Chapter Text
3 years ago…
Lucius wasn’t really sure if grad school was his thing. It wasn’t the science part, he loved science. It wasn’t even the red flags that came with committing. (The eighty hour work week, the underappreciated work, the pennies he would be making. He was aware of the effects the sleepless nights working would have on his mental health but discovering something in the dead of night might just be worth it.)
Anyways he was aware of the situation but he believed he could deal with it. There was something holding him back from fully committing to the hell that is a Ph.D program.
That was until he met Him .
He met him by running into the first bathroom he found.
“Is there a reason you're crying in my bathroom?” The guy asked him.
Lucius whimpered. He tried to open his eyes and was only able to see an outline through his tears. All he could see was a short man, with dark hair who was wearing all black clothing.
“Is this not a public bathroom?” He stuttered out.
After a long moment he responded with a sharp, “Nope.” His voice was deep and gravely.
“Are you sure?’
“Yes.”
“100% sure?”
“Yes, seeing as it's my lab’s bathroom.”
Well, that seemed about right. “I’m sorry. Do you need to use it?” He gestured towards the stall, or what he hoped was the stall. His eyes stung and he needed to keep them scrunched up to relieve the pain. He tried to dry his cheeks with his sleeve but the material of his shirt was cheap and flimsy and was not as absorbent as real cotton. Oh, the joy is being impoverished.
“I just need to pour this reagent down the drain,” He said but he didn't hear him move. Maybe because he was blocking the sink. Or maybe because he thought Lucius was a weirdo and was contemplating sicking the campus police on him. That would put a brutal end to his Ph.D dreams wouldn't it. “We don't use this as a restroom, just to dispose of waste and wash equipment.”
“ Oh sorry I thought…” poorly. He thought poorly as was his habit and curse.
“Are you okay?” He must be really short, his voice sounded like it came from 10 ft below him.
“ Sure, why do you ask?”
“Because you're crying. In my bathroom.”
“Oh I'm not crying. Well, I'm sorry I am, but it's just tears you know?”
“I do not.”
He sighed leaning against the wall. “It's my contacts. They expired a while ago and they were never great to begin with. They messed up my eyes. I've taken them off but…” He shrugged hopefully in the right direction. “It takes a while before they get better.”
“You put in expired contacts?” He was personally offended or at least sounded that way.
“Just a little expired.”
“What's a ‘little’?”
“ I don't know, maybe a few years?”
“What?” He asked sharp and precise. It was strangely pleasant.
“I think it's just a couple.”
“Just a couple of years?”
“Yeah, it's ok though expiration dates are just suggestions.”
He snorted. “Expiration dates would’ve made it so you weren’t found crying in my bathroom.”
Unless he was the president of the university, this guy really needed to stop referring to the bathroom as his own.
“It really is ok.” He waved his hand around, he'd preferred to roll his eyes but they were currently on fire. “It usually only takes a few minutes for the burning to stop.”
“You’re telling me you’ve done this before?”
“Done what before?”
“Wear expired contact.”
“Well yeah. Contacts are pretty expensive and I’m not made of money.”
“New eyes are too.”
Well he had him there. How dare he make a good point.
“Have we met? Maybe last night at the recruitment dinner for prospective Ph.D students?”
“No.”
“Are you sure you weren’t there?”
“No it's not really my type of event.”
“But the free food is worth it.”
“Not with the small talk that comes along with it.”
He had to be on a diet because no Ph.D student would say that. He was sure that he was a Ph.D student because the condescending tone was a huge giveaway. All students talked like they were better than everyone else because they got the privilege of experimenting with bacteria for ninety cents an hour, in the name of science of course. In the dark hellspace that was academia, graduate students were the lowest creatures and had to convince themselves they were important. He was not a psychologist but it was pretty much a textbook definition of a defense mechanism.
“Are you interviewing for a spot in the program?” he asked.
“Yeah for next year’s biology cohort.” Oh god his eyes were on fire. “What about you?” He asked, bringing her hands to rub at his eyes.
“Me?”
“Yeah, how long have you been here?”
“Here? About six years.”
“Oh. Does that mean you're graduating soon?”
“I… Uh.”
He understood his hesitation and instantly felt guilty.
“Wait, don't tell me. Gotta remember the first rule of grad school is don't ask about other people's graduation timeline.”
After a beat or two he said “right.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to transform into your parents at Thanksgiving.” He really wished he could see him. He already had a hard time with social interaction, now he had less clues to work with.
Luckily he laughed, “You could never.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “Annoying parents?”
“With the worst Thanksgivings.”
“That’s what Americans get for leaving the Commonwealth.” He held out his hand in hopefully his general direction. “I’m Lucius by the way.” He slowly started to wonder if he had just introduced himself to the drain when he heard him step closer. The hand that closed around him was dry, and warm, and so small that he was able to envelope it with his whole hand. Everything about him must be small. He was almost totally right except for his biceps and tits but Lucius didn’t know that yet.
“You’re not American?” He asked.
“Canadian. Also if you happen to talk to anyone who’s on the admission committee, can you please not mention my contact mishap? It might make me seem like a less than stellar candidate.”
“Oh you really think so?” he deadpanned.
He would be glaring at him if he could. But maybe he was doing a good job of it anyway because he laughed. Ok it might have just been a huff but he could tell that it was his way of laughing. And he liked it.
He let go of him, making him realize that he’d been holding his hand the whole time.
“Are you going to enroll?” He asked.
He shrugged. “I might not get an offer.” But he and the professor he’d interviewed with, Dr. Bonnet had really hit it off.
Lucius had stuttered and mumbled much less than usual. Plus his GRE scores and GPA were almost perfect. Not having a life came in handy sometimes.
“Are you planning on enrolling if you get an offer then?”
He would be stupid not to. This was Stanford, after all– they had one of the best biology programs. Or that's what Lucius kept telling himself to cover the petrifying truth.
Which was that he was on the fence about this whole grad school thing.
“I… maybe. The line between excellent career choice and critical life screwup is getting a bit blurry.”
“Sounds like you’re leaning towards screw up.” He was smiling.
“No.. It’s just… Well.”
“You just what?”
He bit his lip. “What if I’m not good enough?” He blurted out. Oh god why did he just tell this random guy he just met in the bathroom his darkest secret. What was the point anyways? Anytime he aired out his doubts to his friends they all automatically offered the same meaningless encouragement. You’ll be fine. You can do it. I believe in you. This guy was going to do the same.
Any second now.
Maybe right now.
Ok give him a second to console a stranger.
“Why do you want to do it?”
Wait he’s flipping the script, FUCk. “Do… What?”
“Get a Ph.D. What's your reason?”
“Oh… I’ve always had an inquisitive mind, and graduate school is the ideal environment to foster that. It’ll give me important transferable skills—”
He snorted.
He frowned. “What?”
“Not the line you found in an interview prep book. Why do you want a Ph.D?’
“But it's true,” he insisted weakly. “I want to sharpen my research abilities–”
“Is it because you don’t know what else to do?”
“No.”
“Because you didn’t get an industry position?”
“What-no I didn’t even apply for industry.”
“Ah.” He moved, a small, blurry figure stepping next to him to pour something down the sink. Lucius could smell a whiff of eugenol, laundry detergent, and clean skin. A weirdly nice combination.
“I need more freedom than industry can offer.”
“Well you won’t get much freedom in academia.” His voice was close, he hadn’t stepped back yet. “You’ll have to fund your work through ridiculously competitive research grants. You’ll make better money in a nine to five job that actually allows you to have weekends off.”
Lucius frowned. “Are you trying to get me to decline my offer? Is this some kind of anti-expired-contacts-wearers campaign?”
“No.”
He could hear his smile.
“I am going to choose to believe that it was a mistake.”
“I wear them all the time, and they almost never-”
“In a long line of mistakes, clearly.” He sighed. “Here’s the deal: I have no idea if you’re good enough but that's not what you should be asking. Academia’s a lot of work with very little reward. What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is good enough. So why the Ph.D Lucius?”
He thought about it, and thought more about it. And then spoke carefully. “I have a question. A specific research question. Something that I want to find out.” There, his answer was out there. “Something I’m afraid no one else will discover if I don’t.”
“A question?”
He felt the air shift and noticed that he was now leaning against the sink.
“Yes.” His mouth was dry. “Something that is important to me. And I don't trust anyone else to do it. Because they haven’t so far. Because…” Because something bad happened. Because I want to do something so that it won’t happen again. So no one has to go through that again.
These were heavy dark thoughts to have in front of a stranger, with her eyes closed. So he cracked them open; his vision was still blurry, but the burning was almost gone. He was looking at him. Fuzzy around the edge but so very there , waiting for him to continue.
“It’s important to me.” He repeated. “The research that I want to do.” Lucius was twenty-three and alone in the world. He didn’t want a weekend, or a good salary. He wanted to go back in time. He wanted to be less lonely. But that was impossible so he had to settle for fixing what he could.
He nodded but said nothing as he straightened and took a few steps toward the door. Clearly leaving.
“Is mine a good reason to go to grad school?” He called out after him, hating how eager for approval he sounded. It was possible that he was in the middle of an existential crisis.
He paused and looked back at him. “It’s the best one.”
He was smiling, he thought. Or at least the closest he got to smiling.
“Good luck on your interview, Lucius.”
“Thanks.”
He was almost out the door already.
“Maybe I’ll see you next year,” he rattled on, blushing a bit. “If I get in. And you haven’t graduated.”
“Maybe,” was all he said.
With that, He was gone. And Lucius never got his name. BUt a few weeks later, when the Stanford biology department extended him an offer, he accepted it. Without any hesitation.