[St Grumbles] Lady in Red (Muse)

[Niamh Madden]

Loshis 3, 2719 | Evening
St Grumble’s Red Tie, Brunnhold

.

The man always managed to be shocked by a compliment. If she hadn’t been so gods darned embarrassed then she might have giggled at his wonder. He was wildly unaware of the effect that he had on her, but that wasn’t wholly unexpected. After all, why should he be aware of her regard for him, and how could he be given the dedication to his work? The professor could scarcely keep track of a cup of tea, what lay within his sight no guarantee that it would persist in his thoughts. She knew what he was like, understood the workings of his mind, even if she had no notion what lay in his heart. She was his assistant and while she might be able to grab his attention from time to time, especially here when his work didn’t preoccupy him.

Still, the way he had spoken to the Darcy scion had gone beyond what their professional relationship dictated. The blush that now adorned his cheeks and a thousand little things—looks, gestures, words—that had passed between them in the last number of months made her hope that she was of more importance to him than her professional position.

“You are quite- If people weren’t so set against your f-f-field of study-” she began haltingly, wetting her lower lip as she considered how to avoid humiliating herself further. However, she was saved from deepening her embarrassment for the nonce by the opening blessing of the evening’s proceedings.

The student bowed her head, clasping her hands piously before her, offering her own silent prayers for the occasion. The familiar ritual was comforting, calming and she sighed softly, her posture relaxing. Her flush diminished somewhat, but she was still keenly aware of Harper’s proximity and words that remained to be said between them. Even so, she was caught off guard when he chose to speak to her as the Headmistress began her speech. It seemed an inopportune time, his whispering sure to garner attention, even if the other occupants of the table couldn’t hear their contents.

The redhead didn’t know what to make of his words. The compliment, of course, was a compliment, but the comment about not forgetting…

Had she said something of worth in her awkward prattle? Something in which he found an interest? Had her comment about him being fascinating and impressive to her been so very striking to him?

She wet her lip, biting it a moment later to try to stymie a smile. Ersehat indeed.

“There’s never a reason to excuse yourself for stating facts, Professor Moore,” she retorted with every ounce of propriety, unable to contain a smile any longer as she added, “Though I’d personally be inclined to use a stronger term for the sake of accuracy.”

It was exceedingly pleasant to know that she wasn’t the only one who could see Caleb Darcy for what he was, especially by someone who couldn’t possibly hold the same bias against his character as she did.

Niamh couldn’t keep the smile from her face now, offering it freely to the passives who served them, possibly making them uneasy as she strove to catch their eyes while they did their best to avoid her bright hazel gaze.

Her appetite hadn’t returned, the food arraying itself before them only receiving the most cursory glance as she found absolutely no desire to engage in a meal right now. The youth had had to participate in many social dinners where she’d had to perform in every way, including eating. She could go through the motions, could manage to make a sizeable looking dent in her meal, and keep up a stream of silly conversation without alerting anyone that she would rather be elsewhere or otherwise occupied.

Despite the potential dangers of making a fool of herself, the Living Conversationalist found that she’d much rather stay entirely absorbed in Harper’s company, especially as for once, he wasn’t mentally far away. For his sake though, if not for hers, she couldn’t sit here and speak solely with him.

Gaining another drink, a hand drifted to the bun atop her head, patting it self-consciously before straightening and taking up her cutlery.

“I’ll certainly endeavour to keep saying things, but for now, they probably shouldn’t be in your direction. At least for awhile,” Niamh explained to her companion, before favouring one of the literature professors with a polite smile.

“It’s Professor Merrythought, isn’t it? I’ve never taken any of your classes, but if I’m not mistaken, I have read one of your books on the topic of literature…”

Fionn had most definitely been the reader of the family, the one most likely to be found sequestered away in the family library with his sketchpad, or working his way diligently through some thick tome with a dictionary open beside it. It had never mattered to him if he read a work of fiction or some treatise on a topic that interested him. She had never achieved the sort of reading feats that her brother could have had he never been gated, but she had learned from his example somewhat. He had always been able to pull the strangest pieces of knowledge from that precocious little brain of his and it had come from picking his way through the various volumes in the Madden family library.

By comparison, her own reading had been a case of picking and choosing, skimming through a section here or a chapter there, more likely to keep reading if the topic interested her. It had given her an uneven spread of knowledge over a variety of subjects and it was something she’d kept up in Brunnhold as well. Unlike her childhood home, it had been easier to access novels since coming here—reputable or otherwise. As such, she was able to dredge up recollections on some of the man’s literary thoughts—thankfully she had the right man!—drawing him into a slightly spirited discussion on the topic of “acceptable” literature.

It was inevitable that someone would ask about her own background, assuming that she must have more than a passing interest in the subject.

“I’m definitely more of a student of the Living arts rather than the literary ones, but I read when I have the time—what little I have of it,” she explained with a laugh. “Aside from picking up shifts in the Infirmary, I assist Professor Moore here in Laboratory Beta—and Professor Devlin.”

The rhythm of conversation stuttered and almost stopped, the fact apparently shocking some of the table’s occupants. Her face was already warm from alcohol and the fervour of conversation, but she felt it redden further now.

[Muse]

If the rest of the table was listening to their conversation once the Headmistress was finished speaking, well, Harper didn't notice for several moments. His gaze might have darted only briefly in alcohol-induced fuzzy judgement toward the young redhead's teeth against her lower lip when she smiled before he realized, somewhere inside that too-busy head of his, that such a glance was terribly inappropriate. Thankfully, the appearance of warm soup as an appetizer to everyone's place setting was a welcome distraction. That and some fresh from the dining hall oven crusty bread. Thank gods he could look at something else for a sobering moment, suddenly self-aware that perhaps he'd made a fool of himself for reasons he had no idea how to properly categorize.

Professor Merrythought looked up at being addressed, still buttering his bread, and next to him Professor pezre Muerdka, one of Moore's Quantitative contemporaries from Mugroba here for two semesters to teach a special workshop, tilted her head from where she'd been examining the contents of her soup toward Harper while Niamh was talking.

Whatever attention everyone else was paying appeared to be well-veiled behind the guise of dinner. Not that any of them were at all as focused on eating as they appeared, however.

"I'm aware of whose assistant you are, Miss Madden." The literature professor smiled glibly, bushy brows drawing together not in judgment but not quite in amusement either, "I can only imagine how busy you're keeping yourself. Or how busy Professor Moore is keeping you—"

"—well, we all know Magister Devlin certainly hasn't had the time for either of you, given his own personal issues." Professor Nianssi added from next to Merrythought, the slender whip of a man, just a handful of years younger than Moore, far too into statistics and rumormongering instead of monic theory to properly do much of any teaching.

The dark-haired galdor met the other man's gaze, attention snapping up while he held his bread in his soup. Hazel eyes narrowed briefly, any hint of an amicable expression fading, "It's unwise to speak of a Magister in such a way. Castor has been trying to sort out his personal life and left much of the research affairs to me. Because I know what I'm doing, thank you."

He took another sip of his drink, wanting to wash down the sour taste in his mouth with more alcohol.

If this was how the conversation was going to go, well, he wasn't sure he really wanted any part of it. Had he even considered that he was drawing undue attention to the eldest Madden by inviting her company? No, he really had not, and yet now ... he worried that perhaps he was encouraging assumption by their association this evening that he hadn't ever given any portion of his busy thought schedule to (but didn't necessarily know if he disliked on a personal level outside of the cruelty of undue gossip). The rest of the first course continued in this awkward sort of way, conversation somewhat sharp-edged but not entirely unpleasant.

Merrythought took the warning and brought up a number of wonderful examples of literature that complimented living conversational studies, citing several obscure novels from several centuries ago that followed an itinerant herbalist through less civilized Hesse as a historical record of the medical use of plants and the current conventions of living magic in genetic diversity.

Nianssi on the other hand took no such hint and continued to dig for something, anything to gain leverage over Harper with in conversation, particularly if it had to do with making assumptions about his professional relationship with Niamh. It was exhausting, honestly, and spoiled the monic theorist's ability to enjoy his meal.

It certainly began to further degrade over the passage of half a house, drifting from literature back to quantitative studies with less emphasis on actual research and more questioning the need to study passivity at all while the next course and then the next part of their meal was being served and Harper quickly decided he'd not had enough to drink and wasn't sure he could keep up with his defense of both himself and Professor Devlin, let alone of the genuine intentions of the eldest Madden. What could have been delicious and entertaining was certainly neither of those things. Even if not directly questioned, he realized he'd not given much attention to the appearances of their relationship, too often caught up in his studies and too friendly with someone he regarded as an intellectual equal regardless of what year they were in their studies.

Finally, unexpectedly, Professor pezre Muerdka waited until she had finished chewing her vegetables thoughtfully before voicing something everyone at the table had skirted around but no one had said directly,

"So, Professor Moore—do you intend to contest Miss Madden's engagement?"

"Do I—what? Intend to—uh—" He dropped his fork and it was very loud. Loud enough that he winced, face scrunching in obvious confusion the way it did sometimes when he stared at his notes for too long, "Why would I? That's certainly not my place, all things considered. We're colleagues, and—"

Where in the clocking hell did this question come from?

Had he just been encouraging this kind of thought all along? Gods—what had he done?

"—well, I've only been here half a season and there is a particular way some people look at each other, you know?" The older woman practically purred, offering Niamh a gentle smile that was perhaps far less judgmental than any of the Anaxi assembled at the table.

Harper was folding his napkin, blushing and confused. He was clumsy when flustered and barely managed to keep himself from knocking over what was left of his glass of wine, tipping it and frantically reaching for it, making a scene,

”Is this what all of you spend your time discussing instead of planning your lessons or leading your students toward new, deeper avenues of thought? Brunnhold is a bastion, a fortress of intellectual progress, and you're busy wondering if I have untoward feelings about one of my research assistants because she's young, lovely, and engaged to someone beneath her station? A shame." He murmured all of his words too quickly, frowning deeply. If he'd had his glasses on, he'd surely have made some scene of taking them off his face dramatically, most likely missing his coat pocket. Instead, he just looked to the eldest Madden in abject apology, eyes wide, cheeks hot,

"I am very sorry—I didn't realize that some of our brightest minds spent all of their spare time dwelling on our personal lives. Forgive me for embarrassing you."

He sat there for a few extra moments while Merrythought chuckled and pezre Muerdka watched with measured silence. He couldn't tell what any of their angles were. These weren't the angles he was good at analyzing. His field, usually so calm and controlled in its weight, was definitely a static buzz of confused theoretical direction.

When Harper realized he was not at all going to carry whatever followed well, a little over the edge of buzzed now, he sighed and stood, hands shaking on the tabletop for a moment.

"Excuse me for ruining our dinner conversation and perhaps our meal. I highly suggest you find yourself a better table to sit at, Miss Madden, and I will make sure not to complicate the rest of any of your evenings. I didn't realize that this would devolve from the festivities into something so base and demeaning. Or, perhaps, I should have known better." He straightened his cravat with nervous fingers and began to extricate himself from the surroundings—a coward for leaving Niamh to fend for herself, most likely.

It was one thing to stand up to someone intellectually inferior such as the Darcy scion and another to be surrounded by his peers as if they were rabid banderwolves, ready for his throat! He had never been very good at interpersonal relations and wading through these sorts of strange situations, ones that wore the guise of professional concern but really wanted to simply harm a person personally. It was working. His chest felt tight with panic. He would never survive a full hearing in front of the entire Brunnhold portfolio of Magisters, let alone an Arcane trial, if this is how such things would ever go. He didn't know what else to do! Not even Magister Devlin was here to step in on his behalf, and he knew that his speaking skills were hardly as eloquent as he momentarily put on. His defenses were few, he realized, if so many saw something clearly that he didn't—or perhaps that he'd refused to notice all along.

He just needed to clear his head, the dark-haired galdor thought, quite aware at all the eyes that followed him from the banquet hall.

[Niamh Madden]

Loshis 3, 2719 | Evening
St Grumble’s Red Tie, Brunnhold

.

She had believed that she had things in hand. All the time she’d spent learning at her father’s knee—figuratively and literally—about how to handle these sorts of situations had seemed like more than adequate preparation for this. It had seemed that she not only had the tools for the job but that she knew precisely how to use them as well.

She had been gravely mistaken.

When things started to go downhill, it was a rather gradual decline at first. It began with one little misstep, something said because she didn’t want to make an assumption about Professor Merrythought’s knowledge. It was a little thing, a minor embarrassment, but it threw her off balance, leaving her blushing over her steaming soup and a niggling sensation that there was something less than innocuous beneath the older man’s words. It left an opening for another one of the academics to mount an attack on Harper.

After that, she didn’t really have any hope of regaining her equilibrium.

She ate mechanically, pretending to be greatly absorbed in her meal despite the fact that she gained no satisfaction from it at all. Her conversational skills were incredibly poor, not monosyllabic but not far off it as she responded when she had to and otherwise took in everything—and seriously wished that she didn’t.

The younger professor wouldn’t leave Harper alone, needling him about… well… everything. He wouldn’t leave him be, an undercurrent of nastiness permeating his conversation—if it could be called that—that Niamh didn’t like but had no idea how to respond to and it only got worse. Ignoring him proved impossible, the young woman keeping an ear on his venom even while she tried to return to banal chat. Even if Nianssi hadn’t been a perpetual source of shock and irritation, Merrythought droning on about some piece of literature from hundreds of years ago would have failed to hold her attention.

The student had heard nasty comments before about Professor Moore and the kind of work that he did, but those had been from her peers. They were childish and petty, ignorant and hardly worth listening to, but they could be brushed off—not entirely without causing harm to her—as they were insignificant. But to hear it from faculty… To hear someone go after Harper to his face and in such a carefully edged way, using intellect and shared knowledge. Not only was it unfair, but it was also perverse.

Perhaps there was a moment—a very dark moment—when she wished that she’d gone with Caleb Darcy after all so that she wouldn’t be witness to this and wouldn’t have to listen to a thread that was starting to weave itself more and more recognisably into the tapestry of conversation. It wasn’t just talk though, it was the looks as well—meaningful glances, a knowing glint in the eye. There was something tangible about it, how they all seemed to silently question what existed between herself and the professor.

And it felt as if it was all her fault, the Living Conversationalist feeling increasingly guilty and helpless. It was her attraction and adoration coupled with his relative cluelessness that had done this. It was so easy for him to react without thoughts of how others would perceive him and it was all too possible that they’d seen- They all knew-

They all knew what? How much was her own anxiety projecting and how much could actually be perceived by the others?

"So, Professor Moore—do you intend to contest Miss Madden's engagement?"

Her knife slipped through the meat she’d been cutting to screech against the plate, and the redhead winced for more reason than one.

Okay, it absolutely wasn’t in her head.

She couldn’t blame the monic theorist for his shock and bewilderment, or the indignation that took hold of him as he realised the implications of what had been thrown at him—at them both. At another point in time, she might have shrivelled further into herself, perhaps slid under the table to take shelter from the sheer mortification of it all. Instead, she found herself growing increasingly livid.

How dare they!

How dare they subject him to all they’d subjected him to since the start of the meal! How dare they jab at him, denigrate him, humiliate him, do their utmost to grind him down when he had never done anything to deserve it.

That that Mugrobi bitch would smile at her as if in understanding when she had chosen to ask something that she must have known would cause scandal in this place… it made her want to smack that expression off of her dark face—and her green-tinged gaze probably said as much.

Niamh was the level-headed one, the one who was more even-tempered—at least compared to her brothers—and it was usually quite true, but she wasn’t in a particularly serene sort of humour right now. The fact that they drove him to apologise to her, as if he had done anything wrong honed her fury into a white-hot flame, so hot that it could be confused with the burn of ice.

“It’s quite clear that you’ve only been here for half a season, professor, or you might have gained a better grasp of Anaxi decorum—and that if you don’t have to feel as if you might be lying if you keep your mouth firmly shut.”

There was more than one gasp at the directness of her words and the disrespect that they carried—she was still a student after all.

“Prettily dressing up words isn’t my field and truth is a virtue, is it not, Professor pezre Muerdka? For your information, I’m more than capable of speaking up for myself on the matter of my engagement so if you wish to know what I will do about it, you’re more than welcome to ask me about it directly—and tell you that it’s none of your clocking business!”

“Do you have any idea that you’re supposed to be role models? You’re the kind of people that I might have aspired to be if I continued my education, but if you were my only example, why would I bother? What has all of your education done for you?” the eldest Madden questioned coldly. Her hazel eyes skewered Merrythought.

“Do you know that my brother would have been delighted to sit here and discuss literature with you? He probably would have been fascinated by that tale of the herbalist you talked about. And you-”

Her eyes fell on Nianssi, lips pressed together so hard that they paled, as she considered him.

“No doubt he’d have interrogated Professor Moore more eagerly than you did, but he would have done it out of scholarly endeavour. Trust me when I say that if I knew where to find him at this moment then I’d bring him here, allow him to tell you why the nature of passives is worthy of interest….”

Her field was sharply indectal now, flexing in a manner that was far from polite in such close quarters and which caused the passive who’d come to tidy up Moore’s abandoned meal to wince as he was forced to move into it. In truth, it was his posture—the clear desire to put distance between himself and the furious galdor—that made her rein it in.

“He’d kill for the opportunity, for an ounce of the educations that you received, but he had the misfortune of failing his initiation- Yes, that’s right, my passive brother, you needn’t ogle me like that!” she explained to the table.

Merrythought had inadvertently poured the contents of his glass onto his plate.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve found that there’s enough here to put one off their food so I’m going to move tables, although I assure you that I’ll be leaving this hall at my earliest possible convenience—that is to say when I have the right to depart. I’m sure that you can entertain yourself with the notion that I’m flying after Professor Moore to do whatever your sordid imaginations have already conjured up.”

She folded her napkin neatly and rose, smoothing the material of her dress as she endeavoured to pretend that no one else existed at the table aside from the passive who she managed to offer the tiniest of smiles to before she strode away with her head held high.

It took everything in her not to allow the panic she felt bleed out in her expression or into the mona around her as she sought somewhere to go, while every eye seemed to be upon her and all her anger had deserted her. The loss of adrenaline left unsteadiness in its wake, the redhead feeling as if her legs were going to collapse out from under her. She managed to find an empty place amongst those from the younger forms and slipped into it before she lost her feet.

Dessert. If she could make it through dessert then it’d probably be enough. Students would start dribbling away then, off to get up to whatever antics they usually got up to on a night like this, much delayed though they were by this godsdamned compulsory dinner. As soon as she deemed it safe, she was going to get out of here and she was going to go back to her room, crawl under her bedclothes and never emerge ever again.

***

Perhaps five minutes after the desserts began to come out, the young woman had reached her limit—and thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. The girl had had more to drink, giving her something to focus on while she waited and dampened the atmosphere at her new table like a humanoid stormcloud.

Probably the extra alcohol, too quickly consumed, had gone to her head, but aside from a persistent case of hiccups, Niamh was none the worse for wear and feeling far better about the prospect of being one of the earliest students to leave. Harper’s egress had helped to pave the way, what had bound them all here slowly unravelling as the moments continued to tick by. It was a blessing to the youth who was all too eager to get out from under the heat of the lights and the judging eyes. Judgement seemed to be everywhere, crawling over her skin and itching at her scalp, and while she wanted to hide away from it, she had decided to settle for leaving it far behind instead of seeking refuge in her bed—at least for now.

While she lingered to collect her coat and borrowed stole, she had the misfortune of catching sight of her fiancé who had also chosen to depart—or pursue her. She turned her face away, pretending that she hadn’t seen him in motion, eagerly snatching at cloth when it was presented to her.

The heels or the alcohol, or possibly both in combination, proved an encumbrance as she slipped out of the hall, leaving her feeling incredibly precarious as she tried to move quickly. So she did something in her inebriated trepidation that would have seemed a terrible idea at any other time: she took off her shoes.

Clutching them in her hands, she found that it was easier to move despite the comparative chill and, when she got outside, the wet. Actually, it was weirdly exhilarating to feel the stone of the path against her feet, far more grounding than in shoes, even when she managed a pace that involved less contact with the paving. Saying that she mustered a run would have been too kind, the redhead succeeding in more of a giddy jog, complete with giggling as she made her daring escape though she had no idea if the Darcy scion had appeared to pursue her.

Whatever wildness that had been unleashed in her decided that cutting across wet grass was a marvellous idea altogether, sure to shake off a particular vain hunter who wouldn’t want to muddy his shoes.

By the time she spotted the familiar figure of her employer, she was moving at a less vigorous pace and had managed to add a spray of greens and browns to her lower legs and the hem of her clothing. She was warm in spite of the early Loshis chill, her coat open as she jogged behind her mentor.

“Harper! H-Harper… wait… please,” she gasped out as she neared him, slowing and bending at the waist as she struggled to regain her breath. Her carefully styled hair had made a semi-fruitful attempt to escape its bun so that wavy strands protruded at all sorts of lengths and angles. It teetered forward as she bent, loosened pins moving unpleasantly against her scalp and cursing mildly, Niamh tugged them free. Her hair came free in an untidy cascade, the girl dragging her fingers back through the gentle waves as she straightened.

“I… was just- I was going to go back to my room… but I thought I’d find you to- I knew you’d head in the direction of the lab,” she explained with a weak smile, which turned sheepish as she looked to the heeled shoes in her hands. Her feet were cold and wet and it wasn’t as enjoyable to go barefoot as it had been.

“Would you mind if I-”

The young woman gestured to his person, wiggling the shoes slightly.

“For balance. If I try without support- I don’t know how I took them off without falling over to be honest.”

[Muse]

Harper Moore had not thought any of this through, or, specifically, he had apparently not been thinking about any of the right things for quite some time. Things like social appearances—had he clocking ever thought about social appearances? begads, perhaps not since he was an upper form student, and even then ... questionable. Things like professional relationships—had he clocking ever really thought about boundaries between himself and fellow intellectuals or clocking ever considered what outside observers must think of himself and his circle of austere monic theorists?

N-no. No he had not.

Mostly because he found so many social conventions created to support galdori society the way it was now to be ridiculous. Outdated. Ignorant. Stagnant.

Mostly because he just didn't have enough room in his skull for all of the things his mind did in addition to all the things society expected him to do and remember in order to fit in.

The dark-haired professor had been accused of a great many things since beginning his research on passivity and it's causes, since attempting to look deeper into something dismissed for hundreds of years. He'd been accused of perversion, spending so much time with those the gods had cursed to be children forever. He'd been accused of madness, attempting to prove something that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. He'd been called a traitor to the Anaxi crown for trying to upset the very order of society. He'd also been called a heretic, questioning the spiritual truths of magic.

All of those things were, of course, false charges, but the problem was—

The problem was—as Harper rushed outside into the moist Loshis late evening, splashing with a scowl in one of the many puddles littering the old red stones hand-hewn and laid carefully as a walkway from the banquet hall and formal meeting rooms—the problem was he wasn't sure all of them were entirely untrue.

Sacrilegious. Apolitical. Possibly mad. And maybe, just maybe, a little more soft-hearted toward the eldest Madden than he should've been.

He hovered outside, meandering one of the covered halls that connected various red stone buildings, attempting to simply cool off. He'd let them all get under his skin, hardly social enough to remember just how gossip-starved and rumor-hungry faculty and staff were. Banders having scented blood, the urge to defame Harper Moore and mock his research was a strong one even within his somewhat abstract, esoteric conversation department, let alone the intellectual elite in Brunnhold at large.

Over a woman, though? Who was he to ever interrupt someone else's plans, terrible though they may be. Unfortunate as they seemed, given what a clocking idiot the Darcy scion obviously was. A waste of a vibrant mind, that's what it was. And if Harper was indeed the rebellious savant everyone made the Quantitative professor out to be, well, he for sure wished he had the power to intervene.

For his own selfish gain, however?

He didn't know. He'd never thought about—he'd never considered—he'd never given his mind a moment to dwell too long on such a—

Godsdamnit.

The monic theorist paced for a few moments, picking at hangnails, chewing his lip, attempting to walk off the nervousness and frustration that churned his thoughts like a wild, over-full river. Failing that, he simply took off in what felt like a random direction but was, of course, more muscle memory—he set off across the soggy campus toward Laboratory Beta, toward the comforts of the familiar, towards the couch he slept on so far from Muffey.

He hadn't gotten far when he heard his name, Harper wincing at the voice as if he couldn't feel more childish and confused. Anxious, angry, and definitely full of more alcohol than he needed to be, the monic theorist was nothing short of a mess.

Halfway between his unintentional intentional destination and the banquet hall, the dark-haired galdor slowed and turned, expecting a disheveled, angry eldest Madden to be charging him down for abandoning her to so many hungry mouths when he'd defended her against a singular, weaker opponent. Instead, his hazel eyes widened in the dark at the approach of some flushed, wild creature that rushed closer, the familiar brush of her field just as untamed as her hair.

Harper Moore stared.

This time, he was definitely slack-jawed. This time, he felt as if there were sights he was seeing for the very first time but couldn't ever (wouldn't dare) articulate.

"Nia—Miss Madden, as much as I, uh, as much as I—well, as kind as your company may be, you probably would've been better off going back to your room." Professor Moore croaked or squeaked or sort of whispered, ears ringing and back of his neck practically steaming in the damp air (surely), hot and tingling. He blinked slowly, finally able to take all of the young woman in, shoes in her hands and grass and mud on her shins,

"I—what? O-oh. Well—"

He held out an arm slowly, brows drawing together in what could only be described as disturbed confusion because it took him a moment to understand what she was asking him for, distracted by the vision presented to him so very unintentionally. He shouldn't have noticed quite how she made him feel in this moment, but his cheeks were hot and his stomach churned, the normally logical and orderly weight of his field a swirling mess like the rest of him. Truly, he'd been quite blind this whole time, "—n-no, I don't mind. Well, maybe I do mind a little—I—I don't want to—I didn't mean to—does everyone really think that I—even if I—I would never—begads."

Niamh was talking of balance and Harper couldn't feel more off-kilter than he ever had before.

He made some helpless noise, offering her his physical stability even while the rest of himself felt like it was melting into goo on the inside.

"I can walk you home if you'd like. I-instead of going back to the lab. You know—because—" The very thought filled Harper with what he could only describe as immature nervousness. Who would see them? Students had begun to meander campus again, fleeing the mandatory gathering as soon as they had a chance. Even now, standing along the phosphor-lit path, there was a chance for someone (anyone) to see the pair arm in arm and that was literally all that the professor could consider. It filled his thoughts with the possible equations, with all the directions such a situation could go.

"—well, because I'm thinking too much about everything, I'm afraid. I don't know how much support I can offer at this moment but I will do my best."

[Niamh Madden]

Loshis 3, 2719 | Evening
St Grumble’s Red Tie, Brunnhold

.

Harper had had a head start but he hadn’t gotten as far as he ought to have done. Perhaps less time had passed than she’d believed, or else she’d chased after him faster than she thought. Athletics absolutely didn’t exist on her list of skills and what was more, she was drunk. Well, somewhat drunk, certainly not sober but she didn’t mind all that much at the moment—it was an excellent buzz. Even so, she could tell that her humour was far brighter than the professor’s; he was rather agitated—or he had been.

It had been there in his posture and his movements, something that she recognised far more readily than many of her own mannerisms, but it had already begun to bleed away once she got in range to sense it. Of course he would shut down his emotions, it was the sort of habit that you learned to maintain when you were in company, but she did gain some sense of the chaos of his psyche though she could make no sense of it.

He didn’t seem thrilled to see her. Honestly, Niamh didn’t know what to make of his expression. It was as if he’d seen something that shook him to the core, which made no sense at all.

“Kind? How am I being kind?” she questioned, genuinely puzzled as she rested a hand on his arm for support.

She dropped her shoes and bent carefully, glad that she had something solid to anchor herself to as the world tilted alarmingly. The redhead moved more slowly and found that things settled down quite a bit. Holding one shoe upright, she slipped her foot into it, fully recognising just what a state she was in. No wonder Harper’s eyes had almost popped out of his head; most of the lawn had painted her lower legs.

The young woman glanced askance at him and felt her head’s desire to send her into a swoon. Her gaze grew briefly unfocused before she returned to her task, all too conscious of her grasp on his bicep and the tension of the muscle beneath her fingers. A giggle escaped her—she couldn’t help it.

Straightening, she swapped hands, new fingers finding their way around his arm as she wobbled on one heel, trying to balance her weight on it so she could lift the other foot.

“I don’t know what they think—not about much of anything worthwhile it seems. I told them what I think though,” the Living Conversationalist explained, catching her tongue lightly between her teeth as she concentrated on bending to get on the other shoe. It took all of her attention to position her foot where she wanted, causing her to lapse into silence and almost made her forget what she’d been saying.

While she worked to fasten it, the girl suddenly gave a snort of laughter.

“I’m not saying that I told them to jump in the Arova but… I suppose that the sentiment might have been conveyed… Gods, I can’t believe that I spoke to professors like that,” she finished in a whisper, gazing at him wide-eyed as she righted herself at last and—reluctantly—released her grip on his arm.

“I suppose that I- Well, yes, honestly I sort of forgot because they- they hardly seemed like professors. I might have- I certainly suggested that um… their educations were wasted on them?” the final form admitted sheepishly, only realising now just how much trouble she might have gotten herself into by speaking her mind. It all seemed so different in hindsight now that she was explaining it.

The eldest Madden worried her lip between her teeth, feeling heat creep up her neck as everything about this situation started to sink in and her self-consciousness began to stir groggily beneath the weight of the alcohol.

She’d laid her hand on him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, had held his arm and squeezed it. The vulnerability of it all was- Not that she’d never been vulnerable around him before but this was different because it- well, it was- it was just different. Niamh had basically told the staff members to allow their imaginations to run wild and here she was groping him while he made offers to walk her home as if she were-

“I don’t think- Walking me home wouldn’t be- T-that would certainly give people reason to talk, which… they’re-they’re already doing apparently—Circle preserve me!”

Be careful what you wish for, that’s what people said, and she had wanted people to talk. There had been a rebelliousness in her, some streak that had driven her to dress like this and the opinions of others be damned! And she’d dressed like this and gone straight for the monic theorist and- and-

Oh her roommates were going to be insufferable!

“I can get home by myself, I’m quite capable of- I just thought I’d- I don’t know what I thought I’d do to be honest, apologise maybe but I-”

Biting her lip again, she turned her head to watch the figures moving about the grounds. Were any of them people she knew heading back to their dormitories? It was a bit early for many to call it a night but maybe some wanted to find entertainment closer to home…

“I don’t know that I can face g-going home yet. I don’t know who- I can’t avoid them indefinitely but… I can, I don’t know, pretend?”

Her fingers moved over her hair then through it, working restlessly as she spoke until her face was partly shielded by her dishevelled mane. Her nervousness had travelled to her feet as well, causing her to start taking hesitant steps in the direction of the lab, indecisiveness making her double back a few steps.

“It’s my own fault—entirely my own fault, but I- Goodness, I sound like Fionn, he’s always blaming himself for things, and I- Well, this actually is my fault, because I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, and it would have been so easy- Of course everyone’s going to assume that I’m your mistress or want to be when I practically threw myself into your path looking like a whore!”

Niamh covered her mouth, forcing herself to turn away so she wouldn’t risk catching his eye. Why did she have to speak with such fluency now of all times? How had she suddenly become so adept at avoiding the pitfalls that usually sent her tripping over her own tongue? Why did it have to happen now of all times when she was saying things that she really shouldn’t have been?

Something like an apology tried to make it past her lips but they’d finally gotten the message and all that came out was a kind of whimper. Hand sliding further up her face, she set off towards the lab at a brisk—well, she did her best—walk. Anything would be better than remaining still. Perhaps if she moved fast enough she could put sufficient distance between herself and that word so that there could be no association between it and her mouth…

[Muse]

"Kind because I'm a coward, leaving you alone with all of those faculty members m-merely because I didn't know what to say to them anymore. Sometimes, I simply—I don't know—run out of anything witty to say. I thought that perhaps if I just—" He had more to say, honestly. A whole stream of words that were more apologetic than he realized, but Niamh reached out to steady herself on his arm and he fell quiet. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and he did his best not to stare, for the young redhead was so very close for a few moments and the monic theorist was reminded that they'd stood far closer before, that he'd spent a lot of time attempting to justify away so much that had happened between them in the most compartmentalized and logical of fashions.

And yet.

Niamh held his arm as if Harper were the most stable creature on all of Brunnhold's campus while his knees felt a little weak and his head spun. He reminded himself that he'd had a bit to drink and he left the Banquet Hall in quite a hurry without most of dinner so this was a perfectly logical conclusion for his body to draw itself into, but there was also something about the words the eldest Madden was saying, the way she giggled just a little and then laughed, that made his heart flutter in a familiar way and melted his wary expression into something resembling an almost lopsided smile.

She looked up at him then, and surely it was impossible not to notice that the dark-haired galdor was practically staring. It felt as though someone had run through the library of his mind and tipped over the card catalog, sending little slips of paper everywhere and in every direction possible. He swallowed, hazel gaze slipping without his permission to her lips once her hand left his arm because while he'd felt her comfortable lean while she replaced her shoes in inebriated fashion, he now also felt the absence of her touch and it was a terribly odd feeling to be self-aware of.

"I wasn't trying to—"

"—I just thought that—"

"—it wasn't my intention to further upset—"

He had said the wrong thing.

Which. Uh. Happened a lot. Really. Especially when speaking off the cuff about things such as feelings instead of speaking about, well, cerebral matters.

Harper's field dampened. It was tangible, the drawing inward of what could only be described as his boldest form of expression. He was considered one of the pinnacles of understanding when it came to forming lasting, healthy relationships with the mona and yet here he was struggling to grasp at what, exactly, his relationship was to Niamh Madden—engaged student, laboratory assistant, and absolutely unexpectedly irresistibly charming in ways that he had done his best to file away under such categories as unattainable and socially unacceptable.

But, honestly, when did social acceptability clocking matter to Professor Moore?

"No, I—"

The young woman—his overactive grey matter reminded him that he was just a little under two decades her senior—took a step back. And then another.

"—we can—"

She kept talking, however and he wanted to listen but also he wanted to let her know that what he really wanted was perhaps to take the walk to the lab together anyway. They could replace St Grumbles spiked punch with a cup of tea and just—

Mistress.

Threw myself.

Whore.

He blinked.

Such strong words spoken the way they were revealed so much emotion, revealed to the dark-haired galdor that the eldest Madden had wrestled with all of this for as long as he had, he supposed. Well, longer maybe. Long enough to blame herself, which was all entirely untrue. Harper definitely was self-aware enough to know that he shouldered some of the blame—if not ... all of the blame—for her confusion. He just didn't—he often struggled to—he could only focus on a certain number of things at a time, much to the detriment of the rest of real life.

"Niamh." He finally managed, softly, gently, but the redhead had turned and was already attempting to briskly flee. He knew the direction—it was the only place he had here on campus to flee too, too—and while he watched her with his eyes, it took a moment for his feet to remember they had to move to pursue her.

"Niamh Madden."

He'd been foolish. He'd navigated relating to the younger redhead as if he'd left his glasses in his pocket for an entire lecture. He'd tried to dismiss something—tried so hard to deny that either of them had any reason to feel anything particularly real about each other so much as simply felt a less serious sort of biological attraction ... which was so base and typical for everyone to assume that he should've been ashamed for easily dismissing things in such a painfully typical way, but somewhere inside he knew—he'd deduced after so much agonizing—that this wasn't just some textbook example of a needy young person and a willingly predatory man played by himself.

He was far too dense to be a decent predator—he couldn't even find his own cup of tea on a daily basis, let alone stumble into relating to a person in a functional way like he'd spent so much of his life attempting to relate to the mona.

The mona needed nothing in return. The mona never answered back. It sometimes felt one-sided, but—

"Clocking hell. Wait."

Professor Moore moved to catch up, stumbling over himself, feeling dizzy, ears hot and cheeks warm while he fell into stride next to the young woman, brushing his shoulder against hers after shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. As much as he felt the sudden urge to hold one of her hands, he also knew better (just barely) while they were in full public view and neither one of them entirely sober,

"I'm sorry—I haven't thought about—well, that's not entirely true. At all. I've thought about a lot of things, but I've mostly told myself not to think about certain things between us because—well—surely some reasons are very obvious. Right? I have no interest in causing a scandal for you, Miss Madden, just as much as I know you don't want to discredit my research. And I don't—I'm not—"

Harper fell quiet, ashamed a little, embarrassed a little more, but mostly desperate to figure out the right thing to say, "Listen, Niamh, you most certainly are not in any way even adjacent to a prostitute and you definitely didn't throw yourself at me or in my path in any form. If anything, I'm perhaps at fault for encouraging such sentiment in my ignorance ... Or was it my selfishness? I can't deny that I enjoy your company and your attention ... no one has ever taken the time to look after me as you do and I often don't know how to feel about that other than gratitude and—anyway——even if you did, it isn't as though I had any hope of noticing—no, wait—I did notice you, I have noticed you—ever since—gods."

He shut his mouth, jaw clenching, frustration at his own awkward inability to articulate anything properly very clear on his face in the dark. for the rest of the walk to the lab, walking close enough to reach for the young woman's hand so very quickly, timidly, and place it on his extended, gentlemanly-presented arm as if he were some sort of chaperone, patting a clammy, nervous palm over her knuckles before sliding his fingers away and shoving that hand into his coat pocket. Harper knew the path to his office, and he took it without thinking,

"It's better that I just continue to let everyone think I am the fool, I suppose. There are some people who surely can't possibly respect me less than they already do."

[Niamh Madden]

Loshis 3, 2719 | Evening
St Grumble’s Red Tie, Brunnhold

.

Niamh wanted to scream—and she never wanted to make another sound.

She would have given anything—anything—to shove the words back into her mouth. She’d said far too much, had been too clocking open about what was going on in her head, and now he knew… he knew…

Gods, she had no idea what he knew, but it didn’t seem possible that he could continue to be clueless after what she’d just thrown in his face. There were no calculations or theories here to distract him, no chance of him failing to take it in when for once she seemed to have his full attention. And she really did seem to have it; he’d been staring at her. Under different circumstances, she might have had hopes about what those stares meant, but instead, it panicked her.

Had it finally clicked? Had he finally realised what a desperate, lovesick girl she was? Had he realised what lengths she’d gone to moments before she’d supplied him with the words that he needed to describe her?

Her attempt to escape was pathetic. To go in the very direction that he was heading in anyway… that spoke to a desire to be alone with him, for him to follow and deny everything that she’d said. Of course, he’d want to do just that. It wasn’t even a surprise when he called her name. The only shock came when he used her full name, her steps stuttering for a moment despite the fact that his voice didn’t have the ring of authority that would normally have accompanied such a pronouncement.

The final year student heard him hurry to catch up, felt his dampened field enter the range of her senses and took the opportunity to drape most of her hair across her features so that she could hide her flushed face from him.

“Don’t look at me!” she moaned as he matched her steps, shivering as he brushed his shoulder against hers. To her shame, the contact gave her pleasure. Well, she certainly couldn’t blush any more than she already was and her field already oozed embarrassment so it wasn’t as if she was giving much away.

“I’m a clocking fool, I-”

She shook her head, turning her face away as she started chewing at the inside of her cheek, letting him fill the silence between them so that she wouldn’t have to spill her own idiotic thoughts into it. They were somewhat in the same boat, both as bloody awkward as each other and finding it difficult to articulate things sensibly but that was entirely understandable given that neither of them was sober and there was rather a lot going on between them right now. And it did seem as if it was really between them—not just on her side alone.

“—I did notice you, I have noticed you—ever since—”

The Living Conversationalist peeked at him then, she couldn’t help it. She felt ready to choke on her own heart, its frantic pulse filling her throat as hazel eyes flickered over the side of his face.

Noticed her since when? She so desperately wanted to question him about that, yearned to know what occasion had made her stick out and… continue to stick out?! Could Professor pezre Muerdka have been onto something when she mentioned how they looked at each other? Had all of those occasions when she’d thought—if only for a moment—that he looked at her with interest actually have been real rather than the stuff of fantasy?

When she’d kissed him on Clock’s Eve, the eldest Madden had really believed that he’d responded for the briefest fraction of time before she’d pulled away and bolted. Had it been since then or had it been earlier? On his birthday when something had seemed to crackle between them?

But if her feelings weren’t unrequited… what was she supposed to do with that?

In the quickest of gestures, he placed her hand on his arm and she radiated embarrassment anew, finding herself suddenly shy. Not so long ago, she had gripped his arm like a bloody bannister instead of a limb and now it felt like the most intimate thing in the world despite it being a comparatively lighter touch.

The redhead’s field grew bastly—she couldn’t help it, couldn’t speak—as she walked with him, taking the familiar path to the lab and glancing at him from time to time as she tried to marshall her thoughts. The evening had taken a greatly unexpected turn and she felt- to some degree, she was certainly pleased, but the thought of the gossiping academics and her own fiancé complicated her happiness.

She itched to place the nails of her unoccupied hand within chewing range but she resisted, bending her fingers instead so that her thumb could pick at the ragged keratin. It shouldn’t have helped her to think—ludicrous really—but it was the kind of fidgety thing that she did while deep in thought and thus, it seemed necessary as she found herself dissecting her own memories, her every action and inaction, every mortifying word as she tried to pinpoint when things had changed between them—on her side and on his.

At last, she could hold her tongue no longer, the young woman on the cusp of madness as her mind ran over the same possibilities again and again without gaining any real answers.

“Did you- Are you really suggesting that you- that I- that you saw me as more than y-your assistant before this?” she asked quietly, eyes flicking to try to catch his gaze before sliding away again to avoid it. “Am I… to understand that you…”

The girl hesitated, blushing as she tucked hair behind her ear, eyes lowering demurely as she struggled to speak plainly for fear that she had gotten the wrong idea. They should have been past the point where she could feel ashamed before him, considering how much had been said and done by her, but it seemed that her embarrassment could always find new depths.

She took a deep breath.

“Are you saying that there’s interest on your side? Interest in me… romantically?” she asked, voice growing more hushed with each word until it almost disappeared entirely.

Niamh managed the faintest of smiles, incredibly bashful as she halted in the midst of the Parford Wing, her continuing touch on his arm urging him to stop alongside her and meet her confused but hopeful look.

“Or am I the one being a fool?”

Could he hear the beat of her heart? Did her field flutter with it in sympathy? Could he tell how frightened she was by his answer before it even came?

[Muse]

"Iam." He stopped walking, halting abruptly or awkwardly or just as suddenly as requested, glancing around the darkened hall, though he was quite sure there wouldn't be anyone else around. He'd more or less lived in the Parford Wing in his own laboratory for almost two years now; he would know what nightly visitors were likely to appear, and on this Saint Grumbles evening? It would be quiet and empty, and so perhaps his declaration rang out in the silence a little louder than it should have,

"I am saying just that, Niamh."

Harper Moore was not a liar. He clung very tightly, very vehemently, very fervently to truth both as a scientist and as a galdor, if only because he'd spent so much of his career wading through untruth, misconception, and bias.

"I-I mean, I have been interested. I worked very hard not to see you as more than my assistant before this. My friend, maybe, but even that—I was interested, romantically. Wait—I still am, mind you, but—but I can't be. Or, I shouldn't be. Or—well. It seems rather improper for me to feel this way about you, both because you're engaged and because, well, because I have absolutely no desire to confuse you or—or—I don't know."

To what?

To ruin the eldest Madden's reputation? Or to ruin his?

Again, the monic theorist reached up to place a too-warm, very soft hand over hers on his arm, not patting it patronizingly or anything, but resting it there empathetically. It was an excuse to turn a little, to let his hazel gaze search the young woman's wild expression, Harper incredibly aware of every distinct mote of emotion in the redhead's field, already attempting to reign in his near-instinctual analysis of each individual sensation within the mingling of his own quantitatively heavy aura. Not that he wasn't without emotion to be expressed, but it was obvious his sense of control was far different, if not superior. Which, had anyone wanted to get scientific about it, meant that what he did allow to be communicated—just as soft and warm as the palm of his hand but unseen and surrounding—was all the more telling for the one person he chose this moment to share it all with,

"I would propose there are multiple levels of folly present, all things considered. You are, in my opinion and contrary to current Anaxi cultural assumptions about you as a woman, a rational being capable of your own thorough decision-making process just as much as I am. No matter how attractive or kind you are, that doesn't diminish your intellect. Those things can compliment each other instead of cancel each other out, you know. I wish more people understood that, and—"

He rambled, immediately nervous, obviously flustered. He was quite sure he couldn't blush any deeper or be any dizzier, and while he merely wanted to blame all he'd had to drink, he understood quite clearly that this sort of intoxication was actually not all to be blamed on alcohol. His fingers sought hers near the crook of his elbow, gently entangling them with a perceptible squeeze,

"—and yet, to me, you are very unattainable, Niamh." Hazel eyes held hers for emphasis for several rapid, fluttery heartbeats before his gaze slid away from her face with reluctance to stare into the darkened turn in the hall, to glance at the recessed door with the crooked sign that read, Laboratory Beta and the names listed beneath it. Once again, someone had tucked some mocking sheet of paper under his name plate—some childish student having drawn a figure in what could best be described as an electric chair with a stylized Harper in very large glasses standing over them with a syringe.

This was not the first libelous drawing.

It wouldn't be the last.

"Romantic interest, er, acting upon romantic interest between us—is—complicated at best. Potentially disastrous at worst, but you know this, right? I trust that you do, and I—I bend enough rules for scientific reasons. It feels incredibly worse to realize how much I want to bend other rules for personal reasons, also. While I've sat down and calculated that whatever your Madden family stands to gain through marital connection with the Darcy's is far inferior in comparison to my own on both a political and financial level, I—well—we—uh—"

Harper bit his lip at such an admission of using his statistical skills for such selfish indulgence, looking back at Niamh without any hint of apology. If anything, he smiled a little, the expression curling upward beneath his teeth, always honest, now too honest, and made the mistake of reaching up to move some of her now-disheveled hair from her face, behind her ear where she'd tucked the rest of it. A mistake because he let his hand brush her cheek and he wanted it to stay there and he had a point in what he'd been saying but his mind immediately moved in several completely different directions all at once with his next sharp inhale of breath, making a decision.

He did leave his hand ever so lightly near her face, knuckles scandalous against freckled skin before he let his thumb trace over her lips in both emphasis of his words and evidence of a desire he'd so carefully tried his damnedest to contain, to shove away,

"—these are things we cannot do—"

The monic theorist all but whispered, leaning a little closer instead of farther away, bending with obvious trajectory before he caught himself, hovering ridiculously, and stared.

"—but I want to."

[Niamh Madden]

Loshis 3, 2719 | Evening
St Grumble’s Red Tie, Brunnhold

.

Harper made no attempt at evasion, didn’t even hesitate despite the fact that she’d put him on the spot and he couldn’t have devoted the same amount of time as her into thinking about this. There was no way that she could have misheard him, his voice quite loud in the otherwise deserted space, but it was simply too good to be true—too difficult to absorb. She couldn’t be dreaming and yet she must be.

He really-

Harper actually-

It wasn’t just her-

A laugh somehow escaped her, high and wild, straining around the lump in her throat. She thought she might cry. This was clocking ridiculous.

If she hadn’t had his arm for support, something solid to anchor her to the reality of the situation, Niamh might well have thought that she was having some sort of waking delusion. Perhaps the effects of alcohol. Did alcohol poisoning cause you to hallucinate as your body’s cells sang their swan song? Not that she’d drunk as much as all that, and he was gazing at her very earnestly and his feelings were tangible and certainly not the product of her imagination.

A tremor went through the lower half of her face and she covered it, pressing her hand against her shaking lips and chin as if to give them the support they needed as they threatened to wobble into the form of a sob.

She didn’t want to cry, she was happy—well, somewhat happy, it was actually rather complicated—but she wasn’t upset. The eldest Madden must seem clocking moony, psychologically breaking apart at the seams. Silly, overly emotional girl but it was too much—it was more than she’d ever dared hope and even when he threaded their fingers together, it was too intangible for her to fully grasp.

He cared about her, he wanted her in spite of her youth and her insecurities and her physical shortcomings and-

"—and yet, to me, you are very unattainable, Niamh."

Hazel eyes blinked once, twice, fluttered as if trying to dislodge something from the lashes and then fixed on him. Her hand slid from her mouth, jaw slackening as she gaped at him.

She was the unattainable one? No, that couldn’t be right, he was the one who was hard to reach whereas if he asked her, she would give him anything—everything, she realised with a deep blush—in this moment so in truth, she was far from unattainable.

Yet he was right.

The man unfurled the reality of the situation, dragging it into the light where they could both scrutinise it despite the discomfort that it must cause to both of them. They weren’t supposed to be involved with one another, not given the authority that he held over her as a Brunnhold student on the wrong side of graduation, as his research assistant. It wouldn’t be the first time that such a thing had occurred, the sort of thing that their society could turn an almost blind eye to in the right circumstances, but considering that her father was in the public eye… the power of her fiancé’s family… the nature of Harper’s research…

Her mouth puckered, twisted, the young woman wrestling with something spirited inside of her, an impulse to tell society where it could shove its opinions, but it was juvenile and ridiculous and so incredibly selfish.

But gods, she wanted to be selfish!

Her breathing hitched as he traced his fingers across her skin, leaving a tingling path in their wake that made her shiver in anticipation. His face neared her own and every fibre of her being strained against her skin, yearning to meet him halfway and yet eager to allow him to be the one to exert his will on her.

But he didn’t, aborting the attempt despite the fact that they were so close that she could share his breath and taste his words as his actions belied his desires!

A soft sound escaped her, hovering between a whimper and a moan, and she visibly winced. She leaned back, tilting her face away as her teeth pressed hard enough into her lip that it stung. Her field pulsed and she violently pulled her fingers from his, her other hand shoving against his chest.

“Don’t! Don’t tease!” she hissed, sliding out of his range as she made for the laboratory door, hoping to get a grip on herself before he could see how her eyes glistened. Her desire to buy herself even a few seconds was horribly dashed as she realised that the damned portal was locked and she was reliant on him to open it for her.

Arms crossed over her chest, hands snaking over the bodice until they found the sides, the young woman left hugging herself in a vain attempt at self-comfort as she leaned against the wall, dampening her field so that it shrunk tightly around her, and stared at him.

“Don’t tell me that you want to and th-then— I know that we can’t—we mustn’t,” Niamh bit out, doing her best to glare at him while simultaneously trying to avoid catching his eye—and failing miserably.

“It’s not my f-family that you have to worry about or that-that-that ersehat acting as if I’m already married to him. Sod both of them—and I mean it! But you’ve worked so hard for your research and it matters and I-I-I would never want to-to-”

The redhead shook her head, fixing her attention on the floor.

“We’ll have a cup of tea and s-sober up and everything will seem- Everything will be easier when we’re sober. I’m just a passing fancy, Harper and when I’m sober, y-y-you won’t have to worry about me doing something to tempt you like trying to ki-ki-”

She heaved in a deep sighing breath, wet eyes shining with a mix of longing and shame as she whispered breathlessly, “Like trying to kiss you.”

[Muse]

H e really could have just—

"Tease—no—I'm not—I don’t want to be—" Harper huffed a rough exhale, losing focus as Niamh exploded in pent-up frustration, watching the way she soured at his hesitance, the way his desperate attempt at holding on to some iota of restraint only made things worse, not better. He staggered more than just a little bit: intoxicated, surprised, and distracted, and when he turned, the young woman was practically curled against the wall next to his laboratory door.

She didn't even run away, and, if she had decided to, could he have blamed her? Instead, the monic theorist was left to stand in the hall a moment, frowning and confused. He dredged up from the molten, tumultuous depths of his chest whatever calm syllables he could string together, trying to fumble about for propriety even if his ears were ringing and he just didn't clocking want to. For all of his honesty, there was so much more under the surface he simply chose not to express to anyone. It wasn't lying—it was just not saying anything at all.

This sort of carefully honed skill was proving itself difficult to maintain in Niamh's company, and as he pat down his coat and his trouser pockets for his keys, making more of an idiot out of himself, he all-but-whispered, quipped and angry (at himself more than anyone else),

"—I'm trying to be respectful. Isn't that the right thing to do?"

Wasn't it?

Wasn't it, really?

Harper stepped closer under the weight of the young woman's glare, little metal shapes tinkling in one hand, heart stuck in his throat. The dampening of her field felt like the recession of a tide, retreating but with a gravitational pull all its own, tugging everything nearby out with it,

"Let it be established that we both are sincere about having each other's best interests in mind." Harper declared, though he didn't smile about it even if in any other circumstance it might have been a little humorous. How he wanted to protect her from her stupid engagement and all of the foolish ignorance that sought to hold her back! How he also felt so guilty for the kind of fondness that had grown in him for her, that had blossomed here and there like flowers pushing up through cobblestones in the garden of his childhood home. He’d turned down matches attempted by his parents, he’d tried courting once, and—here was the eldest Madden, unexpected and insanely out of his reach. So, logically, just to spite him, she felt so right in his company.

He did have to worry about her family and their politics that could snuff him out like a candle or Mister Darcy who could insinuate some sort of unwanted advances on his part toward his fiancé. He also had to worry about scrutiny of his work lest he end up under his third review by the Arcane Court—especially considering the other two had been clocking exhausting. He worried about all of these things and more!

"Gods, I can't do this."

Even as he said that, however, he stepped closer, meeting Niamh's gaze, the dark-haired professor chose not to actually say any of the things that swam through his mind. He stepped closer to her instead of to the door, pouring himself into her personal space a little ungracefully, a little unexpectedly, brows drawing together not in confusion (he felt annoyingly clear-headed in this particular moment, all that alcohol rushing with adrenaline now through his bloodstream) but in hurt and concern and obvious conflict none the less,

"You're not a passing fancy. I've had plenty of time to sort that out if you were." He murmured quietly, bent just so to unlock his door—which, admittedly, took a couple of tries because he was looking at the young woman and also his hands trembled quite a bit, full of too many thoughts and feelings at once. Finally, he shoved the door open, hovering in the threshold under the sincere but outdated gentlemanly pretense of holding the door open should the eldest Madden really decide she wanted to go through with spending more time with him, should she decide she really needed this—whatever this was!—between them or not.

"I don't particularly know if I want a cup of tea or even if I actually want to sober up—" He added, just as breathless as she was, not entirely bothering to move out of the way should Niamh step toward the door. Instead, he shuffled his footing, unwilling to leave the her further confused, and turned toward her, letting his fingers slip from the doorknob to catch one of her hands again, to bring it up in a trajectory toward his chest far more gently than her angry shove had been, "—clocking hell. It's not a temptation—it's, uh—, it's—er—it's fulfillment of a desire. What I can't seem to determine is if we can take such a chance, and—"

Somewhere in the threshold between the hallway and his office proper, Harper was achingly unaware of just how much time he'd wasted overthinking all of this. He felt so flushed, so overly warm, so dizzy, so full of his own sort of pining that had been left unexpressed ... just, so frustrated with himself, with this conversation, with—with everything—

So, he stopped.

Instead, he leaned forward and kissed the young woman without any other warning than bold eye contact and one of his typical, unfinished sentences. It was genuine and forward, only a little bit hesitant—and even that only for the first, gentle and quick press of his lips. He didn't dart away after that scandalously decisive attempt to dispel any more talk of kissing, no, scattering all of the various equations and scenarios and statistics that buzzed through his skull like too much alcohol, full of dire warnings and terrible probable outcome odds.

He had really spent so much time dwelling on those things, and, honestly? If he'd wasted his life listening to what every statistic told him to, where would he be?

Not here.

Not shifting his hips to press a little closer for a second more expressive, more awkward, but very lingering kiss, that was for sure.

But he didn't listen.

He shut it all out of his head for a fistful of seconds—a momentous task for the monic theorist, really practically commendable had anyone been paying attention to the sheer force of will it took to just clocking stop thinking. Harper's breath hitched and his free hand not gripping the doorknob with now-white knuckles reached up in opposite force to very gently cradle the side of Niamh's face. His thumb caught a little moisture and he eventually (finally) pulled away from her lips, still just as awkward as ever,

"—what I can't seem to determine is if we can take this sort of chance and come out of it unscathed or not, Niamh." Harper whispered, staring, self-aware enough to know that he had never once ever bothered to care about the consequences of his choices when it came to theoretical pursuits and yet he was so terrified of this. Much like he often approached a difficult equation, however, Professor Moore made it clear that he'd just decided to dive right in. Very much like any other proper scientific experiment, he was aware he needed to observe further before drawing any conclusions.

He moved them both with a nudge only a little to shut the door behind them, something hot that wasn't any shame at all dribbling down from the base of his skull, trickling over every vertebrae. They stood there in the near-dark of the lounge-like front room of the lab. Full of scattered papers, shelves, the low table, sofa and a couple of chairs, "I've been told what I shouldn't and can't do for a long time—"

One more kiss for emphasis, and the monic theorist practically sighed his words right there so close,

"—so have you."