49

Winston emerges from the classroom with dead eyes, nearly limping on the floor, body heavy and mind blanking. He's not entirely sure what the lesson was even about; he's got five pages of notes but no memory of any of it.

Gary's waiting for him along the wall, a bit away to avoid the sea of students milling out the classroom's two doors in droves. Winston ambles between them, slow and nearly tilting from side-to-side. He regrets taking this class oh-so-very-much.

"Hey," Gary says, pushing off the wall with a foot when Winston's close enough to touch, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into a loose hug.

Winston uses this chance to flop onto him, thereby pushing Gary right into the wall to carry both their weights.

"Hey," Winston drags out, eyes slipping shut. He breathes in Gary's familiar scent and just kind of lies on him for a second.

"Winnie?" Gary sounds slightly confused. "What's up?"

"I have already forgotten everything," Winston whines, pushing his head deeper into the perfect space where Gary's neck meets the shoulder.

Gary is silent for a second, then asks, "Oh, you mean class?"

"Yeah," Winston groans.

Gary laughs, finally patting his back. Winston sighs, "Oh, you poor dear," Gary pats him some more, running his hand up and down the length of Winston's spine. Winston sighs once more, opening his eyes and staring at the wall.

He lets go of Gary when his back is starting to ache, and Gary lets him go, transitioning to an arm-grip again. Winston holds onto his hand for a second, then lets go and start walking. Gary asks, "Do you wanna talk about it?" as they're fighting their way through the throng of students in the halls.

The downside of all the classes having the same start and end time is that hallways are always flooded with students in between classes, and it's sometimes (metaphorically, thankfully) life-threatening to move between classrooms.

They struggle their way up to the next floors, going in a single-line file up the stairs to protect themselves from the people running up and down at breakneck speeds.

On the next floor, there's marginally less students, and the rush of people is thankfully starting to fade as people arrive at their destinations. Winston and Gary, too, don't have a lot of distance left to cover for one of the rare classes that they actually share.

The coveted benches outside the classroom are already full, and they settle against a wall to wait. Winston and Gary sink together, leaning against each other, and Gary pulls up his phone to display the latest conversation between them.

"You never answered me," he pouts as he waves the screen full of memes under Winston's nose.

Winston wrinkles his nose. "I forgot?" and it ends up more a question than anything else.

Gary snorts, puffing his cheeks out and glaring at Winston. "You forgot me," he accuses Winston, poking Winston's stomach. "You fiend," Gary adds to truly emphasize how mean Winston is. And truly, Winston is mean. So mean.

Laughing at his own thoughts, Winston squeezes out "Poor you," between his snickers.

Gary narrows his eyes and pokes Winston's stomach again. "So, come on, what were you guys doing that kept you so distracted? When I drop memes like that you usually get dragged into it, but this time you only LOL'd me. So come on? Tell me..." Gary pouts.

And Winston can not win against that expression. "It was a calculated decision," he nonetheless tries to defend himself. "For optimal efficiency."

Gary gasps audibly. "Oh, you liar," he breathes, "You're a dirty little liar," he repeats, eyes wide and gleefully sparkling, like somebody has poured glitter right into them. Winston wrinkles his nose at that thought, unsure where it came from, but Gary is lowering his voice, leaning closer so they won't be overheard by the other dozen students loitering in the hall, and says:

"Were you guys actually canoodling? Because you know I'd one-hundred percent be down to listen to you about that."

Winston furrows his brows and tosses Gary an odd look with his head tilted. "You want to listen to me and Jason canoodling?"

Gary stares at him, uncomprehending. Then he shakes his head and emphasizes, "No, I meant that if you want to talk about your experience, you know, gossip like ladies do on TV shows, I'd be down for that. But like, I don't want a play-by-play recount, or whatever. Just... tell me if you had fun. Or hated it. Or whatever. Okay?"

"Okay," says Winston. Gary wiggles his eyebrows at him, so Winston peeks around them, lowers his voice even further, and leans toward Gary. "We just kissed," he admits.

Gary gasps. "You kissed?" Then his eyebrows furrows. "Wait, have you guys kissed before. You have, right? And I assume you liked it, since you're kissing again." Then he pouts, "So then why wouldn't you tell me?"

"I definitely did," Winston defends himself, despite having no memory of any such thing. But he might have mentioned it in passing at some point while Gary was distracted?

Maybe.

Gary crosses his arms over his chest, shakes his head and says, "Nuh-uh, you did not."

"Oh my god, you're a loser," declares Winston after a second of bewildered staring. Gary glares at him, kicking his shin, and Winston rolls his eyes. Gary kicks his shin once more, then, and Winston is forced to admit defeat lest he gets bruised. Despite Gary's gentle kicks.

...Winston is delicate, okay.

"Alright, sorry, you're not a loser," Winston gives in to the peer pressure.

"Aha, so you surrender!" Gary smugly declares, raising his chin and figuratively looking down on him. The mill of students around them gtow by quite a bit when a whole group of people bustle onto the floor, settling in while arguing all the while. Winston and Gary shuffle in the hall until they're out of elbow range.

Once that goal is achieved, they go right back to their playing.

"I never surrender," says Winston. "I am merely giving you a win to spare your feelings."

"Hmm?" Gary raises an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"That is so," Winston reiterates.

Gary snickers, eyes curving evilly. "So it wasn't you who ran away from me the last time I wanted to play cards with you?"

Winston's eyes widen and gasps, taking a step back. "How could you?" he asks in utterly betrayed despair, taking yet another step back for good measure.

Gary laughs in a distinctly evil fashion. "Oh, there's no blow too low for me to hit. I am a wandering and you are lucky that I'm your arch-nemesis. Not every evil supervillain is as thoughtful as I." He sniffs disdainfully.

Winston manages to hold out for about two seconds and then he loses the battle against the laughter that's been building inside him for minutes now.

Bursting into snickers, Winston tries to hide it behind his hands but he's still loud and can still feel dozens of gazes peering at him before losing interest seconds later. Anyway, Gary lasts about for seconds before he, too, bursts into wild bouts of laughter and a second turn of attention befalls them.

They're still snickering when they finally get to enter the classroom, hanging arm in arm on each other as they clamber up the stairs to their place. Settling in beside each other, Winston leans close and whispers "You're a loser, but you're my loser" into Gary's ear.

Gary peeks at him. He smiles, small and uncharacteristically shy. "You're my favorite loser too," Gary says, patting Winston's leg under the table.

The class is starting so they straighten up and pay proper attention, Winston smiling to himself as he sorts his pens and notebook and textbooks on the table, placing them just right. Gary, meanwhile, has an utter, disorganized mess on his.