Disclaimer: The Hangover was not my doing, nor are the characters mine. *pout*

a/n: Includes pokes and winks towards THE HANGOVER Trilogy.

Summary: Doug has been dating Tracy since sophomore year. Phil has an on-again off-again thing with his (future) wife. After an incident, and three-year absence from school, Alan returns to the outside world. Phil can't stem the entertaining curiosity he has to the older teen.
(a/n: I apologize for this shitty summary.)

Story Warnings/(spoilers): Institutionalization, prescription drugs, mental illness, profanity, gun use, drug crime, slight nudity,
Character Ages: Teenage!Wolfpack: 18!Alan, 16!Tracy, 17!Doug, 17!Phil, 17!Stu.
Pairings/(or mentioned): Doug/Tracy, Stu/Melissa, Phil/Stephanie,

The ... Hangover.

The Sleepover: Part 1

"I don't get why we have to come—or more specifically, me." Phil complained, propping an elbow on the door's open windowsill. "Stu probably has nothing better to do, but that's nothing new."

Said spectacled geek huffed indignantly from the backseat. "What 'better' things do you have to do?"

"Literally anything."

Doug sighed patiently from behind the wheel of his parents' Preus. "Be a good friend, Phil. Do it for me?"

Phil snorted. "Don't you mean Tracy?"

Doug narrowed his eyes. "Where she's concerned, it's the same thing."

Phil shook his head sadly. "We lost you at such a young age..."

"Don't be a dick. And what about you and Stephanie?"

Phil shifted in his seat. "What about us? We fuck sometimes—more than I can say for four-eyes back there and Medusa."

"Hey!" Stu protested. "Melissa is just... very keen on what she wants."

"Whatever, man." Phil waved him off. "Next time you come to school with a black eye, just tell everyone that you walked into a door instead of saying a Jack-in-the-box surprised you—it might be a little more believable, even for yourself."

Stu groaned and palmed his forehead. "That was one time!"

"Alright, alright. Listen." Doug told them, stopping at a four-way stop sign intersection. "Just... no arguing when we get there, okay? We want a calm, welcoming environment for him. Friendly."

"So, Phil has to completely change his personality by the time we get there?"

Doug rolled his eyes before he accelerated and turned right. Sometimes, he wondered how the two were best-friends when they only seemed to insult each other.

Phil flipped him the bird before ignoring him. "God, I didn't even know Tracy had a brother until you tricked me into the car."

Stu sniggered. "Did he wag a couple of treats in front of your nose, Phil?"

"Oh, that was clever of you." Phil told him sarcastically. "What are you, five?"

"What are you," Stu mocked. "A dick?"

"At least I have one," he retorted. "With the way you scream and shriek all the time, I wonder if your name isn't really Stu-ella and that's a pair of rolled up socks in your trousers."

"I do to have a dick!" Stu shouted his protest. "You've seen it!" He heard murmuring outside his window, and turned, wide-eyed, to realize that Doug had stopped in traffic, and his shout had been heard by an elderly couple on a walk-about. His face flushed in embarrassment and he sunk down as far in his seat as his seatbelt would allow. "Please, drive." He begged. Phil laughed.

A moment later, the line at the light proceeded much to Stu's relief.

"If you two are finished?" Doug said, but he didn't wait for them to answer before he continued on. "I really need to do this for me, guys. We're family. I love Tracy, so that make her your family too. Look, Alan's the same age as we are, it shouldn't be too hard to get along. They released him because he's better—"

"Shit, you sure they should be letting him back out into civilisation after his years of captivity?" Phil looked over at him.

"He's not an animal!"

"Sure sounds like it. If your so worried about the reaction I'm going to cause, just drop me off at the corner and I'll hitch a ride home."

"Can't you do a single decent thing in your life?" Stu asked, finally straightening his body in the backseat.

"Decency hardly ups the pace. I'm a teenager; that means not giving a fuck, drinking, fooling around, and fucking! Mr. Aspirations to be a Dentist."

"At least I have goals in life."

"We're here!" Doug snapped, pulling into the large, cobble-stoned drive to the Garner mansion. He parked and turned the car off, but didn't get out, and instead released his seatbelt and twisted in his seat to face his two best-friends. "I am fucking serious. I need you two to do this for me, and behave while doing it, alright? Say yes."

"Yes, Doug." "Yes, Mother." Were their chosen replies.

Doug sighed. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Phil muttered. "You totally owe me, buddy."

"I'll take what I can get." Doug muttered as they all left the car and approached the front door. He pushed the doorbell.

"So, what's his deal again?" Phil asked as they waited, hands stuffed into his pockets.

"I've told you this already."

"Just... run it by me one more time. I wasn't paying attention."

"Clearly," Stu scoffed.

"We went to different middle schools than Tracy and Alan, I didn't meet her until grade ten. Well, from what Tracy told me, the summer before Alan was due for grade nine he had an episode with his swim coach. The police were called, there was a judge involved later I think and that was why they put him in the mental hospital."

Phil gave a low whistle as the front door was opened to reveal the Garner's housekeeper Blanca, looking very frazzled. "Ah, Mr. Doug. Thank Heaven's it's you!" She urged them in.

"Blanca, what's wrong?" Doug questioned, following the fast-paced Mexican.

"Holy shit," Phil muttered aside to Stu as they followed behind through the grand house. "Tracy's smart, hot, and her family's loaded? Doug definitely found a Lucky Charm somewhere and never told us about it."

Stu rolled his eyes. "Of course the first thing you notice is the money."

"It's Mr. Alan. Everything was fine—and then he found out Carlos wasn't his Carlos from before he was sent away." Blanca explained.

"Who's Carlos?" Stu wondered.

"The dog." Doug said.

Phil and Stu shared a looked as they were lead through a large glass sliding door at the back of the house and onto a large deck that housed a table and chairs and a BBQ; down the steps, a stone path veered off to lead to a large swimming pool with a Jacuzzi. On the opposite side was a large area of grass, adorning the area was a gazebo with a pond/fountain beside it, and a large trampoline.

"Jesus." Phil hissed at the sight. Why the hell haven't they come here before?

But the three members of the Garner family were focused on the large tree by the fence.

"Tracy!" Doug called.

The dark-haired sixteen-year-old turned at her name. "Doug!" she sighed in relief and left her father and mother. "Thank God." She enveloped her boyfriend.

"What's wrong?" Doug kept his arm around her waist. "Blanca said that Alan was freaking out about Carlos?"

"Yeah, what's the deal with Carlos?" Phil wondered.

"Honey, please come down?" Linda Garner called worriedly up to her son.

"No!" Alan shouted at her, hidden above in the tree. "I know it was you who did this, woman!"

"Carlos was hit by a car a year after Alan was sent away. Dad never had the heart to tell him. We got another dog. But when Alan got home, and Carlos went up to him... he knew instantly it wasn't his Carlos."

"Holy—he pulled the goldfish move." Phil exclaimed. "A bold move, doing it with a dog and a teenager. Gotta give props to the old man."

"He got really upset." Tracy continued with a nod. "And when we tried to tell him that his Carlos died while he was away—he refused to listen and grew even more agitated. There was a lot a screaming, then Carlos started to freak out with all the commotion—it literally drove Alan up the tree. He thinks Carlos is an 'impostor' and is refusing to come down. But I also think he can't come down." She sighed. "He was always like this as a kid. He can climb things just fine—it's getting down that the problem."

"Jesus." Phil muttered, carding a fingers through his hair.

"It's not his fault," she defended. "He's been through a lot!"

Phil help up his hands to show his peace. "Alright. Alright."

"I put Carlos in the bathroom, but..." Tracy shrugged helplessly.

"Why don't you just call the fire department?" Stu suggested. "They get cats and stuff out of trees all the time. I'm sure they can help."

"If we call the fire department, then the police will get involved." Tracy said. "He just got released—"

"It's going to be okay." Doug assured her. "We'll figure out a way to get him down."

Stu blinked at the clear implication. "We will?"

"Yes." Doug gave him a hard look. "Linda, Sid." Doug greeted familiarly as he approached the two parents.

"Oh, Dougie!" Linda turned to him with relief. "Isn't there anything you can do? He's just so determined."

"I'll try." He nodded and the parents stepped back and Doug stepped forward under the base of the tree, the others lingered back. He didn't immediately spot the red-haired teen. "Alan?"

"Doug?" Alan said brightly upon seeing him and a moment later, Doug found him high among the leaves; he almost looked like a chubby orang-utan clinging to the branches. His mouth flattened. "What are you doing here?"

"Welcoming you home, buddy." Doug said lightly. "What else?"

Doug had met Alan several times before. He and Tracy had been going out for little over two-years now, and she'd taken him with her on some of the occasions that she went to visit Alan.

Alan seemed to think about it for a moment before he finally nodded. "I assume you've been informed of the situation?"

"Yeah, Alan." Doug nodded. "About that... you're parents just didn't want to make you sad about Carlos..."

Phil groaned quietly. Doug was going to get nowhere trying to be reasonable. Couldn't they move this along? He was starting to get hungry. Wasn't he promised food? It seemed Phil To The Rescue again—Phil had two younger sisters, early middle school, grades one and two. They were at that age where they could wheedle him into almost anything—which were usually embarrassing—but sometimes, indulgence was the only answer to freedom. He hated princess tea parties. It appeared the same approach was due with Alan…

Phil came to stand next to Doug and peered up into the branches. "Hey, man."

"Who're you?" Alan wondered.

"Phil. You're Alan, right? Tracy's brother?"

"...Yes."

"Cool." Phil nodded sublimely. "What'cha doing up there?"

"... Escaping. Haven't you been paying attention to the situation, Phil? Carlos is an impostor, a clone. I'll admit, they did a good job of it. But I looked into his eyes, and there was no soul! He's an evil creature."

"How d'you know he's evil?" Phil asked curiously.

Alan was silent for a very long moment. "I... guess I just assumed."

"That's low. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, man. You didn't even give him a chance. The other Carlos died, I'm sorry about that, buddy. But maybe this Carlos is here for you now, so you don't feel so sad about it." He took a breath, "So, what do you say about giving Carlos a second chance?"

"Do you... do you really think that, Phil?"

Doug blinked. There was a tentative trust in Alan's tone that caught him off guard. It seemed like a snap-of-the-fingers kind of connection. Alan had been suspicious of himself the first time around when he had first visited with Tracy. Phil just seemed to speak on the Alan-wavelength.

The tall teen nodded. "I do."

"Okay..." Alan allowed. "I guess even potentially evil Carlos clones deserve my appraisal."

"Great." Doug clapped his hands. "You can come down now, buddy."

"Down..." Alan frowned as he suddenly saw the distance looking down on them, when he'd been casually leaning out in his conversation with Phil. He clung to the trunk. "It's higher than I remember, Doug."

Doug sighed. "He's like a cat." He whispered to Phil.

Phil snorted. "A big ginger cat. Just the kind that firemen like."

"Just go the way you climbed up," Doug offered.

"Unh." Alan grunted nervously, but started his slow descent.

"That's it." He encouraged. "Easy now. Nice and slow."

Finally, he made it to the lowest branch. Doug and Phil stepped back as he did his leap of faith. He stumbled on the landing, but popped right up. He flicked his ruffled hair and lifted his chin.

"Okay, there, buddy?" Doug questioned, patting his shoulder.

Alan nodded and Phil got his first look at the mysterious teen. He was the same height as Doug, with dark blue eyes, and a head of shaggy russet hair. He was a little on the chubby side, with lightly paled skin.

"Oh, Sweetie," Phil cocked a brow on the fact that it was Sid who had cooed that, enveloping his son in a warm hug. Linda reached for Alan too, but the teen brushed off her touch. Phil shrugged it off and gave them their room.

"That was good thinking, Phil." Tracy approached him. "Alan has always been really gullible, that's what sent him to the hospital in the first place." She told him softy. "So thank you." She gave his hand a squeeze.

Phil shrugged, embarrassed. "It's fine. That's what friends are for, right?" But he couldn't help but wonder exactly what got Alan sent away; Doug hadn't been very forth-coming on the juicy details. The teen was square like that sometimes, so sensitive.

Finally, Alan quickly grew annoyed at the affection and pushed him parents away. "I'm hungry." He proclaimed. "Can we eat now?"

"Sure, honey." Linda said. "Whatever you want." She fluttered around him like a moth.

Great, Phil agreed, glad he wasn't the only one who's thoughts were driven towards food despite the 'tense' situation.

"Thank you guys so much for being here." Tracy saw them off in the driveway several hours later. "I know you only did it because Doug, but thank you anyways. Especially you, Phil."

"Aw." Phil smirked and joked, "I always knew you secretly loved me. Why don't we ditch the monkey and run away together." Despite, or maybe because of, he hadn't had the worst time that he could have.

Doug punched him in the shoulder. "Not cool."

Tracy rolled her eyes. "Not even in your dreams, pal."

He smiled. "Fresh out of luck, asshole. Maybe we should revisit the hitchhiking thing?"

"Aw, come on! Don't be like that." Phil protested.

"It would serve you right." Stu muttered.

"What was that, four-eyes?" He cocked a brow.

Stu glared. "Dick!"

"Must we have this conversation again?" Phil said meanly.

"Jeez!" Tracy scoffed. "You two are such children sometimes. And I find it both worrisome and endearing that you're this comfortable around me."

"Don't worry," Doug said. "One day, they'll come to you dressed as a Snooki and Joni and you just won't care as much."

"Somehow, I don't find that reassuring."

Doug squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I know, yet somehow, you'll welcome it." He kissed her. "Alright, into the car... children." Doug ushered them. They both sputtered protests at such treatment, before Stu suddenly straightened, hand raised: "Shotgun!"

"What?" Phil looked at him open-mouth. "Hell no!"

But Stu made a run for it and Phil bolted after him.

Doug and Tracy ignored them and faced each other, still holding hands. "I'll call you later."

"Yeah." She nodded. "I should get back. Say goodnight to Alan; he was pretty tuckered out. It's been a long day for him."

Doug nodded. "I love you."

"I love you, too." They kissed and Tracy waved bye to the others before she headed back inside

Phil sat in the front seat, smug; and Stu was fuming.

"Why am I in the backseat?"

"Yeah, Phil. He clearly called shotgun." Doug started the car and pulled from the large drive and onto the street.

Phil leaned back comfortably. "If he wasn't such a wuss, our positions would be reversed, now wouldn't they?"

"You're such a cheater!" Stu accused. "It doesn't work like that."

"Whatever."

"Anyway..." Doug turned on the radio to drown them out.

"Hey, Alan." Tracy knocked gently on her brother's bedroom door. It was the same as it was since he was last home. "Daddy said you were up here. Can I come in?"

"Yeah!" came the call.

She opened the door and stepped inside. Only to stop and do a double-take as she saw her older brother. "Whoa, Alan. What the hell is that?"

"What?" Alan stood in the middle of his room, holding a riding crop. But that wasn't what made her pause—though they were going to definitely talk about what that was for later. It was what he was wearing; the only thing, really.

"Is that a..." her stomach dropped with concern. "Is that a chastity belt? Why do you—? I don't—Oh, Alan." Completely ignoring his nudity, she went up to him and enveloped him in a hug.

Alan eagerly hugged her back, he loved cuddles, but was confused. "What's wrong?"

Finally, she pulled back and cupped his cheeks. "Oh, Alan. I'm just so happy to have you back."

He grinned at her. "Me, too!"

She released him. "So, tell me about the... the chastity belt?"

"Oh, do you like it?" he gave a turn. "Didn't you know it protects virtue?"

Virginity, sexual intercourse… she grimaced internally."Yes, but why do you have it, how did you get it?"

"It was Eddie's idea."

"Who's Eddie?" she asked slowly, dreading the answer.

"I met him at the hospital. He's really cool and smart, and fun! He has all the ladies from his harem wear them. He has the key so only he can have sex with them. He knows what he's about."

"His harem?" she repeated. "What—where's the key to yours?!"

"Oh, Eddie gave it to me when I had to leave. It's to give me power, but I think you should have it." He went to the suitcase on the bed and handed her a small chain and key. "Here. I trust you, Tracy. I know you won't try and have sex with me, especially if I don't want it."

"Right, Alan. I would never do that to you." She promised, looking down at the key in her palm. "I want you to be safe." He nodded. "And that?" she pointed at the riding crop.

He looked at her weirdly. "It's a fly swatter."

"Right." She took it. "Let's just put that here, hm? Are you going to bed, you must be tired after such an exciting day." He nodded. "Your pyjama's?"

"Oh, right. I'm not supposed to sleep naked, Dr. Hendrix said so. He said I need to create boundaries. But sometimes I forget." He pulled on some pyjama's from his suitcase. Afterward, he kicked the suitcase onto the floor.

"Alright. Did you take your pills?" He nodded. "Good, you can't forget those. Want me to tuck you in?" she questioned. He blinked at her and nodded rapidly, suddenly tears in his eyes. "Alan! What wrong?"

He gave a rough sniff and pawed the tears from his eyes. He shook his head as she guided him under the covers. "I'm sorry. I—I..."

She sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Don't be sorry." She murmured, brushing the bangs from his forehead. "I'm so happy that you're home."

They were about two-years apart in age, but had always been close siblings. She'd always been Alan's best-friend, but didn't mind it, even as she met girls at school her own age. She loved her brother and wanted him safe and happy. He'd always been a little weird and innocent, and rather gullible. He didn't understand when people lied. He trusted people. She worried for him when they were younger, her being more reasonable and responsible than him, but it wasn't until after that she feared for him.

Linda dotted on him, but she didn't seem to have any authority over the redhead. Sid tended to indulge him. Tracy felt like the only reasonable one out of the bunch, the responsible one. But none of them had noticed that his swim coach was grooming him. She shivered…

"It was nice that Doug came." He murmured and Tracy nodded. "And... and Phil? Did he say anything about me when-when you said goodbye?" Alan bit his lip.

Tracy looked down at him curiously. "He thought it was nice to meet you."

Alan beamed at that news. "I really like him, he's funny. Do you think we can hang out again?"

Of course, Alan would lean more towards Phil than Stu, who was definitely more responsible than the former. "I can ask."

"Alright."

"Goodnight, Alan." She kissed his forehead.

"Mm. Night." He closed his eyes and she looked at him for a moment.

He'd gotten older, yet he was still so innocent. Being in the hospital for the past three years hadn't changed him like she feared that it might. She'd visited him several times each week, even as their parents only did a few times a month. She couldn't stand the thought of loosing her brother like she almost had.

She stood, turned off the light and left his room, leaving the door open a crack. She released a slow breath. She was really going to have to talk with the guys, especially if they were going to be around each other more and next week when they school year started...

~ Days Later...

"... Okay. I love you, too. See you soon. Bye." Doug hung up the phone and returned to the living room where Phil and Stu were currently engrossed in a game of Halo on the Xbox.

"Was that your hotter half?" Phil smirked as Stu's half of the screen went black. "You just got owned!"

"Shut up!" the geek cursed and pouted, throwing the controller down. "This sucks."

"Yes, you do."

Stu glared at him. "I don't know why I even play with you. I always lose."

"Yes, you are."

"Shut up."

"So?" Phil said to Doug, as he restarted the game and started to methodically hunt down Stu's abandoned soldier.

"Tracy's coming over." Doug told him, taking up his abandoned spot on the couch between the two other teens and picking up Stu's abandoned controller.

Phil groaned. "I thought it was just going to be us guys. Didn't you just see her yesterday?"

"It was the weekend," Doug corrected as he looked through his gun's scope and followed Phil on screen before firing. Phil cursed and dove for cover. "She wants to talk."

"Talk about what?" Phil returned fire.

"Alan."

"What?" Phil turned to him, throwing his controller on the coffee table and abandoning the game. "Why?"

Doug's brow twitched in curiosity before quickly killed Phil in the game and he set the controller down. "Because I'm her boyfriend. You're my friends, and hers. And it's her brother, for God's sake. He really enjoyed having us over at his welcome home party."

Phil rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure the guy would love a Hello Kitty party same as my little sisters, after he finally got released from the nuthouse. What does that have to do with us?"

"Don't call it that." Doug admonished. "And that's what she wants to talk about."

"Oh. Well, now I'm interested." The dirty details that he'd wanted since that weekend Doug forced him to go to that lame party, even as entertaining as Alan had been. It had been an on-again off-again private amusement for him in his bored moments, which were frequent.

Stu shook his head in disgust. "You would be."

Phil snatched up the controller from the table and restarted the game. "I'm going to find you, Stu. And stab you with a Combat Knife, okay."

"Not if I kill you first!" Stu grabbed the second controller and Doug sighed heavily, squeezing the bridge of his nose as he leaned back and watched them try and kill each other as he waited for Tracy to arrive.

The doorbell rang and Doug was all too glad to leave the chaos of the living room to answer it.

"Hey." Doug's mood brightened completely upon seeing his girlfriend.

"Hi." Tracy kissed her boyfriend pleasantly, a tote bag looped in her arm before she had to get down to business.

"Can I take a whirl?" Phil stood, leaning against the living room doorway.

Doug pulled back from kissing his girl to glare at the other teen. "How many times do I have to tell you to keep your mitts and thoughts off my girlfriend?"

Phil gave him a picture look. "I was talking about you, buddy." He winked.

To say Doug was unprepared for that for that sparking joke was inadequate. Tracy thought it was quite funny.

She snorted inelegantly. "Oh, that's absolutely beautiful."

Phil grinned as he stepped forward and pushed Doug aside, looping an arm around Tracy's shoulder. "I knew you'd come around, it was only a matter of time."

"Hey!" Doug protested.

"Still not even in your dreams, Phil." Tracy said, but allowed herself to be guided to the living room.

"Tracy." Stu nodded to her from the couch, all too glad to turn the game off. It was embarrassing how badly Phil was creaming him.

She waited for them to all settle on the couch, before he sat on the edge of the coffee table, in front of them, but directly across from Doug. She set her bag at her feet.

"Alright." Tracy started. "So—"

"Are there pictures?" Phil wondered, eyeing the corner of an album poking from her bag.

"Phil!" Doug smacked his arm.

But Tracy sighed. "Yes, I have pictures." Phil grinned smugly at his friend. She pulled the photo album from her bag and set it on Doug's knees. Phil went to take it but had his hands smacked away. Doug took control of the pages and Phil and Stu were forced to lean over in order to look. "This is Alan before he was sent away to the hospital… Alan loved to swim. Dad even got him a personal coach… Mr. Chow. He was on the school team and went to the competitions in other cities. He won medals..."

They found a red-haired preteen, with a big smile and bright dark blue eyes, tan skin and a slim, swimmers build. He was hardly an individual in the group photo with the swim Speedo, goggles and swim cap, but off, his red hair was an easy find. Four pages were crowded with ribbons and metals alone.

"Alan always had admiration and respect for his coach." She said bitterly. "Looked up to him, trusted him with everything, took his every word and instruction to heart. He spent more time with the man than kids his own age. But there was no thought on it. There was nothing suspicious about it. Alan loved to swim and Chow was his coach. Their spending time together wasn't untoward." Tracy paused but not for effect, to gather herself. "But the summer before he was meant to go to high school, the truth came to light."

"What happened that summer?" Stu questioned in a hushed tone, when the girl didn't continue.

Tracy's expression was stone. "The reason why Alan was his favourite pupil, the reason... he was grooming Alan. He... violated him—"

"Holy shit!" "Oh my God!" "Jesus!" The three teens cried their horror.

"Alan was molested?!" Stu covered his mouth, looking sick.

"Oh, God!" She looked at them wide-eyed. "No! Alan wasn't... raped—"

"Jesus, Tracy!" Phil protested. "Choose your words more carefully."

"I'm sorry! That's just the words that the officers used." She shook her head rapidly. "Chow used Alan as a drug mule. Alan had frequent competitions out of city that included a plane rides, Chow used him to traffic drugs."

"Like, inside of him?" Stu questioned, squeamishly. (And that was why his aspirations only went as high as dentistry).

"Duh, inside of him, Sherlock." Phil said scornfully. "They packed the drugs into little balloons that were either swallowed and shoved up the..." at Doug's look he quickly altered his word, "hm-hm."

"How would you know that?"

"Don't you watch TV?"

"It was classified as child molestation and endangerment—and technical statutory rape... because of how the drug balloons were transported. He swallowed them, and then—" She managed. She shook her head. "Alan didn't understand that it was bad, that adults weren't supposed to do that to children. That he was a child; sweat, innocent, and all too trusting of his coach's word!" tears filled her eyes and Doug abandoned his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the album and grasped her hands.

"Tracy,"

"It—I'm okay." She whispered, squeezing his hands back. "Alan had been acting off that summer, different... his coach put things, left them... inside. He insisted on swimming that day, pushing through his discomfort. And then suddenly, he wasn't swimming anymore... and there was blood in the pool. Daddy managed to get him out, alerted to Carlos' barking. The a-ambulance took him to the hospital and that when we f-found out that something was incredibly wrong. A balloon had gotten stuck and ruptured. He nearly overdosed and died! The police were called... Alan refused to talk about who'd done it to him, said he wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Mom and Daddy were questioned, I was questioned." She sobbed. "Eventually, they connected it to his coach... but what that seemed to do to Alan—he just grew more and more confused and anxious and angry, he was wired out of his head from the drugs. He didn't seem to grasp the truth from what had happened to him, that it was wrong—because he was taught that it wasn't. He loved Chow. He snapped, broke. He cost the hospital thousands of dollars in damages. The doctors had to pin him down and shoot him full of drugs to sleep. The next morning, all the papers were signed and he was admitted..."

The silence between the four of them was deafening. No longer was Alan the rich teenager who couldn't take the pressure and had a breakdown and was committed—just one in a long list of many. No, Alan was...

Phil stared down at the album that Doug had thrust into his lap, looked at the picture of a thirteen-year-old Alan Garner, still wet, smooching on a gold medal for the camera, his gaze directed at the man belonging to the arm looped around his shoulder, but the picture had been deliberately cut to omit the owner. This did not look like a kid who was going through that horror story that Tracy had described. It looked like a kid who just had the day of his life. The Alan he'd seen on the weekend did not appear to be the victim of what Tracy described. He seemed more like a survivor to Phil.

"So," she sniffed, clearing her throat. "When I told Alan I was coming to see you guys, he really wanted to come, but daddy had to take him to an appointment. But he was adamant that I asked you," she omitted the part where he said: especially Phil, "If you wanted to have a... sleepover this weekend before school starts."

Silence met her question. What an awkward turn.

"A sleepover." Phil repeated, the first to speak up. Unable to understand his own muddle of emotions, he reverted to his baser state. "What are we, ten?"

Stu rolled his eyes tiredly; feeling emotionally exhausted after just hearing the story. "Do you not know your own age? What's the problem, we used to do it all the time."

"Yeah... when we were ten!" Phil snapped the album closed and shoved it on the coffee table next to Tracy. "I have to go." He stood and carded his fingers through his hair. "I'll talk to you guys later..."

"What do you mean—Phil!" Tracy stopped Doug as he attempted to stop their friend.

"Let him go." She shook her head. "He needs to process. It's a lot to take in."

"Um," Stu awkwardly piped up, too. "I think I should go, too. Text me later with the details?"

Doug nodded and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. "See you later, buddy."

"Bye, Tracy."

And then it was just the two of them. Doug turned back to his girlfriend. "Are you going to be alright?"

She nodded as he kissed her palm. "Yeah. I just worry about him, you know? He still seems the same, innocent and playful—and then it just seems like the weight of the world is on his shoulders." She sighed.

"I'm here for you, always." He promised her. "Stu and I will be there, and we'll drag Phil's ass there if we have to."

The rest of the week, Doug and Stu tried to get a hold of Phil. They called, texted, went to his house... but the playboy teen was incognito. He refused to talk with them, to show his face after Tracy told them about Alan's past. Phil had been shocked and sickened. He didn't expect to be affect like this, certainly not to this degree. He tried to rationalize that drug trafficking had to be better than if Alan's coach had been raping him, but when he got home from Doug's and looked it up on the internet, his feelings weren't assuaged.

If Alan had gone through even some of the things he had come across, Phil didn't understand how he could be like he was at the welcome home party the weekend before. Sure, he was weird and a complete child—none of which pointed towards his dark past.

Phil had led such a dumb and innocent childhood—while at the same moment, across town, that was happening to Alan. Phil hadn't cared about anything. He had Doug and Stu to pal around with and sneak out to parties with to smoke weed and drink beer. He had Stephanie, with whom he couldn't admit to himself or her, that he was totally in love with her—even though he knew he was close to losing her. He was mean, arrogant, a prick. He didn't care or know what he wanted to do or be. He was completely and utterly selfish, didn't give a shit—he was a 'dick' as Stu called him, but that was still too gentle a word.

"Fuck," he muttered and went to his bedroom closet.

[tbc]

The … Hangover

Note:

So, there's the first chapter. Originally, I was going to do it in one long one-shot, but have since decided that I was going to break it down into Chapters, and I thought this might be a good place to end this part. This fic came to me in the wanting of Alan being a teenager and on a swim team (yeah… don't know exactly where I'm taking this yet either).

The roles of Eddie and Chow were originally switched (don't ask me about the chastity belt). And/So, don't worry, Chow did not rape or molest Alan. It was just considered molestation (and of course, endangerment) (Don't know if it would be considered that in real life) because the balloons were swallowed and then shat out and he was a child.

So, tell me your thoughts so far. Until then, I'll keep chipping away at the next chapter!

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