Trust [Lams AU]

23

Trigger warning: Offensive slurs

A/N: **Lams is officially starting to enter the chat**

John Laurens absolutely despised gym class.

He despised the fitness testing that always pointed out how out of shape he was. He despised the "fun" games that always ended in the entire class ganging up on John.

Most of all, he despised the gym uniform.

It was bad enough that the school forced them to wear those ugly, uncomfortable uniforms all the time, but they even had to wear a uniform for gym. The Colonial Prep t-shirts weren't too bad, but the shorts were the real issue. No matter what size you bought, they always ended up being too tight in all the wrong places. It was like they'd been designed not to fit correctly.

John sighed to himself as he unbuttoned his uniform shirt. He took the stick of deodorant out of his gym locker and put it on. This was something that John wished more people would do.

They should have made deodorant part of the uniform. John thought as he put the deodorant away and pulled his gym shirt over his head. Shirt, shorts, sneakers, deodorant. Maybe then the locker room wouldn't always smell like body odor.

Once John had finished getting his clothes on, he sat down on the bench and began tying his sneakers.

"Hey, faggot, I'm going to have to ask you to get out of here."

John ignored the voice, assuming that it was probably an immature jock making some immature joke to his immature friend.

"Hey, faggot, I'm talking to you." The voice said again. "Laurens, pull your head out of your ass and listen to me."

John looked up and saw Francis Kilnoch standing in front of him looking very angry.

John felt a pang in his chest. Him and Francis had once been best friends. They'd met in kindergarten and had been best friends up until they started middle school. Then, in sixth grade, Francis had started hanging out with the popular kids. The popular kids had changed Francis, had turned him from the kind boy he'd once been into a cruel, merciless bully.

It had started out as little things: rude comments about John's appearance, telling him that his jokes were weird and disgusting, leaving him alone to go hang out with his popular friends.

Then it had turned physical. Pulling his hair, hitting and kicking him, pulling 'pranks' that involved destroying John's things.

And then, one day, everything had fallen apart.

John still remembered the day his friendship with Francis had ended.

John walked into the cafeteria, his long curly ponytail bouncing up and down with every step. He was holding his lunch tray in his hands, eagerly searching the crowd for his best friend. He spotted him out of the corner of his eye and raced towards him, his face breaking into a wide grin that revealed his bright blue braces.

"Francis!" John said, sitting down at the lunch table across from Francis.

Frances looked up at him, his neutral expression turning into one of disgust, as though John were a pile of garbage that had just been dumped into his lap.

"What do you want, Laurens?" Francis asked, scowling.

"What do you mean?" John asked, confused. Why did Francis seem so angry? "What's wrong?"

"You wouldn't understand anyway. Just shut up and go back to stuffing your face."

"D-Did I do something wrong?" John asked, fighting back tears.