Work Text:
Liam is halfway on his imagined trip to the gondolas of Venice in his mind, his cheek pressed against the top of the Xerox machine and his shoulders and arms splayed out against the incessant vibrations, when the light above him flares to life.
"Jesus," he groans. "Go away."
"Afraid he can't do that," says a man's voice from where he presumes the door would be. "I've heard he's kind of omnipresent."
Liam blinks up through the glare of the overhead bulb and focuses on the figure of a guy in the doorway. He's youngish, floppy brown hair swooping perfectly over his twinkling eyes and the sleeves of his pink button-up rolled to his elbows, and Liam instantly hates this handsome stranger and his stupid joke and the even stupider smirk on his stupid, stupid lips.
(So maybe Liam's a little stressed and he's quickly unlearning the art of identifying misplaced anger today. Sue him.)
Liam decides that he should at least demonstrate a modicum of professionalism and stand up--rather, push himself into a less embarrassing slump--considering that he is usurping the office supplies of an entirely different department, after all.
"Do you need something?" is the most polite response Liam can come up with.
His tire blew out this morning, he has less than a semester to throw his book manuscript together, and the lining inside his favorite corduroy blazer ripped when he sat down in front of his HIS321 class today. He's trying.
The guy gestures with the stack of worksheets in his hands. "Gonna copy stuff after you."
Liam squints. "Don't you guys have a printing shop that does all those menial tasks for you?"
The guy's face lights up in a rakish grin. "Is that what you humanities folks think of us lab rats?"
"How'd you--"
The stranger picks up the book that Liam had splayed open on top of the copy machine after Xeroxing most of the chapters out of it. He flips the book closed with his thumb inside to keep Liam's place, and reads aloud the title: "Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and Experiences of Time. By François Hartog. Mm, doesn't sound like biology to me."
Liam reaches out to snatch the book from the asshole and snap it shut.
"You copy that whole thing?" the ever-persistent jackass goes on conversationally. "Going for tenure or a copyright violation?"
Okay, it's only been less than thirty seconds into this interaction and Liam is already tired of it. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes, I'm writing a book for tenure and yes, they shut down our only printing shop because A&L treats us like a bunch of plebs."
"You know," says the guy, the unrelenting friendliness of his voice inching toward infuriating, "we do have LibGen and other digital archives for that."
Fuck you, Liam thinks. "Oh, fuck off," is what he says aloud.
The guy raises both brows mildly. Between them, the copy machine spits out the last few pages of the article that Liam fed into the top. Liam goes to snatch the papers and book it out of here, but Asshole in Pink is even faster, trapping Liam's hand against the tray on top of the still-warm stack of pages.
"So you're from the history department and you sneaked in here to use the bio department's electricity, machinery, paper and toner. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go to your chair right now and complain about you."
Liam glowers at him through the fringe of his unkempt hair. "Good luck reporting someone whose name you don't know."
"That can be fixed," says the guy with a smile that's all teeth. "Hi, I'm Dr. Raeken. You are?"
"None of your damn business."
"Suit yourself." Raeken still hasn't moved his palm from over the back of Liam's hand. "Let's just agree it will be your fault from now on that I'll have to keep calling you Excitable Chihuahua in a Suit in my head."
Liam suppresses a groan. Raeken is smooth, he'll give him that.
"...Dunbar," he says reluctantly through his teeth. "Dr. Dunbar."
"I like that. Does that come with a first name?"
"That's what we have Google for," Liam shoots back. "Go ahead and report me. It's going to be useless because, (a) I don't give a shit, and (b) my chair won't give a shit, because my contract is up in less than two years."
That actually makes Raeken's eyes widen in surprise, and he releases Liam's hand on instinct. "Postdoc?"
Liam shakes his head and shuffles around his papers. "Visiting assistant professor."
"I thought you said you were going for tenure--"
"I am. The head told me they're gonna get funding to make my position permanent, at which point I can reapply as long as I make the necessary tenure requirements. All verbal promises and bullshit, though. You know the drill."
"Yeah, I do," Raeken says contemplatively, moving around Liam to maneuver his worksheets into the machine. When Liam doesn't budge, Raeken bumps his hip gently against Liam's, and Liam inches away with a sigh. "You know, I started out as a VAP in this department."
"Oh?" Liam crosses his arms and looks at Raeken's side profile.
"Yeah." Raeken pulls his bottom lip between his teeth in concentration as he adjusts the settings for colored printing. "Just got my tenure contract before the semester started. My VAP-ship was two years, too." He shrugs. "I'm not saying to get your hopes up, I'm just saying it's not impossible." Raeken turns his head slightly to study the fluff of hair at the crown of Liam's head and the tired sag of his half-done tie. "What's your book about?"
"Um. Uh." Liam flounders for a bit. "Gender roles in the war strategies of ancient imperial societies. Mostly western spheres, like Greece and Rome, though I've been toying with the idea of throwing in some comparisons with China from around the same era. Which would kind of mean that I'd have to broaden my theory, which--not really looking forward to that, but--everyone compares western civilizations to other western civilizations and I can't do something run-of-the-mill if I want to stand out for tenure. Oh, and I'm also looking at stuff by the greats in gender theory. Maybe concepts on masculinities and all that. Interdisciplinary."
Liam rambles himself into a frankly embarrassing flush, at which point he sucks in a breath to physically stop himself and bites down hard on his lip.
Raeken is staring at him.
"What?" demands Liam.
Raeken shakes his head, smirking again. "Nothing. I'm impressed."
Liam actually rolls his eyes at him. "Okay, Dr. Fancy Colored Worksheets. What was your first book about?"
"Heart arrhythmias," Raeken says without missing a beat. "Particularly ventricular arrhythmias, which are my area of specialty, and how racial bias in medicine could be harming rather than helping our treatment of these conditions in younger people. There's a wide range of fascinating material out there on how different medicines have been designed to supposedly address the different needs of cardiology patients based on age, race, and gender, and I'm not convinced that all of those distinctions are necessary. I also dabbled a little bit in the introductory chapter on what kinds of patterns can be found that might predict a genetic tendency toward arrhythmias. I addressed and debunked a bunch of diet-based myths about it, too."
Now it's Liam's turn to gape. He doesn't think he understood a single word that came out of Raeken's mouth, but he sure did pay a hell of a lot of attention to the shape of the guy's lips as he was saying all of those beautiful, incomprehensible words.
Behind them, the copy machine beeps sadly to announce that it's run out of paper.
“So?” Raeken curves up a brow at him. “What are your thoughts as an outside reviewer, Dr. Dunbar?”
His thoughts? Liam’s thoughts as an outside reviewer are that it’s hot. No, scratch that--Raeken’s hot. He has a brief and blindingly intense fantasy of bending him over the copy machine right then and there and ruining him, and Liam has to grab that image by the throat and suffocate it immediately.
"It sounds unique," Liam manages to choke out. "Very...forward."
Raeken's face lights again with a thousand-watt, teasing grin.
"Very proof-forward!" Liam amends in a squeak. "Proof-forward is what I meant to say." He snatches his embarrassingly thick stack of pages from the table and bolts for the door.
He only pauses before the hallway to swivel on his heel and face Raeken's ever-amused expression. "Liam," he blurts out. "My first name's Liam."
And he speedwalks his way out of there in a dumb haze before realizing, half an hour later, that he never got Raeken's first name in return.
Oh, well. That's what fucking Google is there for.
----
When a knock sounds on the door of Liam's closet-sized office two days later, he decides not to get up from his pathetic mockery of a yoga position with his torso starfished on the carpet and his legs propped up against the dusty shelves full of the department's reject textbooks. He figures it's just the admin coordinator, Sally, and he thinks she can survive seeing him in a mental crisis surrounded by papers on the floor without her already abysmal opinion of him sinking to a new low.
"It's open," he calls out hoarsely.
The door creaks open. There's silence for some seconds, which is rather uncharacteristic for Sally, and then a roughened voice full of amusement that Liam could clock anywhere.
"Is this one of your unorthodox methods of meditating on historicity?"
Liam jerks. He shifts his head to meet Raeken's smirking face--Theo Raeken, because yes, Liam did Google him, this sort of research is elementary compared to the shit he did for graduate school--upside down from the doorway. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What, a colleague can't pop in during office hours?"
"It's not my office hours," Liam argues petulantly. "This is my time to have a work-related crisis. In private."
Theo heaves a put-upon sigh and folds his arms, leaning against the doorway. He's wearing a light sage green button-up today with the cuffs very wantonly pushed up again to his elbows, Liam thinks murderously.
"All right, Liam," says Theo. "Let it out. What are you having a crisis about now?"
"Style sheets," Liam says flatly. Venomously.
“Style sheets?”
“Yeah.” Liam squints up at Theo’s silhouette in the doorway. “That’s where the journals get bitchy and send back your article if you didn’t put the page numbers in MLA format, the biblio in Chicago, the title page in, like, Cyrillic and the figures at a one-point-seventy-five-inch margin from the left with ten-point font but no more than two and a half lines of captioning.”
"Sounds rough," Theo agrees, clearly humoring him. "For us in STEM, we just send in our Word docs and our figures in Excel, and the journals put all the formatting together for us."
"Oh, actually fuck you guys," says Liam. "First you have all the unlimited printing supplies and colored toner, and then the higher salaries, and now people who format your shit for you like peasants?"
Theo laughs at him. Laughs at him. The sound is at once intoxicating and downright enraging.
"Sorry," says Theo, sounding not a bit sorry at all. "It just sounds like you're inconvenienced by the existence of, like, the entire world."
"Because I need to get my shit published or else I'll lose my job and starve!" Liam practically wails. "Do you want that? Do you actually want me fired and teaching a bunch of skaters in the park about Homeric war narratives like a wannabe Socrates?"
"Would you still keep the suit with the elbow patches?"
"Of course I'd keep the--what? What are you on about?"
"Nothing," Theo says with a shrug and the hint of a grin. "It's just that you're pretty cute when you're under stress. Though I think you'd be cuter if you weren't so stressed."
"Duh," says Liam. "What do you think I'm trying to do?"
"If you think letting all the blood rush to your brain is destressing, that ain't it."
"Ugh. Fine. What do you have in mind?"
“Hm. Any plans for your Saturday evening?”
Liam’s hair rasps across the carpet as he considers that. “Crying over more style sheets, probably. Refreshing my email for news from the book publisher. Staring at these quizzes that refuse to be checked”--he waves a hand roundly in the vague direction of the stacks of folders on his desk--“and choking down my anxiety with lo mein. Why?”
The smirk is audible in Theo’s voice. “Just comparing schedules.”
The familiar burn rises to the bridge of Liam’s nose and he shuts his eyes, running a hand over his face, and forces himself to breathe. “Raeken,” he says slowly and evenly, “I have an anger disorder. Just putting it out there. If you’re trying to ask me out, just fucking ask me out before I break your face and actually lose my job.”
“Really bringing up your selling points,” Theo points out, unperturbed.
“Haven’t punched anyone since high school and I’d like to think therapy helps,” Liam admits to the ceiling, “but sometimes academia is just full of dicks.”
Theo snickers at him. Actually snickers. “Something tells me you don’t have too much of a problem with that.”
Liam turns his head to glare at him. “Actually fuck off.”
Theo uncrosses his arms and raises his hands in mock surrender. “Okay. Will you at least get up off the floor so I can ask you out properly?”
“You met me trying to Xerox my face into oblivion,” Liam grumbles. “You can handle me having a mental breakdown on the floor.”
Theo comes closer to nudge the side of Liam’s stomach with his shoe. The audacity on him. “That’s unsanitary. C’mon, get up, get up.”
"Ugh," Liam complains, as he allows himself to be hauled up by the elbows in Theo's very warm, very firm hands. "You're such an asshole."
"Oh, I'm the asshole? Who was the one sneaking into my department to use my supplies in the first place?"
"You tried to report me!"
"I was trying to get your name, genius," Theo corrects him. "Which, by the way, my name's Theo."
"I know," says Liam. "I saw your stupid face and your stupid CV on the website."
"Any particular reason you were looking at my stupid face and my stupid CV on the department page?"
"Nope," says Liam. "Is it true you studied abroad for a year in Montpelier?"
"Yes."
"Does that mean you actually speak French?"
Theo's eyes are twinkling now. "Yes."
"G-d, that's hot," Liam says shamelessly. "I can only, like, read Greek."
Theo chokes on a half-strangled laugh. "Oh, yeah? You wanna tell me all about it over dinner?"
"Big Panda?"
"Yeah, seven?"
"Be there sharp," Liam orders him. "And do not wear pink again. It's distracting."
"Okay," Theo says with a lilt in his voice. "As long as you don't wear your blue tie half-undone."
Oh, Liam fully intends to wear his blue tie half-undone. He plans to use it, too, in way more ways than one.
(He really, really hates all the dicks in academia. He should get paid more for putting up with this.)