Chapter Text
Harvey’s late. Maybe that should be his first warning, a tip-off to the turn his day is about to take. A morning in the mines left him scrambling to shower and change before hurrying to school, but his professor likes him, so it isn’t a problem; she once ran into his father in town and ever since has cut Harvey a little more slack than he really deserves. Everyone else is already at their easels when Harvey skids through the door, but Professor Greenleaf waves him on as she leans closer to his classmate’s work and murmurs what’s sure to be a keen-eyed suggestion. Harvey grins, setting down his bag and thermos before plucking the pencil from behind his ear, ready to get to work.
Prof lays her hand on his back as she passes, warm and solid, sort of like a mom might do. It’s really nice. The morning’s rush melts from Harvey’s shoulders.
Life Drawing is Harvey’s favorite class, the only time all week when he feels like he can breathe, where he won’t be lagging behind or struggling, where he can turn his brain off and just draw. Prof even lets him listen to music most of the time. Harvey’s never sheepish about the models, nude or not, because this is about art, appreciating the human body however it looks. The models don’t come in to be ogled by him, but captured, and Harvey likes to focus on the smallest details with the greatest dedication — the texture of the hair in one woman’s braids, the complicated mechanics of a pair of hands. Today’s model is facing away from him, just a mop of dark curly hair and sloping shoulders, back decorated with a few stray freckles. Harvey is so intent on the miniscule dips and curves of the model’s shoulder blades that he actually sighs in disappointment when Prof calls for a pose switch.
Harvey shuffles his papers around for a fresh sheet. He rolls a cramp out of his hand. He gulps a mouthful of hot coffee. He’s so wrapped up in all these little readjustments that it hits him like a city bus when he looks up and comes face to face with Nick Scratch.
Naked Nick Scratch.
Nick Scratch with his hair tousled and skin bared, a clean line from shoulder to torso to hip to thigh that Harvey can already, annoyingly, feel the shape of on the paper. It’ll take one sweep of his hand to mark it out, tip of the pencil dragging down in one unbroken glide.
But that’s not the point. The point isn’t that Nick is naked; it’s that Nick is here.
Harvey’s wide-eyed shock is momentarily mirrored on Nick’s face, but then Nick laughs, bright and startled, all white teeth and olive skin. His broad smile is so unexpected that the girl next to Harvey audibly gasps. When Nick gives Harvey a playful little wave, she makes an aggrieved noise and glares at him. Harvey glares right back, because he never did anything to her and Nick being here isn’t his fault, he refuses to be blamed for it.
Nick is laughing a little, silently, leaning back on the stool with one foot resting on the lowest rung. Harvey hasn’t seen him in more than six months, since before Nick and Sabrina’s last break-up, the one they thought was maybe final. Harvey figured the next time he saw Nick, if he ever saw Nick again, would be across a bloody battle with some kind of tentacle monster or heavenly army, some new and impossible threat.
But it’s Monday morning at Greendale Community College, Harvey has been up and working since 4 a.m., and now he gets to draw his ex-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s dick.
You can’t make this stuff up.
College isn’t really what Harvey thought it would be, not that he let himself imagine too often. Tommy did all the imagining for him. Once he was gone, Harvey just held on and tried to survive whatever was thrown at him next: heralds of Satan wearing velvet headbands, day trips to Hell, virgin-sacrificing pagans, eldritch terrors. Girlfriends who moved up and moved on.
If Harvey was going to let himself think about college the way Tommy thought about it for him, then it would have been art school on the East Coast, because Harvey liked seasons too much to go without them. His whole life would be art, staying up late with paints and pastels on his hands, all over his clothes. Maybe he’d get into sculpting. He would dye his hair some weird color. Maybe pink. His dad would hate that. Harvey wouldn’t ever go home for the holidays.
Instead, college is kind of like High School: The Sequel, except without any of the people who made high school tolerable in the first place. He crosses paths now and then with someone from Baxter — and there was the whole thing with Carl — but overall Harvey is on his own. He trudges in and out of core classes, just one art elective a semester because he can’t afford more and doesn’t have the time, either. Theo calls. Roz texts. Sabrina sometimes sends cardinals tapping at his windows with little notes. He saw them all at Christmas. But there are long stretches of time without any of them in it, Harvey stuck in his childhood bedroom while they have found their own bright futures.
Roz is at Stanford. Theo is thriving at a small liberal arts university in Washington. Sabrina went to a witch school in the Other Realm that can only be reached when the moon is at a certain position in the sky. All of his friends flung themselves out of town with the speed of frogs escaping a boiling pot while Harvey allowed himself to turn to sludge.
He shouldn’t think like that. He’s safe, he’s alive, and he’s drawing. He can’t ask for more than that.
And he won’t.
Nick comes up to Harvey when class is over, trousers tugged up loosely but unbuttoned, sweater hung over a bare shoulder and t-shirt in his hands. “Harry. Fancy seeing you here.”
“His name’s Harvey,” says the girl next to them, tossing her hair aggressively over her shoulder. Harvey immediately feels bad because he doesn’t know her name.
“Who’s?” Nick asks politely, smiling, and that gets her all flustered again.
“The art student in the art class,” Harvey says pointedly. He’s the one who is exactly where he’s supposed to be, unlike Nick, who should probably be at some kind of ritualistic orgy or grandiose magical library.
Nick’s smile becomes a little more acerbic, a little more amused. “I thought you’d gotten into some posh art program out of state.”
Harvey’s surprised Nick knows that. He shrugs, busying himself by shoving his stuff into his bag. He closes the sketchbook over the image of Nick, body like a statue rendered in graphite. “Shit happens.”
“Doesn’t it just.” Nick gives Harvey an inquisitive once-over but doesn’t ask. He finally pulls his t-shirt over his head, but that makes his sweater slip free; Harvey catches it before it hits the ground, the fabric soft and expensive in his hands. He feels stupid holding it out halfway between them for Nick to take when he’s good and ready and he wants to let it fall, but he doesn’t. “Suppose I’ll be seeing you around, then.”
Dread drops into the pit of Harvey’s stomach. “Why?”
Nick takes the sweater. He’s already moving back as he answers, distance between them widening, his grin wicked. “I’m enrolled!”
Harvey wants to believe that Nick is joking.
Nick is not joking.
Three days later Harvey walks into Intro to American Lit and finds Nick seated front row center, two desks taken over by his teetering stacks of books. He must have brought everything on the syllabus. He has a large leather-bound tome open in front of him, its unlined page already nearly full of notes in precise calligraphy. “Dude,” Harvey breathes, both weirded out and a little stunned.
Nick glances up, silver tip of his fountain pen lifting from the page, and blinks. “Harry. We must stop meeting like this.”
“I’m trying,” Harvey says honestly. He picks up the book on top of Nick’s pile and flips through it. Its margins are packed with scribbles and different passages are underlined in multi-color ink. Harvey should tell him about Post-Its. “Are these color-coded?”
“Obviously,” Nick says, as though Harvey is very stupid.
“You know you don’t have to bring all the books to every class.”
Nick pauses, as though he, perhaps, did not know that. “Well, I have a lot of questions. Have you read that yet?”
Harvey hasn’t even gotten it from the library yet. “No.”
“I find mort—” Nick’s teeth click closed on the word mortal. “I find all this literature terribly fascinating. I’ve never read anything like it before.”
Harvey pulls his gaze up from the book and looks at Nick, really looks at him: his smoothed-down hair, his sweater over a collared shirt, the open expression of someone eager to learn. And he asks the thing that’s been driving him crazy for three straight days. “Nick. Why are you here?”
Nick opens his mouth, but before he can respond, the harried professor bursts through the door with an armful of papers and a to-go cup he’s clutching for dear life. “Come on, everybody, take a seat,” he calls, which is when Harvey realizes he’s the only one still standing. Nick moves his bag and Harvey has no option but to take the desk next to him, in the front row, on the very first day of class.
Nick helpfully nudges the books closer to him. “Feel free to look on with me,” he says, but his hand is already up, trying to get the teacher’s attention. “Excuse me, professor —”
Harvey slinks down in his seat and prays, to the False God or anyone else listening, that the floor will open up and swallow him.
Nick spends the entire hour peppering the professor with rapid-fire questions about the syllabus until Harvey genuinely worries that the man is going to cry. Initial delight at Nick’s enthusiasm appears to have worn down into a slightly desperate exhaustion. Harvey doesn’t know what other schools are like, but some of the teachers here really seem like they’re hanging on by a thread.
Harvey plans to tune Nick out, but after a minute, he finds himself sort of — interested, at least, in how passionate Nick is, even about this, stuff that must seem like small potatoes to the best warlock at the Invisible Academy. It reminds Harvey a little of Roz and Sabrina, way back before they ever knew the dark secrets lurking in their small town, when they’d be sitting side by side in Ms. Wardwell’s English class having a spirited discussion of three, because no one else was tuned in enough to care. Even Nick’s posture is the same: leaning in over the little desk with his shoulders up, pen never leaving his fingers just in case.
It doesn’t make any sense. If Harvey didn’t know any better, he’d think Nick was having fun.
The class seems grateful when the professor calls it quits; even the gaggle of girls sitting behind Nick and dreamily eyeing the back of his head appear ready for a ceasefire. “It’s too bad classes are so short here,” Nick sighs. “And they’ll only let me take so many of them. Did you know there was a limit? Ridiculous. They don’t even have any classes after midnight!”
“Yeah, people too busy sleeping and junk, no dedication to their studies,” Harvey says dryly. He stands, hip resting against the edge of the desktop, and starts handing Nick books so he can put them away. “You gonna be able to carry all that?”
Nick flashes him a smirk. “I think I can handle it, farm boy.” He takes one book, the one Harvey had been looking at, and slaps it against his chest. “Try to catch up before next class.”
He’s gone in the time it takes Harvey to grab the book.
“Nick,” he says, aghast. He looks around and finds himself alone in the room, but even so, “You can’t teleport out of a mortal classroom!”
No one is around to hear him.
Harvey next sees Nick at a party.
Harvey doesn’t go to parties a lot, and he gets invited to them even less. But there are only so many hours he can spend on his own, holed up in his room studying or drawing; picking up extra shifts at his on-campus office job; begging Prof for a little extra time in the studio. Only so many excuses he can make to avoid sitting opposite his dad at the dinner table, so every so often when someone says to him, “Dude, you should totally come,” Harvey does.
There aren’t official sororities at GCC, but former Ravenettes look after their own and they’ve been passing down an old pink Craftsman from cheerleader to cheerleader for decades. There’s almost always something going on over the weekend: a keg in the backyard, music muffled but blasting, kids spilling out onto the lawn. Greendale’s enduring respect for football and cheer keeps neighbors from calling the cops. Harvey always has a burst of optimism the minute before he steps through the door, and then he spends the night nursing one beer and wondering why he ever thought this would be a good idea.
Tonight is one of those nights, but for a different reason. Nick is here, and he’s dancing.
All the furniture in the living room has been pushed up against the walls, leaving a square of worn-in mauve carpet beaten down from too many years of collegiate stampeding. It’s crowded with co-eds but in the middle is Nick. He’s slightly taller than most of the surrounding girls, but he would stand out even if he wasn’t. In a room of crushed plastic cups and décor ten years out of date, Nick is a rare and strange thing — his black hair glossy with sweat, skin gleaming with it, eyes closed as his head rolls back on his neck, body moving to the music. His shirt has come undone down the front and people keep touching him, pressing up against him. Their hands on his chest and his hips, Nick insensate to it, allowing it but not returning it, letting them buoy him enough to keep dancing.
Harvey is starting to wonder if he’s in an actual episode of The Twilight Zone.
He’s so focused on Nick that he collides directly with someone trying to sidle past him, and the apology dies on his lips when he sees that it’s Carl. Then he finds his manners. “Uh, sorry, dude. Wasn’t paying attention.”
Carl, with the inveterate skill of a boy who spent high school going to keggers, manages not to spill a drop of his beer in the dust-up. “Uh-huh.”
Always a man of few words, Carl.
He follows Harvey’s line of sight to Nick and makes a huffy kind of exhalation, burying it in a swallow of beer almost immediately. “Isn’t that the guy Sabrina Spellman used to date?”
Sometimes Harvey can be a man of few words himself. “Yep.”
“What’s he doing here? Wasn’t he, like, a private school kid?”
“Sort of,” Harvey says. “No idea. We’re not friends.”
“Sure.” His eyes narrow a little. “Isn’t he a little out of your league?”
Harvey’s jaw tightens. “Weren’t you?”
Carl scowls, mumbling a barely audible, “Whatever,” before he pushes on through the crowd.
Harvey looks back just in time to see Nick pull away from the brunette he’s kissing and meet the lips of the tall guy standing behind him. Harvey’s throat constricts and his stomach clenches and he thinks —
Where anyone could see him. Of course Nick could, and of course everyone would let him.
Harvey is lucky enough to run into a couple of the art kids in one of the quieter back rooms. They’re more than acquaintances and less than friends, and it’s nice to talk about nothing serious with people who have no preconceived notions about him. They joke and laugh, share anecdotes about Prof and complain about school. He follows them outside when they want to share a cigarette, though he doesn’t smoke himself. They huddle together in the late January air, but Harvey doesn’t feel the chill. Sabrina had enchanted his jacket when she came home for Christmas so he would never get cold. It’ll keep you warm while I’m away, she’d said, but Harvey hadn’t known what to make of it, so he’d smothered whatever bubbled up in his chest.
She has a new boyfriend at her witch school, anyway.
Harvey considered sending her a message when he first saw Nick, but Nick was a touchy subject, and he could only get through to her if he lit a black candle during a waxing gibbous at exactly three-oh-two in the morning. It was a little more involved than sending a text. He hadn’t wanted to bother her.
He always thinks of Sabrina when he stares up at the moon, now waning white in the black sky. He stays outside when the art kids go back in, and when the crowd thins, wouldn’t you know it? Nick is out here too.
“Dude!” Harvey says. “Why are you here!”
Nick startles, automatically crossing his arms and frowning. He isn’t wearing a coat. “It’s too hot inside,” he says defensively.
“No, not — would you come over here, you must be freezing — not out here.” Harvey takes the gloves out of his pocket and foists them on Nick. “I meant why are you at Greendale Community? Why are you even in Greendale?”
If there are witch academies and witch universities, then Harvey doesn’t doubt that there is one out there with a place for Nick Scratch. Sabrina mentioned some of the Invisible Academy students were at school with her, but others had gone to other places; Harvey knows Prudence is in training to be the next High Priestess after Zelda Spellman, because he runs into her and Ambrose at Dr. Cerberus’ occasionally. For all Harvey was inundated with witches before, he rarely crosses paths with them now. Present circumstances notwithstanding.
“I live here,” Nick says archly, but he puts the gloves on.
“And you just up and decided to go to mortal college one day?”
“Well,” Nick says. “Actually.”
Harvey stares at him.
“I already know as much about witchcraft as it’s possible to know,” Nick continues, defensive again. “I’m a nationally ranked conjurer. And I have no lack of time to develop my abilities in the future.” His chin juts up arrogantly. “But I don’t know anything about mortals, and I’d like to.”
Harvey thinks of the margins of Nick’s books, filled with notes. Nick asking all those questions.
“Okay, sure,” Harvey says, deciding to accept that, because he has no other choice. “But GCC? Aren’t you supposed to be really smart? Couldn’t you have gone somewhere better?”
Nick’s chest puffs, smug. “Yes, obviously. But I don’t exist in the mortal world. Falsified documents can only take you so far. GCC has a hundred percent acceptance rate. They’ll take anyone. I could have been a serial killer and they’d have taken me.”
Really great night for Harvey’s ego.
“But I may transfer later on,” Nick adds thoughtfully. “Perhaps to Harvard. Or Yale.”
Wryly, Harvey says, “Dream big.”
Nick smiles. He has his arms wrapped around himself so he must be feeling the temperature by now, his sweat dried to a slight sheen all over his body. He hasn’t done up his shirt yet, though, which is ridiculous. There’s snow on the ground. Harvey is about to ask if he wants to go back in when Nick says, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
Nick arches an eyebrow.
“Oh.” Harvey looks away and rubs the back of his neck. “Like I said. Shit —”
“Happens, yeah,” Nick says. Harvey can feel Nick watching him, the weight of that intuitive gaze. He refuses to meet it. Discomfort prickles over his skin and he keeps his chin tilted down and to the side, thinking, let it go, just let it go, just drop it. Nick makes a small sound, a sort of hm, and then asks, “Did you do the reading?”
Relieved, Harvey shakes his head. “Not yet.”
“Gotta get on it, mortal.” Nick reaches over to take Harvey by the lapel, tugging him back towards the door. “Come on. It’s cold out here.”
Later, Harvey realizes Nick had been looking at the moon, too.