im-fairly-whitty:

This is a continuation of @slusheeduck’s excellent Hector teacher!AU fic, a delightful AU created by @scribblrhob  , also connected to the lovely art @upperstories has created for it. So many talented people helping this fantastic AU grow. 🙂 

Imelda was still angry with Hector, meaning that when he was late to the welcome-back assembly she couldn’t text him to see where he was. She’d maintained complete radio silence for three months now despite his best efforts and was very proud of herself for it.

But she was also his supervisor and she needed to know if he was going to be late to his own class. Again. So if you thought about it, texting him now wasn’t actually a sign of weakness, but of annoyance. Which was alright.

¡Hector! You are late 4 morning assembly. ¡Vamanos!

Imelda bit her lip after sending the text, locking her phone screen before she could see his old texts.

She looked out over the assembly crowd to the older student’s section, spotting where Señora Gutiérrez was keeping an annoyed eye on Hector’s restless flock of first-period students, as well as her own. If Hector’s students, and more importantly their parents, didn’t adore him so much he’d be on probation by now. The idiota was lucky that his goofy charm seemed to work on everyone.

Well, until he messed up badly enough.

Imelda caught her vice principal watching her with a knowing look and stopped turning her phone over and over in her hands, tucking it in her jacket pocket instead.

She grit her teeth. Ever since Hector “accidentally” informed his entire class that they were seeing each other at the end of last school year, it was all any of the staff talked about. Not in front of her of course, not after she’d ripped apart Señor Alejandro in full view of everyone in the teacher’s lounge, but it was easy to see that the vice principal obviously thought she was texting Hector right now.

Which…she was…but in a strictly professional capacity.

She growled and slipped out her phone again as the assembly wound down, shielding it from the vice principal’s view with her hand. No response from Hector.

Hector. Your class is about to start. Without you. She typed.

He’d been either very brave or very stupid when he’d come by last week for his extra key, having locked himself out of his own apartment. After she’d broken up with him he’d been just intelligent enough to give her the space she needed, only smiling and waving from across the apartment complex when he spotted her.

Well, actually he’d learned to keep his distance after she’d thrown a shoe at him the first time he’d tried approaching her, but he’d gotten smarter after that.

And he’d had a little boy with him last week too, the only reason he hadn’t gotten another boot to the face. Curiosity had been eating her up for the whole week, almost badly enough for her to crack and text to ask him who was foolish enough to make him a babysitter.

Teaching a class was one thing, leaving Hector to actually care for a kid was quite another. She couldn’t even trust him to remember to water a beloved houseplant while she was out of town.

Which she had in fact done before. Only once.

Imelda kept a sharp eye out as the assembly wrapped up. Teachers across the auditorium started shouting as they herded crowds of students out doors and towards their respective classrooms. She stood and strode to the exit, adults and children alike quickly parting to let la directora de la escuela through.

By the time she reached the front office the reberating echo of the class bell had faded and the long linoleum hallways were empty again. She was about to duck into her own office to have a very stern phone call with a particular employee of hers, when she saw a rush of suspiciously furtive movement out of the corner of her eye.

She spun to see Señor Rivera himself attempting to sneak past her, coffee in one hand, towing a young boy along with the other. His ever-present guitar case on his back.

“Rivera.” She barked after him, folding her arms.

Hector froze and slowly turned to face her with a sheepish grin, caught.

“Imelda!” He said, a little too cheerful, “Wow, can I just say you look great this morning? Really, you do. You know I’d love to stay and chat, but I seem to be running a bit late today. I’ve got to hurry over to my class before they think I’ve given up on them before the year’s even started.”

“Who is this?” Imelda said, pointing to the small boy half hiding behind Hector. The same one she’d seen the other day when she hadn’t knocked Hector back down her fire escape.

Hector looked down, eyebrows raising as if noticing he had a shadow for the first time. “Ah! This is my godson Miguel, guitarist extraordinaire and my teaching assistant for the day.”

“When you said he’d be staying with you for a while, I thought you meant the weekend.” Imelda said, her tone becoming much more calm with a child present.

And not just because of his age, Miguel seemed to have that kind of subtly fragile look about him that she had seen far too many times before in her career. Something bad had happened to him, and recently, if her directorial instincts were any good.

“Nope,” Hector said brightly. His careful tone matched the same kind of childproofing as hers as he ruffled the boy’s hair. “Miguelito here’s gonna be with me for a few months, we’ve been having a great time too, haven’t we chamaco?”

The boy shrugged, leaning against Hector’s leg with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his red hoodie.

“Well Miguel, we’re so glad to have you here.” Imelda said with a smile. “I suppose you’re going to be attending school with us then?”

“Tio Hector forgot to sign me up for classes.” Miguel said, looking up at his guardian with a slightly weary look that Imelda could relate to only too well. She was starting to like this kid.

“I was just going to have him hang out with me today and get his paperwork figured out after school.” Hector said, his sheepish look back as he rubbed the back of his head. “It slipped my mind, I apologize for that. It’s funny, I’ve never had to worry about signing up a kid for school before, just about stuffing something useful into their heads once they get here.”

“You mean once you get here.” Imelda said cooly. “You go ahead to your class, I’ll make sure Miguel gets where he’s supposed to be and that his records are processed.”

“Eres un ángel Imelda.” Hector said, smiling with relief. He looked down at Miguel, who was now holding tightly onto his pant leg. “Ay gordito, Imelda’s gonna get you to your own class okay? She won’t bite if you don’t. I’ll catch up with you after school.”

Miguel hesitated, but then nodded and let go of Hector’s pant leg, making his way through the office door Imelda was holding open for him.

“I’ll be right in Miguel, I just need to ask your tio a few questions.” Imelda said before closing the door.

“Hector, what is going on?” She asked, worry coming back into her voice now that they were alone in the hallway. “You never told me you had a nephew.”

Hector sighed heavily, suddenly looking ten years older with fatigue, weighing down what little smile he managed to keep on his face. “His parents both died two weeks ago and I’ve been playing godfather while his family figures out what to do. Sorry about today, he’s not too excited about started a new school and we got a late start this morning. Poor kid’s had his whole world turned upside down. He’s from Santa Cecilia, his records should be in whatever school district covers that town.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Imelda said, her heart breaking for the boy sitting in her office, “I’ll get everything taken care of. You just worry about getting to class, you definitely owe Señora Gutiérrez for covering for you again.”

“Muchas gracias diosa, you’re a real lifesaver.” Hector looked like he wanted to hug her, but the glare he got from using her pet name cooled him just enough to get him moving down the hall instead, waving cheerfully over his shoulder as he trotted away.

Imelda shook her head as she watched him go. Miguel’s situation was making it harder to be angry at Hector and it was annoying her.

“So Miguel, let’s get you set up for school all right?” she said, entering her office and sitting down at her computer. She had to try several times before her old school monitor logged her in, sometimes we wished she could just smash the stupid thing and go back to good-old fashioned filing cabinets. “Can you tell me a little about yourself?”

“Well, I do like music. I’m not really super good yet like Tio Hector was saying, but I am going to grow up and be a famous guitar player.” Miguel said, holding the sides of his seat and kicking his feet in the air as he looked around her office. His gaze fixed on the bowl of tangerines on her desk. “May I have one por favor? Tio Hector never has fruit.”

Now that was definitely something she believed. “Of course, help yourself.”

Miguel eagerly scooted forward on his chair and took a tangerine in each hand, shoving one in his hoodie pocket and tearing at the peel of the other. Imelda watched him attack the fruit out of the corner of her eye as she coaxed her computer to pull up his school records on her screen.

“Did you have breakfast today?” She asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“Yeah, a hot pocket.” Miguel said around a slice of tangerine. “Hector eats a lot of fast food, and frozen stuff.”

Imelda sigh was long enough that it turned into turn into a sort of growl at the end.

Hector was not a bad person, he was actually the sweetest and kindest man she’d ever met, but that didn’t change the fact that he was sometimes a clueless bachelor and that growing children needed more than just emotional support. They needed structure and dependability. And real food for breakfast.

“Muchas gracias.” The boy said, smiling as he dropped the peel in her trash can.

Imelda nodded, smiling back as she saved his records file to process later. He was so polite, not something that she saw every day. “Alright Miguel, you’ll be with Señora Marrón today, you’ll really like her class. And I don’t suppose Hector packed you a lunch?”

“I don’t think so.” Miguel said, scratching the back of his head in exactly the way Hector did when he was embarrassed. Did they know they both did that? “He’s really great, he just forgets stuff sometimes.”

“Well, that’s alright,” Imelda said quickly, not wanting him to feel awkward. “I’ll tell the cafeteria workers that you get a free lunch today as a welcome present to our school.”

“Gracias! You’re pretty cool for a directora.” Miguel said brightly.

“Well, thank you.” Imelda said, chuckling as she logged out of her computer and stood. “Plus we’re neighbors now since I’m only a few doors down from you, I think that counts for something.”

Miguel chatted the whole way to his new classroom, his confidence having apparently been bought with fresh fruit. There was no denying how adorable he was, one of the sweetest boys she’d probably ever met, and she’d met quite a few.

By the time she dropped him off at class Imelda felt ready to do anything to protect the boy, even more so than she usually did for her students. Yes, probably partly because Hector was his guardian, but really everything about Miguel’s situation was pulling on her heartstrings. If only there was some way she to make sure Hector didn’t accidentally kill Miguel by malnutrition.

Well, there actually was an easy way to do just that, but that would mean swallowing a very large chunk of her pride.

She tried to dismiss the plan slowly forming in her head, but by the time she reached her office it had gone from her brain’s polite suggestion to a promise of guilt if she didn’t act on it.

Imelda closed her office door behind her and groaned, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the door. She really didn’t want to visit Hector. She’d been doing so good keeping distance between them, even despite his best efforts.

The image of Miguel eagerly tearing into his tangerine sprang to mind and she growled at herself. She was a strong, independent woman. If there was an adorably polite orphan in danger of excessive junk-food living a few doors down that she could help, then she sure wasn’t going to let her own pride prevent her from doing whatever she could to help him.

All she had to do was make sure Hector understood that she was visiting for Miguel’s sake. Not his.

Which was definitely and completely the truth.

—————

I’ve got another chapter or two coming in the next couple days, @slusheeduck and I will be co-authoring this story (alternating chapters) so be sure to follow us to get them as soon as they are posted. 🙂

Cheers,

-Wit