They were waiting to get their test results back when it came up, and immediately Lawson choked on his sip of water and ended up ungracefully spitting it all down the front of his shirt. "Ugh," he groaned, running his palm over the wet spot before sighing and bringing his gaze to Sean.

Seconds before, the words, "I wasn't aware that you had such an attractive boyfriend," had left Sean's mouth, resulting in the drinking malfunction.

"He is not my boyfriend," Lawson assured, empathizing the word not because he wanted Sean to really understand that. Eyebrows raised over blue grey eyes. "He's just a friend of mine, one of the few from high school. He's actually having some relationship issues right now... wait". Something about Sean's previous statement just occurred to him. "What do you mean you're surprised I have such an attractive boyfriend? He's not out of my league or anything". Sean didn't respond, only sent him a charming smile, and Lawson's eyes widened. "Oh my god. You think he's out of my league?!"

"Hey, no," Sean protested with a laugh, leaning forward to cross his arms on the edge of the table. "That's not what I said at all. He just... he seems like one of those people who looks really good, but there isn't actually much to him, while you on the other hand..." Sean trailed off and Lawson's eyebrows drew together.

"I'm ugly but complex?"

Immediately, Sean began to laugh, but Lawson still didn't understand what he was trying to say. "No. You're not ugly. I didn't say you were ugly, I just meant... these so much to you. Your personality is made up of so many interesting parts".

"Is that bad?" Lawson asked, unsure of himself and Sean gave him a sweet smile.

"No, it's not bad".

"Oh," Lawson acknowledged softly before full out grinning in Sean's direction. "Thanks".

Sean looked like he wanted to say something else, but before he could, Blackwater was handing their exams back to them. Before Lawson could even look at the score at the top of his own, their professor was saying, "thank you for helping him, Sean. I thought you would be a good fit to teach him".

Sean's cheeks flushed, and Lawson looked between the two of them before bringing his eyes to his paper. "Holy shit!" He exclaimed, far louder than he should have and a girl in the front of the room began to laugh at him. "Are you serious, Professor? Did I actually do this well?"

"Language, Mr. Murphy," she scolded, but she was smiling at his enthusiasm. "Congratulations". She continued on her quest to deliver all the tests.

Sean leaned over, his shoulder pressing into Lawson's. "93, huh? That's a good score," he complimented, and for some reason it felt even more special than Blackwaters congratulations.

"I must be a genius of something," Lawson claimed, still awed with himself and Sean laughed.

"Yeah, something like that". As he said this, Sean pushed his own exam down the table, face down, trying to be subtle, and Lawson's eyebrows shot up.

"How'd you do?" He questioned, and Sean's eyes flickered over to his face and then away. "What?"

"I don't want to show you," Sean claimed, and Lawson narrowed his eyes.

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to feel like your accomplishment is any less". Without asking for clarification, Lawson leaned over Sean, out stretching his hand to catch the corner of the paper and pull it closer to him. Sean didn't do much to protest, only breathed an exacerbated breath of hot air on the back of Lawson's neck, which made him shiver.

"You got 100?!" Lawson asked, and Sean shot a sheepish look to the boy a row in front of him, who turned around to glare at them. "Sean, this is amazing! You got literally everything right?"

"Uh, Yeah," Sean answered, not seeming nearly as excited about it as Lawson was.

"That's crazy". Lawson shot a look at his own paper, eyes focusing on the 93 on the top, and he felt Sean shift next to him. "It's good you know what you're doing. If you're going to keep helping me, I like knowing that my teacher is super smart". When Lawson looked at Sean, he found the boy just looking back at him, mouth curved up a little, making his expression seem rather fond. It made Lawson's heart beat faster.

"Alright," Professor Blackwater said loudly from the front of the classroom, interrupting their moment- or whatever it was that was happening. Lawson allowed his eyes to move to the front of the room, his face feeling very hot for a reason he couldn't quite explain. For just a second, Sean's eyes still remained on his face- he could feel them there- before also shifting to the front. "Even though you just got your exams back, we need to move on to the next chapter, because you have another exam planned for two weeks from today, and that doesn't give us a lot of time, so we just need to push forward". She turned back to the bored, and Lawson sighed, his giddiness from reviewing his high score fleeing just as quickly as it had come.

"Chapter two," the professor began, writing section one on the very top of the bored. Lawson traced that into his notebook with little excitement, and then leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable for the hour to come.

***

When she dismissed them, Sean took one look at Lawson's face and began to laugh. After listening to their professor explain something he didn't understand, Lawson was rather discouraged, though he wasn't expecting it to show so much on his face. "Don't look so sad," Sean demanded, raising a hand to flick Lawson's forehead. "You're going to get wrinkles".

"What I'm never going to get is another 93," was Lawson's dramatic response, voice thick with misery.

"Hey, come on," Sean urged, pulling Lawson to his feet by tugging his arm. "Let's go".

"Go where?" Lawson asked, bending down to grab one of his backpack straps before Sean began pulling him up the aisle. It was all very dramatic, and Lawson would gladly go anywhere Sean wanted him to, but he liked the feeling of the boy's hand on his arm, and the idea that Sean was willing to physically move him to bring him somewhere with him.

"The library," Sean responded, pushing open the door. When they were in the hall, Sean's hand fell from his arm. "I can explain what we just learned before you get too overwhelmed and helpless". Lawson sighed loudly, and Sean looked concerned "Do you not want to?"

"No, I do," Lawson assured, and then his eyebrows shot up when he realized that he was being honest, that he actually wanted to do math, given that Sean was the one helping him. "Wow, I do".

Sean chuckled, and then pressed a hand to the small of Lawson's back to guide him into walking again, and Lawson back immediately straightened and his eyes got wide at the electricity that passed down his spine. If Sean noticed, he didn't say anything about it.

Their walk to the library was short, and filled with mindless chatter, which Lawson often used to occupy his mind with things other than the memory of Sean's hand on his arm, or pressing into his back. The endless stream of words didn't seem to bother Sean much- he actually acknowledged some of them with ones of his own. By the time they were actually finding a seat in the library, Lawson had shared his views on the current science fiction author Sean was studying in his class, while also addressing his views on aliens.

"Alright," Sean interrupted eventually, though he still looked rather amused so Lawson wasn't offended. "While I am truly fascinated with the apparent existence of aliens-"

"Sean," Lawson said, exacerbated, "There has to be something out there. I'm not saying they're green people, I'm just saying it's probably like some micro organism-"

"Calculs, Lawson".

"Oh right". Lawson looked down at the table in surprise, noticing that Sean had at some point not only removed his own textbook and notebook, he had also apparently taken Lawson's notebook from his backpack without realizing it. "Wow," Lawson said, "I got really heated, didn't I?"

"You did," Sean agreed, smiling to himself as he flipped open the textbook and began searching for the proper page. "I happened to enjoy it though. The next time we're together and not doing math, I'm going to have to resume this discussion".

Lawson flushed, not because he was embarrassed, but because the words next time we're together made his entire body feel hot in a pleasant way.

"Alright, So, what specifically did you not understand about what we learned today? It kind of grows off of the last chapter, so there should only be a small part that you need to learn," Sean began, growing serious as he leaned over the textbook.

"It... it does?" Lawson asked. "I didn't get that impression from the lesson at all. I thought it was something completely new".

Sean turned his face to him and looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes for a long moment. "Let me see your notes".

Lawson released a small groan of protest, but Sean was already reaching across him to snatch his notebook, bringing it closer in order to read from it. It took him only a moment to flip through it and find the last page of notes. Silence stretched between them as Sean read what Lawson had written, and the brown eyed boy took the time to prepare himself for a scolding. It never came.

Instead, after a few minutes, Sean raised his head and nodded at Lawson. "Okay".

"Okay?" Lawson repeated. "Aren't they terrible?"

"No". Sean looked back down at the paper and brushed his thumb over some of the words, smearing the lead. "They're not terrible. You missed a couple important parts, and I can clearly tell that you don't understand any of it from this, but I don't think that's really your fault".

"It's not?" Lawson was unable to keep the relief from his voice, and Sean shot him a surprised look. "Do you think you can explain it to me in a way I understand?"

"Of course," Sean confirmed, and then he did, sliding his chair closer to Lawson so he wouldn't miss a single word. It was amazing to Lawson that he could spend an hour and a half in lecture and leave completely confused, and sit down with Sean for twenty minutes and have him teach him the exact same thing.

When he finished the assigned work problems, which Lawson was actually able to complete on his own, he turned to the boy next to him and knocked him with his elbow. Sean had only helped him with half of the problems until he claimed that he understood them enough to finish on his own as he worked on a science fiction paper. "Yeah?" he asked at Lawson's prodding.

"Is it just that Blackwater is a bad teacher?" Lawson questioned, honestly perplexed that Sean- a student- had the ability to teach him when a professor could not. "Is that what's happening here?"

Sean frowned. "No," he said slowly. "I actually thinks she's a great professor. She cares about the subject and goes over plenty of examples..."

"Then why don't I understand it until you teach it to me?" Lawson groaned, pressing his face into his notebook as he thought about how lucky he was that Sean moved into his class.

"I honestly don't know," Sean admitted. "Maybe it's just the one on one attention". Lawson shrugged, as if this was a possibility, but it was not. Before Sean, Lawson had spent countless hours with their professor, going over the assignments again and again with no success. At this point, it seemed reasonable to admit that the person teaching Lawson math was far more important than how they taught it to him. "Hey".

"Huh?" It occurred to him that he had zoned out for a minute, and forced himself to focus back on Sean and his blue grey eyes, which were focused on his face. "What's up?"

"Uh..." Sean trailed off and shot a glance off to the side at his laptop screen, where a word document was open, though there weren't many words. "You said you're good at papers and stuff, right?"

At first, Lawson was surprised, eyes growing wide, and then he beamed and scooted forward in his chair, angling himself so he could better see Sean's computer screen. Under the table, their legs pressed together, but neither of them acknowledged it. "I love papers. Why? Do you need help?"

"Uh... clearly I haven't done much work," Sean admitted, seeming a bit embarrassed by this. It reminded Lawson of himself, but pertaining to mathematics. It was like their positions were switched, and Lawson would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy it. "I just... I'm not good at this".

"Can I look at what you have?" Lawson asked, and Sean's eyes widened, as if he hadn't been expecting that, but then he was pushing his laptop towards Lawson. Before he could even move his eyes to the screen though, his phone was buzzing loudly on the table with multiple messages, one after another.

Lawson picked his phone and read the most recent message.

Nathan:

Oh my god, what do I wear tonight. I've never been to a college party

With a heavy sigh, Lawson turned off his cellphone without responding, and then apologized to Sean for the distraction. The other boy just looked at him with a steady gaze, and then said, "it's alright," in a voice so soft that Lawson found himself simply studying Sean rather than going back to the task at hand. "What?"

"Nothing you just... Uh... sounded really nice," Lawson explained, and then cringed at how awkward sounding that was. "Please ignore that I just said that. I'm going to start reading this if that's alright".

Sean nodded, but his eyes were very wide.

They sat in silence for the two or so minutes it took Lawson to read what Sean had so far, creating a few errors in grammar and punctuation before turning to face the other boy. "I think it's a good start, but you need to add a thesis statement in your opening paragraph".

"Uhh... I don't really get those," Sean admitted, and Lawson opened his mouth to explain it to him, but was interrupted with Sean swearing. "Fuck. I doesn't realize how much time went by. I needed to go to class". Hastily, he began packing up his things and shoving them in his backpack.

Lawson checked the time on the cheap watch he wore on his wrist, and then frowned. "Oh... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you miss lunch".

Sean's smile was incredibly sincere when he said, "it's no problem". He stood, pulled his backpack on, and then paused, squinting down at Lawson.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sean said quickly, but he didn't go anywhere, just continued to look down at him. "Uh... So tomorrow is Saturday, and I totally understand if you don't want to do anything , but if you want to meet at some point... I'll have more of this done, and we could go over some more math problems other than the ones assigned..." he trailed off, seeming very unsure of himself. As encouragement, Lawson grinned. "Want to?"

"Of course," Lawson responded eagerly, and Sean's eyebrows shot yo because why would anyone be excited about spending their weekend studying. "I was going to study in the afternoon anyways so it'd be nice to get some company". That was a lie- the studying part, not the company part. Since he was attending that party with Nate, Kye, and Reese later, he had been planning on sleeping his Saturday away, but he wasn't going to be drinking- he wanted to take care of Nathan if he needed it- so waking up in the morning wouldn't be too painful. Still, he didn't want to get up too early, so he asked, "do you want to meet here at like eleven?"

"Sure," Sean agreed, seeming to relax some as an easy smile formed on his face. "I'll see you then".

"You sure will," Lawson called after him as he walked away, ignoring the various shhhs he got as Sean shot him a surprised look over his shoulder. The second Sean turned around, Lawson dropped his head into his hands and asked himself why he was so awkward, exotically around Sean.