"Look, I don't know what the fuck potassium permangamanante-"
"Permanganate."
"Is. I just wanna know what fucking color it turns when you add hydroxide or whatever the fuck it is we're using."
"Sodium hydroxide." A sigh, loud amongst the otherwise silence of the lab, forced itself from the lips of the teen whose fingers were poised over a test tube, holding a pipette full of the very same sodium hydroxide that the two unfortunate lab partners were working with. The pale boy's eyes were closed tight in annoyance, and he found that he actually had to collect himself before adding the two drops of NaOH solution to the purple, liquid potassium permanganate and sodium sulfite solution in the test tube. He sighed in relief when the color cleared out quickly, first mixing red and then turning more yellow, to a slightly clear, though still murky yellow, liquid.
"Whoa..." From beside the busy scientist, his partner let out an awed breath at their success. "Alright..." He muttered, taking his eyes away from the liquid to his lab sheet and the reaction equations they had to solve there. "So, how do we do these?"
"Here," Alex Mercer pushes up the sleeves of his lab coat so he can lean across Desmond, his reluctant lab partner, without restraint, holding a pencil over the other teen's lab so he can show him how to work the reactions. "You have to see if you can balance it without having to add hydrogen or oxygen to either side," He explained, almost mechanically, to Desmond. "But since this side needs oxygen, we're going to add OH- here, because we're dealing with a basic solution." He went through the motions automatically, not paying attention to Desmond's reaction. "And now that we have oxygen and hydrogen on this side, we're going to need hydrogen on the opposite..."
Desmond was barely listening anymore, watching the muscles in Alex's arm twitch as he wrote in a scrawl that could easily challenge the most illegible teacher-writing in the world (which he was pretty sure belonged to their left handed chemistry instructor). This guy is seriously built... He found himself thinking, eyes trailing from his forearm to his triceps. Seriously... why is he such a dweeb?
"-w just balance the equation and you're done." Alex finished off the explanation that Desmond only now just realized that he'd tuned out of. Alex stared hard, eyes resting on Desmond's lips as though he were waiting for them to move in confirmation that he understood. When no such thing came, Alex sighed but did not look away. "You're so simple minded, honestly I don't know why Mr. L paired us together. I already have to stay after school for you, and now you're just going to tune out everything I'm trying to tell you to get you to be able to even dream about passing this class? I don't even fucking know why I'm wasting my ti-"
His rant was cut off when the soccer player gripped the lapels of his lab coat and pulled him into an awkwardly rough kiss. Alex didn't know what to do – he went limp, lips falling open slightly in surprise, which only gave Desmond more room to dominate them further. He was making the motions to push the larger teen back, to shove him away, but when his hands fell upon Desmond's chest with less force than he had intended, all they could do was grip at the fabric of his exposed t-shirt and pull him closer, finally responding to the sudden kiss.
The heated moment was brought to an end, however, when the familiar, sugar coated Italian drawl of their chemistry professor permeated through the room. "Alex, Desmond, are you boys almost finished your-" His sentence broke off when he saw the flushed, annoyed expressions of the two boys that had only just managed to part the second before he had entered the room. "Oh." He smirked, taking in the rumpled t-shirts, crossed arms, angry expressions, and swollen lips of the boys. "Well, I think it is safe enough to assume that there was a fist fight here," He said, winking knowingly. "And since I was not here, I simply cannot write up any public displays of aggression," He paused, letting the emphasis sink in. "That I did not see." One more wink, and the professor was suddenly at his desk, a chuckle – one that let Alex and Desmond know he understood everything – passing through his lips.