Dan was taking two classes, as he needed to be able to work enough to come up with his half of the rent and utilities for the flat that he and Chris roomed in.
He had his classes on Monday and Wednesday and the rest of the week, aside from Saturday, he worked at the coffee shop.
He was incredibly surprised when his professor walked up to the counter.
After the entire incident blew over, he was hoping he hadn't stepped over any boundaries by paying for his coffee that morning.
Mr. Lester didn't seem to mind. After all, people do sweet things for their teachers all the time. Right?
Dan cringed to himself at the thought and let out a disappointed noise as his character had died in the video game that he and Chris were playing.
"Dan, you usually dominate me. What's got your mind all fuzzy?"
Dan scoffed, but couldn't stop the blush from rising to his cheeks. "Nothing."
"Right. Love-sick for Lester. That's kind of poetic," Chris teased, the mocking tone heavy in his voice.
"He went into the shop this morning."
"You mean your coffee shop? For real?"
"Yeah, and guess what I found out?"
"What?" Chris seemed genuinely interested.
"His name is Phil."
"His name is Phil?"
"Yeah."
"That's just perfect. I can imagine the cute nick-names now. Oh, Philly. Oh, Danny," Chris' voice took on a higher-pitch and he made dramatic facial expressions.
"Shut up, you wanker." Dan shoved Chris hard in the arm, and he nearly toppled over had it not been for the arm he shot out to catch himself on their couch cushion.
"Those are the stupidest nicknames I've ever heard." Dan added.
"Well, those are kind of better than sweetheart or sweetie-pie." Chris let out a dramatic shiver at the sound of the cheesy nicknames.
"Haven't you called PJ sweetie-pie before?"
"Those are private conversations, Dan! What the hell," Chris exclaimed and Dan laughed wildly at him.
"Can't help it when your room is next to mine and I hear you on the phone with him all the time."
Chris looked up, horrified, as Dan continued to laugh.
"Well," Chris recovered. "I'm sure our phone calls are no match for the hollering you do in your sleep."
"Huh?" Dan's eyes were as wide as saucers.
"Oh yeah. You should hear yourself."
Chris was lying, obviously, Dan convinced himself.
"What do you mean?"
Chris' voice suddenly took on a very high pitched tone and he made over zealous noises of pleasure. "Uh, yes, professor! Yes, Yes! Oh! More, Mr. Lester!"
"You shut up. You shut up right now. You're lying." Dan hoped that his voice was intimidating enough for Chris to stop.
But he made a few more noises and when Dan moved as if he were going to hit Chris, he finally stopped.
"Aw, Dan. C'mon it's just a bit of teasing. I know you wouldn't hit me. You're a lover and not a fighter."
Dan glowered at him.
"Besides, I've never actually heard you making noises like that in your sleep. So don't worry." Chris laughed and Dan let out a visible sigh of relief.
Because if he was talking like that in his sleep, but couldn't remember the dreams, he would have been incredibly disappointed.
On Monday Dan sat in his usual seat in the back of the class. Their professor walked in, clad in his usual black pants and a powder blue button-up shirt.
"If I could have you guys pass your papers to the front of the room," he began.
People began to shuffle their things up and the sound of paper sliding and being passed around filled the room.
"I'm passing back the writing prompts from the other week as well. Notice the notes I left for you guys. I really enjoy reading your responses to the prompts."
After he had collected the piles of papers at the first seat of each row of desks, he passed their papers back, down each line of desks.
When Dan received his he noticed first that he got full points. Everyone generally did unless they didn't give a proper response. Next to his score he read: You're not boring or uninteresting. Life can still be significant. Great response as always
He smiled to himself, immensely grateful that he was in the back of the room so that no one would really see his goofy grin. He glanced up to his professor who had settled in the front of the room at his desk.
Mr. Lester glanced over and met his eye and he was suddenly sporting a grin to match Dan's.
He had looked away from Dan just as quickly. So quickly that no one would have realized that he had even been smiling at Dan, but still his cheeks turned pink.
You're not boring or uninteresting. Life can still be significant. Great response as always
Life can still be significant.
He wondered if his professor was the type to romanticize small, rather insignificant things like the sound of friendly talking on the bus, or maybe the sound of birds tweeting in the morning.
Dan felt so incredibly insignificant in this vast universe. His life didn't mean anything compared to what would happen if, say, the sun swelled up and swallowed the earth. Everything on planet earth would die. His life wouldn't matter in the slightest to whatever sort of higher power that may or may not exist out there.
He was grumbling to himself, he knew.
He was completely uninteresting. All he did was moan and complain and have dirty thoughts about his professor.
"So I thought maybe we'd watch a film today." His professor's voice broke through his reverie.
Dan slipped his paper into his folder and leaned back in his chair as Mr. Lester was plugging the projector into his laptop.
"You know, take a step back from the usual lecture."
The projector was powering up, and a light was projected onto the clean white board at the front of the room.
He opened up a media player and a movie soon started. He got up from his seat and shut the lights off in the room.
The film was based off of one of Shakespeare's plays.
They screen writes were usually excellent, the ones they read in their books, but the movies were sort of cringe-y most of the time. But if you ignored the bad acting and quality, the movies were alright.
At least it wasn't Romeo and Juliette.
That would have been especially cringe-y.
He tuned into the film, but wasn't unaware of his professor at the front of the classroom, leaning back in his chair to watch with the class.
Dan's eyes trailed over his body, and his mouth nearly went dry. He forced himself to tune his professor out and the movie in.
A good hour and a half later, the credits were rolling and Mr. Lester was flicking the classroom lights back on and dismissing everyone.
Dan managed to not be the last student walking out for once.
That evening, Dan had the flat to himself. He baked himself a frozen dinner and turned on Netflix on the Xbox. After he ate, he left the empty, black tray on the coffee table, intending to throw it out later.
He stretched his long legs out across the couch.
He had forgotten about the TV, as whenever his mind became idle, it drifted to thoughts of his tall, thin professor.
Despite that it sucked to be alone in the apartment, where he was so paranoid that he constantly looked out the window and glanced at the entrance door, and he missed Chris' company, there was still one benefit.
He palmed himself through his lounge pants as he quickly grew harder.
He imagined Phil-, his professor, with him. He tried to imagine what it'd feel like to have their bodies pressed together, and for just a second, it felt real. He was too far gone now to really be ashamed.
He thought of Phil's hands on him as he slipped a hand into the waistband of his pants with his eyes shut. He imagined hot, breathy kisses down his neck and along his collar bones and he pushed his lounge pants down to his mid-thigh and slowly began to pump his own hardness.
He thought of, lip-nibbles and kisses and hair tugging and blow jobs. It wasn't long before he came into his hand, hips rolling and holding his noises back as he bit harshly on his lip.
It took him a moment to catch his breath and he pushed his hair off of his sweaty forehead. His legs felt like jelly, and his face felt hot.
Touching himself hadn't felt that good in a long time.
He had it really bad for his professor.
He sat up; looking down at the mess he made on his shirt and numbly walked to the restroom with his pants and boxers still around his thighs.
As he washed up he experienced that momentary emptiness that filled him just after the few seconds of bliss. Because while he totally had the hots for his professor, his feelings weren't purely lustful towards him, either.
But ever having a serious relationship with him was highly unlikely, if not down right impossible.
And due to all these thoughts-, about his professor, about the noises his apartment building made late at night, and about this really odd hollowness that filled his chest-, sleep didn't come particularly easy that night.
The next morning he caught the bus to work in a tired haze and he inhaled a bit of coffee before he started his grueling eight hour shift.
It was seven AM, and cold. He desperately missed his blankets and pillows.
However, he found a ray of sunshine on this gloomy morning when he looked up and found his professor smiling at him.
"Hi, Dan," Phil-, his professor, said to him in a tone that a close friend might use, and it tugged on Dan's lips, making him smile.
"Good morning," he replied. "Same thing as last time?"
"Yes, that'd be great," Phil slid his card across the counter towards Dan, who put his order in and gave him the total.
After Dan returned the card, Phil realized that he was impossibly taller than he originally thought.
As Phil's coffee was being made, he lingered off to the side of the shop, and made vain attempts to not watch Dan, at least from the corner of his eye.
Dan looked really fucking good in black.
When Dan called out for Phil, indicated that his coffee was done, he approached the counter and caught a second to tell him, "You're much taller when you're not slouching," before he took the coffee, slipped a bit of money into the tip jar and walked out of the busy coffee shop.
Dan's coworker caught the exchange and she grinned widely, silently teasing him, aside from the 'tut tut tut' noises she made and shook her head as if to say, "Dan, you naughty boy."
"Don't even start," he muttered to Cat underneath his breath, who only giggled in response.
They hardly had time for chit chat, anyways.
Over the next week, Dan went through the motions of going to class, work, and the small, everyday tasks that he took care of such as doing his share of cleaning in the apartment and his homework.
He'd seen Phil in class, but shared nothing more than a "good morning", a "have a good day", and pursed-lip smiles. This left Dan immensely unsatisfied, but he was sure that Phil didn't realize he existed outside of class or when he'd seen him go into the coffee shop on Friday morning.
"How are you doing?" he'd asked.
"I'm doing alright. And you, Phil?"
Dan caught his mistake and his face grew very warm. "I-, er, I mean, Professor? Sorry."
Phil chuckled and smiled brightly at Dan's sheepish expression.
"It's alright. It should be fine for you to call me Phil outside of class and off-campus."
"Okay," Dan replied lamely and took his order.
hi thank you for reading! please review it would mean a lot
also i am on tumblr at yesiwritefanfics . tumblr . com please come say hi