No One Knows, a teacher!Shaun/student!Desmond fanfic
A/N: This was actually inspired by a dream I had. And oh god, was it ever amazing. So, I'm just going to try and write down that dream chapter at a time and hopefully this'll be successful. Oh yeah, this is maaajorly AU.
Shaun Hastings adjusted his glasses, jerking backwards to dodge a paper plane's momentary flight.
In front of him, monsters battled back and forth, swords wielded and drawing blood. The graphic scene in front of him looked like something that might be in a Marvel comic book of the sort. Battle cries were heard from across the room and together, teams united and quickly claimed their own nations. The noise was loud enough to shatter glass as he looked back down at his papers. Actually, there weren't monsters or any blood – it was just his students going absolutely mad. It was Friday and all the students were eager to get out for Spring Break; especially Ezio.
Ezio was a constant trouble maker who loved to torture Shaun daily. Numerous times, Shaun had tried to shut him down and force him to crawl under a rock from his nasty, sarcastic remarks but he fought to no avail. It was like talking to an immature, brick wall. Often, Ezio would begin to spew out mindless profanities in Italian – since he figured Shaun didn't know any other language because he came from Britain, but he knew more languages than he cared to admit. Surprisingly, Shaun noticed that Ezio's best friend was a complete opposite; Leonardo Da Vinci. The boy was a genius with outstanding marks in Visual Arts and he somehow always knew his way with words. He was no Shakespeare, but he was pretty damn close. The plane also had to be Leonardo's – who else had such architect-like skill?
Clearing his throat, Shaun tried to grab the attention of the class.
Instead, he was completely ignored. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Altaïr completely disregarded Malik, who was trying to show him a note. He watched as the teenager crumpled the note and frustration and shoved it into his pocket. Their eyes met momentarily, then Malik scowled and looked away as fast as he could. Shaun raised an eyebrow – teenagers made no sense. Beside Malik sat his younger brother, Kadar, who was furiously working on his history paper. He was the only student Shaun could expect to do his work – other than Lucy or Al Mualim. Shaun snorted to himself silently. Al Mualim always had a darker side of writing his papers, focusing on the victory of the baddies rather than the heroes.
In the back, he had placed Rebecca and Lucy because he thought they could handle it. But all he saw was their work left unattended and tedious gossiping ensured. Woman, Shaun groaned as he rolled his eyes. On the other side of Altaïr sat Maria, a tough girl who never backed down from a fight. She seemed intent on one single thing – winning Altaïr's attention. But it seemed neither her nor Malik were doing a decent job of claiming his consideration. No one knew much of Altaïr, not even his record sheet informed him much of the mysterious teenager. Shaun didn't care though, he seemed to do well enough. Quickly, Shaun scribbled a ninety-two percent down on his paper about the deserts of the Middle East.
With many voices going through the room, it was hard to focus on just one. Although, he somehow managed to tune into Desmond Miles. How could he not? The boy was standing right in front of the desk.
"Um… Mr. Hastings?" Desmond mumbled, keeping his eyes on the ground. Shaun had noticed that he wasn't much of a talker; or much of doing anything, actually. He completed his assignments but it was as if he lived his life in secret. Sure, he occasionally talked to Lucy or Rebecca, and he was one of the few who could grab Altair's scarce attention. But at the sessions he spent with Desmond for extra help actually proved to be useful of both of them learning something. In all his years of teaching selected history, he had never one such as Desmond, who longed for the knowledge of the past. When he didn't understand something or wanted clarification on a subject, he would stay at lunch and eat rarely. When he didn't eat, Shaun offered to buy him lunch but he reclined every offer.
"Yes?" He replied. The students always grinned when he spoke – it was hard to ignore his overwhelming British accent.
"I, uh, don't get this part," he said, holding out the textbook.
"What don't you get?" Shaun replied, smiling slightly. Desmond was the only one he wasn't exactly sarcastic with, since he knew he didn't need a reason to annoy him.
"Well, just all of the Italian Renaissance. I mean, so many changes took place it was hard to… y'know, pinpoint. Do you think I could… come in at lunch?"
"Sure," he lowered his voice to make sure no other students could hear him. "Did you bring a lunch?"
"Well, no-"
"Then allow me to buy for you," he grinned, marking off another paper. Once again, Ezio received a forty-six on his Middle Eastern essay – the third failed assignment of the semester. He never really cared about history at all or any learning, in fact. The only high mark he had was in Physical Education and Sex Ed and Shaun didn't even want to know if he was taking the lessons from Sex Ed outside the classroom.
"N-no, that's not necessary-"
"Of course it is. You need to eat, you're a growing boy," he raised an eyebrow at Desmond's reddening face. "Let me go out with you at lunch to buy, alright?"
"Yeah… sure," Desmond nodded and returned back to his desk, beside Ezio. He was hoping that Desmond's willingness to do the work would hopefully rub off Ezio.
"Hey, old man!" Ezio shouted from his seat. Apparently not.
"It's Mr. Hastings to you, Auditore," Shaun spoke nonchalantly. It had been almost three months and he had slowly grown accustomed to his immature attitude. But, that didn't mean it wasn't getting on his nerves.
"Whatever. So, there were a lot of gay painters running amuck in Italy, right? Though, none wanted to admit it. So, do you think your ancestors were one of those painters?" He smirked, biting the end of his pencil. The class silenced. Watching Mr. Hastings and Ezio Auditore argue was like watching a free movie - there was a beginning, a build up, climax, and end.
"Auditore, I'm mostly from a British decent – though, from your record papers, I believe you're the one with an Italian history, am I correct?" He smirked, raising his head to look at the boy. Slowly, he watched as the boy's face turned a bright red.
"At least I'm not the one prancing around with men downtown," Ezio spat back, grinning maliciously. The whole class rose with a chorus of oooh's, causing Shaun's face to go bright red. What he did apart from his professional life was none of their business.
"Watch your mouth," Shaun growled back, pointing at him with the pen in his hand. "Or else you'll be doing desk cleaning for the rest of the year." The class responded with another set of oooh's, this time, directed at Ezio. The teenager merely rolled his eyes and turned to start talking to Desmond, who was a surprising shade of pink. Shaun looked back down at his papers and circled Desmond's perfect mark with a sigh. Did he really need help?