Close to Home - chapter 9
Close to Home
9
Tuesday
The class was a little rowdier than usual, with some students arguing among themselves and others trying to catch the attention of the teacher and the class. Kon sat back in his seat and set his pencil down, more than happy to grab a break from writing notes. They'd been talking about Ebola, and the whole time he'd been copying lists of symptoms and precautions, all he could think was that Tim had had this. There had even been notes on the outbreak in Gotham, a few years back, and how the epidemic had finally been contained, and the breakthrough cure from Wayne Pharmaceuticals. He could probably get the whole story out of Tim, some time, but he while he usually wasn't shy about asking the others for help with his homework - Bart, after all, knew everything, and Cassie was the only reason he'd passed World History - he was kind of leery of showing up to ask Tim all about that time he'd nearly had his guts liquefied.
Kon rested his head on his hand and looked down at his notes. He wasn't entirely sure what the big deal was. On his paper, he'd written, 'HIV, Ebola jumped to humans thru bushmeat. Note to self - don't eat monkeys!' He maybe wasn't the world's best student, but it seemed plenty cut-and-dried... but Baumhauer and some of the others had objected when Dalton had started talking about why it was so dangerous to eat something you were related to.
Mr. Dalton stood at the front of the room with his hands on his hips, staring up at the ceiling in frustration. He was quiet for almost a full minute, just glaring at nothing with his lips faintly twitching, and then he looked around the classroom and clapped his hands a few times. When that didn't work, he raised his voice over the noise. "Okay! Okay, everybody, quiet down! Let me try this again." The noise died down, and Dalton heaved a huge sigh before starting again in his usual lecture tone. "A German shepherd looks more like a wolf than a chihuahua does, right? It more closely resembles their most recent common ancestor. But because all dogs share that common ancestor, the chihuahua and the shepherd are equally related to the wolf, just like you and your sister are equally related to your mother even if one of you looks nothing like her."
There was more general grumbling. Kon didn't bother picking out the actual words. One of the girl's raised her hand and waited to be called on, and then she said, "But a German Shepherd is still more like a wolf than it is a chihuahua! It's bigger, and it can hunt and stuff, and it's built kind of the same?"
"Superficially," Dalton agreed. "But there are major underlying differences. Wolves don't bark - that trait appeared in dogs, not before. And dogs tolerate a far more varied diet, and they're heavily neotonized - that means they're more like wolf puppies than they are adult wolves. That's why they lick your face and hands - it's a submissive, puppy behavior. They want you to regurgitate some caribou for them."
The girl made a face, and a few people laughed. Kon couldn't help thinking about Krypto, and what kind of crazy wolf-beast ancestors he had to have. It was really kind of weird that he was so much like an Earth dog, most of the time. Anyway, Krypto could catch his own caribou if he wanted - and every now and then he did. Kon had turned up a mostly-chewed moose antler in the garden a while back, and Martha was always finding weird feathers and things under the porch steps.
"That's exactly how the hominid family tree works," Dalton continued, when the laughter died down. "All the African apes are more closely related to each others than they are to Asian apes like orangutans and gibbons. And the genus Pan is more closely related to the genus Homo than it is to Gorilla."
The noises from the class this time were an odd mixture of hostility, delight, and disbelief. Kon caught himself making a skeptical face, and quickly made an effort to look more supportive. He really kind of owed Dalton a favor.
"Of course, chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to each other than they are to us. But both species exhibit physical, genetic and cultural traits that make them far more like humans than like gorillas."
"We're not monkeys," Baumhauer said, rather loudly. Mostly he'd been sticking to muttering under his breath so far, and Kon had long since learned to tune him out.
"Quite correct!" Dalton said cheerfully. "Cercopithecidae and Platyrrhini diverged from Hominoidea long before Hominidae differentiated."
Oh, now he was just baiting him. Dalton hadn't been kidding when he said he was angling to get himself fired. It was kind of worth it to watch Baumhauer's face turn purple under the pimples, though.
"I meant that we're not animals."
"Are you eukaryotic?"
Baumhauer came up short. "What?"
"Do your cells have nuclei? Mine do. I've seen them first hand. If we put yours under a microscope, I assume we'd see yours as well."
Baumhauer just sat there, glaring at Dalton.
"I can tell by looking at you that you're multicellular. Do you eat? Yes? I believe I've seen you do it in my class, despite laboratory rules. And I'm reasonably certain that if I were to look at you with a microscope, I would find neither cell walls nor hyphae. You're certainly motile," he said, as Baumhauer slowly stood up from his chair. "I won't get into personal questions about your embryonic development, but I think it's fairly safe to draw a conclusion from the available data. I hate to break it to you, Thomas, but you are, in fact, an animal. As am I. As is everyone in this room. Please sit down."
"We're not animals! We have reason, and charity-"
"As do most social mammals. Even rats display altruism to their ingroup."
"We're closer to God!" Baumhauer shouted, suddenly. "He made us in his image and he made us lord over the lesser creations!"
Dalton just looked at him in silence for a long moment. Kon could hear Baumhauer panting, and his face was violently red, now. Finally, Dalton swallowed, and said, very seriously, all levity gone from his voice now, "We will not be having theological arguments in this classroom. Please sit down, Thomas. Does anyone else have any questions?"
Baumhauer made a strangled sound and grabbed his books off his desk. When Dalton didn't stop him, he stormed out of the classroom, his head bowed.
No one else said anything. Kon turned deliberately back to his notebook.
"Well, then," Dalton said, apparently unconcerned, "we've gotten far enough off topic for one day. Shall we get back to emergent diseases?"
*
He and Jake sketched each other during art. Kon's drawing was predictably awful, and Jake ended up spending most of the period making him draw ovals and crosses all over his paper. Jake wouldn't let Kon look at his own drawing though, which Kon didn't think was exactly fair, especially since it probably looked great.
The day continued pretty much as usual, except that when Kon walked into the cafeteria at lunchtime, several people called his name.
"Hey!" Clarence shouted, waving from a table where he sat with Mel and Delilah. "Cowboy!"
Kon shook his head in bemusement as he grabbed a tray and got in line. It was pizza day, so he charmed and begged until he got an extra slice, and then he went to sit with the others. "Hey," he said as he approached the table. Getting invited to someone's table was kind of a new thing for him, and he wasn't sure what the etiquette was. He usually just ate his food quickly and left, since there weren't a lot of people dying to talk to him. He'd wander around outside and text his friends, if they weren't too busy, and sometimes if he tried to type a long text, Bart would get impatient and show up in person.
Clarence kicked out a chair and pushed Mel's plate over to give him room to sit down. "What's up, Cowboy?"
"Why do you call me that?" he asked, as he carefully folded his pizza over on itself and raised it for a bite.
"You live on a farm, right? With cows and stuff?"
Kon chewed and swallowed before answering. "How the hell do you even know that?"
Delilah laughed quietly. Her whole aspect was subdued. "Small town, right? Everybody knows everything about everybody."
"Er," Kon said, between bites. "I'm no good at the small town thing, I guess. I don't know anybody." He watched, bemused, as Clarence leaned over and stole the tomatoes from Delilah's salad.
"Well," Mel said, gesturing with a fork, "you just moved back to town, right? And - I don't mean to be rude, but I hardly ever see you talking to anyone."
Kon opened his mouth to say that no one liked him, before he realized he was sitting at a table with several people who seem to like him just fine. "I guess I'm shy," he said instead.
"Weren't shy with Cross," Delilah said with some admiration.
"That's different! I mean -" he broke off to take a gulp of milk. He'd snatched three cartoons of chocolate when the lunch lady wasn't looking, because superhuman speed had to be good for something. "He was being a jerk. It's not like making an ass out of myself in front of people I actually like."
"He's the principal," Mel said, warily. "He could make your life kind of miserable."
Kon choked on a laugh. Fortunately everyone at the table seemed to think he was choking on pizza. It would be a cold day in hell when Superboy was intimidated by a high school principal.
Unless he had, like, Kryptonite lasers or something.
*
Kon was pleasantly surprised that there weren't any more incidents at school. Word seemed to have gotten around about the jerks who'd tried to jump Chase, and how they'd gotten their heads knocked together. Kon was absolutely confident neither of the two was a meta, considering how they'd nearly pissed themselves when he'd grabbed them, and how weak their struggles had been. He'd held them there above the ground long enough to watch them panic, to listen to their hearts beat, until he was sure they were genuinely afraid, and not play-acting to cover their own strength and durability. Then he'd set them carefully down and sent Chase for Dalton, who'd come running along with the chemistry teacher whose classroom was next door. They'd led the two boys up to the front office and Cross had interrogated Chase and his assailants about what had happened. Kon hadn't been invited along, but he'd stood in the hallway listening. No one mentioned him dangling the boys above the floor. That was good. It had been a bit of a risk.
He still hung around in the library though. The football team wasn't practicing, but the drama group was, and a few of the kids from the club were there. They were probably safe, since there were three of them, but Kon stuck around anyway. He was glad he had when he stretched his hearing out through the school and realized someone was still in the art room. After a little more concentration, he had a pretty good guess of who it was.
When he finished his math and his reading for English, and could still hear paintbrush noises, he packed his things up and set off down the hall. The door was open a crack, so he knocked, then pushed it open.
Jake was standing at an easel in the back corner where they usually worked, half-hidden behind a canvas that was at least three feet tall. He had paint on his shirt and pants - red and blue, mostly, and a yellow smear all down the back of one arm. He jumped when Kon stepped into the room and pushed his hair back from his eyes, getting blue paint in his bangs. "Hey!" he said brightly, fast and a little nervous. When Kon started toward his corner, he stepped forward quickly, wiping his hands on a rag. "What are you still doing here?"
"I was in the library," Kon said, which was true enough. "Trig is kicking my ass."
"Oh. Really? I'm... I mean, I'm not a math whiz, but I'm not bad at it? Maybe I could help you out a little?"
Kon grinned. "Oh, hey, that would be great," he said with feeling. "I don't know how you do it, though - you're like the busiest person I know." Who didn't wear tights, he added to himself.
"Well," Jake said, as he went to wash his hands, "you could come hang out at the shop or the diner, and I could multitask." He turned around and leaned on the counter. "Unless you think you'll need my undivided attention."
"Heh, maybe?" Kon said with a laugh. He scratched the back of his neck. "I'm really kind of awful." Jake just smiled as he started putting away paints and washing brushes, so Kon walked over to the canvas he'd been working on.
"Wait!" Jake said, leaping forward to grab his arm. "No, don't!" At Kon's puzzled look, he frowned and stared at the floor. "I'm not done."
"Okay," Kon said, and stepped back. He didn't think Jake had minded before. It was kind of disappointing, actually - he liked watching him paint.
Jake stepped around him to grab the canvas, keeping it carefully turned to the wall. "No peeking, okay? Let me finish cleaning up, and- " he stowed it in one of the supply closets. "You want a ride?"
Kon thought it over for a few seconds. Drama club was wrapping up soon, and it sounded like all three kids he knew were planning to go get ice cream together. It wasn't like he needed a ride, but it was nice of Jake to offer, and Kon liked hanging out with him. He'd gotten all the heavy farm chores done, too, so there wasn't anything preventing them hanging out for a while. "Sure," he said.
Jake's smile was sudden and broad. He tucked his things into a canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Ready to go?"
The ride out to the farm passed easily. Jake quizzed him a bit on trigonometry until Kon begged off, laughing, slumped down against the bench seat and hiding his face. They talked about the farm, some, and how business at the store had slacked off now that the spring plant was mostly over. When they were still about five miles from the house, Kon looked out his window and saw Krypto far off in the distance, chasing cows, but Jake didn't seem to notice, so maybe he was out of the range of human vision. Kon asked Jake a question about the kind of mileage he was getting off soybean oil, and that sparked a rant about fossil fuel that lasted all the way down the long gravel road leading out to the farm.
When they pulled up into the yard Martha's truck was gone. Jake cut the engine and Kon stretched his hearing in the sudden silence until he found her drinking tea with Mrs. Riley up the road and chatting about corn prices and romance novels. It wasn't until Jake coughed quietly that he realized he'd been just sitting there staring at the windshield.
"So..." Jake said. He was playing with a shred of tape patching the old pleather seat, his arm resting on the back of it. His eyes were glued to his hand, and he was blushing a little. "Um..."
Kon waited. There was obviously something Jake wanted to say. The hand on the steering wheel kept clenching and unclenching, and he was tapping his foot against the brake pedal.
"About...ah. About. You know. The dance."
Oh. Oh. Kon felt like an idiot. He felt himself flush - he didn't blush often, but it happened - and looked down at his own lap. "Jake..."
There must have been something in his tone, because Jake winced and yanked his arm back to grab the steering wheel with both hands, his eyes locked in front of him. "Yeah, I - sorry."
"No," Kon said, in a rush, because, shit, Jake was his first friend in ages who didn't fight crime, "I'm not - I just. I'm seeing - someone. From out of town."
Jake let out a long sigh and turned his face to the window. "Yeah, I...kind of figured. Your, ah. Friend. In Gotham? Tim?"
Kon's mouth fell open.
"I had to try, though. I mean..." he made a frustrated noise. "I guess I was hoping he lived too far away, but you said you see him a lot, so...Well, if he wasn't coming I thought maybe..." He dropped his forehead to the steering wheel and looked at Kon from the corner of his eye. "Is he coming?"
"Um," Kon said, and tried not to panic.
Twenty minutes later, he was pacing the floor of Alvin Draper's apartment. Tim sat cross-legged on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees and his fingers steepled over his mouth like a supervillain's. "Dude," Kon said, as he paced, "you can't laugh."
"I'm not sure I can promise that," Tim said with a strong overtone of amusement.
Kon whirled around and pointed a finger at him. "No, dude! You can't laugh. For real!"
Tim smiled just a little with the corner of his mouth. It was the face he usually made when he thought Kon was being an idiot, but he didn't mind much. Kon couldn't look at him. He turned and stared out the tiny, grimy window at the brick wall of the next building over. "I need you to be my boyfriend," Kon said quickly, and bit his lip.
Tim was absolutely silent behind him. There was no sound other than his heart beat and his breathing - neither of which changed with Kon's pronouncement. When Tim didn't so much as twitch, Kon finally looked over his shoulder.
He hadn't moved. It felt like he had, somehow. What had felt like a watchful pose before now seemed like something else entirely. He had a considering expression on his face, and he looked...well he looked a lot more like Red Robin than like Tim, all of a sudden, even though Kon wasn't quite sure what made the difference.
"It's...It's cover, right? You're good at undercover. I'm shit. I can barely even be Conner fucking Kent - "
"Okay," Tim said.
"And I need to stay close to these kids. They're in serious danger. That means I've got to fit in, right? I need to be at that dance, and I can't bring Cassie - "
"Kon - "
"I'll seriously owe you one! I mean, I already owe you, like, a dozen at least, not even counting Titan's stuff - "
"Kon!"
Kon hadn't even realized he'd started pacing again. He stopped and turned to look at Tim, who was looking at him evenly. "Yeah?"
"I'll do it. When's the dance?"
"Um," Kon said, blinking. He'd expected to have to do more convincing. Maybe begging. "Friday. Really? You'll do it?"
"Of course."
Kon breathed a huge sigh of relief. He let himself drift like a leaf to sprawl on the couch next to Tim. "Jesus. Thanks man. I just - there's this guy?"
Tim raised an eyebrow.
"Not like that," Kon protested, "but I think I've been leading him on? Maybe? I didn't even realize - I was so fucking proud of myself, making a friend, you know?" He let his head drop to his hands. “Man, I'm dense."
Tim's snort probably wouldn't have been audible without superhearing.
"Shut up," Kon said, smiling sheepishly at him from between his fingers.
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10