Chapter Text
Well, Keith thinks, this is it. Wasted. Explosions, a black and white montage of Keith laying dead on the floor of Dos Santos Hall with a massive glaring ‘F’ over his body. No credit received for all of the twelve hundred dollars he spent on the class.
He steps out of the lecture hall doors with heavy footsteps after the exam, a few students lagging behind him as well but it’s still the in-between time of classes so the halls are barren. He sighs heavily, grimacing as he replays Shiro’s advice over and over in his head, there’s always tutors in the basement of the library, Keith. They want to help you. Seriously. They’re all bored, anyway. Shiro would know, he practically raised them from hatchlings. Grad student nerd.
Instead of going to the library like he knows he damn well should, he goes to the student center to eat lunch. He glares at his organic chemistry notebook as he munches on french fries, wondering where in ever-loving hell his professor wrangled up those questions on the exam. Keith would have bet his five dollar pocket change that he had that shit on lockdown. Apparently not. Wasted.
He puts his earbuds in as he sits on a free bench outside among the dozen empty ones, the season not quite welcoming to hanging around, winter’s melting chill making his fingers a little cold. He flips through his notebook until the notations and words and numbers blend together on the pages, trying to find where he had gone wrong. Eventually he shoves it in his backpack and directs his narrowed gaze to the library across the campus green, now covered in melting snow and brown grass. They’re bored, Keith, they don’t care that you don’t know o-chem after taking it once before. Shiro, I know o-chem, o-chem doesn’t know me. Sure, Keith.
Fucking o-chem.
His next class isn’t until five so he has about three hours to waste and nothing else to work on, his campus housing apartment a twenty minute walk. What would a tutor hurt, anyway? Clearly Keith is losing his ability to understand a damn thing, another opinion might help. As long as it’s not Lance, who just loves to rub in his face that he passed o-chem with a B-, honestly legendary for the course. Besides, if he fails it one more time there’s always the empty lot down the street to bury himself in. He’s got options.
He strides through the revolving doors to the library, past the metal detectors toward the basement staircase where he’s only ventured twice, once for a class and once when a boy wanted to show him a book in freshman year that J. R. R. Tolkein apparently owned (that was a lie). There were quiet working spaces off to the side, small glassed-in rooms for study groups along the wall, more bookshelves, computer labs, and toward the back was the academic help center. He feels himself bristling even before he’s spoken to anyone. He doesn’t like how it’s uncomfortably warm down here, either, and mingled with the littlest bit of embarrassment he’s already feeling? Ugh.
He walks as quietly as he can toward the back, boots making his steps hollow on the carpet, and at the desk sits a blue-shirted student employee with their feet propped up on the edge. Reading a textbook. Clearly bored.
He walks up within a foot of the desk and it takes a full thirty seconds for the student to notice him, blinking blearily up at him like he was literally sleeping with his eyes open. “Hey, man,” the blue-shirted student says, flipping another page, yawning wide. “What can I do ya for?”
God.
“Uh,” Keith clears his throat, shoving his balled up fists tighter into his jean jacket. “Tutor?”
“Yeah.”
College. Reducing adults to one-word replies.
“Can I get one? Maybe?” Why does he sound so unsure? Of course he’s here for a tutor. The sleepiness of the blue-shirted student is throwing him off. He’s getting tired too, like he stepped through a thin veil. Starting to lose his grip a little. Pidge’s latest fad is talking about alternate realities and Keith hasn’t quite shaken it from his mindspace yet, and it’s niggling at his brain now.
“Yeah, absofruitly, my man,” the student drags his feet off the desk and slams the textbook closed, the noise jarring in the buzzing stillness of the basement. It takes Keith a second to realize he actually said ‘absofruitly’ and also ‘man’. That’s cool. Cool wordage.
“What class? If it’s for Lundstrom’s calculus class you’re shit out of luck,” he says but in a way that isn’t offensive. Not like Keith cares because he’s already passed calc like two semesters ago.
“No,” he says and shakes his head, adjusting his stance subconsciously, voice going low. “Uh, it’s for Iverson’s organic chemistry? Can… is there anyone to, uh… help with that…”
Blue-shirted student is staring at him, slowly raising his brows as he talks and it’s unnerving. He’s never been a fan of people staring at him like he’s a book to figure out. Then blue-shirted student whistles in a diminuendo, shaking his head in awed pity and Keith’s stomach falls into his ass.
“Damn. O-chem? I am so, so sorry, dude,” the student says, picking up a pen and clicking it. Keith groans internally and puts his mouth in a flat line. He turns to book it out of here but then blue-shirt interrupts him by pulling a keyboard toward him, the chair making awful squeaking noises as he rolls closer to the desk.
“But, I think I have a guy for you,” blue-shirt says conspiratorially, and something about everything makes Keith thinks he’s giving him an in to the Men in Black. Fuck, he needs to get out of here.
But, he’s rooted to the spot when the student clacks away on the keyboard and narrows his gaze to the computer screen in front of him, humming to himself and scrolling on the mousepad. Keith might laugh if he wasn’t afraid of waking up goblins or lost students in the stacks nearby. Honestly if college had taught him anything, it’s that weird shit happens on the daily. He would not be surprised.
It takes a second for blue-shirt to pull something up, grinning wide and proudly.
“Well, damn, son, you’re actually in luck. We have a tutor who’s majoring in environmental chemistry and geology. He knows his shit,” he says, slapping a hand to the desktop before springing up like he was a taut rubber band this whole time. “Lemme see if he’s here, he tends to, uh… hang out…”
Okay, then.
Keith blinks after him as he disappears toward the offices behind him, letting out a breath he didn’t know he had caged up. A few moments later he comes back in his blue shirt glory and gives him a thumbs up. Keith furrows his brows but blue-shirt is undeterred.
“If you want, you can just head upstairs. Find a spot if you can. Hunk’s busy with something, he’ll be up in a hot minute,” he says, nodding slowly like he might pass out with his eyes open like he did before. Keith might actually laugh.
But, first. “Hunk?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that... is that his name?” Keith’s lips quirk up into a smile. Is this actually his real life, right now?
“Yeah, man. Hunk. Can’t miss him.”
Okay.
Keith nods and turns on his heel, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Oh, wait! Take this,” blue-shirt leans over the desk and hands him a framed picture of the Dos Equis guy, complete with meme. I don’t always drive the speed limit, but when I do, it’s because the asshole behind me is tailgating. What the fuck. Keith’s almost entirely convinced he got handed a quest item.
He goes to the second level and heads toward the far back corner where it’s quietest in his opinion, but then it occurs to him that Hunk (?) might not be able to find him. He supposes that’s what the framed meme is for, but the library is huge. And Keith likes to hole himself in corners. He grumbles and finds a free table that’s more out in the open, between endless rows of stacks where the smell of old books and burning electronics permeates the air. He sits down and pulls out his notebook and textbook and lab manual, trying valiantly to ignore his racing heartbeat as he scrolls through Spotify for a playlist.
Ten minutes pass and Keith’s ready to hop out of his seat and call it quits before a figure walks around the corner of his 4 person table, pulling out a chair opposite of him. He pulls out an earbud to ask what they thought they were doing before a brown hand pulls the framed meme on the desk closer.
“I love this one, honestly,” the figure chuckles, and Keith glances up.
Oh. Oh, wow. The earbud falls from Keith’s fingers into his lap as his mouth drops and his heart shoots straight up into his throat.
The guy sitting across from him is definitely, without a doubt, an imposing figure. A hunk. Literally. Except he’s the opposite of scary. Broad and soft but with a kindly bespectacled face.
“Are you the one needing an o-chem tutor? Rolo downstairs said someone came in looking for one,” the guy who Keith assumes is Hunk says, and his voice is deep and friendly to match the rest of him, big fingers tracing the frame of the meme absently as they regard each other.
“Uh.”
Nice, Keith.
He swallows thickly and pulls out the other earbud, sitting up straight in his chair. “Yeah, that’s me. O-chem. Tutor. Is that you?”
Hunk flicks his eyes down to the meme, and oh, fuck, that’s not what he meant. “The--” Hunk starts before Keith cuts him off.
“Are you the tutor? I mean. I assume. Are you Hunk?” he spews, tapping his fingers to his organic chemistry textbook, his face probably hotter than fucking Venus at this point. Idiot.
Hunk grins, and damn. Damn. The dark rimmed retro glasses he’s wearing do nothing to diminish the way his eyes crinkle on the edges or how bright his smile is. Keith’s eyes track down to his plain tie, his shirt… are there cats on the collar? He’s wearing a sage green sweater over it, and honestly he looks like a library nerd. A math nerd. A complete dork. But, shit, if he wasn’t cute.
“Yeah, I’m Hunk. Part-time tutor,” he smiles at him, extending a hand across the desk. Keith stares at how huge his hand looks for a moment before shaking it, Hunk’s fingers wrapping warm and snug around his palm, hand almost completely engulfed. Keith isn’t quite sure how to articulate how shocking and unexpectedly nice it is, his own grubby hand sliding down to his side after he releases it.
After a beat passes, Keith realizes he should probably say something. “Keith.” He hates how his voice almost cracks.
“Nice to meet you,” Hunk replies, but not in a passive manner like anyone else might say when meeting someone for the first time, only to move onto something else. He says it like he means it genuinely. It doesn’t help the fluttering in Keith’s chest.
“So what’s the sitch? Do you have Iverson?” Hunk asks after another beat passes where Keith can’t say a damn thing, but Hunk seems utterly unbothered, pulling Keith’s class syllabus toward him. “Oh, dang, yeah. Iverson sucks,” he answers his own question as his espresso brown eyes scan the packet, his lip quirked up in a crooked smile. Keith tears his eyes away.
“Yeah, no kidding,” he clears his throat, curling his fingers around his pen. “It’s… my second time taking it. Iverson’s the only one that teaches it, so…,” he says tightly and shrugs, thumbing at his notebook and cursing it for being the bane of his existence. He recalls Shiro’s they don’t care, Keith at the back of his mind, flipping through to the last few lessons that the exam covered.
Hunk hums in response, putting the syllabus aside as well as the framed meme. “My friend took it twice, too. O-chem is notoriously hard, everyone takes it twice. It’s cool,” he says calmly with a shrug, and Keith flicks his eyes up to see that he really doesn’t care. Still smiling like that. Like it’s so easy.
O-chem? Pfft.
The corners of Keith’s mouth quirk up in a smile. He really hopes this tutor can back it up.
“So what are you having trouble with? Let’s start small, work up from there,” Hunk says so levelly with such an air of painlessness, folding his fingers together. Cute.
Keith explains his troubles with the content, showing him the notations and equations he can’t quite wrap his head around, the complicated terms and what they mean and do in certain problems. Hunk really meant it when he said to start small, going back to basics. Keith’s almost annoyed, clearly so by rolling his eyes, because he at least knows that stuff.
But Hunk says, “Just wait,” and proceeds to rearrange his whole brain by the compartmentalization he lays out. Step by fucking step. And he uses very little chemistry jargon that usually confuses Keith, explaining it all simply yet academically sound, fingers pointing to equations, making notes with his own blue pen next to Keith’s black. Painless.
They get through one lesson and another, and slowly Keith starts connecting the dots. It makes a little more sense. Some things he had no clue on tie in with things he does. It helps that Hunk seems to think this is as easy as riding a bike, answering Keith’s questions with another bright smile and a laugh as he makes a pun. He seems to have multiple chemistry puns up his sleeve, too, and though some of them are really dumb and don’t quite land, some make Keith laugh. It makes him forget that alkaloids are a pain in the ass.
His back starts hurting after awhile, shoulders sore and neck stiff, and Keith looks to his phone. He’s got ten minutes to get to his next class and he’s shocked that three hours passed so fast after all that science.
“I gotta get going,” he says, tucking his phone into his coat pocket and gathering up his materials, looking up to see Hunk stretching his arms over his head. Keith forgot how muscled his arms looked in that sweater for the last few hours but now he definitely remembers. He tears his eyes away before he can be caught staring when Hunk lowers them.
“About that time, huh? What class you have next?” Hunk asks conversationally, cracking his knuckles. Goddamn. That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
“Uh,” Keith frantically wracks his brain. “A stupid gen-ed class.” He’d rather not say he’s taking bowling with a bunch of freshman for his ‘human development’ credit, because that’s stupid, right? “What about you? Do you have class?”
“Nah, I only have two in the morning. Going home after this,” Hunk says as he slides the syllabus back to Keith, standing and picking up the framed meme and waving it with a grin. “Gotta take the world’s most interesting man back downstairs, though.”
Why does that make Keith smile? So dumb.
“Well, uhm… thanks. For the tutoring,” he says as he also stands, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.
“Yeah, of course. I’m usually here Wednesdays if you need any more help. Iverson never lets up,” Hunk smiles, tucking his free hand into his tailored jean pocket. Keith tries not to think how tall he is, or how his shoes are so nice, something like Oxfords but in boot form. Well worn and cared for.
He waves at him in a stilted goodbye before hightailing it out of there. When he gets outside and pounds down the staircase to the sidewalk, he remembers the teacher had emailed earlier today that bowling was cancelled for the night.
Something about that is disappointing.