Fic: Pythagorean Complex
Title: Pythagorean Complex
Author: notfar
Characters: Kurt, Rachel, Finn, Santana, and the rest of glee club
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,822
Disclaimer: Don’t own Glee and this never happened
Notes: My lack of knowledge of the American school system - and geometry entirely - is probably super-evident in this. Unbeta-d. Just roll with it :)
Summary: Rachel needs notes from a class she missed. Unfortunately, that class is geometry. Even more unfortunately, the only person she knows who shares the class is Kurt. This turns out to be more problematic than she could've imagined. Based on this prompt at the glee_angst_meme .
-
Rachel and Finn are enjoying some much needed alone time together when she remembers. It’s an oversight. Well, no, it’s not, because to call it an oversight is to imply fault. And this is nobody’s fault. It’s definitely not Rachel’s fault. Her brief but traumatic episode of tonsillitis pinpointed the value of her voice, and the importance of prioritizing it above everything else. Keeping her monthly appointments with her Ear Nose and Throat specialist is of utmost importance if she wants to ensure the quality of her throat will never again be compromised. It’s an essential brick in the cobbled road to Broadway. And really, it’s for the good of the whole glee club. The whole school, even. So Rachel is willing to sacrifice her education in the form of her morning classes every fourth Tuesday to make the trip across town to see Dr Hurstbridge and let him prod around inside her mouth with his tongue depressors and swabs and torches. She’s taking one for the team.
So whilst missing an occasional class is an absolute necessity that cannot be helped, it doesn’t change the fact that Rachel may have inadvertently missed the most important class of the semester.
Finn freezes when she gasps, clambering off instantly like he might’ve somehow injured or offended her even though they were doing nothing more than some innocent but undeniably heated spit-swapping in Finn and Kurt’s dimly lit basement bedroom.
“Are you okay?” he asks, eyes wide, and she shakes her head, hand moving up to her mouth.
“Batty,” she replies, standing up and straightening out the pleats of her skirt.
“Huh?” Finn’s eyes follow her as she moves over to the mirror, flipping the lights back on and fixing her hair quickly.
“Mr Batty. I just realised. I missed his class today, and he’s giving a test tomorrow. A test that is renowned for being impossibly intricate and illogically specific. A test that will determine my mark for the entire term and therefore year and have an indelible effect on my GPA which is what any number of performance academies will be looking at in less than two years’ time!”
“Wow, okay,” Finn says, “but it’s not tomorrow yet. So there’s lots of time to study. I can… drive you to the library, or something?”
Rachel shakes her head, because Finn doesn’t understand the magnitude of the situation. “The class I missed today was his once-only informational revision session. The one class where he goes through variations of the questions that invariably turn up on his legendary quiz. This is a disaster, Finn!”
Finn just blinks at her, and Rachel can feel the tears budding in her eyes. It really is a disaster, because she has five things she cares about above everything else. Five. The list, in order from most beloved down looks like this:
1. Her voice
2. Her fathers
3. Her grades
4. Finn
5. Glee Club
When one dot point on the list is in jeopardy, everything that falls below it is in trouble too. Rachel Berry without a voice is Rachel Berry without anything. And Rachel Berry without gold stars on every test paper is not the kind of girl who can maintain a fairytale romance and captain a glee club to Nationals. It’s everything or nothing. So this test. This test matters.
She’s halfway up the staircase, having repaired herself to a slightly more presentable state, ready to head home and hit the books like a woman possessed, when it occurs to her. There’s a hope. She may not be entirely doomed.
“Kurt,” she says, and Finn, following behind to see her out like the well-trained boyfriend he is becoming, blinks, then looks back down at the basement they’re vacating.
“Uh. No. I’m Finn.”
“I know,” Rachel nods, hastening her climb up the staircase. “Kurt’s in Mr Batty’s class with me. He’ll have the notes from today!”
“Oh,” Finn says. “Awesome!”
-
Kurt and Rachel have few interactions outside of Glee club, aside from the occasions when Rachel visits Finn at the Hummel-Hudson house, which are usually stilted and awkward and end with Kurt gathering his belongings and stalking upstairs to the living room, or fleeing the house entirely. Rachel chooses not to take offence to his behaviour. They’re too similar for their own good, sometimes. It’s only natural that two magnets with the same charge repel each other.
Still, it’s not always hostile. There have been times when Finn has been caught up in his XBOX games with Mike and Sam, and Rachel has retreated up in search of some slightly more civilised company. Kurt, it turns out, has surprisingly (or maybe not-so-surprisingly, when the similarities in their interests are really considered) decent taste in movies, and unsalted popcorn is the way to his heart. A freshly made bowl can be enough to bribe him into sharing the couch. Sometimes even his blanket.
But at school, and in class, it’s a different story. Mr Batty is the only teacher they share, and Rachel insists on sitting in the front row while Kurt takes the very back row wherever he can. A strategic move, Rachel suspects, because Karofsky and his goons haven’t yet mastered the skill of throwing their spitballs backwards. Still, the arrangement ensures they have next to no in-class communication aside from an occasional smile. Rachel has never put much serious thought into arranging group study sessions with him - she’s far too independent and self-reliant, and she has no idea of his learning techniques or preferred methods of organisation. But that doesn’t matter. All she needs are his notes.
She finds Kurt curled up on the couch with Santana, of all people. It’s not a friendship she would’ve predicted, but Kurt seems to have retained some sort of involvement in the Cheerios even if he no longer parades the hallways as one of Sue Sylvester’s polyester-red soldiers. For all the ‘gay kid’ comments in glee, Santana appears to be more than comfortable wrapped around him, her barely-clad legs thrown over his lap and her arms curled against his chest.
Finn makes a noise akin to a yelp when he sees Santana in his living room snuggling with his almost-step-brother and retreats back to the basement. Rachel decides she doesn’t want to know, advancing forwards alone to face the two most intimidating people she knows.
She’s not entirely sure what they’re watching - it involves Europe’s Final Countdown and a man dancing in front of a smoke machine with a knife in his mouth - but judging from their reactions - Santana’s cackle and Kurt’s unbridled laughter - it’s amusing.
Brace yourself, Rachel. Be courageous. Think of the test, she tells herself, and steps forward.
“Excuse me.”
“Oh no, you did not just interrupt Arrested Development, Berry,” Santana says, pointing at her immediately.
“Santana,” Kurt says, putting his hand on her arm and pulling it back down. “Can I help you, Rachel?”
“Yes, actually,” Rachel replies, coming in from the doorway. “I was hoping I could borrow your geometry notes. I missed Mr Batty’s class today.”
“If you must,” Kurt says, his fleeting attention already directed back on the flat-screen. “They’re on my desk. Green notebook. ”
“Thank you so much, Kurt,” Rachel tells him, her smile brighter than ever even if there's nobody around to truly appreciate it. “I’ll just copy them into my own notes and leave the book for your own revision.”
“Don’t bother, take the whole thing,” Kurt says, sounding bored and reaching for the popcorn. “Take Finn back to your house for the rest of the week instead of coming here and we’ll call it even.”
“Kurt Hummel, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Santana turns up the volume on the television, so Rachel takes that as her cue to leave.
-
Kurt’s handwriting, much like his personality, leaves a lot to be desired, Rachel thinks. It’s a combination of scratch-marks and loops, interspersed with the occasional stick figure or doodle of a flower. Still, it’s readable, and Rachel spends the night studying the pages fervently, squinting down at diagram after diagram, angles and triangles and perpendicular lines and equations until her eyes hurt and her head starts to droop down towards the desk.
Eventually she shuts the book and dons her pyjamas, brushing her teeth and sliding into bed confident that she has thoroughly revised everything Mr Batty saw fit to run through in class.
She has to swap her usual protein shake for a soy double-latte come morning, but once the caffeine is humming through her veins, the smile is back on her face. It stays right throughout the morning, until the bell rings and it’s time for Geometry. She passes Kurt’s book back to him as they’re walking into the classroom.
“The bowties were particularly educational,” she whispers, referring to the double-page of triangles Kurt fashioned into neck accessories, ignoring the hypotenuse in favour of shading each one to match Mr Batty’s extensive bowtie collection.
Kurt smiles then, tucking the book under his arm. “I’ll take patterns over pythagorus any day,” he says, heading to his end of the classroom.
It’s not until the test papers are handed out and the no-talking rule is very much in effect that Rachel realises the critical flaw in her plan - studying from notes composed of 50% doodles and 50% uninterested mathematical scribbles. She has to wonder how much time Kurt spent getting the paisley pattern of Batty’s Wednesday bowtie just right, and how much time he spent actually paying attention to the Very Important Teaching he was lucky enough to be present for.
Rachel wants to believe her fears are unfounded. Kurt is an overachiever. His marks are higher than hers from what she’s overheard in the choir room. He probably just added in all the extra drawings in his study period. That must be it.
But then she turns the page of the test paper and realises she only knows how to answer a third of the questions. At a stretch.
By the time the bell rings again and students pour out into the corridors, Rachel feels like throwing up. She can’t ever remember doing so badly on a test.
“I am so friggin’ glad Batty went through this whole paper yesterday,” one of the band kids says to another girl as they pass her in the doorway. “I woulda been screwed otherwise.”
“For real,” the friend says, and they both laugh.
Rachel watches Kurt walk ahead of her, power-walking to meet up with Mercedes at her locker down the hall, arms swinging and carefree. She wonders how he could do it to her. How he could give her sub-standard notes knowing how important the content of the class was.
It’s sabotage. It has to be. It’s the only explanation for what has happened. Kurt sits at the back of the classroom; he had to have known she was missing. She thought they were friends. She thought they were the kind of friends who could be relied upon, at least for crucial note-taking.
She was wrong. The happy feeling is long gone. The sick feeling is still there, but it’s joined by something else. Fury.
It’s lunchtime, but she can’t stomach her salad. Even more than that, she can’t stomach the thought of sitting at a lunch table with Kurt and his black-hearted treachery. It’s one thing to make fun of her clothes on a daily basis. To try and steal her one-and-only. To try and take her solos.
But messing with her GPA? That’s a whole new level of messed up.
Rachel won't stand for it.
She turns on her heel and heads to the choir room. She’s not ready for a confrontation. That will come, but Kurt’s a quick-tongued devil and she needs to be properly composed to tear him to shreds in the way that he deserves. So she finds Brad and the string-instrument kids and sings a fiery, amped up version of Barbara’s Cry Me A River until she feels better.
Finn comes in as she’s finishing up.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his expression matching the question perfectly.
Rachel tosses her hair, not quite done channelling the sass of the performance. “Not you. Kurt.”
“Oh. Good," Finn exhales, relief evident. "I mean, not good that Kurt made you mad. But good that it’s not me, because you’re kind of scary when you’re angry.”
“My anger is justified here, I assure you,” Rachel replies. “I just. I forgave him for the makeover. I don’t let the barbs get to me, even when he goes after my animal sweaters every single day. I try so hard to be the bigger person, Finn, even when it feels like it’s impossible.”
“You are pretty small,” Finn agrees. “And Kurt grew a bunch taller over summer.”
“I just thought we were at a stage where we could trust each other. Where I could call him my friend,” Rachel says with a sigh, dropping down onto the freshly-vacated piano stool. “I guess I was wrong to think he’d change. It was too easy to just assume he was over you. It’s clear he’s jealous of me, and he’s taking it out on me by sabotaging my grades. My grades. And still, I can’t really blame him. I mean, you’re Finn Hudson.”
“I am,” Finn says.
“You don’t just get over Finn Hudson. Look at Quinn. She’s obviously still smitten. And Kurt despises losing. He can’t stand that I won.”
“Hold up,” Finn says. “Are you saying Kurt still has a thing for me? Because I thought we were cool now. We share a bedroom, and play Halo and stuff.”
“It’s the only explanation,” Rachel replies, and just like that, it’s decided.
-
The confrontation looms. Rachel bides her time, but the process is accelerated by a note passed to her in Geometry from Batty.
See me after class.
Oh god. Batty never hands back the papers. He calls the problem students into his office for a personal interrogation instead. Rachel’s never gotten a note. Ever. She watches Batty make his way down the desks, passing out papers to a few other students. He reaches the back row, and the boy with the messy red hair beside Kurt gets one, and then Batty’s hands are empty and he’s walking back to the blackboard.
This is unfair in immeasurable proportions.
Rachel goes to Batty’s office after class. She gets a monotonous lecture on the importance of geometry, a pointed comment on how attendance is a prime way to monitor which students are truly dedicated to their education, and her grade. A C-. A C minus. Rachel wants to cry. Rachel does cry. Then she leaves the office and heads to glee ready to kick some Hummel ass.
Kurt’s already in there, along with everyone else. The talk with Batty took longer than Rachel was expecting, but now she can use the entrance to her advantage. Drama is her specialty. She strides directly towards Kurt until she’s standing in front of him.
“Traitor.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Rachel,” Kurt says, and turns back to his conversation with Brittany.
“Oh no you don’t,” Rachel replies, and grabs him by the scarf. “You betrayed me.”
Kurt squawks, tugging his scarf free from her hands and smoothing it down protectively. He’s got his bitch face on. “Not that this is an uncommon occurrence, but I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly. Batty.”
Kurt shakes his head, but their exchange has drawn the attention of the entire room, including the jazz band, so Rachel decides to explain it.
“Kurt and I are both in Mr Batty’s class, and I had to borrow his notes for a class I missed-"
“Wait,” Tina says, frowning. "Math teacher Batty?"
"Oh! The super creepy old math teacher man?” Finn asks, mouth open.
“Geometry teacher,” Rachel corrects. “And yes. Kurt’s the only one in my geometry class this semester, and I needed the notes for his quiz. But in a dramatic and upsetting turn of events, the notes were of such abysmal quality they proved completely unhelpful, and as a result, I received a truly unacceptable mark on the test.”
“You borrowed Kurt’s notes. For geometry,” Finn repeats, and it isn’t really a question. “You borrowed Kurt’s geometry notes, and now you’re mad at him for doing bad on the test.”
“Yes, Finn,” Rachel says. “You were there.”
“Technically I was hiding from Santana,” Finn says. “Scary bitch,” he adds under his breath.
Santana looks smug. Rachel turns back to Kurt, who mostly looks confused. The tips of his ears are tinged pink.
“You gave me useless notes. You know as well as I do that there were no questions on Batty’s chequered Friday bowtie on that quiz.”
Kurt tilts his head, folding his arms. “And wailing at me in front of everyone fixes your sub-par mark how? Those were the same notes I studied from, and I didn’t get a special see me note from Batty.”
“Rachel,” Finn says. “You borrowed geometry notes from Kurt. That guy.” He points, like maybe there’s a second Kurt in the room Rachel’s getting confused with.
“Yes,” Rachel says sharply, throwing her hands down by her sides. “I think we’ve established this. I asked Kurt for his notes, he gave me ones that were essentially useless, and now I have a C- on my transcript for eternity.”
“Rachel,” Artie says slowly. “I know I’ve been hearing things correctly, but I still don’t understand why you would use Kurt’s notes for such an infamously difficult test.”
“Kurt thinks a box has four sides,” Tina adds.
“Coach Sylvester makes him stand in the middle for all our vocal performances because he hasn’t mastered the concept of star formation,” Santana says.
Rachel gasps. Kurt splutters. The red tinge has extended down the length of his ears.
“This has rapidly transformed from moderately annoying conversation to rude, mud-throwing offenses against my person,” Kurt says, standing up and walking to the front of the room. He leans back against the piano, arms crossed hautily. “I don’t know where any of you are getting your information, but I’m just fine at geometry, thank you very much. I’ve never gotten a letter from Batty. You have no right. None of you do.”
Rachel huffs, and raises her pointing finger.
“Calm yourself before you lose control of your bladder, Berry,” Santana says. Her hand in Brittany’s lap rests higher than most would consider socially acceptable. “After Schuester threw his bitch fit last year about the pass-grade minimum for extra-curricular participation and pulled everyone from the squad for their Spanish grades, Coach Sylvester wised up. Cheerios get an automatic pass grade in every subject.”
“What?! That’s completely unfair!” Rachel squawks. “That is inherently and morally wrong.”
Santana shrugs. “Coach S doesn’t want anything distracting us from cheerleading. So she makes sure we pass no matter what. She’s got dirt on every teacher in this joint.”
“She has a whole drawer in her filing cabinet marked Blackmail,” Brittany says. “It’s right below her syringe and pills drawer. I saw it when I was looking for my shoe.”
“Ms Sylvester took your shoe?” Rachel asks.
Brittany stares at her for a moment. “No,” she answers finally. “Somebody put it in my locker.”
"Point is,” Santana continues, “Coach Sylvester’s got sway. It’s the only way Kurt’s even passing that class, from what I can tell. Seriously, what were you thinking, taking his notes? I’ve seen him screw up the measurements for the Master Cleanse so many times I’d rather borrow Finn’s math class notes than his. Not that I need them, when I can just scare one of the chess-club nerds into doing my homework for me.”
“Oh god,” Rachel says. Things are beginning to make sense. The half-assed mathematical scribbles. The detailed drawings of neck accessories and ball gowns and kittens taking up entire pages. “Kurt. How do you calculate the volume of a cone?”
Kurt’s eyes go wide for a fraction of a second before he recovers, lips pressed into a thin line. “Length by width by height.”
Finn gives him a subtle thumbs-up.
“Oh god,” Rachel says again. “Kurt, what colour jacket was Mr Batty wearing in class last Friday?”
“The god-awful grey sports coat with the leather patch elbows,” Kurt replies immediately, shuddering at the memory.
“Oh god,” Rachel whispers to herself. “How could I have been so stupid.”
“Kurt, no offense,” Artie says, “But you kind of suck at math. Especially geometry.”
Kurt’s hand flies up to his mouth.
“Isn’t that why you asked me to tutor you after school on Mondays?” Artie goes on. “I thought you realised. I mean, it made me see how much you needed help. There’s a reason I invited you to join in with the extra tutes I give Puck on Thursdays.”
Kurt has very evidently never realised. He shakes his head, fist clenched over his mouth. “I don’t understand how me being kind enough to share my notes with Rachel after she decides to skip class turns into a group tell-all on how dumb you all apparently think I am. I’ll have you all know that I am a straight-A student.”
“Impossible,” Rachel replies immediately. “I refuse to accept that. Ms Sylvester’s fraudulence aside, there’s absolutely no way you can justify an A-grade with your knowledge of geometry. And I have to wonder how this reflects upon your performance in other classes.”
Were she paying more attention to Kurt’s expression, she might have identified his patented take you to the floor, bitch face. Usually reserved for particularly aggressive verbal retaliation against the jocks or Gaga-related arguments with Finn, it’s clear to the rest of the room that Kurt is mad. Creased forehead, wide, angry eyes, the barely-there flare of his nostrils, the tight stretch of his lips, the tension in his shoulders. Textbook Hummel rage.
“How dare you,” he says, hands curling into well-manicured fists by his sides.
Belatedly, Rachel recalls her earlier observation of the similarities between herself and Kurt. If Kurt had a list of important matters, she suspects it would look a little like:
1. His father
2. His voice
3. His clothing
4. His grades
5. Glee club
She has drawn attention to an inadequacy in #4, and by calling him out on it in front of everyone, has compromised #5. Rachel thinks of her own list, and her own reaction to any form of threat against any item on that list. For the first time, she wonders if she made an error in choosing to confront Kurt in a situation like this.
Kurt’s only just getting started. “You have no right, Rachel. I’m at the very top of my English class. My French class. World History. Drama. Music. So what if I’m not perfect at geometry. It’s useless. It’s certainly never going to get me out of this town.”
Rachel thinks of the note folded in her backpack. See me after class. “Not perfect?”
Kurt exhales with a hiss, then takes a deep breath, opening his mouth to continue.
“Okay, okay,” Santana says with a sigh, interrupting before he can get truly vicious. She uncrosses her legs and stands up, and Rachel has never imagined herself feeling so grateful for Santana Lopez’s bitchy, ponytailed existence. “Time for some truth. Because amusing as it is to watch you both freak out over geometry, of all the things in the frickin’ world, my ears can only take so much pitchy screaming before they start to bleed. And there’s no way I’m explaining to Coach Sylvester why I have blood on my uniform. Take a seat, Oliver Twist.”
Kurt’s eyes flash again at Rachel, but he obeys, sitting back down by Brittany again.
“Here’s the thing, man-hands,” Santana says. “So what if Kurt sucks at geometry? He has a great ass, so who cares. Besides, that thing is our golden ticket to a perfect report card.”
Rachel follows the line of Santana’s arm. She’s pointing to the unnecessarily large glass case enclosing the excessive and frankly ridiculous 1st place trophy the Cheerios brought home from Nationals.
“If we win Nationals, Coach Sylvester bumps us all up to A’s as a reward,” Santana says. “In every class.”
“I’m on honour roll,” Brittany says.
Rachel’s mouth falls open. “Preposterous. That is completely unfair.”
“You try practicing the same routine for ten hours every day for a month straight including weekends and talk to me about fair,” Quinn says from the back row. “Try liquid diets and constant verbal abuse and the terror of daily weigh-ins leading up to public performances. We work hard. We work unimaginably hard, and we bring more prestige - and money - to the school than every other club, organisation and sports team combined. Every single member of the squad earns their grades.”
“You earn forged paperwork and false accolades, congratulations,” Rachel tells her.
“I never knew,” Kurt says quietly, and from the way he’s staring at the ground intently, blinking rapidly, Rachel realises there was no sabotage. No ulterior motive at play. Just Kurt being nice to her for once, behaving in a manner usually reserved for friends. And her response was to call him out in front of his peers to explicitly highlight a flaw he wasn’t even aware of.
Rachel feels sick. It’s not terrible-test-sick either. It’s guilt-sick.
Mr Schue finally whirls in, a good quarter of an hour late, picking up the whiteboard marker and asking everyone to sit down before she can begin to apologise.
Once more, Rachel is forced to bide her time. After school would be a prime time to corner him and clear the air, but she remembers the promise made in exchange for his notes, and drives Finn back to her house after school for some intense rehearsal. Sectionals are looming, and it never hurts to have a duet between the two leads ready to pull out at any stage. If the song happens to be one about a rugged male confessing his undying love to a glamorous, charming female, it’s just a bonus.
-
Lunch time the following day finds everyone seated at their usual table. Kurt appears uncharacteristically morose.
“I owe you an apology,” Rachel tells him, forgoing her usual seat at the end of the table with Finn to wedge herself into the gap between Kurt and Quinn. “I was too quick to assume there was malicious intent at play. And I was wrong to accuse you of it in front of everyone.”
“No,” Kurt says, pushing at his salad with his fork. “It probably is something I would do. I almost wish I’d planned it. I just never realised I was so bad at geometry. I don’t know what’s worse - that I’m hopeless at geometry and I never realised it, or that my short-comings were evident - and such a source of amusement - to everyone else and they never thought to tell me.”
“It’s not like that,” Quinn says from Rachel’s other side, leaning forwards before Rachel can begin to offer comfort. “Nobody’s laughing at you for sucking at geometry. We picked up on the four-sided box thing, sure, but that one’s memorable because you were being sassy while wearing overalls and a trucker cap. It was kind of adorable, once you get past the bizarre-o factor of what you were wearing. It’s no worse than the time Tina thought wearing orange eye-shadow was a good idea."
She smiles, reaching around Rachel to touch his shoulder. "Everyone has something they suck at. I can’t understand chemistry to save my life. Sure, you might not be amazing at math, but everyone knows you’re going to end up on Broadway or television or runways in Milan. Who gives a damn about triangles there?”
“If it helps,” Rachel puts in, “this whole incident has proven to me that geometry isn’t my forte either. Missing one revision class shouldn’t have such a dramatic effect on the outcome of a test when I have attended every other class and devoted hours of my life to studying the class content.”
“Apology accepted,” Kurt says softly, dropping his fork down into his largely-untouched salad and standing up.
“Where are you going?” Rachel asks. “There are still three-quarters of our lunchbreak remaining.”
“Conditioning training with Coach Sylvester,” he replies. “I’ve got to keep that A in geometry somehow.”
With that, he leaves. Rachel watches him go, and thinks of the veritable mountain of geometry homework Batty assigned her as punishment for the poor test result. For the first time in her life, she considers trying out for the Cheerios.
“You’re too short, it’d never work,” Quinn says, pulling Rachel’s eyes back to the table, Kurt’s tray still in front of her. “Coach Sylvester has height requirements, and Becky’s the only exception.
Rachel sighs, and wonders if Artie has time to tutor her too.
---
Author: notfar
Characters: Kurt, Rachel, Finn, Santana, and the rest of glee club
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4,822
Disclaimer: Don’t own Glee and this never happened
Notes: My lack of knowledge of the American school system - and geometry entirely - is probably super-evident in this. Unbeta-d. Just roll with it :)
Summary: Rachel needs notes from a class she missed. Unfortunately, that class is geometry. Even more unfortunately, the only person she knows who shares the class is Kurt. This turns out to be more problematic than she could've imagined. Based on this prompt at the glee_angst_meme .
-
Rachel and Finn are enjoying some much needed alone time together when she remembers. It’s an oversight. Well, no, it’s not, because to call it an oversight is to imply fault. And this is nobody’s fault. It’s definitely not Rachel’s fault. Her brief but traumatic episode of tonsillitis pinpointed the value of her voice, and the importance of prioritizing it above everything else. Keeping her monthly appointments with her Ear Nose and Throat specialist is of utmost importance if she wants to ensure the quality of her throat will never again be compromised. It’s an essential brick in the cobbled road to Broadway. And really, it’s for the good of the whole glee club. The whole school, even. So Rachel is willing to sacrifice her education in the form of her morning classes every fourth Tuesday to make the trip across town to see Dr Hurstbridge and let him prod around inside her mouth with his tongue depressors and swabs and torches. She’s taking one for the team.
So whilst missing an occasional class is an absolute necessity that cannot be helped, it doesn’t change the fact that Rachel may have inadvertently missed the most important class of the semester.
Finn freezes when she gasps, clambering off instantly like he might’ve somehow injured or offended her even though they were doing nothing more than some innocent but undeniably heated spit-swapping in Finn and Kurt’s dimly lit basement bedroom.
“Are you okay?” he asks, eyes wide, and she shakes her head, hand moving up to her mouth.
“Batty,” she replies, standing up and straightening out the pleats of her skirt.
“Huh?” Finn’s eyes follow her as she moves over to the mirror, flipping the lights back on and fixing her hair quickly.
“Mr Batty. I just realised. I missed his class today, and he’s giving a test tomorrow. A test that is renowned for being impossibly intricate and illogically specific. A test that will determine my mark for the entire term and therefore year and have an indelible effect on my GPA which is what any number of performance academies will be looking at in less than two years’ time!”
“Wow, okay,” Finn says, “but it’s not tomorrow yet. So there’s lots of time to study. I can… drive you to the library, or something?”
Rachel shakes her head, because Finn doesn’t understand the magnitude of the situation. “The class I missed today was his once-only informational revision session. The one class where he goes through variations of the questions that invariably turn up on his legendary quiz. This is a disaster, Finn!”
Finn just blinks at her, and Rachel can feel the tears budding in her eyes. It really is a disaster, because she has five things she cares about above everything else. Five. The list, in order from most beloved down looks like this:
1. Her voice
2. Her fathers
3. Her grades
4. Finn
5. Glee Club
When one dot point on the list is in jeopardy, everything that falls below it is in trouble too. Rachel Berry without a voice is Rachel Berry without anything. And Rachel Berry without gold stars on every test paper is not the kind of girl who can maintain a fairytale romance and captain a glee club to Nationals. It’s everything or nothing. So this test. This test matters.
She’s halfway up the staircase, having repaired herself to a slightly more presentable state, ready to head home and hit the books like a woman possessed, when it occurs to her. There’s a hope. She may not be entirely doomed.
“Kurt,” she says, and Finn, following behind to see her out like the well-trained boyfriend he is becoming, blinks, then looks back down at the basement they’re vacating.
“Uh. No. I’m Finn.”
“I know,” Rachel nods, hastening her climb up the staircase. “Kurt’s in Mr Batty’s class with me. He’ll have the notes from today!”
“Oh,” Finn says. “Awesome!”
-
Kurt and Rachel have few interactions outside of Glee club, aside from the occasions when Rachel visits Finn at the Hummel-Hudson house, which are usually stilted and awkward and end with Kurt gathering his belongings and stalking upstairs to the living room, or fleeing the house entirely. Rachel chooses not to take offence to his behaviour. They’re too similar for their own good, sometimes. It’s only natural that two magnets with the same charge repel each other.
Still, it’s not always hostile. There have been times when Finn has been caught up in his XBOX games with Mike and Sam, and Rachel has retreated up in search of some slightly more civilised company. Kurt, it turns out, has surprisingly (or maybe not-so-surprisingly, when the similarities in their interests are really considered) decent taste in movies, and unsalted popcorn is the way to his heart. A freshly made bowl can be enough to bribe him into sharing the couch. Sometimes even his blanket.
But at school, and in class, it’s a different story. Mr Batty is the only teacher they share, and Rachel insists on sitting in the front row while Kurt takes the very back row wherever he can. A strategic move, Rachel suspects, because Karofsky and his goons haven’t yet mastered the skill of throwing their spitballs backwards. Still, the arrangement ensures they have next to no in-class communication aside from an occasional smile. Rachel has never put much serious thought into arranging group study sessions with him - she’s far too independent and self-reliant, and she has no idea of his learning techniques or preferred methods of organisation. But that doesn’t matter. All she needs are his notes.
She finds Kurt curled up on the couch with Santana, of all people. It’s not a friendship she would’ve predicted, but Kurt seems to have retained some sort of involvement in the Cheerios even if he no longer parades the hallways as one of Sue Sylvester’s polyester-red soldiers. For all the ‘gay kid’ comments in glee, Santana appears to be more than comfortable wrapped around him, her barely-clad legs thrown over his lap and her arms curled against his chest.
Finn makes a noise akin to a yelp when he sees Santana in his living room snuggling with his almost-step-brother and retreats back to the basement. Rachel decides she doesn’t want to know, advancing forwards alone to face the two most intimidating people she knows.
She’s not entirely sure what they’re watching - it involves Europe’s Final Countdown and a man dancing in front of a smoke machine with a knife in his mouth - but judging from their reactions - Santana’s cackle and Kurt’s unbridled laughter - it’s amusing.
Brace yourself, Rachel. Be courageous. Think of the test, she tells herself, and steps forward.
“Excuse me.”
“Oh no, you did not just interrupt Arrested Development, Berry,” Santana says, pointing at her immediately.
“Santana,” Kurt says, putting his hand on her arm and pulling it back down. “Can I help you, Rachel?”
“Yes, actually,” Rachel replies, coming in from the doorway. “I was hoping I could borrow your geometry notes. I missed Mr Batty’s class today.”
“If you must,” Kurt says, his fleeting attention already directed back on the flat-screen. “They’re on my desk. Green notebook. ”
“Thank you so much, Kurt,” Rachel tells him, her smile brighter than ever even if there's nobody around to truly appreciate it. “I’ll just copy them into my own notes and leave the book for your own revision.”
“Don’t bother, take the whole thing,” Kurt says, sounding bored and reaching for the popcorn. “Take Finn back to your house for the rest of the week instead of coming here and we’ll call it even.”
“Kurt Hummel, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Santana turns up the volume on the television, so Rachel takes that as her cue to leave.
-
Kurt’s handwriting, much like his personality, leaves a lot to be desired, Rachel thinks. It’s a combination of scratch-marks and loops, interspersed with the occasional stick figure or doodle of a flower. Still, it’s readable, and Rachel spends the night studying the pages fervently, squinting down at diagram after diagram, angles and triangles and perpendicular lines and equations until her eyes hurt and her head starts to droop down towards the desk.
Eventually she shuts the book and dons her pyjamas, brushing her teeth and sliding into bed confident that she has thoroughly revised everything Mr Batty saw fit to run through in class.
She has to swap her usual protein shake for a soy double-latte come morning, but once the caffeine is humming through her veins, the smile is back on her face. It stays right throughout the morning, until the bell rings and it’s time for Geometry. She passes Kurt’s book back to him as they’re walking into the classroom.
“The bowties were particularly educational,” she whispers, referring to the double-page of triangles Kurt fashioned into neck accessories, ignoring the hypotenuse in favour of shading each one to match Mr Batty’s extensive bowtie collection.
Kurt smiles then, tucking the book under his arm. “I’ll take patterns over pythagorus any day,” he says, heading to his end of the classroom.
It’s not until the test papers are handed out and the no-talking rule is very much in effect that Rachel realises the critical flaw in her plan - studying from notes composed of 50% doodles and 50% uninterested mathematical scribbles. She has to wonder how much time Kurt spent getting the paisley pattern of Batty’s Wednesday bowtie just right, and how much time he spent actually paying attention to the Very Important Teaching he was lucky enough to be present for.
Rachel wants to believe her fears are unfounded. Kurt is an overachiever. His marks are higher than hers from what she’s overheard in the choir room. He probably just added in all the extra drawings in his study period. That must be it.
But then she turns the page of the test paper and realises she only knows how to answer a third of the questions. At a stretch.
By the time the bell rings again and students pour out into the corridors, Rachel feels like throwing up. She can’t ever remember doing so badly on a test.
“I am so friggin’ glad Batty went through this whole paper yesterday,” one of the band kids says to another girl as they pass her in the doorway. “I woulda been screwed otherwise.”
“For real,” the friend says, and they both laugh.
Rachel watches Kurt walk ahead of her, power-walking to meet up with Mercedes at her locker down the hall, arms swinging and carefree. She wonders how he could do it to her. How he could give her sub-standard notes knowing how important the content of the class was.
It’s sabotage. It has to be. It’s the only explanation for what has happened. Kurt sits at the back of the classroom; he had to have known she was missing. She thought they were friends. She thought they were the kind of friends who could be relied upon, at least for crucial note-taking.
She was wrong. The happy feeling is long gone. The sick feeling is still there, but it’s joined by something else. Fury.
It’s lunchtime, but she can’t stomach her salad. Even more than that, she can’t stomach the thought of sitting at a lunch table with Kurt and his black-hearted treachery. It’s one thing to make fun of her clothes on a daily basis. To try and steal her one-and-only. To try and take her solos.
But messing with her GPA? That’s a whole new level of messed up.
Rachel won't stand for it.
She turns on her heel and heads to the choir room. She’s not ready for a confrontation. That will come, but Kurt’s a quick-tongued devil and she needs to be properly composed to tear him to shreds in the way that he deserves. So she finds Brad and the string-instrument kids and sings a fiery, amped up version of Barbara’s Cry Me A River until she feels better.
Finn comes in as she’s finishing up.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his expression matching the question perfectly.
Rachel tosses her hair, not quite done channelling the sass of the performance. “Not you. Kurt.”
“Oh. Good," Finn exhales, relief evident. "I mean, not good that Kurt made you mad. But good that it’s not me, because you’re kind of scary when you’re angry.”
“My anger is justified here, I assure you,” Rachel replies. “I just. I forgave him for the makeover. I don’t let the barbs get to me, even when he goes after my animal sweaters every single day. I try so hard to be the bigger person, Finn, even when it feels like it’s impossible.”
“You are pretty small,” Finn agrees. “And Kurt grew a bunch taller over summer.”
“I just thought we were at a stage where we could trust each other. Where I could call him my friend,” Rachel says with a sigh, dropping down onto the freshly-vacated piano stool. “I guess I was wrong to think he’d change. It was too easy to just assume he was over you. It’s clear he’s jealous of me, and he’s taking it out on me by sabotaging my grades. My grades. And still, I can’t really blame him. I mean, you’re Finn Hudson.”
“I am,” Finn says.
“You don’t just get over Finn Hudson. Look at Quinn. She’s obviously still smitten. And Kurt despises losing. He can’t stand that I won.”
“Hold up,” Finn says. “Are you saying Kurt still has a thing for me? Because I thought we were cool now. We share a bedroom, and play Halo and stuff.”
“It’s the only explanation,” Rachel replies, and just like that, it’s decided.
-
The confrontation looms. Rachel bides her time, but the process is accelerated by a note passed to her in Geometry from Batty.
See me after class.
Oh god. Batty never hands back the papers. He calls the problem students into his office for a personal interrogation instead. Rachel’s never gotten a note. Ever. She watches Batty make his way down the desks, passing out papers to a few other students. He reaches the back row, and the boy with the messy red hair beside Kurt gets one, and then Batty’s hands are empty and he’s walking back to the blackboard.
This is unfair in immeasurable proportions.
Rachel goes to Batty’s office after class. She gets a monotonous lecture on the importance of geometry, a pointed comment on how attendance is a prime way to monitor which students are truly dedicated to their education, and her grade. A C-. A C minus. Rachel wants to cry. Rachel does cry. Then she leaves the office and heads to glee ready to kick some Hummel ass.
Kurt’s already in there, along with everyone else. The talk with Batty took longer than Rachel was expecting, but now she can use the entrance to her advantage. Drama is her specialty. She strides directly towards Kurt until she’s standing in front of him.
“Traitor.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Rachel,” Kurt says, and turns back to his conversation with Brittany.
“Oh no you don’t,” Rachel replies, and grabs him by the scarf. “You betrayed me.”
Kurt squawks, tugging his scarf free from her hands and smoothing it down protectively. He’s got his bitch face on. “Not that this is an uncommon occurrence, but I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly. Batty.”
Kurt shakes his head, but their exchange has drawn the attention of the entire room, including the jazz band, so Rachel decides to explain it.
“Kurt and I are both in Mr Batty’s class, and I had to borrow his notes for a class I missed-"
“Wait,” Tina says, frowning. "Math teacher Batty?"
"Oh! The super creepy old math teacher man?” Finn asks, mouth open.
“Geometry teacher,” Rachel corrects. “And yes. Kurt’s the only one in my geometry class this semester, and I needed the notes for his quiz. But in a dramatic and upsetting turn of events, the notes were of such abysmal quality they proved completely unhelpful, and as a result, I received a truly unacceptable mark on the test.”
“You borrowed Kurt’s notes. For geometry,” Finn repeats, and it isn’t really a question. “You borrowed Kurt’s geometry notes, and now you’re mad at him for doing bad on the test.”
“Yes, Finn,” Rachel says. “You were there.”
“Technically I was hiding from Santana,” Finn says. “Scary bitch,” he adds under his breath.
Santana looks smug. Rachel turns back to Kurt, who mostly looks confused. The tips of his ears are tinged pink.
“You gave me useless notes. You know as well as I do that there were no questions on Batty’s chequered Friday bowtie on that quiz.”
Kurt tilts his head, folding his arms. “And wailing at me in front of everyone fixes your sub-par mark how? Those were the same notes I studied from, and I didn’t get a special see me note from Batty.”
“Rachel,” Finn says. “You borrowed geometry notes from Kurt. That guy.” He points, like maybe there’s a second Kurt in the room Rachel’s getting confused with.
“Yes,” Rachel says sharply, throwing her hands down by her sides. “I think we’ve established this. I asked Kurt for his notes, he gave me ones that were essentially useless, and now I have a C- on my transcript for eternity.”
“Rachel,” Artie says slowly. “I know I’ve been hearing things correctly, but I still don’t understand why you would use Kurt’s notes for such an infamously difficult test.”
“Kurt thinks a box has four sides,” Tina adds.
“Coach Sylvester makes him stand in the middle for all our vocal performances because he hasn’t mastered the concept of star formation,” Santana says.
Rachel gasps. Kurt splutters. The red tinge has extended down the length of his ears.
“This has rapidly transformed from moderately annoying conversation to rude, mud-throwing offenses against my person,” Kurt says, standing up and walking to the front of the room. He leans back against the piano, arms crossed hautily. “I don’t know where any of you are getting your information, but I’m just fine at geometry, thank you very much. I’ve never gotten a letter from Batty. You have no right. None of you do.”
Rachel huffs, and raises her pointing finger.
“Calm yourself before you lose control of your bladder, Berry,” Santana says. Her hand in Brittany’s lap rests higher than most would consider socially acceptable. “After Schuester threw his bitch fit last year about the pass-grade minimum for extra-curricular participation and pulled everyone from the squad for their Spanish grades, Coach Sylvester wised up. Cheerios get an automatic pass grade in every subject.”
“What?! That’s completely unfair!” Rachel squawks. “That is inherently and morally wrong.”
Santana shrugs. “Coach S doesn’t want anything distracting us from cheerleading. So she makes sure we pass no matter what. She’s got dirt on every teacher in this joint.”
“She has a whole drawer in her filing cabinet marked Blackmail,” Brittany says. “It’s right below her syringe and pills drawer. I saw it when I was looking for my shoe.”
“Ms Sylvester took your shoe?” Rachel asks.
Brittany stares at her for a moment. “No,” she answers finally. “Somebody put it in my locker.”
"Point is,” Santana continues, “Coach Sylvester’s got sway. It’s the only way Kurt’s even passing that class, from what I can tell. Seriously, what were you thinking, taking his notes? I’ve seen him screw up the measurements for the Master Cleanse so many times I’d rather borrow Finn’s math class notes than his. Not that I need them, when I can just scare one of the chess-club nerds into doing my homework for me.”
“Oh god,” Rachel says. Things are beginning to make sense. The half-assed mathematical scribbles. The detailed drawings of neck accessories and ball gowns and kittens taking up entire pages. “Kurt. How do you calculate the volume of a cone?”
Kurt’s eyes go wide for a fraction of a second before he recovers, lips pressed into a thin line. “Length by width by height.”
Finn gives him a subtle thumbs-up.
“Oh god,” Rachel says again. “Kurt, what colour jacket was Mr Batty wearing in class last Friday?”
“The god-awful grey sports coat with the leather patch elbows,” Kurt replies immediately, shuddering at the memory.
“Oh god,” Rachel whispers to herself. “How could I have been so stupid.”
“Kurt, no offense,” Artie says, “But you kind of suck at math. Especially geometry.”
Kurt’s hand flies up to his mouth.
“Isn’t that why you asked me to tutor you after school on Mondays?” Artie goes on. “I thought you realised. I mean, it made me see how much you needed help. There’s a reason I invited you to join in with the extra tutes I give Puck on Thursdays.”
Kurt has very evidently never realised. He shakes his head, fist clenched over his mouth. “I don’t understand how me being kind enough to share my notes with Rachel after she decides to skip class turns into a group tell-all on how dumb you all apparently think I am. I’ll have you all know that I am a straight-A student.”
“Impossible,” Rachel replies immediately. “I refuse to accept that. Ms Sylvester’s fraudulence aside, there’s absolutely no way you can justify an A-grade with your knowledge of geometry. And I have to wonder how this reflects upon your performance in other classes.”
Were she paying more attention to Kurt’s expression, she might have identified his patented take you to the floor, bitch face. Usually reserved for particularly aggressive verbal retaliation against the jocks or Gaga-related arguments with Finn, it’s clear to the rest of the room that Kurt is mad. Creased forehead, wide, angry eyes, the barely-there flare of his nostrils, the tight stretch of his lips, the tension in his shoulders. Textbook Hummel rage.
“How dare you,” he says, hands curling into well-manicured fists by his sides.
Belatedly, Rachel recalls her earlier observation of the similarities between herself and Kurt. If Kurt had a list of important matters, she suspects it would look a little like:
1. His father
2. His voice
3. His clothing
4. His grades
5. Glee club
She has drawn attention to an inadequacy in #4, and by calling him out on it in front of everyone, has compromised #5. Rachel thinks of her own list, and her own reaction to any form of threat against any item on that list. For the first time, she wonders if she made an error in choosing to confront Kurt in a situation like this.
Kurt’s only just getting started. “You have no right, Rachel. I’m at the very top of my English class. My French class. World History. Drama. Music. So what if I’m not perfect at geometry. It’s useless. It’s certainly never going to get me out of this town.”
Rachel thinks of the note folded in her backpack. See me after class. “Not perfect?”
Kurt exhales with a hiss, then takes a deep breath, opening his mouth to continue.
“Okay, okay,” Santana says with a sigh, interrupting before he can get truly vicious. She uncrosses her legs and stands up, and Rachel has never imagined herself feeling so grateful for Santana Lopez’s bitchy, ponytailed existence. “Time for some truth. Because amusing as it is to watch you both freak out over geometry, of all the things in the frickin’ world, my ears can only take so much pitchy screaming before they start to bleed. And there’s no way I’m explaining to Coach Sylvester why I have blood on my uniform. Take a seat, Oliver Twist.”
Kurt’s eyes flash again at Rachel, but he obeys, sitting back down by Brittany again.
“Here’s the thing, man-hands,” Santana says. “So what if Kurt sucks at geometry? He has a great ass, so who cares. Besides, that thing is our golden ticket to a perfect report card.”
Rachel follows the line of Santana’s arm. She’s pointing to the unnecessarily large glass case enclosing the excessive and frankly ridiculous 1st place trophy the Cheerios brought home from Nationals.
“If we win Nationals, Coach Sylvester bumps us all up to A’s as a reward,” Santana says. “In every class.”
“I’m on honour roll,” Brittany says.
Rachel’s mouth falls open. “Preposterous. That is completely unfair.”
“You try practicing the same routine for ten hours every day for a month straight including weekends and talk to me about fair,” Quinn says from the back row. “Try liquid diets and constant verbal abuse and the terror of daily weigh-ins leading up to public performances. We work hard. We work unimaginably hard, and we bring more prestige - and money - to the school than every other club, organisation and sports team combined. Every single member of the squad earns their grades.”
“You earn forged paperwork and false accolades, congratulations,” Rachel tells her.
“I never knew,” Kurt says quietly, and from the way he’s staring at the ground intently, blinking rapidly, Rachel realises there was no sabotage. No ulterior motive at play. Just Kurt being nice to her for once, behaving in a manner usually reserved for friends. And her response was to call him out in front of his peers to explicitly highlight a flaw he wasn’t even aware of.
Rachel feels sick. It’s not terrible-test-sick either. It’s guilt-sick.
Mr Schue finally whirls in, a good quarter of an hour late, picking up the whiteboard marker and asking everyone to sit down before she can begin to apologise.
Once more, Rachel is forced to bide her time. After school would be a prime time to corner him and clear the air, but she remembers the promise made in exchange for his notes, and drives Finn back to her house after school for some intense rehearsal. Sectionals are looming, and it never hurts to have a duet between the two leads ready to pull out at any stage. If the song happens to be one about a rugged male confessing his undying love to a glamorous, charming female, it’s just a bonus.
-
Lunch time the following day finds everyone seated at their usual table. Kurt appears uncharacteristically morose.
“I owe you an apology,” Rachel tells him, forgoing her usual seat at the end of the table with Finn to wedge herself into the gap between Kurt and Quinn. “I was too quick to assume there was malicious intent at play. And I was wrong to accuse you of it in front of everyone.”
“No,” Kurt says, pushing at his salad with his fork. “It probably is something I would do. I almost wish I’d planned it. I just never realised I was so bad at geometry. I don’t know what’s worse - that I’m hopeless at geometry and I never realised it, or that my short-comings were evident - and such a source of amusement - to everyone else and they never thought to tell me.”
“It’s not like that,” Quinn says from Rachel’s other side, leaning forwards before Rachel can begin to offer comfort. “Nobody’s laughing at you for sucking at geometry. We picked up on the four-sided box thing, sure, but that one’s memorable because you were being sassy while wearing overalls and a trucker cap. It was kind of adorable, once you get past the bizarre-o factor of what you were wearing. It’s no worse than the time Tina thought wearing orange eye-shadow was a good idea."
She smiles, reaching around Rachel to touch his shoulder. "Everyone has something they suck at. I can’t understand chemistry to save my life. Sure, you might not be amazing at math, but everyone knows you’re going to end up on Broadway or television or runways in Milan. Who gives a damn about triangles there?”
“If it helps,” Rachel puts in, “this whole incident has proven to me that geometry isn’t my forte either. Missing one revision class shouldn’t have such a dramatic effect on the outcome of a test when I have attended every other class and devoted hours of my life to studying the class content.”
“Apology accepted,” Kurt says softly, dropping his fork down into his largely-untouched salad and standing up.
“Where are you going?” Rachel asks. “There are still three-quarters of our lunchbreak remaining.”
“Conditioning training with Coach Sylvester,” he replies. “I’ve got to keep that A in geometry somehow.”
With that, he leaves. Rachel watches him go, and thinks of the veritable mountain of geometry homework Batty assigned her as punishment for the poor test result. For the first time in her life, she considers trying out for the Cheerios.
“You’re too short, it’d never work,” Quinn says, pulling Rachel’s eyes back to the table, Kurt’s tray still in front of her. “Coach Sylvester has height requirements, and Becky’s the only exception.
Rachel sighs, and wonders if Artie has time to tutor her too.
---