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The best part of teaching was the kids. Sam loved them. With the exception of one class, kids were in his classes because they wanted to be, because they enjoyed art. Even if they didn’t plan on trying to make a living at it, art was a valuable skill and a fun hobby that they could make into a side gig or even just do for the fun of it. Some of the kids in his higher-level art classes had no chance at making it as a professional artist, but they enjoyed the process and their results made them happy.
The exception was the intro-level Art 1 class. Some of these kids were here because they loved art and wanted to take the higher-level classes later on. Some of them, on the other hand, were here because they had to have a fine arts credit, the school didn’t have theater or dance, and they had even less musical aptitude or interest than visual arts. Occasionally there were kids who needed a class and art was the only thing available that period that they could take – the perils of a small school.
Sam didn’t mind the ones who showed up, did the bare minimum to get the passing grade, and otherwise checked out. Art wasn’t for everyone. What he minded was the students who showed up, didn’t want to be there, and made it so that no one else did either. There was only so often he could get away with kicking them out of class. That sucked. He – and they, and the students who did care about the class – would all be so much happier if he could just send the jackoffs to sit in an unused room where they could act up to their heart’s content without an audience.
Thankfully, this year, they were all concentrated in one class period, and it was the last one of the day. Also thankfully, there were only four of them. There were a couple kids in third and fourth period that Sam thought might join the idiots, but since they were alone, they stuck with non-disruptive slacking.
Today hadn’t started off too badly, but then Meg, the little imp, just had to go and ruin it. He’d asked for a student volunteer to pose for the class. “Do we get to pose naked?” Meg asked.
“No. For one thing, you’re all underage and I don’t want anyone to get us in trouble for that. For another, your parents would kill me. For a third, when they’re doing that in college or adult art classes, they bring in models from outside instead of getting a student to do it.” Sam managed to suppress the shudder, but it was not easy.
Dealing with the disturbingness of Meg’s original proposal, though, meant he fell right into her trap. “Oh, people from outside the class? I’m pretty sure Mr. Banes has a free period, and he’s not underage, and if his parents complain they can…”
“NO.” Wherever Meg was going with that sentence, he probably needed to stop. “Maybe not your parents specifically, but parents would complain if I brought a naked person into my classroom, because you guys are underage. No naked models. You want to see naked people, take art in college.” Which, of course, would require Meg to go to college, but maybe this would give her some incentive to make something of her time in high school.
Which was a much easier thought to deal with in the middle of class than the thought of getting Max Banes in the classroom and out of his clothes. That was best reserved for dreams. Max taught chemistry, which lent itself well to the jokes both he and Sam got about the two of them. Max thought it was hilarious, even as he told the kids to knock it off and quit speculating about their teachers’ personal lives. Sam was less amused, but then, Sam wasn’t the one whose room had a rainbow bulletin board.
Still, it probably would have blown over easily enough. Michael Fitch volunteered to model in exchange for not having to do the actual assignment, the kids got busy… and then there was a knock at the door. Sam opened it to find Max standing there. “I’m sorry to interrupt your class, but could I borrow Claire Novak for a bit? I promise, it really is important and time-sensitive.” He looked around at the entire class having dissolved into giggles and turned to Sam. “Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Forget to zip? What’s so funny?”
“I… I’ll tell you later,” Sam choked out. “Claire, go with Mr. Banes. The rest of you, get back to work.”
The giggles calmed down, but didn’t stop entirely. When the door closed behind Max and Claire, Meg had more to say. “Come on, Mr. Winchester, you can tell us. You totally took the excuse to check out Mr. Banes’s zipper, didn’t you.”
“Mr. Banes is a science teacher. Attention to detail and protective gear are important qualities, much like they are in art.” Sam glared at Meg. “Which means I have to warn you that you are getting on very thin ice and might want to back off.”
Meg just smirked, crossing her arms. “What are you gonna do, call my daddy and tell him I wasn’t behaving in class? Kick me out, again? Give me a zero on this assignment so that I have no reason to keep doing it?”
Unfortunately, Meg was right that none of those options were much good. Meg’s father was a creepy son of a bitch who loved to make Sam as uncomfortable as possible and wouldn’t do anything to stop Meg from acting out in class. Kicking her out would either mean leaving the rest of the class unattended while he escorted her to the office, or her skipping out and going home early. Giving her a zero would just encourage her to spend the rest of the day goofing off and distracting everyone else. He’d tried making her stay after school, but her brother would let their dad know, which meant he was up at the school “I’m so sorry, but Meg has a very important underwater basket weaving class to go to today, she’s testing for her yellow belt, she can’t possibly stay.” Making her come before school just resulted in her not showing up, and while he could turn her in to the office for that, Principal Queen would just slap her wrist and send her on her way. Without backup from the administration and the parent actively working against him, disciplining Meg was a huge headache.
Which left bribery. “Settle down, get to work, don’t give me any problems for the rest of the class period, and tomorrow’s assignment will be something you can draw a unicorn for.” Thankfully, it worked. Even when Ben Braeden came down from the office to get Claire’s belongings and let Sam know she wouldn’t be back in class that day, Meg kept quiet.
The last student had just left when Max walked back in. “Hey. Thought you’d like an explanation. I was cleaning up the lab my chemistry students were doing and realized some chemicals were missing from Claire’s group’s lab station. I checked in with all of her group to be sure, but this is the third time this year she’s stolen something from lab. Even the Queen of Hell can’t ignore that, family problems or not.”
Sam winced. Claire was a good kid, he could tell, but with her dad just walking out of the house one day, telling her he wasn’t her father when she went after him, and disappearing into the blue, it was no surprise she was acting out like this. Throw in her mom disappearing and leaving Claire with her grandmother, barely bothering to write or call, and her grandmother now having serious health issues, and Sam was honestly impressed that Claire was doing as well as she was. “Thanks for letting me know. How long is she gonna be out?”
“A week. Sorry about that.” Sam shook his head. It could be a lot worse. Probably should, for a third offense. “So you said you’d explain what was so funny when I came to get her…?”
“Oh. Right.” Sam sat at his desk, pretending to look for papers to take to the office for Claire to do in ISS while he fought back the worst of the blush. “Meg was asking if we could get a nude model, and she suggested you. You showing up was just the worst possible timing on that.”
Max cracked up, bent double from the laughter. “College I could do, but I am not getting naked in front of high school students. Especially not high school students I gotta teach.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Sam sat back up, hoping the blush was under control enough that it wouldn’t be too horribly embarrassing. “At least it was someone who has a sense of humor about it.”
“And, of course, you ever want me to model nude for you, just say the word.” Max winked, and Sam’s blushing was right back out of control. He could hear Dean’s crack about having seen the porn of this – well, the straight version anyway – and it was not helping a bit. Which Dean would be proud of, if he knew. Sam silently told Mental Dean to shut the hell up.
Or thought he did silently, anyway. “Okay, Dean’s not here, so telling him to shut up isn’t gonna do any good,” Max teased. “Let me guess: porn?”
“You know my brother so well.”
“Yeah, I do. Did he tell you Alicia proposed to him?”
“No, he didn’t, what the hell? When? What did he say?” Dean was normally better at telling Sam stuff like this! Of course, there was the problem Dean had with committing to anything but taking care of his little brother, so no guarantee he said yes…
“Last night, and Alicia doesn’t know what he would’ve said, because she told him she was kidding and just did it to see the look on his face before he could find any words. Which she was, it wasn’t just a face-saving measure to let them both off the hook of Dean having to say no.” Sam grinned and shook his head. That sounded like Alicia. “Dean apparently took the prank just fine, because the two of them were loud enough to wake me up last night.”
“Ugh, I’m sorry. Dean used to do that to me all the time, and all too often, I was no longer sleeping in the other bed in the room when the headboard got jealous and started trying to get some action from the wall.” Max snorted. “Next time it happens, you should come over.” The words hadn’t even left his mouth before Sam was once again lobstering up and wishing he could disappear. He hadn’t meant it the way it must have sounded to Max. Although… why not? He liked Max, Max liked him, the only problem anyone at the school would have with it is the kids would be disappointed that they couldn’t tease them about hooking up anymore…
Max raised an eyebrow. “To sleep, or…”
What the hell. Why not. “That’s one option. Or wake me up and we can go to IHOP or something. Let me buy you dinner before we get loud ourselves.”
Max stared at Sam in silence. “Okay, real talk time, was that a serious offer or just playing along with something you didn’t mean to say?”
“Both?” Sam ducked his head, hiding behind his hair. “I like you, wouldn’t mind seeing what happens if we date, what with Dean and Alicia a breakup would have to go seriously wrong for us to let things get too awkward to work together…”
“But you’re kinda shy and don’t like to put yourself out there,” Max finished. “Sounds good then, Sam. Do we gotta wait on our siblings’ bad manners, or you wanna go get dinner tonight?”
“If we’re going at a sane time, then somewhere better than IHOP. But sure, I’d like that.”