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Roman shot up in bed, eyes wide with panic.
Fuck fuck fuck he was late for school he was so fucked-
Wait…
He looked around his room, squinting at the blurry surroundings, before smiling to themself and lying back down next to his boyfriend.
He was 22 years old. They didn’t need to go to school.
They smiled quietly to themself, before bolting up again, scrambling out of bed.
Fuck fuck fuck FUCK.
HE WAS THE TEACHER.
He rolled out of bed in a heap on the floor, smacking their alarm clock a couple extra times for good measure at being such a bad alarm clock. Bad alarm clock, not waking him up on time.
“Good morning sleeping beauty!” Virgil called with a laugh from the kitchen, drinking his coffee with a shit eating grin. He’d been up for an hour and a half now.
“Can it, scaramore! Why the hell didn’t you get me up?” Roman shouted back, throwing gel into his hair at the speed of light. The light of his makeup mirror reflected off his gold eye shadow as they tapped it against the sink, playing the weekly game of “How flamboyant can he make their makeup without being late again?”
“Cause it’s fuckin’ hilarious!” His boyfriend mocked, pouring the panicking theatre teacher a cup of coffee as he pulled his own bag together. The brown messenger bag was stuffed to the brim with random keychains made by students over the years, with various ink and paint stains lining the long tattered and stitched fabric.
His purple cornrow braids were pulled into a half up ponytail, and he was dressed in baggy cargo pants and a deep black cardigan, littered with handmade patches and stitches of various shades of purple. His students liked to call it his “battle jacket”. He honestly didn’t hate the nickname.
His own eyes were lined in a kohl-like style with brown eyeliner, and he’d decided to get fancy and put a few silver beads on the ends of his braids (just to piss Roman off).
Roman tumbled full speed out of the bathroom with the front of their half length hair twisted into twin braids, pulled back into a little ponytail at the base of his neck. Barely visible flecks of gold eyeshadow were flecked around his eyes, and they were wearing an old red turtleneck and straight black jeans. It was one of their less flamboyant outfits, given the time crunch.
He shoved a piece of toast in their mouth, gulping down ADHD meds with it and running for the door as his boyfriend followed leisurely behind as if they had all the time in the world.
“Let’s go let’s go let’s go, we’re gonna be late and Remus is gonna steal our spot!” They panicked, tossing Virgil the car keys, who laughed, double checking the locks on the apartment door before running after.
“Coming!”
Janus quite liked their job.
It was quiet, but not scarily so. The hum of their fan filled the gaps, and the warm lights of rainbow colored string lights decorated the walls and bookshelves. The stack of clear drawers in the corner was freshly stacked with bags of chips and granola bars. A little rainbow flag stuck out of their pencil holder next to their desk card that read;
“SCHOOL GUIDANCE COUNSELOR | MX. MCCOY.”
Contrary to what most people thought, they quite liked dealing with children. Well, teenagers, to be more specific. Real kids weren’t exactly their forte with their whole… mess. But teenagers were reminiscent of young adults, if they were mature enough.
They cracked their knuckles against their desk, swishing back and forth in the spinny chair their brother Patton had gotten them for their birthday. Their long brown skirt caught the wheels and they huffed in displeasure, adjusting it as the first bell rang. It wasn’t long before they heard a small voice down their hallway and a loud rap at the door.
“Mx. Mccoy? It’s Maria, can I come in?”
“Of course love!” Janus called, smiling as the nervous teenager walked in and sat on one of the many bean bags they had scattered around, picking at the plastic beads in her hair with her eyes trained to the carpet. “You’re awfully quiet today, hm? Everything alright?”
The junior girl sat on their floor in silence for a long moment. A moment long enough for Janus to realize she was crying. They kneeled down beside her with a box of tissues. “Hey… darlin’, it’s okay. You can cry, it’s alright. You wanna talk about what’s happening or you just wanna cry it out.”
Maria sniffled, wiping her eyes with her sleeve before bursting into shouting. “Isabella cheated on me! And then- then that lying bitch went and slept with my brother and called me a fag for thinking she was gay! As if she hadn’t been dating me for a month and a half!”
Janus nodded sympathetically, just letting the girl rant. They always appreciated when the queer kids in the school felt comfortable enough just talking about mundane stuff with them. It wasn’t mundane to Maria, they supposed, but in the grand scheme of things, a cheating scandal from that group of kids was no shock. Frankly, they never liked Isabella to begin with. She was never good enough for Maria, always a cocky little rat, but they really weren’t meant to say that part out loud.
“Aw, sweetheart, I’m sorry. But there’s girls out there that are much better than that, don’t you worry.” Janus comforted, handing her a mini snickers from their jar of desk chocolate. Maria took it gratefully, wiping her eyes again and nodding.
“Thanks Mx. Mccoy. You’re a real one.”
Janus laughed. “I have no idea what that means, but anytime love. Come back during 6th period if you need anything, alright?”
Maria nodded, grabbing her bag and standing, putting the little toy back in the box.
“Bye Mx. Mccoy!” She shouted out the door, weaving between the basketball players huddled outside the dean's office for the stunt they’d pulled in the teachers lounge this morning. Janus gave them their best glare, before closing their office door and locking it, sitting back down with a quiet laugh.
They really did love their job.
“-and closest to our planet would be what star?” Logan asked, watching dozens of whispers go up around the classroom. This lightning round had nearly 8 tokens on the line. He smiled to himself, glad to see his kids so interested in space. It helped that 8 tokens was enough for a homework pass from his treasure box.
Many teachers tried to convince him that high schoolers were far too old for such childish things like a treasure box, but he’d always found this age of teenagers to quite enjoy more “childish” things. So when he’d started introducing “lightning rounds” at the end of class, which was essentially his version of jeopardy, and class participation skyrocketed almost 117%, he’d found it quite amusing in the face of all the staff who had told him he was being immature.
“Ms. Prescilla, why don't we give someone new a chance to answer?” Logan suggested calmly, making a quick 180 towards the board and looking up at who was winning right now. He turned back around. “How about… Kai? Any guesses?”
The sketching kid in the back jumped at the sound of their name, looking up in confusion. “I- I didn’t raise my hand, Mr. Pierce.”
“I’m aware, yes. You’re also quite familiar with stars, however, so I assumed you knew the answer.” Logan explained, gesturing to their galaxy decorated shoes and earrings.
“Oh, uhm… it’s- it’s Sol. Our sun.”
“Correct. Three points to group 5.” Logan tallied the points next to “Table 5” on the board, and the surrounding kids grinned, high fiving the flabber gasted kid. The bell rang overhead and all the kids started to bolt immediately.
“Aaaand that’s time. Make sure you read chapters 2 through 5 over the weekend, and we’ll be having a small quiz on Thursday about gravity!” Logan shouted after his students, watching as they filed out of his classroom, laughing and high fiving each other about the game as they all hurried off to lunch.
A small ‘scritch-scratch’ of pencil on paper echoed from the back of the room. Kai sat at their desk, ear buds in and focusing on whatever they were drawing. They always stayed in his classroom during lunch. It was understandable to him. He’d always hated the loud, overcrowded lunch room back in high school too, so he was happy for his classroom to be a quiet spot for someone who reminded him so much of himself at that age.
He pulled out his own lunch box as he worked on grading papers. Chicken salad, an apple, four peanut butter crackers, and a bottle of water. The same thing he’d had for 3 years now.
“Hellooo!” A loud voice echoed, bursting into Logan’s quiet room with the energy of a thousand suns. The blonde ELA teacher grinned, hands on his hips, adjusting the silly looking cardigan he had tied around his neck.
Kai winced, putting their hands over their ears at the sudden noise, and the teacher's excitement waned to a more tolerable amount. “Sorry, Kai.”
“Good afternoon Patto- Mr. Hart. Is there a reason for you to be in my classroom during my planning period?” Logan asked, placing his light blue pen carefully in his container next to the other light blue pens. Not to be confused with the dark blue pens. Or the black pens.
“Just checking in on my favorite nerdy 10th grade science teacher!” He exclaimed excitedly, drumming his fingers against the desk.
Kai’s head shot up, now listening intently. For whatever reasons the teenager had. “I don’t believe there are other 10th grade science teachers at this school to be so excited about. Other than Ms. Williams. I’m not quite sure I’m much of an upgrade…”
“Nonsense! You smell nothing like fish, and that’s a massive improvement in my book.”
Logan wrinkled his nose and nodded in agreement. The old science teacher truly was a foul smelling witch. “Well, I do have papers to grade. I suppose you do too?”
Patton groaned dramatically, flopping his head to the side like a drowning fish. “Fiiiiiine. You ruin all my fun.”
Logan nodded in agreement as the over-excitable man left his room. “That’s me. The fun killer.”
He reached for a dark blue pen this time. Maybe he could spice things up today.
“You and Mr. Hart are so yaoi coded.” Kai announced as soon as Patton had left.
Logan looked up in confusion, tilting his head to the side in confusion at the unknown word. “Yay-Wee? Is that Japanese?”
The kid snickered into their hand, pausing their headphones. “Yeah. It’s modern slang for two… “very close” male friends, y’know?”
Logan nodded in understanding, resuming his paper grading. “I see. So a best friend of some kind.”
“Sure… let’s go with that.” Kai hedged, grinning as the bell rang. They tucked their sketchbook under their arm, readjusting their headphones. “Have a good day Mr. Pierce!”
“You as well, Kai.”
“Hey, let’s cool it with the name calling, yeah? I find calling someone a British cigarette is as funny as the next person, but the code of conduct doesn’t appreciate artistry like that.”
The trumpets in the back of the band room giggled hysterically, and a mouthpiece managed to hit the ceiling, causing more laughter to erupt, alongside shouts of “Cheers!”
“Mr. Valdez, can I take this up an octave?” His second chair flute shouted over the din, and he nodded as he tapped his baton against the stand, which had absolutely no effect.
He glared down the percussionists who were actively making spit balls out of their sheet music. The noise didn’t let up, and instead only seemed to grow. He groaned, before putting his fingers to his lips and whistling at the highest octave his vocal chords could muster.
“Ay dios mijo. Son todos unos imbéciles. ¡Compórtense!” he mumbled, fast enough that anyone who didn’t know Spanish already wouldn’t catch it. “From the top, high brass only.” He said after taking a breath, tapping out the beats on his metronome as he did.
He loved his band, he really really did. Especially the marching band. It was equal to his brother’s theatre shows! But holy fuck did absolutely none of these kids know how to listen. He’d already sent two to Jan’s office this period alone, and he’d go insane if that trombone player buzzed their mouthpiece on more time-
“Okay, did everyone do the playing assignments this weekend? Because in case you’re unaware, looking at the playing assignment does not count as, you guessed it, playing the playing assignment. Crazy concept I know.” Remus snarked, causing multiple kids to snicker in his back row. He glared at them sharply. “I’m damn sure you’re not laughing over there tubas, when you don’t even seem to be sure what a crescendo is. Sight readings are hard, aren't they? Almost like you wouldn’t have to do that if you looked at your music when I gave it to you 2 months ago.”
His room finally went quiet and he rubbed the spot between his eyebrows with quietly contained annoyance. “From the top. Again.”
Virgil hummed quietly in the back of his classroom, cleaning out the tracing board. He’d just wrapped up his last class of the day, his AP Studio Art kids.
APs were always his favorite, with how self-sufficient they were. Usually he could just put on his headphones and work on his own projects at his desk with the occasional question about where the ink sets were.
He listened absently to the afternoon announcements as he cleaned, watching as a small group of kids filed into his room, pulling out various binders and figures.
Their school wasn’t “technically” allowed to have a GSA (yay for southern school districts), but the D&D club he ran after school on Fridays was a close second.
“Hi Mr. Anderson!” Brooks called, dumping out yet another new set of dice.
“That’s Dungeon Master Anderson to you, Brooks. And did you buy more dice? I thought you just got a new set last week!”
Brooks laughed as his partner Kai walked in, looking very much like they were forced to be there. “They were on sale!” He protested, shaking the acrylic cubes around in their container.
“On sale my ass! Two dollars off isn’t a sale!” Kai protested, whacking their boyfriend in the head with a character sheet. Brooks grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh, Maria’s not coming in today. Said she had drama going on.”
Virgil nodded, making a note behind his screen to find a way to write her out for the session.
The rest of the kids started to trickle in slowly, finally coming to a slow about ten minutes later. It was a small club, only about 9 kids of various brightly colored hairs, but it really was the highlight of his week. He watched them all set up their tokens and figures, calculating the levels they’d all gotten from last week's session, talking about their plans for the hour, and smiled to himself.
“Dad!” A little voice shouted, sprinting up to the kneeling blonde man with his arms out. He scooped up the kid, spinning him in a circle in his arms.
“Hey kiddo! How was school today?” Patton asked, putting down the excited kid and leading him to the car by his hand.
“So good! I got to bring in my plushies to school for show and tell, and told everyone alllll about my shows!” He said, sprinting ahead to the car and pulling on the door handle he was too small to open.
“Slow down there, Em! I gotcha,” He picked up the squirming kid, buckling him into the booster seat and coming around to the driver's seat, starting the car. He shot a text to his oldest that he’d be home in ten, before driving off from the elementary parking lot.
Patton hummed to the song Emile had picked while his youngest half-sung, half-yelled in the backseat. He looked back at him in the rear view mirror, smiling at the sight of his weird little kid. He was certainly the only kid in kindergarten voluntarily wearing a tie and khakis to school. Or ever.
“I was thinking spaghetti for dinner, how about that?” He asked, adjusting his mirror to look at his kid while he talked.
Emile lit up like a light bulb, now pushing excitedly at Patton’s seat with his feat. “Pasketti!” He announced excitedly, completely butchering the pronunciation.
He helped his son out of the car and let him run to the door, unloading the groceries in the backseat. He grabbed most of them, but left two behind for his other son to make a trip.
“Remy? You wanna come help with the groceries?” Patton called over Emile’s new episode of Steven Universe as he stepped into the house, setting the bags on the counter.
A head popped around the corner, a much quieter kid poking out. He nodded, dragging in the other two bags as best he could.
“We’re still havin’ spaghetti?” He asked quietly, pulling himself up to sit on the counter in a little bundle of limbs.
“Indeed we are! C’mon, you can help me with the dough.” Patton said, unloading the bags on the counter around Remy. He wanted to teach Remy how to make pasta, if he’d listen long enough. It was basically family tradition.
Remy hopped down, leaning against the counter and watching with fascination. His oldest wasn’t exactly a quiet kid, but he was certainly a lot more introspective compared to his hyperactive Emile.
As if he’d been summoned by the thought, a little fruit loop somehow made its way into hitting the back of Remy’s head, and Emile sprinted away, giggling.
Remy gasped in mock offense, running off to chase down his brother. Patton laughed, watching his boys with amusement.
Some moment soon, lives begin to intertwine.