#doctor smith
Paring: John Smith x Rose Tyler
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: T
Word count: 2100
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, University AU
Read on AO3
Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
She smirked as she read those words in the book opened on her desk. The Art of War. Doctor Smith wanted to wage war on her, then so be it. He would get his war. But she was determined to win. She might have lost the budget general battle because the president had always had a soft spot for his cherished science faculties, but that was fine. She didn’t need a fancy centrifuge and in depth knowledge of nuclear fission to fight her own battles against her archenemy.
She knew him by heart, this one Doctor Smith. And she knew his arrogance was legendary. Not only did he belittled the colleagues from the other faculties, but he also ridiculed the work of most of his own colleagues. She had witnessed it first hand, at a physics conference given by a confrere rom the applied science department, some shadowy thing about quantum physics and teleportation. While everyone had been impressed by the tremendous amount of research he had done on the subject, Doctor Smith had snorted and sighed for two hours, until he’d had enough of what he called nonsensical theories only based on more nonsense, thrown a tantrum in the auditorium and made it his personal duty to bring down every single bit of the theory. She thought he had probably been right. Still, his egotism and disdain had been painful to watch.
Painful, yes. But also oddly appealing.
She had been sitting on the same row, four seats to his right. So, she had seen. More than that, she had looked. How he had risen from his small folding chair, running fingers through his mane to give it the shape it’d lost after two hours spent head in his palm. How he had pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a haughty sniff and cleared his throat. How his shirt had tightened over his shoulder when he’d bent forward on the tiny desk. The dimples, the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, the pouty lip, all following his grimaces and frowns on the arrogant train to prove he was some kind of underrated genius.
God, out of all the teachers roaming around in this sodden university, why did it have to be him? Sure, he had great hair, a handsome face and a derriere she could stare at for hours without ever getting tired, but that didn’t make him any less of a cocky prat. She certainly wouldn’t wave the white flag because of a smug pretty boy who couldn’t even write subaquaticproperly.
She needed to find a way to secure herself at least one more victory. Sun Tzu. Praise his clever little brain, applaud his superior intellect, flatter his planet-sized ego. Let his confidence and pride build over her compliments, and then strike it all down at once. Maybe that would hurt too much. Maybe that was too cruel.
But, from the corner of her eyes, she saw the book he had bought her - most certainly not by kindness of heart - and she decided she didn’t care. Doctor Smith wanted his war, he would get his war. Remained to find how she could hit him. Hard.
She closed her book just as a knock was heard.
“Come in,” she called out, taking off her glasses to fold them over the cover.
A delivery man appeared with a large cardboard box in his arms he dropped on a chair after a casual greeting.
“I need your signature here, Doctor,” he said as he handed her a slip of paper.
“This is supposed to go to the science faculties,” she noted, reading the name on the pink ticket. “Doctor Smith, his office is on the other side of the main auditorium.”
“Dunno, I was told to come here. Look, I’m in a bit of a rush, I don’t really have time to run around.”
“Fine,” she sighed, taking is pen to write her name before she inked it with her stamp. “Hope whatever’s in this isn’t dangerous.”
“Dunno,” he repeated as he shoved the paper in his hip pack. “‘M just here to deliver. Have a nice day, Doctor.”
She looked at the box and saw the top was pierced with dozens of little holes, a nauseating smell filtering through the orifices. She definitely heard a sound coming from it, but she wasn’t about to investigate - what belonged to the mental house the science building was would remain in the science building.
She picked up her phone and dialed his number, just hoping he wouldn’t be busy teaching or refuse to answer when her name would pop up on his display.
“Miss me already, Doctor Tyler?” his voice sneered through the receiver - and she was almost tempted to hang up immediately.
“Got something for you in my office, smartass,” she simply answered, glancing at box with a scrunched up nose. “It stinks and it takes up too much space. Just come get it, will you?”
“I’m busy, working on a new project with my amazing centrifuge,” he said, his grin flowing along his words. “Groundbreaking discoveries, scientific breakthroughs, that kind of stuff. Not that dead languages don’t matter, of course, but I doubt your Latin will ever save anyone.”
“Come get it or it flies through the window, you git,” she huffed before she angrily slammed her phone back down.
She pondered for a moment if she just ought to leave the box outside her office so she wouldn’t have to see his stupid face and be tempted to slap it, but a chime rang and a message popped up on her screen.
Coming, don’t actually throw it out the window. *risus* I know it’s just brutum fulmen anyway. Dr. S.
She puffed at his use of the Latin phrases, knowing he was just trying to get on her nerves again, and leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. Sometimes, she really hated that contemptuous man.
He knocked on the door a few minutes later - his legs longer than stilts probably helped crossing the distance faster, she supposed.
“Ave, Doctor Tyler,” he grinned, raising his right hand in a Roman salute as he entered her office. “So, what’s in this box, then?”
“You’ll have to find out yourself, I didn’t open it,” she shrugged as he picked up a pair of scissors on her desk and sliced the thick tape. “I just know it moves, and it stinks. Pretty good summary of what happens in your asylum.”
“At least, things happen in my asylum, no one dies of boredom learning languages you’ll only ever speak with the dead,” he smiled, twirling the scissors around his index. “Let’s see, shall we?”
She sighed as he rolled his sleeves up theatrically and wiggled his fingers before he peeled one side of the top of the box. He sneaked a peek inside the box, squinted when he realized it was too dark inside to see anything, and reached inside, obviously forgetting about the moving dimension of the contents.
She didn’t react much when he shrieked loudly, thinking he was just indulging in one of his silly jokes, but then he snapped the box close and tightly wrapped his fingers around his hand.
“If that’s your idea of revenge, Doctor Tyler, let me tell you it sucks,” he glared at her above the rim of his glasses. “I knew you had a rubbish sense of humour, but this…”
“What do you…” she started with a sigh, but stopped dead in the middle of her sentence when she saw the blood steadily dripping from his extremity. “Shit, what the Hell is that?”
“You tell me,” he growled as she hurried to find a first aid kit in her drawer. “Seriously, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“It’s not me, alright?” she defended herself, motionning for him to sit on her chair. “Yes, we’ve had our differences, but I’d never go as far as hurting you on purpose, okay?”
“So you wish to tell me this arrived at your office by accident?” he frowned over eyes flooded with irritation. “Right, what a wonderful coincidence this is, isn’t it?”
“Well it did. Now shut it, Doctor Smith, and give me your hand.”
He huffed loudly, but he still did. She gently cupped his hand and wiped most of the blood with a clean handkerchief to better see the nature of the wound.
“Snake bite,” she told him as she reached for a cotton ball in her kit she was quick to soak in alcohol. “Non-venomous, in case you were worried about that. See the four rows of tooth marks? That’s the kind of bite you want.”
“For someone who hasn’t planned this, you sure know a lot about snake bites,” he said, wincing lightly when she pressed her cotton over the injury.
“When you spent your summer camps in the same snake-infested forest five years in a row, you learn rather quickly,” she smiled - and she was relieved to see his features soften as he understood it really wasn’t her doing. “It wasn’t me, I promise.”
He kept quiet after that, and she took her time to properly clean the strings of tiny lesions that spread from the base of his thumb to the middle of the back of his hand. A light bruise was starting to colour his skin, the little red dots lost in the shades of green and blue, but it wasn’t serious. She probably spent more time than necessary cleaning the wound, but she rather enjoyed the feel of his large palm over hers, and how his long fingers lightly squeezed the side of her hand. She could enjoy the truce, because he seemed to enjoy it too, if the way he leaned into her touch was any indication.
“Why do you even have a kit in your office?” he asked with a grin, watching as she finally picked up a bandage and started to roll it around his hand. “The worse than can happen in here is a paper cut.”
“And snake bites, obviously,” she retorted as she pulled a bit tighter on the white gauze.
“Obviously,” he nodded, pinching his lips when she pressed just a bit too hard over the wound to stick her medical tape.
“There, done.”
She released his hand and packed her kit away while he worked his fingers to make sure they were still fully functional. Once reassured, he went back to the box and sntached the piece of paper taped to the side - he thought it might have been wiser to start there, but he kept this comment to himself.
“Rat snake, for Mister Graham,” he read in the small box dedicated to the description of the parcel. “Now I get the extra dead mice we received last week. Sorry I blamed you, Doctor Tyler. This shouldn’t have landed in your office.”
“Pardon?” she asked, stunned to hear that word coming out of his mouth.
“I said, this parcel shouldn’t have been delivered to you,” he repeated with a shrug, scratching the back of his head just a little sheepishly. “I should take it back to the biology department, whatever it is they plan to do with that thing.”
“You should indeed, Doctor Smith,” she agreed - of course, he wouldn’t repeat that word, but she knew he had said it, and that was enough. “Don’t need a snake in my office, thanks very much.”
“Quite right,” he nodded as he taped the top of the box again to make sure the reptile wouldn’t slither away on his way back.
He picked up his box in his arms and offered a quick nod of the head as a goodbye, but he stopped by the door and turned on his feet.
“Fancy a coffee one of these days?” he asked, much too casual to sound natural.
She blinked, gaped at him for a second, until she understood the meaning of his question.
“Huh, sure, why not,” she answered, quite unable to decide if this was a genuine, friendly request or another one of his evil plans.
“Alright,” he smiled softly. “We’ll catch up later. Have a nice day, Doctor Tyler. And thanks for the bandage.”
She stared at the closed door for long minutes after he was gone with his snake, drumming her fingers on her desk. Doctor Smith wanted to share a coffee. And he had thanked her. Well, maybe the snake was venomous, after all.
