WHO: Billy Sinclair & Luka Romanov WHAT: After the kissing incident with Brön, Billy is understandably agitated about the loss of his agency. However, things with Luka get complicated after a game of chess. In true Xavier’s tradition, the already fuzzy student/teacher line gets blurred even further.
Billy had been keeping to himself. After the incident with Brön, he felt humiliated and more than a little bit angry. The situation was funny from the outside, and he’d probably learn to laugh at it later, but right now he was concerned. Freaked out. He knew he’d been willing to kill to make Brön happy, and he’d been so blind with love that he’d been considering having sex with him. He could have done some things he really regretted, things to which he didn’t consent.
So yes, it was funny. To Billy, it was a loss of control and a loss of consent that had him very, very freaked out.
He was quiet when he saw Luka next, not speaking much but playing a very brutal game of chess. As a rule, he usually won Risk and lost at chess. Now, he was knocking pieces down left and right. He wasn’t particularly graceful about it, he wasn’t going to win, but he was going to take down as many pieces as possible before losing.
“Check.”
Luka was sneaking up on Billy’s king while Billy was gracelessly massacring his army. He actually felt bad for doing it; he was still going to win, but there wasn’t much honor in it, and there were more important things to talk about. Billy didn’t seem to want to talk about them, though, so he moved his king out of the way. “Taking all my pawns wasn’t enough for you?”
“No. I intend to clean house.” Billy’s bishop swept down the board to snatch Luka’s rook.
Luka moved his queen between the bishop and his king. “If that’s what works.”
Billy’s rook moved in to take Luka’s queen. “Check.” He wasn’t paying attention to defense. He just didn’t care right now. It meant he was wide open.
Luka made a move with his knight and announced, “Checkmate.”
“Shit.” Billy pulled back to look at the board, staring at it. For a moment it looked like he’d flip the board over and scatter the pieces everywhere. He shut his eyes, took a breath, and bowed his head. “As usual. Sneak attack from behind. Good for you.”
Luka watched him carefully. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Anger made most people ugly; on Billy, it was sharp. He didn’t know how to use it yet, but he’d learn. ---It wasn’t something Luka should have been speculating about, not with an issue in the present. “So. Do you want to talk about it now?”
Billy lifted his eyes to Luka again. He flattened his ears. “What makes you think I want to talk about it in the first place? I’m embarrassed. I’m disturbed. I’m angry I wasn’t warned.”
“You’re talking about it right now,” Luka gently pointed out. Had Billy’s eyes always been that color?
“I---” Billy snarled a little, glancing away. His tail thrashed behind him. “It was without my consent. He knew he had this power and he didn’t tell me. Maybe if I’d known I wouldn’t have done it. Or I would have decided to do it anyway and taken the risk. Maybe I’d have kissed him anywhere but the mouth, but it would have been my choice. I did a lot of things against my will, I could have done worse, and no one takes that control from me.”
“What do you think should happen to your friendship?” Luka sat back, resting his elbow on the arm of the chair.
Billy shrugged. “I don’t think Brön is terribly apologetic,” he said. “We’ll have to talk about it. I’d like to stay friends with him. I don’t think it was malicious, just... an oversight on his part that could have gotten ugly. There were a lot of things he could have done that he didn’t do.”
Luka nodded, not … approving, really, but listening. “Good.”
“I like him,” Billy insisted. “I...” He fidgeted. “I mean, there’s a reason I kissed him.”
“Mm.” Luka carefully reserved comment.
Billy blushed and sighed heavily. “I like him. I like his company. He’s my friend. But he’s also a flirt, and...” He scratched the back of his neck. “I like it. I like that he looks at me and thinks of me that way.”
“He’s not the only one, you know.” Realizing that had sounded a bit off, Luka quickly added, “He isn’t your only choice. If you’re putting up with this because he thinks you’re attractive, then you can get that without the brainwashing, even with other students.”
Billy raised his eyebrows. “Other students, as opposed to who. Teachers?” He looked embarrassed. His crush on Luka had been pretty well-known.
Yes. “I... that’s not what I meant. That was really badly worded, I didn’t want to imply that it... I’m a mess. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said Billy. “It should be bad that I like the attention, anyway.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking attention, Billy. If nobody liked attention, we’d have a problem.” Luka was speaking more slowly now, watching his words a bit better.
“It just might be bad to make out with any boy who pays attention to me.” Billy chuckled, sighing. “I mean, Mark does it. Mark does whatever he wants. But I don’t really think I’m like Mark.”
“Well, no. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t like it in the first place. No one said you had to go making out with everyone.” Luka shrugged.
Billy bit his lip. “I can’t help it,” he muttered. “I mean, I can. Obviously. Of course I can help it. I just don’t necessarily want to. I am really... really frustrated, if we’re being totally honest---which is none of your business, you’re my teacher, I’m sorry.” He ducked his head and scrunched his shoulders.
Luka was quiet for a moment or two, kicking his next words around and deciding whether or not to even say them. “Billy. I’m not... you know, I’m not that much older than you are. And I’m your teacher, so you’re supposed to be able to talk to me about … stuff.” Very teacherly. Great.
Billy’s ears twitched a couple of times and he glanced up. “Oh, it’s not. I mean, there’s not a whole lot to say. I’m a sixteen-year-old boy from a conservative household and I think about sex all the time.” He rolled his eyes.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Luka said, trying his best to sound neutral. It didn’t completely work out, so it came out a little strained.
“And I’m gay,” Billy said abruptly. “Which, not a big deal here, but my mom would have a few words to say about it. And I also know that she’d blame my sex drive on the wolf. Like it’s a separate thing. It’s not a separate thing. It’s me.”
“I wish I had better advice for that. My parents didn’t do much hovering when I was … exploring.” Luka wasn’t really sure where the line between friendly advice and teacher advice was here, so he didn’t bother looking for it. Billy needed a friend. Luka crossed his legs for good measure. “Not that I’d recommend having sex with everything in sight, either, that’s … not a good way of getting to know yourself.”
Billy started picking up the pieces and tucking them neatly in the box. “So you were having sex when you were sixteen?”
“I was having sex when I was thirteen,” Luka admitted. He always forgot how bad it sounded until he said it out loud.
“What?” Yeah. It sounded that bad.
“I was in college and I got up to a lot of things I shouldn’t have. By the time I was your age, I’d had a few things figured out. I had a woman I saw more than everyone else but I still got around, made my trouble, had flings with people I should and shouldn’t have.”
“Oh.” Billy shifted, not sure how to feel about that. “Well, I. I know that I don’t want to have sex. Not yet. As much as I might want it, it’s not the time. I don’t know when it is, but. Not right now. Not with Mark, not with Brön.”
“Do you have your sights set on anyone or are you going to wait?” Just after he finished saying it, Luka realized that he shouldn’t have. Shit.
Billy squinted at Luka for a moment before going back to cleaning up the pieces. “It’s not important, or any of your business, really,” he said. “I’m not waiting for any certain time, it’s just... I’ll do it when I want to. When there’s someone I trust. I’m sorry, I’m unloading all this on you. It’s just, Mark’s the only one I really talk to and he thinks I’m an idiot for being so particular.”
“I don’t mind, I promise. I’m not going to comment on Mark, but I really don’t mind. That’s what I’m here for.” Luka shifted his weight and uncrossed his legs just so he could switch.
“He’s trying to push me and he acts like sex isn’t a big deal,” said Billy. “I don’t agree, and I’m not going to agree. So it’s hard to talk to him about this.”
“He might think that because it is a big deal.” So much for not commenting, right? “He seems compulsive. He’s in denial.”
Billy shrugged. He pulled his tail around his body and held it against his chest, stroking the soft fur like a security blanket. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Luka’s breath caught in his throat. He looked down at his knees for a moment, just to brush a few inappropriate thoughts aside, but it was in his scent. There was no hiding the very beginning of attraction, the hint of arousal from watching Billy’s hand slide over the fur of his tail. His body didn’t work the way it used to, but the smells didn’t go away. “Maybe,” he echoed. “I’d tell you not to let him influence you too much, but you already know that.”
Billy’s eyes flickered to Luka for a brief moment. His sense of smell was stronger than Jack Murdock’s, and that was saying something. Luka had told him to knock it off with the flirting. It had never occurred to Billy that Luka had asked him to do that because he actually took interest. The touch against his tail was a little more deliberate. “I do. I like to think I’m smart; I can handle myself.”
Luka was careful to keep his eyes on Billy’s face after that, but that wasn’t much better. His face was prettier, and the way his mouth curled around his words was even worse. “You clearly didn’t need any help figuring this whole situation out. You were bothered but you don’t seem all that confused. Someone else might have freaked out or just accepted it like it didn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” said Billy emphatically. “My consent matters. My autonomy matters. No one takes that away from me. That’s all I have. That’s all anyone really has. The right to say yes and no.”
“Most people don’t think that way until they get older. Or maybe that’s just me, I know I didn’t.”
“I know what I want,” said Billy. “All I want is control over my own life and my own body. Everything else might be up for debate.” He smiled faintly and he dragged his hand along his tail, just to test Luka.
Luka was a terrible liar. He didn’t hide things very well, he had terrible impulse control, and his heart would perpetually be on his sleeve if he still had one. He’d never handled being teased very well. It all meant that he glanced at Billy’s hand, stared back down at his knees (and picked off some lint, like that was why he was looking), and tried not to shiver. “Good.”
Billy bit his lip. Hadn’t he just said he liked being looked at? It was going to be hard to stop flirting when he got this kind of reaction out of Luka. It was wrong, though. Luka was his teacher as well as his friend. Encouraging this was just bad for Luka, especially when he knew that Luka hated teaching and didn’t feel like he belonged there. Luka was bound to be irresponsible and do something stupid to get himself in trouble. Billy, at least, could look out for him and make sure he didn’t do that. “I should probably go,” he said softly. “Good game, though. I’ll have to find some way to beat you.”
“Probably.” Luka pushed himself off of the couch, suddenly very grateful that no matter how uncomfortable he got, he didn’t have to worry about … certain embarrassment. He offered Billy his hand. “Good game.”
Billy delicately took Luka’s hand and squeezed it. “Until next time?”
Luka almost didn’t want to let go. Billy was a good inch or two taller than he was, and he imagined that it was even harder to take him seriously as a teacher like that. Bad enough they weren’t as far apart in age as they could be. “Definitely. Next time I won’t let you throw yourself at me so hard before I beat you.”
Billy’s grasp on Luka’s hand lingered. “I really should stop throwing myself so hard at you.”
It wasn’t even a good line, but Luka wasn’t listening. He was looking at Billy’s mouth instead and couldn’t seem to multitask. “I mean, if you want to, go on ahead. I like winning.”
“I...” Billy finally let go, clearing his throat. “No one likes losing.” He smiled and gathered up the chess board and pieces, passing them to Luka. “I’ll see you in class, sir.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sir’,” Luka blurted.
Billy blinked. “Oh. Sorry. It’s a... sorry, habit. I started my freshman year because I couldn’t handle not calling people Mr. this and Mrs. that. I was home-schooled before coming here, and it … just kind of stuck. Even if I call you by your first name like everyone else, it just slips out.”
“I just don’t feel like I’m old enough.” It wasn’t entirely a lie? It made Luka uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t admit to unless he felt like telling Billy the rest of the truth and get himself fired. Luka didn’t have a lot of love for his job, but still. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. You can keep doing it if you want to.”
“You’re not,” said Billy. “I mean, not technically, but you’re still in a position of authority.” Remember? “Shay asked me why I did it, too, when I called her ma’am. Like I said, it’s habit, and if it bothers you, I’ll try to remember not to do it.”
“Some authority figure I am. I’m horrible at it, I’m surprised anyone ever listens to me.”
Billy smiled. “It’s your first year. You’re twenty-two, you don’t really have an interest in teaching. You’re here to do a job, and teaching is paying your rent. But you’re a good teacher, for the most part. You move a little fast because you expect everyone to be as smart as you, but you’re not a bad teacher. This is material you love, that you care about. I’m learning.” His smile twisted into a little smirk. “But you’re right, no one takes you seriously as an authority figure.”
Luka matched his smirk, grateful for his hands on the chess set. “So what do you see me as?”
Billy was thrown by the question. There was an honest answer and then there was an acceptable answer. He went with the second: “A friend who happens to teach me physics,” he said. “And that’s okay. Like I said, I was homeschooled until I came here, so... my mom was my mom who happened to teach me stuff.” His mother, on the other hand, was quite an authority figure.
Luka impulsively took a step closer, drawn in by … well, anything, did it matter at this point? When he realized he was getting a little close for comfort, he covered it up by saying, “So if your friend told you he was really impressed by how you acted with Brön today, you would say...?”
Billy tipped his head slightly. “I’d say... thank you, and be very flattered,” he murmured.
There was a little voice telling Luka that this was stupid, but it sounded like his mother and he didn’t care for it. So he ignored it. “Just flattered...?”
“Flattered sounds... insincere,” Billy said, “but I don’t know what else to call it. I’d feel validated, maybe.”
Luka very briefly worried his lower lip into his mouth. Don’t kiss him, don’t kiss him--- “I like validated,” he said lamely. “But I’m a scientist, not a linguist, so...”
Billy’s gaze briefly dropped to Luka’s mouth and then back to his eyes. “So...?”
“So. So my opinion isn’t... I don’t know.” Don’t kiss him.
“Isn’t what?” Billy clasped his hands behind his back.
“Important.”
“I think everything you say is important.”
Billy didn’t get all the way to the end of the sentence, because Luka kissed him. Not hard. Not insistently. He just closed the space between them and let it happen, swallowing Billy’s words.
For a moment, Billy melted into the kiss with a shiver that went from the tip of his tail all the way up through his spine. He leaned in for a brief moment before pulling back, slipping his fingertips between them and pressing them against Luka’s lips.
“No,” he said quietly. He pressed his lips together like he could capture the memory of the kiss. “Luka, think.”
Luka kissed his fingers instead, reaching up to wrap his hand around Billy’s wrist. “I’m always thinking.” Just not right now. Or at least, not about this. Not very hard.
Billy blinked, fingers twitching. He liked Luka. He had a crush on Luka that was difficult to ignore, but he’d been behaving himself ever since Luka told him to cut it out. It would have been so easy to “pull a Sinclair” (so named for his mother, what an ugly joke that was) and cross the already-blurry teacher-student line. Luka was kissing his fingers. Luka had kissed his mouth.
“Luka,” he insisted, his voice cracking. Saying no was hard when he was half saying yes.
After another second, Luka let go and deliberately took a step back. If he was embarrassed, it didn’t show, but he did say, “Sorry.”
Billy pulled his hand back, impulsively reaching down and pulling his tail around his body again. “This can’t happen again,” he said, his throat dry. He wanted to jump on him and tear his clothes off. Wanted to shove him up against the library bookshelves and screw him stupid. But Billy had boundaries, and he was good at keeping them. This time, those boundaries were for Luka’s protection.
“Mm.” He wasn’t going to argue. Billy was right, after all, and it would be more than wrong to push any further than he already had. Luka touched his mouth, quiet and contemplative.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Billy said carefully. He was still sixteen and Luka was twenty-two. Even without the teacher-student boundary, any kind of sexual relationship was illegal. It wasn’t fair, from Billy’s perspective. Condescending, even. Billy wasn’t suddenly going to become smarter when he was seventeen. Still, rules were rules. Billy was good at following rules that made sense to him. When it came to ones that didn’t... Billy tended to find clever ways around them.
“Neither will I.” He could get fired, after all. Or arrested. It was ridiculous; in a nearby state, it would be legal. In a month, it would be legal. Today and here? Apparently it was the worst thing in the world, and Luka was depressed knowing it wouldn’t happen again.
Billy took a careful breath. “Let me rephrase,” he said. “This can’t happen again … yet.” He shifted his weight a little. His heart was pounding. Something about this felt surreal, talking to Luka like this.
“Billy.” Luka ran a hand over his mouth and took a second to pick out his words. “I’m sorry. It won’t be any less … inappropriate once yet comes around. I shouldn’t have, and I apologize.”
“Depends on how long you’re willing to wait,” said Billy. “Until I’m not your student anymore. I don’t want to damage your reputation and I certainly don’t want to ruin mine.”
Luka actually snorted with laughter. “Billy, if I was good at waiting, I wouldn’t have just laid one on you. It’s safer to say ‘never’ and be done with it.”
Billy faltered when Luka laughed, and his confidence deflated. What was he doing? What the hell was he doing? He was sixteen. Billy might have been hopelessly in love to the point where it was comical, but Luka was older and more worldly. Liking to look at Billy and being willing to wait for him to get older were two different things.
For a moment, he almost looked like he’d cry, but Billy wasn’t that kind of person. “This will never happen again,” he said firmly. “I won’t tell anyone. You won’t tell anyone. As far as I’m concerned, this never happened.”
It took Luka a second to realize his mistake. It wasn’t that Billy was wrong right now, but some of the spark had gone out of him. Luka reached for his hand and said, “It’s not you. You’re worth the wait, Billy, I’m just not the person either of us should be waiting for.”
Billy snapped his hand out of Luka’s grasp. “That’s not your call to make.”
Luka frowned. He put down the chess set; it had stopped feeling like a crutch and started feeling like a weight. “This is happening to me, too, you know.”
Billy took a little step back, folding his arms across his chest and waiting. He didn’t like how he felt right now. At all.
When there was no response, Luka fidgeted. He folded his arms in turn, for lack of anything better to do, and added, “I’m not good at waiting. I don’t like waiting, I don’t like teasing, and I don’t like keeping secrets because I’m a terrible liar. I want you. God, do I want you. And I know you want me, which makes it worse. But yes, that is my call to make, because this is happening to me as much as it’s happening to you. We both get to have boundaries.”
“Yes, that’s your call. What isn’t your call is whether you’re worth waiting for,” said Billy quietly. “You’re worth it. You don’t even know it. I sound like a stupid kid with a crush, but Luka, trust me on this.” He shook his head and looked down at his feet. “This isn’t happening again. I’ll lay off you. I’ve been putting myself in front of you hoping you’ll notice me.”
“And I did. I---you get to have whatever opinion you want about me, but I’m telling you that I don’t wait well. And I’m going to ask Beth to switch classes with me so we’re not up in each other’s faces, because I can’t have you sitting in my classroom every day when all I think about is kissing you and knowing that I can’t.”
Billy looked up sharply. “Luka. I----I’ll just drop your class, don’t change things up for everyone else.”
“She’s a better teacher than I am. You’ll probably get a better education from her. It’ll be easier for me to switch than for you to drop with how small this school is,” Luka assured him.
Billy looked like he was going to protest again, but Luka was right. He didn’t have a lot of choices when it came to classes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t need the distraction.” Luka was trying to save his own life. He might even die before Billy turned seventeen.
Luka almost laughed, but the sound died in his mouth. “No. The worst part is that I could use the distraction. It just shouldn’t be you.”
Billy knew what he wanted. He knew he could consent. He knew he had the ability to say that yes, out of everyone here, he wanted Luka. The scandal of it even appealed to him. He liked the danger of it, liked the idea of it being kind of … wrong. It felt rebellious. It felt grown up. The fact that he adored Luka just made it worse. Despite all of that: “The risk is too much. I won’t make the same mistakes my mom did. I won’t become a joke.”
“Could you please go?” Luka tried to be gentle about it, and it didn’t work very well. “Because if you don’t, I’ll keep talking and I’ll say something stupid. Or I’ll kiss you again.”
“I---” Billy faltered again, but he nodded. Ducking his head and pulling his tail around himself, he grabbed his bookbag and left the library.