Alexander was not a loud person.
He liked to sit in the back of class, marking down his notes often- the only time he was loud was debating. Mainly with Jefferson.
But he had toned down from his elementary and middle school years- even his early highschool ones. He had been told by Aaron multiple times, and from what he'd tested, the theory was true- Talk less, smile more, and you'll get good grades.
Aaron had transferred with Alexander to this school last year- they were both unimpressed with the last school and the transphobic teachers that discriminated against Aaron were wearing him down.
Alexander looked up from his hands, which he had been turning his blocky glasses over with. He pulled the clunky glasses on to see the screen, which unfortunately had "WELCOME ALEX" written in comic sans as the title. It was the first day of his senior year- at this school, anyway. Everyone else in class was well into their studies.
Alexander, frankly, wasn't quite impressed by anything in the classroom. He'd found all the lesson plans online during the summer and already knew the material through and through. He was ready for a laidback year, maybe some time to make friends.
And then someone walked in.
His hair was barely held back by the rubber band, and his eyeliner was just about to fly away. If he were a girl, he'd be breaking literally every dresscode put in place, but schools were more lenient to boys. His eyes were cold and dark-ish, the pupil indistinguishable, and the cherry-red lipstick was distracting Alexander. Metallic silver peircings protruded from his lip and nose and most notably his adorable sticky-outy ears.
Alexander hadn't even looked at his shirt, a neon-blue midriff-bearing top, which was proudly adorned with a middle finger made out of silver sequins. He wore fishnets on his arms up to his elbows, and his hands were covered in biker gloves. Ripped jeans and incredibly worn out purple high tops clothed his legs and feet.
The only words Alexander could come up to describe him with were gay stud.
Despite the extremely over the top outfit, Alexander supposed he was somewhat attractive, but he'd never start a conversation with the guy. And he probably wouldn't talk to him, either- as far as Alexander was concerned, he could be seen as the nerd with weird sweaters in the back of class and just be perfectly content.
From what he could tell, he hadn't even noticed his existence. He wasn't exactly late, but he wasn't as early as people usually were, Alex noted as he dropped his books on the floor next to his desk and sat in the squeaky school chair.
"Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?" The teacher asked him, looking up from the desk. The boy shrugged in response.
"I'm John Laurens."
Alexander felt a little twinge in his chest, and mentally scolded himself- John clearly had no interest in someone like Alexander.
Class was a "speech" from the teacher about how excited he was to be working with all the students this year, yada yada yada good teacher blah. Alexander had heard this speech from a million different teachers through his life. Watching John three seats ahead, kicking the table leg repeatedly was much more interesting.
Nothing else was interesting up until lunch, which was a solid four periods forward.
Alexander had his brown paper bag which contained a badly made PB-J sandwich and a juice box, entirely unsure of where to sit. John wasn't anywhere to be seen, either fashionably late or playing hooky. Alexander let his gaze wander from table to table until he settled on one way back in the corner with a lone student. Their hair was tied back in a messy knot and they had a pretty nice beard growing in- Alexander presumed they were the french exchange student and was proven right when he was met with a sentence of introductory english muddled by a very strong french accent.
"Oh! Uh... don't know much english..." the student said, expecting Alexander to walk away.
"It's okay. I know french, if that's the language you're more comfortable with."
"Vraiment?" Lafayette asked, blinking.
"Oui. Comment t'appelles-tu?"
"Oh! Je suis Lafayette."
"Je suis Alexandre. Enchantee."
Alexander wasn't unhappy when another person decided to join his and Lafayette's tiny lunch table.
"Uh... hi? Is it okay if I sit here? I'm Hercules."
"I'm Alexander. This is Lafayette." He was internally beaming- two people he'd met in one day and he hadn't made them hate him.
Yet.
Alex loved math. It was his favorite subject. And if he says so himself, he's pretty good at it, too. There was something relaxing about always being able to find an answer, to have something uniform that he could use to solve situations in day to day life.
It was easy to excel in math. At least, not when John Motherfucking Laurens sits right in front of you and he's distracting you with how absolutely adorable he is.
Stop that. Alex scolded himself, turning his attention back to the screen. It was easy to get caught up, either way. He'd be fine.
He went back to determinedly scribbling out the answers to the example problems on the board when the teacher gestured for him and John to follow him outside, and he was ready to panic when the teacher started speaking.
"Well, you see, John here has been failing this class for the past two years," The teacher explained to Alexander, John leaning agaisnt the wall and staring at him. "And according to your grades from your past school, you'd be a good match to tutor John so he doesn't fall behind this year."
Huh?
John, to his credit, did not seem upset, though Alexander presumed he was a bit ticked that someone would imply he was dumb.
Alexander could do this. Absolutely. Just be a math tutor. To John, who scared the living shit out of him, in both a good way and a bad way.
Yeah. He could do this.
He could not do this, he amended, sitting later that day at John's kitchen table with him.
The guy frustrated him to no end- it wasn't that he was incapable of passing math. Oh no, he was plenty smart. Could definitely get straight A's. But he didn't want to spend longer than three seconds on a problem which led to him guessing the answer.
Alexander had had a similar problem once, where he could answer questions from memory in science, ILA, and History from memory, and got discouraged during math since it took him too long.
So that's why he was here, in John Motherfucking Laurens' kitchen, helping him do math homework.
God help him.
"So... what's 7 times 46.42 again?" John asked, swirling his pencil around in a twirling fashion to mark out the forms of flower petals.
"Solve it out," Alexander snapped at him, to which John glared at him.
"No need to be so rude," John grumbled, scratching out some work infuriatingly slow.
"It's 324.94," Alex conceded, not wanting to endure another second of the painstakingly slow pencil marks. John grinned, smugly marking down the answer and then putting the sheet of math homework back into his school binder.
"It looks like we finished early. Do you want to stay for dinner or something?"
Alex had to admit, that did take him by surprise. He'd just spent the last twenty minutes or so ridiculing John for doodling instead of working, and he was inviting him to stay... for dinner?
Alex wasn't one to turn down free food.
"Uh... sure, what are we having?"
"Microwaveable pasta."
"Alright then," Alex said, shoving his clunky glasses up the bride of his nose so he could see John clearer.
John was about to put the package in the microwave when someone at the door of the alarmingly large house pressed down on the doorbell and did not let go.
"What's tha-" Alex started, looking up, but John had already dropped the pasta.
"That's Francis. I gotta go, sorry, let yourself out once you've had dinner!" He said, running towards the door and grabbing his coat on the way.
Francis?
Alex peered around the kitchen corner to see the doorway, which John had swung wide open.
Is there a gay stud club or something? Alexander asked himself, squinting at the figure in the doorway. They were clearly similar to John in fashion taste, from the edgy clothes to the peircings. The man's blond hair was shaven partly on one side and spiked wildly, and sure, Alex could see why the two might hang out.
What he was not expecting was for who he supposed was Francis to pull John's face up to his with his shirt collar and proceed to make out with him in the doorway.
And what he definitely wasn't expecting was the misplaced pang of jealousy that shot through his chest like a bullet.