Chapter Text
Ian's been a full-time teacher for all of an hour when he meets a student who's one of those students that he's always heard about. It's the kid with all the promise in the world, maybe they're a little easily distracted or chatty, but there's a spark there. A truly bright kid.
When Robbie Buckley-Kinard reads out his ice breaker paragraph, he sits up straight and tells the class about how he was adopted by his dads when he was a baby. His dads are firefighters, but one of them is retired now. They have a cat and just got a dog. His favorite color is orange, and he wants to be a rocket scientist like his aunt. It's an interesting paragraph, but it's the way he reads it and the way he structured his sentences that makes Ian take notice. It's a little ahead of where he'd expected a fourth grader to be.
He looks at Robbie’s scores and some past work, and he's impressed by it. He's not the only one, there's a few kids who are performing well right off the bat. There's also quite a few who definitely need some help and are performing below grade level, and he can already hear his dad ranting about No Child Left Behind in the back of his head.
When Robbie asks him about a book he's been reading during silent reading time after lunch, Ian shows him the cover of the book he's been working through.
“It's about a woman who was a cook, and she was a carrier for a disease that made people sick. But it's about how it might've been misinterpreted because of a lot of other reasons,” he explains. “And a chef wrote it.”
Robbie tilts his head as he listens. “What were the reasons?”
“She didn't have a lot of money, she was Irish, she was a woman, she was a servant. Irish people were discriminated against a lot then.”
“Why?” he asks, and that's how Ian finds himself giving a mini lesson about the post-Famine Irish diaspora to an eight-year-old, and that eight-year-old has questions. They're good questions, and before Ian knows it, there's a knock on the door jamb.
A large man is standing in the doorway, and he waves, pointing to Robbie. “That's mine.”
Robbie twists around in the chair he'd perched on. “Hi, Papa!”
“Is everything okay?” the man asks, walking into the room. He looks comically huge next to all of the child-sized stuff.
“Yeah, we were just talking. He had some questions about a book I've been working on when we're doing silent reading,” Ian explains, standing up. “I'm Mr. Marsden.”
“Tommy,” he says, shaking his hand. “What's the book?”
Before Ian can answer, Robbie launches into a pretty decent, if wordy, summary.
“Typhoid Mary?” his dad guesses, and Ian nods. “I think my husband read that book when we were waiting to take this one home. His station picked up a call for someone suffering from it right before Robbie was born, so he got a little obsessed with infectious diseases for a while. Sounds like you and Dad are going to have the grossest dinner conversation ever, I'm so excited. Do you have your lunchbox, backpack, and all contents therein? Also your jacket.”
Robbie thinks for a moment. “Lemme check for the folder.”
He goes to his desk, and his dad smiles as he trots off. “If he gets too stuck on something off topic, he's good with gentle reminder questions. He and Evan aren't genetically related, but he somehow inherited that from him.”
Ian assumes Evan is his husband. “I'll keep that in mind. He's a good kid.”
“The best,” he confirms, taking Robbie’s hand when the boy comes back with all of his stuff. “See you at Back to School Night.”
He leaves, and Ian texts his sister about unethically lusting after a student's dad. She texts him back and tells him to go for it, because she doesn't care about ethics or the sanctity of marriage, apparently. Though they could be open. Even if they are, Ian can't go there, especially not his first year out.
He busies himself with prepping for the next day and organizing the homework he needs to grade once he gets home. Overall, it's been a good first nearly two weeks. When he calls his sister in the car, she blasts “Hot For Teacher” into her microphone.
“I hate you,” Ian says flatly.
“Fuck off, I'm your favorite,” Teresa replies. “What's his name?”
“You're not cyberstalking my student's father.”
“Not with that attitude.”
—
Back to School Night is fun, if intimidating. Ian starts a mental list of parents he does not want to ever have to reach out to, parents who are overbearing, parents of kids who he knows he'll have to reach out to, and parents he actually likes talking to.
Unsurprisingly, Robbie’s dads are in that last category. Tommy is the retired one, having undergone a knee and hip replacement a few years before. Before that, he was a firefighter and helicopter pilot. Evan is currently a firefighter captain, and he's a little younger than his husband. They've both got deep laugh lines and streaks of grey in their hair. They're both gorgeous, and Ian is blessedly normal with them. He's met plenty of attractive parents as a student teacher, so it feels like he was training for this moment.
It helps that they're so obviously in love with each other that even sort of flirting would feel like an insult even if he wasn't Robbie’s teacher. While Ian addresses the classroom of adults, they're standing in the back with an arm around each other as they read the syllabus/curriculum schedule for the year. They whisper to each other and smile, and Ian should maybe call his ex.
After getting forms filled for chaperone interest and fielding questions, Ian lets the parents go to wander campus and go have coffee and allergen free baked goods in the auditorium.
“Hey, so I was going to talk to the principal about letting my station come here for a fire safety assembly again,” Evan says after they approach him at his desk. “But also, Tommy said we should offer up field trips. We know, like, five stations the kids could go to. Mine, my old one, his old one, our friend's, and the one our other friend just started being a captain at.”
Ian grins, because a fire station would be cheap, easy, and helpful. It's an easy sell to the district. “That would be great. Are they nearby?”
Tommy snags a piece of construction paper and a pen and sketches out a rough map of the area and then a line to another shape, making little marks. “So, the 118 is in Glendale over here, the 122 is closer to WeHo, Evan's in Culver City near the house, Ravi’s in NoHo, and my station is all the way down here at the harbor. But there's helicopters, so it's kinda the best one.”
“Excuse me, I just got a Heavy-U,” Evan butts in.
“Yeah, but helicopters.”
Ian isn't prepared for the expectant look directed his way, like he's the deciding vote. “I'm…sure they would all be great options. I have to propose it first, and they need to figure out pricing both for the transportation and the tours.”
Tommy makes a face. “What pricing? It's free. We'd have the fee waived.”
“The LAFD wouldn't mind?” he asks, because it's not something he's willing to risk.
“Oh, the fire chief is basically my other dad,” Evan explains, then laughs. “Not that I also have two dads, he's just, y'know, a mentor. He was my first captain. So Robbie's basically his grandson, so it's—”
“Nepotism,” Tommy says dryly.
“Exactly. For a good cause.” Evan grins, and Ian has to dig his thumbnail into the side of his finger so he won't blush. “Here, this is my work email.”
He takes out a business card. It's got the LAFD logo, his station number and location, his name, an email, the phone number for the station, and a tiny smiling headshot from an official LAFD portrait. It's ridiculous that he still looks so good in a small, somewhat pixelated image. Ian places it with the chaperone form for Tommy, which has every field trip ticked off along with a list of certifications for first aid, CPR, and pediatric first aid. Also, for some reason, the fact that he's got an active pilot's license.
“How's Robbie doing so far, by the way?” Evan asks, sounding almost nervous.
“Oh, he's fantastic,” Ian says, shrugging. “He's, like, a dream student. I was going to recommend that you test him for extra courses for gifted students. He's thoughtful, very helpful, respectful, he's happy to ask questions and admit when he doesn't know something. It helps the other kids relax and do the same thing.”
Evan relaxes and grabs Tommy's hand, smiling broadly. “Really?”
“Yeah. He's an incredibly inquisitive, curious child. I've actually had to get better at redirecting him back on topic, because we'll end up having good discussions regardless. And I'm incorporating active breaks into the day, like I said earlier, partially because he and a few of the kids do get restless. That's why I've asked if the parents can provide yoga mats, it helps settle down the active kids and wake up the bored kids.” As he speaks, he notices that Evan looks like he's about to cry. “Are you alright?”
“Y-yeah, I'm good. I just really wish I'd had a teacher like you,” he says, laughing quietly. “Maybe I wouldn't have dropped out of college.”
Ian's eyebrows raise. “Sir, with all due respect—you’re a firefighter captain. Not everyone needs college. But I appreciate that. You're raising a good kid, I'm just figuring out how to teach them.”
Tommy wraps an arm around Evan’s shoulders and kisses his temple. “We try. We also have a lot of help.”
Another student's parents walk up, and Ian tries to keep his expression neutral. Their daughter is a little bully, so he does really need to talk to them. He excuses himself, shaking the men's hands and making his apologies.
Later, when he's closed up the classroom and is walking toward the auditorium to grab whatever's left of the snacks, he spots Tommy and Evan walking toward the parking lot. They've got an arm around each other, and they pause under a tree to kiss. Tommy brings his hands up to Evan's cheeks and says something that makes his husband laugh, and Ian wonders what it's like to be that in love with someone.
He sighs and pulls his phone out, scrolling back to his last text with Oscar. They'd broken up while he was finishing up his program and Oscar was working on his thesis. They'd let frustration leak into how they talked to each other, but he still wishes they'd learned to just talk about those feelings instead of flinging them at each other.
The text he sends is simple, neutral.
Hey, hope you're doing okay. I was just thinking about you.
Ian looks at the pictures Oscar had sent him a few days before their last text. It was an old one even then, something he'd found while he was going through his stuff. It was a photo strip from Oscar's cousin's wedding, and they'd been smiling and making goofy faces and then kissing. Ian remembers that moment, remembers aching with wanting to be with Oscar at their own wedding.
Then the screen goes dark for a moment before Oscar's name pops up with an incoming call.
Ian stops and leans against a wall outside another classroom, and he accepts the call.
“Hey,” he says softly.
Oscar's breath hitches. “Hey.”
—
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