Evil Xisuma as Xisuma's neglected younger brother who was trying so hard to be cool and get the same attention as his sibling, but failed and got frustrated, filling up with hate to the point of becoming the villain to oppose him, Hermiton's most beloved hero.
*warning for teacher being a dick about the curtis parents' death*
bird and i have never decided on a solid timeline for the au but in my brain this is like 5/6 weeks after the curtis parents' death and like 1/2 weeks after paul gets legal custody of the boys
paul followed pony through the hallway, letting the younger boy lead the way. “it’s so weird being back here.”
pony rolled his eyes playfully. “you graduated 2 years ago, stop acting so high and mighty.”
“yeah, graduated 2 years ago and now i’m back here for my 14 year old kid’s meeting with his teacher. so yeah, it’s a bit weird.”
pony froze for a second, like he was only just realizing just how weird the situation was. “fair enough.”
“so what is this meeting even about?” paul asked as pony seemed to get over his shock and continued walking.
“something about how im slacking in class? which, for the record, i’ve done all the work. i mean, yeah i'm struggling a bit because of everything but i swear i've done it all. the guy just hates me.”
“well for the record, this guy hated me too.”
pony looked up at paul with a raised eyebrow. “what’d you do?”
“your brother was very distracting.”
pony scrunched his face up. “gross.”
“what? ew, not in a gross way. god, i just meant we sat next to each other and we fooled around a lot. did you really think i was saying the teacher hated me cause i had the hots for your brother?”
pony’s eyes widened as he moved to cover his ears. “oh my god! ew! i’m gonna cut my ears off, why would you say that?!”
“you were the one that implied it!”
“gross," pony removed his hands from over his ears as he comes to a stop. "whatever. we’re here now, it’s this door,” pony gestured weakly at the door they had stopped in front of.
“well, here goes nothing.” paul went to reach for the door handle.
pony quickly cleared his throat. “knock. he doesn’t like when people don’t knock.”
paul quickly nodded, shifting his hand away from the handle to instead knock on the door.
paul knocked and upon getting a positive response, opened the door. he ushered pony into the room in front of him before entering himself.
mr fuller didn’t look up from the papers on his desk, instead just speaking. “mr curtis, i must say you are a difficult man to get a hold of. i’ve been urgently trying to get a meeting set up in regards to ponyboy’s slacking and it’s just been-” he finally looked up from the paper to see paul standing in front of him. his eyes narrowed, clearly displeased. “paul holden. you’re not darrel curtis.”
paul and pony shared a glance before paul responded. “i see you’re still as observant as you were when i was in your class.”
mr fuller didn’t seem to find paul’s comment amusing. instead, he continued scowling at paul. “well, darrell is a grown up now so i assumed he would know better than to send a friend in his place for a professional meeting, but i guess that was a foolish assumption on my part.”
pony’s mouth fell open, ready to defend his brother but paul placed a hand on his shoulder; a silent signal to not say anything that could get him in more trouble. instead, paul took the lead.
“for someone complaining that darry is difficult to get a hold of, you clearly don’t check your emails. pony, can you go wait out in the hallway please?” pony turned towards paul to argue but upon seeing the look on paul’s face, he knew he could trust paul to defend him and his brothers. nodding, pony went back out into the hall.
now that pony was gone, paul turned his focus back on mr fuller. “as i was saying, i actually personally took care of making sure all of pony’s teachers were emailed both by the front office and the guidance office to inform them of the situation. so if you are unaware, that means you don’t actually read any of the information sent to you by your employer. so that’s already a really bad look for you, on top of openly disrespecting a student’s legal guardian, after they respectfully came in to meet with you. so, you were saying about mr curtis?”
mr fuller had clearly not expected paul’s words as he hurriedly scrolled on his computer and flipped through papers on his desk. “you’ll have a forgive me, i seem to have forgotten the details of the situation. could you catch me up?”
paul sat down in the chair across from the desk. “well you should tell me what you already know so that i don’t have to waste time going over things you already know.”
despite the fact that paul was clearly winning whatever game the two seemed to find themselves in, mr fuller was determined to go down swinging. “well i believe it would be better if you just told me everything, so i can hear how it is from your perspective.”
“mr and mrs curtis passed away in a terrible accident. is that ringing any bells for you? did you at least check that email?”
mr fuller clearly did not appreciate being talked down to like this, especially not by a former student. “i’m aware of what happened to them,” he spoke stiffly.
paul felt bad using the curtis parents’ death as a gotcha moment, even if it was at the expense of a rude teacher in defense of the boys, so he finally got serious. "look, the state was going to take sodapop and ponyboy and stick them in a home and they would have been far away and no one wanted to see them get split up; from each other or from darry. so i took them in, adopted them. so now i'm their legal guardian, adoptive father, whatever you want to call me. darry and i are just trying to make sure they don't get uprooted from everything they know."
mr blank's face stayed flat, almost bored looking. "how admirable of you. i see you're still using darrel as your charity to make yourself feel like a good person."
his words felt like a stab to paul's heart. but if there was one thing paul was good at, it was not letting his face give away his emotions. so he pretended he didn't care, like that hadn't just validated all of the doubts he had been feeling about himself. "i'm sorry that as a teacher, it offends you that i'm just trying to do what's good for the kid. point is, i'm ponyboy's guardian so this is my meeting to have with you. so please, tell me what was so important about pony's work in your class that we had to meet."
"well, ponyboy is really struggling to keep up in the class. he's been falling behind on his work and doesn't show any interest in the class. seems like he thinks he's just too good for my class."
paul sucked on his teeth, thinking over his words carefully. "as mentioned, his parents were just killed in a horrific accident. and while my stepping in and adopting him stopped him from being taken out of tulsa, it's still a huge adjustment. i mean, he had to move out of his childhood house, he's living away from his oldest brother for the first time. it's a lot. give him some fucking grace."
"excuse you?" mr blank was taken aback but paul's language. he had clearly prepped for this meeting with the intention of it being with darry, who however mad he got, still would have been somewhat civil out of respect for ponyboy's education. paul, however, had no issue disrespecting someone who not only disrespected him but also the curtises.
"you heard me. he's going through a lot. give him a break."
"plenty of students are going through stuff. that's not my business. my business is making sure students get their work done and respect my class. all the other students seem to be able to keep up, so clearly this is a ponyboy issue."
paul let out a deep breath. as mentioned, he had no issue being rude back. but he could not afford to lose his temper with pony right out in the hall. he had made so much progress in getting pony and soda to trust him already in just a few weeks, he could not ruin that.
"fine. if pony is as behind in your class as you say he is, can you please provide me with a list of what he's missing? and then i will go through it with him and we'll make sure to get everything to you."
"well ponyboy is a big boy. if he can be moved up a grade, he should be able to keep track of his own work. without his 20 year old parent babysitting." the way mr fuller said parent was laced with disgust.
"if you don't wish for darry or i to get involved, then why request a meeting at all?"
mr fuller seemed to not have expected his question. he stammered for a second. "as a teacher, it is my responsibility to keep parents informed."
"well, i'm certainly informed about some stuff. just probably not the information you were hoping i would leave here thinking about; like how you don't read any emails from your higher ups, you don't seem to care about the well being of your students. or how blatantly disrespectful you were about pony's parents dying. all this to say, ponyboy told me prior to this meeting that he has turned in all the work and if you won't show me anything to back up your statement that he hasn't, then i will have to believe him. so?"
mr fuller didn't say anything, simply scanning over the papers on his desk, looking for anything he could use to prove his point.
"cool, you clearly have nothing. have an awful life." paul got up from his chair and turned around, heading back to the door without waiting for a response.
he met with ponyboy out in the hallway, beginning to walk straight down the hallway. "come on. he's an asshole. but you have nothing to worry about. we're going to go and get you taken out of that class and get him reported. maybe even get him fired. and then i'm thinking ice cream. you want ice cream?" paul trailed off as he seemed to realize pony was still standing by the classroom door, eyes wide as he watched paul. "are you coming?"
pony seemed to snap out of the overwhelm he had felt for a second, instead replacing it with a smile on his face, pushing himself off the wall to catch up to paul. "yeah. yeah, ice cream sounds great."
