Lumi threw herself into training that weekend to try and work off the embarrassment. She'd mostly made peace with that fact by the time she walked into school on Monday, but then she remembered she had Branwen's class after lunch and panicked. Her worry was for nothing, however, because there was a substitute for his class that day and she breathed a sigh of relief- which quickly morphed back into worry when she thought about why he wasn't there.
She'd lost a noticeable chunk of aura when she was cleaning ink off his face, and maybe it hadn't dissipated like she'd thought but rather transferred over and- her heart stuttered- poisoned him (somehow). Was that even possible? And if it was, did she accidentally do so to such a degree that it would kill him!?
She shook her head to clear it of the admittedly crazy thoughts and carried on with her day. He had to be in his forties (?) and had been a Hunstman since he was at least twenty one, so what could she do with a smidgen of aura that hordes of Grimm couldn't accomplish with nearly twenty years of attacks?
Still, something unknotted itself in her chest when she saw him on Tuesday. He looked considerably worse for wear but he was alive so Lumi let out a sigh of relief. However, there was another reading assignment on board which made her relief at seeing him alive shrink considerably because she knew for a fact that she was going to have to grade everything while he sat there looking miserable.
Though when she got a better look at him, her irritation at having work dumped on her lessened because he did look miserable. Dark smudges beneath his somewhat bloodshot eyes, clothes askew and hair the sort of messy she recognized as being from when he ran his hands through it one too many times.
Those details, plus the fact that he kept rubbing his temples and rifled through his pockets only to come up empty handed made her think he'd left his flask at home, or lost it somehow. All in all, not a great picture. She scribbled a few half-assed answers on her paper just to have an excuse to be at his desk and walked up.
She pitched her voice softer than usual. "Hey, Branwen, are you okay?"
He grunted.
Yeah, she assumed as much. "Not to implicate myself or anything," she laid the paper onto the turn-in pile. "But if you need something… strong to drink I might have coincidentally found something like that…"
He narrowed his eyes at her.
"I think it was on the roof of the building during passing period…" she trailed off with a nervous smile and took the wooden bathroom pass without asking. "Well, I hope you feel better soon."
His pointed stare followed her all the way out the door. Once in the hallway, Lumi shadow-stepped to the bus stop then across the bay to the edge of Vale. She stopped for a breather, then melted through the shadows to her room where she picked up a small bottle of bourbon and pack of sticky notes.
The trip back was slightly more difficult because traveling through the shadows over long distances left her winded and dizzy, but she pressed on and appeared on the roof of the building with a few steps. She plopped down on the floor and breathed deeply until she didn't feel like passing out, then scribbled a scarecrow with a cape onto the sticky note and slapped it onto the bottle.
Hopefully her teacher would think it was funny because when she looked at it she couldn't hold back her giggles. Another step deposited her on the floor of the bathroom (gross) so she pushed herself up and washed her hands to kill time. She walked back to class, only slightly unsteady, and handed the bathroom pass to one of her classmates that was lingering by the door.
Lumi ignored the disappointed look Branwen sent her way and pulled out her Scroll. The class was halfway over, and she'd already finished her work so it wasn't like he could call her out for being off-task. She pointedly ignored him until he looked away then continued to browse Timblr until class ended.
When she walked into detention, her teacher had his head pillowed onto his arms and didn't look up to greet her- which either meant he was resting after being around noisy kids all day or had choked on his own vomit and died.
"Please don't be dead," she whispered to herself and tapped her nail against the edge of his desk.
He stirred just enough to lift his head above his arms, notice it was her, and lay back down.
He wasn't dead, huzzah! But it was probably a sign of something very wrong that she had to worry about that fact twice in one day.
"Don't panic," she said softly and laid her hand over the smashed spikes in his hair with a generous amount of Aura for a moment.
He hummed low in his throat and blinked up at her. "Thanks, kid." He re-buried his face in his arms.
... What was the point of helping him if he was just going to fall back asleep?! She scowled and resisted the urge to go home immediately- she had two days of work to catch up on, after all, and one of them had to be responsible.
She was nearly done grading Monday's work when Branwen finally sat up with a jaw-cracking yawn. Lumi watched as he opened a drawer, pulled out the bottle of bourbon she'd given him and knocked it back like water.
She wondered why she had ever worried about accidentally killing him- he obviously wasn't human. Grimm, long-term alcoholism, potential Aura poisoning; the only way he'd die was if Death itself arm-wrestled him and cheated.
"Ya know, you're really not helpin' your case with this." He turned red (but not bloodshot) eyes her way and waved the bottle in the air.
Oh fuck off, she thought sourly, it helped you didn't it?
"I know you like dark liquor," she said with a tight smile. "And I know how to handle hungover Hunters."
He took another drink, probably sensed her suddenly hostile mood, and didn't bring it up again.
As a show of goodwill, and because she'd already promised herself that she'd do so, Lumi brought in the thin booklet of quick recipes the next day and presented them with a flourish to a much healthier looking Branwen.
"Since my time in detention is coming to an end, and you've told me you can't cook to save your life using the stove," she exchanged the recipes for ungraded work. "I wrote this up for you."
"You still have two weeks after this one, kid." he said off-handedly as he flipped through the pages.
What.
At her bewildered expression he drawled, "Winter break doesn't count for time served- you weren't at school."
She sighed. "Keep it anyways," she was going to drown herself if this week continued the way it had been. "If you can prep some things ahead of time, at least your next hangover won't be so bad."
"Thanks, how generous of you," his tone was so sarcastic that she couldn't tell if he was being sincere and using a sarcastic tone to cover his thanks or if he was honestly messing with her. "Can you do my grocery shopping too?"
"Sure. I mean," she shrugged and decided to go with 'sincere but unable to show it because he's a snarky prick.' "We have time so we could go if you want."
He stared at her with the same bewildered look she'd just given him.
She dropped the grading onto his desk- he could do it for all she cared. "Just saying," she turned on her heel and strolled over to her seat.
Halfway there, he said, "Alright, I guess. Get your things and let's go."
"Wait," she said and looked at him over her shoulder. "Are you being serious? Are we really going to go grocery shopping?" This was surreal.
He snorted. "You can stay to grade papers if you want, but I'm going."
"No, no," she protested and hurried to get her Scroll, wallet and coat. "You just caught me a little off guard, that's all. I mean, why?"
"I grew up outside the Kingdoms," he offered and stuck his hands into the pockets of the coat she'd help find for him a while back. "How much do you think I enjoy pushing around a squeaky metal cart?"
Point taken. "How are we getting there?"
He shrugged. "Your legs aren't broken, are they?"
"No," she held out her hand to him. "But I know a quicker way- my Semblance."
He eyed her suspiciously. "How likely is it that you'll drop us off the top of a building?"
"I've been to the Maple Shopping Center a bunch of times- we'll be fine," she assured him and stuck her hand out a little more.
Qrow looked at his desk, at her, then back at the desk. If he was going to do this, he was going to get in one last drink, just in case. He nodded to himself, did just that then wrapped his hand around her outstretched one- which was tiny and he wondered how she managed to get anything done- then he blinked as a cold seeped through his coat, into his core, and shocked him out of thought entirely for a second.
Lumi was already walking forward when his spinning mind caught up to his feet and he allowed her to pull him along. Transforming to his bird form didn't hurt and neither did her Semblance, but out of the two he would prefer to never do the second again for as long as he could help it.
The heat of the grocery store brought him back to reality. He shook his head and shivered.
"-o you usually get?" his quiet little student with the unsettling semblance asked.
"Pasta, bread, cheese," he said and let go of her hand. "Simple shit."
"Ah-huh," she clucked her tongue. "So what do you think of enchiladas? Also, how much are we getting- like one meal, or a week's worth of food, or what?"
"Sounds good and… a week?" he responded and dug around his pocket to make sure he had his bank card. "Go wild, kid."
"Great!" she said and pulled out her Scroll. "So what size Pyrrex do you have at home? That'll help me decide how much of everything to get."
"What the hell is that?" he watched her pluck two loaves of bread off a rack and type something with one hand.
She stopped mid-type and turned to him. After staring at him in the eye for just a beat too-long, she sighed with her entire body- the dramatic brat- and finished typing.
"It's your new best friend," she murmured and pushed the cart to the nearby produce aisle.
Weird.
He followed at her side as she navigated the barely wide enough linoleum aisles and threw in a few snacks while she deliberated between two nearly identical cans of cream of chicken. Like all grocery stores, this one had boring music softly playing in the background and eye-straining bright ads plastered about. A few aisles over, a baby started crying and he heard the clunk-clunk-clunk of a busted wheel cart clopped along as the kid's harried mother rushed to the front of the store while shooshing the distressed toddler.
"Hi sir, do you and your wife need any help?" an employee with a perky attitude and pockets full of coupons asked.
He didn't have a- wait.
"We're fine, thank you," Lumi answered for him with a smile and a gleam in her eye. "Come along, dear," she stressed the word and everything in him revolted. "We need to hurry or we'll never beat traffic."
He ignored the employee's generic speech about finding her if they needed help and focused on herding his very clearly teenaged student to the next aisle.
"Never do that again for as long as you live," he hissed when they were clear from prying eyes and ears.
"Yes sir," she grabbed a can of tomato sauce and tossed it in.
"Urgh," his face screwed up in disgust. "That's almost worst."
She leaned against the cart and laughed at him long enough for him to regret ever asking her to do his grocery shopping. She must have caught sight of his face because the next thing she said was, "sor- hah!- sorry, Branwen" (and didn't sound sorry at all).
"Why'd she think we were married anyways?" he spat the word. "You're obviously-" he motioned with his hands at slightly shorter than shoulder level.
"Yeah, but civilians aren't all that tall," she tugged on a strand of her hair. "And my hair is grey. Also, you're not bad looking for your age. She probably thought I was older and you were a little younger."
How flattering. Well, he thought with a bit of pride, if that was the reason- "Wait, whaddya mean 'for my age'?" He scowled at her as the words sunk in. "I ain't old."
Lumi smiled and pat his arm. "Would you happen to have rice at home?"
She deftly re-directed his attention by rambling about what they still needed to grab, asking what he wanted to make and sending him to different aisles to get anything she "forgot." At the end of the grueling, boring ass trek around the store she finally showed him what Pyrrex was (a glass pan) and added it to the cart. They strolled up to the front, she took one look at the lines, asked if he wanted a coffee (he didn't) and then abandoned him by walking out the store without ever looking back.
Traitor. He'd remember this when it was time to send in grades.
After eighteen torturous minutes in line where he regretted not bringing the bourbon with him for every second of it, he made it to the front and nearly made the cashier piss themself if the look on their face was anything to go by.
Qrow nearly stomped off without the groceries when the kid behind the counter asked him how many bags he wanted. "How the hell should I know? I haven't bagged anything yet."
"R-right, um," their fingers hovered over the number keys. "I can- I'll wait until you finish then add it to the end?"
He grunted and started shoving things in reusable bags- bags that he had a pile of at home but never bothered to remember that he had until he was paying for another week's worth of food and had nothing to put everything in.
The kid was more than happy to punch in a few numbers and quickly swipe his card- then swipe again when the reader didn't work and swipe a third time before manually entering in all the information. They handed over the receipt like the paper would catch fire and waved the next customer forward.
Thoroughly done with stores, he marched out to the sight of an enthusiastic man talking to a bored-looking Lumi and had to hold back a sigh as he called, "Hey buddy, she's not interested."
Then the man turned on him with a smile and said "Oh, my apologies- but we have a lovely couple's packa-"
Qrow felt the urge to punt him across the shopping center but was stopped when Lumi tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and transported them back to Signal without a word. Thankfully, she didn't let him suffer this time and tapped his cheek with a bit of Aura to get his head and his body to agree on what was up and what was down again.
"Let's get you to a kitchen," she tugged on his arm. "I'm sure you're hungry after all that."
He made a sound that she took for an affirmative and quickly led him to one of the student kitchens. After a glance to her Scroll, she typed in an ID number that wasn't hers and the door swung open. Her teacher, thankfully was past caring and as soon as he set the bags down on the island he started rifling through them for snacks.
When he had a bag of barbeque chips in hand, she herded him over to the stove and gathered all the ingredients for the first part of the enchiladas.
"It's important to heat the spices first," she said and scooped a heaping tablespoon of chili powder into the deep pan. "So you can wake up the flavor."
He munched a chip and raised a brow.
Lumi wondered when their roles had reversed but explained anyways. "The heat will break down the spice and release more of the flavor." She added a few more spices, stirred, then motioned to the ground beef. "We'll add the beef next, and I'll need you to cook it so I can get the rest started."
"M'kay," he scrunched up the empty bag and threw it aside.
Browning hamburger meat wasn't terribly difficult so he watched her with half an eye as she opened the can of red chile sauce and poured an inch thick layer onto a smaller pan. While it heated, she took the Pyrrex to the sink and washed it then patted it dry with paper towels- which seemed a little excessive since they were going to pop it into a hot oven, but whatever.
She opened a few more things (cheese, black olives, and chopped green chiles) then dipped corn tortillas into the sauce and removed them after a few seconds. She layered the tortillas first, then reached over him and emptied the green chiles into the meat.
"When it's done browning, pour some red sauce onto it and you can layer the rest," she rinsed her hands in the sink. "Oh, and pre-heat the oven to 325. It only needs to cook for twenty five minutes, so that's pretty easy to remember."
She picked up her jacket and shrugged it on. "I'll see you tomorrow. Don't forget to cook the red rice and beans too. Good luck!"
"See ya," he said and contemplated how to finish cooking everything.
A famous playwright had popularized the saying "beware the ides of March" but considering that Lumi's birthday was on that day, she didn't put much stock into the sentiment. As it was, she was dressed in a crisp white button down with a pleated bib and a bright pink skirt over black tights with a pair of ankle boots. Dressed to the nines (okay, not that fancy- to the sevens?) she arrived at school optimistic about life until Marshal, the classmate whose ID she had used to gain access to the student kitchen, cornered her just before first period.
"What the hell did you do yesterday?" she hissed.
"What do you mean?" she placed a hand on her hip and shifted her stance.
"I mean that the kitchen caught fire yesterday and my ID pops up as the person using it," the dog ears atop her head pointed forward. "If I hadn't been in track practice all the way across campus the teachers would be hounding me to pay for damages! They're already on my back about my grades, and then this happened, so what did you do?"
She glanced at the ceiling and prayed to whatever entity that was listening to grant her strength. She dodged explaining anything by placating her with the offer of an extra can of Bolt! Energy with her next order and a promise that if she did end up having to pay for anything, she'd cover it instead. Marshal grumbled but agreed and left her alone after Lumi offered her a cupcake.
Of course, on her birthday of all days, she had to deal with something like this.
She sighed and sat down. It was easy to listen in on her classmate's conversations and put together a vague picture of what happened, especially when she selectively offered cupcakes to a few key people. As a result, she found out some new bits of gossips (apparently someone tried to hack into the gradebook to give themselves an A but got caught) and had streams of people wishing her happy birthday and complimenting her outfit all day.
The situation was this: someone used Marshal's ID to get into one of the student kitchens. That same someone somehow set fire to a pan. It was probably full of cooking oil if the bottle left behind was any indication. Most likely that person added water to hot oil which caused the fire, then promptly fled when adding more water didn't put out the flames.
There was also the rumor that someone was trying to burn down the school, or to frame Marshal in order to get her kicked off the track team, but Lumi didn't put any weight to those because 1) she wasn't an idiot and 2) she knew exactly who was at fault for the fire and she knew exactly how she was going to put that information to use.
Lumi sidled up to Yang during lunch and nudged her with a sly smile. "Guess what your uncle did."
"Did he release two pigs painted '1' and '3' on campus again?" she asked with a head tilt.
Wha- again? No, wait, focus!
"Uh, I'm gonna go with 'no,' or at least I didn't hear anything about it," Lumi picked up her glass of milk. "Have you heard about the kitchen fire yet?"
"Just that this one Faunus girl tried to burn the school down," she shrugged. "Which sounds really fake because isn't she like, the number one pole vaulter or something?"
"Yeah, Marshal's first rank in her division," she explained. "But it wasn't her."
"Then wh- ohhh," Yang's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yup," she smiled around the plastic straw. "Got any other embarrassing stories about him? He's always teasing me and I want to even the playing field a little, ya know?"
Yang chuckled, "Okay, so you didn't hear this from me, but this one time…"
Lumi listened attentively and took mental notes. She hadn't forgotten that Branwen had responded to her attempt to guilt a Stirbucks gift card out of him (because he'd cracked her ribs) with almost complete indifference (and a threat to fail her).
She walked into Weapons class ten minutes early and dropped her things on the table. Branwen looked up as she approached with a pack of cupcakes and eyed her speculatively.
"Another presentation for class?" he motioned to her outfit and took the treat.
"No," she did a small twirl to show off. "It's my birthday today."
"Explains the cupcake," he licked the obnoxiously blue frosting (yes, that was on purpose). "Aren't you cold?"
"Not really," Lumi loved fashion, but she also loved not freezing to death so she'd taken precautions when dressing that morning by layering (and making it look like she hadn't done so because the Look was incredibly important). She could see how he, a man with maybe five different shirts, would be mystified though.
"You're… fifteen, right?" he asked off-handedly while stuffing his face with the second cupcake she'd handed over.
"Wow, you're so bad at ages, I bet you bought Ruby a 'happy tenth birthday' card last year," she deadpanned and watched in glee as he choked at the truth. "I'm seventeen today, by the way."
"You, seventeen?" he scoffed. "No way."
"Yes way," she mocked. "And you're what, fifty four?"
He ripped off a piece of the cake and threw it at her. "It might be your birthday but don't think I won't knock you down, kid."
"First you break my ribs, then you smash me into the ground and pin me with your dirty shoes, and now you're threatening to beat me up?" she placed a hand on her chest in mock-outrage. "On my birthday?"
"Gods you're dramatic," he said dismissively. "Go sit and I won't kick you six ways to Sunday."
She sniffed haughtily. "Fine, but I guess now everyone's going to find out who really set that fire yesterday…"
"You wouldn't," he accused.
She smiled enigmatically and retreated to her seat. Before Branwen could finish setting her on fire with his eyes, the bell rang and students streamed in. She internally cackled and replayed her sweet, sweet victory in her mind while calmly flipping through her literature book without reading.
Okay, so she had a small flare for the dramatic- he hadn't been wrong about that- but she was only going to torture him until afterschool when she could finally coax that gift card from him. That thought in mind, she passed the rest of the day in a pleasant mood, made better by the people who continued to wish her happy birthday. She was smiling like an idiot when she made her way to detention.
Her teacher wasn't there (coward!) so she grabbed that day's work and settled into her usual routine. Not ten minutes later, the door opened and three things happened at the same time. First, the light above her flickered, swayed, and came crashing down. Second, Branwen dropped to a defensive position. Third, she flinched horribly, which threw off her center of gravity and sent her careening to the side where she smashed her cheek and nose against another stool and slammed onto the floor.
Curled up on one side in a bed of shattered glass with her legs painfully tangled in the bars of the chair, her nose quickly became a bloody mess. She glanced up with tears in her eyes at the sound of approaching footsteps and watched her teacher kneel at her side.
Her mind felt off-kilter and dizzy but she managed to croak, "Is this what you meant when you said you'd knock me down?" she blinked away tears but they came back with a vengeance. "Because I was only joking, earlier."
He stared at her with incredulity written across every inch of his face. "What."
"Please get me a napkin," she said instead and flared her aura around her ankles.
He sighed, still bewildered, and gently picked her up. Her legs had only been a touch hurt when she'd fallen, so her stance was steady when he set her on her feet. She wiped away tears and a smear of mascara came with it.
"I was having such a good day," she said and wept just a little from the mood whiplash.
Qrow hovered uselessly at her side, unsure if he should get her something to clean her face with or wait until after she broke down or just flee entirely.
She decided for him by drawing closer and tucking herself against his side while she lit both hands with aura and healed her face with minimal fuss. He wrapped a hesitant arm around her and even though he didn't say anything, she got the feeling that he wanted to be far, far away from the situation.
She straightened after a minute or two and made sure to angle her face away from him as she walked over to the sink. Crying and bloodied, she knew for a fact that she didn't make a pretty picture and he was already uncomfortable with it all.
Thankfully, there was soap in the dispenser and when she was done scrubbing her face there was a clean rag sitting to the side for her. Her teacher, however, was nowhere to be seen. At her desk she found a sticky note that said "Go home early. Happy birthday." All of the glass had been swept aside.
She wasn't really in the mood to smile even if it was kind of cute, so she packed her things and shadow stepped away. She used the airbus ride to calm down and clean up some of the finer details of her face. When she walked in the door her siblings were crowded around a cardboard box with cat toys.
"Hey, uh… you're home early?" Ash looked up first and jabbed his elbow into Nocte's arm.
"SURPRISE!" Nocte threw her arms to the side and "accidentally" hit Ash in the face. "WE GOT A KITTEN!"
"I'm naming it," she said and dropped her bag next to the couch as her darling siblings smacked at each other. She peeked over the edge of the box to see a wild ball of fur valiantly attempting to scale the walls. It mewed at her and she felt tears in the corner of her eyes from how cute it was.
"It's a boy cat," Nocte informed her. "And he already had shots plus" she made a scissor motion with her fingers. "You know."
He reached the top of the box and mewed again. In the light, she could see that he had a black coat threaded through with a few silver hairs and pale blue eyes. His fur was fuzzy, like wool and when she ran a finger across the top of his paw (so tiny!) it was dense and coarse but pleasant.
She started laughing when a potential name popped into her head and had to excuse herself to get a glass of water. When she was collected, she pulled out her Scroll and snapped a few pictures of the kitten playing. She couldn't contain the fresh bout of giggles that bubbled up her chest when she sent a pic of the kitten to Ruby.
"ITS SO SMALL ASDFKJM WHATS ITS NAME" she sent back.
Lumi smiled, "dont tell your uncle but its…"
A/N: I have a name for the cat but I'd love to hear what you all think! Happy (late) Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to anyone celebrating; happy Monday to the rest of you all.
See you next week! :)