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Ian stares at the coffee machine with resigned defeat. First period starts in ten minutes, and he’d foregone making his own coffee at home in exchange for a few extra minutes of sleep and with the idea that he’d just get his much-needed morning caffeine at work.
So, naturally, the pot in the faculty room is empty.
Typical. Fucking typical. There’s always that dick that polishes off the coffee and refuses to make more.
He glances hopefully at the clock, but there’s just no way another pot will be ready in time for him to get to class. Not with their dinosaur of a coffee machine, at least.
“Gallagher.”
Ian rolls his head to the side with a curt, “Mickey,” and a rather despondent glance. He doesn’t have the energy for the Algebra teacher this morning—fuck, he doesn’t have the energy for anything this morning. He tries not to think about his lesson plan for the day and heavily considers pulling a pop quiz out of his ass for his first period freshmen.
“You look like shit,” Mickey says, almost like he gets some sort of fucked up glee from it, and Ian tiredly flips him off.
“There’s no coffee,” Ian whines right as the warning bell rings. His shoulders droop and he sighs heavily. “Here’s hoping I don’t end up murdering my class in a caffeine-depraved bout of insanity,” he drawls as he leaves, dragging his feet behind him, and Mickey watches him go with a contemplative glance.
*
The original plan for his freshmen had been an in depth discussion on the motifs in To Kill a Mockingbird, but Ian’s hardly awake enough to say the word motif, never mind trying to teach a bunch of fifteen year-olds what the word even means. So he writes the weekly vocab words up on the board and then assigns them more pages than he’d initially intended in their grammar books before slumping behind his desk and attempting to look like he’s doing teacherly-type things.
Mainly he’s just drawing swirls in the margins of his attendance book and trying to rationalize that by the time he makes it to his free period, he won’t even need coffee anymore.
His seniors better be on-their-knees grateful for how late he stayed up to finish grading their papers.
There’s a sudden, not-so-gentle knocking at the door that turns not only Ian’s head but all of his students’ as well. He’s expecting an office aid, or something administrative and important. He’s not expecting Mickey, hand curled around a paper cup while he hesitates in the doorway like he just now realizes how much of an entrance he’s made. He almost visibly shakes off the discomfort, though, and then strides into the classroom with the same don’t give a fuck air that makes students simultaneously fear and respect him.
He sets the cup down on Ian’s desk without preamble, and then leaves as quickly as he came, two dozen pairs of eyes glued to him the entire time. Ian watches him go, lips parted in surprise, and then looks at the cup in curiosity. He knows immediately from the smell that it’s coffee, and not the shit kind that comes from the faculty room. It’s from that place on the corner, and Ian vaguely recalls that Mickey has a free period first thing in the morning.
His lips curl into a smile as he takes a sip, eyes closing at the blissful taste of coffee and the knowledge that soon he won’t feel like complete garbage, and he seriously considers trying to shove in the motif lesson today, after all. But he figures he’ll let his freshmen off the hook. Fuck, he’s in such a good mood, he doesn’t give them any homework, either.
*
Ian repays the favor during his free period. There’s this hoagie place that Mickey is borderline obsessed with, and Ian uses the hour he is given to presumably grade or do paperwork to walk the three blocks there. By the time he’s back on school grounds, there are only about ten minutes left in the period, and while Ian could wait until lunch to deliver Mickey’s sandwich, he heads straight for Mickey’s classroom. After all, he’d dropped in on Ian, who would Ian be not to return the favor?
His knock is much less obtrusive, which explains why Mickey is still mid-lecture when Ian slowly opens the door. Mickey didn’t hear him. In fact, Mickey doesn’t even seem to notice him.
The same can’t be said for several if the students, however. They pick up on the subtle movement like a bunch of hungry predators, not that Ian can blame them. Math is fucking awful.
Which doesn’t stop him from watching Mickey teach it. It’s always a weird clash of worlds, seeing Mickey in the classroom when Ian is much more used to seeing him out of it much more often. That Mickey is impatient, and stubborn, and slips in a swear word or middle finger as often as he sees fit. When they’d first met, Ian had had a hard time imagining him as a teacher at all. That is, until he had offhandedly insulted math, and there are few things more awe-inducing and terrifying than Mickey Milkovich worked up over something he’s passionate about.
Like whatever he’s teaching now—parabolas or some shit, Ian isn’t really paying attention.
“—for example, in number 23, we have x²-16x+64. Relatively speaking, a pretty simple polynomial as far as factoring goes.”
Or polynomials. Whatever. It’s all the same to him.
“So we go ahead and we factor C, or…” Mickey looks at his students, impatience plain as day on his face, as he waits for one of them to offer up the information he’s looking for.
“64?” peeps a quiet student in the back, and Mickey shoots them a tight smile.
“Right. 64. Now, we could start factoring from the bottom up, but if we’re smart about this, we can see that our factors need to add up to 16, and 64 is the square of 8. 8 and 8 is 16, and 8 times 8 is 64.” There’s the sound of shuffling movement, zippers, and with his back still to his students, Mickey snaps, “The bell hasn’t rung, so no one should be packing up their stuff, right? People who pack up their things won’t be able to write this problem down, and it would certainly suck if this problem ended up being on a pop quiz tomorrow.” The sound stops abruptly, and Ian barely holds in his chuckle. Ah, the minute ways teachers can get away with threatening their students.
“As I was saying. You have 8 and 8 and you need them to add up to -16, so go ahead and make those suckers negative, so we end up with x²-8x-8x+64, and then you can continue to factor by pairs, leading you to x(x-8)-8(x-8). Just simplify that down to (x-8)². Before you ask, yes, you need to show every step, even if you know how to get from the initial problem straight to the solution. I know it seems like I’m just making you do it, but when things get more complicated, knowing the steps you need to take’s really going to save you some frustration. Now, everyone still with me?”
Nope, Ian thinks with a wry grin, leaning in the doorframe. His eyes flick from Mickey’s slightly exasperated face to the absolutely glazed over looks of most of his students—but not all of them. Some of them seem to be engaging, and while Ian knows from experience that the hope of any teacher is to capture the attention of the majority (if not all) of their students, he also knows that’s just not realistic. Those few who look like they actually give a shit? Teachers live for those students.
“To show you what I mean, let’s make it a little more complicated. Say we have 3x²+2x-8. We still need to find the factors of C, but because A is 3 instead of 1, we have to take that into account. Can anyone—” the bell rings harshly, cutting Mickey off mid-question and actually startling Ian enough that he jumps in his skin.
“I expect an answer to this question at the bottom of your homework!” Mickey yells as the students rush to pack-up and get to lunch. There are several groans that time, and Ian watches a few students take out phones to snap pictures of the board. On shit days, he totally would take those phones away.
Ian shifts inside the classroom as students start to flood past him in a mob of bodies, a few of them shooting him curious glances before disappearing into the hallway.
“Mr. Gallagher,” says one of the students in surprise—it’s a girl from his first period, one of the loud ones that doesn’t seem to understand what raising her hand is. But she’s a sweet girl, otherwise, even if she seems to wear not paying attention like some sort of gold medal. An attitude that Ian never understood, as a student or a teacher, even with siblings who acted the same way.
“Nikki,” Ian greets pleasantly, and watches as she shoots a look from him to Mickey and back again, opening her mouth almost as if she plans to ask a question.
Ian’s eyebrow quirks in amusement, but before she can get a word out, Mickey has walked over with a scowl on his face and a demanding, “You need something?”
With an apologetic smile to his student, who is then quickly rushed out of the classroom by a whispering and giggling flock of other teenage girls, Ian holds up a bag. “I brought lunch.”
Mickey stares at him a few seconds longer, long enough that the last straggling students have slung their backpacks over their shoulders and have hurried out the door, before he lets the look drop with a sigh and an eye-roll.
“Fucking sap. Close the door, will ya?”
And Ian laughs and does so. It’s not an unusual request—they usually end up eating lunch in one of their classrooms. At least, ever since that overzealous girl’s volleyball coach started hitting on Ian.
*
Nothing seems out of the ordinary, which is probably why the question catches Ian completely off guard over a week later. They’re in the middle of a vocabulary lesson when Ian asks, “Can someone use surly in a sentence?”
Brooke’s hand shoots straight up into the air, and Ian can’t help but look a little taken aback. Not just because his freshmen aren’t generally so apt to volunteer, but because Brooke certainly never does. She shoots a look at her friends seated around her, and then straightens her shoulders, lifting her chin almost defiantly.
“Is it true that you’re dating the surly Mr. Milkovich?” Brooke asks, and immediately her entire circle of friends start giggling. The question itself sends the entire class up in whispers, and Ian blinks at her in utter shock.
Well, at least she used the vocab word, he can’t help but think.
“Thank you for that sentence, Brooke. Would anyone like to give a sentence for bogus?”
“I think it’s bogus how you didn’t answer the question!” Nikki butts in.
“What a shoddy attempt at throwing us off,” chimes in Victoria.
“Oh my god, he’s blushing! It’s so true!”
And Ian gapes at his class as they get louder and louder to the point where their accusations are drowning in a sea of noise, and he feels completely inundated by it all. Desperate for some level of control in his own classroom, he wipes the board clean, and yells. “Pop quiz! Everything under your desks!”
Which does a pretty fine job of shutting them all up.
*
“One of my students asked me if we’re dating,” Ian brings up over lunch, picking at last night’s dinner leftovers as he waits for Mickey’s reaction.
It takes a few minutes to come, and Ian finds himself staring Mickey down as if that might draw it out faster (it doesn’t). Mickey just slowly chews his food, swallows, and then doesn’t even look Ian in the eye when he asks, “One of your students thinks you guys are dating?”
Ian balls up a napkin and throws it at him, and Mickey casually flips him off in retaliation.
“Thinks that you and I are dating,” Ian clarifies, not that he thinks Mickey needs it. Mickey knows exactly what he fucking meant the first time he said it, but for some reason he always needs to be a sarcastic piece of shit before he takes anything seriously.
“Huh.” Mickey chews. “One of mine asked me that, too.”
“Brooke Hensen?” Actually, Ian doesn’t even know if she’s in any of his classes.
“Uh, no.” Mickey scratches his nose, face skewed in thought. “Garcia. Nicole?”
“Nikki?” Ian’s eyebrows furrow, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “The fuck?” He mutters under his breath. Had they planned this somehow? How had the idea even gotten into their heads?
“Smart girls. I mean, Garcia never does her fucking homework or shows her work on tests, but she must be pretty observant.”
This time, Ian kicks Mickey in the ankle.
Because they are dating, and Ian has no idea how any of their students found out. Fuck, most of the staff doesn’t even know. They’re pretty covert about it at the school. Sure, they talk and eat lunch together, but so what? A lot of fucking teachers have other friends on the faculty, and Ian and Mickey were friends first. Sort of. In that bickering, my subject is far superior to yours sort of way.
And then they’d both gotten a little too drunk at the Christmas party, and then it was like, oh hey, follow me! and, oh hey, I always thought you were fucking hot! and, oh hey, looks like we’re both gay, surprise! and the rest of the night is kind of a blur now, but Ian knows it ended with blow jobs in one of the bathrooms.
Somehow it led to dating, in a ridiculously round-a-bout, drawn out, lengthy process. It’s been over a year since that Christmas party now, and no one has been the wiser to his and Mickey’s relationship.
Or so Ian had thought.
“Stop freaking the fuck out.”
“I’m not freaking out. There’s nothing to freak out over. Why don’t you stop freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out.”
“Why not?” Ian runs a hand through his hair, and then Mickey is quick to catch it.
“Hey, hey. Woah. What are a few fourteen year old girls going to do? Look, when I asked Garcia why the fuck she thought that, she said it’s because we bring each other food and hang out in each other’s classrooms and something about you blushing?” Mickey looks at Ian with a teasing grin, and Ian glances away. “Far as I see it, they ain’t got shit, so stop worrying about it.”
When he puts it like that, that’s true. Ian remembers being a teenager—specifically remembers being a teenager longing for some sort of epic love story. You start to see that shit everywhere, even when it very clearly doesn’t exist.
“You’re right,” Ian admits defeatedly.
“Damn straight I am,” Mickey mumbles around a mouthful of pasta, and it would be disgusting if Ian didn’t find it endearing. “But seriously—you blushed?”
“Shut the fuck up, or I’m not bringing you lunch anymore.”
“Fine by me, this spaghetti tastes like shit.”
*
Even if Ian’s students don’t have any solid proof, it doesn’t stop them from trying to get it. They’re persistent little shits that try to goad him into talking about Mickey almost constantly, and every time Ian diverts the topic as if the invasive question was never asked in the first place. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so goddamn annoying, because there starts to be a pretty clean divide in his first period freshman class between the small group that is insistent that something is going on between him and Mickey, and the much larger but quieter majority that just wishes the first one would shut the fuck up because they’re tired of all the pop quizzes and extra homework Ian’s been piling on them as retribution for the probing into his personal life.
But the frustration, and honestly the straight up exhaustion from it all, is what makes Ian finally break his oath of silence. One morning, when Nikki asks the inevitable question for what feels like the 100th time, Ian sighs heavily and props his hip against his desk.
“There is nothing going on between Mr. Milkovich and I,” Ian says tiredly, and the fact that he’s actually acknowledging the question instead of outright ignoring it stops the usual tirade. “Much like I’m sure you and all of your friends do, we do nice things for each other, like taking turns paying for coffee or lunch. We eat that lunch together. We “hang out,” and no that is not a euphemism.” Ian sees Michael turn to TJ in the back row and mouth euphemism? in confusion. He fights the urge to roll his eyes very, very hard. “Now can we put these obtrusive questions and rumors to rest, please?”
Surprisingly, that works. Well, as well as it could work. They at least stop asking questions, even if Ian does still seem them looking a little too hard when him and Mickey are within ten feet of one another. Ian is sure to be extra careful around him for the next few weeks, just to be sure that all of the nosing into his private life is done for good, but everything eventually does settle—as much as a bee hive can settle. Ian knows that the more time that passes, the more the hive will find something else to buzz about.
It’s nice, not to have to think so hard about being around Mickey at school, especially since Mickey didn’t seem to appreciate the treatment at all. Not that Ian wouldn’t be lying out his ass if he said he hadn’t missed kissing Mickey behind their locked classroom doors. They really fucking shouldn’t, but they both have pretty lousy self control when it comes to that, and the risk kind of just puts a cherry on top.
Besides, it’s not like they’re fucking on their desks. There are lines, albeit blurry ones that they talk about crossing. Frequently.
*
It’s date night, which is a rare fucking occurrence because they’re more likely to stay in than go out. Especially lately, when Ian is paranoid as fuck about being seen by students and feeding the rumors. Even if they were true.
Which is probably why Mickey seems shocked and skeptical when Ian suggests they go out.
“Come on, when was the last time we went out, huh?” Ian presses, and Mickey just raises his eyebrows and doesn’t say anything, which says enough on it’s own, really. It’s not Mickey’s fault they’ve been holed up with Netflix and game consoles and marathon sex for the last two months (not that he’s seemed to have any problem with it).
Mickey doesn’t seem so surprised that Ian drives them to a restaurant clear on the other side of town, though, but he just scoffs quietly to himself instead of outright saying anything, which Ian appreciates. But all paranoia is forgiven when Ian holds out his hand and Mickey sighs and takes it.
It’s just an innocuous restaurant—not even a romantic place, but they’ve never been a romantic candlelit dinner kind of couple—where they sit across from each other and laugh and talk and eat and Ian steals food off Mickey’s plate just because it pisses him off so much. But they do hold hands on the table, much to Mickey’s faked chagrin. At least, that’s what Ian can assume, since Mickey’s thumb keeps brushing tenderly over Ian’s knuckles.
All in all, it would have been a very pleasant evening, with Mickey knocking back enough beers that he’s only a sip or two from wasted and therefore he laughs and smiles easier than he usually does when they’re surrounded by dozens of strangers. Ian drinks one and coasts on the fuzzy feeling it leaves behind that makes him quiet and pensive and lovesick as he listens to Mickey tell a story he’s already heard with violent, erratic hand movements.
Ian had been toying with the idea of ordering dessert, but instead he picks up his and Mickey’s joined hands and presses a, by their definition, chaste kiss to the center of Mickey’s palm that makes his story putter out and die. Screw dessert. They need the check.
It must be some sort of fucked up karmic retribution that, with his lips still pressed to Mickey’s skin, Ian makes sudden inexplicable eye contact with a patron across the restaurant. One that he recognizes.
“Shit,” Ian hisses, because he’s looking at none other than Andre Daniels, the boy that sits in the second to last row in his first period freshman English class. Ian has frozen completely, Mickey’s hand still in his grip, and Andre stares at him with wide eyes that Ian watches slide towards Mickey and then back again. Shit shit shit shit shit.
Dinner with another teacher? Explainable. Talking and laughing and getting drunk? Totally normal. Holding hands all night? Not typical, but friends hold hands (right?). Kissing the other teacher’s hand though? Yeah, that’s… Ian’s got nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But he should be reasonable about this. It’s not like dating Mickey is against any kind of rule. It’s not like either of them are going to get fired. And, sure, Ian and Mickey weren’t exactly flaunting their sexuality to their students or anything, because it’s none of their damn business, and now the whole school is going to know not only that but way too much about Ian and Mickey’s personal lives and fuck is he having a panic attack?
“Hey, hey, Ian, what the fuck?” Mickey asks, and Ian just shakes his head. Mickey’s face skews in concern, and he practically hunts down their waiter to pay the bill (even though, technically, Ian was supposed to). As they leave the restaurant, Ian sneaks another look at Andre, who is very obviously not looking at them and pushing something about on his plate with his fork.
Mickey drives them home, proving to Ian that he’s not nearly as drunk as he was acting, and Ian sits silently in the passenger seat and tries to calm down. After about ten minutes of that, Mickey finally can’t take it anymore. “You going to fucking tell me what happened back there?”
So Ian does, almost eagerly, needing Mickey to freak out and validate this miniature meltdown that Ian is currently having.
He doesn’t. He growls an angry, “Are you fucking serious, Ian?”
“One of my students saw us, Mick.”
“Big fucking deal. The way you acted, I thought…” Mickey shakes his head, and Ian’s face pinches in frustration.
“What?”
“I don’t fucking know. I thought you’d seen something legitimately concerning. Like a ghost, or a murder, or…” Mickey pauses. “Your mom, or some shit, I don’t know.”
Ian stays quiet, because, yeah, all of those things would be a lot worse than seeing a student in a public place.
“When I go into class on Monday, they’re all going to know about us. They’re all going to know I lied about it. By the end of the day, the whole school—faculty and all—is going to know we’re together.”
“Probably.” Mickey doesn’t sound the least bit concerned, which just frustrates Ian more. “Hey, hey,” Mickey starts before Ian can get too worked up. “I know the this is our business, not theirs thing was my idea, and frankly, that’s not going to change. Just because we’re dating and they know about it doesn’t give anyone the fucking right to pry into what you and I have, all right?”
“And the fact that no one knows you’re gay?” Ian asks, voice steady but quiet. “I mean, I’m pretty sure they all have some suspicions about me that I haven’t tried in the slightest to disprove, but—“
“It’s not like I’m in the closet, Ian. Just because I don’t go around shouting I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m hiding it.” Mickey’s voice is steely, and Ian drops it with a sharp nod. “Look, it’ll be a few days of shit, and then it’ll be over, so will you please stop acting like there’s going to be nuclear fallout or some shit on Monday?”
Ian grumbles in reply, because as much sense as Mickey’s words make, they don’t erase all the apprehension that Ian is feeling.
*
Monday comes, and Ian drags himself to his first period class like he’s about to face Mount Vesuvius head on. He wishes he could have convinced Mickey to come in with him, guns blazing, hands held, so that at least Ian could declare that yes, yes it’s true, before his students could lay down their accusations.
Ian waits for it all period. He waits for it as he goes over the reading assignment from the weekend. He waits for it as he starts the grammar lesson on figurative language. And he waits for it as he hands out their vocab tests, completely stunned as he sits down at his desk and not one of his students utters a word about his personal life.
He glances at Andre, sitting in the second to last row, and wonders if maybe he was mistaken. Maybe that teenager at the restaurant had just looked an awful lot like one of Ian’s students, and had been embarrassed for being caught staring. Maybe Ian had just blown it all out of proportion.
Fuck, when Mickey found out, he was going to murder him.
But then Andre glances up and catches Ian’s eyes, and gives him a very small smile and a little nod, and Ian almost laughs.
No, he wasn’t wrong—at least, not in that respect. But he was wrong in assuming that one of his students was going to air his dirty laundry all over the school like it was nothing.
When Ian is grading the tests later, he gives Andre five bonus points. Just because.