Edmund makes a noise like a mildly upset cat.

James sporfles and hugs him. "You are adorable."

Hug. With only a little bit of desperate rubbing against James' thigh.

"You should maybe channel your memories of this timeline a bit more to deal with the horny. Or at least hold it until we have enough time that you can fuck me properly."

"It's not just the horny. I never properly had a boyfriend before."

"Oh, well, same."

"It's just, you know, you're right there. It makes it hard. To concentrate."

"Not the only hard thing, here. —I know, I know, but it was right there."

"Congratulations on the basic pattern recognition."

With a quick kiss, Edmund vanishes into the crowd of the hallway, heading towards his next class.

James has a plan.

...well, the beginnings of one. Really, more like an aspiration. Something that might grow into a plan someday.

But he's not patient enough for someday, so instead what he'll do is try to do something today. Later.

In the meantime he runs into Tintin and commences project Become Tintin's Friend.

"Hi again!"

"Hallo!" Tintin says. "-oh, we would run into each other, wouldn't we, aren't we in Biology together next? I hadn't really noticed because we hadn't met..."

I noticed, he doesn't say, because it isn't really true, he only noticed Tintin at the orgy and also probably this would come off less like flirting and more like stalking—

—actually, no, in this timeline he did notice. Tintin was much more obviously incredibly hot naked.

—that doesn't actually make it better.

"Yeah. You find someone to sit with yet?"

"No, not yet. Are you offering? Will you be leaving whoever you otherwise planned to sit with terribly bereft? Well, I suppose whoever it is would be more likely to have backup friends than I am."

"My usual suspects aren't in AP bio and my unusual suspects probably have other backups, yeah. Besides, I'm on the welcoming committee," because he's a nerd in this timeline, "so it is my job to welcome new students."

"I'd be delighted, then. Science goes much more smoothly with a lab partner you can trust."

"Not sure high school biology really counts as science. More like playing in the playground next to science."

"A science-themed playground, at least! You are not wrong that it is not real, but it is real enough that an unhelpful lab partner can fuck it up."

"That you are not wrong about," he agrees easily. And here's the bio classroom.

They can sit together! The teacher has placed an instruction sheet and a supply bin at each table for their first lab, which will be extracting DNA from strawberries.

"Oh, that sounds fun," Tintin says.

"In specific or in general?"