Alfred pushed his things onto the table, shoving aside Arthur's pile of notebooks. Arthur looked up, rolling his eyes at the sight of him, and returned his focus back down towards his own work. Alfred quickly grasped the box containing his goggles, pulling them out by the elastic and holding them in front of himself and, by extension, in front of Arthur.

"Alright," Alfred announced, "I've been thinking on this for the past couple of weeks and I think I've got it. What I need to do is fit the glasses inside the goggles before I put them on, and then slip both of them onto my face. What do you think?"

Arthur snorted. "I think you're being a stubborn prat. Haven't we already been through this? You can't wear both of them at the same time. You're just going to have to accept the fact that you won't be able to read measurements and get on with it."

Alfred groaned, shoving himself down into his seat. "But I gotta have both on, Artie. I can't just not see when I'm working in the lab, ya know?"

"Well, if you're that against it," Arthur reasoned with a smirk, "You could always forgo the goggles and end up going completely blind."

Alfred began to pout, and Arthur snickered at the look on his face. "Whatever. Just watch, it's gonna work this time, I swear."

Arthur leaned back away from his notebook, resting his chin in one hand. Once Alfred had this confirmation that Arthur was, in fact, watching him, he slid his glasses off of his face and into the cup of his goggles. From there he grasped the sides and slowly, gingerly brought it up towards his face. The path of his makeshift invention went completely unhindered until had slid the handles of the glasses all the way onto his face. The goggles fell off of the glasses with a soft pop, dropping all the way to the ground.

Alfred stared in disbelief at the ground, his mouth open in incredulity as Arthur burst out laughing. He turned to glare at the young man, but he just kept on going, one hand reaching up to cover his mouth and the other clutching at his stomach. His whole body seemed to shake with the force of it.

"What are you laughing at?" Alfred asked, but his only response was to laugh even harder, his eyes beginning to water.

"Come on dude, it's not that funny." Alfred tried to reason, but at this point Arthur's breaths were coming in gasps. He stared at him for a moment, watching as the other continued to cackle, until a familiar feeling began to bubble up in his gut. He tried to stop it, but a few seconds later he too was bent over in laughter, falling over himself as he joined in.

Alfred threw his head back, their combined voices echoing through the empty room. He looked over at Arthur, whose eyes reflected his own mirth, and they both began laughing even harder, grasping at their stomachs, the table, and each other as if to try to get a hold of the uproar they were causing.

A few seconds later, however, and Arthur's laughter died out abruptly, Alfred's following suit not too long after. Arthur was facing away from him now, turning back towards his notebook and picking up his pen once again. Alfred tried to send him a questioning look, but the young man refused to meet his eyes. He found himself turning his head, trying to search out the cause of his sudden mood change, and his eyes landed on Francis, who had just entered the room with his group of friends.

Alfred narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Something was definitely up with that guy, and he didn't trust him even the slightest bit. His mind began to run wild, coming up with theories of supervillians and French spies, all culminating in the fact that he was beginning to hold quite a grudge towards the other teen. Part of him blamed it on his unnaturally blasé demeanor, but he couldn't deny that he mostly didn't like how he acted around Arthur (which was weird – he hadn't been friends with Arthur long enough for him to be this protective of him).

Mr. Brewer entered the classroom, pulling Alfred away from unknowingly glaring at the French boy. He welcomed the students to another day of class, and soon enough all of the students had begun lining up to have their lab books initialed. Alfred was unnaturally silent as he walked through the classroom, not speaking a word until he arrived at what was beginning to feel like his and Arthur's regular spot. He didn't quite have the heart to ask what had just happened, but his mind was so consumed with that moment that the only thing he could think of to say was, "So this lab's gonna be pretty fun, huh?"

Arthur looked at him strangely. "We're starting with copper and ending with copper. I'd hardly call that fun."

"Yeah, you're right, that is pretty boring. Well it's the process that counts, isn't it?" Alfred asked, a smile gently tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Oh, yes," Arthur snarked, twirling his pen around in his hand, "Because this lab is the epitome of entertainment. Besides, I wouldn't expect someone like you to find enjoyment in something like this anyway."

"What do you mean, 'someone like me'?" Alfred asked, a frown forming on his face, but Arthur's answer was interrupted by Mr. Brewer entering the room and making an announcement.

"Since this lab requires fume hoods," He began, holding up various pieces of equipment, "And we only have two, the other two groups will have to make their own. So Francis's and Antonio's groups, you can take the real hoods, and Alfred's and Katyusha's groups, here are your parts."

He handed each of the groups a funnel and a rubber tube, and after showing them how to assemble it, took the others behind the wall where the real fume hoods were held (Alfred thought they looked like giant ovens). Arthur quickly volunteered to weigh out the copper they needed, leaving Alfred to put the pieces together and attach them to the small opening on the side of the water faucet.

Once Arthur had returned with the copper carefully weighed and dumped into an Erlenmeyer flask, Alfred grabbed a small beaker of nitric acid and a disposable pipette to dispense it with, both of them working in silence. It was only when Arthur had begun setting up the Bunsen burner that he burst out with, "What do you mean, 'someone like me'?"

Arthur glanced over for a moment as he screwed something onto the ring stand. "You know, someone like you."

"No," Alfred argued, turning on the gas and lighting the flame, "I really don't."

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?" Arthur questioned as he placed the flask over the flame and held the fume hood in place over top of it, "A jock. Someone strong, muscular, and wholly stupid who is completely uninterested in anything even moderately resembling an intellectual pursuit."

Alfred stared at him, dumbfounded, as he began to release the acid drop by drop into the flask. "Is that really what you think of me? Do you actually buy into that kind of stuff?"

"You wore a letter jacket to the first day of school, so clearly you're on some sort of school sanctioned sport team or another, which means that somewhere deep inside you feel superior to people who enjoy the better things in life. Hell, for all I know, you've pushed tons of kids inside their lockers just for fun." Arthur stated, not meeting Alfred's eyes as he continued to hold the fume hood steady.

"Holy shit, you really do believe in that stuff." He said, caught between amazement and fury, "First of all, that's not a real letter jacket. I got it because I play basketball at the YMCA, because I don't have time for school sports. But you better fucking believe that doesn't make me better or worse than any other person on this planet. My choice of interests doesn't affect how smart I am or how moral I am. I like sports, I like science, and up until about five minutes ago I thought I liked you."

Arthur stared at him, an embarrassed flush covering his face. It reached even to the very tips of his ears, and he sat frozen in place as he squeaked out, "Y-you like me?"

As Alfred turned to respond, a spark shot out of the flask, heat and light spreading through their general vicinity as it cracked in the air. Arthur flinched, instinctively moving backwards before remembering that he held the fume hood, forcing both of his arms back over the practically boiling acid. Alfred quickly reached over and turned off the gas, snuffing the flame before hurriedly asking, "Shit, dude, are you okay?"

Arthur remained stiffly over the flask. "Perfectly fine, thank you."

Alfred reached over, wrenching the fume hood from Arthur's hands and balancing it on top of the flask before noticing that he had one hand wrapped around the other. He pulled those apart as well, revealing a painful-looking burn mark on his right wrist. He looked up at him as he replied, "No, you're not."

He dragged Arthur over to the sink, forcing his wrist under the faucet as he poured cold water over what was meant to just be his wrist (but what ended up being his wrist, arm, and half of his shirt). As the water cooled the burn, it revealed a slight discoloration. Alfred drew his face closer, eventually pulling back and exclaiming, "Dude, your arm is yellow!"

"What?" Arthur practically screeched, leaning down to examine his arm as well, "Oh dear lord, there must have been some acid that flew out when it sparked. My wrist is going to be yellow forever."

Alfred turned the water off, continuing to stare at the mark on Arthur's wrist. "Nah, it won't stay that way forever. To be honest, I'm more worried about the burn. Just stay here for a second, okay?"

He disappeared into the classroom for a minute, reappearing with a small plastic tube in his hand. He instructed Arthur to sit back down and uncapped the tube, beginning to apply the substance to his wrist in small, gentle circles. Arthur craned his neck to look at the label on the tube, exclaiming in surprise once he saw it, "Burn cream? Why on earth did you have burn cream with you?"

Alfred looked up at him sheepishly from behind his glasses. "I had a mosquito bite on my ankle so I tried to grab some hydrocortisone before I left for school. It's a good thing I grabbed the wrong one, huh?"

Arthur nodded and they sat in silence for a while as Alfred continued to rub circles on his wrist. After a moment, he looked away, practically whispering, "Alfred, about what I said…I'm sorry. I suppose it was…wrong of me to assume such things of you."

"Thanks," Alfred responded, "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have gotten so angry about it, and I really shouldn't have talked to you like that. Plus, for all I know it could be like that at whatever school you went to. I've been in large schools all my life, and everybody there always kind of minded their own business."

Arthur smiled up at him for a moment before his face flushed again and he looked away. "You, um," He cleared his throat, "You said that you used to like me."

Now it was Alfred's turn to blush, redness spreading across the apples of his cheeks as he raised one hand to rub at the back of his neck. "Yeah, that was kind of a dick thing to say. I really do like you, Arthur. Not just in the past tense. I mean, you're a pretty cool dude, and I'm so glad that you're my friend!"

Arthur's smile fell a bit, the corners of his mouth balancing between half-smile, half-scowl. "Yes," He agreed in a forcibly cheerful tone, "I'm very glad that we're friends as well."

With that, Arthur jerked his hand out of Alfred's grasp, holding his own wrist while his face seemed to heat up even more, as if he had just realized where it had been that whole time. "We ought to get back to work, we only have this one day to finish the lab."

Alfred halfheartedly agreed, and they finished their work in companionable silence, the only words exchanged between them being various figures and measurements. They finished the lab with just barely enough time to clean everything up, both of them leaving the room without a second glance, completely occupied in their thoughts.

These two nerds should never be let near chemicals, they seem to have a knack for getting it all over themselves.

Fun fact! Nitric acid really does turn your skin yellow. It's 'technically' supposed to be permanent, but if it's just a little it'll go away within a year. Once again, that is not an invitation to get acid on yourself (I wonder how many times I'll have to say this throughout the course of this fic?)

We're over the 15k point now, and I'm super excited about that! Thank you guys so much for all the support you've given for this fic so far, I really appreciate all of it! Next chapter our nerds are going to take their first AP chem exam, so stay tuned for that!

~Alix Marie