Think I’m gonna need a few minutes with Iseya, ’cause clearly I got some unexplored issues that need analyzing.
At least Rian wasn’t looking at him, his entire focus on Valdez as Valdez shrank down in his seat, then groaned and slung his head back, thudding it against the back of the chair.
“...check the shelf behind the kiln...” he said in a tiny voice.
Rian gave him a long look, then pointed two fingers at his own eyes before pointing them at Valdez.
Watching you, he mouthed, before sweeping past the tables toward the back of the class and the large, thickly squatting kiln taking up an entire corner, fishnet poncho trailing behind him.
Valdez craned around to watch him, teeth bared in a grimace, but whipped back to face Damon when Damon grunted, “Hey. Valdez.”
“...what?” Valdez eyed him warily. “Did y’all set me up? Is this a sting?”
“No.” Damon sighed and dragged a hand over his face. “Just...look. You don’t have to dime anyone out. No names. But any of the boys on the team on that stuff?”
A long, measuring look slid over him, clearly assessing the wisdom of solidarity against teachers versus every man out for himself. But finally, carefully, Valdez said, “Nah. Not anyone that runs with me, anyway. Like maybe once or twice, but not a habit. Couple of ’em said it messes with their breathing when they’re running yards and shit. Total buzzkill.”
Damon exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” he said, and didn’t even bother trying to hide his relief. “Total bu—”
“Seriously?!” rose from the back of the room in an irritable yelp.
Valdez cringed—then burst into snickers, before clapping both hands over his mouth, staring at Damon as if begging him not to give him away. Damon just sighed, quirking a brow and leaning to peer past him.
At where Rian reached around the kiln to lift a wooden plank off the wall-mounted pegs supporting it.
It, and a line of molded shafts in gray clay.
Over half a dozen of them, ranging from cartoonish things with ridiculous bulbous mushroom heads to almost disturbingly realistic, veined designs—and one with a pair of plastic googly eyes glued to either side of the head.
While Rian brandished the shelf out like he was presenting evidence in court, his pretty, delicate face drawn up in a furious scowl and flushed from his neck to his hairline.
“This is what you do when I give you a free project period?” he demanded scathingly. “Were you planning to use my kiln to fire these? Perhaps present them as Christmas gifts to your parents?”
Cocking his head, Damon risked, “...y’know, some of ’em aren’t half bad. I mean, there’s a lot of talent in the third o—”
“You shut it.” Rian jabbed one slim finger at him, still supporting the shelf full of dicks on his opposite palm like a waiter balancing a tray; Valdez let out an explosive burst of laughter, then choked it off with a hoarse sound, struggling to keep a straight face when those tawny hazel eyes snapped to him once more. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“...sorry...?” Valdez tried, trailing off into a wheeze.
Oh fuck.
Oh, fuck.
Damon shoved his knuckles against his mouth, forcing back a laugh—and barely managed to mangle it down to a rather pointed clearing of his throat, earning him another snapping glare.
“Not helping, Mr. Louis,” Rian ground out through his teeth.
“Sorry,” he strangled out in echo of Valdez, only for both him and the kid to lose it in a round of snickers. Damon closed his eyes, shoulders shaking helplessly, and tried to hold it back. “What the hell do you expect from a class full of teenage boys? For Christ’s sake, Falwell, put the fucking dicks down if you’re gonna yell at us.”
Rian made a fuming sound, blowing at a wisp of rippling black hair that had escaped its knot.
Then just groaned, sliding the shelf of lovingly molded phalluses down onto one of the back tables, lips twitching in a tired, self-mocking smile.
“Enjoy the laugh,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’m finding out which of these belongs to whom. You’re going to finish them, fire them, properly paint and glaze them, put them in for final firing, and then present them in your final semester project.”
Valdez’s laughter vanished immediately. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I am not,” Rian said primly, his smile chilling as he straightened and folded his arms over his chest, a touch of triumph glinting in his eyes. “So would you care to discuss what I brought you here for, now that you’ve been so helpful about your fun little side projects?”
Merry made a face, but slouched down in the chair with a low sound of defeat, grinding the heel of his palm against one eye and digging his fingers into the spikes of black his hair had been styled into in the front. “...sure. What’d I do?”
With his head held high, that transparent excuse for a shirt trailing behind him like a royal cloak, Rian swept back up to the head of the room.
And for some reason, he seemed to be pointedly ignoring Damon, not even looking at him as he settled to lean against his desk at the corner farthest away from the spot Damon had claimed.
That shouldn’t be so irritating.
But Damon held his tongue, while Rian leveled Valdez with a look that somehow managed to be gently stern, oxymoron and a goddamned half, but then that was Rian all the fuck over and it was really starting to annoy the fuck out of Damon.
“Come on, Merry,” Rian said patiently. “You can’t tell me you don’t know you’re holding a pretty shaky C in my class, while you’ve got steady As and Bs in every other course, and you’ve been a solid three-point-eight GPA since your freshman year. You’re not a slacker, and you keep up with your grades. So what’s going on here?”
Valdez shrugged, gaze skittering to the side, his jaw jutting forward. “Dunno, didn’t realize I was doing so bad. I mean, it’s art? It’s not like you give tests?”
“There have been four quizzes on the rise of the Renaissance and an essay on how that influences modern media today,” Rian pointed out dryly. “You slept through three of the quizzes, and never turned in the essay.”
“...oh.” Valdez sank down deeper into his chair, his chin practically disappearing into his collar, above the knot of his uniform tie. “I, um, forgot?”
“You forgot what?” Rian asked in that same dry, mild tone. “To turn in your essay, or to wake up for my class?”
“Yes...?”
“That wasn’t a yes or no question, Merry.” Rian sighed, folding his hands. “I’m not upset with you. I’m also aware a C in elective art isn’t that much of an impact on your final graduating GPA. I’m just wondering if there’s something going on that you want to talk about. When we’re stressed out by external factors, it affects our work.”