Archive of Our Own

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Dr. Ziegler’s office was a small but neat and organized space. An assortment of colorful orchids bloomed on the window sill and a few selected prints of pencil sketches decorated the wall - Mako had no idea what they were trying to represent. They looked like something he vaguely remembered from a high school biology book, cut up cells under the microscope or whatever. Still, it was rather cozy; more comfortable than a lot of the other professor’s spaces and Dr. Ziegler wore a soft smile on her face when she looked up from her notes. “Mako, thank you for coming. Have a seat,” she offered. Mako looked at the chair, held up only by cheap aluminium legs, and opted to remain standing. He hoped he wouldn’t have to be in here long anyway. Dr. Angela Ziegler was the head of the science department, therefore Mako had no idea what she could want from him. Though Mako was quite used to being cited into one office or another in general. He knew the speeches by now. His grades were tolerable at best, but if he was slipping further they’d have to cancel his scholarship. But since Dean Wilhelm was not inclined to lose his best rugby player, Mako usually got away with a slap to his fingers, his professors were dropped a hint that he’d better pass his exams so he could play in the season’s finale, and everyone was happy. Only Dr. Ziegler didn’t look particularly happy today, not even under that gentle, unfaltering smile. “Mako, we need to talk about your grades. I hear you’ve been playing this game for two years now, and I don’t care about your academic success, because you don’t care about it. But in order to get enough credits this semester, Dean Wilhelm and I have agreed the best option for you would be a work-study program.” She paused for a few seconds to give him time to voice his thoughts on that suggestion, but when Mako remained silent, she carried on. “It’s a bit late in the semester and most open spots have been filled already, but I have one position available. Professor Junkenstein still needs a lab assistant, and I’d think you’d fit in quite nicely.”Mako frowned. He remembered the man from his very first year at university. For whatever reason they made him teach basic science orientation classes for first semesters - which meant Mako had spent five months watching the man struggle to stuff some basic knowledge about biology and chemistry into the brains of students who were here on sports scholarships, students who just took the orientation class for the credit, and only a handful among them who actually planned to pursue their studies in a related field. It was fucking hilarious. The professor had tried his best, probably. Mako couldn’t actually remember much of that class. Just that Professor Junkenstein had a habit of getting distracted in his own ramblings, and a lesson about the construction of an experiment, to have it be an actually acknowledged study turned into a forty minutes story about the most horrendously failed scientific experiments in the 1800s. Complete with a fifteen minutes follow up rant on how much better it would have been if people then had possessed at least enough sense to listen to the conclusions of those experiments - because even a failed study could be successful by teaching scientists what not to do - instead of calling them crazy and heathens and trying to shun them into silence. Mako had always had a feeling that the professor was talking as much about the pioneer of his field as about himself, which he found rather funny. It sure as hell had been interesting, no doubt, but since Mako would be no doctor or engineer or anything related to it, that had been his first and only class with Professor Junkenstein. “I don’t know anything about lab work,” he said. He wouldn’t really mind, because it would probably be interesting to see what the highly renowned professor was working on when he wasn’t busy explaining what had to be his equivalent of a baking soda volcano to a class of two hundred half-motivated recent high school graduates. But there had to be someone more competent than him to work in such an environment. Angela barely managed to reign in her face. She knew that, obviously, and it was exactly the reason why she had picked Mako for this position. Because it might have been a little white lie that she could not fit him in anywhere else. Just, Jamison Junkenstein had fired his last five assistants within weeks, and quite frankly she was tired about him complaining about students who didn’t know their place and kept ‘infringing’ on research he had specifically declared off-limits. His students in return were understandably dissatisfied with gaining no experience from someone who refused to clue them in on his work, but insisted they be on call whenever he had need for them to go through decades of notes, journal entries and publishings for one insanely specific piece of information . Of course, Junkenstein insisted that he didn’t need help in the first place, and she would have believed him, if his queer antics would stop at him occasionally sleeping at his desk and wandering into the following morning class in wrinkled clothes with ink smudged on his cheek. But a week ago he had made the janitor call security in the middle of the night - turned out what they thought was an intruder was just the professor who tried to break into his own lab in slippers and a bathrobe. Apparently he had forgotten his keys, as well as that proper dressing clothes existed, when an idea had ripped him from his bed in the middle of the night.
Maybe Mako with his completely different background would be a better match for the eccentric man. At least he wouldn’t complain about not being taught enough, he got the credits he needed, and Dean Wilhelm was off their backs about Mako’s and Jamison’s issues both. Two birds with one stone. “That won’t matter. You’d just be assisting. Filing data, cleaning, documenting. If you want to do me a personal favor, stick a poster-sized print of his timetable somewhere in his office, it might actually make him appear to class on time for a change.” The blonde woman sighed, and Mako had to laugh quietly. So the professor’s habitual tardiness hadn’t changed either, it seemed. Whatever, he could give it a try. It was easier credit than classes and exams, if that’s what made the board happy and let Mako focus on leading his team to yet another season victory, so be it. “Yeah, whatever, sounds fine,” Mako said, shrugging. “Great! I’ll make sure he’s informed, you can drop by his office tomorrow to discuss details. Thank you.” Dr. Ziegler’s face lit up in some strange kind of relief that made Mako feel a bit wary, but maybe she had just expected him to put up more of a fight. As if he had any real choice, Mako thought. Except for maybe get better grades, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon, so lab assistant it was. His teammates would piss themselves laughing at the prospect of their captain scrubbing glassware and being some nerdy professor’s secretary. At least Mako was quite sure they wouldn’t make him wear a lab coat - mainly because he was too big to fit in any of them. -
~I don’t want to set the world on fire ~
The wallowing lyrics of the old-fashioned song drifted down the empty hallway that led to the professor’s office.
~I just want to start
A flame in your heart~
The closer Mako came, the more it became distorted by off-key humming, and he wondered whether Prof. Junkenstein knew that this ancient tune had regained some of its popularity due to a recently released video game. He assumed not. The professor’s office almost looked like Dr. Ziegler’s. If it had been hit by a bomb and sweep-cleaned by a tsunami. Sitting on his table, rather than on the cushioned chair, the man was bent over a notebook, scratching his thin nose with the end of the pen. His long legs - one of them Mako knew to be a prostheses - dangled to the slow rhythm of the song. He didn’t even notice his visitor until Mako cleared his throat, and even then he jumped ever so slightly. Amber eyes, almost comically enlarged behind thick, round glasses, stared at him for a second, before the flash of recognition flitted across the man’s pale face. “You must be Mako. Angela was so kind to announce you.” He paused, tilting his head. “Have we met before?” The professor frowned at Mako, pushing up his glasses which made his hair stick out in all directions. It was of a shockingly white color, and Mako had always wondered how that came to be. Judging from Junkenstein’s sharp edged face, he couldn’t be much older than forty, not nearwhere old enough to warrant hair white as snow. Mako just shrugged. “Been in one of your orientation classes,” he suggested. Most people remembered him. Probably because some primal survival instinct made sure you were aware of a 7’4 guy who looked like he carried his truck to school instead of driving it. The professor kept frowning at him. “Oh, well, I’m sorry we both had to endure that, then,” he said, his voice dripping with the obvious contempt he had for this class.“Or maybe you saw me play some time,” Mako added, though he assumed that was unlikely. “So, you’re here on a sports scholarship then, I take it?”Mako nodded. Leave it to a science professor to have no idea who the captain of the team was who had led them to victory in the national college league for two consecutive years. “Rugby,” he clarified in his infamously eloquent way, and finally Junkenstein’s face lit up. “Wonderful.” He gave Mako a quick look-over. “You’ll do nicely! Come on, I’ll show you the lab.”He dropped his notebook without so much as looking as whether he had finished his last sentence or not and shooed Mako back out the door, leaving the radio to play for an empty room. The slow tunes drifted away like fog as Mako followed the man even further down the hallway.“I’ve already told Dr. Ziegler I have no experience, though,” Mako said, because who knew whether they had carried that on to the professor. “That’s alright, don’t worry,” Junkenstein said with the most enigmatic smile on his face - and Mako really started to wonder why his lack of experience with lab works seemed to be such a great thing for everyone involved here. There must have been dozens of students way more suited to the task than him, but he wasn’t gonna complain about a position that promised to be relatively easy and basically gifted him credits so he could focus on what he actually came to college for. -The professor briefly showed Mako around the student labs and their neatly set-up workstations, all chrome and neon-lit and filled with shelves that were stocked with countless plastic containers and glass jars, but they moved on relatively quickly. A staircase led them from the ground level student labs down into the basements - and now this looked much more what Mako imagined a scientist’s workspace would be like. It was just as chaotic as the professor’s office, but Mako sensed some underlying structure under piles of notebooks, cluttered shelves full of tools both very modern and seemingly ancient alike. No one had bothered to plaster the brick walls down here or hide the brass pipes that coiled along right under the ceiling, and Mako couldn’t shake the feeling that they were really not supposed to be here, this far down below the actual university building. Maybe because between machines Mako couldn’t name and the mess that was Junkenstein’s research, he also saw a worn-out sofa in a corner, a toothbrush right over the sink next to a couple petri dishes and a coffee maker resting under the metal table. He couldn’t imagine that to be standard university protocol, but the professor didn’t comment on it, so neither did Mako. “I’ll mostly need you for documenting and transcriptions. It’s not exciting work I’m afraid, but someone has to do it.” And he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself, is what he wanted to say with that, Mako could hear that much. The professor’s sharp eyes scanned the room for a moment, a deep frown appearing between his brows, before his face lit up so suddenly it made Mako a bit dizzy to follow the change. “Rules!” he exclaimed, as if startled by his own thought. “Well, one rule to be exact. You will only work on what I give to you. Everything else in here is…,” He pauses as if to look for the right word. “Delicate research. So don’t mess around with it. I’ll know if you do. I’ll show you how to digitize the documents and add them to the database. You’ll get spare keys, so you can come in whenever you want. I personally don’t care whether you want to come in early or late, two hours a day or twelve hours in one sitting, so you can adjust that to your schedule however you see fit.”Mako nodded. By now he started to get an idea why Junkenstein had no objections to having an assistant who most likely did not know what to make of his work - because he didn’t actually need an assistant for whatever it was he was mixing up in his lab. He suspected the professor’s own students would find it terribly tempting to snoop into his work. Mako actually had no such inclinations. His scientific education had reached its peak when he had learned that the mitochondrion was the powerhouse of the cell somewhere back in 8th grade. He debated whether he wanted to feel somehow insulted by the man’s excitement over the assumption that using a computer was the most complicated task someone with a sports scholarship would be capable of fulfilling, but if he was honest, those requirements were just fine with him. He had a feeling the professor wouldn’t give a flying fuck if he actually just never showed up at all but just served to fill the position on paper. “Oh, and one more thing,” Junkenstein said, now actually looking at Mako properly, having to tilt his head to meet the student’s face despite his tall, lanky build. “Move carefully around here if you will, yes?” The professor’s eyes pointedly traveled down Mako’s huge, muscled body, dressed in plain jeans and a hoodie so big it could probably house two normal sized people. Mako was used to that. Both, the curiosity and the wariness around someone who always resembled the bull in a china shop whenever he happened to be inside four walls. But then the look lingered, and yeah, that happened too, though Mako rarely cared to acknowledge it. With the professor, he found it surprising and unexpected - and admittedly intriguing. There was a distracted flicker in the older man’s gaze before he seemed to catch himself staring, and his head snapped away so sharply Mako couldn’t help the smirk tugging on the corner on his mouth. Mako would lie if he tried to claim it wasn’t interesting that even Professor Junkenstein, nerd in chief, a renowned and celebrated scientist in his field of expertise, would be thrown off track by his presence alone. He always had had kind of a weak spot for how flabbergasted highly intelligent people seemed to be by such base reactions as plain physical attraction but everyone had their weird quirks, he assumed. If anything, that meant that maybe his job here would be somewhat enjoyable after all. -Truth be told, a month in Mako had to admit it had turned out enjoyable in a lot of ways. If they happened to work together - which was most of the time, seeing as Mako had no idea when the professor actually slept - he had discovered that it was stupidly easy to get the man properly flustered. A casual change from his workout shirt to a fresh one here or a lazy stretch across his chair there, and Mako could just feel the distracted gaze at his neck, breaking away as soon as he turned. It was usually followed by the professor staring stubbornly into his microscope for minutes, and Mako suspected the notes he took while doing this were complete bullshit. But when he wasn’t getting a kick out of teasing the older man, he actually genuinely enjoyed his company. Which was another quite unexpected development. Junkenstein really did not give a rat’s arse about what Mako was doing on that computer. The professor would randomly interrupt him, telling him to remember a thought for him for a minute - and then usually forgot to come back to it at any point of his work - or had him fetch instruments without so much as looking up, making an impatient waving motion towards Mako’s general direction with his precisely moving prosthetic hand. He’d offer Mako coffee so strong and bitter he never managed to drink more than three sips from it, while the older man downed it like water. It actually made Mako want to read up on how to do CPR again, because the professor’s pulse had to steadily resemble that of a racing horse.And then, one evening, the professor entered his lab, threw a stack of papers on his desk with an audible thump and pulled a bottle of straight vodka from his worn leather bag. “Mako, do you drink?” he asked with a very serious expression, either ignoring that Mako was busy with his own homework instead of his actual job, or not even realizing it. “Yes, but -”“Great, then this is gonna be much more fun.” Mako watched the professor fetch two cups usually reserved for coffee and fill them up generously. “I figured out that it’s much more rewarding to get drunk while correcting the orientation class quizzes instead of waiting until afterwards. Your job for today is to stop me from giving out grades like ‘I’ for idiot and ‘M’ for moron, I was told that’s unprofessional and hurtful. Oh, and don’t let me feed them to the Bunsen burner, did that too, and then they had to retake the quiz and the second results were even worse than the first ones.”Mako chuckled, taking the full glass from the professor’s hands. He could just see the older man doing that in a fit of frustration only to regret it minutes later. The professor downed half his glass in a single swig, while Mako almost choked on his first sip, pulling a face when the strong liquor ran down his throat. “I thought you said you drink,” Junkenstein said, dropping his lanky form into the lumpy sofa, pulling a red pen from his chest pocket in a way that looked rather eager to use it very liberately. “Well, yeah, a couple beers after a game sometimes,” Mako clarified, and Junkenstein just laughed. Mako had never developed a taste for anything stronger than that, and he tended to avoid alcohol on a larger scale anyway, as it just interfered with his training. “Shame, because this is actually really good stuff and it’s completely lost on you.” With that, the professor emptied his glass, and Mako took it upon himself to get up and fill it anew. “Thank you. Alright, let’s do this, question one - wait, no, they didn’t even enter their name.” Junkenstein sighed, and Mako watched him with a growing smile as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, making his glasses slip down a bit. He scribbled down a big, fat ‘missing’ symbol on top of the sheet. “So, now, question one: What is the genome?” Instead of checking the answer, the professor now looked at Mako expectantly, two big amber eyes under raised eyebrows that were so pale they were almost invisible, adding a rather odd effect to his face. This time, Mako choked on his drink for real. “Me?!” he coughed.“Well, why not, you took the class too, right? It’s the same quiz, I never change it in hopes that one day they’ll figure out to at least cheat, but no. So, what’s the genome?”Mako stared back at the professor for a moment, feeling his brain rattling and screeching like some ancient steam-engine. “Erm…” He took another sip for confidence, which had the professor’s face torn between amusement and exasperation. “It’s the… the blueprint of life!” Yeah, that sounded right, at least he remembered something like that being taught in school. Junkenstein blinked at him very slowly, once, twice, before releasing a pained sigh. “That’s DNA. The genome is the entire genetic material of a species, which consists of DNA. Oh but that leads us over to question two: What does the acronym DNA stand for?”“Something Latin,” Mako said with so much joking confidence the professor couldn’t help but giggle through his frustration. “What do they actually teach you in school?!”Mako shrugged, and simply sat into the spot next to the professor, easily taking up two thirds of the couch and peeking into the answer sheets. Not that this would have helped - under question eight (Draw a rough sketch of a body cell, naming the three major parts.) someone had actually just drawn a shrug emoji: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯“To be honest I don’t remember most of it. Was never my strong side - but one time we dissected rats, and I accidentally cut open it’s stomach. Two girls puked.”That elicited a laughter so full of schadenfreude from the professor, Mako had to laugh with him. By now he had finished half of his glass and found it easier to keep the vodka down with each careful sip, even though the dizzying effect set in almost immediately. That would have surprised a lot of people, considering his size, but it was no use standing just above seven feet when you really weren’t accustomed to alcohol. By the time the professor had corrected all the answers with vigorous red lines and circles and all caps commentary, Mako found his glass empty, his vision fuzzy around the edges but oddly sharp at the focus. The couch wasn’t even comfortable, he could feel springs digging in his back but leaned his weight into them anyway, watching Junkenstein grade the quiz with a D. “Wait, why did they pass?” Mako asked, and wow, even his tongue felt a bit heavy. How the professor was on his fourth serving without so much as slurring his writing was beyond him. “You think I’ll let one of those morons fail so I have to teach them again?!” Mako chuckled, and the professor sighed as he took off his glasses for a moment to rub at his eyes. He put the papers away, suddenly taking more of an interest to the student sitting beside him. “Mako, I’ve meant to ask you something.”Again, that sounded very serious, so Mako just nodded solemnly. “So far I haven’t caught you snooping through my research even once. Why is that?”Mako frowned. Right, so maybe Junkenstein didn’t look like it, but he had to be drunk to pose such an odd question. “Because you told me not to?”“So you don’t care about it then?” There was actually a hint of hurt in the older man’s voice, and really, Mako knew that nerdy people’s brains sometimes ran off in stray directions. But being upset with someone for obeying their orders was new to him. “Why should I, if you recall I don’t even know what DNA is.” Mako shrugged. “I bet it’s very interesting for people who understand it, but I wouldn’t. So it’d only serve to get me fired and I’d rather stick around.” That was a surprising amount of open and honest words even to himself - or especially to himself - but at least he was making sense. “You actually don’t give a fuck about what I do down here as long as I keep my hands off your stuff, and I get a place where I can do my homework in some peace and quiet. You ever lived in a dorm full of air-headed sport jocks? It’s fun, if you like living in a puma cage. Smells included.”That put the professor a bit at ease, and now Mako could see the intoxication after all in the way he fumbled with his glasses until they finally sat on his sharp nose again. “I like spending time here,” Mako added, heavy eyes resting on the professor’s tall, lanky form - as always, he looked like he had dressed stoned and in the dark. The wrinkled dress shirt under a too big, woolen vest was missing a button at the right cuff and the collar. His slacks were a tad too wide, presumably to offer more room for the prosthetic knee joint, and yet still too short around the ankles, showing off a single, bright green sock in a brown slipper. Nothing matched and nothing was supposed to and Mako always found it amazing how a man could be so clever and witty and sharp-tongued and yet not manage to find pants that actually fit him. Jamison himself suddenly felt very at loss for words. He didn’t know if that was the direction he had wanted to steer the conversation into, but he also felt way more intoxicated than he had anticipated to be, damn his nerves. The vodka hadn’t really help eliminate the wonky flips his stomach occasionally insisted on doing around Mako - which he wrote off to be a kind of conditioned response left over from his younger years, nothing to worry about. But now Mako was suddenly very close and looking at him very intently with his warm brown eyes in that handsome, broad face, and - No, no, that was enough. It was only silly and harmless until he actually paid any attention to those very confusing feelings. A teeny tiny crush he never wasted a second thought on? Well, still not a hundred percent right, but whatever, even a professor was just a human being. But sitting here, zero feet apart, drinking with his student - and had his subconsciousness set this up in hopes of it leading anywhere else? - and trying to figure out if that look meant something, that was too far. Definitely too far, for him as a person, for him as a professor, for him as someone easily twenty years Mako’s senior, no matter how much he looked like a full grown man. And he did, really, all big and muscled and with a voice so wonderfully deep Jamison sometimes thought of just making him read from a medical dictionary, while he just - No! Too far, definitely too far. Suddenly Jamison couldn’t stand it anymore and peeled himself off the couch, taking two hopefully steady looking steps towards his own chair and dropped into that instead. He didn’t know which or how many lines he had just crossed, but it felt like too many, even though he couldn’t see them clearly. “I think you should just leave for tonight. I’m sorry I kept you around, that was… unprofessional… and uncalled for, you have your own work to do I’m sure.” Yes, very good, nice save, Jamison praised himself. But Mako didn’t leave. Instead, he leaned even further back into the couch and squinted at the older man through suspicious eyes. He had no idea if the professor believed himself to be inconspicuous in his reactions, when he could have just worn a neon-lit sign that said ‘I have a weird and possibly inappropriate crush on you’. And as much as Mako liked that weird game where he pretended not to notice the professor’s interest and Junkenstein pretended not to notice quite obvious signals, now that this weird attraction risked a peek around the corner, he couldn’t help but push. “So if you look at me that’s okay, but when I’m looking at you you send me away?”Junkenstein decidedly did not meet his eyes, his whole body going tense and rigid. “I’m not… I don’t know what you mean, and you should not suggest something that could -”“Don’t worry,” Mako interrupted him. “I’m not telling. Told you already I’m quite fond of being here.” Jesus, even from here he could see the man’s neck flush. He grinned, but got off the couch after all. “I’ll leave you to your quizzes, Professor. But you know, if you need an excuse for looking, we have a game on Saturday. You should come see me.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the Name of Science 2There was a last chill in the spring air when Jamison walked Angela to the playfield – or rather let himself be walked by her, since she knew the way a lot better than he did. He couldn't remember the last time he'd come to watch a game. He had never seen the appeal in sports, really he considered it a waste of his time to spend hours sitting on uncomfortable benches or plastic chairs to witness a bunch of grown men chasing a ball as if they were a pack of dogs.Still, the very air around them seemed to vibrate with energy. The groups of students and parents with small children at their hands that passed them by were dressed in the team's gold and blue colors, chatting excitedly, randomly stopping to greet each other like long-lost relatives. Jamison couldn't help the frown on his face grow deeper with every minute. The whole event seemed bigger than a game between two university sports teams had any right to be – there were adults with fully painted faces for crying out loud, and just as he opened his mouth to mock them, a booming voice startled him. “Angela!” Jamison felt something inside of him cringe. He knew that voice before he turned around to face the man it belonged to. Dean Reinhardt Wilhelm was many things, but quiet was not one of them. How could he be, at barely over sixty he still resembled an aurochs more than a regular man, Jamison thought. Huge and bulky, full of confidence and enthusiasm, Wilhelm had a way of attracting attention without even trying, and a radiant smile bloomed on Angela's face as she turned to wave at him.Wilhelm parted his way through the crowd like a tank ship, shaking Angela's tiny hand with one of his huge paws and Jamison tried his very best to not roll his eyes at the man's attire – gold and blue, of course. The jersey matching the scarf, and he assumed the dean had only refrained from painting his face too for the sake of the snow white beard covering his face. A wonder he hadn't dyed it. “Good to see you here, supporting the team! A wonderful day for a game!”“Truly, it is,” Angela smiled. “I've heard we're doing well this season, so I've wanted to see for myself. And we lab rats can use a bit of fresh air now and then,” she joked, earning a hearty laugh in response.“I see you even managed to lure away Doctor Junkenstein from his experiments. It's a surprise to see you here, Doctor.”Jamison forced half a smile on his lips, as if he hadn't noticed that Wilhelm had not extended the courtesy of a proper greeting to him, or the weary glint in his blue eyes when he looked over the shabby coat and the freakishly huge checkered wool scarf that covered Jamison from nose to shoulders. Fine, maybe that scarf was unnecessary, too warm even on a last chilly day like this, but Jamison liked how it made him feel shielded from the masses of people around him. “Occasionally even the greatest minds need some form of mundane distraction.” Okay, maybe that hadn't been the most polite thing to say, but Wilhelm disliked him already anyway, so how much worse could it get?To the man's credit, the frown on his face disappeared after a split second to be replaced by a grin that didn't reach his steely eyes. “I hope you enjoy your excursion then. Excuse me, I have to go check up on the boys, see that they're ready to kick some butts. I'll catch up with you later, Angela.”As soon as Wilhelm was out of earshot, Angela's smile all but melted from her face. She sighed in only half-joking exasperation. “Was that really necessary? Can you not make smalltalk like a normal person?”Jamison scoffed. “Even if I could, what's the point? It's not going to make him like me any more than he does already, which is not at all.”“Oh and who's fault it that? Jamison, the only time you two ever talk is when students complain about you or when you set the lab on fire!” she scolded him, still hooking her arm into his as they walked, as if to soothe her own words.“That only happened twice! Experiments sometimes go wrong, that's just in their nature, and I can't help that some lazy, entitled brats who've been spoiled by their parents and teachers to think they're infallible -”“Yes, I know, I know, I teach them too, remember?” Angela interrupted his rant. “But that's why it's important to get your colleagues and especially your superiors to know you on a more personal level: be diplomatic, befriend them even!”Jamison rolled his eyes. “Fine, I'll try to do better next time,” he promised, completely unconvinced. Angela shook her head, patting his arm in a way that said she didn't fall for that for even a second.The whole exchange left Jamison feeling so irritated that he almost wanted to call quits this instant and leave. But Mako had invited him to come watch him play, and up until this morning Jamison had felt that his student – well, assistant really, whatever – would be disappointed if he didn't show up. Now, as he was watching the stadium fill with people, he wasn't so sure anymore why he had thought that. There were hundreds of supporters for both teams; his presence would be lost among them. Maybe Mako had even just invited him to be polite, or -“Come on, let's sit up there.” Angela didn't leave him much time to brood over the whole thing, pulling him towards the rows higher up where there were less spectators who they tended to flock together close to the field. Jamison took a deep breath. What was he even doing here?Slowly, everyone seemed to find their place while playfully clumsy mascots and graceful cheerleaders entertained the waiting crowd. Jamison decided he liked the whole thing better from their observation post and was finally able to relax a bit again. Next to him, Angela rummaged noisily through her backpack. She brought forth chips, sweet popcorn, an XXL bag of chocolate covered pretzels, two sandwiches and two thermoses, dumping half in Jamison's lap and half in her own.“Jesus Christ, how long do you plan on staying here?”She laughed. “We'll be here a while. And I'm on my period, I need snacks or I'll get grumpy.”The first genuine laugh today forced himself through Jamison's lips. “Wow, way too much information, thanks.”“Oh, don't be such a baby, Professor Doctor Doctor Scientist, and open the pretzels. And the chips, while you're at it.”Jamison was smart enough not to mess with period cravings and dutifully opened the bags for her, before unscrewing the thermos for himself. He couldn't stomach any kind of food now, with his guts drawn into a tight knot, hoping that whatever kind of tea he presumed to be in it would help with that – and almost choked on his first sip when he tasted in fact something hot, but also something very much alcoholic. “Jesus, Angela, what is this?” he coughed.“Mulled wine,” she answered cheerfully, clearly finding his reaction terribly amusing. “All sports events are a lot more fun when you're at least a little bit tipsy.”Well, there was no arguing with that, Jamison thought, carefully taking another sip. Now that he knew what to expect it actually tasted nice, heavy and full of spices. It made something cozy and warm spread inside his chest, soothing his upset stomach and after the third sip he actually managed to lean back, feeling some of the pent up tension leave his body. “Genius idea,” Jamison mumbled, and Angela nodded in agreement.Suddenly she perked up. “Oh, oh I think it's starting!” Finally the teams came out onto the field, and Jamison tried to not make it super obvious how he was craning his neck to see if he could spot Mako – not that there was any need for it. Even among a bunch of tall, big, well trained athletes he still stuck out, towering over them at least half a head, and really, with the wide pants and comfortable hoodies he preferred to wear in the lab, Jamison had never quite noticed how he wasn't just big, but also muscled like a bull. It made the uniform shirt stretch over bulging arms and reduced the already small shorts to look downright skimpy – Jamison half wished they would have opted to be closer to the field so he could have gotten a better look, and found himself half relieved they hadn't because he was starting to feel too hot under his coat and the absurdly big scarf as it was.It was ridiculous and embarrassing and Jamison didn't know what he had been thinking – having a dumb little crush because someone paid him more attention then he was used to was laughable, but mostly harmless, probably. At least he could tell himself it was fine because he had no intentions on acting on it – mainly because he would have just made a fool out of himself, anyway. He'd been there before, and he had no intentions of repeating the experience, thank you very much. On the other hand...
”If you need an excuse for looking, we have a game on Saturday. You should come see me.”
Mako's words unhelpfully echoed inside his head, so presumably he wouldn't mind if he knew that Jamison found himself rather transfixed by very naked and very thick thighs – he doubted that made it right, though. He didn't have time to find an agreement with himself in that regard. There was a lot of shouting and gesturing and re-positioning happening on the field, until suddenly a shrill whistle broke through the noise. Then all hell broke loose.Jamison did not understand the last thing about sports in general or rugby specifically, but to say it was a full-contact sport was an understatement. They crashed into each other with seemingly no regard for their own or their opponent's safety, piling up into a shouting, struggling, grappling mass that only dissolved when one team got hold of the ball, and from then on the only thing Jamison was sure about, was that they had to somehow bring it over the finishing line. Which turned out to be harder than expected, with what Jamison presumed to be the defense cutting them off or simply tackling the carrier to the ground. More than once Jamison saw Mako crashing into someone so badly he actually flinched where he was sitting safely on the bench, but he felt something like respect for the guys who did not actually run off the field in terror when Mako came after them. He knew he would have.But Mako wasn’t just burly and strong. That was obviously his main advantage, but he was also surprisingly quick for someone his size, pretending to turn into one direction just to swerve so suddenly it visibly startled his counterpart - and Jamison up on the bench.Next to him, Angela cheered loudly – at least when she wasn't shoveling handfuls of snacks into her mouth – and Jamison grinned at her somewhat irritated. “Do you even know what's going on down there?” he shouted over the uproar the masses caused.“What? No, of course not. I’m from Europe, where we play soccer like civilized people. I just cheer when everybody else does!”, she yelled back, and Jamison didn't know why he had to laugh at that as hard as he did. As it turned out, that was the only way to go about it, and with some help from Angela's liquid courage in a thermos, Jamison decided to join them. The energy was quite infectious – it was like watching a battle, maybe minus the actual casualties. But since there were no more battles to be fought man to man, the warriors of old now went against each other on the play field, fighting tooth and nail for their team's victory, supported by the chants and applause of a crowd and a cacophony of noise that ebbed and swelled with each of their moves. It was impossible to escape the excitement, even if one did not understand all the rules or all the details, and he could feel Angela clutching to his arm when the teams tied score with only ten more minutes left to play. If possible, she was also stuffing popcorn into her mouth at an even quicker pace now, and even Jamison dug into the chocolate covered pretzels, washing them down with cooled mulled wine. It didn't taste great anymore that way, but he took what he got, finding himself sitting on the very edge of his seat.If anything the young men on the field went even harder at each other now, each of them determined to make this game and bring home victory. Jamison could hear Wilhelm shout almost louder than the coach, though he couldn’t make out the exact words over the general roar and cheer. Some parents looked about ready to conquer the field themselves, though Jamison supposed it was smart they stayed safely behind the barrier instead of risk getting smashed between these adrenaline-fueled berserkers. In the end, he had no idea what had happened. Somehow in all the ruckus their team had gotten hold of the ball, and one of Mako’s players essentially ran for his life, barely slipping through the grasp of his opponent, before nose-diving across the finish line. The final whistle rung in Jamison’s ears, and if possible the crowd got even louder: they had won by just three points, but what the hell, a victory was a victory.The tension visibly drained from the players, being replaced by pure euphoria and excitement for one side, and harsh disappointment for the other. From where he sat, Jamison could watch Mako, grinning proudly through hugs and shoulder pats and friendly headbutts. For the first time now his eyes actually wandered over the stands, pushing loose strands of black hair that had escaped the ponytail out of his face with one hand, the other placed on his hip. The gesture alone made Jamison feel fluttery all over again, and by now he found himself at loss at his own reactions. Apparently, he could spend years without feeling even the slightest amount of interest towards anybody - but some bloke happened to be taller and bigger all over than the rest, and his allegedly superior brain turned to mush. And who could blame him, with Mako looking like the Greeks of old must have imagined the titans themselves.He didn’t know what Mako was looking for. Most likely his family or friends. But then dark eyes found him in the upper rows, and Mako’s gaze locked on him in a way that made Jamison feel like the bench had suddenly disappeared below him, leaving him in free fall. The grin on Mako’s broad face never vanished - it just grew more ferocious, and Jamison was really glad Angela was too busy packing up the remains of her binge stock to notice his ears burning up like Christmas lights. “Come, let’s congratulate them,” Angela’s voice ripped Jamison from his daze, and he tried his best not to look too much like caught in the act, but he couldn’t help feeling exactly like that. He had hoped his certainly misplaced infatuation would turn out to not be quite that serious after all, out in the open like that, but apparently it was exactly as bad as he had feared. There was no way he could go down there and face Mako, or anyone else while Mako was face to face with him. “I don’t think -”“Nonsense, another thirty minutes of socializing won’t kill you. See, Reinhardt is down there too, you could earn some bonus points with him still.” Indeed, there he was, shaking hands and patting shoulders, praising what he undoubtedly deemed his most valuable students, all in all looking very satisfied with the result. Angela ignored all the unhappy sounds Jamison made as she grasped his arm and dragged him up from the bench and down to the field. “...very proud of all of you, really. But next time I need you to crush them, I’m too old for thrillers like that.” Jamison caught Wilhelm’s words, followed by a booming laughter, and tried to grimace mostly inwardly when the dean caught sight of them. “Ah, look, the science department joined us too, today. Dr. Junkenstein, Dr. Ziegler, meet the Lions!” Wilhelm introduced them. Angela just swooped right in, telling everyone what a good job they did, how much she had enjoyed the game, and well, a pretty woman like her could be sure to have the full attention of a group of young man immediately. Jamison already struggled with the attention he received from just one of them. Up close, Mako’s uniform seemed even more revealing than from afar - curse those bloody shorts. He was sweaty and dirty from mud and grass, and there was some blood drying on Mako’s elbow from a superficial wound. It should have been appalling, but instead Jamison just found himself wanting to rub his face into that broad chest and - “Professor?”Oh shit, Mako had just said something to him, right? “Yes? I’m sorry, I’m just…” He made a vague gesture towards the dissolving crowd. “Too many people.”Mako just made a noise that told him he knew exactly that it wasn’t the masses, but just one person who had gotten Jamison this distracted. Thankfully, Wilhelm was too engrossed with Angela and the other players to pay them much attention. “I’m surprised you really came.” Judging by Mako’s tone, he wasn’t. “Did you enjoy yourself?”Not nearly as much as he’d enjoy himself being the one to scrub all the filth and grime off of Mako under the showers, Jamison thought completely unhelpfully, but he nodded anyway. “Yes, I… it was very interesting. Someone maybe should have explained the rules to me first, but still.”Mako laughed. It was such a nice sound, vibrating through his massive body so much Jamison could feel it in his own, and he smelled -
Oh God, he could smell him. Warm and musky and sweaty, and what the hell was even wrong with him, noticing that and feeling his mouth water like he was some starved dog. “I’ll run them by you next time I’m down in the lab,” Mako promised, and Jamison just nodded absent-mindedly. “Sure, you… you do that. I need to go back now anyway, I still need to finish some paperwork, and…” What was he even trying to say? “Anyway, good game.”“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”Jamison nodded before he simply turned and left the field. He didn’t wait up for Angela, not even when she called after him in slight confusion. She had company, she would be fine, but he couldn’t stand being out there for a second longer. The nice thing about being the designated oddball of the teaching staff was that you could pull off simply leaving without saying a proper goodbye to anyone, and nobody really second-guessed it anymore. It wouldn’t help him with winning over Dean Wilhelm, but that ship had long sailed, and Jamison assumed openly leering after the rugby team’s captain wouldn’t earn him those bonus points anyway. -The silence in his lab turned out to be even more torturing than the steady noise back at the fields. Music didn’t help either, nor did a second or third cup of black, bitter coffee. His own notes didn’t make sense to Jamison; he kept going over his calculations like a hamster in a wheel, checking them again and again and still finding mistakes in them afterwards. It was ridiculous. Bloody absurd. He was a grown man, an expert and pioneer in his field, known for his focus on his studies, for his sharp mind. He had found and fought for his place in this world - and yet he felt like a teenager all over again, hiding from the fuzzy, confusing feelings because some boy had looked at him for a second too long. Although he remembered all too well how more often than not boys’ attention had worked out for him: It had ended with his books - or his head for that matter - dunked in the nasty school toilets, having his notebooks torn only to watch his sketches flutter out the window in single sheets, or getting shoved into the nearest locker until he had at least grown tall enough to make that impossible. It hadn’t often happened back then that someone had shown any interest at all. His teenage self had only survived holding onto the fleeting hope that those things would be easier as an adult. His forty-three year old current self wanted to laugh at that until he passed out. Nothing had gotten easier. Jamison had simply come to terms with the fact that he was not compatible with other people. What did it matter - he had found his calling after all, and once you were out of the game of pursuing romantic or sexual interests, it stopped being of importance after a while. And now he found himself in some weird Mrs-Robinson-situation that didn’t make sense to him in the slightest. Jamison knew he wasn’t imagining things. Not all of it - he was decidedly bad at picking up social cues and signals of attraction from other people, but he’d have to be deaf and blind to misread Mako’s interest. Though whatever interest that would be exactly, beat him. Mako couldn’t really be trying to seduce him - the thought itself was so absurd Jamison scoffed loudly at himself. Why would he do that? Jamison had seen him, surrounded by young, pretty girls, and fit, handsome boys all day, he didn’t need to chase after some old professor and his weird, torn body. Except…Jamison couldn’t finish the thought before his guts started churning and he had to flee his lab before getting sick. Two hours of useless driving later he crashed on the shabby couch in his own apartment and proceeded to get black out drunk in front of mind-numbing afternoon talk shows. -He was back at his lab the next morning, almost sure he wouldn’t find Mako there on a Sunday. There was a dull pain throbbing through his head with every step he took, but he had managed to keep down two slices of buttered toast and shower before coming here at least. It helped to make him feel half human again, and on his way to the campus Jamison had actually made up his mind on how to handle the situation from here on. The solution was actually really obvious, in the light of day.However, Mako was there. He had cleaned the coffee cup Jamison had left behind half full yesterday, the professor noticed, and was looking up from the book he was scribbling in with a pencil when he heard the door open. The broad face actually lit up when Jamison entered the lab, and either he was an excellent actor or Jamison was just that gullible. He supposed years of more or less voluntary isolation did that to a person; Jamison had just never expected to be one of those people. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Shouldn’t you be recovering from last night’s celebration?” he asked Mako, making sure his voice stayed calm and even instead of shaking all over the place like it wanted to. Mako shrugged. “You don’t have to recover if you don’t get completely shitfaced at every opportunity.”Jamison wanted to laugh. Maybe he should heed that advice sometime. “Just as well, then we can get over this quicker.” He could see Mako frown at that, watching him more closely now as Jamison discarded his coat and scarf, despite already feeling vulnerable by doing that. “This isn’t working out. I’ll have Angela assign you to someone else. Until then, don’t bother coming back here.”He kept his back turned to Mako, preparing his workstation as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, but he could hear the chair squeak when Mako moved in it behind him. “What are you talking about? What’s not working out? I thought -”“Yes, I thought a lot of things, too. Good job, really, I almost fell for it. Very funny, I’m sure you and your little friends pissed yourself laughing, making Professor Geek think you’re actually flirting with him, have your silly bets going on for how long it takes ‘til he ‘drops his lab coat’ or whatever.” He had been the butt of that joke before, he remembered it all too vividly for his liking. “You’ll excuse me if I spoil you endgame, though, it hasn’t been funny thirty years ago and it’s still not today, so just do me a favor and go spend your time doing literally anything else.” Great, he was talking himself into a rage. So much for being cool and collected. Mako didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything for so long that the silence grew thick and heavy until it seemed to physically wear Jamison down. He stopped angrily rearranging equipment that had been placed just fine to begin with, falling very still instead, chewing on his lip until it was raw. “You really think that’s what this is?”Jesus, how could the man sound so firm? No, wait, no, not a man, Jamison corrected himself. Mako might look like a man, big and hefty as he was, but he had probably looked like a fully grown adult at fifteen. That was a bloody boy; how old could he be, twenty-two, twenty-three? Jamison didn’t even know. He really didn’t want to know. So why was he sounding like he was in control here and Jamison the one who behaved irrationally? Jamison didn’t answer. He had already said too much. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something. You really think me and my ‘little friends’ bet on my sex life?” Mako laughed, but it wasn’t an amused sound. “They don’t even know I’m gay, you moron.”Jamison whipped around at that insult. “You can’t call me that!” he protested, the expression on his face torn between indignation and confusion. Finally, Mako stood up, and Jamison would have backed away if there hadn’t been the desk digging into his thighs already. God, had he grown bigger overnight? Because he really couldn’t remember Mako being able to quite look down at him like that. “And yet I did.” And what are you going to do about it? Mako didn’t say it, but it was right there in the way he looked at Jamison, looked right through his crumbling wall of protest, looked at him as if he was the most interesting albeit irritating thing in this room. Really, what was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do about any of this?“I don’t… I just don’t understand why you’d be doing this then. I mean, if it’s not a joke, then why are you -,” Jamison paused, decidedly staring at Mako’s chest now because that seemed safer than his face. “Flirting with me?” The word alone sounded foreign on his tongue, and all wrong with himself in the same breath, his voice barely above a raspy whisper. Another careless shrug. “If you need to know, I already found you cute in that one class of yours I took.” Jamison frowned in obvious disagreement, really, really wanting to emphasize how he wasn’t cute of all things. He owned a mirror. He knew he was just a lanky, overgrown man wrapped up in too many layers of whatever clothes he pulled out of his closet in the morning, with a face full of too prominent features, barely softened by the round glasses - the same model he had worn for probably twenty years now - and that freakishly white hair, thank you major trauma. There was nothing about him that had ever made another person want to call him cute, and yet Mako was so close to him and calling him exactly that. Jamison momentarily forgot how he was supposed to make words come out of his mouth. Mako hesitated for only a moment before continuing to speak, softly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to turn his thoughts into actual words. “Always getting worked up over your own rants and us being complete airheads to you, or stabbing the board with a piece of chalk because with all that brain of yours, you can’t figure out how the projector works.” He chuckled then, and Jamison really wanted to reach out and touch him to feel that sound underneath his fingertips - but he clutched the edge of his desk instead. “You’re so intelligent and witty and you have won prizes for stuff I can’t even pronounce yet alone explain, but you still completely suck at pretending you’re not interested in me, which is even more adorable -”“I’m not -” Jamison wanted to protest, but his voice sounded too squeaky so he interrupted himself, flushing bright red despite himself. Where was that hole in the ground when you needed it, anyway?“Yes, you are. Like when I catch you staring and you blush like that. And I think -” Now Mako was reaching for him, just tracing his fingers across the wrinkled shirt collar peeking out under his sweater vest with its top button looped through the second from top button hole.. “ - if you actually were to drop that shirt at some point, I could help you button it up the right way for a change, afterwards,” Mako laughed quietly. Not at Jamison, but at himself, as if surprised by his own boldness, or how many actual words were coming out of him at once.Jamison couldn’t think. His mind was all foggy, or maybe it was just his glasses, because he didn’t actually see Mako taking that one last step to finally close all distance between them. Suddenly there was a big hand at his back, and a warm body pressed to his front, and just when he lifted his head, disbelief written all over his face, soft lips captured his mouth in a hungry kiss that left none of Mako’s intentions to the imagination. At that very moment, Jamison was sure his legs disappeared under him.