15. Gabriel

The next day during class, Gabe was distracted; he couldn"t get Az's words out of his head. Az had said he liked him. Like, liked him, liked him. And mattered to him. And Gabe knew Az kept saying it wasn't sex, but it had been sex. It had to have been sex. Because it had been really good, and masturbation had never been that good.

He thought about those words all last night while the two of them ate dinner and joked around and eventually watched TV (not porn that time, because that might've been too much for Gabe's brain).

He thought about it this morning when he woke up with a hard-on, and when Az had gently reached over, touching his thigh, Gabe had moved Az's hand onto his dick. Az had called it "his morning masturbation routine" again, but then Gabe had tentatively reached over and stroked Az's cock as well. They had both exploded in orgasm at the same time, and Gabe was amazed that was even possible. Afterwards, Az had cuddled him and kissed his forehead.

Gabe needed to stop thinking about it, though, because there was a room full of crazy, hormonal teenagers who were supposedto be doing work, only Gabe highly doubted much work was occurring with him sitting at his desk daydreaming.

"Hey, will you give me twenty bucks if I eat that cockroach?" he overheard from across the room, and he realized it was definitely time to pull himself together.

"Jason, there will be absolutely NO eating of cockroaches," he sighed out, rubbing his temples. Mark walked over, ready to stomp on it, but Lexi screeched out something about murder, and since Mark seemed to like Lexi, he instead collected it on a piece of paper and asked if he could go set it free outside.

Gabe waved his hand in agreement; he didn't have the heart to tell either of them the cockroach looked pretty dead.

At least it hadn't been a mouse. He shuddered. Public education buildings at their finest.

As he looked around he realized that most students actually were working, and that it was entirely thanks to Az, who was walking around the room, talking to students, and commenting on their projects.

Gabe stood up and walked over, only to hear Az in the middle of a rather grumpy but passionate speech.

"So I can assure you that he most definitely was a real person, and even if William Shakespeare was a pen name, it would still make him a real person, just a real person with a different name.

"Playwrights back then, nobles especially, were far too competitive to all band together to write under a shared pen name. The idea is absurd. Shakespeare in particular was a pompous, insufferable, upstart know-it-all who was completely full of himself. There's no way he would have let anyone else ‘ghost write' any of his plays. Ludicrous," Az grumped.

Gabe tried very hard not to laugh at Az's little tirade.

"He's really passionate about Shakespeare for a health teacher," he heard one student mutter, and he couldn't help it, he did laugh then.

Az shot him a dirty look, walking by and muttering to him, "Teenagers are worse than demons from the ninth hell."

Nick, one of his more academic-minded students, nodded sagely, said "Truth," and stuck his fist out in front of Az as he walked by.

Az fist bumped him and continued to mingle, grumbling under his breath.

Gabe chuckled. God, he loved having Az in the classroom.

Which made him stop in his tracks.

He did love having Az around. He really liked Az.

Like, liked liked Az. A lot.

God, he felt like one of his teenage students, thinking like that—stupid and silly and crazy and maybe… maybe falling a little bit in love.

With a demon. Which was a problem. Obviously.

"Yo, Mr. C, you alright?" Lexi asked.

Az looked over at him, and Gabe shook himself off, saying, "Yes, Lexi. So, tell me about what your group has worked on so far."

And so the period passed, slowly, with both he and Az helping the kids, before finally the bell rang for lunch. Gabe felt nervous and excited and just generally weird to be alone with Az. He wasn't even sure he could eat; his stomach was fluttering and in knots at the same time, which was stupid, because Az was the same Az that he'd been this morning.

Only this morning Gabe hadn't realized how much he liked him.

Az walked over, putting his hand on Gabe's shoulder, squeezing gently. He realized how often Az did that; he initiated contact all the time, even in a completely nonsexual way. It made Gabe feel… cherished. It made the sexual contact all that much easier, too. He was comfortable with Az.

"You alright?" Az asked, gently rubbing his shoulder. "You seem tense."

"Yeah. I guess I was just thinking about… umm… well, stuff that we talked about," Gabe mumbled. Should he tell Az he liked him? That seemed sort of… high school-ish. He almost chuckled. He was, after all, in a high school. Sometimes he thought that the teenage drama mindset rubbed off on him a wee bit.

"Your parents?" Az asked, and it took Gabe a full minute of blankness before he even knew what Az was asking about.

"Oh, yeah, I said I wished I knew where my parents were the other night," Gabe remembered.

"Yes, well, I found out for you," Az replied, leading him over to his chair and gently pushing him into it. "It's good, so don't worry."

Gabe was speechless. Utterly, completely speechless. Az had found out about his parents?

"They're in Limbo, apparently, which is not at all a bad place. It's more a resting place for those who don't know where they want to go in the afterlife. It's also quite the party place, but apparently they aren't big party people," Az reported.

"They're together," he continued. "They enjoy the libraries the most, and they keep to themselves, but word is that they're very happy. I thought it might make you feel better to know that."

Gabe looked up at him. Az was gently smiling down at him with a look of fondness.

Without thinking, Gabe reached up, grabbed Az's face, and kissed him on the mouth. Az looked shocked but pleased when Gabe let him go.

"Thank you, Az," Gabe smiled.

Az smiled back, looking proud of himself, and Gabe realized he was definitely in trouble. He really did like Az, maybe more than he'd ever liked anyone before, and he had no idea what he was going to do when it was time for Az to leave.