33 Apocalypse Avenue, Sunday Morning

[gotacondition]

Bruce felt weird about this moving arrangement for a lot of reasons. One of the smallest factors was the fact that, as he walked the last few steps to his new house with just a medium-sized backpack on his shoulders and a coffee thermos in one hand, he realized that this probably wasn't how most forty-two-year-olds did things, and he was pretty

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[professor_lyman]

Josh gave him a friendly smile--a forty something with a backpack was what he'd been ten years ago. Now he was in his fifties and still used a backpack. Backpacks were awesome.

"Need some more coffee?" he offered.

[gotacondition]

They really were, right? Moving boxes were for other people. People who could fit everything they owned into a backpack were the best.

"Please," Bruce said, shooting Josh a grateful smile in return. "I'm, uh, a little excited to be done with hotel coffee. It's not great over there."

[professor_lyman]

"Well, I'm no gourmet chef, but I can manage coffee," Josh said. "I practically live on the stuff."

Which explained why he talked so quickly.

[gotacondition]

"I'm more of a tea guy, usually," Bruce said. "But there are exceptions." Like for moving, apparently.

[professor_lyman]

"Like after you'd discovered how delicious coffee is?" Josh offered hopefully.

[gotacondition]

Bruce laughed. "More like when I actually need the help waking up," he corrected apologetically. "I think I got enough coffee in my system in college for an entire lifetime."

[professor_lyman]

"Where'd did you go?" Josh asked. "I always thought Yale should have just pumped it through the pipes."

[gotacondition]

"Penn State undergrad, then Caltech," Bruce replied, chuckling a little as he admitted, "I think I spent some time in sophomore year carrying around a coffee mist spray bottle. So, yeah, we could have used it too."

Yale, though. That was pretty impressive.

[professor_lyman]

Which was why Josh had mentioned it! Cough.

"I didn't think of a spray bottle," Josh lamented. "I did combine No-Doze and Mountain Dew once. I wrote a twenty page paper in three hours and couldn't tell you what it was about."

[gotacondition]

"That's pretty impressive," Bruce laughed, surprised. "I did get in trouble in a lab once where we weren't allowed to have food or drinks, and I couldn't tear myself away from my spray bottle, so I had to pass it off as part of the experiment. I still don't know why the TA bought it."

[professor_lyman]

"Impressed by your moxy?" Josh offered, laughing. "That sort of quick thinking should be rewarded. I'm Josh--I've seen you around."

[gotacondition]

"Bruce," Bruce said, holding out a hand for Josh to shake. "You teach, right? I think I've seen your name on the course schedule."

This house was just full of teachers, apparently! And Emma.

[professor_lyman]

"Yeah, I taught speech during the school year," he said, shaking Bruce's hand. "This time through I'm teaching practical etiquette--things like why you don't start an online flamewar even when someone is being really really wrong on the internet."

[gotacondition]

"Oh, good, teenagers could stand to do less of that," Bruce agreed emphatically. "Good luck. They seem to be pretty set in their ways when it comes to that kind of thing."

[professor_lyman]

Josh coughed. "Yeah. Teenagers do that."

Not Josh. Nooooope.

Well not after that one time and CJ had ripped him a new one.

[gotacondition]

Bruce grinned wryly, correctly guessing what the cough was about. "Sometimes it's necessary," he offered.