51 hours

Desmond had been trying to lay low all day. Thankfully most of the seniors he had class with ignored him, they usually did that as he was too smart for his own good sometimes, and a year younger then all of them. They tended to not like him for that reason, as they didn't like it that a kid like him could one up most of them when it came to brains. He was seriously relieved when the lunch bell rang and he sprinted to the lunch room before the line got too long. He didn't see Clay, that could be good, right?

Suddenly a big hand was being put on his shoulder and he stiffened, "Hey, Miles," he peered over his shoulder. Oh good, it was only Ezio. No wait. Oh shit, it was Ezio!

"Hi," he said as Ezio slid into line next to him with a cheerful grin.

"Man I was looking for."

"You were?" shit, what if Altair had said something and Ezio had come to put the fear of god in him or something? Shit.

"Yeah," but Ezio didn't seem blood thirsty, in fact he was his usual friendly self. "I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"

"Depends," Desmond said slowly, grabbing a styrofoam tray from the big stack of them to get his lunch. Fish burger and mac n' cheese.

"I need to talk to your buddy."

"Which one?" he wondered if he visibly relaxed. He couldn't tell, he was a bit high strung and had been all day and he had Altair in his next class and he was not looking forward to that at all.

"Uh… Kaczmarek?" he asked.

"Clay? Yeah, what do you need to talk to him about?" and he told the lunch lady, a frumpy dark skinned, Cuban woman with a hair net and a mustache, what he wanted for lunch.

"It's about the party last week."

"What about?" he was getting a weird feeling again.

"Does your friend DJ?"

If he wasn't being buffered forward by Ezio himself, and the line behind him, he would have come to a dead halt. "DJ?" he asked stupidly.

"Yeah."

"Uh… not that I know of," he said awkwardly. Well, this conversation was not turning out the way he'd feared or expected. "Why?"

Ezio just shrugged as Desmond grabbed a carton of chocolate milk, "Just wanted to know. Need to talk to him though."

"Ah— yeah, sure," he said, this was weird and fucking surreal. He wasn't sure he liked it. This was also the longest conversation he'd ever had with the star baseball player in his life. Ezio was kinda… dumb, not like retarded or anything, but Desmond was in all honor classes; Ezio wasn't in a single one.

"Great," Ezio smiled at him and Desmond thought he had a really nice smile. No wonder he was a heart throb. Not Desmond's type, but still really hot, like his brother, hopefully he'd grow out his baby face though and then he'd just be strait lady killer to the max.

"I can take you to him now," Desmond heard himself saying as he punched in his lunch number. Ezio nodded as the other lunch lady rung up his meal and took it out of his account. Ezio's tray was full of a la carte items and Desmond felt a twitch of jealousy but covered it up quickly, it was stupid. "So just uh, follow me," and then he was moving through the loud, crowded, lunch room, pushing through the huge line that was wrapped around the room and going out one of the set of doors.

He led Ezio outside to where he and his friends sat. The others were there sans Shaun who was god knew where. Clay had a lunch box today, Lucy's step-dad brought her lunch every day, and Becca lived in Red Bulls and Pringles. He still didn't know how his friend was still actually alive with her eating habits. Clay and Lucy were sitting close together, thighs touching and Becca was talking animatedly to Lucy as she ate some Publix sushi.

"Woah," Clay said, "Where the fuck you find that Desmond? In the bottom of the cereal box?" he asked and his friend looked way too dumb-happy to be legal.

Desmond laughed though Ezio he could tell was slightly weirded out. That happened a lot to people who actually didn't know Clay, or were meeting him for the first time. "Yeah, and he even has kung-fu grip," he said. Clay thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Becca gave Lucy a look as if to say 'and you're dating this guy?' and Lucy just rolled her eyes. "He wanted to talk to you," Desmond added.

Clay sobered in an instant and now was looking at Ezio with great interest, "Really?" he asked. Ezio nodded. "Well then come join us!" he beckoned. As Ezio sat Lucy and Becca got up and moved a few feet away to continue talking. Ezio sat on the other side of Clay and Desmond sat between the two groups, more interested in his lunch then what they were talking about, he had a feeling he didn't want to know, and both for two totally different reasons.

Lunch was gone quickly and he pulled a book out of his back pack to read. He kept catching glimpses of conversation on either side of him. Words like 'money', 'DJ', and 'party' kept coming from the conversation between Clay and Ezio while words like 'boys', 'date', and 'biology' came from Rebecca and Lucy's. He was pretty sure he was more terrified to know what the girls were talking about then his friend and the play boy were talking about. Seriously girls were scary and he was sort of glad he was gay sometimes. He tried to focus on his book and ignore the others and soon he'd just tuned them out.

He was grateful and freaked when the lunch bell rang. At least Ezio was leaving now. He watched the other boy go as he put his book away. "So what did Ezio want?" he finally asked Clay who was busily stuffing his face with the lunch he hadn't eaten during lunch.

"Frem franms fmre thu vlee vraa for a varfee on astrvlay," Clay said.

Desmond just stared at him, "You're disgusting," he said. "As your best friend I'm telling you you're disgusting and need to chew and talk at separate times."

"Vfeuk vou," Clay rolled his eyes at him.

"Clay," Lucy said and his friend's head shot up and he swallowed his food when she walked over to them. He was just staring at her in slight awe and wow his friend had it bad.

"Yeah?" he asked, sounding all tongue tied. Yep, so bad.

She gave him a fond smile, "You have food on your face silly," and she leaned down and brushed it off the corner of his mouth.

"Oh," he said intelligently.

"I would not believe this unless I saw it," at some point Shaun had shown up and he was standing with Becca behind Demond. Becca had her hand in Shaun's back pocket.

He turned back around in time to catch Lucy saying, "I'll see you in seventh period," and then she gave him a peck on the lips and then turned back to Becca and Shaun and they left for class.

Clay looked like he wanted to melt into the concrete slab. "Dude. You okay?" Desmond asked.

"Just fine," Clay said in a dreamy voice, totally watching Lucy's ass as she walked away.

"Dude," he said.

"Yeah?" he finally turned to Desmond again.

Desmond just blinked at him, a bit dumb struck. "You've been going out two days," he reminded his friend.

"Yeah? And?"

Desmond rolled his eyes and got to his feet, grabbing onto the back of Clay's collar and dragging him up. "Class. You have history," and he shoved his back pack at him.

"Right. Right," Clay nodded coming back to himself. Then he realized what he'd just done. "I wasn't drooling was I?"

"No. Not yet at least."

"Oh good!" Clay said enthusiastically. And then Desmond was hustling after him as he threw away their trash and was then practically running up the open stairwell. He caught Clay before he could vanish into his pod though.

"What did Ezio want?" he asked.

"He wanted to know if I wanted to DJ a friend of his party."

"But you aren't a DJ."

"Music coordinator then," Clay rolled his eyes hard. "But fuck it, I get money out of the deal!"

Desmond snorted but was smiling, "That's great. When is it?"

"Next weekend. And you're flying wingman."

"You can't have wingmen when you're dating someone," Desmond reminded him.

"I mean to keep people away and have fun and drink and shit," Clay scoffed. "I need to buy some apps," he said suddenly and then darted into the pod without another word. Desmond sighed and rolled his eyes before walking down the breezeway to his locker and getting his books and headed to chemistry. As he went he started to feel more nervous about the whole thing and wondered if he could fake a stomach ache and go to the nurse, or just hide in the boy's bathroom.

No, he couldn't do that. He sucked it up and slipped into the classroom and sat next to Caterina and hunched over, rifling through his book bag. "Hey Desmond," Caterina said easily in greeting.

"Hey Cat," he said distractedly, trying to not be noticed by the other seniors coming into class and also look for Altair so he knew if he was screwed or not. He still had Altair's shirt.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Mmm? Yeah, totally cool," he said.

"You have a good weekend?" she continued and when he sent her an unamused look she just smiled.

"Fantastic," he said gravely.

She laughed slightly, "Well I know you had a good time Friday. What happened to you? You pass out somewhere?"

"Yeah, you could say that," and his voice totally went up half an octave when Altair walked into class with one of his friends who was not in this class and oh my god what was going on!

"You okay?" she asked again as he seemed to try and crawl into his back pack.

"Yeah, just fine, I'm just looking for a pencil."

"There's one on the desk."

"There is?" he pulled his head out of his bag, "Oh well would you look at that. Great. Just… great," and he looked around. Altair was sitting though, two tables in front of and to the left of him.

"You're acting weird today Desmond, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, just fine," he turned to Caterina. "Clay's just got me jumpy and feeling like a third wheel."

"Really?" she actually sounded interested.

"Yeah he's got a girlfriend," he said.

She blinked, "I don't know if I believe you or not," she said.

"No really. He's going out with Lucy Stillm-" and then the bell rang.

"Class," the teacher started immediately and Desmond had a reason to shut up. Good too cause he was not in a talking mood at all. He listened to the teacher and took notes when appropriate and kept glancing at Altair. It was like a nervous tick and wouldn't stop. He really had to stop though, this was stupid. He concentrated on the teacher, both he and Caterina taking detailed notes. Then they said they were going to show a movie the rest of the class.

Desmond sat back in his chair as the lights got turned off and the movie turned on. There was actually cheering when the Bill Nye theme and intro started playing. He even saw more then one person bobbing along or mouthing the words. He grinned and tried to watch.

Except he kept getting distracted. At one point he swore he saw Altair look back at him and then started keeping an eye on him, wary as a rabbit with an eagle circling overhead. All that was missing was a quivering nose and a cotton tail. Then his brain took that image a bit too far and he pressed his hand over his eyes. Except something else was quivering and the cotton tail was attached to a pair of underwear. Wow he needed to stop, and all this happened in a few quick seconds. He really needed to get laid. Properly laid.

When he finally pulled his hand away he focused on Bill Nye and thought a lot of unsexy thoughts. He made about five minutes before looking at Altair again, he was sitting relaxed in his chair before, like something funny had occurred to him, his shoulders shook a little, though his laughter was silent. Desmond propped his head up on his fist and decided that watching Altair was a lot more interesting then Billy Nye. Potentially more destructive, but at least the back of Altair's head was attractive.

He started when Caterina nudge him in the side and looked at her quickly. She gave him a look, "What?" he asked in a whisper.

"Are you seriously staring at Altair?" she asked back in a whisper.

"What?" he sounded almost panicked.

"You know he's straight right?"

"Yeah…" no need to burst her bubble on that. No guy who sucked dick that good was any synonym of straight.

Caterina's lips went thin a moment, "I don't want you to get hurt," she whispered, "So try setting your sights on a guy who'd appreciate you," and he stared at her. He didn't know Caterina cared. His brain to mouth filter must have failed him then. "Of course I care you insensitive jerk," she said, frowning and he realized he'd said that bit aloud. She shrugged a little, "You're a friend, and Altair's a weirdo," not a word of choice he'd use to describe Altair, but he didn't know him, Caterina sort of did. At the very least she knew Ezio and Ezio and Altair were best friends.

"Thanks," he said, cause he meant it. "I promise I won't try to touch Altair inappropriately." Woops! Broke that promise already and his fingers suddenly itched and wanted to crawl all over someone else's skin.

Caterina laughed softly, "Try somewhere in the ball park," she advised.

"Sure. Will do," he smiled at her, glad that had been worked out with minimal embarrassment. "Doesn't mean I can't look," he added with some raised brows. Caterina just rolled her eyes a little and he back to trying to focus on Bill Nye. This time his eyes didn't go to the back of Altair's head nearly as often as before. Well, it was a start he guessed.

Ineversaid Altairwouldbethepossessiveone

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