Paper Weight

by Merry Amelie (MerryAmelie@aol.com)

Archive: MA only

Category: Alternate Reality, Qui/Obi, Romance, Series

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Paper travails

Series: Academic Arcadia -- # 49

A chronological list of the series with the URLs can be found under the header 'Academic Arcadia' at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/master-apprentice/files/

My MA story page: http://www.masterapprentice.org/cgi-bin/qs.cgi?keyword=Merry+Amelie

Feedback: Is treasured at MerryAmelie@aol.com Disclaimer: Mr. Lucas owns everything Star Wars. I'm not making any money.

To Alex and Ula, my friends and betas extraordinaire

"There must be a ton of paper in here!" Ian's incredulous voice at the open door enlivened their Saturday office. He'd come in an hour and a half later than Quinn, after drafting some business letters for his father that morning. He wore his Team Hawk t-shirt, with its skyhawk soaring over the high bar, atop faded jeans.

Quinn was kneeling by the bottom shelf of his bookcase, quarrying the detritus of the past semester. He had on a heather grey Luke t-shirt and a pair of torn jeans. These were not the artfully ripped kind, so popular on campus, but had worn from actual use. Denim pulled tight over his thighs, thanks to his position. The extra large shirt, swimming on most everyone else, fit him beautifully, his broad chest filling it to perfection.

Even with the surrounding clutter to distract him, Ian found himself captivated by his lover. Quinn's long, lean lines had been engraved upon his retinas years ago, but that didn't mean he'd ever look his fill.

Quinn grinned up at Ian in gratitude when he heard his voice. "More like a ton and a half," he said wryly. "And this is only my stuff."

Quinn had had the audacity to tackle the accumulation of exams, memos, lecture notes, handouts, mail, essays, and just plain junk lurking in each file cabinet and shelf, now spread out over every horizontal surface in the room. Displaced dust drifted down shafts of sunlight created by the open blinds. You'd never know that they were children of the computer age from the sheer heft of the paper surrounding them. Quinn hadn't even bothered using their wastebaskets; he'd brought in lawn and leaf bags instead for the non-recyclables.

"Well, that's the afternoon then." A resigned Ian opened the top drawer of his desk with trepidation, to be met with a jumble of paper clips, chalk stubs, incompatible staplers and staples, rubber bands, tape, yellowed memo pads, dried-up white-out, pens and markers. One lonely battery rolled along the bottom, sure to have expired sometime in the last century.

"More flotsam and jetsam than the destruction of Isengard," muttered Ian, twirling a rubber band around his thumb.

"And no Longbottom Leaf to make it worth our while." Quinn, who'd never smoked a pipe in his life, played along.

"Let's tackle your stuff first," Ian said, closing the drawer in relief at deferring his part of the clean-up. If their junk were to combine, he would not be responsible for the consequent chaos. He came over to stand by Quinn's desk, grinning sardonically at the hours of work looking back at him. Close up, he could see that at least the papers had dates on them.

Quinn pointed to the stacks by Ian's elbow. "These are from a year ago. We're legally entitled to get rid of them now." As course director, Quinn had kept all fifteen sections' worth of exams. "If you really don't mind, would you go through it all and make sure nothing else has crept in? Then I can take them to the mixed paper drop-off."

It had to be love that kept the smile on Ian's face after that. Nothing less would account for his cheerfulness in the face of the thousands of sheets in front of him. "No problem," he said, stunning Quinn by immediately getting down to work.

Absently noting that Quinn had put on a Tangerine Dream CD in a futile bid to create a relaxing environment, Ian speed-sorted blue- books into a Xerox box, acquiring but one paper cut in the process. Though he said nothing to Quinn, his lover happened to glance up and see him sucking his index finger. Ian locked eyes with Quinn as his mouth moved over the tanned skin, down to the second knuckle.

Placid blue became stormy fast. Ian knew that if they were at home, Quinn would have pounced already. He could actually feel the calming process as Quinn struggled to quell his passion, inappropriate even in their weekend office. A droplet of sweat not there before inched its way down Quinn's left temple, his eyes darting to the open blinds.

Releasing his sweaty grip on a bibliography of Tonio Kruger critiques, Quinn headed for the top drawer of his own desk, thankfully already sorted through. He fumbled for a small medicated bandage, and walked over to where Ian sat cross-legged on the rug. Not trusting himself to put it on, as he would at home before thoroughly exploring all of the other edible bits of his lover, Quinn settled for a quick brush of Ian's damp finger with his own. The cut was nothing, notable only for the reaction it had provoked in the oh-so-restrained professor.

Nor would Quinn be able to cool off soon. The air conditioning, though working, was turned down to the bare minimum on weekends, the university's nod to energy efficiency and cost-cutting. They'd decided not to use the ceiling fans, wary of a paper tornado.

At least this little break had reminded them of the delights to come at home, even as they took the chance to rest their hands.

Back to work.

Quinn reflected that much of the problem was due to the ubiquitous white of almost every sheet. As it was now, only the rosters stood out in their ledger green, alongside blue-books and exams with their color-coded covers, the different versions designed to prevent cheating. The rest was bleached white boredom, the cherry of their furniture lost in the glare.

A few of Ian's sheafs turned out to be already mixed in with Quinn's. Fascinated, Quinn sat on the edge of his desk, previously cleared by Ian, to skim over his undergraduate essays. Ian was blissfully ignorant of Quinn's reading material until he heard laughter from above.

"Hey! Give me those!" Ian said, rising to his knees when he recognized the font he'd used for his college papers. Ian was just about to grip Quinn's thighs for leverage to get up when he thought better of it. It was bad enough that he'd teased Quinn already, but grabbing his legs, the skin of his knees peeking through at Ian, would just be too tantalizing, especially given the proximity of Ian's face to parts south.

Quinn held them just out of reach, while his chuckling escalated into chortling. "Oh, Ian! 'Remembrance of Flings Crass'! You didn't hand this in, did you?"

Ian smiled reminiscently. "Yes, love, actually. Don't worry -- it's not autobiographical. My prof had a quirky sense of humor, and I knew at the very least he wouldn't fall asleep while grading it."

Quinn turned to the last page. "And you even got an A! That's my lad." His own collegiate work had been dry as a dust storm on Tatooine compared to Ian's.

Reluctantly tackling their individual piles again, the men settled down to work for another couple of hours. The hum of the shredder mixed with the music when Quinn used it to destroy student social security numbers and other sensitive information on rosters. Then he continued sorting through the mess with Ian, taking frequent breaks to ferry boxes over to the first floor bins.

As they were winding down, a grinning Quinn held up what appeared to be an invitation to a wedding. "Ah, looks like we missed that poetry reading by the Chair's wife last March."

"Imagine that." Ian's dancing eyes spoke volumes, and none of it was in verse. "At least you're mining the more recent strata now."

When Ian reached the surface of the table by the blackboard, his surprised fingers skimmed over a couple of books he hadn't seen in too long. The green slipcase of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the boxed set Quinn had given him as an office-warming gift, was cool under Ian's hand.

"Quinn, look! I've spent months searching for this. Thought I'd taken it home." Ian started thumbing the pages, unable to resist, enjoying the feel of them sliding between his fingers, their characteristic smell faint in the dusty air.

Quinn closed the blinds and turned on the light. He came over to put an arm around Ian's shoulders, scanning through the annotations with him. "Glad you found an old friend."

Ian didn't turn to the inscription on the frontispiece, nor did he need to. "'Together we embark on our greatest adventures.'" He looked up at Quinn, an earnest smile gracing his face. "That's just what being with you feels like to me."

"Me too, lad," Quinn said softly, his grip on Ian's shoulders tightening.

The oversized book dropped onto the table, forgotten for the moment. Quinn gathered Ian into a full embrace, and kissed him soundly.

No sorting was done for the next little while.

It was getting progressively harder to get back to work, but they were almost through now. When all the furniture was finally visible again, the two decided to call it a day, leaving Ian's half for another weekend. They drove home in their respective cars, the brief separation heightening their already considerable anticipation.

Bypassing Quinn's office, they headed straight for the bathroom, shucking off their sweaty clothes and kicking them near the hamper.

When they got under the spray, Quinn peeled the soggy bandage off Ian's forefinger, replacing it with his hot mouth. Intoxicated by Ian's groan, Quinn suckled every one of Ian's fingers in turn.

Ian's eyes sparkled from more than just moisture. Rather breathlessly, he said, "I s'pose after all that paper, you don't even want to think about another ream."

Quinn proved him wrong in the best possible way.