This Love. | Professor Stan

chapter two | darling

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Dragging your feet across your bedroom, you prepared for your first history lecture. Fresher's flu was definitely a thing, and you felt like you were dying with each step you took. Your other lectures had been all okay this first week, but when Friday rolled around, you were just wishing you could stay in bed.

History wasn't exactly always your favourite - you had a love-hate relationship with it. Loving how you could see how society had changed and hating how the system made sure everything was Westernised. Hopefully college would change that with all the resources at your fingertips to learn and write about whatever you fancied. At least you wouldn't be focusing solely on wars anymore!

"Hey I brought you a coffee." Scarlett calls from the kitchen. This week, Scarlett was honestly an angel, bringing you anything you needed, your go-to for heading to the endless parties and of course making sure you were safe.

"Whoever invented this shit deserves a Nobel Peace Prize", you wave goodbye as you head out of the door.

Heading towards the building with ease, (thanks to Scarlett taking her minor in History) people were already pouring into the room. It was more of a zombie walk and people headed towards the back.

"Hey hey hey, I don't want to be constantly walking up and down those stairs to hand you things, come closer!", the professor called. You couldn't see him as you were still in the doorway, people still trudging through.

He was handing out name tags, and saying hello to everyone. It seemed a little unorthodox and you always considered lecturers to start talking as soon as the clock hit 9:00am and not shut up until they realised that these people were starving.

You glanced up as you reached the professor. There was a exchange of realisation between the two of you; he was the man at the coffee cart who cut in front of you. He definitely did not look as tired as before. In fact, as you got a full view of his face, he was more good looking than you thought. You could see his beard had specks of grey and his ocean blue eyes, which perfectly complimented his suit.

"Your name?" He clears his throat. You were holding up everyone as you took in his appearance. 

"Oh uh, Janet. Janet Taylor."  You smile as he writes it down and passes it to you. He doesn't say anything as you take it and sit down in the middle of the room. Mentally telling yourself off for thinking that your professor was good-looking. There is a small part of you that nags But you didn't know he was your professor!, for you definitely did wonder who the guy at the coffee cart was throughout the week. 

The clock reads 9:06am as he heads towards the front of the lecture hall. He flashes everyone a smile and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Hello everybody. It's lovely to meet you all. I am Professor Sebastian Stan, and I will be taking you through your world history course this year. We'll be covering everything from the Byzantines, the Axial Age, the Civil War, to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anything I desire, and of course what I think will be beneficial for you, we will cover." Mr. Stan takes in the mood of the room, obviously seeing all the students suffering from your same symptoms.

He chuckles, saying "I see you all had a very late night. I'll be kind enough this session to not jump straight into everything". He's going around the room handing out piles and piles of paper to each student. As he turns to you, your breath hitches. Mr. Stan was looking down on you as he placed your package, and whispered "Hope the hot chocolate worked. Nice to meet you properly darling".

You can't think of what to say, and just smile back in hope the heat doesn't rise to your cheeks. He smirked as he continued going around the room, "On the front, you may see that those are my office hours and contact details. I'll try my best to answer any emails you send me as quickly as possible, but unlike you lot, I actually go to bed at a reasonable time."

There's a light laughter that spread throughout the room at his comment. Mr. Stan seems to be completely in his element as he goes through the papers, telling you more about what each lecture will cover and pre-reading and extra resources he wants. You hardly look up, concentrating on making sure you wrote down any important details and dates for quizzes and group projects. He's going through it too fast, and you sigh in frustration, and give up on making notes and instead decide to listen. You're too tired for this.

Even though he's still speaking, he glances over, pretending to look at the clock on the wall , and realises that you've stopped taking notes. 

"Right... I think I've bombarded you all with a bit too much information. For our next session on Tuesday, I want you all to read a minimum of 5 chapters of the Ferguson book that's mentioned on the second page of the booklet I handed out. Happy weekend everyone!"

Everyone packs up a little too quickly for your liking, and you end up being one of the few people left in the room. You decide to take the opportunity to ask about the structure of the course, for you still felt he didn't explain it properly. 

"Mr. Stan?" you say as you walk towards the front of the room. He's busy typing away at his laptop, but hears you.

"Please, just Sebastian. Mr. Stan makes me feel older than I actually am. What's up?". He closes his laptop and turns to you.

"I missed your explanation of the last couple of dates at the back of the booklet. Please could you go through it for me?"

He bites his bottom lip as he takes the booklet from your hands. He scans over it and is impressed with the level of notes taken, even though it was unnecessary. He quickly sees it was something to do with the final exam, and scribbles it down on the page for you.

"There. It was just on the location and potential topics you could be asked about. Which is essentially all the lectures, but you'll have an option to only write three essays on whatever is presented to you."

"Thank you Mr. S- I mean, Sebastian, have a nice weekend!" you say as you take your papers from him. Your politeness enlightens something in him. He shakes it off quickly as he needs to reply instead of drooling over the way you said his name. However innocently it was. 

"You too. Make sure you sleep in", winking at you as you walk out.

Breath hitching in your throat, you nod ever so slightly and sort of back out of the room, in surprise. Mr. Stan had known you for maybe two hours, and he had winked at you. You were panicking, bumping into a pillar as you fumbled out an apology for taking up his time. Partially apologising for how you somehow did something that made him think it was appropriate to behave in that way.

You sigh as you walk out of the building. That wink should not have happened. No one else was in the room, but it still shouldn't have happened. Maybe he wasn't flirting with you. Maybe it was just a friendly wink.

It was a friendly wink. It had to be. Considering you thought your professor was good looking and you mistook him for a mature student, you pushed the racing thoughts out of your mind.

Mr. Stan was just a professor. He knew he was good looking, and probably winked casually as a goodbye. Yeah, that was it. He was just saying goodbye.

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