Introduction

[Mr. Everett Trimble]

“Here you go hun, on the house.”

Everett looked up from his open file to see that the lunch lady was speaking to him over a tray of the cafeteria’s daily special: meatloaf and green beans. He made a point of telling Damian he had work to do this week and so he couldn’t take lunch duty, but as usual, Damian ignored any request/demand/complaint that interfered with his drinking time. Basically, any day that ended in Y, Everett believed. To make a long story short, he was now quickly compiling student data to send to the State Board of Education in a noisy cafeteria, attempting to look as unapproachable as possible to avoid being disturbed. So far, it hadn’t been working. Perhaps he was just too congenial looking, he mused. He would have to talk to Baptiste and try to glean some secrets from him. For now though, he was pretty hungry—hungry enough for cafeteria food—and so he pushed his tower of files to the side to make room for the tray, smiling at the lunch lady. “Thanks, I guess I forgot to eat before I came.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a cafeteria?” The lady asked before walking back towards the kitchen, breaking up the beginnings of a food fight as she went.

“Not around here it doesn’t…” Ev mumbled to himself as he studied the “meatloaf” doing laps around the tray in a sea of slowly congealing reddish brown gravy. Oh yes. THAT’S why he made his own food. Messian was on to something, being kosher, maybe he’d have to get on board with that.

He picked up the biscuit and the milk beside the plate and slowly started munching as he went back to work on his papers, every now and then looking around for an adult he could rope into taking over for him. There was no point in working here, lunchtime banter kept him from concentrating fully. Eventually he gave up, crossing one leg over the other under the table and just staring slowly around the room as he drank his milk. … what? Milk does a body good. Not everyone could live on whiskey like Damian.

[Mr. Harper Salander]

Unlike Everett, Harper had brought his own lunch today; Ribble soup, a simple turkey sandwich, and tea. Harper wasn't exactly a cook, and he figured something simple would be easy enough. He had dully noted that the vinegar in the soup mixed with his tea, Chai to be exact, would probably make him ill later- not that he cared all too much. After he heated up the soup in the cafeteria's kitchen, being positive that a few of the lunch ladies gave him a nasty look for being in there, Harper stepped out into the noisy cafeteria and looked around somewhat timidly.

In all honesty, Harper hadn't eaten in the cafeteria in a long while. Because of his unpopularity among the staff members (something about being involved with Damian? How childish), he usually just ate in his classroom by himself. Today wasn't much different than any other day of the week, other than Harper had decided that he wanted to be around people during his lunch hour- whether they liked him or not. The only problem was finding a place to sit. Most of the tables were occupied by students, and while he did enjoy the company of his students, he would rather spend his lunch hour with another adult. Only problem with that was that most teachers spent their time in the teacher's lounge and, although he is also a teacher, the feels very unwelcome in such a place.

Luckily for Harper, he noticed Mr. Trimble out of the corner of his eye, and even more importantly, he was sitting alone. The other man had a stack of files next to him, so Harper could only assume that he was busy, but Everett seemed more focused on eating than he was on the paperwork. With a few moments of hesitation, Harper walked over to the man's table, trying his best to look friendly rather than irritating.

"This seat taken...?" He asked softly, motioning to an empty seat with his elbow and using his knuckles to push up the glasses that had been slipping down the bridge of his nose.

[Mr. Everett Trimble]

He had just been contemplating how it was that the cafeteria managed to completely massacre simple dishes—spaghetti, for example, or grilled cheese—and yet they still seemed to crank out a completely delicious white flour roll, when Harper spoke. Everett looked up from his birdlike picking at the roll, tearing little pieces off and chewing on them as he looked around the room, and blinked at the man as he slowly became aware of what had been said.

“Oh! Yeah sure, Harper, no problem. Let me just… move these… over here…” He slid smaller stacks of files with one hand off the larger pile, making a new one to the side so that Harper could join him. He smiled what he hoped was a winning smile at the man, leaning his elbows on the table as he spoke. “You’re brave coming in here without an explicit order to do so.” To accent his point, he glanced over at a table where the Popular Students were holding court, Noah White and Mischa Aleksandrovich on their thrones at the head of the table. Separated and those two were ok, but put them together and they were positively dangerous. Many, many requests had come in this year from the other teachers for Everett to break them up as much as possible in terms of scheduling and he had done what he could to accommodate, but he was only human. He caught Noah's eye briefly and thought he saw the blonde wink at him before he leaned over to whisper something in Mischa's ear. Human nature told him the teens were talking about him and he vigorously fought back a blush. He was 29, for God's sake, two 17 year olds were NOT going to have that much power over him.

To occupy his mind, he surveyed Harper’s food as the man set it down, eyeing the soup curiously. “What is that?” He asked, curious about something he hadn't seen before in the lunchroom. Were the “chefs” branching out to accommodate new tastes?

[Mr. Harper Salander]

Harper chuckled softly to himself as he watched the other man pick at the bread roll, smiling as each little chunk of bread disappeared past his lips. It was adorable, really; he was like a child almost. A small child in the lunchroom, picking at bread timidly and drinking milk, scanning the room for bullies. Harper couldn't help but smile down at Everrett as he sat down next to the younger man, taking a sip of his tea.

"Oh, pish-posh. I don't need permission to eat where I please," he smiled, crossing one leg over the other and leaning against the table comfortably. "Besides, we're grown adults! We don't let children control us." Despite these words, Harper couldn't help but look over at the group of Populars, watching the two blonde queens converse together. It was funny, really; he almost envied them. They were young, beautiful, and filled with life with so many opportunities ahead of them. Then again, Noah White and Mischa Aleksandrovich apparently chose to spend their youth as self-proclaimed 'royalty', not one omething more useful or intelligent. Oh well; Youth is wasted on the young.

Harper has turned his head before Noah had winked at Everett, so when the other male questioned his food, he laughed brightly and pushed the bowl of soup toward Everett with a smile. "It's Ribble soup. Potatoes, water, vinegar, and ribbles made of flour and egg yolk," he smiled, obviously pleased with his cooking. "That, and just a plain ham and cheese sandwich." He held it up, laughing softly. "Do you want some? I have more than enough."