Office Hours [[lasciel & shale]]

[lasciel]

Grading sucked.

Grading CHEM110, the upper-division weeder course for would-be chemistry majors, sucked extra hard. As a teaching assistant at UCSD, Emily could be responsible for some grading plus the course's recitation section, but there were limits set up in the contract the TA's union had bargained for. The contract, however, only had as much bite as she was willing to give it... and given that it was her research advisor who was the teacher for the course, souring her relationship with him over a few extra hours a week of work did not seem worth the struggle. As he'd pointed out she could grade the weekly quizzes, homeworks, and mid-term and final exams from the comfort of the lab while her reactions progressed wasn't the worst thing she could be doing. Never mind that she'd rather have used the time to get ahead on her stack of papers-to-read and manuscripts-to-write; from the elderly organic chemistry professor's perspective anything that wasn't time spent running a reaction was interchangeable.

At least it was her last quarter of TA'ing. Once a year, for three years starting her second, and her degree requirement would be complete. Professor Brown was good enough at securing grants and funding from both government and industry that she'd never needed to TA for fiscal reasons. Just one last class of undergraduates who giggled like idiots whenever the professor said the words "backside attack" in describing SN2 reactions, who drew their boat and chair cyclohexanes so abstractly that she couldn't figure out which was which, who found new and exciting ways to misspell grignard. One last class of students whining and complaining that she wasn't nicer and more nurturing, and shouldn't she have been, as a female TA? One last class of staying until--

Emily checked the time,

--until eight-thirty PM in her office grading problem sets.

Jesus fuck I need to get out of here.

Both in the abstract sense, that she needed to begin putting together her thesis and planning an exit strategy from graduate school, and in the literal sense, that if she didn't get moving soon she wouldn't have enough time before the gym closed to complete her workout. She liked going late at night, as it was pretty empty then, and most of the fellow gym-goers were on the older and less assholeish side. Mostly a bunch of econ master's students, for reasons she'd yet to work out, but they were friendly enough and didn't try to hit on her and were accommodating when she asked to work-in or get a spot on a set. A few professors frequented the gym at that hour, too, but unlike her male colleagues the gender ratio among faculty meant she'd yet to have an awkward encounter with one of her superiors wearing nothing but a friendly smile. Male locker room culture... there were many things Emily envied about her male peers, but that was not one of them.

She looked around the overcrowded and cramped "office", which was more properly a chemical-storeroom-turned-office with all the luxuries of neither. Three aging metal desks were shoved along the three walls with a rat's nest of extension cables that she was sure was an OSHA violating powering the three setups. Against the fourth wall was the room's sole door, plus a ratty-looking but surprisingly comfortable couch that could fit two acquaintances or three close friends. Besides snowdrifts of paper and mismatched monitors scrounged from e-waste piles, each desk was appointed with little personal touches. In Emily's case that meant a small collection of carnivorous plants she kept alive with deionized water from the lab and crickets she got at the pet store. There was also a bookshelf with a mini-fridge crammed in the lower half, with an old and peeling sticker labeled "biohazard, no food or drinks to be stored in this refrigerator".

Of Emily's two office mates neither was present. Tim, one year above her, had gone home hours ago. His preferred work hours started just past what she called the "ass-crack of dawn", which suited them both just fine as it meant neither of them had to compete for the same instrument. Michael, still in his first year, was in the lab with one of the postdocs learning a protocol and would be for another hour. Still, Emily quickly looked around the room, then checked that the one door into the windowless room was locked before she began to strip down. Ditching her lab uniform of a thrift-store oversized jeans and faded graphic t-shirt ("Cotton won't melt to your skin, and I don't give a fuck if I spill something on this", she'd explained to Michael when he'd asked why she wore what she did), she dug from her well-worn backpack the pair of svelte lululemon leggings her sister had gotten her for christmas and a loose-fitting yet stylish fluttery workout tanktop.

Both articles were quickly donned, and then Emily paused to look down at herself. It had been almost a year and she still loved looking at how the leggings clung to her thighs and calves, emphasizing the lean muscle she'd built along her legs from years of biking to-and-from campus plus a regular weight-lifting routine. Ten pounds of muscle hadn't done much to change just how small she was built, barely clearing 5'2" and small enough to be able to get inside the deposition apparatus in lab (much to the benefit of her larger colleagues when the machine broke, which it often did). But those pounds had added shape to her legs and padded out her chest to make her small B-cups look a little less underwhelming, and though she couldn't twist around to see her upper back she knew she looked defined beneath her workout tank.

The the old clothes were stuffed into her backpack, followed by her laptop and the few remaining papers she would end up grading as she reheated and ate her dinner after working out. For time in lab she'd put her dyed-plum hair into a low bun at the base of her neck where it was least likely to get in the way of the fit of her lab goggles, but for working out she would need to redo the style to something higher. Her small hands were deft at the practiced task, uncoiling the rope of deep purple hair down to it's shoulder-blade length, then twisting it up at a higher point before settling it into a messy bun atop her skull and securing it with two black hairties pulled from her right wrist.

Emily spot-checked the rest of her appearance, then retrieved and donned her black skate shoes from beneath her desk and shoved them back on feet that had worn only socks for the past few hours of grading. Slinging her backpack up over one shoulder, then the other, she took her lanyard of keys and ID from her desk and looped it over her head and around her neck before grabbing her phone and heading out of the room. Turning off the lights behind her she took care to lock up, knowing Michael had his own keys (and not having spotted them once again left on his desk), before heading down the three flights of stairs and out of the building into the warm autumnal air of La Jolla.

The moon was out, but it's silvery light was still pale compared to the high-output CFLs that lit her office space, and she took a few moments to let her eyes adjust before she tried to cross from the engineering building to the bike rack nearby. It didn't help that her glasses were dirty, and she took them off as she waited and cleaned the lenses with the hem of her top, blinking jade-green eyes against the fuzzy gloom as she tried in vain to pick out shapes without the help of her corrective lenses. It was hopeless, and she looked instead down at her task as she polished the lenses then held them up against the light issuing from the window out from the door she'd just exited, checking for obvious smears. Satisfied, she perched her glasses back on her freckle-dusted nose, and turned to head to the now-mostly-empty bike racks nearest the building.

 

[Rustic]

"You're slow today," Coach Stone told Derek sternly, kneeling over the edge of the pool. It was a large pool, nearly Olympic in size, but just short. The gym built around it was high enough that anything said was followed by a soft echo. One could hear sharper echoes from those around them, like the other swim team members chatting in the pool, the women’s swim team coach cheering her team on.

Derek lifted his goggles, rubbing the chlorine water before it dripped into his dark eyes. He sighed, looking up to his coach. "Yeah, I know."

"Something's been off with you lately. I don't care what it is, I'm not your God dammed therapist, but figure it out."

Derek nodded, "yeah, noted."

He wasn't mad at the coach, even though that attitude wasn't what he needed right now. He was mad at himself. He was always the top swimmer, and it was like that when he started on the UCSD swim team. He had set his sights for the Olympics, but with the times he was making, he would be lucky to qualify for regionals.

He wasn't sure what was wrong with his head lately, he felt like he was in a funk. Maybe it was everything going on back home, or maybe it was how poorly he was going at school. But the coach was right, he had to figure it out.

"Alright, let's call it a night," the Coach called out.

Derek looked up to the large clock at the end of the pool and cursed. He was late.

He pulled himself out of the pool, water glistening and dripping from his form. Toned arms and legs, wide muscled shoulders, and a sharp six pack and pecks. Nothing extreme like that of a bodybuilder, but a toned swimmer’s body. No hair either, all shaven to help reduce drag.

As he got out, wearing only a speedo, he passed Katy wearing her swimsuit and headcap, heading for the pool. She was the hottest of the women's swim team, with blond hair and blue eyes, and the only one he hadn't slept with - - yet. He was working her though.

"Hey Katy, looking beautiful as always," he said with a beaming smile. He was classically handsome and knew it - - chiseled jaw, short black hair and dark eyes. He prided himself in how he looked.

"Hey," she said, with a slight smile.

He passed her ignoring her, but then after a few paces he took a moment and looked back. She was staring at him, snapping her head forward as if to pretend she wasn't.

He smiled. He had a half-mind to go and ask her out, but he had somewhere else to be.

He went into the Locker room and found the team all there, including his friends Matt and Kyle. Most of them were in various stages of undress, one already hopping into the showers. Derek wasted no time. He dropped his Speedo, displaying a fairly sizable manhood -- of which he was always proud about showing off -- and jumped into the showers.

Steam formed in the shower as the guys lined up turning on the spray of water.

Kyle, lathering himself with soap on his chest, looked at Derek and asked, "you still dating Paula?"

"I wasn't dating her," he explained, rinsing out his shampoo. "You know my rule."

"Right, three fucks and you're out. So are you done with the three fucks?"

"Yeah."

"What is she like in bed? Any tips about her?"

"Why?"

"’Cause I want wrap her pussy lips around my cock, why else?"

"Sloppy seconds? Really?" Matt interjected with a dumb chuckle.

"I don't care! That girl is hot as fuck! Have you seen her tits?"

“They feel great too,” Derek explained, a smile forming.

“Yeah? And does she do anal?”

He paused for a second, wondering if he was divulging too much. But this was locker room talk. Just guys being guys. “Nah, she hates it, so don’t bring it up.”

“What turns her on then?”

"She loves dirty talk. Call her a slut, she’ll cum all over you." Derek rinsed off the last of the soap from his body. "Just remember before you stick it in there, my penis was there first."

They laughed.

With that Derek jumped out of the shower, he didn't have time to waste. He put on a plain white shirt and jeans, and put some product in his hair, styling it to the side. Throwing on his UCSD swim team jacket, and grabbing his duffle bag, he exited the building.

He walked through the campus with a hurry in his step, having to find his way to the other side. The dim moonlight lit the walkway where the lamps couldn’t reach. He looked at his watch a few times, realizing he was late. When he finally found the lab building, he paused. She was already outside.

Emily, the TA from his chem class. The very class he was failing. He just wasn’t very bright, most teachers told him that. He still remembered Ms. Kline, his math teacher in his final year of high school. ‘Good thing you know how to swim, because you’re not going to get far in life with a brain like yours.’ Those words still stung.

He had to find another way to gets his grades up. He contemplated hiring someone to do his tests, but that was risky in case someone knew his face. Paying for essays was much easier, and he had done it in the past, but he didn’t like to tempt fate.

But Emily was another story. He got the idea when he was looking through tinder, and he found her profile. She was really hot, so he obviously swiped right. Even if nothing came out of that, he would make sure they were a match in real life.

Plus, if them hooking up meant she would give him a better grade somehow, it would just be icing on the cake. Alright that was actually the main reason for this. Regardless, it felt like a win win scenario. They hook up, and he gets better grades. What could go wrong?

She was wearing lulu lemon pants and looked like she was ready for a workout. He couldn’t help but stare at her ass in the tight fabric, but tried to not focus on it. She had a stunning petite body, smallish but nice tits, purple hair which he loved, and she was quite stunning to stare at.

He could approach her in different ways, maybe suave, talking about how he wouldn’t mind helping spot her at the gym. Or he could be cheesy and use a corny pickup line, which worked more on drunk party girls. She was an academic, after a long day of work, so maybe a sincere approach? He would start subtle, and work up to his charm.

“Hey,” he called out to her, trying to act like this was a random chance encounter. “You’re the TA from Chem 110, aren’t you? Just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Derek Reynolds.” He held out his hand and approached her. At 5’11 he seemed to tower over her as he gave her a big charming smile.

 

[lasciel]

The sudden sound of approaching foosteps, unexpected so late at night in the engineering quad, made her whip around and clutch at the keychain-sized pepper spray attached to her lanyard. Four years and she hadn't had to use it yet, but that didn't stop her shoulders from going up around her ears. Maybe Michael had locked himself out of the office again--

The figure was far too tall to be Michael, too broad in the shoulders and the confident grin he wore was too eager and cocky to belong to any graduate student. Probably an undergrad, then. Something about his face tugged at the back of her mind, but Emily couldn't place it. He was holding out a hand, she realized, and he'd introduced himself.

"Ah." He was in her deck of student flash cards. His picture from the student directory was a little out of date but now that she had the context she could place his face, matching a name she'd seen many times over the quarter. Unlike some other students he didn't cost her as much red ink as his lackluster grades would imply, but leaving so many questions blank was worse in her measure. He wasn't even trying.

Derek could see her expression shift from fearful to exasperated, auburn brows dropping over large green eyes with a crease forming between them, just over the bridge of her small nose where she'd replaced her black-rimmed glasses. Like the rest of her, her face and head were on the small size, a pleasant oval in shape with high cheekbones that gave her an otherworldly look with her penchant for winged liner and interesting hair colors. Now she looked like a pissed-off fairy, deciding whether the interloper who'd stomped through her circle of mushrooms deserved to be turned into a rabbit or a dog for his crimes.

"I know who you are. Office hours were at five," Emily added flatly, ignoring the offered hand and instead moving her right hand from her lanyard to hook one thumb behind the strap of her backpack. She'd never seen him around the quad before, especially not at the hours she usually kept outside of those required by her TA duties. That he was around, and from the sound of it had sought her out to introduce himself, left her with a weird anxious feeling she was eager to dispose of. Still, it was possible he just didn't understand that TAs had lives outside of grading and office hours, and something had gotten in the way of attending her usual sessions. If he'd finally decided to give a shit about the class she didn't want to be the one who kicked him back to the curb.

Her expression softened slightly. "But if you've finally decided to seek some help with this week's problem set, you have until I get my bike unlocked to ask questions." She added with only a hint of reluctance, before setting off towards the bike rack. Her own far shorter legs meant that her casual-quick pace was slow by his standards, making it easy for him to keep up. If he well and truly was trying to fix his grades, maybe she'd give him a few more minutes. But the gym was also important... and he'd taken until week five to say anything, which didn't say great things about his chances of not saying something stupid in the next five minutes.

 

[Rustic]

Like most men, they didn't know how to keep from being creepy. Derek at that moment, just realized how strange it was to approach a woman in the moonlight, alone. He tried to stand in the most non-threatening way possible, even keeping a bit of distance. But he eased a bit when she recognized him. It wasn't exactly the best place to hit on a girl, but truth be told it was the only time he had.

As she didn't shake his hand, he made sure to be unfazed by it. Lowering his hand, he kept up his smile, relaxing. He nodded his head as she continued. This was going to be harder than he initially planned for. He wasn't immune to difficult women by any means, but he kind of hoped this didn't start off so tense.

"At five I'm at swim practice every day," he told her. "I'm one of the star swimmers." He gestured to his jacket, indicating the team. He wasn't so much gloating as he was just stating a fact, in hopes she would see how he couldn't miss practice for some office hours. Of course, if she was impressed by that fact, it was just icing on the cake.

"You noticed," he told her in response to her comment about the problem set, how she emphasized 'finally'. He tried to not be fazed by that either, but it did pull at something inside. He had been leaving it blank, partially because he didn't know how to do the work, and partially because he didn't have the time. Sure he should have probably spent less time partying with his buddies, but truth be told he was also swamped with swimming practice it left only time to unwind a bit at the expense of sleep. Besides, he didn't bother with the questions when he knew he would get them wrong anyways.

He caught up to her quickly, realizing the urgency of the time limit she gave him. He didn't so much block her as he got ahead of her, turning, walking backwards to look at her straight on. "Yeah, I could definitely use some help with the problem sets. But let's be honest, the time between here and the bikes won't be enough." Maybe being sincere was still the best approach as she seemed to be a bit stern. However, the bikes were coming up fast. He would have to act fast. Being direct was probably the better strategy then.

"How about we discuss those problems sets at another time and place? Seeing as I can't make it to your office hours, how about later tonight? Over drinks?"

 

[lasciel]

"I'm one of the star swimmers."

At his statement and gesture she finally glanced at what he was wearing, and she realized why he'd looked marginally familiar. True, she'd seen his face in the deck of her flashcards at the start of quarter, and a few times when she'd reviewed it since. But she'd seen a more recent picture of him elsewhere. On tinder. On his profile he'd mentioned being a star swimmer. Her immediate judgement was that he was every inch a fuckboy and she'd swiped left, regardless of how pretty his pictures had been.

That brief bit of recollection did nothing positive for her mood. It wasn't personal. Tinder was vast, and it wouldn't have been the first time she'd encountered a student while swiping. But it still left her feeling unsettled for a moment, leaving her to blink in the darkness as she wrested the reigns of her thought process back from distraction. He'd said something important - that her office hours conflicted with his swim practice. Which sounded awfully like a him problem, but it did earn him a few extra moments as she slowed her aggressive stride towards the racks.

Or maybe it was because he'd gotten in front of her, and he was tall enough and broad enough to be more than a little threatening to the petite woman. She had to look up to match his gaze, which left her unable to easily watch where she was going, so she had to pick her steps with care if she didn't want to bust her ass on the transition from pavers to concrete to asphalt to mulch.

As he agreed that he needed help, and that the help he needed far exceeded the time allotted, her expression softened further. His approach maybe hadn't been the best, but there was enough time left in the quarter at least to prevent himself from failing if he hauled some ass, and it wasn't as if she'd always been a stellar student during her own time in undergrad--

Her thoughts ground to a halt as her mind tried to parse whether he'd really just dropped a pick-up line on her. Either the boy was woefully miscalibrated on what constituted appropriate study, or he'd decided that trying to get into her pants was more important than passing his class. She wasn't sure which was worse.

"First of all, I'm pretty sure you're not old enough to drink." Emily replied dryly, her displeased glare back in full force. It was a cover to fill the dead air and smooth over her growing discomfort. What the fuck was wrong with him? "Second of all, if you're proposing ChemDraw and chill, you're barking up the wrong tree." Even if she hadn't swiped left on him with extreme prejudice, and even if she wasn't extremely confident in what his likely motives were, scratching that itch could get her kicked out of graduate school. Even a six-month-long dry-spell wasn't worth curing at that price.

She was short enough, and the anchor point high enough, that she'd barely had to bend to work the key on her lanyard into the recalcitrant hole in the U-Lock that secured her bike to the rack. Through her replying monologue she'd been wiggling the key in it's lock, which finally turned with a reluctant grating-metal sound, freeing her chariot from it's prison. "And third of all, I have my bike unlocked. So congratulations, you've squandered your time, which I imagine isn't uncommon to you given your performance in class."

Pulling the bike between him and herself in subconscious defense, she walked it out of the mulch-covered parking zone and onto the path. As she swung one leg over the saddle, she glanced back, making sure he hadn't done something dumb like try to go around and get ahead of her. Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom enough that she caught something in his expression that made her pause. Rather than step her weight onto the opposite pedal she leaned back onto her other foot, far leg awkwardly draped over the saddle at an angle that would've been awkward in jeans and was more than a little inappropriate in leggings.

Emily sighed the heavy sigh of a woman knowing she was making a bad decision for the wrong reasons.

"If you're actually fucking serious about fixing your grades but had a moment of temporary testosterone poisoning, I'll be in Urey Hall 3103 babysitting The Apparatus from nine 'till two tomorrow. We can talk about the problem set then." It wasn't as if her task then and there would be particularly mentally stimulating. And the lab was as unromantic as settings came, if he showed up with the wrong ideas. Better yet, her various labmates would be around, and they'd have no problem escorting Derek out if he wanted to be an ass about it. Either way, she ranked the likelihood of him actually showing up at all as very low.

"Wear closed-toed shoes," she added before pushing herself up into the saddle and slamming down on the far pedal, sending the bike lurching forward as she found her rhythm and balance and pedaled off into the night before Derek had a chance to say anything to make her regret the offer.

---

The window she'd offered Derek had left him plenty of time to work around his own schedule, but it meant Emily actually had to be in lab by nine rather than rely on Tim to have set her samples up as was his usual courtesy (she returned the favor in the evenings when he had samples that needed to go overnight). Not that she thought Derek would show up. He was just a dumb fuckboy jock who'd decided to make a pass at his TA, and with any luck she'd never have to see him again. That didn't stop her from picking out her most oversized, shapeless t-shirt and baggiest jeans to wear into lab as part of her usual "uniform", completing the ensemble with a stained-but-serviceable labcoat she plucked from the coat-tree by the double-doors into Urey Hall 3103 when she came in the next morning, an oversize plastic mug of coffee clutched between both hands.

"Holy shit, Em, what are you doing awake at this hour?" Tim called from where he sprawled across two beat-up office chairs lashed together with bungee cords to make a pseudo-couch next to an imposing stainless steel and porcelain beast labeled The Apparatus in blocky hand-drawn script on peeling masking tape over the chamber's large central portal. Though he was only a few inches taller than his labmate, the fifth-year was roughly twice as wide and built like a linebacker. Emily was pretty sure he maintained his aggressive workout routine solely to be too big to get inside The Apparatus, thus eliminating himself from the roster of students who could perform some of the finer maintenance the finnicky machine often required.

Emily pulled over another rolling chair to the ancient metal desk set up on the far side of the channel of the lab that held the beastly machine and somewhat less beastly graduate student. She thunk'd her coffee down on the table top in defiance of safety policy about beverages inside the lab, then set her backpack down in the space where her legs would go under the desk, before turning to Tim. "I'm awake at this hour because I'm a dumbass an an optimist. Kid in my 110 section wants some help getting up to speed." She held back from adding and thought ambushing me on the way out of the lab at eight-thirty at night was a good idea, not wanting to give her labmate any wrong ideas.

"Well then. I assume you don't think they'll show?" He replied, standing up from the pair of chairs and stretching his arms overhead until something in his shoulders faintly popped. If Emily was in then he could head out and hit the gym before it got too crowded.

"Well if it was me, I wouldn't even show up until like, ten or eleven. But like a dumbass I parroted my instrument time so..." She shrugged helplessly, then shot Tim a dirty look as he walked by and clapped on the shoulder.

"Your loss is my gainz. I'm going to go lift before the frat boys wake up." He remarked with a chuckle, slapping Emily's shoulder a second time before shrugging out of his lab coat and heading towards the door. "I just got my samples into the drier and yours into the chamber, so feel free to take your time waking up."

Emily had no means of protesting Tim's departure without letting him know that Derek made her uncomfortable, and if she said that then he'd hang around... with a monkey wrench to clock the poor kid with. So she held her tongue and forced herself to wave as her first line of defense strolled out into the hallway, leaving her alone in the softly beeping, whirring, grinding, rumbling lab.

"Well, fuck you, too." She grumbled in his direction once the door had clicked shut. With a sigh matching the one she'd given the night prior, she moved to take up Tim's former seat in the pair of office chairs and worked on nursing her coffee while keeping an eye on the readouts from the aging displays that reported on the captive lightning that danced inside the machine.

 

[Rustic]

"I--" he tried to get in a word on the first point, but she wasn't one to let him speak. He got that he was technically not old enough to drink, but most didn't take that seriously in university. I mean one could cross the border and be suddenly legal, so it wasn't something Derek took to heart.

"I was just--" and again, she didn't let him defend himself. She saw right through him, but one had to be forward to get what they wanted. He wasn't going to apologize for that. Most men, when they talk

Point after point, it was like a hit to the gut. A normal man might take it offensively, but Derek just smiled, smuggly.

He didn't bother speaking, there wasn't much defending he could do. The facts were laid out and she wasn't interested. She made that clear. He contemplated if she was worth the effort, and something still made him think there was. Sure he needed the grades, but she was also kind of hot when she was angry. He liked it.

Then she gave him an opening. A chance to redeem himself. She was going to help him, and he did have a free morning. There was hope. Maybe he could go in and pretend to be interested in studying, all the while laying down some ground work for them to hook up. But he couldn't wait too long to make his move.

He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow as she peddled away. He couldn't help stare at her ass one more time. She was hot.

She was going to be a challenge.

He liked a challenge.

------------------------------

Upon waking he had second thoughts. He played the night over and over again in his head. She commented on how young he was and was trying to get into her pants and quickly shut him away.

He wasn't sure though, maybe she was having a bad night? He did catch her at the end of the day, then to have some guy, even if handsome and charming, come and hit on her - - maybe it wasnt the best approach or timing. He had to admit that much.

After taking a shower, he decided to not shave, leaving his rugged 5 o'clock shadow. Taking his soft scented cologne, he did a single spray under the neck. What many men did was not only apply it wrong, but apply too much. Smelling like a hormonal teen who took a bath in axe body spray. No you wanted it subtle and lasting, so she only got a subtle scenet she got close. He could do two or three sprays, but he wasn't sure if Emily liked cologne, so best to not risk it.

He got dressed in stylish jeans, a graphic t showing his favorite band the Tenzers, with a collared shirt that was open and loose. He spent a bit more time on his hair, making sure it was styled and parted just right. Then he moisturized his face.

As he went to get some coffee, he thought about not going. Did he really want to put himself through that again? It wasn't an obligation, but he did have a scholarship to keep. If he failed a class, he was likely to lose it. No he had to get his grades up, and getting in her pants, making her cum so hard she could fill an Olympic sized pool, that was the way to go. That was his talent. His only talent, other than swimming.

Both of which, after last night, he wondered if he was losing.

A girl, Sandra, with dark skin and long flowing hair, with those shiny luscious lips, walked alongside Derek. She had breasts and an ass like nobody's business, which he quickly eyed.

"Hey Sandra," he said smiling.

"Derek, you have your morning free like usual?"

They had hooked up twice in the last two weeks, and today would have been the third. Always in the morning, when their schedules lined up. He was tempted... Really tempted. He breathed out with a sigh.

"I have somewhere to be actually."

"Oh," she said with a hand on his shoulder. "can you just spare a few minutes? A quick?"

He smiled, "you know I'm not a two pump chump."

"Oh Hunny, I know," she said with a grin.

He bit his lip. "As tempting as it is, I really do need to go."

"Is it another girl? Because you know I don't mind, the more the merrier," she said with a devious smile.

"Oh Sandra you're killing me," he said laughing. "Rain check."

She waved sensually, and gave a wink, then turned away.

He stopped walking, contemplating if he wanted to turn back and just spend the morning with Sandra. She was wild in bed, screaming so loud the place shook - - but part of him wanted to spend the morning with the girl that rejected him and seemed to want nothing to do with him.

What was wrong with him?

Grades, remember it was about the grades.

As he got to the lab, she was there, alone. Stained lab coat, baggy pants and shapeless shirt. She wasn't dressed to impress. He shrugged, not really caring. She was still hot despite that, sexy face and that edgy purple hair. He found her as hot as any of the classes where he couldn't keep his eyes off of her.

He threw away the coffee as per the signs, and put on one of the lab coats. He decided to make his entrance. So he walked up next to her, and propped himself up, sitting on the counter, looking relaxed. Already taller than her without the height, he really had to look down to meet her eyesight.

"So, how was your night?" he said with his best charming smile.

 

[lasciel]

The click and skreeeeee of one of the lab's double-doors opening, followed by a heavy thunk and slosh of Derek's coffee hitting the large wastebin by the entrance, drew Em's attention. She looked up from a manuscript she'd been editing, red pen working just as hard on her own words as her students', and blinked in surprise.

Holy shit he actually showed.

Safety first, though. "Grab a coat from the rack and put it on." Her eyes darted to his shoes. They looked suitable, in that they weren't sandals, and it wasn't like she was going to be asking him to help her at the bench. His jeans were nicer than anything she would've ever dared wearing around so many organometallics which readily stained and turned odd colors in the wash without ever coming out, but again, he wasn't going to be doing anything besides quietly working and asking her a few questions while she made sure the reaction in The Apparatus didn't go sideways. Once he was suited up she nodded, watching warily as he approached.

She took her own coffee from the desk, in clear defiance of the no food or drink sign posted outside the lab, and took a long sip to hide her expression. Part of her was annoyed that he'd bothered to show up, as that meant she couldn't simply forget that he existed and let her uncomfortable memory of his late-night approach fade into obscurity. But part of her was also pleased. Maybe he really had just suffered a moment of stupidity, running his mouth out of anxiety on auto-pilot (as men his age often did), and if she could keep him from failing there'd be enough warm-and-fuzzies from the effort to make it worthwhile. She had no illusions about him turning suddenly into an A student, but if she could get him to a B- that would be miracle enough. A C was enough to keep him from failing out of his major, so even that would be a victory.

The complicated expression brought by her conflicting thoughts remained obscured by the oversized mug as he sauntered over and hopped up onto the desk across from her. Had she not spent a decade always being the shortest person in the room his power-pose might've intimidated her. As it was, she was just grateful she'd moved her coffee ahead of time, and that nothing too noxious had been spilled on the desk in recent memory. But if he wanted to stain his expensive-looking jeans, though, she wasn't going to stop him.

By the time her coffee lowered she had cemented her lips into a frown. Her fingers itched with the urge to slap the cocky smile off his face, energy she channeled into a tighter grip on the worn plastic handle of her coffee cup. Maybe he was just trying to be polite. "It was fine," she replied flatly, with a look that dared him to keep at his current approach and see what happened.

You just want to pick a fight because you're in lab before noon.

Emily sighed, took another gulp of her coffee, then twisted to sit in a more upright position and reached over to set the mug a few inches from Derek's thigh as he was sitting where she'd previously put the vessel. "If you'll kindly move your ass into an actual chair we can go over this week's problem set." Ignoring his arrogance in sitting where he had, it was the only clear and flat space that left her line-of-sight to The Apparatus. And there was a perfectly good (or at least, passable, as all the chairs in the lab could be best described as) chair for him to sit in nearby.

"And put these on." From a beat-up cardboard box on the table where The Apparatus's main instruments resided she pulled out a pair of polycarbonate safety glasses and passed them to Derek. Since he didn't have a prescription set of shatter-proof lenses, he'd need something over his eyes to keep the lab's safety officer from crawling up her ass over violations of protocol. "Was there a specific problem you wanted to discuss, or should I just assume all of them and go in-order?" Since she didn't teach the class she had no idea if he was even attending lecture on a regular basis. All she knew was that he hadn't ever shown up in her office hours, for reasons that had previously been mysterious.

 

[Rustic]

He raised his eyebrow at the clear defiance of the rules, as she held her cup of coffee. He didn't peg her for a rule breaker, but then again he didn't know her. He just assumed she would want the rules followed, thus dropping his coffee in the trash. He eyed the garbage, disappointed he had thrown out half of his cappuccino for what seemed to be no reason.

When she responded he nodded and thought of trying to make a joke about their interaction, but he didn't want to sully this encounter by dredging up the past. What was he kidding, it was likely the only thing on her might at this moment. So bringing it up just pointed out the uncomfortable feeling she was probably having. No, he had to play this cool, calm, collected. If he was going to get her panties on the floor of his room, then he needed to play a bit more of the long game. That's what last night made clear, she wasn't one to fall to the whims of a good looking stud like him. No, it would take time. Time that he wasn't sure he had. So for now, he would play the good little student game -- but if some of his natural charm came out from time to time, he wasn't going to stop it.

When she told him to sit down, he gave a half smirk. He liked that he pushed her buttons. He could tell she was holding back, the way she spoke to him, the look on her face -- likely tension still from the night before. Him sitting on the desk where she had her drink originally likely didn't help either. She was still kind of hot when she got bothered, which was a weird observation for him, as most of the time he hated when girls got in a mood. Mostly it's why he had his three fucks rule, so that no relationship would form, and no moody girlfriends to deal with. It's why he also didn't like being just friends with girls. He also felt like it was a waste of good pussy to just hang with them. Why talk to them if you could fuck them, he always felt.

He got off the edge, and put his ass onto the cushion -- if one could even call it that -- making the chair squeak. He pulled with his legs, rolling the chair to the desk, and took out his notepad. When handed the glasses he put them on. He always hated the safety goggles. These ones were uncomfortable on his face, the rims cutting into his skin.

He rubbed the back of his head at her question. Clearing his throat he told her the truth, "yeah, let's just assume all of them, and go in order. Not even sure if I remember them." He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. He wasn't sure why he didn't even try, but he just didn't see the point. Why try if you're going to fail anyways?

 

[lasciel]

That little cocky quirk of his lips did nothing good for her temper. For a moment she worried he wasn't going to move. But then he did, passing uncomfortably close due to (she hoped) the layout of the lab, taking the other nearby chair and wheeling it back over to the desk. He'd taken the glasses too, even put them on without bitching to her surprise. How long he'd keep them on before bitching they were uncomfortable was another question. Men his age did tend to have a nasty habit of deciding protective equipment was too much of a burden for them and removing it at the most inconvenient times, Em knew from unfortunate experience.

With him seated she stood, peering over his shoulder at his blank notepad. One brow raised at his responding remark, and she waited for the other half of the joke.

A few moments later Em realized it wasn't a joke. Had he even looked at the problem set? She sighed far more heavily than before, and against lab protocol reached up to push hair away from her brow in a display of clear exasperation. She probably hadn't touched anything harmful in the last hour, assuming Tim hadn't made any spills he hadn't told her about. "Okay. Well, you're here, so that's step zero. Let's see what we can do with the rest."

She went to her backpack, squatting down to rifle through it until she pulled out a copy of the problem statements. Derek didn't get a chance to see much else besides some scribbles in red ink, leaving it unclear if it was a marked-up and completed problem set or her own copy for grading. Em only needed to consult the document briefly before putting it face-down on the far side of her body along the desk, leaning her forearms onto the tabletop for lack of a sensible chair to pull up besides him. She was short enough that it mostly worked, if one ignored how far out she had to stick her butt to avoid keeping her knees awkwardly bent.

From a drawer in the desk she grabbed a pen, dabbing the tip against her tongue to ensure the ink would flow. Reaching over she angled Derek's notepad towards her and began to draw the molecules in question. "Alright, so, it's probably easiest to follow if I sketch out the reagents like this..."

---

Fifteen minutes and several crumpled pages later Emily withdrew, as much to give her hamstrings and lower back a rest as to mask her frustration with his apparent block-headedness. It really wasn't hard. She hadn't been a superstar in ochem but she'd at least been able to understand the basics. The titles of the mechanisms had often eluded her but she'd always had a knack for guessing where the electrons wanted to go and how reactions might proceed. (It wasn't as if the names of a bunch of dead old men were useful in letting you know what you were describing anyway.) But Derek seemed...

Something wasn't clicking. How had he gotten this far in the program and was getting stuck here? He'd managed at least some questions on the prior problem sets. And if he'd been copying those to feign a passing grade, why not at least bother finishing out the whole problem set?

At least this probably means he's not failing on purpose to get my attention or some dumb shit.

"Alright." She proclaimed, shoving her pen behind one ear and raising her hands over her head to stretch her shoulders up. "Do you want to try the second question, or...?" Em wasn't sure what the or could be, besides continue to bash his head against the wall for another fifteen minutes. But maybe he could better articulate where his thoughts were stuck if she gave him some time to think without her staring expectantly at him. The Apparatus needed a bit of attention anyway, a check of the dials and readouts and some scribbling in her lab notebook that took her eyes off him for at least a few moments.