The Bodleian Library was less a building and more a secular cathedral, its hushed reverence dedicated to the sanctity of the written word. For Ethan, it was a hunting ground. Over the next few weeks, he became a fixture in its cavernous reading rooms, not solely for his DPhil research, but for a more clandestine project: the meticulous dissection of Professor Sebastian Ashworth.

He started with Ashworth’s academic footprint. Publications laid out like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading Ethan through the meticulously constructed, if somewhat unadventurous, landscape of the Professor’s scholarly life. “The Liminal Space in Herbert’s ‘The Temple’,” “Echoes of Augustinian Confession in Vaughan.” Competent, certainly. Respected, undoubtedly. But there was a distinct lack of fire, of the ruthless ambition that Ethan recognised in himself and prized above all else. Ashworth’s work was careful, precise, almost tender in its handling of texts. It was the scholarship of a man who loved his subject, not one who sought to conquer it. Predictable, Ethan noted. Safe.

He dug deeper, tracing biographical details from alumni records and university archives. Sebastian Ashworth, son of a Yorkshire clergyman and a schoolteacher. A scholarship boy himself, once upon a time, though from a more respectable, if modest, middle-class stock than Ethan’s own grindingly poor Northern roots. No, Ashworth wouldn’t understand the gnawing emptiness of a childhood where the next meal was an uncertainty, or the shame of a father whose intellectual aspirations crumbled into bitter resentment and the occasional visit from men in cheap suits asking for things the family didn’t have. Ashworth’s struggles would have been of a different, more rarefied kind.

Casual conversations in common rooms and buttery queues became strategic intelligence-gathering missions. Ethan, with his carefully calibrated charm, could elicit gossip with an artful question, a sympathetic nod.

“Professor Ashworth? Oh, he’s lovely,” one earnest Masters student had offered. “A bit… quiet, though. Keeps to himself mostly.”

Another, a more cynical third-year DPhil candidate, had snorted. “Ashworth? Decent enough lecturer, if you like your Donne served with a side of existential angst. Bit of an old maid, isn’t he? Heard he finally got hitched last year. Shotgun wedding, some said, to some spinster from his village. Poor sod.”

The marriage. Ethan filed that away. Margaret Ashworth. He found a brief announcement in a local Yorkshire paper online: "The marriage took place quietly… Professor Sebastian Ashworth to Miss Margaret Ainsworth." No society pages, no glowing bride. It had the distinct aroma of obligation. This aligned with the bare ring finger he’d noted at the mixer, the faint indentation a ghost of a commitment. Family pressure, then. The kind that could grind a man down, especially one with a gentle nature.

He began to observe Ashworth’s routines. The Professor was a creature of habit. Morning coffee in the Senior Common Room at St. Aldric’s, always with the same two aging dons. Lectures delivered with a quiet passion that sometimes, fleetingly, illuminated his otherwise subdued features. Afternoons often spent in his college rooms, presumably marking essays or preparing for tutorials. Evenings, he often dined alone in Hall, or sometimes, Ethan noted with particular interest, took solitary walks through the college gardens as dusk settled, a figure of profound loneliness against the ancient stone.

Ethan saw him once, from a distance, meeting a woman outside a small bookshop on Turl Street. She was older, dressed in sensible, muted colours. Margaret, presumably. Their interaction was brief, almost perfunctory. A peck on the cheek that didn't quite land. No lingering touch, no shared smile. It confirmed Ethan’s hypothesis: a marriage of convenience, or worse, of silent desperation.

The plan began to crystallise in Ethan’s mind, cold and precise. The approach needed to be subtle, an "accidental" encounter that felt organic. Sebastian was a scholar; the initial bait would be intellectual. He was lonely; the subsequent hook would be emotional connection. He was, Ethan suspected with growing certainty, deeply repressed; the ultimate prize would be his complete, devastating vulnerability.

His internal monologue was a chilling counterpoint to his outward diligence. He’s starved for genuine connection. He’ll be grateful for any attention that seems authentic. Play the admiring student, bright but slightly lost, seeking guidance. He’ll respond to that. He’ll want to nurture, to guide. It’s in his nature. And once that door is open…

The opportunity presented itself on a damp Tuesday evening. Ethan had stayed late in the Duke Humfrey’s Library, ostensibly wrestling with a particularly dense critical theory text. He knew Ashworth sometimes worked there late, preferring its ancient silence. He’d seen the Professor earlier, hunched over a stack of Jacobean plays.

As the bells of Oxford chimed nine, Ethan packed his bag, timing his exit. He walked slowly through the shadowy aisles, the scent of centuries-old leather and dust thick in the air. As he rounded a towering shelf of theological texts, he saw Ashworth, stretching wearily, a hand pressed to the small of his back.

Ethan "stumbled," his bag slipping, a few books thudding softly to the wooden floor. "Oh, I am so sorry!" he exclaimed, his voice pitched with just the right amount of flustered apology. He bent to retrieve them, his movements quick, almost boyish.

Professor Ashworth turned, a startled look on his face that quickly softened into his customary gentle expression. "Oh, not at all, Mr. Blackwood, is it? No harm done." He even stooped to pick up a stray volume of Foucault that Ethan had strategically "dropped."

"Thank you, Professor," Ethan said, meeting his eyes, a carefully constructed look of sheepish gratitude on his face. "Working late too, I see."

"Ah, yes," Sebastian sighed, a tired but friendly smile touching his lips. "The never-ending pursuit. And you?"

"Trying to get my head around Lacan," Ethan confessed, with a rueful shake of his head. "It’s like wrestling with an octopus in the dark."

A genuine chuckle from Ashworth. "I know the feeling. Though I confess, my own tastes run to slightly more… lyrical struggles."

This was it. The opening. Ethan pressed his slight advantage. "Actually, Professor, your work on the paradoxes in devotional poetry… I was re-reading your chapter on Herbert’s 'The Collar' just yesterday. It clarified so much for me, but also opened up a few new questions I’ve been mulling over."

Sebastian’s eyes lit up, that familiar spark of scholarly enthusiasm. "Oh, really? I’d be happy to discuss them, if you have a moment. Or perhaps another time?"

Hook, line, and sinker, Ethan thought, even as his face arranged itself into an expression of delighted surprise. "Now would be wonderful, Professor, if you’re not too tired. But I wouldn’t want to impose."

"Nonsense, my dear boy," Sebastian said, a warmth infusing his voice that hadn’t been there moments before. "It’s rare to find a student so engaged. Shall we find a slightly more comfortable spot than the library floor?"

As they walked out of the Bodleian together, into the cool, damp night, Ethan felt a familiar, cold thrill of control.

The perfect mark was taking the bait, just as predicted. The game was well and truly afoot.

Ethan’s Internal Log: Phase One initiated. Encounter successful. Target confirmed receptive to intellectual flattery and displays of earnest ambition. Emotional vulnerabilities (loneliness, possible marital dissatisfaction) noted for future exploitation. Next step: Establish consistent academic rapport; deepen perceived connection.

***

A/N: Ethan's making his moves! That 'accidental' drop wasn't so accidental, was it? What do you think Sebastian sees in him so far? Predictions welcome! Thanks for reading!