Chapter 2: Fortuitous Acquaintances
Heero glared at the paper that sat quietly mocking him on the table. A C minus. In his entire school career, he couldn't recall ever having earned such a deplorable grade. A C minus was only a half step above a D, which was only a step above failing. Failing was unacceptable.
Perhaps as insulting as the grade itself were the suggestions his TA had written in the margins. The one next to the opening paragraph in particular caught his eye. It said, "Weak thesis."
That particular comment was what had prodded him to come back to the library. He remembered Duo's remark to the same effect, and it rankled. While Duo's comment had been more in passing than because he thought Heero would take him seriously, the other young man might just know what he was talking about. He didn't intend to let such remarks slip by him again.
So there he was, seated at the same table in the back of the library at roughly the same time he had been there the week previously, hoping to catch his new acquaintance. It was a long shot, but still worth it. To make the wait easier, he had brought along some of his homework from other classes that needed doing.
As it turned out, the homework almost proved his undoing. He was so busy trying to concentrate on his reading that he didn't notice when Duo appeared and moved quietly between the shelves with a fresh armload of books. In fact, he probably would have missed Duo altogether if the other had not taken it upon himself to initiate a conversation.
Heero looked up as the pages of his book suddenly fell into shadow, the light blocked by the person standing behind him. He was both surprised and pleased as Duo pulled out the chair next to him and sat down.
"Hey there," Duo said cheerfully. "Busy as always, huh?"
Heero grunted.
"Yeah, me too," Duo commiserated. "Thank goodness I'm almost done for the day. What are you working on?"
"Reading," Heero replied shortly.
Duo rolled his eyes. "I can see that. Reading what?"
"Don Quixote. It's for my English class. The one I was writing the essay for last time."
"Ah. How'd that go, by the way?"
Heero, who had been wracking his brain for a way to introduce the topic, was exceedingly grateful that Duo had done it for him. He pulled the unsatisfactory essay out of his book bag and slapped it on the table for Duo to see.
Duo whistled when he saw the grade scrawled across the top. "Sorry I asked."
/I'm not,/ Heero thought, but out loud he said, "You said my thesis was weak."
Duo looked slightly abashed. "Well... It could have been better."
"How?" Heero asked bluntly.
Duo opened his mouth to tell him, then reconsidered. "Wait a minute," he said. "Are you trying to con me into helping you write your essays?"
"I don't see why you say I'm trying to con you," Heero replied irritably. "I just want some help."
"That's what they have tutors for," Duo said.
Heero snorted. "Screw the tutors. You seem to know what you're talking about."
Duo stopped talking and studied him solemnly for a minute. Confused by the sudden break in the conversation, Heero just sat and stared back, trying hard not to squirm under the intense gaze.
Finally, Duo spoke. "Let me take a stab in the dark here. You want me to help you with your essays rather than going to the tutors because going to the library is a whole lot less embarrassing than going to the Learning Resource Center. Am I right?"
Heero opened his mouth to deny it, then paused. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he really didn't want to go to the Learning Resource Center to ask for help. It would wound his pride, which was already suffering from his essay grade. Shutting his mouth, he glared at Duo.
"I thought so," Duo said. "You're used to getting good grades, aren't you?"
Heero nodded sullenly.
"So you did bad on one essay. Big deal."
"It is," Heero said. "Or if it isn't, it will be when I fail the next one. I'm no good at writing. I'm a computer engineering major."
"Then why are you taking an English class?"
"GE."
"Ah." Duo nodded sympathetically. "Well, I know all about the evils of general education requirements. I have to earn some math and science credit even though I'm a linguistics major. So, fool that I was, I decided to take a calculus class to satisfy the requirement. Now I'm in over my head, and it's too late to drop." His eyes strayed to the calculus book sitting on the desk next to Heero's elbow. "You wouldn't happen to be good at calculus, would you?"
"Calculus is easy," Heero said.
"For you, maybe," Duo returned. "We have different text books, and probably different classes, but some of the material's got to be the same. How about you help me with my calculus homework, and I'll proofread your English essays."
Heero considered. It was a fair enough trade. "Deal," he said.
Grinning, Duo stuck out his hand, and they shook on it.
~*~*~
Four days later, Heero was almost starting to regret his deal. The fundamental problem with the exchange was that it only fairly worked when both parties needed help. Unfortunately, Heero seemed to be getting the worse end of it, since he only had an English essay due after every book he read. This translated out to about one essay every two weeks. Duo, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten a sadistic calculus professor who gave him biweekly homework assignments. This meant that while Duo was merrily collecting his benefits from the deal, Heero had nothing for him to do in return.
"How the heck am I supposed to do this again?" Duo said, stabbing his pencil down next to the problem he was working on. "How do they expect us to know what the anti-derivative of all this mess is?"
Heero surveyed the problem. He could have solved it in an instant, but he reminded himself that that didn't help Duo. "Look at your derivatives for the trigonometric functions and see which one it looks like."
Duo groaned and banged his forehead against the desk once for theatrics. "I hate this," he whined. "Whoever invented integrals was a sadist."
As he watched Duo sifting through his notes looking for the page with the trigonometric functions, Heero had to agree. Integrals were certainly making his life harder.
"Why don't you keep your notes organized?" he snapped, having grown impatient with the whole study session a half an hour ago.
"They are organized," Duo protested as he located the appropriate paper.
"No they're not," Heero said, eyeing the mass of paper covered with doodles and scrawling handwriting distastefully.
"I say they are, and they're my notes, so that's what matters." Duo sounded like he was losing patience too. "You don't have to study from them, so what do you care?"
Heero bit his tongue and didn't answer. Duo took a deep breath and gave him a rueful smile. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just sick of doing this. It's really nice of you to help me when I'm sure you could be doing something much more fun."
"Not really," Heero answered. "I'd just be back in my dorm, staring at the computer or listening to my roommate complain about how there is no justice in the world. He's aiming to go to law school, so I guess he's trying to practice on me."
Duo snickered. "Just what the world needs. Another lawyer. What dorm do you live in?"
"Nebula," Heero said. "Do you know where that is?"
"Oh, of course," Duo said. "I lived on the third floor of Clay. That's the building right next door to you guys. I was always sort of envious; your dorm got to be named after a term in astronomy, while ours was just named after some dead white guy."
Heero chuckled at that. "Lived?" he said. "Where do you live now?"
"In an apartment, of course. They only let you live on campus for one year, then they kick you off."
"What year are you?"
"Second year. I'm a sophomore."
"I'm a freshman," Heero said.
Duo smirked. "I know. It's pretty obvious you're new around here."
Heero glared at him.
"Don't worry," Duo said breezily. "You'll settle in soon enough. Living in the dorms helps a lot. That whole sense of community and everything. I still live with my roommate from last year, but I miss the dorms sometimes. It sure was great up there on the third floor."
Heero gave Duo a strange look. There was something about the way he'd said the words "third floor" that made Heero think that Duo expected him to find something special about them. "You must have had good cell phone reception," he said.
The look Duo gave him had a hint of incredulity in it, but he laughed and said, "Yeah. It annoyed the first floor people no end. They couldn't get any reception, so they had to go outside."
"Don't laugh," Heero muttered. "I live on the first floor."
"Get a warm coat," Duo advised. "Otherwise, come winter, you'll freeze every time you have to make a phone call."
Heero shrugged and then tapped Duo's paper pointedly. "You still need to finish this."
"Awww," Duo groaned. "Do I have to?"
"Do you want to flunk out of the class and have to repeat it?"
"No."
"Well, then yes, you have to."
~*~*~
Swinging the door shut behind him, Duo slung his backpack off onto the couch and glanced around his apartment. A flash of blond hair caught his eye, and he smiled. "Hey, Quatre, how's it going?"
"Alright," Quatre answered. He looked up from his work at the table, caught Duo's eye and smiled. "How's the math homework going?"
"Finished!" Duo crowed triumphantly.
"That's great," Quatre said. "In that case, you'll have time to fix yourself dinner, so I won't have to feel bad about leaving you on your own."
Duo groaned. "Again? But I fixed dinner last night."
"But Hilde's not here; she has a lab tonight, and I'm going out to dinner with Trowa."
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in," Duo muttered. "You get to go out and spend a romantic night with your boyfriend, while I sit at home and die of boredom. I hate being single."
Quatre gave him a sympathetic look. "What about the guy who's tutoring you? You said you thought he was cute."
"Hot, Quatre. Not cute, hot. Unfortunately, he's also completely oblivious."
"What do you mean?" Quatre asked. "Surely you haven't been putting all your moves on him yet."
"Well, not all of them," Duo admitted. "But I told him that I lived on the third floor of Clay last year."
"And?"
"And he made some comment about cell phone reception."
"Well, maybe he just doesn't know what the third floor of Clay is."
"Oh, come on Quatre!" Duo protested. "He lives right next door in Nebula; how can he not know?"
"Then he really is oblivious, or he's not interested," Quatre said logically.
"Sh," Duo said. "I'm trying not to let myself think that he's not interested."
"Oh Duo," Quatre said patiently. "You're being silly. The world is almost ninety percent heterosexual. The odds of some random guy you think is hot being gay aren't very good."
"I know, I know," Duo said. "But, dammit, Quatre, he's freaking hot! I can hope, can't I?"
Quatre sighed. "I suppose a little hope never hurt anyone."
Tbc
::groans:: I hate apartment hunting.
Heero glared at the paper that sat quietly mocking him on the table. A C minus. In his entire school career, he couldn't recall ever having earned such a deplorable grade. A C minus was only a half step above a D, which was only a step above failing. Failing was unacceptable.
Perhaps as insulting as the grade itself were the suggestions his TA had written in the margins. The one next to the opening paragraph in particular caught his eye. It said, "Weak thesis."
That particular comment was what had prodded him to come back to the library. He remembered Duo's remark to the same effect, and it rankled. While Duo's comment had been more in passing than because he thought Heero would take him seriously, the other young man might just know what he was talking about. He didn't intend to let such remarks slip by him again.
So there he was, seated at the same table in the back of the library at roughly the same time he had been there the week previously, hoping to catch his new acquaintance. It was a long shot, but still worth it. To make the wait easier, he had brought along some of his homework from other classes that needed doing.
As it turned out, the homework almost proved his undoing. He was so busy trying to concentrate on his reading that he didn't notice when Duo appeared and moved quietly between the shelves with a fresh armload of books. In fact, he probably would have missed Duo altogether if the other had not taken it upon himself to initiate a conversation.
Heero looked up as the pages of his book suddenly fell into shadow, the light blocked by the person standing behind him. He was both surprised and pleased as Duo pulled out the chair next to him and sat down.
"Hey there," Duo said cheerfully. "Busy as always, huh?"
Heero grunted.
"Yeah, me too," Duo commiserated. "Thank goodness I'm almost done for the day. What are you working on?"
"Reading," Heero replied shortly.
Duo rolled his eyes. "I can see that. Reading what?"
"Don Quixote. It's for my English class. The one I was writing the essay for last time."
"Ah. How'd that go, by the way?"
Heero, who had been wracking his brain for a way to introduce the topic, was exceedingly grateful that Duo had done it for him. He pulled the unsatisfactory essay out of his book bag and slapped it on the table for Duo to see.
Duo whistled when he saw the grade scrawled across the top. "Sorry I asked."
/I'm not,/ Heero thought, but out loud he said, "You said my thesis was weak."
Duo looked slightly abashed. "Well... It could have been better."
"How?" Heero asked bluntly.
Duo opened his mouth to tell him, then reconsidered. "Wait a minute," he said. "Are you trying to con me into helping you write your essays?"
"I don't see why you say I'm trying to con you," Heero replied irritably. "I just want some help."
"That's what they have tutors for," Duo said.
Heero snorted. "Screw the tutors. You seem to know what you're talking about."
Duo stopped talking and studied him solemnly for a minute. Confused by the sudden break in the conversation, Heero just sat and stared back, trying hard not to squirm under the intense gaze.
Finally, Duo spoke. "Let me take a stab in the dark here. You want me to help you with your essays rather than going to the tutors because going to the library is a whole lot less embarrassing than going to the Learning Resource Center. Am I right?"
Heero opened his mouth to deny it, then paused. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he really didn't want to go to the Learning Resource Center to ask for help. It would wound his pride, which was already suffering from his essay grade. Shutting his mouth, he glared at Duo.
"I thought so," Duo said. "You're used to getting good grades, aren't you?"
Heero nodded sullenly.
"So you did bad on one essay. Big deal."
"It is," Heero said. "Or if it isn't, it will be when I fail the next one. I'm no good at writing. I'm a computer engineering major."
"Then why are you taking an English class?"
"GE."
"Ah." Duo nodded sympathetically. "Well, I know all about the evils of general education requirements. I have to earn some math and science credit even though I'm a linguistics major. So, fool that I was, I decided to take a calculus class to satisfy the requirement. Now I'm in over my head, and it's too late to drop." His eyes strayed to the calculus book sitting on the desk next to Heero's elbow. "You wouldn't happen to be good at calculus, would you?"
"Calculus is easy," Heero said.
"For you, maybe," Duo returned. "We have different text books, and probably different classes, but some of the material's got to be the same. How about you help me with my calculus homework, and I'll proofread your English essays."
Heero considered. It was a fair enough trade. "Deal," he said.
Grinning, Duo stuck out his hand, and they shook on it.
~*~*~
Four days later, Heero was almost starting to regret his deal. The fundamental problem with the exchange was that it only fairly worked when both parties needed help. Unfortunately, Heero seemed to be getting the worse end of it, since he only had an English essay due after every book he read. This translated out to about one essay every two weeks. Duo, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten a sadistic calculus professor who gave him biweekly homework assignments. This meant that while Duo was merrily collecting his benefits from the deal, Heero had nothing for him to do in return.
"How the heck am I supposed to do this again?" Duo said, stabbing his pencil down next to the problem he was working on. "How do they expect us to know what the anti-derivative of all this mess is?"
Heero surveyed the problem. He could have solved it in an instant, but he reminded himself that that didn't help Duo. "Look at your derivatives for the trigonometric functions and see which one it looks like."
Duo groaned and banged his forehead against the desk once for theatrics. "I hate this," he whined. "Whoever invented integrals was a sadist."
As he watched Duo sifting through his notes looking for the page with the trigonometric functions, Heero had to agree. Integrals were certainly making his life harder.
"Why don't you keep your notes organized?" he snapped, having grown impatient with the whole study session a half an hour ago.
"They are organized," Duo protested as he located the appropriate paper.
"No they're not," Heero said, eyeing the mass of paper covered with doodles and scrawling handwriting distastefully.
"I say they are, and they're my notes, so that's what matters." Duo sounded like he was losing patience too. "You don't have to study from them, so what do you care?"
Heero bit his tongue and didn't answer. Duo took a deep breath and gave him a rueful smile. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just sick of doing this. It's really nice of you to help me when I'm sure you could be doing something much more fun."
"Not really," Heero answered. "I'd just be back in my dorm, staring at the computer or listening to my roommate complain about how there is no justice in the world. He's aiming to go to law school, so I guess he's trying to practice on me."
Duo snickered. "Just what the world needs. Another lawyer. What dorm do you live in?"
"Nebula," Heero said. "Do you know where that is?"
"Oh, of course," Duo said. "I lived on the third floor of Clay. That's the building right next door to you guys. I was always sort of envious; your dorm got to be named after a term in astronomy, while ours was just named after some dead white guy."
Heero chuckled at that. "Lived?" he said. "Where do you live now?"
"In an apartment, of course. They only let you live on campus for one year, then they kick you off."
"What year are you?"
"Second year. I'm a sophomore."
"I'm a freshman," Heero said.
Duo smirked. "I know. It's pretty obvious you're new around here."
Heero glared at him.
"Don't worry," Duo said breezily. "You'll settle in soon enough. Living in the dorms helps a lot. That whole sense of community and everything. I still live with my roommate from last year, but I miss the dorms sometimes. It sure was great up there on the third floor."
Heero gave Duo a strange look. There was something about the way he'd said the words "third floor" that made Heero think that Duo expected him to find something special about them. "You must have had good cell phone reception," he said.
The look Duo gave him had a hint of incredulity in it, but he laughed and said, "Yeah. It annoyed the first floor people no end. They couldn't get any reception, so they had to go outside."
"Don't laugh," Heero muttered. "I live on the first floor."
"Get a warm coat," Duo advised. "Otherwise, come winter, you'll freeze every time you have to make a phone call."
Heero shrugged and then tapped Duo's paper pointedly. "You still need to finish this."
"Awww," Duo groaned. "Do I have to?"
"Do you want to flunk out of the class and have to repeat it?"
"No."
"Well, then yes, you have to."
~*~*~
Swinging the door shut behind him, Duo slung his backpack off onto the couch and glanced around his apartment. A flash of blond hair caught his eye, and he smiled. "Hey, Quatre, how's it going?"
"Alright," Quatre answered. He looked up from his work at the table, caught Duo's eye and smiled. "How's the math homework going?"
"Finished!" Duo crowed triumphantly.
"That's great," Quatre said. "In that case, you'll have time to fix yourself dinner, so I won't have to feel bad about leaving you on your own."
Duo groaned. "Again? But I fixed dinner last night."
"But Hilde's not here; she has a lab tonight, and I'm going out to dinner with Trowa."
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in," Duo muttered. "You get to go out and spend a romantic night with your boyfriend, while I sit at home and die of boredom. I hate being single."
Quatre gave him a sympathetic look. "What about the guy who's tutoring you? You said you thought he was cute."
"Hot, Quatre. Not cute, hot. Unfortunately, he's also completely oblivious."
"What do you mean?" Quatre asked. "Surely you haven't been putting all your moves on him yet."
"Well, not all of them," Duo admitted. "But I told him that I lived on the third floor of Clay last year."
"And?"
"And he made some comment about cell phone reception."
"Well, maybe he just doesn't know what the third floor of Clay is."
"Oh, come on Quatre!" Duo protested. "He lives right next door in Nebula; how can he not know?"
"Then he really is oblivious, or he's not interested," Quatre said logically.
"Sh," Duo said. "I'm trying not to let myself think that he's not interested."
"Oh Duo," Quatre said patiently. "You're being silly. The world is almost ninety percent heterosexual. The odds of some random guy you think is hot being gay aren't very good."
"I know, I know," Duo said. "But, dammit, Quatre, he's freaking hot! I can hope, can't I?"
Quatre sighed. "I suppose a little hope never hurt anyone."
Tbc
::groans:: I hate apartment hunting.