Chapter Text
For the past seven years, the same two professors in the Oxford psychology department had been consistently ranked the top two based on the student ratings each term. It was rarely consistent term to term; they’d toss the title of number one back and forth, with their average ratings never deviating more than a tenth of a point.
It was never really clear to any of the students if they actually knew each other. Occasionally after the ratings came out, they could be seen in the hallway giving a nod and a not-so-sincere “congratulations” to the other. But that was really all they ever seemed to do.
That didn’t stop teams from forming though. Each of them had their distinct fans. The students who adored Dr. Polastri despised Dr. Astankova and vice versa, and for good reason. They were vastly different in both their teaching styles and their experience. Dr. Polastri taught abnormal and clinical psychology classes, she liked to talk about the fringes of “normal” and what it meant to be or interact with someone on the fringe.
Dr. Astankova was the opposite; she was fixated with the idea of what “normal” meant. She opened every class she taught asking her students to define the word and it always truly seemed like she wanted to know their answers. She taught classes in social and personality psychology and was fascinated with how the average person acts in everyday situations and their reasons for doing so.
They both loved the world “normal”, they just cared about very different sides of it.
They also both taught a class on law and psychology, their only other real overlap. Despite being the same class, they taught it so differently that students could have practically taken them both and learned an entirely new set of material the second time around. Some students had.
Given that the two professors were huge favorites, the university had clearly allowed them to continue in their discrepant teaching for a while, but had seemed to ultimately decide that streamlining of some sort was necessary. At least, that was the only reasonable conclusion anyone could come to when it was announced that Dr. Polastri and Dr. Astankova would be co-teaching law and psychology in the upcoming quarter. It had to be the only explanation because certainly no one could think that they’d be a good teaching pair. It was bound to be an incredible and entertaining quarter though, so the seats filled up in the class within moments of registration opening.
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“This is going to be a disaster,” Eve grumbled to Oksana, “Half the class is going to be there for you and so they’ll hate me.”
“And the other half will be there for you and they’ll hate me!” Oksana finished chirpily. She was completely unperturbed. “This is going to be hilarious. We should write it up into a paper.”
“I am not writing a paper with you.”
“You say that now.”
“I am not writing a paper with you.”
“Whatever.” Oksana said, wandering over to the kitchen area. “There’s no more coffee!” she exclaimed, shocked and offended.
Eve sighed, dropping her head down onto the papers spread out across the table. “You didn’t make any more. And all of the other professors who usually make it left hours ago.”
Oksana hummed and pushed herself up to sit on the counter. “Yeah, I’ve never been in the faculty lounge this late. I’ve never been on campus this late. Why are we here? We finished the syllabus.”
“Because the class is way more than a syllabus! And you disagree with me on everything! And they have a really big table here for spreading out all this stuff so it’s a good place to work. And the wifi is really good here.”
“Yeah, but why are we still here? It’s eleven, I want to go home. We don’t need to have the entire course planned tonight. We can relax.”
Eve nervously twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “I know, you’re right. I’m just...stressing.”
Oksana got off the counter and came back over to Eve. She gave Eve a soft smile and ran a thumb across her cheek. “I know, babe, you worry too much.”
Eve relaxed into Oksana’s touch and reached up to take her hand. “Do you think people will finally notice we’re married?”
Oksana grinned. “No, we bicker too much,” she paused and leaned in close to Eve, “On the other hand, you spend way too much time gazing at me longingly, so maybe”
Eve blushed slightly and pretended to shove Oksana away. “Shut up. You’re the one who does that.”
“We both do that.”
“Yeah. Well. Behave yourself in class.”
“I’m very well behaved.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
Eve rolled her eyes and stood up, hooking her fingers through Oksana’s belt loops and pulling her close for a quick kiss. “You’re cute though. Let’s go home, we have to get up way too early tomorrow.”
Oksana squealed, “Oh, it’s going to be so exciting!”