100 Ways to Say 'I Love You'

1.

There's a reason John is the one who normally does all the driving. He likes driving, for starters. Ever since he turned 16 and got his license, he's liked it. It's easy and mindless (for him, anyway) and he's never had a problem with the way everyone always assumes he'll be the one to do most of the driving.

Except today he's tired. Woken up at half past five by Alex singing in the shower, getting ready for their road trip back to Tampa Bay for their very last semester at UT. Everyone else in his parent’s house was still asleep, and John envied them a little bit. Because Alex had him up all night (and not because he had last minute packing to do). So needless to say, John is struggling to enjoy the long drive back to school this time.

“I really hope I remembered to pack that astronomy book your mom gave me,” Alex says when they're in South Carolina, leaning back in his seat and putting his feet up on the dashboard. “It had that cool section that tells you where the stars are every night!”

“I think it got packed up with my notebooks,” John assures him, even though he really doesn't remember seeing that book at all while they were packing. He sighs to himself as the GPS tells him to stay on the highway for another fifteen miles and wishes he had agreed to stop for coffee when they last saw a Starbucks sign.

Not surprisingly, Alex reads his sigh as a bad one, shifts around in his seat so he's facing John and reaches out to put a hand on John’s thigh. “Pull over. Let me drive for a while,” he says, fingers squeezing his leg and John feels a rush of relief, never more grateful for someone else's offer to drive.

It takes less than a minute to get resettled, Alex in the driver’s seat of John’s truck, adjusting the seat and the rearview mirror and the radio and the side mirrors and everything else he could possibly adjust. John, half asleep and more comfortable than he's been in hours, watches Alex as he pulls back onto the highway and focuses on the road in front of him. He wants to lean over and kiss him, squeeze his knee, tell him he loves him or something, just to get across the appreciation he's feeling right now. But he thinks he doesn't even really need to - it's already understood.

2.

There are still a few days before classes start up again for the fall semester. The apartment he and Alex are renting until May is pretty small - one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room - and not very spaced out but John loves it, because it's theirs.

They've never lived together like this before. Sure, they've stayed in each other's dorm rooms for extended periods of time and it was almost like living together, and they both stayed at John’s parents’ house in the basement apartment for the last month of the summer, but it wasn't like this. This is real. This is their own apartment with their own furniture and they have to buy their own groceries and make their own food. It's a little scary but John thinks they can do this.

It's Sunday and Alex has been gone since seven. His alarm went off at six-fifteen and he was in the shower, dressed and making coffee and out the door without even waking John up to say goodbye. Except, John already was awake, considering it's a million degrees in Tampa and their air conditioner is broken and even the thin sheets on their bed are way too warm to get any sleep in. But whatever. John still loves this place.

He's on the floor in the living room with a cup of coffee by ten, in the middle of unpacking one of the biggest boxes they brought with them. It's filled with Alex’s books. Astronomy. Astrology. Astrophysics. Orbital mechanics. Planetary geology. All these books with content that John will never be able to comprehend - mostly because he doesn't care about science but also because Alex is a million times smarter than he is. When they met freshman year, at some stupid freshman ice breaker gathering, John always wondered why Alex was majoring in Bio Education, and not something crazy like Astrophysics or Astronomy. Apparently, making any sort of crazy science his actual job would make it less fun and he'd end up hating it. Whatever. Alex doesn't always make sense.

Alex reappears an hour later with a dozen grocery bags and an empty wallet.

“Okay, I might have just spent our entire budget for the month,” he announces, dropping all the grocery bags on the kitchen counter.

“On groceries?” John asks him, not quite sure if that's even possible. “What, did you buy a lot of really expensive steak?”

“No - I mean yeah, I bought groceries, but I also bought a new TV, plus a TV stand and also a new rug.”

“Okay, so yeah. There's our budget for the month.”

“But - look what I got at the grocery store,” Alex says excitedly, coming over and bending down to John’s level. He holds out a tiny cactus in a tiny little pot and John just stares at it. “It reminded me of you. You know. The whole ydesert thing. Also, the prickly thing.”

John can't even pretend to be annoyed by that.

3.

Between classes starting up and going to his part time job at the daycare a few miles from campus and going to the library to start working on stupid lesson plans for class, John finds himself almost burnt out two weeks into the semester. He's not sure why he let himself get this tired or why he thought it was a good idea to stress himself out so early on but whatever. He did it and now he's paying the price. Two weeks in and he's already got himself a pretty nasty sinus infection.

“You did this to yourself,” Alex tells him, not sugar coating it in the slightest. He's sitting on the edge of their bed, fully focused on the baseball game on TV. “You work with germy gross kids, stay up all night working on homework and wake up early to get to the library like a crazy person. Of course you're sick.”

John pouts, curls up a little more under the covers in an attempt to look more pathetic and gain more sympathy. But Alex isn't even looking so it's pointless.

“I know, ” he tells him, and at least he sounds as pathetic as he feels, with his voice practically gone. “I have to pick up the z-Pak at the pharmacy-”

Alex scoffs at him, finally turns around and gives him all his attention. “Did you miss the part where I was gone for two hours? I picked it up already. You must have been unconscious.”

One look over at his bedside table tells John that yeah, there's his prescription. He reaches out and grabs the bag and rips it open, pulls out the little package of pills that'll stop him from feeling like he'd rather be dead.

“Did my insurance cover it all? I'll pay you back-”

Alex is suddenly standing beside the bed, running a hand through John’s hair and pushing him back against the pillows. “I took care of it. I'll get you water. Don't move.”

“Okay.”

“And I'll make you tea. And chicken soup.”

“You're the best.”

“I know.”

4.

John comes home pretty late one night in October. He had to go to a free seminar on campus and it ran super long and then there were refreshments afterwards and John can't say no to free things.

So when he walks through the front door of the apartment at ten, carrying takeout from Chipotle (because he's literally always hungry) he's just expecting to sit down in the kitchen and eat and maybe watch the news or a preseason hockey game. Maybe House Hunters if it's on.

Instead, he finds Alex on the verge of a mental breakdown, slumped over his computer at the kitchen table with his head in his arms.

“What's going on?” John hears himself ask, and he drops the bag of food on the counter in favor of moving into the seat beside Alex, tentatively touching his shoulder. “Baby - what happened?”

“My entire paper is ruined,” he whines, and even though it's pretty muffled by his arms, John can hear the hopelessness. And he instantly feels for Alex, because he's been there. So many times.

“Why is it ruined?”

Alex finally picks his head up, and he looks as miserable as he sounds. John is pretty positive Alex never came to bed last night, because he was so busy working on a project for class and he looks exhausted and he probably hasn't slept in over twenty-four hours.

“I pushed a button by mistake and now the whole paper is in some weird format and I can't figure out how to fix it!”

He turns the computer screen so that John can see for himself, and yeah, alright. That's - a disaster. The words are all scrambled and the spacing is ridiculous and John is sure there's a way to fix this - but he's not a computer whiz and neither is Alex so Google is probably their best bet. But Alex looks like he's about to rip his hair out and there are bags under his eyes and he probably hasn't even eaten today.

“Here, let me fix it,” John tells him, pulling the laptop closer to him. “You go eat what I brought home and go to bed and I'll print it out for you and everything.”

“No - you had a long day and this was my own fault-”

John shakes his head, pulls him in for a kiss. “I promise. I'll fix it.”

5.

John and Alex share a lot of the same classes now that they're nearing the end of their college careers, which is convenient when John zones out in the middle of taking notes and needs to copy Alex’s to catch up. And when they're studying for tests, holed up in the library and making flashcards and easy ways to remember certain terms.

But there are still a couple of classes that they don't share, and while it's not nearly as convenient, it's still okay. Because logically, they shouldn't be doing everything together. And the time apart is good for them.

“I still have a whole hour before Immunology,” Alex whines, slumping down in his seat across from John. He slides his empty Starbucks cup from one hand to the other, still pouting and looking bothered. “Don't you have your weird PE class now?”

“It's not a weird PE class!” John tells him, rolling his eyes as he gathers his textbooks and shoving them back into his bag, “It's a class on how to teach PE!”

“Isn't that a gym teacher's job? Honestly - I will never understand why elementary education majors have to take so many irrelevant classes.”

“You're just jealous I get to take such easy classes,” John teases him, standing up from the table they've been at for the last hour. “I'll see you at home?” He asks, and he still gets that weird feeling whenever he says the word home.

“Duh. But hold on, I'll walk you to class.”

“What, you think I'm gonna get kidnapped on my way?”

“You never know - you are really good looking, after all.”

6.

Friday mornings are for sleeping in now that John doesn't have any Friday classes. Alex isn't quite so lucky - he has work at the campus bookstore from nine to twelve and he rolls out of bed when his alarm goes off at seven-thirty, grumbling and complaining the entire time.

John is still half asleep, but he's vaguely aware of Alex putting his shoes on at edge of the bed. “Hope work doesn't suck too much,” he mumbles, blindly reaching out just to see if he can reach him. He only gets a handful of sheets.

Alex helps him out, reaches out and ruffles John’s hair. “Keep the bed warm for me,” he says with a laugh, bends down and kisses John on the head and then he's gone and John rolls over to his side where it's still warm.

7.

For some reason this semester, Alex has gotten incredibly lucky and his Seminar 3 class is cancelled pretty often. Of course, he probably won't be so lucky when they reach the end of the semester and his professor is cramming in weeks’ worth of lessons into one class but whatever. He gets to sleep in today, not having another class until three, and John is stuck in the library working on a group project.

Alex wakes up at noon, and John knows that only because that's when Alex finally starts texting him.

I dreamt about you last night ;)

Best dream ever

We can reenact it when you finally come home

John almost wishes he had never pulled his phone out of his pocket, because now he knows he's blushing and his classmates probably think he's a total weirdo and now he can't stop thinking about what Alex will want to reenact when he gets home.

He spends five minutes pretending to pay attention to whatever his group is discussing about lesson plans when really he's just trying to come up with a decent response to Alex’s texts. He thinks he's finally got something suggestive enough to get Alex at least a little riled up when a new text pops up and John just sighs in defeat.

We're fucking out of cream cheese how could you let this happen to me??

8.

When midterms are over and there's a (very) brief sense of relief for the both of them, they end up going out to a bar on Friday night with a bunch of people from their shared EDU 403 class. Alex has gotten particularly close to this one guy named Jack, who John will admit is pretty funny and nice. But he's definitely not the best influence, and John realizes that now as he watches Jack convince Alex to take yet another shot of God knows what.

It's not that John doesn't want Alex drunk.

It's that John doesn't want to clean up the end result of Alex being drunk.

But whatever. It's the Friday after midterms. John figures he should let it go. It's not often that either of them can relax enough to have fun like this.

A half hour later, John finds himself talking to a girl named Taylor who is apparently in his PED class and she's explaining to him a new method that she learned in her math class last week that John has honestly never heard of. That's when Alex finds him again, all smiles and wide eyes and unsteady feet.

“I'm - wow,” he laughs, grabbing on to the back of John’s jacket to steady himself. “I'm starving.”

John stands, manhandles Alex just enough to get his ass in the seat. “Take my seat. I'll order you food,” he tells him, just loud enough so nobody else can hear him. “Wings?”

“Fuck yeah, wings.”

9.

When John walked into the gym earlier this morning, he did briefly think that the sky looked a little dark. But he didn’t think anything more than that, because it’s Florida and it rains more often than not. But of course, when he comes back out of the gym an hour later, it’s raining hard and he has to walk home.

He’s about to take the first step out from the building when his truck pulls up right in front of him, Alex grinning at him from the driver’s seat.

“I brought you an umbrella,” he says happily as John gets in on the other side, holding out a polka dot umbrella.

10.

John’s mom comes to visit right before Halloween. He feels pretty awful about the timing - he's barely home at reasonable hours these days, between class and homework and work, and he doesn't even get to spend much time with her. Luckily she has Alex to entertain her throughout the days. She loves Alex, so it's really no problem for her.

The night before she’s supposed to fly back home, John finishes up at the library early and manages to make it back home before seven. He finds Alex and his mom sitting at the kitchen table, watching Game of Thrones and eating pizza.

“I saved a piece for you,” Alex tells him, pushing the seat next to him out so John can join them. “It's in the microwave.”

“What episode are you up to?” John asks, dropping his bag on the kitchen counter. “Did you see the part-”

“No! Don't say it - we're getting there!”

11.

A few days later, Alex finds out that his parents had to put their dog to sleep, and Alex is ruined.

John isn't sure what to do at first, because he never had any pets growing up and has never really understood Alex's attachment to this dog and he feels awkward. Alex is curled up in bed crying over pictures of the dog on his phone and John is sitting in the living room, staring down at the card in his hand and debating whether or not he should get up and go into their bedroom.

It's dumb, probably. But it was literally the only thing he could think of. He found himself at CVS in the card aisle, picking through sympathy cards and trying to decide if any of them were good enough. He did find a cute one, one that had long paragraphs saying all the things that John can't say. He figures it's worth a shot.

So he goes and finds Alex, crawls into bed with him and slips the card in front of his face, blocking his view of his phone. His eyes are red and puffy and he sniffles as he gets a good look at the card.

“Sorry for your loss,” he reads off the front, and a second later he's cracking a smile and rolling his eyes. “You're so fucking awkward.”

John feels relieved, glad that he could at least get Alex to smile for a moment. He curls into Alex's side and let's Alex hold the phone up in front of them both, watches him scroll through pictures of his dog and listens to him talk.

12.

“It’s okay,” Alex tells him, fingers rubbing circles into the small of his back, “I couldn't sleep anyway.”

John finds that hard to believe, because before his body unceremoniously woke him up with the urge to vomit, he's pretty sure that Alex was out cold and snoring. But whatever. He doesn't mind the extra company.

13.

Alex always does this. It's not a surprise to anyone but himself anymore. Every restaurant they go to, he orders something weird and ends up not liking it. Every fucking time.

“I thought it would be different,” he says sadly, poking at the food on the plate in front of him. He looks at the cheeseburger in front of John as if it's a five-star meal. “Like, not as gross.”

John rolls his eyes and picks up the knife next to his plate. “You're an idiot. You can have half.”

14.

They go back to Maryland for Thanksgiving. They go see Alex’s parents for dinner and John’s parents for dessert. They got lucky, really, that their parents live less than an hour from one another. Makes family holidays that much easier - especially in the future, when they get married and start a family. John tends to get ahead of himself when he thinks of things like this.

But he can't help himself sometimes. Not when Alex is sitting right there with a glass of red wine, already changed into sweatpants, having a long conversation with John’s grandmother about the current state of Pluto and why it isn't (or is, John has no idea) a planet anymore.

It's easy to get carried away when Alex fits into his life so seamlessly.

He's so busy staring at Alex and watching him make big, dramatic gestures with his hands as he explains the size requirements for planets that he almost forgets that he left his duffle bag in the back seat of his truck and he should probably go get it if he ever wants to change out of these jeans tonight.

“I'm gonna run out to the car,” he tells Alex when there's a brief (very brief) pause in the conversation. “Left my bag in there.”

“Oh -” Alex starts shrugging out of his hoodie and John can only stare at him. “Take my jacket. It's cold out.”

John feels his heart literally skip a beat as he takes the jacket from Alex and he wonders to himself when he became a total sap.

15.

Alex knows this guy in one of his classes. His name is Brian and John hates his guts. But Alex likes him, for some unknown reason, and thinks he's funny, while John is just convinced the guy is the biggest douche to walk the planet. But whatever. He's Alex's friend. So John can be civil. For a limited amount of time.

But Alex is fucking late to their lunch date. John is stuck sitting across from Brian, awkwardly trying to think of something to talk about, wondering why the hell he agreed to meeting up separately (he does know why - Alex had work).

Brian isn't even trying to not be rude. He's too busy texting someone on his phone to notice just how badly John would rather be literally anywhere else.

Alex is lucky - he shows up just in time, just before John thinks he would have most likely reached his breaking point and just got up and left. He slides into the seat beside John, puts his hand on his knee and gives him that stupidly adorable pouty face as he says, “Sorry I'm late, baby.”

“It’s fine,” John sighs, because it is because Alex said he's sorry.

16.

There's this bar that's close to campus that Alex loves. It's kind of dumpy and not exactly John’s number one choice but he will admit, when they host 90’s Night once a month, John has more fun than he really acknowledges.

Some song is playing; he can't remember the name of it but he knows he totally danced to it with his crush in middle school at a school dance. John has blocked a lot of those years from memory. But definitely not this song.

He finds Alex at the bar, leaning on his elbows and trying to get the bartender's attention and probably failing, because he just looks angry. John comes up behind him, wraps his arms around his waist and rests his forehead against his back.

“Dude - this bartender is completely ignoring me!” Alex whines.

“That's okay,” John shrugs, not really caring. He leans up a little, presses his lips against the back of Alex’s neck and asks, “Can I have this dance?”

Alex slumps down completely against the bar, whole body shaking with silent laughter.

“You fucking nerd.”

17.

“Look both ways!” Alex yells just as John takes one step off the sidewalk. He turns around and glares at his boyfriend who is too busy laughing at his own obnoxiousness to notice.

18.

“Woah, why does it smell so good in here?”

Alex drops his backpack by the front door and John shrugs from where he's lounging on the living room couch. “I may have made your favorite-”

“Tomato soup?!”

“Yep.”

“You're literally perfect.”

19.

“Don’t take off your jacket – we’re going out.”

John freezes in the doorway, jacket halfway off his shoulders. “Uh – where?”

“That steakhouse you love.”

“Alex, that place is always so crowded!”

Alex laughs and winks at him as he grabs the keys off the kitchen table, “But I made reservations.”

20.

There's a power outage during the second week of December. It's inconvenient for a number of reasons (like the fact that John should be studying for his finals but cannot because there's no fucking lights) but the number one reason is because their apartment has suddenly become impossible to navigate.

“I think I just stepped on a fork,” Alex cries, dramatically dropping to the floor and all John can see is a dark outline of Alex holding his foot.

“Why the fuck would a fork be on the floor?”

“I don't know.”

John leaves him there, takes a few small steps forward, because he's determined to get to the kitchen so he can rummage through the cabinets to find a pack of Pop-tarts.

“Watch your step! My shoes are on the floor somewhere,” Alex warns him, but it's too late.

21.

Before Alex, things like this were so complicated. John never knew if he was doing anything right or if he was just embarrassing himself or if he should even bother at all. But with Alex it's so easy. He doesn't even have to think about it, it all comes naturally.

“You good?” Alex asks him, for the fiftieth time since they turned the lights out, both hands stuck like glue to John’s skin. He squeezes John’s hips tighter, helps him rock back, and John can't do much more than try to catch his breath and nod his head at the same time.

Alex pushes himself up so he's leaning on one arm and reaches the other up to pull John down, pressing their lips together in a fast, sloppy kiss that lasts no more than three seconds before Alex is too busy panting and pulling John’s hips down even harder against his own and John’s got this familiar twisty, anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“You're fucking gorgeous,” Alex mumbles against his damp skin, and John’s not sure if it's possible for Alex to take up any more room in his heart.

22.

Both of their bags are packed, sitting by the front door and ready to be put in the back of John’s truck. They're supposed to leave the apartment at five tomorrow morning, that way they'll get to John’s parents’ house at a reasonable time. Getting ready to go home for winter break is stressful enough as it is without having a huge fight right in the middle of it.

“I never fucking said that, John! I never said that and you're putting words in my mouth and-”

“I'm not putting words in your mouth! You did say it! You literally said-”

“Oh my God, stop,” Alex begs, and he's already halfway down the hallway to their bedroom, back turned on John. But John can tell without even seeing his face that Alex is on the verge of actually crying. Alex is never usually so emotional - except when he knows he's wrong.

Their bedroom door slams shut behind him and John is left standing in the living room with a pair of sneakers in his hands and the box of cereal that Alex threw down in protest dumped out on the kitchen floor. He should probably clean that. Then he should make sure Alex isn't suffocating himself with pillows.

It's not like this happens very often. They hardly ever fight, actually. And when they do, it's usually over stupid things like why Alex had to go and eat the last Oreo and leave the empty box in the pantry or why John cancelled the recording of Pokémon that Alex was looking forward to watching. This deserves a little more attention than a simple I'm sorry and make up sex.

He deals with the spilt cereal and finds Alex lying face down on their bed on top of the covers, his phone in one hand and the remote for the TV in the other. Dramatic but expected.

“Go away, I'm the worst,” he mumbles into the pillow, but John has become pretty good at interpreting Alex’s mumbles.

John climbs up on the bed anyway, “Shut up. Move over.”

“I'm sor-”

“You don't have to say anything.”

And he doesn't, because John knows he's sorry and he doesn't need verbal confirmation of that. When he wakes up the next morning when his alarm goes off at four-thirty, Alex is wrapped around him, giving off so much body heat that John’s t-shirt is sticking to him.

23.

It's a touchy subject - one that Alex really hates talking about. But John honestly can't blame his mom for bringing it up. They're under six months away from graduation and they need to figure out where they're going to live after that. It stresses Alex out just thinking about it. John is less stressed, but mostly because he's been doing his best not to think about it too much.

Do they stay in Tampa? Do they move to Miami? Or do they come back to Maryland where both of their parents live? Or do they go to Arizona where John grew up?

It's a lot to think about. But his mom has a good point.

“You should probably figure out where you can both find a job, first,” she says one night, sitting across from Alex who is looking more and more miserable with every word spoken about this topic.

“I'm stressed,” Alex announces, even though everyone already knows.

“We'll figure it out,” John promises him.

24.

A few days after Christmas, their final grades from the fall semester are up and John gets a fucking A- in his seminar class. An A minus. He definitely did not deserve anything less than an A. But here he is, sitting in front of his laptop, wondering how the hell he could possibly be staring at this very wrong grade.

“Here,” Alex says, coming up behind him. He puts a can of Bud Light on the table and pats him on the back. “Drink that. You'll feel better.”

25.

On New Year’s, he and Alex make a spontaneous trip to New York City to watch the ball drop in Times Square. It's twenty degrees and they're both freezing but it's an experience, for sure.

There’s five minutes to midnight and everyone is excited and talking loudly and Alex is leaning in close, pressed up against John’s side.

“Can I hold your hand?” He asks, giggling between his words and John kisses him five minutes too early.

26.

After they get back from New York, they go to Alex's parents’ house for the remainder of the winter break. John forgets his toothbrush. It's a disaster.

“I'm gonna run to CVS,” he tells Alex after twenty minutes of searching through the bathroom closet for a spare. There wasn't one. “Need anything while I'm there?”

Alex shakes his head, “No, but I told you - you can borrow mine for tonight.”

John resists the urge to vomit. “Never say that again.”

“It's just an offer.”

27.

“I don't know why we have to see this movie,” John sighs, hand digging in the bucket of popcorn, fingers covered in butter and the ridiculous amount of salt that Alex poured on. “We could be seeing something good - like that baseball movie!”

Alex elbows him in the ribs, grabs the popcorn right out of his hands. “Fuck you,” he says happily before shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “It's great.”

John really doubts that. It's a space movie. A nerd movie. There will be nothing for him to like. But Alex apparently thinks otherwise.

“Just stop being a total baby. You might like it!”

Two hours later, John does not like it. But Alex does. So he won't say anything else about it.

28.

It's two AM and negative degrees outside and Alex has his long sleeved lifeguard t-shirt on (the one from the summer he spent lifeguarding in Martha’s Vineyard when he was seventeen) and nothing else. He's on his hands and knees, John behind him with both hands right on his hips, fucking him hard and fast and loud.

Alex apparently doesn't care much about the fact that his sister is asleep (or not asleep) in the bedroom down the hallway. He cries out John’s name, sounds like he's straight out of a porn video.

“John, please,” he begs, words barely decipherable. He's jerking himself off with one hand and twisting his fingers into the sheets with the other, and John can't even find the words to respond to him. Alex just keeps begging for more. “Please, I need you-”

John fucks into him particularly hard, Alex screams his name and that's definitely his sister banging on the door from the hallway begging them to shut the fuck up.

29.

The release of the new Star Wars movie just so happens to fall towards the end of their winter break. Alex goes to the midnight premier with his cousin. John stays home.

“Are you sure you don't wanna come?” Alex asks him again, spooning him from behind on their bed, one hand slid up the front of John’s shirt, just resting there. “There's an extra ticket.”

“I am definitely sure,” John promises, keeping his eyes closed. “You'll have fun though. Don't worry about me, I'm gonna watch a movie here.”

Alex sighs. “Alright. I'll be home late though,” he leans in and kisses the side of John’s head.

“I'll wait up.”

30.

Alex is a hopeless romantic. Most of the time, at least. John isn't sure why he's surprised anymore when he comes home after a day of running errands and going to the gym to find their room decked out in candles and fucking rose petals on the bed.

“What's all this for?”

Alex shrugs. “Just because.”

31.

The heat stops working on their last night in Alex’s parent’s house. Alex’s dad is ‘working on it’, but it’s getting late and they’ll probably have to wait a while for someone from the company to come and take a look at it. Everyone is temporarily relocated, and he and Alex move downstairs into the guest bedroom where there’s a portable heater and a twin sized bed.

“There’s room for both of us,” Alex swears, pressing himself all the way up against the wall.

John narrows his eyes, looks at the small space that he’s supposed to fit in very skeptically, but figures he has no other choice.

They both wake up at two in the morning, on top of each other, sweating to death and throwing the covers off.

32.

The night they get back to Tampa, Alex drags John to a bar to meet up with Jack and Jack’s friends Zack and Matt. They're all nice guys and John gets along well with all of them (better than Brian, but that's not hard) and John is at the bar getting himself and Alex another beer when someone comes up behind him.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

He's a nice looking guy, probably around his age, but John isn't sure where he got the idea that John was here alone. Because Alex has been all over him all night and this guy had to have noticed.

“No thanks,” John tries to turn him down easy, explain that he's already here with someone, but Alex suddenly appears by his side, his arm sneaking around his waist and pulling him in.

“Dude - back off,” he snaps, glaring at the poor guy who really has no idea what he's just done to himself. His fingers are digging into John’s hip and John can only stand there while Alex makes sure this guy is fully aware of just how taken John is. “My boyfriend doesn't need anyone else buying him drinks, alright?”

“Sorry, I was just-”

John doesn't get to hear exactly what this guy was planning on doing because Alex suddenly decides he's heard enough from him, pulls John back towards the corner of the room where their table is. John didn't even get to grab the two beers he paid for.

“That fucking dick was staring you down all night,” Alex mumbles, pressing his face against John’s neck, “I saw him come after you once you left the table.”

John understands - mostly, at least. “You didn't have to act like a total caveman,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I probably could have handled that myself.”

“I'm sorry,” and his words are muffled but John still gets it. “Didn't mean to.”

“Yeah, okay. You can go back to the bar and grab those drinks, then.”

33.

It's Tuesday and it's pouring out and Alex skipped his last class of the day.

“What do you want to watch?” he asks, pointing the remote at the TV. He clicks through the channels mindlessly while he waits for John to respond.

But John is half asleep, face pressed into Alex’s shoulder as he slowly pushes him further into the couch cushions. He doesn't give Alex an answer and Alex just keeps looking for something that will entertain him for longer than five minutes, his fingers tangled in John’s hair.

34.

John has no idea why he waited so long to sign up to take this stupid certification exam, but now he really regrets procrastinating. Alex took it months ago, because he was smart and got it over with and now John is stuck studying for it in a Sunday afternoon when he and Alex could be playing Mario Kart instead.

“It's not as much fun with only one player,” Alex mumbles around noon, coming into the bedroom and moping as he sits on the edge of the bed. “Can't you take a break? I'm so bored!”

John shakes his head, “No.”

Alex lets out a loud sigh and John almost yells at him for being too distracting. But then Alex is crawling up beside him, flipping open one of the many workbooks John has surrounding him.

“I'll help you study, then.”

“Just don't be annoying.”

“I'm never annoying.”

35.

It's two in the morning and John is still studying and Alex is lying next to him in bed, playing Candy Crush on his phone. He has the sound off and the only noise coming from that side of the bed is the sound of his breathing, but for some reason John is way too focused on him.

“I think I'm starting to see double,” he says, pushing his workbook away from him, fists rubbing at his eyes. He feels Alex shift in the sheets, turn over to get a better look at him.

“Maybe you should take a break,” he suggests, moving closer, hooking one leg around John’s hips. “Take a shower. Have some coffee. Let me blow you.”

John laughs, knocks his head gently against Alex’s, “I can probably agree to one of those things.”

Alex sighs, so deeply that John thinks he's probably been holding that in for a while. He untangles himself from John and the sheets and gets up from the bed, pulls a t-shirt on over his head and asks, “Two sugars, yeah?”

36.

John has to drive Alex to work one day, because Alex overslept and is running late and would otherwise miss the bus and definitely be really late. So John takes pity on him, offers him a ride even though it's in the opposite direction of campus and it's John's turn to use the car this week.

“My hair is going to be a mess later,” Alex grumbles from the passenger seat, running his hand through his wet hair. “I'm gonna scare away all my coworkers.”

John hums in agreement, because he knows better than anyone else that Alex's hair does not air-dry very well. He's about to say as much when he notices a light on his dashboard. “Do you have your seatbelt on?” He asks instead.

“Yes,” Alex tells him, and just from the tone of his voice John can tell he's rolling his eyes.

“My car is telling me you don't-”

“Your car can go to hell.”

37.

“I made this for you.”

Alex is trying so hard not to laugh, and John is honestly doing the same, because this picture looks like a five-year-old drew it.

“It's - wow,” he says instead, nodding to himself. He stares down at it in his hands, can't help but feel a little bit grateful for this work of art that Alex has come home with. It looks like it could be a picture of a dog, but also maybe a picture of a banana. Either way, John kind of wants to get up and stick it on the fridge. “Did one of your kids help color in this sun?” He asks, pointing to the corner of the page.

Alex frowns, “That's not a sun. It's a goldfish.”

38.

“Did you get my note?”

John tries to fight the smile that's forcing its way onto his face. But he can't, because he's holding a post-it note that he found on the bathroom mirror when he went to brush his teeth this morning. Alex's handwriting is hard to read on a good day, when he has plenty of room and time to write it. But this sticky note is filled with almost illegible words, detailing all of Alex's favorite things about John and John feels like a twelve-year-old girl who just got a love letter from her crush.

“Yeah, I got it. You really love my ass that much?”

“I dedicated three bullet points to it, didn't I?”

39.

Alex's seminar class, that John is not in, makes t-shirts with their names on the back and their graduation year. Alex is so into it, orders his right away and mentions how excited he is to wear it on a daily basis.

Except Alex hardly ever gets to wear it. Because John wears it more often than not. Mostly because it's comfortable but also because he knows it drives Alex crazy.

“It looks good on you,” Alex mumbles, pressed up against John’s back, hands sliding up the front of the shirt.

John honestly doesn't care that he's supposed to be studying.

40.

“I went to that record store downtown that you love,” Alex tells him one afternoon, “I got you something.”

“Really? Why?”

“No reason,” he shrugs, hands over a Tom Petty vinyl and John is pretty sure he'll be playing this for the next five months.

41.

John takes the exam he's been studying for on a Sunday morning. It's ridiculously hard and he's pretty sure he failed but of course he won't find out for weeks, because the results come back so fucking slowly. Alex still hasn't even gotten his back.

So honestly, today is not a great day. But he sucks it up and goes to lunch with Tay from his PED class, who is super optimistic about how well she did and really she's not helping John feel any better. So he pretends to go to the bathroom halfway through lunch and instead calls Alex. Because he's the only person he really wants to talk to right now.

The phone only rings once before Alex answers.

“I was just thinking about you - how did it go?” He asks, and John feels a weight fall off his shoulders. He's not nearly as stressed as he was before.

42.

On Valentine's Day, they don't really get to celebrate. Not like they're really big on this particular holiday. But the last three years they've always gone out to dinner or at least done something. This year, they both have a mandatory seminar on campus that starts at six and doesn't end until after nine and by the time they get home, they're both exhausted and not in the mood to do much more than order Chinese food and sit on the couch and watch a movie.

They don't do gifts. Which is why John is confused when Alex comes back from the bathroom with his hands behind his back and a suspicious smile on his face.

“What are you doing…” John asks, not even sure that he really wants to know. He shifts on the couch so he's sitting up and Alex plops down beside him, still smiling like a total weirdo.

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” he says, and John doesn't see the sense in questioning this, so he just does it. “No peeking.”

Not like he was planning on it.

Alex drops something into his hands, and John knows immediately that it's a keychain. He feels a little relieved, because he was nervous that Alex had gone against their agreement of no gifts and John would look like the asshole with nothing to give him.

“Okay, open them.”

John opens his eyes, looks down at his hands and can't help but grin when he sees what's there. It's just a keychain, but not really. It's the cute little heart eyes emoji. He looks up at Alex, who's on the verge of laughing and all John can do is pull him in and kiss him hard.

43.

John has always been a hockey fan - growing up in Arizona, he loved the Coyotes and went to so many games with his dad. But now, living in Tampa has kind of turned him into a Tampa Bay Lightning fan. And he doesn't exactly hate it. It's a nice change to root for a team that actually has a shot at the playoffs.

“It's only February - do games even really matter yet?” Alex asks, standing in front of the stove where he's making Kraft mac and cheese.

“Every game matters, Alex,” John rolls his eyes, his heart beating way too fast and his fingers tapping on his knee as he watches one of the players on the other team get uncomfortably close to scoring on Ben Bishop.

“You're crazy, you know that?”

“Sorry-”

“Doesn't bother me.”

At least there's that.

44.

The third week of February brings a snowstorm to the northern east coast, and while most people in Florida are just grateful they don't have to deal with that shit, Alex is so jealous.

“They get snow days!” He cries as they walk to class together in t-shirts and shorts. “We will never have that luxury!”

“Shoulda picked NYU, then,” John points out.

“Let's move there. After graduation.”

John knows Alex will forget all about this sudden desire to move to a colder climate, so he humors him. “Sure. I'll look at apartments later.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die-”

“Shut up.”

45.

“Can I kiss you?”

They're in the middle of watching the new Star Trek movie that came out yesterday. Surrounded by people. And while John thought Alex would be way too into the movie to even consider holding John’s hand, apparently he just wants to make out. Like they're sixteen and in the back of the theater and their parents are picking them up when the movie is over.

“Yeah, definitely.”

46.

Suddenly, Alex becomes obsessed with cooking. He never used to care about what they ate for dinner as long as it was something decent. John could pick up Subway on the way home and Alex would be fine with it.

But now Alex is going to the grocery store and buying veggies and potatoes and steak and cooking actual meals for them.

It's nice, John will admit. Except for the fact that he's the one who gets stuck washing all the dishes. He's not sure how that's fair, but whatever.

“Try some,” Alex says when John comes up behind him at the stove, watches him stir a pot of soup. John takes a spoon, dips it in and brings some of the soup to his mouth.

It burns his mouth but it tastes okay and he gives Alex a thumbs up while trying not to reveal the fact that he totally just gave himself third degree burns.

47.

“I have a meeting with my advisor after class so I’ll be home a little late.”

“A meeting about what?”

“Just to help me fix up my resume, you know?”

“Okay. I'll see you later then.”

“See you later.”

48.

Alex’s grandpa ends up in the hospital at the end of February with pneumonia. He's eighty-seven and this sort of thing is not shocking, but it's upsetting all the same. He decides to drive home for the weekend, just to visit him and spend some time with him. John wishes he could go too, but he has so much work to get done for class and can't afford to be away from the library.

“I'll call you when I get there,” Alex promises, zipping up his jacket. It's almost eight at night and he'll be driving in the dark and John is honest to God worried about him.

“Drive safe, okay?” He mumbles, kissing the top of Alex's head. “I'll miss you.”

49.

“You're gonna laugh at me - I left my phone charger at the apartment,” Alex sighs into the phone, and John suddenly misses him more than he did five minutes ago. Just hearing his voice is enough to make him feel a little bit miserable without him here.

“That's kind of important - I can meet you halfway-”

“It's fine. I'll buy a new one. Thanks, though.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, don't worry about it.”

50.

John can tell when Alex gets home that something has changed. He sort of expected this - he came very close to losing someone who he loved. It’s normal for him to be a little bit off right now. But there’s something else there - something else that Alex is not saying out loud but John knows he wants to. He feels it every time he tries to show Alex an apartment in Miami or in Arizona or anywhere that is not Maryland. John has a pretty good idea about what Alex is feeling, but he can’t know for sure unless Alex actually speaks up about it.

“This place looks nice,” he tries again one Friday night with Alex’s legs spread across his lap as they watch Scandal. “It’s a one bedroom, one bathroom-”

“Where?” Alex asks, speaking for the first time in over an hour. His voice is raspy and he barely turns his head away from the TV. “Miami?”

“No. Maryland. It’s kind of right in the middle of both of our parent’s places.”

That seems to get his attention, finally. He clicks pause on the Apple TV remote and sits up enough to look right at John. “Really? How much?”

John sighs and turns the laptop screen so it's facing Alex. “Nine.”

“Oh,” Alex sighs, sounding defeated. “That's a little much.” He bites his lip as he looks at the screen, and John knows he needs to just come out and ask him about this.

“Well, what do you want to do?”

Alex blinks at him. “Huh?”

“I know you've been having a tough time. And I understand it. But I need you to be upfront with me. Are you even really interested in moving anywhere that's not Maryland?”

For a second, John thinks he's going to deny it, and that would really not be beneficial for either of them. But Alex lets out the breath he'd been holding, slumps his shoulders and shakes his head.

“No, I'm really not, I guess. It's just that-”

“You don't have to explain it to me. I get it.”

“I - of course you do.”

“I'm gonna email this realtor and tell them were interested, alright?”

“Yeah...okay. Thanks.”

51.

“Fuck - I forgot a pen,” Alex groans, slumping down in the desk. He looks like he's about to slam his head against his notebook and John decides to take pity on him.

“That's okay. I brought two.”

52.

“I need one of those big envelopes,” Alex tells him, and John can almost picture him waving his arms around and holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “You know - the big ones. The big brown ones. That you can mail papers that can't be folded-”

“Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean,” John assures him, even though he really could listen to Alex try to describe this thing for much longer. But he's already wasted ten minutes of his break and if he wastes any more time, he'll regret it. “I'll pick it up after work, okay?”

“You're a life saver.”

53.

It's March and it's getting terrifyingly close to the end of the semester. John is panicking. He's not sure why, considering he knows he's going to pass all of his classes and he's going to graduate with all his credits and he's one step closer to becoming a teacher. But it's still scary. And he's not looking forward to it.

Alex is in the same boat, except he's a lot more frazzled about it somehow. John finds him in the living room at two in the morning, face first in one of his textbooks, snoring.

“Alex, you should go to bed,” John tells him as he shakes him awake, not even really trying to be gentle about it.

Alex jolts awake at the word ‘bed’ and he looks up at John with wide eyes. “No - I can't,” he whines, and John just rolls his eyes.

“Fine. One more chapter. Then bed.”

“Deal.”

54.

John wakes up one morning to Alex yelling profanities and rain pounding on the window next to their bed. It takes him barely a minute to figure out it’s actually not morning at all and Alex is just a huge ass nerd.

“Are you serious?” He hears himself ask, leaning over Alex's shoulder and squinting at his phone screen. He's playing Pokémon. Like a fucking nerd.

“Ugh - go back to sleep,” Alex waves him off, throws another ball at this weird looking bird on his screen.

John doesn't have to be told twice.

55.

“So like...this place is super sketchy and I think I should probably not be here.”

John was not expecting Alex to start out the conversation like this when he answered the phone. He was thinking more along the lines of ‘the interview was great’ or ‘that interview sucked!’ But no. He gets this instead.

“What the hell are you talking about? Where are you?”

“I think I may have given the Uber guy the wrong address and now I'm in the completely wrong place and there are no Uber cars nearby and I could possibly be murdered here.”

“God, Alex - stay there. I'm coming to get you. Send me your location.”

56.

“Wow.”

Alex wrings his fingers together and shifts his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable and unsure of exactly how John is reacting. “Is that a good or a bad ‘wow’?”

John isn't even sure himself. He stares at the ball of fur licking itself on the couch and thinks maybe a cat isn't the worst thing in the world.

“Um. I'm not sure yet. Ask me again in a few hours.”

“Okay.”

57.

The cat stays. Because John is a sucker and Alex has really good persuasion skills. Plus, it is pretty cute and, so far, low maintenance. Johns doesn't have to do much for it. Alex does all the work.

“I'm so glad we kept her,” he sighs, the cat asleep on his chest. He scratches between her ears and John can't help but smile at the scene.

“I noticed.”

Alex beams at him and John almost feels guilty that he even considered sending this cat back.

58.

Alex
12:14pm: I have something very seriously important to tell you and you're going to hate my guts!

On April second, John gets a text from Alex while he's in class, and he's originally convinced that it's a delayed April Fool’s joke. He stares at his phone and briefly thinks maybe he should just ignore it, because Alex knows he hates that stupid “holiday” and should know better than to pull this shit on him. But then he decides to humor him because he may as well. And then he can use it to make him feel guilty later. It's a win-win.

Alex
12:15pm: I have been lying to you for weeks and I feel really guilty but I need you to promise you won't be mad

But now he's confused, because this sounds more serious than Alex's usual stupid jokes.

“You can tell me anything,” he texts back, and he knows he looks more than a little confused, judging by the way Tay keeps looking at him in between copying down notes from the slideshow.

Alex
12:17pm: omg okay

John suddenly feels nauseous as he watches the little speech bubbles that tell him Alex is typing. What the hell could he possibly have been lying about? For weeks? Or is he really falling for another one of Alex's horrible pranks?

Alex
12:20pm: I got a 90-dollar parking ticket last month and I didn't pay it and I hid it in the glove compartment and I just went to look for it and it's missing and I really do not want to go to jail

He has to read it twice to get the full effect. He's not quite sure if Alex is really this stupid or if he's joking around. But either way, it's a relief, because it's not anything dramatically bad and now he can make fun of Alex for basically the rest of his life.

“I paid that two weeks ago you asshole.”

Alex
12:21pm: wow
12:21pm: ok great because I would not do well in jail

59.

“I need to shower first because I have my presentation and I can't be late, alright?”

Alex groans from the middle of the bed and wraps himself even further in the sheets. “Fine,” he mumbles, and John can only roll his eyes. “You can go first.”

“You're literally not even fully conscious yet,” John argues, although he's not sure why, considering Alex has his back to him now and is clearly on the verge of falling back to sleep. “But thanks for being merciful and letting me in first.”

“Don't expect this to happen again.”

60.

“We can either binge watch Game of Thrones or start something new,” John says as Alex comes back into the living room with two beers and a bag of Doritos. “I'm feeling-”

“Binge watch Game of Thrones,” Alex finishes for him, tossing John the bag of Doritos before setting out on a search for the bottle opener. “Didn’t we leave it in here?”

“I think it’s on top of the cable box.”

Alex searches through the entire entertainment center, looking on top of the TV, underneath it, in the DVD cabinet. “It’s not fuckin- oh. There it is.” He pulls the bottle opener out from where they left it the last time they were able to sit down and have a lazy night - on top of a stack of books. “Maybe we should put it back in the kitchen this time.”

“Whatever. Get over here.”

He comes back to couch, two open beers in hand and sits down carefully so he doesn't spill either of them. “Fair warning - these might be expired.”

“Beer expires?”

“Apparently.”

61.

The cat finally has a name - Snowball. Because Alex is the worst at naming things. His goldfish growing up was named Goldie. John should have known better.

“You're so cute,” Alex tells the cat in a stupid baby voice, scratching behind her ears. “You're the best cat ever. My favorite thing in this room.”

John scoffs. He's not jealous of a cat. At all.

Alex seems to know better. He looks over and pats John on the head. “You're my favorite, too.”

62.

“Is this okay?”

Alex's forehead is pressed into John’s neck, his breath hitting John’s skin and making him even hotter than he already is and when he hears those words come out of Alex's mouth, he almost has a stroke.

“You ask that now?” He manages to get out, feeling sweat dripping down his back and his voice is high pitched and strained and if Alex knows what's good for him, he'll jerk him off a little bit faster so they can get out of this stupid, tiny, gross bathroom stall in the back of this equally tiny and gross bar.

Alex shrugs, twists his wrist a little and John inhales sharply, presses himself even more against the wall and he's going to come in two seconds and he's never felt sleazier in his entire life.

63.

There's a rare night in the middle of April where they don't have to have their AC running all day and can just leave the windows open because the temperature doesn't make it past seventy.

“This will never happen again,” Alex sighs, sprawled out on the bed as John comes back in from the bathroom. “Let's make the most of it. I'll fuck you in front of the window-”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

John gets into the bed, moves to pull the sheets up over himself, but Alex has other plans. He grips his arm and tugs him towards the middle, presses him down onto his back and swings one leg over his hips, effectively trapping him there.

“Really?” John rolls his eyes, but doesn't make an effort to escape.

Alex curls his arm around John’s waist, slides his hand underneath his t-shirt and spreads his fingers out across his lower back. “You're warm,” he mumbles, nose pressed against John’s cheek. “And cute.”

It's stupid, but John feels his cheeks flush. He'll never admit it, but sometimes just being like this is even better than sex. Alex would never let him live that down.

64.

Blink-182 is playing a show in Orlando and Alex has been blasting their songs in the shower for the past two weeks in preparation. John is a casual Blink fan. That doesn't work well when you live with Alex. But he can deal, because Alex is excited and John would hate himself if he ever made Alex feel like he needed to tone it down a bit.

“We’ll probably get there around one or two, depending on traffic,” Alex tells him, shoving a jacket into his backpack. “Get lunch, chill out. You know.”

John watches him with a small smile, sitting at the kitchen table in his pajama pants and a textbook in front of him. “What time is Jack picking you up?”

Alex looks down at his watch, “Uh...ten minutes.”

He runs to the bathroom to brush his teeth and John rolls his eyes. He almost wishes he were going on this little road trip just to witness Alex piss himself when Blink actually gets on stage. But he has an exam tomorrow morning and tickets were expensive and Alex will have fun anyway. Jack is equally as crazy as Alex is, so it'll work well.

“You have your ticket?” John asks when Alex comes back, “It was on the fridge-”

“It's in my backpack - oh. Jack is here.” Alex slings his backpack onto his shoulders, shoves his cell phone in his pocket. His eyes meet John’s and he pouts a little bit. “I wish you were coming with us.”

He leans down for a quick kiss but John has other plans, grabbing his face with both hands and keeping him there, making the kiss anything but quick. “You'll have fun,” he says when he pulls back enough to speak, fingers rubbing Alex’s skin and Alex sighs.

“Yeah. I'll miss you though.”

“Be careful.”

“Don't worry about me.”

“It's just you and Jack. Are you crazy? Or course I'm gonna worry.”

65.

Alex sprints ahead of him suddenly, grabs the handle of the door and pulls it open. He steps aside, gives John a sly smile and says, “After you.”

John glares at him, but walks into Starbucks anyway. “You're the worst.”

66.

There's an Impractical Jokers marathon on TV the entire weekend and Alex is in heaven. He's been sprawled on the couch with a sleeve of Oreos and a half-eaten taco leftover from last night’s 2AM trip to Taco Bell after they left the bar. John hates this show, but he kind of has to admit, Alex is cute when he laughs so hard he almost can't breathe and scrunches up his nose and elbows John to make sure he saw what just happened.

“I like your laugh,” he tells him, using his foot to nudge Alex's shoulder to get his attention.

Alex looks over at him, rolls his eyes and says, “Oh good. Because you're kind of stuck with it.”

67.

It's the first week of May and the countdown on the fridge to graduation is at a terrifyingly low number. John is excited to graduate, in the sense that he won't have to go to class anymore and he can get a real job and he can be an actual adult and do adult things. But that's also terrifying, because where are they going to live? Where are they going to find jobs in the same city? They need to figure this all out before that number on the fridge becomes a zero.

“We can go look at this place next weekend,” Alex says, pulling out one of the many apartments for rent that they've printed from the computer. “And if that school calls me back about that job, maybe I can get the interview to be that weekend too.”

“Next weekend I have that makeup class, so I can't go,” John sighs, and he feels so frustrated and bothered by all this bullshit that he's pretty sure he's going to start crying any second. “This is the fucking worst-”

Alex picks up in the tone of his voice and quickly sits down in the chair beside him, “Hey - hey, it's fine. Don't cry, babe. It'll all work itself out,” he promises, but John knows he's just saying that. He doesn't really believe it either.

“I just hate this stuff,” he sighs, pressing his palms against his eyes. “I don't want you to have to look at the place by yourself.”

“Baby - you're getting upset for no reason. I won't be by myself. My mom or your mom could go with me. It's fine. Okay?”

John nods, “Yeah. Okay.”

68.

It's almost ninety degrees and sunny and Alex forces John to study outside. He's not the only one with this idea - there are dozens of other students spread out across the lawn in front of the education building on campus, most of them in their classes.

“My shirt is sticking to me,” John complains for the tenth time as he finishes up his final mock lesson plan. He hears Alex beside him, knows he's still there, but also knows he's definitely not still studying. Alex's attention span is poor at best. They've been here too long for him to still be focused on his text book.

John is about to give in to the Florida heat and pull his shirt off and go on without it when suddenly a shower of tiny bright yellow dandelions falls from above him, onto his head and his notebook and his laptop. He takes a second to brush them off his head before looking up and finding Alex, head blocking the sun and a stupid grin on his face.

“I picked them for you,” he laughs, drops another handful of them on John's head.

69.

“I'm supposed to write a paragraph about why the Common Core is a good thing,” John rolls his eyes, “How am I supposed to do that when I think it's absolute shit?”

“Just BS it, man,” Jack laughs, picking up his beer and gesturing in Alex’s direction. “That's usually what we do.”

“I'm also supposed to find an article that talks about why it's a good thing. It's a dumb assignment and I think he's just looking for things to make us do before we graduate.”

Alex shrugs, “I can do it for you. I think I have one from a class I took last year.”

“Really?”

“Just have to find it first.”

70.

“Are you sure?”

John is definitely not sure. Not one hundred percent, at least. But he trusts Alex and his judgement, and if Alex likes the apartment, then that's good enough for him.

“Yeah. I'm sure. Are you?”

“It's really, really nice. And affordable. And only a half hour from my parents and an hour from yours. I have a really good feeling about this.”

“Then let's do it.”

“Okay,” Alex says, sounding nervous. “Alright. I'm gonna tell them yes.”

“Okay.”

“Let's do it.”

71.

Alex's interview is a Monday morning and he calls John ten minutes before he's supposed to go inside, questioning literally everything.

“Why am I here? They're not going to hire me-”

“Alex -”

“I have no experience and they're going to laugh in my face! I can't teach high schoolers, John! They'll eat me alive! I'll be a joke! I'll-”

“Alex, shut up.”

“Hey, I'm having a crisis and you're being rude.”

“You're being irrational. You're going to be a great earth science teacher. Just go in there and be yourself.”

Alex sighs loudly into the phone and John can only roll his eyes. “Okay. Fine.”

“Good luck. Call me when you're done.”

“Hey, for the record, you suck at comforting me in my times of need.”

72.

John is knee deep in index cards and review packets and mock lesson plans when Alex finally gets home from Maryland on Tuesday. It's almost midnight and he comes through the door as loud as he possibly can, because that's just how Alex is.

He drops his keys on the kitchen table and kicks off his shoes and rummages around in the fridge and John can only roll his eyes at the ceiling and slam his textbook shut. He's just glad he at least had a few quiet hours to study.

“You can stop crying now, I'm home!” Alex announces as he barges into their bedroom with a beer and a slice of cold pizza.

John isn't mad anymore at all because Alex is grinning at him and looks so happy and honestly, John missed him and his loudness way more than he admits. He moves all of his shit off the bed and onto his nightstand so he can pick up where he left off in the morning, and Alex throws himself right into the middle, almost spilling his beer all over John’s side.

“Let's Netflix and chill,” he says, mouth full of pepperoni.

John is about to give another eye roll while also turning on the Apple TV, but then he remembers the sink full of dirty dishes that he was supposed to wash yesterday and still hasn't done.

“I should really wash the dishes first,” he says with a sigh, moves to get off the bed, but Alex holds him back.

“It can wait until tomorrow - I missed you.”

He pouts and even with pizza sauce on his face, he's still the most adorable thing John has seen all day.

73.

John wakes up the next morning, way past the alarm he knows he set on his phone so he could get up and study. Alex is pressed up behind him, breathing down his neck, hand slipping into his boxers and suddenly John decides his studying can probably be put off for an hour or two.

And then he remembers the fucking dishes. They're probably already absolutely disgusting.

“Alex, I really need to-”

“I did the dishes. Just relax.”

74.

Alex’s final exam of his college career is in less than two hours. John took his this morning and now he's just laying on the couch, reading a book because he can and doesn't have to worry about studying. Alex is in the kitchen reciting definitions to himself and John is doing a pretty good job of ignoring him.

“Sorry if I'm being too loud,” Alex apologizes, although he doesn't sound all that concerned about it.

“I don't mind,” John promises, and he really doesn't.

75.

John drops Alex off on campus for his final. He's a nervous wreck and keeps digging through his bag to make sure he has everything he needs. He almost had a mental breakdown on the way here when he thought he didn't bring his calculator.

“You'll do great,” John tells him, “And you can call me if you need anything. But I'm pretty sure you have everything.”

“I'm going to fail.”

“That's the spirit.”

76.

“I didn't fail. I got a 95.”

It's not shocking. Alex is the smartest person John knows and John knows a lot of smart people. He slides a beer across the kitchen counter and Alex just barely catches it before it falls to the floor.

“Knew you could do it.”

“Yeah. You did.”

77.

They have a brief graduation meeting the morning before the ceremony. John gets there before Alex, because he had to pick up a list of contact numbers from his advisor who knows a few teachers in the Baltimore area. Alex shows up with two minutes to spare and a serious case of bedhead.

“I saved you a seat,” he tells Alex when he's close enough, moving his backpack off the folding chair beside him.

“I couldn't find a parking space,” is Alex's lame excuse.

“Right. Or get out of bed on time?”

“That too.”

78.

“This tassel looks so stupid,” John mumbles, brushing the tassel out of his face for the tenth time this morning.

Alex is beside him, rolling his eyes. “Because you keep messing with it. Stop it.” He bats John’s hands away and reaches up to adjust the way the tassel is tied on. “Now it's fine. Leave it or you'll embarrass yourself in front of everyone.”

“Can't I just not wear it?”

“Nah. Besides, it totally brings out your eyes.”

79.

They go out to dinner with both of their families afterwards, their moms crying about how proud they are of them and their dads asking too many questions about the apartment they're renting and how the job search is going.

John would honestly rather not think too much about the job search considering he hasn't even gotten an interview anywhere yet. He can't really even do much concerning job interviews until he gets his certification results back. Which apparently should be any day now.

It's just hard when Alex has a second interview with the principal of a high school only twenty minutes from their apartment and John doesn't have much of anything.

“Don't be so depressed,” Alex tells him that night, after they drop their parents off at the hotel they're staying at. “We fucking graduated, John. We did it!”

“Yeah, but now-”

“Now we wait for your exam results and until then, we drink and celebrate the fact that we never have to step foot in a classroom on this campus again!”

He's right. John knows he's right. “Okay, but-”

“Don't make me say it.”

“Say what?”

“Ugh - John. I know you're nervous about those results but come on. You're smart. I know you did well. I believe in you.”

It doesn't do much to ease his mind, but it's still nice to hear it. John nods and tries to push all thoughts about jobs and interviews and test results out of his head. “You're right.”

“I'm always right.”

80.

They have a week to pack up everything in the apartment and be completely moved out. They rented a moving truck already and it’s really just a matter of getting everything they own back into boxes. John remembers unpacking when they first got here at the end of August. It took ages. He’s not really looking forward to re-packing.

“All of my books can go in this box,” Alex announces, dropping a large cardboard box in front of the bookcase. “I think it will fit them all.”

John has no doubt about that. Almost all of the books in that bookcase belong to Alex. His weird space books. His books about rocks. His books about the ocean. His alien conspiracy books. John has a few in there too. But they’re mostly small children’s books that he’s been collecting for when he has his own classroom one day. They’re easy to sneak into that box.

“Speaking of books,” John says, moving over to where his bag is sitting on the couch. He opens it up and searches for the plastic bag he shoved in there on the way home earlier. “I got you something.”

“What is it?” Alex asks, and he hops over the back of the couch so he's sitting in the middle, leaning over to get a look into John’s backpack. “Can I eat it?”

John rolls his eyes, finally finds the bag hidden behind one of his notebooks. “No. I just saw it while I was returning my textbooks and thought of you. I think you'll like it.”

Alex takes the plastic bag, reaches in and pulls out a small paperback book. He takes one look at the cover and then grins, and John thinks maybe he definitely should not have bought him this book.

Science Puns and Jokes is the title and Alex is already flipping through the first few pages, his smile getting bigger and bigger as he goes.

“Oh, this is great,” he says, and yeah, John definitely should have waited until after their long drive back home to give him this.

81.

Later that night, when Alex is busy organizing his books by subject and stacking them in the cardboard box, John gets a new email and his heart practically stops when he realizes exactly who it's from.

“Alex - Alex, oh my God,” is all he says, sitting down at the kitchen table with his phone in his hands and the email unopened on the screen.

“What? I'm very busy -”

“This email - my exam results. I got them back.”

“Oh.”

He hears Alex get up from the floor, abandoning his box of books on the floor by the bookshelf. He comes up right behind John, leans over to get a good look at the email and sighs. “John. Open it.”

“I can't - what if I failed? What if-”

“Hey, stop. Take. Deep breath and relax.”

Alex's hand rests on John’s back and John tries - really, he tries - to relax a little bit. But his heart is racing and he knows he's not going to be able to do that until he knows he's passed. So he taps on the email, watches it open up in front of him.

It takes a quick scan of the first few sentences to realize that he did pass. Alex's hand squeezes his shoulder and John let's out the breath he was holding.

“See? Freaking out about nothing,” Alex mumbles, wrapping both arms around him from behind. “Knew you did it.”

82.

In the days before they start their road trip back to Maryland, Alex has a few more hours of student teaching to complete. So he's gone most of the time, getting home around four or five every day. John doesn't mind. He finished all of his hours and he can handle packing up the apartment on his own for the most part.

He's not very organized, but neither is Alex. He throws things into boxes, wraps the delicate things in bubble wrap, and hopes everything will still be intact by the time they make it back home. Honesty, none of this shit is particularly important to either of them. If a lamp breaks, they can get a new one. They've never owned any real glasses or plates because they couldn't really afford them and they also knew they wouldn't be keeping them forever. So while there is a lot of stuff to pack up, none of it really requires much care or thought.

He's in the middle of folding an extra set of bed sheets when Alex comes home from his final day of teaching. John hears him talking to the cat when he comes through the front door, cooing over it and telling it how cute it is. John can't help but roll his eyes. He treats that cat like a human child.

“Hey,” Alex says a few moments later, peering around the door and finding John on the floor of the bedroom. “Need any help?”

John shrugs, “No, after this I think I'm done for the night.”

“Okay. Did you eat today? Or did you get too wrapped up in this?”

John takes a second too long to think about that question apparently, because Alex rolls his eyes and let's out a disappointed sigh. “I'll go order pizza.”

83.

“Can you not?”

“You're barely giving me any space here!”

“Are you serious? I was here first!”

Alex frowns and elbows John in the ribs - halfheartedly, because he's too busy trying to reach his toothbrush on the top shelf of the cabinet. He finally gets it, puts some toothpaste on it and shoves it in his mouth, turning to look at John just to glare at him.

“Stop being annoying,” John mumbles, rinsing his own toothbrush under the faucet. “And can you keep your mouth closed?”

The request is pointless - Alex opens his mouth even more and sticks his tongue out and John is sufficiently disgusted.

“You're disgusting.”

“I'm all yours,” Alex reminds him, words all muffled from the toothbrush in his mouth.

But John cracks a smile at that, can't help but feel a little less irritated. “All mine.”

84.

John is on his knees, the water from the shower head a little too hot for his liking but he's not exactly focused on that right now. Alex has his hand tangled in his hair, pushing him on his dick and John is pretty sure his knees are going to have bruises for the next week at this rate.

“Oh my God - shit-”

Alex throws his head back against the shower wall, John cringes at the sound it makes and pulls off of Alex's dick, looking up at him with a frown.

“Be careful, you idiot.”

“I think I'm seeing stars.”

85.

“Ugh - I left the packing tape on the coffee table,” Alex pouts, both hands pressing down on the flaps of the box he's just packed up with picture frames and other random items from their bedroom.

John blinks at him, considers telling him get up and get the tape himself, but then takes pity on him.

“Fine. Stay there. I'll get it.”

“You angel. Also - bring me a beer?”

86.

The night before they leave for Maryland, the apartment is almost empty and it's weird and depressing but also pretty exciting. Because John is looking forward to moving back home, especially with Alex. If you had told him on the first day of Freshman year five years ago that he'd be in a serious relationship and moving in together, he'd probably have laughed. But here he is, sitting on an air mattress in an empty living room, eating Chinese food and watching Orange is the New Black on Alex’s laptop.

“This dumb bitch,” Alex says to the laptop screen, gesturing with his plastic fork. It slips out of his fingers and falls onto the floor, and both of them stare at it for ten seconds before John sighs and offers up his own.

“Take mine,” he says, handing it over.

Alex takes it, sheepish grin spread across his face and John is torn between kissing him and smacking him. Instead he tears open one of the packs of chopsticks that the Chinese place sent in the bag. Alex is lucky he's cute.

87.

The air mattress is not comfortable and John is positive that it has a hole in it because it's not nearly as inflated as it was when they first sat down on it. But that could also be because Alex is on top of him, kissing his neck and grinding his hips down and maybe this air mattress just cannot handle so much activity.

“Can I suck your dick?” Alex asks.

“You don't have to ask.”

88.

They leave Tampa Bay at four in the morning. The original plan was to leave at five, but neither of them could really sleep. The sun isn't up yet and Alex keeps yawning in the seat beside him, feet up on the dashboard as they follow the U-Haul truck they rented.

“I'm gonna play Candy Crush to keep me awake,” Alex informs him, pulling out his phone. He opens up the app and the car is filled with annoying music and John really wants to tell him to just sleep instead.

“Have fun,” he says instead, leaning back in his seat.

89.

At a rest stop in North Carolina, John finds out that the Powerball lottery is up to an insanely high number. So he buys a ticket.

“Dude, are you kidding?” Alex asks when he comes back from the bathroom to find John holding four different tickets. “They just want your money. We'll never win.”

John shrugs and hands Alex one of his many tickets. “I bought you a ticket.”

90.

Their new apartment is completely empty. There's not a single piece of furniture and John has a brief moment of panic. They don't have nearly enough stuff to fill this place up. They don't even have the funds to really go out and buy anything, either.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Aex tells him, pressing one of the keys that the realtor had given them earlier into the palm of John’s hands. He kisses the side of John’s head and squeezes his arm as he says, “Welcome home.”

91.

They've been in the apartment for almost five hours now but nothing has gotten done. The boxes are still piled high in the kitchen and living room and the couch and the recliner are just sitting in the middle of the room. The only piece of furniture that they actually managed to move was the mattress. Because that's important.

John rides Alex in the middle of the mattress, hands pressed against his chest to keep him steady and Alex’s fingers are painting bruises into his hips and John briefly wonders if they have neighbors on the other side of this wall. If so, they can totally hear him moaning and repeating Alex's name like it's the only word he knows. That might make things awkward when they officially meet at some point.

“You're fucking gorgeous,” Alex tells him, out of breath and about to come and John can only lean down and kiss him in response because he kind of forgot how to speak.

92.

John wakes up before Alex does. It's Sunday and it's raining and the only thing they have unpacked is their sheets and a single hand towel. John figures since he's up, he should probably get started on everything else.

He showers and changes into the sweatpants he had packed away in his backpack and feeds Snowball before he gets started on setting up the living room. He unrolls the rug and puts it in the middle, thinks that maybe it looks pretty good there. Possibly. He's not very good at this whole decorating thing.

He's almost got the couch in a pretty okay spot (he thinks) when Alex comes up behind him, still naked but definitely wet from the shower.

“Can we like, put this on pause?” He asks, slipping his arms tightly around John’s waist. “I'm taking you out for breakfast.”

John doesn't need to be told twice.

93.

“Hey, John.”

Alex's voice is so low and John is almost too distracted picking out a good pack of strawberries to hear him. But Alex is never one to go ignored. He kicks John in the ankle and when John turns around to tell him to fuck off, he holds a pear up in front of his face.

“We make a great pear.”

John blinks at him, mouth still open to tell him to fuck off. Instead he says, “You're such a nerd.”

94.

They still haven't unpacked. It's been two days and they have their fridge set up, their bed put together and the TV plugged into the wall in front of the couch. Snowball has a bed in the corner of their room and her food and water in the kitchen. Almost everything else is still in boxes and despite John’s best efforts to try and unpack, it just doesn't seem to work out.

“Let's watch another movie. You can pick,” Alex says when the first movie is over, the credits rolling on the screen. John should say no, that they need to really unpack and get everything set up so their home actually looks like a home.

But Alex squeezes him tighter to his side, gets Netflix going on the TV and John can't bring himself to stop this. Because while it may not look much like a home in here, it definitely feels like one.

95.

“I dunno, this looks about right.”

John tilts his head. Alex is holding the picture frame on the wall and John thinks it might look a little bit crooked. But maybe not. He doesn't exactly have a great eye for this.

“Just - I dunno. Just hang it there. I trust your judgement.”

Alex puts the frame down, takes the nail and puts it just about where John told him to. He hammers it into the wall, hangs the picture on it and steps back to admire his work.

“Wow,” he says, nodding to himself. “That is really fucking crooked.”

John has to agree with him. “Yeah. It really is.”

“Do we care?”

“No. We don't.”

“Thank God.”

96.

John has a job interview on the same day that Alex has a meeting with the principle of the high school he'll be working at in the fall. He has his folder full of lesson plans and outlines and mock up tests and projects all ready to go and he's wearing the new tie his mom bought him and he looks like a nervous wreck.

“Relax, will you? At least you've already got the job,” John reminds him, smoothing a hand down his back while he pours himself some coffee. “Me on the other hand…”

Alex shakes his head, “You're gonna get that job. They're gonna love you. They'd be crazy not to.”

John just hopes he's right.

97.

“It's just - it doesn't pay as well as I hoped it would.”

Alex shrugs at that, and John wishes he would take this a little more seriously. He's been offered the job he interviewed for, but it was a little bit of a letdown as far as the salary was concerned. But it's in a nice location, a short drive from home and the class size is manageable and honestly, it's kind of ideal for where John is in life right now. He just wishes the decision were a lot easier to make.

“I know you're stressed about it, but I don't think you need to be,” Alex tells him, and John wants to roll his eyes. “Listen - you like the school?”

“Yeah-”

“You like the director?”

“Yes, but-”

“You felt comfortable there?”

John doesn't answer that one because he knows where this is going. Alex takes his hands into his own and he's smiling like he knows he's just won this argument. “John, I just want you to be happy. Nothing else matters. Take that job. The money isn't important right now.”

It sounds so much easier than it really is, John thinks. But he smiles and nods anyway, because he knows it’s what Alex wants.

98.

“You make me happy,” John mumbles later that night, laying in bed while Alex is trying to set up the TV on their dresser. Snowball is curled up on Alex’s pillow, completely ignoring her own bed in the corner of the room.

“Yeah, well. It's mutual,” Alex reminds him, and John knows now that he's going to take that job.

99.

It's August and it's hot and their AC is on full blast and it's John’s birthday.

John is twenty-three and Alex is on one knee in the middle of the kitchen, a thick gold band in the palm of his hand and John almost drops the carton of eggs on the hardwood floor.

“Jesus - Yes.”

100.

“Mercury is in retrograde,” Alex tells him the next morning, lying on his stomach in the middle of the bed and scrolling through the phone. “My horoscope is gonna be whack.”

John looks down at the ring in his finger, not sure he'll ever be used to seeing it there. “I love you,” he says, and he knows he doesn't say it nearly enough as he'd like to.

Alex laughs, looks up from his phone, “Believe me, I know.”