AN: I think I am on a role with these on-shots. Once again this is a testament to my love of minor characters observing favorite characters. Oh! Did anyone else notice that Tom was at Paige's birthday in "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"? He was there and noticably Dylan nor Marco were there. In my mind, I'd like to think they were together elsewhere and Tom went to the party to find Dylan and Dylan wasn't there. :P

Timeline: During the 4th season

Disclaimers: I don't own it. And I still need to get the next part of The Reason, but believe me, the Craig and Ashley parts are hella hard to write.

Warnings: Because this is from Jay's POV, there is alot of swearing.

Disaffected

I don't think I have ever left this damned school on time before. I am always being held after class so that one of these high and mighty fuck-tards that they call teachers can lecture me on exactly how I am screwing up my life by the "choices that I am making." Or whatever that shit they are trying to get into my head.

Oh believe me, I hear them, I just don't care.

If it isn't some "shape up your life, mister" lecture, then I'm in trouble for some reason or another.

Today? It was a "shape up" lecture given to me by Mr. Ehl. He told me how he could recognize the talent that I had but I was wasting it away blah, blah, blah.

Okay, so I don't really hear them all the time when they babble on and on about shit that I don't particularly care about. You ever remember those computer screen-savers with the trippy flying toasters with wings? Well I kinda get those running through my mind whenever a teacher goes into lecture mode. So I'm just standing there, with some dope-ass smile on my face, seeing those damn toasters while Ehl tells me that I'm "squandering my potential" or whatever that means. No wonder everyone thinks I'm on drugs, I'm talking about toasters, flying ones nonetheless.

So I tend to ramble. Whatever.

So now here I am leaving this dump, way later that I should have been, all because I had to be talked to again. It is growing really annoying, hell, I know everyone thinks I'm a bastard and crazy so why do they insist on telling me every goddamned day?

No one walks the halls at this time unless you're some suck-up overachiever in some gay club or a troublemaker (ie: me) who was held after the bell.

Alex, Cameron, Amy, and Towerz are all gone by now, they didn't bother to wait for my lazy ass, though this lazy ass has the car. Eh, so whatever.

After a quick stop at my locker, I pick up my jacket and head for the front foyer. Soon I'll be out the door and in my car and heading home.

Where I can be even more of a lazy ass.

Whatever, I'm a little disaffected, but so what? Like I said, if I don't give a shit about what is going on, then so what? I'm disaffected then, or unaffected, whatever.

Shit, looking out the glass windows in the foyer, I can see that the beautiful Canadian weather has decided to rain today. Of course raining is an understatement, so would pouring, this was like an instant waterfall or something. I go out there and even my socks are going to get soaked.

Well, once again, my car proves that it has more uses than a good sound system. My contact with this weather was limited to how fast I can run across the parking lot. I'm a good runner. Heh.

Stepping outside and still under the protection of the overhang, I see for the first time that I'm not the only one staring at the rain and calculating how long they'd be exposed to the water.

The kid is in my grade, Marco del Something-or-other. Some Spanish or Italian or Mexican name, from some country that has many restaurants around town. He is sitting on the only step that is still covered by the roof, just outside of the downpour.

Hm, warring with the urge to call him something...

Gah, I am too tired of everything today to even call him Marcie. Maybe this disaffected thing is getting too far if I can't even poke fun at a fag anymore.

"Hey Jay." god the kid tries to hard. Though he sounds afraid, kinda like he did that time when Cameron's girl brought him along to the movies. Why does he still try to say hi to me, whenever we meet?

I'm still staring stupidly at the rain, probably furthering the belief that I am on something. But he's spacing is making me think that he's smoked some green-bud himself.

"Isn't this where you say 'whatever' and walk away? Or at least throw a 'fag' in or two?" The kid is persistent. But in this case, he is right, I should have by now.

But, I'm just standing there.

"What the hell are you doing here so late?" Well I edited out any name calling and asked him an actual question.

"I'm just waiting for my dad to pick me up." he shrugged, looking slightly bewildered that he was talking with me. Yes. I know what bewildered means. "I just got his voice-mail, so I am hoping he'll get here."

"Where's your boyfriend to pick you up?" Okay that had a bit of sneer in it. Now, I'm feeling bewildered that I am having this conversation.

Marco looked up at me and kind of laughed. Not the laugh at me laugh, 'cause it had been I'd kick his ass, but more of laughing at himself. "You mean 'Homo-chuk', right?" There was that dry laugh again. "He's in class right now, so he couldn't come get me."

"Oh yeah. Graduated."

"So why aren't you afraid to be standing so close to me?"

"Huh?" Blow me, I get confused easily.

"Y'know. My 'gayness'. Aren't you afraid to catch it? I hear in the rainy season, it is more contagious."

"Don't worry, I've had my shots."

"Oh good, glad to know there are vaccines on the market now."

I got to hand it to him, he has a sense of humor. So what the hell, I'm known for going against the norm, so I'm gonna join him for a minute or two.

I laugh as I sit down next to him, with only a slight strip of space between us. "You're funny, you know that?"

He shrugged, looking more that slightly scared that I was sitting with him. "It comes from learning to laugh at yourself." he mumbles, looking back at the pouring rain.

"Don't enough people laugh at you already?" I guess you could say that was harsh. But I wasn't going turn this into a made-for-TV moment, alright?

To my own surprise, he didn't seem to take offense. What happened to the girly scaredy-cat fag from last year?

"Yeah they laugh, but I've learned that it takes the sting out of it if you've already laughed at yourself ten times harder." He raised an eyebrow, "If that made any sense."

I pulled a cigarette out of my jacket pocket and lit it up, puffing some of the smoke I nodded. "Makes sense to me. You?" I offered the pack to him.

Once again, the kid surprised me by actually taking one and using my lighter to light up expertly. Okay, so the goody-good has smoked before. Everybody can have their own secrets. But what really blew me was the fact that he was smoking it right on the steps to the school, I figured his type (once I realized that he even would smoke) would be one to do in a hidden area.

"Y'know, when you're not scaring the crap out of me, you're not to bad." he commented around the filter.

"And when you're not flipping your wrist, you're not so bad either."

He laughed again. "If you ever cared to notice, I don't tend to do that much at school. I'd get my ass kicked more if I did."

"Key words there: If I ever cared. One thing, kid, I don't care. Not about you, not about this school, hell, I hardly care about my friends."

He was looking at me with a junior shrink gaze. I know that look. All the teachers give that to me. Cameron is always giving me that look whenever he goes into self-righteous mode. I tend to hate that look.

"Bull."

"Did you just say bullshit?"

"Yeah I did. You go on with this disaffected crap when you really do care. I know because if you didn't care that I'm gay, you wouldn't take the time to harass me about it anyway."

Ooh, the kid got me good there. Shit. How the fuck do you respond to that. I mean, I guess what he was saying is slightly true. Why would I go out of my way to mock him whenever I see him? I usually have some stock slur ready to throw at him as soon as he comes into vision .

I sigh, maybe I'm not as disaffected as I'd like. "Guess it is more that I don't want to give a shit." I fish eye him, this is turning into a made-for-TV moment. "Any more observations, shrink?"

"It isn't up to me if you don't want to care, I was just saying that you do."

I stub out the cigarette and flick it out into the big puddle that parking lot is slowly becoming. He breathed in his last drag and then similarly flicked his away. Time to end this buddy-bud deal we've got going on.

But the strange thing is that throughout this weirdo conversation, I never once saw those flying toasters, so I guess he kind of got through to me. Fuck.

"So you're dad's not here yet." What a great observation there, Einstein. "Wanna ride?"

He couldn't really hide the shock that was clearly written on his face. "Sure"

I extend my hand.

And he takes it.