Written Proofs
Victor Van Damme was probably one of the most brilliant people Reed had ever met. He was brilliant, and undoubtedly the most aggravating person in every single dimension in existence. The guy had no manners, absolutely no concept of personal space, and for Christ's sake, nobody should have to wake up to his desk lamp snapping on at three o'clock in the morning. Reed scrubbed at his face and squinted, but Victor was still sitting at Reed's desk, hunched over his notes and writing equations all over them with short, violent strokes of his ink pen.
Apparently, the whole 'don't barge into my room without asking first' conversation hadn't actually penetrated Victor's thick skull, not the first time or the sixth. Reed stared resentfully at the mutt fast asleep at the foot of his bed. So much for the watchdog hating Victor's guts.
Reed would bet lab time that Victor was bribing the dog with treats behind his back.
"God, what are you doing here?" Reed demanded. He shoved at the bedcovers and stood up, tugging his pajama pants back into place. They always twisted around his hips in the night. Victor didn't answer; he didn't even look up from Reed's spiral notebook, and the dark fall of his hair covered his eyes. Reed yawned and stumbled across the room, still half-asleep. "Couldn't this wait until morning?"
Victor stared at him when Reed put his hand on the back of the desk chair. He always did that, staring so long and so impassively that Reed wanted to squirm or look away, except he wouldn't give Victor the satisfaction.
Of course, that assumed the arrogant jerk would even get satisfaction out of it.
"No," Victor said finally, and Reed had almost forgotten the question he had asked.
"Okay, fine. This better be good," he said, reaching over Victor's shoulder for the notepad. Victor scowled as Reed snatched it out of his hands, the pen sliding off the page with a jagged black slash. He had to hold the notepad close to his nose because his glasses were still somewhere on his nightstand, and Reed scanned the numbers and symbols as quickly as his eyes could follow, flipping page after page. His heart started beating a little faster and he could feel a flush bloom over his face. His brain spun with changes, numbers, and improvements to theories faster than he could articulate. It was a total rush.
Reed loved it at the Bax. The kids at Midtown Middle School could barely identify a hypotenuse, let alone the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect... which Reed had tried to explain to his math teacher at least five times before finally giving up.
Victor squeezed the pen in his hand like a stress ball. "I wasn't finished."
"We're supposed to work together on this, remember?" Reed told him, flipping to another page. "Besides, I could kiss you for what you've already got here."
Victor stared at him again, and Reed realized the problem was that he didn't blink. Neither did snakes, but at least snakes had the excuse of not having eyelids. The chair squeaked as Victor stood up abruptly. Suddenly nervous, Reed took a step back. Victor followed, his eyes narrowed and blue.
"Um," Reed said, and then Victor kissed him. His mouth was wet and insistent, and his hands felt warm on Reed's face. He jerked away from Victor and made a strangled noise in his throat. "You can't just bust in here whenever you -- mmph!"
The second kiss was awkward and fierce, their teeth clacking together for a moment until Victor tilted Reed's head and stroked inside his mouth. Victor kissed like he wrote, and Reed couldn't help moaning. Maybe he had wanted this to happen again, but there was no way Reed would ever say it out loud. Perhaps for the first time in memory, Reed was overjoyed that Victor was so taciturn and contrary in nature.
He let Victor walk them backward toward his bed. Reed pulled at Victor's jacket, nearly strangling him when he yanked off the badge hanging around his neck. Victor caught Reed's lips with his tongue and teeth, and the buttons on his black shirt bit into Reed's fingers as he fumbled with them. Victor finally pushed his hands away, pulling off both the button-down and the T-shirt underneath, the action tousling his hair.
"Get undressed," Victor said as he unfastened his belt. For a second, Reed had to duck his head and look at the floor, but he was determined not to be shy about this anymore. He clenched his jaw, looked back up, and defiantly took off his shirt. Victor stared and still didn't blink. He dropped his belt on the floor, removed his shoes and socks, and then undressed completely without so much as a nervous twitch. And Victor didn't have anything to be nervous about in a locker room, as far as he had seen. Reed wriggled out of his pajama bottoms and boxers, and blindly got onto his bed. Victor was right behind him, pale and perfect in a way Reed would never be.
Victor kissed him again, and he was hard against Reed's belly. Reed touched him and his skin was soft and warm. Victor never made any noise when something felt good. He would just tense and move against Reed's cock, and that made him eager to touch Victor's shoulders and the muscles of his arms and back. Victor kissed his mouth and then kissed his neck the same way, continued kissing him as he put his hand on Reed's cock, and it felt nothing like how he touched himself. He moaned and pushed into Victor's hand, and Reed came with his hands buried in Victor's hair.
He closed his eyes and sprawled against his pillow... which was now nearly falling off the bed, but Reed didn't mind enough to move. And then the mattress dipped and Reed didn't want to open his eyes, until it moved again and something tickled his abdomen. He raised his head a little to see that Victor was draped over his legs and writing on the skin underneath Reed's navel with a gel pen.
"Don't move," Victor said when Reed wiggled, pushing down on his hip.
"Hey, what about..." Reed said. Victor was still hard, his cock pressing against Reed's leg.
Victor stopped writing symbols on Reed's skin for several long heartbeats. His eyes were sleepy and his mouth red. "Later."
"You're completely nuts, you know that, right?" Reed said, unable to keep the grin from his face. He snagged his glasses from the nightstand and tried to read the equations upside-down. "Wait -- go back. What's that variable for?"
They both stared at it.
"You smudged my variable," Victor said. He scowled, licked his thumb, and rubbed away the ink. "Now don't move."