Johnny slowly ascended the stairs in Jimmy's house. Brian had asked him after school if he was doing anything and basically kidnapped him when he had answered "no". During the car ride, the older teen explained that Jimmy had gotten the flue and his mom wanted somebody to bring him his homework. They all knew that said homework wouldn't get done, but who where they to refuse his mother? All Johnny needed to do was bring the assignments to Jimmy, attempt to explain it, maybe keep him company for a little bit, then leave without getting sick himself. No problem.

Johnny knocked softly on the door to Jimmy's bedroom. He waited a minute before knocking again. This time a voice mumbled something between an invitation in and a string of profanity. Johnny pushed the door open, having to fight through the field of dirty clothes, garbage, and dirty dishes.

Being a bit of a neat-freak, Johnny felt bile rise in his throat not so much at the sight, but at the smell. At least several things were rotting. The teen himself was sprawled on his bed, tangled in a mess of sheets and blankets. A sheen of sweat covered the parts of his body that weren't covered by boxers or sheets.

Jimmy was gazing towards him through his half-lidded blue eyes. "Whassup Shorty?" he asked, lisp slightly worse than usual.

Johnny shuffled into the room, letting the door swing closed. "Brian told me I needed to bring you your homework," he answered, picking his way over to the bed. Dropping his backpack, Johnny dug out the textbook and folders that Brian had given him for Jimmy.

Identifying the textbook Johnny pulled out, Jimmy buried his face in his pillow and let out another string of cuss words, most of them directed at Brian and a few select teachers. Johnny couldn't help but snicker as he rearranged things on the nightstand so he could set the items on it.

"Oh come on, Algebra's not that hard," he said, sitting down on the very edge of the bed.

Jimmy snorted and rolled onto his side. "Says you! You actually understand that shit somehow." Johnny was actually one of the few Sophomores that were taking Senior math.

Johnny laughed again, grabbing the textbook and opening it to a page that had a folded piece of paper in it, serving as a bookmark. It also had Jimmy's assignment written on it. "Jeeze, summation notation is one of the easiest things you can do!" Johnny said, skimming through the questions.

Jimmy groaned and pressed his head into his pillow again. Having his homework delivered wasn't Brian or Johnny's fault, he understood that, but what he didn't understand was how he was supposed to do homework when he had a fever and slept all day and night. He couldn't even understand math when he wasn't sick.

Johnny sighed. "Looks like I'll have to play tutor," he thought, digging out a blank piece of paper and a pencil from his backpack. He wrote down a random question from the textbook that wasn't from Jimmy's homework.

"Sit up so I can teach you how to do it," Johnny ordered, giving Jimmy a poke with the eraser-side of his pencil.

The older teen groaned irritably before somewhat untangling himself. Once free from the blankets, Jimmy sat up and rested his chin on Johnny's shoulder to watch...or pretend to watch.

"Okay, the problem says to write each arithmetic series in Summation Notation. You following so far?"

Jimmy nodded, digging his chin more into Johnny's shoulder.

"Okay, this series is 4+8+12+16+20. What number goes under the Sigma?" Johnny asked, writing the numbers he listed on the paper.

Jimmy blinked. "What the fuck is a Sigma?"

Johnny drew a symbol on the paper. "That is sigma. It's a Greek letter."

"Why the fuck are we learning Greek letters?"

"I don't know, Jimmy, but that's not important," Johnny grumbled as he scribbled down the answer; 5Σ 4n n=1Maybe it would be easier to work backwards.

"Woah, woah, woah, how'd you get that? Is that the answer?" Jimmy asked, suddenly seeming more interested.

"Yeah, that's the answer. The 5 on top is the total number of terms. Then there's the Sigma. The n= means the first term in the sequence." Johnny responded, pointing to each item he refferenced.

"But you wrote a 1 instead of a 4..."

"That's because you don't write down what the number is, you write down what position in the sequence it is."

"So it'll always be 1 then. Right?"

"Usually, but not always. There might be the odd problem where it'll be something else. Just keep an eye out."

"Okay, so where'd the 4n come from?"

"Because you're adding 4 each time," Johnny turned his head when he felt Jimmy move away.

The older teen laid back down. "Whatever. I don't care. And it still doesn't make any sense to me."