Work Text:
Aiden, despite what Harvard liked to say, was not negligent in his duties to teach a younger generation. He was, very simply, not interested in describing the basics of logical reasoning to a room of hungover twenty year olds.
That's what he told himself, as he blindly fumbled to turn off his alarm for the third time, lips working on drawing out soft sounds from Harvard's sweet mouth.
Harvard, seemingly misunderstanding where his priorities lie, pushed lightly against his chest to seek his eyes.
"You'll be late."
"Who cares," and he leaned forward to seek another kiss, finding it, but too soft and chaste to his liking. Aiden chased him again, but the hand over his chest stopped him pointedly. "Harv, it's the one day you have off, I can just— call in and say I'm sick."
Harvard leveled him one of his looks. "Let's not do that."
Aiden didn't groan, because he wasn't an immature teenager with no impulse control. Or, maybe he did groan, but given that it happened between his and Harvard's bedsheets, the rest of the world didn't have to know he had.
Harvard looked at him, and cracked a smile. The barest hints of sunlight had started to peek through their blinds, and it shined across dark skin like on sparkling lake water. Aiden wanted to stay in his arms and drown.
Harvard pressed down with more urgency, and pecked him again.
"Go. We have all the time in the world tonight."
Aiden was still bleary-eyed, something past six in the morning and sleepy, and failing to see any convincing reasoning. He still wasn't, and maybe wouldn't ever be, a morning person, but he could be awake for Harvard shirtless in his bed. Their bed.
But it was the last day of the semester, and they'd had to move his beautiful, gorgeous, three-in-the-afternoon lecture to the first of the day. Aiden had asked Harvard the night before if it was possible to sue his university for such treacherous things, and Harvard had merely huffed a laugh and taken his phone from his hand. The email still read on the back of his eyelids, however, a bittersweet goodbye to pleasant dreams between asleep and awake.
Or, you know, pleasant things done with his lover between kind of asleep and definitely awake.
He let himself express his frustrations in the safety of the space between Harvard's shoulder and the mattress, before finally getting up and disappearing through the bathroom.
Harvard called after him, and he could hear the smile in his voice."You'll have fun!"
Aiden poked his head back out, and realized he wouldn't ever get tired of Harvard near naked in their shared bed, face still sheet-lined from sleep, smile soft and eyes knowing. He grinned.
"I'd have more fun with you. But, whatever, I guess, if you don't want me, I can just wallow in my unrequited feelings—"
"Oh, shut it. You know what I'd do for you." Harvard rolled his eyes, and drew the sheets back to follow after him. How he had the energy to do so without any contract-bound obligations, Aiden didn't know.
Harvard padded up to him, and wrapped his arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, stopping all foreseeable plans to get ready for the day in one light touch.
Aiden would never get used to having all this, but neither would Harvard, even if he was well aware of how Aiden's attention, and heart, and peace of mind had always been in his hands, malleable and his.
Aiden smiled, curling a hand around Harvard's arm, watching as his eyes glinted in the mirror. "Just a reminder to cherish me."
The goodbye kiss he was given half an hour later was rather scandalous for breakfast hour, even by his standards. Cherished he was.
The lecture was boring.
Not because Aiden hadn't put thought in it— he had, it was kind of his job. But there wasn't much to parse about exam preparation. Do the readings, answer the discussion questions, attempt the practice exams. Supposedly, easy. Despite what the results seemed to suggest.
His job wasn't to teach, technically, it was just part of the researching contract. Research which usually meant a lot of reading papers and writing his own papers, and arguing with people in between academically-approved rambling essays. All things considered, he could've ended up doing something worse.
Aiden paced behind his desk, gesturing vaguely as he exhibited some, rather quite basic, exam protocol to the few stragglers who had shown up to his last class. Three of four people in the front row were on their phones, and the fourth stared blankly at the notebook laid in front of them. He slowed down his steps, and leaned against his desk, on a well-worn corner.
“… and most of you don't care about any of this, because you’ve already figured out how to cheat on the essay, and aren’t even listening, like— not even a little bit, wow.” He stared, impressed. “Seriously?”
A few sets of eyes blinked at him, and he raised his own to the sky.
“Okay. Uh, dismissed, then.”
The familiar sound of students shuffling out of his (small, kind of stuffy) hall wasn’t enough to get him out of his thoughts. Not really, at least.
The door creaked open, and a stream went past. One figure emerged among the students, saying oh! and, I didn’t mean to— sorry!
Harvard was recognizable to him by touch, presence, scent. Today, he was the tallest of the crowd. He, also, while concerned about accidentally bumping into any students, lit up when he finally raised his gaze. Aiden watched him with amusement.
“Hey,” he said, finally, when he’d gotten close enough. The room had emptied out, and they were alone in its vast quiet. “You forgot lunch, I thought I’d— you know, just—“
Aiden, who was infamously bad at controlling his impulses and being decent in public, dragged him into a kiss right then and there.
Harvard tensed up in surprise, only to then melt into his hold and respond in turn. Awful, embarrassing butterflies went wild in his stomach at the thought.
He pulled away just enough to murmur against his lips, “Couldn’t stay away from me, could you?”
Harvard smiled, pecked him, and snuck his hand to lightly thread Aiden's hair, . “When have I ever been able to?”
Aiden involuntarily blushed at that, because for all Harvard's admissions of a long-standing crush and of his tumble into love and of his long-term plan for proposal, it still felt good to hear him say it.
The years of pining had amounted, in the end, to a dream come to life. Sometimes Aiden still felt like he was walking on clouds, speechless with the taste of something so sweet.
Harvard leaned back in, and, to his surprise, swiped his tongue against his bottom lip— hesitant, but something Aiden could work with. He wrapped his arms around his neck, made a soft noise in the back of his throat that Harvard always wanted to coax out of him over and over again, that made him impatient and wild and made him leave burning fingerprints over Aiden's skin.
Harvard shuddered, and Aiden grinned against his lips. He had not, and wouldn't ever, lose his ability to read him.
Nevermind that he hadn't picked up on the crush for ten years. It had been a case of willful ignorance, and one for which he was living out his life sentence in full. It just looked a lot different to the future he had told himself he'd settle for.
Harvard's hands found his waist, and Aiden found himself pressed into the edge of the desk, thinking, oh, god, I really love him, how he had at a time like this when he was eighteen, and they'd had an empty classroom to kiss in.
Harvard pressed a little closer, fingers curling around his waist, and Aiden couldn't help but smile. He knew that Harvard couldn't say no to him— it was, most often, a little dangerous— but to come seek him out, surprise him, and take his breath away like this? He'd left behind his romanticism young enough, but this felt like falling in love over and over again. He wouldn't change it for the world.
Someone cleared their throat, and Aiden had half the mind to think it a creak of the wood— until he realized, oh.
Right.
Harvard stepped away far too quick and with little grace, because he got embarrassed far too easily. Aiden smoothed down his shirt as inconspicuously as he could, and turned to face a supervisor, maybe a termination of his contract, or—
You know, a student.
They blinked big brown eyes up at him, rocking back on their heels. "I was— sorry, is this a bad time? I can come back another— I mean, I just—"
Aiden waved them off, and their fingers tightened over the book. They blinked, as if surprised. Aiden was surprised too— he hadn't had a student stop by before or after a lecture for the whole semester thus far. It really wasn't that hard of a course.
He tried to smile in an approximation of an apology. He still felt far too hot under the collar. "My office hours aren't open today. And this isn't my office."
"That's the issue," They scratched the back of their neck a little awkwardly. "You don't have any office hours posted."
Aiden pursed his lips. "Oh."
The student raised one expectant eyebrow at him. He scuffed his shoe against Harvard's, feeling the smile on his lips behind him.
"It's possible I might've forgotten."
The student's eyebrows shot up to their hairline, and in a small voice, they added, "For a semester?"
Harvard cleared his throat, and, under his tone, uttered. "A steady three stars on Rate My Professor."
Aiden gave him a look, deadpan and annoyed, because it wasn't his fault if people didn't like that he wrote on chalkboards, or that he could be harsh with grading sometimes, especially when people didn't read the material.
He turned back around, and saw a smile gracing the student's face. He didn't have to see it to know how Harvard was returning it behind his back, because he'd been in that exact position many times before, whenever he got in trouble with a teacher and Harvard tried to make him feel better.
He nudged Harvard along, urging him to leave them. His heart tugged to be with him, to let him stay and hide himself in his arms for the rest of the day, but even he knew responsibility called from time to time. And the possibility to publish.
Harvard gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, cast a look at the lunch left on his desk, then made for the doors.
Aiden turned back around, and pointedly ignored the wide-eyed look he was being given. He hadn't yet had, and hoped he never would've to, have the Yes, I'm married, and yes, he can stand me for more than four hours a day; yes, I am capable of emotion beyond annoyance, wickedness, and bitchiness— nevermind that two of those are near synonyms, conversation.
He smiled, a little tight-lipped, but as genuine as he could. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"
The student, whose name turned out to be Madeline, ended up leaving a little before his last lecture, in time for him to eat his cold rice at his desk, chewing and contemplating his next steps.
Putting up his office hours wouldn't take long— to be fair, no one had emailed him about it, or attempted to ask him about them, so Madeline must've been the first to actually need them. But, just in case the second semester brought forth some more spirited souls.
No one cared much for a course they were forced to take as part of a degree requirement, after all. Except Madeline, supposedly, who seemed keen on writing their thesis in the area. Aiden had thought them rather charming— as far as sleep-deprived, overly stressed, extremely caffeinated university students could be.
The rest of the day was spent conducting his second lecture— something slightly more pertaining to his quote-unquote research— and then a brief bout of gossip with the campus librarians across the square. Then the drive home, and, finally, finally, Harvard's kiss across the threshold of their home.
Now Aiden sat on the couch, music sounding out from one of Harvard's dusty records, and he found himself squinting at the article that had ended up in his mailbox. It was— to his work, and to anyone with half a thought— insulting, to say the least.
He pursed his lips, and scrolled back up. "I'm gonna ruin this man's career."
Harvard, from the kitchen, responded, "Did he do something wrong?"
"Undermined my last three fucking papers, oh, this bitch." Aiden huffed, and his glasses slid down his nose unceremoniously. He felt not only humiliated, but stupid, too. "Can you even do four papers on nihilist interpretations of common sayings in a row?"
He heard a clinking of glass on marble, as Harvard shrugged and responded. "Maybe he's more about the passion than anything else."
"I don't know about—"
Aiden looked up, only to find himself speechless. Harvard quirked an eyebrow. "What?"
He said it like he didn't— know how he looked, shirt undone and cheeks a little flush, and two cups of wine, and warm and like everything Aiden ever wanted, something to make him fall in love again and again and again. It was the same dress shirt he wore to work, and at home, because he was prim and proper that way, and Aiden tended to appreciate the way it stretched across his chest when he leaned against counters, or the back of sofas.
He was appreciative now. If not suspicious.
Aiden narrowed his eyes at him, willing his heart to calm its tumble. "Did I teach you that?"
"What?"
Aiden gestured vaguely. "Open shirt, hip cocked, eyes low. You do know what you're—"
Harvard's lips twisted the way they did when he was trying not to smile, and Aiden raised both eyebrows.
"Oh." He hummed, considering this newfound consideration. Often he thought of how Harvard influenced him— less did he think about what influence he may have in turn. Harvard handed him his own glass, red sloshing around inside. Without thinking, he let his phone slip from his hand to the cushions, professional revenge forgotten.
Harvard stared at him expectantly, and Aiden could feel the gravity of him pulling at his skin. "Dance with me?"
"To your awful music? No."
"It's not so bad," Aiden let himself be tugged upwards, if only because he got to press into Harvard's side, warmth and all. Giving himself up to gravity. Harvard grinned at him. "And I like dancing with you. Indulge me?"
Aiden ah'd. "So this was a carefully planned seduction."
"I wouldn't call it—"
Aiden kissed him, and in the process off-balanced them enough for Harvard to take a stumbling step back. "I've taught you well. Consider me seduced."
Harvard made a pleased noise, lending another kiss to him, and another.
It was more swaying, stumbling, than any real dancing, because for all of Aiden's pointers and lessons, Harvard had never learned much beyond awkward middle-school-slow-dance swaying. But it was sweet, and whatever tension he'd previously harbored melted away under Harvard's touch, and when he sunk into the couch, laughing, Aiden followed, sidling up to him.
Harvard's warmth seeped through to him, as his words wrapped around him. "I missed you today."
Aiden half hid himself behind the rim of his glass, and batted his eyelashes. He had never outgrown this— this certain coyness between them.
"Oh? Do tell," He pressed himself to Harvard's side, and Harvard curled his free arm around him, unthinkingly, sweetly. "What did you do about it?"
"Lamented and cried my eyes out," He smiled, and Aiden leaned in, just a fraction too far. "Obviously."
"Hm." Aiden ran his fingers across the top of Harvard's clothed thigh, trying and failing to contain a smile. "A true tragedy."
He liked this— the slow edging into something more, the simmer of warmth in his chest, the build and build and build. He had learnt to like the wait, the time spent in comfortable silence, the urge dampened to a quiet, but incessant, need. There had been a time— a while of a time, really— when he'd thought everything between them had to happen fast, before Harvard finally found someone better and called it all off.
He'd been so sure of it, so afraid of it, so bone-deepingly resigned to one belief and then another— first, that Harvard wouldn't ever want him, and second, that Harvard would find someone else, eventually; that this, too, would fall apart, soon enough.
It hadn't. Harvard had assured it to him with a ring and a promise, and every day since— and every disagreement, or fight, or particularly vicious argument. Aiden knew he was difficult— it was in his nature— but Harvard handled it with all the same care he did his hands at an altar, the same mirth in his eyes he had when Aiden did something incorrigible, the same laugh that had made him fall so fast and so far.
Aiden smiled at him then, and pecked him below the jaw. Harvard's lips parted, like they did every time, and every time they seemed like a revelation of what Aiden could do to him.
Pointedly, Harvard shifted, just far enough to set his glass on their coffee table, and laid back against the couch, beckoning Aiden to follow him. Aiden did, because of course he did, because what else could he do?
Harvard had him, in his arms, led by the hand, wrapped up in his heartstrings. He never thought he'd have this, and then one day he'd turned domestic and gentle like he'd never been.
"You should've kept me in bed," He ran his fingers up the hem of Harvard's shirt, barely brushing his skin. "This morning."
"I wanted to." Harvard's fingers curled around Aiden's wrist, and he couldn't help but feel his heart seize, his breath stutter. His gaze darkened, and Aiden knew how true his want had been. Was. "But I've curbed my impulse control by now."
"Oh, yes, just to show up and kiss the breath out of me. Incredibly inappropriate behavior in a place of work, by the way."
Harvard rolled his eyes and brought Aiden's palm to his lips, pressing a soft, barely-there kiss to the skin. Years and years later, it still made him blush and hide his face in the juncture of Harvard's neck, like the first time.
"You're the one who kissed me," Harvard's voice came as a reverb through his throat, and Aiden couldn't help himself from biting down on his skin, just lightly. "Hey!"
"You shouldn't have been so sweet, then."
Harvard took his glass from him, then, and set it beside his too. Aiden raised himself just enough to feel hands cup his face, then plunge into his hair, still kept long and soft, and for a proper kiss to be placed on his lips.
He felt that, despite all odds, or the myriad of adages that called for things to go wrong, he was as lucky as they could come.
scottishgremlin Mon 11 Aug 2025 09:48PM UTC
Comment Actions