50. Breaking the Rules

"What are you wearing?"

"Clothing, Spanner. That's what I'm wearing."

Skeptical eyes gave his outfit another once over. The blond removed a lollipop hanging between his lips and motioned towards Shoichi.

"You sure about that?"

Offended the red head blushed and picked at his black shirt, baffled at Spanner's dislike of his clothing.

He glanced sulkily up at the mechanic. "You don't like it?"

Spanner sighed, pushing the heel of his hand into his brow tiredly. He pushed himself off his heels and landed soundly on his butt and hands, eyeing the young teen that was having an identity crisis right before his eyes.

The usual punk-ish styled teen had opted for a black tee with some obscure band's name scrawled across his chest, that was normal. So were the tight pants Shoichi had somehow managed to wiggle into. Except instead of the pants being their usual washed out jeans the ones Shoichi had donned were black leather, complete with an unnecessary studded belt. That's where any semblance of his usual clumsy counterpart disappeared.

Instead of worn out sneakers, he wore steel toed combat boots. Instead of a plain, but bare slender neck, there were several chokers and leather necklaces that hung heavily around his pale throat. Instead of untarnished ears there were spikes protruding from several points in Shoichi's earlobes. And what bothered Spanner the most were dark lines around the embarrassed green eyes he'd grown awfully familiar with. Was that eyeliner? And really what was he doing without his glasses? He couldn't possibly see any equations or formula's without them.

Spanner stopped his evaluation of Shoichi, noticing how quite the older teen was. Without thinking Spanner stood and walked over to stand toe to toe with Shoichi.

Not touching the other he lazily asked, "What's all this about Shoichi?"

The other teen didn't react for a moment, dragging out the silence between the two. And if Spanner had the capability to feel awkward, he might have right then. But Spanner didn't feel embarrassed, he just wanted to know what was going through the small male's brain. His clothing was too impractical for working in the lab and this just wasn't like him anyway so maybe he was having a mental break from reality and that would definitely affect his work. In the lab that was a bad idea.

So for their mutual safety Spanner prodded Shoichi's chest with his finger and hoped for some kind of reaction.

But when Shoichi took a quick step forward into Spanner's personal bubble, the blond began to regret provoking the teen. Green eyes were locked onto his and Spanner wondered what had gotten into the little guy. Before Spanner could forcibly put any space between them Shoichi finally voiced his thoughts.

"Don't you ever want to be someone different Spanner?"

Spanner felt the lollipop loll between his slackened lips and he intelligently said, "Huh?"

Pushing against the green suit of the mechanic, Shoichi rubbed his head frustratedly and started on his own tirade that Spanner was welcomed to listen to or he could ignore the obviously confused engineer. As tempting as the ignore part sounded, he listened to Shoichi.

"I went to the future so many times. I can't even remember how many times Spanner. But in every one of them I was still this little puny nerd. I may of had different jobs, but at heart I was still the kid bullies beat up for lunch money on Tuesdays."

Shoichi rounded so he was facing Spanner again and he clenched his fingers before dramatically crumbling.

"Don't you ever want to break the rules for once? No matter what I did in the past I didn't change here. But I kept thinking that what if I could actually change from little Shoichi to big bad Irie that people would admire. People would want to be me." His anger running its course, the red head slumped against a table, fingers ruffling his disheveled hair. He looked up sadly at the blond, "Why can't I ever reach that guy Spanner? Am I doomed to be uncool forever and in every time?"

Spanner sighed, only kind of understanding where Shoichi was coming from. But instead of thinking his way out of this situation he reached into one of the many pockets on his jumper and pulled out a familiar pair of black rimmed glasses. He walked up to Shoichi who was beet red from his anger and he grabbed the older boy's chin.

He slipped the glasses onto Shoichi's face carefully, trying to avoid catching the glasses on the side of his face. "I can only understand a little bit of where you're coming from Shoichi. It's not fun to be picked on because you're smarter than everyone else, but-" Spanner paused to make sure Shoichi was still following him, "even when you feel that's the only person you're meant to be, know that in every time line there are people who are going to accept you for that little Shoichi you see. They're going to love the genius and balk at the idea of a 'big bad Irie' because then you aren't being you anymore."

As Shoichi swallowed all of Spanner's speech, the younger drew back his head and flicked the smaller boy with his forefinger.

"Hate to break it to you Shoichi, but you are a nerdy boy at heart. But you shouldn't feel like you ever need to change that to impress someone." The laziness that had sounded in his entire speech fled for quick moment when Spanner added, "Got it?"

Shoichi sighed, defeated by this deceivingly clueless guy. He cracked a small smile and answered back, "Got it."

Shoichi made to remove the extra jewelry at his neck when Spanner reached out to finger one of Shoichi's ears with ungloved hands. He didn't look at the red head when he spoke, "When did you pierce your ears? Don't tell me you did it yourself."

Shoichi laughed, mood considerably better after speaking with the same old Spanner. The one that Shoichi had seen in every incarnation of the future, the same Spanner that always appeared beside him.

The older boy replaced Spanner's fingers with his own and undid the clip-on earrings. "Nah, this nerd is still scared of needles, so I got clip ons."

Spanner's surprised face had Shoichi laughing the rest of the day they spent in the Vongola lab, both back to back and completely comfortable there.

A/N: Yes, I really did procrastinate on my other stories for this. Sorry! But Spanner and Shoichi just need love too! (I don't own)