Been thinking about a clichĂŠ college AU Flambert with a side of betting: Chad, frat boy and football player, makes a bet with his friends that he can sleep with Robert Robertson, an engineering (or robotics) major and the one person on campus who genuinely cannot stand him.
The bet happens at a frat party after Victor and the others start giving Chad shit about âlosing his edge,â which is an insane accusation to make just because heâs been bored lately. Nobody interesting crossing his path for a couple of weeks is not the same thing as him going soft, and he isnât about to let them act like it is. One stupid challenge later, there is a hundred dollars on the line, a month to pull it off, and Chad, being Chad, shakes on it without hesitation because at that point it still sounds like easy money.
Then the front door opens, and in walks Robert Robertson with his friends.
Victor laughs so hard he nearly falls off the couch. Chad, meanwhile, is left wondering whether homicide counts as forfeiting, because Robert is the one person on campus he never would have picked for this. Heâs too smart, too sharp, too self-contained in that maddening way that makes everyone else feel flimsy by comparison. Heâs the kind of engineering and robotics major that professors know by name and other students talk about in the library like heâs some kind of academic cryptid. Terrifyingly competent, annoyingly unreadable, and, more personally, the reason Chad lost a tooth freshman year.
Or fine, technically Chad had been the one who tried to swing at him and missed. But Robert threw the water first, and Chad still feels like that should count for something.
So no, this is not ideal.
Still, thereâs no way heâs backing out now, especially not with Victor already wheezing himself half to death on the couch. He spends the rest of the night trying to get Robert alone and failing spectacularly. Robert is never by himself for long. Mandy's with him half the time, and when she isnât, somebody else always isâa classmate, a friend, a lab partner, some random honors kid who probably color-codes his notes. Every time Chad thinks he has an opening, Robert is already turning away, already leaving, already looking at him like whatever Chad is trying to do is too obvious to be worth acknowledging.
And that look, more than anything else, is what gets under Chadâs skin.
At some point Robert disappears upstairs, and Chad waits just long enough to avoid looking desperate before following him to one of the spare bedrooms with a narrow balcony off the back. Robert is standing outside with a cigarette between his fingers and, as it turns out, no lighter. Chad lights it for him, tries to make the gesture look casual, and gets called on it almost immediately. Somehow, in what becomes one of the more humiliating moments of his life, he then hears himself asking Robert if he would tutor him in Quantitative Decision Modeling, a real class he is absolutely bombing (and an excuse he made up on the spot to continue talking to him).
Robert lifts an eyebrow and says the price of any help at all is an apology for freshman year.
Chad gives him a terrible one first, obviously. It is defensive and half-assed and packed with enough sarcasm to ruin the whole effort, and Robert just stands there, unimpressed. So Chad tries again, this time admitting plainly that he was an asshole, that trying to punch him had been a stupid move, and that being drunk and pissed off did not make it right.
Robert studies him for a moment, exhales smoke into the dark, and says, âAlright. Thatâs probably as good as it gets from you.â
âSo,â Chad says. âYouâll tutor me?â
Robert blinks. âI never said that.â
Chad stares.
âI donât know what your angle is, but I wasnât the only one who took that class. Iâm sure you can find another tutor in no time,â Robert says, stepping back toward the doorway, and then, with a shit-eating grin, adds, âThanks for the apology, though.â
Chad ends up standing there on the balcony, irritated, embarrassed, and strangely exhilarated, because for the first time in weeks he isn't bored anymore.
So he keeps at it.
He starts showing up at Robertâs job to order coffee. He appears in the library with increasingly flimsy excuses. He lingers outside classrooms he has no business being near, complains loudly about QDM in places where Robert can absolutely overhear him, and generally makes himself impossible to ignore. Robert tells him to get lost every single time. Chad keeps coming back every single time.
At first it's mostly persistence and irritation, with Chad treating the whole thing like a challenge and Robert refusing to give him an inch. Then Robert makes the mistake of glancing at one of Chadâs assignments, and maybe âmistakeâ is not the right word because inevitability feels more accurate. Chad has come armed with a half-finished paper so catastrophically bad it looks like it was written by a toddler, and Robert reacts to it like Chad had personally insulted him.
Eventually pity, money, and Chadâs utter refusal to disappear wear Robert down enough that he agrees.
And that's when things really start going wrong.
Because the tutoring is awfulâgenuinely, spectacularly awfulâbut not in any way that makes Chad want to stop. Robert is ruthless from the start, taking one look at Chadâs notes and informing him that they read like they were written by someone with a concussion. Chad, unwilling to let that stand, fires back. From there it only escalates. Robert says Chad has the attention span of a badly socialized puppy; Chad calls him an elitist snob with a superiority complex and a dangerous caffeine dependency. They spend entire sessions fighting over concepts Chad should have learned weeks ago, and somehow Chad ends up having more fun than he's had in months.
Thatâs the problem, really. Nobody ever keeps up with him like this. Most people either laugh, flirt, get flustered, or let him win eventually. Robert does none of those things. He meets Chad point for point, insult for insult, with dry, vicious little comments delivered in the flattest tone imaginable, and the meaner he gets when heâs tired, the more Chad likes him for it. Their tutoring sessions start to feel less like academic help and more like foreplay by combat.
Somewhere along the way, tutoring stops being just tutoring. It turns into coffee after the library, then diner food because they stay so late studying they get kicked out of the cafĂŠ. Chad starts walking Robert home after late-night sessions. Robert starts visiting him at practice. Chad begins showing up at Robertâs apartment with assignments in one hand and takeout in the other, and Robert complains every single time before stepping aside and letting him in.
The line blurs so gradually Chad barely notices it happening.
They still bicker constantly, still snipe at each other on instinct, but now Robert nudges his foot against Chadâs under the table when Chad gets too smug, and Chad knows what kind of coffee Robert buys after a terrible lab day. Robert learns that when Chad gets unusually quiet, it means he's actually trying and not just zoning out, and Chadâwithout ever meaning toâstarts collecting details about him. What music he studies to. How he rubs at the bridge of his nose when heâs tired. How different he looks when he lets himself relax.
Chad starts finding excuses to touch him. A hand on his lower back. Fingers brushing when he steals Robertâs pen. His arm slung around Robertâs shoulders on the walk home, late enough at night that either of them can pretend it means less than it does. Their tutoring sessions turn into hangouts so naturally that by the time they're obviously dates, neither of them ever bothers saying the word.
One night Chad shows up at Robertâs apartment with food because Robert had mentioned, almost absentmindedly, that he hadn't eaten since lunch. Robert opens the door in an old sweatshirt, looks at the takeout bag, looks at Chad, and steps aside without a word. His apartment is cramped, cluttered, and overflowing with textbooks, wires, coffee cups, loose papers, mechanical parts, and half-finished projects. The kitchen table is buried under enough engineering debris that they end up eating on the floor instead. Chad makes a joke about getting tetanus just from looking at the place, and Robert tells him to shut up and hand over the chopsticks.
So they sit there shoulder to shoulder while the city outside the window slowly darkens, and the conversation drifts from classes to football to robotics to professors to all the tiny, useless details that make up a person. Somewhere in the middle of Robert explaining a project with his hands moving fast and animated through the air, Chad realizes he could listen to him talk for hours. Robert, for his part, watches Chad with that same sharp, assessing look of his, but there's something different in it now, something more curious than dismissive.
When they finally hook up, it feels less like a surprise and more like inevitability. Chad is leaning over Robertâs shoulder to look at a problem set, Robert turns to say something, and suddenly theyâre too close. Robertâs mouth is right there, and then one of them kisses the otherâChad can't even remember who moved first, only that suddenly Robertâs mouth was there and then everywhere, and then Chad had him backed against the counter with his hands in Chadâs shirt and his teeth at Chadâs lower lip.
âYou are so annoying,â Robert says into his mouth.
âYou like me.â
âI tolerate you.â
âLiar.â
âDick.â
It's messy and hot and a little mean in the way they both like best, all the tension of weeks collapsing at once. Chad had expected it to feel like winning.
Instead it feels like relief.
After that, everything blurs.
Chad finds himself wanting him with a kind of intensity that starts to feel genuinely humiliating.
Not just physically, although physically too, obviously. He wants the bickering, the texts, the tutoring, the late-night food runs, the way Robert looks at him when he says something especially stupid. He wants to keep sliding into Robertâs life until thereâs no point anymore where one ends and the other begins. He wants it all in a way that should really alarm him.
After that, tutoring becomes the excuse instead of the reason. Chad ends up in Robertâs bed often enough that leaving a toothbrush just feels right. Robert falls asleep against him on the couch. Chad, who has never thought of himself as someone built for anything remotely domestic, discovers that he wants it with a sincerity that feels actively dangerous. He wants the sex, sure, and the banter and the thrill of matching Robert blow for blow, but he also wants the stupid small things: shared takeout, cranky mornings, Robert fitting himself into the shape of Chadâs life so neatly it starts to seem like he was always meant to be there.
Which is how Chad, against all odds and common sense, catches real feelings.
Naturally, thatâs when things go to shit.
It happens during a hangout with Chadâs friends; itâs the first time Robert is meeting everyone officially. Victor, being Victor, says something offhand about how he still cannot believe any of this started because of the bet, and the room goes dead still. Robert looks from Victor to Chad and asks, âWhat bet?â
Chad feels every muscle in his body lock up. Victorâs face goes blank with horror a second too late, and Robertâs expression changes in such small increments most people probably would have missed it. Chad does not. He sees the warmth drain out first, then the amusement, then everything else, until what is left is cold enough to make him feel sick.
âRobert,â Chad says immediately. âFuck wait, let me explainââ
âFuck you,â Robert says, and leaves.
Of course Chad goes after him. Robert won't let him get close enough to touch, and after that nothing works. Chad texts, calls, shows up, tries apology after apology, and gets nowhere. At first he convinces himself he can fix it if he just finds the right words, but after a week passes he is forced to accept that this is not the kind of damage you can smooth over with words alone. He tries to do the mature thing and give Robert space, which lasts maybe two days before he completely loses his mind.
Flowers come first. Robert leaves them outside his apartment until somebody else takes them. Chad tries alcohol next, leaving an expensive bottle with a note attached. That at least disappears inside, though Robert still doesn't answer. Then Chad starts writing letters, because texting is too easy to ignore and because he needs Robert to see effort, to see proof that Chad is trying in a way he has probably never really had to try for anyone else. Some of the letters are apologies, some are explanations, and some are just Chad admitting in increasingly embarrassing detail that he misses him so badly he feels physically sick.
He even asks Robertâs friends for help, which is just as humiliating as it sounds. Courtney laughs in his face, curses him out, and says he deserves to suffer. Her girlfriend Mandy is gentler, though not by much.
âHeâs hurt,â she tells Chad. âAnd angry. Which he gets to be.â
âI know.â
âDo you?â Mandy asks. âBecause every solution you come up with still sounds like you think effort should get you instant forgiveness.â
Chad hates that she's right.
He keeps trying anyway, just less carelessly now. He waves at Robert on campus and gets ignored. He holds doors open and gets brushed right past. He tries apologizing in person and Robert walks away before he gets three words out. Every rejection leaves Chad more miserable, more frustrated, and somehow more gone for him than before.
Then, because his brain is deeply diseased, he manages to switch into one of Robertâs classes.
The first time he walks in and sees Robert already sitting there, he gets exactly the reaction he anticipated: one long, flat stare that says, This again? But at least itâs something. That same week, the professor assigns a group project. Robert gets paired with some random guy. The random guy, after one suspiciously persuasive conversation with Chad in the hallway, suddenly decides he would love to switch groups after all. Robert is less than thrilled, but at least now he has to talk to Chad.
Being Robertâs project partner is not forgiveness. It isnât even kindness. Robert works him like he's extracting payment from God himself, sending him for coffee, making him carry books, redo formatting, gather sources, print articles, and rewrite sections of the project until his eyes cross. Chad lets him. Half because he deserves it, half because being ordered around by Robert is still infinitely better than being ignored.
And slowly, very slowly, the ice starts to crack.
Not enough to call it fixed. Just enough to feel like maybe it could be.
Then Alice spots Robert in a coffee shop with another guy and reports back immediately, and Chad is there in under ten minutes. The guy is leaning in. Robert is listening. Chad sees red so fast he doesn't even have time to think before he's walking over, dropping into the empty seat beside Robert, and slinging an arm over the back of his chair like he has any right to do that.
Robert turns to look at him with terrifying calm. âWhat are you doing?â
âJoining you.â
âNo, go home.â
The other guy looks deeply uncomfortable. Chad smiles at him anyway and says, âDonât mind me.â
Robert closes his eyes for a second like he is praying for patience, then turns to the guy and says, âSorry, looks like weâll have to cut this short.â The guy leaves so fast it almost makes Chad feel bad. Almost.
The second he's gone, Robert rounds on him.
âWhat the hell is wrong with you?â
âMe?â
âYes, you,â Robert snaps. âWhat was that caveman ass behavior? Territorial pissing? Should I be grateful you didnât beat your chest too?â
âI justââ
âYou do not get to ambush me, scare people off, and act possessive after what you did.â
The jealousy that got him there drains out of him all at once, replaced by the awful realization that maybe he really has gone too far this time. Robert keeps going, laying into him about boundaries, entitlement, and how embarrassing his behavior had just been, while Chad visibly deflates in real time.
Then, after a long beat, Robert sighs.
âI was tutoring him,â he says.
Chad blinks. âWhat?â
âI was just tutoring him,â Robert repeats, slower this time, like he is talking to a complete idiot.
The jealousy vanishes so fast it leaves Chad dizzy. What replaces it is such immediate, stupid relief that it must be written all over his face, because Robert looks at him and rolls his eyes.
âYou better make up for the money I lost not tutoring him,â he mutters.
âAs long as Iâm the only one you tutor, Iâll pay you triple.â
âPossessive dick.â But there is fondness in it nowâtired, reluctant, buried under exasperation, but real.
Chad grins before he can stop himself and asks, âDoes this mean I'm forgiven?â
âNo.â
His face must fall in a way that gives him away, because Robertâs gaze flicks over him and softens despite himself.
âYouâll be making this up to me for the rest of our lives,â he says, and pulls him in for a kiss.
Not for long, just enough to shut him up and wipe Chadâs brain pleasantly blank, just enough to leave him staring when they pull apart because Robert still has enough dignity left for both of them and is clearly unwilling to do more than that in public. Robert takes one look at Chadâs expression and pauses, because Chad's looking at him like he's just been handed the sun.
And what Robert sees there, with a mixture of horror and helpless affection, is love. Or something ruinously close to it.
Chad swallows once, still dazed, and says, âDoes this mean weâre getting married?â
Robert groans.
âââââââšâąâźâ˝â°âšââââââ
the thought of robert walking chad like a dog was funny to me so thats how this came to be lmao
btw if you follow me for my villain!Robert don't worry im almost done heh
