Chapter Text
Tuesday morning, Luz hurried down the stairs from her apartment, messenger bag slung over her shoulder and determined to make amends with her fellow teacher. The school was only two blocks away and there was a really good little coffee shop just a block before that. That knowledge didn’t lessen the stinging wind on her face, making her scarf whip around in the breeze but she would be quick.
She often stopped in on Saturday mornings when she wanted a quiet place to work that wasn’t home, with all its distractions in the forms of half-finished projects and chores. She still got to do a lot of art with her students, but there was a more clerical side to it that had to be done now that she was actually teaching. Grading art was hard sometimes. There were a lot of things to consider. Such as how well they followed the criteria but also, were they trying to put their own spin on it, or did they just not care?
She couldn’t grade artistic ability but also, it was stifling for some of her students to follow the directions to close she was noticing. They came up with truly amazing pieces that fascinated her when they went outside the box.
It made it really hard to explain to one kid why they got a ‘D’ for not following directions and another got an ‘A’.
Even when the one that got the ‘A’ obviously put more thought and effort into their project.
It was tricky.
She pushed aside her internal debate about grades along with the door to the shop as she stepped inside. The warmth of the small shop and the sharp aroma of coffee hit her all at once in a dizzying blast.
She took in a deep lungful and sighed contentedly. She couldn’t stand the taste but she loved the smell of coffee.
“Luz!”
She turned her attention toward the counter and grinned.
“Good morning, Gus! How goes it?” She ambled up to the counter with a bright grin at the young man on the other side.
“Oh, you know, same ol same ol, the daily grind.” He wiggled his eyebrows, making her snort. “Hey, it's tough out here, working retail,” he insisted.
“You and your dad own this shop…” Luz propped a hand on her hip and regarded him with a smirk, making him shrug.
“It’s still retail,” he chuckled. “Usual soy milk chai tea?” he asked, already moving to make the drink.
“Yeah, but also, I need a regular ‘ol medium pumpkin spice latte too,” she said and Gus gasped, slapping a hand to his chest as he whipped back around to face her.
“Pumpkin spice!” he all but gasped, flinging himself back against the counter and looking like he might faint, knocking over several tumblers and things as he did.
Luz rolled her eyes at the man as he stared back at her with horror.
“It’s not for me…”
“That’s no excuse!” he huffed, planting his fists on his hips. “Pumpkin spice, in my shop?!”
Luz glanced up at the board hanging over his head with the menu in bright, pale blue letters.
‘Pumpkin Spice Latte - 3.25’
She looked back down at Gus and pointed up at the menu.
His dark skin seemed to darken further, but he scoffed nonetheless and spun around.
“Fine, I’ll make you your spicy gourd water.” He moved around, steaming milk and pouring things into cups.
“Thank you, Gus.” Luz smiled at his turned back.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, but there was no heat in his voice and it made her chuckle.
Five minutes, later she had a cup of tea and coffee in each hand and was walking briskly down the sidewalk toward the school. She carefully dodged around rushing teenagers, doing her damndest not to spill either of them.
~ ~ ~
“Why on earth are you wearing that?” Emira asked as Amity came down the stairs, dressed for work as usual.
With the exception of her old Captain’s jacket from rugby.
“The rugby team is playing in the semifinals today and as a former Hex High Rugby Captain, I’m showing my support,” she asserted, chin up. She’d been out of High school for five years now but she still took great pride in all the patches and accolades sewn into the jacket.
Less so the many small tears and rips in the fabric.
She really needed to get it patched up, but always forgot about it till she was pulling it out of her closet again to wear.
“I see, you’re not showing off at all,” Emira smirked at her knowingly, making Amity’s face turn hot.
“It’s school spirit,” she snapped, turning her head, though her sister didn’t look any more convinced. “No one asked you,” she huffed, grabbing an apple off the counter and shouldering her bag a little higher as she hurried out of the kitchen, pointedly ignoring the way her sister was chuckling in the kitchen behind her as she left the house.
The air outside was bitterly cold and it bit at her nose as it whipped by her. She tugged her jacket closer and headed quickly to her car.
It was a short drive and the car wouldn’t even have time to warm up before she got there, she would just have to endure it for a few minutes. She shivered as she plopped into the driver’s seat, hands wrapping around the cold leather of the steering wheel as she started the car and pulled out of the driveway.
It had snowed at some point during the night and a thick layer of white snow covered the grass and sides of the streets as she drove.
The closer she got to the school, the more teenagers began appearing along the sidewalk, kicking up the snow and throwing it back and forth at each other.
She smirked as she watched a kid take a snowball straight to the face and go careening over into a snowbank and shook her head. They would be dripping all over the floors all day.
She pulled into the school parking lot and frowned, glancing around at all the spots that were already filled and those that weren’t were full of snow.
She shivered as she slowly drove through the parking, fingers going numb on the wheel as she scanned the lot. There was not an open spot in the entire place.
Amity cursed under her breath, drumming her numbing fingers against the wheel. The snow had been pushed out of half the spots and into the others, effectively cutting the parking in half.
She glanced at her watch and another muffled curse followed. She had all of ten minutes to get to class.
Grumbling, she pulled out of the school lot and drove across the street to the freshly plowed grocery store lot.
She pulled her jacket tighter around her as she climbed out of her car and into the cold winter air and hurried across the street to the school, breath coming out in thick clouds. Her hands buried in the pockets.
Her letterman was thick and warm but it still didn’t hold against the January cold.
She made it to her class with a scant minute before the bell and barely had time to put her things down before it rang and kids were slowly making their way into the room, leaving wet and muddy tracks across the tile. She sighed under her breath and pinched the bridge of her nose.
She stood and moved around her desk just as a figure came sliding into her doorway with a blinding grin.
Amity jerked at the unwanted sight of her grinning coworker.
“Ms. Blight!” Luz smiled at her, a cup in hand. “I felt bad about the rough start we had last week, so, I was hoping you might accept this as an apology for everything,” Luz explained, pushing on even when she noticed the less than pleased look that Amity was giving her.
“So, I hope…” she started, taking a few quick steps into the room but anything else she might have said was cut short as her foot slid through a spot of muddy water on the floor. She lurched forward with a strangled cry, feet sliding backward out from under her and planting face-first into the tile. The cup flew from her hand.
It didn’t go far before colliding with Amity, the lid popping off and coffee splashing everywhere.
Amity screeched, while the class all erupted into loud yelling as well.
Despite the stinging pain in her face, Luz was quick to scramble to her feet.
“Oh gosh, are you okay!?” She fluttered around, hands nervously twitching around her with no idea what she should do or if the other woman was burned or not.
Amity sucked in a sharp breath as she took a mental inventory of herself. Nothing hurt, her jacket had absorbed all the piping hot liquid.
Unfortunately, her jacket was absorbing all the liquid.
The cream sleeves of her lettermen had quickly turned a pale brown and the rusty color of the rest of it was wet and sticky. All the pale patches too, were now a pale, coffee brown.
“You ruined my jacket!” Amity only barely kept herself from screeching at the other teacher in a room full of students. It was still pointed enough though that Luz flinched at the tone, her antsy hopping coming to a stop.
“I’m sorry, it was an accident!”
“You…!” She had to bite her tongue, lest something wholly unprofessional slip out in front of her class of thirty that had finished filing in over the course of the incident.
“Let me have it dry cleaned, please, I insist!” Luz hurried forward and the next thing Amity knew, the jacket was being pulled off her shoulders and there was hardly a thing she could say to stop it, at least, none of the things she wanted to say to the other woman.
“I don’t need…!” she tried to say but Luz did not hear or was ignoring her, something else that prodded at her already raging fury.
“It’ll be good as new, I promise, I’m so sorry!” Luz was still apologizing as she managed to strip Amity of her jacket and then hurry out of the classroom, leaving the English teacher standing there in stupefied silence.
The class, which had gone mostly silent as the art teacher apologized then hurried out, quickly came back to life. Especially as the bell rang, signaling the start of class. They were paying no attention to their own teacher, standing speechless at the front of the room.
Amity just stood there, unsure what to say or do now that the moment had passed. She wasn’t even sure the entire ordeal had happened or not, it had gone by in such a whirlwind of activity. She knew it had however when she felt the chilly classroom air on her bare arms.
She scowled to herself, surprise giving way to warming fury
She was all but prepared to march across the hall and lay into the other woman, but something falling over in the back of the room made her jump and she quickly turned on her class, frowning darkly, which made all movement and laughter grind to a halt.
“Sit down and get out your notebooks,” she snapped, stalking over and closing the classroom door harder than necessary.
~ ~ ~
Amity’s mood didn’t lighten one iota over the course of the day and it was apparent to all that crossed her path. Especially once she got home.
“Hey, how was work?” Emira asked before she looked up where she was prepping dinner to see the scowl embedded into Amity’s face. “So… not good?” she asked.
“Ugh, that… mess of a woman across the hall came into my classroom this morning and spilled hot coffee all over me!” She threw her bag down on the table with a loud thump.
“Are you okay?” Emira spun around, scanning her sister with a critical eye.
“I’m fine…, my jacket took all of it,” she growled, getting angry all over again as she thought about it.
“Where is your jacket?” Emira asked and Amity let out a strangled breath halfway between a growl and a sigh.
“ She took it to have it cleaned. Practically ripped it off me. I couldn’t even stop her.” She plopped down into a seat at the table and continued to grumble to herself.
“If something happens to that jacket, there will be blood,” she grumbled darkly, staring off at a fixed point on the kitchen wall.
Emira just hummed and turned back around, returning to her own work and letting her youngest sibling stew till dinner. She knew better than to try and talk to Amity right now.
“Good afternoon sisters!” Edric announced his presence as he strutted into the kitchen with a grin. “Who wants to hear some bits from my new act?” he asked.
Amity turned her deathly glare on her brother, who, wordlessly, spun on his heel and walked right back out of the kitchen.
Emira sighed.
~ ~ ~
Amity was only marginally in a better mood when she walked into her room the next day before class, wearing a different jacket she’d needed to dig out of the back of her closet to avoid freezing to death on the walk and drive to work.
She stalked down the hall, pointedly not looking at the art room door across the hall, and walked into her room, flicking on the lights as she stepped in.
The smell of coffee was quick to catch her attention and her eyes zeroed in on her desk.
There, sitting atop her desk was a cup of coffee and next to it, folded up neatly, was her jacket.
She hurried over and grabbed it.
It was just as bright and clean as when it was new almost.
She ran her fingers over the smooth, soft, and freshly laundered material. She held it up to her nose and took a whiff. It even smelled good. Citrusy, lemon maybe. Something she had thought impossible after all the times, sweaty and covered in dirt and grass, she had pulled it on after a game.
Holding it away from her face, she carefully inspected it and noticed that not only was it clean, but all the little tears and holes in it had been meticulously stitched up with thread the same color as the fabric. The mends were near impossible to spot unless you already knew they were there.
She ran her fingers over the careful stitching. There was no way the dry cleaners did that. She inspected every little stitch and while they were very even and smooth, it was definitely hand stitched.
She hummed to herself and glanced out the little window in her door. From it, she could see the front door of the art room. She frowned to herself and glanced down at the cup of steaming coffee sitting on her desk, a little slip of paper was slid underneath it with a little doodle of a strange symbol, one of the ones tattooed on the other woman’s arm and ‘I’m sorry’ scribbled on it.
She set the jacket carefully on her chair and picked it up. The hot cup warmed her hands and she could smell the thick scent of pumpkin spice through the hole in the lid.
She took a tentative sip and the sugary sweet liquid coated her tongue like a warm blanket as it pushed some of the chill out of her.
Her fingers slid up and down the cup thoughtfully as she glanced back at the closed door across the hall.
She pursed her lips, thinking about the last week, and sighed.
She was loathed to admit that her brother was right… but he was.
She had been mad about the room.
Worse than that, she had been taking it out on the new teacher when it really wasn’t her fault, nor the paint… though the music had been, she could have asked her to turn it down herself, rather than going over her head immediately.
Amity grumbled to herself as she sat the cup back down on the desk and straightened her shoulders. She knew what she had to do and she was a big enough person to admit so.
“Okay,” she mumbled as she started out of her room and across the hall, pausing in front of the closed classroom door and raising her hand to knock.
She hesitated.
She so very much hated admitting when she was in the wrong and more so when she had been… well, a jerk.
But she would because she had been.
She started to pull her hand back to knock when the door swung open and she jerked back just as Luz did as well, eyes wide.
“Ms. Blight!” She j=balked, blinking owlishly back at Amity, whose fist was still held up, dangling in the air. She whipped it back down to her side.
“Ms. Noceda… may I… speak to you for a moment?” she asked, clearing her throat.
Luz seemed to hesitate for a moment before finally nodding and stepping aside to allow the other woman into her room.
Amity glanced around as she stepped inside.
Every available wall was plastered with posters, paintings, and various art pieces of varying styles. Some belonging to students and some done in an obviously more experienced hand. The smooth lines or eye-catching color palettes told her all she needed to know.
There were shelves and cabinets near bursting at the seams with paper, pencils, paint, and every other supply Amity could ever think of. The tables were already stained with splotches of paint in every color, as well as numerous pencil scribbles.
She heard the door click closed and spun around to face Luz, who was looking at her warily. Though, Amity could hardly blame her.
“What can I do for you?” Luz asked after a tense moment of silence. Amity took notice of the way she seemed to fidget.
“I wanted to apologize for my behavior as of late. I’ve been quite short with you and that was… poor behavior on my part. The paint, music, and yesterday… none of that was called for.” The more that came out of her mouth and how awful it sounded, the hotter her face got.
“Oh, well, it’s okay,” Luz said and Amity blinked, not having expected that at all. Not after all the dark looks and snippy words she had leveled on the other woman.
“You…” Amity wasn’t even sure what to say and Luz seemed to pick up on that.
“I shoulda been more aware of the volume of the music and had them clean their shoes off before they tracked paint everywhere… and been paying attention yesterday so I didn’t pour coffee all over you.” She scratched the back of her head.
“Thank you for that,” Amity jumped in and Luz gave her a weird look. “For cleaning it… and mending the holes, that wasn’t necessary,” she said, holding her hands in front of her, unsure what else to do with them.
“Oh, yeah, well, I saw the little tears when I got it back from getting cleaned so I took it to my mom and she fixed it up pretty quick. If I had done it, it would have been like Frankenstein's monster,” she chuckled to herself.
“Well, thank you, for the coffee too… How did you know about the pumpkin spice?” she asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Oh, Willow told me!”
“Oh, I see… I’ll talk to her about that later,” she mumbled under her breath.
Before She could say anything more, the bell rang.
“Well, I better get to class…,” Amity said as she made her way over to the door. Luz nodded, lifting a hand in a wave, smiling back at her. The kind of smile that lit up her whole face and Amity nodded before retreating back across the hall to her own room.
Once she was seated at her desk, she took her time sipping on her drink as kids filed into the room, more content than she could remember being in at least two weeks.