Academia AU

[infringe]

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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[An Olive Branch]

[singinthestorm]

Joshua Archer, the new Professor of Computational Linguistics, is sitting quietly in the back of Professor Crabtree's class, a slight hint of a smile on his face as he listens to the lively discussion. The students sitting closest to him stare briefly (apparently word had gotten around quickly), but their attention is quickly called back to the slim, graceful figure in front of them, utterly put together and captivating, speaking passionately on the influence of Greek writing and thought on modern institutions.

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.