-- STUCK IN SQUARE ONE && [thomas]

"I'm gonna drop it."

Tom struggled against his sister's grasp, squirming like a fish on the hook. Her arm curled around his neck, cutting off his air supply so that he gagged while she chuckled. Out of glee, he supposed. In her other hand, she held a cup of coffee above his head. Why the fuck was she so tall? Where did she get her genes? "And I will kill you if you do," he growled, gripping at her arm. The hallway may not have been a good place to be having this encounter, the students able to see one of their teachers pinning one of their professors in a sleeper hold. Tom tried to step on her shoe, but the bitch was too fast and move it before he could bring his foot down. "No balls," she quipped, and even though he couldn't see it, he knew she was tilting the cup mockingly. He should have never come around her when she had a potential weapon at him. Then again, she was a potential weapon herself.

Farrah released him when another teacher turned the corner, looking at a stack of papers in his hand. She began to speak. "...and she told me that Hamlet had been mad since before the play had even begun. I never thought of it that way, before!" The woman held her cup in front of her as if she hadn't just been about to burn off his scalp with the coffee in it. Tom stared at her until the teacher passed by, then said, "You are a psychopath." She shrugged, a sneer on her sharp features. The familiar resemblence was there. "No balls, no balls," she continued to taunt as she turned and walked away. He straightened out his blazer, making sure his hair hadn't been fucked up in the confrontation. She needs a new job. Because he certainly wasn't, he liked the Academy. Most things about it, at least. Tom just wasn't too fond of being manhandled by his elder sister. And his whore of an ex--he wasn't going to go there, no.

THe lounge seemed the safest place to be, and he hoped that bitch wouldn't be there. Instead, he was met with a different kind of bitch, one he didn't mind half as much. "Hello, soulless ginger, which hole did you crawl out of this morning to escape from the underworld?" he asked casually as he poured himself a cup of coffee that would not be held threateningly over his head. Well, unless he pissed Catarina off. Maybe a puppy dog face would sway her then. He turned to her, taking a sip from the cup as he questioned her, and he replied, even though it was not a real inquiry. "Because I thought I'd stop by and talk to you. Though actually, I'm surprised I caught you here. Why are you not raping and pillaging villages?" Tom spoke with the same casual indifference which with one may speak of weather. Because this was a normal conversation to have with the soulless ginger. "Oh, papers, doing grades?" He was surprised. Vikings usually don't have a high literacy level.

Caterina had a point. What good were souls, anyway? They just took up space. Or so he supposed, because he didn't know where exactly they were supposed to be situated. Maybe nobody had souls, that would explain some of the people who knew. Like the bitches who liked to dangle steaming cups of coffee over his head. Farrah was not a ginger, but he had liked to tell her when they were children that she wasn't his real sister and that their parents bought her at the animal shelter. She was just as annoying as any ginger. Even more so, while still having a shiny brown coat. Thomas shrugged. "I don't know, heard they're pretty valuable. Have no evidence of their existence yet." It was just all the more noticeable with gingers. Though in truth, he had no issue with those of the red haired persuasion. They were just cursed with a hair color that made people think that they were vampires or demons or any other creature that nobody liked. History was a wonderful subject, he wondered why he didn't teach it. Oh, that's right. Math dork.

Tom rolled his eyes up and puckered his lips at her comment, so flattered by her acknowledgment of his sweetness. He cared deeply for his soulless co-worker, he liked to check up on her and make sure that she was not taking broadswords to people's guys. "It says a lot about you, Rin, that you're into rape for the fun." It was about the power, most of the time, unless it was 'ethnic cleansing'. Again, why was he not a history professor? So many wonderful things he could teach young and eager minds about rape. He took a sip from his coffee before setting it down on the counter and leaning back against it. No need to get close to the woman, she might bite. "I don't know, everyone needs a hobby. Something to do for fun. My brother goes looting every weekend." Poor Mark, being dragged into this kind of conversation. His ears were probably burning as he stood behind the counter of the drug store, most likely reading a periodical about women's health. He thought it would help him figure out why his wife was yelling at him all the time, meanwhile there is a week's worth of trash in a garbage bag sitting on the back porch.

He raised his eyebrows when she commented that she was 'supposed to be'. Needless to say, this man was punctual with everything. "So how is just staring at them working out for you?" he questioned, picking up the cup again and swirling around the liquid inside. He wondered just how bad it would have hurt if it had been dumped on him, but would rather not imagine that sort of thing. "Why don't you tell your supervisor that? Sure he...she would appreciate the input." Or rather, slam her with a referral for being incompetent. That would be a shame. He liked Rin, she was pleasantly cantankerous. He shook his head at her words, lifting a finger from his cup to make a point. "Since I know how much you just love numbers, I'll tell you that they're way easier to grade than...what? Acting? I don't even understand how one would grade that. Do you give them an A if they cry for real?" Ah, there was why he did not teach history. Abstract subjects such as drama and English and history were certainly not his forte. He was just fine "playing" with his numbers. The man inwardly scoffed. I do not play.


[she obviously is the reason why maple hollow needs a stronger police force.]

Tom seemed to ponder her words, lifting his eyes to look at the ceiling before shrugging in what may have been acceptance of the fact. He could be a nuisance for other people, he accepted that. He didn't necessarily aim for that, but hey, it happened. The man couldn't please anyone, but that wasn't even his goal. He just did how he did it and people would just need to live with it. "Would love to hear what the police say about you, being such a productive member of society. Controlling the animal population and keeping our paraplegics in line." He had a history with the police, and the rumor floating around was that whatever you did before you turned eighteen was expunged from the record was a lie. They kept a record, a folder in the filing cabinet with your name on the tab, they just couldn't punish you for it anymore. They could punish you in addition to another crime you just committed. Luckily he hadn't been caught on possession of marijuana yet, but who ever got caught on that? It would be something for your friends to laugh at you about. Especially since only teenagers went around with their pot. He was a grown man, his ganja stayed in his house.

Most people could agree on the fact that burning shit was fun. Why else would they still have bonfires if it wasn't a joy to watch a pile of what-have-you go up in a plume of fire and flames? A bonfire on the beach sounded good, but he reminded himself it was still fucking winter. He didn't wear shorts unless to swim so it didn't matter much to him what season it was, but his bills consistently reminded him of what was going on outside. "Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll grade themselves." He liked to think he was a...semi-decent sort of guy. But not decent enough to help a teacher out with grading papers. Especially Drama papers. How would he grade them, on a scale from 'travesty' to 'Nathan Lane'? He wasn't effeminate enough to be teaching that sort of shit. Thomas blinked at her. He was surrounded by crazy bitches. Who was he to judge people on their weirdness? He had a couch he was currently considering proposing to because his faith in having any relationship actually work was steadily waning. "Yeah, I agree with you. Cats have it made." He wasn't a cat person. He wasn't really an animal person in general, didn't have any pets except the hamster he stole from a friend, but that was a story reserved for parties.

Thomas wasn't even going to humor that with a response, simply lifting his eyebrows and looking down at the coffee with mild disinterest. He was an arrogant man, but her words were merely a nick to his armor, something that he did not take seriously. But what was there to take seriously, other than theorems and calculations? "At least I'm not teaching high schoolers. I think there's a special circle in hell reserved for teachers and lawyers and businessmen. Drama teachers especially." He was a professor, he was a teacher with backing. For all he knew about Catarina, she could have had a useless BA in teaching. "And here I thought art was subjective and therefore impossible to grade," he said before taking a sip. That's what he used to argue about English. How could a teacher grade his short story when it may not appeal to them? She seemed devious about her explanation, but he only gave her a level stare. "What if it's required for the role? And I'm sure students don't mind being sent out of the classroom. They probably go off to kick dogs and tip wheelchairs." He knew what he used to do when he skipped class, and he could guarantee that times haven't changed even though that had been years ago. Far too long ago for him to feel comfortable thinking about without wondering if he had crow's feet yet.

Catarina was an exceptionally bitter person. He knew that he was cynical himself, and he had every right to be. One didn't go through what he had and come out skipping, clicking their heels together with a good howdy neighbor. But he got by without being an asshole about it. Which meant on the off-chance he had a date, he didn't sit there talking about his exes. "I'll put in a good word for you then, so you get that award. I'm sure they give those kinds of things out," he said. Make sure she got that award, though he feared that those old people might have been his own parents. They weren't that old. Still got around, still living in their old house, and probably still overjoyed now that all their children were out. He'd been the last to go, and they had already packed his bags and put them on the front porch at the end of summer. His parents loved him, but they also loved having sex in every room of the house and he was glad they waited until everyone had left to do so. Thomas certainly did not want to entertain those kinds of thoughts for long. He had thankfully never seen a primal encounter with his parents, but Mark had an he'd been duly traumatized.

Hell did sound like a vacation. He didn't think it was as bad as his Sunday mornings half-sleeping in church made them seem. Maybe he could get a few cocktails, talk to some dead dictators. He always thought that Heaven would not be his scene, not from knowing all the people at his church. Which were mostly seniors, ones that he was of course civil toward, always kissing their cheeks and asking about their grandchildren. Heaven would be stuffy and full of couches with plastic covers. "Don't know, once you get down to the ninth circle it's pretty icy." That's where all the traitors were frozen in ice. He was pretty sure the top dog himself chilled down there too. Or rather, served out his sentence trapped in the ice, as well. Thomas figured that Hell actually kind of sucked. At least what he learned from his reading in high school. "Potheads are tolerable. They tend to stare vacantly at you while you teach, and that's better than them telling their life story to whoever's sitting next to them." And sometimes they find something exceptionally funny in an algorithm and laugh about it for a few minutes. He knew that feeling, he'd been there. Couldn't say he came to class high many times, at least not his math classes. He took that shit seriously.

He had to admire the fact that she looked at everything so black and white. It must have made things easier on her, grading wise. There was no, "Well, he did memorize all the lines but he looked like he was constipated the entire time." "So there's only pass or fail in your class?" Is that how she graded the papers, you either got a zero or a one-hundred? He thought that he was a hard ass, but she was a new kind of villainous teacher. And then she was incredibly nonchalant about the whole crying deal. "Course not, it's not in your job description," he agreed, a light smirk playing across his lips before he inspected the cup and noticed he was almost out. No amount of coffee could make him forget about how much he hated his sister. He looked back up at the soulless ginger when she questioned his classes and said, "Most of them take my class because they're majoring in something that requires it. So they work hard. And if they sleep, I don't tell them what the notes or papers were for and they end up failing." It was their fault. As a professor, he was not responsible for his students passing, they were responsible for themselves. It was not high school anymore, he could not coddle them.

Thomas was very offended over her lack of faith in potheads. Had she never seen Cheech and Chong? That shit was hilarious. They were actors. They didn't really have to act for their parts, but they still had a movie. Dave Chappelle, Half-Baked. Again, considering the roles, it was not very difficult. "Potheads are valuable. Stoner movies is its own sub-genre now." Has been its own sub-genre for a while now, though he didn't know the first one to come out. He was sure at least one of his friends would know, the ones he still talked to from high school. Some of them very successful, some of them not so much. All schools had this agenda against pot, a drug which killed no one ever or inherently made anyone an excuse of a human being, but he wasn't going to go telling his students it was a-okay to roll a fatty and smoke it up. "High people have the realest emotion I ever did see. Ever see someone on LSD? It gets very real." He never dropped acid because that shit was terrifying. Not addictive, at least, but it was a whole new game.

At least the woman tried to help them. Or she could be lying to make herself better, but she was blunt and bitter enough not to feel the need to lie. Thomas didn't know why she would feel the need to lie to him. Maybe because he wasn't a bitch professor. But she did her own thing. "Helpful, too, what a saint you are." And in this moment he realized he was very tired, not in the mood to leave and walk the hallways and run into someone he really did not want to run into. He had an easy life, no pets to feed, a plant he watered every two days, and a mother who checked up on him to make sure that he didn't fall in his apartment without anyone around to help him. "Shakespeare is rolling in his grave," he commented when she mentioned research papers, though he could understand. Theater had an extensive history, but it was bullcrap to have to write about it. He guessed it was the same as papers on mathematics, you have to understand the history. Not that most people cared, but this was the education system. You were forced to care.

Rin was incredibly juvenile in his opinion, considering she had the same views as most younger high school students about math. She didn't have to take it anymore, so it was astounding that she had such strong feelings about the subject still. "What did math ever do to you? Did math kill your family? Did math feed your dog chocolate?" Though he spoke dispassionately, math was something that he felt very strongly about. He was good at it, why not like what you were good at? It was actually the other way around, he was good at it because he liked it. It was the only subject he ever cared deeply about. "There are people out there who enjoy math, believe it or not." And this was not only to maintain his dignity. The subject would not have come so far if people did not enjoy it, there would be no Archimedes or Newtowns or Ptolemys. "Like me. It's why I teach Calculus. I don't teach drama because I don't like it." He understood that people had jobs they didn't like, but that, in his opinion, gave one reason to aim for something higher.

Thomas thought about the time he had to grade a paper in which someone found the derivative of a piece of toast. Was that the result of a ganja induced stupor? If so, it inspired creativity, and he would not mind being in Caterina's position. "But I am talking about high people in general. Besides, LSD is basically the same as pot. Except you may just see the eye of god." Not structurally so, but in the fact that it can't mess you up like the other shit that's out there. Cocaine was one hell of a drug, or so he's heard. He would never experiment like that. The one time with shrooms, that was enough for him. He was never going to watch Dora the Explorer again. Tripping balls wasn't so fun when you were watching a mini Latina talking to a large peanut in boots, or so it had appeared to him. Sitting in front of the screen with eye huge must have been true and honest entertainment for his buddy. Thomas wondered how many students of his suspected any drug usage? A lot of the ones who've spurred him into passionate harangues about Riemann integrable functions. Pot should have something to do with that.

He laughed when she spoke, a short sound that lasted only a breath's space. "What was that? Fundamental what? And for the record, I do not coddle my students. They're adults." Thomas didn't have to put much of an effort forth in that case. They were good on their own, like a civilized enclosure in the middle of the chimpanzee cages. Chimpanzees with acne and angst. He did not miss his youth one bit. "Whoa, there, if it weren't for Shakespeare, you wouldn't have a job," he said. While he was conscious in his English classes, the one thing he could remember being taught was that Shakespeare just compiled original stories and put his own spin on them. But he supposed that's what all artists did. There is nothing new under the sun. Though it was a pity that a man back then when drama was not even popular had to steal his own stuff. Thomas did not judge, it was not his area. He focused on the people who came up with their own ideas and theories. Mathematicians must have used that on authors to burn them.

Another cup of coffee, more memories and the possibility of his death at the hand of a cold, calculating woman who wanted no more than to see him smoldering from her morning coffee. He blinked at Caterina, careful not to spill any of his own coffee as he turned. "Kudos to you for killing that joke dead." The man lifted his cup before taking a sip. Cheers to the joke murderer, yo ho yo ho. At least his mood had become better than it was just minutes earlier when his life had been in danger of being cut short in a liquidy death. He scratched the side of his neck. "To each his own. Some like the ingenuity and usefulness of math. Others enjoy pretending to be someone else." Was that just another burn? Hotter than coffee, he had to say. His students never asked him when they would use the stuff they learned, because they would be going into the professions that used it. Important, complicated professions that were actually worth something to society. He wouldn't be able to put up with whiny high school smart-asses saying that they'd never use it again, because they were right. They'd end up working with the fryers. "Ooh, that wounds. Right in my weird heart. I have feelings too, ya know, I think you should apologize to me." His freaky little heart would love to get an apology.

Thomas' laugh was quite impressive in the decibels when Caterina spoke. He had never been to a doctor to be diagnosed with bi-polar disorder because he didn't believe he had it, even though one minute he would be talking normally, and the next finding something so funny he had to stop breathing for a few minutes. He considered that to be just normal. He didn't actually go through drastic mood swings. Well, he did, but he didn't want to admit it. "I'm getting the feeling you think I sit around all day doing math problems out of a worn-out textbook while watching Carl Sagan and debating the genesis of our universe." Amusement could be heard in his voice, the leftovers of laughter. He bet in her mind's eye he also drove a segway, when in fact he had a Datsun. "Let's say I've had my share of experiences, and leave it at that." Would the stories he could tell her shock her, seeing as the woman thought of him as a recluse who jacked off to pictures of Hilbert? Everyone had their wild days in their youth, but now he abstained from a lot of those antics that had ended up with him behind bars and a pissed off brother posting bail.

The man had a feeling that Caterina didn't care about much. What a sad existence. He cared about a lot of things, other than math, got passionate about things as well. These things would only encourage her mocking of him being a dork, considering what they were. But he didn't hide it, didn't care if she knew or if she mocked him. Insults were easily brushed off. Most of the time. It depended on what kind of mood you caught him in, and if your words resonated with him and pissed him off. She seemed adamantly against Shakespeare, though, funny considering that he was instrumental in the design of both modern theater and modern English. But he figured you didn't have to be passionate about everything you taught. "Most of my English teachers wet their pants whenever Shakespeare was mentioned," he noted. "Can't say anything for theater, though, because that was a good way to get your ass kicked back then." A boy taking theater? That was like painting a sign on your forehead that read Kick My Ass. He didn't want to deal with bullies. He had when he was younger, as did everyone, but in his high school years he could defend himself well enough that they couldn't be considered bullies.

That was another way to look at things. Fun and boring. Not everything needed to be fun, though. If you went looking for fun everywhere, you would be sorely disappointed. He didn't consider his mother's cancer scare to be fun, so he could surely say that many aspects of his life didn't fall under that category. To him, however, math was fun. "I'm fun in other areas of my life, you just judge me too harshly." He said it woefully, a drawn look on his face. Nowadays there wasn't so much fun, except when he was having it with his friends who were children in adult bodies. Everyone stayed children, he figured, no one really grew up as much as they tried. He leaned back, tilted his head as if the woman had just delivered a harsh blow with her words. "Now that one actually hurt. You're a freaking ice cube. Or some shit like that." The fact that he was actually cursing meant that she had broached that disconnect between co-worker and friend. He cussed with his friends. Other people he watched his mouth, because he was a gentleman, despite what others may want to say about him.