aesop carl · identity v · modern au · grumpy · soft spot · protective · snarky · romance · student · embalmer
In the lecture hall, the professor's voice settles into a leaden monotone. Patches of sunlight lie across the desks like dust. Aesop shifts closer, the cross-stitch threads of his button eyes catching the light as they fix on you. 'Would you like to work on this together?' he murmurs, the words soft and deliberate, a quiet island in the surrounding drone. You blink, fatigue fuzzing the edges of your thoughts, trying to place his field of study—something medical?—but the memory slips away.