Cleaning up paw prints


"Hey, when did Laf say he'd return?" Hercules called from the couch.
"He didn't," Alexander called back from the dining table where he and John were busy building card houses. "He just said he'd return Nenne."
John snorted, which caused him to accidentally destroy his card house. "If he's gonna return Nenne than he'll be there all day, crying his eyes out about having to leave her."
Alexander raised an eyebrow. "Oh really, because I seem to recall a certain someone being quite teary-eyed over the fact that a certain dog had to go home."
"And that same someone plastering pictures of his turtles all over his room," Hercules chimed in.
John studiously ignored both of them.

Lafayette didn't actually come home as late as John had predicted. Instead he sauntered in at a quarter past three, bringing news.
"There are people moving in downstairs!" he announced. "I saw them as a came back from leaving Nenne, and I'm pretty sure they're going to be in our class."
"Uhuh," John hummed as he carefully finished off his three-tier card house. "And who are 'they'?"
"It's two girls," Laf said, causing both Alexander and Hercules to roll their eyes at his amazing deduction skills. John was too occupied with looking proudly at his card house to do any eye rolling.
One of them had this really pretty hair," Lafayette continued, absent-mindedly touching his own curls. "She wore a pink shirt. The other one had black hair and wore a blue dress. I'm fairly sure they're sisters, at least they acted like it." He suddenly snapped his fingers. "Oh, there was a third girl too, she had a yellow shirt!"
"So there are three girls moving in right now, and they are probably sisters," Alexander summarised.
Lafayette shrugged. "Yeah probably, but I don't think the last one is moving in. She said something about "Next year!" and then she hugged the others like she was saying goodbye."
"Okay then, there are two girls moving in right now, and they are probably sisters. Anything else we need to know?" John said.
Lafayette ginned. "They're both really attractive, if that interests you."
Hercules raised his eyebrows and casually crossed his arms.
"Uh, like, aesthetically attractive, like oh-her-face-is-symmetrical-attractive, not I-want-to-date-you-attractive!" Lafayette hastily added.
John laughed. "I think I'm good, thanks," he said as he threaded his finger through Alexander's.
"Yeah me too," Alexander said happily.

The four had just decided on a relaxing movie to watch, in celebration of having managed to care for Nenne the entire weekend, when they spotted a note under their door.
"Again?" Hercules asked incredulously as he stood to pick it up. "What did we do this time?"
"Oh shit," he continued softly as he unfolded it.
"What?" Alexander called. "What does it say?"
Hercules silently passed him the paper, and both John and Laf peered over Alexander's shoulder to read it.

Dear neighbours,
We know.

All three of us saw you taking a dog out from your apartment, and the evidence suggest that you've had it there for a few days. As we're sure you know, pets aren't allowed in the dorms. I'm certain that we can agree that it would be in your best interest if this information stayed between us, but unfortunately for you we have no reason not to spread it. Unless.
"Unless what?" John breathed quietly.
Our dorm is somewhat... messy. We had planned on cleaning it this weekend but things got in the way. We're headed out for the evening and will be back at nine. If our dorm is clean by then, the teachers won't know what we know.
Cheers,
Thomas, James and (reluctantly) Aaron

Lafayette let out a long string of curse words that made Alexander regret ever learning French.
"What do we do now?" John asked. "And what on earth do they mean by 'reluctantly'?"
"Probably that it wasn't Aaron's idea," Alexander sighed. "As for the first question, I don't know."
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Hercules said. "We clean their apartment."

"At least they left the door unlocked," Lafayette muttered as they entered the neighbouring dorm. The entrance was a jumble of shoes, but nothing too bad.
"Right," John said. "I say we start here." He bent down and started picking amongst the shoes. "Who wears high heeled boots?" he cried, holding up a pair of black leather boots that did indeed have heels. Short, broad heels, but heels nonetheless.
"Take a guess," Alexander grumbled, gesturing vividly to the magenta coat that hung on a rack. "Same guy that wears that."

Once they'd finished the hallway the moved further into their neighbour's dorm. The combined living room and kitchen was identical to their own, except with more dirty dishes and more virginian state flags. They decided to start with the bedrooms instead.
"Well I guess this is good news," Hercules said and gestured to a door. Taped to it was a quickly scrawled note that read, Do not enter, I can clean on my own.
"Less work for us," John said merrily and made to walk past it. Lafayette ignored the note and opened the door to peek inside.
"Nothing much," he reported. "It's clinically neat in here."

The other dorm was not. It looked like a small bomb had detonated inside it. Books and clothes were sprawled over the floor, posters for bands Alexander had never heard of covered the walls and the desk was overflowing with pens and paper. The only thing that looked orderly was the top bunk bed, which was neatly made and in fact looked as if no one had ever slept in it
"Where," Hercules said, "do we even start?"
Alexander found that to be a very good question.

They spent a good two hours cleaning the room, throwing clothes on the bed and desperately trying to stack the papers and books onto the desk. The most time consuming part turned out to be folding all the clothes, which John happily left to the others as he took on the task of vacuuming.
"So now what?" Alexander asked when they had finally managed to restore the room to normal living conditions.
"I guess the other rooms?" John groaned. "How many more can there be?"
It turned out there were only two, as they quickly realised that two of the boys must've had to share a bedroom since there were no others. That left the kitchen and bathroom.
"It's already eight o'clock," Alexander said. "So I say we split up or else we won't be able to get this done in time."
"Okay." Lafayette said. Then he turned on his heel and ran away shouting "I call dibs on the kitchen!"
"Wait no–" Alexander called back after him, but to no avail. John sighed.
"It looks like we get the bathroom."

The bathroom wasn't as horrible has Alexander had feared, even though it was still gross. But with two people cleaning it didn't even take that long and their session passed uneventfully. Until John looked at the soap they were using.
"Hey," he smirked, holding out the bottle to Alexander. "It's clover scented."
"Is it really?" Alexander said, taking the bottle. "I guess so," he drawled slowly.
The two boys made eye contact, and then John's lips were pressed against Alexander's.

Alexander gasped slightly as he leaned back against the wall, and felt John's body moving with him. The other boy's hands curled into Alexander's hair, leaving burning trails where he touched him. Alexander wrapped his own hands around John's back and pulled him closer to himself. He felt his body being pressed harder against the wall as their lips parted and the kiss deepened, but he didn't care. The world ignited, and all he could taste was John, all he could feel was John, all he could think was John.
Then John slipped on the wet floor.

"Oh crap. Are you okay?" Alexander asked breathlessly as he extended his hand.
"Yeah," John said sheepishly as he used it to pull himself from the floor. "Sorry 'bout that."
"Don't worry, you're sure you didn't hurt yourself?"
John nodded. "I guess we should mop up this water though."
And they did, until they were interrupted by a loud bag from the kitchen. After exchanging equally confused glances they got up and followed the noise.

In the kitchen they found Lafayette and Hercules, the former leaning against a wall and the latter standing only a few inches away from him. When Alexander and John entered they quickly jumped apart and turned away, concealing their faces.
"Everything okay in here?" John asked. "Are you trying to demolish the place?"
"Of course not!" Hercules said immediately. "We were, erm, doing the dishes. And Laf knocked down a pan!" He went to grab a pan that was indeed lying on the floor, and which Alexander presumed had been the cause of the loud noise. Lafayette nodded enthusiastically, ignoring the pointed look Alexander gave the incredibly dry sink.
"Also," Lafayette said, quickly changing the subject. "Look at this!" He pulled open one of the cabins to reveal shelves full of instant mac 'n cheese packets.
John whistled. "That's a lot."
"I know!" Lafayette said. "And it's not even good ones, see all of this is–" He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.
"Do you think it's them?" Hercules asked quietly.
"Probably," Alexander said. "Let's go."
And together the ran out of the apartment, Lafayette giving a vulgar gesture to the three people taht walked into the corridor.


Hi! I won't write a lot here because I'm super tired, but thanks for reading, I appreciate it so so much. Take care!