Chapter Text
“Oh shit we’re gonna be late!” Will shouted, promptly waking Mike up in the process. “What time is it?” Mike asked, falling on the floor of their bedroom as Will threw a flannel and a pair of jeans at him. “According to our clock it’s 7 AM, school starts at 7:30, we always get there early!”
“Shit!” Mike stood up, quickly getting dressed. He could get his coffee later, right now he had to deal with getting to his first class of the 2017 school year. Especially since he taught ninth graders.
They were 15 minutes late, but Mike still managed to not forget anything in the rush to get out of his apartment. “Sorry for being late, you guys!” Mike said, thanking the teacher who stepped in for him briefly before placing his bag down on the floor by his desk. “I’m Mr. Wheeler, your English teacher!”
The class full of ninth graders were falling asleep, which he wasn’t surprised about. “Today is going to be simple, I’m going to introduce myself, and I’ll then pass out a sheet so I can get to know you all better!”
Mike opened up his laptop, connected it to the shitty smart board that had to be calibrated every 30 minutes, and pulled up his ‘about me’ slideshow.
“Like I said earlier, I’m Mr. Wheeler, and I’ve been teaching for 10 years now,” he said, switching over to the next slide. “This is my husband, he teaches art foundations so if any of you have that class you might have him as your teacher.”
Mike heard some giggling in the back of the class, but he ignored it for now. “We have two cats, their names are Ellie and Joyce!”
A few more giggles came from the back of the class, and Mike ignored it yet again. He was used to homophobic 9th graders who were still stuck in their edgy middle school phases. Either these kids ended up switching out of this class, or they learned to keep their bigotry to themselves. Either way every year Mike had to send some teenage boy to the office because he said the f slur during a lesson on pronouns.
After Mike had wrapped up his slideshow, which mostly contained just fun facts about himself and a tangent on how everyone in his class needs to have their behavior comply with “lawful good” on the d&d alliance chart. Yes he was nerdy, but he liked it that way. Every year he had students tell him about campaigns they started because of him, and that’s what made him love teaching the most.
Once most of his class finished up their small assignments he started reading over them. He recognized a few last names, and some made him internally cringe due to past experiences with their older siblings.
Mike was brought out of his trance by Will walking into his classroom and making his way over to his desk. “I took your lunch by mistake,” he said, and Mike rolled his eyes. “Uh huh, definitely didn’t just miss me.”
“You’re the one who always brings a lunch,” Will replied, and Mike smiled. “Go back to your class, I’ll see you later.”
Mike gave Will a quick kiss before he left the classroom. He smiled to himself as he watched those kids in the back roll their eyes.
Mike was going to enjoy teaching this new batch of ninth graders, especially those bigoted ones. He always found a way to be passive aggressive towards them. That’s what made teaching fun, at least to him, and Will was always willing to help out.