#both fields which require hours of study and research maybe med a little more than history

[ecotone99]

[RO] All Night Study Session

Attraction got Levi and Stella together, but what kept them together was shared values. Hard work topped the list.

They lay opposite each other on Stella’s kitchen floor, surrounded by a jungle of pillows, towels, and pencil shavings. Neither noticed the clock strike 3am; if they had, they wouldn’t have cared.

Levi gnawed on his eraser, willing himself awake, but the diagrams blurred into darkness. Stella heard his hair bristle against the pillows. “Hey, heyyyy” she nudged with her foot. “I’m up!” Levi shook his head and flipped the page with feigned determination.

“Want some ice?” Stella pushed the bowl towards him. “I want a pizza.” “Stores are closed.” “Ughhhh this town sucks.” “How are you complaining, your town doesn’t even have stores at all.” “False dichotomy.”

Levi sank back into the pillows. “Not on my watch.” Stella declared, though she secretly hoped he’d insist so they could sleep without her being the one who gave in.

“All night study session, not 3am study session. Let’s go. You’re not gonna cure the common cold in your sleep.” “Do you really think that’s all pharmaceutical researchers do night and day?” “I don’t think that, but I hope it.” “I’m doing a sleep study.” Levi mumbled, turning over.

“Alright, up, up, come on, we’ve got to move around.” Stella pulled Levi’s arms, even as he tried to go dead weight like a dog resisting a trip to the vet.

Stella turned on some music and turned up the air conditioning. “Stand! Come on. You’ve been working on the same project too long, let’s switch.” “This exam is all I’ve got.” “Do mine then, I’ll look at your problem sets for Thursday.” “Fine—what?” “Look at them Levi, with my eyes.” “...ok, just, do not write on anything. Not even in pencil, got it?” Stella snorted. “Anyone can do this, big shot.” She snatched the paper away. “Fine, what am I doing?” “Writing a paper on religious symbolism in Joseph Conrad’s early novellas.” “Oh, of course. Can’t get hired with a solid benefits package if you don’t know... that.” “Shut up.”

Levi was shivering even with his coat on. He knew he’d have an easier time staying awake if he took it off, but Stella loved touching his arms when he wore leather, so lately he wore this jacket all the time.

His baleful hazel eyes scanned Stella’s writing. He could bullshit for at least five minutes about this stuff at a cocktail party, on a confident night, but he didn’t really have any clue what was going on. He decided to go through and hide innuendos in her earlier pages.

Stella couldn’t bullshit about Levi’s project for five seconds, because she couldn’t pronounce half these words. She read to herself, carefully.

“You decide to make a genomic DNA (gDNA) library from Plant X. Below are statements that might describe a type of DNA library. Indicate if the statement describes a gDNA library, a cDNA library, both types of libraries or neither by circling the appropriate word.

(i) the library is “kept” in bacteria gDNA, cDNA, both, neither

(ii) making the library requires they enzyme reverse transcriptase gDNA, cDNA, both, neither”

Levi was tracking her. He wished she’d written about Melville instead of Conrad. Moby Dick lent itself to a lot more cheap jokes than Heart of Darkness. Stella shattered his concentration.

“Got a sharpie in here?” “Why?” “I’m circling ‘neither’ on all the questions—never mind, found one. Oooh, and it’s pink!”

Her trick worked, Levi was wide awake. “I’ll take that.” He launched himself on top of her, faking her out with his right hand and grabbing back the sheet with his left.

He laughed realizing she couldn’t even decipher a page from his easy class. “Time is up. You fail college. Pack your things.” “Well let’s see how you fared professor” Stella sneered as she pulled her laptop over. “Congo line dancing? Is that really the best you could do? Oh—oh wow. Never mind. You win. Oh poor Nellie. Oh, they need to christen that ship again.”

Levi stuck an ice cube in his mouth, even as the cold worked it’s way under his skin. He cringed to think of diving back into his anatomy flashcards.

“Let’s pause academics. Let’s go pre-professional.” “Emails?” “Emails.”

Levi felt like a puppet operated by strings of willpower as he cracked his spine to a standing position and unzipped his book bag, searching for his tablet.

He flipped the case open, thank God, still had some battery life.

He made his way to the couch. Stella’s kitchen and living room were open concept. He patted the cushion next to her. “My ass can’t handle the floor for another six hours, join me.”

Stella eased into the spot next to him. She took a mental snapshot of the moment. All those lonely nights she dreamt of having a boyfriend, it wasn’t wild sex or expensive gifts she was dreaming of. It was someone who’d want to sit up with her all night, requiring nothing special to entice him there.

Levi started to type an email to a professor he wanted to cozy up to for a spot on their next research team. Stella sent a few follow up emails to alumni she had been pumping for interview prospects.

Levi stopped typing. Stella was so engrossed, she hardly noticed. “Stel?” “Yah? Hold on.” “Never mind.” “No, I’m just—“ Stella skimmed her email, removed a few exclamation points so she’d sound less crazy. “What’s up?”

Levi shifted uneasily. “Nothing.” “Not nothing.” Stella shut her laptop. Levi bit his bottom lip. “Do... do you worry about me?” “Is this because I’ve been checking to see if you’re still breathing while you sleep? I didn’t think you knew, I thought you were sleeping. I saw this YouTube video about sudden death syndrome, and you usually snore a little, so when you don’t—“ “Sudden death? Wait, I snore? I ok—No. No, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t know about that. We, uh, we do need to talk about that. Later though. Do you worry whether or not I’m going to be a success?” “Like what, like financially?” “I guess, yah.” “Bruh, I’m an English major. That would be a tad bit hypocritical of me, no?”

She went back to her email. He didn’t. She realized this must go deeper. “What?” “I said it already.” “Why would I be worried about your financial success?” “Are you proud of me?”

Stella knit her eyebrows and placed a hand on his knee. “That’s a very broad question. I mean, no matter how you sharpen it, the answer is yes. But I’d appreciate some context.”

“I just overheard some girls talking and they were all like ‘hey my boyfriend’s on the pre-med track’ or ‘my boyfriend has an offer from Goldman and McKinsey and they’re bidding each other up’. And I realized, if you’d been in that group, I don’t know what you would’ve said.”

Stella sighed, wrapping her arms around her gentle giant. “Your worth is not measured by your professional aspirations. Not to me, not at all. But that being said—“ Stella cleared her throat for her best snotty prep school voice “Well Levi’s on track to be the salutatorian. Not that he cares, he doesn’t get grades to win titles, he does it because he believes in the purpose of the research.” “Damn. Well, ok. I like that.”

Stella was too tired to muster an adequate reply, she just turned her attention back to clearing her inbox. But a seed had been planted. Levi had switched his browser to a GTA live stream when he thought Stella was distracted. She was.

“Levi!” He slammed his tablet case closed “What? It’s for class, you don’t win, I didn’t break— ok maybe it isn’t. Five minutes Stella. I didn’t call you out when you were on reddit and—“ “Not that. I just realized something.” “What?” Levi silently cursed himself for not keeping his mouth shut. He was so close to winning the all nighter. Maybe she’d forget.

“Your friends must do the same thing, what do you tell them? You’re in an impressive department with a clear career path and grad school aspirations. Do they think I’m not good enough for you?” Levi was not prepared to field this question. No matter how he answered, he would upset her.

“We don’t talk about that.” “Bullshit.” “That’s... are you going to make me say it?” “No, you’re going to say it of your own volition because you value an open exchange of communication with me and trust me not to judge you.” “On most things, sure, but...” “Levi—I’ve been up since 6am yesterday. I’m in the mood for direct statements only.” “We compare looks. Not brains. I mean, smarts also, but I heard the way the girls were talking about their boyfriends jobs. It had nothing to do with the job and everything to do with how much status was granted to the girlfriend for hooking a guy with that job. Men don’t do that. Not the ones I know at least. I mean, yah, if you were an astronaut or won an Oscar or something, I’d brag about it. But they’d be as impressed as if you had, like, really nice boobs. Which you do! But—come on, you’re setting me up to fail here.” “Are you censoring yourself?” “Sure fucking am. I can already tell you hate this answer. I’m not digging a deeper hole.” “Well, of course I hate it, you’ve got nothing to brag about!” “Did I say that? Ever?” Levi protested.

Any remnants of sleep that remained in Levi scattered far away in all directions. “Come on, what are you talking about?” Levi presser. Stella was pulling away from him. What did he say? What could she possibly mean by that? She drew a shaky breath.

“Your friends are dating tall girls who watch makeup tutorials and they’re really skinny and their boobs are the same size and—“ “I never would’ve noticed that about your boobs if you didn’t tell me. And now that I know I only think about it when you bring it up. They are not that different.” “So you admit that they’re different!” Levi sat in silence, trying to pick his next words very carefully.

“I wouldn’t want to objectify you by quantifying your worth by your looks...” Stella’s jaw dropped to the floor. “So I was right, you don’t have anything to brag about.” She said it cooly, but each word was like a dagger in her heart, a mace shredding apart what little self esteem she had before the conversation began.

“Oh my God, you’re getting ahead of me. I said I wouldn’t want to objectify you, I wasn’t finished. I don’t want to, I don’t like it, it makes me uncomfortable and it feels misogynistic and wrong and whenever I talk like that I feel like somehow my mom can sense I’m talking bad about women... but I do. Of course I do. How can I not? You give me like a toastmaster’s seminar worth of things to discuss. You’re a fucking trophy Stella. Your personality is why I consider you that way, but that’s not what I one up my friends with when we’re stupid drunk and trying to impress each other. Ok?” “Ok.”

Levi prayed that would be the end of it. Not hard enough. “Ok....? So, what do you say?” “You’re going to get mad at me.” “Total amnesty. As long as I like what you said.” “Oh my God.”

Levi brushed his hair back and decided honesty was the best policy. Not only because he half suspected Stella would be sending her friends out to fact check his statements by the end of the night, but also because he was beginning to suspect she’d figured out a tell for when he was lying.

“I don’t want you to take any of this too seriously. I mean, it’s all good stuff, but like I don’t think of you like a gross pervert leering through a window checking off mental boxes of likes and dislikes.” “What dislikes?” “Oh my God Stella! Come on!” “Sorry, sorry, keep going.” He was rethinking his honesty policy and called an audible to a “whatever she responds best to” policy. “Ok. Um... like, well... I always talk about how you’re a good kisser.” “Boring.” “Uh... ouch. I am complimenting you.” “You’re skipping details. No way you and your friends sit around just going ‘oh yah man, my girlfriend is such a good kisser’ ‘wow, hot’.” “Are we fighting?”

Stella realized how she might be coming off. It didn’t even occur to her Levi might take it as her escalating things. “No. No, fuck. This doesn’t have anything to do with you, I should not be taking it out on you, you don’t deserve it. I’m just deeply insecure about my appearance and... I worry. I worry that I’m... that... you know.” “Clearly I don’t know. We’re past that.” “That you got like, the short end of this deal.” “Deal? What deal? Oh my God. Deal like the relationship, like I’m not lucky to be with you?” Levi stammered. She looked past him.

Levi did his best to recapture the bravado with which he usually delivers this type of speech. “She’s like a Fast Pass bro. You know, like at Disney world? She is all the rides, and there’s no line.” He saw her face fall. “Not that guys aren’t after her, I mean I want to punch these moronic fucking Sigma guys in the teeth the way they look at her like they’re slick.” He added that bit in just for her self image. It was true, but he didn’t go around saying it to people.

“No line like, usually girls that hot play mind games, you know? They answer your texts for a while, but then they don’t. They introduce you as their boyfriend, but then it’s just ‘and that’s Levi’ for a while. Or they post an ominous photo of some guy you’ve never seen on their insta and make you feel like the crazy one for asking about him. She doesn’t pull any of that. She could, easy. But she doesn’t.”

He searched Stella’s face for any signs of relief. None. He didn’t want to go into much more detail but he had a feeling he’d have to give her the whole penthouse letter before she’d let up. “The sex is, to use her word, bananas. But the foreplay is wild. Bro, did you know you can cum from making out? I had no idea and I probably never would have if I didn’t meet her. I don’t know what it is.”

He thought he might be detecting the faintest edge of a smile. He had to stay in this vein. He usually did with some variant in real time, anyways. “I mean, I know a little what it is. She’s got these ginormous titties, like a blow up doll. You’ve got to check it out, next time you see her just look at her and think to yourself ‘that bra isn’t padded’ and then wish you were me.”

He skipped the long stretches where he’d be shutting up so his friends could swap stories and tests to tell if boobs were real or fake, or argue over which they preferred, all while Levi made mental notes of who in the room was a virgin and completely making their shit up as they went along.

“She’s got actress hair. Like it looks like it should come off when you pull on it. But it’s all natural. She doesn’t dye it, nothing. I love that about her. What you see is what you get. I never wake up next to a different woman than the one I got into the bed with. You know?”

Levi had been a virgin before Stella and he hated that he’d just tipped his hand to her that he might have fabricated few past lovers to his friends, but she seemed to finally be almost enjoying herself, so he soldiered on.

“Her eyes, man. It’s like a white girl manga. The longer I look at them the bigger they get. I get so lost, google maps couldn’t get me out.” (He didn’t say this to his friends either, but he thought it all the time, so figured it couldn’t hurt for her to hear it.) He wondered if he was flattering her or sounding like a colossal dork forcing a lot of cheesy lines. He figured at worst, he’d settle for both.

He debated telling her this next part, but it was the thing he volunteered about her most on the rare occasion he did get in a dick measuring contest with other guys about their girlfriends. “But get this, dude, when she stays over, half the time... I wake up in her mouth. No, really. I don’t know if she just likes it or likes me but, breakfast is the most important meal of the day so, who am I to deprive her, you know?”

Stella burst into a fit of laughter. “Yo, you ask why I don’t want to be open and vulnerable, this is why.” Levi chided, more lighthearted than when the exchange began.

“Sorry, just... wow. You’ll never tell me what you actually say, huh?” “Not in this lifetime Stella. I touch on some of those same topics, but, yah. You don’t need to know exactly what I say.”

“You’re just so fucking, ugghhh, you’re so hot, Levi. Your like one of those rugged cowboys from a 1960’s cigarette ad, but you’re smart. I mean, fuck.” She kissed him like she was seeing him for the first time.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.” Levi muttered. “What do you mean?” “I don’t lack confidence the way you do, but I’m not hot. It just doesn’t bother me that I’m not hot.” “Are you kidding? You’re like a walking lump of muscle and pheromone.” “As long as I am to you, that’s all I care about.” “You don’t think you’re sexy?” “I’m a heterosexual man, Stella. I don’t think any creatures with a dick are sexy. The fact that you willingly come within ten feet of my junk never stops surprising me. I mean, have you ever looked at any woman and thought ‘damn, she’s sexy’” “I mean, no, but” “Ok. So think of all the supposedly hot women you’ve seen. If even like, supermodels you see, or porn stars or, I don’t know, like, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aren’t enough to make you go ‘damn that’s sexy’ then how could you ever think that about your own body. A body you know every horrible, disgusting, idiosyncrasy attached to?” “I guess I can’t.” “That’s right. But if that ever changes, and you do find a woman you think is sexy, it can be my birthday, Christmas, and anniversary presents from then until the end of time if you bring her over and touch her while I watch.”

Stella laughed so hard she teared up. Levi didn’t get it. “I wasn’t joking.” He realized as she gasped for breath between heaving chortles that he’d have to set that dream aside for now. “Yah, haha, funny. Joke.” He rolled his eyes.

“You know what I really love?” Levi inquired, looking at her closely, trying and failing to see her as she saw herself. “No, what?” “Waking up next to a stunning woman. But I can’t do that if I never go to sleep, you feel me?” “Well... maybe just a few minutes rest.” Stella conceded, laying her head in his lap. He wanted to complain that he couldn’t lie down that way, but he was so tired he didn’t really care.

He put one hand on Stella’s ginormous titties. He said a silent prayer that she could see herself, even if just for an moment, the way Levi saw her all the time. And he waited until she’d drifted off to snap a selfie of her passed out and text it to her with a time stamp. “I won.”

Once he slipped into dreams and his hand relaxed, dropping his phone to signal he’d gone to sleep, Stella cautiously maneuvered her hand to her jeans pocket, — careful not to disturb Levi’s hand — she liked it just where it was.

She snapped another selfie of his head cocked back, mouth half open in a light snore, her smug smile in his lap. Her fatigued pallor matched only by her competitive enthusiasm. She sent the photo with a new, later time stamp, and the message “Nope. I won.” And hit send.

But as she laid in his lap, feeling safe and cared for, basking in the glow of his sweet and well intentioned words she’d given him such a hard time about, she reconsidered. She angled the camera lens and shut her eyes, snapping a photo of them both asleep, his hand on her boobs, her free hand on the leather jacket. She sent that, with the final time stamp, and caption “It’s a tie.”

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