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Academia AU
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TERROR AND BEAUTY ( joshua, alecto ) A kiss with a fist is better than none: two professors who loathe each other. Enemies to lovers? No, how about enemies and lovers? |
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TERROR AND BEAUTY ( joshua, alecto ) A kiss with a fist is better than none: two professors who loathe each other. Enemies to lovers? No, how about enemies and lovers? |
[An Olive Branch]
Josh really can't blame them.
He and Alecto had a tumultuous history. They'd first met while abroad - Alecto participating in an archaeological expedition, Josh doing language documentation field work for an endangered dialect - and quickly fallen in something with each other. Whether the feelings were primarily lust or intellectual interest or polite academic loathing was really anyone's guess. They'd maintained a consistent, spirited - and very often heated - correspondence over the years since - in both public and private spaces (there were certain journals that eagerly sought out editorials from either of them, responding to each other; academics really did have to get their thrills where they could find them), now and again running into each other at conferences or at other interdisciplinary events, with predictable results.
Since finishing his post-doc, Josh had maintained his ties with academia, but spent a few very profitable years working on the industry side, his specialization into programming halfway through his undergraduate career making him very much sought after in that field. Alecto had been a little more traditional, mostly staying on the professorial track but also doing consultation work for various museums around the world, including serving as the curator for his university's collection.
Josh would like to think of himself as measured, logical, and thoughtful. But when this opportunity arose for Josh to take a tenure-track research and teaching position at the same university as Alecto Crabtree, he'd said yes almost without thinking. It hadn't been that easy - there had been the application process, the endless interviews, the translation (hah) of his work in industry into terms that the selection committee could understand, the massive cut in pay, the return to the grind of formal publishing - but it hadn't been difficult either. He loved working with students - the undergrads in the introductory course he was required to teach, the small discussion sections in his higher-level classes, the exhausted baby and mid-track PhDs he was shepherding through the remains of their projects - and it was generally pleasant to be working with colleagues who were experts in various fields again, rather than co-workers in the same grind.
Maybe especially Alecto.
He is carrying a stack of papers in a folder, but is otherwise clearly paying attention to the lecture, watching the students around him scribble notes furiously on paper. There was not a single open laptop or tablet device in sight.
He waits for class to end, not standing up from his seat until the last breathless student had left the room.
no subject
Alecto was a distinct and curious figure to say the least. He was commonly seen stalking across the lawn dressed like Lord Alfred Douglas or the Comte de Montesquiou: beautiful starchy shirts with French cuffs; magnificent neckties; a pale greatcoat that billowed behind him as he walked and made him look like a cross between a prince and a heron. He was popular in that niche sort of way, not only for his stunning, visual features - sharp and defined by a touch of old-world grace - but also his grueling teaching style. His lectures were notoriously difficult to understand, and his exams were near to impossible to get a full score on. And yet students flocked to him each semester, determined and desperate for a challenge, allured by the heat of Professor Crabtree’s passion for the ancient world, daring to follow him into the glorious past.
Now, it’s 3:45 pm and Alecto is leaning against the podium at the front of the room, listening to his class struggle. His face is startling, small and severe, alert and poised as a question, waiting for their response to his initial assignment for the hour.
"Well,” someone in the front row declares, “if the Greeks were sailing to Carthage, it should be accusative, right, Professor? Place whither? That's the rule." The poor boy looked so hopeful, Alecto actually felt sympathy for him.
"Can't be," another student chimes in, his voice nasally and garrulous. "It's not place whither, it's place to. I put my money on the ablative case."
"No, you're mixed up, man, the ablative is in Latin you dumb fuck."
There is a sudden, confused ratting of papers and Alecto considers the group before him carefully, patiently, watching as the entire classroom struggles to try and impress him, furiously flipping through heavy lexicons and pointing fingers at each other as they debated loudly.
Gods, this was getting nowhere.
"Do consider," Alecto finally offers, voice clear as a bell in the dead of winter, "the Greeks are not just sailing to Carthage, they're sailing to attack it."
A thoughtful pause.
And the room collapses into an unmitigated uproar.
("You're crazy. Look at the next sentence, we need a dative." "Are you sure?" "Absolutely. Epi tō karchidona." "Look, this dative just won't work." "Yes it will, they're sailing to attack, the Professor just said - were you even listening?" "Yes, but the Greeks sailed over the sea to Carthage." "But I put that epi in front of it." "Well, we can attack and still use epi but we have to use an accusative because of the first rules.")
Alecto glances at the clock on the wall and lets the infighting continue for a few more seconds before he turns gracefully to pick up a piece of chalk, taking pity on his students and deciding to toss them a titillating hint. The dull hiss of the chalk against the blackboard silences the room entirely as Alecto explains while writing: "Segregation. Self. Self-concept. The Greeks sailed over the sea to Carthage. Place whiter. Place whence. Carthage. No one has considered the locative case yet, adding zde to karchido." He puts the chalk back down to the stunned faces of his students, and he keeps his gaze steadily on them as he pats his hands clean of dust, glancing only briefly at the light smile gracing the face of his old...friend, sitting in the back but so obviously noticeable with his shock of blonde hair and unfairly handsome features.
Someone begins to raise their hand again but Alecto sighs.
"Enough," he says, and the entire room seems to deflate. "We'll continue this discussion on Friday,” he says with finality. “Please come better prepared than you were today. Dismissed."
As his students shuffle out in a furious whirlwind of tweed and scuffed brogues, Alecto slowly removes his glasses - tiny, old fashioned, with round gold rims - feeling Professor Archer's sudden glare of attention burn into him now that they were alone.
“...Joshua,” he says, with chill distaste, hoping the affected tone hides any semblance of affection he might be feeling at the moment (which he is. Of course). “Are you really so bored here that sitting in on a sophomore level class was the best thing you could think of to do with your afternoon? “He tucks his personal leather-bound copy of the Odýsseia under his arm and walks over to the door, next to where Josh was currently sitting, and walks out, leave it open, knowing he’d follow.
no subject
"I wouldn't say it was boredom," he replies, his tone even, steady, measured, as though he had given the off-hand question a great deal of thought. He reaches into the folder he is carrying, pulls out an extremely high resolution image of several painstakingly pieced together fragments of old artifacts, scattered faintly with worn out letters, and holds it out for Alecto to see. "I wanted to talk to you about these."
They were fragments of what was likely poetry, source currently unknown, recently unearthed to much interest and excitement in the classical space. The originals were sealed in a vacuum chamber somewhere in Athens, but technology was really amazing these days.
no subject
"Very interesting," he says, genuinely excited but forcing his tone to be even as he pulls out an old key when they reach the very top of the stairs. "Though you could have just sent this all in an email. Was a personal visit really necessary?"
His office is at the end of a dim hallway, his name in a brass card holder by the side on the wall. He unlocks the ornate door and shoulders it open, allowing Josh to walk in first before he follows.
It was a beautiful room, and much bigger than it looked from outside - airy and white with a high vaulted ceiling and a breeze fluttering in the embroidered curtains. In the corner, near a low bookshelf, was a big round table littered with teapots and Greek books, and there were flowers everywhere, roses and carnations and anemones, on his desk, on the table, in the windowsills. The roses were especially fragrant; their smell hung rich and heavy in the air, mingled with the smell of bergamot and black tea and a faint inky scent of camphor. Everywhere you looked was something beautiful - oriental rugs, porcelains, tiny paintings like jewels - a dazzle of fractured color as if you stepped into one of those little Byzantine churches that are so plain on the outside; inside, the most paradisal painted eggshell of gilt and tesserae.
He sets his things down at the desk, arranging them neatly. He doesn't sit, simply gazes at Josh from across the hardwood.
no subject
"If I sent these to you in an email, you wouldn't even have opened the attachments before saying 'No,'" he replies wryly.
"Besides, some of your students heard our argument two weeks ago about the verba dicendi and word apparently got back to the department chair." He doesn't know why the man was surprised; he'd known about at least their correspondence in publications when he'd made Josh the offer, a correspondence which - while overtly professional - was certainly not indicative of a consistent alignment in perspective. "So I thought I'd make a public statement about not actually wanting to murder you."
no subject
He remembers that argument, remembers having tossed papers in the air dramatically while they raised their voices at each other. He remembers how they got into each other's faces, close enough that their noses bumped as they continued to yell, switching through an alarming variety of languages to insult each other with. He remembers grabbing the front of Josh's shirt, wrinkling it beyond saving and how flushed Josh got, how the red color tinted the tips of his ears, the top curve of his mouth -
"I guess you're right about that. I think I should just go ahead and have your email address blocked anyhow." Ugh, he loathes him.
(And he's so glad he's here.)
"...You can leave the photos there," he gestures to to the table near the armchairs and the tea set. "I'll take a look at them later this evening."
He moves slowly, elegantly, to the front of the desk now, leaning back against it, studying the shape Josh cut against his office door. "...I like what you've done with your hair," he says suddenly. "It looks better, short and pushed back like this."
no subject
He puts the entire folder down on the table, setting the pictures he'd brandished earlier on top of it. He hesitates, almost wanting to explain, but if the pictures themselves weren't compelling to him in and of themselves, this wouldn't have worked anyway.
"Thanks," he says, shortly, but sincere. "I remember you said -" He cuts himself off, gazing back at Alecto, finding himself at a loss for words - a very rare circumstance, for Mr. Joshua Archer. "Well, I'll... get out of yours for now then. It was good to see you." He glances at the folder again, and then slips out the heavy door.
no subject
"Oh, falla finita," he groans under his breath before lifting the volume of his voice, "Joshua, wait." He wonders if he'll regret this later.
Alecto goes to the door in a few quick steps, grabbing Josh's upper arm to prevent him from leaving entirely. He's warm, always has been. It feels like holding the sun in the palm of his hand.
"Stay a while." A beat. Quickly, he adds, "I need a lot more context for those images. Unless you plan on setting me up for failure and embarrassment. Sit. I'll make tea and we can discuss."
no subject
"Alright," he says, a tremor of movement sliding down his spine, and then he turns back into the room, breaking the moment of stasis.
Then he grins. "Like I need to actually plan to set you up for failure." It's very clear he means this as a joke.
no subject
He motions for Josh to grab a seat first as he goes to the water boiler and fusses about with the tea set. Soon, the room is abloom with the smell of brewing darjeeling: warm florals and muscatel. Alecto brings two dainty ceramic tea cups enameled with gold over to the table and settles down next to Josh for once, instead of in front of him. A wordless way to communicate his willingness to collaborate, not fight.
A solid half hour passes as he allows Josh to give him the background of this artifact, its history and provenance, and any significant research already done. Now and again, Alecto interjects with a comment or a personal grievance about method or some tiny linguistic detail, but otherwise he remains content to listen, absorbing what he's told. He's rolled his sleeves up by now, appearing far more casual than he ever would in public, leaning to rest against the back of his seat, ankle crossed at the knee. He makes a stunning picture as the sun begins to set, seeped in hues of burnt gold and orange, as if he were some vintage tintype a lover would keep close to their breast.
no subject
Whatever their disagreements, he trusted Alecto's insights into history and provenance moreso than his own, even if the more obscure principles of interpretation were a subject of constant debate. He sips at his tea initially, to be polite, but it goes cold quickly as he gets more and more absorbed in the conversation, leaning in to emphasize a particular point, his foot brushing absently against Alecto's leg when he stretches out.
But now it came to the crux of the matter. "One of the candidates I'm supervising is working on some code; to combine multiple layers of imaging into a coherent 3-D model." He points to two of the pictures, virtual slices in the artifact's cracked layers. "None of these layers form a complete thought on their own; it's not possible to tell in isolation whether a mark is debris or deliberate. But -" he reaches for Alecto's hand, automatic, unthinking, slides their palms together, in illustration "- like this, it might be possible to better extrapolate. But that just gets us a clearer image. They'd need an expert to oversee the virtual reconstruction, to make sure all the pieces are properly aligned, that it's consistent with the appropriate alphabet and grammar."
"But at the end of the day..." There'd be an image of a complete artifact, legible, readable. The few fading marks that were still visible seemed to indicate a poem or writing of some kind, the vague outline of several stanzas. And maybe it would only be a copy of something, or something else entirely. But it seemed exactly the kind of puzzle that might appeal to Alecto Crabtree.
no subject
As they studied this present mystery together, Alecto had picked up on one of the active verbs carved into the artifact in the photo and that threw them down again another avenue talking about loss of self, about Plato's four divine madnesses, about madness of all sorts; Alecto became colorful and animated, rambling about what he called the burden of the self and why people want to lose the self in the first place -
And so another hour passes.
And when their hands come together suddenly, a symmetry of palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip, bone to bone, Alecto starts. He stares, staying still, as Josh goes on to talk about technology, and 3D and other acronyms for things inside of complicated computers that Alecto usually balked at. But he has, this time, no objections. All he can seem to focus on is that skin to skin contact, a very physical representation of the mental connection they've just forged -
Josh starts to trail off and the silence that falls manages to shake Alecto from his disrupted state. He stares at their joined hands and slowly, consciously untangles them. He clears his throat, awkwardly.
"Well. Consider me deeply interested. I've made some notes," he says, placing his small notebook down next to the photos on the table, his lines of cursive written in a masculine, rather nineteenth-century hand, with Greek e's. The ink was still wet. "And I'd be happy to take this on. It's been a long time since I've found such an odd puzzle to work through. So -" He looks Josh directly in the eye, their faces very close. "Thank you for this. Though I will have to see about moving my schedule around a bit. This semester I've signed on to do a bit more than I would have liked." He murmurs something else about timing and the pains of having to be a student advisor and the terribly dull theses he had to oversee this year.
no subject
They'd never had an opportunity - unless you counted the back-and-forth of their editorial correspondence as such - to really collaborate on something, to actually bring both aspects of their expertise. For all that Josh considered the realm of classical studies old-fashioned, somewhat outdated, he'd been just as fascinated by it when he'd first embarked on his academic career; in the end, he'd strayed hardly at all, even with the addition of technology and computers and programming added into the mix. Still deeply invested in the ways and philosophies of thought that underlay modern day developments, the thread of history that connected them to the people of the past, not just the past on its own. All the tools they had to decipher and learn and piece together that puzzle, seeking common humanity.
"For my student, of course," he adds, off-handed, a little too late to be completely natural, however genuine the sentiment, and then leans back again, glancing out the window with a startled look.
"It's...late," he says, apologetic. "Thank you-" for your time springs to his tongue, the trite formality of professionalism, something he could say or sign politely in five or six languages. But it seems far too small for what this had turned into, an olive branch extended and accepted, an opportunity to see each other in a new context.