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janie_tangerine
Robb, who until now had thought he had just scored the complete jackpot — after all, being hired at a private elementary school that pays extremely well just out of your teaching diploma, close enough to his place that he can bike there, in a fairly quiet area even if it’s near a couple of tube stations and is very well-connected, is… rotten luck, these days —, looks at his new supervisor, Headmaster Mormont, when he had been staring at the green yard just before.
“That problem?”
“Well, it’s not our problem,” Mormont says, “not technically. Follow me a moment.”
Robb does, until they get out of the building’s door and Mormont steps on the sidewalk, then nods to his left.
On the corner of the street in front of them, there’s a building with dark red bricks that kind of looks out of place in the middle of the newly repainted white houses on the street.
He’s about to ask what’s wrong with it. Then he notices that it’s a movie theater —
But the name.
“I suppose,” he says, slowly, “that someplace named Swallow doesn’t exactly show cartoons, does it?”
“No,” Mormont half-smiles, “it doesn’t. Admittedly, they don’t… advertise it. As in, they don’t put posters where kids can see them, they only advertise events in the evenings or during vacations and so on. Still, I dread the day the parents find out.”
“… They don’t know?” Robb asks, eyes not straying from the building.
Mormont snorts. “As if. Mr. Stark, if there is one thing you will learn in the next two months, is that most parents who send their children here can’t care less about the surroundings, they just want them to have good grades so they can show them off.” He sounds bitter, Robb thinks. “But such is the way of exclusive schools, I suppose.”
“What,” Robb says, tentatively, “that the parents care more about their kids doing good for appearances than because they care about their kids?”
“See,” Mormont half-smiles, “there was a reason I thought you had the best interview. Anyway, yes. I suppose so. That said, no one found out yet, so as long as no children end up lost inside after leaving I guess nothing will happen. I’ll see you next Monday then?”
“Of course,” Robb replies, “I can’t wait to start.” He smiles, meaning it.
Then he goes back home on his bike and doesn’t think about the porn theater for the rest of the weekend. It’s not as if it’s the kind of establishment he usually goes to — if he needs to get laid he’ll manage and if he really needs to find porn to watch, going to a theater isn’t exactly first on the list.
So he goes home, calls his parents to say he’s buying everyone dinner to celebrate his new job, and proceeds to forget about the theater in question.
— —
A week later, he hasn’t thought about it whatsoever — he has met his classes (most of the children are adorable and the ones who aren’t, well, he’ll win over), he has met some of their parents (and then he understood what Mormont meant), he has met his colleagues (a few are nice, most others don’t even bother to talk to him after being introduced, but he had imagined it could go like that), he thinks he’s doing fine. Sure, it’s a lot of work and he still needs to find his footing and the last thing he wants is the parents protesting because he’s not going fast enough with his teaching schedule, but he thinks he can handle it.
Then, on his way back from class, he gets on the bike, turns left as usual, and promptly crashes to the ground when one of the SUVs from one of the parents that had been parked in a double line almost hits him as it speeds out of the street, and Robb would insult the asshole if he hadn’t just hit the ground badly, and good thing he had a helmet, or —
“Hey,” someone says from somewhere at his right, “you need a hand?”
Robb blinks and turns to the voice, using the arm on his uninjured side to take out the helmet, and — oh.
There’s a guy standing next to him. An extremely good looking guy that has to be around his age or maybe a bit older, with dark hair and eyes, a face that seems out of some fucking Renaissance painting, dark clothing on him and a nice, pale hand, extended his way.
Exactly the kind of guy Robb is into, for that matter.
“Yeah,” he groans, “thanks. Uh, I can’t —”
“Sure, just hold on,” Hot Guy says, hauling Robb upward. “Fucking hell,” he says, “you tore your shirt.”
Robb looks at his right arm. Fuck. He’s right — he did, and there’s blood all over his arm even if it’s a shallow cut, and fuck but his ankle hurts —
“Damn it,” he groans, “uh, is there a drugstore nearby? I don’t want to impose —”
“No,” Hot Guy goes on, “but I’ve got a first aid kit. Come on, get in.”
Robb nods and then registers that they just walked into the porn theater — he raises his eyes and finds himself in front of a vintage Deep Throat poster that looks like an original just before he gets dumped on a chair in the lobby.
“Just you wait,” Hot Guy says, “I’ll go to the bathroom and be back in a moment. Try to not bleed all over the floor,” he winks, and then he disappears somewhere behind the counter, and the moment Robb lets himself relax a bit, he takes a moment to look at the inside of the place for real. It doesn’t smell badly — actually, he’s pretty sure someone has a citrus freshener somewhere behind him because the air smells faintly of it, and other than that poster, it looks like a regular theater. Maybe it has a vintage look, too, with wooden floors and a proper ( ) rather than neon lights. It even has a nice popcorn distributor —
Next to a condom one.
Fair enough, he thinks, and a moment later Hot Guy has come back with a full stocked kit and he’s helping Robb out of his shirt and shit, this is really not the way he had imagined getting out of his clothes in front of anyone he was into, but — here he is, he supposes.
“Thanks,” Robb says quietly as Hot Guy kneels to his side and gets some disinfectant on him after cleaning away the worst of the blood that has poured out of his arm for now, “you’re being very kind.”
Hot Guy snorts. “That’d be the first time anyone called me that,” he says, “but thanks for the endorsement. Stay still, this isn’t very deep and you won’t need stitches but it’s going to fucking bruise.”
“I’ll live,” Robb groans. “Shit, if I find out it was one of my parents —”
“One of your parents? How wouldn’t you know?”
… Right. That wasn’t really phrased well.
“Oh, I mean, I work at the school. The one in front of here. I mean, parents of one of the kids I have. Mine couldn’t afford a SUV if they tried.”
Hot Guy laughs. “Wait, so you… teach there?”
“Yeah,” Robb nods. “What, so surprised that I’m not thirty yet but I willingly picked that job?”
“A bit,” he says, “but all things considered, all the decent teachers I had were guys.” He finishes disinfecting the gash on Robb’s arm, then nods once and takes out some bandages from the kit. “Guess you wouldn’t choose it out of societal pressure.”
“Nah,” Robb says, shaking his head. “But hey, I’m very good at it. And be certain I won’t be here protesting the existence of your fair establishment, since you’re about being a saving grace here. By the way, I’m Robb.”
“Theon,” Hot Guy replies, winking at him before going on bandaging his arm. “And nice of you to call it fair. We did put a lot of work into making it nice.”
“We?”
“I have a… business partner,” Theon explains, tying the bandage carefully — Robb has a feeling it’s not the first time he bandages someone’s arm, from how his fingers move very skillfully, but he doesn’t point it out. “He’s not here yet, he worries about the money part of the organization.”
“And you do what, artistic selection?”
Theon raises an eyebrow. “Are you pulling my leg or —”
“No,” Robb shakes his head. “I mean, I don’t… really watch porn and not in cinemas, never did much for me, but the lobby is actually nice and the only decoration you have is a vintage poster which is not even that tasteless, and I suppose that someone has to choose the movies, so… if the other guy is worrying about the money then I guess that’s your realm.”
“You sound remarkably cool with it, for being an elementary school teacher.”
“Who’s stereotyping now?” Robb grins back.
“Touché,” Theon agrees, moving back and closing the med kit. “Guess I deserved it. Yes, I… choose the movies. We also have the vintage evening once per month —”
“As in, Deep Throat?”
“It’s not the only classical movie for the genre, you know,” Theon snorts, but he looks amused at the exchange. “How is your ankle?”
Robb tries to turn it over. It hurts. “Eh,” he says, “I’m not getting back home by bike. Shit, I can get a cab but where I do even leave it?”
Theon stares at him, then at the bike, that they left outside against the closed doors of the theater.
“You know,” he says, “there’s a back office here. It has a closet. I can just keep it there, it’s not like it’d take up space.”
“Seriously?” Robb asks. “I mean, that’d be — great, but you don’t have to. I can manage —”
“Maybe I want someone on my side when some parents inevitably find out that the humble establishment me and Bronn relieved isn’t actually child-friendly,” he winks.
“That’s remarkably astute of you, Theon,” Robb replies, slowly, wondering if the glint in the man’s eyes is there for real or if he’s hallucinating it. Still, the guy winked before at some point, and he thinks he can recognize flirting when he sees it. Hell, he’s been flirting back, hasn’t he?
“You just said you don’t watch porn,” he grins back, “I couldn’t invite you to the next vintage screening to check up on my bandage handiwork.”
A small, small part of Robb’s brain considers shutting this conversation down and just thank the guy and put an end to the flirting, because he has a feeling that getting involved not even two weeks after he started that job might not be the smartest idea, but —
But he thinks he likes the guy, and he certainly wasn’t the one almost hitting him with a damned SUV, and he hasn’t flirted with anyone in a long time and the last time it hadn’t felt so easy, and it’s not like his personal life is anyone’s business, especially if he can do his job well.
“Fair,” Robb says, “but I could come back for that bike when I’m not feeling like my entire side is a bruise and I could definitely go for a movie that’s not vintage porn evening material. I mean, I do like making out in the last row, but this feels a bit too much, you know?”
For a moment he thinks I hope I haven’t misread things, but then Theon laughs, standing up and nodding at him approvingly.
“Fair,” he says, “guess you did look like the romantic type of guy who thinks porn is too straightforward. How about I call you a cab and you go rest for the week-end and you come back for it whenever? If it’s next week you could probably meet Bronn, if you care to find out about the other half behind the enterprise.”
“I’ll take the cab,” Robb replies, “and why not? It’s a nice enterprise, even if not the kind of I’d usually attend.”
“Excellent,” Theon says, then goes to the counter, grabs the phone and calls the cab before he goes to retrieve the bike.
“He’ll be out in five,” Theon tells him. “And I’ll go put this in the store room. Remember to come get it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of missing it. I don’t want to shell for a tube subscription, you know.”
“Smart thinking,” Theon says, “which is why I’m living the apartment upstairs.” Then he winks again and disappears behind the counter, again.
Holy shit.
Has Robb just scored a damned date? He has no fucking clue, but he’s feeling slightly less pained about this entire ordeal, and by the time Theon has come out of the office, his cab has showed up in front of the theater. He hoists himself up, not refusing it when Theon asks if he wants to lean on him getting to the door.
“Well,” Robb tells him before getting out, “not the way I’d have imagined doing this, but it was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll be back for that bike. And my rain check on the regular movie.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Theon drawls back, dark eyes twinkling in the sunlight. “After all, it’s been a while since I saw anything with a plot.”
Robb laughs to himself as he gets out of the theater and into the taxi. He rattles off his address and closes his eyes as they leave, and —
Well.
He had not expected this development whatsoever, and he doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing, but… he thinks he likes Theon. He thinks he would like to get to know him better. And so what if he’s running a porn theater? There are way less respectable jobs around, after all.
He smiles to himself.
Yes, he can’t wait to go back to get his bike.
He really can’t.
