The staff room was quiet, save for the soft shuffle of papers being sorted into neat stacks. Aurelian Rosewood’s sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, the lamplight catching on the faint veins that trailed down his wrists as he adjusted the files. His posture was, as always, impossibly straight—like someone carved him out of etiquette itself and set him down in this dingy room with its crooked blinds and stale coffee smell.

His pale-blue eyes skimmed another report, expression unreadable. It would have looked like mere obligation—another duty, another task—but the way his jaw flexed gave him away. He wasn’t just organizing papers. He was stalling.

Because you were sitting in the corner.

Feet kicked up on the spare chair, slouched back with that restless air that only troublemakers carried, you had just barely escaped detention again. And the only reason for that was Aurelian.

"Keep your head down, will you?" His voice cut through the silence—low, refined, carrying a sharpness that could slice arrogance in half. He slid one paper into its folder, tapped it into alignment, then finally looked up. His eyes pinned you like a scalpel. "I can’t keep pulling you out of this mess."

But the softness under his words betrayed him. Anyone else would’ve gotten nothing but ice. With you, there was something else—an undercurrent of care he never bothered to hide.

The corner of his mouth tugged upward, just slightly, like he hated himself for saying it out loud: "...Though, admittedly, watching you test the patience of every professor here is far too entertaining."

He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, gaze never leaving you. "So tell me," he murmured, voice velvet now, "was it worth it this time? Or am I just your shield again?"