Chapter Text
"They're sending someone from the high school to help," Kristen says huffily. "I know I'm new and it's our first year teaching but come on! I can make a baking soda volcano!" It's the culmination of a larger project uniting the arts and the sciences. She spent a whole week working with the different grades to put together curricula on tectonic plate shifts and chemical reactions for this!
Adaine gives her a very flat look. "I'm not letting you near mild explosives in my classroom, Kristen."
"Baking soda and vinegar are not explosives ! And we're doing it on tarps in the gym, Adaine, we're not monsters. God, this is such crap." Kristen says. She steals one of Adaine's carrot sticks to make a point. Adaine swats at her hand, but is still busily grading math assignments and completely misses.
"Don't you have an art lesson to set up for this afternoon? The kids will be back from recess any minute now."
"It's already done," Kristen says, because she's damn good at her job and prepped everything ahead of time. "We're making wind socks. Super chill."
"God, those are going to get so smushed in backpacks," Adaine says sadly, pausing in her grading.
"Yeah, terrible," Kristen says, but elementary school art is going to get destroyed no matter how hard they try. It's really about the experience of doing something creative. "Anyways, they're sending a chem teacher down from Mumple to "assist" me, whatever that's supposed to mean! I have to do all the hard work with papier-mâché, and making sure the kids don't eat the papier-mâché, and getting them to paint the volcano, and making sure the kids don't eat the paint, and then Mister Chemistry just gets to swoop in and dump a half cup of vinegar and baking soda together and take all the credit?"
"They really do try to eat everything we give them, huh?" Adaine says wistfully, which is so not Kristen's point. "Kris, I'm sure it'll be fine." The classroom door bursts open behind Adaine and she spins and claps her hands. She's so good at putting on her teacher face. "Welcome back from lunch, everyone! Let's get seated for Ms. Applebees' art class!"
--
Kristen gets an email from Tracker O'Shaughnessey, the previously unnamed chemistry teacher, and she hates him immediately. He's incredibly polite and sounds excited to get to blow up small volcanoes with children, which makes her hate him even more.
She's a new teacher, though, and in no position to stand up against the administration's requests. Kristen sends back an equally polite response confirming the schedule and vows to spill vinegar all over his shoes.
--
She's waiting in the parking lot for O'Shaughnessey to get there, bouncing in annoyance on the balls of her feet. It's a freezing cold morning and he is late for their 7:30 meet-up to get everything set up in the gym for the kids.
"Hey," comes a voice from her left and she looks over and her whole brain does a record-scratch-freeze-frame. This woman is walking right towards Kristen, and she's super buff with clearly defined biceps beneath her short-sleeved button down. She's got light brown skin and short hair that's swept back in a cute wind-ruffled way and pretty dark eyes and just the faintest unibrow. Kristen doesn't know who's mom this is, but wow.
"Kristen Applebees, yeah?" the woman says and Kristen nods, tilts her head to try and be charming in her confusion. The woman smiles, offers a hand to shake and only then Kristen notices the box full of baking soda and vinegar and test tubes cradled in her other arm. "I'm Tracker O'Shaughnessey, from the high school. I'm so sorry I'm late. It's great to finally meet you in person."
Fuck.
--
Volcano day goes off without a hitch, even if Kristen is too shell-shocked to really say anything for the morning. Tracker - she insisted Kristen call her that - seems happy to take the lead. She oohs and ahhs over the volcanoes they spent all week building (as she should, they're two feet by two feet square and frankly marvels of engineering). Tracker gets the little kids really amped up for the big explosion and gives a really good presentation to the 4-6th grade classes about the chemistry behind the explosion.
Kindergarten comes through to do their demo just before lunch, and afterwards Adaine grabs Kristen and pulls her into the staff bathroom while her kids head off to the cafeteria.
"Kristen -" Adaine starts. Kristen just buries her face in her hands.
"Shut up! I know!"
" Kristen!" Adaine says, a little more emphatically, and Kristen peeks out from between her fingers to glare at her. "I thought you said -"
"I knowww," Kristen whines.
Adaine looks incredulous and is also laughing at her and Kristen is miserable, this is a nightmare, her nemesis is hot and good at her job and really funny and polite. "What do I do?"
"Ask her out!" Adaine says immediately. Easy for her to say! Adaine doesn't date anybody and has never asked anyone out. She's always been on the receiving end where it's easy and she can just reject people.
Kristen makes a shrill noise in the back of her throat of annoyance and thunks her head onto Adaine's shoulder. "No way."
"Fine, then," Adaine says, patting the top of Kristen's head. "Don't date her. Don't ever feel her beautiful ripped arms holding you. Or those powerful thighs - I don't know how she got into those slacks, jeez. Or hear her talk passionately about acid-alkali reactions again - ow, Kristen, rude." Kristen pinched her side as Adaine went on and Adaine scoots away out of reach. She cups the sides of Kristen's face in her hands. Her eyes are very serious but also sympathetic. "Don't be a weenie, Kris. Go talk to her."
--
Kristen doesn't really talk to Tracker, because she is in fact a weenie. She does help Tracker pack up her supplies back into her car at the end of the day and she can feel Adaine's eyes boring holes into the back of her head from where she's on bus duty.
She goes home to the apartment she shares with Fabian and they eat cold leftover pizza together while they pay their bills for the month. It's Friday night, there's no reason for her to do any work, so she doesn't. She puts on her best sweatpants and lies on her bed watching Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Her phone vibrates a little but she pays it no mind. Probably just Adaine sending a bunch of the eyes emojis about her inaction today. She doesn't check the message until later, while she's brushing her teeth before bed, and spits toothpaste all over her phone screen when she sees the texts.
[203-555-5069]
Hi, this is Tracker, from today? 6:13 pm
Adaine gave me your number, sorry if this is weird 6:13 pm
Would you like to go get a drink tonight? A bunch of the hs staff goes out on fri to the blck pit at like 730, if you want to come with 6:17 pm
If not no worries lol 6:40 pm
Kristen screeches loud enough that Fabian pokes his head into the bathroom to be sure she hasn't got her hair stuck in a curling iron (again). She's literally so stupid, it's almost nine and she must seem like such a jackass for not responding.
"Kristen, what the fuck?" Fabian asks mildly as she frantically wipes spit off the screen of her phone so she can reply. "Is everything alright?"
"No," Kristen says, and she can see the manic look on her face out of the corner of her eye in the mirror. Fabian makes a face at that and she backtracks. "Like, I'm fine, but also, I'm very not fine." She shoves the phone in his face and his eyes flit across the texts and the timestamps before looking back at her with one very judgemental eyebrow raised.
"You need to text her back," Fabian says, and duh Fabian, that's the plan.
"What do I say ?" Kristen asks him, thumbs frozen over the keyboard.
He grimaces. "How willing are you to get dressed and go out again?" Kristen hesitates, tilts her head into a bit of a nod yes. His jaw drops. "Oh, my god, you like her! If this was one of us asking, you would have already said no way in hell are you putting real pants back on!"
"Fabian," Kristen grabs his face by the chin, still holding her phone like a lifeline in her other hand. "I love you, but if you don't tell me how to fix this right now, I'm going to lose my shit."
He snorts and takes her phone from her and she watches as he taps out a reply. He holds it up for her approval and she nods and buries her face in embarrassment into the side of his arm as he hits send.
Hey! Wasn't checking my phone all night, sorry - If you're still at the bar I'd love to come by? 8 :43 pm
"Thank you," Kristen says and takes her phone back from him. She's breathing hard and her heart is racing.
"Better go get ready for your date!" Fabian shoos her back into her room.
"What if she's not still there?" Kristen stops digging through her closet for a presentable blouse to freeze up.
Fabian rolls his eyes and leans against the doorframe into Kristen's room. "Kristen. With texts like those, I guarantee if she's not still there, she's on her way back now."
--
"Kristen!" Tracker says loudly over the quiet hubbub of the bar and Kristen beelines across the place towards where Tracker is sitting at the bar on the edge of a little group. She's wearing the same button-down as earlier today, but it's unbuttoned a little more and untucked over a pair of jeans. She's so hot when she grins as Kristen approaches and she uses her foot to pull out the bar stool next to her for Kristen to slide onto. "I'm so glad you could make it."
"Yeah," Kristen says, because she is truly such an idiot and doesn't know how to hold a conversation. "Thanks for inviting me."
"Anytime," Tracker says and she's so sincere. "Here, let me get you a drink."
It's nice. It feels very much like a date but Kristen doesn't want to put too much hope into it because they technically are out with a bunch of other people. She meets a bunch of Tracker's coworkers and only maybe remembers some of their names. They all seems nice, though! Mostly the two of them sit with their knees touching while they talk in a little bubble of a conversation at the bar. Tracker's a really good listener as Kristen rambles on about art access and different mediums.
They leave when the bar starts to get a little too packed with college kids from Solace State there for the Friday night rave in the back room. Kristen tries not to light up too much when Tracker wraps an arm around her waist to pull her out of the way of some college boys who barrel past them into the Black Pit.
"Did you drive here?" Tracker asks when they're in the parking lot. She's fiddling with her keys and her arm is still a little bit around Kristen's back.
"No," Kristen says, because she got Fabian to drop her off. She was probably going to call him to get a ride home. "You wanna give me a ride?" The innuendo is...heavy, to say the least, but she's a a few drinks in and can feel embarrassed about it tomorrow. Tracker wasn't drinking the whole time Kristen was at the bar, she should be good to drive.
Tracker snorts and she's blushing a little maybe, it's hard to tell in the parking lot lighting. "Yeah, okay. Let's get you home." Tracker has a pickup truck, because of course she does, and Kristen eats shit a little bit while swinging herself up into the passenger seat. The inside is warm and has that nice neutral car smell that's clean and a little woody. She gives Tracker directions and settles back into her seat, watches the profile of her face in the passing lights and the flex of her forearms on the wheel. The radio's playing softly, just a mindless little hum under their quiet conversation.
Tracker pulls up in front of Kristen's place, throws the car in park. Kristen doesn't move to get out, still trying to savor the last vestiges of a good night and figure out how to get it to happen again. She unbuckles her seatbelt slowly, lets the fabric slide over her palm as it recedes back into the thingy with a little zwip noise. It's dim in the car, just illimunated by the console and one street lamp outside and they're both just. Looking at each other. Looking with a lot of intention but not a lot of motivation until Tracker, in one swift motion, undoes her own seatbelt and closes the distance over the console to catch Kristen in a quick kiss. She pulls back a few inches right away, but Kristen chases right after her for another one.