[March 15th, early afternoon]

[poeticprivilege]

Sitting in the British Literature classroom was a man who could have been mistaken for a student. Though he was sitting at the teacher's desk, he had his sneakered feet propped up on it, crossed at the ankles as he boredly sifting through a stack of papers. His dark gray pants were baggy, and covered in zippers and pockets, and he wore a white t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, an assortment of vividly colored paint streaks covering it. Occasionally, he'd reach up to run a hand through the strands of dark brown hair that fell over the side of his face, brushing them behind his ear, or look up from the papers as people passed by in the halls.

Faces are made at anyone who dares to stop and peek in.

Comments

[poeticprivilege]

He shrugs one shoulder, leaning forward to flick the ashes off his cigarette into the ashtray before relaxing back into his chair again.

"Do I look cute to you?" he asked, resting the filter of his smoke against his lower lip, head tilted back so that he could look haughtily down his nose at the other man.

[borntolose]

"Yeah," Eddie said, honestly enough. "Looks like you trade on that and a smart mouth."

Except he probably liked to slum a little, too, or he wouldn't have told Eddie to close the door and light up. The groundskeeper knew that type, too, slinking around and looking for a little rough trade just to piss off daddy and maybe feel like they were real bad. The tattoos said this one took it a step further, but he was still working here, and had probably been a kid like one of these, at some point. He smelled like money.

[poeticprivilege]

Hm. It's not much fun when they don't react. Still.

Kalvin shrugs again, moving the cigarette the rest of the way into his mouth. He smoked it without another word, taking it all the way down to the filter before flicking it into the ashtray. Then he scooped up his papers and dumped them in his lap. The top page was swept up and crumpled into a ball, which he promptly tossed into the wastebasket across the room.

"Leave the window open when you leave. We're not supposed to smoke inside the building, I don't want the smell settling in."

[borntolose]

No, and had Kalvin run across Eddie in a bar, it might have been a different story. But bad-tempered though he might be, he's not going to let a teacher bait him into losing his job this early on.

He was petty enough to shut the window, though, and not walk out just yet, though he'd clearly been dismissed. He just watched Kalvin with narrowed eyes, instead, trying to figure out what his game was, and whether he was going to try and make life difficult for the groundskeeper from now on, or just ignore him. It'd be easier if he ignored him, probably.

[poeticprivilege]

"Open the window."

Another piece of paper crumples into a wad, and that too goes flying into the wastebasket. He wore the same bored expression from when Eddie first walked in, completely ignoring the other man. It wouldn't do to give away the game so soon, would it? He wanted his fun to last as long as he could.

"I mean, you were smoking in here too, so it's not like I'll be the only getting in trouble for it. And you're more likely to get it worse than me. Cute little boys like me always get their way, after all."

[borntolose]

Eddie snorted again, a loud, animal sort of sound, like a temperamental bull. "Ain't that the fucking truth," he muttered irritably, but he didn't open the window. Instead, he just pulled out his pack and contemplated it, the end of his last still between his lips. He'd be damned if he'd jump just because this arse told him to.

[poeticprivilege]

A third paper ball goes into the wastebasket, then a fourth. The fifth and last goes at Eddie's head.

"Hey. Open the window. And don't even thinking about smoking in here and blaming it on me, I don't smoke such foul smelling trash."

[borntolose]

The bigger man lazily snagged the ball of paper out of the air - they flew slowly enough that it wasn't a particularly difficult catch. "What's the matter, you're too good for walking over and doing it your fucking self?"

He pulled out another cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, then lit it with the cherry of his old one. Then he stubbed that one out on the windowsill and stuck it in his pocket, just to avoid opening the window again. Then he smoothed out the paper ball that had been thrown at him, glancing over it. If the damn teacher was getting pissy, so much the better. Served him right for putting on airs.

[poeticprivilege]

The top of the paper was stamped with North Feldman's coat of arms. There was a jumble of legal jargon, letters and numbers, then a long list of books. It was, in short, the standards and expectations of the British Literature course - what Kalvin was expected to teach, and recommended materials.

"Why should I when you're right there?" With a scoff, Kalvin rolled his eyes and dropped his feet back to the floor, once again leaning on his hands.

"It's to your benefit as well, you know," he added, standing up and tucking his hands in his back pockets, hips cocked forward. Obviously just barking orders at the brute wouldn't work, but perhaps something a little less forward would. "I mean, I wouldn't want to have to tell on you."

[borntolose]

It had an effect - Eddie's eyes narrowed. He hated that, that assumption of privilege, threat, and invitation all in one, from the way the guy was canting his hips forward but still trying to put him in his place. Fuck him. Fuck him. The teacher wouldn't tell, the groundskeeper was 90% sure this was some kind of game, but he didn't like that the other man could. Of course, Eddie knew how to cover the smell of cigarette smoke - he was a fucking glorified janitor, wasn't he? - but of course they'd believe one of the teachers here over him.

"I don't see why you'd have to say shit. What, you never had to cover up the smell of a fag from mum and dad when you were a kid?" He never had. No one had given a shit what he smoked, really. But he bet this one might have had to sneak around a time or two.

[poeticprivilege]

Oh. Oh yes. That was the sort of reaction he was hoping for. A hand slipped from his pocket, rising up to toy with the ring in his lower lip. It hid the smile on his face, the smile of a smug cat settling down to a goldfish dinner. Shifting his weight from side to side, practically wiggling his hips, he canted his head down, pulling together a rather innocent, coy facade.

"I never smoked as a kid. It's a new habit. I was a precious angel. It's bad, bad men like you who corrupted me."

Lies, some of it. Or rather, exaggerations. But how would Eddie ever tell?

[borntolose]

The bigger man couldn't, of course, though he could guess a little. Kalvin wasn't quite young enough to pull that off, no matter how pretty he was. It might be a habit he picked up in his twenties, but recently? He doubted it. Not that it mattered - Eddie could recognize a line like that from a mile away.

"Yeah? That what you're doing right now? Trying to get corrupted?" He could have said so much worse, Shaking your cock at me like that, like some kind of fucking party favor for the stupid arsehole who does what you want? But this was obviously a game, too, and it was pissing him off. This was his job, and he couldn't just shove the little shit against a wall and show him what that kind of come-on earned him, and he knew that Kalvin knew it. Just a way to poke a little fun at the fucking groundskeeper that he could laugh about later, safe and sound behind his high walls of privilege and class.

[poeticprivilege]

"Isn't that what you want?" he asked, voice lowered to a coo. It wasn't a question he needed answered. Like the jealous little boys of kindergarten, throwing punches at the one smarter than them, like the bullies of highschool, picking on anyone who was different, like the college seniors, gleefully introducing the freshmen to drugs and alcohols for laughs, the answer was always the same. "You want to hurt me. I'm pretty, and perfect, and you want to ruin it. Because you can't have it. Because you can't understand it. So you break it, to make it just like you."

He smiled, sickly sweet, and let his hand drop. "I like breaking things too, you know."

[borntolose]

"Darlin'," Eddied growled, "I could break your fucking face to pieces and every bone in your fucking body, and you'd still never be just like me. Don't make me laugh."

The words were spat, dripping with bitterness and scorn. Oh, yeah, he could tell Kalvin liked breaking things, but he wouldn't do it honest, oh, no, he'd just fucking push and push. "I don't want it, and I don't give two shits if I understand it. So piss off, you silly bint, some of us have to work for a fucking living."

Breathing heavily, he turned from the teacher to head for the door. He was not, not going to be provoked into doing something that could get him kicked out of here. And if the ponce liked breaking things, that'd probably be a fun game for him, too - no. He wasn't playing. No matter how much he wanted to show the other man a thing or two.

[poeticprivilege]

"This is a job, you know," he rolled his eyes, but smirked to himself, dropping into his chair as Eddie charged past the desk. He let the big man go without further comment; there was no point in provoking him further. He had better things to do.

Like come up with lesson plans. He hummed to himself as he picked up a pen and pulled a clean sheet of paper towards himself. He didn't care much for the 'recommended materials' he was expected to use, so he needed to pick out things that fit the criteria but suited his tastes better. Eddie was right, after all. He did like to push and bend and twist things, pushing to see just how far he could go, just what he could get away with.

And Eddie did seem to have an awful lot of buttons to push.

Hee.