Book 2, Chapter 13: Blue in the Broad Light of Day (1/2)
Title: Blue in the Broad Light of Day (1)
Authors: kiltsandlollies
Characters: Billy, John Noble
Word count: 2851
Summary: Not the ideal day at the office.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
Billy for the most part believes himself a morning person. Under the right circumstances he loves to watch the sun rise, loves to enjoy his coffee while the world still mostly quiet, loves to take the long way round into work and sometimes, loves to welcome the daylight in bed with his eyes open and sharply focused on another’s. That had been the plan earlier; he’d meant to turn over well before necessary to wake Dominic in the most pleasant way possible on this, one of few weekday mornings that found them in the same bed. But Dominic, nervous for them both, had been awake before dawn and sliding back into his clothes, reminding Billy that they both had earlier appointments than usual to make today, and that he’d stay if he could, if he thought there wouldn’t be problems, but-
Billy had waved Dominic off, catching blurry sight of Dominic’s smile before he’d disappeared from the house, and then he’d fallen back into his sheets and slept until Dominic’s words had come back to him and he’d grumbled himself back awake and into the shower.
An hour and unexpected traffic problems later, Billy had found himself seated across from John Noble, the philosophy department’s Chair and Humanities division secretary. It’s a meeting Billy's dreaded for weeks now, and even after he’s sat in Noble’s guest chair for almost half an hour while they dispense with respectful small talk and mostly good-natured department gossip, Billy’s still not relaxed.
Noble's a square-jawed bull of a man, blustery and not particularly brilliant, but toady and smart enough to have survived almost twenty years at Baskerville. And when he peers at Billy from above the glasses that slip constantly down his nose, Billy feels gooseflesh rising all over his skin. Until Noble speaks, anyway, and it gets worse; at that point the only feeling Billy can pay real attention to is one he has to work to ignore: the rising urge to stand and leave the man's office and Baskerville, too, and never return. The chat goes on forever, moving from the small talk and cheer to general approval of the way Billy’s handled the last term, and Billy thinks he might escape the room unscathed until Noble brings out the familiar leather folder containing Billy’s most recent paper, nearly ready for publication pending the nod of Baskerville’s review board. At the sight of it Billy has to force himself not to sit up straighter and hold his breath. Noble seems to sense the little struggle Billy’s trying to hide, and he smiles in polite understanding before his hand drifts across the folder’s cover.
"So on to this. I like the title, Bill, I do. ‘Given Half a Chance.’ Very different, very new.”
Billy nods in thanks, and listens for the next several minutes to a small litany of faint praise on his phrasing and vehemence in argument where it does little harm. He acknowledges a few hits Noble carefully takes at one or two of Billy’s points, and even laughs with the man when he tells Billy that it’s possible there might even be an original thought or two contained in the pages.
“I just have a few-“ Noble frowns and leans forward, parsing his words carefully, Billy can tell. “Bill, can you tell me honestly that St. Andrews has read over this article and approved it for publication? Because in all seriousness, I can't imagine how they would. Your evidence against their practices is hardly something they'd want publicized-"
"And yet," Billy smiles, coaxing himself to relax in his chair. "They have approved it, and they plan to publish it, unless of course you try to stop them and for whatever reason succeed."
Noble purses his lips and shoves his glasses to the top of his head, where they are immediately lost in his thick hair. "Our review board cannot force you to withdraw the paper, Bill, you know that. But we also cannot endorse it, and in fact the Vice Chancellor has asked that you remove the references to Baskerville in the paper itself and in your biographical material."
"Remove-" Billy can feel the blood rush from his face, a stark contrast to what is usually a rush upward that colours even the tips of his ears. The calculations he makes are quick, barely accurate things, but they distract him from saying anything worse. "That's almost a third of the paper, John; you can't-he can't be serious."
"May I ask who served as your readers, Bill? And why you did not ask anyone on Baskerville's editorial review board to do so?"
"My readers are listed clearly in the acknowledgments," Billy says, very quietly, even as his fingers of his left hand curl white and hard around the arm of his chair. "And as there are no other professors besides myself at Baskerville, much less on the review board, currently teaching or writing on educational philosophy, I didn't think anyone was-" Qualified. "In a position to read with the background I felt was necessary."
"You're selling your colleagues rather short, Bill." Noble plays with the thick edge of Billy's manuscript, and Billy watches the page rise and fall under the man's fingertips. "And unless you've queried them all on their concentrations beyond what they currently teach, then you've made an error in both judgment and collegiate respect, one I'd expect to see made by someone younger and less experienced than yourself."
Billy blanches again, still focusing on the manuscript. Noble continues, but in his mind Billy is already at his trees, speeding down a motorway-anywhere but here. "I'm returning the manuscript to you, Bill, in the hopes that you'll consider the edits we're proposing, especially those that Rhys-Davies has personally suggested-"
"You're telling me he actually read it?" Billy asks, and it's only by sheer will that the words do not come from between clenched teeth. "Or did he scan your summary, John?"
"He read it." Noble replaces his glasses on his nose and hands the manuscript to Billy. "I think you'll find, Bill, that at Baskerville we do not advise on a publication's merit just by reading the acknowledgments and looking for our own names. This is not St. Andrews."
"I hardly need reminding. I think you'll find that I’m the last man who'll rally to the defense of St. Andrews in any other case. But you should understand that I mean this with the greatest collegiate respect when I say I valued the opinion of my readers very highly, and would choose the same people again without another thought. I never imagined-"
"Professor Boyd." Noble sighs deeply, splaying his hands flat on his desk. "Please, Bill. Take my advice and do as Rhys-Davies asked, at least, even if you can't stomach the other suggestions-"
"Remove the fact that I'm a professor here? Remove the results of the research I undertook in my first year, most of which was under your own supervision?"
"Professor."
“You know the work I’ve done on this, John. You supported it from the beginning, and now y’tell me a third of it’s got to go because some old git across the way’s afraid his institution won’t survive the academic conclusions of one paper? Is he that far gone-”
"Professor."
Billy goes silent, then swallows hard and meets Noble’s eyes. “I am not in the wrong here, John.”
“You’re not in the right, either.” Noble sighs again. "Honestly, Bill, I can't remember the last time I've dealt with a professor so unwilling to accept a compromise that would serve everyone involved very well."
“It serves Baskerville-"
“And in case you’d forgotten, Baskerville is where you are employed. Look, if you're that certain they feel comfortable sponsoring its publication, take your manuscript back to St. Andrews." Noble looks down at the desk, pushing the blotter back into position. "I'm not entirely convinced you've ever left."
Billy can feel the colour returning to his face, but harder, reddened in shock, and he's disgusted by his own relief that Noble’s looking away again. Before he can be politely dismissed, Billy rises from his chair slowly, keeping his breathing steady. "We'll talk soon, John."
Noble nods and pushes his glasses back onto his nose, looking relieved as well but satisfied, too, in a way Billy knows he’s had years to practice. "Yes, we will."
It’s a short walk back to his own office, but the manuscript gets heavier in Billy’s grip every minute he carries it. The leather folder warms almost to the point of discomfort in Billy’s palm, and he’s grateful when he can abandon it on his desk, facedown and to the side where he won’t focus on it again until he’s ready to do so. A few minutes at the desk, and Billy decides there are several things for which he’s not ready or prepared at the moment, and so he reaches for paper and one of his several green pens, scribbling words as if he’s on deadline and taping the page to his door on his own way out: Morning lecture cancelled. Please leave assignments with dept. secretary or in professor’s mail slot.
Billy’s mind works with well-honed precision to justify his actions as he moves at a faster clip than usual toward the hidden copse of trees he likes to call his own. He’s not hiding from his students or his general responsibility; rather, he’s protecting them from the sort of embittered professor’s screed he knows is likely to pour from his lips in lieu of a proper lecture today. They don’t need to hear it, and Billy can’t risk the possible fallout should his words make their way out of his own classroom. It’s safer to make for the trees, for their calming shade and soft scent, and safer still to do so alone.
At the foot of his favourite tree, Billy stands and stares up into its canopy, into the welcoming riot of leaves and branches. His hands ache from feeling so clenched, first around the arm of the chair in Noble’s office and then around the thick manuscript, but after only a bare moment's weighing of pros and cons, Billy's reaching for a handhold on the tree and scaling it quickly.
Inside he knows this is a child's reaction to a scolding, to run and sit by oneself alone to seethe and burn until one's insides are raw, but at the same time it's healthier than several other alternatives he can think of. And he still has another class to teach late this afternoon. If, of course, he decides to do so.
He's almost up into the crook of branches he so loves when Billy slips, and he hisses in surprise as he feels himself falling, his fingers catching against some ragged piece of bark and tearing his skin into small shreds. He's in no real danger-the heavy, crossed branches about eight feet below him stop his descent well enough, if not particularly kindly-but Billy tries to recollect himself before he makes another mistake. He's never taken a real fall from a Baskerville tree, and he refuses to believe that even the worst mood could shake his concentration enough to send him crashing back down to the ground. Billy continues moving, scuffing his shoes and listening for the rasp of his trousers against the lower, dead and dusty leaves, and ignoring the pain the shoots up and down his back from the slip, until he's nestled where he wants to be, high in the leaves.
The smell of the trees is strong up here. Billy breathes it in and waits for the pounding in his head to lessen before he reaches for a handful of leaves, folding them gently in his palm, grateful that they're still yielding and thick. When Billy looks up again, he can see through the tree the outline of Baskerville's buildings, and he closes his eyes, picturing other buildings, other times. He wonders if he will ever teach for more than a few years in any one place without the bitterness seeping into his mind and heart as it had in St. Andrews, as it has here. For the moment Billy pushes away his thoughts of the paper and the hours of work he might have lost to that bitterness, and he tries to remember the good parts, the times he felt at home. The times he felt he was doing something right.
There's a rustle beneath him, and Billy opens his eyes slowly and half-expects to look down at Dominic, standing at the base of the tree and staring up at him. But he's not there, and Billy closes his eyes again, hearing in his head the questions Dominic would ask of him were he to find Billy back up in this tree instead of in the classroom, instead of where he's meant to be-where he belongs.
You cancelled class, Dominic would say gently. Are you alright?
"I don't know," Billy answers aloud and to the air, propping his feet up on an opposite branch. "I honestly do not know."
As if in sympathy, the leaves above Billy shake in the next breeze, the tree's limbs shrugging with a kind of resignation Billy recognizes all too well. The sound and sight provoke a new restlessness in him, and Billy eases himself down the tree carefully at first and then leaps to the ground. There's no one about to appreciate the little feat, and while that's probably for the best, Billy nevertheless allows himself an amused moment or two to imagine the reaction of some wandering student suddenly confronted by the sight of a professor tumbling from the branches above them.
Shoving his hands in his pockets again and walking into the breeze back to the center of the campus, Billy knows he's still too wound up; he hasn't been able to shake his nerves and distraction even in the relative peace of the trees. He’d love a cigarette, but he tries not to smoke on campus grounds in deference to his fellow instructors and students who rarely return the favour. He’d love to bag the entire day, but he’s promised his late class a review session geared to help them survive what he’s already warned will be a devastating test. Nothing to be done for it, then, but to continue walking, continue moving as if the morning hadn’t happened. Not that that’s possible; it’s to earlier this morning that Billy's thoughts return now: to the feeling of Dominic slipping from his grasp before the sun had even risen, to the roadworks forcing a detour from his preferred route to the campus, to the pathetic excuse for coffee he'd swallowed down before the meeting with Noble.
All insignificant things taken one by one, but compounded and accompanied by Noble’s discouraging words and notes, they’ve left Billy feeling battered and tired, irritable with everything and nothing at once, and in rather desperate need of something he should by no means ask for, much less take. Another few minutes’ thought provides Billy with a plan and a destination, neither of which any rational man would follow, and after another short and more pleasurable detour back to his office, Billy’s moving faster across the campus, head up higher and determined to take a little of what he’d been denied back from this day.
The walk to the sciences building takes him a few minutes, but he spends the time wisely, thinking his plan through to its hopeful end, and confirming for himself again by way of unfolding a hastily written schedule that he knows where he’s going, and that Dominic should be there. If Dominic’s not where he’s meant to be-if like Billy he’d skived off to play in the sun and shade of pretty trees and let his mind wander or settle-then there’ll be a sweet sort of hell to pay, but Billy’s not counting on that eventuality.
The labs are as usual quiet, and Billy knows from experience that it’s rare for an actual professor to be running the show in there at this point of the day. He knocks out of standard, rote etiquette more than anything else, pushing the door open before the sound has even finished echoing in the room. As Billy expected, the teaching assistant doesn’t offer any kind of resistance, even of a nervous sort, to the presence of another professor, and so he’s free to stride to the middle of the room and to Dominic, crouched over a display of something Billy doesn’t recognize and concentrating fiercely, his face brightened from below by the strong lamp beneath the counter’s glass. Dominic hasn’t seen him yet, and for the benefit of the assistant and whoever else might be watching, Billy pretends to be thinking of the right words, of the proper solemnity they should carry. After a moment he coughs politely, and keeps his voice calm even at the startled brightness in Dominic’s eyes.
“If you’d just come with me, Mr. Monaghan. Leave your things; this won’t take very much of your time.”
Authors: kiltsandlollies
Characters: Billy, John Noble
Word count: 2851
Summary: Not the ideal day at the office.
Index
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction; the recognizable people in the story belong to themselves and have never performed the actions portrayed here. I do not know the actors nor am I associated with them in any way. If you are underage, please do not read this story. I am not making any profit from these stories, nor do I mean any harm.
Billy for the most part believes himself a morning person. Under the right circumstances he loves to watch the sun rise, loves to enjoy his coffee while the world still mostly quiet, loves to take the long way round into work and sometimes, loves to welcome the daylight in bed with his eyes open and sharply focused on another’s. That had been the plan earlier; he’d meant to turn over well before necessary to wake Dominic in the most pleasant way possible on this, one of few weekday mornings that found them in the same bed. But Dominic, nervous for them both, had been awake before dawn and sliding back into his clothes, reminding Billy that they both had earlier appointments than usual to make today, and that he’d stay if he could, if he thought there wouldn’t be problems, but-
Billy had waved Dominic off, catching blurry sight of Dominic’s smile before he’d disappeared from the house, and then he’d fallen back into his sheets and slept until Dominic’s words had come back to him and he’d grumbled himself back awake and into the shower.
An hour and unexpected traffic problems later, Billy had found himself seated across from John Noble, the philosophy department’s Chair and Humanities division secretary. It’s a meeting Billy's dreaded for weeks now, and even after he’s sat in Noble’s guest chair for almost half an hour while they dispense with respectful small talk and mostly good-natured department gossip, Billy’s still not relaxed.
Noble's a square-jawed bull of a man, blustery and not particularly brilliant, but toady and smart enough to have survived almost twenty years at Baskerville. And when he peers at Billy from above the glasses that slip constantly down his nose, Billy feels gooseflesh rising all over his skin. Until Noble speaks, anyway, and it gets worse; at that point the only feeling Billy can pay real attention to is one he has to work to ignore: the rising urge to stand and leave the man's office and Baskerville, too, and never return. The chat goes on forever, moving from the small talk and cheer to general approval of the way Billy’s handled the last term, and Billy thinks he might escape the room unscathed until Noble brings out the familiar leather folder containing Billy’s most recent paper, nearly ready for publication pending the nod of Baskerville’s review board. At the sight of it Billy has to force himself not to sit up straighter and hold his breath. Noble seems to sense the little struggle Billy’s trying to hide, and he smiles in polite understanding before his hand drifts across the folder’s cover.
"So on to this. I like the title, Bill, I do. ‘Given Half a Chance.’ Very different, very new.”
Billy nods in thanks, and listens for the next several minutes to a small litany of faint praise on his phrasing and vehemence in argument where it does little harm. He acknowledges a few hits Noble carefully takes at one or two of Billy’s points, and even laughs with the man when he tells Billy that it’s possible there might even be an original thought or two contained in the pages.
“I just have a few-“ Noble frowns and leans forward, parsing his words carefully, Billy can tell. “Bill, can you tell me honestly that St. Andrews has read over this article and approved it for publication? Because in all seriousness, I can't imagine how they would. Your evidence against their practices is hardly something they'd want publicized-"
"And yet," Billy smiles, coaxing himself to relax in his chair. "They have approved it, and they plan to publish it, unless of course you try to stop them and for whatever reason succeed."
Noble purses his lips and shoves his glasses to the top of his head, where they are immediately lost in his thick hair. "Our review board cannot force you to withdraw the paper, Bill, you know that. But we also cannot endorse it, and in fact the Vice Chancellor has asked that you remove the references to Baskerville in the paper itself and in your biographical material."
"Remove-" Billy can feel the blood rush from his face, a stark contrast to what is usually a rush upward that colours even the tips of his ears. The calculations he makes are quick, barely accurate things, but they distract him from saying anything worse. "That's almost a third of the paper, John; you can't-he can't be serious."
"May I ask who served as your readers, Bill? And why you did not ask anyone on Baskerville's editorial review board to do so?"
"My readers are listed clearly in the acknowledgments," Billy says, very quietly, even as his fingers of his left hand curl white and hard around the arm of his chair. "And as there are no other professors besides myself at Baskerville, much less on the review board, currently teaching or writing on educational philosophy, I didn't think anyone was-" Qualified. "In a position to read with the background I felt was necessary."
"You're selling your colleagues rather short, Bill." Noble plays with the thick edge of Billy's manuscript, and Billy watches the page rise and fall under the man's fingertips. "And unless you've queried them all on their concentrations beyond what they currently teach, then you've made an error in both judgment and collegiate respect, one I'd expect to see made by someone younger and less experienced than yourself."
Billy blanches again, still focusing on the manuscript. Noble continues, but in his mind Billy is already at his trees, speeding down a motorway-anywhere but here. "I'm returning the manuscript to you, Bill, in the hopes that you'll consider the edits we're proposing, especially those that Rhys-Davies has personally suggested-"
"You're telling me he actually read it?" Billy asks, and it's only by sheer will that the words do not come from between clenched teeth. "Or did he scan your summary, John?"
"He read it." Noble replaces his glasses on his nose and hands the manuscript to Billy. "I think you'll find, Bill, that at Baskerville we do not advise on a publication's merit just by reading the acknowledgments and looking for our own names. This is not St. Andrews."
"I hardly need reminding. I think you'll find that I’m the last man who'll rally to the defense of St. Andrews in any other case. But you should understand that I mean this with the greatest collegiate respect when I say I valued the opinion of my readers very highly, and would choose the same people again without another thought. I never imagined-"
"Professor Boyd." Noble sighs deeply, splaying his hands flat on his desk. "Please, Bill. Take my advice and do as Rhys-Davies asked, at least, even if you can't stomach the other suggestions-"
"Remove the fact that I'm a professor here? Remove the results of the research I undertook in my first year, most of which was under your own supervision?"
"Professor."
“You know the work I’ve done on this, John. You supported it from the beginning, and now y’tell me a third of it’s got to go because some old git across the way’s afraid his institution won’t survive the academic conclusions of one paper? Is he that far gone-”
"Professor."
Billy goes silent, then swallows hard and meets Noble’s eyes. “I am not in the wrong here, John.”
“You’re not in the right, either.” Noble sighs again. "Honestly, Bill, I can't remember the last time I've dealt with a professor so unwilling to accept a compromise that would serve everyone involved very well."
“It serves Baskerville-"
“And in case you’d forgotten, Baskerville is where you are employed. Look, if you're that certain they feel comfortable sponsoring its publication, take your manuscript back to St. Andrews." Noble looks down at the desk, pushing the blotter back into position. "I'm not entirely convinced you've ever left."
Billy can feel the colour returning to his face, but harder, reddened in shock, and he's disgusted by his own relief that Noble’s looking away again. Before he can be politely dismissed, Billy rises from his chair slowly, keeping his breathing steady. "We'll talk soon, John."
Noble nods and pushes his glasses back onto his nose, looking relieved as well but satisfied, too, in a way Billy knows he’s had years to practice. "Yes, we will."
It’s a short walk back to his own office, but the manuscript gets heavier in Billy’s grip every minute he carries it. The leather folder warms almost to the point of discomfort in Billy’s palm, and he’s grateful when he can abandon it on his desk, facedown and to the side where he won’t focus on it again until he’s ready to do so. A few minutes at the desk, and Billy decides there are several things for which he’s not ready or prepared at the moment, and so he reaches for paper and one of his several green pens, scribbling words as if he’s on deadline and taping the page to his door on his own way out: Morning lecture cancelled. Please leave assignments with dept. secretary or in professor’s mail slot.
Billy’s mind works with well-honed precision to justify his actions as he moves at a faster clip than usual toward the hidden copse of trees he likes to call his own. He’s not hiding from his students or his general responsibility; rather, he’s protecting them from the sort of embittered professor’s screed he knows is likely to pour from his lips in lieu of a proper lecture today. They don’t need to hear it, and Billy can’t risk the possible fallout should his words make their way out of his own classroom. It’s safer to make for the trees, for their calming shade and soft scent, and safer still to do so alone.
At the foot of his favourite tree, Billy stands and stares up into its canopy, into the welcoming riot of leaves and branches. His hands ache from feeling so clenched, first around the arm of the chair in Noble’s office and then around the thick manuscript, but after only a bare moment's weighing of pros and cons, Billy's reaching for a handhold on the tree and scaling it quickly.
Inside he knows this is a child's reaction to a scolding, to run and sit by oneself alone to seethe and burn until one's insides are raw, but at the same time it's healthier than several other alternatives he can think of. And he still has another class to teach late this afternoon. If, of course, he decides to do so.
He's almost up into the crook of branches he so loves when Billy slips, and he hisses in surprise as he feels himself falling, his fingers catching against some ragged piece of bark and tearing his skin into small shreds. He's in no real danger-the heavy, crossed branches about eight feet below him stop his descent well enough, if not particularly kindly-but Billy tries to recollect himself before he makes another mistake. He's never taken a real fall from a Baskerville tree, and he refuses to believe that even the worst mood could shake his concentration enough to send him crashing back down to the ground. Billy continues moving, scuffing his shoes and listening for the rasp of his trousers against the lower, dead and dusty leaves, and ignoring the pain the shoots up and down his back from the slip, until he's nestled where he wants to be, high in the leaves.
The smell of the trees is strong up here. Billy breathes it in and waits for the pounding in his head to lessen before he reaches for a handful of leaves, folding them gently in his palm, grateful that they're still yielding and thick. When Billy looks up again, he can see through the tree the outline of Baskerville's buildings, and he closes his eyes, picturing other buildings, other times. He wonders if he will ever teach for more than a few years in any one place without the bitterness seeping into his mind and heart as it had in St. Andrews, as it has here. For the moment Billy pushes away his thoughts of the paper and the hours of work he might have lost to that bitterness, and he tries to remember the good parts, the times he felt at home. The times he felt he was doing something right.
There's a rustle beneath him, and Billy opens his eyes slowly and half-expects to look down at Dominic, standing at the base of the tree and staring up at him. But he's not there, and Billy closes his eyes again, hearing in his head the questions Dominic would ask of him were he to find Billy back up in this tree instead of in the classroom, instead of where he's meant to be-where he belongs.
You cancelled class, Dominic would say gently. Are you alright?
"I don't know," Billy answers aloud and to the air, propping his feet up on an opposite branch. "I honestly do not know."
As if in sympathy, the leaves above Billy shake in the next breeze, the tree's limbs shrugging with a kind of resignation Billy recognizes all too well. The sound and sight provoke a new restlessness in him, and Billy eases himself down the tree carefully at first and then leaps to the ground. There's no one about to appreciate the little feat, and while that's probably for the best, Billy nevertheless allows himself an amused moment or two to imagine the reaction of some wandering student suddenly confronted by the sight of a professor tumbling from the branches above them.
Shoving his hands in his pockets again and walking into the breeze back to the center of the campus, Billy knows he's still too wound up; he hasn't been able to shake his nerves and distraction even in the relative peace of the trees. He’d love a cigarette, but he tries not to smoke on campus grounds in deference to his fellow instructors and students who rarely return the favour. He’d love to bag the entire day, but he’s promised his late class a review session geared to help them survive what he’s already warned will be a devastating test. Nothing to be done for it, then, but to continue walking, continue moving as if the morning hadn’t happened. Not that that’s possible; it’s to earlier this morning that Billy's thoughts return now: to the feeling of Dominic slipping from his grasp before the sun had even risen, to the roadworks forcing a detour from his preferred route to the campus, to the pathetic excuse for coffee he'd swallowed down before the meeting with Noble.
All insignificant things taken one by one, but compounded and accompanied by Noble’s discouraging words and notes, they’ve left Billy feeling battered and tired, irritable with everything and nothing at once, and in rather desperate need of something he should by no means ask for, much less take. Another few minutes’ thought provides Billy with a plan and a destination, neither of which any rational man would follow, and after another short and more pleasurable detour back to his office, Billy’s moving faster across the campus, head up higher and determined to take a little of what he’d been denied back from this day.
The walk to the sciences building takes him a few minutes, but he spends the time wisely, thinking his plan through to its hopeful end, and confirming for himself again by way of unfolding a hastily written schedule that he knows where he’s going, and that Dominic should be there. If Dominic’s not where he’s meant to be-if like Billy he’d skived off to play in the sun and shade of pretty trees and let his mind wander or settle-then there’ll be a sweet sort of hell to pay, but Billy’s not counting on that eventuality.
The labs are as usual quiet, and Billy knows from experience that it’s rare for an actual professor to be running the show in there at this point of the day. He knocks out of standard, rote etiquette more than anything else, pushing the door open before the sound has even finished echoing in the room. As Billy expected, the teaching assistant doesn’t offer any kind of resistance, even of a nervous sort, to the presence of another professor, and so he’s free to stride to the middle of the room and to Dominic, crouched over a display of something Billy doesn’t recognize and concentrating fiercely, his face brightened from below by the strong lamp beneath the counter’s glass. Dominic hasn’t seen him yet, and for the benefit of the assistant and whoever else might be watching, Billy pretends to be thinking of the right words, of the proper solemnity they should carry. After a moment he coughs politely, and keeps his voice calm even at the startled brightness in Dominic’s eyes.
“If you’d just come with me, Mr. Monaghan. Leave your things; this won’t take very much of your time.”