Library Bae

Alex had heard of pathetic fallacy, had spent the entirety of year eleven writing about it in his English GCSEs, and he felt it was grossly unfair that it wasn't in action today.

Because, despite being England, the land of miserable weather, the sun was out in full force. The temperature itself was somewhat mild since it was April but the whole campus looked pretty and they'd taken advantage of it. They were sat on the grass outside of the library, books and notes spread out around them, and the mood was light. It was nice, after all, to have everyone back from the Easter holidays, despite their impending summer exams.

Or it would be, if Scotty could shut up for a second.

"He said he was going to take me out for dinner. You know the new development in the city, with all the restaurants?" He didn't wait for a reply, continuing, "Yeah, they've got a Gourmet Burger Kitchen there and then we'll go get ice cream later."

Alex made a vague noise of interest, like he hadn't been hearing about this date for the past two days.

The girls, however, hadn't and they were genuinely curious. Claire and Tiffany had never been able to resist gossip and they leaned forward, abandoning all pretence of studying.

"Who is it?" Claire asked, "Is it hot gym guy?"

Scotty shook his head, "He's old news. This is a new guy I met on campus, my library bae."

"Your what?"

He shrugged, "You know, the attractive people you meet in the library when you're meant to be studying. We sat across from each other for a week and then he missed a day so, the next time I saw him, I asked him out."

"Aww," Claire cooed, "that's so cute!"

"What's his name?" Tiffany asked.

"His name's—"

"Marcus Heywood." Alex and Scotty spoke at the same time. Scotty looked a little surprised by Alex's interjection, opening his mouth to say something but Alex got there first, saying quickly, "Jinx!"

Scotty stared at him, mouth opening but no sound coming out.

"Oh my God!" Alex crowed. "If I'd known this was all it'd take to shut you up, I would've done it ages ago!"

Claire looked between the two of them, asking, "What's happening?"

"He's jinxed, he can't talk until someone says his name. It's bad luck," and, when Scotty looked like he was considering it, Alex added, "you wouldn't want bad luck when you have a date tonight."

"You're an asshole," Scotty mouthed.

Alex laughed, "I've had you distracting me with talk about Marcus ever since I came back to uni. Which would be fine, if you didn't keep going into explicit detail about his hands and ass. I do not need that!"

"Scotty here has a hand kink?" Tiffany asked, her face promising future teasing.

"Yeah. the worst, he's been torturing me with it. The least I can do is let him stew for a bit."

Scotty didn't agree with that, poking Alex every other second to grab his attention, but Alex had gotten pretty good at ignoring his best friend over the years. And there was the added fact that he did really need to study, because he'd neglected that when he went travelling for two weeks, which made it easy to block him out. He'd managed to get through a whole module's lectures by the time they were packing up and that was good for him.

"This was really helpful." He said, sitting up and stretching. "We should do it again. I always get distracted when I'm on my own."

"I think it helped that Sc- someone couldn't talk." Claire said, grinning when Scotty groaned.

"You're mean." Alex said, delighted the rest of them were teasing Scotty, too.

"You should say his name," Tiffany said, though she made no move to do so herself.

Alex considered it, "Hmm, no, you don't know how much I suffered."

"Was it worse than when he was talking about hot gym guy?"

"Hard to believe as it is, yes. Hot gym guy was a fantasy, Marcus is a real possibility and our boy here has quite an imagination."

Scotty punched him, and not softly.

"Hey! I am one third of the chance to get your voice back. Don't tempt me because you might just be Ariel tonight and I'll be the evil seawitch who stole your voice."

"You wouldn't do that," Claire said, "you're too invested in his love life."

Tiffany agreed. "I remember when you had lacrosse training three times a week and you were still going to the gym so that Scotty could—"

"You said my name!" Scotty yelled excitedly, startling her when he stole a hug. "I love you, Tiff, but the rest of you can go and fuck yourselves."

"Aww, I was going to mess with him a little longer," Alex pouted, "I had this great idea to call him a minute before his date."

Tiffany winced. "Sorry."

"It's fine, I'll get him later."

Without the jinx hanging over him, Scotty left quickly in order to get ready for his date and Claire joined him since they lived in the same halls. She was also probably the best person to give him advice on his outfit which saved the rest of them from the billion snapchats they'd otherwise get. Tiffany and Alex didn't stay much longer, either, because Alex needed to eat something and then nap.

Something turned out to be frozen pizza.

Because Alex was the epitome of a student, choosing to spend his money on societies and nights out rather than anything of real nutritional value. He made a lot of bad choices, really, like napping at six in the evening and then waking at three, completely unable to fall back asleep.

Well, shit, he might as well be productive.

He was lucky that the library was open twenty four hours a day and it was considerably less busy at night, a wealth of available seats that he rarely ever saw. He chose the first one with a computer, logging on and then letting his gaze run over the other occupants of the ground floor. There was a lot of comfy loungewear around, even a guy sleeping with a blanket covering him, and Alex felt a bit better about his Batman jammies and old leavers hoodie.

It was probably why it took Alex half an hour to recognise him.

He'd never seen hot gym guy anywhere else on campus, though Scotty swore he'd once seen him at the gay club in town. So, to Alex, hot gym guy was a tight Henley and loose shorts. This guy, with his snapback and sweater and jeans, didn't match up with Alex's idea of him. And then the guy sighed, taking off his cap and running a hand through his hair, and Alex's mind made the connection.

He'd spent a lot of time before the Easter holidays staring at the guy, after all. Scotty had insisted he couldn't go to the gym alone so Alex had had to accompany him. He whined about it but he couldn't complain too much - hot gym really was pretty hot. And he could pull off the nerdy look, too, apparently.

After that night, Alex started going to the library in the early hours of the morning. It was a much more studious environment than his own room and he was surprised by how many of his course mates and friends he'd see. It was helpful having them around and it made the nights a bit less dull.

"So," Alex said, leaning over his friend's shoulder, "what equation do I use for this question?"

"Poisson." She said. "It's addressing a number of events in a set time period and you just have to find the information in the question."

"So I use Poisson for the second part of the question, too?"

"No," she said, and that was the rub, "because they're asking something different here. There's no way you can just memorise which equation to use, you need to understand the question and what you're doing."

Alex groaned, "I hate stats."

"Preach," she muttered, pushing her chair back. "We need someone smart."

"I'm good with stats."

The ground floor was a space for group work and conversation and it was late so they hadn't been too quiet. He hadn't thought they'd been so noisy that someone would take that as an invitation to join in, though.

"I'm revising for my own stats exam anyway," and it was hot gym guy, holy crap, "so it'd help me as much as you."

And who was Alex to refuse an offer like that?

Hot gym guy was actually called Greg and he was in the year above, studying MORSE. It'd taken a few attempts for Alex to remember exactly what the acronym stood for but, when he successfully repeated it back, Greg had grinned at him and pulled him in for a hug. It'd felt pretty good having that directed at him.

They'd taken to sitting together and they'd normally work in silence unless Alex had any questions or Greg wanted to call time for a snack break or to show him something funny.

"Hey," Greg tugged at his arm, "I've got something to show you."

"Mm?"

He handed him one half of his earphones, "Put this in and watch the video. Try not to laugh."

It was a compilation of different clips, some of them mildly amusing and others that were hands down hilarious.

"You're a terrible person." Greg said, halfway through the video. "You're only laughing when children get hurt."

It wasn't that funny, if he was being honest, but it was teamed with the relative quiet of the library and Greg's outrage. He bit his lip hard, not trusting himself to speak.

"Well, now I know how to make you laugh."

Alex grinned. "I'm easy. Comedy clubs, funny videos, slapstick humour, that's all it takes for me."

"The union's has comedy nights on Thursdays. We could go."

Alex looked at him, "If that's a serious invitation, I'll take you up on it."

Greg smiled. "Definitely a serious invitation."

It wasn't a date, not officially, but that didn't stop Alex fretting over his clothes. Even though Greg had seen him in his pajamas, he wanted to look good and that caught his friends' attention.

"It's not a date."

"Yeah, sure," Scotty drawled, "so you won't mind us coming along with you."

Alex thought it'd be funny actually so he inclined his head, grinning. "Come along, sure. You should really meet Greg, I think you'll like him."