Chapter Text
Willie tried to contort his face into something that vaguely represented a smile as he stood next to Mrs Watt’s desk. Hopefully, if he looked cheerful, she would spare him any overly harsh punishments for his admittedly dismal algebra results.
“William, I understand that you’re having difficulty with Algebra classes. But I’ve decided I won’t be punishing you for it,”
Thank god.
“Instead, I have a way of helping you – I’ve enrolled your name in our tutoring program, and you’ve been assigned a tutor.”
Seriously?
Apparently, him and Mrs Watt had wildly differing ideas of what ‘not punishing you’ meant.
The last thing Willie needed was someone his own age bossing him around just because he failed a few algebra assignments.
Ok. Fine. More than a few.
A lot.
“- I’ll email you all of the details by tomorrow morning, and I expect you to be on time.” Oh right. The she-devil was still talking.
He tried his best to conceal any annoyance from bleeding into his tone as he spoke, his eyebrows scrunching slightly in the way they always did when he was frustrated. “Yes, Mrs Watt. Thank you.”
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Alex sat in a small desk tucked into an alcove in the student library, rhythmically tapping his fingers on the dark grey denim on his jeans as he idly marked more calculations into the sheets of algebra revision laid out in front of him.
Alex was by not, by any definition, a goody-two-shoes. In fact, he was miles away from any sort of nerd-labelled territory at all – he never set out to ruin other peoples fun, and he rather enjoyed the odd party or two that Luke had dragged him to over the years.
He was in a band (an awesome band, by the way), and was constantly being yelled at for running at a faster-than-appropriate-or-safe pace in corridors. Logically, Alex knew he had rather impressive marks in he majority of his subjects – but he was certain that all his teachers hated him with irrevocable passion. In particular, Mrs Watt, who made it seem as if she loathed him with the intensity of a thousand burning suns.
Ok, ‘the intensity of a thousand burning suns’ was a slight exaggeration. But she certainly wasn’t fond of Alex.
So, after being asked by Mrs Watt to tutor some ‘William’ in algebra – the moment of confusion and are-you-sure-you’re-asking-the-right-Alex was a totally justified response. But, in the spirit of kindness (and the spirit of not failing algebra because he pissed off the teacher), Alex had agreed to tutor ‘William’ twice a week – on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because Mondays and Wednesdays were band practice and Alex was not tutoring anyone, passing grade be damned, on a Friday afternoon.
Fridays were holy.
And algebra and holy were two things would never, ever, go together.
Yanking himself out of his Friday-related train of thoughts, Alex checked his watch, the silver hand was indicating that it was almost four o’clock – almost time to meet his student-to-be.
As if on a well-rehearsed cue, the chair beside him was pulled out, and a body dropped down into it in a way that would only be described as slightly sulky.
Well shit.
Alex had prepared himself for a countless range of possibilities: from William turning out to be a sweaty football jock with no regards for personal hygiene; too William being an annoying snot-nosed brat who picked at his nose; or even William just not turning up.
What Alex was not expecting was William to be hot.
Like greek-god-on-earth-hot.
William had corded muscles that sent Alex’s intestines into complicated Simone-Biles-level twists and flips. As William reached up to unclip the clasp of a heavy ash-coloured helmed strapped below his chin, he shook out his hair like a dog in rain. His hair– something Alex was positive he could already write Shakespeare-type monologues on – looked like it was pulled from a Pantene advert, it was slightly mussed from the helmet, giving him the I-rolled-out-of-bed-this-way style, the slight curls at the front framed his sharp cheekbones and-
“Hey dude, I’m Willie.”
“Oh. I- Uh...” Alex was painfully aware of how acutely idiotic he sounded. There went his chance of a good first impression.
Oh right. Yes. The alphabetic system was created for a reason. Well done Alex.
After the embarrassingly long time it took for Alex to grasp the concept of basic English language, he opened his mouth to speak.
“Hi, I’m Alex. Nice to meet you.”
Willie’s response was clipped and slightly abrasive, “You too. Let’s just get this over with.”
So it was going to be like that. Which was a shame, since Alex had hoped for a at least some small talk with algebra-failing Adonis before work began.
“Ok, so what part in algebra are you having trouble with?”
“None of it.”
“I mean, which parts could you use some help in.”
“None at all.”
“Could I see your last homework assignment at least?”
“Sure.” Willie unzipped his backpack with the speed of a particularly lazy snail, and pulled out the requested sheet.
Which. Was. Completely. Empty.
Alex took a deep breath, determined not to loose his temper less than fifteen minutes into the hour and tugged sharply at the ends of his dark fraying jacket sleeve. It probably wasn’t the most optimal tutor-mindset for Alex to want to jump the bones of the incredibly attractive boy in front of him while simultaneously wishing to beat Willie over the head with a baseball bat.
Hopefully, the situation could still be salvaged. “Ok, can you try and do the first question so I can see what’s going wrong.”
Reluctantly, the boy reached for his bag again, pencilling in a few lines of working in his spider-scrawl before being stopped by Alex.
“No, see, the square root of X squared plus sixteen isn’t the same as X plus four.” Alex pointed his pen to the corresponding lines of working to emphasize his point.
Willie sounded slightly shocked at the correction, as if had for some reason expected Alex to not help him with his mistakes. “Oh, right thanks,” After a few moments of silence, Willie spoke again, though his tone was still frosty, it was paired with resigned acceptance. “What should I do next?”
Alex shifted closer to Willie as he began to explain.
“Well, you factorise the brackets, here…”
Maybe Alex could make this work.