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ninimackbrews · 10 days ago

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Improper Fraction

Pairing: Michael Gavey x f!reader Warnings: Sexually explicit content. Word count: ~5.1k.

Summary: Michael gets great satisfaction from humiliating a fellow student during the fresher's week pub quiz, only to get a nasty shock when he realises he'll be seeing lots more of her. And she's keen to get her own back.

Author's note: Based on this request. No tag list. Please follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications.

“Isn’t this something we should save for the first years?” she asked Libby, as they pushed through the door of The Bull.

It was early evening, and the place was already starting to fill up as students crowded in for The Bull’s annual end of Fresher’s Week pub quiz.

“We come every year,” Libby replied breezily, making a beeline for an empty table in the corner, and shrugging out of her denim jacket.

“But we’re not students anymore,” she protested, hovering behind the empty chair opposite her friend.

“I’m not, but you are, so why break tradition?” Libby grinned, a toothy, determined smile that made it clear she would not be budged on the matter or from her seat. “Since you’re stood up, you can get the first round. I’ll have my usual.”

She rolled her eyes, sighing as she turned to go and fetch their drinks.

She had studied Mathematics for four years at Oxford University, before being accepted for the integrated master’s level course in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics. She was hoping that the research level training would help her on her path to becoming an astrophysicist, until then she worked weekend shifts at a bookshop just off of the high street. Libby had completed the three year History of Art course more than a year ago, and had yet to move on from the city. Libby claimed it was because she enjoyed the culture and pace of life, but she knew her friend better than that – it had more to do with the bartender she’d been hooking up with on and off since she’d started a part time job at the wine café in Jericho. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for Libby sticking around – it meant not having to look for another flatmate, and Oxford would be a lonely place without her; a proclivity for numbers and equations left little opportunity for socialisation.

Pushing her way back through the crowd, trying and failing not to allow the two pints of Strongbow she carried to spill over the edge of the glasses, she frowned as she saw two men she didn’t recognise seated at the table either side of Libby. One was dark haired with a nose that looked as though it had been broken more than once, and the other was sandy haired and bespectacled – the sort of person she’d move away from on a bus, judging by the well worn Merrell walking shoes that peeked out from beneath the table.

Placing the glasses heavily down upon dog eared beer mats, sending more cider frothing over the sides and onto the sticky wood beneath, she shot Libby a questioning look, before taking her seat opposite her, the two strangers now on either side of her.

“This is Oliver,” Libby explained, dragging her pint towards her, “ and this is Michael. You need a minimum of four people for a quiz team, so I invited them to join us.”

“Hope you don’t mind,” Oliver said apologetically, shifting his gaze to her, “all the other teams were full.”

“Fine by me,” she replied with a shrug, hoping she appeared more casual than she felt. There was something about Oliver that made her feel uneasy, though she couldn’t fathom a tangible reason for why that was.

Libby took a swig of her drink, either not noticing the tension around the table or choosing to ignore it. “Oliver’s studying literature,” she said brightly, “so we’ll smash that round. What about you, Michael?”

“Maths,” he answered.

There was something smug and self assured in how he allowed the syllable to roll off his tongue, as though he were announcing to the table he was better than anyone else seated at it, without even needing to say the words.

“No way!” Libby swatted his arm, earning a scowl which she again chose not to notice, and nodded towards her friend seated opposite her. “Two maths boffins at the same table!”

Michael turned to her, his eyebrows raised in obvious disbelief. “You’re reading maths?”

“I was. I’ve just started my masters,” she offered a thin smile, taking a drink as a distraction from the scrutiny she felt beneath the intensity of his stare. The bittersweet liquid fizzed against her tongue, and she found it an effort to swallow as he continued to study her intently.

“Wow, someone actually worth talking to,” he scoffed finally, having decided he was satisfied with her answer. “I’m a genius. I can do any sum in my head. Go on, ask me.”

She hadn’t expected that. A normal person would have asked follow up questions, enquired about what a masters degree in mathematics entailed, instead he had managed to turn the conversation back to himself.

Laughing nervously, she shook her head. “What?” she stammered, “I–”

The tapping of a finger against a microphone echoed through speakers around the pub, and the loud chatter and laughter quieted down, as the quizmaster introduced himself and explained how each round would be conducted and scored. It was broken out by subject – a round each for English, maths, science, history, geography and art, with a bonus round for pop culture. Not an average pub quiz, but Oxford wasn’t an average university, and the student body revelled in flexing the superiority of their intelligence.

Oliver took care of the English round, marking his answers down against the shared sheet of paper with quiet confidence. When it came to the maths portion, Michael gleefully snatched up the answer page and pencil.

“I’ll take care of this round, don’t worry,” he announced, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.

She scowled, irritated by his dismissal of her, but decided, for the sake of keeping the peace, to keep quiet. It wasn’t until the final question in the round – add 8.563 and 4.8292 – that she finally spoke up.

“I should get to do at least one,” she insisted, grabbing the pencil from Michael and slanting the paper towards her.

She quickly scribbled her answer – 13.395 – and then righted the page back towards him.

Michael’s eyes moved from what she had written and then to her. “That’s wrong,” he said with a smirk, and crossed out her answer, replacing it with 13.3922.

He was right, of course – in her haste to contribute she had forgotten to add a zero to the end of the 8.563 portion of the sum, and instead carried the final 2 of 4.8292 into her addition of 9 and 3.

She dropped her gaze to the drink in front of her, watching the bubbles rise to the top of her half drunk pint, as it sweated with condensation. Her cheeks blazed with humiliation. If only this Strongbow were large enough for her to topple into and drown. “How could I have gotten that wrong?” she thought, “Such a stupid bloody mistake.” The quizmaster announced a short break, and Oliver offered to buy a round for the four of them. Michael joined him at the bar, leaving her and Libby alone.

"Don't spiral," Libby urged, leaning across the table and rubbing her arm in a comforting gesture, "literally no one but you cares that that wasn't the right answer."

She raised her head, glancing around, and her eyes immediately met the steely stare of tMichael as he looked over his shoulder at her from the bar. The smug, self satisfied smirk on his face was proof enough that Libby was wrong – he cared.

“That’s wrong,” echoed in her mind on repeat for the rest of the evening.

By the time the quiz drew to a close, their team had not even come close to winning. The fifty pound bar tab had gone to a team that Oliver told them was made up of a student named Felix, and his cousin, Farleigh, and a gaggle of their hangers on. He spoke of them with a longing that suggested he would much rather be at that table than theirs. The maths and science portions they had perfect scores for, thanks to Michael – she hadn’t participated after he had corrected her, what little enthusiasm she had started with had been crushed. They had done okay on English and art, thanks to Oliver and Libby’s efforts, but had only managed a few points for geography and history, and had gotten nothing at all for the pop culture round.

“Guess we’re all just a bunch of losers then,” Michael commented with a wry smile, before downing the dregs of his lager.

There was something about the enunciation he placed on the word “losers” that formed a pit in her stomach – even if it wasn’t a direct dig at her, it served only to exacerbate the embarrassment she already felt at her earlier blunder. She knew it was silly to have such a strong reaction to an honest mistake that had been made in a hurry and, deep down, she knew it wasn’t that that was getting at her – it was how he seemed to gloat and take satisfaction in her having been wrong in the first place.

“Right,” she said, rising from her seat and grabbing her bag as she looked to Libby, “shall we?”

Libby nodded. “Was great to meet you both,” she said brightly, pulling her hair free of the collar of her jacket as she put it back on. “Sorry we weren’t better quiz buddies.”

“Wait,” Michael called after her as she turned to leave.

She paused, eyes wide in anticipation as he rose from his seat and extended a beer mat towards her. There was a phone number scrawled hastily on the lager stained edge of it, alongside the name ‘Michael Gavey’. “Just in case you ever want any tutoring,” he grinned, “seems like you might need it.”

Before she could open her mouth to speak, Libby was dragging her outside, the beer mat still held limply between her thumb and forefinger. The moment the door swung closed behind them, she exhaled a growl of frustration up at the sky, which had turned to the inky black of night in the time they had spent in the pub.

“I’m sorry,” Libby said, the soft look in her eyes showing she really meant it, “if I’d have known he was such an arrogant twat, I’d never have–”

She sighed, waving a hand dismissively as she interrupted her. “It’s not your fault. I just want to forget I ever met him.”

“Don’t chuck it away!” Libby called out, halting her actions as she held the beer mat precariously over the top of a litter bin on the street corner.

“Why in god’s name would I ever want to keep it?” she asked incredulously, yet found herself slipping his number into her bag all the same.

Libby grinned, linking her arm through hers as they began to stroll back towards their flat. “You could have some fun with him, get your own back.”

She huffed a soft laugh, shaking her head. She’d settle for never seeing him again, that would suit her just fine.

Unfortunately, she had no such luck.

**DIVIDER**

It was an uncomfortably warm Thursday afternoon, almost a week had passed since the Fresher’s Week pub quiz, and she had mostly forgotten about the egomaniac she had been forced to share a table with. She had spent the week buried in dissertation research, wanting to make a start as soon as possible to ensure she chose the field best suited to her to write about. However, the unseasonably warm weather was making the library feel stifling – as much as she admired the university’s dedication to preserving the historical beauty and structure of its buildings, it was days like today that she resented the lack of modern conveniences, such as air conditioning. Original stonework was all well and good, but she failed to see how it could be appreciated if its occupants were all forced to sweat to death.

She rested her elbow on the table, her chin propped on her hand as her eyes scanned repeatedly over the same line in the plasma physics textbook she had pulled from the shelf. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she placed her hand over her mouth much too late as she let out a loud and exaggerated yawn.

“If this is the attitude you have towards your studies then no wonder you get such simple addition questions wrong.”

She tensed, her shoulders pulling up to her ears. “Oh christ, please no,” she thought.

That familiar voice, smooth as silk, and yet maddeningly irritating sounded again, this time much closer. “Mind if I join you?”

Michael didn’t wait for a response, instead placed his books beside hers on the table and sat down.

“Is your friend…Oliver?” she began, searching her memory for his name, “Is he not around for you to study with?”

“No,” he answered, his tone clipped and more curt than it had initially been, suggesting this wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss further. He opened a notebook, drumming his fingertips listlessly against its lined pages before looking at her again. “What’s that you’re reading?”

She sighed, lifting the textbook to show him the cover before setting it back down again.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” he asked conversationally.

The casualness of the question caught her off guard, and she frowned for a moment before leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms across her chest. “Would it upset you if I didn’t?”

“I suppose not. I’m quite used to people disliking me. But I’d be curious to know why you in particular feel that way.”

She hated the way she felt when he stared at her like that, his gaze penetrating and intense. It made her skin prickle, and her mouth run dry. She wet her lips, doing her best to keep her voice quiet and even in the hush of the library. “I find you rude and arrogant.”

“Well, you’re meek and insecure,” he stated matter of factly.

Bristling with annoyance, she rounded on him, leaning closer as the anger in her voice combined with the effort to keep quiet caused it to come out as a hiss. “See?! This is exactly what I mean, who the fuck says things like that?!”

“I’m confident in who I am, secure in my intelligence,” he explained calmly, “can you say the same about yourself?”

She scoffed, pushing her chair back so hard that the legs scraped loudly against the stone floor, the sound echoing off of the vaulted ceiling of the library. There was no way she was going to stay here with this prick and be insulted, it was too hot to put up with someone so irritating. She gathered her belongings into her arms, not bothering to put them back into her bag, and stormed away.

**DIVIDER**

“He called me meek and insecure, can you believe it?” she raged at Libby as she sat cross legged on the sofa of the living of their small flat.

The communal space was open plan, a cosy living room that opened out onto a poky kitchen. Libby stood at the breakfast bar, her back to the cupboards as her fingers tapped against a Super Noodles flavour packet, while she waited for the kettle to boil.

“We-ell…” Libby began, offering her a tight smile.

“Are you kidding me?!” she seethed, wide eyed with disbelief.

Her friend turned, poured boiling water over the noodles in her bowl, before placing it into the microwave. It beeped as she pressed buttons, before whirring to life.

“You’re my best friend,” she said, crossing the space to sit next to her, “and I think you’re amazing, but I don’t think you think that. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

She frowned, her mouth twisting in confusion. “Is it a bad thing that I’m not arrogant?”

Libby shook her head. “It’s a bad thing that you allow yourself to be torn down so easily. Look at how you acted at the pub quiz.”

“That jumped up little twat was rude to me!” she protested, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

“He was,” Libby agreed, “but what I think got to you is that you share the same field of study, and despite only being in his first year he’s more secure than you are.”

She fell silent, chewing her lip. She wanted to protest, to say she was wrong, but she couldn’t. It had gotten to her how confident he was in his own ability, and he was really only just starting out. She had just begun a master’s degree and was still doubting herself, feeling as though she didn’t belong.

“I think he quite likes you,” Libby added with a knowing smile, “and I think if you gave yourself the chance to think about it, you’d realise you fancy him a little bit too.”

“Absolutely not,” she denied flatly, “have you seen the way he dresses?!”

“Already thinking about taking his clothes off, see?!” Libby laughed as she swatted at her.

She tutted, pawing through the things that she had brought back with her from the library, noticing something that she hadn’t bundled in with the textbooks she’d borrowed. She rummaged in her bag, her heart dropping upon realising it wasn’t in there either. “He’s got my notebook…”

Libby grinned as the microwave beeped, jumping to her feet “Saved by the bell!”

Feeling around amongst the stray bobby pins and discarded chewing gum wrappers at the bottom of her bag, her fingers finally wrapped around the beer mat she’d chucked in there the previous week, and pulled it out. She tapped it against her knee as she looked at the phone number, trying to decide between spending ten pence on a text message to ask if he had her notebook, giving Michael her own number in the process and opening herself up to further interactions with him, or just cutting her losses and buying a new pad. The one she had left in the library had all of her dissertation notes though, and she’d have to start from scratch if she bought a new one.

Flipping open her Motorola, she typed out a text message – “Do you have my notebook?” – and hit send.

Almost twenty minutes later, and ten minutes into an episode of Come Dine With Me, her phone buzzed with his response – “who is this? ;-)”

“For fuck’s sake,” she groused to herself, letting her phone snap closed and drop back onto the sofa cushions, as she resigned herself to simply buying a new notebook. She didn’t want to play his stupid games, and certainly wouldn’t be texting him back.

A few moments later, her phone buzzed again – “Yes, I have it. You could come & collect it from me tomorrow?”

**DIVIDER**

This was not how she had envisioned spending her Friday night. When she had finished her third year, and moved into a flat with Libby, she thought she had seen the last of student halls. Yet, here she was, trudging up the steps of Balliol College as the faint sounds of laughter and music drifted faintly along the hallways. It was a reminder of her own university experience – or rather the one she’d missed out on. She had spent many Friday nights lost in her studies, while the rest of her peers socialised and partied without her. It was what had made her glad to be out of student accommodation – she was free of the reminder that the world was going on around her while her own was at a standstill.

She checked her phone again, ensuring she had the correct room and then knocked. Michael answered, wearing a blue checked shirt tucked into tan coloured cargo trousers, and she had to fight a smirk at the sight of how high up they were belted around his waist.

“Come in,” he offered, stepping to one side.

She hesitated – she had been anticipating just grabbing her notebook from him and then leaving. An invitation into his room was unexpected. She relented when he gave an impatient raise of his eyebrows, and stepped inside.

It was cleaner, much cleaner, than a student’s room had any right to be. The window was cracked open, allowing a slight respite from the humidity of the old building, and the scent of bar soap and clean laundry hung lightly in the air. The sheets were pulled taut against the single bed that sat against the far wall of the room, with a poster above it that made her lips quirk into an involuntary smile – “sketching rational functions is a pain in the asymptote”. The desk in the far corner of the room was even tidy, with all of the books stacked neatly. It was there that she spotted her notebook, placed close to the edge.

“So, I’ll just grab this and go then…” she began, moving towards it.

“What’s the rush?” he asked, grabbing a plastic water tumbler full of white wine from the bedside table and holding it out to her, “I’ve got us drinks.”

“Wine?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrow, accepting the cup from him. “Very fancy for a student.”

He smirked. “Well, you’re an older woman, I thought alcopops might be beneath you.”

She sipped the wine. It was room temperature, and so tart upon her tongue that her face reflexively twisted in disgust as she swallowed it with a slight sputter. “Thank you,” she coughed, “that is truly, truly awful.”

Michael lifted his own drink in mock toast. “Costcutter, two bottles for a fiver. I am a student after all.”

The two of them sat side by side on the bed, their backs against the wall as they drank their sour wine, and chatted. He was all of the things she had thought he was – arrogant, obnoxious and callous – but he was also fiercely intelligent, confident, witty and handsome in his own curious sort of way, though she attributed that to the bottle of wine they had polished off between them. She discovered that he had earned his place at Oxford via a scholarship, and had an eidetic memory for numbers – he really could do any sum in his head, and was hoping to specialise in mathematical engineering.

“So, theoretical astrophysics is your thing then?” he asked, as he cracked open the screwtop on the second bottle of wine and refilled both their tumblers.

“You read my notebook?!” she asked, feeling her skin grow heated with embarrassment. The idea of him reading her notes made her feel vulnerable, as though he was looking at her naked.

“I had a quick flick through,” he admitted with a shrug, “it’s rare to find someone our…well, your age, with an interest in maths and physics, especially a woman.”

She hummed softly in acknowledgement, her gaze falling to the plastic rim of the cup she held in her hands.

“Why do you do that?” he asked, twisting his torso to face her properly. “Why do you diminish yourself like that?”

She shrugged, sipping her wine. It was less foul now that she had gotten used to the taste. “I dunno. I just–”

“I’ve read your notes,” he pressed, “your intelligence is far superior to anyone I’ve met here so far. Why aren’t you proud of that?”

She lifted her head, her eyes meeting his, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Hard to be confident in your abilities when you get a stupid pub quiz question wrong.”

Michael scoffed, rolling his eyes. “But you knew where you went wrong,” he insisted, “do you see what I mean? You aren’t walking around genuinely believing that 13.395 is the answer, you know it’s not.”

“Then why were you so cruel about it?” she asked softly, her tone laced with uncertainty.

“I was teasing you, I didn’t mean to be cruel,” Michael admitted, “I guess I was trying to flirt…”

Her lips parted slightly in surprise, the admission making her breath hitch, before she giggled. “So you are bad at something after all.”

He grinned. “I suppose so, but I’d still rather be a maths genius.”

She shifted around on the bed to face him. “Can you still do any sum in your head after a bottle of wine?”

Michael reached up, placing his half drunk cup on the window sill. “Try me.”

She lifted her gaze towards the ceiling momentarily as she thought of a sum, before looking at him again. “98 times 63?”

“6,174,” he answered with a confident smile.

“That’s incredible,” she laughed, leaning forward and placing her hand on his thigh. “149 divided by 4.8?”

She noticed him tense, his sharp intake of breath from the presence of her touch, and he blinked, hesitating before he answered. “Erm…31. Shall I do the decimal places?”

“No,” she replied, smirking as an idea occurred to her.

She moved to straddle his lap, her knees either side of his legs as she wound her arms around his neck, her breath ghosting against the shell of his ear. “865 times 17?”

“Jesus Christ," he breathed as his hands came to rest up on her hips.

She could feel him trembling beneath her, and she enjoyed it. She wasn’t sure if it was the cheap wine, or knowing she had a self proclaimed maths genius at her mercy, but she felt powerful. “That’s not the answer, is it?” she cooed, burying her fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck and tugging gently. Michael groaned and the sound made her clench around nothing as heat pooled in her belly. “865 times 17?”

“Uh…it’s…it’s…14,705,” he stammered, his breaths becoming laboured.

She wasn’t even sure if that was correct herself, she’d need a calculator to check, but right now she was too lost in the moment to care. For the first time in a long time, she felt confident. “Good boy,” she purred.

Trailing her hands down the cotton fabric of his shirt, she slowly began to unbutton it. His skin was pale as it was revealed to her, his chest had a light dusting of blonde hair that trailed down to his bellybutton. He was thin, but in a way that showed the definition of wiry muscle instead of the outline of bone. He looked mesmerised as he stared up at her, pupils wide and full lips parted, and he muttered a curse under his breath as she dragged the flat of her palms over his bare skin.

She was curious to see if he’d make a blunder and embarrass himself just as she had when they first met. She rolled her hips against his provocatively, feeling him growing hard beneath her, as she ran the tip of her finger down the centre of his chest. “58,793 plus 118,248?”

Michael whined, his eyes screwing shut as he bucked up against her, gripping her hips tighter as she rocked against him.

“Ah, ah, ah,” she chided, grasping his chin and forcing him to look at her. “Correct answer, or I’ll stop.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, contining to press his erection insistently against her through his trousers. “It’s er…it’s…shit…it’s 177,041.”

“Well done. I think that deserves a reward, don’t you?” She smiled wickedly down at him, pulling away as he leaned up in an attempt to kiss her. “No, not that.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss him, it was just that that felt too intimate for what they were doing. She was enjoying being in charge, and didn’t want to break the spell of whatever had empowered her to take the lead.

His eyes dropped to her hands as they grasped at his belt buckle, tugging it open and freeing his cock. His chest rose and fell unsteadily as she wrapped her hand around it, stroking slowly. It wasn’t overly girthy, but what it lacked in thickness it made up for in length. A prominent vein ran along the underside, and the head was ruddy and swollen, weeping with arousal. Michael hissed through his teeth as she swiped her thumb against the tip of him, the pass of her palm against his shaft becoming more insistent.

“17,604 divided by 56?” she whispered.

He moaned, the back of his head hitting the wall with a soft thud as it tipped backwards in pleasure. She could feel herself growing wet at the sight of him, the telltale patch of dampness in her underwear growing sticky and clinging to her flesh.

“It’s…it’s…”

“Yes?” she urged, stilling her hand on his shaft, but not letting go.

“Please…please don’t stop,” he panted, his voice a pitiful whine.

“Then tell me the answer,” she demanded, giving him a gentle squeeze that made his hips jerk off of the mattress.

“314…point…point,” he gasped as she resumed the back and forth motion over his manhood, and she grinned wolfishly.

“Poor baby can’t remember the decimal point?” she teased, feeling him begin to throb against her palm.

“I can’t…I can’t,” he panted, “I’m gonna…”

With a final flick of her wrist, she watched in rapt fascination as spurts of pearly release coated her hand and splattered across his lower abdomen as he pulsed steadily in her hand, gasping for breath as his hips bucked involuntarily.

She smiled down at him when he finally stilled, taking in the sight of his flushed cheeks, fogged up glasses, and the mess he’d made of both of them. “Turns out there are some sums you can’t do, after all,” she teased, letting go of him.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed, lifting off his glasses and running a hand through his hair as he sagged back against the wall. “I don’t even care, that was incredible.”

She laughed softly, wiping her hand off on the bed spread as she climbed off of him and sat next to him. “What about me?” she asked coyly, “You got to come and I didn’t.”

He eyed her sheepishly as he put his glasses back on, his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly. “I don’t really know how. I mean, I’ve never…”

Dread passed over her like a bucket of ice water as she realised he was a virgin. She hadn’t even stopped to think that this could be his first sexual encounter, she’d just assumed it wasn’t, and was now terrified she’d taken advantage of him.

Seeming to sense her inner turmoil, he reached out, his slender fingers gently encircling her wrist in an attempt at reassurance. “I guess I don’t know everything after all,” he offered with a slight smile, “but lucky for me, I have a brilliant teacher.”

She softened, her eyes lifting to meet his as she relaxed, knowing she hadn’t overstepped. “I suppose tutoring sessions may be required after all.”

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