3.

Ianto didn't remember anything about the evening before. Owen's amused grin and dirty jokes were enough to paint quite a picture, though.

He couldn't believe that he got that drunk. It wasn't like him at all, especially not around someone he'd just met. And he was pretty sure he'd only had tea. The wine bottle in his room wasn't even half empty, either. And apart from the fact that he'd woken up with a hang-over and fully clothed in his bed, he didn't feel like he'd had sex. It had been a while, but not that long.

Owen, if only to be cruel, was still convinced otherwise.

Ianto stepped off his bike and was just taking his helmet off when Owen whispered, "Your one night stand."

Ianto instinctively followed his gaze to look across the busy school yard and found Jack slamming the door to his car, and walking towards the school with a grim expression on his face. He really was quite handsome. Ianto had been affected by Jack's looks from the first moment they met. He wasn't ashamed to admit to that. It had been a while since he'd had been with someone. Jack with his perfect build, the blue eyes, handsome face and blinding grin was a wet dream come true. Ianto wasn't blind.

But God damn it, he wasn't easy, either!

"And I don't remember a thing," he muttered.

There was a small chance that he'd made a fool out of himself by kissing Jack and falling asleep on top of him while they'd been making out. He thought he hazily remembered something like that. Even if they hadn't had sex, that would still be embarrassing enough. Jack's reaction would tell, he guessed.

He forced a smile when Jack walked by them. "Hey!"

Jack kept walking, only sparing them a glance. "Hey!" he replied coldly and whispered to himself, "Fuck."

Ianto swallowed, feeling his heart getting heavy. Owen chuckled, fastening his bike to Ianto's and both of them to the bike rack. "You must be quite the lover."

Ianto shoved him and Owen lost his balance, falling on his bottom. However, he managed to grab Ianto's wrist when he tried to go after Jack to … he didn't know what.

Apologise. Explain.

Beg.

He wondered why he even cared what Jack thought about him. He didn't seem to be an overly nice kind of bloke. Somehow, though, it was important that he understood that Ianto hadn't intended anything last night … at least not officially.

Owen's fingers were like iron around his wrist. "Ianto!" he said sharply, getting to his feet.

Ianto watched Jack enter the school.

"Hey!" Owen got him to catch his eyes. "Play it cool, now. Don't run after him like some virgin in heat."

Ianto swallowed and pulled his wrist free. Owen's intervention had spared him what could have been another awkward moment between him and Jack, though. So he didn't glare at him.

Instead he just straightened his shirt and grabbed his heavy book bag from his bike, ready to face the day and maybe talk to Jack more calmly later.

xxx

Jack found the teachers' lounge immediately and opened the door. He had expected teachers sitting around a table amidst shelves crammed with books and preparing for class. The table was there, as were the shelves and a rather pitiful kitchen niche. What he hadn't expected was the woman who'd stormed into Sato's office yesterday – Suzie – alone … and climbing onto the window sill.

He stopped.

She stared at him, her dark eyes wild. "Let me do this! Don't come closer!"

Jack swallowed.

Suzie shouldered her purse with an iron determination. "You won't be able to stop me!" With that, she let herself fall out the window. There was a sound of a body hitting asphalt, then several screams. Jack shook himself from his stupor and ran for the window, looking outside.

"Suzie!" Owen was yelling, running for her with Ianto in tow. Jack looked straight down. Suzie was staring up at him, almost bewildered when she realised she was still alive.

Jack shrugged at her. "What did you expect? It's just the first floor!"

Owen fell to his knees beside her. "Suzie!"

Ianto pushed his way through the students who were forming a crowd, getting out their mobiles and taking pictures. "Guys, stop it!" he called. "Please!"

"Call an ambulance," Owen said, running his hands along Suzie's head.

Nobody reacted, the students till too busy making videos and taking pictures of the woman lying sprawled on the ground.

"Stop it!" Ianto said, standing up and trying to shield Suzie from curious glances. "Go to your classrooms."

"Would somebody call an ambulance?!" Owen yelled.

"Suzie?" Sato called, getting off her bike and coming over to them quickly. She stopped just at the fringe of the crowd and sighed deeply. "Oh, not again!" She got out her mobile. "I'm calling and ambulance."

"Finally," Owen said.

Jack leaned on the window sill, watching Suzie stare at him. He smiled and waved at her.

Suzie's eyes focused on Ianto, who was still busy keeping the students back. "You should leave," she said. "Do it now. While you're still able. You're too sweet for this job! They're monsters! That class … monsters!"

"Everything is going to be all right," Owen said.

Suzie grabbed his hands, putting them around her neck. "Do it, please! Just doit!"

Ianto raised his voice to be heard even over Suzie's. "Guys! Go to your classrooms! Give us some room!" His words did nothing and even Sato's bellowed orders to step back didn't impress the students at all.

Sirens were sounding in the distance and Jack had seen enough. "Hey!" he yelled. "Your teachers are talking to you, you little wankers!"

The students grew quiet and looked up at him in surprise.

Jack drew himself to his full height. "Go to your classrooms or I will come down and kick your arses so hard that you fly across the Bristol channel with the taste of my boots in your mouths!"

The teenagers kept staring at him as if he was something completely unexpected that had landed in their midst.

"Now!"

They dispersed, some of them getting one or two more pictures in before running. Ianto was looking up at Jack with wide eyes. Jack retreated and slammed the window closed, not interested in watching Suzie being wheeled away.

xxx

"Right," Sato said, sitting down at the head of the long table in the teachers' lounge. "I know we're all already late for our classes but we have something to discuss. Suzie is feeling very poor and she won't return to finish this school year, but I think we were all already aware of that possibility."

Jack hadn't taken a seat at the table but was perching on the window sill, fussing with the glasses he'd nicked from Gwen's sexy teacher outfit this morning before putting them on. He thought they gave him a certain educated air.

"We need to decide who will take on the 10b in Suzie's absence."

Jack heard a collective breath being drawn and the silence stretched. Only the soft sound of rain hitting the windows was heard. Sato was looking at everyone in turn with raised eyebrows.

Finally, Owen cleared his throat. "Sorry, but I can't. I took them for a week when their last teacher went missing and I still have nightmares."

The young biology teacher who'd introduced himself to Jack shyly as Rory Williams shook his head. "Everybody in that class is already sure not to make their GCSEs. They don't want to make them. They've been nothing but trouble since Year 8. You can't work with them."

Ianto frowned, staring at him. "The students need education." He looked around and everyone avoided his eyes. "Seriously? Don't you think you're all being a bit ..." He shrugged.

A pretty, red-haired woman who'd introduced herself as Amy Pond stared at him in askance. "Suzie took that class over six months ago. She made her second suicide attempt today. She was a soldier fighting in Afghanistan for a year without having a mental break-down." She looked at Sato. "So no, I sure as hell won't take them either."

Rory smiled at her, giving a nod of agreement. It had been painfully obvious from the first moment to Jack that Rory was into Amy something fierce. He could understand – she was pretty. However, she either didn't notice Rory's interest or she ignored it, which Jack could understand as well – Amy was clearly out of his league.

Jack scoffed quietly when the silence continued to stretch. "They're just children, don't piss yourselves."

Ianto frowned at him. "I wouldn't have worded it quite like that but I agree with Jack."

"Great," Sato said, "then you will take over the 10b, Ianto, and Jack can have your 7a."

Ianto's eyes widened. "My 7a?"

"Problem?" Sato asked.

"They're so … impressionable," Ianto said, "and Jack is ..." He took a breath.

Jack glared at him. "What?" he asked. "What am I?"

Ianto blushed and shook his head. "Nothing." He didn't meet his eyes again until the meeting was called to be over by Sato a few minutes later.

xxx

The school bell rang through the corridors while Jack made his way to room 2B where the 7a was supposed to be. Some students were milling around the corridors, making use of their teachers' absences. They started to file back into the rooms, though, when Sato's voice sounded through the speakers. "All students into their class, please. School will resume now."

Jack was startled when a hand grabbed his arm. "Jack," Ianto said, "may I have a minute?"

Without waiting for a reply, he shoved Jack into a room. All of a sudden, Jack found himself surrounded by stuffed animals and skeletons of all kinds. The walls were taped with posters explaining biology. Through the slightly grimy windows, a watery sun illuminated the store room, giving it an eerie atmosphere.

Ianto closed the door firmly and then turned around to Jack, his books pressed to his chest and his heavy bag over one shoulder. "Listen," Ianto said, "about yesterday ..."

Jack raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms. "Yes?"

"I don't know what was going on with me. I must have had a drink too much with you or something … I honestly don't remember." He smiled awkwardly. "I just hope I didn't do anything embarrassing."

Jack knew he should resist teasing, but he just couldn't. "You kissed me."

Ianto's eyes widened. "Huh?"

"Yeah, you were quite the slut, actually. Offered yourself." He winked. "It has been a while, hasn't it?" Even without Ianto kissing him, he could tell that part.

"Oh," Ianto blushed and swallowed. "I ..." He laughed. "You know, just don't think it meant anything or any … thing. Just don't want you to get the wrong impression. We're colleagues now and things like that tend to end messy."

"Okay, already forgotten," Jack said with a shrug.

"What, really?" Ianto said and he looked disappointed.

"Sure, wasn't that great. I had prostitutes who kissed better."

"Prosti ..." Ianto cleared his throat. "Right, not my business." He smiled forcibly.

Jack regretted a bit that he had to push him away. Ianto was cute … but he was here to do a job, not to get laid by the next-best desperate teacher who hadn't got any in a while. That wasn't his type anyway. Desperate meant needy and needy meant clingy … he couldn't stand that.

"Have a good first day, then," Ianto said with a smile and left. Jack looked after him and sighed.

xxx

As soon as Jack opened the door to the 7a, the children started his worst nightmare with a choir of "Good morning".

He rolled his eyes. "Shut up, not interested." He dropped into the chair at the teacher's table and took one long look at the children sitting at their tables. They all stared back, expectant. And they were quiet. Perfect. Jack crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I am Mr. Harkness and if you don't want to get into trouble with me, you will sit there and keep your mouths shut. I'm just a substitute teacher. You all start with the best grade. Everyone pissing me off gets a grade less. Understood?"

The children nodded, staring at him fearfully.

"Good," Jack said. "Now, you all make a list of your favourite movies and I want a DVD to sit on my desk every single time I walk through that door, is that clear?"

They nodded again.

Jack smiled. "Seriously, they have people study for this job?" He put his feet on the table. "Dead easy."

xxx

Ianto entered the 10b with a smile that he intended to keep, no matter the horror stories he'd heard about this class from Suzie, Owen and others. "Good morning. My name is Mr. Jones and I'm taking over for Mrs. Costello." He set his bag and books on the desk and then realised that nobody had been listening. A group of boys was standing in a corner, smoking at the open window and two girls in the front row were polishing their nails. The rest of the teenagers were either chatting, not paying Ianto any attention, or busy watching something on a mobile. "Hello!" Ianto called. "Would you sit down, please?"

Only two boys from the group who'd been smoking reacted to his words, wearing expressions of resolute boredom.

"Guys!" Ianto said loudly. "I know a lot has happened today but-"

"You look young. How old are you?" one of the girls doing their nails asked without even looking at him. Her dark-blond hair had been straightened into submission, shining glossily whenever she moved her head. She wore a skirt that too short in Ianto's opinion and a top that was so tight he wondered how she was able to breathe.

Ianto knew her, had already told her several times during recess to quite smoking on the school property. "That is not a question to ask a teacher, Carys," he said.

Her friend Annie, sitting next to her, raised her gaze from her nails, blowing a strand of blond hair out her eyes. She assessed Ianto and then she asked, "Are you a poof?"

Ianto stared at her.

"'Cos you look like one."

Carys smiled sweetly at him, her eyes betraying that she felt nothing but dislike for him. "Since when are poofs allowed to teach children?"

Ianto swallowed. "Right. We can make the rights of homosexuals a part of our syllabus if you're interested in it."

"Do I look like I'm interested?" Carys asked.

Ianto bit his lip and turned away from them. "Okay, enough now! Sit down, all of you! That means you as well, Bernie!"

Bernie laughed but he flicked his cigarette out the window and slammed it shut. To Ianto's relief, everyone followed suit and shuffled to their seats.

"Okay," Ianto said, trying to calm his racing pulse. "I'm sure some of you wonder why Mrs. Costello did what she did-"

"Not really," Bernie said.

"Don't interrupt me!" Ianto snapped. A moment later, he regretted losing his calm and raised a hand. "Sorry, I-"

"Hey, teacher," Jonah said. "Can you put your name on the board?"

Ianto glared at him but he turned around and walked to the board, grabbing the piece of chalk off the desk as he went … and froze as his hands stuck to it. "Oh my ..." He grimaced while the class started to laugh loudly. Ianto shot them a glare, trying to get rid of the chalk glued to his fingers. "Yes, glueing chalk to somebody's fingers … it's hilarious," he said, walking over to the sink.

He turned on the water … and that was when everything went to hell.