Lumi strolled through the front doors of Signal Academy on Monday morning, slightly high off pain pills. The weekend she and her siblings were supposed to spend with their mother ended up being a mother/eldest daughter excursion to Forever Fall on Saturday and nothing else. In the forest, Verbena Hazelwood's foul mood had attracted a particularly vicious pack of Ursa which she let Lumi handle, alone, because she "didn't believe in coddling."
Grimm dogged them everywhere they went- even when Lumi tried to eat. The most annoying part had been when a small bird-like Grimm swooped in and smashed her nose with a strong wing. Blood had gotten onto her sandwich, and while she didn't consider herself a particularly cruel or sadistic person, she relished killing the annoyance and spitefully enjoyed the rest of her not-bloody lunch.
She left the forest far more banged up than usual; fractured left arm, bruised cheekbone, minor cuts and scrapes with a smattering of bruises. A day of healing had done wonders, especially since she slept for most of it, but unless she directed her Aura to heal certain wounds first then her body would slowly heal everything at the same time. Bruises would heal at the same rate as cuts and her fractured arm, hence, the pain pills.
She'd fail a drug test if she took one, but the pills in her bag were prescription so she was probably okay. She planned to sell what she didn't use, and she planned to use the barest amount she could get away with once she stopped feeling like her body was punishing her for living…
The grey haired girl abruptly realized that she had been staring at her blank notebook for the past eighteen minutes and wondered when she'd made it to history. She blinked owlishly and picked up her pen to take notes.
She wavered between hyperfocused on the weirdest things and mentally drifting like a plastic bag in the wind for the rest of her day. Her stomach rolled at the thought of food, she couldn't keep a thought straight for longer than a couple of minutes (or for shorter than fifteen), and her body ached but she persevered out of a stubbornness that ran deep in her bones.
When the day was finally over, she stepped through the door to the weapon's workshop and decided that detention was the best part of her day. The workshop was quiet and the only other person in the room was Mr. Branwen so she didn't have to worry about being sociable. She settled herself at one of the tables, despite how unbalanced she felt sitting on the hip-high stool, and-
Except, it seemed, she did have to worry about being sociable? When did he get so close? His mouth was moving but Lumi couldn't focus on the noise. Hands were interesting and weird but so were lips and teeth and tongue. Why did humans speak by forming shapes with their mouth? Who came up with language? Did humans crawl out of Dust with a language or did it form over time? Why did some people have accents? When-
"Woah, kid, slow down there," Qrow placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently to get to focus. She was rambling worse than Ruby did when she started talking about weapons.
It seemed to work. His purple eyed student quieted, at least, though her gaze remained stuck on his mouth.
"Is there something on my face?" He raised a brow.
"It's nice," she said, raising a hand to reach for his bemused visage.
What the fuck? "Right," he said and slowly pushed her hand down and away.
He considered the situation. A female student he had taken under his wing, so to speak, was (probably) high considering how off she was, covered in bruises and staring at him. The school wasn't exactly empty, but there weren't a lot of people around to ask for a second opinion. He himself was a functional alcoholic (emphasis on the functional) with only minor experience in dealing with teenaged girls and was trying to intervene in his student's fledgling drinking habits before it became a real problem.
Only now it seemed that she had picked up a drug habit too and if in her delirium she confessed that she was being abused at home he'd have to make some very uncomfortable phone calls very soon.
"So, where'd the bruises come from?" It was probably unethical to interrogate someone who was high, but what did he care? It wasn't like she would volunteer the information any other time.
"Grimm," she said.
What.
She held up her left arm and rotated it in place as much as she could.
When she'd first taken off her sweater, Qrow figured the one weird glove was a fashion statement of some sort. Now that he was close, he could see the glove covered four fingers and the top half of her palm. The rest of what he had assumed to be a glove was some sort of plastic, honeycomb cage with clips on the side.
It took a moment, but then it clicked in his head that she was wearing a cast. She was wearing a cast because something or someone (because signs pointed to a person rather than a creature despite her claim) had broken her arm.
His mouth went dry at the thought. "When did you fight Grimm?"
Lumi didn't answer, too focused on the curves and lines of the honeycomb cast and how every hexagon was defined by its neighbors but also itself.
A warm, callused hand gently gripped her gloved fingers. "Focus," her teacher said.
She stared at the contrast between their hands. "Saturday; in Forever Fall. Do you go there? Often? The leaves are so nice."
"Not particularly," he admitted. "Were you by yourself?"
"No," her hand spasmed in his light hold. "There were a lot of Ursa. I think they were eating the tree sap."
Still holding his hand, she raised her left arm in a defensive position above her head and slowly swung her right arm as though she had her baton. Her limbs hovered in the air a second too long, then she dropped his hand and her arms.
As unclear and ephemeral as her thoughts were, she had a well-honed instinct of paranoia and secrecy that prevented her from telling him (or anyone) anything about the less than savory aspects of her life.
"Was anyone else with you beside the Ursa?" He probed.
"A Beowolf," she ran a finger along the seam of her half-glove.
"Anyone human?" He drawled.
"Why do humans have language?" she countered inelegantly. "But not Grimm?"
Answer the question, he mentally snapped at her but refrained from voicing the thought. He remembered how quickly his own temper used to flare and didn't need her running.
"Dunno, kid, I'm only a Weapons Instructor," he shoved a hand in his pocket and felt the warm metal of his flask. A drink sounded way better than coaxing details out of a not-all-there-student.
Lumi stared at a spot just past him, face twitching minutely as she lost herself in thought.
He looked her over, bruised cheek, messy grey hair, dark eye circles with too big clothes and sighed. It was like his Semblance had been suddenly changed from "bad luck" to "worse luck and also everything is awkward."
When he tried to probe for more information, she rambled about something else or gave too short answers. The harder he pressed, the more frustrated she grew, until eventually she hissed at him to go away. The shadows in the room grew darker and seemed to coalesce beneath her seat for just a moment before they flickered and everything returned to normal.
He figured it was her Semblance and a not so subtle hint for him to fuck off.
So he did, because he wasn't an idiot even if he was hopelessly out of his element- heroes save people and he was decidedly not one of those (despite what adorable little nieces may claim).
Qrow plopped himself at his desk and dragged the ungraded stack of papers closer while Lumi spaced out on her Scroll- and he should really prohibit her from using that because detention was supposed to be punishment but that would probably lead to her storming off or breaking something and he was a little wrung out from trying to get a straight answer out of her about what she was doing fighting Grimm. Not worth it, he decided as he marked down a student for an incorrect answer.
Lumi packed her things a little early that day, stomach rolling and clenching at random, and scurried as quickly as her feet would take her to the airbus headed home. Her (too) inquisitive teacher barely looked up from his work, but if her Semblance had been reading minds instead of hiding in shadows she'd have known how internally conflicted he was.
As it was, she only had shadows, so she didn't feel too bad. Besides, as nauseous as the pain pills made her, the thought of pulled pork sandwiches waiting for her at home was too good to pass up.
On Tuesday, Qrow got up a half hour early and stared his scruffy reflection in the mirror. His plan yesterday had been to implement some of Oz's advice, but that hadn't exactly happened on account of his… mentee? fledgling? What the hell was her title? His quiet little problem-student showed up looking rougher than usual with an obvious injury.
As often as he realized it these past three weeks, the feeling of being out of his element jarred him and left him feeling a little less steady than usual. He'd get over it, of course, it was just a matter of how long and how much it would take of him.
"Provide an open, safe space and encourage her to speak freely. Students, especially those going through a difficult time, will open up if you hint at, but do not ask, certain questions and offer up personal anecdotes."
Ugh, fuck off Oz. Well, memory of Oz. He knew how to get people to open up (hello his oldest friend, alcohol) but counseling and guiding youths was a little outside his skill set.
Some distance away, Lumi ran a hand through her too long bangs and sighed heavily. She'd been an idiot to ramble so much yesterday, and blamed the pain pills twice because her memory of his questions was so fuzzy. She was rarely so talkative, and even if she hadn't given much away about her home life she felt paranoid that Branwen would put the pieces together and call Child Protective Services.
CPS was a nightmare waiting to happen, a monster disguised as "concerned adults" with their vacant smiles and pitying eyes, eager to take her from her home and away from her siblings.
The lead pit in was her stomach grew heavier at the thought. She really didn't want to go to school today. If she hadn't fucked up so badly last month and gotten herself detention, she would skip class altogether. Skipping class after she showed up with visible injuries, however, was almost an even stupider idea than getting caught in the first place.
So Lumi curled her hands a little tighter around the cup of coffee and let the soothing sounds of anarcho-punk rock wash over her.
By lunch her nerves had calmed, in part due to the fact that her second period class was with Branwen and he hadn't treated her differently- unlike Aryl who lingered too long by her desk when she lectured and stared at her with questions tucked just behind her sympathetic eyes.
She bit her sandwich a little too harshly and flinched at the feeling of her teeth slamming together.
When she walked into detention for the day, Branwen was typing something so she slipped into her seat and pulled out math homework. A quarter of the way through the worksheet, she looked up and caught her teacher's disgruntled expression. He grumbled, slammed the backspace key a few times and pushed away from the computer.
His chair spun with a creak and he saw her for what it seemed like the first time that day. "Hey, kid."
She nodded in return, lightheaded from the pain pills but more in control of her tongue.
"You wanna grade some papers again?" He motioned to the messy stack at the edge of his desk. "There's not enough hours in the day for all the crap they want me to do and it'd really help me out."
"Sure," she verbally responded only because a nod was a tad too flippant and she didn't feel like founding out where his limits on disrespect were.
She hesitated in her seat whether or not to approach him for the work, but he made the decision for her and plopped the pile at her elbow.
"The key is… in there somewhere." He shrugged and walked back to his desk. "Knock yourself out."
They worked in companionable silence- well, silence on Lumi's part, Qrow grumbled about pushy counselors and slow computers. She finished the grading before the hour was up, and gingerly approached the desk to set it down.
"Thanks, kid," her teacher spared her a quick grin then went back to hammering out an email.
She nodded, still unwilling to talk, and walked back to her worktable to finish up her math.
That general pattern continued for the rest of the week, with Qrow pushing his work onto her and making comments. On Wednesday, it was that the weather was changing (was it really? She side-eyed the window; last week felt equally windy and cool) and how he was thinking of getting a new coat. Thursday's one-sided topic was still the weather and a new coat, but how difficult it was to find one that was made for Huntsmen without being ridiculously expensive.
She commiserated with him, but kept quiet. As a teacher with no children and no spouse he certainly had more money than she did, so he probably knew where the best clothing stores were for Hunters. She could only offer tips and tricks for shopping at thrift stores or civilian shops, which wouldn't be helpful unless he was lucky enough to find an old, marked down Hunter-grade coat in the clearance racks.
She wasn't even that lucky, and she didn't seem to have a stroke of bad luck a mile-wide like he did. How all of his markers were dry, exploded in his hand or went missing altogether, she'd never know.
On Friday he switched to what sort of coat to get, and offhandedly asked her opinion. It was at this that she grew suspicious- everything he'd said up to it could be passed off as rambling, but asking her for fashion advice? She answered anyways.
"It depends on what you need," she shuffled the worksheets about and avoided looking at him. "Does it need to come off quickly? Or is the look of it more important?"
He hummed and propped his head on one palm. "Depends where you're fighting at- wouldn't wanna lose your coat in Atlas, that's for sure- but let's assume it needs to look good and come off quick while in Vale."
Lumi fiddled with the green pen in her hand as she thought. "Some sort of diagonal zipper," she motioned from one shoulder down to the side of her sternum, then down to her waist. "With pockets that zip close too, so nothing falls out." She watched the pen go flying from her hand skitter across the table.
Well fuck.
She got up and went to retrieve it while her teacher continued, "Diagonal zipper, huh? I guess that'd look cool." He sat up a little straighter. "Know where I could find something like that?"
Yes, because she knew how to sew. Would she tell/remind him of that fact? Definitely not.
"Sorry, I don't know," she sat back down and dedicated herself to the grading.
Qrow bit back the sigh that threatened to slip out. "Hm, thanks anyways, kid."
She was done with grading not long after, but pulled out her homework when he wasn't looking and worked on that until just before the hour was up. She didn't think he was a particularly chatty person, but apparently he was? She packed her bag for the day, dropped off the graded work and went home, all the while thinking back on her time in Branwen's class.
He was a fairly popular teacher, both for being handsome in a bad-boy way and because he "told it like it was." Now that she thought about it, he did spend a good bit of class walking around and poking his head into people's business- usually for weapon advice, but he wasn't opposed to talking about other topics when the mood struck him.
Approachable, cool, relatable- she could see why so many people liked his class and him in particular. When contextualized like that, his random comments didn't seem so random. Maybe he was just naturally talkative? She was the only one to talk to in detention.
Her nerves settled in her stomach as she let herself into her room and flopped onto bed. So it wasn't her specifically that he wanted to talk to, it was just that she was there. The thought lifted pressure from her shoulders. She wasn't sure how to deal with people (adults especially) who poked into her life, but being bored and making small talk she could handle.
Lumi rose out of bed and padded over to Ash's room. A quick peek revealed that her younger brother was painting, aka in Do Not Disturb mode, so she closed the door behind her and popped her head into Nocte's room instead.
White hair whipped around as she spun around in her chair. "You're home!"
"Yeah, just got back," she let herself in and leaned against the doorframe. "Do you know what you want for dinner yet?"
"Uh, not really," the younger girl scrolled through something on her Scroll and kicked out her legs.
"Chicken tacos?" Lumi offered.
"Sounds good," Nocte chirruped. "Can you make me a snack though?"
The grey-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Sure, brat."
She shot her a cheeky grin. Her mood quickly changed when her Scroll buzzed with a new message. "Dad said he'll be home late tonight..."
She sighed. "Alright."
"But it's Friday, Lumi!" Nocte frowned. "Tell him you said to come home earlier- he listens to you."
"I can't," she looked away from her sister's puppy dog eyes.
She humph'ed loudly. "Whatever."
Lumi resisted the urge to lecture her youngest sibling, again, that their dad was "always at work" because he had to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. It was hard going from a two-income household to one income (even if their mother did send child support money) but eleven year olds weren't exactly renown for putting cold logic before their desire to spend time with their dad.
And if she was going to be honest, she missed her dad too. But being the oldest, and a whopping sixteen to Nocte's eleven and Ash's twelve (nearly thirteen!) meant she had to be strong for them and sooth over troubles because their absentee mother certainly wasn't going to do it.
"I'll call you when your snack's ready," Lumi pushed off from the door and shut it without looking back at Nocte.
She trudged to the kitchen to slap together a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (strawberry jelly, because Ash hated grape for some reason) and take the chicken out the freezer for dinner.
Her thoughts drifted to her history homework, and fashionable coats with diagonal zippers…
Normally on Fridays, their mother picked them up at six o' clock and kept them until six o' clock Sunday, but because Lumi's arm was still in a cast the trio of siblings were left with their dad.
Lumi was grateful, mostly because she couldn't fight Grimm or spar in her condition, but also because she dreaded spending time with her mother. She just wished their break from the woman hadn't come at the cost of her fractured bones.
Nevertheless, she enjoyed her weekend at home and divided her time between the internet, homework, her brother and sister, and solving Branwen's coat problem. Finding a coat with a zipper that wasn't straight up and down was tricky, but she found a few in one boutique's online store. It wasn't a store she was familiar with, but she wrote down the name, price, and what it was made of on a scrap piece of binder paper anyways and handed it over during that Monday's detention.
Branwen looked her up and down, then at the paper before he took it. "This is…?"
"You said you wanted a jacket," she shoved her right hand in her jean pocket. "I found one that matched what you talked about."
Well, Qrow thought to himself, I dun fucked up. He wasn't actually in the market for new clothes. He'd only said that because it was the first thing that came to mind when he was trying to get her to open up last week. Now, however, if he didn't show up to school with a new jacket that matched his vague list of wants, he'd look disingenuous (ha, take that Tai, he did know words larger than three syllables).
"Thanks, kid," he carefully placed the paper next to his keyboard. "So how was your weekend?"
"It was okay," she said with a shrug of one shoulder. "Is there any work to grade today?"
"No, I'm all caught up," he motioned in a sweeping motion and internally sighed at what a non-answer "okay" was.
She nodded, feeling as though her social quota was met for the day, and sat at her usual spot. The purple-eyed girl pulled out a book and flipped to a page marked with a torn corner of something that might have once been a receipt.
Qrow stared at her, then turned and stared at his computer screen. On the one hand, she was invested in their conversations (even if those conversations were mostly one-sided ramblings on his part) and gave enough of a shit to personally hunt down what she thought he wanted. On the other hand, she still didn't seem that interested in spilling her guts to him and getting help for whatever was going on at home.
Granted, this was the start of their fourth week together, but you couldn't blame him for hoping she'd have an epiphany and start on the road to recovery on her own. Hell, he knew where the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous met (even if he didn't go) and would gladly point her in the right direction if she ever asked. Unfortunately, one of the tenets of the Nine-Step Program was that you couldn't force recovery and that addicts had to seek help on their own if they were ever going to make it.
Not that he would know anything about that, no sirree.
Qrow snatched up the scrap of paper and searched for the store online to distract himself from his thoughts (and denial).
Lumi read her novel, oblivious to her teacher's inner turmoil and panic, until the hour was up then packed and headed home. That would be unremarkable by itself, but she actually said goodbye before she took off so she felt proud of herself. Her small talk at the start was apparently enough to grant her quiet for the entire time!
Not that she hated Mr. Branwen or anything, but her still hazy memory of his questioning last week combined with her fear of slipping up didn't exactly make her want to speak to him any more than she had to. She would still be polite, of course, because she wasn't an idiot who liked to antagonize people with power over her immediate fate, but that was all she was willing to do.
The next day she had actual class with Branwen, and he maintained his usual behavior of walking around the class and helping students or stopping to chat at random. Nothing changed in detention either, though he did start talking about food after making an offhand comment about the store she'd found for him.
Skinny as he was (not that Lumi could really judge), Branwen had strong opinions about what was and wasn't food. For example, roasted lizard? Food. Cheeze Pom-Poms? Also food, in a pinch. Salads? Not food- who the hell wanted oily leaves with nuts and fruits thrown in? Just eat the nuts and fruits by themselves, no need to ruin them with pepper and vinegar.
Twenty three rant filled minutes later, Lumi pointed out to her teacher that his microwave meal might be cold. What she didn't say was that Mr. Piper was the school nurse and probably knew what he was talking about when he said that everyone should add salads to their diets if they weren't already eating them and cut out all the excess sodium that microwave food had.
Branwen lightly sneered at his cold chicken nuggets but popped one in his mouth anyways, grumbling about secret salad supporters.
Lumi thought about the container of enchiladas in her bag and resisted the urge to flaunt her lovingly made meal (that she made, but it was still full of love). Instead, she mentioned that it was easy to make meals at home that tasted good and were healthy.
"Imma level with you kid, they don't pay me enough for all the hours I spend on work," he bit out between one spoonful of fudge brownie and the next. "And you can only eat so much cafeteria food before you lose your taste buds. There's nothin' wrong with E-Z Made dinners as long as it's not the only thing you eat."
He nodded as if imparting some hard-earned, life-shattering wisdom- as if Lumi didn't already know only eating E-Z Made dinners were terrible for you and ruined your stomach. She remembered, then, the (basically true) rumors that Mr. Branwen was a bachelor with a drinking problem and felt a little more sorry for him and his poorly fed stomach.
Maybe she'd sign him up for a free trial of those meal-in-a-box services. She didn't know his address, but finding out which mailbox was his in the administration office wouldn't be that hard.
She left deep in thought day, but she remembered to say goodbye and counted it as a continued win in her books. Another win in her books was that because she graded papers, she didn't have to clean. Cleaning wasn't difficult, but she did more than enough at home.
She spent the airship ride back listening to music and wondering whether or not she should pick up Saf's order now (six cigarettes, two Cola Blasts and four shot-sized bourbons), or wait until the other girl asked for it. Also, if she could get away with the meal in a box thing.
Hm, decisions decisions…
By Thursday, Lumi had decided against trying to sneakily feed her teacher (no matter how pathetic he looked with partially frozen E-Z Made lasagna) but did decide to get the supplies for Saf's (a TA for Aryl, the history teacher) order ready ahead of time.
Signal Academy was a boarding school, and with her daily trips to and from Vale (because no way was she leaving her siblings to fend for themselves while she could help it) she had a lucrative business smuggling alcohol to her fellow students. Saf ordered the same thing every Friday, which was a steady source of income and advertisement for Lumi.
She also did snack runs, in addition to the less than legal things she traded and sold, and sewed in her (incredibly limited) free-time. She liked to think that if the faculty knew how busy she was, and weren't too horrified that she distributing alcohol to minors, they'd probably be proud of her entrepreneurial spirit and time-management skills.
As it was, Mrs. Huang (the school counselor) was less than impressed with the Vale-born and raised girl.
Lumi sipped her Cola Blast and smiled at the older woman. "I told you, Mrs. Huang, I brought this soda from home and only opened it a minute ago."
"Likely story, Miss Hazelwood," she placed a hand on her hip. "Would you care to explain why Miss Aryl's teaching assistant, Saf, also has the same soda and little bottles of alcohol on the same day you just happen to 'bring soda from home'?"
"Cola Blast is pretty common for teenagers to drink," she deflected. "I don't know why she has alcohol, especially if she's a TA, but maybe you should ask her."
"Oh, I will," she narrowed her eyes at the short-statured delinquent in front of her. "And please trust me when I say that I will find out exactly why."
She smiled again, enthusing the look with as much sweet innocence as she could. "Good luck!" She walked away and hoped her heart wasn't beating as loud as it felt like it was in her ears.
She and Huang hadn't ever really gotten along (something about their personalities didn't click) and the older woman had come close (too close) to catching her in the act of selling less than legal things a few times before. She didn't ruthlessly hound Lumi, but if a fight broke out and no one could get a clear candidate for an instigator, she might just pin it on her and be done with it.
Which was, of course, unfair as Lumi was known to be a quiet student who did her work on time and to the best of her apparent effort. It wasn't her fault that she came from a broken home with a disgraced Huntress for a mother, or that Claret Nox didn't know how when to shut his mouth (so she just had to shut it for him)…
Like she said, completely unfair.
Branwen was nowhere to be found when she made her way to detention, so she took out a novel (a different one from Monday) and set herself to reading. Her cast would come off, officially, tomorrow but because of the frailty of newly healed bone, she wouldn't be allowed to spar or fight Grimm. She wanted to feel bad that she would miss another weekend with her mother, but couldn't find it within herself to care all that much.
Verbena Hazelwood was the (retired) Huntress with finely-honed reflexes, not her, so she should have knocked aside the Ursa's attack instead of "testing" Lumi's combat skills. The fact that her arm had fractured was her mother's fault, and if she missed out on her weekly beatings for the second week in a row then oh well.
Lumi took another drink of her Cola Blast and wondered why she was so bitter today.
She didn't have an answer by the time Branwen walked in with a chili dog in hand and a feather (?) in his hair, but it didn't matter much because her weapons' teacher started talking about a great hot-dog cart in this seedy sector of Vale that really ought to become a restaurant instead because the chili dogs were worth fighting Grimm for.
She let his words wash past her and left feeling somehow lighter.
A/N: So we learn a little more about Lumi and her home life in this chapter- what do you think? I'd love some feedback from you guys (though I won't ever hold a chapter hostage for reviews- that's just childish).
Hope you lovely readers had a nice day. See you next week :)