— third door on the left, marked "debate club"
two professors. one office door away from kissing or killing each other. maybe both.
featuring . theoretical philosophy professor!anaxa x practical philosophy professor!fem!reader.
tags . university au. nodern au. suggestive. semi-public sex mentioned/referenced. (you make so many) sex jokes. fluff. ooc. soft anaxa. comedy. mild language. academic rivalry but make it professors. mentions of alcohol use. workplace romance. bickering as a love language.. flirting. so many philosophy terms (that i barely understand). wc 3.1k.
a/n . a friend dabbed me into philosophy and i folded. the handjob joke was initially hers but i couldn't help myself. im not a philosophy major so if you are please forgive me for any mistakes, my friend who actually majored in it helped me a small bit and im still confused. lmk if there are any typos. enjoy <3
"your handwriting is offensive," you mutter, turning the paper sideways, then upside down.
anaxa doesn’t look up from his tea. "you still read it, though."
"barely. is this supposed to say 'conscious' or 'conscience'?"
"both."
"no."
"well, that’s why i'm a philosopher."
"i also am one. your last footnotes gave me a headache."
he finally looks up, raising an eyebrow. "then my work here is done."
"so you’re telling me," you, crossing your arms. "that again, you rewrote the entire reading list after midterms?"
"no," he replies, not looking up from his notes. "i rewrote it because of midterms. frankly, your students deserve better than whatever you assigned them. i read the discussion boards."
"you’re on the discussion boards?"
"i moderate three of them. and i banned a user who called you hot. you’re welcome."
you pause and tilt your head. in the end, you mumble "...that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me."
"don’t get used to it," he mutters, knowing you're exaggerating. "they spelled ‘epistemological’ wrong."
your bring in tea and fruit for your students. anaxagoras brings nothing and cancels half his office hours because, quote, "philosophy isn’t learned in panic, it’s metabolized in silence" (half the admin hates him).
his and your students are in quiet (jealous) war. campus hallway signs include:
"vote: whose exam will kill us with more dignity?
team prof [name]: understanding through application
team prof anaxagoras: no multiple choice, only anguish"
you and anaxa both pretend you don’t see the posters.
you end up stealing one and taping it to the wall in your office. anaxa responds by using it as part of a pop quiz question.
the students get back by gifting both of you matching mugs that say: "#1 philosophical threat". anaxa mutters about not joking with philosophy majors anymore. (they're literally his students and he's starting to get scared)
him and you sit on opposite ends of the philosophy department’s couch like it’s some kind of contested ground.
you're reading ethics of desire upside down. he’s pretending not to notice.
"why do you hate me?" you ask, out of nowhere.
"i don’t."
"then why do you argue with me in faculty meetings like we're at the fucking olympics?"
"because you like it," he looks over, holding eye contact.
"and," he adds after a beat. "because you're brilliant. and you're wrong about kant."
"i’m never wrong about kant," you frown.
"see? fun."
the dean told you it's mandatory to be in the department-wide group chat. anaxa has notifications off, your have them on, and neither of you participate until absolutely necessary.
today, someone sends a meme about faculty budgeting. it evolves quickly into... something.
@ecologywillsurvive_vaelis: what if we held a bake sale for chalk
@anaxagorastheory: what.
@cai_NaOCl: maybe we should sell naming rights to the new ethics wing. welcome to the ‘crypto.com moral foundations lab’
@anaxagorastheory: if you sell naming rights to a lab about ethics i will personally remove my eye patch and stare into your soul.
@praxis[name]: we’ve talked about this, the patch stays on in public spaces
@praxis[name]: and cai i'm going to rename your organic chem wing to 'half baked molecule lounge' if you bring up the ethics wing again
@anaxagorastheory: i’m just saying. the thread of reason is fraying.
@praxis[name]: your self-control is fraying
@anaxagorasthery: say that in office hours.
@epiphany_uni_admin: hi everyone! just a reminder that this is a professional chat
"you're late," you say without looking up from your laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard like you've been waiting specifically to outpace him.
"i was grading," anaxa responds, setting down a stack of painfully annotated printed philosophy 201 essays with a grimace. "your TAs let them write in first person and i nearly hemorrhaged."
"they’re freshmen, let them think they matter," you reply, finally glancing up at him.
"dangerous ideology for a praxis professor."
you hum. "dangerous man to say it."
"you’re wearing my coat," anaxa notes when he opens his office door and finds you there.
you blink once. then, "i spilled tea on mine."
he steps aside to lt you in, utterly unsurprised.
"also," you add as your shrug the coat tighter. "yours smells nicer."
he doesn’t say anything for a moment.
"would it be weird if i told you i hope you spill more tea tomorrow?"
you smile, mischievous.
"depends where."
"you always write in pen," your mutter, flipping through the latest draft of his paper with red ink bleeding into printed black. "only pen."
"i trust my convictions," anaxa replies, deadpan.
"you misspelled 'epistemological' three times after getting distracted by me."
"i was testing you."
"were you?" you ask, eyes narrowing. "you wrote 'epistomagical' at one point."
he shrugs, takes a sip from his coffee. it's black and bitter and you know he hates it.
you bite back a smile. "idiot."
"your handwriting is worse," he mutters. "at least i try."
"i write in runes," you say, prim.
"those are hearts above your i's."
"...runes of war."
"do you always grade with red?" you ask, leaning over his desk, some random paper in hand that you forgot about long ago.
anaxagoras doesn't look up, "of course. red forces clarity. confrontation."
"you wrote 'source?' in all caps across a paragraph about love in greek tragedy."
"and?"
you smile, as if holding back laugter. "it was a quote. from you."
he looks up. slow. silent.
you set the paper down with calmness he swears one can only see in fiction.
"next time, check your own citations, professor."
wednesdays are mostly alright. you walk into the staff lounge and there he is: anaxagoras. at the coffee machine. holding two cups.
"brewing double today?" you raise an eyebrow.
"i had to offer the students a choice," he says, pressing the start button. "do you want to study logic, or do you want to study… your soul?"
"you’re so terrible," you say with a sigh, taking the second cup from him. "you know no one really wants to study their soul?"
"not true," he replies, smiling smugly. "they want to study it, they just don’t know it yet."
he takes a sip of his coffee, watching you. you narrow your eyes.
"and what's this 'quiz' you’ve decided to torture them with?"
"it’s not a quiz. it’s a philosophical challenge," he says, moving to the small whiteboard. "i ask them to define their own existence without using ‘i think, therefore i am'.
"you’re evil," you raise an eyebrow.
"i'm not," he argues. "they tiktokified descartes!"
"they what?"
anaxa finds a note slipped into his bag.
it’s folded on thick paper, smells like your hand cream.
in that unmistakable handwriting, hearts a constant above the i's like it's a love letter (maybe it is):
"you didn't have breakfast this morning, so i left a little something in your office
<3"
he stares at it for five minutes straight. then folds it again and tucks it into his coat pocket. the 'little something' ended up being a bento of salad and two bacon sandwiches.
he won’t ever admit it, but he carries it for the rest of the week (and he will absolutely not start mimicking your handwriting later).
it's a faculty party. you're in black silk and sipping terrible wine. anaxa's next to you, lecturing someone on metaphysical paradoxes. again.
"you could’ve worn a bow tie," you murmur when he leans in.
he looks at you like he’s already undone. "and you could’ve worn less loud heels if you didn’t want me distracted."
your fingers pause on the stem of your glass. "hm. touché."
"that’s french."
"you speak french?"
he leans closer, "i learn languages for spite."
you lick your teeth to hide a grin. "is that how you learned to say je veux te baiser in the hallway last week?"
anaxa chokes on his wine.
"you're in my office," he says, arms crossed, glasses half-lowered.
"your sign says 'office hours clpsed unless it's a crisis'. this," you say, dropping a thick bundle of papers on his desk, "is a crisis."
he glances down.
"this is… a peer review."
"your peer review. you cited a wikipedia page in a footnote."
anaxa doesn’t look even remotely sorry. "it was cited ironically."
"you teach epistemology, anaxagoras."
"and irony is a form of knowledge."
you blink. “oh my god. leave."
"it's my office."
"i don't care, leave."
obvious enough, your offices share a wall (god bless the dean and the department chair). it’s the point of thus where, sometimes, you hear anaxa recite passages of obscure texts to himself aloud; sometimes in ancient languages.
today, it’s greek.
"…lógos eikós," he says. "reason is likely—"
"and so is the fact that your argument on practical virtue is still wrong," you call through the wall.
"it was metaphorical!"
"so is your whole career!"
you hear the sound of a book being thrown at the wall and smile.
"you rearranged my bookshelves," you say flatly, arms crossed, eyebrow arched.
"i reorganized them by author. the fact that your copy of moral letters to lucilius was next to the hungry caterpillar is—"
"—educational range."
anaxagoras doesn't smirk, not really, just sips his coffee like it's the antidote to your nonsense.
"you’re impossible."
"and yet you still broke into my office to alphabetize my praxis."
"it was unlocked."
"it was not."
(it was.)
anaxagoras gets sick and refuses to take time off. you physically remove him from the building.
"i’m fine," he rasps.
"you’re a hazard," you say, throwing his bag over your shoulder. "you coughed on three students and almost knocked over aristotle's bust in your auditorium.
he slumps into your car without protest. later, you make him him soup and read aloud from his own research while he’s half-asleep just to see if you can make him correct your pronunciation mid-fever. he does.
"you’re ridiculous," you murmur.
"you’re warm," he mumbles, drifting.
"i’m human."
"keep being that."
@epiphanyconfessions
"i’m just saying. if prof [name] leaned over my desk the way she leans over prof anaxagoras’s desk i too would forget how to spell my own name"
@epiphanyconfessions
"anybody remember that one time she called him 'anaxagoras' during a rare joint lecture and he straightened up like a victorian man seeing ankle for the first time. someone sedate them."
@epiphanyconfessions
"i heard prof anaxa say ‘consent is the highest form of logic’ and i haven’t been the same since. like sir i just wanted to pass intro metaphysics please don’t take me apart like that"
you're the one who finds the twitter account. it's an automated bot which quite literally posts all the gossip in the university. unsurprisingly now, 70% of what you've seen include you and anaxa.p
you scroll for three minutes in silence, then turns your phone around so he can see it.
"i think your students are obsessed with me."
anaxa doesn't look a single bit impressed.
"well, at least i've managed to teach them something about attention to detail."
you end up paired for the damn symposium panel because someone in admin has a cruel sense of humor.
"just be civil," the dean says, sipping bitter coffee as the two of you stand on either side of the projector.
"civil as in—" you start.
"no blood on the mic."
anaxagoras doesn't smirk, not quite, but there's a twitch of something near his mouth when he says "i'll keep my composure if she does."
"i never lose my composure," you shoot back.
his eyes go to your mouth. "you have. once."
your silence is thin and sharp and full of fuck yous that do not get spoken.
the dean groans. "if either of you fucks the other on the mic, i swear to god i'm retiring."
you're walking out of the symposium together, the cold air catching your hair just right.
"they misquoted kant four times," he mutters, voice slightly hoarse
"only four?" you tease. "you’re mellowing."
"i’m trying not to ruin our evening."
"oh?" you glance at him. "are we having an evening?"
he stops walking and you take two steps before realizing he’s still behind you.
"…yes," he says. "if you want."
your expression warms without looking at him. "i do."
he doesn’t say anything else, just walks beside you the rest of the way, hands close, not touching.
it's christmas eve and everyone’s a little tipsy in the lounge, even the department chair.
anaxa is holding a glass of deep red wine and trying not to react when you make a joke about morals and oral fixation in the same sentence.
later, outside under the garden lights, you speak.
"cai told me your students think we're sleeping together," you say, watching the breeze catch your own hair.
"we are."
"they suspect, anaxagoras."
"then they’re late to class."
you laugh, quiet and unguarded, the kind of laugh that makes his shoulders drop. he reaches out to fix the collar of his your coat.
"you're soft when you're smug," you murmur.
"you're smug when you're soft," anaxa retaliates.
"you’re in love with me."
"that too."
youre both tired. the grading deadlines loom and the campus heating is out again.
"sit down," anaxa mutters, patting the seat next to him on the floor of his office.
"your carpet has chalk dust on it."
"so do your pants, professor."
you sigh as if you're bearing the weight of the world on your lone shoulders and sit.
there's no light in the office but the blue glow of his screen, and the soft static of the heater humming through the vents.
"i'm not rewriting the conclusion," you murmur, almost asleep on his shoulder.
"i know."
"but i miiight let you footnote me."
he hums, head tilting against yours. "if you do, i'll stop quoting you out of context."
"...maybe don't. i sound smarter when you do it."
"you are smart."
you hum, noncommittal. anaxa sighs.
anaxagoras is having a deja vu; a really strong one.
you're seated across from each other at another faculty mixer (he complained about seeing too many people outside his lectures in the past three months on the way to this one). you're wearing black, sharp eyeliner, and a gold pin in the shape of a crescent. anaxa is halfway through a whiskey and trying very hard not to look impressed.
"you know they’re calling us ‘the debate club’?" you say, lazily stirring your drink. "it’s not flattering."
"they only say that because you get louder when you’re wrong."
"you’re still upset i said plato would’ve folded if someone gave him a nice handjob."
he tried to mask laughing with accidentally choking on his whiskey.
he definitely is having a deja vu. (he loves it with you.)
you kiss once in the archives.
it’s a study break, technically.
you're sitting on the dusty desk. he’s standing between your legs. you're surrounded by books about love and logic and ancient epics, and you don’t speak about the copy of whatever book you were supposed to help him with looking for.
later, as you fix his messed up hair again for him, when he’s too flustered to do it straight, you murmur,
"you lose arguments better than anyone i've ever met."
he leans into your palm where it cups his jaw.
"i only lose to you."
"i hope so."
he sees you grading in the courtyard and sits beside you, uninvited.
"your first-years are circulating a petition."
"ah. is it about the essay extension?"
"no. they want you and i to 'just publicly kiss already and not torture us anymore'. their words."
you don't pause your hand. "did you sign it?"
"...maybe."
you're more often in his office than you're not.
"if we get caught—" he starts, breathless.
"it's your fault. stop kissing me like you’re too lazy to drive us home," you cut him off, sliding your hands into his hair.
"i’m not built for scandal," he breathes against your mouth.
"you’re wearing an eyepatch, anaxagoras."
"...it’s academic."
"so is this," you say tilting his head back, climbing into his lap as your hand loosens his tie. "let me study you."
"you’ve been reading the same sentence for five minutes," he murmurs.
you don’t look up; your head is resting against your palm, pen slack between your fingers. "because it says 'therefore, subjectivity is inherently sus'."
anaxagoras blinks. "they submitted that in ink?"
"typed," you sigh. "with a footnote that just says 'as per amongus'."
he leans over, eyes scanning the page, then: "…expel them," flatly.
"i can’t expel them."
"i can."
"you teach philosophy, not moral hygiene."
"same thing, if you ask the right philosopher."
you're sprawled on the old couch in his office, shoes off, his coat folded under your head, flipping through his notes. your eyes hurt. you flip the papers upside down.
"you really wrote a thirty-page rebuttal on the concept of divine intervention just because i said some gods might have been hot?"
"you said apollo could get it in front of our students."
"and you wrote a philosophical hitpiece," you counter.
"i cited my sources," anaxa grumbles, tired.
"you are absolutely insane."
"we're pretty much equal in terms of that, i believe."
he brings you coffee exactly how you like it before every morning seminar. you make his lecture slides look presentable. you pass post-it notes through interdepartmental mail—yours are gold-trimmed, his are so painfully neat. once, someone intercepted one. it just said:
'you were right about that footnote. bring your smugness and your mouth to my office at five. i need to be convinced again.'
you're reading in the living room. anaxa's half-asleep next to you, head on your lap, one hand absently tracing lazy circles on your thigh.
"what are you annotating now?" he murmurs.
"your latest essay."
"and?"
"you cited yourself fourteen times."
"i trust my sources."
you hum. "sure you do."
"if we were set to constantly teach a class together," anaxa says quietly, "we’d probably get fired."
you yawn. "i think we’d start a cult."
"that too. if we didn't already."
a hum. “a sexy cult."
he laughs, soft and tired and you want to kiss him until your lips remember his skin for the rest of your life. "you’re the one who brings up sex every time we talk about curriculum."
"it’s integral to ethics and aesthetics."
"and not philosophy?"
"it is philosophy," you grumble. "do you talk about pleasure in your lectures?"
he pauses. "…not directly."
"coward."
he squeezes your hand. "i love you."
"i know," you say. "even if your syllabus doesn’t include eros."
he smiles into your hair. "next semester."
