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Gene and Aaron are paired together in a school project, and it goes about as well as one would expect.
Gene shrugs off the project and leaves Aaron to figure out how to put the pieces together- a cruelly difficult task for the werewolf. If he cared even the slightest, he would’ve felt bad for the mutt. Just a little.
The two are sitting in an empty classroom after school, and Gene idly surfs the web on his phone while Aaron hopelessly flips through books that he can’t understand and looks through websites he’s totally lost in.
About fifteen minutes pass before Aaron roars aloud in frustration and tosses a pen at the laptop perched on the edge of the desk, hard enough to nearly make it topple. Gene extends an arm to save the device, and curses at Aaron for being so mindless.
“Maybe I wouldn’t be so angry if you’d help me out!” Aaron seethes. The paler boy groans dramatically and scoots his seat closer to him.
“Look,” he starts, gesticulating charismatically and passive-aggressively smiling at a livid Aaron, “I could do this project with my eyes closed and hands tied behind my back. This isn’t my project. This is yours . You’re the one who needs to learn the material, so you’re the one who’s going to do the project. Capisce?”
Gods give me strength not to deck this boy as hard as I can into his horrifyingly pretty face, Aaron prays. His hands are shaking, and he decides that not even the gods are going to stop him now. He stands abruptly, knocking down his chair with a loud clang , and lunges toward Gene.
Aaron’s common sense and coordination are blurred by infuriating anger, and he comically rams into a desk. Gene is losing his shit in the corner of the room, clutching his sides in laughter, and Aaron shouts in frustration and embarrassment.
“Get your ass over here before I drag it to hell and back,” he roars. The other boy sneers.
“Make me.”
Aaron, completely missing the suggestive tone in his voice, throws aside desks in an attempt to reach the smaller boy, and Gene continues to taunt him while staying at a safe distance, thoroughly entertained by the show the werewolf is giving. And maybe he finds it a little hot. Maybe.
“C’mon, you’re better than that! Come and catch me, mutt.”
Gene relishes in the delicious reactions Aaron gives him at his taunts, and he half hopes Aaron catches him. He dances around desks and skirts around the room with the agility of a rabbit, keeping careful track of the other boy. Fatigue lowers his guard, and Aaron catches him by the wrist when he stops to breathe in the corner of the room, spinning him close to his chest. Gene smiles inwardly at the sudden closeness, and he notices that Aaron’s eyes are boring holes into his own. The intensity is unmistakable, and Gene sees this as an opportunity to mess just a little more with him.
He pushes the werewolf down onto a desk and leans in close enough to be able to feel his breath. Aaron visibly gulps, and Gene feels something hard pressing against his leg. No fucking way.
His face lights up cherry red, and he pushes off of Aaron, heart pounding. There is no way Aaron is getting turned on because of me, there is absolutely NO way he’d be remotely into you at all; he even has a girlfriend, remember?
The room is silent with a horrible awkwardness hanging in the air, and Gene clears his throat in an attempt to break it.
“Well,” he croaks, “we should, uh, go back to the project. I’ll, uh, help you out.”
Gene, you absolute idiot. You sound like a clown. An entire clown. Just go and dig yourself a hole to never come out of again.
Aaron says nothing in response; it takes nearly a full minute until he can comprehend the events of the last 15 minutes.
“Yeah.”
The two boys quietly neaten the classroom, shuffling awkwardly into their seats. Gene grabs a book and begins skimming, and Aaron resumes pulling up web pages to read.
The classroom is silent for the rest of the afternoon, but both are aware the dynamic has significantly shifted. An invisible earthquake shakes between the two, Gene acutely aware of every single time Aaron brushes hands with him when reaching for a pencil, and Aaron averting his eyes in bashfulness whenever he notices Gene staring at him.