your truck so we can go to the beach this weekend. We can't rent one from the places around here, and without it, we can't do the stuff we want."