He was pissed but they held it back. It wasn't the tutor's fault that Ryan was here.

It was Ryan's fault for not showing up to class.

He sat down at the table the librarian led him to, pulling out their computer and notebook. Ryan had no idea what was going on in the class but he knew he wasn't going to fail no matter what the tutor told him. He ran his fingers through his shorter hair, the guys had cut it before the season, one of the superstitious things they did.

"Hey," A quiet voice said and Ryan turned his head, watching the guy sit down across from him. "You Ryan?"

"Yeah," Ryan said as the guy nodded in response. His hair was longer and slightly fluffy, a similar texture to Ryan's own. He wore a soft flannel shirt and had a can of Monster Energy drink in his hand. A drink that kept Ryan alive during finals seasons but wasn't his drug of choice during the hockey season.

The guy sat down and pulled his computer from his bag. "I'm Dan, I use he/they pronouns and I have narcolepsy with cataplexy so I may lose muscle tone and collapse. I am not fainting and I don't need an ambulance or anything. I can hear and am conscious but usually won't be able to respond to questions at that time."

Ryan took in what he was saying and filed it into a different part of his brain, not having any questions besides. "Is there anything I can do for you if that happens?" It was courteous to ask, even if Ryan didn't necessarily care that much.

"No, not really, you don't have to stick around if it happens and we're done with our time here. It's fine. I can deal with it myself," Dan said, their eyes on their computer, not even looking at Ryan as he spoke.

"Cool, okay. Or well," Ryan started, knowing his mouth wasn't going to stop. "Probably not cool, but thanks for telling me. Uh, I use they/he pronouns."

Dan nodded in response and then handed Ryan a piece of paper. "This is the syllabus for the class, look it over and let me know if you have any questions."

Ryan did so, letting his mind wander a bit. Dan spoke in a strange, straight-to-the-point way. It wasn't the bad kind of strange, just kind of interesting. Yeah, interesting was the right word. It reminded Ryan of a friend he had in kindergarten, he spoke very matter-of-factly and used to line up all the dinosaur toys on the edge of the table and would scream if you moved them. Ryan didn't dwell on that, it was probably shitty to compare a guy you just met to a toddler who moved away before you could really be friends with him.

"So it's readings every week, one-page responses, a midterm paper, and a finals paper?" Ryan asked, looking at the calendar aspect of the syllabus. "Anything I'm missing?"

"One test for midterms and one for finals, you have to show up to class those two days to take the tests, if you have a doctor's note it can be rescheduled but if you miss it unexcused you fail the test." Dan looked up at Ryan, not making eye contact in any sort of way, just sort of staring in the direction of his face. It was strange but Ryan didn't question it, that wasn't what he was here for.

Nodding in response, Ryan looked through the syllabus. "I've missed how many classes?"

"Five."

"Okay so I have three paragraphs, ten readings, and–"

Dan cut him off, "And a proposal for your midterm paper due by the end of this week."

Ryan sighed. It was a lot, especially on top of his maths stuff that he really couldn't get in late. But failure wasn't an option and Ryan resigned himself to at least one sleepless night that week. "Okay, is there a prompt for the paper?"

Dan handed them a piece of paper while nodding, his hand reaching for the Monster and taking a quick sip. "Here, all the information on the midterm paper."

Ryan looked it over, his eyes skimming the notes on 'significant change in culture and society' and how they need to connect it with a 'heavily researched topic of choice that illustrates change in society.' "What the fuck am I even looking at here?"

"Right," Dan grabbed the paper from Ryan, his hand brushing Ryan's and it was strange but Ryan was hyperaware of that small touch. He pulled out a highlighter and started circling things. "Basically, you need to pick a topic that shows some sort of change in society. Examples include the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, The Industrial Revolution, The French Revolution, any sort of war really, and the Age of Enlightenment. Pretty much anything you want to write and research about, you can make a case for in your proposal."

He looked at the yellow circles on the paper and smiled slightly. That was also how Ryan noted up his papers, circling the points that were most relevant and ignoring the rest. "So I could talk about abaci?"

"Probably yeah," Dan said, his computer turning dark in front of them.

"Does that make sense for a full paper though?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'd go even further back and do like, the need for numbers and the Babylonian Base-60 system. Then the change is born from a need to count the things you have. Which you can connect to a bunch of other things and research on that might be kind of hard to do but I think you could do it." Dan tapped their computer and started googling something, turning it to Ryan so he could see what Dan was typing. In Google Scholar, he was looking up articles about Base-60 numerical systems.

Not many people knew about Base-60 systems. They were something you got into if you were really into math and numbers and finding out how they work together. "How do you know so much about Base-60?"

Dan shrugged, "I'm an engineering student."

Huh?

"Then why are you tutoring for History?"

Dan cocked his head and shrugged yet again, taking another sip of his caffeinated drink, "They pay me pretty well."

Ryan laughed slightly. This was probably the strangest guy he'd ever met. But it was kind of nice. Like he who didn't care what Ryan thought of them. It was nice. It was weird, but it was nice.

"Okay so I get this done by Friday and we're done with this tutoring?"

"Well," Dan said. His eyes finally made contact with Ryan's and it felt strange, almost like something that wasn't supposed to happen. "Technically you have to keep showing up here until midterms and if you get over 90% on your test then you're done with tutoring."

Ryan sighed. "Okay yeah. That, I can do."