Devil's Fate

Two Kinds of Troubles

Mike was grumpy. The entire day hadn't gone the way he wanted. Since Chester left for New York he'd been tired from not sleeping well, and stressed from the combination of classes, caring for Cheese, and keeping things clean. This morning he'd managed to oversleep his alarm, and as he frantically tried to get dressed to take Cheese outside, she had an accident in the kitchen. Once he'd cleaned that up, and taken her out for her business, there was only time to grab his backpack and head to class. He barely made it to group piano on time - without breakfast.

Now he was sitting in his third class of the day, and Matt had just handed back to him a theory paper with a big red C at the top. His stomach was rumbling, increasing his irritation with the poor grade. Stupid. I didn't read all the instructions. I rushed through it and didn't even finish it. Fuck. He sat with his arms folded over his chest, his eyebrows furrowed together in a deep frown, as Matt lectured. It was the first bad grade he'd had since he'd gone back to school, and Mike sat and berated himself for not paying attention to his work.

Matt stole glances at Mike throughout his lecture, but never made eye contact. Mike's eyes were covered by his hair, his bottom lip in a pout. It was all Matt could do not to laugh at how absurd he looked. Even though he'd been surprised to see such a low grade on his star student's paper, it wasn't as though a C would lower his entire semester average. The way Mike was reacting was worthy of a bad final exam, not a simple homework assignment. He decided he needed to pull Mike aside at the end of class and make sure everything was okay, to reassure him that one bad grade wouldn't sink the entire semester.

Mike never even bothered to open his notebook during class as he zoned out, thinking about how his morning had been terrible and how hungry he was. Theory couldn't get over with fast enough. He didn't have any classes for the rest of the day, and he wanted to go home. Cheese will make me feel better. Her little wiggly puppy butt. I'll play with her for a bit after I eat. Mike thought about the containers in the fridge, and tried to remember what he had left. I miss Ches. Nothing is right without him.

The class seemed to drag on and on until Matt wrote the next assignment on the board. Mike squinted at the scrawl, and dug into his backpack for his planner to write down the next assignment - this time with complete instructions. Tonight he'd make focused time for his work before his Facetime with Chester, and after playing with Cheese. Despite his routine being off the past few days, he was going to get it together and produce quality work.

"Hey, Mike?"

Matt was right in front of Mike when he looked up from stuffing his planner back into his bag. "Yeah?"

Matt leaned against the side of Mike's desk. "You okay?" He looked around the room. More than half his students had already left, but he dropped his voice anyway. "I know you didn't get the grade you'd like on the last assignment. But it's not like you didn't understand it, you just didn't finish it."

"I know," Mike said irritably. All he wanted was to leave and get food, and Matt wanted to talk to him about things he already knew. "It's been a complicated week. I've already made time to concentrate on it tonight, the next one will be better." He stood up from the desk with his backpack in one hand, pulling it up into the seat to zip it.

The word complicated was an opening for Matt, and he smiled. "You sound stressed. Anything I can help with?" He watched Mike shake his head and sling his bag up onto both shoulders. The corner of his red and black flannel caught on the strap of his bag, and Mike yanked it free with much more force than was actually necessary.

"I'm just ready to go. I'm starving," Mike whined, his stomach taking over everything. He was the definition of hangry, and Matt was in the way. "Anything else?"