Chapter Text
'And that's the match point! The captain of the banshees has done it again and led her team to victory!'
"Yes!" Luz jumped up, throwing up her fist, one headphone falling out of her ear. A chorus of shushes and pointed looks made her duck back behind her counter. "Sorry…" She grinned sheepishly and scooped her headphone off the floor and put it back in, going back to watching Hexside University's rugby team jump up and down, piling on their captain from her phone screen.
Luz watched with pointed interest as the camera zoomed back in on said captain. Her shoulder-length, lilac hair was pulled back in a short ponytail as her teammates hefted her up onto their shoulders and touted her across the field. The front of her jersey was stained with blood and her knees were scraped and bleeding, but she was beaming from atop her teammate's shoulders.
Luz watched, her face nearly pressed to her phone screen.
She still wasn't entirely sure of all the rules in contrast to American-style football, but she was picking them up slowly but surely. She knew all the positions and more of the rules than any other sport she had actually grown up with.
If you had asked her at the start of her college career what new things she would get into, she would never have expected the answer to be girls' college rugby.
Yet here she was, a sophomore at University, totally obsessed with the game and the riotous culture that went with it.
Meeting Willow and Gus at freshman orientation had been a catalyst for her awakening to many things, like actual friends, but especially college sports
Willow was into roller derby and all kinds of sporty things, admittedly not Luz's strong suit. She thought derby was cool but for some reason, the other student taking her to a rugby game the week after rush week had ignited some innate passion in her.
Maybe it was the general athleticism, the screaming crowds at games, screaming and frothing at the mouth for their school.
Whatever it was, she really enjoyed it, and it made for good background noise when she was studying or cleaning up her side of the shared dorm room some days.
It didn't hurt that her roommate was a former member of the team before switching out to roller derby.
"There's just as much blood and destruction but with wheels!"
That was Skara's reasoning anyway.
The recording of yesterday’s game went off and Luz pulled out her headphones. The Banshees had disappeared back into their locker room and Luz check her messages. Still no word yet from Gus, who had agreed to get in line for himself, Willow, and her and try to get tickets for the Banshee's next home game this coming weekend. She sighed and pocketed her phone.
She still had about thirty minutes before her shift ended and the other library assistant showed up to take over for the evening.
Luz glanced at her books and sighed. Working in the library was good for studying, usually.
Not when a Banshee game was on but the rest of the time, the quiet was good, fewer things to distract her.
She'd just about finished her essay anyway and it wasn't due for another two weeks. She just needed to get all her references in order. She was much too excited now to concentrate on that in the quiet of the library. She popped herself back on her stool and glanced around.
People watching was the other nice thing about working in the university’s library. Sure, most of the time people were just studying or working on projects at the computers, but occasionally, fun things were going on. Or sleeping. Luz had lost count of the number of times she had been shelving books and found students sprawled across the bottom-most shelves or slumped over the books carts, snoozing. The yearly library streaker run was another thing, though that had scarred her more than anything when it had happened last year.
The point was, fun things could happen at the library!
When the head librarian allowed, that is.
Her eyes trailed over to a particular section of the library where Ms.Clawthorne was standing on a ladder, shelving dusty old books on the uppermost shelf. Lilith could be quite strict and… particular, but Luz liked her a lot. They could get into literary or history discussions for much too long. It also didn’t hurt that Luz had come with high recommendations from her mentor/boss at the antique shop in her hometown, who just happened to be Lilith’s younger sister. After that, getting her highly coveted library assistant gig had been a sinch.
Eda was right in that regard, sometimes, it was who you knew.
Thinking of Lilith, the librarian was coming down the ladder and straight toward her with a stack of books that all but obscured her face.
“Luz, I need you to take these to the back and catalog them. They're getting shipped to St.Epidermis’ library first thing in the morning.” She sat them on the counter with a resounding thud, sending bits of dust flying.
Luz made a face at the mention of their rival school.
“Don’t make faces,” Lilith chastised with a finger wag. “Despite your feelings about their local rug team…”
“Rugby,” Luz mumbled.
“...knowledge is for all,” Lilith went on as though the young woman had never said anything. “Now, I have a few more things in the Edwardian era section that they also requested, so just clean these up and take them in the back, I’ll bring the rest in a bit.” With that, Lilith turned and headed off into the recesses of the stacks.
Luz sighed and bent down to rummage through the box of junk she kept under the counter. she was pretty sure she had seen a rag in here somewhere.
She pushed aside some bits and bobbles, grumbling to herself before her fingers closed around some fabric.
“Aha!”
“Excuse me?”
She jerked up, smashing the back of her head on the underside of the cabinet with a loud bang.
She hissed between clenched teeth, still squatting on the floor, both hands pressed over the throbbing spot at the back of her skull, eyes watering.
“Mierda! Eso duele…”
“Are you okay? I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay!” she managed to bite out, making herself stand up, eyes still clutched tightly shut and rubbing the back of her head. Luz pulled a hand away to look at it, despite how it felt, her hand wasn’t covered in blood.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m ok-” she looked up and her words died in her throat as she found herself staring back at the worried young woman on the other side of the counter. Her lilac hair was a bright spot in the library as she stood across the counter, blinking her limpid amber eyes at her. “I… uh, I’m fine!” She nodded her head jerkily and cleared her throat. “Aren’t you… Amity Blight?” she asked and it was the other woman’s turn to look caught off guard.
“I am, how do you know me?” Her brows furrowed and Luz felt a tinge of panic run up her spine before reminding herself that there was nothing weird about knowing the captain of the school sports team that she followed religiously.
She would just keep the knowledge of the little, tiny, minuscule, microscopic almost even… crush, she had on said captain, to herself.
Granted, she didn’t know much about Amity. She certainly admired her rugby abilities and the way she seemed to lead her team. They also happened to share a total of one class and while they had never spoken and Luz was sure the other young woman didn’t even know she existed, she knew Amity was smart. Like, their professor asked her to help other students understand the class material, smart.
All things Luz quite liked and admired. She hadn’t even realized it really when she had turned around and suddenly she felt little butterflies in her stomach when Amity came into the classroom or ran out onto the field for a game.
“Rugby!” she managed to get out after realizing that she had been lost in her own head for the last handful of seconds. “I’m a, uh, banshee fan.” She continued to rub the back of her head, part nervous habit, part rubbing out the pain that was still throbbing in the back of her skull. “You looke- played, you played great yesterday by the way.” Luz managed to get out, shifting back and forth on her feet.
“Oh!” It was Amity’s turn to look slightly embarrassed by that. “Thanks, and you’re Luz,”
“You know me?” she cocked her head, a weird, exciting feeling was bubbling up in her chest and then Amity pointed to the little name tag pinned to her shirt and it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced with hot embarrassment.
“Oh… right…” She cleared her throat. She forgot about that. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a book on… geology” she said after a half-beat.
“Any specific geology book or do you want me to show you where they are?” Luz asked her.
“Yes, can you tell me where they are?” she asked and Luz nodded.
“Yeah, if you go upstairs to the West hall, left from the top of the stairs, you’ll find the science sections, and there will be a sign for geology. If you still can’t find what you want, just come back and let me know.” Luz smiled at her before Amity nodded and then headed off quickly toward the stairs without a backward glance. Her gait was stiff and Luz wondered if she was stiff after yesterday’s game. She had taken several hard tackles after all.
She couldn’t help but watch her go.
The sharp pain in the back of her head brought her back to herself as she rubbed at the still smarting spot.
“Ow…,” she mumbled as she started cleaning off the books Lilith had left for her, eyes glancing at the stairs every few handfuls of seconds, hoping Amity might come back and ask for more help. She did not, and eventually, Luz had to take the books to the back room before Lilith came back from the dark recesses of the library with more. There was a box waiting and she busied herself with the task at hand.
The next thing she knew, Eileen showed up and her shift was over.
“I’m heading out, Lilith!” Luz called as walked around the kiosk, waving. Lilith waved back.
“I’ll see you Monday afternoon,”
Luz didn’t waste any time shouldering her back and hurrying out of the library to where her bike was locked up out front, not even noticing the gaggle of girls sitting off to the side of the building around the fountain, watching her.
~ ~ ~
“Oh, here she comes!” Amelia pointed as Amity came trudging out of the library, her head hung low.
They all looked at Amity expectantly as she stopped in front of them, holding a book under her arm.
“Did you ask her out? Kat asked.
“No…” she sighed and sat on the bench next to them. The collective group all groaned.
“What happened?” Bo asked. “Did you even talk to her?”
“I did!” Amity asserted, sitting up, only to look at the book in her hands and then slump forward with a groan. “I asked her where the geology books were…”
“You don’t take geology…” Amelia frowned and Amity buried her face in her hands.
“I know…,” she moaned.
“I don’t get what the big deal is,” Boscha scoffed, leaning back on the bench and golding her hands behind her head. “I’ve never seen you this worked up about someone and you don’t even really know her.”
Amity made an unintelligible noise.
Boscha was right, she really didn’t know Luz.
Not up close anyway.
She had, however, taken notice of her in their shared creative writing class.
They did blind critiques in class, so you never knew who was giving you your critique, though you knew who you were doing. Amity had ended up reviewing several pieces Luz had written.
She was enamored by the way Luz wrote. Witty and insightful at times and tugging at her heartstrings the next. That was all it had taken to bring the other sophomore to her attention.
After that, she had run across her other places too and the more she saw the more curious she was. She wanted to get to know her.
The problem of course being that she couldn’t even bring herself to approach her.
“I did talk to her…” Amity mumbled and her second-in-command snorted.
“You finally go up and talk to her and you ask for a geology book, that’s pathetic,” Boscha snorted and Amity sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Cut her some slack, Boscha,” Bo huffed. “We all know that it's not that easy.”
The red-head scoffed, crossing her arms and sticking up her nose.
“What are you girls all doing out here?”
They looked up as Skara approached, backpack slung over her shoulders.
The girls all waved and called out greetings.
“Watching Amity trip all over herself,” Boscha answered. The captain sat up and gave her a shove.
“Shut up!”
“Cap’n finally got up the courage to go talk to the girl she has the hots for…” Kat smirked, looking over at Amity, who turned bright red at that.
“Only to ask for a book about rocks…,” Ameilia finished and Skara blinked, turning to look at her friend.
“A book about rocks?”
Amity sighed, looking up at her and away from where she had been making violent eye contact with Boscha.
“She’s a library assistant, I thought it might be a good way to… break the ice but then I didn’t know what else to say…”
“Tough break…” Skara frowned, looking genuinely sympathetic to her former captain’s plight. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her look up and she smiled. “Hey, Luz!” She waved and the rugby team looked up at the young woman standing at the bike rack, unlocking her bike. She looked up at Skara and waved, beaming.
The second she heard ‘Luz’ Amity flung herself off the bench and behind a nearby bush.
“Hey, Skara!” She called back before hopping on her bike and riding out across the university’s well-manicured lawn.
“What the hell are you doing?” Boscha looked down at their captain, laying behind the bush, limbs akimbo.
“Was that her?” Kat asked and Amity flushed.
“Oh, it was,” Amelia grinned.
“You have a crush on Luz?” Skara cocked her head as Amity pulled herself back up to stand, brushing the dirt casually from her shirt as though she hadn’t just yeeted herself to the ground.
“You know her?” Amity took a half step forward and Skara nodded.
“She’s my roommate, she’s great! If I had known you had a thing for her I would have had you over to our dorm room. She’s a die-hard rugby fan!
“She mentioned that she knew me as soon as I walked up to the counter.”
“Oh yeah, she was super hyped up this morning because some friend of hers was going to try and get tickets to you guys’ home game tomorrow night.”
“Ha, those sold out at midnight,” Boscha grinned. “Everyone wants to see us smash Glandish tomorrow night.” She slammed her left fist into her right palm.
"Aw, she'll be bummed," Skara frowned
Amity blinked, thinking quickly, and grabbed her backpack sitting on the ground in front of the bench. She opened the smallest pocket and grabbed the four slips of paper sitting there.
Normally she gave them to her brother and sister, who sold the extra two for an inflated fee. It wasn't like her parents were going to come see her.
“Here, give her these,” Amity offered to Skara, who looked surprised.
“You must really like her,” the music theory major smiled knowingly and Amity flushed.
“Ed and Em are going to the lake this weekend, they would go to waste anyway,” she insisted. Skara just smirked at her. “Just take them!” she insisted, shoving the tickets at her.
“Okay, okay! I’ll give ‘em to Luz,” she giggled, taking them and putting them in her bag.
“Thank you.”
“Do I tell her they're from you?” Skara questioned and Amity froze, unsure how to answer. “Just let me take care of it.” Skara smiled reassuringly and Amity hesitated for a moment before nodding.
“Can we go to practice now?” Boscha grunted. “If we show up late the coach is going to make us run laps… again.”
“Only you were late last time and had to run laps,” Kat reminded and Boscha scowled.
“Right, yeah, let’s go. Thanks, Skara!” Amity waved as half the rugby team hurried away from the library.