Chapter Text
His lips make their way over your shoulder as his hair tickles your neck, sending shivers down your spine. His hands roam freely over your curves. The aroma of his cologne mixed with the coffee on his breath envelops you. He grips your waist and lifts you up, setting you down on his desk. You wrap your legs around him, pulling him flush to your core as your lips meet once again. His hands squeeze your thighs at the sensation. Your hands slide over his black shirt, almost ripping the buttons open-.
You manage to shake out of your chaotician-induced hypnosis just in time to see the one and only Dr. Ian Malcolm squinting at you in the bright sunlight. Shit, the whole auditorium is looking at you, he must’ve asked you a question. He knows he caught you daydreaming and a self-satisfactory grin appears on his face. A single ray of sunshine creeps in through the window, shining right on the man in front of you. Paying attention to Professor Malcolm's lectures was never easy, but the way the golden rays reflect off the stray gray hairs on the side of his head is making it entirely impossible today. You haven't heard a single word the man has said, too sucked up in your daydream.
“If you recall, miss (Y/L/N), we were just talking about the ways in which self-organizing behaviours of complex systems are of interest to the study of evolution.” He gestures with his hand, urging you to continue.
Fuck, you really should’ve been paying attention. You were a good student, you really were, but he had caught you off-guard now. He loved tormenting you like that. Dr. Malcolm had been talking your ear off about this a few nights ago when you were reading some papers from a freshman course. Racking your brain for something to spew out, you remember a bit he said about adaptation and the way complex systems seem to strike a balance between the need for order and the imperative to change, locating themselves at the edge of chaos. He raises his eyebrows and smirks, satisfied with your answer. You mentally wipe the sweat from your forehead as he continues his lecture.
Malcolm’s is the last class on Friday evening so the students practically storm out of the auditorium the second it's over. You, however, still have TA duties to fulfill. You deeply regret agreeing to spend the evening working on some stuff in his office. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the two of you alone. You've had a major crush on your professor ever since you stepped foot in his class. Hell, it's the whole reason you applied to become his TA. But now it just felt silly, and you’d rather be in a bar getting shit-faced with your roommate.
As the others stampede out like a herd of buffalo, you saunter over to his desk at the front. He’s still packing away his papers.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you copying me word for word. That’s plagiarism young lady” He teases, sending you a lopsided smile
“Well you did put me on the spot, I had to say something” You lean against his desk, cracking your back. If they’re gonna make people sit in them for two hours, they really should make those damn chairs a bit more comfortable.
“Or maybe you should just pay attention to the lecture next time” He closes his bag and you roll your eyes. He pauses for a minute, thinking. The curiosity kills him, he has to ask. “What were you so preoccupied with?” He comes around the desk and leans next to you, the height difference even more apparent now.
You feel your ears burning red, recalling the daydream you’d had earlier. You couldn’t tell him the truth, obviously. You scramble for something to say, managing to come up with “Oh, just this assignment for Dr. Thorne’s class. He’s making us solve one of his impossible engineering mysteries again, you know how he is.” You laugh awkwardly, hoping he doesn’t inquire further about the non-existent assignment. He nods “Yeah, typical.” he hums. You let out a soft sigh of relief, he bought it. He swings his bag over his shoulder and ushers you toward his office “C'mon, we've got a lot of work to do tonight.”
As Dr. Malcolm’s TA, you were usually tasked with doing the shitty jobs he didn't want to do. You sometimes wonder why he even has a TA if he barely needs help with anything useful. So now you were stuck in his office, entering research data into the computer on his desk while your roommate was out partying.
He paces the office with long strides, focused on the papers in his hand. He stares at them with a frown. "Can you believe this shit?" You look up from the computer, finger on the paper in front of you to keep track of the number you were just about to enter.
"Douchebag" he mutters.
"Everything okay Dr. Malcolm?"
He looks up at you, a glint in his eyes. He loves it when you call him Dr. Malcolm. He’d never admit it of course, but it made him feel strong and authoritative. For years after the park, he couldn’t go anywhere without his cane. He used to be known as the rock star scientist, and now people just looked at him with pity. Having to rely on others had made him feel weak, the way they looked at him as they helped him up, or held the door open for him, it drove him crazy. Everyone treated him like a sick puppy, except you. You still looked at him with that sense of wonder in your eyes, as if you couldn’t believe that you were standing in front of the great Dr. Malcolm, and he eats it up every time. It makes him feel like his work is still worth something.
He appreciated that you never asked about this injury either. After the park, everyone involved signed an NDA, forced to keep quiet about what really went down in Costa Rica. Ever since then people haven’t stopped pestering them with their crazy conspiracy theories, some more accurate than others. Regardless, he had to keep to his story, and lie to the masses. Lie to you. His leg had been much better these days, though. He didn’t need his cane anymore, but he felt his reputation had been tarnished anyway.
"Remember that uh- scientist who interrupted my lecture last week? What's his name, uh- Levine. He's convinced there's a real Lost World somewhere."
The Lost World hypothesis was one of the many theories scientists had come up with to try and answer the never-ending questions regarding the K-T extinction event. The hypothesis states that dinosaurs may never have fully gone extinct and that somewhere in the world, there's an isolated haven where there are still living, breathing dinosaurs. It's absurd, but then again most scientific theories are.
"What? But that's just a theory. It's a fantasy."
"You don't have to tell me" he runs a hand through his hair sighing. You can tell he's bothered by it, maybe more than he should be, but you decide not to press it.
"He wants me to help him research it. Find the supposed island, go on an expedition, the whole works. He's been bugging me about this theory all week but I didn't think he'd go this far."
"He's completely nuts." You shake your head.
"He's a pain in the ass is what he is" he grumbles, walking up to the desk and throwing the letter in the trash can. He leans on the back of your chair, hands nearly touching your neck making you shiver from the near-contact. You sigh audibly as you enter in the last data on this page, just seven more to go.
“You know what?” He suddenly exclaims, slapping the back of your chair ”We’ve done enough for tonight. We shouldn’t be holed up here all night. Go on home (Y/N)” You lean back in the chair, tilting your head all the way backward to look at him. “You’re the best, Dr. Malcolm. I think my fingers are about to fall off.” You sigh, your brows knit together. He laughs, turning the chair and shooing you out the door.
“Go on, go out and have fun or whatever young people do. See you Monday.”
“See you Monday Dr. Malcolm.” You wave him goodbye as you walk to your dorm. Your roommate had let you know which bar she was going to, and it was still early enough to quickly change and meet up with her there. Easy peasy, your Friday night could still be saved.