John 8:32

9 - Proverbs 23:12

Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.

Ms. Okazaki gave them one class period before a test to prepare. Every unit — she gave them a free period to study, work on their papers, whatever they should need. Damien typically finalized his essays during this hour — editing, fixing the inevitable weird typos. He typed up his drafts quickly, and badly.

He had hardly booted up his computer when Spencer was turning around, holding out a stack of flashcards to him.

"Hey, Yates, help me study?" Spencer told Damien to help him more than he asked, "I've gotta totally kill this test."

"Dude, I gotta finish writing my paper," Damien hardly looked up from his document, trying to ignore the stack of flashcards being presented to him.

"Please?" Spencer asked again — actually asking this time.

God, Damien couldn't actually say no to h im. He didn't want Spencer to end up stuck at home for the foreseeable future. That messed with him, too.

"Fine," he sighed, closing his laptop and putting it back in his backpack. He'd finish editing tonight. Worst case scenario he'd just run it through a grammar checker and let that do the work for him.

"Thank you," Spencer hummed, handing off the stack of cards to Damien.

"Yeah, you owe me," Damien started flipping through the flashcards, taking a look at what Spencer had in his study material. Surprisingly thorough, for Spencer. Very much not Spencer-Morris-Level-Effort.

"I will, I will," Spencer rolled his eyes, getting comfortable in his chair sitting backwards, "Tonight."

Spencer was a level of prepared that Damien wasn't quite expecting. He ran through the flashcards easily — Damien didn't think he honestly even needed to keep reviewing them. His time would be better spent on the essay, Spencer's writing skills were definitely at a lower level than his memorization.

Damien had noticed that Spencer could memorize things really easily. Things just stuck in his brain — that was most of the reason he got so far with so little effort. He assumed he'd be working on it later tonight with him anyways. If Spencer could keep his hands to himself for long enough to focus on it.

They were a little over halfway through the stack of cards when one of the girls in his class sat down in the desk next to Damien. He could see the girls behind her giggling about something.

Damien had seen this over and over, he knew exactly what was about to happen.

"One sec," he set the cards they hadn't yet gotten to down on his desk, turning to face her, "Hey."

He didn't actually know her name. He should have — there weren't exactly many kids in that class. In his defense, he didn't know like anybody's names. It just wasn't important to him. That, and he was really bad at names. Even at this point in the year he hardly knew his lab group's names.

"Hey, Damien," she grinned, and Damien didn't miss the reddening of her face.

Ugh.

"What's up?"

He just wanted to get this over with.

Sure, maybe he flirted with people for fun. But he always started it. Sometimes he just... wasn't in the mood to entertain fantasies. Because while he and Spencer weren't exactly official, they had an unspoken agreement. He didn't get into anything serious with anybody. Which meant he didn't go out on dates.

"I think your hair is really cool," she asked. He wasn't expecting that so much, "Where do you get it done?"

"Oh, actually, I do it myself."

Damien had been bleaching his bangs since sophomore year. He got bored of his hair being just... black. So he bleached and toned the front section of his hair to a light silver.

"Really?"

People seemed to have a misconception of just how difficult it was to dye their own hair. It was a simple matter of slathering it on and waiting. Especially on the front of his head where he could see all of it.

"Yeah."

"Wow, that's so cool," she breathed, and Damien didn't know what to say. So he stayed quiet.

"Do you maybe wanna go get lunch sometime?" she asked, and there it was. The thing Damien was expecting, "Like on one of the off-campus days?"

"No, I—" Damien paused by accident, trying not to glance over towards Spencer, "I'm not interested, sorry."

"Oh, okay," she nodded, and the girls behind her deflated, "Sorry to bother you."

"All good," Damien shrugged, watching her go.

"Mr. Yates, the great womanizer, turning somebody down?" Spencer laughed from beside him.

"Oh, shut up," Damien shook his head, picking the flashcards back up.

"Make me," Spencer grinned, and Damien kicked him under the desk.
"Ow, that hurt," Spencer whined, reaching down to massage his ankle where Damien's foot connected, "You have heavy shoes."

"Then don't be a smartass," Damien shrugged with a grin, holding up the next flashcard.

"As long as you're not being a regular ass," Spencer squinted at the words on the card, struggling to read his own handwriting, "The lysosome's the janitor of the cell."

"Wrong," Damien raised an eyebrow, and Spencer didn't hesitate to snatch the card away. He saw through Damien's lie immediately.

"You're such an ass."

"I know."