AU: Without Notice

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Set after: Exhibited

Wandering the halls of a school was far more jarring than the ink manipulator assumed it would be. Despite how out of sorts she felt, it made no real difference; Lucy walked with the same confidence she always had. She had time off and she was in New York, there was no way she wasn't going to visit. A few times now it'd been mentioned where her counterpart worked. She'd pieced together most of her schedule by now, but the rest wasn't all that hard to figure out.

Another set of steps and the bell was ringing, signalling it was time for lunch. Perfect timing, really.

A few more strides and the woman with the visitor's badge stuck to her chest was bypassed by an eager set of students - ones who looked at her like the stranger she was.

She glanced up, catching sight of the correct room as people continued to pass through and pass by. There, Lucy found comfort in folding her arms, leaning her shoulder in the doorway and catching sight of her.

"Afternoon."

Did she know she was going to be there? Absolutely not.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

“And remember; your essays are due next class. I expect every one to be on my desk when class starts.” Penelope stated with a nod to the class, knowing well that there would be a handful missing. There always was.

As the bell rang, the English teacher turned to her white board, starting to clear the Charles Dickens quotes from the surface. More than just a simple wipe of an eraser, but the Brit went as far as to spray the board down and take a rag to it, insuring it was as clear as it was when she started.

The students flooded out in their usual manner – desperate for a break in the day. Lunch. And that gave Penelope a break too. Unlike most of the teachers, she preferred to eat alone, at her desk where any student could find her if they needed help with an assignment. Few ever did.

But this particular day an accented voice cut through the silence of her classroom, and Penelope’s head snapped in the direction it came from. There she was. Leaning against the doorframe in the most casual way, with that obnoxiously intoxicating confidence.

Penelope’s breath caught in an instant, eyes widening in surprise at the sudden visitor. “Hello.” She offered in response, failing to keep neutrality in her tone. With careful steps, approached the Australian, dark eyes glancing down her form. Those jeans she wore so well, and the visitor’s badge at her chest. “What are you doing here?” It was hardly a bad thing, just…unexpected.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy had no intention of controlling where her eyes fell. The room itself carried little interest to her, but a desire for detail meant she'd look around. Eventually.

For now, her attention was completely set on the woman behind the desk. It didn't matter as the idle student brushed past her; she had no intention of moving or even really acknowledging anyone else's existence but hers. The small greeting she gave in response already had the Australian smiling, the nature of surprise causing her to smile to shift into a grin.

Growingly familiar eyes were working across her form, and she knew that. She lowered her head. Let her stare.

"Looking for you." She replied, waiting for a spare moment before raising her head, but her own gaze was slow to follow. It was impossible not to stare, and so she allowed her attention to filter along the length of her form.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penelope folded the rag in half, and then again as she looked at the unexpected visitor, and with her whiteboard already clean, she tossed it in the trash can next to her desk between steps before a memory threatened to take her from this particular moment.

When her gaze finally moved back up to her, Penelope caught the tilt of her head, but her grin was still evident even through the dark hair that fell over her face.

“You’ve seemed to have found me.” Penelope replied within another moment, acutely aware of the way she looked. Stared, even. She did nothing to stop her, either. Never did anyone look at her with such intention, but it was growing slowly familiar when her dark eyes traversed her form.

Penelope knew she told the Australian where she worked, but she never expected her to actually show up there. “Come in.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"Lucky me." Lucy replied on instinct, though really it wasn't all that difficult. Speaking the right way to the right individual earned her everything she needed, even if they did seem surprised to learn Penelope Blaise had someone looking for her.

It was admittedly difficult not to get caught up in the way she looked. The ink manipulator was positive she could lose hours to simply staring at her.

At the invitation, Lucy lingered in her spot for a few extra moments before she made any sort of move. She pushed away from the frame of the door with her shoulder, unfurling her arms. But before she took a step, she indicated behind her. "Should I close this?" She asked, raising her eyebrows at her own question.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penelope let out a slow breath in response. She supposed it wouldn’t be hard to find her, but the Brit had never had a visitor in any of her time working at the school. To have any at all was a surprise, but to have it be her had most certainly thrown her off.

But in no way was the teacher complaining over her sudden presence.

Penelope raised her own eyebrows to match the artist’s expression, but only for a moment before she cleared her features. “Yes.” She replied in the most neutral manner before turning on her heel and making her way back to her desk with definitive steps.

There, she curled her fingers around a stack of papers, one she had pushed into a neat pile the moment every assignment was put on her desk, but there was the overt desire to fix it again. “And why are you looking for me?” She asked, a hint of a smile threatening her neutral expression as she kept her gaze focused on the stack of papers.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Yes. Truth be told, it was the answer Lucy expected. It was the answer she waited for, and so before she made any other moves she turned back and closed the door.

When she looked back, Lucy watched the way her hands worked. It was strangely interesting to watch the small way she moved for seemingly no reason. She herself took slow steps towards her, eyes finally glancing around the room in question. Neat. Precise. Relatively undefined, really. That was practically a shame; she'd hoped for a sliver of insight.

"Why wouldn't I?" She asked instead, her fingers trailing along the surface of the desk. She felt the urge to ask why it seemed so strange that someone would be looking to visit her here, but she kept that to herself as she stepped around the desk.

The ink manipulator leaned against it with her hip. "I was going to see you again soon anyway. Why not now?"

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

When the papers were orderly enough for Penelope to be satisfied, she placed them back down with precision. In a specific spot, where she had picked them up for. Everything on her desk was there with purpose; like the rest of her classroom it lacked anything personal. Such objects only cluttered the space. An accidental touch of any object could throw her out of the classroom, even if it was only mentally, so why would she add more to it?

Although, she hardly knew that, and it wasn’t something the teacher thought of actively, at least not in that moment as she looked back to the Australian.

“I’m not sure.” Penelope answered honestly, because upon further thought there wasn’t reason why someone shouldn’t visit if they could, it was simply that nobody ever did. “I’m on break.” Although, the Brit assumed her newfound counterpart was already aware of this. “A half hour.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

An honest answer went against the grain of the way Lucy played. The moment from her side of things was so very light, but there was something a little different about the way she answered. It carried genuine connotations. She took it on as it was and opted not to respond.

"It's been years since I set foot in a school but I'm pretty sure that's what the bell means." Lucy replied, the amusement she felt carrying across her features entirely. Moments later and she was already reaching out towards her, fingertips brushing across her wrist as her hand curled around it lightly.

Still, she looked up. She didn't let her gaze waver any further. "Unless you have someone else you'd rather be with." She mused over the thought with feigned consideration, but really she had no idea what she might be dealing with. It was far too early to judge.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Penelope let out a short breath, the closest sign of amusement she could offer. Unlike her, Penny hadn’t ever left school. The moment she finished high school, she went straight to university, and then to an internship in a school, and then to work at a school. She briefly wondered what it was like to live a life outside those parameters for more than longer than a summer break. The teacher struggled to come up with an image.

The moment Penelope felt contact to her hand, she turned to step closer, welcoming the growingly familiar feeling of her fingertips against the Brit’s skin.

“Not at all.” She replied, again honestly. Even if she had prior engagements, she doubted she’d follow through with them after the way this woman caught her attention.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Internally, Lucy wondered what it meant to make contact in her place of work. It could be brushed off so easily, so she started light. The lines were blurred in work like this - she lacked the freedom to keep hold of, intrigue and invite strangers back to her home on an absolute whim.

So linear. So structured. But she took a step, and she had no one else to meet.

"Half an hour." Lucy Serrano mused over the prior given boundaries, pursing her lips in the latter silence. There was a lot the artist could do in half an hour, and saying so burned at the edge of her tongue. "What do you usually do to pass the time?" She asked instead, allowing her fingers to trail up the length of her arm slowly.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Having two completely separate worlds meet was, if anything, startling. Jarring, even. Penelope had never crossed the boundaries between her work and personal life before – there was never a possibility for them to, in all honesty.

Because her personal life had never been anything like this before.

And it quickly proved hard to balance. Because here she was, in her classroom. At her desk. And the most she could think of was the hand that traveled up her arm almost expertly. Even in the professional setting she was standing in, it still drew a slow breath out of the psychometrist. How was it that even the smallest amounts of contact were so captivating?

“Grade over lunch.” She stated, tilting her head towards the stack of papers she had only just organized and set down again to be forgotten. Her gaze never left the Australian as her hand moved to settle at her waist, because a pile of poor handwriting hardly felt important compared to the distraction in front of her.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

The slow breath her newfound counterpart gave her was far more enthralling than Lucy initially expected it to be. She was grateful to lean against the desk for stability, but it did little to maintain her composure when she gave such responses.

Grade over lunch. The ink manipulator exhaled an amused breath at the idea. She didn't look at the papers as she indicated; she knew they were there, and she knew they weren't important.

Not now, anyway.

The hand at her waist was sudden, but not without its own response. Her fingers curled around her arm lightly and she found herself applying light pressure, already trying to draw her in.

"That's probably clever," She stated, always building to something greater; "Do your work during the day so you're totally free all night?"

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

“It is easier to get my work done here.” She admitted, although not offering the reason she chose to do so. There was always grading to be done outside school, but the Brit did work to get as much done here so it wouldn’t be itching at the back of her mind when she left the building.

It hadn’t taken much pressure for Penelope to step forward through the distance as she wished it so. To have this woman here, in the teacher’s territory was admittedly enthralling. This was the place Penelope was easily the most confident, yet somehow her confidence still engulfed the Brit completely.

Because while it was completely appropriate for the Australian to visit, the intention within each breath she took certainly wasn’t. What was worse was that it didn’t faze the rule driven Penelope Blaise. Her fingertips tracked along the hem of her shirt lightly. “It is clever. Most people waste the time given to them.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy immediately pursed her lips, but she did her best not to look remotely thrown by the statement offered to her. Here she really just assumed that she had someone worthwhile to spend some of her nights with. The thought still managed to keep her hint of a smile evident. Still bright.

As she took a step forward, Lucy let her hand fall again, this time pressing her palm against the small of her back. The minimal distance was far too much in her eyes, but she had no intention of moving from her position against the desk. Not yet, at least.

At least she approved of the Australian's choice in a descriptive word. Clever. Just as it was to be there in the first place; to surprise her.

"I don't want to waste your time." She reasoned, resting her free hand against the edge of the desk as she pushed herself forward. Just enough to pass that distance and press her lips against hers.