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Sammy hangs back by his desk, backpack slung over one shoulder while the other students slowly file out of the classroom. There’s a small gaggle of them gathered around the professor, all bright eyed and eager. Sammy can’t understand them. He’d rather be anywhere but here, getting ready to repeat the same horribly awkward conversation that happens every semester.
Eventually the cluster of students dissipates, and Sammy makes his way up to the front of the classroom. He shrugs his backpack onto a nearby lab bench with a dismal thud and shoves his hands in his pockets.
The professor looks up at the noise and fixes Sammy with a polite but bored smile.
“Do you have a moment, professor?” Sammy asks.
The man frowns briefly, but nods. “Samuel Stevens?” he asks, glancing down at the attendance sheet peeking out from the pile stacked haphazardly on the table.
Sammy’s breath catches in his throat, and he struggles to ignore the way his shirt is visibly fluttering just from the pumping of his beating heart. “I usually go by Sammy, sir.”
The professor grabs a pencil and makes an illegible mark by Sammy’s name. “Very well then, Sammy. Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I, uh…” Sammy swallows. “I have tremors. My hands shake.” He pulls his hands from his pockets and displays them, palm down. The tremors are blatantly obvious like this, his hands unsteady in the air like a dashboard bobble-head rattling along an unpaved road, the left noticeably worse than the right. They’re worse than they usually are, but that’s entirely due to the stress of the conversation. He tenses the muscles in his hands and forearms anyway, and the degree of oscillation ticks up a notch. Better to show them at their worst than have everyone be surprised when finals week rolls around and his ability to hold a pen dramatically decreases.
The professor is silent, and Sammy snatches his hands back, shoving them in his pockets. “I thought you should know before you assign lab partners, since I can’t really do much measuring or anything.” His words hang in the empty air, and Sammy waits, his eyes fixed on the floor.
“Why are you in this class? You do know it’s a lab, right?” The professor demands, his annoyance more than evident in his clipped questions.
Sammy hunches his shoulders. “It’s a required class, sir. My science credits didn’t transfer, and they won’t waive the class unless I get a certificate from the disability office.”
The professor sighs. “And I assume you can’t get one of these.”
“No, sir,” Sammy says with a small shake of his head.
The professor, mercifully, does not ask why. “Just call me Joel, Sammy. Professor if you must.” He shifts his feet, and Sammy looks up to see him motioning at the back of the classroom. “Jack, I’ve got a job for you,” he calls, and the student tucked away at the back of the lab emerges. The student makes eye contact with Sammy, whose brain stops dead in its tracks. Oh, fuck. This guy is the most beautiful person Sammy has ever seen. He doesn’t have time or energy for a crush like this, not now.
The guy – Jack – walks over, and Sammy wrenches his eyes away to look back at the professor. “Sammy, this is Jack Wright. Jack, Sammy,” he says, motioning between the two of them. “Jacks a biology minor and had to take this class a year late due to scheduling issues. He knows most of this stuff already, so it shouldn’t be too much for him to lend you a hand during lab.” And then the professor walks away, leaving Sammy to face Jack alone.
“You want to grab a coffee and chat a bit?” Jack asks with a wide, easy smile. “See if we can figure out how this is gonna work?”
Thank fuck Sammy’s got an actual reason to turn him down, because he’s not sure how he’s going to survive working with Jack for the semester, let alone spending time with him outside of class.
“Sorry, but I can’t have coffee,” Sammy manages to say with what he hopes is a suitably apologetic expression.
If anything, Jack’s smile seems to brighten. “Perfect! There’s a little tea shop just off campus, and I’ve been looking for someone to share it with. You up for it?”
Oh, but how Sammy wants to says yes. It’s a bad idea, but maybe he and Jack can be friends. He gives Jack a small smile and nods.
Jack laughs, like he’s genuinely pleased by Sammy’s answer. “Well, Sammy,” he says, slinging and arm over Sammy’s shoulders and starting for the door, “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”