Jo [COMPLETED]

N

Brian was whining about his Halo loss--again. Never in Alec's life had he seen an adult (or something resembling one) whine the way Brian did when he lost a video game. There was nothing more amusing, though. Brian was a very happy person; it was rare for him not to have a smile plastered onto his face. The one thing that bothered him to the point of losing that cocky grin was a video game. A video game, of all things.

"Give up already," Alec said. He was trying, but failing, to cover up his smile from behind Brian's back. "We have a shit-ton of work to do, anyways."

Brian let out a childish groan and turned to face Alec in his beanbag. "I'm not in the mood, though."

With a roll of his cerulean eyes, Alec opened up his textbook and began to read its contents. They had a test coming up in two days' time, and since neither of them were natural geniuses they needed to study hard.

Alec and Brian's phones rang at the same time with a notification. Ali had sent them a snapchat.

"Fuck her!" Brian said, slamming his phone down onto the floor beside him.

It was a photo of Ali relaxing by a pool. Her legs were in the water and her toes were floating just above the surface. She was teasing them, of course. Like Alec's mother, Ali enjoyed teasing and making fun of him and Brian. She sent them funny snapchat of her relaxing by her cousin's indoor pool every time they had a test coming up in the same class.

"Why doesn't she need to study like us?" Brian cried.

Alec smiled down at his phone but didn't say a word. Brian didn't understand it, but Ali was studying. Even though she sent snapchats of her relaxing and even posted a few pictures on her story, the gaps between each snapchat lead Alec to believe she was actually studying in between those phone breaks. Smart as she was, even Ali needed to study for her classes.

He reached into Brian's mini fridge and drew out two beers. Alec let out an exasperated sigh and sank into the bean bag next to Brian, who was already grabbing for the beer. "Need a little buzz to help me focus," he said. Alec scoffed in his direction and received a rude hand gesture in return.

They sat down and studied for a while. A total of two consistent hours. They were only halfway through the material when Brian's phone rang. Alec could only shake his head in amused dismay at his best friend's ringtone, which he and Perth had changed during their junior year of high school to "Deep Throat" by Cupcakke. Brian, of course, didn't even try to change it. He would sometimes use Alec's phone to call himself during class and get in trouble with the teachers.

"Hey," Brian said into the phone. "I'm a little busy right now." There was a short pause in which Alec swore he saw Brian shift uncomfortably. Weird. "I'm studying with Alec right now--no, later. Later."

He hung up the phone with no other words, then ignored Alec's raised eyebrows and questioning eyes and dove back into studying.

For a minute longer, Alec continued to watch Brian curiously, questions forming in his head. But Alec shrugged it off and brushed it aside. He would ask later, after they had finished studying and could get back to having lives. Any curiosity he had melted away as he read about statistics and whatever else he had in his textbook.

Three hours passed before they finished. Once done, Brian immediately rushed to get some food out of the fridge.

"I'm starving," he said in between mouthfuls of cold chicken. "And this is nasty."

"Maybe because it's been in the fridge for two days," Alec replied with disgust. "You've always been gross, but eating cold chicken is like eating raw chicken."