"Reasonless" ch. 3
Yall know the drill
Gender neutral reader/Anaxa canon divergent au let's goooooooo
The walk really wasn't horrible, thankfully for your aching shoulders.
You never thought you possessed a lot of stuff till you were forced to haul it like this. It felt a bit like a humiliation ritual.
Walking into the academic wing was like crossing a threshold into another world. The air itself changed in temperature slightly, cooler, deeper into the heart of the Grove. Still scented with old paper and ink, but tinged with the sharper, more sterile aroma of alchemical reagents that would have certainly been banned elsewhere.
It was notably lacking in the sounds you'd grown so used to. The current ambient noise, a low hum of focused energy rather than the chaotic buzz of student life.
Fewer people passed you, and those who did were deep in conversation or lost in thought, eyes glazed over, looking instead of seeing. It was unnerving… Even those who were lucid barely glanced your way, despite how your exaggerated struggling was surely quite the spectacle.
The silence was a relief, in some regards, but it left too much room for thought, and your thoughts kept circling back to him. You pushed them aside, yet again, wondering just how many times that annoying, self-involved man could invade your head in just one day, and if you should have argued for a mental rent clause in that contract you so haphazardly signed.
You found your assigned room without much trouble, numbers worn from age and many, many inhabitants.
Concerning...
Inside, the space was bigger than you were used to, that was immediately apparent. A bed, twice the size of your previous one and in much better condition with crisp linen sheets, a sturdy desk beneath a large window overlooking the inner branches of the Grove, a bookshelf waiting to be filled. It was efficient. Clean. And utterly unfamiliar.
This was it. Your new life for the next year, for better or worse.
You sunk onto the edge of the narrow bed, the frame creaking softly under your weight. The impulse to unpack, to establish some semblance of order in this stark new space was there, a faint, nagging pull at the back of your mind. But your body felt heavy and your thoughts, far too sluggish.
Your gaze drifted to the window, the view of intertwined branches, thick with bioluminescent moss, casting a soft glow into the room. It was beautiful, in a cold, untouchable way.
Far too early for sleep, unfortunately. That much you knew, even with the perpetual darkness. It only took a few more minutes of quiet thought before you were pulled forcefully from your stomach growling, prompting a slightly frustrated sigh. A rude interruption, a stark reminder of your neglected basic needs, obnoxiously loud in the sterile quiet of the room.
Right. Food…
You hadn't eaten since... well, you couldn't actually remember. The thought of venturing back out into the unfamiliar corridors, and worse still, possibly running into him, or one of his intensely quiet colleagues, made your shoulders tense and the inklings of a headache form. But hunger was a persistent motivator. You pushed yourself up from the bed with a quiet sigh, your movements slow and reluctant.
The hallway was just as empty and silent as before. You weren't even sure which way to go. Apparently, straining to carry your entire life across the halls didn’t make for great direction retention. Any other, more devoted scholar might make that a point of study, you just felt irritated by it.
You walked a while, hoping for a landmark. Was the Grove always this big? Every door looked the same, every branching path offered no clues. The sheer, imposing scale of the academic wing was starting to feel less impressive and more… deliberately confusing.
This was supposed to be designed by geniuses…?
You rounded a corner, your footsteps nearly silent, and suddenly stopped short. A familiar voice... Yes, unmistakable, even when muffled by a half-closed door, dry and precise, utterly pointed. It must have been a small amphitheater, but every clipped syllable carried far past its threshold. You paused, lingering just beyond, hidden in the shadow of the corridor. You couldn't help yourself...
"We attribute their power to divinity because we previously lacked the language for what it truly is. A concentration of energy. A manipulation of natural laws. Accessible, theoretically, to any mind sharp enough to grasp the underlying principles."
You risked a look, peaking through, eyes finding him at the center stage through the gap in the door. His posture was rigid and there was an undeniable intensity in his face, the kind that holds a small group of students at attention, utterly breathless with academic rigor and barely suppressed concern.
"A disease is not divine because it is powerful. We fear what we do not understand, and we call that faith. It is the duty of reason to dissect it. To name it."
'It is the duty of reason to dissect it.' You couldn't help but wonder if that’s what he was doing with you. Dissecting. Naming. Mastering. The thought sent a cold shiver down your spine, even as your stomach gave another impatient growl.
You risked a few minutes more. You weren’t even sure why... Perhaps just to observe him in his natural habitat.
His lecture continued, the dry, precise dissection of divine fallacy, but something shifted... He was in the middle of a sentence when he simply stopped. His hand, which had been gesturing with sharp emphasis to a board you couldn't hope to make out from this distance, froze in mid-air. His head tilted, just a fraction, like catching a familiar feeling on the wind.
His gaze swept the room, eyes passing over the faces of his students, some familiar and less so. You managed to make out his expression, the only appropriate descriptor being 'unnerved.' Then the gaze moved past them, toward the partially open door, toward the shadows where you stood. It didn’t scan with haphazard uncertainty. It landed. It fixed with uncanny accuracy. You tensed, heart jolting in your chest, holding your breath with all the resolve of an animal being primed for dissection.
He knew.
A slow, unsettled frown touched his lips, one of mild annoyance.
He didn't call you out, didn't acknowledge your presence directly like he might to a delayed student. He held the silence for a moment. Then another... Then he simply turned back to his audience, his voice dropping to a slightly distracted tone.
"…And therefore," he continued, voice noticeably softer, losing the sharp, lecturing edge. "The argument for their supremacy collapses under the weight of its own foundation." He didn't look at his notes to pick back up after that line. His gaze was distant, turned slightly inward, as if listening to a faint, distracting melody only he could hear.
One of the braver students clears their throat. "...Professor?"
Anaxagoras blinked, as if startled back to the present. He glanced at the student, then his eyes flicked, just for an instant, toward the door, before returning to his notes with more focus.
You took that as a sign to vanish, slinking out of the compromised spot. Your heart thumped a frantic rhythm against your ribs as you slipped back into the shadows of the corridor. The feeling of being pinpointed with such effortless unnerving accuracy lingered like a chill.
The search for food felt secondary now, your hunger eclipsed by the unsettling realization of just how acutely aware of you he was. It was like he could sense you through walls, through crowds, through the focused haze of his own lecture. The connection was more of a tether than you'd first thought, and you still couldn't feel it at all.
It occurred to you that any attempt to dodge him would likely be thwarted by such a tether. It was like you donned an invisible tracker, something that ensured your theoretical escape wouldn't take you far. What a pleasant and totally normal dynamic to find oneself in…
In the amphitheater, the dismissal was as abrupt as usual.
"That will suffice for today," the scholar hummed, eyes entirely on his notes, voice flat and final, cutting off any further questions. He didn’t offer an explanation for ending the lecture early, per usual. He simply gathered his notes, quick and efficient, then walked out of the room without a backward glance, leaving a group of bewildered scholars behind. The ones who knew him better were just glad he said anything at all before leaving so suddenly.
He made his way to a quiet, empty observation room nearby, one usually used for celestial charting, not keen on making the trek all the way back to his study with his head so full. He locked the door behind him.
The room was circular, with a domed ceiling depicting star maps that he didn’t glance at. A worn journal was pulled from his robes as his mind tried to properly categorize exactly what happened, and how it was still affecting him. His script was feverish, less elegant than usual, messy black lines and splotches penned with a shaking hand.
"Subject proximity test (unplanned): Lecture Hall, approximately 50 meters separation, one closed door, ambient noise of 20+ individuals." His pen scratched against the paper. "Detection was instantaneous. Sensory based. A resonant shift in the coreflame’s agitation. A… need."
He paused, staring at the word. 'Need.' It felt too subjective, far too emotional. He crossed it out. "The effect was pronounced. Mental focus fragmented. Physical awareness of Subject’s location persisted for duration of exposure and continues...."
He closed the journal, not satisfied. The data was clear, but the experience was… muddled. He’d felt you like a sudden drop in temperature, a change in the pressure of the room itself. Something hard to articulate but measurable.
He leaned back in the chair, staring at the star map on the ceiling for a moment. The coreflame in his chest was quiet now, a soft, contented hum, but he knew it wouldn't last long.
In the quiet of the observation room, he turned his focus inward, to the space beneath his ribs where the void of stars and the divine fire entwined.
It’s a treacherous thing to do. The coreflame, this stolen shard of Reason, was not a passive power source. It was a consciousness, eroded and mad, but still sentient in its anguish. It recognized the search, the probing, and it reacted like a startled animal.
A low entirely familiar ache began deep in his bones. It wasn’t quite the sharp pain of absence, but familiar, nonetheless. The star-shaped void on his chest pulsed, pinpricks of light swirled and clustered, whispering in a language of fractured logic he could only hope to half-understand.
Your presence was a thread thrumming with a frequency that soothed the coreflame's endless, directionless rage to the unfairness of its fate. A tether to sanity, to something that felt almost like peace. But it crackled with the petulance of a jealous god. It didn't just want the byproduct, it wanted the source. It pulled at the thread, a greedy, instinctive yank that translated into a sudden, sharp cramp in his chest. He hissed, eyes flying open, hand pressing against his sternum as he doubled over. His mind went blank for a moment.
It was hungry, bottomless. It wanted, needed to consume the source, to draw it in and make it… part of itself, to fill the hollow where Mnestia used to be.
He pushed back against the impulse, a mental command as sharp as a blade and just as painful.
"No."
The command was for himself as much as the fragment within him. This will not be consumption. He can’t allow that.
The coreflame quieted, sulking like a child. The ache faded to a dull throb. But the tether remained, vivid in his mind's eye. He could feel its length, its strength. He knew, with a certainty that was thrilling and utterly terrifying, that if he followed it, it would lead him straight to wherever you were.
He finally stood, a little unsteady. The awareness was a live wire, a sixth sense. He knew exactly where you were. He knew you were moving. He would know the moment you stopped. The intimacy of it was obscene. A violation he never asked for, but one he could not, would not, severe.
He leaves the observation room, his steps purposeful. Not toward you. At least not yet… He needed to think. To plan. To engineer more time in a safe setting where he knew he wouldn't fall victim to his own impulses, and he already had the most convenient cover unfurling itself in his mind...
You, still stirring with the same thoughts as him, eventually find a small, quiet courtyard tucked away in a lower branch of the wing. The few scholars present eat in silence, their noses buried in scrolls. You, as well, attempted to eat at an unoccupied table, but the food tasted like ash and proved hard to swallow. Every quiet pair of footsteps in the hall adjacent made you tense, half-expecting to see his silhouette in the doorway, his eyes locked onto you with that same unnerving focus you felt back at the amphitheater.
Would he be upset…?
Finishing quickly, you retreated to your new room after some retracing, intentionally avoiding the path that would lead you past the amphitheater, just in case.
The previously unfamiliar space felt a little more habitable, even though it was still barren. You lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, mind buzzing. The year ahead stretched before you, long and intricately bound to the most unpredictable man you had ever met.
A knock at the door broke the silence, sharp and precise. You didn’t need to ask who it was. The rhythm of his actions was already becoming familiar.
When you reluctantly open it he's leaning against the frame with an unnerving casualness. He had changed out of his lecture attire into something simpler, though still just as 'academic' looking, his hair falling in soft waves over his shoulder in a looser tie than normal, and with a small, leather-bound journal in one hand.
His visible eye scanned your face, then flickered past you, taking in the state of your room, the unpacked trunk, the untouched bed. A faint, almost imperceptible frown touched his lips.
"You haven't settled," he observed, his voice low and even. It wasn’t a question. "Is there an issue with the accommodations?"
You blinked, slightly dumbfounded by the observation. Just how quickly was he expecting you to unpack?
"Uh, no, I haven't... Do you need something?" Your reply was uncharacteristically candid. Perhaps he was already rubbing off on you... He didn't give any sign that it affected him.
"I 'need' you to be functional," he replied just as bluntly. "And a functional assistant requires a functional environment. Chaos breeds inefficiency. It’s a simple principle." He crossed his arms, looking away from you.
"I've also compiled a preliminary schedule. Your presence is required in my lab every day at Entry Hour, when the symptoms are most pronounced. And you'll also attend my lecture at Action Hour's second quint. Beyond that, you're free to pursue your own studies, provided they don’t interfere."
His tone was clinical, detached, but his posture was rigid as ever. He was waiting for your reaction, for a protest, for anything that might give him more data to categorize. If you didn't know any better, you'd almost think he wanted a little resistance.
"Your lectures..." You started, mind whirling slightly to what you saw earlier in the amphitheater. So he had categorized your presence... Shocker.
"With all due respect professor, I'm not a Nousporists."
A slow, deliberate blink was your reply, like the thought hadn't even occurred to him and wasn't worth exploring up until you said it out loud.
"That is irrelevant. The lecture isn't for your edification, though that will, ideally, be a byproduct." He replied, waving you off with little consideration, "It's for my observation. I need to gauge how this… 'resonance' behaves in a public setting, under stress, with multiple stimuli present."
He glanced down at the leather-bound journal in his hand, fingers mindlessly brushing over the pages that you could now see to be entirely empty.
He seemed to ponder something for a moment, eyes getting that infuriating glazed-over look you kept seeing, like you no longer existed in his general presence. You considered interrupting with some other form of protest, but something stopped you... Obviously, nothing you said would change his mind, the same man that uprooted your life and dragged it halfway across the Grove in order to be optimally placed for his convenience.
He looked back up, eyes holding yours, far more piercing now, as if having decided on something else.
"Your attendance is mandatory. You'll sit in the front row. I'll be monitoring your reaction, as well as my own. This is a parameter of the study. If you have objections, file them with the Academic Senate."
A faint, almost smug smile touched his lips. "And, given your apparent fascination with eavesdropping earlier, I assumed you were already invested in the subject matter."
Your heart jumped to your throat, a sharp, unpleasant thump of hot embarrassment against your ribs. Who does this guy think he is? To say that so openly...
Right. Okay. Fine. So your new job included auditing an insane professor’s class. What a delightful way to spend your enrollment. You're in the middle of sulking when he tapped that damn journal, catching your attention, opening it and showing you the empty pages.
"This contains blank observation logs. You'll record any notable changes in your own condition. This includes mood, energy, any… sensations you might experience while near me. I'll be doing the same. Comparative analysis is crucial. We'll compare findings weekly."
You suspected that was code for 'you give me your notes and I don’t tell you anything.' Oh, you were going to kill him. He watched the flush climb your neck, the way your eyes narrowed, and the sharp, almost imperceptible tightening of your jaw. Ah. There it was. A reaction. Not just compliance and mild fear, but irritation. Genuine, human irritation. His smile deepened, becoming something much more genuine, more… intrigued.
"Good," he replied softly, the word a low hum of approval. "Indignation is a far more useful baseline than apathy. It has a measurable pulse."
He closed the journal with a snap that tugged pointedly on your last nerve and held it out to you with an enigmatic smile.
"Begin tonight. Note everything. The mundane is often the most revealing. And," he added, his tone dropping into something dangerously close to a purr, "try not to let your personal feelings toward me cloud the data. Objectivity is the soul of good science."
Scratch just killing him, you wanted to strangle that smug look off his face first.
What right did he have to claim you had any feelings at all towards him, other than the blatant animosity written all over your expression. You snatched the book and turned, an obvious dismissal. Contract or no, you didn't have to take this.
He didn't move, lingering for a moment longer, studying your profile, the set of your shoulders, the way you held the journal like it was a burden and a weapon. A faint, almost imperceptible shiver ran through his body, not exactly displeasure, no, but of… deep fascination. Data. All data.
Finally, he turned like he was about to leave, but... He paused at the threshold, one hand resting on the frame. His voice was low, almost conversational, as if he was merely thinking aloud.
"You have every right to feel the way you do," he said, voice quieter now, stripped of its performative edge. "I have, by all social metrics, essentially kidnapped you for my own benefit. It's a transactional arrangement, one you agreed to under terms you likely didn't fully comprehend. Your resentment is… logical."
He studied your face, gaze tracing the tension in your brow, the set of your mouth... "But animosity is still a feeling. It's a variable. It has weight. It affects your perception, your reactions, and your… proximity. Which, in turn, affects me. So," his tone shifted back to that dry, analytical cadence, "I kindly ask you to log it."
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving you alone with the journal, the simmering heat of your own frustration, and the unsettling understanding that he had already begun dissecting you, piece by piece.