I'd read plenty of OITNB school AUs, but none in which the all of the characters were teachers - maybe I haven't done my research well enough! - and I thought it might offer a different perspective. (I know there's the excellent "Liminal Space", but I'm thinking a whole-cast sort of deal.) I'm planning to upload at least one new chapter every month. (Optimism abounds.)

Alex exhaled, smoke from her last cigarette of the summer break curling out into the evening air.
Bottles clinked as Nicky set down two chilled beers on the rooftop between them. Settling herself on the warm tiles, she grinned.

"You got your shit ready for tomorrow?"
They had been on the roof of Nicky's house all afternoon, working their way through any alcohol left from past parties while they watched the sun set over the horizon. Alex gave a hoarse laugh, flicking the tobacco-tarred butt out into the empty sky.

"I'm never ready to start teaching again after summer." She sent a soft smile in her housemate's direction. "You know that."
Nicky bumped her elbow against the brunette's arm. "There's fresh blood though, right? I heard Fig hired some pretty cute new girls for this year."
Alex turned, smirking. "Women, not girls. This is why you can't get a girlfriend."
The only response was shrug and a wry grin, accompanied by the raising of a glistening beer bottle, slick with condensation. "I get laid. That's enough for now."

There was a stillness around them as Nicky paused, fondly eyeing her companion. "You gonna drink your beer, or what?"
Alex coiled her fingers around the cold glass neck of the vessel Nicky held aloft. "Sure."
She was rewarded with a laugh.
"'Atta girl, Vause."

This summer had been like every other: long days of lesson plans juxtaposed by late nights of house parties and sex, the latter tallied up on a blackboard in the kitchen as part of their unspoken competition.
Alex was losing - something Nicky rarely let her forget - but while the brunette preferred quality over quantity, Nicky just liked to fuck.

While the sun settled behind the city they overlooked from their house on the hill, the pair ended their day as they had started it: both on their backs, knuckles brushing as they lay inches apart.

Nicky had woken Alex with coffee at 9am, climbing under the covers and promptly returning to sleep in Alex's bed rather than her own.
The blonde often joked about feeling lonely, and Alex didn't resent the company her housemate afforded her. Since moving away from home, Nicky was the first real friend she had found; Nicky could drop bread crumbs in the bed, and Alex still wouldn't ask her to leave.

Lying side by side, their lack of conversation was companionable, honed to perfection after Alex had moved in several years ago. It was to the brunette's frustration that silence was like a stained glass window to Nicky: there was beauty in its breaking.
"You wanna fuck?"
Alex turned to face the inquiry, watching mirth crinkle the corners of her housemate's eyes.
"Who, you?" She raised an eyebrow, expression rich with scepticism.
"Yeah, y'know, see the summer out in style. Wouldn't be the first time." There was warmth and humour in her tone, but Alex knew the blonde was semi-serious, and couldn't help but laugh.
"No thanks. Kind though your offer is."
"Fuckin' rude." Nicky chuckled. "Well, rather than sit here and be rejected by your sorry ass again, I'm going to bed."

The blonde sat up slowly, rolling onto her knees before giving Alex a friendly punch in the arm.
"See ya in the morning, champ."
Rising, she made her way over to the skylight that lead back into the house, clambering through the open window and out of sight.

Alex raised herself onto her elbows, but made no other motion to follow. Gazing out over the land that lay before her, she followed the line of the trees that reached out to the main road, the tarmac drive leading up to the front door from the public highway, the once-perfect meridian of the grass verges, now tufted and rough from lack of attention.
This was Nicky's house, inherited from her mother after she had died. Nicky had no siblings, and so in spite of the ever-crumbling relationship she had failed to maintain with the last in a long line of American aristocracy (wealthy from old, questionably gained fortunes), she became the sole recipient of a large fortune. This included the new-build that Alex currently occupied the rooftop of.

It had been a pet project of Mrs Nichols prior to her death: all bare concrete, glass and chrome. It lacked the bare wood floors and poorly painted walls Alex had loved from home, but Nicky had sought a roommate for companionship, and here Alex found herself.
Rent was next to nothing - Nicky had no need for money - and Alex had worked hard to convince her to take any form of payment at all. As a result, they split the cost of gas for the car. They'd take it in turns to drive the beaten old Sedan to their shared workplace, a private all-girls high school located several miles away.

Nicky could have afforded any car she wanted - the majority of her money was still sitting in Swiss bank accounts, with no purpose other than to gain interest - but she insisted upon driving something that her mother would have hated, one final fuck you to an unloved past.

Acquiescing to her fate for the evening, Alex began to toss empty bottles into the trash bag Nicky had left behind.
She was sad to let go of this summer, as she was with every other. The last few days had felt like grains of sand trickling between her fingers, and she was reluctant to leave the warmed slates beneath her, knowing that sleep would inevitably bring tomorrow closer.

Once indoors and downstairs, Alex knuckled somnolence from her eyes, deposited the black bag by the kitchen door and stumbled up to bed.
The large analogue clock above her bedroom door read 11pm, and Alex had to stifle a groan. She was supposed to be leaving the house in eight hours.
Under the covers, she resisted the urge to read one of the innumerable books at her disposal, and instead placed her glasses carefully on the bedside cabinet, forcing her eyes closed.

She dreamt of benevolent debutantes with ulterior motives, and awoke smiling.