museboxofmuses | Obligatory College AU

Obligatory College AU

Prometheus groaned loud enough to wake the dead as he sprawled dramatically over the living room's sofa, his students' papers slipping out of his hand to scatter all over the carpet. Scrawled over the papers were a lot of red pen, and Prometheus's notoriously shit handwriting that was incomprehensible to all (including Prometheus himself).

His freshmen students were going to be the death of him.

"Not a single pass..." he grumbled, idly scratching at his bare stomach. It was a hot, summery weekend, so he was dressed accordingly (shorts and crop top obviously), but instead of getting to sun outside or do anything else fun, he had been stuck marking his students' papers for an unofficial 'end of term' test in preparation for their exams.

The freshmen did abysmally. Then again, they always did, but he always had at least one pass! Not this time! Ugh, the admins were going to start crawling up his ass again over this. They always did whenever more than 50% of his classes started failing, which was, uh, every term, really.

Prometheus pouted. It wasn't his fault that the students didn't understand basic and simple concepts!

He rolled onto his stomach, his arm dangling over the edge of the sofa, and morosely swatted at one of the papers littering the carpet. It wasn't just the admins, though. Hades was going to get on his case about this too. For some reason (Prometheus was blaming the admins), he started actually caring about how Prometheus taught his classes (probably because some of his students were under Prometheus's care, and they were a bunch of whiners who kept complaining about him to Hades). He'll be disappointed in him. Hades being disappointed in him was Awful.

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Hades opened the door looking just so much more tired than he normally did at this time of day. He made a beeline for the liquor cabinet and poured himself four fingers of whiskey, shook out a couple of pills from a bottle, and threw it all down the hatch. He turned around to face Prometheus spilled out on the couch and the papers littering the floor.

“Why, good afternoon, love of my life and bane of my existence. I see you’ve graded your finals. Would you like to know how my finals testing period went?” And without waiting a beat, “Very bad. I have to hold a make up exam tomorrow because I couldn’t get enough of my students to stop crying. So, in the interest of everyone, I will be throwing those away now.”

And then he did actually stoop to the floor to start gathering them up. He was dressed as he always was: sharp, fashionable, and looking like the moneyed man that he was. Of course, he had earned everything that he had these days. He was the chair of his department, and through yearly arm twisting, Prometheus’ class stayed mandatory. It was Hades’ arm that was twisted, of course. The biology department ensured that they only had to deal with him for four classes out of the year which was really still straining them.

(“Well, he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?” the biology chair asked with tired desperation. “You deal with him.”)

Oh god, Hades was super disappointed in him!

"W-What- you can't throw those away!" Prometheus yelped, jolting upright and snatching up what few papers Hades hadn't yet gathered. He clutched them protectively to his chest, crumpling them, "The students need these to read over and see where they went wrong!"

Which would be great except, firstly, Prometheus's 'helpful' suggestions for improvement weren't helpful at all, the questions on the actual paper itself were far too advanced for the class's current level and so there is no point in them revising what they got wrong, and producing them to the class would cause an effect so demoralising it would cause more harm than good.

But of course, Prometheus didn't think about those things because, while he was indeed an official genius, he was an awful teacher (sadly, he was blind to this fact about himself, much to everyone else's consternation - Hades included).

"And anyway, I tried my best this term!" he continued, his voice edging almost into a whine, "I followed those stupid 'lesson plans' the admins gave me, but it just made things worse!"

(Because he got impatient with the 'slowness' of said plans and threw them out after the first few lessons...)

Alright, fine. He’ll play. Hades picked a paper off the top of his stack, squinting at the handwriting before putting on his glasses. It didn’t help. He looked at the questions instead for a clue. “I’m sure you did try your best,” an affirmation. “And they should be happy to have you as the preeminent expert in this field,” and ego fluff. “Did you accidentally give my freshmen the graduate level exam?”

Hades was playing like Prometheus was innocent because he knew he wasn’t, but it was the only thing holding back his anger. “There’s questions on here that reference the higher level book.”

Hades held in his sigh as he sat on the couch, placing an ankle over his knee. “There’s actual tear marks on this one, look.”

Prometheus's initial indignation was expertly soothed at the little ego fluff Hades gave him, easing his death grip on the papers in his clutches enough to glance over the topmost one. This one was one of the better marked ones, not quite a pass, but close enough.

Was this the graduate level exam? No, no way. These questions were easy, and his previous freshmen passed these before (not easily, mind, and he worked them to the bone to ensure they were up to snuff - but they still passed!). Clearly, the students simply slacked off on their revision, not reading ahead and what not.

"This is the test I normally give at the end of term..." Prometheus said a mite sulkily, glancing over at the paper Hades showed him. There were, indeed, tear marks splotching the paper. Ah, yeah, Prometheus remembered this one. At the very top, in his barely legible writing, was in spiky red handwriting 'Please do not cry on the paper'.

"I guess..." he started, sounding as if he was having a realisation, "I didn't work them hard enough..."

Ah, he didn't have a realisation.

“Didn’t work them hard enough? What, do you want the suicide note fiasco again?” It was an utter miracle that Prometheus had not been fired, even if he was the best and most knowledgeable person on the subject.

“You had a lesson plan... so why would you recycle a test?” Hades pulled off his glasses to look at Prometheus and hooked them on his collar. The tension headache was roaring in, and neither the painkillers nor the liquor were going to help.

“Anyway, bring me your grade book, we’re going to curve it.”

Prometheus made a low, petulant noise, but he took one look at Hades's expression and wisely swallowed whatever he was going to say. Ah, he had a feeling that his boyfriend's anger was... not to be trifled with this evening.

"Now?" he asked, pressing his fingers together while trying to look as woebegone as possible, "But, we've been working all day, you must be really tired. So, uh, we can do this tomorrow, right?"

Translation: I am going to try to avoid this as much as possible if you give me enough wriggle room.

“Hmmm...” Hades sat back in the couch and just looked at Prometheus for a moment. “Come here, come sit on my lap,” he said with a lazy smile.

The shift in mood instantly made Prometheus suspicious, but he was always weak for Hades whenever he eased into a flirty mood. So, after a very brief pause, he perked up, believing the subject dropped for tonight, and he obediently moved to sit in Hades's lap. He sat heavily on his thighs and faced him, his arms settling loosely around his boyfriend's shoulders.

"Like this?" he asked teasingly, playfully rocking his hips before settling down properly.

“That’s right,” Hades said in a low whisper. From this close, Prometheus could surely smell the liquor on his breath as he leaned in. He placed his hands on Prometheus’ hips.

“If you don’t bring me your grade book this minute, I’m going to tell each and every one of your students who you really are, and then I’m not going to fuck you until the semester starts again so you can focus on the summer class that you will invariably be tasked with.”

Ah.

"Ah," Prometheus said very quietly, immediately looking very chastised at Hades's precisely delivered threat. Amazing how quickly his mood dropped from excited to absolute dread.

Hades would stick to the threat too. He could be horribly well-disciplined when he felt like it, and Prometheus remembered the last time he'd been in the doghouse. No sex for three months - absolute torture. An entire summer while teaching his failed students? Prometheus doubted he'd survive.

"Okay, I'll... I'll go get it now," he mumbled meekly, jumping off Hades's lap as nimble as a cat before darting out of the living room.

He returned within the minute, shuffling his feet and looking every inch of a kicked puppy as he sullenly held out his grade book with a muttered; "Here."

He felt a little bad, but not that bad. He had spent the whole day consoling his freshmen, promising he’d do something. And he still had to administer their final tomorrow.

“Good boy. Come here,” he patted the spot next to him on the sofa. He knew he had done this just a minute ago, but was a little curious If Prometheus would do it again. He had already shown his hand, after all. Hades took the gradebook and flipped it open to inspect it.

“God, can you even read these numbers? Show me the highest scoring and lowest scoring students.”

Prometheus huffed quietly, but he did obediently sit down next to Hades. The 'good boy' did smooth down some of his ruffled feathers, and he sat down with his knees pulled up to his chest, arms loosely wrapped round them as he eyed the grade book Hades flipped open.

"My handwriting isn't that bad," Prometheus groused, though he did admit, it took him a few rereads to decipher his messy scrawl. He took the grade book from Hades, flipping it to where he kept the individual students' grades listed, and showed him.

The differences were very stark.

Majority of students scored low, but there were a core few that were passing (notably those experienced in the ways of Prometheus's torture session- er, lessons) with only two scoring above average grades.

“And this is with or without your final averaged in?” He noted the high scoring students. They were notably not actually freshmen and he definitely recognized them. This was going to be one hell of a curve.

He placed a hand in the middle of Prometheus’ back and rubbed slow circles. He would need to be eased into all of this, even if it wasn’t his first go at it. He could certainly go over Prometheus’ head, but that wasn’t ideal either.

Very slowly, Prometheus relaxed from his prickly cat impression at Hades rubbing his back, uncurling from his little ball and sitting properly on the sofa.

"Uh, this is without. I didn't get around to doing it yet," he admitted. Honestly, he'd been tempted just to not include it and say he 'lost' the finals' results. But then, that wouldn't be very good of him as a teacher, huh? The students wouldn't learn if he didn't show them where they went wrong...

But then admin would get upset with him once they saw the results. Hmmm...

"What if," Prometheus started hopefully, desperately hoping this was the right answer that'd get Hades to stop being disappointed, "I, uh, gave them a new final to do? An easier one!"

“Let’s just assume these test scores are unusable,” Hades said in a very definitive way.

“Do you know how much they know? Would you be able to even put together a fair final?” Hades raised his eyebrows and tilted his chin down on the word fair. C’mon Prometheus, dig deep.

He continued to pet Prometheus since it seemed to be helping. He really didn’t want to have to abstain for three months, but boy did it make Prometheus learn something. The last time had been a disagreement about some paperwork and Prometheus’ accompanying study that he needed to submit to get his permits. It did not go well.

Prometheus thought the current final was fair, but he decided to overlook Hades's sloppy wording and see the bigger picture. The main objective was to avoid being stuck in summer classes (again), and to evade the unyielding disapproval of the admins (again). If he had to dumb down his exam to do it, he will.

"Well," he said, "I have the copies of the finals Lahabrea drew up for me to use. I thought it was too easy, though, and stuffed them somewhere, but... I guess I can use those..."

Even though it caused him physical pain to use anything of Lahabrea's. It was like a subtle approval of his work, which Prometheus was deathly allergic to.

He peeked at Hades, looking hopeful, "Will that do? That'll do, right?"

“It still concerns me that I don’t know if you know what they know. In an effort to make them cram the entire book they might know almost nothing.”

It was frustrating, since Prometheus’ class was important. This would all be simpler if it wasn’t. Hades unbuttoned the top of his shirt and pulled his tie loose. The whiskey was finally really starting to warm him up and mellow him out.

“You can use Lahabrea’s exam but you have to cut it down to ten questions.” It’s like Hades was trying to torture him now.

Prometheus's gaze drifted down to Hades's exposed collarbone unconsciously, his thoughts drifting away from the problem of his horrendous teaching despite his best efforts to focus.

"Ugh, that means I'll have to read his stupid exam..." he muttered, shifting a little closer to his boyfriend until their thighs were pressed closed together, "But okay, fine, I'll do it. Happy?"

“Then read his stupid exam,” Hades said, watching Prometheus’ attention drift to his collar. “How do you know if it’s stupid if you’ve haven’t read it?” Hades sort of knew the answer. He knew he didn’t get along with Lahabrea very well but he didn’t understand fully why. Unfortunately, he could understand Lahabrea’s irritation with Prometheus.

“Oh yes, one more thing. Come to my class tomorrow to tell them there will be a new exam. It’s going to be bad enough as it is tomorrow, which, by the way, today was supposed to be my last class.” So thanks for that.

Prometheus forcibly dragged his gaze up from Hades's collar to his face, trying to look like he hadn't been imagining something slightly indecent. The thought of reading Lahabrea's exam, and actually using it, cooled his passion somewhat, anyways. If Lahabrea heard he used his exam because his actual final had been a colossal failure, he'd never let Prometheus hear the end of it.

"Do I have to-" he started, then thought better of it considering what Hades threatened before, "Er, I mean, sure! That's... that's fine. I can do that..."

He didn't sound very enthused - didn't even bother trying to pretend. It was going to be a pain, and Prometheus had kind of planned to take it easy tomorrow. Damn students... failing his final and causing all these problems. Hrmph.

However, he wasn't so oblivious that he didn't see how this was impacting Hades. His boyfriend should have been winding down now that term was ending, and instead he was having to do another class for his exam, was helping Prometheus with his own problems, and getting stressed out on his behalf. He did feel... a little guilty about that.

"Um," he started awkwardly, rubbing his hands together, "Sorry, by the way."

Hades let himself smile just slightly. Had he finally realized what a pain he had being? He didn’t care that Prometheus was unenthusiastic, he’d just have to grin and bear it. Hades finally released the tension in his shoulders and dramatically slumped over onto his side.

“It’s... well, I forgive you, of course. If you do what I ask of you. Also if you go fetch me the bottle of wine from the kitchen,” Hades kicked off his dress shoes and untucked his shirt from his trousers. He looked very good for his age; he took good care of himself and it showed. Even if he had begun to grey.

Hades pulled one of their many blankets off the back of the couch and pulled it over himself in spite of the heat. “And what’s for dinner?”

Prometheus relaxed. All easy things to achieve for Hades's forgiveness.

He watched his boyfriend slump over, kicking off his shoes and untucking his shirt - he really did like him dressed all smartly, but this was equally enticing in a different way. Prometheus had to stifle an urge to crawl onto his boyfriend's lap and fuss for attention, biting his bottom lip briefly. Hades would probably indulge him, but best not push his luck after oh so narrowly avoiding getting stuck in the doghouse.

"I've got some bourguignon in the slow cooker," Prometheus said, pushing himself up from the sofa. He needed to grab that wine, "It's got about another hour or two left before it's done."

He glanced down at Hades, unable to resist playfully tugging at one of his boyfriend's grey lock of hairs, "You just relax, babe. I'll be right back with your wine."

With that, he quickly scurried to the kitchen, pausing at the slow cooker long enough to check on said meal before grabbing one of Hades's favourite wines and two glasses. He returned to the living room, and like a good, perfect, amazing boyfriend, uncorked the wine and poured it out, before handing the glass over to Hades.

“Mm...This is why I keep you around, you know?” he said playfully as Prometheus told him what was on the menu.

Hades took a breath, finally letting himself relax. He could see the way through, and that was what he found most important. Hades picked up the remote and turned on the air conditioner. He undressed further under the blanket as Prometheus went into the kitchen. By the time Prometheus came back, his shirt was open, and his thin tank top was undershirt clinging to his skin with sweat. He left his suspenders on. He raised his golden eyes to Prometheus when he returned.

He took the full wine glass and brought it to his face, giving it a sniff before sipping it. “So we have an hour to kill?” Hades finally allowed himself to absorb Prometheus’ appearance in its entirety. The crop top... the shorts. He was a sucker for it. “Lucky you, you have options. Either you can entertain me before dinner... or we can read over Lahabrea’s test questions. Both will happen tonight, but I’m generous enough to let you pick the order.”

Prometheus felt goosebumps prickle over his skin from the air conditioning - and from something else, when he glimpsed how much Hades had undressed under his blanket. He hooked a thumb into the waistband of his shorts (the form-fitting ones that said NASTY along the ass, incidentally), idly pushing it down a fraction enough that the jut of his hip bone peeked into view.

"Oh? I get to pick? That's really generous of you," Prometheus purred, his gaze heavy-lidded as he slowly started to smile. It was pretty obvious what his decision was going to be.

"I think I'll entertain you, babe," he said, stepping close enough that he could rest one knee on the edge of the sofa next to Hades's thigh, just one move away from straddling his lap. This was more like what he'd been hoping for when Hades came home, and he barely managed to contain himself as he leaned in that little more, almost looking like a dog overeager to please its master, metaphorical tail wagging.

Hades decided that he would allow himself to enjoy this for a time. He had trouble resisting Prometheus, which is how they got together anyway. It was inappropriate then, and it was inappropriate now. At least Hades tried to keep it that way. “As long as you don’t make me spill my drink,” he said with a wicket smile. His crows feet crinkled as he took a sip, letting his eyes fall over Prometheus’ form.

“Hmm, have you been working out?” He asked facetiously. Of course Prometheus worked out. He was the jockiest scientist he’d ever met. Hades spread his legs a bit without thinking about it, giving his burgeoning erection some room.

“So...” he purred. “What will tonight’s entertainment be?” He didn’t bother to move the blanket yet. He was too comfy. May as well replace the sensation in a one in, one out in sort of way.

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