Chapter Text
Josh ambles into Spanish class on Tuesday morning with a certain degree of dread firmly embedded in his mind. He does not get why he has to learn all those dumb els and las and Js that sound like Hs and Vs that sound like Bs. Well, he does get it - it's because it would be super fucking cool to be able to speak another language - but he just can't do it. And now, the beginning of another school year will inevitably bring with it a new partner who will get fed up with him trying, and failing. He groans internally.
"Josh," Señora Rodriguez smiles as he trudges reluctantly into the classroom. "Hola. Can you sit... hmm... aquí." She gestures the desk to her left, empty. Josh tries to stop his face showing the sinking feeling in his stomach; if there is one thing worse than Spanish class, it's spending Spanish class sat on a desk alone at the front of the room. Why him? He sits down on one of the two chairs at the desk and slings his bag moodily onto the chair to his right.
"¡Vale, chicos!" Sra. Rodriguez claps her hands together for silence (far too enthusiastically, in Josh's opinion) and the low chatter around the room dies out. "We are going to revise the basics in today's class, yes? Please introduce yourselves to your partners in español. Ask lots of questions. ¡Vamos!"
Josh glances around the room at the pairs engaging reluctantly in basic conversational Spanish. He takes out a pen and begins to write instead: Hola. Mi llamo Josh y tengo 18 anos. Vivo Ohio con mi familia.
He pauses.
The silence is broken by a sudden slam of the door as a kid with perfectly fluffed brown hair and a cute smile bursts into the room. His face is flushed, like he's been running. "Lo siento, Señora Rodriguez," he gabbles. "Tuve que hablar con mi profe de matemáticas sobre mis deberes. Disculpa por llegar tarde."
The teacher looks at him fondly. Suck up. Josh is definitely not bitter that the dude can coherently string together more than 4 words of the Spanish language. "Ah, no te preocupes, Tyler," the teacher smiles. "¿Como estás?"
"Bien, gracias. ¿Y tú, señora?"
"Bien. Siéntate aquí, por favor, Tyler."
"Vale. Gracias." Tyler slides into the seat beside Josh and before he's even taken his own books out his eyes scan over Josh's wobbly handwriting. His finger drift lightly over the page. "You need an eñe on that, dude."
"What?" Josh looks up at Tyler blankly. Is this kid talking another language? How is Josh supposed to know what an enyay is?
The brunette smirks. "An eñe. You know, the little squiggly line over the n. On años."
"Oh." Josh looks, bewildered, from the boy's unblinking brown eyes to his book and back again. He adds a little curvy line to the word. "Well, does it make a difference?"
"Yeah, kind of," Tyler's eyes are laughing at him as he leans forward and whispers in Josh's ear. Josh does definitely not feel a little hot under the collar as the boy's silky breath warms his neck. "Tengo 18 años means I am 18. Tengo 18 anos means I have 18 assholes," He winks. "That would definitely make for interesting sex."
Josh flushes an even brighter shade of red, half from embarrassment but the other half from anger. Who does this punk think he is, waltzing into the classroom five minutes late and proceeding to correct his work without Josh asking him to? He shakes his head in disbelief, letting a stray red curl fall across his forehead. He feels like making a comment about the fact that the only asshole around here is sat right next to him, but he bites his lip and holds it back. Even though it's true.
"Oh, and it's me llamo not mi llamo. And vivo en Ohio." Tyler adds, grinning.
Josh tries not to snap. "Thanks."
"De nada." Tyler replies, and Josh glares at him. He raises his hands innocently. "Woah, dude, what did I do?"
"Nothing." Josh responds through gritted teeth. Okay, so it comes off a little more hostile than he'd intended, but at least he's managed not to swear at the kid. And Josh thinks that's quite an achievement in itself, given the circumstances.
"I'm only trying to help." The little fucker. Josh glares at him, but remains silent. In spite of himself, he does not want to get into a fight with this guy, yet. He concentrates on writing his next sentence, but he can feel Tyler's eyes on him. When he looks up, the boy is still looking at him expectantly.
"What?"
"What?" Tyler mimics gently. He laughs, and, unsurprisingly, Josh does not reciprocate.
"Why are you staring at me?" He mumbles instead, albeit a little less confidently than before.
Tyler shrugs. "Sorry, man. We're supposed to be getting to know each other." Josh says nothing, and rolls his eyes. When it becomes clear that he's not about to willingly volunteer any information, Tyler continues speaking. "Well, guess I'll start. Hola, me llamo Tyler y tengo 17 años, pero cumpliré 18 años en diciembre. Vivo aquí, en Columbus, y voy a este instituto desde hace cuatro años. Tengo dos hermanos y una hermana. Me gusta cantar y tocar el piano y el ukulele; me encanta la música y por eso me gustaría ser músico en el futuro." He turns to the redhead. "¿Y tú? Te llamas Josh, ¿no?"
Josh never understood why the Spanish add "no?" to the end of all their questions. Is he supposed to answer affirmatively, or agree with a no himself, or does it turn it into some sort of rhetorical question that he's not expected to answer anyway? He panics, and goes for the safer, explanatory option. "Si. Me llamo Josh."
Tyler beams and switches momentarily back into English. Josh would be lying if he didn't say he was at least a little relieved. "Josh... Dun?" A nod. "Hey, weren't you in my English last year?"
Josh shrugged. "Yeah. English is something I can do. Unlike this."
Sra. Rodriguez's head whips round to face them at the use of the English language in her class, one eyebrow raised. Tyler hastily switches back to Spanish, and Josh is totally not jealous at the ease with which he does it. "Te cuesta hablar el español, ¿no?"
Josh just looks at him. "Umm... ¿qué?"
Tyler sighs and lowers his voice. "I said, do you struggle with Spanish?"
Josh snorts. "Are you mocking me?"
"No! No. I mean, I can help you, if you want."
"I don't need your help."
Tyler looks at him skeptically. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Josh scowls. He doesn't think Tyler notices. The kid turns back to him, a smile in his eyes.
"Entonces, dime algo más, ¿no?"
Oh, for God's sake. It's going to be a long hour.
Tyler keeps being an obnoxious fucker to Josh. He'll always say hola, ¿qué tal? if he sees him in the corridor, the little shit, as if just to rub it in his face that he can speak more Spanish than Josh. Like Josh doesn't barely know what that means. He smiles and translates every little thing for Josh when they're sat in class together, just to show off, Josh is sure. Although he would never admit it, it can be helpful at times, but there comes a point where it's just plain patronising.
"¿Claro?" Sra. Rodriguez asks one day as she finishes explaining their task.
"She says," Tyler hisses in his ear as the teacher shoots Josh a questioning look. "Is that clear?"
And for fuck's sake, if Josh couldn't tell that claro meant clear there would be something really wrong with him. "I know." He snaps. "I'm not a complete idiot, Tyler."
"Okay, then," Tyler looks at him challengingly. "What did she ask us to do, Spanish boy?"
Josh can feel his face reddening as he flusters for the words. "Err... I don't need to prove myself to you." He stares hard at his textbook, hoping the English translation will appear to him out of thin air. Sadly, miracles don't exist. Tyler chuckles.
"She told us to write a paragraph about what kind of movies we like and don't like. But you got that, right?"
"Right," Josh nods firmly, and wonders why this kid is offering him a way out. "Thanks." He adds as an afterthought.
"You know," Tyler shuffles awkwardly on his seat. Josh can see him out of the corner of his eye. "You know I can help you if you need it, right?"
"I don't need your help, man."
"Right." Tyler fixes him with a gaze. "Well, I'm here if you do. Like, if you wanna study for the test together or anything." Josh looks at him hard. "Or not. Whatever's cool, dude."
Josh begins to write. Me gusta las peliculas de acción porque me intereso. It's going well until Tyler lets out a giggle that's more than just a bit distracting, and Josh would be lying if he said he didn't find it at least a little cute. Woah, okay, not cute. That was the wrong word. What the fuck, Josh? Where did that come from? Also, what the hell was this boy's problem? Josh turns to look at him, unimpressed. "What is it?"
"Me intereso..." Tyler's finger lightly traces his writing. "It means 'I interest myself.' You should say 'me interesan'. They interest me."
"Whatever, man." Josh corrects it anyway. But not because Tyler told him to, because he realised his mistake himself, obviously. He continues writing. Odio las películas de horror ya que me dan mierda. But then he looks up, and Tyler is still watching him. "You got a problem with this one, too?" he asks drily.
Tyler tries not to hide the smirk on his face. "Uh, yeah. Unless you're trying to say horror films give you shit, I assume you mean miedo."
For fuck's sake. Josh's face blooms a fresh shade of beetroot. "Maybe I did mean that." he mutters as he hastily corrects it.
Tyler's eyes are laughing at him, and Josh doesn't like it. "Sure you did, dude." Not even one bit. Nope, not at all.
He doesn't think he's ever been more relieved than when the blessed bell sounds for next period and Josh collects up his stuff and makes a bolt for the door. He ignores Tyler's cheery ¡adios! on the way out, and doesn't think about him once for the rest of his English period.
"¡No olvidéis que tenemos una prueba en nuestra próxima clase, chicos!" Sra. Rodriguez calls as he leaves. Josh pretends not to hear, until a familiar brown haired kid appears at his side.
"You wanna revise for the test together?" Tyler's face is full of hope, and for a moment Josh almost feels bad about saying no to him. Just for a moment.
"No!" He bursts out. "Look, I don't know if you're just really bad at taking hints, or what, Tyler, but I don't really want any more to do with you than is absolutely necessary." He rolls his eyes. "¿Claro?" His voice positively drips with sarcasm.
Poor Tyler's eyes widen, and for a moment Josh feels like he's just kicked a puppy. But only a moment, mind, as the expression melts away and Tyler's eyes are refilled with a fire Josh didn't know he had. It's kind of hot, not gonna lie.
"Claro." Tyler echoes, and stalks off down the hallway, muttering to himself. "Hijo de puta."
Josh doesn't know what that means, but he thinks he can guess.
"How did you do?"
They've just got their graded tests back, and Josh forgets he's not talking to Tyler. The brunette turns to look at him slowly. "Oh, you're talking to me now, are you?"
"Well." Josh, for once, doesn't know what to say.
"What's it to you, anyway?" When Josh doesn't answer, the expression on his face hardens. "Oh, I get it. You didn't do very well, and now you want to come begging to me to see if I, out of the goodness of my heart, will offer you help again? Hm?" Josh says nothing. Tyler reaches across the desk to read the grade circled on the front of Josh's paper. 42%. Decepcionante, Josh. "Oh my God," Tyler shakes his head in desperation. "You are unbelievable."
"Hey, it's not my fau-"
"Not that," Tyler looks at him incredulously. "I couldn't give less of a shit that you failed your test. It's that you have the audacity to tell me you don't need my help, and then go and fuck up as miraculously as that, and then ask me how I did and expect me to feel sorry for you. Man." He chucks the pile of papers back in disgust. "And you don't even apologise."
Josh totally doesn't care that Tyler just snapped at him.
He sighs, and flicks absently through his test to see where he went wrong. Or more accurately, which parts he actually managed to get right (they were definitely in the minority). It was the fucking spellings that got him, the double l's and what ever other shit there was in Spanish. Oh look, he'd fucked up again there! And there! What a surprise! Josh is sure his teacher can sense the passive aggression radiating from him as he flicks through the pages.
But hey, there is it, one of the few questions he actually did do pretty well on. Number four. Josh reads it in his head in his best Spanish accent.
Lee el párrafo y rellena los huecos con las palabras correctas.
He scans the text briefly and moves onto the questions.
Rellena los huecos:
Juan vive _________ con su familia y nació en 19__. Ahora, él tiene _______.
Ok, so fuck the first two, Josh didn't get those. But in the third gap, he's written: 36 años.
Fuck yes, he's remembered the enyay! Or whatever the heck Tyler called it. Josh finds himself glowing with pride at his mediocre accomplishment, and turns excitedly to Tyler to tell him.
Then he remembers. He and Tyler aren't talking. Even more so than they were (weren't?) before.
Ah.
As he eats his Frosties at the kitchen table later that day, Josh contemplates the reasons why he doesn't like Tyler in the first place. He comes up with exactly three:
1) he can speak better spanish than me
2) he laughs at my mistakes
3) he was late to our first class.
Reluctantly, he crosses number 3 off the list. He couldn't really give a shit about what time anyone turns up to class, it's school. Also, Tyler's laugh is kind of one of the cutest things he's ever heard, so he doesn't care about number 2 either.
What the fuck, Josh? That's weird. He pushes the thought out of his head.
So really, that just leaves number one.
Is that even a reason to hate someone? What the actual fuck, Josh.
Josh groans at his own stupidity and gets up from the table, scraping the rest of his soggy cereal into the bin. He trudges upstairs and throws himself down onto his bed. Why does he care so much about this Tyler kid anyway, with the annoying pretty eyes and stupid attractive Spanish accent?
He doesn't, and that's the end of it.
But maybe... maybe they could try being friends. No harm in that, right? Right. Josh smiles to himself.