The Beautiful People

ftg.

Rated: T

---

It took a very long time for me to accept the fact that my red haired angel man was my math professor.

He spent the first class teaching us the first chapter in the textbook, and while our minds were reeling the most learning we had had in quite some time, he grinned at us impishly.

Even as my brain bled with equations and their graphs, my breath caught at the picture he created.

“How rude of me, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Ian Fleming, and I can honestly say that I adore mathematics. Anything else you need to know?”

A fawning girl from the gaggle in the front of the class called out, “Are you available?” Laughter erupted at the question, tinged with more than a little eagerness for the reply.

My red haired –Professor Fleming smiled along with us, giving hope to the class’s female population. As hopeful as I was, I was also slightly worried about what he would say. The image of the gorgeous woman who matched his stride perfectly flashed in my mind, and I braced myself for the ‘no’.

And I got it. Kinda.

“Not for you ladies,” he answered and winked in a way that could only be described as roguishly. “I’ll see you next class.” The gaggle of girls was the first out, and somehow I got the feeling they wouldn’t be at the front of the class next time. I lingered, slowly gathering my belongings, wondering what the fuck what I was still doing in the class.

“How was I?” Professor Fleming looked at me, an almost hopeful expression on his pale face.

“Eh,” I murmured, not really knowing how to respond. He wasn’t bad, but I was afraid that if I said anything, I would gush about how uhmazing he was. “Good, you’re, uh, good.”

He beamed at me and placed an arm around my shoulder, walking me to the door. The skin that his arm touched burned briefly before settling to an almost awkward heat. He quickly pulled his arm away a few moments later, almost as if just realizing how the action may have been construed. The back of my neck suddenly felt very cold, and I hated the fact that I had enjoyed the warmth of his touch.

He grinned brightly once more and patted me on the head. “I’ll see you next class!”

---

Wednesday was my first day without classes, and I spent most of it in bed. The wood floor was cold, and my bed, well, wasn’t.

The phone rang and I groaned. It was so far, a whole room away. Dragging my blankets with me, I went to pick up the phone.

“Mmmnh.” I tried to say hello, I really did.

“Madeleine?” I knew this guy…

“Yeah?”

“Hey, this is Joshua.” I did know him! “I woke you up, didn’t I? It’s two in the afternoon, Mad.”

“It’s still Wednesday, right?” Two on Thursday, I had math. And I couldn’t miss that.

He sighed heavily, and my lips twitched into a semblance of a grin. “Well, is it?” I prodded.

“I choose not to answer.” He was no fun at all. “Anyway, Bells needs to talk to you about when you can work.”

“When does she want me to come over?” I asked, much more awake at the prospect of a job.

“In about ten minutes.” I’d bet anything he was smirking at me right then.

“Gah!” I hung up, figuring the conversation had nowhere else to go. Why was my life running late? It kinda sucked, y’know.

The next ten minutes were an exercise in multi-tasking that I never want to even think of again.

It was… intense.

Fifteen minutes after Joshua’s phone call, I was skidding into Lackadaisical, my mouth still tingling with my cinnamon toothpaste and my stomach rumbling. Joshua was talking to a customer, and he looked my way and waved. Obnoxiously, the bastard, and oh, how delectable the stuffed pretzel in his hand looked.

I heard the musical chorus of bells coming my way, and I heard someone call my name.

“Madeleine, c’mere.” I followed the petite woman obediently into the room behind the cash register.

She moved a filing cabinet in a corner of the room and pulled out a folder. “Madeleine Key… You’ll be working here… Monday and Wednesday afternoons, Thursday mornings… And if we need you some other time, we’ll give you at least an hour’s notice.

I grinned brightly and nodded fervently. “Yeah, totally, sounds perfectly dandy! I’m sure it will be great! Thank you so much, Bells, really.” My grin fell for a moment. “An hour’s notice?” I tried to think of any situations I might be in where an hour’s notice wouldn’t be enough.

And my life was dull enough, that the only situation I could think of was school.

“You’ll do fine,” Bells reassured me, smiling slightly. “Now go find Joshua. The boy has been fidgeting all day long.”

Joshua? Fidgeting? Over me? Oh the wonders. I left the small room, navigating my way around stacks of books, most of them still in the plastic wrap. A small giggle left me. Ha! I’m working in a bookstore! I win.

I followed the smell of coffee, because where the coffee was, there would be Joshua.

I found him in the back parts of the store, witting with a little boy on a bean bag chair with a large book spread over their laps. I resisted the urge to go ‘awww’. It was a very ‘awww’ worthy sight…

At least until I saw the lady sitting a few feet away, ogling Joshua shamelessly.

And she looked to be the boy’s mother. How messed up Is that? I felt risky. I had a job. And a gay professor who was pretty. And my dear friend was being hit on by some vulture-she-man. I sat on the floor next to him, my head resting on his knee. He turned to look at me and grinned and tilted his head to the little boy.

“Mad, meet Edward. Eddie, meet Madeleine.” The boy looked rather scared… Perhaps because I was a frightening looking girl named Mad. That had the potential to be slightly creepy. I felt bad about myself until I saw the woman again. She was glaring at me above the book she was reading… upside down. Wow, I thought people only did that in cheesy movies.

My life is a cheesy movie! Go me!

Joshua started reading again, and I realized I had never noticed how much I liked his voice. It was rather low and soft but there was this bright and excited tone to it. I wondered who was the bigger child, him or Eddie. Joshua would give any kid a run for his money. Or her money, to be totally PC.

My head became sore so I twisted it and it popped loudly, making me wince at the noise and sudden pain. Eddie stared at me, the fright obvious in his wide brown eyes. God, I fail with kids.

Joshua just stared at me and then he finally put the book down and started laughing. Great, this was the guy who was apparently fidgety over me. Blah.

He went back to reading and I was left with my sore neck. He finished quickly and sent the boy off to him mother with a ruffle of his hair.

I cooed, “You’re so sweet. Why don’t you ever ruffle my hair?” He looked at me oddly, and I tilted my head towards him obligingly. “C’mon, you know you want to feel my hair.” He hesitantly reached out his hand and patted my head weakly.

“You’re so weird, Mad.” He said emphatically. And that made me stop suddenly. I was weird, wasn’t I? And what if that wasn’t a good thing?

It wasn’t… I mean, who wants a freak? Certainly not a gay math professor.

Joshua poked my cheek and I fell over. I lay there on the floor staring at the paint splattered ceiling blankly.

“Mad? are you…. alright?” He almost sounded concerned.

“Shhh. I’m being philosophical here,” I chastised.

“Ah, okay.”

“I’m a freak. How depressing is that?”

“You’re not a freak. You’re… different.” I looked up at him pointedly and he added, “In a perfectly normal way.” I snickered and he sighed holding out a hand to help me up.

Grabbing his hand tightly, I pulled myself up and groaned. I was sore.

“Is there… someone?” He asked delicately.

My God, was I really that obvious? And how did he get to know me so well? Or… I don’t know. Since when had we been such good friends? Not that I was complaining, but I just had never realized that, yes, Joshua and I were indeed… friends. And rather close ones at that.

I leaned into him, still holding onto his hand, and pecked him on the cheek. And I was the one who blushed. Figures.

“You okay?”

“I love you,” I said sincerely. “You rock my sock drawers to an illegal level. So you just keep on breaking the law, dear.”

“Thanks,” and he grinned weakly. “So, ah, about this guy…” he said, steering the conversation to a safer topic.

Safer. Ha.

“So there’s this guy… And he’s really attractive.”

“So what’s wrong with him?” I would have been insulted. I think I should have been insulted. But I wasn’t, since I was too caught up in my tale of illicit love.

“He’s gay.”

“Ouch.”

“And my math teacher.”

He looked at me and started laughing. Again. What an ass. Forget everything I said about us being close friends; he’s actually an asshole with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

“That figures. You would fall for a teacher, wouldn’t you?”

I glared at him. “You aren’t helping. I think I may want to punch you.”

He laughed some more. “You’ve punched me before and trust me, it didn’t hurt. At all.”

I was very close to blowing my top. So I kicked him in the… shin. His face contorted with pain and I felt a flash of pleasure before I was drowned in guilt. I was not going to apologize though.

“Want to go out for lunch? “ I didn’t need to apologize… He just did.

Lunch was a decent affair. He reassured me that I wouldn’t make an utter fool of myself, though considering how much he had laughed at me that morning, I wasn’t obliged to trust him. But I nodded anyway, just to humor him, and I think he knew that. I said my good-bye threw down a twenty dollar bill and walked off, knowing that’ he’d just hand the bill back to me the next morning. When I went to work… HA! I had a job. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of saying that…

---

Thursday was math. Thursday was also Professor Fleming… Lovely. And I mean that literally. I swore to get there earlier, so my bag was on my shoulder and I was running to the subway a full half an hour before class started. I refused to be late. Absolutely and utterly refused.

You know what would have really sucked?

If I was late.

But I wasn’t late, so it doesn’t matter.

Considering how early I had left, I was surprised to see two other students in the class. They had gotten seats in the far back, and they were leaned over the desk, their heads close together. Briefly, I entertained the notion that I was witness to some dastardly deed, but soon, they surfaced, revealing a textbook identical to the one in my arms.

Ah well. Maybe I’d see a conspiracy next time.

It was just then, as I was putting my bag down and book on the desk, that I realized there was no teacher in the room with us. Soon, students began filing in, singly, doubly, and in larger groups. The room filled with the buzz of chatter, and it was only after a few more minutes that the red-haired professor entered the room, raising his hands for silence.

“Sorry I’m late,” Professor Fleming apologized. The statement seemed surreal, especially when we checked our watches. There was still a minute till class started.

“You’re… not late…” chimed a voice hesitantly. Professor Fleming looked bemused.

“But… Oh, never mind. Books, open.”

And we, feeling just as bemused as he looked, opened our books.

It was odd. My week seemed to revolve around this class, but the class itself seemed almost disappointingly normal.

I did well in that class, for various reasons. I was pretty good at math anyway and… I dunno.

I guess I wanted to show Professor Fleming that I was… special.

Shut up.

Don’t look at me like that.

Bah.

All in all, the class seemed unreal. As if it wasn’t really a part of my normal life. Whether that was good or bad, I’m not quite sure.

At the end of each class, I lingered a little bit, taking my time while packing my bag. The first few classes, a few new friends waited with me, but after four weeks of classes, they grew wise and left me to my loitering.

I don’t know if he noticed; it wasn’t anything obvious. I was just a few moments later than everyone else. He always smiled at me, out of politeness, probably.

It was the sixth class I had with him that something changed.

It was also the sixth class where I, ah, accidentally drew on my homework. Such a charming sketch too…

“Miss Key, see me after class, will you?” Shit. Shit. Shit.

Maybe it was something else?

Something worse.

Shit.

I didn’t even bother being slow when I packed up my stuff. There didn’t seem to be any point. A few classmates looked at me curiously. It was obvious to see in their faces that none of them really thought I was in trouble.

It’s Madeleine, the genius, how could she get in trouble?

And it made me think. It wasn’t like I didn’t do the homework; I did it. I just added… something to it. Was that really a punishable offense?

Unless, I had done something else wrong and not even realized it. Now, my frazzled mind was frantically things I had done that could have been inappropriate. And nothing came up.

Shit.

The room had emptied, and I was standing next Professor Fleming’s desk. He had left a moment ago, telling me to wait for him. So I waited.

When he walked in, the worry on my face must have been apparent, because he started laughing and reassured me that I was, in fact, not in any type of trouble at all.

“My high school math teacher just heard that I’m teaching now, and he asked if he could see what kinds of children I’m corrupting, so I was just wondering if you’d like to see my old math teacher with me this weekend?” He looked childishly hopeful, so I nodded.

Did things like this really happen?

Do professors take students to see their old teachers?

Apparently so.

“You’ll go? Thank you so much! I think you’ll like him; he’s much nicer when you’re not in his class anymore. And he’ll like you too, I’m sure. You just seem like the person that he’d like. Very intelligent and such.” He smiled at me encouragingly, and I nodded weakly again.

He walked me to the door of the classroom, rattling off information about whether he should pick me up Saturday or we should meet somewhere. I think we finally settled on meeting here at University Square because his teacher lived close by anyway.

I just kept on nodding.

“Oh,” he smirked, pausing before the open door, “is my hair really that red?” I glowered at him, and he grinned and walked back to his desk. “See you Saturday!”

So he thought he was a bloody comedian, did he now?

---

AN: Ah. So I'm back. And I have nothing to say.

I'd still love to know what you thought.

And thank you once again, Thunderstorms, for your review.

I'm writing this as a part of WriYe '09, so hopefully it will updated with a tad better frequency.

with love,
ftg.