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Sitting down and taking notes when you had a Ph.D. should’ve felt like a punishment, but when William was standing there without a lab coat, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his tie loosened around his neck... Finn didn’t mind so much.
He was wearing jeans today. That’s where Finn thinks it went wrong. Slacks never hugged his thighs the same way those dark blue jeans did. That had to be it. And the little things that always made Finn blush anyways — how he’d absent-mindedly bite his lip and scrunch his nose up when he was focused, or the way his hands moved as he took notes and twisted the little knobs on his microscope.
Four years he’d known Dr. Birkin, and he still caught Finn off guard.
The end of his mechanical pencil sat between his lips, eraser scraping between his teeth. He felt like he always needed to be doing something with his mouth, and cigarettes had been out of the question for years.
There was something else he was thinking about having his lips around, anyways.
“Dr. Bondevik.” William’s voice barely managed to snap Finn out of his stupor.
“Mm?”
“Did you write that down?”
Finn blinked, eyes stinging. “Oh.” He glanced down at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. “.. I.. No... My apologies, Dr. Birkin.”
“You’ve been distracted today,” William didn’t spare him a glance from his microscope, “Try to focus, please.”
“.. Right. Of course.” Finn placed his pencil back down against the paper, trying to ignore the way his cheeks were starting to burn. His eyes were still trained on William. “Sorry. I’ve just..” His gaze slid over his slim frame again, from his thighs, up to his hips, his arms and shoulders, and those lips.. “.. had a lot on my mind.”
“I’ve noticed.”
When he finally found William's eyes, Finn found them staring back at him, brows raised. Oops. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words caught in his throat — maybe it was better to just stay quiet, anyways. Finn thought he saw the faintest hint of a smirk tugging on the corner of William’s lips... But, no. That had to be his imagination, right? Wishful thinking?
He turned back to the microscope and cleared his throat. “Now,” Finn tried to ignore the way his fingers moved as he adjusted the focus, “Where did you leave off?”
.. Yeah . Just his imagination.