you have all been very kind and generous with your compliments -- honestly, i’m surprised by all the love part 1 received. i apologize again with the massive delay of pt. 2. my beta and i haven’t had much time to go through it all the last few weeks with life and work happening. below is a small teaser of pt. 2 -- i hope you enjoy and continue to look forward to it!
You clutch your final report to your chest, mind racing with a thousand thoughts per second, and don’t even realize you’ve already made it to the elevator platform. And once it gives a mechanical shutter and starts to go up, you want to scream and simultaneously steal a glider to jump off and land safely back on the ground level.
Is it good or bad luck that no one seems to be around? Maybe he won’t be at his desk and you can just leave the report there and fucking bolt. Maybe it’s not even Alhaitham in the Grand Sage’s chair. Maybe the man is gone altogether and is somewhere in the desert looking at ancient runes.
Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore and has forgotten about you. Maybe he told himself to let bygones be bygones, and that you were simply another scholar in the Akademiya. No one special.
Your initial hopes of his coincidental absence are dashed as you walk up the stairs. His silver hair stands out among the sea of azure and viridian, and he doesn’t even bother to look up from the stack of papers in his hand. Not that you were a bull in a china shop by any means, but the man would even notice with his eyes closed if there was a fly on the complete opposite side of the office. Your heart is ready to burst from your chest with each shaky step, and too soon, you stand in front of his sprawling desk.
“My office hours will be ending in a few minutes,” he states in a matter-of-fact tone without looking at you. Your lungs risk a sharp inhale at the sound of his voice, an all too familiar mix of gentility and sternness. “If it’s something that requires more than that length of time, come back tomorrow.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuck – “I’m just, um, turning in a research report?”
At the sound of your voice, Alhaitham doesn’t even bother to amuse himself. He’d much rather not look and not be disappointed, than to do so and become reacquainted with dashed hopes. “...And the necessary cover sheet is on top? Does it have your name, project number, and corresponding title?”
“Y-yes.”
Still perusing through the paperwork in his palms, he frees one hand to point it at a basket on his far right corner. “Leave it there. Your advisors and I will be reviewing it within the next two weeks.”
“Oh, o-okay.”
You do as instructed, praying and pleading that Alhaitham won’t notice it’s you until after you’ve left. That would be the best case scenario and you could hole up in your apartment for the rest of…eternity. Maybe. Lumine can come and scold you later and you can take it like a champ.
But your heart, ever so fickle and occasionally diabolical, plays one last card and causes you to stop at the top of the stairs. “Have a good night,” your voice musters out. “Thank you, Alhaitham.”
The rustling of his papers ceases as you turn and hurry down the steps, taking extra care to not trip over your feet. But just before you can activate the elevator, a frazzled “Y/N?” is called from above. Sweaty hands, sullen heart, leadened brain, and nervous eyes, all orient towards the sole scholar inhabiting your dreams, who stands on the edge of the platform above and peers down to confirm his assumption. His stance looks as if he had leapt over his desk and sprinted at top speed towards you.
You’re not sure how to take it all in, how to take him in – the “feeble scholar”, for once, appears as such. If possible, his cheeks seem a little more sunken in, further accentuating the sharp edges of his jawline. His hair looks mussed, as if he’d run his hands through it several too many times. The cloak around his shoulders rests askew from his sudden movements.
But his eyes.
Those seafoam irises and amber pupils pierce through your soul, but not in an inquisitive and calculating manner. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – unsure, disbelieving, and hesitant. To elicit such a reaction from this man should be recorded in the most prominent historical annals, but you do have to admit it’s a bad look on him.
When you open your mouth to say something, anything, the elevator begins its descent. Any words you had are wiped from your mind, and you do everything you can to maintain this staredown. Weeks ago, you couldn’t even begin to guess what this man would be feeling based on his eyes, but now? His heart is on his sleeve, and you can’t help the green envy in your veins at the possibility that others have seen him in such a vulnerable state. The constant battle between an illusional desire to be his everything and knowing that you could and should never be, rages on.
!!! I'm happy that the fic managed to elicit those feelings. Alhaitham has ME on a chokehold jfc, of course he'd be the one to pull another long fic out of me
