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sunlightmurdock · 9 months

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The Odyssey | 0.4 | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

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Bradley wakes up beside you, tensions boil over.

Warnings: enemies to lovers, power imbalance (professor / student relationship), age gap (22 / 33), will be smut, virgin reader, swearing, infidelity, bickering and teasing through the chapter, mlre warnings to be added on a chapter by chapter basis. 18+ minors dni, wc 4.6k

…

Turning onto his side reminds him that he’s not at home. His cheek meets the edge of the mattress, his arm already hanging freely off of it. He groans softly, then clears his throat, but otherwise makes no effort to move.

Your fingers curl and then uncurl, fiddling with the edge of the bedsheet. You’ve been up for twenty minutes now, staring at the man in the bed opposite you. He has kicked the covers off at some point in the night, discarded his belt too. His khaki shorts are still on, just unbuttoned for comfort.

He’s laying on his front, one arm bent and tucked under his pillow to support his head. Ashamedly, your eyes keep wandering back to the same thing. That long, even line down the stretch of his back. Starting at the waistband of the shorts, extending up along a plain of tanned, freckled skin, onto broad, thick shoulders. Before this, you’ve never thought about what Professor Bradshaw had looked like under those one-size too big button up shirts he wears.

Even his breathing is just so heavy.

Routinely, he’ll shift, pressing his face into the pillow and rocking his hips a little to try to find comfort again. Behind you, the sun has risen, casting a golden shadow over half of the lake, and, incidentally, Bradley too. Before now, you’ve never noticed quite how many freckles he has.

Finally, reminding himself that he’s got a hungover nineteen year old to go and reprimand, he forces himself to blink a few times. After opening his eyes for the first time, he’s somewhat aware of your presence. It isn’t until maybe the third blink that he finally draws his brows together, lifts his head and squints at you.

You stare back at him as he mumbles your name, his voice deep and gruff from a night of sleeping with his lips slightly parted.

“Are you watching me sleep?” He pushes himself up a little more, turning so that he’s sitting up in bed. Curls a mess, still trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes, rolling those thick shoulders to stretch them.

“We need to talk.”

“Jesus Christ,” He scoffs, pressing the base of his palm into his eye socket in an attempt to wipe the blur from his vision. “Can you let me wake up first?”

It’s already dawning on him that he made a dumb decision in falling into this bed last night. He probably shouldn’t have left Luke alone with Robin. Even if he had, he shouldn’t have let himself into your room. Natasha would’ve gotten him a different room in a heartbeat. He had just been so exhausted, and your door was right there.

“You were in the military?” It wasn’t what the topic of conversation was supposed to be about, you’ve just never noticed that silver-balled chain dangling around his neck before. Bradley glances down at the tags resting against his bare chest and rubs at his eye again.

“Navy, for a bit.” He tells you, the sleep starting to clear from his voice. Six years, actually. He shipped out at eighteen and came back a man.

“Did you go to Vietnam?” That’s always the question that follows, and when you’re a man who turned eighteen in 1971, there’s usually one answer.

He turns his head and looks across at you, “Only for a couple months.” Finally, he takes note of his half awake state and lifts a hand to try to tame his curls. Twisting them apart and brushing them back off of his face. “Why are we talking about the Navy?”

“Because I didn’t know that you served,” You reply, lifting your hands away from the covers and instead toying with your nightgown. Bradley watches your hands fiddle in the lemon coloured material, thinking back to the conversation he had had with Luke. He’d been expecting something uglier. It’s old-fashioned, but he doesn’t hate it. “You just don’t seem like the type—“

“I’m not.” Bradley interrupts you. He pushes himself up from the twin bed and stands straight, stretching his arms above his head and craning his neck from side to side.

He looks bigger without his clothes on. All three buttons on his shorts popped open revealing the waistband of white boxers inside. A steady trail of brown hair extending from his bellybutton to that waistband, stretching from the middle of his chest across his pecs. His biceps flexing as he tucks his arms behind his head.

“Do I have something on my face?” It’s more of a groan as he stretches out again, he peeks his eyes open to remind you that you’re staring at him.

“You have a lot of nerve,” You push yourself up swiftly. Here we go. He raises his eyebrows, intrigued but far from intimidated. You walk closer, barefoot and dressed in that cute little nightie. “First you let yourself in here and pass out next to me—“

“I was halfway across the room and in a different bed, it wasn’t—“

“Then,” You interrupt, talking louder to him, “You keep me up with your snoring—“

“I don’t snore.” He tries, still calm as you stomp around the twin bed to get to him, poking your index finger into his toned chest.

“And don’t act like I don’t know what you did last night, Bradshaw. One phone call and I can have you fired.”

Bradley’s lips quirk at the fact you think you have that power, but his brows knit together. “What do you think I did?”

“You! And Natasha!”

“Are friends, yes.” He’s talking down to you, slow and soft like you’re stupid. You smack his chest with the base of your palm, then point at him again. He looks down at the digit pressing into his skin, then back at you seriously.

“Were all over each other on the balcony last night!” You correct him. He glances down at your finger on his skin once again. You consider stepping back a little so that you don’t have to look up at him quite as much, but stay where you are.

He lifts his hand and wraps it over the top of yours, taking it away from his skin, holding it just a little too tight. “I don’t know what you think you saw, or what you think you know, but I can assure you that whatever it is, won’t get me fired.”

“She’s married! Do you have no respect for her marriage, if not her as a person?”

He stares at you. You can see it in his face that he’s trying not to smile. He looks down at your hand in his and examines your engagement ring. It’s a pretty sizeable rock on that band, but that’s no surprise.

“I respect Natasha,” Bradley decides, lifting those big brown eyes to look at your face again. “Enough to know that she's a grown up and can make her own decisions.”

He lets go of your hand and reaches for the buttons on his shorts. Your gaze falls to track the movement of his hands. He buttons them slowly, watching you watch him.

“If the Dean knew that you were—“

“Are you going to tell him?” Bradley prompts, stepping invasively closer to you. His brows seem to be permanently drawn together when he’s talking to you. Your neck leans back further so that you can keep your eyes on his face. “If I go home, so do you. Meaning you don’t graduate, genius. How’s your Dad going to take that one?”

Your eyes widen and then narrow.

“It’s no wonder that all Natasha wants you for is sex — I don’t think that any woman could put up with you for longer than that.” You decide. He stares back at you, lips quirking to let you know that he’s going to be harsh before he even speaks.

“And what would you know about sex?”

He knows. He watches you react to his words try to piece together who told him or why he thinks it’s acceptable to mock you for it. Truthfully, Zoey had drunkenly giggled it last night. He was standing behind her with her hair scooped messily into a ponytail, averting his gaze as she puked into the toilet, when she had sat back and wiped her mouth.

“Hey, Bradley, did you hear that your — star pupil hasn’t even fucked her own fiancée? — She’s — a virgin.” Zoey had hiccuped, grinning amusedly.

You’re quiet for long enough that he stands there and readies himself for you to try to hit him, he knows better than to leave himself open to you.

Then, you exhale slowly and stand up a little straighter, like that makes any difference in the way he stands over you.

“You’re going to start tutoring me, starting tomorrow.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because if there’s any chance that I’m not going to pass this class then I’ll just send the both of us home today, I swear to god.” Your fists ball at your sides. He stares back at you, understanding your rationale for maybe the first time since he met you. “Either you make sure I pass, so this whole circus is worth it — or we’re both fucked.”

His lips quirk. That’s the first time he’s heard you swear. Sounds awfully grown up spilling from your lips like that. He gives you a quick once over, trailing his gaze from your bare feet to the way your lips are pursed at him.

“I’m not going to do the work for you.” He decides. If there was enough room between you, he might’ve crossed his arms over his chest. If it wasn’t so hot from the window being open and the baking morning sun creeping in through the window, he might have stayed longer. His hand cups your waist as he pushes you out of his way and steps around you. “Get Pasquale to give you his book, read chapters two and three before tomorrow.”

And with that, he leaves your room. His belt, shirt and shoes remain on your floor. He passes Robin in the hallway, wearing one of Luke’s striped t-shirts, ignores her completely and swings the door to his own room open.

Robin winces at the sound of Bradley yelling as she renters her own room. She stops, her gaze falling down to the unmade bed and Bradley’s belt, shirt and shoes on the floor. She lifts her gaze to look at you. You scowl instantly.

“Got sick of waiting, huh?” Robin’s tone is dripping with mockery as she steps past you, barefoot and not wearing a single item of her own clothing.

You’re tempted, then for the first time, to shove her, but don’t. You let her walk past, but holding your tongue is too much to ask.

“Not all of us are as easy as you.” You remind her

“Prude.” She spits, shooting you a venomous look over her love-bitten shoulder. She doesn’t even have time to turn before you lurch forwards and grab a handful of her hair, tearing her backwards.

Lake Como begins to rise, peaceful and quiet outside of the open window. It’s going to be a beautiful day. Golden rays of sunlight across the still water of the lake, a gentle breeze and a freshness in the air.

Downstairs, from the breakfast patio, Natasha sips on her espresso as Bradley pulls the two of you off of each other. His voice carries through the valley, disrupting her breakfast guests as he reprimands the two of you for your childish behavior.

Your punishment is to be exactly where he can see and hear you, for the rest of the day. At ten, sharp, you sit on his left while Robin sits on his right. All three of you looking equally miserable.

You’re being spoken to as a group by an older man, he’s grey all over and sun-spotted, but you can tell he would have been handsome in his day. He’s telling you all about Lake Como’s history.

“In 49 BC Como town came into its own under the rule of Julius Caesar,” His accent is thick but his English is good, he has grown around the tourists and knows exactly how to talk to them. “Who populated the town with its first 5,000 inhabitants and named the lake Larius. Como itself was known as Novum Comum and played host to famous authors such as Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger during this time.”

Bradley breaks his gaze to scan across his students quickly. Abigail is taking notes, an Italian dictionary poking out of the top of her backpack with various sticky notes poking out of it. Luke’s enthralled, watching intently with his lips parted. You’re looking down. He leans forwards and cranes his neck to get a better look at you. You’re sitting up straight, frowning down at Pasquale’s book.

More notably, the artwork on the left page. It’s a Florentine painting from the sixteenth century of two women. Nobles, both of them. One of them’s sprawled out across a bed, her undergarments bunched, breasts exposed. Her modesty would be too, if it wasn’t for the second woman with her face buried between the gasping woman’s legs. He studies your expression, unimpressed by how you’re scowling at the work instead of just reading.

Reaching over two students, he taps harshly on the back of your head and points towards the front, “Pay attention.”

You look up quickly and snap the book closed. Bradley stares at you. You stare forwards, trying to focus on the lecture after what you had just been reading. You’re certain that if your father had bothered to look over the syllabus, he wouldn’t have cared so much about you taking this class.

“The stunning scenery also attracted artists such as Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley, acting as a muse to many poems including ‘The Daisy’ by Tennyson and ‘Cadenabbia’ by Longfellow.”

The furthest thing from your mind, truthfully, is Alfred Tennyson. If you were really being honest, the one thing on your mind is the image of Bradley standing at the front of the hall, reading aloud what you had just read. Hearing the words pour off of his tongue. Maybe during a morning lecture, where his voice would have been gruff and deep like you had heard this morning.

The lecture continues on and, as much as Bradley wishes he could pay attention, he glances across at you periodically. You’re still making that face. Like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar. He doesn’t get it, nor does he get you — you’re acting like the required reading for his class is porn. Turning his gaze to the water behind Guiliano’s lecture, he considers that for you it probably is.

He almost scoffs at the idea. Some sixteenth century painting being radical is such a foreign idea to him. He thinks of being eighteen, and impressed by the nude pictures on lighters and playing cards in the Navy. Impressed by the women he met at ports who liked the look of his uniform. Impressed by Natasha and everything she had taught him.

By the time it came to seeing that painting, calling it explicit was far from his mind.

“Great composers like Liszt and Verdi were also inspired by the lake. Many poems have been written about Lake Como both historically and more recently, but it’s not hard to see why the unrivalled beauty of the lake would inspire even the most amateur to put pen to paper.” Breeze carries forwards and sends Guiliano’s hair brushing back off of his forehead as he speaks. Bradley catches you turn out of the corner of his eye and looks. Meeting his gaze, you swallow and look quickly back to the water.

The morning passes slowly, it feels like Bradley’s eyes are burning into your back but maybe that’s just the warming sun. Lunch is quick, Bradley sits with Natasha and her husband. Her hand sits on top of her husband’s, diamond sparkling in the light.

Bradley stares at it as he eats his salad. The sapphire he had given her half a decade ago was prettier with her skin tone, but that’s at the bottom of the Mediterranean now.

After that, more lectures — then free time around the lake. This time, the students have organized to take a trip up to one of the towns further along the lake driven by Pasquale.

It’s less humiliating that you haven’t been invited now, because at least you’ve got the excuse of being stuck in the library of the hotel with Bradley all afternoon.

Gaze focused down, you watch the way Bradley scrawls across the page, his handwriting legible but not exactly neat. His hand’s just gripping the pen, but you can’t help but think of the way it had curled into her hair. Being six years old and having your ponytail pulled on the playground feels far from this.

You’ve been at this for a while, and it’s clear that you’re both equally irritated by each other. Slamming the pen down, he takes one look at your face and knows you’re about to ask him if he’s sure this translation that he has given you even makes sense.

“Don’t.”

You close your mouth, scowling across at him. He leans across the table and points towards the bottom of the dictionary, where a brief explanation of the Latin term you’re looking for exists.

“Stop getting yourself so mad,” He tells you calmly, shaking his head. “You’re bad at it because you don’t practice. Take a breath, think about it. It’s going to get easier.”

That’s the first nice thing he has said to you since you got here. You press your lips together, sigh, and then wet them with your tongue, trying to focus. He studies you from across the desk, each of you soaked in warm afternoon sunlight, the floor length windows open, the breeze soft. There’s an artificial smell of citrus in here.

You look back down to the work and exhale softly. Your chest rises and falls, the pale blue of your shirt catching his eye, just briefly.

“So, you didn’t like chapter two of the book, huh?” Maybe he thinks that this is an icebreaker of sorts. Your gaze is heavy, lifting slowly from your work to stare at him. He feels the need to elaborate instantly. “The painting.”

Suddenly the translation of the word fortuitous is a lot more interesting than it had been. Bradley taps his fingers against the desk as you avoid the discomfort of meeting his gaze.

“I just mean—“

“I don’t see why it should be in an academic text.” You say simply. He can tell that his question has annoyed you, but most things he says annoy you, so he moves swiftly on.

There’s a long pause between the two of you.

“Okay, you should know that I’m asking this seriously — so don’t bite my head off,” Bradley rests his palms flat on the aged, rust coloured wood, then leans forwards. His face is serious, his eyes big and round. “But, do you even know what my class is called?”

Sunlight peeking in from behind his shoulder, bathing the room and everything in it in a honeyed gold. The heat from the day starting to ebb away, a breeze from across the lake blowing at the curtains just slightly. No birds, no bustle outside — everyone’s either at dinner or getting ready for dinner. Everything in this valley is calm except you.

“Yes,” You bite, scowling across at him from over the top of the far too detailed painting in front of you. “Classics. You keep saying it.”

“Yeah, classics is the subject. But do you know what my class — the class that you picked, and enrolled in, is called?” Bradley asks slowly, like he’s just trying to be patronizing.

“It’s about Roman literature.” You answer, knowing that you’ve failed to produce a title, but are along the right track anyway.

“My class is called ‘Sexuality in Roman Culture and Literature’,” Bradley shares finally. You sit across from him, blank-faced. He taps the table softly, staring back at you, enjoying this probably a little bit too much. “That’s why the book is so ‘graphic’.”

Catherine — your maid-of-fucking-honour — enrolled you in a class on sex. You’re going to murder her. This cruel joke might have been funny if it hadn’t cost you your summer.

“But, then again, you would know that if you had bothered—“

“Oh my god, will you shut up about my attendance?” You grumble, slamming your pencil down onto the table. He stares at you, unimpressed and clearly biting his tongue. “We both know I’m here for credits and not because I care about the way people had sex a couple hundred years ago. Just do what they pay you to do and teach.”

Bradley’s brows draw together as he leans closer, his frame dwarfing the table. There’s a lingering silence as he stares across at you.

“Excuse me?”

“Look, I just—“

“No,” Bradley holds a hand up and pushes himself up from his seat. Standing, the table seems even smaller. You feel even smaller, tipping your head back to look up at him. His eyes darken as he squints. “You either learn to watch your mouth around me or you head home and admit that you fucking failed. You hear me?”

You stare up at him, swallowing thickly as shame burns through you. The smell of dust hurts your nose, the warm, dust-covered lights make your eyes tired. You want to go home.

“Tell me that you understand. In Latin.”

Another beat of silence. The look on your face tells you that he’s far from joking. Sighing quietly, he watches as you bow your head and open the dictionary.

He gives you a moment, just hulking over you as you search for the right term. Finally, you lift your gaze and spit it out, quietly. He glances down at the page.

“Work on your grammar.” Bradley tells you, slowly relaxing back down into his seat and tucking it in. “I’m going to give you a play. I want you to read it, I think it’ll help you with some context clues.”

Just like that. He relaxes — well, relaxes as much as you’ve ever seen him be capable of — again.

You exhale. Without realizing, you had been holding on to that one breath the entire time. Your gaze drops, falling down to his rolled up sleeves, the veins snaking out from under the white linen and down across the backs of his hands.

You wonder if Natasha gets him wound up like this.

The second that the thought crosses your mind, you squash it. Staring wide-eyed at the page in front of you, you’re at war with your mind. And he’s just sitting there, head leaned back, palms flat, staring at the ceiling. He has no fucking idea.

Staring at the ceiling is truly the only way forward. He can’t stand another minute of having to watch your lips purse when you’re staring at him.

It’s so difficult, trying not to hold something that you don’t even remember against you. He knows how blacked out you were that night, you barely remembered your own damn name.

He remembers that stupid, blue fucking dress. It came in around the waist and had these thin straps, more of a powder blue than any kind of stronger color. He remembers the snow on his car windshield, still falling. He remembers his heaters up as high as they would go and his coat around your shoulders.

Finding you sitting on the side of the road, in the fucking snow, and bundling you into his car, trying to keep you awake.

And then, the two of you sitting outside of your childhood home and your freezing cold hands wrapping around his palm, pleading with him not to make you go inside. He had only seen you a handful of times at this point, but he was sure you weren’t a bad kid. You just had shitty friends.

He lifts his gaze now and studies you as you card through the information before you. Lips pursed.

“You can’t sit in my car all night, kid.” Bradley said quietly, watching you like you were something foreign to him. You blinked back, saying nothing, but looking so sad.

“I just — please don’t make me go in there.” Your voice trembled. Maybe from exhaustion, mostly from fear. Bradley knew what fear sounded like. His face creased with concern, but he hadn’t budged. You frowned at him, eyes wide and pleading, “Please.”

You must have been able to tell on his face that he was about to disagree with you. You sat forwards, reaching out to rest your manicured palm against his thigh. His gaze hadn’t faltered from your face. He had been here before, with love sick girls who seemed to think he was going to be their saving grace.

He was nicer about it back then. He was trying to be nice to you. With your smudged mascara and your missing boyfriend and your quivering bottom lip. He should’ve kicked you out of that damn car and marched you inside right then. You were still too drunk to sit still, swaying just slightly — he wanted to give you a minute to collect yourself before your parents saw you at least.

He sat there for a moment, just trying to think about what to do with you. And then, seeming to think that this would get you your way, you had sat up and you’d kissed him. Turned your head twenty degrees to the left, lips just slightly parted, pressing softly into his. Pillowy and purposeful.

He swallows, glancing down at the page in front of him. God, he wishes you hadn’t done that. But, he can’t help but wonder where that odd little impulse had come from. What had driven that shivering girl to drive forwards and kiss him, clinging onto his shirt like it was some kind of life preserver — and where was she now?

Certainly not sitting in front of him and too timid to look at a painting.

You continue on with your studies, pretending like you aren’t thinking about him back in that lecture hall, his voice dripping like honey as he tells you every intricacy that that painting detailed.

Bradley crosses his arms over his chest and looks up at the details chiseled into the ceiling. He can’t help but wonder where those impulses go when you’re with your fiancé. You’d been damn near climbing into his lap after an hour alone with him — and yet, Malcolm has made it through four years of high school and three years of college without fucking you.

He curses himself. He shouldn’t think about it that way. He shouldn’t think about it at all. He glances down quickly as your foot knocks into his and withdraws as quickly as it has inched forwards.

Looking back up, you’re looking at him again. Just fleetingly, and you’re back to your work, and he’s back to thinking about you fucking kissing him. He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand the knee length nightgown, or the weird reaction to the painting — or, you at all, really.

So, the two of you let the silence linger between you. Even as he shifts, pushing his leg forward and slotting his foot between both of yours under the table, letting it linger there.

…

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