When he reaches Rhys Martinez’s name and states the boy reached over a hundred percent there are jeers and wolf whistles, and Thommy actually leans over to ruffle his friend’s hair. Then bursts into laughter when he sees Dmitri’s overexcited ramblings in red, causing Dmitri’s cheeks to warm up. Maybe he should have thought that over a bit more.
“What, you wrote mah boy Rhys a love letter?” Thommy mutters under his breath, his grin wicked. Dmitri has to curb the urge to punch the smug little bastard right in his pearly teeth.
“No, Mr. Prescott, I left him a few suggestions on his composing style,” he replies sweetly as he picks out Thommy’s test from the thin pile. “Thank you for the very inspiring artwork, sadly you’ll have to show it to your Arts teacher for anything but a zero.”
“Aww, that’s such a bull,” Thommy whines, wide lips pouting. “I put so much effort into this.”
“Next time attempt some words. I don’t want to call my cousin in California every time you present me with something just so I understand what you want to get across.” A few students laugh, and Dmitri looks up with a smirk. “The same goes for everyone who handed in some sort of drawing instead of actual, coherent words.”
“I dunno, teach,” James pipes up, “Your cuz is hot?”
“Ana would eat you alive, Mr. Hudson.”
“Yumm, just my kind of woman.” James winks then starts laughing and Dmitri chuckles as well, but for an entirely different reason. Anastas would probably cut James’ dick off if he ever heard him refer to him as a woman and then feed it to him just to prove his point.
His gaze meets with Rhys Martinez’s prying green eyes for a long moment. The boy doesn’t say a word just cocks an eyebrow to which Dmitri responds with a little shrug before he turns away and heads back to the interactive board, allowing Gonzales to trip him and earn some back slaps and raucous laughter. He complains half-heartedly, playing along with the idiots just to lift their spirits even more after the heavy blow their pride had to suffer.
He still has five tests in his hands and five boys who don’t have anything in front of them. He’ll allow them their anonymity, for now, letting them believe they won this round. From the way they act, they are small fish in the class, no one really paying them any mind. At least two of them look more ashamed than anything while the remaining three look angry and almost scared. Dmitri will have to look out for those three more than anyone. Even Brandon Mitchell and his threats. Scared people often do reckless things, and who knows what those three are capable of just to avoid whatever they are afraid of.
Putting that thought aside, he turns the interactive board on, absently noting the lack of pornography waiting for him, and he pulls up his notes for the class. “Now, I’m sure you all have thoroughly perused the syllabus so it won’t come as a surprise that our current topic is The Great Gatsby,” he starts his lecture, not deterred in the least that except for a few people no one pays attention. They will realize pretty soon, that it’s in their best interest to listen to the things he tells them. Unless they are desperate to repeat the year.
He talks about themes and motifs, about symbolism and how they can relate to the novel, which earns him his first raised hand from his class. He nods at the boy, Mikka Hanetsu, if he recalls correctly, and then glares the monkeys taunting the kid into silence. Hanetsu swallows and stares at his open notebook, gathering his courage.
“Is… Is it possible to interpret Gatsby and Buchanan’s animosity and then Gatsby’s defeat as a symbol for Darwin’s Third Law in action?” he asks, his large almond-shaped eyes expecting to be ridiculed.
“It’s an interesting theory,” Dmitri says, thoughtful. The entire room goes silent as if they aren’t used to a teacher taking them seriously. “In the basest sense, I could see it work like that. Gatsby being the runt of the litter yet still keeps fighting for his right to live. Except it is futile because the big fish always wins. And Buchanan is clearly the strongest of the litter.”
“Oh…” Hanetsu seems like he doesn’t know what to say.
“Shouldn’t Gatsby represent the American Dream?” Ryley Johannson muses, and that’s all the others need.
Suddenly they are in the middle of a heated debate that’s laced with snarls and actual shirt grabs whenever someone doesn’t agree with the other person. Dmitri watches on, grinning until he somehow finds himself looking at Rhys instead of the currently wrestling James and Brandon. Rhys is looking right back at him, his head pillowed on his forearms, and for the first time, he doesn’t look contemptuous. Instead, he almost looks pleased even though it’s hard to tell from the way his face remains blank.
It shouldn’t affect Dmitri the way it does. His heart shouldn’t go into overdrive and he shouldn’t feel embarrassed about doing something that finally gets Rhys Martinez’s approval, who is just a spoiled kid with too much coolness to be bothered with anything school-related. It’s ridiculous and he’s lucky Bree doesn’t see him at the moment because she would lord it over him for months, if not years.
He can’t help it though. After yesterday’s disaster, he thought it would take weeks, maybe months to get his students to work with him. Yet here he is, only a day later and even his own problem children are all into discussing something that’s related to the subject they are supposed to be studying. He doesn’t even care they are about to come to blows, for real this time, over whether Gatsby was ‘a giant sucker too much into one pussy to realize he’s wasting his life on something totally unattainable and useless’ or not. Then someone brings up that Gatsby ‘should have just fucked that Carraway dude’, and the tension just breaks.
The bell rings. The students seem confused—which is hilarious on its own because it means they actually managed to forget that they were confined to a classroom with a teacher they hate—for a few seconds before they start to straighten their clothes and pick up their things to leave for the day. They throw Dmitri disgruntled glances as they do their best to avoid the teacher’s desk like a plague but none of them say anything.
The wayward tests find their owners one after another, but Dmitri allows the kids their privacy choosing to watch as the unofficial leaders of the class loiter around Martinez’s desk while the boy in question puts on his previously discarded blazer and picks up his bag. Mark Goodman stands slightly apart, his face clammy and pale, rubbing his fingers together. Maybe it’s a habit. Or a nervous tick. Or a sign of fighting urges wracking his body. Whatever it is, it’s way too suspicious in Dmitri’s opinion, and if the way Thommy and Ryley are looking in his direction whenever they think he is not paying attention is anything to go by, he’s not alone in his opinion.
Eventually, they deem it time to finally leave the classroom, although Thommy still manages to slink over to Dmitri and slap him on the back with his full strength. It hurts, mostly because Dmitri wasn’t ready for the impact of that large hand against his bony back, but he takes it in his stride, rolling his eyes fondly and not holding back the grunt that wants to escape his lungs.
“You did good today,” Thommy says under his breath, running a hand through his messy curls. “And thanks… I guess.”
“For making you work?”
“No. Who wants to work? That zero was a real dick move. I meant letting us talk and not bitching at us for being vulgar and shit.”
“Learning is not about sitting rigidly behind a desk and staring at your teacher like a soulless zombie,” Dmitri says, serious. “You had fun? Great. Now off you go. Or your friends will come back looking for you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Thommy flaps his hand dismissively. “You suck at taking compliments.”
“Maybe I’m just not used to receiving them.”
“That’s lame.”
“So?”
“Okay, going.” He waves and is almost out the door when he turns back one more time. “And also for… you know, yesterday.”
Dmitri is sure he’s blushing as he watches Thommy’s hulking form disappears behind the doorway. He certainly didn’t expect to be thanked once things settled down. Or even acknowledged, really. Especially not after the way Thommy and James showed whose side they are on. So it feels unsettling but also immensely gratifying to be surprised by a sixteen-year-old brat.
He shakes his head and looks around in the empty classroom before he grabs his things and follows his students’ example. He still has a bone to pick with Carmen and his grandmother has been way too elusive these past few weeks despite living in the same building.
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