sophinisba | Stand-alone Faculty ficlet: Blue Genes

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Stand-alone Faculty ficlet: Blue Genes

For

absolutefiction, who made a certain request about Casey and Zeke in class. Pre-aliens and pre-slash, though not by much. PG-13 (?) or maybe a little bit stronger, mostly for things that get said rather than things that happen. Extra warnings for unbetaed fic, an ending most people won't like, and lame humor based on a really shaky understanding of a ~~high school~~ junior high biology lesson. What can I say? Teenagers on the brain.

Blue Genes

There were fourteen girls in the class and sixteen guys. Or, he heard Gabe say one time, thirteen girls and fifteen guys, plus Stokely and Casey.

The second day of the genetics unit Furlong put them in pairs to fill out a stupid worksheet about Punnet squares and dominant and recessive genes, and it was supposed to be random, but Casey thought it was just too perfect to be chance, him ending up as the extra girl, him ending up paired with Zeke. So everybody else ended up in cute little heterosexual couples, and even if a few of them made faces and made cracks, nobody else had to be the mother of Zeke Tyler's babies.

Because that was what it was about. Observe your own and your partner's phenotype, guess at your genotype, fill in the blanks, figure the probability for the kids you would have, if the two of you were to have kids. Flip a coin to decide which allele gets passed on. An exercise.

Attached and detached earlobes were easy enough; so was checking the ability to curl up your tongue, though it was a little embarrassing when Zeke insisted on seeing him do it, "for the sake of science."

It got a little bit more complicated when they got to eye color, because there were two genes to deal with instead of just one. And it didn't help matters that, once they got there, Zeke felt the need to go up to Furlong's desk and lecture him about oversimplifying a complex set of factors, still not fully understood by geneticists, just to make a point.

"I'm an educator, Zeke," Casey overheard. "Making points is... it's kinda the point. I'm trying to get the concept across."

"So you're gonna teach all these morons that eye color is just a question of two genes, blue or brown and blue or green, dominant or recessive, yes or no? They'll believe it, you know. They won't even bother to ask about why Steve's eyes are grey or why Casey's are bluer than anyone else on this planet."

"It's not about what would actually happen if you and Casey had children, for God's sake. I think we're all pretty clear that that's not something that's gonna happen, as much as we're all accepting of alternative lifestyles at this school."

And he hadn't said it very loud, but Casey didn't dare look around to see if anybody else had heard. He blushed and stared at the worksheet, and tried hard to think about genes and probability, and not whether Zeke was starting at him, or whether the rest of the class was staring. He tried to tune out the argument, and that got easier once Furlong stopped trying to mouth off and they got into terminology Casey didn't understand. It went on for another five minutes or so. Casey knew it was really a question of going through the motions for Zeke. Once he'd proven his superior intelligence he was willing to come back to the table and talk Casey through the worksheet.

"How's it going, honey? Get it all worked out yet? If it's a girl I hope she takes after her mom, but if it's a boy I hope he looks like me, or God help him."

"We do that part later," said Casey, stalwart and determined. "Right now it's just about the probability and it's... Yeah. So I guess the genes for my eyes would be, um..."

"Homozygous, Casey?" Zeke suggested, looking smug.

"Yeah," Casey muttered, pretending not to notice how close Zeke was standing. "Blue eyes are a recessive trait, so I must have both the same. Blue-blue and not brown, blue-blue and not green."

"Say the word, man, it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"Fine, you fuck," and Casey rolled his eyes, truly more annoyed at the time they were wasting than at Zeke's attempt to embarrass him. Not that that wasn't a concern too. "Whatever, you win. I'm homozygous, okay?"

And from across the room he heard Delilah laugh, clear as a bell, but it was probably at one of Gabe's jokes, nothing to do with him.

Zeke nodded, smiled, as if satisfied with how well Casey was doing with the genetics lesson. Yeah, he was definitely in league with Furlong. Wanted to personally supervise Casey's mastery of the subject. "With you," he said, "everything laid out in front of your eyes, so to speak. Can't tell with me, see? 'Cause the brown-eyed gene is dominant. Homo, hetero, doesn't really matter, either way, it wins out."

"So for the first one," said Casey, very resolutely not looking at Zeke's brown eyes, "you could have brown-brown, or you could have brown-blue, right? You can't tell?"

"Can't tell from looking at me, but my mom's got blue eyes."

"So she must have blue-blue, blue-blue, like me, so she must have passed on one blue, um, one blue allele for each of these."

"Now you're getting it."

"So you'd have brown-blue for the first one, and either green-blue or blue-blue for the second one, depending on what you got from your dad."

"What color are my dad's eyes?"

"How the fuck should I know? I've never seen him." And how often do you see him? Casey chose not to add. And now that he dared to look, he saw Zeke staring at him with soft, beautiful, and apparently patient brown eyes. They really did want him to think through this. "Oh, right," said Casey after a few seconds. "His would have to be brown so he could pass that down to you. But we can't tell about the second one, the green gene."

"The gay gene, as it's known."

"The what?"

"G - E - Y, for green eye color gene. I know, I know" -- he was holding up his hands -- "it should be geck, but I guess that wasn't catchy enough for the geneticists, so it's the GEY gene, and BEY for the other one, brown eye color."

"That's the stupidest thing I've heard all day."

"Worse than the idea of you giving birth to my beautiful brown-eyed babies?"

"Not necessarily," said Casey, distracted, still trying to figure out what to fill in for Zeke's side (the top) of the green eye gene square, "we haven't worked that part out yet."

"Worse than the idea of you giving birth to my beautiful brown- and green- and blue-eyed babies?"

"So what you're saying," said Casey triumphantly, "Is that your GEY gene is heterozygous."

And Zeke, God love him, actually stopped smirking and teasing for a second and looked genuinely pleased and more than a little impressed. "Right," he said. "My dad's mom had brown eyes, his dad and his brother have blue, and his sister has green."

"So your grandma must have had brown-blue and green-blue, like you. Only... how can you tell your dad got the green gene and not the blue one, for the, um, BEY gene? The brown would cover it up either way, right? More melanin or whatever."

"Can't tell for sure, not until we have the babies. Let's just say I've got one of each though, to have something to fill out on the sheet."

"Then if the baby gets blue and blue from me, blue and green from you, she'll end up with green eyes. One in four chance."

"That's right."

"But if both the genes she gets from you are blue, then her eyes will be blue too."

"And gorgeous." There was a slight, awkward pause. "If it's a girl, anyway," Zeke recovered.

"One in eight for a blue-eyed girl. But odds are one in two he or she gets your brown allele for the BEY gene, and that's stronger than the blue or the green."

"You got it all worked out."

"Guess so," said Casey, and he filled in the last of the blanks on that part of the sheet.

"So what are the chances you let me fuck you?"

"What the fuck, Zeke?" Casey startled and had to work hard to keep his voice quiet; he was furious. Zeke was standing close and talking low, and Casey didn't think anyone else had heard that last bit. "God, are you thirteen or something? Do you have to turn everything I say into some lame joke?"

"Who's joking?" said Zeke, quiet, relaxed, "And who says it's just a question of what you say?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Biology, Casey."

"I'm the one who's trying to get the stupid assignment finished."

"No," Zeke continued tolerantly, "not biology class. Biology. Living things. Organs, for instance, that act like they have a mind of their own. Like that," and Zeke's hands didn't move but his eyes were unmistakably targeting the bulge in Casey's jeans. "It gets you hard thinking about you and me. Is it the fact that we're planning on having a family, or is it just the idea of my dick in your ass that does it for you?"

"That's not..." he'd been hoping Zeke wasn't paying attention. Fat chance of that. Zeke Tyler had sex on his mind every minute of the day. Not that Casey didn't, but at least Casey knew to shut up about it and save everyone the embarrassment of...

"It's biology, Case." Zeke's voice cut smoothly into his thoughts. "It's response to a stimulus. It's cool, okay? Nothing to be embarrassed about."

Casey nodded. "Sure," he said. "Who's embarrassed?"

"Right," Zeke continued easily, softly, his lips inches from Casey's ear, "and if I decided to bend you over this table right now and pull down your jeans and start fucking you and pumping your dick till you came all over my hands, that would just be response to a stimulus too. Could happen to anybody."

And Casey, once again more annoyed than embarrassed, decided to tell Zeke what he was really feeling. "Fucking tease," he ground out between clenched teeth.

Zeke tensed, surprised, but didn't move away. "You got something you wanna tell me, Casey?"

Casey, not trusting himself to speak in a room too crowded with teenagers, stared at Zeke in silence for what felt like a couple years, then without warning turned his back on him and stalked up to the front of the room. "Can I take the hall pass, Mr. Furlong?" he said, and Furlong nodded, indifferent, even though there were only five minutes left till the end of class and any other teacher would have told him to wait.

And Casey didn't really expect Zeke to follow him, because only one student was supposed to leave the classroom at a time, but then Zeke was never one to worry too much about school rules and neither, for that matter, was Furlong. Zeke followed him, then Casey followed Zeke into the chem supply room, and again Casey heard Delilah's soft laugh and Gabe's harsher snicker from inside the lab.

Casey must have looked nervous because Zeke said, "It's okay, I've used this room before. Say whatever you want. We can hear them but they won't hear our little lovers' spat."

"Shut up, Zeke."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry, it makes you uncomfortable," and that classic Zeke Tyler smirk, and another casual glance at Casey's boner, and Casey couldn't stand it anymore. If Zeke wasn't going to listen to him he'd just have to shut him up some other way. And Casey pushed Zeke back against the door, and reached a hand up and around the back of his head and carding through his hair, and before Zeke had time to get over the shock and get away, Casey pulled him closer and kissed him on the lips. Firm, but not hard. No tongue, and almost no movement. No exploration and no passion, just... a statement. Then Casey pulled away, and Zeke stared.

Casey was pleased to see that at least the smirk had disappeared, and Zeke was only staring at Casey's face now, though when Casey let his own eyes stray downward he could see he wasn't the only one who was aroused. He felt himself trembling a little bit, but he didn't feel scared in the least. "It's not about being embarrassed, he said simply. "It's about you doing something useful with that mouth. People tell me I'm a coward, tell me that every fucking day, but you know what? If you had any guts at all, you wouldn't just talk about fucking me. You'd do it."

Zeke's mouth opened, but no words came out. He squinted that weird, sexy squint he used when he was trying to figure something out, and Casey smiled.

"You won't shut up about how you've got condoms and lube in your car, whether anyone wants to hear about it or not. Well listen, I'm sick of hearing about them and sick of hearing about your supposed sexual prowess, and I want to see them, and I want to fucking feel it for once. Is that something you can give me, Zeke, or is it all just talk?"

Zeke was still speechless, motionless, and beautiful then as Casey had ever seen him. That insufferable smirk, the attitude that he was above it all and none of it mattered to him was gone, and Zeke looked as lost and wanting and exposed as Casey felt every day. Every single fucking day, Casey thought, and he stared back, and waited, and hoped.

Then Casey heard louder voices and the scraping of chairs from the classroom next door. The noise seemed to startle Zeke out of a spell, and he looked at the ground and then at the door.

"We didn't turn in the sheet," said Zeke, his voice rough, his mouth dry.

The fuck you care.

"I put our names on it," said Casey. "Furlong likes us both, it won't be a problem."

Zeke was licking his lips, stalling. "Yeah," he said. "So I'm... I'm sorry about... You're right, okay? All talk, no action, you found me out. So you don't have to put up with my shit anymore. I'll leave you alone."

And Casey smirked and tried to feel superior, wondering if Zeke felt this empty and stupid and frustrated whenever he wore this superior look on his face. And knowing he'd pushed too far too fast, knowing he'd lost, he heard Zeke's words, "You win, Casey," and watched Zeke duck out into the hall.

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You need a "tbc" on the end of this. Because you're right. ~~I don't like the ending.~~ I want Zeke to follow through! He needs to find his courage! Meep!

Hee! No, I'm quite sure they get together after the aliens. I figure everyone gains a lot of confidence from that experience, and after the bizarro-world pairings from the end of the movie fall apart OF COURSE Casey and Zeke will get together. It just couldn't happen yet. I'll finish some other nicer Faculty fics someday and you can think of them as sequels to this if you want.

Thank you for reading!

Fantastic fic! I am impressed, as science-intimidated as I am.

Good for Casey calling Zeke on his supposed teasing.

That last line was so painful...

That last line was so painful...

That's because I'm a bad person. But listen, as I said to Alch, I'm sure they get together later on. It just couldn't happen at this point.

I did some hobbit drabbles earlier today that end in a happier way, might make you feel better. :)

I'm at a moot right now, snatching bits of lj. I will be able to read your other posts when I get home tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it.

I think you should keep this to one side for a sequel, don't you? Maybe a post-alien chapter after their barriers are done.

P.S. I'm in the same house as absolutefiction right now, you know...

Oh, man, so that's why LJ's been so quiet tonight -- everybody's at AQ's place being social and eating good food. I hope you're all having a great time.

I will not set this up for a sequel because I have too many WIPs already, but I do have pieces of several fics that take place after the aliens and where they actually get together (if not in an especially ~~porny~~ explicit and satisfying way), and I will finish and post them eventually.

Heh, yes, people were very moot-centric!

I mentioned to AF that there was something waiting for her online. She's on her way home now and says she's thrilled to have something to look forward to in the fandom once she's back. (Will alleviate the depression of having to leave all the moot-folks!)

The thing she actually requested (Casey having a boner in class) ended up being pretty peripheral to the story, but I'm thinking there's other stuff in here that she'll like. :)

Or, he heard Gabe say one time, thirteen girls and fifteen guys, plus Stokely and Casey.

*snerk!* Really good mood, capturing of the teen scene. I love Casey turning the tables on Zeke.

People tell me I'm a coward, tell me that every fucking day

Hah, they're so wrong! Love this.

Ha, thank you! I love The Faculty for getting just how evil and scary high school can be, with or without aliens. I love that Zeke and Casey appear to hate each other at the beginning of the movie but that fandom has embraced the pairing for slash purposes anyway. And I LOVE that Casey turns out to be the brave one. What a great movie for fanfic.

I luff you! God, Casey is to die for in this. So tough he put Zeke on the run. It was a painful ending, yes, but I liked it that Casey is the stronger one. I'd love to read more of this too, if you ever get a bee in your bonnet about it.

Right back atcha, girlfriend! The ending sort of came at me out of nowhere and I was pretty frustrated, because I was intending to just have the whole thing be this mean but fairly light kind of teasing, but then I do have a strong and rather unruly angst muse, so I shouldn't really have been surprised. Thank you for reading!

Aaaah, your Casey is exactly, spot on the way I look at him. He just doesn't push back all the time, because he choses not to, but once you've a crossed a line with him, he's stronger than any of them. In this case even too strong for Zeke to take.

And what you said to Alch; yeah... Casey blew it with Zeke here, and he knows it. Sentences like these: And Casey smirked and tried to feel superior, wondering if Zeke felt this empty and stupid and frustrated whenever he wore this superior look on his face. make me bounce in my chair for the cheer 'yes, yes, YES!! That's exactly how it feels when you win the wrong part of an argument!!'
It takes something big like an alien invasion to sort this. Lucky for us we know there's going to be one.

So uhm, yeah, I really loved this fic rather thoroughly.

Ooooh, you make me a very happy writer. Thanks so much for your comment and for the rec -- I have several new readers this morning and that feels just wonderful.

That's exactly how it feels when you win the wrong part of an argument!!

It's like the scene in the parking lot with Zeke talking to Elizabeth about the cherry-flavored condoms. I think he really want her to pay attention to him like she's trying to do, and all he manages to do is chase her away like the big dumb teenager he is.

It takes something big like an alien invasion to sort this. Lucky for us we know there's going to be one.

Indeed. Only it makes me a little sad that Furlong had to die because I lust after Jon Stewart a teensy bit. And as my friend

aprilkat said, it would've been nice if Mary-Beth had just been a nice girl and not an alien, and she and Stokely could've gotten together. *sigh*

furlong didn't die! you see him at the end of the movie along with all of the others. he's sitting at his teacher's desk with an eye patch and a bandage around his hand and he's trying to lift something and can't because he doesn't have fingers!

on another note!

i love this so much. it is way better than i could have envisioned. i love your stories so much. you really have a gift. thank you for sharing. i look forward to more!

i will rec as soon as i have time. ;)

*hugs*

I always figured that was just Jon Stewart being silly for the credits though. I mean, my impression was that someone could be shot or have their limbs cut off or whatever and still survive it (like Elizabeth) but that if you got them with the scat then they actually would die, like Principal Drake and Mary-Beth herself. I think this calls for further research. (A friend is borrowing my copy of the DVD right now.)

Anyway, I'm totally in love with you right now, since this is about the nicest response I've ever had to a fic, and I wouldn't have written it if it hadn't been for you. I think it was probably good that your request was embarrassing because that kept me from just doing a drabble, had me write a whole big thing so there wouldn't be too much attention on that detail, heh. Really, I had a great time writing it and I'm so happy that you like how it turned out. *hugs*

Gah! So good, absolutely delightful, and steamy, and twisty-tangled. I love their little shoving contest for dominance and how they both end up losing in the end.

Hee, if there was a shoving contest for dominance with both losing then I was probably thinking of your fics without even realizing it. Thank you, Jen, I'm so glad you liked it!

*is a bit speechless*

Oh my. This was very very good and made me tingle in all the right places - and there wasn't even anything slashy happening. *beams*

Loved the characterizations and the end was very clever and gave this so much more depth than the average C/Z has.

Thank you. Enjoyed this very much. Now let's skip the aliens and all that and show us how they get together in the end.... please????

Whoo hoo, I've never gotten a comment about having caused tingling before. This is very exciting indeed!

Skipping to the part where they get together sounds like a great idea except that I really don't have much of a muse or talent for porn. I do better with the old UST and the innuendo and the angst, and I leave the satisfying parts to other writers. I'll keep working at it though. Thanks so much for reading!

Oh, it doesn't have to be porn. Anything from you with more Casey/Zeke will be wonderful. *waits patiently*

Thank you!

Hey, this is incredible! Like, really, and I mean it. ~~We should talk about it more, next time we end up on chat together. Cause it makes me think.~~

Thank you! It's funny, because this is the one we were chatting about the other night where I was like, "The evil angst monster came out of nowhere and ate my fluff fic," but people seem to have responded rather well to the ending, so I guess you never know.

"People tell me I'm a coward, tell me that every fucking day, but you know what? If you had any guts at all, you wouldn't just talk about fucking me. You'd do it."

Yes and yes and yes. That's the Casey we know and love. The one who's not afraid to snark and push back when he's been pushed too far.

I love this. And the ending is painful beyond belief, but we all know what happens eventually (*g*) so I understand why you wrote it this way. I'm really looking to more of anything you do with these two!

*runs off to look for Casey/Zeke smut to ease the current heartbreak*

And that is why we love Casey so very much. We feel for him when he's hiding in the bathroom nursing the bloody nose, but we really start to love him when he swears about it.

Thank you so much for the encouragement! I have started some other fics with these two but haven't finished any others, but it is really lovely to hear from so many people on this one and I resolve to post more Zeke/Casey, er, soon.

ahh, fantabulous!

So glad you think so!

THANK YOU for writing Casey as courageous and headstrong as I see him. (I'm not sure those are exactly the adjectives that properly describe him, but it's obvious from how you present him that we see him in much the same way.) Even though he fucks it up in the end, I have to admire such spark and pluck on his part. I'll bet that Zeke does (eventually), too.

Really wonderful stuff -- thank you!

Oh, thank you so much, Bunnie. I was actually really hoping you'd see this. I think your writing (both fanfic and plain fangirling) has shaped the way I see Elijah a lot, and that in turn affects the way I write Casey.

And OF COURSE Zeke will eventually come to admire him too and there will be lots of hot sex just not written by me.

I just left fb for this over on

jacked_up, but I wanted to let you know I've friended you, but let me know if that's not OK.
I just printed out your "Lasting Effects" for bedtime reading and will fb on it later. :D

Oh, certainly friend away, and I'll friend back. Be warned that Lasting Effects is a good deal darker than this and I sort of stopped posting it at a very frustrating place. I can't really say I hope you enjoy it but, well, thanks for reading! Gorgeous icon, by the way.

This is a really great piece of writing. Love the science and the way Zeke and Casey interact. Your characterisations here are excellent. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

:D

Hey, thank you! The science may well be all wrong, though I did my best. But the characterizations were what I cared about and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

People tell me I'm a coward, tell me that every fucking day, but you know what? If you had any guts at all, you wouldn't just talk about fucking me. You'd do it.

...Oh hell yes.

This is wonderful!

absolutefiction directed me over when I said I was in the mood for Casey and Zeke throwing off sparks, and, wow, she was right. This really hit the spot!

You have no idea how much it means to me to hear from you. Thank you so much! I'm glad this was able to satisfy. Abfic was very much responsible for it being written and then for getting so many people to read it. Thanks to her and to you again.

Here via FSS and her quiz results. This is so good. Poor guys, nobody really won this one.

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Stand-alone Faculty ficlet: Blue Genes

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