Chapter Text
Vi rolled his shoulders back, stretching himself out after a solid afternoon of poring over the small pile of papers still needing graded. Pressure to assign work, but no time to grade it. It was the story of his life.
"You're getting a student teacher."
Jinx's voice startled Vi from his work.
"I'm doing what?"
"Yep. Student teacher from U of P, you drew the short straw."
Vi sighed, pulling his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose. "This isn't funny, Jinx."
The blue-haired chemistry teacher stepped into the class, closing the door behind her with a sharp look at a waiting student. "Not trying to be. Should have come to the faculty all hands last night, maybe then you could have pleaded your case. As it is, you're getting her."
"Fucks sake. Is she good at least?"
Jinx perched herself on the corner of Vi's desk, picking up a paper and scanning it over. "Great transcript. Better name. Why the hell she wants to place here, I can't guess."
Vi slipped his glasses back on, running a hand through the buzz at the side of his head. A student teacher was the last thing he needed right now, playing around with his carefully planned agenda, assigning her own papers, probably judging him for how piss poor the classes are. It's not his fault the little shits could barely sit still for forty five consecutive minutes.
Shit.
At least it would be an extra pair of hands to keep them out of trouble.
Monday morning arrived sooner than Vi would have liked, bringing with it the impending arrival of his student teacher. No doubt she’d be some eager little thing, full of bright ideas about how to improve the curriculum and reform the education system. Pilties were always looking down their noses at Zaun, even when Zaun did well for itself. Out of the car and into the building and into his class, coffee in hand, Vi only found himself disturbed from his thoughts by the knock at his door, followed swiftly by it opening with a loud creak, Sevika on the other side.
"This is your class, 516. Vi's your teacher. You free, Warwick?"
Vi looked up from his desk. "Hm? Oh, hi! Yeah, c'mon in. Thanks, Sevika."
“We still on for a couple rounds later this week?”
Vi’s muscles screamed at the prospect of meeting Sevika in the ring, but he grinned. “Yeah, I’ll text you.” He turned his attention to the girl, eyeing her up and down.
She wasn't at all what he'd expected from a student teacher, pushing a good few inches taller than him from what he could tell sat at his desk. What struck him more, though, was how effortlessly pretty she was, all legs and blue hair and a gap in her teeth that his eyes were drawn to. If they’d met anywhere but his classroom, he’d almost definitely make a move.
"Hi there, I'm Caitlyn."
"Vi. First time?"
"Mm? Oh! Yes, you'll be my first placement. You teach second year English right?"
Vi nodded, thrusting his chin at a chair. "Yep. I was about to start them on The Odyssey when I heard you were coming. That's still the plan, but I figure I'll let you lead."
Caitlyn sat down - alarmingly close - next to him, pulling out an embossed leather notebook. A gilded CK gleamed at him from the front cover.
Pilties.
"The Odyssey is fine. I can get them started today, and come up with a proper lesson plan as we go. I minored in literature, so I'm very familiar with it."
Vi sat back in his chair, tossing his glasses onto his desk. "Seems you've already got it well in hand. You ready for the shitshow?" Caitlyn nodded, though not without hesitation, and Vi smirked. "Good. Just don't have a go at me for how I get them under control."
The first bell rang as he finished speaking, and twenty raucous teenagers spilled into the class, bringing the volume from a pleasant background hum to a deafening concert din. The second bell rang and Vi got to his feet, striding across the class, heavy boots stomping as he did, and slammed the door shut.
"Sit down and shut up!"
The class fell silent.
"Thanks. Student teacher. Her name's Caitlyn, and- shit, I never asked if you wanted to be called Miss...?"
"Miss K. But if they already call you Vi, then Caitlyn is fine."
Vi’s brow furrowed. Pilties had strange names, but a single letter name was a new one for him. Maybe it was in fashion now, to have the most unusual name imaginable.
"Right. Yeah. Caitlyn here will be in charge for the next few weeks, but make no mistake, I'm still in charge."
A hand shot up.
"Yeah, Lux?"
"If she's in charge, how are you in charge?"
"I'll tell you at lunch when you come see me about that paper your brother wrote for you."
Laughter rippled through the class as Vi dropped back into his seat, kicking his feet up on the desk as he gestured for Caitlyn to take the floor. "All yours, kid."
To Vi's great surprise and delight, his first period class, normally the most unruly of the day, sat in rapt attention as Caitlyn introduced them to The Odyssey, putting on a hammy, dramatic voice as she called for the Muse to sing of Odysseus.
As the class filed out, he looked up from his desk, the stack of papers still needing graded now significantly smaller, he caught Caitlyn's eye, who promptly turned away with what he could swear was a blush in her cheeks.
"You've got a way with them," he murmured, loud enough for her to hear, but not that it would carry into the hallway. "Not what I expected from a K- from someone like you."
"Yes, well... A good education is everyone's right. The council and I differ somewhat on that idea."
Vi nodded with understanding. He'd had his own share of board meetings with councilmembers in attendance, proposing to slash their already meager budget even further. Teaching wasn't a profession he'd ever seen himself stumbling into, but by the gods he'd fight for his students.
He sighed, getting to his feet. "C'mon, kid, I’ve got a free period now. I'll show you where they stash the good coffee."
Violet was not at all what Caitlyn had been expecting. When she'd read the name Violet Warwick in her confirmation email the week before, she'd imagined perhaps someone a little older than herself, a young mother maybe, all eager attitude and skirts and dresses and sunshine, despite the conditions.
What she'd been handed was a rough and tumble dyke who looked entirely out of place in a classroom, all piercings and tattoos, radiating exhaustion with the world, but with a deep well of respect and love for her students.
And he was hot. That definitely helped. Violet - Vi - was very hot. Caitlyn didn't normally consider older women - teaching college hadn't left much time to consider women at all, save the odd no-strings-attached exhausted scramble with her roommate - but Vi... The pink hair just starting to gray at his temples, the way his wrinkles framed eyes that still had a childlike twinkle...
They'd known one another for less than ninety minutes, and Caitlyn wanted to climb that woman like a tree.
But they were coworkers, and for the next two months, they'd be working together every day. Caitlyn had no plans to upset this delicate balance, or to place either of them in an uncomfortable position, which is why she was even more startled to hear herself murmur "You know, you're really quite good looking..."
Vi looked up from his coffee, barking with laughter. "Yeah? I usually get that from the kids, not from the staff. How old are you anyway?" His eyes raked over her in a way that gave Caitlyn the distinct impression he was not opposed to the implication, or to the compliment.
"I'm twenty-three."
Another chuckle. “I've got tattoos older than you, kid.”
The sentence sent a jolt right through Caitlyn, who shifted in her seat, hoping Vi wouldn't notice. The raised eyebrow told her she’d been rumbled. To her great relief, Vi chuckled, taking a loud slurp of coffee and sitting back in his chair. “Too bad I don’t shit where I eat, or you might have been able to do something about me being so ‘good looking’.”
Caitlyn wrinkled her nose at being caught out like that, especially on the first day.
“I- No! Of course. I didn't mean to imply anything, Miss Warwick, I’m- I’m so sorry…”
Vi stood up, stretching his back out with a soft groan. “You apologise a lot, Cupcake.”
“Cupcake?” Caitlyn scoffed at the nickname. Vi just nodded at her choice of snack. “Ah… Well… Don’t give me so much to apologise for then, um… coffee breath?”
Vi shook his head, grinning as he sat back down. “Leave the nicknames to me, I think.” He kicked his feet up on the table, turning a keen eye to Caitlyn. “So. A Zaun high school. Something wrong with the academic institutions up in shiny ol’ Piltover?”
A beat. A long beat, in which Caitlyn’s mouth opened and closed a handful of times. “It’s… no secret that, ultimately, the budget in Zaun is set by Piltover. It’s not even set by the council, it’s set by a small committee of businessmen who seem deadset on running Zaun into the ground, keeping every man, woman, and child here poor and dispossessed." She looked up at Vi, sat stone still but for a finger swirling around the rim of his coffee cup. “I’m interested in seeing how the education system is doing from the inside, and the best way to do that was to request a placement here.”
“So,” Vi began, his voice icy cold, “you’re here just to see how we do. You’re getting a whole degree in teaching just to see how badly your city is fucking us.”
“I’m getting a degree in teaching because I want to teach. I’m placing here because I want to see how badly you’re being fucked so that I can use my voice to help.”
They sat in silence, staring at one another. Vi chewed on his lower lip, sipping his coffee occasionally, as Caitlyn wrapped her hands around her mug, gently tapping her nails against the ceramic.
Vi’s voice was quiet as he broke the silence. “Half the kids you meet today will either be dead or addicted to Shimmer within five years. Shit’s real bad down here, and we just don’t talk about it because what’s the fucking point? So I turn up to work every day and I teach them whatever I can about whatever I can and I hope I do enough to save a handful of them to adulthood. I have twenty kids in my class. Three years up from me, there’s five, maybe.”
He sniffled, wiping at his eyes with the back of one hand. “We don’t talk about it. Nothing we can do.” Vi got to his feet a split second before the bell rang, signalling the end of the period. “C’mon, Cupcake. Back to work.”
The end of the day came and went, and Vi drove himself home in silence,the rumble of the car and the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel being the only sounds to accompany him. The lights were on at home, and shadows moving in the window told Vi that Vander was probably on his feet again.
No money to teach, no money to heal, plenty of money to send Pilties to study us.
As he opened the door, he was greeted by the sound of Vander coughing and spluttering, and Jinx futilely trying to get him to rest. “C’mon, old man, sit your ass down. No, I know the dinner needs cooked, but I can cook the damn dinner when you can’t walk the length of yourself!”
“Listen to her, Dad. No use fighting, she’s committed.” Vi laughed at the sight of her younger sister trying to wrangle their father figure into his all-but-collapsing armchair in front of the TV.
Vander took a long, wheezing breath, the same rattling sound he always did after a coughing fit. “Good day, kiddo?”
Vi dropped himself onto the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table against Vander’s protests. “Fine. Student teacher’s nice enough, for a Piltie. Big ideas about making things better here.”
Vander let out a single bark of laughter before coughing into his fist. “They always do. You seen the news lately?
“When would I have had a chance to, old man? You’ve seen the stack of papers I still need to finish grading.”
The TV clicked on, Vander flipping through channels until he found a news broadcast. On it, an austere-looking woman with familiar blue hair was talking about the appalling conditions in the Zaun education system, and her desire to do something about it. Councilor Cassandra Kiramman herself, a near-lifetime member of the Council, and a perennial thorn in Vi’s side as a consistent vote against more funding. The date scrolling along the bottom was a week prior, just before Vi found out he was getting a student teacher.
Beside her was said student teacher, the same blue hair, the same recognizable features.
Miss K.
K for fucking Kiramman.