A/N: Elucien this time! Prompt comes from tumblr user frostlawyer. Theme is high school teachers instead of high school students. I added in a game of hangman along the way. ;)

Thanks so much to everyone that reviewed! You guys are the best! :)

When Skies Are Gray

Lucien hated high schoolers.

He sank into his chair with a sigh, dragging his hands through his hair. He'd hated high schoolers while he was in high school. Why on earth had he become a high school teacher?

He glanced at the whiteboard, now an absolute disaster. Expo markers had gone to war, scribbles of blues and purples and greens rubbed into the board. There was a half-finished hangman game in which the mystery word appeared to be 'asshole,' a mediocre, anatomically incorrect rendering of a penis, and a hastily-scribbled sentence that said, in piss-poor penmanship and grammar, DONT LET DA MAN GET U DOWN.

Christ.

In retrospect, it had been a mistake to allow them to write on the board. Lucien wasn't normally that stupid, but he'd been trying to teach them polynomials, and somewhere along the way, he'd just given up. His fifth-bell period of Algebra II was clearly not receptive to the idea of leading coefficients.

The last ten minutes of the bell, he'd just shuffled back to his desk defeatedly, head hanging low, and told them to talk amongst themselves.

Of course, they had taken that to mean commandeer the whiteboard.

He cursed, shoving himself up from his uncomfortable desk chair and grabbing an eraser, lips half-peeled in a vicious snarl. He hated teenagers. They were a bunch of hormone-ridden, ungrateful, disrespectful little—

"Lucien?"

He halted midway across the room. Elain was standing in the doorway, hiding a smile at the mess on his board.

She looked lovely today (Elain always looked lovely). Her maple-syrup hair was plaited into a braid, and she was wearing a flower-print dress and a pair of glossy heels, a thin silver necklace resting in the hollow of her throat. Her eyes glimmered with mischief.

His heart gave a tug.

"Oh, my," she said, walking into his room. She surveyed the whiteboard and giggled a bit. "Lucien, what happened?"

He groaned and banged his head against the wall. "They're bastards."

"This drawing is actually quite good," Elain said, indicating a giant umbrella drawn in a vulgar shade of orange. On the handle were written the words BRELLA BABE RIHANNA.

"I hate them."

"Oh, now, that's not true," she said.

"No, it is. They're heartless twats. I want them to die in a fire."

"Lucien."

He slumped down in his chair and gave her a bemoaning look. "Polynomials. They're not hard. We're not even doing math—we're just discussing its parts!"

Her nose wrinkled. "Poly-what now?"

"Polynomials."

She shuddered. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm slogging through Wuthering Heights."

"It doesn't. I'd rather brave Emma and Mr. Darcy than these hellions when faced with an equation more complicated than one-plus-one."

Elain laughed. "Wrong characters. They're not even from the same book."

"What's the difference? All those Gothic novels are the same damned thing anyway."

"So bitter," she teased, patting him on the shoulder. "Cheer up. It's never as bad as it seems."

He relaxed slightly. She was close enough that Lucien could smell her perfume—clean and fresh, enough to tickle the inside of his nose. She smelled of lilacs.

It was torture.

Lucien had been in love with Elain Archeron since her first day at Seacrest High. She'd come in bright and bubbly, a whirlwind of smiles and jokes and flowers in the form of a tenth-grade English teacher. She'd taken his world, turned so grim and dark, and made it shine—opened up a tiny door and let the sunshine filter through.

Three years later, and Lucien still couldn't get enough of her. He'd never heard a more beautiful sound than her laugh. It brought back memories of his childhood before his father had taken his belt to Lucien's back—memories of downy meadows and freckles, bug jars and plastic hula-hoops that made swishing sounds as they whipped around his waist.

"I guess you're right," he said, fumbling for the words. "I don't know."

Elain walked over to the board and erased the 'asshole' hangman game. She picked up a turquoise Expo marker and drew a slash, a few lines—a new gallows and mystery phrase.

"Go on," she said. "Guess."

Lucien stared at her. "You've got to be kidding."

"I never jest about hangman. Let's go, Luc." She grinned, a dimple appearing in her right cheek. "Afraid of defeat?"

"You know, this isn't particularly fair. I'm a math teacher, and you're an English teacher. You have the upper-hand when it comes to words."

"Oh, please. Lucien, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. You're wasted here." She tapped the board. "Now, guess!"

He blinked, a bit taken aback at her praise, and blushed a bit. "You think I'm smart?"

"Lucien, come on," Elain whined, stamping her foot.

He cleared his throat. "Fine. Ah… 'a.'"

"Success!" She threw her hands up in the air and drew a single a on the board. "Go again."

"Elain, this is stupid."

"Don't insult my favorite game."

"This is your favorite game?"

"Please."

He sighed, his nostrils flaring. "I don't know. 'S.'"

"Another success!"

They went on that for some time, and the words began to take shape, written in Elain's curly script. There were four words in the phrase, and it took Lucien perhaps five minutes before he realized what the board read.

"You are my sunshine," he said.

Elain beamed, delighted, and clapped her hands together. "Right! See, I told you."

Lucien stared at her, feeling a lump appear in his throat. Because, really… The opposite was true. In that moment, in his stupid Algebra classroom reeking of pencil shavings and unwashed teenaged bodies, he couldn't help but feel stupidly grateful.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and her cheeks were dusted with a shade of rosy pink. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Lucien stood up, walked over to her, and took the marker from her hand. She swallowed, her throat bobbing, and backed up a step. He erased her gallows and wrote another phrase.

"Guess," he said softly.

"Um…" Her eyes darted away, landing on her shoes. She didn't move away, though. They were inches apart—so close that Lucien could smell the sweet scent of her shampoo. "I don't know. 'Y.'"

"Success," he said quietly, and wrote a 'y' in his messy math teacher's scrawl.

They went back and forth, their words somewhat softened. She rested her chin on his shoulder to peer at the word, her brow furrowed in concentration. His heart skipped a beat, blood rising to the surface of his skin, and Elain glanced at him, her eyes cautious and furtive and…

He didn't know what. He didn't know anything anymore.

"You make me happy," she answered, reading the board. Her voice was strangely shallow. "It's not very original, you know. It's only the next verse of the song."

"It's true, though."

Elain stared at him for a moment before taking the marker. She erased the board and wrote a new phrase—this one small, only two words and seven letters. "Guess."

"'E.'"

So it went—quickly this time, letters filling in rapidly. Lucien had been good at this game as a child, though he'd preferred to write the words, not guess.

When he realized what the board said, he stilled, his body going rigid.

"Kiss me," he whispered.

And sure enough, in her sugary-sweet handwriting were the words kiss me.

Elain nodded, one corner of her lips curling up. "Kiss me," she repeated, somewhat hoarsely.

And then, because he was crazily, insanely out-of-his-mind in love with her, he did it.

Lucien kissed her.

It was swift—soft. He wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her close, cupping her cheek with his hand. She went rigid with surprise for a moment before responding, hooking her arms around his neck and digging her fingernails into his scalp.

He pulled back, panting slightly. Her hazelnut eyes had gone a bit hazy.

"Kiss me," she whispered again, as if in a daze.

And even though they were idiots, even though they were in his stupid Algebra classroom and not beneath a flowering rose trellis, as he'd always pictured, even though the lunch bell would be over in ten minutes and they each had a seventh-bell to teach, even though it was the worst possible timing and they were kissing against a backdrop of an anatomically incorrect dick…

Even though there was all of this and more, Lucien did it anyway.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,

You keep me happy when skies are gray,

You never know, dear, how much I love you,

So please don't take my sunshine away.

A/N: Fluff! Their relationship hasn't gotten a lot of development yet, but I love their characters individually, so... You know. It isn't that far of a reach to ship them. ;) Review and let me know what you think!