#[dwayne hoover voice] I HATE YOU FUCKING PEOPLE

[riddlingwife]

gonna need alexandre de moraes (supreme court guy) to actually shut down twitter in brazil like he promised he would like BRO yall argue over the stupidest shit!!! CAN YAL L GO OUTSIDE...??? CAN ANY OF YALL SHUT UP WHAT HAPPENED TO "GOOD MORNING HOW IS IT GOING GUYS" AND BEING NORMAL DO YOU HEAR YOURSELVES

[always-andromeda]

Hurricane (Johnnie's Theme) for Dwayne Hoover (aged up) please! 🥰

Author’s Note | I would like you to know, anon, that I have thought about this scenario over and over and over and I am finally so glad to have a place to write it out a little bit. lol, mwah, thank you for the request!!

If there's one thing that Dwayne hates about college English classes, it's how much people like to talk in them. So much mindless chatter that ultimately means nothing; contributes to nothing.

That's why you catch his eye. You don't speak up often. And when you do, you say something thoughtful. Something meaningful. And he finds very quickly that he likes the thoughts you decide to share. It makes his mind linger a little away from the literature. Makes him wish he could peruse the contents of your character.

To say you intrigue him is an understatement. He says he'll keep himself from getting too wrapped up. You're just another peer in another one of his stupid classes. The stupid classes he's keeping himself busy with until he decides what the fuck he wants to do with his life. But as long as he's stuck here...there shouldn't be any harm in indulging?

You try not to think too much about the dark haired guy in your English class. He has a way of making you feel like you're being watched all of the time. Even when you're in your dorm, you feel him staring between the lines in your textbook.

He's smart. Incredibly so. And he's cute. And he's very good at making you feel instantly self conscious. Every time you get to hear his smooth, ever so slightly nasally voice, you get nervous. He notices things that you don't. Yet you can tell he's in no hurry to impress the professor.

The way he counters your peers knocks the breath out of you and you're just counting down the days until you're next. You almost flinch explaining your perspective, waiting for him to jump in. That moment never comes. Looking back at where he sits in the corner, he sits with his arms wrapped around himself, leaning back in his seat as if he could hardly be bothered by the discussion.

This is how Dwayne ensures that he can observe everything. From his vantage point, he watches his peers and dissects them in his head; he watches you and wonders why he even cares so much. He barely understands the ache in his chest when class begins one morning and you're strangely missing.

The rational side of his mind tells him that you're just sick. Not a huge deal. He'll see you again another day.

Even though your voice isn't a sound he's well acquainted with, Dwayne finds himself filling in the blanks, imagining what you'd have to say about the reading this week. Maybe it's just a projection of his own thoughts. Maybe it's strange that when he thinks, it's you verbalizing the thought. Either way, he's fixated on you. And before he knows it, he's scrawling out notes with a new purpose. Surely they'll need to know what we talked about.

The week later you walk into class. Eyes bloodshot and nose running, you're obviously still sick. But you can't stand to miss another week.

Your mind is so foggy that you hardly even register his figure beside your seat until he clears his throat.

"Just thought I'd give you my notes." he says under his breath before nodding once and waiting for you to take the stack of lined papers in his hand. The second you hesitantly take them, he's off, striding to his little safe space in the back corner and mentally cursing himself for sounding so ominous.

As messy as his handwriting is, his notes are in depth and vibrant. And aside from the various due dates and key points of the lesson, you notice how much of his own opinions he put into the pages. And fuck, he's even more intelligent than you'd originally figured. This time, it doesn't scare you.

This time, it feels as though you've been let in on a secret. Like these were ideas that he kept guarded under lock and key. Yet you did something special enough to be considered worthy enough to read them. You don't take the gesture lightly. And you hope he intended for that. You hope that he's really as layered as you believe he is.

Plenty of guys love to wax poetic and pretend they're all that. But, Dwayne (you finally learned his name through his handwriting at the top of the first page) actually seems to be all that.

Dwayne doesn't reference other authors in his notes just to show off how many names he knows. He lists them like he has an intimate knowledge of them; like he's sat down with the author over a cup of tea and deciphered the intent of their work. Like he's filed them all away in some part of his brain specifically so he can mention them. You guess that a guy like him has probably been reading for his entire life and that the first week's exercise on how to notate a book was old news to him.

Once you study through them, you almost keep them. You're minutes away from simply stuffing them back into your binder and forgetting about the whole ordeal when you step into class, sights already set on him in the corner again.

Just suck it up. He probably worked hard on these; you can’t just take them.

You stride across the room and put on a hard stare that rivals his own. It falters the moment he looks up at you, hair partially shadowing dark eyes and a pert nose that catches your attention.

He's paler than you remember and suddenly you're convinced that his intelligence is real. Guys that pale don't spend time outside. They curl up inside with a book, shriveling away from the sunlight. How he manages to still look so good is lost on you.

You set the stack down casually as if you hadn't poured over them for hours just the night before, "You really saved me last week. Thanks for these, Dwayne."

Breath snagging in his throat, all he can manage is a weak nod as he looks up at you. And right as you walk away is when he manages to cough up whatever of his nerves keeps him from speaking.

"Do you want to sit over here?"

You squint at him in confusion.

Dwayne adds, "We could swap notes with each other. I think we'd work well together."

You could practically scream at how giddy you feel. To have someone like him validate your intelligence? To offer to help you? To suggest that your ideas have just as much weight as his? Your toes curl up inside your shoes and you try to keep your voice level as you reply, "Sure. That would be helpful."

Dwayne doesn't regret asking you. He wasn't lying when he said he thought you'd work well together. But he thinks he has no clue what you were talking about saying that this would be helpful. Because just the thought of you sitting beside him, knees gently knocking as you both listen to the lecture is far more distracting than when you were on the other side of the room.

But he doesn't mind. He could always use some more practice at studying. Especially if you're going to be next to him.