Work Text:
“By the pricking of my thumb, something… uh - something…..”
“Wicked. Line is ‘By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes’.”
Charlie can practically hear the sigh in Dorothy’s voice when she gives the line to the nervous kid on stage fidgeting in their heavy black robe. All dressed up for the role of the witch. The show is one week away, and someone forgot what is one of the most quoted lines by Shakespeare. Charlie hopes it’s just nerves during the first dress rehearsal. Oh well, what can you expect from high school kids anyway.
Dorothy waves from her seat in the front row and calls out, “Okay, let’s start this scene from the top, one more time guys.”
Kids groan and trundle off stage. Charlie adjusts the lights for the start of the scene, something low and spooky for the witches introduction. They make it all the way to Macbeth’s entrance before flubbing lines again.
It’s a really, really long night. Eight o’clock rolls around, eventually, and Dorothy wearily tells the kids to go home. Parents had slowly been filing in the back of the auditorium, watching curiously. But there’s still work to wrap up and props to put away before Dorothy and Charlie can head home.
Charlie’s doing the tech work out of the goodness of her heart, because she’s such an awesome girlfriend. Well, and because Dorothy had been going crazy for the past few weeks. But Charlie can help, with the tech stuff and scurrying around wherever Dorothy tells her. Maybe if she’s good, Dorothy’ll be up for the fun kind of role play later.
Sneezing in a puff of dust as she tosses a few props in a bin, Charlie wipes her hands on her jeans and looks around for more to do. The kids usually help out with the clean up, but they’d run late today. There was only one more practice before the show.
Yikes.
A warm body pressed up behind Charlie just when she was starting to wonder where Dorothy had gone, dallying in the middle of the stage looking around for what to do next.
“Thank you so much for helping with this Red.”
Twisting around in Dorothy’s arms, Charlie pressed a kiss to her lips. “Don’t worry about it. You know I love cosplaying and all this geeky sort of stuff.”
Dorothy leaned against her, probably exhausted and Charlie rubbed her back. “Yeah but I know you’ve been really busy at work.”
Charlie trailed after Dorothy when she hopped off the stage and made for the back of the auditorium. “Isn’t a few months kind of short for putting on a play, I mean, I know you wanted to do it for Halloween, but still.”
Dorothy shrugged and flipped the lights, “Eh, we’ve gotta do a holiday special after this, we always do a holiday special. The kids’ll do fine.
Charlie darted into the tech booth to heft her bag up over her shoulder before they locked up the doors and crossed the parking lot. She thought dating a high school teacher would be awesome because they had the summer free to go to Ren Fairs and Dagorhir. But holy cow was Dorothy swamped all the time when school was in. She did head the GLASS club and the Drama club. Charlie kind of - totally - admired her for it though.
Dorothy’s hand lingered in hers when they got to the car. “You want to order Chinese when we get home? I got a ton of papers to grade.”
“Dude, you teach gym, how do you have papers to grade?”
“We’re doing sex ed this week.”
“You assign papers for sex ed?”
Dorothy rolled her eyes and leaned Charlie against the car, pinning her, settling a hand on her hip. “I do. Maybe I should make you take the test too.”
Curling her arms over Dorothy’s shoulders, Charlie pouted. Teacher and student role play had never really been her thing, she was more in to fantasy like saving maidens from dragons, or playing elves and fairies. But she had to admit, the thought of Dorothy spanking her with a ruler had some merit. “I don’t know, I’m not too good at written tests. Can I take an oral test?”
She couldn’t suppress the laugh at her own terrible insinuation, but Dorothy was laughing too, her smile wide and her eyes bright as she slapped Charlie lightly on the arm and leaned forward to kiss her.
“Red, you know I make all sorts of exceptions for you.”