Love On The Brain - Blog Posts
#Whatwouldmariedo, if she had to take a math test on Wednesday about a, b and c, but in her math lecture they’ve only ever talked about subject a and b and will certainly not cover subject c before next week, so she is not sure, how to solve problems involving subject c
"Maybe you're not meant for me the way I'm meant for you, but I'm going to choose you anyway, over and over and over again."
Bride | Ali Hazelwood
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ᴊᴀɴᴜᴀʀʏ, ᴏɴ ᴀ ᴘᴀʀᴛɪᴄᴜʟᴀʀʟʏ ᴄʀɪꜱᴘ ᴇᴀʀʟʏ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴛ ᴄᴀᴍᴘᴜꜱ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
Elsie knew in her logical, university-level scientist brain that her friends had just roped her into calling a truce with Jack a mere month ago, and yet, as she sat across from him so early in the morning that the sun had not yet begun to shine, she found herself seriously debating the merits of using the collar of his ridiculously ornate Christmas sweater to throw him across the room. He hadn’t done anything particularly that insufferable since they’d begun their meeting a mere half-hour before, and it only served to stoke the flames of her fury, like an already-blazing fire provided with an abundance of carbon-based accelerant. It would make her life significantly easier if he would just say something patronizing, or even just mildly cold, given her some sort of ammunition to rush back to her friends with so that she could continue to justify their little version of the Cold War, but she should’ve known that Jack would never be so kind as to just hate her properly.
Instead, he had been cordial and polite in his stupid Christmas sweater. Worse still, he’d been downright gentlemanly, going so far as to offer to pay for her tea and pulling out her chair. His stupid curls were winding around the arms of his glasses and his collared shirt just barely poked out from that soft blue neckline and she could swear that the snowman on that offensively cheery off-season sweater was smirking at her.
“Elsie?” Those different- colored eyes were peering at her strangely through those horn-rimmed glasses, speckled with brown and black in a dappled tortoiseshell pattern. His blond hair shifted slightly, and Elsie was briefly reminded of an Australian Shepherd. “Elsie?”
She wondered briefly whether it was anti-animal of her to so intensely loathe a man who so closely resembled a breed of puppy. Malcom would certainly think so- while his area of interest was centred in cellular biology, he spent practically all of his free time volunteering at animal shelters to make up for the anti-pet policy that was firmly in place in the apartment he shared with Olive and Ahn. She imagined the furious back and forth she and him would have had were she to bring the topic directly to Malcolm, but the laugh that materialized at the thought was quickly stamped out by the jolt of shock that ran through her system when she registered that Jack was attempting to directly address her.
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎
- preview of ch6, quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
ᴅᴇᴄᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, ɪɴ ᴀ ᴍᴇᴛɪᴄᴜʟᴏᴜꜱʟʏ ᴏʀɢᴀɴɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴏꜰꜰɪᴄᴇ
ʙᴇʟᴏɴɢɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴀᴅᴀᴍ ᴄᴀʀʟꜱᴇɴ
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
“You don’t understand,” Jack huffed, his endless pacing threatening to wear out the already vintage carpet that lay underfoot. His crisp leather bag was haphazardly hanging off of the perfectly polished spruce wood chair that sat opposite to Adam’s similarly pristine desk, one that had now been covered in a stack of books and papers that had been angrily tossed by Jack only seconds before he began his most recent tirade.
“The issue here is not a lack of understanding on my part,” Adam cut in smoothly, his evidently increasing irritation clearly warring with his typically neutral expression. “The issue here is instead why, exactly, you booked a slot in my office hours just to complain about a colleague that you were on casual-dancing terms with at the Halloween party a mere month ago.” Jack, to Adam’s dismay, did not seem to possess the self-awareness to emit even a modicum of embarrassment for his utter disregard for Adam’s time. “How did you even find my Google Calendar to schedule this?”
Jack waved his hand in the air as if attempting to swat away Adam’s concerns like virgin lab flies. “The issue is absolutely a lack of understanding. The only reason you aren’t offering to join me at her door with a pitchfork is because you don’t understand how frustrating she-”
“And you are picturing yourself at her door…because…?” Adam trailed off, leaning back in his chair as he raised his dark eyebrows a fraction of an inch.
Jack leveled an equivalent glare right back. “I thought you were supposed to be the silent type.”
Adam shrugged. “I contain multitudes.”
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎
-ch5, quantum entanglement, by quillthrills on ao3
notes: i've been working on writing more dialogue and this is from my draft of the next quantum entanglement chapter and i really liked how it's turning out so far!!!🤭 stem romance is the genre that i'd love to one day write a proper book in, since it's pretty much a perfect intersection of all of my interests, so writng this fic has been such a dream. i would really love to do a continuation with adam & olive but for now i'm letting jack and elsie stay in the spotlight 🤭🫶
⚛︎ ˖⌬ an excerpt from quantum entanglement, ch4: ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎
Jack was somewhat preoccupied with glaring daggers at Elsie Hannaway, who he had barely been able to look away from since the moment she had walked in on those teetering tall heels, strung between the arms of Olive and another girl Jack didn’t recognize. He had been in the middle of a conversation when the three had walked in, and Jack had immediately gone to tease Adam upon seeing that he had accidentally matched costumes with Olive, only for the words to die on his tongue the moment that his gaze drifted to the girl on her right.
Elsie. With tall heels, and long legs, and a tiny little short black shift dress, and cat ears. Elsie. With drawn-on sleek, feline features on one side and drawn-on neon bubbles on the other. Elsie. With a softly blooming smile on her face that died and withered and darkened as her gaze passed over him.
Dressed as Schrödinger's Cat, famously both dead and alive, all at once.. How fitting. She was, after all, simultaneously the most agreeable girl in the entire Physics department and the bane of Jack’s entire existence.
This party was meant to be an escape, a refuge from Elsie, and yet, she found him even here. Jack took another long sip of ice water, eying the shot Adam held in his hand and wishing desperately that his own drink was made of pure vodka.
“Yes?” Adam asked distractedly, and only then did Jack recall that he had just addressed him moments before. The taller man lifted a bulky black glove to his Kylo mask, adjusting it as if his matching Rey across the room could see right through him.
“ Talk to her.” His words were blunt, but Jack’s tone was nothing but sympathetic. He owed at least that much to Adam, considering that Holden Rodrigez, the one who would usually talk some sense into the two of them, was off in a corner making out with who knows who. “Even if she doesn’t remember you.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Adam’s tone was nervous, uncharacteristically unsure for the man who had one of the most formidable academic records in the school’s recent history.
“Then you start fresh.” Jack’s gaze drifted over Elsie, yet again , against his own free will. “Trust me, history is a hell of a lot harder to deal with than the lack of one.”
Across the room, as if she’d heard him, Elsie leaned over to the friend Jack didn’t know, whispering something before stalking across the room, straight for him. And yes, Jack meant stalking . Something about the way her strappy heels cut through the crowd made him feel the heat of her focus more than he ever had. Beside him, Jack was vaguely aware of Adam throwing back a shot and clapping him on the back in an uncharacteristically frat-boy-ish manner as he strode past him, his own path mirroring that of Elsie’s.
Jack stayed rooted in place. He wasn’t sure he could have moved even if he wanted to. Elsie’s gaze had him pinned. Still, her gait seemed increasingly off as she got closer and closer. Her last few steps seemed to jumble together, and all at once, she was in his arms. Warm, and real. A bit too drunk, the scent of sickly sugary fruity cocktails mixed with the sweet honey and old-paper scent that had haunted him over the last handful of months.
Jack wrinkled his nose at the syrupy scent as it assaulted his senses.
“Were the cocktails good enough to justify the hyperglycemia, at least?” He watched as Elsie’s glare only grew at his casual mention of her diabetes. It had been her best kept secret up until she had passed out late at night a handful of weeks before in the library. Jack had only found her in time because she’d intentionally taken his typical study spot just to get under his skin, a particularly evil habit of hers that he was suddenly grateful for as he helped her adjust her insulin levels until she had recovered enough to hate him for it.
“For your information, as an adult, and a very capable scientist, I am more than capable of adjusting my insulin accordingly.” She turned up her whisker-painted nose haughtily.
“But not capable or adult enough to keep your friends informed on your health?” From the way Elsie flushed red in irritation, Jack knew that his barb had hit the mark- he clearly remained the only person within the radius of their university who was aware of her diagnosis. Her lips parted, itching to retort, but he only raised a finger, tired of fighting her after years of doing nothing but bickering. “Please, Elsie. You’re drunk, and I’m well aware that you hate me. You don’t need to remind me.” His gaze fixed on a point behind her, and Elsie turned to watch alongside him as Adam and Olive danced, the latter looking up with a smile on her face that lit up the entire room.
Jack could only assume that underneath his mask, Adam wore a corresponding tiny half-grin.
“You’re the one who made it my mission to dislike you,” Elsie huffed, bringing his attention right back to her, “seeing as you hate what I hold dearest in this entire world.”
Jack couldn’t bite back his tongue quickly enough to soften his rebuttal. “What, hiding your feelings from everyone around them and subjecting me to every last one?”
Elsie refused to dignify his words with a direct response. “Besides, you’re as drunk as everyone else here. You must be, considering that you usually never bother saying more than one or two words to me at once.”
“Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m just as sober as I am every day in the classroom.” He tipped his class of water against her long-stemmed glass, grinning widely at the chance to be right. “So no, I’m not drunk.”
“Are too,” Elsie scowled.
“Now who’s the adult?” Jack crowed, throwing back another sip of water before lightly easing Elsie’s sugar-rimmed margarita out of her hands and setting it on the table behind them. He expected her to fight back, to snatch at the table and run back to her friends so that she could spend the rest of the night cursing his name, but she did none of that.
Instead, Elsie tipped back her head and laughed, the sound like the clinking glass of beakers settling into a wooden storage frame, and Jack was hit by the thought that perhaps she was slightly more drunk than he had accounted for.
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
-quantum entanglement, quillthrills on ao3
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ quantum entanglement ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
Elsie wasn’t quite sure how to communicate the magnitude of her gratitude without shifting their dynamic from mortal enemies to something…else.
She meant to thank him, in a way that would be normal for a TA to speak to her fellow TA, in a way that was perfectly normal and unassuming so that she could move away from Jack’s brief moment of human-ness, but all that came out was “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
She meant to make him smile, meant to maybe soften the hard lines of his face into something that looked slightly less neutral toward her, but instead, she watched a wave of tension roll through the muscles of his jaw, watched his navy sleeves shift and strain slightly as he crossed his arms over one another.
“Right,” He said softly, and his tone was civil on the surface, but at the same time, cold , so much colder than the friendly one he had offered Ivy.
A few more moments passed, and Elsie felt like the Titanic, facing against the icy chill of the towering iceberg and certain death. “...Okay, did I do something, or…?”
The sounds of shuffling and flipping pages began to calm and quiet, the clatters and rustling ebbing as Jack and Elsie straightened, feeling the attention of a class teeming with first years suddenly shift entirely to them as the clock hands turned and ticked their way to eight o’ clock sharp.
“Did I?” Jack's eyes flicked to her in the few moments before the overlapping background sounds dissipated entirely, and even if he kept his face neutral, his tone, the way he emphasized “I”, was anything but. Her lips parted and she felt her eyes widen, her jaw loosen in surprise.
He turned back to the lecture hall, and his next words were barely a mutter as he leaned past her to adjust his laptop and pull up the slides she’d watched him go over a million times in the last forty-five minutes. Her eyes didn’t leave his face, and when he spoke, his lips parted so briefly that she was could have been convinced he hadn’t spoken at all, if it hadn’t been for the little look he tossed at her back over his shoulder, his gaze locking so closely with her that she was sure she couldn’t have looked away even if she tried.
“You tell me , Elsie.”
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
-quantum entanglement, quillthrills on ao3
quill i literally follow you for your avatar the last airbender fics but when i got the email notification that you had posted a new fic about these two romance book characters i was like. yk what sure. let's give it a whirl.
HOLYYY i was not expecting to enjoy this so much. the way you write dialogue and inner monologues is so engaging and i know nothing about ali hazelwood or any of the characters but i love it so much so far.
the enemies to lovers is being set up so well and your writing style is so professional?? but also very approachable??? if that makes any sense anyways ily and now i'm hooked on characters i had literally never heard of.
everyone who is reading this I'M BEGGING YOU TO GO READ QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT even if you know nothing about ali hazelwood characters you will love it i promise ❤️
screaming. crying. this is the kindest thing i've ever read in my life 🥺🫶 anon THANK U SM wtf<3
if you want to listen to anon and read quantum entanglement (which is my love, theoretically fanfic in which two overachieving physicists are forced to co-TA a first year physics class and enemies to lovers ensues), you can find it right here:) anyways ily anon this made my whole week and you're too kind<3
THIS IS NOW POSTEDDDD 😚 HOPE U ENJOY THE NEW FIC <3
lines from my WIP:
what if jack & elsie from love, theoretically met as rival undergraduates, and were forced to co-TA a first-year physics class?
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
˗ˏˋ fic summary: ˎˊ˗
elsie hannaway, famed people pleaser, hates jack smith turner with a burning passion. since the very moment she looked up the cute boy in her first year physics class excitedly, only to realize that he had been behind the paper years before that had single handedly reduced her future field of study to a subject of mockery, elsie has taken every single negative emotion that she usually keeps locked behind a carefully curated version of herself and funnelled it into unadulterated loathing. now, in the fifth and final year of her undergraduate degree, the only thing standing between her and an acceptance into her program of choice is a spot TA-ing the university's introductory physics course. unfortunately, jack smith turner will be standing beside her as her co-TA. in theory, this is an impossible arrangement, but jack and elsie are soon to discover that things are never as they seem. elsie can be a million versions of herself simultaneously, an electron can be a particle and a wave, and perhaps jack smith turner can be both a scourge on theoretical physics and the best thing that has ever happened to her.
˗ˏˋ more lines from my WIP!!! lolllll: ˎˊ˗
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
ꜱᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀɪᴇ ᴄᴜʀɪᴇ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄꜱ ᴅᴇᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
On paper, Elsie had prepared about as much as she could for her first tutorial session. She had roped Cece into watching her go through her diligently prepared PowerPoint in exchange for watching one of the art-nouveau films she'd gotten into recently, and Elsie had spent hours doing her best to add graphics that seemed bright and approachable without looking too childish. She'd even linked report lines for student support with her female students in mind, hoping that her male students wouldn’t be able to get away with casual misogynistic jabs about women in STEM.
However, in a much more real way, Elsie felt as though she hadn’t prepared at all. She wasn’t sure it was possible at all for anyone to ever be prepared for Jack Smith Turner. There was something about him that seemed to cut straight through crowds, and more concerningly, cut through her, and Elsie would be lying if it didn’t leave her stomach doing flips every time.
She had expected Jack to be as polished as ever, but oddly enough, it seemed as though he felt similarly to her when he did arrive. He’d been almost as early as she was, but in an I’ve-been-in-a-manic-episode-of-stress-and-anxiety-since-three-in- the-morning way, which she found strangely endearing, considering that he was usually so unbothered that she’d taken to referring to him as “The Ice King” when complaining to Cece late at night. She had to tell herself not to humanize the enemy, Elsie, but it was so hard not to when he was dropping papers, tugging at his clothes, and pushing glasses up his nose that she swore he didn’t have before. For the first time in the four years she had known him, Elsie was beginning to wonder whether Jack had secretly had a soul all along. At least twenty minutes worth of rustling paper and furious typing passed before Elsie finally attempted to address the years-long-feud-shaped elephant in the room.
“I was thinking that we should split and alternate the labs,” Elsie blurted, and as the words left her lips she was immediately hit with the overwhelming urge to pull the words back and rearrange them until they sounded less strange and awkward, more poised and polished, and less like someone who had been obsessively fixating on how to best organize the course for days now.
Jack looked startled for a moment at the break in their carefully curated silence, but his features were schooled back into neutrality so quickly that Elsie wondered whether he had ever not had such a blank look on his face. “I’m sorry?”
“We should split the lab class into two groups, and alternate the experiments week to week. Then we can make the most of having two TAs, and…” She trailed off, eyes flicking away from Jack’s. “And we won’t step on each other’s toes. You won’t have to deal with me inserting theory into everything, and I won’t have to deal with your experimental whatnot. It can be like we were never stuck with each other at all.”
Jack’s eyebrows furrowed, emotion pooling in those same piercing eyes. He neatly tucked the sprawled papers in front of him into a metal-tipped navy blue folder, the same color as the waffle-fabricked Henley that had been pulling at Elsie’s attention since he had pushed through the door that morning. Elsie watched his motions almost nervously, drawn to those strong-looking hands as they dwarfed everything they picked up. “Whatever you need, Elsie,” He said simply, eyes flitting everywhere but her. His voice was flat- not happy, but not angry either. Merely unbothered, and overwhelmingly neutral.
Right then, I guess the thought of barely having to co-teach with me is so appealing that he’s ready to start pretending I’m not here already.
Elsie did her best to ignore the bitter aftertaste of her thoughts, the way something sparked in her at his indifference. Before she could say something she would almost certainly regret, the door creaked open, the hinges themselves sounding hesitant to disturb the fragile tension that hung suspended over the room. Elsie whirled toward the door, excitement spiking in her chest when her eyes landed on the girl standing nervously in the doorway, backlit by the weak fluorescence of the hallway and front-lit by the early morning sunlight streaming through the mahogany benches of the second-floor lecture hall.
She was tall, somehow both lanky and elegant, and the way she moved as she slowly approached the front desk reminded Elsie of a baby deer, all long legs and big brown eyes. Those same eyes were framed in thick black lashes, and her dark brown hair, curled and straightened in a perfect blowout, bounced around her shoulders and cascaded down her back in a shiny effortless-looking wave that made Elsie wish she had sprung for a nicer conditioner the last time she was stocking up. The girl couldn’t have been older than 17 or 18, but she looked polished beyond her years in a way Elsie could only dream of being.
Elsie was momentarily trapped in a spiral of thoughts on how much less put together her own first-year self had been in comparison, but was quickly broken out when the girl’s impossibly white sneakers squeaked to a stop in front of her. “I’m Ivy, Ivy Myers, I’m… um, here for Physics,” she paused, her eyes flitting downward to double check the Google Maps page she had pulled up on her phone, “...100?”
Elsie’s mind began whirring, scanning the girl. Nervousness. Tended toward perfectionism, if the flawlessly coiffed hair and perfectly pleated skirt were any indicator. Curiously, the books tucked under her arm were on various historical eras- Medieval History (Carolingian-Era Conflict), said one, while another was titled, The Masculinization of Women’s Medicine through Early France, the spines colored in complementary shades of deep pinks and blues.
Perfect. Interests to appeal to.
Elsie beamed, adopting a bubbly tone as she adjusted her posture from tired, overworked-TA to cheerleader-off-duty. She figured that considering how shy Ivy seemed, she might mesh a bit better with someone willing to go out of their way to make her feel comfortable. “Oh my gosh, I love the Carolingian era!”
“Really?” Ivy beamed, her eyes lighting up.
“...Really?” Jack lifted an eyebrow, and Elsie shot him a glare over her shoulder, bristling at his incredulous tone. Okay, maybe she wasn’t really into the Carolingian era, and in fact knew absolutely nothing about it, but Jack certainly didn’t know that, and she was strangely irritated at him for behaving as if he knew anything about her or her interests.
Ivy continued on, unbothered by the tense exchange between the two TAs. “I’m, um, actually a History major. The Arts advisors told me that I needed to take a science class to fulfill a requirement, so…” Ivy shrugged. “Here I am.” She bit her lip, looking off to the side somewhat. “I… I was just hoping to come in early to ask the two of you some questions?”
Elsie and Jack exchanged a sidelong look, their gazes filled with confusion rather than anger for once as they attempted to communicate their mutual skepticism telepathically. “We haven’t assigned any of the readings or practice problems yet,” Jack said, and his tone was gentle in a way that Elsie had never heard before. It was strangely sweet, hearing his voice at a low, placating rumble. “So there’s no need to-”
“I bought the textbook ahead of time.” Ivy tugged a folder filled with neatly done practice problems out from in between the history books she still clutched under her arm, and Elsie could see that some were highlighted with question marks and hastily scrawled notes in pink sparkly pen. “I know what science students think of people in humanities programs, and I didn’t want to give anyone any reason to think any less of me, so…” She trailed off again, but Elsie had heard enough that her heart broke a little for this perfectly polished girl and her need to defend her intelligence against a hypothetical room of science students who all thought less of her. Her lips parted to say something, anything to comfort her new student, but Jack beat her to the punch.
“If anyone in this class gives you a hard time, or anyone in the program for that matter, please don’t hesitate to come to me. Elitism has no place in the sciences, and it certainly has no place in our classroom.” He looked to Elsie for confirmation and she nodded quickly, somewhat stunned at the intensity of his tone. Here he was, the face of all experimental physicists who thought themselves better than theorists, and yet, he was taking a hard stance against elitism, against self-superiority. Elsie couldn’t quite tell if he was merely a walking contradiction, or if she had misjudged him just a bit too harshly.
“And Ivy?” He continued, leaning down slightly to meet her eyes properly. “You’re putting in more work on the first day than most of the people in this class will this whole year. Don’t forget that. You deserve a seat in this classroom just as much as anyone else.” He looked as though he would’ve continued, but the door creaked open yet again, this time making way for a flood of buzzing first-years scrambling to find seats and compare Rate My Prof scores.
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
♥ i'm working on making a full one-shot of this, and my ao3 is here if you'd like to stick around for it to come out:) ->
˗ˏˋquillthrills on ao3ˎˊ˗
lines from my WIP:
what if jack & elsie from love, theoretically met as rival undergraduates, and were forced to co-TA a first-year physics class?
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
˗ˏˋ fic summary: ˎˊ˗
elsie hannaway, famed people pleaser, hates jack smith turner with a burning passion. since the very moment she looked up the cute boy in her first year physics class excitedly, only to realize that he had been behind the paper years before that had single handedly reduced her future field of study to a subject of mockery, elsie has taken every single negative emotion that she usually keeps locked behind a carefully curated version of herself and funnelled it into unadulterated loathing. now, in the fifth and final year of her undergraduate degree, the only thing standing between her and an acceptance into her program of choice is a spot TA-ing the university's introductory physics course. unfortunately, jack smith turner will be standing beside her as her co-TA. in theory, this is an impossible arrangement, but jack and elsie are soon to discover that things are never as they seem. elsie can be a million versions of herself simultaneously, an electron can be a particle and a wave, and perhaps jack smith turner can be both a scourge on theoretical physics and the best thing that has ever happened to her.
˗ˏˋ more lines from my WIP!!! lolllll: ˎˊ˗
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
ꜱᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀɪᴇ ᴄᴜʀɪᴇ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄꜱ ᴅᴇᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ
⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖ ⌬ ⋆ ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖
On paper, Elsie had prepared about as much as she could for her first tutorial session. She had roped Cece into watching her go through her diligently prepared PowerPoint in exchange for watching one of the art-nouveau films she'd gotten into recently, and Elsie had spent hours doing her best to add graphics that seemed bright and approachable without looking too childish. She'd even linked report lines for student support with her female students in mind, hoping that her male students wouldn’t be able to get away with casual misogynistic jabs about women in STEM.
However, in a much more real way, Elsie felt as though she hadn’t prepared at all. She wasn’t sure it was possible at all for anyone to ever be prepared for Jack Smith Turner. There was something about him that seemed to cut straight through crowds, and more concerningly, cut through her, and Elsie would be lying if it didn’t leave her stomach doing flips every time.
She had expected Jack to be as polished as ever, but oddly enough, it seemed as though he felt similarly to her when he did arrive. He’d been almost as early as she was, but in an I’ve-been-in-a-manic-episode-of-stress-and-anxiety-since-three-in- the-morning way, which she found strangely endearing, considering that he was usually so unbothered that she’d taken to referring to him as “The Ice King” when complaining to Cece late at night. She had to tell herself not to humanize the enemy, Elsie, but it was so hard not to when he was dropping papers, tugging at his clothes, and pushing glasses up his nose that she swore he didn’t have before. For the first time in the four years she had known him, Elsie was beginning to wonder whether Jack had secretly had a soul all along. At least twenty minutes worth of rustling paper and furious typing passed before Elsie finally attempted to address the years-long-feud-shaped elephant in the room.
“I was thinking that we should split and alternate the labs,” Elsie blurted, and as the words left her lips she was immediately hit with the overwhelming urge to pull the words back and rearrange them until they sounded less strange and awkward, more poised and polished, and less like someone who had been obsessively fixating on how to best organize the course for days now.
Jack looked startled for a moment at the break in their carefully curated silence, but his features were schooled back into neutrality so quickly that Elsie wondered whether he had ever not had such a blank look on his face. “I’m sorry?”
“We should split the lab class into two groups, and alternate the experiments week to week. Then we can make the most of having two TAs, and…” She trailed off, eyes flicking away from Jack’s. “And we won’t step on each other’s toes. You won’t have to deal with me inserting theory into everything, and I won’t have to deal with your experimental whatnot. It can be like we were never stuck with each other at all.”
Jack’s eyebrows furrowed, emotion pooling in those same piercing eyes. He neatly tucked the sprawled papers in front of him into a metal-tipped navy blue folder, the same color as the waffle-fabricked Henley that had been pulling at Elsie’s attention since he had pushed through the door that morning. Elsie watched his motions almost nervously, drawn to those strong-looking hands as they dwarfed everything they picked up. “Whatever you need, Elsie,” He said simply, eyes flitting everywhere but her. His voice was flat- not happy, but not angry either. Merely unbothered, and overwhelmingly neutral.
Right then, I guess the thought of barely having to co-teach with me is so appealing that he’s ready to start pretending I’m not here already.
Elsie did her best to ignore the bitter aftertaste of her thoughts, the way something sparked in her at his indifference. Before she could say something she would almost certainly regret, the door creaked open, the hinges themselves sounding hesitant to disturb the fragile tension that hung suspended over the room. Elsie whirled toward the door, excitement spiking in her chest when her eyes landed on the girl standing nervously in the doorway, backlit by the weak fluorescence of the hallway and front-lit by the early morning sunlight streaming through the mahogany benches of the second-floor lecture hall.
She was tall, somehow both lanky and elegant, and the way she moved as she slowly approached the front desk reminded Elsie of a baby deer, all long legs and big brown eyes. Those same eyes were framed in thick black lashes, and her dark brown hair, curled and straightened in a perfect blowout, bounced around her shoulders and cascaded down her back in a shiny effortless-looking wave that made Elsie wish she had sprung for a nicer conditioner the last time she was stocking up. The girl couldn’t have been older than 17 or 18, but she looked polished beyond her years in a way Elsie could only dream of being.
Elsie was momentarily trapped in a spiral of thoughts on how much less put together her own first-year self had been in comparison, but was quickly broken out when the girl’s impossibly white sneakers squeaked to a stop in front of her. “I’m Ivy, Ivy Myers, I’m… um, here for Physics,” she paused, her eyes flitting downward to double check the Google Maps page she had pulled up on her phone, “...100?”
Elsie’s mind began whirring, scanning the girl. Nervousness. Tended toward perfectionism, if the flawlessly coiffed hair and perfectly pleated skirt were any indicator. Curiously, the books tucked under her arm were on various historical eras- Medieval History (Carolingian-Era Conflict), said one, while another was titled, The Masculinization of Women’s Medicine through Early France, the spines colored in complementary shades of deep pinks and blues.
Perfect. Interests to appeal to.
Elsie beamed, adopting a bubbly tone as she adjusted her posture from tired, overworked-TA to cheerleader-off-duty. She figured that considering how shy Ivy seemed, she might mesh a bit better with someone willing to go out of their way to make her feel comfortable. “Oh my gosh, I love the Carolingian era!”
“Really?” Ivy beamed, her eyes lighting up.
“...Really?” Jack lifted an eyebrow, and Elsie shot him a glare over her shoulder, bristling at his incredulous tone. Okay, maybe she wasn’t really into the Carolingian era, and in fact knew absolutely nothing about it, but Jack certainly didn’t know that, and she was strangely irritated at him for behaving as if he knew anything about her or her interests.
Ivy continued on, unbothered by the tense exchange between the two TAs. “I’m, um, actually a History major. The Arts advisors told me that I needed to take a science class to fulfill a requirement, so…” Ivy shrugged. “Here I am.” She bit her lip, looking off to the side somewhat. “I… I was just hoping to come in early to ask the two of you some questions?”
Elsie and Jack exchanged a sidelong look, their gazes filled with confusion rather than anger for once as they attempted to communicate their mutual skepticism telepathically. “We haven’t assigned any of the readings or practice problems yet,” Jack said, and his tone was gentle in a way that Elsie had never heard before. It was strangely sweet, hearing his voice at a low, placating rumble. “So there’s no need to-”
“I bought the textbook ahead of time.” Ivy tugged a folder filled with neatly done practice problems out from in between the history books she still clutched under her arm, and Elsie could see that some were highlighted with question marks and hastily scrawled notes in pink sparkly pen. “I know what science students think of people in humanities programs, and I didn’t want to give anyone any reason to think any less of me, so…” She trailed off again, but Elsie had heard enough that her heart broke a little for this perfectly polished girl and her need to defend her intelligence against a hypothetical room of science students who all thought less of her. Her lips parted to say something, anything to comfort her new student, but Jack beat her to the punch.
“If anyone in this class gives you a hard time, or anyone in the program for that matter, please don’t hesitate to come to me. Elitism has no place in the sciences, and it certainly has no place in our classroom.” He looked to Elsie for confirmation and she nodded quickly, somewhat stunned at the intensity of his tone. Here he was, the face of all experimental physicists who thought themselves better than theorists, and yet, he was taking a hard stance against elitism, against self-superiority. Elsie couldn’t quite tell if he was merely a walking contradiction, or if she had misjudged him just a bit too harshly.
“And Ivy?” He continued, leaning down slightly to meet her eyes properly. “You’re putting in more work on the first day than most of the people in this class will this whole year. Don’t forget that. You deserve a seat in this classroom just as much as anyone else.” He looked as though he would’ve continued, but the door creaked open yet again, this time making way for a flood of buzzing first-years scrambling to find seats and compare Rate My Prof scores.
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♥ i'm working on making a full one-shot of this, and my ao3 is here if you'd like to stick around for it to come out:) ->
˗ˏˋquillthrills on ao3ˎˊ˗
what if jack & elsie from love, theoretically met as rival undergraduates, and were forced to co-TA a first-year physics class?
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˗ˏˋ fic summary: ˎˊ˗
elsie hannaway, famed people pleaser, hates jack smith turner with a burning passion. since the very moment she looked up the cute boy in her first year physics class excitedly, only to realize that he had been behind the paper years before that had single handedly reduced her future field of study to a subject of mockery, elsie has taken every single negative emotion that she usually keeps locked behind a carefully curated version of herself and funnelled it into unadulterated loathing. now, in the fifth and final year of her undergraduate degree, the only thing standing between her and an acceptance into her program of choice is a spot TA-ing the university's introductory physics course. unfortunately, jack smith turner will be standing beside her as her co-TA. in theory, this is an impossible arrangement, but jack and elsie are soon to discover that things are never as they seem. elsie can be a million versions of herself simultaneously, an electron can be a particle and a wave, and perhaps jack smith turner can be both a scourge on theoretical physics and the best thing that has ever happened to her.
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˗ˏˋ sneak peak: ˎˊ˗
As she stormed up the stairs to the TA coordination overseer’s office, Elsie thought to herself that this was perhaps the most anger she had ever allowed herself to feel in all twenty-one years of her life thus far. Worse than her flare of irritation at Ceecee months before for allowing her evil spikeball to eat the rare cheese collection Elsie had sprung for as a self-gifted birthday present, certainly worse than that time when that same spiny ball of fury had taken a midday nap on the seat of her office chair, and somehow, worse than the fateful publication in Annals of Theoretical Physics that had undermined her future field of study entirely for years to come.
Yes, all of that certainly paled in comparison to the events that had been set into motion only days before when she had, naively and idiotically, she might add, assumed that becoming an undergraduate TA in the last year of her degree could lead to nothing but good things. A boost on her grad school applications? Check. The ability to endow the incoming freshmen with a lifelong love and passion for physics? Double check. Co-TA-ing with the absolute blight on theoretical physics that was Jack Smith Turner? Who also happened to be six and a half feet of unfairly cruel gorgeousness? Who also also had sealed his fate as her sworn enemy since the faithful day he’d taken the last first-row seat in their Physics 110 class?
Unfortunately, quintuple-check, which is why she was currently storming up the stairs to the TA coordination center, only footsteps behind said long-legged perpetual thorn in her side.
“It isn’t too late to give up and turn around, Jack,” Elsie huffed, mentally making a note to join Cece on her early-morning runs more often as she charged forward, propelled by pure indignation alone. “This is my TA spot, and we both know it.”
“Elsie, for the last time, there is no reason why we can’t just do this together,” Jack sighed, unfairly calm and unbothered-looking for someone who had remained several steps ahead of her since they’d begun climbing four flights of stairs ago. “The class is too large for one TA. You can’t run labs by yourself, an-”
“Oh, I can’t run labs by myself?” Elsie seethed, her rage peaking more steeply than a displacement verses time graph with increasing velocity- a concept that she could certainly teach better than this elitist theoretical-physics-invalidator-robot masquerading as a science undergraduate. Typically, she would never allow herself to snap at anyone the way she was now, but there was something about Jack that single-handedly managed to unravel every last one of her meticulously curated alternate personalities, and she hated him with the fire of a thousand Wolf-Rayet stars for it. The logical part of her brain knew that more likely than not, Jack was only intending to point out the obvious- that a class of two hundred plus only one TA would undoubtedly lead to disaster regardless of said TA’s competence- but something about his tone, so smooth and careful and goddamn patronizing was enough for her to allow her irritation to show quite plainly.
“Elsie, you and I both know that’s not what I meant.” Jack groaned, halting in front of her to hold open the door, and Elsie had to bite her tongue to hold back her thanks. As she stormed through ahead of him, she thought that she saw his eyes lock onto her face for a moment, his gaze rapt with attention. His next words were a bit softer, more likely than not an attempt to placate her into not begging the coordinator to remove him from the course. “You’re smarter than deliberate misinterpretations.”
Elsie couldn’t quite think of a sufficiently snappy response. She settled on, “You don’t know that,” which was admittedly not exactly her best scathing retort.
“I’d like to think I do.”
Elsie paused at the note of sincerity, her eyes flicking back to meet his, which hadn’t left her since she’d passed him at the door. “If I have even a little bit of luck, which unfortunately seems unlikely considering that I’ve been assigned to TA a year-long class with the guy that tried to delegitimize my entire field of interest when he was seventeen, you’ll never know me well enough to confirm or deny that.” Elsie’s voice was cold now, any hint of teasing gone, and with that, she pivoted sharply. If she had cared enough to see his response, she would have seen his face falling for a fraction of a second before he re-composed himself, steeling his expression once more.
After bickering back and forth for some time in the hallway outside the heavy oak door over which of the two would plead their case first, the TA coordinator on duty (who happened to be a very underpaid and understandably irritated graduate student volunteer) eventually shouted through the door that the two of them could come in together or flirt somewhere she wasn’t. Shuddering at the thought of seeing Jack in any sort of romantic light, Elsie had pushed open the door first, with Jack hot on her heels.
After only five minutes of the pair repeatedly cutting off one another and glaring vehemently at each other, the coordinator cut through their chatter with a single raised finger and a glare that entirely silenced both of them more effectively than the mute button on a remote.
“Enough, please.” The coordinator, whose name according to her desk sign was Ashley, slid her head into her hands in exasperation, her irritation evident. The beads at the end of her blond braids clicked against the thick wooden desk and then her chair as she straightened, facing the two head-on. Her British accent had been more subtle when she had welcomed the pair in, but its increased intensity seemed to be directly correlated with the length of time she spent with the pair. She couldn’t have been any older than twenty-four or twenty-five, but she looked as tired as if she had been dealing with the two for years. “I can’t shuffle the first-year’s TA’s on a whim just because of some…petty rivalry.”
Both Elsie and Jack surged forward, their words overlapping urgently as they attempted to communicate that no, this was very much more serious than a petty rivalry, but both shut up upon seeing the single finger Ashley raised in anticipation of their protest. “It’s not my job to understand the distinction between a petty rivalry and whatever layered conflict the two of you have going on, nor is it my job to mediate said conflict, but it is my job to make sure that this class is staffed. The two of you will be working together, whether you like it or not, so I would suggest making your way to the counselling office instead.” Ashley’s eyes slid between the two of them, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe they can help you two sort out all this… tension.”
Elsie and Jack, understanding all at once that they had managed to push Ashley to the end of her rope, rose from their seats and shuffled to the door as if they had been put in time-out.
As they began down the hallway, Elsie’s ballet flats clicking sharply against the navy-tiled floor, Elsie swore she heard Ashley add under her breath, “...Or, you two could just hook up already and stop subjecting the rest of us to your weirdo version of flirting.”
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♥ my ao3 is here if you'd like to stick around to read the rest of this multichap->
˗ˏˋquillthrills on ao3ˎˊ˗
@ever-so-ali i am obsessed with everything you've ever written hopefully i can one day join you on the other end of the fanfic writer -> published author pipeline
Love on the Brain 🩷🧠 🔭🧬🐈🍩🩷