stars in your multitudes

Soo many of those prompts would be good for Nick/Stephen (I know you love them. I think) but....13. "You brought this upon yourself, you have no one else to blame."

((You are SO RIGHT in all possible ways - I love Nick/Stephen to pieces, pretty much all of these prompts would be hilarious for that garbage ship, but the one you picked is just spot-on. Thanks for asking!))

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“You brought this upon yourself,” Stephen says, sounding at least 37% more pleased with himself than Nick can stomach right now.

“Yes, thank you, Doctor Smartass, I’m aware.”

“Then stop moping. You have absolutely no one else to blame.”

“Well, I can always blame you.”

“Sure, but we’d both know it wasn’t true and you’d just be denying the hard, naked facts.”

Nick snorts. For a split second he considers making a comment about ‘hard and naked’. But first of all, Stephen has definitely not deserved that kind of comment right now, and second of all, he’s probably chosen his wording on purpose. That bastard. “You made me go there, though.”

“You know what, you’re right. I made you go to the seminar you’re teaching, to answer the questions of the students you’re tutoring, about the term paper you‘re grading. Clearly I’m the asshole here.”

Unfortunately Stephen has a point (which sounds slightly nicer in Nick’s head than admitting Stephen has the ‘hard, naked facts’). It’s not that Nick dislikes teaching - well, he doesn’t dislike all teaching. He likes supervising dissertations and doctoral theses. He enjoys field trips with small student groups. He doesn’t even mind that much to give lectures in front of medium-sized groups, as long as it’s a one-time gigHe absolutely hates being in charge of teaching a class full of freshmen the bland basics of evolutionary theories. Especially if this involves having to waste an hour of his life to answer their questions about the term papers. Whoever claimed there were no bad questions had clearly never held a preliminary session for term papers.

Of course, ‘I don’t care if you write about the Loch Ness monster, as long as you’re following an argumentation’ might not have been the best way to put it.

Stephen snickers. “I found the Pokémon nerd.”

Nick glares at him. “If you’re reading them anyway, are you gonna help me grade those abominations?”

“Absolutely not.” With a shit-eating grin Stephen puts away the Pokémon paper and grabs one that has the promising words ‘Abominable Snowman’ on its cover. “You know what my favourite thing is? That I have no idea if they’re just messing with you or if they actually thought you’d expect them to write about the evolution of cryptids. Or, you know. Pokémon.”

“That’s your favourite thing?” Nick’s voice now sounds slightly desperate. “It would be so much easier if I was sure they were just little assholes. But these are so well written.” He takes another paper from the stack.

“Ah, that one’s the best one so far, I think,” Stephen says, pointing at the actual doorstopper in his hands. “An entire encyclopedia about the ecological system on Endor in ‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’ and the subsequent evolution of the Ewoks.”

Nick stares at the paper in his hands for a long time. “If I ever meet this Connor Temple in person, I will murder him with a lightsaber cut out of his own Star Wars term paper.”

“And do you know how you can meet Connor Temple in person?” Stephen leans over to give Nick a light pat on the shoulder. “Go to your seminars.”

Then he ducks very quickly to avoid the rubber Nick throws at him.