Title: There is No Mathematics to Love and Loss

Author: SnarkyGirl101/SnarkItOut

Rating: PG

Summary: Burt Hummel needs help with math, and who better to go to than Paul Karofsky? Paul figures it will help out his rep, but it's turning into something more.

A/N: Holy crap, this feels very Fox and the Hound to me. Is that just me? Maybe it's just me.

Just found out there was a Paul Karofsky character tag! So I'm finally posting this. :D This was for Grimapparitions on Tumblr!

If anyone were to tell Paul Karofsky that he would be sitting across from the well-known jock of school, Burt Hummel, he would have laughed his head off. But here he was, actually sitting side to side to the quarterback. Sitting in the library with barely any room between their chairs as they looked over one math book made Paul feel like he was in an alternate universe where he wasn't considered one of the lower ends of the food chain.

"So, what, because of that x, I can't just say the answer is 5?" muttered Burt as he pulled up his cap (which he somehow got away with wearing in school) and scratching his head through the mass of brown hair.

"You're solving for x, so no, you can't say 5. You have to move the 5 over to get the answer," said Paul, pointing to the number in question. Honestly, when Paul thought about the situation he was in, it kind of made sense. Burt Hummel was known for his athletics and woodshop projects, not his academics. Especially math. It was well known through the school that Burt's math wasn't the best, there was the on-going joke that one day he wouldn't realize a player was missing on the field because he couldn't count that high. Burt would just laugh it off, slap the guy over the head and keep chatting away.

But in the way of grades, the teachers didn't think this a laughing matter. Which is why Paul found himself the tutor to Burt as they looked over sample Algebra questions. When Burt came up to him, he was calculating how much of his lunch money he could give to the football player and still be able to get lunch. But he was surprised when the stocky guy gruffly asked, "So I heard you're good at math? Any chance you could teach me a few tricks?"

He took him up on the offer, like he'd say no and likely get beat up later for it. Better to help him out, possibly get a favor out of this for later. So they worked on this every day during study hour in the library, where hardly anyone ever was. They'd sit in the corner where no one could see the cool jock with the quiet nerd and the social hierarchy was not shifted.

What surprised Paul was how nice Burt actually was. On occasion, Burt would bring a bag of cookies because "mom makes way too many, even I can't eat all of 'em," but Paul was pretty sure that was a lie. He'd seen the guy chow down during lunch on two burgers, beef jerky, an apple and a coke all within 15 minutes. But Paul figured it was rude to look a prize horse in the mouth, and just go with it.

"Wait, so you're telling me that a square has more than four sides? I count four friggin' sides, there's not much else to it."

"No, you have to include the other squares that make up the cube. The question asks for the sides of the cube," explained Paul as he munched on a chocolate chip cookie. They were still moist, just on the perfection of being slightly crumbly when bitten into. Burt looked up at him like he was crazy, and then scrunched up his eyes.

"Uh, you've got a little something there…" mumbled Burt.

"What, here?" Paul flicked his tongue to the corner of his mouth to catch the crumbs, but to no avail.

"No, no, on your left," Burt said exasperated, as he lifted his hand to wipe off the crumbs. Paul was shocked, as the callused hand came to his face to softly brush off the cookie traces. This shouldn't make his sense heighten; cause his pulse to rush with the feel of the jock's hand on him.

'What is happening to me?' thought Paul. 'He's not some girl I've been into for a long time, this is not some crush.'

Paul stood up abruptly, closing the book and stammering out, "Y-y'know what, Burt, I think we're done for today. I just remembered I promised one of my teachers I would talk to them about a project." Burt looked up at him with a look of confusion and surprise, but just shrugged and gave him a shoo motion.

"Hey, go, you need to keep up on the teacher's good side and all. You want to be valedictorian, right?"

"Y-yeah, I do. How do you remember that?" asked Paul with surprise riddling his voice.

"Well, you mentioned it, and I try to remember conversations with people that are important."

Paul looked at him incredulous. "Important?"

Burt looked up at him with a smirk and said, "Well, I expect you're going places, unlike me. I have plans to take over my dad's shop, not much else but that."

"Well, it's really nice of you to think I'm going places, but I doubt it," said Paul as he collected the textbook into his arms. "Anyway, I need to get going. We'll meet her tomorrow, okay?"

Burt got up and smiled, picking up the bag of cookies and dropped it on top of Paul's books. "Sure, kid. Eat the rest of those cookies, 'kay? Even nerds like you need to eat." Burt started to walk off and Paul watched as he left, slightly bewildered at what had happened.

'What is this feeling?' thought Paul. 'Hero worship? Got to be. It can't be anything else.'

For the following week, the feeling that Burt was in his space was even more apparent than before. Paul had no idea why, but this was starting to get out of hand. Burt seemed to be on his mind more than was probably healthy, and Paul was starting to worry there was something wrong with his brain.

"So if I was making a recipe with a third less, I'd have to make the rest of the recipe have 25 percent less?" asked Burt as he chewed on the end of his pencil.

"Yeah, that's right! See, you're getting the hang of it. Now if you look at his problem…" said Paul as he leaned in closer to point at the question across the page. Burt looked toward him, and Paul's breath hitched at having the other boy so near his face. Burt scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion, and Paul was left with a choice. Move closer or back away as if the person on his mind wasn't less than a few inches away from him? Paul found himself leaning in by some sort of gravitational pull, and Burt jerked his head back.

"What are you doing?" hissed Burt, looking around the library.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that," lied Paul as he fidgeted, looking down at the table's scuffed surface, praying to any god listening to just swallow him up now.

"Are you some sort of fag?" whispered Burt harshly.

"N-no! At least, I don't think I am. No, I'm not. I can't," said Paul quietly.

"Well, until you figure this all out, I need to go; I can't ruin my reputation like this." Burt slammed the textbook closed, got up and started to stalk off. He stopped for a moment, looked around and said, "I'm sorry about this, but I just can't deal with this right now. I just don't know how I could be around you without treating you differently. So it's better if I leave."

"I understand," said Paul, not daring to look at Burt's face. He didn't want to see a look of disgust aimed at him.

And that would be the last time he would talk to Burt Hummel for roughly twenty years.

"Burt, were you always so accepting of homosexuals? We're the same age; I remember what we used to say about the gays. Now it's taken us a long time to figure out what's right, why can't you just allow Dave the couple of months it's taken him?"