Work Text:
Raihan doesn’t dislike teaching, per se, but it’s not really why he’s here.
Raihan likes history. He likes field work and digging site protocol and to get history right under his nails. He likes writing about it, immortalizing both the findings and the journey to get them. But field work costs money and writing takes contracts to be published, and long story short, the University of Hammerlocke owns him, body and soul, and that means he spends most of the year teaching history to teenagers who are either smart enough or come from families rich enough, to study at the prestigious Hammerlocke High. It’s a little staircase into success, consecutive schools all bearing the same dragon-shaped brand and the same overall uniform design. From pre-school all the way to university, following the same general structured learning; Raihan knows the reputation is well-earned, they’re all good schools. And he’s not biased just because he went to each of them, Hammerlocke as constant in his life as the locs on his head.
He doesn’t dislike teaching: there’s a chance in it, he supposes, to show people why he loves history as much he does. Kids like his classes, anyway. They like the little quips of minutia and the promise of all the juicy gossip about court intrigues and wars, and follow along it like it’s one of those weekly TV shows they’re all obsessed about.
Teaching is… alright. Not his favorite thing, but he makes an effort to make it fun, and it has paid off.
It’s okay.
“Hello, hello, who’s that?” Gordie asks, leaning over the railing to squint down at the courtyard with a vague leer.
Raihan spots what’s caught his eye instantly: a head of unusually colored, long hair and an apron in orange and yellow and green, with cartoonish dragons spitting fire decorating it. The young man is surrounded by about two dozen knee-high children – knee-high for normal people, Raihan reckons they wouldn’t reach his knee – laughing and screaming as they’re expertly herded towards the large pond at the center of the courtyard. Hammerlocke Keep is home to all of Hammerlocke’s academies, but it’s generally rare to see different age-groups mingle, considering both the size of the grounds and the priorities of their curriculum.
“Huh,” Raihan says, blinking as he realizes the man and his small army of loud, delighted children are out there catching dragonflies.
His name is Leon, and he loves teaching.
He’s friends with the usual teacher for one of their first grade classes – the girl with the bright orange hair and little heart pins in it that Raihan had spied once or twice before – recommended by her to take her place while she’s out on maternity leave. Substitute teachers aren’t usually this much of a big deal, but Leon has somehow managed to make himself into a bit of a small time celebrity across the larger campus. Rumor has it, he’s a Time Lord with bottomless bags of holding, in place of pockets in his apron: apparently you can walk up to him and ask him for something, and he’ll somehow pull it out of his pockets, somehow. Raihan is a lot more impressed by the fact it seems to be physically impossible for anyone to be mean to the man: he’d seen him gently reprimand a handful of unruly teenagers about trampling one of the many, many flower beds decorating the outline of the courtyard, and somehow, the lesson had stuck.
Still, as impressive as he might be, it’s not like Raihan had planned to reach out: they had nothing in common as far as he could see, and anything he’d racked his brain trying to come up as a way to introduce himself sounded rehearsed and fake. He was quite happy just watching, anyway. And he had plenty of chances to watch, too, because Leon did not seem fond of classroom-focused learning and very often took out his class into the sprawling courtyard: one day it’s finger painting together a large enough spread to cover the back wall of their classroom, and another it’s playing old folksong games and rhymes to memorize numbers and letters. There’s one day he’s out there blowing soap bubbles for them to chase after, though Raihan gives up trying to figure out what’s the educational value in that.
Then he gets nailed in the head with a tennis ball out of nowhere, as he’s minding his own business and heading home for the day, and the next thing he knows Leon is there, pressing a small hand towel soaked in cold water to his forehead, to help with the swelling. His eyes are golden and his hair looks really soft, the kind it would feel very nice to run his fingers through, and Raihan is out of it enough he doesn’t really connect the dots with the awkward giggling chorus to realize he’s said that part out loud.
“I’m really sorry,” Leon says, and fuck Raihan, but even his voice is nice. “We were doing a few experiments with basketballs and bouncing forces. How do you feel?”
Somehow, though he’d much rather not remember how, Raihan finds himself walking home with a band aid on his forehead decorated with bright cartoony dragons, Leon’s cellphone number safely stored in his own, and the promise of an actual date come the weekend.
Raihan contemplates the wholly rational course of action, but in the end refrains from throwing himself head first into the moat surrounding Hammerlocke Keep.
On their seventh date, Raihan invites Leon upstairs, they fumble with the doorknob and then Leon digs out a condom from a pocket in his apron, stretched as long as he is – he’s very well built, underneath the shapeless bulk of his dragon-printed apron and his jeans and sweaters, so very nicely built, and Raihan is mostly distracted by the way muscle moves under skin as he dives off the edge of the bed to rummage through their clothes, before it clicks.
“Holy shit,” Raihan says, because his brain-to-mouth filter is completely obliterated by Leon’s very presence, every time, “you really do have everything in there.”
Leon snorts and then – very distractingly, mind – heaves himself back upright in a terribly unfairly graceful motion.
“Take it your students don’t ask you for spares, do they?” Leon says, ripping the foil open without even looking.
“Your students are, on average, seven,” Raihan points out, torn between horror and the persistent distraction that’s Leon… well, being Leon.
Leon blinks at him.
“I mean, the regular ones, yeah,” he arches an eyebrow, clearly amused by whatever face Raihan’s making, “but I’m also coaching the high school tennis club.” As Raihan takes a moment to process this, Leon reaches a hand to hold one of Raihan’s. “Sorry, did I kill the mood?”
“…nah,” Raihan decides, and then spends a good forty five minutes trying his best to demonstrate.
Leon, delightfully, reciprocates.
Leon is a familiar sight in the courtyard, with his apron forever covered in stains and his flock of tiny, enthusiastic, loud children putting this or that scientific principle in practice in ways that invariably involve water, paint or being outside. In private, he’s silly and well-meaning and endlessly charming, and Raihan knows he has a problem when, upon realizing that the school year is coming to an end, and thus so is Leon’s assignment covering for his friend, the first thing that comes to mind is that if they got married, then Leon wouldn’t have to go.
It’s ridiculous.
He doesn’t want to get married, he’s barely twenty-five and he’s got approved for three grants for over-the-summer field work and he’s going to write books and become one of those really cool Rockstar-style erudites that gives conferences wearing jeans while everyone in the audience is wearing suits. Getting married has never been part of the plan. And besides, that implies things, about himself and Leon and he’s getting ahead of himself.
It’s dumb.
“So…” Leon says, sitting on the windowsill of Raihan’s bedroom because he’s antsy after sex and given the way he looks, it’s not like Raihan’s complaining about the eye candy whenever he wanders around the room. “I know we both said this thing was… super not serious and just for fun and all, but things… have happened, and I wanted to ask instead of assume, so.”
Raihan refuses to huddle under the covers, even though he kind of wants to.
“Things?”
“One of the first year teachers is retiring this year and based on my evaluation over last term I got offered the post, which means I’d stay, but that also means I’d need a place to stay,” Leon points out, wincing. “I’ve been staying with Sonia, and helping with the baby, but it’s a small house and I’m constantly third-wheeling so it’s not like I can stay forever, so I was wondering—”
“You can stay here,” Raihan blurts out, again, no input at all from that supposed filter meant to stop every dumb thought from escaping his mouth.
“Oh,” Leon startles, “what. No, I. I wanted to ask if you’d help me find a place, since you’re Hammerlocke born and bred. Keep me from getting scammed. I mean, I wanted to ask first if you were okay with me taking the job and staying, and if you wanted this to keep going and I’m—” Leon buries his face into his hands. “I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”
“Little bit,” Raihan says, grinning despite it all, and then he reaches out a hand, which Leon takes only after a moment, so he can tug the other back into bed with him. He swallows hard. “You can stay here, if you want. Or I’ll help you find somewhere nice.” Because Raihan is Raihan, however, and that filter’s still broken, he adds, with a decidedly snotty undertone: “Not as nice as this of course, but still. Nice.”
Leon bursts out laughing.
“You don’t want me living here,” he insists, leaning in to curl under one of Raihan’s arms, perfectly slotted against his side. “I snore horribly.”
“Yes,” Raihan agrees, deadpan, “I’m aware. Still, earplugs exist.”
“And I have so many books!” Leon goes on, slowly pressing Raihan back against the bed.
“I’ve got more,” Raihan taunts back, running his fingers through Leon’s hair, which is, and this is true, exactly as soft as he’s ever imagined. “Don’t have as many hats as you do, though.”
“Raihan,” Leon says, face tucked against his throat, “if I stay here I might never leave.”
And then Raihan, being Raihan, could only reply one thing:
“Promise?”