Miles Away

John manages to suffer through a few classes until it’s time for him to head to his lunch, and the first thing that he does is messages Alex again. He doesn’t get a reply, but he didn’t expect one back right away since it was a school day, and obviously Alex is in school just like he is.

As he made his way into the cafeteria, he spotted Pat and Kennedy sat together hand in hand, and he couldn’t help but smile. He was relieved to see his friends, and he was also inwardly dying at just how cute they were together. As salty as he acted, he really loved them together.

When he reached the table, he dropped his bag onto the uncomfortable seat next to him and then sat down across from his two friends. “Hey guys,” He greets tiredly, already worn out from the day. It was normal for him, though, since school really wore him out.

He couldn’t wait to graduate already.

Pat gives John a shy smile as Kennedy greets him in return with, “Hey, dude. You look like you’re ready to pass out, or something.” He couldn’t be more correct, and maybe John should get more sleep, but… sleep was boring, and sleep didn’t have Alex in it.

“I am, honestly. I didn’t get much sleep this weekend,” He shrugs as he speaks as if this was normal news, reaching into his backpack to pull out a small bag of chips that he was going to call his lunch. He sets it on the table, and while he opens it, he doesn’t notice Kennedy’s raised eyebrow.

Although John had a history of having trouble falling and staying asleep, Kennedy still took it upon himself to question the other boy about it. “Why?” He asks, making sure to keep his voice kind. He was surprisingly good at it, though he could be intimidating.

“I was… I actually called a friend I met recently for the first time this weekend. It was pretty fun, but we stayed up pretty late talking. We do that a lot,” John admits, rubbing his face with one of his hands. He really was tired, and it was becoming more and more apparent the longer he sat down. He was tempted to shove his chips back in his bag and take a nap right here and now.

“What’s their name?” Kennedy asks, and John can’t help but blush, something he didn’t do too often until more recently. He couldn’t help it came to talking or thinking about Alex, really.

“He must be a pretty big deal if you’re blushing like that,” Pat hums out, leaning his head on Kennedy’s shoulder as he lets out a soft giggle.

“His name is Alex,” John says, voice quiet as he does so. He was now trying to hide his head in his hands to hide his obvious bright red cheeks.

“Alex?” Kennedy repeats as he raises his eyebrows, “Does he have a last name?”

“It’s not that important…”

Kennedy shrugs and rolls his eyes in response as Pat finally cuts in. “It is if you decide to marry him.” He has a smile on his face, but then again, when doesn’t he?

“We’re not even dating!” John says, a little louder than he should have. He doesn’t want to attract any attention, because attention being on him was never his thing.

“And besides, when did Mr. Hardass No-Feelings decide he liked anyone?” Kennedy says nonchalantly, smirking in the slightest. They did know about John’s account, after all, and they had been friends for a long time now.

“Since when have you called me--” He starts, but then he cuts himself off with a scoff and a shake of the head. He eats a couple of his chips so he didn’t leave without eating at all, before continuing. “I don’t even like him like that! We’re just good friends!”

“Good friends,” Pat repeats mockingly, making air quotes with his fingers.

John groans, pushing his chips away before buries his head in his arms to try and ignore the other two teenagers. “You two are unbearable sometimes.”

Kennedy snorts and then reaches over to snatch the other’s snack, mumbling, “Hey, just be glad Jared and Garrett don’t know. You wouldn’t ever hear the end of it if the two of them knew about it.”

“As if I’m going to ever hear the end of it from you two,” John can’t help but whine, letting one of his eyes peek out from under his arms to look up at Kennedy. He knew the both of these things were true.

“But we’ll at least try to avoid telling them for a while,” The younger of the two says, trying to at least give John one good thing about the situation.

“You better fuckin’ keep your word on that, Brock.”

Pat giggles again, but when does he not. One of the many good things about Pat Kirch was the fact that he never seemed to be in a bad mood, even when he was away from Kennedy. John envied him, kind of. Something about that happy-go-lucky attitude always made him at least a little bit jealous in his worse moods. He lifts his head up, and looks at Kennedy just in time for the other to speak again.

“When have I even broken a promise, O’Callaghan?” Kennedy asks, but it’s more of a rhetorical question, and John simply glares at him in response. If he had some time, John could probably name a few. They mostly involved alcohol, of course. If John was in a good mood, he did tend to party a little more than most. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it didn’t really help when Kennedy promised to look after John, only to leave him to go fuck Pat or something. John didn’t really know for sure where he went, and honestly, he didn’t care to. He didn’t want to know what they always ended up doing together.

John finally shakes his head, shaking away all of those thoughts. “Anyways, Alex isn’t from around here. He’s from the east coast, I’m pretty sure. I think he said Baltimore specifically, if I remember right….” John furrows his eyebrows as he tries to remember all of the details, but he does smile at the next detail he’s about to tell them. “He got into ASU. He said that was his top pick and everything too, so… maybe I’ll have an opportunity to meet him in person soon, like…. When we’re both there.”

“Does he know you’re going there and all?” Kennedy’s attention is fully on John now, curious but also somewhat concerned for his friend. They were all best friends, after all, and that was normal.

John doesn’t look at them directly when Kennedy speaks, and finally, John speaks up again. “Uh. No, actually. I figured it’d be a good surprise, y’know? Like, ‘hey, you knew i was from Arizona, but surprise, no we’re going to the same college!’” John’s face goes red a little bit, especially when Kennedy groans at what he says.

“John, you can’t… you can’t do that, okay? That could seriously fuck things up. I know you’re some kind of hopeless romantic, but that is not a good idea,” The boy opposite of him warns, but John doesn’t listen. Then again, he doesn’t usually listen to the warnings directed towards him.

John just shrugs at his words, but he does at least smile. “But what if it works out? What if it ends up being some kind of great surprise?”

“Then you’d be a lucky bastard,” Kennedy says, almost gritting his teeth.

“What can I say? It’s the luck of the Irish,” John straight up grins, mostly because he was in fact messing with Kennedy in a rather successful way for once. This didn’t usually happen on a regular basis. But, then again, John did have a pretty good streak for fucking things up tremendously just because he thought it’d be better his way and not anyone else’s. Not to mention, he didn’t listen to warnings he was given or advice.

Needless to say, his own intuition wasn’t the best sometimes. He definitely needed to work on that.

The only response he get’s is a huff and shake of his head again at the words, but he doesn’t really do much more than that, as Pat starts to distract him with something he wanted to tell him, apparently. John doesn’t really listen though, as he instead decides to pull out his phone so he could look at twitter. Though, the only tweets he would see were Alex’s, considering he didn’t follow anyone else.

Not that he minded.

John does end up tweeting something new, though. Something he definitely could relate to at the moment, when all of his thoughts were all coming back to one person: Alex.

@johnmaine:
I miss you more than I probably should.

As if on cue, John got a new message, one that made him smile.

did I miss anything?

Alex. Just who he wanted.

Uh… Not really, actually.
I’m just at lunch right now. I have a couple friends I’m sitting with.

has anything happened?

No, thankfully. I’m really glad.
I really miss you, though.

hey, i miss you too.

That’s gay.

i’m gay.

Wow, me too. How cool is that?

It’s then that John get interrupted by Kennedy shoving his shoulder. When did he stand up? He notices now that everyone in the room is up, and with an eye roll his best friend mumbles, “The bell rang, you idiot.”

John says nothing as he gets up, shoving his phone in his pocket. He grabs his bag and rushes off to class, knowing he can’t be late another day. He had already gotten a bunch of detentions from tardiness. Alex would understand.

Which, he does. He doesn’t question John not replying and just suddenly disappearing, and instead he decides he could definitely sleep through his last class. He had barely slept last night trying to stay up with John, and hey, it wasn’t like the teacher would miss his stupid jokes.