So, this is yet another collab I'm working on with, though it's not Hiei this time. I'm working on this fiction with the ever lovely RichKat96 on DeviantART, and pretty much whatever fanfiction goes on dA comes here (and to Archive :3). But, it's present day, Adam and Tommy are high school students. Adam's the theatre geek no one really likes and Tommy's the hot shot from Chicago. Enjoy~

I have Adam's POV and the odd chapters, she has Tommy's POV and the even chapters.

Chapter One: For here I am sitting in a tin can

Adam's POV

"…if you'll turn to page three hundred and ninety-seven of your textbooks, we will begin discussing today's lesson on the works of Edgar Allen Poe…"

I hated English. The language was fine. The, culture of people, I guess you could say, was pretty fucking rad (I had a bit of a soft spot for Europe in general, you know). But I hated the class; the study of English. It made no sense to me. While the stores and concepts of Edgar Allen Poe' and Romeo and Juliet were nice, I had no real interest in them. Well, Romeo and Juliet was a different story, considering that was theatre and I was a theatre geek, to put it lightly. Like, a huge theatre geek.

But I hated English. The class would often bore me to tears. Learning "advanced" grammar and the reasons why Odysseus was basically an ass to his crewmates, and for the love of God (well, not really, I'm not religious) would someone please explain to me the importance to read poetry about houses? Whatever. It didn't exactly help that my teacher had the most monotone voice on the face of the planet, either. But beggars can't be choosers, eh?

Fortunately, it was really the only class I couldn't handle. I had Varsity choir in the morning, followed by Advanced Algebra. Lunch, English, and my Theatre class to follow and finish the day. Yeah, four classes a day, it was pretty freaking nice, to be honest. Four eighty-minute periods with a forty minute lunch, from ten to nine until three thirty. Not too shabby, in my opinion. It was just this damned English class made it a little less than bearable.

Ugh. Whatever.

I pulled out a spiral notebook from the inside of my binder, being as quiet as possible while Mr. Monotone continued to drone on and on and on. I pulled a pen from the side pouch of my bag, flipping open to a clean page. No one paid mind to me. They were either asleep, doodling, texting, or, if they were actually smart, they were paying attention to the lesson. I pressed my hand to my cheek, leaning on my elbow as I stared down at the page for a long moment.

I pressed the tip of the pen to the page, scrawling out words. Words became lines, and lines became lyrics. I wasn't really thinking about any of it, only the fact that I was incredibly bored and had nothing better to do. Blue swirled across the page, and while I personally hated my handwriting, everyone else (and by that, I mean my teachers) seemed to find it "elegant". How they saw elegance in my handwriting, I will never know.

I glanced up at the clock. We were only half an hour into the lesson. Awesome. Still about another hour of this before I'd be free and to one of my favorite classes of the day. The idea of it kind of depressed me, having to sit through a subject I already knew just about everything on, and yet I couldn't skip. If my parents found out that I skipped, I'd be shot for certain. Okay, maybe not, but they certainly wouldn't be happy with me. As it was, they weren't pleased about the occasional phone call of my falling asleep in this class. Whatever. My younger brother, Neil, would fall asleep in his classes all the time, and they didn't give him crap about it.

I turned to another page in my journal when the door open and clicked close. Mr. Monotone looked up to the back of the room, as did the rest of the class, but I didn't. I didn't care. It was probably some sort of teacher aid or student worker from the office bring in a note. I sat on the outside row, and I kept my head down, but when I glanced to my left and saw a skinny pair of legs covered with black jeans and ratty converse I looked up. The kid was wearing a dark red tank top with a long sleeved, fish net shirt over it. I could see the chains and clasps of various necklaces around his neck. The back of the head was kinda shaved, and it sort of melted into thick blond hair that looked as if it was brushed over one eye. The shaved half was a light brown color, like a golden brown color.

There were whispers between the new student and Mr. Monotone, and eventually he looked towards the class to speak. "Class, this is Thomas Joe Ratliff. Please treat him with respect." His voice lowered and he looked in my direction. "Alright, son, you can sit over there, the seat in front of Adam. Lambert, raise your hand." He raised his voice to get my attention. I raised an eyebrow and half-waved at the kid. I hadn't really paid attention, but when I got a look of his face, I had to look away to keep from staring.

His skin was pale, porcelain like, you know? Not deathly. And even with his blond hair flipped over part of his face, he didn't look like an emo kid. There was a thin smudging of liner around his dark brown eyes. And even for a man, he had lips that reminded me of Twiggy (and if you don't know who that is, then I'm ashamed of you). He sat down in the desk in front of me, keeping his head low as he set his bag down by his feet, pulling out his binder and a journal.

There was a gnawing at my stomach to talk to him, but I knew I couldn't in the middle of class. Not only would I probably be given a detention, but this kid looked like he didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't blame him. I scratched the back of my head, running my fingers through my newly dyed black hair. I was sick of my natural strawberry blond, and so I'd asked my family if I could dye it. Fortunately, they said I could, and they didn't even say anything when I came home with black hair (and eyebrows. I'm not dumb) the next day. But my braces were something I'd have to deal with for at least another six months. Ugh.

I scribbled across the page, trying desperately to kill time and think of lyrics. Yeah, I liked writing. I knew of a lot of people who didn't, and in all honesty, they were idiots not to like it. Writing was such a relaxing way to vent and express oneself. And when I glanced up at the board and over Mr. Ratliff's shoulder, I could see clearly that he thought the same thing. I couldn't make out what he was writing, but judging by the spacing it was lyrics, or maybe poetry. There were letters scrawled above certain words. Chords with lyrics. He composed? Or maybe he played and memorized everything enough to copy it down without reference.

I sighed softly, returning to my page of scribbles and doodles. It wasn't anything special though. In the corner, I was half-consciously drawing the Eye of Horus. I was huge into Egypt and the Gods, the universe, the whole shebang. I felt more connected to it than religion. Not that I was against religion or God, because I wasn't. I just… It was hard to explain, really. I glanced up at the clock again. Forty more minutes. Shit.

I shifted my gaze, staring at the back of Thomas Joe Ratliff's head. I wondered if he liked being called Thomas or Tommy. Or what about Tom? If it was Tommy, was it just Tommy or Tommy Joe? I looked away again. Why was I so concerned about how he wanted to be called? I shouldn't have been concerned with his name or how he looked or the fact that I just wanted to reach up and run my fingers through those golden and brown locks—

Whoa, snap out of it, Adam.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes and staring down at my paper again. I couldn't think straight. Not that I'd written anything remarkable prior to Mr. Thomas Joe Ratliff entering the classroom and sitting down in front of me, but at least I had an idea. And now I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if my brain decided to shut off. I twirled a lock of my hair beside my left ear, staring at the doodles and random scribbles from other famous songs. I gnawed on my bottom lip.

Go ahead, take another look up at him.

And I did. I lifted my gaze to the back of his head again, imagining his face. Beautiful pale skin, gorgeous brown eyes. Yeah, I'm gay, so what? It wasn't like I was shouting it to the world though. It was something I kept to myself more than anything. I mean, my family knew about it, but no one else did. But I had to wonder… Was Mr. Ratliff…? Doubtful. He didn't seem like the type of guy to swing with people like me. But I could be wrong.