Work Text:
Kady < [email protected] >
To: Achilles
Subject: tutoring this week
hey, ace!!! hope all is well!
so sorry about those homework scores!!! :( stats can be rough. unfortunately, i’m not going to be able to tutor this week. my grandmother fell down the stairs and broke her hip, so i’m going home to help my mom take care of her.
lmk if you need the name of another tutor!!! i’d be happy to provide one
Kady Gillespie
Department of Math Sciences
Achilles < [email protected] >
To: Kady
Subject: RE: tutoring this week
oh dang, that sucks for me lol. and for u ofc. hope ur grandmother is doing better!
i’d definitely appreciate if u could help me find someone else to help me w/stats. my exam is in a few weeks and i need all the help i can get… i need a good grade in this class to be able to keep my scholarship.
Kady < [email protected] >
To: Achilles
Subject: RE: tutoring this week
thank you for the concern!! i’m on my way back home right now, but from what i’ve heard she’s doing alright.
i think i know the perfect person to help you! he was my tutor last year when i took the class, and he’s definitely the only reason i even got an A in the class. i’ll attach his email below and you can go ahead and shoot him a message! hopefully he’ll be able to step in for me.
Kady Gillespie
Department of Math Sciences
Patroclus? Achilles snorts at his phone. What a stuffy sounding name.
As desperate as he was for help, Achilles was not going to be thrilled if he was stuck with some old guy as his tutor this week. He could barely stay awake when his middle-aged professors were lecturing about stuff he likes, much less when a dude older than his granddad was trying to explain statistics of all things. Which, considering his luck, would be the case. Kady was cute and funny and, best of all, she would do his homework for him if he absolutely couldn’t find the answer- which he never could. Achilles better not have to do actual work in a tutoring session that his tuition was paying for. He wasn’t putting down twenty grand a year for that bullshit.
But if Patroclus was the guy that had tutored Kady, then Achilles was really moving up on the totem pole wasn’t he? Kady was smart as hell. Finding the dude that taught her would be like meeting whoever made God, or shaking hands with the guy that trained Jackie Chan. Crazy.
Achilles pauses at the door to his dorm, typing up a quick email so he could schedule a session before Patroclus could get too booked up.
Achilles < [email protected] >
To: Pat
Subject: tutoring openings?
hey there. my name is achilles. u know kady right? she suggested i go to one of ur tutoring sessions for stats this week. got any openings?
Pat < [email protected] >
To: Achilles
Subject: RE: tutoring openings?
Hi, Achilles!
Uh… Why exactly did Kady give you THIS email? I have a school related one I use more frequently that is also way more appropriate. I’ll attach it below.
I have some time on Thursday afternoon after 3 if you want to set up a session around then. Since it’s our first time meeting, we can just set up in the basement of North Classroom. Make sure you bring whatever you want to go over with me as well as any questions you might have!
Thanks,
proud single father of 3 dogs, now accepting applications for their hunky potential step-dad. accept resumes with pdf or word format
Pat < [email protected] >
To: Achilles
Subject: RE: tutoring openings?
Oh my god. Please disregard the signature. My best friend did that.
You know what? Just don’t email me here anymore.
…
Achilles forgets he even has tutoring until Thursday afternoon when he simultaneously hears his alarm blaring and feels his roommate ripping the comforter off his body.
“That has been going off,” Aggie says, balling the blanket up and throwing it into the corner of the room, “for ten minutes.”
“Mmrgg,” Achilles replies. He buries his face deeper into his pillow.
“How the hell do you sleep through that?” his roommate continues. The alarm is still ringing, and now that he’s awake it’s pretty unbearable. Achilles applauds Aggie for being able to stand it for so long. “I swear to god, you’d sleep through Armageddon.”
“Is that, like, your cousin or something?” Achilles feels around for his phone. His hand hits it eventually, and he pulls it to his face. He squints. Why did he even have an alarm going off? It was his scheduled mid-afternoon nap, after all.
Aggie shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re an idiot-”
“Oh, shit!” He had tutoring in five minutes with the weird dog guy! Achilles is up an instant, grabbing his backpack off the floor. He didn’t even know where he’d put his homework. He gets on his knees and starts frantically shuffling through the array of papers scattered around the floor by his bed. Okay, it was somewhere here, right? This was the designated pile of To Be Done The Night It’s Due stuff… or was it the Notes From Class I’ll Never Look At Again pile?
“Turn off the fucking alarm,” Aggie suggests helpfully. Right, that might make it easier to think. Achilles swipes on his phone, and the awful ringing silences at once. They both sigh in relief. “If you’re looking for your math homework, I threw it away.”
Achilles’ head flies up so fast he hits it against the metal frame of his bed. Pain shoots through his skull. “You what?” he asks, rubbing the back of his head.
“I told you if I saw any more paper on my side of the room, I’m throwing it out.” Aggie gestures to his half of the dorm. It was spotless, perfectly kept right up until the invisible line that divided their room. There was about a hundred percent less garbage on his side than Achilles’.
Nevertheless, it was a pretty shit move to throw Achilles’ homework out when he was already late for tutoring. He didn’t have time to print out a new assignment! Achilles tips over Aggie’s trash and rummages through it even as his roommate shouts at him to fuck off. There at the bottom is a crumpled ball of paper with smudged writing in pen: all the signs of Achilles’ work. He shoves the ball into his bag and takes off.
“This is the fifth time I’ve told you to close the door behind you!” he hears Aggie yell from down the hall.
“Sixth time’s the charm!” Achilles calls back.
…
North Classroom is a solid ten minute walk from his dorm, but Achilles makes it in four. He supposes being on the track team came in handy in its own ways. For one, he was never late to class no matter how long he slept in.
Luck is on his side when he bursts through the basement doors right before the clock hits 3:00, blond curls sticking to his forehead with sweat and completely out of breath... but on time! Achilles goes up to the front desk of the tutoring center, running a hand through his hair as he tries to calm his heart. The girl working looks a little flustered as she takes him in. Hopefully because he’s just so damn cool and not because he looks like a literal disaster. “I have an appointment with, uh… Patroclus.”
She takes a moment to stare at him before she clicks around on her computer. “Um, okay. He should be with you in just a moment-”
“Oh, I’m ready!”
Achilles glances at the source of the voice, and he is absolutely certain he forgets how to breathe.
So, as it turns out, Patroclus is not some creepy old guy with a weird email sign-off. He’s actually perfect: dark wavy hair, honey brown eyes, tall enough to change a lightbulb without a ladder. But he’s not overly buff or anything. Patroclus is… adorable. Wide doe eyes and angular features that still somehow seem soft and rounded. It’s as if someone had hacked into Achilles’ laptop and created the perfect man from his PornHub search history.
“Uh,” Achilles manages. He realizes his mouth is hanging wide open and closes it before he can look like any more of an idiot. “Patroclus?”
The man of his dreams- no, wait, Patroclus... same thing- smiles at the sound of his name. God, he has that dopey little smile that barely shows off his front teeth. Unfair. “Yeah, that’s me. I take it you’re Achilles?” His cheeks are flushed, probably from how stuffy the basement was. The school didn’t exactly spend too much money on A/C down here.
Achilles. It rolls off his tongue so nicely. “In the flesh,” Achilles jokes weakly. He curses himself internally, wishing he’d left earlier so his shirt wasn’t damp under his arms and he didn’t sound so out of breath.
“Cool. You can follow me this way and we can get started.” Achilles doesn’t even realize Patroclus is walking away until the receptionist coughs into her fist. He’d just been staring at Patroclus’ back, watching his shoulders move under his shirt. He catches up before his tutor can even notice he had been lagging behind.
Patroclus takes them to a secluded corner of the basement. Achilles had been down here before to know it’s where most tutors do their sessions to stay away from any distractions, but his head only helpfully suggests that wow, they really are alone, huh? He sits, and Patroclus takes the seat across from him.
Truthfully, Achilles had never even really tapped into the side of him that found men attractive. He’d known he liked more than just girls since he was in high school, but he just… never had the opportunity to explore his attraction. His mom had been breathing over his shoulder, and even if she had been supportive, there weren’t very many cute guys in his high school. Not like he’d seen many here, either. Tinder had proved to be a complete fail when trying to find someone to go out with (everyone either wanted a threesome or a smoking buddy, neither of which Achilles really wanted to try as his first experience with a dude), and Achilles was still a little too put off to download Grindr (once again, first experience with a guy being a hook up was not that appealing… he was still skeptical of having sex with another guy- wouldn’t that hurt?).
It seemed that the fates simply hadn’t wanted Achilles to get together with some average white guy on the internet, though, because Patroclus was right there! Achilles finds himself leaning closer to listen to him talk as Patroclus pulls out his laptop and types in his password. “I didn’t plan anything ahead of time,” he admits with an apologetic smile. Achilles wants to reassure him oh, no, you are doing more than enough for me right now.
“That’s cool,” he says instead. Achilles remembers his homework: the sad little paper ball in the bottom of his bag. He takes it out and tries to smooth out the wrinkles best he can manage. Hopefully he looks really suave doing it. Achilles glances up, and much to his horror, Patroclus is trying to hold back a laugh behind one hand. “Shit, sorry-”
“No, no! It’s okay. I get it.” Patroclus takes a pen out of his bag and sticks it behind his ear. Cute. “You’re a freshman, right?”
Achilles’ heart sinks. Of course Patroclus was older than him. Would he even be into a freshman? “Yeah.”
“I was the same way my first semester. It took me a bit to get organized.” Patroclus reaches forward and pats the top of Achilles’ hand reassuringly. “You’ll get into the swing of things.”
Oh my fucking god he’s touching me. His hand is on my hand. Holy shit. Holy SHIT. “Thanks.” His voice doesn’t crack, so Achilles takes that as a win.
Patroclus rotates the paper so it’s facing him. He hums in thought as he reads over what work Achilles had already done beforehand. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to make it look like he at least tried. Looking back, he kind of wishes he had tried. Usually he just bullshitted his way through the assignment until Kady would feel bad for how dumb he was and filled out the answers for him. “What exactly are you having a hard time with? “ Patroclus asks.
“All of it,” Achilles admits helplessly. “I’ve never been great at math, especially not word problems.”
“You just described the entire class,” Patroclus comments.
“I guess I’ll be here all the time then,” Achilles sighs. “Catch me moving into the basement. Do you think I’d get a discount for living down here?”
Patroclus chuckles, and Achilles wants nothing more than to melt into his chair. His entire face is on fire. “Maybe,” Patroclus laughs. “You’d have to be roommates with an entire population of crickets, though.” Great. He was hot and smart AND funny. “We had an infestation this summer.” Patroclus nods to the corner of the room where there was a small army of dead crickets. Gross.
“A small price to pay to pass this class.”
“We’ll get you through it,” Patroclus encourages him with a small nod. We. Achilles could hear the wedding bells ringing.
Achilles doesn’t actually get a gauge for how good Patroclus is at stats because he spends the entire session staring at Patroclus’ lips as he talks and trying to count the freckles that dot his face. He eventually stops being distracted long enough to reach the number seventy-six, but Achilles counts again just to be sure. If anything, he’s probably more hopeless when it comes to this class, but Achilles finds that he just doesn’t care.
“You did pretty well,” Patroclus says. Achilles wonders why he’s acting like he has to go. He looks up at the clock over Patroclus’ shoulder and widens his eyes. An hour had seriously gone by that quickly? “I’d just say do a few more practice problems once you get home to retain the information, and make sure you go over the definitions of mode, median, and range. Kady can pick up from there next time you guys see each other.”
His heart pounds in his chest as he watches Patroclus pack his things back into his bag. He doesn’t want to go- not yet. Leaving would mean breaking this spell he’s under and going back to real life. Kady would come back, and Achilles would only remember Patroclus as the cute tutor he’d gotten that one time. There were two solutions to that problem: one, Kady’s grandmother had two hips, right? She could risk breaking another one and having Kady come stay with her again for the sake of true love.
And two…
“Actually,” Achilles starts a little too loudly. Patroclus raises his head. “I feel like you teach me pretty well. We, um… clicked.” Patroclus looks startled. His eyes widen in surprise, pretty lips drawn in a straight line. “Would it be okay if you tutored me from now on instead?”
“Oh.” Patroclus zips up his bag and lets his hand hover over the strap. “I-um, yeah, I could do that.” He seems to snap out of his trance. In one movement, he slings his backpack over his shoulder. “We’ll need to find a time that works for both of us, though. I have a second job, and I’m sure your class schedule won’t line up great with mine-”
“Sure, sure. Here-” Achilles extends his phone out to Patroclus. “Give me your number and we can figure it out. I really hate email.” Nice one, Ace.
Patroclus takes his phone gingerly. He stares at Achilles for a long moment before he glances down and types in his number. Achilles can only watch his thumbs move, followed by Patroclus brushing a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “Here’s mine.” Patroclus hands him his own cell.
Achilles puts in his number before pausing. His name… He should do something cute, right? Something memorable and flirty, but not too flirty that Patroclus will turn tail and run the first chance he has. He comes up with something on the spot and hurries to write it in as his name.
Patroclus looks down at his phone once it’s down in his hands, and a small smile quirks on his face. “‘Favorite Statistics Failure?’ Really? You’re not a failure, Achilles.”
“I’m not. I’m your favorite failure.” Achilles grins back. Patroclus shakes his head and laughs, and Achilles knows he wants to be with this boy so badly it hurts. He’ll win him over. Patroclus seems different than anyone else he’d ever met, but Achilles always won everyone over.
…
“When did you realize you were in love with me?”
Achilles kisses Patroclus’ fingers as they brush against his face. “The first moment I laid eyes on you.”
Patroclus wrinkles his nose in disbelief. He pokes Achilles in the forehead between his eyebrows. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
It doesn’t convince his boyfriend, but Achilles didn’t mind. He’d spend every day for the rest of his life convincing Patroclus over and over again that he was perfect, his everything. Achilles leans forward, and Patroclus meets his lips halfway.