28th October 2016

John's POV:

"JOHN YOU BITCH, WAKE UP!" Alex shouted, sitting on my chest.

"Good morning to you too, baby." I groaned, shoving him to the side and rolling over, trying to get more sleep before class. He fell to the floor with a thud, yelping as he did so.

Perfect, maybe he'll finally be quiet.

"JOHN!"

Maybe not.

Groggily, I leaned my head over the edge of the bed to where he was sat.

"Alex, what do you want? It's literally..." I paused to check the time "6:13. Class doesn't start for another hour."

He smiled and blushed slightly before mumbling something.

"Sorry, what did you say?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

He twiddled his thumbs and looked away from me. "Well, I wanted to give you your birthday present before class."

My eyes widened and I looked around frantically for my phone before spotting it on the nightstand.

"Birthday? Shit, is that today?" I grabbed my phone and saw that yes, today is my birthday. Huh. Also, I have a fuckton of messages, wow, since when do I have that many friends?

"Yeah baby, how did you forget?" He looks at me with an expression that reads as 'how could you be so stupid?'.

"Uh, I don't know honestly. I guess since I got that job with you and Laf, work has been piling up more than usual and I've just lost track of what day it is at this point. Oh shit, I'm 21 now." I mumble awkwardly.

We laugh a little as he stands up and walks over to his desk, picking up a small box that is awfully wrapped.

"Damn Alex, I didn't know you were so good at gift-wrapping!" I exclaim, pretending to admire the box.

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever, don't judge it just yet, at least see what's inside before being too harsh on me."

I pat the bed next to me, signalling for him to sit down. He does so and wraps an arm around my waist, snuggling into me.

"I hope you like this, I've had to cut down on buying coffee from work to pay for this." He chuckles.

I unwrap the box to reveal a camera with a note attached to it-

My dearest, John,

I bought you this camera so that you can take high quality photos for your art rather than using your shitty phone one. Seriously, with that and a cracked screen, I'm surprised how you can still get your work so good. So, instead of that, you'll now be able to upload your pictures to your laptop and

I stopped reading. "Alex, I don't have a laptop, that's why I got a job in the first place."

"Well... I was supposed to wait until we're with the others at lunch, but we've all put money together and bought you a laptop, the sisters have it right now though." He said timidly.

My confused expression turns into a huge grin and I pull him into a hug.

"Thank you Lexi, for the camera and for everything. I love you." I whispered, kissing his cheek.

"You're welcome John, I love you too." He returned, pulling our faces together in a kiss. Even now, whenever he kisses me, holds my hand or says he loves me, my heart beats faster and I can always feel a blush form on my cheeks.

We break apart and look at each other lovingly, still holding one another.

"Well, I guess we should get ready for class." I sigh.

"John, it's 6:20." He deadpans.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I said with a smirk, holding him closer.

"Actually, I just thought of one." He looked at me suggestively, causing me to practically melt in his arms.

"And what would that be, Mr Hamilton?"

"Taking a shower." He stood up abruptly, causing me to fall to my side on the bed.

"You're such a fucking tease, Alexander." I groaned.

He whipped his head back around, holding onto the bathroom doorframe. "Did I ever say I was going alone?"

A smile spread onto my face yet again as I scrambled to my feet, chuckling as I reached my hand out to Alex which he took, pulling me into the bathroom after him.

---

Alex's POV:

After Aaron and I had grabbed a coffee together, we headed to class, since we have law together. We walked in and took our seats, joining in with the conversation Thomas and James were having behind us. A few minutes later, a man came through the door, he was wearing a paint stained apron and had a paintbrush behind his ear. He looked somewhat familiar, but I don't know where from and it was hard to tell from a distance.

"Hey guys, Mr and Mrs Washington aren't here, and probably won't be for a while, but you don't have a cover teacher for today, so you guys can just go I guess." He announced, rubbing his wrinkled forehead.

"Yo, how come?" Thomas questioned, causing a sea of murmurs to wash over the room.

The man sighed and scratched his head. "Their surrogate mother is having their kid like, right now, so they left."

A chorus of 'oh's spread across the room as everyone turned to each other, shrugging, and packing up their stuff to leave again. Aaron and I walked back to our dorms together.

"Damn, I bet John is going to love you being back so early." Aaron commented, taking a long drink of his tea.

"Yeah, he always complains about how his classes are only in the morning and mine are until four." I chugged down the rest of my coffee and chucked the cup into a trash can along the way back to the dorms.

"So, how are you and Theo then?" I said, nudging him. He groaned out of embarrassment.

"Well, now that we know we're both here we are going to be getting coffee together in the mornings. God, I really do think that I love her Alex, I really do. She's so perfect." He pulled out his wallet, taking the photo of Theodosia from it and looking at it lovingly.

"Man I wish I had someone who would look at me like you look at that photo." I complained.

"Dude John literally always looks at you like it's the only thing keeping him alive, he is head over heels for you." He said, narrowing his eyes. We walked through the main door for our dorm block and went up the stairs.

"Oh yeah, well good luck on the whole Theo thing." I said condescendingly, patting his back. He rolled his eyes and got his key from his pocket.

"Well thanks for everything, Alexander. It's been a blast." He said sarcastically, unlocking his door.

"Anytime, Burr." I waved to him as he disappeared into his room.

I shoved my hand into my pocket to grab my own key...shit. It's in my other pants. Well, hopefully John is in? Let's be honest, he's probably either doing an amazing piece of art or a meaningless doodle on the corner of a page.

I raised my hand to knock as I looked through the peeph-

Oh my God.

I pull my eyes away, turn around sharply and slam my back against the door, my face a bright red colour as I silently, yet hysterically laugh.

John was sat on the edge of our bed, a towel wrapped around his head, but no towel anywhere else.

'Why did he take another shower? We took one earlier, but I guess we didn't really get much showering done.' I think to myself smugly.

After collecting myself, making sure I'm completely calm, I knock on the door and lean casually against the wall. John appears in the doorway a minute later, the towel still wrapped around his head but he had clothes on now, ones that were clearly thrown on haphazardly since he was wearing one of my jumpers and his own pants, backwards.

"Hey baby, what are you doing here so early?" He says casually.

"Oh, Washington and his wife are having a kid, well their surrogate mother is, so our class got cancelled. Why are your pants on backwards?"

A deep blush formed on his cheeks as he stammered for an answer, and honestly the redness of his cheeks made him look cuter than ever.

"I-I, uh, I just-"

"Hey, maybe we should tell somebody about this peephole. Who knows what someone might look into." I interrupted.

His eyes widened and they nervously flickered down to his crotch.

"Fuck, did you-"

"Yep."

"Yeah maybe you're right, we probably should tell someone."

I pecked his cheek and walked past him into our room, setting my bag down on my chair and then heading back over to John.

"Happy birthday baby, when do you want to arrange to meet the others?"

"Whenever they're free, we don't have any plans for tonight." He gently took hold of one of my hands and started playing with it. Honestly, you'd never believe that he is 21.

"Actually, I'm making you dinner. I promise I won't burn any pasta this time."

"I still have no clue how you managed that." He chuckled, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. "I'll let you cook, but if you do anything that is so obviously wrong, I will intervene."

"Deal." I smiled, kissing him again.

20th September 2017