Nicotine & Gravy

Wensleydale

Chapter 1: The Usual Suspects

In Which We Meet Our Characters
and
Maximilien Makes a Promise to Lia

            Fourth period hadn't even ended and the need for nicotine gnawed away at Maximilien. He tried to focus on the problems before him, but calculus seemed too bothersome to deal with at the moment. It probably wasn't worth it to get his hands on another cigarette and continue the noxious cycle of addiction...not to mention the suspension that would follow if he got caught smoking on school grounds.

Frowning, he gritted his teeth and made the most of the time left, thankful that it was Friday. He managed to turn in his test before the bell rang, nearly tripping in his hurry to get out.

Sprinting through the hallways and pushing past the freshmen, Maximilien made his way to one of the exits. He was out of breath by the time he made it to one of the few deserted areas on campus, a place where one could eat in peace—or smoke undetected.

"Hey, Max. What's the rush for?" Lia de Beaumont exhaled, smoke enveloping her blonde hair. Maximilien flashed a grin at the girl who got him hooked; smoking just happened to be a good excuse to hang out with the school's resident bad girl.

"Yeah, you must be out of shape!" Maximilien's elation dissipated as soon as he noticed the school's resident quarterback, whom he did not intend to hang out with.

"Not so much of a rush as an escape from calculus, Lia." Maximilien ignored his neighbor's presence, and leaned against the wall next to the Lia. She handed the pack to him and offered a light; for a moment the nicotine rush and excitement at being around the attractive rebel helped Maximilien forget that Durand was still there.

The excitement was as fleeting as the smoke trails, for Durand had made his way over to Maximilien and slapped him on the back. "Kinda funny that you'd be a smoker, Max!"

"Don't call me Max," he coughed, trying to recover from Durand's less-than-gentle greeting.

"But Lia just call-"

"So you two know each other?" Lia tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette and gave the two an inquisitive look. "I guess I don't have to introduce Durand then?"

Maximilien took a long drag, and walked away from Durand. "We're neighbors. Other than that, I've never had a class with him, never been to a football game, and in general, don't know him." It was true that he never saw Durand around school—taking advanced classes pretty much guaranteed they were never together.

Durand scratched his head, brows furrowed in concentration. "Er, he lives next door to me, I think. Did we ever carpo-"

"No." Maximilien was upset that his precious time with Lia had to be shared with an athlete. "How do you know...him, anyway?" he quietly asked, trying to keep his voice even.

Laughing to herself, Lia eyed the two. "Ah, Durand's been hanging out with me after school—he has time to kill before football practice, and I have to wait to pick up my dorky little brother from his honor council meetings." Durand nodded, infuriating Maximilien; he couldn't help but feel jealous. "We've been hanging out for a while now, and since Durand's already eighteen, he buys the smokes. It's easier than a fake I.D."

"I can also buy porn!" Durand beamed. "And Lia knows you from lunch, right?"

"More or less, I suppose." Maximilien was trying to sound nonchalant, and not doing a very good job of it.

Lia flicked the butt away, and clapped her hands together. "Well, you guys being neighbors is awesome—didn't you need tutoring, Durand?"

His stomach dropped—Maximilien knew what was coming and he couldn't defend himself. He wanted Lia's approval so badly, and since he couldn't buy her cigarettes like Durand... "I'll do it."

"Wow, you don't even know how many classes you need to tutor me in, Max! Awesome!" Durand kept smiling the same broad grin and slapped Maximilien on the back again, causing him to drop the cigarette. "Let's see, I'm failing Geometry, Astronomy, English, History..."

Durand continued with his list of subjects while Lia stood precariously close to Maximilien. She was intoxicating—a heady bouquet of smoke, deodorant, and danger. He froze up as she leaned in, nearly brushing her cheek against his, and whispered, "Thanks a lot, Max." Then it was over; the bell rang and Lia ran off, leaving Maximilien wishing he hadn't lost his cigarette as he realized all the work ahead of him.

"...so yeah, they won't let me so much as attend practices until I pull my grades up. Lia told me you were a super genius or something, and that you'd be more than willing to help me out." Durand looked sheepish as he milled about in the Robespierre's kitchen, avoiding Maximilien's glaring by scoping out the culinary utensils.

If anyone else had assumed that Maximilien would be 'more than willing to help out', he would have laughed in their face. However, because it was Lia—who thought he was a super genius, apparently—he decided to go against his better judgment and help out. "Okay then, Durand. I'll tutor you, but there's a few caveats—"

"Er...what?" Durand shot Maximilien a puzzled look.

Maximilien sighed. "Um, we'll do English today then...anyway, I'll tutor you, but there's a few...conditions that we will work under." A glance at the brawny footballer showed he understood that much. "One, we aren't friends, I'm doing this for Lia..." Maximilien almost stopped when he saw how crestfallen Durand looked, but continued on since it was Durand's fault that he couldn't keep hanging out with Lia one-on-one in the first place. "...two, you're to be my personal assistant and will help me carry around books and such. Three, er...well, I suppose that is all for now. The conditions may change in the future, depending on my whims." He let all that sink in, and when Durand made no signs of backing out, he opened up the English textbook and placed it in front of an empty spot. "We start with English."

A week passed with the tutoring, and Maximilien had to admit to himself that he was starting to enjoy the situation. While Durand was still a sore spot in all things concerning Lia since he showed up to lunch every day, he was all too eager to learn. Showing off his intellect to a person rather than a soulless grading scale was a nice change of pace for Maximilien, and it helped that he could check out three times as many books at the library due to Durand's muscular build.

Proofreading papers was a powertrip—red pen in one hand, head in the other, Maximilien went over Durand's essays (if they could even be called that) with a focus that he lacked in his classes.

"I'm hungry, Max, you got anything to eat here?" Durand paced around the kitchen as Maximilien checked off some spelling errors.

"Stop calling me 'Max' unless you want me to start calling you 'Dur', " Maximilien said with a hint of fatigue in his voice. Eyes still on the paper, he said, "My parents have been out recently, so if there's nothing in the pantry or fridge, we're out. You can always get something at your house, right?"

"Oh, right! I sometimes forget I'm right next door." Durand ran out the door, leaving Maximilien hunched over the essay.

Moments later, Durand pushed open the door, arms weighted down with bags of flour, sugar, and eggs.

"...I can't eat that."

Durand plopped the goods on the kitchen counter and started rummaging through the cupboards and taking out bowls and utensils. "You don't like cookies?" He looked baffled.

"Wait...you're going to make c-cookies?" Maximilien stammered. His notions of Durand as an entirely dimwitted musclehead would have to change, and he wasn't sure he could handle that. After all, he couldn't bake cookies. If Durand had some sort of edge over him...

"So you don't like cookies?" Durand bit the edge of his lip, unsure of what to do now.

Maximilien leaned back in the chair, fiddling with the bridge on his glasses out of habit to cover up his surprise. "...no, I like cookies quite a bit, it just seems a bit strange that someone like you knows how to bake." Durand responded with a raised brow, prompting Robespierre to elaborate. "You know, baking...generally something girls do, not seen as the most masculine of hobbies, and you're...you are...pretty masculine. You play football!"

"Yeah, and the team likes my cookies!" Durand found some eggs in the fridge and added them to the mix. "So...I like cooking. So what?"

Maximilien opened his mouth to say something, then thought the better of it and turned back to the paper. "Nothing, I look forward to trying them out." There was something inherently funny about Durand's culinary appreciation.

Durand continued mixing, and within minutes the room was filled with a tantalizing aroma. By the time Maximilien finished covering the essay in red marks, he had to hold his stomach thanks to the hunger pangs—the wafting scents weren't helping to assuage his hunger. "Are they ready yet?" This came out far whinier than Maximilien had intended, and he kicked himself for acting like this.

The cookies were done, and being carted over to the table by Durand. "They're still hot, so be careful," he warned, setting the tray on top of a potholder and returning to the oven to take out the second tray. Maximilien stared at what appeared to be cookies, but he was very dubious—after all, the cook couldn't put together a sentence, so why would he be able to read a recipe?

The cooking done, Durand began cleaning up his mess and tidying up the kitchen. Maximilien realized he had taken longer to finish editing this paper than he had originally intended, and got back business. Unfortunately, the food in front of him smelled beyond appetizing, and he hadn't eaten anything since lunch. His stomach reminded him that lunch had been 6 hours ago. He reached for a cookie.

"Shit!" Maximilien shook his burned fingertips and pushed himself out of the chair, almost knocking it over in his haste to get to the sink. In his rush, he roughly shoved Durand away from the faucet and let the cold water do its work.

"I warned you, you know. You can listen to me once in a while." Durand shook his head, and stared sadly at his tutor. "Let me help." He came back with a ziploc bag full of ice and waited at the table.

The burn wasn't too severe, and just throbbed uncomfortably. Maximilien returned to his seat, reached for his red pen—and was intercepted by Durand. "I'm fine," Maximilien snapped, trying to wrest his wrist out of Durand's firm grip. The burly quarterback proved to be stronger, and Robespierre finally allowed him to put the bag of ice around his fingers. "Well then, I was about finished proofreading your paper anyway, you can look over your mistakes—it'll probably take you a while." He used his free hand to drop the paper in front of Durand, and managed to yank his injured hand back, rubbing his wrist.

This incident made him slightly uncomfortable—after all, the first rule he set down for tutoring was that they were not friends—it was merely a business association. Yet here he was—Durand was over at his house, Durand was baking him cookies, Durand was taking care of his burn, holding his hand—Maximilien didn't like it. Still, Lia had looked quite pleased when she heard the tutoring was working out, and the cookies smelled delicious...

"They're probably cool enough to eat now, right?" Maximilien didn't want to take any more chances—even if Durand would take care of him, it made him feel too weird. He just wanted to keep viewing Durand as the guy he was tutoring—the guy who was only good at running around and tackling people, not the guy who knew first aid and how to cook.

Durand nodded, and took a cookie for himself, shoving the whole thing into his mouth. Maximilien took a small bite, still a little dubious of Durand's cooking—and found it delicious. He forgot himself and immediately ate five more, listening to his stomach. He went to get milk for himself, but brought back two glasses to the table—he might as well provide a drink since Durand made the cookies.

Maximilien received a quizzical look when he placed the frothy glass in front of Durand. "The cookies are delectable. Thank you." By the end of the tutoring session, the tray was empty.

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4