Work Text:
Nick looks around his classroom, waiting for his students to show up for the first day of his third year of teaching. This was the first year that he felt at home in his classroom. The first year, he wasn’t sure how much teachers at his school decorated their classrooms, so he kept it simple with a few age appropriate posters and a little plant on his desk. Isaac got him when he found out his room had a full wall of windows. Nick was happily surprised to find that his fellow teachers made their classrooms warm and inviting with little personal touches, enough that he spent a good chunk of his summer holiday finding things to add to his room.
His second year had been rough, one of the other year three teachers leaving a few weeks in due to an illness, and Nick was forced to take on an extra seven students. Gone was his reading corner, strung up with fairy lights and full of throw pillows. Replaced by extra desks. Nick worked hard to adjust his carefully planned lesson plans, scrambling in the beginning to add the new students into his plans. The other teachers in his year were also affected by the unexpected additions to their classrooms, causing a stressful mood to settle over the school for the majority of the year.
When his third year rolled around, they’d hired a new teacher, so Nick was no longer the newest teacher at the school. He was able to rebuild his reading corner, add some plants to line the shelves by the windows and spent a big part of his summer thrifting a different variety of picture frames that he and Charlie painted a rainbow of different colors and Elle made a banner to go above the hanging frames that read ‘gallery wall’, Nick was hopeful to do more art with his students this year now that he had a designated area for the work to be displayed. His classroom finally felt like a place he was happy to teach in, and he was hopeful that his students would feel the same.
“Good morning,” Nick says once all his stunts are settled and he’s made it through attendance. “And welcome back to those of you who were with us in year two, but I do see that we have a few new faces. For those of you who don’t know, I’m Mr. Nelson-Spring and I thought we’d start today off with a little get to know me activity.”
Nick grins, passing out sheets of paper and making sure all his students have their crayons. “Now I’ve already started mine to be able to show you all as an example.” He says, holding up his paper. The words ‘my world’ scrawled across the top above Nick’s attempt to draw the Earth and surrounded by little stars. “I’d like you all to give it your best to draw the Earth, then surround it by the things that are important to you. Once we’re done, we’ll go around and share a bit about what we’ve drawn so that way we can all get to know each other a bit better.”
“Sir?” A girl with red braided pigtails says while raising her hand
“Yes, um” Nick searches his brain for the girl's name. “Elizabeth?”
“What are you putting on yours?”
“Well, me telling you now would ruin the point of sharing later now wouldn’t it?” Nick says, grinning at the girl.
His room is filled with the sound of crayons on paper and little voices whispering to their desk mates, trying to peek at each other's works to see what they’re drawing or what they’re writing around the wobbly circles that they’ve colored in different blue and green patterns to resemble the Earth. Nick walks through the rows, looking over his students' shoulders, reading what they have written. Once they’ve finished, Nick starts moving through the tables, having each student stand and say their name and share what they have written on their sheet. The majority of them share things like their parents or family pets, and siblings. A handful throwing in grandparents or extended family. Each earned little giggles from their classmates when they would talk about an activity or a certain food that they really liked.
Nick leaned against his desk, holding up his drawing. “Now let's see. I’ve put my mum on here, her name’s Sarah,” Nick says, pointing to his mum's name and a little flower he’d drawn by it. “And then we have my dog Daisy.” He says, fingers moving to show a poorly drawn golden retriever, all his students start murmuring at once when he mentions having a dog. “Before you all ask, yes there is a picture of her on my desk, and you’re welcome to come up and see. Here are some friends that I’ve had since secondary, we’re all a bit spread out now but still close,” Nick says, showing his class a string of stick figures he’s drawn holding hands across the bottom of the paper. “And lastly, we have my husband, Charlie.” Nick points to a large heart he’s drawn in the middle of the world, Charlie’s name written in the middle.
He watches the seven year olds take in the information, watching a few of them eyes go wide when he says the word husband, but Charlie wasn’t something he attended to hide. Nick purposefully took the position at this school after interviewing at a few others. He made it a point in the interview process to mention why his name was hyphenated on his applications but not on his university diploma. While the schools before didn’t specifically say that his sexuality would be a problem, they had not come across as supportive. Nick remembers his interview with his current principal, she’d just smiled and let him know that they had an after school LGBTQ+ club that could always use more volunteers.
Students trickle by with a few more questions about his life, mostly wanting to see Daisy, as the day goes by. The first day back to school wraps up, and Nick packs up his bag, almost tossing his drawing into the recycling bin like he did with most of his art examples, but instead he smiles at Charlie’s name written in the heart before carrying it out along with his bag.
Nick is halfway through making dinner when he hears the key in the lock and the familiar sound of Charlie taking his shoes off by the door and talking to Daisy. “In the kitchen!” Nick hollers through the house.
“Have a good first day back, babe?” Charlie asks, when he rounds the corner, Daisy close on his heels.
“Yeah, it wasn’t bad. Think I have a pretty good group this year.” Nick turns in time to see Charlie pick up the paper sitting on top of Nick’s work bag.
“Now Mr. Nelson-Spring, would you be saying I’m your world?”
Nick chuckles, switching off the stove and moving the pan off the burner. “Whatever would have given you that idea?” He asks, stepping closer to Charlie to cup his face in his hands, leaning down to press their lips together.