The Laws of Thermodynamics - Chapter Six

[sunmontue]

Title: The Laws of Thermodynamics

Pairing: Kurt Hummel/David Karofsky
Rating: G (will be NC17)
Word count: ~1,500 words
Warnings: None. 
Summary: AU Glee. Dave is a nerd, and Kurt is a Cheerio. Kurt needs a tutor to pull his GPA up. Cliche but fun.
Author's note: There is now a companion fic from Kurt’s POV called ‘Spankies and Pompoms’. It won’t update as often as this. Also the DnD I have always played didn’t have a lot of “role-play” components to it (some, but definitely not the focus), rather it was more hack-and-slash. Our DM was fantastic at keeping us focused and on task. For people who have never played, don’t worry, you will hopefully be fine but please ask if you have any questions.

CHAPTER ONE   CHAPTER TWO   CHAPTER THREE   CHAPTER FOUR    CHAPTER FIVE

Quick lesson – DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) works on a d20 system (20-sided dice). When rolling it you want to roll as high as possible. Usually a 20 means an automatic pass at the task you are trying to achieve and a 1 means an automatic fail. There are modifiers added to the dice roll depending on a number of factors.

Mercedes blinks and looks at him, eyebrow quirked.

“What did you do to get his panties in a bunch?”

“What?”

“He seems kind of pissed. Despite his whole bitch-catty Jekyll-Hyde thing he has going he doesn’t usually look angry.”

He frowns and shrugs.

“He’s never not been angry with me.”

Her eyebrow remains raised and he’s pretty sure she’s going to spout an insane theory any second now. The others have walked past and joined Blaine in the kitchen for dinner and he can hear them already talking about their strategy for finding a way out of the ruins of an ancient dungeon, not knowing about his plans to unleash a horde of undead. It makes for far more interesting conversation than –

“Maybe he likes you.” And there it is; insane theory number one.

“Pfft.” Dave rolls his eyes at the singsong tone and pushes her in the direction of the kitchen.

“What? You like him.”

“No. I don’t like him. I like what he looks like. There is a difference.”

“You’re not getting to know him a bit better with all the time you’re spending with him?”

“Cedes, it’s been three sessions, we’ve barely reached being cordial to one another.”

“Oh. Well, he still looked angry, like you’d kicked his puppy or something.”

“The only thing I might have hurt is his ego, and that can do with some deflating. Now come on, before everyone else eats everything.”

“Or decides to use me as a living sacrifice.”

“Yeah, that too.”

The six of them eat quickly, they never take their time when there’s a game waiting to start, and he’s better prepared than he thought he would be, although next week will be interesting, he’ll arrive around the same time as them if he tutors Hummel at his house, being across the other side of town. Game time is sacred, but he’s pretty sure Hummel wouldn’t be open to the idea of him just coming here every Wednesday, and he kind of feels bad that his attention wasn’t fully on the tutoring today.

He sets up the party in the formation from the last game, sketching in the already discovered corridors and rooms from the notes in his book. The others are discussing a marching order, rearranging their miniatures where he indicates. He calls for spot and listen checks, and because they’re all talking decides that they’ll have to roll really high to hear anything. It’s not like dead people make a lot of noise. They’ve used a lot of their spells and resources for the day, and he’s kind of annoyed that they went completely off tangent and have ended dungeon diving instead of heading further into the mountains to face off with the ice giant tribe.

“Right, so Blaine and Sam, you can both hear something.”

“Can we tell what it is?”

“Roll again.”

They do and Sam huffs, annoyed and pushes his chair away from the table.

“I’m just going to go and microwave my dice.”

“Another natural one? Dude, you should throw that one out. It’s got bad mojo or something.”

“It just needs a little love.”

“I don’t think microwaving it counts as love,” Mercedes points out.

“Blaine, what did you roll?”

“A nineteen.”

“Okay. It sounds like something is dragging or scraping against the stone. And it’s getting progressively louder. Closer.”

“Oh shit.”

Sam sits down again, dice torturing forgotten and Lucy looks stricken. He knows they can’t handle this right now, they don’t have the resources to fight their way out so he’s curious to see what they’ll do. He asks them to roll spot checks and half of them make it successfully. Of course, the undead are now only sixty feet away and he gets them to role initiative, listening as they ready actions, and discuss the likelihood of surviving. He doesn’t like killing them so will no doubt lower the challenge if they don’t come up with something.

“I pull a door off and bar their way.”

“And where are you getting a door from?” Dave asks, pretty sure that’s not on Sam’s equipment list for his character.

“It’s on my robe of useful things. See? There,” he points at the extra items listed on that item and damn it, this is almost too easy. He shrugs and grins, glad that Sam at least has come up with a solution.

“Right, there’s now a ten by ten iron door between you and them.”

“What else is on that robe? Do you have a pit we could put on the other side?” Lucy asks and he grins. Now they’re getting creative and in the space of a round there’s a large pit and a door between the adventure party and the horde of undead. Their characters need to rest, pray, eat to replenish, so he leaves them to discuss spell choices for a couple of minutes. He looks around the table to see Mercedes staring at him.

“What?”

“Maybe he’s jealous.” Great. Insane theory number two. He shakes his head.

“What?” Sam asks at the same time Az says “Who?”

“Kurt Hummel,” Blaine says, although he doesn’t look up when he says it, instead focusing on his character sheet. He’s kind of curious to know how he knows what Mercedes is talking about though.

“Why would he be jealous of you?” Az asks and he shakes his head, waving a hand at Mercedes and tells them it’s her crazy theory.

“I think Hummel has the hots for Dave.”

“Yeah right, what are you basing that on? All the experience the six of us we’ve had romantically wouldn’t fill a thimble.”

“Hey! Speak for yourself!” Az declares and his eyebrows aren’t the only ones that shoot up in surprise.

“What?! Honey bees flock to this flower!”

He can’t stop the rolling laughter at the idea of Az being a self-proclaimed flower, and he isn’t the only one laughing. He doubts Az has actually done anything, but Mercedes is suitably distracted by the idea that he may have so he’s no longer under her scrutiny. He draws their attention back to their predicament in the game, moving it along and the rest of the game goes smoothly, only monsters die. He gives out enough experience for them all to level up, he reads out their haul of loot and listens to their individual plans for the imaginary money in game. What he doesn’t do is think about Kurt Hummel.

Dreams are another matter, and the frequency Hummel is starring in those has definitely picked up since he started tutoring him. He’s not entirely welcoming of the fact that he wakes nearly every morning with an erection due to dreams of Hummel, but it’s an improvement to waking up aroused to images of Blaine that one time. He’s not stupid or socially unaware, he knows where he stands and despite Mercedes little rose-tinted romance-seeing glasses, he knows Hummel would never be interested in him.

He gets to school and gets a couple of head jerks from some of the jocks and what the actual fuck is going on? He gets to his locker to find Mercedes waiting for him, smiling widely, Blaine beside her and looking equally pleased about something.

“What?”

“A whole week. No start-of-the-day slushy. No dumpster welcome wagon. No locker checks. It’s a whole new world!”

He lays a finger over Blaine’s lips before he can break into song, eyes searching. It feels weird, like everyone is actually at school to learn and not fight it out until there are only survivors to tell the tale. The familiar red and white catches his eye and he turns.

“Karofsky,” Hummel greets, smiling and walking past with a couple of other Cheerios. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but it’s too late by the time his throat decides to work again and he just lets out a little croak.

“How do you think he gets his hair like that?” Blaine asks, staring after him, and he has no idea, because he sure as hell wasn’t looking at his hair. Smiling. At him.

“See, told you he likes you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN