Summary: It is Valentine's day, and Danny hopes for a nice, stress free school day.
Characters: Dash x Danny x Kwan

Afterward 06

Danny walked into his next class. The students were already in their seats, though they were too busy chatting to notice his entrance. Danny wasn't too surprised. It was Valentine's day, and the students were excitedly talking to their friends about what gifts they received from whomever they were dating, or the occasional secret admirer. Knowing classes were likely to be interrupted by the random candy grams the school liked to do for the holiday, he planned for a light lesson that was more fun facts about literature than an actual lesson that would show up on tests later.

Danny moved to place his things on his desk but paused when he noticed something sitting in the middle of his desk. With a slight wrinkle in his brow, he switched to place his things on his chair. The object on his desk was a heart shaped box with a ribbon on top. A red envelop stuck out from under it. He picked up the envelope and took out the slip of paper inside it.

Couldn't stop thinking of you. Looking forward to our plans tonight. - Dash.

The crease remained in his brow, but the words brought a flush to his cheeks. They had already agreed to act professionally while at school so no one would catch onto their relationship, besides Mary Burke who already figured out they were in a relationship. But Danny couldn't help smiling at the little Valentine's day gift Dash left him.

"What's that, Mr. Fenton?" asked one of his students from the back of the room.

Danny lifted his head to realize the whole class was now looking at him.

"Did you get something from a secret admirer?"

"Let's get to today's lesson." Danny stuffed the note back into the envelop.

"Oh, your face is red!"

"Who's it from?"

"Someone he loooooves, obviously."

Their comments weren't helping to make Danny's blush go away.

"So, today's lesson," Danny said, turning to write on the board.

"Aw, come on, Mr. Fenton! We're not going to be able to concentrate on anything else."

"I could easily turn this into a test day," Danny pointed out, which earned him a few gasps.

"Mr. Fenton!"

Danny closed his eyes, counting to ten as he breathed out slowly. "If it's about who sent me something, I'm going to hand out test papers."

"No, not that. You never brought in your high school yearbook."

"Yeah!" agreed several other students. "We wanted to see your high school pictures."

Danny nearly banged his forehead on the board. He was starting to wish the day was already over so he didn't have to deal with anymore of these questions. When there was a knock on the door, Danny almost thanked Clockwork for the save. He walked over to the classroom door and opened it to be greeted with some candy grams ready to be delivered to students. A hand grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the classroom as the students passing out the candy grams entered.

"D-Dash!" Danny blinked in surprise. "And Kwan? What's going on?"

"I thought we weren't doing any Valentine's stuff until we got home," Dash said, frowning.

"I mean, I appreciate it, but my class wouldn't stop pestering me about who sent me chocolates," Kwan added.

"Wait." Danny held up his hands. "What are you talking about? I didn't send chocolates. And why am I being singled out? I just got chocolates from Dash!"

"Hey, I know I like romantic stuff, but I'm not going to be dumb and send something during school hours," Dash argued.

"Hold on!" Kwan put himself between Dash and Danny, his hands held out like he was going to hold them back from starting a fight. "We all got chocolates, and none of us sent them." He sighed when Dash and Danny simply blinked at him. "Obviously someone sent them to us. But who and why?"

"Secret admirers is out." Dash sighed as he rubbed his neck. "But why sign the notes from us?"

Danny's eyes widened as his stomach felt like it was about to drop right out of him. "Uh, this isn't something that Mary would do, right?"

"Doubt it." Dash shook his head. "We asked her to keep this secret. She's not going to break that promise."

"Then someone else knows," Danny said, and he could see his comment didn't sit well with his boyfriends.

"But we've been careful!" Dash protested.

"I can't hear them!"

The three men twisted around to see a few students poking the heads through the doorway. The students panicked when their teachers spotted them, shoving their way back into the classroom. Danny glanced back to his boyfriends, who seemed to have the same idea going through their heads. He returned to his classroom with Dash and Kwan following him. Danny stood in front of the class, folding his arms as he stared sternly at his suddenly quiet students.

"Is there something going on?" Danny asked with his best disapproving face. Several students shook their heads. The students handing out candy grams stood at the back of the classroom, trying but failing to appear innocent. It seemed the whole class was in on whatever was happening. "So no one wants to confess to putting this," he turned and picked up the box of chocolates then held it up for the class to see, "on my desk?"

Guilty looks passed around the class.

"No one's going to be in trouble," Kwan said, his voice sounding calm and quiet in a way that almost encouraged people to tell him things. "We're not asking to punish the culprit. But we want to know who delivered these boxes of chocolates and why."

"I told you this was a bad idea," one of the boys in the back whispered, a little too loudly.

"Hey, you were the one who said we should get a bigger box," snapped back the girl sitting next to him.

Dash pinched at his nose. "The whole class was in on this?"

"Um," a girl at the front of the class half raised her hand, her brown skin darkening with a blush, "actually, it's more like the whole student body."

"What?" the three teachers shouted, all of their eyes widening. Danny's mind was spinning. All the students plotted to buy them chocolates and address them from each other.

"It was Kelsey's idea," someone explained. "She thought if we sent chocolates to each of you from the other two, then we could gauge your responses."

"And what was this supposed to accomplish?" Dash asked, sounding like he was five seconds away from wanting to go home and spend the rest of the day in bed.

After a round of silent glances, someone, almost too quietly, answered, "To see who was dating who."

Danny looked to Dash and Kwan. "I thought we were being careful," he whispered, but his boyfriends seemed just as confused about all their students having some idea of their relationship.

"I mean, well, we kind of always thought there was a thing going on with Mr. Baxter and Mr. Long," said one of the students assigned to hand out candy grams. "But then when you arrived, Mr. Fenton, it was like this love triangle started. No one could decide who was actually dating who."

"Every time we thought we figured it out, it seemed like someone would see something to disprove it."

"Please tell us! I can't graduate without knowing what the answer is!"

"This is not what I was expecting." Dash rubbed at his forehead.

"I actually thought we were going to be able to keep this secret." Kwan frowned in disappointment.

"Don't leave us hanging!" pleaded the students.

Danny sighed. "They really aren't going to let up on this. They can be very stubborn."

Dash shrugged. "At this point, is there really any harm in telling them? We only agreed to keep it secret because we were worried about what the parents would say. If they've been debating this since Danny arrived, then it doesn't seem like they've been mentioning anything around their parents, since there hasn't been any calls to the school." Despite the logical argument, Dash's voice held a hint of doubt, like he was waiting for his boyfriends to dispute his comment.

"I'm surprised they're this interested in our personal lives," Kwan admitted.

Danny agreed. He certainly never would have thought about whom Lancer was dating back in high school. But their students seemed too engrossed in their romantic lives to be satisfied with anything other than the truth. He doubted they could tell the students that nothing was happening among the three of them and be believed.

"Well," Danny said, leaning back on his desk, "the answer is we're all dating each other."

Students whistled and catcalled, and Danny winced, hoping other classes weren't being interrupted. Then one student stood up with a shout of, "Wait! That was an option?"

Another asked, "How does that even work? Do you, like, alternate your dates or something?"

"It's not like we're three separate couples. We're one single couple. We go on dates and do romantic stuff like any other couple would. It's just that there are three of us in this couple rather than two. It's called polyamory," Danny explained, but he could see many of his students were confused. "It's a little unconventional, especially when society tends to think anything different from the norm is considered bad. But the three of us love each other, and this kind of relationship has been working out pretty well for us."

A girl up front raised her hand. "Don't you ever get jealous of the others?"

"We try to be honest about our feelings," Kwan answered. "If one of us if feeling angry or uncomfortable or anything else, we tell each other so we can work out how to fix whatever's wrong. Sometimes that means just stepping back and letting the other have some space to work out their issues on their own. Communication is a big key in keeping any relationship a healthy one."

Dash tapped on Kwan's shoulder. "We do need to get back to our classes."

"Oh, right." Kwan looked embarrassed. "Sorry for interrupting."

"Aw! Can't you stay a little longer?" begged some students.

"Sorry. You'll just have to pester Danny with any other questions." Dash grinned before he and Kwan left the classroom.

"I guess we're not getting to the lesson today." Danny sighed as hands shot into the air, each student wanting to ask him more questions about his relationship with Dash and Kwan. He chose a student at random, deciding to let the rest of the class be a question and answer session about polyamory relationships. Maybe he wasn't an expert, but he could answer as best he could based on his own experiences. If it was helpful to even one student, he would consider it worth having his relationship with Dash and Kwan discovered by his students.


YumiStar: XD But we love to see this kind of thing getting them in trouble!

Kimera20: Bets were definitely placed. XD But I don't think anyone got it one hundred percent correct.

REDHEADSROCK1010: Their students are way more observant than the guys gave them credit for. XD

Casper97: They know now! XD

PsychePetras: Kwan is biggest and broadest, and Danny is smallest and leanest. Dash fits snugly right in between them. XD