#i did consider just........ deleting these <3 i still might | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lerclan · 6 months ago

Text

orange | lando norris

type: smau + written

pairing(s): influencer!reader x lando norris

summary: you wanted to share your love for orange but it ends up with you and an f1 driver having dating rumors which slowly develops and turns out to be true at the end.

warning(s): slightly suggestive at the end

fc: random girlies off of pinterest!

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ynnn

Liked by amayamoore, lilymhe, and 376,193 others

ynnn in love with orange atm 🧡🐚🪸

tagged: amayamoore

View all 73,618 comments

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amayamoore LOVE YOU BABESSS 🫶

ynnn LOVE U 2 MAMI😻😻😻

user1 okay girlll we see you with f1

ynnn chat i have no idea what that is

user1 WHAT?? HOW??? ITS LITERALLY ONE OF YOUR PHOTOS AND YOUR FRIENDS W LILY MHE?? 😭😭

ynnn I JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD FIT THE AESTHETIC AND AMAYA WAS THE ONE THAT INTRODUCED ME TO LILY. ALL WE EVER TALKED ABOUT WAS GOLF 😔

user1 ohhh 😭😭😭 okay girl eat it up 🙏🙏 ❤️ by author

user2 soft launch??

user3 IN LOVE W ORANGE THE COLOR OR IS THIS A CODE NAME FOR THE DRIVER?

user4 PLSSS WHAT IF ITS A SOFT LAUNCH??

user5 considering that y/n doesnt know what f1 is im not really sure abt this one

user3 what if its like a cover up or something

user4 YEAH FR WHAT IF SHES J PLAYING W US

ynnn 😈😈😈 *author deleted a comment*

user4 OH

user6 OMG NO WAY 😭😭

user3 WE SAW THAT

lilymhe okay come hangout with me when?

amayamoore in 3 days trust.

ynnn girl...where are we going...

amayamoore you wont like it but me and lily will

lilymhe OMG NO WAY?? FR??

amayamoore YESSSS

ynnn chat im lost

user7 okay shes in her wag era ❤️ by author

user7 OOP.

user8 NOT THE SOFT LAUNCH PLSSS

---

landonorris

Liked by mclaren, carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, and 721,917 others

landonorris im orange 😭🧡

View all 112,172 comments

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carlossainz55 i told you to not do it but you still did it anyways mate

landonorris TO BE FAIR I THOUGHT IT WOULD WORK BETTER SINCE IM ALREADY TAN

carlossainz55 yeah now look at you. you look like an actual papaya. shouldve left that fake tan alone.

charles_leclerc no wonder you looked like that. 😂😂😂

mclaren someones a true dedicated papaya 👀🧡 ❤️ by author

oscarpiastri mate you look like the lorax 😭

landonorris thanks osc...really needed that

user1 LMFAOAOAO IM CRYINGGG

user3 guys aint no way...IS THIS ACTUALLY REAL?? OR LIKE AM I OVERTHINKING 😭😭🙏

user4 NO GIRL I GET IT...IT ACTUALLY MATCHES UP 😭😭😭

user6 WE ALL SAW WHAT Y/N REPLIED WITH 💀

user3 IKR LIKE HER CAPTIONING "in love with orange atm" AND NOW LANDOS CAPTION "im orange" LIKE????

user4 YOU MIGHT BE ONTO SOMETHING FR

user9 you guys are so delusional 💀 landos talking about him putting on fake tan and it made him orange 💀💀

user3 let us be delusional please 😔

user10 lando has rizz?

user11 y/n and lando lowkey have matching captions

user12 who is y/n?

user11 shes an influencer. shes friends with lily mhe 😄 heres her account @/ynnn

user12 OMG THEY FR DO LOWKEY HAVE MATCHING CAPTIONS...

---

f1wagnews

Liked by user3, user4, and 127,232 others

f1wagnews potential f1 wag in the process? or is it all just a mishap?

View all 12,232 comments

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user3 IM CALLING IT I SWEAR. ❤️ by author

user3 THEY WOULD BE SO CUTE THO... ❤️ by author

user4 FR???

user10 i agree w you guys fully.

---

ynnn

Liked by scuderiaferrari, charles_leclerc, carlossainz55, and 628,162 others

ynnn no cuz im being fr she actually just kidnapped me and forced me to put on the outfit 😟

tagged: amayamoore

View all 92,717 comments

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scuderiaferrari please kidnap her more. the garage enjoyed her rant about despicable me 😂❤️

redbullracing were gonna have to bribe her friend to bring her here...that sounds interesting 🧐

mclaren too late we already sent them invites.

scuderiaferrari telling our drivers to crash into you.

ynnn ladies, ladies...relax ive got enough of me to have around 😏

amayamoore get out y/n 😭😭😭

mclaren we dont like to share.

user11 ik y/n got lost about 50 times im calling it

amayamoore more than that im afraid 😔

ynnn SHUT UP.

user11 LMFAOO

user3 oh so theyre on the low low i see

user4 PLSS YOU ARE NOT GIVING UP 😭😭

user3 THEYD BE CUTE TOGETHER LET ME BE DELUSIONAL 😭😭😭

user7 NAH FR THOO

charles_leclerc soo...how long are you staying for?

carlossainz55 you did not.

charles_leclerc 😇😇😇

georgerussell63 shes WAY out of your league leclerc. anyways how long though? 😉

alex_albon lily told me to tell you guys to stay away from her. she got suspended for 3 hours from commenting bad stuff about you guys.

amayamoore lily also told me to tell you guys to get out of y/ns comment section

ynnn LMFAOO LILY NAURRRR 😭😭😭

charles_leclerc never answered our question...

ynnn a while leclerc.

maxverstappen1 did anyone else hear a yell from mclarens garage or was it just me?

mclaren 🤫🤫🤫

user12 NOT A MCLAREN DRIVER GETTING EXPOSED BY MAX 😭😭

user3 I WONDER WHICH ONE 💀

user13 PIASTRI MAYBE??

user14 NOOO IT DEF HAS TO BE LANDO

user5 watch it be an engineer

oscarpiastri it was nice talking to you, ill show you around yeah?

ynnn YES PLSSS 😊😊

landonorris wow ok

charles_leclerc i know right. FROM MY OWN SON.

ynnn ???

oscarpiastri theyre being dramatic. dont mind them 🙄

---

oscarpiastri posted on their story !

👁️ 782,173

landonorris replied to oscarpiastris story

landonorris OSCAR.

oscarpiastri LANDO.

landonorris THIS IS TRULY OPP BEHAVIOUR.

oscarpiastri what do you mean lando?

landonorris I CANT BELIEVE YOU DIDNT INVITE ME...

landonorris I LITERALLY COULDVE HAD A CONVO WITH HER OSC.

oscarpiastri lando you had 6 chances and you ran away every time...

landonorris anyways...next time..for sure....

oscarpiastri okay lando we will see...

---

oscarpiastri

Liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, ynnn, and 812,173 others

oscarpiastri am i the best guide ever or what? 😄

tagged: ynnn

View all 161,172 comments

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ynnn YOU ARE NOT. ❤ by author

ynnn YOU PUSHED ME TO THE BUSHES

oscarpiastri THAT WAS BY ACCIDENT. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LIGHT SHOVE SINCE THERE WAS SOMEBODY RUNNING YOUR WAY 😔

ynnn UH HUH WTV EXCUSES EXCUSES. 😒

landonorris yeah dont listen to him he told me he did it on purpose

oscarpiastri I DID NOT 😟

ynnn WOWWWW. WOWWWWWWWWW.

user3 k chat...maybe her and lando arent dating...maybe its her and piastri...

user4 HAVE FAITH STAND YOUR GROUND 😭😭

user3 I WILL. THANK YOU 🫡

user14 yn and the mclaren drivers. never knew i needed them till now 😩

user15 NAH CUZ FR?? THE CHEM.

---

ynnn

Liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, amayamoore, and 826,173 others

ynnn you can tell who kidnapped me this time. (also peep oscars stance 😭)

tagged: amayamoore, oscarpiastri, landonorris

View all 127,718 comments

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user3 CHAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL 😨😨😨

user4 LMFAOO 😭😭😭

user3 LANDO IN THE LIKES??

user4 this is fr your moment girl 🙈🙈🙈

user14 OSCAR PLSSS LMFAOO ALSO LANDO AT THE LAST PHOTO 😭😭

mclaren will tell oscar to kidnap you again.

oscarpiastri already on it 🫡

scuderiaferrari we had her first :(

landonorris she looks way better in orange.

charles_leclerc nuh uh shes way better in red.

ynnn awhh guys fr theres enough of me around 🤭

amayamoore LMFAO I CANNOT W YOU 😭

oscarpiastri WHEN DID YOU TAKE THAT PHOTO

ynnn lets just say im in the shadows...

landonorris dont question her any further.

oscarpiastri what is going on 😞

landonorris I SAID DONT QUESTION HER.

ynnn thank you norris

landonorris anytime for you l/n 🫶

ynnn such a gentleman 🙈🫶

user3 GET IUT IF HERE IM GONNA PASS IUT

amayamoore they fr took my girl. 🙁

ynnn girl...YOU LEFT ME WITH THEM.

amayamoore OOPSIES. 🙈

lilymhe shes doing that thing again y/n

ynnn SHES DOING THE THING THING???? TO WHICH ONE!?!3$/&

lilymhe even i dont know 😟

ynnn 😨😨😨😨😨😨😨

amayamoore 😈😈😈😈

---

ynn

Liked by landonorris, osarpiastri, and 1,231,642 others

ynnn i like this guide way better. he doesnt push me into bushes. 🤍

tagged: landonorris

View all 233,123 comments

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landonorris id never push a pretty lady like you into bushes. ❤️

ynnn so basically what youre saying is that if i was ugly you would?

landonorris that sounds impossible coming from you l/n.

ynnn why thank you norris 😊

lilymhe BOTH OF YOU GET UP RN.

lilymhe @/ynnn PLEASE STAND ON BUSINESS Y/N DONT PLAY W ME RN.

amayamoore LET HER SIT LILY 🤭🤭🤭

mclaren whatever amaya said. ❤️ by author

user3 I AM PEEING MYSELF RN.

user3 GUYS ITS HAPPENING...ITS HAPPENING DONT PANIC

user4 THIS IS SO YOUR MOMENT OMG IM ACTUALLY SO HAPPY FOR YOU

user3 MAYBE I WONT GET SENT TO AN ASYLUM

mclaren stop stealing our drivers 🙁

ynnn ill try my best 🫡

---

landonorris

Liked by ynnn, amayamoore, lilymhe, carlossainz55, and 1,854,321 others

landonorris shes my bestfriend now.

tagged: ynnn

View all 321,283 comments

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amayamoore NUH UH.

lilymhe lando norris bites the curb in 4k ultra hd.

landonorris ALEX. SHES DOING IT AGAIN 😟

alex_albon i cant even help you w this one...im scared of her...

lilymhe stay quiet alex.

alex_albon 🤐🤐🤐

amayamoore she maybe your best friend but shes not yours.

landonorris she said i was 🙄

ynnn ONE of my bestfriends

landonorris now were lying now huh 😒

ynnn excuse me norris. i will make sure lilys statement becomes true

landonorris im sorry my lady 😞❤️

ynnn good. ❤️

charles_leclerc guys go to your dms before i cry.

georgerussell63 fr im gonna start bawling. we lost a baddie 😔

ynnn what are you guys even talking about...

oscarpiastri dont even worry about them

carlossainz55 i agree with oscar

mclaren shocker...coming from carlos

scuderiaferrari what a moment

user4 @/user3 are you alive?

user3 i think i fr passed out when i swiped and saw her.

user12 GIRL DONT WORRY I PASSED OUT W YOU I THINK ALMOST BROKE MY NECK 😭😭

user3 i have a feeling chat. ❤️ by oscarpiastri, amayamoore, carlossainz55

user4 your feeling may come true soon.

user3 OSCAR, AMAYA, AND CARLOS J LIKED MY COMMENT SOMETHING IS BREWING.

user12 OMGOMGOMGOGMGOGMORBWHQ

user16 why is lando so fine?

user17 not lando being her personal photographer shes such a devourer for that 🙈

user18 both of them are so fine 😫😫😫

---

you were sitting on a swing on the beach waiting for lando to come back. it had been a few months since you and him started hanging out and became friends.

it wasnt surprising when you, along the way of you guys becoming close, started catching feelings for him. you were captivated by his charms, his beautiful and flirtatious personality, and those eyes that hold a million stars.

"y/n?" you hear a voice call out from behind you.

"yes, lan?" you respond back using his nickname.

"i got us some juice. they said these two were the top sellers." he hands you one as he sits down.

"oooo these look good. what flavour is this one?" you ask him waiting to take a sip.

"i think that ones called 'golden sun', it has pineapple, orange, and mango im pretty sure." he answers.

you take a sip from your juice and you were met with a wonderful taste. sweet and sour, but savory as well.

"is it good?" he asks as you eagerly nod your head.

"of course!! you can never go wrong with mango." you answer taking another sip from your juice, "whats yours called?"

"mines called 'starfish dreams', i think it has strawberry, kiwi, peach, and pineapple. not quite sure, but its good. sweet with a hint of sourness." he answers, "wanna try mine?"

"yes!! that sounds equally as good! you can try mine as well." he was ready to give you his cup and you suddenly had an idea.

you grabbed his and gave him yours and then you grabbed his arm making him give you a confused look until he realized what you were doing.

"ohhhh..." he sighs in relief, "i thought i did something wrong for a second."

you laugh out loud at the thought of him being concerned for a second.

"no, no, i just need a nice pic for the gram since you took all of the ones i was gonna post." you give him a side eye as you take out your phone for a picture.

"you snooze you lose." he sticks his tongue out at you, to which you do back.

after you snapped a couple photos, you guys go back to having a conversation about how pretty the view was at night.

"it was really nice of you to invite me here." you say to him as he looks at you.

"im glad i grew the balls to ask you to hangout with me when nobody was willing to," he chuckles, "i wouldve been alone today."

"oh so basically what youre saying is that i was the last option?" you joke around waiting for his response.

"no, no, no...not like that. more like you were the scariest option on the list." he says as you give him a look.

"how? im not that scary looking...right?" you ask him as he violently shakes his head.

"obviously not...i meant–ughhh...what i meant was you were only the scariest option on the list because i was afraid youd reject me." he spews out.

"reject you? why would you think that?" you give him a more confused look.

"because compared to me, i am definitely way out of your league," you look at him in the eyes as he looks away, "youre just too beautiful, refreshing, fun to be around, and youre just so charming. after our first lunch together, i kept thinking about you and how it was impossible to love somebody at first sight, but it was definitely possible and im the living proof of it."

"is this you confessing your love for me, norris?" you ask him as he finally looks into your eyes.

"yeah...i guess it is." he looks at your face for any sort of reaction, but all you did was look into his eyes which made him nervous.

all the nervousness he had were washed away from his body in seconds after you leaned in and gave him a kiss, to which he reciprocated.

"i feel the exact same way, lan." you give him a smile as you give him another kiss.

both of you guys spent your night at the swing looking at the stars, talking about random things that you both were interested in, and getting in the water for a little swim; soaking in each others love for one another.

---

ynnn

Liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, lilymhe, charles_leclerc, and 923,213 others

ynnn the beach at night>>>

View all 162,172 comments

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amayamoore idk how you guys can get into the water at night. it gives me the creeps...😟

ynnn its j so relaxingggg maya 🙁

amayamoore THE SHARKS.

lilymhe REAL.

landonorris beach at nights>>>

ynnn YHHH>>>

user19 who is the dude?

user3 according to my calculations, lando norris. 🤓☝️

user4 😭😭😭

user20 the view!???!? 🙈🙈

ynnn had the best view ever 🤫

landonorris i had an even better view.

charles_leclerc if you ever need another tour guide im still an option 😊

scuderiaferrari even im starting to feel bad...

carlossainz55 me and you both.

georgerussell63 me too!! im still an option! 😚

mercedesamgf1 george...

user21 IM CRYING 😭😭

user1 they are not giving up 😭

---

ynnn posted on their story !

👁️ 934,283

amayamoore replied to ynnns story

amayamoore OMG YOU FINALLY BOUGHT A CAR??

ynnn YESSSS

amayamoore so im guessing lando helped you w that huh? 😉

ynnn ....

amayamoore HAHDHAHAH GIRL CANNOT LIE TO SAVE HER LIFE 😭😭

ynnn NAW CUZ HOWD YK THO...

amayamoore girl be fr...it was either oscar or him. last time i checked you were w lando 🙄

ynnn anyways...🤐

amayamoore yeah exactly. also check the gc xoxo

---

f1wagnews

Liked by user21, user3, user4, and 102,232 others

f1wagnews alert: lando norris sighted snuggling and kissing with an unknown girl!

View all 11,232 comments

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user3 oh thats not...!!

user4 I GENUINELY CANT TELL IF THATS Y/N OR NOT...

user3 ME NEITHER 😭😭

user9 it is definitely not y/n guys 💀

user5 fr everyones being so delusional

user9 that is not y/n for everyone being delusional out there 🤣

user3 IT HAS TO BE

---

you and lando laugh together as you both read the comments of the new post created by f1wagnews.

"i would soft launch but it would be a little suspicious and obvious..." you say to him as he laughs.

"i told you hard launching would be the only way. considering the fact we already had a rumor around us." he tells you as you give him a look.

"i guess so. also im only hard launching to prove user9 and user5 wrong. trying to make user3s and user4s day since theyve been rooting for us." you say as he laughs, "you gotta do it with me tho, i have a plan."

---

ynnn

Liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, mclaren, amayamoore, and 2,939,234 others

ynnn i only ride mclarens.

tagged: landonorris

View all 341,234 comments

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landonorris so funny how im actually named mclarens 😘

ynnn you are so getting it tonight.

lilymhe Y/N.

amayamoore IM CRYING WHY IS SHE SO UNHINGED LILY 😭😭😭

lilymhe BECAUS EOF YOU

mclaren we didnt even read this.

mclaren CONGRATS!! 🍾 ❤️🧡 (were just gonna ignore the caption!)

ynnn thank you sm 😝 (enjoy it)

carlossainz55 HE DID IT???

landonorris and did.

ynnn bro confessed without knowing he confessed...

landonorris SSHHHHH

oscarpiastri HE FINALLY DEFEATED THE LANDO NO-RIZZ ALLEGATIONS‼️‼️

landonorris excuse me.

ynnn YHHH HE DEFEATED IT FINALLY!!!

landonorris EXCUSE ME.

user3 I FRICKING CALLED IT. YOU GUYS I CALLED IT!!! IM NOT CRAZY.

user3 @/user4 WHERE ARE YOU...WE DID IT!!!

user4 WOOOOHOOOO FINALLLYYYYYYJAHWH

ynnn you guys are the og believers.

landonorris y/n only hard launched because of you guys fyi

user3 OMGOMGOSN IM GONNA PASS OUT.

user4 THEY KNOW WE EXIST @/user3

charles_leclerc so im guessing you dont need another tour guide 😕

ynnn sorry charles...ive already got the best tour guide around ❤️

landonorris my loveee ❤️❤️❤️

maxverstappen1 do you guys hear sobbing from ferraris garage and mercedes?

scuderiaferrari yeah...dont worry about it.

mercedesamgf1 the weather is nice today...

amayamoore that caption is insane.

lilymhe WHAT IM SAYING BRO.

ynnn 🙄🙄🙄

---

landonorris

Liked by ynnn, carlossainz55, mclaren, lilymhe, amayamoore and 3,343,964 others

landonorris hi, im mclarens.

tagged: ynnn

View all 394,934 comments

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ynnn hi mclarens!!! 🙈🙈🙈

landonorris hey there beautiful lady 😍

georgerussell63 theyre so cute im gonna vomit.

mclaren beat the no-rizz and no-wins allegations!!! thats our driver!! 🧡 (still gonna ignore the caption)

landonorris it was y/ns idea believe it or not.

ynnn SHUT UP.

oscarpiastri i just put two and two together with their captions. i wanna bleach my eyes now.

carlossainz55 i just told my teammate to look at their captions and he started sobbing more. 😂😂😂

lewishamilton i dont think my teammate figured it out yet 😅

lewishamilton nvm 😭😭

maxverstappen1 yeah we can hear them all sobbing...

maxverstappen1 congrats mate!! you finally have balls now!!

landonorris last time i checked ive had balls my entire life.

maxverstappen1 idk about that mate

landonorris ask my mother or y/n

ynnn idrk lando...ive only known of their existence since last week...

charles_leclerc KEEP IT IN THE DMS. IVE GOT NO TEARS LEFT TO CRY 😭

ynnn okay ariana grande 😭😭

amayamoore KEEP THAT INFORMATION TO YOURSELVES.

lilymhe we did not wanna hear about what you two did last week.

user3 THE MATCHING CAPTIONS AGAIN 😭😭

user4 theyre so iconic for that tbh. the first time they were put in an article together it was because of their captions being accidentally matching and now its actually real. 😭

user3 genuinely brings tears to my eyes.

user22 theyre so cuteee 🤍🤍

charles_leclerc i think im done crying.

ynnn ill buy you some lec ice cream to make you feel better. 🫶

charles_leclerc thank you 🥹🫶

landonorris and what if i tell you ill eat all of it before it gets to you.

charles_leclerc that might be my 13th reason.

ynnn 😭😭

scuderiaferrari please give our driver a break.

---

authors note(s): this is my first smau so i hope it isnt booty cheeks. i literally started tweaking after trying to do the instagram post layout properly 😭😭

hope you guys enjoyed this and maybe ill make more in the future xoxo

#formula 1 #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #lando norris #lando norris fanfic #lando norris smau #smau #f1 smau #charles leclerc #landonorris #lando norris x reader

2K notes · View notes

weltraum-vaquero · 21 days ago

Text

Swan song

Professor Viktor x TA Reader

[PART 1]｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆[PART 2] ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆[PART 3]

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆[AO3 link] ⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡

Summary: You’re a bright phD student who won’t shy away from a challenge. Getting the most notorious professor at the University of Piltover to hire you as his assistant is one of them.

Tags: Modern AU, SFW (for now…), DILF professor Viktor, romanticizing and eroticizing borsht, lab shenanigans, reader being filled with equal parts shame and lust

Word count: 7.8k

Notice: This fic is written with a transmasculine reader in mind, but that won’t come into play at all until the final third chapter of this mini-series.

Notes: A little something something while we await season two ;] The draft for this post deleted itself twice now. If the formatting looks wonky (especially in the texting section), NO, it doesn't. Shut up.

He didn’t lie.

Which is all the more shocking, considering you attend his 8AM lecture on the very same day, and he seems more bright and alight than you’ve ever seen him.

When did he find the time?

Though there isn’t a daunting amount to your thesis just yet, you still want to believe you’ve written something quite substantial over the past months.

You toss one glance around yourself before you follow him into his office after his lecture, and you find the stack of papers you’d left on his desk last night looking positively devoured, in the most… academic way possible. Scribbles and notes litter the margins, the edges of the papers are already somehow lightly worn.

He must have read it multiple times.

“Coffee?” He offers.

“Yes, please.”

As he gropes the machine in search of its switch again, he cocks his brow at you. “And what was that for?”

You frown. “What was what for?”

“That… glance, before you followed me into my office.” The switch clicks, the light comes on. “Looking around like you were being followed.”

“Oh,” caught in the embarrassing act, you shrug. “I don’t know. Being cautious, I guess. Students have been looking at me a little funny, lately.”

“Much too late for caution, I’m afraid.”

Uh oh.

As he retrieves two paper cups, you’re left wondering what exactly that should mean.

“Why’s that?”

“I thought you were well aware of the fact that rumors would start, um… circulating the moment I made it public that I had hired an assistant.” Coffee trickles into the cups, a soothing little melody. Viktor leans against the wall beside the machine as he watches the cups fill. “I’ve always been adamant about not needing one. It is natural for people to have questions — and to come up with, eh, answers — when I suddenly do.”

The notion of the answers students might have come up with swirls around in your brain.

You wish they were right.

You’re glad they’re not.

You look at Viktor.

“Do you mind it?”

The coffee stops pouring. Viktor does that thing again, spreading long fingers apart to grasp both cups. And he’s quiet — for a beat longer than he should be.

“No. There are more important things to worry about than… gossip.” He sets the cups on the table, then takes his seat. He hesitates for a brief second, craning his neck before he fixates on you, motionless. Waiting. “Do you?”

“Trying not to.”

The answer makes him… deflate, somehow. It’s barely visible, for just a fraction of a second his chest sinks, before his tone is back to his composed cadence.

“You will get used to it,” he assures. “Now, onto more interesting matters — your work.”

Thank god. You don’t know how much more of the awkward tiptoeing you could have handled.

“Yes.” Your heart leaps into your throat. Acting normal has never been so difficult. “What did you think?”

“Very impressive.” He slides the stack of papers towards you. “I have made some… suggestions here and there, should you wish to take them into consideration. But, I think you struck gold with your hypothesis. Should you need a conversation partner, guidance, anything at all — I would gladly be at your service.”

“Thank you, Viktor. I really appreciate this.”

At the sound of his own name coming from you, something in him shifts. Shifts with an unfamiliar near bashfulness, he stifles a little smile into the rim of his paper cup, the corners of his eyes crinkle, he settles into his seat a little further.

“But you never held up your end of the bargain,” you point out. That snaps him out of it.

“Ah, yes. I did not.” He continues to hide behind his cup, before he finally seems to decide to take a metaphorical leap, as he sets it down and stares down at it. “I fear the unfortunate truth may be that when it comes to research, I either work better with a partner, or that… Cecil is right and I need to slow down. Though I’d guess the former is more likely.”

“You used to work with, uh…” you’re not sure how to approach the topic, “Talis, didn’t you?”

“The five basic principles of applied arcanism are commonly referred to as Talis’ princies, you do not have to feign uncertainty to appease me.”

So you drop the attempt to tiptoe around the subject, and ask, plainly:

“Why wasn’t your name added on?”

Viktor scoffs. “Talis-Sidorov-Sviboda has a terrible ring to it. Or so he’d said. And admittedly… I was more of a conduit than the co-author of his idea. He said we would name the next big thing we would discover after me, but… well, you know how it is. I dedicated myself to teaching, he retired to lead a quiet life in his gaudy mansion with his sports cars and his purebred German shepherds after he married some businesswoman.”

Though his story does line up, those aren’t necessarily the rumors you’d heard. There’d been talk of more than just a mild dispute of names, and… well, there had been… something between Talis and Viktor. But that’s about all you know.

Under your gaze, Viktor grows suddenly uncomfortable — both with the subject and the fact that he might be able to tell you know more. He’s quick to redirect the conversation.

“As for my research: I have been studying the laminal hexoin cascade in stabilized hexgems in various matrices. And though bold, I have been attempting to figure out the ideal matrix — something that will allow for close to a hundred percent energy renewal and render all other sources of energy obsolete.”

”That is bold,” you say. Your other thought, you keep to yourself: it also sounds impossible. You suppose stabilizing hexgems 20 years ago was also something thought impossible — and yet, Viktor hadn’t shied away. If anyone is apt for the job, it is him. “Any luck so far?”

“Partially. They have been yielding favorable results, but not enough to be viable energetic alternatives as of now.” He takes his cup again, bringing it to his lips in a rushed movement, drinking a mouthful, rather than a sip. Once Viktor sets it down, his hand remains on the table, fingers tapping on the shiny surface once, twice— “I could use a theorist to assist me with a few things.”

The implication dizzies you. Is he…?

But then he slides another one of his drawers open, and retrieves a stack of papers. Slanted handwriting, barely legible — you’re by now intimately familiar with it: his cursive. It litters the pages, in different inks and in pencil, diagrams, sketches… just looking at it makes you hungry to read it.

He smiles as if he’s read your mind, again.

“I was thinking it could be you.”

—

You’re invited to his office for lunch break the very next day too. And though he assures you there is no pressure in having to read through his notes by then, you disregard it.

It takes you a reread to be able to make sense of all his scribbles, but… it’s brilliant. He’s brilliant.

It should stop surprising you by now — his ideas, his drive, his curiosity, his mind — but with every single time Vikror impresses you anew, he becomes something more distant.

As you’re marveling at his intricate weaving of concepts, it strikes you, unpleasantly, that this is the same man you’d wanted to devour just days ago. The man who’s made you coffee, the man whose sharp eyes fold at the corners when he smiles.

You’d have deified him, had he been your teacher. You still do, especially now, after you’ve seen more of what his mind is made of. The mere notion of him becomes terribly out of reach, and you’re plagued with guilt for that night. Guilt for having tainted such a man with your thoughts.

And yet, you still can’t help but think of his neck, the soft pink of his chapped lips, the hollow of his cheeks. You wonder what his mouth tastes like, and you want to slap yourself on the wrist for it. You should have, because minutes later, you wonder about worse things too. The scent of his skin, the coarseness of his body hair, how far up under his navel it might reach.

And when you finish reading his notes a second time and bring the paper to your nose to sniff it — hoping for a trace of him — you realize you have a problem. A serious one.

It torments you for the rest of the night, through the hours you spend writing up some suggestions and ideas, all the way to when you switch off the light, and hug whatever pillow’s within reach close.

When you get the urge to tilt your hips against it, you decide to get up and splash your face with water.

And you wish you could do the same thing the very next day on your lunch break, when you’re standing in the doorway of his office and he’s eating borscht. The sweet-tangy smell of vegetables, beef and beets makes your stomach growl, but your physical hunger is long lost on your otherwise preoccupied brain.

The beet red of the soup has pigmented his lips. They look kissed raw, puffy, ripe. A lavish speck of colour on his otherwise pale face, it draws your gaze and does not let it stay somewhere more respectful.

You want to taste them.

He does it for you, raspberry pink tip of his tongue darting over the plush of his lips before he swallows and finally greets you.

“Sorry,” you say, and it comes out tense, near horrified. You’ve caught him eating soup, for chrissakes, not being bent over his table. Oh, god. Why did you have to think about that? ”I’ll come back later.”

“No,” Viktor gestures to the empty seat across from him. He screws his thermos shut, and puts it away. “Please, I’ve been waiting for you. Sit.”

And you do, like the dog you feel like you are right now.

“Did you manage to find the time to read my notes?”

Oh, did you.

“I… followed your example and made some suggestions of my own. But on separate pages. Here.”

His reaction is more than what you’d hoped for. It’s more than the impressed raise of thick brows that had kept you fueled last night, it’s more than the smile you’d been hoping for.

“You are unbelievable,” he grins, and takes what you offer, pushing his glasses up his nose before he starts reading. You selfishly use the distraction to stare at his lips again. He mutters to himself as he reads, pink mouth molding around whispered jargon, nodding. “Yes, this… this is exactly what I’d hoped for, when I’d asked for your assistance. Your fresh set of eyes is invaluable. I hadn’t thought of approaching the modification from that angle.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the page for even just a moment, flipping it surprisingly fast, and taking it with him as he leans back in his seat.

And decides to torture you.

Viktor traces the pad of his own thumb over the curve of his bottom lip as he takes in your handwriting. The give of the flesh under his fingertip hypnotizes, the slight drag of rough skin on soft pink one, your mind is long gone.

You think of rough fingertips on his lips, on his chest, rough fingertips on the pasty white of his gaunt lower stomach, rough fingertips in coarse hair. Rough fingertips dipping between his milky thighs, rough fingertips on where he runs just as pink as he does on his lips, rough fingertips dipping, slipping on slick skin—

You need to stop.

And you most certainly need help.

“Is something the matter?”

It feels like you’ve swallowed your own brain whole when he speaks, because your skull rings hollow when you try to come up with a reply that isn’t incoherent babble.

“Wh— me? No. Why?”

And because embarrassment loves to stick around once it has made its presence known, the stars align for the next social disaster: your stomach growls. Loudly.

“Did you not have lunch?” Viktor asks.

“I… didn’t get around to it,” you admit.

“I won’t take up too much of your time, then,” he assures. If he knew just how much of your time he’s started taking up — and the fact that you wish you could give him what is left of it to him, too. “I would like you to work alongside me on my research. But if you don’t feel like you can squeeze another project into your presumably busy schedule, I understand. I would be glad to have you merely as… a colleague to consult with, as well.”

Is that even a question? He’s offering you the opportunity of a lifetime. You would be an idiot not take it.

And an even bigger idiot to turn down more time spent with him.

“You don’t even have to ask,” you joke. “Yes. I would be thrilled, Viktor.”

This is his first smile you witness when his pretty boyishness doesn’t shine through. It’s a gentle quirk of his lips, no teeth to be seen, just tenderness. It makes your heart leap to be the cause of it.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Thank you.”

Silence.

Just as you’re about to breach it — he does it first.

“Would you be free for lunch tomorrow as well?”

He watches you from below long, dark lashes as you give a breathless yes.

—

“I brought you something.”

It’s the last thing you expect as you step into his office at noon, upon exchanging hellos.

You’re alight. With curiosity, above all else. And with worry — why would he bring you something? What will you do to reciprocate?

“Thank you,” you say, though you have no idea what for just yet. “What is it?”

“I saw you eyeing my borscht yesterday.” There’s a glint in his eye that suggests more, so much so you can’t decide between flirting or digging a hole for yourself in the hardwood floor of his office.

The middle ground is standing in his office awkwardly as he unzips his backpack.

He retrieves two thermos bottles: the one you’re already familiar with, and another that looks older, more worn, and sorely lacks the sticker you’ve so come to love and fixate on and dream about. “I, eh, I made you some. In case you wouldn’t get the chance to eat before you came here.”

Your chest swells so much it hurts.

He made you soup?

“You… Viktor, this is… thank you. You shouldn’t have.”

“I wanted to. Have a seat.”

You practically jump into the seat across the table from his — a seat you’ve come to associate as yours, in spite of being well aware of the oppisite.

As he screws the bottle open and pours some steaming soup out into a paper bowl — god, he’d brought paper bowls — his eyes flick to you.

“But if you don’t care for borscht, you don’t have to—“

“I do care.”

And that rings true not just for the borscht.

It rings true for the soup he brings you the next day too, it rings true for every word that passes his lips. And it rings true for the time you start to spend in the insane coffee shop queue to surprise him with his preferred order and a slice of cake (a different one each day, until you figure out his favorite: cinnamon coffee), it rings true for the dark blue roughed up thermos he lets you take home the day you don’t finish the soup he brings you because you’re just so busy talking.

It’s November before you know it.

As the days grow colder, it’s not rare to be finding warmth by lavishing in Viktor’s attention as you ramble on about ideas — either for his research, or your thesis. All while he intently follows your thoughts with a smile, stopping just to shave another mouth-half-full’s worth off his cake of the day with his plastic spoon.

And once he savors the last bite, Viktor almost always flips it hollow side down, sliding it down the swell of his tongue within his mouth, removing it from between puckered lips. His cheeks hollow, he holds eye contact all the same, and it’s a mental image that haunts you. A mental image you project in your mind, nestled between the apex of your thighs. The thick of his tongue. The cushiony seal of his lips, the suction of his cheeks.

It never becomes any less distracting than the first time it happens.

You startle when Viktor speaks as he sets down the plastic spoon into the now empty packaging.

“I would like you to accompany me to the lab sometime soon. When would you be free?”

You’ve been before — but just a handful of times. Mainly for him to demonstrate or disprove certain guesses, or test conclusions you’d reached together.

“I’m free right now,” you suggest.

Viktor shakes his head. “I have a lecture in an hour.”

Right.

“I mean… I think we could make it in an hour.”

“I prefer to take my time.” Viktor leans back in his seat, stares thoughtfully at the clock on his wall for a moment. “Would seven PM work for you?”

“Uh…” you mentally go through your schedule for the day, “yes. It should. I might be a little late, though. How about… seven fifteen-ish?”

“Good.” The flow of the word is syrupy, yet his next sentence comes out surprisingly peppy with excitement: “See you then.”

—

Though you’re well into the final week of November, it never stops bothering you just how quickly the sun sets. By the time you get to the lab, the air’s gone cold, dry, and the darkness is heavy and thick.

Viktor waits for you just outside the university lab, under the halo of the street light — perhaps just a hint overdressed for the cold, in your opinion. It’s certainly trench coat season, though his is surprisingly long, reaching somewhere along the middle of his shins. The hand he hasn’t tucked in his pocket holds his cane and is clad in a leather glove. Around his lengthy neck, a red knitted scarf lays in chunky, impenetrable layers, reaching almost all the way to the swell of his top lip and his ears. You can hardly see his smile from underneath when he spots you — but his eyes give him away.

“Right on time,” Viktor’s tone has just as much pep to it as a few hours ago, perhaps even moreso. He rolls his shoulders, before he subtly nuzzles further down into his scarf, shying away from the biting cold. “Let’s get inside.”

He leads the way into the building, its warmth embracing you the moment you step in. The tip of your nose and your fingertips feel like they’re beginning to thaw, tingling just a hint. As you go to take off your coat, you notice Viktor isn’t in a rush. He rests his cane against the wall before he unwraps the thick, wide scarf from around his neck, folding it. He sets it on a nearby table, shucking off his trench coat, slender shoulders under a wool sweater. You watch closely as he then takes his scarf and stuffs it into the sleeve of his coat before he hangs it up.

There’s something stiff, painful, about how he moves. You wonder if it’s the cold.

“What?” He watches you with appeased amusement.

Caught red-handed, you jump, still halfway clad in your coat.

“Nothing,” you reply, scraping for a way to deflect from your obvious staring. “Not a big fan of the cold?”

“Never.” He says it like it’s a very serious matter. “I still don’t know how I made it through my first eighteen winters in St. Petersburg.”

“You grew up in Russia?”

He laughs through his nose like you’ve told him a half good joke. “What gave it away? The accent? The surname?”

“No, I just thought… Svoboda is a Czech surname.”

With how his smile turns knowing, self-satisfied, you’re suddenly back in his office again, uncertain and nervous and asking for a job as his assistant. He could taunt you with the knowledge that you’ve looked up his last name, embarrass you a little, play with you.

But he isn’t that man anymore — not to you. This time, he feeds your curiosity, albeit just with crumbs.

“My mother’s,” he clarifies. “Sidorov is Russian — my father’s.”

Oh.

“It’s nice that they used both their names. I’m assuming that wasn’t… common, back then, and back there.”

“It wasn’t, and they did not.” Viktor waits for you to hang up your coat, watchful gaze making your every movement feel loaded with static that’s about to snap. “I added hers when I changed my name.”

Changed his name?

The image of the sticker on his thermos turns up fresh in your mind, and you can’t help but wonder…

“Well? I was hoping we could discuss more in the lab, but if you prefer the coat hanger…”

Goddamn it. Focus. You need to focus.

“Sorry.”

You catch up, then slowly follow Viktor down the hallway, into the small lab he has been assigned. It’s one of the less grand ones, but it has all it needs — from a pretty new hexion accelerator to a humble whiteboard. It smells sanitized, sterile, ozonic.

You assume your usual seat by the whiteboard while he sets up. It still doesn’t feel… right to let him do all of that by himself, but he insists upon it, so, you stay out of his way. Viktor tidies up the space just a little, finding his goggles among the mess. He slips them onto his head, elastic pulling back his soft hair into a fluffy grey and brown mess. His cane thumps against the linoleum with every hurried step — though he doesn’t seem to be hurrying on account of you being there as much as excitement to show you.

Once he’s done, he sits in front of the accelerator, slipping his goggles on, and nods for you to come. Which you do — you’d be at his beck and call beyond just the academic context. For a moment, you pluck the inviting tilt of his head and the quirk of his lips out of their context, and you plant it atop your own bed, him in just a loose shirt, underwear, lax with freshly received pleasure. More comfortable than he’s ever been, all because of you. Beckoning for you. Come here. Smiling at you when your knee dips into the mattress, tucking his index under your chin as you crawl to him, reeling you in for a kiss.

“Come closer.”

God help you.

You comply with a wildly beating heart, stepping forward until you’re close behind his sitting form, watching the accelerator over his shoulder.

He smells nice. Like an indistinct, aromatic cologne, covering up the natural, gentle musk of his skin. You have to resist the urge to dip your head down and trace the tip of your nose along his spine, from where the bones of his neck show to where the scruff at the back of his head goes thicker, fuller. You wonder if he’d shiver as you let the scent of him imbue you… you wonder if he’d lean into it, if he’d tilt his head for you, let you dip your face into the slope of his shoulder, where his scent’s more potent.

The mere thought of him, vivid in your nostrils and clinging to your palate and the floor of your brain, rattles you with a shiver.

“I thought I’d rather show you than tell you,” he explains, wrapping both pale, bony hands around the handles of the accelerator. Steam hisses from the exhaust, flooding the room with more ozone, and gently, but certainly, the gem starts to spin behind the glass panel, beginning to levitate out of its socket, illuminating the room.

God, you should have put on goggles too, it’s making your eyes hurt. It’s a welcome reminder as to why you chose to spend most your days staring down a blackboard rather than the thing itself. The screen right above it is more of a familiar sight to you: numbers, reading the rotations per minute, as well as energetic output, steadily increasing.

It whirrs, magic static whirling up around the blue orb, electricity crackles.

You can see the appeal of this over a blackboard. But you’d still take the chalk. Especially considering the deafening noise.

Nevermind the damn goggles. You need to remember to bring some ear plugs.

“Watch the panel.” Viktor raises his voice over the hum of the machine, and turns to you, watching you from behind foggy lenses with a smile. You wish you could see the way his crow’s feet deepen. It rumbles harder, so much so Viktor almost has to shout the next thing he says, which is a shame, because his usually playful lilt is lost in the noise of it. “Not to… spoil the outcome of this experiment for you, but I implemented the conclusions we came to last week, and, it is safe to say…”

With a well-timed click and tug on a lever, the machine disengages, and the gem drops back into its socket under the influence of gravity. Its violating light returns to a faint, blue glow, like an artificially lit aquarium; fluctuating and undulating gently in its intensity. The potential energy indicator’s numbers climb back up, steadily, but faster than what you’ve seen before.

Much faster.

You can’t help but grin with excitement. “It’s regenerating fast.”

Viktor smirks at you over his shoulder like you’re sharing a sacred, intimate inside joke.

“It is.“

You await the verdict with a bated breath.

“How much?”

Viktor’s smile only grows, like he’s about to give you a present. And, all things considered, this is going to be one, in months’ or maybe even years’ time.

“A thirty-seven percent recovery after usage within an hour.” Viktor spins in the lab stool to face you with the theatrical self-satisfaction of a magician who just sawed his assistant in half and is waiting for the applause. You nearly forget to step back to give him the space for it, so much so your knees knock together. But there is no chance for you to apologize, Viktor is unbothered, sliding the goggles up his forehead enthusiastically, his show of complacency ditched in favor of pure excitement. “That is more than I’ve ever achieved thus far. Thanks to y—”

His voice sticks in his throat, turning into a pained hiss.

His hair’s tangled in his goggles.

“Oh, wonderful,” he grits out sarcastically.

A frustrated half-sigh half-groan rumbles in his chest as he pulls again and only makes things worse.

“Could you get me a pair of scissors? I should have some in the third drawer over there.”

“Wait. At least let me try first,” you insist. Reluctantly, you step closer, and after a moment’s hesitation, Viktor lowers his head for better access like a feral animal letting itself be pet for the first time. He sits still, the sound of both your breaths suddenly loud in the tall, quiet room as you’re forced to step even closer. “Could you…”

You nudge his ankles apart with the tip of your shoe.

He listens.

After a stuttering, fragile exhale, Viktor spreads his thighs.

You take the space offered. And you try not to think about kneeling, about making a home for yourself between his thighs.

“Do you think you can do it?”

You wish he’d asked you that about any number of things, except for the goggles tangled in his feathery, soft hair.

But yes. You think you do.

It would have been a terrible shame to cut it — though some shorter, bluntly cut hairs that sit a little further back near the top of his head tell you his suggestion was not the product of a new idea. Carefully, you pull whatever hairs are looser from between the lens and the bridge of the goggles, though a strand remains stubborn.

You try to ignore the warmth of his breath on your shirt, the intoxicating, soapy, yet distinctively human smell of his scalp, and the mesmerizing ratio of grey to dark brown, the subtle heat on the sides of your palms and wrists, resting on his head for stability.

As you separate another few hairs from the stuck strand and accidentally tug at them, Viktor has no reaction. Beyond swallowing thickly, and sitting through it dutifully.

You wonder if he’d act just the same, had you bunched his hair into the spaces between your fingers and tugged — simply biting his tongue and chewing through the pain — or if he’s leaned into the force, moaning with it, and god, you’ve hurt him, and you haven’t even apologized.

“Sorry.” You sound twice as genuine — mainly because you apologize for much worse than the inflicted pain. “Almost done.”

“The scissors would have been faster,” he half-jokes.

His voice sounds different. A hint more… strained. He shifts in the seat, wipes his hands on his slacks.

“Would have been a shame, though. You have pretty hair.” The last part of the sentence positively escapes you, and once you hear it, you freeze. Your brain scrambles itself trying to add something that will fix the inherent following awkwardness, the horrifying realization you just called your boss pretty, the fact that it’s true, the fact that—

Viktor flinches with another accidental tug of his hair, and so do his thighs — jumping with the surprise, clenching together until they squeeze around yours. But they’re gone just as fast, flinching away with horrified urgency. Before you get to savor the supple flesh pressing into your own in another new perverted way, before you get to imagine his ankles locking behind you, tilting and rubbing your hips into the hug of his thighs.

You need. To get. A grip.

“Sorry.”

You continue on in silence, and thank everything above he at the very least can’t see the way your hands shake, because he’s staring at the floor like he could drill a hole into it with just his eyes.

You should have gotten the damn scissors. As if through divine intervention, the rest of his hair comes loose not soon after.

“Okay. All done.” You smooth the slightly crinkled, but now free strand back down into the rest of his soft hair.

Viktor’s dainty features come into view from below his face framing pieces as he tilts his chin up. His lips quirk into a gentle smile, his eyes sparkle in the faint blue glow, soft shadows under the hollow of his cheeks and the swell of his lip and the tip of his nose and the bone of his brow. You wish you could immortalize him in whatever way he’d let you — a sculpture, a painting, a poem. He looks ripe for kissing, eyes half-lidded and twice as dreamy as he peers at you.

You’re going to see him like this in your mind’s eye later tonight.

Nestled between your thighs, or kissing down your stomach, molten gold under long, dark lashes, sitting atop carved marbled bone.

“Thank you.” He says it quietly — like it would break the sudden holiness of the moment to say it any other way.

He’s so warm.

You could kiss him. See what the ozone of the room tastes like in the slick of his mouth. You wonder if he’d let you, if he’d suckle your tongue into his mouth in a show of submission, or if he’d bite your lip, licking your teeth, pressing, pushing, make you earn the privilege to taste him.

You wonder if he’d hold you, or if his curious hands would roam, tracing the front of your stomach, or your spine, or press to the middle of your breastbone like he wants to see where you’d split open for him down the middle like a ripe peach. You wonder if he’d let you dip a hand down the front of his slacks, you wonder if he’d tilt his hips into it like he’d been aching for it, aching for you. Scorching your hand with want, materialized in slick or straining hardness. You wonder which it’d be.

From where you’re standing, the distance between the apex of his chin and the space where his slacks stretch between his thighs is small — and your gaze takes the leap, searching. But the material dips and curves in such a way that you’re left none the wiser, and with nothing but a disgusting realization.

You’re staring at your boss’ crotch.

You step back from the heat between his thighs, painfully awake, aware. It squeezes and wriggles in your chest like you have a parasite lodged in the chambers of your heart.

You’re disgusting.

You need to put an end to this.

“You’re welcome, professor.”

With that, you’re practically bolting from between his thighs, to stash the scissors away again.

You’re neglecting your job, you’re putting it in jeopardy. Putting yourself in jeopardy, risking all the rumors circulating becoming a shameful truth, you’re risking the first man who ever kept up with you, followed you where you wanted to go and took you further — you’re risking it all because he makes you unbelievably fucking horny.

And it’s absurd. Embarrassing. You need to get a hold of yourself.

“I was… thinking, actually,” you begin, and want to punch yourself over how Viktor perks back up from where you’d left him. “About some things regarding my thesis that I’d like your thoughts on.”

“Oh. Of course.” You have got to be imagining the subtle disappointment in his tone. The second you let yourself believe it’s more than just a figment of your make-believe, is the second you will be doomed.

Viktor, with all his years and experience, would and does know better than to fall for his assistant. You know he does.

“What’s on your mind?” He prompts after your prolonged silence.

If he knew the half of it.

—

You’re late.

And it’s a direct, shameful consequence of last night’s lusting, the time you’d spent frustratedly tossing and turning and thinking of his mouth and his eyes and his scent, before you’d given in past midnight, and humped your hand into completion.

Thinking about him under you, about pressing your face into his neck, about pressing him into the mattress and rutting into him until he gushes and his tired body sings for you and his voice cracks. Until he breaks for you, until pleasure itself oils and unscrews all the biological cogs of his body and he comes out unstrung, reborn.

Viktor’s in a wheelchair.

And he looks worse for wear than you’ve ever encountered him before, slumping in the chair and massaging his eyelids with his thumb and index, seemingly gathering his thoughts. He’s dressed even warmer than usual, in a loose but thick, dark red sweater. There’s a colorful knitted blanket folded and set over the tops of his thighs.

Viktor doesn’t acknowledge you when you come in and sit near the whiteboard, simply resumes his lecture as he regains his mental footing. And he goes on for a while, not sparing you a single glance, as he goes through powerpoint slides today, instead of his usual writing and hand drawn diagrams.

He’s at it for a while, not as fast as his usual pace, but undeniably concise, certain. Until…

“The energy output increases proportionately to the spin, and, with powerful enough matrices, some hexgems can create force fields of their own. This is a particularly common phenomenon in unstabilized gems as well, though with the activation of their force field, those tend to also create… eh…”

Viktor stops, sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose. He frowns, mumbling something in another language, which, judging by the heavy consonants and squeezed vowel, you’d assume it’s Russian. The word must be slipping his mind, so you decide to help out.

“A shock wave.”

Viktor’s gaze cuts. He’s looked at you with disinterest before, sure, but this…

He doesn’t even turn his head to look at you, just eyes you from the corner of his vision like something unworthy of acknowledgment. You wish you could swallow your words back up.

“Yes,” he says. “Thank you. A shock wave.”

You don’t say anything again for the rest of the lecture.

Once the door falls shut behind the last few students who have left the room, Viktor turns to you. You wish you could shrink; and it feels like you do, when he finally speaks.

“I appreciate your intention to help — but do not interrupt me again. I know what I’m trying to say.” He sounds utterly unlike himself, both spent and angry. “I don’t need help. Especially not in the middle of a lecture.”

“Sorry.”

That alone softens him up a hint. He looks away, rubbing his thumbs against the wheels of his chair, before he speaks again. Calmer.

“Just… do not let it happen again.”

As he slumps in his seat, massaging at his temples, you understand that his anger… might not have been as directed at you as you’d initially thought. He’d been snippy when his back hurt — having switched to a wheelchair must mean he’s in a lot more pain now.

And you understand his frustration. He’d just gotten himself an assistant a few months back, and started a new project — looking like he requires help in front of his students is certainly not doing his reputation right now any favors.

“But if there’s other things I can do to make your day a little easier, I’d like to do them.”

“No, thank you.” He shakes his head, before he grabs both wheels and advances to where he’d left his bag. As he starts packing his things, he stops again, quietly groaning somewhere in the back of his throat. “Where did I put my pen…”

Viktor eventually finds it right behind his water bottle on the table, tossing the both of them into his bag, shutting it tightly. You expect him to wheel himself over to the ramp that leads to the exit, but he just hangs his head, massaging at his temples again, before he looks at you.

“Actually, I’d like it if you went to my office and got me a silver tin box in the… fourth drawer on the left side of my desk. Do you have the key with you, or should I give you mine?”

“I have it. I’ll be quick.”

“Thank you.”

And you deliver on your promise. You don’t run, but you power walk there, and you’re back with (hopefully the right) tin box in the same lecture hall before his break ends.

Viktor takes it from you gladly, popping it open. It contains two foils of painkillers, one already half empty, a small ziploc bag of… gummies, and at the very bottom, some dark chocolate.

You must have pulled a bit of a face at the contents — particularly the gummies — because Viktor cocks a brow at you, before he faintly chuckles under his breath and pops three painkillers in one go.

After depositing the foil back in the box, he fishes out the dark chocolate bar. It looks to be the expensive kind, something Belgian — Viktor breaks off a piece, putting it in his mouth, before he holds it out to you.

“Peace offering,” he clarifies when you hesitate.

You’d be a fool to turn him down. You take some — it’s rich, buttery, and melts on your tongue. It coats your mouth with its taste, dark and aromatic and unfortunately not as sweet as you thought Viktor preferred. He’d always favored the almost disgustingly sugary cakes.

“Didn’t think you’d like something so bitter,” you say.

“I do not. It sometimes helps with my migraines,” he tells you. “Sugar makes them worse. A very… devastating discovery to make, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

You wonder if right now is the right time to be curious — and you decide it might be.

“Do the migraines also affect your leg? Or the other way around?”

“No.” Viktor shakes his head, popping off another piece of dark chocolate. “This,” he gestures at himself, the wheelchair, “was just a very unfortunate… overlapping.”

“Oh.” You grimace in sympathy. “Fun.”

“A punishment for it, more like.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“Let’s hope my migraine eases up on me throughout this lecture.” He smiles at you — and for the first time you’ve known him, he looks old doing it. Exhausted. The face of a man who’s seen enough hardship for a lifetime, but has yet to cave under it.

You wish you could hold him. You wish you could melt it away, kiss it better, love it better. Whatever he’d let you.

You surprise both him and yourself when you lay a gentle hand on his shoulder and let your thumb rub a small circle over the wool.

Though he flinches at the first contact, once something in his brilliant mind unfurls and settles, so does he. Through the cracks, tenderness shines under the fatigue. Viktor can be soft — in spite of everything im his body and his past that protests against it. “Thank you.”

You take your hand away sooner than you’d like — but at the ideal time to keep it from being anything more than a friendly touch.

“I’m glad I could help,” you say.

—

Viktor isn’t there at all next week.

You come in on Monday to find his office empty during lunch break, and when you attend his lecture, it’s another professor from his department teaching it. The students don’t seem all too excited about the change either — and you leave before it even starts.

Heimerdinger is none the wiser about Viktor’s situation when you talk to him — in spite of their shared history. He simply tells you he’d taken the week off and had arranged for substitutes.

You consider messaging him… and ultimately end up doing so, after some internal debate. You simply text him to get well soon and that you hope he’s getting some well-deserved rest. He replies with just a plain thank you.

Tuesday is quiet. You receive a stack of midterms you need to get through from the substitute, and you do, by Thursday morning. Which is when Heimerdinger messages you.

Dr. Prof. Cecil B Heimerdinger

Good morning! I’m well aware this is on very short notice — but the substitute professor has unfortunately suffered a minor car accident. Not to worry; they only sustained small njury. However, I am finding myself forced to task you with Viktor’s lectures today. Do you think you could take care of that? Thank you.

-Cecil B. Heimerdinger

9:32

Just the thing you needed — teaching two full lectures, entirely unprepared.

Alright. You’ve got this. You’ve got this. You just need to find out what’s even on the agenda for today. You could text Viktor, right? If he answers on time, that is… he’s sick, he might as well be asleep right now. You could call, but… he said only to do that in the case of an emergency when he gave you his phone number.

Would this count as an emergency?

Your phone beeps.

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svoboda

There should be a black flash drive in the third drawer on the left in my desk. It has all my lectures.

9:34

Today’s topic is LHC segments naturally occurring in unstabilized gems. Feel free to use my work laptop to familiarize yourself with the presentation before the lecture.

9:35

Thank you so much!

9:35

His answer comes a few minutes later, just as you fish the flash drive out of his drawer, and plug it into his laptop.

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svoboda

Good luck 👍

9:42

It would be a lot easier to get caught up in the desire to snoop around on his laptop if you didn’t have less than 20 minutes left until the lecture. His background is disappointingly the default image, but some of his folders look undeniably tempting — not just the scientific ones, which take up most of the space. There’s some photo albums titled with the year and location: Germany 2011, Czech Republic 2009, among many others. There’s also a photo album titled Persichka.

Who is that?

You almost click it. But then you check your watch again and realize you only have 15 more minutes until the lecture, and decide against it.

—

For how utterly unprepared you are, it goes surprisingly well. You stumble, once or twice, but you’re glad to see that even by the end of the lecture, you still have most students’ attention.

After you dismiss the class, you don’t expect questions. But a good handful of them, a little under ten, approach your desk, whispering among themselves, before a hastily appointed representative emerges.

“We were just wondering,” she awkwardly begins, “if professor Sidorov-Svoboda is alright. And when he’s coming back.”

“Oh.” You hope they’re asking because they understandably prefer him, and not because you did a particularly shabby job. “He texted me just today — he’s doing alright. But I can’t give you an exact estimate for when he’s coming back just yet.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

With that, all of them turn to go. After the last student has left the room, you reach for your phone, and pray you don’t see any other day-altering messages today.

Dr. Prof. Viktor Sidorov-Svoboda

I did not mean for you to have to do this.