Work Text:
The thing about the end of the colllege school year is that there is a group of people neglected and overworked.
Yes, the students were over-worked, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was to bring to awareness to the people who kind of really brought it on themselves.
The professors who decide to torment their students by making an end of the year essay due the week before finals. Those essays that had to be at minimum five pages (not counting the title and works cited pages). Those essays that required at least six, printed, cited works to be counted as a legitimate source.
Those essays that Ozpin said were there to challenge his students’, as if his exams and even his weekly assignments were not challenging enough.
They were meant to bring out the information that the students should be constantly reviewing anyway even if it was just a little bit everyday to be able to keep up with the steady stream of classwork and homework and fieldwork and just about any kind of work college threw onto its students.
The point was --
“You look like you could use a drink.”
Ozpin blinked at the voice. He really didn’t have time to be indulging in Qrow’s antics, new as he was to the department. He had advisors to assign new students to, graduating students to meet up with in the next two weeks, and his own exams to prepare for.
No new pretty professors will distract him.
…shut up.
“Qrow, I understand your need to constantly get me out of my office –”
“You’re holed up in here a lot, Sir Department Chair.”
“But I had believed that you knew better than to drink during the middle of week when you have an 8 am class tomorrow.”
He still hadn’t looked up from the schedule he was setting up for students to start booking their meetings with him, when he practically heard Qrow roll his eyes.
“I meant coffee. You look dead on your feet.” Ozpin finally looked up to see Qrow march over to him and yank the pencil out of his hand. “I even heard some students talking about how much older you look this week just because of how little sleep you’ve gotten.”
“…how much older?”
“Older.”
“Gods, Qrow. I won’t play into your hands again. The last time took your advice, I was 20 minutes late –”
“-- To a two-hour lecture –"
“—and there were only three students left –”
“But!”
Ozpin took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Yes, Qrow was right. He was exhausted. And yes, the students might have just been hiding just so they could scare the living daylights out of him. But, his students needed his help. He had been meeting with four students a day almost everyday for the past week, all of them freaking out over the end of the semester final projects that no one had been able to get full marks on before.
He didn’t mean to make half of his classes so hard, but the curriculum and rubric them had been based off his own professor’s, whom he had to admit was…difficult to please in the classroom.
“Come on. One hour off campus, taking the edge off with a pastry and coffee will help.”
“You usually try to spike my coffee.”
Qrow raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll keep my hands to myself this time.”
#
Qrow had been talking for ten minutes. He had been talking for ten minutes about his students, intermittently eating his coffee-dipped biscotti and Ozpin had zoned out, almost falling asleep with his eyes open.
And in all honesty, Qrow had no idea if he should wake him up or get the rest of the department professors to wrangle Ozpin into leaving for the day. They could totally handle setting up his appointments for the next two weeks. Everyone knew his class schedule, and his open office hours. It would be doable.
Ozpin blinked and it seemed like his weird little nap gave him the bit of energy he needed to down his hot chocolate and tear into his little coffee cake. Qrow cut himself off mid-sentence when Ozpin practically threw the drink down his throat. He was sure it was still scalding.
Qrow was the only professor they had come in the middle of the last semester of the year. Picking up the classes as part of a two-person teaching system so that none of the students suffered from the lack of an instructor was way more trouble than it was worth, but in the end Qrow could see why the department thrived the way it did.
They had managed to make a close community between the students and professors, an easy camaraderie was hard to miss just by sitting in the department waiting for an appointment to finish up.
It was hard, but Qrow didn’t regret it.
What he did regret was not checking on Ozpin earlier, seeing the other man swamped with appointments and trying his best to catch up with the final grades. He had relieved his teaching assistants, seeing as all of them were graduating students. Had Glynda not been preoccupied managing all her students doing fieldwork, she would have crossed the entire campus just to rip him a new one.
“Oz, you gotta take it a bit easier.”
“This is the easiest I can take it. At this rate, none of my students will have their final grades until a month after the school year ends.”
“You and I both know those students aren’t going to be student 24/7. Giving them something else to occupy their time to distract from studying can be good for them. Ask for your teaching assistants for help.”
Ozpin kept rubbing at his eyes, almost a bit too much if by the watery redness when he was done was any indication. He groaned a bit, trying to keep it as soft as possible to keep from giving Qrow any more ammunition on him.
His head hurt, his eyes hurt and no they were hurting separately, he could tell. His feet hurt and he was also sure his chest had this throbbing pain that hadn’t subsided in the past week. Maybe he was just getting to that age where everything was just hurting.
That isn’t to say 32 is old, but he certainly wasn’t as young as he used to be.
The worst part about being his level sleep deprivation was that he couldn’t take his eyes off Qrow.
Nononono.
That’s wrong.
The lack of sleep was making it more difficult to hide how he couldn’t his eyes off Qrow. Everything the younger man caught him staring, Oz found it harder to pretend that he wasn’t staring. He usually – and bit belatedly – blinked and shook his head a bit to give the illusion that the staring was just from the sleep deprivation.
(It wasn’t)
Qrow sighed. “How about this: I’m almost done with my grading. Courtny and I can pick up after you. We can at least set up your appointments and dealing with grading the final essays while you focus on finish the exam papers. That way, you’re still getting work done and lightening your load.”
Ozpin blinked at Qrow, registering the plan, which honestly sounded great to his sleepy brain. He should take it. He should definitely…take it…
Qrow jumped out of his seat when Ozpin quite literally dropped out of his chair and onto the floor. All things considered, he really thought Ozpin would just faceplant on the table and this was the worst-case scenario. It could have ended up with a more terrible outcome but with how much he had been hovering over Ozpin, there was no way that was happening.
The other customers at the café had their eyes glued on him and Ozpin, passed out as he was in his arms. Qrow shrugged with a semi-apologetic grin. “He’s just sleep-deprived. Hot chocolate usually knocks him right out and I think he forgot about it.”
A very flustered looking employee all but ran towards them, ensuring that Ozpin was okay and that their hot chocolate didn’t kill him. Qrow waved him off as Courtny walked into the café, immediately zeroed in on them, rolled his eyes, and carried Ozpin to his car to take him home.
Overall, everything went according to plan.