the mountains say [christina]

[ELLIOT NATHAN YEAGER]

It may have come as a surprise to some of his teachers, but the Water boy lobbying balls of paper at the backs of his friends' heads in class loved science and math. The latter tended to be one of the most detested subjects in school, but he did more than decent in it. Unfortunately, that was a lie. His love of procrastination and laziness often outweighed his love of any subject. Often when coming home, he'd throw his bag on the couch -- before getting yelled at by his parents -- and give it a look of consideration, as if he was going to work on the papers stuffed into binders and folders with the care expected of a male his age. But then he rooted through the fridge and sat on the porch out back to spy on the neighbors whenever they got into an argument. Yeager went through great lengths to avoid his work, even going so far as to cleaning his room or doing the dishes, anything else that he'd been putting off. He did have an excuse sometimes in that he worked, but it's not like any of his teachers had sympathy. He didn't expect that anyway, he'd long since realize that he shouldn't expect any sort of sympathy from teachers.

Though he did cause a lot of hell for them, he actually did respect his instructors. On some level, but how much could definitely be disputed. There wasn't enough respect that he listened to them whenever they told him to be quiet or sit down. But enough that he didn't back sass them, so that was something. Even in the classes he liked, he couldn't sit still. It seemed like too much to ask of a hormone-addled teenager who gazed longingly out the windows with the desire to be anywhere but a classroom. It was a classroom in a goddamn castle that was a boarding school, but it was still school. Therefore, Yeager didn't find many parts to be fun unless he made it fun. That's all he wanted to do whenever he cracked a tasteless joke whenever the teacher spoke. He wasn't just being an asshole, no, course not. The curly-haired boy always had the best of intentions. And hey, he believed himself to be a step above the other students who just threw on whatever clothes they found on the floor and came to school. Him? He had everything picked out the night before school. In fact, today he wore a thermal and nice jeans, which was more than he could say for those hoodie wearing beasts he glared at accusingly. Can you say fashion faux-paus?

He didn't know whether Ms. Smith would believe that. After class ended and everyone exited, he picked up his bag and hauled it over his shoulder, paper in his hand. "Smithy Smith Smithers," he sing-songed as he approached her desk, the fact that he had a request to make of her evident in his voice. "How you doin'?" he said with a wink before he actually went into it. It wasn't like he could actually be taken seriously with his behavior, and he doubted that she'd actually take him seriously. Yeager couldn't help it, he was a flirt. And his math teacher was pretty young. And pretty hot. Which was really weird for him, but he was now used to having attractive teachers. Like Ms. Thomas. It was actually pretty nice, took some of the agony out of being in class. "Okay, so I was wondering if we could have a little heart to heart about this assignment you gave us. Wonderful assignment by the way, what font did you use? Times New Roman? Magnificent." He looked up at the clock before he looked back to the teacher, lifting his eyebrow. "Do you have the time?" A mild expression of regret inched into his voice. He really did have a heart, or something that kept him from completely wreaking havoc in the classroom. The guy thought people should acknowledge and respect that, the fact that he hadn't once said "fuck this" and walked out of a classroom yet.

[christina]

It wasn't so much that Christina hated teaching, not at all. No, the problem was that she hated people. Being a teacher itself -- making up lesson plans, teaching a lesson, correcting tests, inputting marks, and handing things back, then repeating the process -- wasn't such a bad gig, honestly, except for that whole part about dealing with people. People were fucking obnoxious as all hell, honestly, and Chris... well, was one of the more obnoxious ones, but damn, if everyone were like her, the world would be one fucked up place. Still, at least these people were fun, and she didn't actually hate most people quite as much as she would claim to even in her own head. This was why, when an overly-familiar curly-haired punk approached her desk at the end of her twelfth grade class, Chris didn't just flip a table and walk out. That would be the epitome of overreactions, actually, and though she liked to keep people on her toes, that might be getting just a little too crazy for her own liking.

"Yeagery Yeager... Yeagers," she attempted, then rolled her eyes and abandoned this, whatever it was. "And that's Miss Smith to you, but nice try." Chris just liked to give him a tough time -- he could pretty much call her whatever the hell he pleased, because at the end of the day she was still his teacher and could still send him to detention if she so pleased. "Smith" was definitely a-okay by her -- the other extra things, maybe less so. She eyed Elliot warily, though, not so much as batting an eyelash at the wink and suggestive tone. That was just standard behaviour for the kid -- she'd be way more concerned if she could bring herself to take it seriously, but it was pretty obvious that he was just a troll. She liked that, though. The kids who were always walking on eggshells around her were fun to laugh at, but not very interesting otherwise. "Suddenly a lot worse," Chris quipped, but she was mostly kidding. There were worse kids to be approached by at the end of a class, that was for damn sure. "And how are you?" she asked just out of sheer amusement, to see what he could come up with to say, but luckily her tone wasn't nearly as suggestive. She didn't want to be arrested, and also... joke or not, ew.

As expected, however, Yeager hadn't approached her just to test out some kind of brand new pick-up line, so she was glad when he cut to the chase. She didn't really mind sitting there making ridiculous small talk, but it was in Christina's nature to want to press on with things -- patience had never been a strong suit of hers. "Helvetica," she corrected sarcastically, glancing down at the assignment, a copy of which she had on her desk. It was definitely Times New Roman, but she wasn't going to make this that easy for him. Stupid question, stupid answer. "But yes, I have time. Shoot," she invited, looking back up at him. "What's bugging you?'

(sorry for cutting length. i shouldn't be posting at almost 1am. >> <<)

[ELLIOT NATHAN YEAGER]

Yeager grinned with her own attempt to play with his name. He got all the teachers he could to call him by his last name, and they were all acquiescent. At the beginning of year, it was always that question of preferred nicknames, and his was Yeager. It was weird being called Elliot, really freaky actually. He was glad Miss Smith had that much discretion. "I thought we were closer than that!" he whined, then paused to think about it. "Or wait...is that your way of reminding me that you're single? Well-played." It may have been a good idea to establish boundaries, but then he reminded himself that boundaries were boring, and he was bored enough in school. Why make that worse?

Her response to his question was certainly disheartening, though he believed that she was being her lovely sarcastic self. His ego was too delicate to believe otherwise. He made a strangled sound in his throat, placing a hand over his heart. "Man down, man down!" There was a panicked look on his face as if his ship were sinking. When she returned the question, he simply wrinkled his nose. "Wounded. Crestfallen. Disappointed. I think I have to reevaluate myself now. So mean..." He certainly looked like he was in the midst of a crisis, caused by the fact that his presence in this teacher's life was not absolutely welcomed and enjoyed. He was a wonderful person, she should be beaming, absolutely ecstatic that she could have this extra time with him.

Miss Smith's remark was evenly met with a now more emotionally stable Yeager, doing his best to impress her with his knowledge of fonts. "Helvetica? Even better. You know what I say, Helvetica is the new Times New Roman. But that's just me." He believed he should get some credit for his words, his father was a magazine editor. He knew his way around fonts. As a child he'd spent plenty of days coming to work with his dad and playing around with the wax paper and pencils and other things that he should not have been touching. At the question, he said, "Yeah, so...this mathematician I have to learn about. Hypatia? Cool chick and everything, but there is like, nothing on her. I was just wondering if I could do a little switcharoo, maybe someone a little more mainstream? Preferably a man. I mean, no hate on the women, but I don't think history really cared about what they did." It seemed pretty true by the lack of information, and hopefully Miss Smith would see the light and be like whoa, why was I assigning this person in the first place, how crazy was I? It would be really swell for him.

[no problem. <3 can work with anything bb~]

[christina]

Chris didn't even bat an eyelash, just looked at Yeager with her pokerface -- which was, by the way, a damn good pokerface -- and said, "You caught me." His somewhat inappropriate behaviour wasn't really anything new to her, though maybe as a teacher she should have been more candid. Still, titles and shit like that aside, Chris knew that she wasn't actually that much older than any of these kids, and honestly, Yeager was only a few weeks or months or something like that away from being a college Freshman. It was weird but true. [color=FFCCCC"Buck up. Walk it off, soldier,"

[/color] she told him, raising her eyebrows at his dramatic reaction. Okay, truth be told, Yeager really amused her sometimes, but she wouldn't let him know that because that was like giving him permission to be an annoying kid. "You missed 'heartbroken' and 'dejected'," she pointed out once he seemed to be more or less done. Mostly, though, Chris just liked to give him a hard time because she fucking could. Actually, she just kind of liked to give everyone around her a hard time, but the close friends she'd made appreciated the kind of evil sense of humour. She wasn't really evil, though -- she just had the potential to be really bitchy. It was completely different.

Had she known that he was now emphasizing the Miss part of her name in his head, she would have laughed out loud, but unfortunately Chris had never been gifted with any kind of psychic ability, so all she could do was give him a skeptical look. At least he hadn't given her a completely blank look when she'd mentioned Helvetica, though -- it was a start. Chris was no font snob, but really, kids these days. Any script font ever was not an acceptable font to use on any kind of assignment -- not that as a Math teacher she required them to hand in too many typed assignments, but she'd heard the staff room horror stories. "Wouldn't Calibri be the new Times New Roman? Helvetica is just some sh-- stuff hipsters stick on their pictures of space," she said. Chris knew a thing or two about the internet, too. She sort of had a life, though, but then again, unlike her students, she was a legal drinker and the situations were sort of different. When he seemed to be getting down to the serious part of this conversation, however, she tuned in properly. It was not the time to be thinking about annoying hipsters on the internet. "I think I'm gonna have to say no," she answered pretty bluntly once he'd gotten his spiel out. "I mean, partly because I exhausted my supply of famous enough mathematicians so you'd have to switch with someone in the class and that's just annoying for me. But also because she's important. You can dig something up." She didn't bother phrasing the last part like a question or a suggestion -- damn straight he could, and would.
[/size][/justify][/blockquote][/blockquote]

[ELLIOT NATHAN YEAGER]

He sniffed when Ms. Smith told him to walk it off. He was not a soldier, he was an innocent student who did enjoy math, but did not enjoy doing anything if it required effort. Secretly, he had a passion for sciences and maths and understood them very well. He just didn't like to talk about his status as a closet geek. His grades -- when he tried hard enough in class -- was enough proof of this. "Those too," he sighed. Now she was making fun of him! Et tu, Smith? Ignoring her question, he latched onto some other words that caught his interest. Not only because he got her almost-slip. Now, mouth agape, Yeager shook his head. "What is this now, do you have some hate toward hipsters?" he questioned, genuinely interested as if he had just dug up some juicy gossip. Those damn, dirty hipsters with their plaid shirts and indie bands. He felt the women's pain. "Might want to keep it down, what if they overhear you and spray paint your house...in Helvetica?" He rolled his shoulders in a mock shiver, the very thought of it terrifying. Because they would have to take a picture of that afterward and post it to Instagram. "It'd probably say something like 'Why does it hurt so bad'." Or some obscure saying with no real point. And imagine how long that would take the teacher to clean off?

Well that was a letdown. Did he expect it? If he had, he wouldn't have asked but he found himself not very surprised. She was stubborn. Kind of hot in that way. He was not of the mindset that ew, teachers were gross. There were some fine-looking female faculty and of course he took notice. But then he figured that he needed to get his head back in the matter at hand. "But, Miss Teacher it's so hard." He stomped his foot, the full embodiment of an immature child. It was a very good argument, who could deny the charm in acting younger than his age? "Dude, I don't even know her. And let me tell you--" He held up a hand, looked around, before meeting her eyes again, "--I actually like math. But you better not tell anyone or I'm going to guidance saying that you continuously hurt my feelings and switching classes!" Because Ms. Smith would miss him so much. Where would she without him causing disruptions in class? Texting all the time? Not handing in homework? It was a miracle he'd even come to her with a question, as if he was going to do this. He sighed, reluctance showing. "Can you know, write down websites or something?" Yeager waved his hand. God forbid she recommend books. Then there was no way he was going to make an effort. He rarely set foot in the library unless it was to use a computer.

[christina]

Chris was tempted to just give him a good strong "buck up, kid" clap on the shoulder, but that might look genuinely violent and seriously, it was probably better not to even go there. The sniff made her almost laugh, though, and she just shook her head at him. "Well, one of my ex-boyfriends was the world's biggest hipster, so yes actually," she told him bluntly, rolling her eyes. This was true, actually -- except she actually got along with this particular ex pretty well. Still, hipsters. Plus, Chris just had a really, uh, aggressive sense of humour. "Or an irrelevant Coldplay lyric," she added with a mock shudder. "'I know St. Peter won't call my name' or something like that." That was actually probably too mainstream for the hipsters, but fuck that, Chris liked music but didn't have any huge supply of super underground indie music or anything. "Revenge of the hipsters. That would suck." That'd also be the day. She would try to convince hipsters that revenge was too mainstream from now on, just in case. She didn't want them to spraypaint her house -- especially because it wasn't even a house, it was an apartment, and her landlord would be real fucking pissed.

"Calling your teacher 'Miss Teacher' is not how you get on her good side," she pointed out, raising her eyebrows, but she really couldn't care very much less. There were many worse things the kids could call her -- and did call her, probably, but it was just lucky for them that she couldn't very well go around beating on students. "Dude, nobody knows her. She's dead, man," she said, imitating his speech, but that was surprisingly closer to her normal tone of voice than her co-workers might have thought -- Chris wasn't that old, damn, she could keep up with these kids alright, even though she was convinced they all thought she was an old bat or something. "And I promise I won't tell anyone that you secretly want to get cuddly with Math.... but you still can't switch. And please, you wouldn't switch out of my class." She said this with the utmost confidence even though she had no idea if it were true or not -- for all she knew, he actually really hated her and all the lousy flirting was just a ruse. She doubted it, though. Yeager was a goof, but he seemed to mean well enough most of the time. "Yeah, I can write something down, hang on. Have you tried the library online databases or anything? Or just... you know, Googling it?" It was generally encouraged not to Google things for scholarly purposes, but fuck that shit, Chris taught Math -- her students didn't really need badass research skills for her class.