extendedmetaphor | (no subject)

"Oh, I'm sure I did," he said, feigning interest in a bookshelf. "For the right reasons, I hope."

God only knew what Dakin had been saying.

Guy grinned mischievously. "A bit of both."

"Oh, Jesus," he said, leaning his shoulder against the bookshelf and rolling his eyes heavenward, as if hoping for some unlikely intervention.

"I have no idea what you mean."

Guy laughed loudly at that. "Your initial reaction suggests you know exactly what I mean." He took a drag from his cigarette and regarded the other, the grin on his face not quite dying. "Boys can be cruel."

"Yes," he said, they can. Figuring that wasn't too incriminating. "They can. Especially the clever ones."

"Grab you by the balls and don't let go," Guy continued, and a little more stern, added. "You won't let that happen here, will you? I have to ask, of course."

He blinked and all but choked on his cigarette.

"Won't let what happen?"

Guy bit back a laugh and mentally patted himself on the back for his never-faltering insight. "Well, you're going to be their teacher. Can't have your students fondling your balls."

"They told you?" he asked, somewhat surprised. He thought that their little boys club would have survived, even on the island. That was interesting. "And, anyway, they're nineteen. Not boys, anymore."

Oh, but Guy couldn't possibly stay serious at that comment. "What?" He laughed loudly, nearly choking on his cigarette. The coughing continued, because every time Guy wanted to say something, only more laughter came. "No one's told me anything," came almost quietly between hoarse laughs.

"This is appalling," said Irwin, stepping away from the bookshelf and all but collapsing into an available chair.

"They had one teacher who touched them up," he said. "Not me, obviously. I don't think it bothered them nearly as much as it bothered everyone else. They seemed rather determined to protect him, in the end."

"It really isn't. It's... Thank you," Guy replied, calming himself down a bit and setting himself opposite to Tom, against a desk.

"Sign of a good teacher, if nothing else. The protecting, of course, not the fondling." A badly held-back snort.

"I'm not sure I'd class Hector as a good teacher. Or...effective. Good is rather different from effective, isn't it?" He snorted. "One ought to be appalled, but having met Dakin, it doesn't seem to have left its mark."

"Knowing Stuart he would have probably been more insulted if Hector hadn't wanted to feel him up," Guy said, somewhat fondly.

"Oh, I imagine so," he said, and he can't help but think about Dakin standing in that classroom and talking about the likelihood of anyone being sucked off.

"I can't get my head around that - your calling him 'Stuart'. I've never thought of him as anything other than Dakin."

Edited 2012-11-06 21:11 (UTC)

"I haven't been on last-name terms with anyone since Eton," Guy replied. "Of course, it was quite radical at the time..." he drifted off momentarily.

"Has it changed a lot? University, I mean. Oxford, Cambridge."

And here it is again, the old lie. He shrugs, affects carelessness and hopes it washes.

"I don't suppose much has changed there since they opened the doors for the first time," he says. "The boys fell for it, anyway."

"Fell for it?" Guy asked. He held Cambridge in very high regard. It would forever be the best years of his life.

"They were all very excited. They worked very...hard." He shrugged. "I don't what they thought they were getting. They did well." He shrugged.

"I feel like i've spent years talking about this very same thing."

"You sound terribly disillusioned by your former college," Guy remarked. "Wasn't it a happy time for you? I loved it. Never been happier than at Trinity."

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "You could spend your entire life waiting to be happy, couldn't you? I've been happy the last couple of months. I liked the teaching. The lessons....the...I enjoyed it."

"You must have wanted more than to become a teacher." Guy couldn't believe that was all one could aspire to. "Destined for greatness, shouting for change, leading the riot. It was in the air - if you could smell passed the stuffy cloud of the library."

"I always wanted to be a historian," said Irwin, shrugging his shoulders. "I ended up a teacher by accident, but...there are things to love, if you look for them. I was...seduced into it, I suppose."

He frowned.

"Poor choice of words."

A grin had appeared on Guy's face. "Not at all. History can be very seductive."

"You can stop that right now," said Irwin, rolling his eyes and dragging on the cigarette. "I'm not sure I like that at all."

He did smirk though.