math is fun! [rogue]

It was no surprise that Colin tended to question his life decisions. Take for example how he had insisted on buying a book from every country in Europe they'd visited, causing his luggage to be twice the weight it was before he'd left, how he had decided to follow Julie to Ikea and have a stylish but illegal monkey attack them (he was still confused about that one), and his thirty boxes of cereal and twenty boxes of tea-- okay, scratch that, he wasn't actually questioning that decision. In fact, it was probably one of the best that he had ever made. Shipping to the United States would have been exceedingly expensive, and he was just glad that he had taken the opportunity to bring some food back with him while he had had the chance. Sure, it cost money to pack the cereal in a box and send it back to his dorm, but according to his calculations (he hadn't really done any calculations at all) it was cheaper and made more sense to do it that way.

All in all, Colin considered himself a fairly rational person, save for the few slips in logic that happened from time to time. Back to the topic of mathematics, for one, and how he had signed up for a math class over the summer while he was helping out with his professor's research on colour symbolism in Elizabethan theatre, which he found to be quite the exciting subject. Shakespeare was overdone a lot of the time, but this was a new spin upon it; people tended to forget that there was staging and actions involved, and that actors could portray characters in certain manners depending on the material that they had. Now, Colin wasn't exactly the biggest fan of mathematics, but he had supposed that it would be a challenge. After all, he was just going to be reading Shakespearean plays all day and sharing his insights with his professor. He needed something else to do to tide his time, rig--

Oh who was he kidding? He'd signed up for the math class because the professor was really, really hot.

Before beginning his math revision for the day Colin had shamelessly opened up the professor's staff page, taking a glimpse at his fine, chiseled features before starting work. Sure, the class hadn't begun yet, but he'd seen the man on campus and damn was he fine. While he was in a committed relationship both he and Julie had agreed that it was silly to chastise the other for looking at other attractive people, and they had spent time together talking about which celebrities that they had crushes on. Jennifer Lawrence and Blake Lively were top of his list, for the record. Robert Downey Jr. as well, who this professor coincidentally happened to resemble. It was only common sense that Colin took a math class with an attractive professor, so he'd be more motivated to attend class. Right?

No.

In fact, upon looking at the class material that the professor had laid out on his home page, Colin had collapsed onto the couch in defeat. The last time he'd looked at algebra, he'd been in high school and had barely scraped by with a C. That had been at least four years ago, and he'd put off finishing his math credits until now so that he didn't need to face math again. He was in trouble. Maybe he'd just pull out of the class and take a different one offered in his senior year. It wasn't too late to drop out; the class had barely begun. But the thought of having to do a math class while concentrating on things he actually wanted to do was making his head spin...

It probably said something about how little attention he was paying to the math that he actually heard the door click, and Julie walk in. He gave her a defeated wave that looked more like a flopping blue whale as she addressed him, not having the mental energy to respond to her question. He was defeated. Good bye friends, he was gone. And now she was questioning his life choices and the decision that he'd made, just the way he always did with himself-- okay, she really did deserve an explanation.

"I needed a math credit," he begun. He didn't even have to look at her face to see that she was going to raise a quizzical eyebrow, or to ask him to elaborate. There was no sense waiting for her to say anything else. Glancing up at her for a brief moment before burying his face into a pillow once again, he muttered into it, glad that it was covering the flush of pure shame on his cheeks.

"I took it because the professor was really hot and I thought that if I could pass algebra in high school, I could pass it again. Just Google him on my computer-- Professor Henrik Robertson, Occidental College, and you'll understand." She could understand the allure of a pretty face as much as he could. It made perfect sense to him. "I don't know if I can handle this though, I may just drop."

Of course she was going to laugh. Colin buried his head further in the pillow as he heard the spoon clang against the floor, shaking his head from side to side. He hadn't wanted to admit that he had actually joined the class for that reason out loud to her-- he knew that she was probably going to react badly, and he had been right. Shut up, Professor Robertson was really attractive, and even Julie had had to agree with that. Glancing upwards from the pillow, he saw her just as she had hovered towards his laptop, noting that he was indeed the heartthrob Colin had described him to be. The blonde smiled.

"He really is, isn't he?" It was true. He had all the scruffy charm of Tony Stark as well as the learned air of a professor. In recent years he'd come to prefer girls to guys, but if he had been single and a man had come to woo him with intelligence, wit, and academic charm he was quite sure that he would have reverted into the blushing, stuttering teenage boy he had been back in high school. Then again, he had used to crush quite easily; it took a lot for him to like someone, and even more for him to love someone. Julie had managed to break those barriers, to make him feel as though he could spend the rest of his life with her, though some days he wondered why. Such as now, for instance, as she started oh-so-sarcastically mentioning that he just happened to reside with a mathematics major. Colin raised a brow. Okay, he was bad, but he wasn't that bad. He hadn't remembered that he was living with a mathematics major earlier on, sure, but now Julie mentioned it, he certainly knew she was talking about herself--

"Please."

With that word, Colin collapsed back onto the sofa. She was definitely going to hold this against him, but he'd never dropped a class before, and definitely didn't want to start having to do so. His inner academic nerd wouldn't allow it, and right now it was safe to say that he was feeling quite desperate. He needed help, and needed it badly.

"I don't know what I was thinking when I thought I could do anything with statistics and probabilities and algebra."

Upon her comment about hot people being his one true weakness, Colin could only nod meekly. It was true: much as he didn't like to admit it he was definitely drawn towards those that he found aesthetically pleasing. While it was probably hypocritical of him to think so, he did like pretty faces and pretty people, just like everyone else; he knew he should probably try to concentrate less on aesthetics especially because not everybody was born attractive but he couldn't help it. It was only human nature after all. In fact, he was so defeated that he could only moan in compliance as she compared him to a dog, taking a couple of seconds before he could even muster a retort.

"I don't know why I did this," he sighed. That seemed to be his perpetual state of mind. Okay, he knew exactly why he'd done it, but the more he thought about it the less and less of a good reason it seemed to be. "And I'm afraid to think of what kind of rewards system you'd come up with, but whatever it takes. I don't exactly want to have to drop this class." With that, he dragged himself off the couch, resting his head on her shoulder. If he had less dignity, he might have made a remark about her being his saviour, but he wasn't about to say that. He had been humiliated by Julie enough as it was and the last thing he needed was to dole out any comments that she could lord over him, because it was evident that he'd already given her sufficient fodder for the next fifty years of their lives. And she was probably going to keep counting.

"You're going to have a long way to go with helping me. The last time I got a B in a math class, I was in eighth grade. It also took a lot of extra credit and it hit the point where I no longer cared. How I graduated high school because there was a math requirement baffles me even today." To be fair, a lot of why he'd done so badly in math had also been because he hadn't exactly been in the best of emotional states when he was in high school. Admittedly he was a lot better equipped to handle math at this stage of his life, but he didn't want to. He'd put this off for long enough and had now decided to do it because the professor was attractive. If anybody else had made that decision, he was quite sure that he would be giving them the most judgmental stare of the century.

Colin scrunched up his nose as she ruffled his hair, acting like he was an angry puppy or something of the like. She liked telling him that he was a cute baby animal, but he was quite certain that he wasn't. He could be intimidating if he tried, really, it was just too much effort. No, he was completely serious about that-- it was possible for him to be scary, he could be harsh, he could probably terrify somebody in some sort of distant, fictional universe where all his OTPs were canon. He sighed.

"I don't know how I'm going to do this, Ju. What if my GPA drops below a 3.8? I don't even want to do the math to calculate where my GPA is going to be after this class." The only reason he'd been doing so well in college was because of how he'd chosen his classes; he'd made do with easy sciences and taken as many classes in the humanities and social sciences as he could, touching upon only topics that interested him. He flopped back onto the couch, glancing up as Julie as she started talking about how he was more likely to get laid if he wasn't wearing a plaid shirt. Colin had to snort.

"Julie, the chances are highest that I get laid if I'm not wearing a shirt at all." Gone were the initial stages of their relationship where he'd still been uncertain and insecure about his physicality, and he'd reached a point where he was comfortable talking about it. That, and he was pretty sure that he got laid more than 1 in 20 days. "Your equation makes no sense at all. Try again."

A smug smirk surfaced on soft features as Julie glared at him. It was true-- her calculations made no sense. Sure, she might have scoffed at his constant stream of plaid shirts, but she had never complained until she saw them all in the same place at once. It seemed to have become a personal mission for her to eradicate them from his wardrobe now, and he was determined to hold out for as long as he could. Defeat from his end was probably imminent, simply because he didn't care as much as he pretended to about what he wore (who was he kidding, he did, he was just lazy as all hell) and he knew that she probably had her ways, but emotional blackmail was not one of them. Lips parted to speak, to call her out on the fact that what he was wearing made no bearing whatsoever on whether he would be getting any that night, but that was when she leaned in and smiled, capturing his lips in a passionate kiss.

Brown eyes widened at the sudden motion, and he froze for a split second. Wait. Was this a reward? But he hadn't started any math yet, this made no sense-- well, he certainly wasn't complaining. Actually, this was definitely the preferable option to staring at p-values and x-squares all day, and he closed his eyes, easing into the kiss as she wrapped her arms around his neck. A hand reached over to cup the girl's face, fingers trailing across her cheek as he tilted his head to the side, easing into a more comfortable position. He could hear the shuffling of papers and a stack of them falling onto the floor as he shifted to press himself closer to her, but he didn't care. They could clean up later-- all of a sudden, math had never seemed like it was so much fun.

It was just kissing, wasn't it? Who said that he couldn't add something else into this equation? After all, she was supposed to be teaching him, but the only way to improve at mathematics was to test it out for yourself. Which was probably why he hadn't been good at math, but he supposed that he could make an exception for a case like this. With that, Colin ran his tongue across her lips, willing them to part as soft fingers entangled themselves into Julie's hair, tugging on it lightly, goading her to go further. I dare you went unsaid between them, and who said you're doing the teaching here was the sentiment as he smirked into the kiss. It was her choice as to whether he was pushing it now-- but well, you learned through trial and error. That was what his math teachers had always said to him back in school. Surely as the mathematics major between the two of them, Julie would be more than capable of understanding that.

He loved it, loved this, loved her. Liked the way she nipped against his bottom lip before she parted her lips to let his tongue in, and he obliged, exploring the contours of her mouth as he entwined his tongue with hers. Their lips were practically crushed against each others' at this point, and he found the hand that had initially been on her cheek wander down to her hips, trailing along the lines and curves of her body that he memorised once again each and every time he touched her. Colin jolted as she hastily yanked the fabric of his plaid shirt, fingers quickly slipping under the hem of her blouse as he realised that she meant business--

Wait. Wait. Julie pulled away, breaking off the kiss with a devilish look in her eyes. Okay, fine, maybe it was time to go back to math. Colin sighed, about to admit defeat, when she suddenly got up from the couch, heading towards the door, but not before glancing back at him to cast him a sharp look... Right. Now it was his turn to smirk, getting up from the couch, ignoring the sound of his red booklet of mathematical formulae dropping to the floor as he followed after her, across the kitchen, and into the bedroom they shared.

Whatever this had to do with math, he had no idea; but he supposed that she was right. There were perks to dating a mathematics major, even if he didn't understand them. All of a sudden, Colin felt more confident about his potential grade than he had in his entire history of schooling, or at least, anything beyond 1 + 1. He shut the door behind him with a click, ready to prove her theory regarding the negative correlation between his attractiveness levels and his plaid shirts wrong, or to substitute it with a new theory regarding the lack thereof.