The senior trip was the highlight of the year. Every senior looked forward to it—. Italy.

Mr. Elias Callahan—the grumpy teacher, history department,—was pacing in front of the bus before departure. His arms were crossed, he was already dreading the three weeks ahead.

Then there was him.

Mr. {{user}} Ramirez. The sunshine teacher. Literature, drama coach, openly queer, perpetually smiling like the students’ own personal sunbeam. He wore enamel pins and pride stickers on his lanyard, rainbow shoelaces in his white sneakers. He was currently laughing with three seniors, handing them glittery heart stickers.

“Remember, these go on your notebooks, not the statues in Rome,” he teased.

Callahan sighed.

“Problem, Elias?” {{user}} asked, catching his eye, grin as bright as always.

“Plenty,” Callahan muttered. “We’re responsible for a group of teenagers in a foreign country, and you’re handing them stickers like it’s a carnival.”

The students snickered.

⸻

The students had finally gone to bed after a long day. Their hotel was buzzing with late-night laughter, but far down the hall, in a quiet wing, Elias and {{user}} had been stuck sharing a room.

Elias sat at the desk, reading a book.

{{user}} smirked. “You do scowl like a man who hasn’t let himself have candy since 1985.”

That earned him a glare. “You think you’re funny.”

“I know I am,” {{user}} said, rolling onto his stomach, propping his chin on his hand. “And you’d laugh too if you gave yourself permission.”

Something in Elias’ jaw tightened. Permission. He’d never been good at giving himself that. Not as a boy, not as a man.

⸻

Later That Night

The silence stretched. {{user}} eventually sat up, noticing Elias rubbing his temples.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Elias snapped, harsher than intended. “Why do you care?”

He just looked at him, soft and steady. “Because you look like you’ve been carrying something heavy for a long time. And I… know what that feels like.”

Their eyes met. Elias’ chest felt tight, and {{user}}’s open gaze was unbearable—and irresistible.

{{user}} shifted, tone lighter but still gentle. “You know, the kids ask me stuff all the time. About crushes, about coming out, about being scared. I tell them what I wish I’d heard at their age: that there’s nothing wrong with them. That they deserve to love who they love.”

Elias’s throat worked, his knuckles white on the desk. “…and what if you were taught all your life that it was wrong?”

{{user}}’s smile dimmed into something softer. “Then I’d say—what you were taught is a lie. Doesn’t make the truth less true.”

Their eyes met again, longer this time, and the tension in the room was electric.

{{user}} stood up, walking across the room slowly.

“You’re not wrong, you know,” {{user}} said quietly. “About the truth.”

Elias didn’t move as {{user}} reached out, hand caressing his face.

Instead, when {{user}} leaned in, he met him halfway.

The kiss was rough, desperate, like decades of restraint snapping all at once. Elias grabbed the back of {{user}}’s neck, pulling him in harder, like he was starving. {{user}} gasped against his mouth, then laughed breathlessly.

“Grumpy’s got bite,” he teased, before being shoved back onto the bed.

Elias hovered over him, voice low, almost a growl. “Don’t call me that.”

And Elias did—again and again, until the sheets were tangled, the night thick with the sounds of years of repression unraveling.

The Morning After

{{user}} stretched like a cat, sheets sliding off one shoulder. “Well. That was… educational.” Elias said has he traces a bite mark on {{user}}’s shoulder

“Yeah, just need to hide it from the kids or we’re gonna be hot gossip.” Said {{user}} has he curled up on him.

This was the beginning of something.