Nathan knows that usually, he doesn't bring his personal life into work. When he enters the doors at Truham at arse o'clock in the morning and prepares himself for the absolute chaos and barely school budgeted damage coming to him in the art room, he doesn't think about anything outside those four walls.

That was his mantra anyway, till fate decided to combine them and have him suffer in the most painfully cockblocked way in the history of his life obviously.

Nathan knew he had a thing for tall, fit men- it was one of his many flaws growing up as a gay teen in the late 80s and early 90s that a man who even half fit that description looking at him would send him into a head spin. Now, confronted with that reality every waking moment in the school as Youssef passed him in hallways, he was seriously examining every part of his life to find out how he got here and how the hell he would survive the school year now.

It wasn't like he and Youssef didn't see eachother outside of the school. Weekends now were exclusively spent at either man's apartment, Friday afternoon giving way to a whole host of possibilities from gay clubs to date nights to takeout on the couch and then some, as well as the carpooling they'd come into naturally. It had honestly been the best few months of Nathan's life relationship wise and he'd been in (and around) a few people.

They might be slow in terms of most gay relationships, but that's the way they wanted to be.

It's a rather slow day today, once he pulls his head out of his pink tinged fantasy of Youssef for the fifth (okay maybe sixth or seventh) time, the classroom quiet after the last group, a rowdy group of Year 8's, left it in a state of disarray. They aren't as bad or destructive as the other groups, but they still manage to keep him on his toes. That includes his toes being barely on the ground unlike his knees as he scrubs paint off the floor, wiping his forehead to only groan a second later as he notices it's covered in blue.

Well, it's a problem for lunch break Nathan to deal with now.

He's just shuffling papers around to make sure no "stray creativity" has gotten all over his assessment sheets especially when his phone beeps with a message. Then another, then several. In succession. It sounds like an 8-bit video game and Nathan's already sighing. Christ, what was he about to open his phone to?

Picking up the thin object, he makes a series of confused noises seeing the texts are all, surprisingly, from Youssef. Youssef normally texts him maybe once or twice during school, but most of their texts and interactions, as he'd alluded to before, were weekend based. It seems though that Youssef's gotten himself in a spot of trouble as the texts are begging him to come to the school Admin building and not tell anyone he's doing so. Like "if you say something, I'll kill you" levels of begging that Nathan's not used to. In this context. He's justifiably concerned all the same, as it's not Youssef's normal behaviour.

Pocketing the device, he checks that no one is in the halls (thankfully, it's still class time, he's just lucky enough that his next class isn't till after lunch) before he moves silently through them as best he can, attempting to remember directions automatically to the area Youssef wants to see him in. He feels almost like the teenagers he teaches at this moment, sneaking off from where he should be to go see his boyfriend.

He can almost feel the irony licking at his heels all the way from Paris.

Finally finding the Admin building with great difficulty (as nowhere in Truham seemingly could be found easily), Nathan raised his eyebrows, seeing Youssef's across where the photocopiers, scanners, printers and supplies were, frozen and looking incedibily red faced.

"Well, here I am, love. What's going on?"

"Don't…laugh…" Youssef bit out, making Nathan even more confused. Only when he came around the corner did he see exactly what was going on and of course, he didn't laugh.

He about fucking died on the spot of howling like a fog siren on a lighthouse.

Youssef, poor Youssef, was standing there, looking down at the photocopier in front of him with beet red cheeks that looked as smudged and blurry as abstract art from the tears in Nathan's eyes. His fly was unzipped and his slacks were tucked neatly down to his ankles, underwear around his thighs and Nathan was pretty sure he knew exactly where his penis, was, but he had to self indulge because it was just too easy not to and manage dot get himself under control long enough to ask "What in hell were you doing?"

Youssef swallowed hard, clearly uncomfortable with the question as well as in a lot of other ways, but like a good boy (something Nathan could hear himself referring to Youssef in the future), he answered. "I thought it would be romantic to photscan my dick and fax it to you."

"Oh, romantic moderism art? I'll surrender now!" Nathan pretended to fan himself, fluttering his eyelashes. Youssef glared at him of course for it, but still talked. "Anyway, I was almost finished and about to wipe the thing down when it closed on top of me and it won't open because I lost my keycard in the panic after."

"Oh, love-" Nathan, still giggling, came up behind him and kissed his cheek gratefully, the hairs of Youssef's beard a little wiry, but he was used to the feeling now. "-I'm not laughing at you, honestly I'm not, you're just simply surprising. If only the students knew you were so soft and sweet."

"Ack, don't. I have a reputation to uphold." Youssef was obviously trying not to smile, but Nathan could clearly see right through him. "A reputation that would benefit from my boyfriend becoming a knight in shining armour and saving me from the jaws of this contraption."

"As you wish, my sweet." Nathan grinned, before he turned his lanyard around and tapped his card on the blank screen of the copier, programming in his password and therefore, releasing the cage that Youssef's genitals were being held in, the dick disappearing as fast as Nathan had seen it emerge as Youssef fixed himself back into his clothes and Youssef giving him a kiss worthy of seeing stars before also, disappearing as fast Nathan had seen him.

Damn and here he thought he might stay. Nathan's slightly disappointed, as someone would be, but he resolves that if Youssef can trust him to do what he just did, it's not all in vain.

It's only during his next class when his classroom printer suddenly starts spitting out pictures of his boyfriend's dick which he tries to shield the Year 11's from seeing that he finds that it was definitely in vain and that this was not romantic, this was fucked.

He's totally killing Youssef on the ride home today.