[fic, BTR] All That Counts (Part 1)
Title: All That Counts (Part 1/?)
Disclaimer: Not my boys, although I kind of love them like they were.
Pairings/Characters: James/Logan
Rating: R
Word Count: ~5,000 / 40,000+
Warnings (overall): AU, language, silliness, UST, mild angst, song lyrics, awkward (& vague) sex scenes
Summary: James Diamond's freshman year of college has been even worse than he expected so far. His theater professors don't take him seriously, his Gen Ed classes are too hard, and he still doesn't know what he's going to do when he runs into Kendall and Carlos on campus. But when a cute sophomore with a smart brain and a smarter mouth unintentionally rescues him from a hellish study group, James starts to think maybe this college thing isn't so bad after all.
Author's Notes: This is a fic that started off as a silly thing about Logan "rescuing" James from bullies and morphed into a "what if Logan didn't move to Minnesota until he was in high school" thing of near-epic proportions. It's still very silly, though.
(Title from "Glad You Came" by The Wanted, which is the fic's unofficial theme song.)
Written for bigtimebang :)
Lovely art by the lovely shisou_eimin and can be found here <3
------
It was the second week of the semester and James had already been in the school library more times than he'd been in a public library in the last 10 years. At least. But the first day of his chem class the professor had suggested they form study groups, and then some mass e-mails had gone around about those study groups and James had signed up for one hoping he could charm someone into doing the work for him.
And if that plan failed, maybe he could copy someone's answers. He could be sneaky when necessary.
As it turned out, though, college study groups were actually about studying and this one met up twice a week and it was boring as hell and James didn't understand chemistry any better now than he had in high school. The first couple times he had asked a question or expressed a somewhat-confused opinion he had gotten some amused looks and chuckles but those had quickly turned into the 'are you really that dumb' looks he knew so well, so now he just kept his mouth shut and wrote down answers the group discussed without having any idea why they were the correct ones.
Whatever, it would get him a decent score on the homework part of his grade, at least. Tests and lab were a different problem altogether, but hopefully his lab partner knew what she was doing. And as for the tests…well, James just wasn't going to think about that yet.
He was busy writing down the answer for the problem they had just gone over-because what he had put down was wrong, of course-when he realized people were staring at him expectantly, which meant it must be his turn to give an answer. This never ended well.
"Okay, number 12," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. He knew his answer was wrong. It always was. Sometimes he just wrote down random numbers because it didn't matter either way. "Um, the density…" He squinted at the paper. Reading these problems was sometimes as difficult as answering them. "Five-point-three…grams? Over centimeters squared-"
"Grams per cubic centimeter," he was interrupted. He glanced up although he already knew who had spoken-Mark, Mr. Impatient Asshole, who was the source of most of the insulting looks James got. Like the one he was getting now.
"Right," James said, flushing and hating it. In high school, even without Kendall, no one would have treated James that way. James was pretty and strong and cooler than you, dammit, but he was in college now and maybe things like that didn't matter as much here.
Another reason college sucked.
"Per cubic centimeters," James went on, giving the textbook the glare that Mark deserved. "That density in…kilograms per cubic meters, is…um…" He looked at his notebook. "Five-point-six? That's probably wrong…"
There was some rumbling from the table-so, wrong answer again, surprise surprise-but what James focused on was Mark scoffing. He actually scoffed, at James, and James turned the glare on him then. He could kick that guy's ass, didn't that count for something?
"Yeah, that's wrong," Mark said. "Are you sure you're even supposed to be in this class? Isn't there like, a lower-level course you could have taken? An introduction to introductory chemistry, maybe? There's probably a high school down the street that offers it."
And then people were laughing at him, and it took everything James had not to throw his textbook at Mark's stupid face.
"If you're not going to take this seriously," a girl was saying, to James, and she wasn't one of the ones laughing but she was giving him a stern look, "then why are you even here? The rest of us want to get a good grade."
James sputtered. "I-I am taking this seriously!" he said, a little louder than he meant to.
"That's what makes it so sad," Mark said, cocky asshole bastard, and James was well on his way to working up a nice huffy fit which was so warranted at this point as he went on. "And so you can write down the right answer like you do every time, it's 56,000."
"No it's not."
James had been giving Mark the worst glare he could manage but at the sound of someone actually disagreeing with him he looked away in shock to find the source of the voice. It belonged, apparently, to a guy standing a few feet away from their table. He was holding an armful of books and was glaring at Mark just as much as James was. James liked him immediately.
"Excuse me?" Mark asked, sounding like he thought the guy was an idiot. James watched the guy's glare turn into a smirk and added 'attractive' to the list of positive qualities the mysterious stranger possessed.
"Five-point-three grams per cubic centimeter is 5,600 kilograms per cubic meter," James's new hero said. Smirkily. "Not 56,000. You should probably check your math a little more carefully before making such a big production over it next time. Actually, next time, just keep your mouth shut and skip the production entirely because this is a library where some people would actually like to find their books in peace."
James was actually a big fan of cocky assholes under certain circumstances. So when Mysterious Stranger gave Mark a disgusted lip-curl before walking away muttering something about "fucking freshmen" and "this is a library" James ignored the completely satisfying shocked looks on most of his group's faces to hurriedly gather up his things and jump out of his seat.
"Yeah, I'm out of the study group, guys," he told them before bounding off after the newfound object of his affection. Friendly affection. Thankful affection. Impressed affection.
"Hey, wait up," James called out, his backpack hanging off one arm and his notebooks and textbook threatening to fall out of his grip. He was not really presenting his usual cool and collected front, but desperation had its place and it wasn't like he was asking the guy on a date or anything. He just wanted a better alternative than a stupid, boring study group.
The guy turned on him as they neared the elevator, well out of sight of the study group by now. He was still sort of glaring, though, and James took a step back instinctively.
"Why are you following me? And why are you yelling in a library?"
James blinked. "I wasn't yelling, but-sorry? And I'm following you because you're smart."
Mysterious Stranger raised an eyebrow at him, and James took the opportunity to look the guy over. He was wearing a sweater vest, of all things, which was hysterically stereotypical but gave the guy that 'hot nerd' look. James could handle that, though. He wouldn't make the same mistake with this tutor. Passing his classes this semester was too important.
"You make a habit of following smart people around?"
James grinned. "When I'm looking for a tutor, yeah."
The guy hesitated for a second, mouth open like he was going to say something, then he furrowed his eyebrows. "You're going to have to keep looking," he said, sort of curtly, and spun back around, then hit the down button on the elevator.
"No, hey, wait!" James circled around him so they were face-to-face again. If the charming smile and cute line wouldn't work, maybe pleading would. "Come on, you obviously know what you're doing, at least in chemistry, and I have like, less than a clue about it and I could really use your help because I have to pass this class, okay, and all the rest of them too but even if you can just help me with one that would just be super, super awesome."
"I'm not a tutor," the guy said, watching the elevator doors instead of James's face. "I'm not any good at it."
"I can pay you!" James blurted out. "I mean, not like, a lot, because my mom doesn't really give me much of an allowance because she thinks I'll spend it all on clothes and hair care products which, okay, is probably true but still totally unfair. But I can pay you a little?"
Now the guy was looking at James, eyebrow quirked again, but he didn't look annoyed so that was a good sign, right? "What part of 'I'm not any good at it' do you not understand?" he asked.
"What part of 'I'm desperate and would rather deal with one crappy tutor than a study group full of jerks' do you not understand?" James countered, his own eyebrows raised persuasively.
"Look," the guy said, and then the elevator dinged and he started walking towards it and James hurried in as well because he was not letting this guy get away, "I tried the tutoring thing in high school and I don't have the patience for it. I just ended up wanting to do everyone's work for them."
"That works for me," James assured him, but got a glare in return.
"It doesn't work for me. You can get kicked out for that kind of thing here. I don't need that on my record."
The doors closed, and they were alone in the elevator. They were only on like the third floor so it wasn't going to be a long trip. James had to make the most of it.
"Fine, but you can still help me. You can at least try. And I can pay you, a little, and…I'll feed you? And I have a really nice TV in my room. And a PS3! And just, please, I don't-I can't-" James took a deep breath. "I have to pass. So…please?" He gave the guy his best sad-hopeful-eyes.
He seemed to be considering it. He was looking at James critically, then as the elevator reached the ground floor he shook his head slightly and sighed. "Let me see your homework."
James resisted the urge to fist-pump (for now) and instead scrambled to set his still-open notebook on top of the stack of books so the guy could read it. He squinted at it as they walked out of the elevator, then paused a few feet away. "Okay, this means nothing to me without the problems. Are they in your textbook?"
"Oh, yeah, here," James said, and then started an awkward process of opening his textbook to the right page, putting that on top of his notebook on the stack of books, and then taking the books out of the guy's hands when he looked like he was going to collapse under the added weight. "Sorry," James said sheepishly once he had the books. "I'll hold these for you."
"Thanks," the guy-James should really ask him his name, but he didn't want to distract him while he was debating about the tutoring thing-said, and then took the textbook and notebook off the top of the stack. He narrowed his eyes at the textbook, seeming to skim the page before looking at the notebook. "Well," he said after a short moment, "yeah, a lot of these are…not right. But…look, I don't have time tonight, I have a ton of my own work to do…when is this due?"
"Tomorrow," James said, sounding morose and probably looking it, too.
"Oh," the guy said, his eyebrows scrunching even more. "Well…dammit." He sighed again. "I can help you this weekend, but not tonight. You might want to go back to your study group-"
"No," James interrupted immediately. "I am not going back up there. I'll just have a crappy grade on one assignment, it's no big deal. So you'll help me this weekend?" He looked hopefully at his new friend.
The guy smiled up at him, a little crookedly. James started to rethink the whole 'not asking him on a date' thing. But too late now; he'd agreed to tutor him. And James could not mess this up. Even if this guy was really cute. And smart. And totally the right kind of cocky. James reminded himself the guy was probably straight, and that helped a little. While also making him a little sad.
"Yeah," James's new tutor said. "I'll give it a try, I guess. But I'm warning you, I'm not a great teacher."
"It's okay," James assured him quickly. "It's fine, it's awesome, it'll be great. So-I'll text you, I guess? To set up a time?"
"Yeah, that works. What's your number?" he asked, balancing the textbook and notebook in one hand and reaching for his phone with the other. "Wait, what's your name?"
"James," James said, grinning. He rattled off his phone number and watched the guy put it in his phone. A second later he felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket, and he squirmed a bit wanting to reach it but not being able to because of the books.
"It's just my name," the guy said, obviously amused, and obviously aware why James was looking distraught in the direction of his pocket.
"Oh," James said, looking back up. "Which is?"
"Logan," he said, smiling that crooked smile again. "Now give me my books back and I'll see you this weekend, James."
"I can carry them to the counter for you," James offered without thinking.
"Um…okay," Logan said, blinking. James flashed a smile and walked past him toward the front of the library, Logan turning to follow along.
They took the short trip in silence, and when James set the books down once they'd reached the counter Logan fumbled a bit trying to hand the chem textbook and notebook back to James. "Thanks," Logan said as James took his stuff back. "For, um, carrying those."
"No problem," James replied easily. His gaze flicked up and down Logan's body once more as Logan scooted his books over on the counter, and James sighed internally for what he was potentially giving up. But maybe they could be friends? That would be nice. Making a friend here at school. A real friend; not just someone he chatted with at the beginning of class. James didn't have a great history of being friends with people he was very attracted to, but…well, this was college. Things were different here, right?
James tore his eyes away and stuffed his book and notebooks back in his backpack, then hefted it onto his shoulder. "So, I'll text you."
Logan glanced over from his books being checked out to give James the beginning of a smile. "Yeah. We'll figure something out."
"Awesome," James said, smiling. "Thanks, Logan." He waved, and Logan held up a hand in response as James walked away.
As soon as he got out of the library he fished his phone out of his pocket to check the message.
'This is Logan.'
James laughed. It really was just his name. He typed out a reply as he headed for his dorm.
'U like pizza?'
James was unlocking the door to his room when his phone vibrated again.
'As long as I get to pick the toppings. And I should have had you carry these books to my room for me, they're fucking heavy.'
After turning on the light and tossing his backpack on the floor, James flopped on his bed and thought for a minute about what to say next.
'U havent fallen down in the middle of campus have u? Buried under ur own smarts? Need a rescue? Cant have u dying b4 the weekend'
After sending the text James grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. His chem homework was a lost cause; he'd done it as well as he could already and there was no point looking at it again, even if he knew it was mostly wrong. He didn't have anything else due the next day, and he'd had dinner before he went to the library, so…TV it was. Or he could go to the gym? He picked up his phone to check the time, and was debating about the gym when he got a text.
'You're a funny man, James. I've made it to my room safely, but thanks for your concern. See you Saturday.'
James knew he was being dismissed via text, probably because Logan had to do the homework he'd mentioned, but he couldn't stop his fingers from moving.
'Saturday?'
'Did you have plans?'
James grinned as he typed his reply.
'Guess I do now :)'
He stood up and stretched, deciding to just do a short workout in his room rather than go all the way to the gym.
------
The next two days seemed to crawl along. James took as many notes as he could in chem on Thursday morning; he didn't understand anything he was writing down but he wanted to show Logan he was at least making an effort. Lab that afternoon went okay. It was the first official experiment-type-lab, since the week before had just been them pairing off, learning what everything was, and finding out what they would be doing during the semester. And James had been right; his partner was competent at the whole lab thing. She wasn't a super-genius like James was already convinced Logan was (anyone who got that many books from the library and could do math in his head so quickly definitely had to be a genius), but they made it through the lab without catching anything on fire so James considered that a success.
James had four classes on Friday-four-and by the end of the afternoon he was drained. He hadn't heard from Logan again, though, so he figured it was time to reach out.
'We still on for tomorrow?'
He had no idea what Logan's schedule was like, so there was a chance he was still in class or…napping, or something. But he got a reply just a couple of minutes later.
'Yeah. Early start? Around 10?'
James groaned. He'd be awake, sure, but it was Saturday and doing homework that early was just wrong.
'Yeah that works.', James typed out, then smirked a little as he added 'Eat breakfst 1st im only buying u lunch'.
James looked at the time after sending the text and decided to head over to the dining center for dinner. If he went now he'd be in the front of the line when the doors opened.
It was sort of pathetic, he knew, heading to dinner early and alone on a Friday night. But it wasn't like he had anything else to do and plus he was hungry. Maybe after tomorrow he'd have a friend to go to dinner with, at least. Or…maybe he would run into Carlos in the cafeteria. Or Kendall.
The thought of seeing either one of them made James want to walk faster and turn back at the same time.
He kept going, though, at his usual long-strided pace. When he reached the building he got a reply from Logan.
'Based on what I saw of your homework the other night, you might be buying me dinner too.'
James stopped in his tracks and stared, wide-eyed, at his phone. Was Logan…insulting him? Or flirting with him? Or…both?
Or neither, James thought, raising an eyebrow at the suspicious message. Logan hadn't insulted him at all the other day, so James was going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. And as for the other possibility…James had learned his lesson about reading signals wrong. He was not going to risk losing a tutor and potential friend based on his own imagination.
But…well, what was he supposed to say to that? If it was an insult he'd either pout or snark back; if it was flirting he'd say something like 'You're right, we might be going at it for a while,' but if it wasn't either then what could he say??
He frowned at his phone as the line started moving, then had to put it in his pocket so he could get his food. He sat at an empty table and wondered if it would fill up with girls like it had a few times before. He also wondered if he should eat fast so he could get away before that happened.
Then he sat there for a moment and wondered when James Diamond became someone who ran away from girls. College was ruining him. Seriously.
He just didn't know what to say to them, was all. Or at least not the right things to say. His topics of interest mainly included music, fashion, his future as a mega-star, and men's cosmetics. In high school everyone just sort of got that, and also knew he could be distracted with talk about hockey (until senior year when that became 'could be shut down with talk about hockey'), but college girls apparently took those topics to mean he was gay, because he had yet to be asked out by any girl who had spoken to him for any length of time. He had been asked out by a couple of girls on sight alone but he hadn't felt any pressing need to say yes to either of them. But it was his third Friday of college (counting the Friday he'd moved in, before classes started) and he was alone so maybe those had been dumb decisions on his part.
Did he mention college sucked? Because it did.
He should really just find a party. James loved parties. But so did Carlos. And…well. He had Logan now, right? No need to stop avoiding his old friends when he was so close to making a new one.
James set his phone on the table and stared at the text as he ate. If he at least knew whether Logan was being serious or not, it would really help. This was sort of like the text from before, though, where he wanted James to carry his books. So it probably wasn't serious. At least not completely.
James chewed, and thought, and chewed some more. When an idea hit him he laughed, and was too preoccupied to care if anyone was looking at him weird.
'Dedication. Nice. Im sure there will b some leftover pizza u can have'
He was grinning as he hit the 'Send' button and barely heard it when someone asked if they could sit at his table. When the question got through he said sure and was joined by three girls. They were nice, and talkative, and James thought there was some friend potential there. When he finished his dinner and started to leave they told him about a party that night and said he should come.
He didn't even hesitate before he said "Sorry, I have to get up early tomorrow. Maybe next time," and walked away with a smile.
The reply text came before he got back to his room.
'That better be some damn good pizza.'
James laughed again, and set his alarm so he wouldn’t forget later. He needed to be awake with enough time to get ready in the morning.
--
He got up at seven. It was earlier than he probably needed to be up, but he wanted time for a run, a shower, and breakfast. Ten minutes of standing in a towel staring at his closet only resulted in him throwing on jeans and a tank top, because this wasn't a date. And as much as he sort of wanted to, he couldn't try to actually seduce Logan.
James looked critically at the can of man-spray on the dresser for a moment, then sighed. His 'Cuda products were feeling very unloved so far this semester. "Soon, my friend," he told the can, before straightening up his room a bit.
It was about 9:30 when he got a text that said 'Where do you live, anyway?' and felt really dumb. He texted back his dorm name and room number, and hoped Logan didn't live really far away and decide it wasn't worth it. James opened the next text cautiously.
'Really? We're neighbors.'
James furrowed his eyebrows at the words, then stepped out in the hallway. "Logan?" he called out, looking left and right. His phone vibrated in his hand.
'You're 3 floors up from me. Cool, I'll be there in 30.'
"Ohhh," James said at his phone before retreating back into his room.
He sat on his bed and wondered where Logan would want to sit. James didn't have a roommate (anymore) and he'd bunked the second bed in the room so he could push the extra desk under it to set his TV on. So that left his bed, his desk and desk chair, and the extra desk chair. He was beginning to wish he'd gotten that beanbag chair he'd seen at the store.
At five till 10 there was a knock at the door. James scrambled off his bed and rushed to the door, trying to compose himself before he opened it.
Logan was standing on the other side, and smiled up at James. "Hey, um-hi," he said, his smile faltering slightly. "So uh, I'm a little early, I hope that's cool?"
"Yeah, of course. Unless you just want to wait in the hallway for the next five minutes." James started backing into the room. "I mean, I can just close the door here-"
Logan held a hand out to stop the door from closing, and was looking at James with something like amusement.
James grinned. "So you want to come in, then?"
"Unless you want to study out here in the hallway," Logan countered.
James opened the door fully and gestured inside. "So you live downstairs?"
Logan nodded as he stepped in the room. "Yeah, second floor. Makes this tutoring thing a lot more convenient."
"Guess I don't have to compensate you for travel, then," James joked.
Logan chuckled, and James was proud of himself for making that happen. "You don't really have to pay me. Feed me like you promised, let me play some video games blissfully roommate-free, and we'll call it even."
James raised an eyebrow. "You want me to leave the room so you can play?"
Another chuckle. That one hadn't been intentional, but James would take it. "No," Logan said. "Just don't hog the controllers or team up against me when it's supposed to be a free-for-all or start mashing buttons on my controller when I'm doing well." Logan was making a face by the end of it. He seemed a little bitter, to James.
"'Team up'?" James asked. "So, wait. You have more than one roommate?"
Logan nodded, and took a seat in the extra desk chair. "I have two. And you have…none?"
"Uh…not anymore," James said. "I did at first, but he was only here for like a week. They said they might put someone else in here but it hasn't happened yet."
"Oh," Logan said, eyebrows slightly raised. "So you have a room to yourself. That's pretty awesome."
James shrugged. "Yeah, I guess." It had its perks, maybe, like no one to complain about the TV channel or James's music choices, but overall it just made the room kind of…lonely.
"So…I guess we should get started?" Logan asked, looking up at James.
"Oh, right, yeah." James took his chemistry book off his desk and handed it to Logan. "Page 187. It's mostly math stuff. I think I did this stuff in high school but I sucked at it then too."
"Well, let's have a look." James started back towards his bed as Logan opened the textbook, but Logan stopped him. "Nope, sit at your desk," he said, pointing at James's desk without lifting his eyes from the page. "It'll help you think."
James lifted an eyebrow at him in disbelief, but if Logan wasn't even going to look at him that was useless. So he sighed and did as he was told. Logan pulled his chair over to the edge of the desk and set the textbook down so James could see it too.
"This whole page is your homework?"
"One through 30," James told him.
"Okay," Logan said with a nod. "Have you tried any of them?"
"Not even a little. I took notes though!"
James caught Logan's smile at that before grabbing his green notebook and flipping to the page of notes from his last class. "None of them mean anything to me, but…I wrote it all down anyway."
"Okay, we'll try taking this a problem at a time," Logan said. "Can I have a piece of paper and a pen?"
James tore a page out of his notebook and gave it to Logan along with a pen. Logan stared at the textbook for a moment, tapping the pen against the desk.
"Actually," he said slowly, eyes narrowed a little at the open page, "let's start with this: do you know why you even have to do these problems? Why they're important?"
James shrugged a little, although Logan probably couldn't see it. "They're measurements, right? That's all I know."
"Most of them are, yeah," Logan agreed, glancing up at James before continuing. "And they're important for accuracy in experiments. In performing experiments, recording results, and sharing them. Everyone needs to have the same frame of reference, you know? We have standard measurements, and ways of converting them, so that everyone knows what everyone else is talking about."
"Except I don't know what anyone is talking about," James said, shoulders slumping.
"We're getting to that," Logan told him with a quirk of his lips. "There are different ways of measuring different things: mass, volume, density. Do you get the differences between those?"
James hesitated, feeling dumb at the admission, but finally shook his head. "I think I used to? Please don't think I'm hopeless and leave," he said, pleading. "If I knew it before I can know it again, right?"
"I'm not gonna leave," Logan told him, the quirk showing in his eyebrows now. "I haven't even tried to teach you anything yet. But I know where to start, now."
Yeah, at the very beginning, James thought, self-deprecatingly. 'A very good place to start…' he sang in his head, then fought against the urge to start singing the Sound of Music song out loud (he may or may not have watched an endless succession of musicals over the summer), and instead squared his shoulders and nodded at the textbook. "Okay, then. I'm ready to learn."
Part 2