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moosoobi · 10 months

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back into my Hamilton era I guess

voltaire to versace 04 | thomas jefferson

title: voltaire to versace 04

pairing: professor!thomas jefferson x reader

words: 7.4k

warnings: this one is chill just like sexual tension. sorry ive been gone for two years lol

desc: from francis bacon to foucault, descartes to dante, your political philosophy seminar doesn’t promise to be a blowout — and yet, one mysterious stranger and a risqué evening later, your burberry-clad professor gives you the feeling it won’t be quite the snoozefest you’d expected.

tags: @lunariasilver @tinywhim @nyxie75 @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @checkurwindow @katierpblogg @cubedtriangle @lunariasilver @lexylovesfandoms @fanfic-addict-98 @stephyra17 @notebookgirl30 @exorcisms-with-elmo @kmsmedine @itshaileyn @honeyand-roses @laic2299 @id-do-it-for-free-babe @luckyfriesss @golddiggs-x @drreamhugs @sillyteecup @notebookgirl30 @marvelouslyemily @checkurwindow— let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

SHE STILL FINISHED grading the first round of essays for Thomas, but she dropped them off at the faculty mailboxes that Sunday afternoon — she couldn't face him at that point. On Monday, she gravitated back to her seat at the rear of his lecture hall. She did the same on Wednesday.

Her responses to his emails and his texts were short and to-the-point. He needed her to grade the recent papers from his International Security class? Sure, but she was busy during his office hours; any chance he could leave them in his mailbox so she could pick them up the next morning? Thanks, that'd be great. He wanted her to work with him on laying out the rubric for an essay? No problem. She'd set up a shared Google Doc right away.

It was a week after Y/N had last spoken to Thomas that Dolley was over his apartment that weekend with James. She was smug when she came home to Y/N.

"Thomas is looking for you," she said mildly, and Y/N glanced up from her laptop on the couch with a skeptical gaze.

"And what, exactly, makes you say that?"

"He asked me to tell you."

Y/N's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, seriously?"

"Mhm." Dolley's smile was self-pleased. "He was home when I was over, and he said he needed to talk to you."

"Thanks for letting me know." Y/N's voice was tense as she looked back to the paper she was writing, and Dolley took a seat beside her with a glass of water.

"Can I ask why that might be?"

"No clue."

"So are you going to talk to him?"

"I have class with him Monday. I'll see him then."

"Y/N." She gave her a deadpanned look, and Y/N looked tired when she met her eyes. "Did something happen? You haven't mentioned his name even once all this week."

"No, everything's fine," Y/N assured her, but Dolley looked less than convinced.

"Then why do you look so unhappy right now, dear?"

"What? I don't," she replied defensively, and Dolley raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"How daft do you think I am?" she asked, folding her arms after she put her glass on their coffee table. "You can deny wanting to sleep with him all you'd like, but I know how much you like Thomas. It isn't exactly subtle. So what happened with you two?"

Y/N sighed, rubbing the side of her nose. "It's not really that big of a deal. I'm probably blowing it out of proportion, but he drove me home from the party at their apartment last weekend, and..."

"And?"

"And I came onto him." She was wincing at even the memory. "I was drunk, though, and he knew that, but it was so stupid. I'm still kind of mortified, so I've been dodging his attempts to talk to me. I don't know how I'm supposed to face him."

Dolley took a deep breath, eyeing Y/N where she sat with her head in her hands, her laptop closed on her lap. "Well, he clearly wants you to talk to him, so I'm sure he didn't think it was quite so bad."

"But I'm gonna be an anxious wreck the next time I have to talk to him," she groaned.

"You're his TA and his student," Dolley pointed out. "You can't avoid him forever."

"I'm not trying to," Y/N said. "But… y'know. I can still put it off for a little while. Midterms are only a week away, and then it's spring break. If I can make it that far, I don't have to talk to him until fourth quarter."

"You're being ridiculous."

“I’m being practical,” she replied, “besides, it’s only two weeks till break. The only time I’m gonna need to talk to him is when I turn in my midterm.”

Dolley snorted. “I’d wish you luck, but this one’s a lost cause, dear.”

————————————

IN THE END, Dolley was right. He hardly let her get away with it for more than a week.

"Y/N, can I have a word?"

She cringed.

It was 6 PM on Wednesday; the rest of her class was filing out of the lecture hall, but she paused where she stood in the row second to last. She'd already turned to leave. She shifted on her feet as she turned to Thomas, pulled her bag further up her shoulder, but when she saw him standing at the front of the room, arms folded and brow creased as he watched her, she couldn't meet his eyes.

Her classmates shot her curious looks as they left — Thomas never asked students to stay after class. If something was wrong, he sent them emails, he asked them to come to his office hours, he’d even used Twitter messages to reach people before, but he never publicly asked someone to hang back. She’d learned that it was against his ethos as a professor; he’d told her a story or two of his college days that made her understand why.

However, as much attention as this anomaly in his behavior drew, she had a feeling she knew why he wanted a word with her. She slumped back into her chair beside the aisle until everyone else was gone, and finally, the door fell shut, echoed through the hall, and she approached Thomas's desk with a looming sense of dread. He glanced up from packing his bag.

"Hey."

"Hey." Her voice was hesitant. "You couldn't have just approached me after the class got out?"

"In my defense," he started, "you haven't been makin' yourself all that easy to find. Everything okay lately?"

He was watching her expectantly, an eyebrow raised, and she folded her arms. "Yeah. Just fine."

"Then lemme rephrase that." Then, he turned fully toward her, his bag pulled shut and pushed aside. He frowned. "Why've you been avoiding me?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "What? I'm not."

"Yes, you are." The words left no room for negotiation, and she sighed. "And I mean, 's your prerogative. You've still been comin' through as a TA, so I'm not about to try and criticize you, but can I at least get an explanation?"

He looked pretty frustrated for someone who wasn't about to try and criticize her.

"You're not that oblivious," she said. "I have a feeling you know why."

Several moments passed in a tense silence. He was eyeing her tentatively, unmoving, and she couldn't meet his scrutinizing gaze, shifting on her feet. Finally, he sighed.

"The party?"

"Got it in one."

To her surprise, he let out a dry huff of laughter. "To be honest, I'm surprised you even remember that."

"I kinda wish I didn't."

Thomas offered her a reluctant smile. "I hear that. But..." He hesitated. "Which part of that night’s still bothering you?”

Y/N furrowed her brow, looking back up toward him. "Seriously?”

She figured it was obvious. Trying to seduce your professor while well-past drunk seemed like a clear, egregious issue, and she wasn’t quite sure why he was playing dumb.

"After all that time you spent avoidin’ me, you've gotta know what I'm talkin' about. C'mon." She stared at him blankly for another moment, and finally, he sighed. "Nevermind. I'm sorry about what happened then. We don't have to keep discussin' it if you don't wanna."

"No, hang on, what are you sorry for?" she asked, disbelief clear in her voice, and he raised an eyebrow. She hesitated before she went on, "I... I'm sorry for coming onto you like that. It was really stupid, and I know I crossed a line, but that's all my own fault; I don't—"

"You were drunk. Don't feel bad about it," he said reasonably. She was searching his apologetic expression as he spoke; she couldn't fathom why he looked guilty. Had something happened that she didn't remember?

"But why are you apologizing?" she asked softly, creasing her forehead. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I got real close to doin' something I shouldn't, though," he said, carding a hand through his curls. "I shouldn't have let it get that far. 'Specially not when you were drunk. I got too close to crossing that line."

"Too close to..." Y/N repeated, trailing off with her brow furrowed, but that was when it hit her. Had she not been so mortified by her own actions, she realized, she'd have been dwelling instead on the way his hands had tightened around her waist, how he'd pulled her into himself with a bruising grip when she tugged at his hair. That evening, she'd convinced herself he was going to spend the night. "Oh."

"Yeah." He swallowed hard, hands tucked into his pockets. "So, 'm sorry. I should've shut that down, and I get why you've been keepin' your distance."

"No, no, relax." She dismissed his apology with a flippant wave of her hand. "I was in the wrong. You were trying to be considerate."

"You're givin' me too much credit," he sighed, and a flicker of a smile graced her lips.

"I wouldn't say that," she argued, and she hesitated, cocked a brow before adding, "Unless, of course, you had an ulterior motive for insisting on taking me home in the middle of the night?"

His eyes widened. "Oh! Jesus, no, I swear, I didn't— I wouldn't..." As an amused grin split Y/N's controlled expression, though, he trailed off, squinting at her. "You're just messin' with me, aren't you?"

“Maybe,” she answered mildly, giving an innocent shrug. He scowled. “But, really, Thomas, it’s fine. We can forget it ever happened, okay?”

He watched her warily as she offered him a tense smile. He wasn't sure it was fine, and quite frankly, he knew he'd have a hard time forgetting it ever happened — he felt like there was more left to say.

But as his pause stretched on, as she raised her eyebrows at his uncharacteristic silence, he didn't have the words.

"You sure?" was all he finally said.

"Yeah."

“Alright.” He eyed her for another moment, wary, before he pulled his bag up onto his shoulder. "That’s good. I… guess I'll see you around. Good luck with midterms, Y/N."

She didn't miss the final, unreadable once-over he gave her before starting up the stairs out of the lecture hall. She didn't go after him.

————————————————

WHAT FOLLOWED WAS midterms week, which came and went without much pomp or circumstance. She didn't see much of Thomas that week after finishing with his test, which was more intentional than she’d like to have admitted. On Friday night, she finished grading the papers he'd delegated to her, but she just left them in his mailbox.

When Saturday afternoon rolled around, she was perched on the couch in her apartment flipping through the same Netflix suggestions she'd been seeing for the past hour. She'd had an incredibly relaxed day, and she assumed it would stay as such until Dolley came bursting in with a wide grin.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. "Where are you coming from looking so excited?"

"James's."

"Ah." No further questions were necessary, but when Dolley circled around to stand right between Y/N and the television, it was clear something more was up — something Y/N had no interest in finding out about. "Do you mind? I was watching that."

"Oh, please. No, you weren't," Dolley scoffed, but her eyes were alight despite her contrived annoyance.

"Well, I was going to," Y/N grumbled, and Dolley could only smile.

"You're going to want to hear what I have to say."

"Am I?"

"Certainly." Y/N raised an expectant brow when Dolley took a step closer to her. "Spring break just started."

"What else is new?"

"James's family has a home in the Outer Banks."

"Good for him." Y/N's responses were short as she tried to lean around Dolley, scrolling through the 'New to Netflix' category. Dolley groaned, rolled her eyes. Y/N's noises of protest went entirely ignored as Dolley pulled her remote from her hand, and she deadpanned as Dolley rested her hands on her shoulders, sitting down to straddle her lap on the couch. "Seriously?" Y/N whined.

"And we are going to the Outer Banks for spring break."

"I'm sorry, what?" She let out a dry laugh at the conviction in Dolley's voice. "Alright, maybe you're going to the Outer Banks over break, but last I checked, James and I aren't exactly on the level of road trip buddies."

"Please consider it. He told me I could invite you."

Y/N rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because he likes you. Not because he wants me there."

"Oh, what does it matter?" she whined. "An invitation is an invitation. James just doesn't know you yet. I'm sure he'll come to love you."

"I don't care," Y/N groaned, shoving her off, and Dolley rolled off to sit beside her on the couch with a huff. "As much as I love you, I refuse to let your infatuation with James take over my social life."

"What social life?" Dolley scoffed. "I've already taken it over. Now I'm just adding James."

"Hey, I have other friends," Y/N said, but Dolley gave her a disbelieving look.

"Your professors and your study groups don't count."

"There's also the kid I see every day in the library," Y/N defended. "He's the only other one on the sixth floor."

"Do you even know his name?"

She hesitated. "That's not relevant."

"Darling," Dolley groaned, shifting onto her side to face Y/N. "Just come with me. It'll be fun. And I'm sure James is bringing Thomas; after all, they're roommates."

"That doesn't add to the appeal, Doll." Y/N wasn’t sure she trusted herself on a vacation spent with him in the Outer Banks, sleeping in the same house as him, trying not to stare at him shirtless on the beach. "I let you drag me to their apartment for a night, and it ended up sucking. I'm not gonna subject myself to that for a whole week."

"Ten days," Dolley corrected her.

"That's worse." Y/N’s huff was heavy, and as she raked a hand through her hair, Dolley wore a pout. “Besides, I can’t. I have that scholarship dinner thing, remember? I have to wine and dine all the donors.”

Dolley wrinkled her nose. “I forgot about those. I’ve always thought they were exploitative.”

“Oh, they are,” Y/N agreed, “but they’re giving me too much money for me to be able to complain. I can be their little academic Miss America for a night as long as they keep paying my tuition.”

Dolley hummed in acquiescence as Y/N returned to scrolling through her suggested shows on Netflix. “So it’s like a beauty pageant, but instead of hair extensions, you bring your resume.”

“Feels more like a strip club. I had to go to two at my old school, and it’s just putting on a show to get rich, wrinkled old men to throw us a few bucks. May as well wear a g-string and try to find myself a sugar daddy.”

“Mmh, let me know if any of your DILFs have pretty sons, alright?”

Y/N gave Dolley a skeptical look. “You’ve already got James; leave the rich legacy boys for me.”

“Sharing is caring.”

———————————————

ULTIMATELY, DOLLEY WENT to the Outer Banks without her. She left the next morning (but apparently couldn't leave without giving Y/N a serious tongue-lashing). And from there, Y/N was left to fend for herself.

The first couple days were fine. She ate the remainder of the groceries in the apartment. She watched seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy before deciding she hated all the characters. She cleaned out the fridge. She drank Dolley's nice red wine (with no plans to replace it). She organized her sock drawer.

Alright, so maybe she was going a little stir-crazy in Dolley's absence. So much for her having a social life outside of that apartment.

However, she didn't leave until she was clean out of food, bourbon, and episodes of SVU.

She was just around the corner from the nice CVS, though, so when she left, she didn't particularly expect to have any reason to look her best — if any of her classmates saw her in her pajama pants, it was far from her greatest concern.

She emerged with two white plastic bags, both stretching around the edges of the fruits of her pseudo-grocery run; the fact that she hadn't bought anything with nearly the nutritional value of actual fruit was beside the point. Regardless, she was feeling rather self-satisfied as she turned onto the sidewalk headed back to her apartment, arms weighed down with junk food, holding her CVS rewards card in the corner of her mouth, lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to re-organize her wallet — but apparently, she was too preoccupied to realize what was immediately in front of her as she took the next left.

"Woah, there."

She screeched as she ran directly into the man on the other side of the corner. As she stumbled backward, not managing to spare herself from falling on her ass, two of her grocery bags went tumbling to the ground; three split right through the bottom of the plastic, and as her pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream rolled to the feet of her accidental assailant, she let out a defeated groan.

She dropped her shoulders with an angry huff, and when the man before her leaned down to pick up the ice cream she'd spent the past week working up the energy to leave the house for, her gaze followed it up as he rose.

"Mint chip? Really?" When she caught sight of Thomas's amused expression, the exhaustion on her shoulders only compounded. He'd clearly been out running; he ran a hand through his curls, wiped the sweat from his brow as he popped out one of his earbuds. "You've got some awful taste, there."

"Of course, it's you," she grumbled. "Because I couldn't have been bulldozed by some stranger to, at least, spare myself the humiliation."

His smile was entertained as she dusted herself off, sparing what she could of her CVS haul, tucking her rewards card into her wallet and her pack of razor heads into her purse before she stood. "I think this belongs to you?"

"Yeah, yeah." The annoyance was clear in her voice when she looked up to see his outstretched hand, offering her back the ice cream, but (although she took the pint back immediately, as her priorities were still in order) that wasn't where her gaze stopped, instead trailing up his arm to his heaving (bare) chest and the earbuds hanging loosely from one of his ears. Her breath caught in her throat.

Sweat trailed down his torso to his abs, glistening in the mid-morning sunlight and drawing her eyes down to the waist of his sweatpants where they hung low on his hips. Her stare was only broken when he pulled his headphones out, wrapping them around his hand and yanking her gaze back up to his arms. The shift didn't help; instead, she couldn't break her wide-eyed, gawking stare from his biceps.

"Y/N?"

She was jolted back to earth with a start at the sound of his voice as he stuffed his earbuds into his pocket. His grin was broad, and her cheeks were on fire. "Shit, sorry, I, um—"

"Relax, it's fine," he said, tucking his phone in his pocket. "Need a hand with your, uh..." He picked up her extra-large jar of Nutella, "groceries?"

As he watched her expectantly, she swallowed hard, shaking her head with a tense smile. "No, no, that's fine," she assured him. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your run. I can manage."

He quirked a brow. "You sure? You're gonna have a hell of a time carryin' all of these on your own."

"I don't live far."

"I know," he said, and as she did her best to collect all her goods from the pavement around them, he did the same, "but there's no way you can get these all back by hand."

"I'll be alright," she said, her words taking on an undertone of annoyance (although it was ultimately born of her unease). Thomas didn't look so convinced.

"C'mon, just lemme help you out?" he reasoned with her, and as she tried to pull her purse shut around her two bags of mini tacos, balancing a package of laundry detergent pods on her lifted knee, she couldn't put up too much resistance. "You 'n I both know you need it."

Y/N pursed her lips. "Fine. Thank you."

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Call me crazy, but you don't sound too grateful, now."

"Let's just go."

Though it took them a moment longer, between them, they did manage to balance all of her quasi-groceries in their arms, and Y/N nodded in the direction Thomas had been coming from. "My apartment is back this way."

"Yeah, I remember."

"Still?"

He shrugged. "I'm good with directions. And I've taken you back there twice, now."

"Right.” Against her will, the memories from those two separate nights began to surface in her mind, and she could feel her cheeks heating up. “How could I forget?”

Her tone was dry, uncomfortable, but to her relief, Thomas laughed it off.

"Someone's feelin' hostile today, huh?" he commented. Although she rolled her eyes, her face was burning; his presence had her on edge, reacting to even the smallest of his movements, and she was still trying to shake off how mortified she was from having run into him in the first place.

"Sorry. I'm just tired." He raised an eyebrow. "My sleep schedule's been all over the place without Dolley around to nag me about it."

"Oh, yeah, she's outta town with James, huh?" She hummed in confirmation. “Why didn’t you end up goin’ with ‘em? James told me he invited you.”

She huffed out a dry laugh. “Yeah, he invited me as an extension of Dolley because he wanted her there. I’m much happier alone in my apartment than stuck in the Outer Banks with people I hardly know.”

“Yeah, you ‘n me both.”

Y/N furrowed her brow. “I thought these were your friends that were going.”

He shrugged. “James ended up bringin’ a lotta grad students I’ve never met. Some undergrads in there, too. Would’ve been a shitty ten days, ‘specially once he let me know you weren’t comin’.”

“‘Especially once you knew I wasn’t coming’?” she echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself,” he replied. “I stayed behind ‘cause I knew I could pawn more papers off on you to grade.”

“Well, that is part of my charm,” she said frankly, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“That and the pajamas you’re always wearin’ around campus?”

“Oh, come on, I’ve seen you when I was wearing pajamas once. That’s it.”

He hummed skeptically, and she glanced up at him as they walked. “I know you’re no math major, but addin’ today to the day you stormed into my office makes two days, not one.”

“Today doesn’t count,” she argued. “The plan was to go to CVS, go back home, and interact with nobody. Besides, you’re not even wearing a shirt, so it’s not like you have any room to judge.”

“At least you know that I own shirts, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you only own pajamas, sweetheart. Didn’t think I had to spell it out for you,” he said matter-of-factly, casting her a sidelong glance, and while his expression was playful, she could feel her cheeks flush.

“Oh, shut up; you know that isn’t true,” she defended. “Just because I’m partial to my sweatpants doesn’t mean I can’t dress up when need be. I have nice clothes.”

He eyed her skeptically. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

————————————

IT TOOK THE pair of them just a few minutes to reach Y/N’s apartment building, but it took several more for them to actually make it up to her apartment. Trying to get the door unlocked without dropping anything was a fiasco — it ended in one of her mini Coke cans rolling down the hall, no doubt fated to explode the minute she opened it, and a bag of pizza rolls splitting open at the corner when she dropped it. Thomas had little sympathy for her complaints about them being exposed to carpet germs.

"Thank you for all the help." Y/N turned to Thomas with a sheepish smile when she finally put her groceries down. "Sorry for ruining your workout."

"Don't mention it." He dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand after he put the rest of her things down into the pile she'd started. "After all, you're tiring enough that it doesn't make a difference."

"Shut up." Despite her scowl, he snickered, and she rolled her eyes as she went to open her fridge. "I should put everything away so it doesn't go bad, but is there anything I can get you as a 'thank you'? A drink? Something to eat?"

"This just your way of askin' me to stay longer?" He raised a teasing eyebrow, but when she turned to him, her eyes were wide.

“Oh! No, no, I didn’t mean… I mean, you don’t have to, I just—”

“Woah, relax.” His voice held a trace of a laugh at the panic that was slowly dissipating from her gaze. “I was kiddin’, alright? Didn’t mean to rattle you like that.”

“I’m not rattled,” she defended, closing her fridge, and she could feel her cheeks heating up as he eyed her with disbelief. “I just felt like I owed you something for all the help. I know I kinda derailed your day."

"I told you, it wasn't a problem," he said mildly. “But, y’know, if you wanna pay me back, I’ve got a whole lot more papers that need gradin’.”

Her groan made him laugh. “God, please don’t make me regret becoming your TA. I have better things to do with my spring break.”

“Like what?”

“Like eating all the ice cream I just bought?” she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, and he rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, if I give you the rubric, you really can’t multitask?”

She sighed. “Yeah, alright, if you really need the help. I’ll come to pick them up sometime this week if that works for you?”

“That’s just fine. I wasn’t plannin’ on going into my office, though, so you’ll have to swing by my apartment.” Her most vivid memories of the last time she’d been at his place flashed in her mind’s eye. “That okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” She cleared her throat when she realized how long her moment of hesitation had been. He creased his brow. “Just tell me what time you’ll be home. I won’t have any scheduling conflicts.”

“What, you don’t have any big parties on the calendar?” he asked, cracking a lopsided grin, and she let out the lightest of laughs, the sound quiet and forced. “You aren’t gonna find yourself gettin’ arrested when a professor calls the cops on your rager?”

“Nah, not this time,” she said. Her smile was stiff, and he pursed his lips as he watched her continue unpacking her groceries, bending down to tuck various packages into different cupboards.

“Good to know,” he replied. In the pause that followed, Y/N was aware of every twitch of every muscle in her body; she could feel his eyes on her as she moved through her space. “I’ll text you when I sort ‘em out, then.”

“Cool.” Her mouth was dry. She didn’t look his way.

“Alright.” The hum of the fridge had never sounded louder. They could hear footsteps on an adjacent floor of the building and the soft buzz of their AC unit. Y/N swallowed. His next words were cautious. “So, should I, uh, head on out, then?”

Her eyebrows jumped. When she turned her head to look at him, she realized he hadn’t moved from his spot. She shrugged hesitantly.

“I mean, it’s your call.” His gaze flitted away from her when she met his eyes. “If you have somewhere to be, I don’t wanna keep you. I can finish putting my food away.”

“Wouldn't wanna overstay my welcome is all. I dunno if I should be spendin’ any more time in your apartment than I need to.” His expression was nonchalant, uncaring, but his shoulders were tense. She could see the tendons in his upper arms twitching, and it was only then that she was reminded that he was, in fact, very shirtless in her kitchen.

He glanced back at her with tentative eyes.

“That might be smart.” She stood up to her full height, looking down at the counter before her. “It’s getting kinda late anyway. You should probably head back before it gets dark.”

It was nowhere near sundown, but the message was certainly received, and Thomas nodded. “‘Course. I’ll see myself out.”

“Thanks for the help with the groceries,” Y/N said softly, and he smiled.

“Anytime,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

———————————————

“WHAT CLASS GOT a multiple choice midterm?” The indignance in Y/N’s voice made Thomas laugh.

“The freshmen.”

They were at Thomas’s apartment. Dolley and James would still be gone on their road trip for five more days, though, and that left them living alone about a block away from each other. Y/N wasn’t sure she knew where they stood, but when she went to pick up the midterms Thomas needed her to grade, he first had to walk her through the rubric. Then she started asking questions, and they both ended up sitting; then Thomas returned to sipping his coffee, and Y/N started leafing through one of the papers with a pen, and it only made sense for her to stay.

At least, that was how she justified it to herself as she reached the end of her second hour parked on his couch.

“I swear to god, you coddle those freshmen,” she said, twirling her pen absentmindedly as she went through the answer key. She scowled. “And they’re still getting, like, 25% off.”

“See? I’ve gotta coddle ‘em,” he defended. “If I make that class any harder, I’m gonna have a full class of Fs on my record. Won’t be gettin’ tenure, that’s for sure.”

“If you treated them like they were competent, maybe they’d be forced to learn,” she suggested, and he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. When you finish grading ‘em, d’you mind calculating the curve for me?”

“This is curved?” Her tone bordered on genuine annoyance, but her dramatic reaction was only entertaining Thomas. “I’m gonna need another cup of coffee to get through this.”

“Now, this feels exploitive.”

“You don’t even pay me to TA,” she pointed out. “With the bullshit I put up with, you owe me a drink from that fancy espresso machine you have tucked away.”

“Aw, c’mon, is workin’ with me really so bad, sweetheart?” He plastered on a pout, but the casual term of endearment made her pulse jump. It didn’t feel so natural to hear him call her that anymore.

"Don't get me started," she said, but she knew how shaky she sounded. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice (and if he did, he didn't mention it).

“Alright, alright. I was just headed to get myself another, anyway.” He acquiesced easily, and she was all but relieved when he left the room, taking both their mugs with him.

She wanted there to be a way for her to shake off any of the nerves he always seemed to leave her with. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair — he was her professor. He used terms of endearment without a second thought. She needed to stop overthinking it, especially given that she’d heard him call both Maria and Angelica “darling” and “honey” on more than one occasion. “Sweetheart” seemed to be reserved for her, though.

Stop thinking like that.

She cringed as the observation surfaced. She knew she was reading into it, and her mind was running a mile a minute to try and replace the idea with something else, any kind of distraction. She decided to chalk it all up to the caffeine she’d been consuming en masse.

So maybe another latte wasn’t the greatest idea. She pushed herself off of his couch with a grunt.

All she wanted was a glass of water, so she didn't expect that there'd be any problem with her just barging into his kitchen since she was already at his place.

But she'd just turned into the kitchen's doorway, and Thomas wouldn't have minded it if she hadn't turned with the worst timing imaginable.

"Oh, fuck." She felt the coffee scalding her skin before she processed what'd happened. Her grimace was involuntary and pronounced as she stumbled away from him, pulling the back of her shirt as far away from her body as she could. "Shit, shit, shit, that's hot."

"Jesus, are you alright?" It wasn't until a split second later that she turned to see Thomas standing behind her, mortified and frantically going to set down his mugs so he could go to check on her.

But she only shook her head, doing her best to regulate her breathing, control her expression despite the searing pain across her upper back. “Shit, I—” Her voice broke off as she swallowed hard, far from concerned with being a considerate guest when she pushed past him into his kitchen. Thomas was frozen to the spot, watching her rush to the sink and frantically yanking off the nozzle of his sink to run cold water over her shoulder blade (she’d never been more grateful for his bougie interior design). Her focus was nowhere near him.

She had no clue how to treat a burn. However, she didn’t think twice before tearing her shirt off — it was searing her skin.

Her tunnel vision may have blinded her to the larger context of her panic (and for good reason, all things considered), but Thomas was stunned as he watched her strip off her button-down in the middle of his kitchen, run it under water to use it as a rag. She tucked it under her left bra strap so that she could press the cold cloth directly against the burn.

Thomas was gawking. When Y/N caught her breath, turning to him, she met his eyes, and— well, actually, she didn’t meet his eyes. His gaze was focused a good ten inches below her eyes, and she chose to conclude that he was staring at her chest because he was concerned about having burnt her with coffee. The fact that not even a drop of the scalding coffee had touched her chest was a nonissue.

“Do you know anything about treating burns?”

“Not…” He cleared his throat, redirecting his stare up to where her eyes actually were. “Not much. I— Holy shit, are you alright? God… lemme Google it. Hang on.” She tried to catch her breath as Thomas pulled out his phone, and the first thing he said was, “Alright, says you’ve gotta get rid of any clothes over the burn.” He glanced back up at her. “Looks like you’ve got that covered, though.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out for myself. Thanks.” Her tone was dry.

“Right.” Thomas cleared his throat. “You wanna use my shower to run it under cold water, then?”

She nodded frantically, grimacing as she pulled her damp shirt out from under her bra strap, holding that as far from her skin as she could without her bra coming off. “Please.”

It took just about all of Thomas’s willpower to keep his gaze north of her collarbones as he showed her where the bathroom was and told her how to work the shower. If any god happened to be real, he was fairly sure he was being tested that afternoon — and all because he didn’t feel like calculating the curve on his midterms. He could safely say that this was far more difficult.

He gave her a towel and some of his spare clothes to change into, but when she dug the Neosporin out of his medicine cabinet, he heard her call his name.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Everything alright in there?”

“Yeah, I just…” Her voice was muffled as she trailed off. “I can’t reach the burn.”

“Oh.” He swallowed audibly, although Y/N was far enough that she couldn’t hear it. “D’you… need help?”

“Please.” Her voice was hesitant and nervous.

“Can… can I come in?”

“Yeah, just hang on a second.” There was a pause. Y/N didn't meet his eyes when she came to open the door; she held a towel over her bra-clad chest, one of the straps having slipped off the side of her left shoulder. "I, er… can't reach my back to bandage it. Can you… ?"

Thomas's eyes widened. "Oh, um, yeah. Yeah, I've got it."

"Thanks," she said quietly, and when she turned to the sink, passing him the ointment and gauze as she faced the mirror, she kept her hand towel held over her front. "Sorry about… all this."

"Why're you sorry?" The amusement in his voice eased the tension in her shoulders. "Sorry for gettin' coffee spilled on you? Sorry for havin' skin on your back?"

"Sorry for having burnable skin on my back," she corrected him, and he laughed.

"Yeah, alright, good point. If you weren't so damn flammable we wouldn't have this issue," he teased, but he pursed his lips. "In all seriousness, this one's on me. Wasn't watching where I was goin'; I was the one that ran right into you, not the other way around."

"Yeah, but I was in the way," Y/N pushed back, and Thomas raised a skeptical eyebrow, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

"You've gotta stop apologizing for things, sweetheart. Especially things that I think we both know weren't your fault." How frankly he spoke made her sigh, and in that moment, it felt as if she was back in the entrance of her apartment, clinging to him as he tried to keep himself from pulling her closer. She swallowed her pang of guilt. “Lemme know if this hurts, yeah?”

“Okay.” Her voice was small.

Neither of them spoke as he dabbed ointment onto her wound, and his gentle touch had a warmth filling her skin that had nothing to do with the burn. He stood within inches behind her. The air in his bathroom was tense; both of them were aware of every movement the other made, every brush of their skin against one another, and it took every ounce of her willpower to keep her eyes down, to keep from staring at him in the mirror. She glanced up to see him knitting his brow, concern in his gaze.

He placed the ointment back onto his sink, instead unraveling the gauze he held in his other hand.

"Pass me the medical tape?" The sound of his voice made her look up, meeting his eyes in the mirror. It took her a moment to process his words, but when she did, she broke his gaze immediately, clearing her throat and nodding as she reached for it and handed it back to him.

Her skin tingled as he laid the gauze softly over her wound, doing his best to give her skin room to breathe. She shivered as he taped it down by the sides. "Alright."

"You're done?"

He nodded and although his touch was tentative as he pressed the tape down to her back, it was firm. "Yeah, that should hold. Looks good."

"Okay," she said quietly, giving him a small smile. "Thank you."

When he finished, she expected him to take a step back, to let himself out of the bathroom so she could get dressed, and so she turned to him, anticipating that he'd move out of the way and she could retrieve her clothes from the bathroom floor. However, it was at the same time that she turned that he leaned forward to put the gauze back on the edge of the sink behind the ointment. They moved in synchrony, but it wasn't the synchrony either expected.

They were both far, far too afraid to move, then.

Thomas's hand was on the side of the sink, now to her right as she faced him, and with him leaning into her, between his arm beside her and the rest of his body in front of her, Y/N didn't have much of anywhere to go. Thomas, however, could've moved. He should've moved, too, and he knew that well. But when she turned to him, he found his face mere inches from hers. His nose brushed against her cheek, and with her having used his shower, with her wearing his spare clothes, he could smell the traces of his woody cologne mixing with a sugared scent he couldn't describe as anything other than her. She swallowed hard.

This felt familiar to both of them, by then. The proximity between them was all but second nature with how much time they spent together, with all the late hours in his office or her apartment. But this atmosphere was charged.

Every interaction between them had been measured and meticulous for months — while they had both been pushing boundaries, neither dared to cross them. But this? Neither of them had meant for this to happen. Neither had meant to make it so easy for them to simply fall into each other, but something about it seemed so natural, almost fateful.

Thomas was exercising every last drop of his willpower as he looked down at Y/N's wide eyes, her wet hair, her (his) pajama pants that were far too long for her. He tucked one of her damp locks behind her ear.

"We can't do this." Y/N's words were cautionary as Thomas's eyes wandered to her lips, but there was no feeling behind them. She didn't want him to stop.

"I know." His thumb traced her jaw, and he made no move to step away. He did know that what he was doing was wrong, but with how caught up he was in everything that was her, he was having trouble remembering why. "So stop me before I do something stupid."

She couldn't take a breath. Her voice was trembling.

"I don't think I want to."

He was hesitant to lean in toward her, but when he shifted forward, she met him halfway with every bit as much trepidation, and this kiss was nothing like the night they met. His touch was careful. His lips were slow, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. He held her as if his gentle touch would negate all the implications of their actions, all the damage this might cause.

Because this didn't feel like the illicit affair that Y/N knew it to be. This was Thomas, her friend, her coworker, her fleeting one-night stand, and she held him against her in an embrace like that of a lover, her arms looped around his neck as the side of her nose brushed against his. This was easy. This was natural.

But this was her professor.

"Stop." She pulled away from him, a hand on his chest as she struggled to catch her breath, and Thomas's gaze didn't read as dejection or hurt, but instead it came with an air of concern. The silence that followed her single word was excruciating.

"Y/N?" His voice was hoarse, but it was heavy with guilt. She didn't meet his eyes.

"I… I'm sorry, Thomas. I really…" She trailed off as he took a wary step back; she let out a breath of relief when he was no longer boxing her in against the counter, his hips no longer pinning hers back. "I need to go. I'm sorry."

She left the bathroom in a rush, grabbing her shirt from the floor and pulling it back over her head without a second thought. When she took off, he didn’t try to stop her.

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