A ficlet I wrote a while ago for someone on Tumblr, and realised now I should publish.

Prompt was: "Imagine all the sapphic students trying to get 'extra credit' from Quill, or trying to be properly 'punished' in detention, and Quill being oblivious as to their intentions because she has no idea about Earth cliches. And eventually has a moment of realisation when Tanya or Kalei or someone mentions the cliche to her and Quill suddenly has to re-evaluate so many of her past exchanges."

Set in my Wrong Equation, Right Answer verse.

The two girls at the back of detention had been muttering to each other for the last half an hour. Quill wouldn't care, if they didn't keep glancing at her and making her infuriatingly curious about why that was. (Infuriatingly because it's disgusting that any humans, particularly a pair she is so completely uninterested in, can draw her attention in any way.)

Finally, when she sees a piece of paper change hands, she's had enough.

Quill strides over, and snatches it from behind the back of the girl who had desperately tried to hide it upon seeing her heading their way. Quill opens the paper up, ignoring how the girls have gone crimson and are trying to frantically appeal to her in some way.

all I'm saying is, you just know she'd be into that, I'd happily bend over that desk and be punished if you know what I mean

Quill stares at the paper, and then at the girls who look completely mortified. She can't for the life of her understand what the words mean or why they're so embarrassed.

Several others are watching them, and the girls look terrified. Quill gives the girls one last confused look, before tucking the paper into her pocket and heading back to her desk. Unsurprisingly, the girls get back to work after that.

At the end of detention, they come up to her desk, and Quill leans back in her chair and regards them, curious as to what they're going to say.

"Miss, we just wanted to-"

A knock at the door makes them jump, and Kalei pokes her head in, smiling at Quill.

"Hey," she says, smiling at Quill.

"Hey yourself," Quill says, offering a minuscule smile in return, because her confusion about this bit of paper is ruling her brain and overriding the usual happiness she would get from seeing her girlfriend.

Kalei glances at the two girls in front of Quill's desk. "Everything alright, Dana? Carly?"

"Actually, could you explain something to me?" Quill asks, pulling out the bit of paper and opening it up, much to the visible horror of Dana and Carly.

"Oh god, Miss, please, don't," the Dana one says, but it's too late. Kalei has crossed the room and taken the paper in hand, and opened it up.

Kalei's eyes scan the words, and her eyebrows shoot up in the same moment that her cheeks darken considerably. She glances at Dana and Carly, who both look like they want to be swallowed by the floor and never seen again.

"It says 'punished, if you know what I mean', but I don't," Quill says, to make her point of confusion clear, since evidently she's missing something obvious to humans, which is annoying.

Kalei coughs, looking torn between laughter, sympathy, and embarrassment. "I don't quite know how to-"

"Try," Quill says, narrowing her eyes.

"The punishment in question is…. sexual in nature, I believe," Kalei says with some effort, without looking at Dana and Carly.

Quill feels a rush of understanding. "Oh, you mean like that time we-"

"Quill!" Kalei says, horrified, while Dana and Carly lose their embarrassment for a moment to share looks of quiet triumph.

"Right, well, that explains a lot," Quill says matter-of-factly, turning to look at Dana and Carly, who quickly look at the floor. "No, look at me, both of you."

They barely manage it, and look so fearful and mortified that Quill actually feels a rush of pity for them. What do they expect from her, now, to be looking at her like this? What do they teach teenagers on this planet, anyway?

"Admiration of this nature for adult figures in your life is a perfectly natural part of adolescence," Quill tells them, and takes pleasure in the looks of surprise on their faces. "While making speculations about my particular sexual preferences is perhaps going a little far, you also weren't technically wrong-"

"Quill," Kalei protests, again.

"Shush, Kalei, or I'll bend you over the desk-"

"Quill-"

"Anyway," Quill continues, her focus having never left Dana and Carly, who are now holding back giggles, "my point is, that so long as it never intrudes on my actual personal life, don't let anyone make you feel like these perfectly natural feelings are anything but."

"Crushes on teachers are perfectly natural," a still flushed Kalei adds, weakly.

Dana and Carly stare at Quill. "You're… not angry?" the latter asks.

"It's flattering more than anything else," Quill says, shrugging. "Of course, you're both children as far as I'm concerned, but I imagine you're aware of that. As I've said, they're perfectly healthy fantasies so long as they remain just that."

Dana and Carly nod.

"Now, go on, get out of here," she tells them, sighing. "And I think we can all agree that no one else needs to know this conversation ever happened."

"Obviously," Dana says, with a kind of breathless laugh.

Carly turns pink again when she meets Kalei's eye, but Kalei just offers them sympathetic smiles as they head out.

"That was surprisingly well-handled," Kalei says to Quill, looking impressed.

Quill shrugs again. "When I was their age, I wanted my sparring instructor to have their way with me against the nearest boulder. Incredibly normal universal instinct for any sexual being, it seems."

Kalei tilts her head, and colours a little at some distant memory before shaking her head at Quill fondly. "All the same, at the rate we're going, the students here are going to know everything about our sex lives within six months," she says to Quill, with disapproval.

Quill just grins, and pulls Kalei closer so that she falls into Quill's lap. "It's all nonsense anyway. Don't forget that some of them are convinced I have a sex dungeon."

"You would have a sex dungeon, if you could," Kalei points out, and Quill just shrugs.

"Yes, but the less ridiculous ones don't need to know that," Quill says, before pulling her into a kiss to end the conversation.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought!