Summary: Nesta starts tutoring Cassian in o-chem, while Cassian mostly stares at Nesta the entire time. He has a school-boy crush.
Nessian Modern AU-university setting.
Cassian has never met anyone more perfect than Nesta Archeron. He swears she’s come straight out of a book. Fitting, he thinks, since every time he meets her, they’re at the library.
In fact, that’s the only place she’ll meet him at.
He knows of two other places she frequents, two other places that are closer to their respective classes and many other places he suggests for… his own motivations. Nesta only wants to see him in a library. Something about the absorption of knowledge in that tiny brain of his, which frankly sounds offensive when she says it the first time. And the second time. And the third.
I’m your tutor, she painstakingly reminds him. We’re not friends.
Cassian wants to beg to differ. Tries on more than one occasion. He’s known her since freshman year, they have to be friends by now.
But… she’s not wrong about being his tutor.
His problem, Cassian admits, is that he doesn’t like to read. He doesn’t really like to study either, but with Nesta Archeron he finds himself jotting down notes. Not on any subject pertaining to his classes… but in memorizing ever expression she makes, every roll of her eyes as she tells him to pay attention.
More often than not she’s donning a grey fitted shirt that says University Printing in orange tiny print. It’s from her second job. Tutoring him is her third. Her least favorite, she says.
Liar, he always wants to say. I’m much better to look at than toner.
But Cassian’s not so sure about that. So far, she only looks at him with disdain and he can rarely get a conversation out of her that doesn’t have to do with covalent bonds or… something or other. He forgets. Cassian only remembers her voice, her hair, her eyes… which defeats the purpose of tutoring and is probably not good for his grades. But alas, Cassian doesn’t find it in himself to care too much.
Sometimes, if they meet on the weekends, she’s too busy to take off her black apron. She works at a coffee shop on the outskirts of campus, and she comes to the library smelling like coffee and Cassian’s sure he’ll focus this time. All adrenaline and caffeine, but then she talks and he’s… listening, but really he only listens to her tone. Such haughty words she huffs, her eyes rolling as if she can’t believe he isn’t understanding after all this precious time.
Are you even listening, Cassian?
He likes when she says his name. It rolls off her tongue and she sneers and he likes that too.
But most days, like today, Nesta Archeron wraps herself in sweaters. All manners of cardigans. And the best thing about her is the way her nose is stuck in a book. Cassian longs to trace her cheeks, pulling the few wisps of hair that falls, tucking it behind her ear. He imagines her blushing as he does it, staring at those well-used pages.
All he ever gets from her is a glare.
Like he’s just stolen her from a world filled with muscles and nervous systems, or whatever people study in human physiology. Her stare often makes him wonder if she’s imagining how his body moves, how he breathes, if she can pull him part and hold his intestines in her hands. He feels like a wriggling rat when she looks at him. A little frog he can’t cut in high school biology without running to the bathroom nauseated.
Cassian loves that look the best, though, so he waves at the girl who glares in her seat. The exact seat she always sits in for these sessions. If he grins more goofily than he cares to admit, well… he’s no less happy to see her.
“What are we learning today, Teach?”
Nesta rolls her eyes as he lays his bag across the table and he shuffles in search of his notebook.
That much noise in a library? He can imagine her saying. Preposterous.
“That’s not my name,” she grumbles out, instead.
“What are you going to teach me then, Obi-wan?”
“Is that why you’re failing o-chem?” She remarks, her nose scrunching in that very sweet, judgmental way of hers, “Watching too much Star Wars instead of opening up a textbook?”
Indeed, she looks at the book he pulls from his bag. It is new, and he hasn’t opened it. Every time he tries, he finds better things to do. Another video on Youtube, or one of his friends suggesting a trip to lunch or dinner… or breakfast. He tries to find numerous excuses on why he can’t open that book. He’s going to study from the slides, Cassian says, from his notes. But whenever he opens his notebook, all he finds is scribbles.
Cassian sighs. He hates this class.
But he swallows down his disdain, “I’ll tell you the truth if you tell me what your favorite movie is?”
Nesta shakes her head, her lips pursing as if she might tell him off in a minute or two. Cassian looks at his watch as if he might time it exactly. A ticking bomb. First the pursed lips, then the stern gaze, then the red face and she’ll blow.
“No,” she announces, “I’m here to tutor you, not entertain.”
“Such a shame since I brought the clown suit today, thought you’d look good in the red nose.”
Nesta blinks up at the words and Cassian holds back his grin.
“You’re weird,” she huffs, taking his book out of his hands and opening it up to the first chapter.
“I brought you something today. To sweeten our time together.”
Her brows scrunch at that, but he pulls the container out of his bag, crinkling and noise be damned. Cassian lays out the cake and places the fork next to the textbook.
“You’re bribing me with cake?”
“Chocolate cake,” he explains, “and not just any cake. This is from the dining hall near South Campus. Best cake in the world.”
“I know the dining hall,” Nesta scoffs.
“Then you’ll know how good the cake tastes.” Cassian pulls the container back towards him, pulling apart the packing for the fork. “But if you don’t want it, I guess I’ll just eat it myself.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” she says and he can already see her resolve wavering.
It’s always like this. Cassian bribing Nesta with sweets until she’s gliding her fingers down the text book, one sentence at a time. Quizzing him with flashcards until he can only see double lines and circles in his mind… and that tiny smile she makes when she takes just one bite.
Nesta taps her pencil on the page, distracting him from his thoughts. “This doesn’t mean I’ll take it easy on you this semester. You barely passed biology last semester.”
Cassian scoffs, raising his chin. “That was sophomore me. I’m serious now.”
But then Nesta’s reading off the page, drawing diagrams in his notebook, and he’s only staring at her lips.
This is going to be a long semester.
Tagged: @my-fan-side, @sophilightwood, @nestaarcher0n, @duskandstarlight, @soitsgorgeous, @ekaterinakostrova @swankii-art-teacher, @lordof-bloodshed, @thewhelk, @daisy-in-danger, @highqueenevankhell, @lovelynesta, @sirendeepity, @champanheandluxxury, @ladynestaarcheron, @moodymelanist, @teagoddess99, @spoilersteph, @angelic-voice-1997, @bo0kmaster69, @drielecarla, @generalnesta, @cozycomfyliving08 @arinbelle
Poor boy, he’s going to fail his classes.
Anyway, this is another fic Im sure I’m not going to finish but had an idea for so I ran with it for one scene and probably one scene only.
