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"I'll teach your labs next week."
"No."
"For the next three weeks?"
Stephen shot him a glare over the top of the paper he was reading. "No."
Nick didn't want to whinge, he really didn't, but desperate times called for desperate measures. "I'll edit your thesis for you! Completely edit and re-do, not just mark it all up with red."
"Your grammar is so terrible you'd make it worse," Stephen commented lightly, licking his thumb and slowly turning the page. "And isn't that why you don't want to do the grant writing in the first place?"
"Season tickets to-"
"There is no way you can get those, don't even say it."
Nick scowled. "There's got to be something you want."
Stephen didn't answer. The article in front of him couldn't be that engaging, it was by that idiot Chu. Nick had seen more competent ideas come out of his own arse after a spicy curry.
Stephen's fixation on the paper rather than the very important conversation at hand probably unhinged Nick's brain-mouth connection enough to cause the next offer. "A blowjob?"
Stephen raised an eyebrow. "You've got to be joking."
He knew his blush was probably all the way up in his hairline at this point, but desperation motivated him past emotional pain and at least Stephen had stopped looking at that stupid article. "100% guaranteed blowjob if you write those bloody grant proposals. Come on, Stephen, you know you're better at them than I am."
"That much is true," Stephen said, his voice hovering between agreeable and neutral. "You'd really give me a blowjob if I wrote those grant proposals?"
Nick back-pedaled hastily. "What? God, no! I, that's not what I meant!"
"So your 100% guaranteed blowjob is not, in fact, in any percent guaranteed."
"No, it is, just... I will make someone do it," he added, just to be entirely clear, "someone else who is not me. Er, find someone to do it. Someone willing. Willing to be paid. Oh come on, Stephen, come back!"
The man was already out of the room, journal article shoved under his arm. Nick wasn't sure whether to be more horribly embarrassed at how poorly that had just gone, or that Stephen thought Chu's article was good enough reading material to take with him during a dramatic exit. Chu claimed that Triceratops had the behavioural ecology of hippos, for god's sake, and had once consulted on a BBC program about Sasquatch. Plus, he had definitely brought an escort to the last office party - there was no way a scrawny, rat-faced moron like Chu could attract a set of knockers like that.
It took about five minutes before Nick realised that he definitely ought to be more embarrassed about the blowjob mishap. In fact, embarrassed was not the correct strength of word to use in this case: mortified, horrified, and tragically humiliated barely began to touch on the depth of the situation. He had just offered Stephen a prostitute in return for writing some grant proposals. What the hell was wrong with him?
And what the hell was wrong with Stephen, that he'd looked more interested in that than having Nick take over his labs for a few weeks! Stephen was always complaining about his undergraduates, he ought to be pleased that he would have Nick to beat them back into shape. What sort of academic was he, that he'd take a blowjob over a vacation from his students? The sort of academic who put entirely too much stock in Chu's inanity, that's what.
This righteous indignation lasted him approximately two minutes before he remembered that Stephen's interest hadn't been in a blow job from a prostitute. No, in fact once the true details of the deal had been laid out on the table, Stephen had been - so why-
Oh. Oh.
If Nick had thought his face was red before, it was nothing compared to what it was now. This was a full-bodied flush, and he was sure that he was the colour of a cherry tomato. Stephen had been interested in a blowjob from him. Stephen was interested in him.
Nick wasn't certain if his dizziness was a result of having all the blood rush to his face instead of his brain, but his knees were wobbly and he didn't quite oppose the idea of sucking Stephen's cock, and it was probably safer to sit down before his legs gave out.
*****
The face in the peephole was very clearly Scottish and irritable, despite behind distorted around the edges. Stephen sighed, steeled himself, and opened the door to let Cutter in.
"Chu is an absolute idiot," Cutter began, his cheeks bright red and his eyes flashing. It was his combative face, the one he used to embarrass fellow academics and frighten new students into leaving him alone during office hours. It was quite pitiful how much Stephen liked it.
"Oh sure, come right in," Stephen muttered as he closed the door.
Cutter crossed his arms over his chest, looking flustered. "I heard he got gangrene while doing field work in Scotland. What sort of palaeontologist gets gangrene, Stephen?"
"Is he banned from the Dino club from now on? I wasn't aware we had an anti-gangrene policy. Are lepers out as well?" Cutter was a mysterious man, but typically not quite this mysterious. It was why he'd kept chasing away teaching assistants - it turns out that most people (healthy people, normal people) found total blunt honesty more of a put off than a turn on.
Cutter's words were slow and thick with accent and sarcasm both. "Patrick Chu is only slightly more verbose and attentive than the pet rabbit I had when I was a child, yet even he - even he, Stephen - managed to figure out that you fancy me. Do you realize what this means?"
Objectively he knew that if Cutter had planned on firing him for having a crush, he would have done it quietly and awkwardly, not barged in here like he was on drugs. Stephen still felt his stomach sink, though, treacherously low, pulled down by the nightmarish possibilities for how very wrong this could be about to go. He swallowed, but his throat was completely dry. "Not really, no."
"It means, Stephen, that I am less observant than Patrick Bloody Chu!"
Cutter looked for all the world like a toddler in mid-tantrum.
"I'm sorry?"
"You ought to be! I don't think I've felt this mortified in my entire life!"
As Cutter paced, Stephen felt himself relax away from nervous and down into the comforting embrace of utter confusion. At least Cutter seemed angrier at Professor Chu than at him. "How exactly did you find out?"
"Well, I was on my way here when I ran into him in the hallway, and I may have started yelling at him about his imbecilic Tyrannosaur hypothesis, and one thing led to another. He said he's known for three years! That's three whole years that I've been stupider than a man who thinks T. Rex might have enjoyed a nice salad! This is calling my self-worth into serious question." Cutters eyes were mournful, presumably for his lost intellectual standing.
Stephen, feeling very daring, patted him on the shoulder. "I wouldn't feel too bad about it. He's actually quite perceptive. How else would he get to date all those women?"
Cutter gaped at him. "They're prostitutes. He pays them."
Stephen sighed. "Did you really come over here to lament the fact that Chu is more sensitive than you?"
"Well, no," Cutter admitted, his nose wrinkling in adorable disgruntlement. "It's just a side-effect, really."
"Then why did you come over here?" Maybe, if Stephen was very lucky, they could just gloss right over the crush and move on with their lives.
Cutter's cheeks reddened until Stephen was worried they'd burst. "Well, because you..." his voice trailed off and he smiled ruefully. "If I kiss you, are you going to punch me?"
Stephen choked slightly on his own tongue. "Only if you're really bad at it."
Cutter's smile brightened and he stepped forward, crowding Stephen back against the wall until there was nowhere left to go. It was different than kissing girls, even though Stephen was still taller. Cutter's breath smelled like day-old coffee rather than lipgloss, and his stubble scratched at Stephen's chin. When Stephen slipped his fingers through Cutter's belt loops and tugged him closer, Cutter's response was to chuckle and slip his hands down the back of Stephen's trousers. Mirth buzzing around with awe beneath his collarbone, Stephen let his eyes flutter closed as they snogged, slow and steady and just as good as he'd always known it would be.
Cutter took his time to explore every corner of Stephen's mouth like the scientist he was, leaving no place untouched, licking carefully into his mouth with slow strokes that left Stephen dizzy. For his part Stephen found himself cataloguing every grunt and exhale that was summoned by his own stroking fingers. Cutter liked it when Stephen lightly scratched nails over his ribs, and soothing the skin stretching over Cutter's hip bones warranted him a half-gasped moan.
He could feel his dick throb in his jeans, and the greedy monster in his chest (the one that gave students lower marks for flirting with Cutter, and made him spend most of the office parties lurking intimidatingly in the professor's presence) pulled Cutter's hips snugly against his own. He was pleased to find an answering hardness in Cutter's jeans, and the unpleasant dig of the zipper was well worth the desperation of the long, deep groan that Cutter let out when Stephen thrust against him.
"Oh bloody fuck," Cutter said, dropping his head against Stephen's shoulder, his breath prickling at the skin of Stephen's neck. "Do that again."
Stephen was only too happy to oblige. Each thrust sent shivers through his body, the friction just this side of unbearable. Cutter's fingers dug into his arse, his moans and shaky exhales warm against Stephen's ear, driving Stephen absolutely mad. Everything Cutter did drove Stephen crazy, though - the way he stroked the steering wheel of the department vehicle, the stupid grunts he made when he was grading, the way his eyes lit up when he was describing his research. It was no surprise, really, that if Stephen found himself turned on by the daily routine of Cutter, the things he did during sex would be almost intolerably hot.
"Okay," Cutter said breathily.
"What?" Stephen rolled his hips against Cutter's again, biting his lip at how good it felt.
Cutter dropped to his knees and started undoing Stephen's zip, pulling down the fabric just enough so that Stephen's dick poked out, red and hard as bloody concrete. "At this point," Cutter loosely wrapped his fingers around the base of Stephens cock, and Stephen resisted the urge to come, "I don't even care if you write them."
"I don't either," Stephen said fervently, watching the way Cutter's blown pupils tracked his every move. He had no idea what they were talking about, and any inkling that might have led him to some sort of conclusion was completely destroyed by the tentative touch of Cutter's tongue on the head of his cock. "Oh fuck."
Cutter didn't laugh, instead pursing his lips and sucking gently. Stephen grabbed for purchase on the wall, fingers grasping helplessly as his knees threatened to give out. The picture of Cutter on his knees, lips swollen and red where they stretched around his cock, hand working steadily inside his own pants... well, the pain of hitting his head on the wall as he flung it back was worth not coming in five seconds like a fucking sixteen-year-old.
Still, the sloppy sucks and licks (made even hotter by their obvious inexperience) quickly had Stephen panting and frantically picturing his aunt Sally in a bikini and picking at her back pimples. It wasn't enough. He'd lusted after Cutter for over five years now, and the thought that Cutter was, he was - Stephen barely had enough time to mumble a warning before he was coming, neurons going off like a full-on fireworks display.
"Sorry, sorry," he mumbled, forcing his eyes open. There was come on the side of Cutter's mouth, and Stephen leaned over automatically to lick it away. Cutter gasped and let out a guttural groan, his free hand grasping at Stephen's shoulder while his other stroked furiously. Stephen pulled back just in time to see Cutter pump come into his own hand.
"Fuck," Cutter said, panting.
Stephen reached out a finger, rubbing shiny come over the head of Cutter's cock, pulling an over-sensitized shudder from the other man. "Yeah, that's a good word for it," he said wonderingly.
Cutter leaned his head in and rested it against Stephen's shoulder. Stephen ruffled his hair and listened as the other man's breathing slowed. His body hummed with endorphins, and he couldn't help but smile brightly against Cutter's head. He'd finally managed to have sex with Nick Cutter, and it was exactly as good as he'd always imagined it would be. Better, even. He hadn't pictured the way that Cutter's hair would smell ever so slightly of coconuts, or the way his skin would prickle beneath Cutter's every exhaled breathe.
"But you think his theories are wrong, right?"
Stephen frowned, not sure what the hell Cutter was talking about but knowing it was very much not in the spirit of post-coital glow. "Whose theories?"
"Chu's!"
Stephen rolled his eyes. "This is what gay sex with your teaching assistant makes you think of?"
"Shut up, this is what everything will always make me think of until this indignity is rectified."
Stephen could feel Cutter's grin against the skin of his shoulder. "Don't you worry," he said soothingly, stroking a hand over Nick's shoulder, "I know Loch Ness isn't a misplaced sauropod." He waited just the appropriate length of time before continuing, concealing his smirk against Nick's hair. "It's quite obviously a plesiosaur, don't you think?"
The horrified look on Cutter's face was absolutely worth it.