AN: Not really much to say about this chapter, so I won't waste time! Enjoy the inner turmoil!

Googleeyes: I'm glad you were surprised! I figured no one would be expecting that, but I hope it didn't come entirely out of nowhere. Raoul's just such an earnest little soul, he has to share things, especially with his new BFF Christine.
Mominator: Tee-hee! Glad it kept you laughing and not just scratching your head. I'm sure everything will work itself out in the end...not entirely sure how since I haven't written that yet, but you know. Somehow. Someday. Things will work themselves out.

Well, you'll have to excuse me, I know it's so off.
I love when you do stuff that's rude and so wrong
I go up to my room, turn the stereo on,
Shoot up some you, and the you is some song.

I lie back just drifting and play out these scenes.
I ride on the rush of all the hopes, and the dreams.
I may be neglecting the things I should do,
But we've all got our junk and my junk is you.

-Spring Awakening

Erik's mind and body were not working properly at 10:15am. He knew it was 10:15am because he'd been staring at his alarm clock for the past half hour, in a pointed daze. It was almost as if he felt that to move his body or change his position in the smallest degree would cause unutterable pain. No, to be perfectly honest, there was a definite danger of that. His head felt like lead, his tongue felt like it was coated in mothballs and his stomach felt like it had grown claws in the middle of the night and was trying to break free from his body John Hurt style. God, he felt awful and to cap it off, he knew precisely why. As soon as they got into the van to return to the house, against his better judgement, he started drinking.

Christine and Raoul had opted to go their own way, he got a text from her that read only 'goin 2 raouls! happy halloween!1!' Oh, how those exclamation points that could conceal so much. In any case, Erik curled up in the back of the van, alone but for an abandoned Poland Spring bottle filled with some unidentifiable red substance. Without giving a thought to the consequences of such mind-numbingly stupid actions, he drank the remainder of the bottle, wincing as it burned a path down his throat.

Erik never drank. Never. Once in a blue moon, he might have a sip off someone else's drink, just to see what all the fuss was about, to see what the taste was like, out of pure academic interest, but he never drank. It was bad for him. Not in a 'drinking is unhealthy' way, but in a 'your body will rebel and become a festering pustule of pain if you drink' kind of way. Normally he wasn't this fucking stupid, he just wasn't. Normally he listened to his doctors and did as he was told and even took his pills at the appropriate time in the morning. Not this morning. This morning those little orange bottles sat untouched in his medicine cabinet.

Never once before in his life had he had more than a dram of liquor and last night he...well he didn't remember how much he had to drink. Or what happened, exactly, it was all very vague. At one point he and Sorelli were both shirtless dancing to Lady Gaga's "Pokerface," and then he was making out with Armand, (who was also trashed) and toward the end of the night, the whole group of them decided to make cupcakes. That had gone about as well as could be expected and culminated in everyone eating cake batter and throwing frosting at one another.

The kitchen was a mess he knew and Ahmed would expect help cleaning it, but he'd already thrown up twice since nine, (eight? with daylight savings?) and had dragged himself around on his hands and knees, scrubbing the bathroom tile as a result of that. One wouldn't think so, but Erik's sense of smell was more or less on par with the rest of humanity when it came to unpleasant odors and the scent of vomit always turned his stomach. Lucky for him, he had a number of surgical masks that he was expected to wear during cold and flu season. That never happened, of course, since walking around with a surgical mask in one's daily life looked stupid, but they served him well enough for scrubbing vomit off the floor.

Erik didn't even remember getting into bed, honestly. God, he hadn't fucked anyone, had he? That would be so embarrassing. Things were coming back to him now, hazy and disjointed, like a bad art house film. Once he'd finished with Armand, he sort of...rolled onto the floor near Meg who just kind of pounced on him and started playing with his hair. She was talking about something...something that seemed really important at the time. There had definitely been a long, involved conversation between the two of them, regarding the future and their mothers and then she cried because she'd never had a boyfriend....had he kissed her, then? It seemed like he'd done a lot of that last night, even though that was the very earth-shattering action that had gotten him worked into such a tizzy that he'd started drinking to begin with.

But no, he hadn't, because Jamie came over and she and Meg were kissing on top of him, which was completely strange and awkward, so he wiggled away and wound up back with Sorelli. Who still hadn't put her shirt back on and then she was taking her bra off and telling Erik that the whole time she was with Ahmed in high school, she'd really just wanted to date him and why not make up for lost time? But by that point he could hardly see straight and it was difficult to tell whether Sarah had two breasts or four. Further distracting him was the thought that, if she did have four boobs, that went a long way toward explaining her appeal to men. Sometime after that, the baking suggestion had been made.

That still didn't explain how he came to be in bed, dressed for sleeping. Had he really showered and gotten into his pajamas, removed the nose and all? It didn't seem likely. Yet here he was, relatively clean, in flannel PJ bottoms and a t-shirt, without any uncomfortably pieces of rubber and latex preventing him from trying to suffocate himself on the pillow. It was all too weird and he felt too sick to think about it anymore. That was when Erik decided to just stare blankly across the room and that was the position that his best friend found him in as he silently entered the room, apparently under the impression that Erik was still asleep. Ahmed was also precisely the reason that Erik was relatively clean and bed-ready, but he was never going to discover that little factoid, since Ahmed never planned on telling him. He hadn't even planned on engaging Erik in conversation that morning, but as he was passing the bed and noted that those yellowish eyes were wide open, it was too late to back out unnoticed.

"Oh, hey," Ahmed said uncomfortably, stopping halfway across the room. "I was just going to fix your clock."

The garbled groan from the bed was indecipherable to Ahmed who decided, screw the clock, he should probably be checking on Erik. "You had...um...a lot to drink last night. Like, for you."

"For anybody." Ah, there was speech. Clear, non-slurred speech. Speaking didn't do anything to ease his headache, but at least his stomach couldn't feel any worse. How much had he had to drink? The unidentifiable red stuff, two Tequila shots...Jack Daniels out of the bottle...Jesus, it was a damn good thing he wasn't supposed to drink, if he had free reign with booze, he'd be a full-blown alcoholic in a week. "Why didn't you stop me?"

Ahmed rolled his eyes at that, sitting on the side of the bed, not caring if his jostling disturbed the imaginary invalid. "What am I, your mom?" Bad analogy. Better to have asked, 'What am I, Chester?' Because Maddy would have probably been doing shots right alongside him. Actually, Ahmed did feel really guilty about letting Erik drink the night before. Yes, he'd seen him doing shots in the kitchen with everyone else and, yes, he knew that he wasn't allowed to do that, but it hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time. Just sort of a vague, 'Huh. Erik's not supposed to drink,' but it never occurred to him to actually stop him. Why? Well...he was high. He wasn't terribly responsible when he was high.

That was part of the reason he enjoyed smoking so much. Because Ahmed probably had some kind of undiagnosed anxiety disorder that made him feel like he had to be responsible for preventing all truly terrible decisions those around him wanted to make. Granted, he was not hyper-protective of all his friends, largely these feelings revolved around Erik entirely. Ever since they were little kids, he was the one getting on Erik to wear his jacket outside, put his hat on, wear sunscreen. He had to calm Erik down when he had his little freak-outs at school and physically held him back from getting into fights more times than he could count.

When Erik finally had a diagnosis for why he was such a spaz, Ahmed was the one reminding Erik to take his meds and getting on his case when he was acting more crazy than usual. Yeah, it annoyed the fuck out of his friend, but Ahmed was one of the few people who could differentiate between general Erik weirdness and dangerous Erik weirdness. Someone had to, it had been a part of the dynamic of their friendship since forever and last night he dropped the ball royally. Hence the guilt.

Erik startled Ahmed from his reverie of shame by muttering something that the boy without the hangover had not caught. "Huh? Sorry, what?"

The pasty boy lying in bed rolled his eyes and repeated, slightly louder, "Can you get me some tonic water, please?"

It probably would have helped his stomach more to take actual quinine pills, but they were a bitch to obtain and the side-effects kind of sucked. So when he wished for relief from pain and suffering, Erik wound up taking what he could get, in the form of the negligible amounts in tonic water. In fact, he was pretty sure the relief was entirely psychosomatic at this point, but that didn't change the fact that he stockpiled cartons of the stuff in the basement.

And down into the basement Ahmed descended, returning to find Erik half falling out of bed, head buried in a wastepaper basket. Setting the bottle of the healing water beside the bed, he hovered uncertainly until Erik pulled his head out of the basket, a grim expression on his face. "Dry heaves," he reassured Ahmed, flopping back into his pillows. "Nothing came up."

Well, that was both good and bad, Ahmed thought. Good that the room wouldn't reek of vomit. Bad that Erik had only had two slices of pizza and some cake batter to eat yesterday. "Okay," he said, sitting back at the edge of the bed, cautiously, just in case Erik's body hadn't quite expelled the last of his pizza yet. "So...what's the story, morning glory?" Quoting Bye Bye, Birdie? Oh, yeah. He went there.

Erik was chugging down half a bottle of Canada Dry and couldn't answer right away. When he did, Ahmed was certain that he misheard. "Raoul's in love with me."

…

"Come again?" Ahmed asked, one dark brow rising dangerously close to his hairline.

Blowing out a breath through what passed for his nose, Erik rolled his eyes and lay on his back against his pillows. "Okay, maybe not in love with me. But he thinks he's gay. Because of me."

Yeah, so, despite the fact that Erik was talking and words were coming out of his mouth, they weren't making sense to Ahmed. Maybe it was the hangover from hell, fucking with his medication or something. Speaking of... "Did you take your meds this morning?"

"No." And at that, Ahmed was up and in the bathroom, shaking pills into his hand. Was it bad that he knew Erik's dosage? Probably. Dammit, he wasn't the guy's wife or mother or other female authority figure, why did taking care of Erik always fall to him?

"Okay, so what actually happened?"

Ahmed thought that maybe, just maybe, he would get a story of sense out of his friend. An account that had nothing to do with Raoul suddenly deciding he was gay with Erik as the protagonist in this saga of woe. No such luck. Erik related what happened when he was awkwardly clinging to the statue and Ahmed's eyes were the size of dinner plates. Yeah, Erik was a decent kisser, but he wasn't that great. Certainly not so great that Ahmed ever thought of fucking him when he was sober. When he wasn't sober? Yeah, thoughts happen, he let Erik drive the night before, he never liked to let Erik drive and he just handed the keys over. People did and thought crazy things when they were under the influence and it was probably the same deal with Raoul and he told Erik as much.

"I hope so," Erik said, eyes locked on the ceiling. "I really fucking hope so. Because how awkward will this be? Going to class and thinking about him wanting to fuck me to see where he actually falls on the Kinsey Scale. And I thought he was straight. I really, really thought he was straight and my Gaydar is impeccable. And you know what the worst part of all this is?" There was dull horror in Erik's voice as he spoke. A resignation and sense of lost opportunities and hopes denied. It was a terrible thing to hear in one so young.

"The fact that you don't really like him that much?" Oh, it was so much worse than that.

"Well, there's that. But you know what? It really wasn't that great a picture. Of the statue, I mean. Like...I mean the statue was already wearing a hat. Two was just overkill. And a boa? I can do so much better than that. I was traumatized last night for a sub-par picture. That's really the most terrible irony of all."

"So..." Ahmed began, knowing he was venturing into dangerous territory. "There's no chance...you know, that you'd reciprocate?"

Even through his physical and emotional turmoil, Erik had the strength to turn to Ahmed and glare at him. "Let's not go there. You know better than to go there."

The green eyed boy sighed dramatically. Honestly, Erik was so sensitive about his own sexuality, you'd think he'd grown up Mormon rather than...however he'd grown up. There really wasn't a definition for it in the modern world. 'Blended Family' seemed to serve well enough. "Well, I mean, you've got to fuck someone someday."

"Yeah, and it's not going to be Raoul, thank you very much. He seems needy. Also he has a really pointy nose, have you noticed?"

Ahmed hadn't, actually, but he was willing to take Erik's word for it. He was a connoisseur of noses, after all. "So, are you planning on letting him down gently?"

Erik snorted loudly. "Um, I'm not planning on letting him down at all. This conversation does not leave this room. I am not fucking, kissing, touching or otherwise engaging in heavy petting with Raoul. Ever. We can just...play again and he can make out with Sorelli – that's it! We will get him drunk and he can fuck Sorelli and that will turn him straight."

"Or set him up for a lifetime of STDs."

"Yeah, well, there's that. But still. I don't think he's gay, I think he's a confused straight boy who wants to fit in. Didn't he go to some repressive Catholic school? Yeah, so he's obviously shocked by all of the rampant homosexuality that defines our lives and he thinks that, to fit in, he has to be bi-curious."

Ahmed was suitably impressed by this diagnosis. "Nice. Have you been going to therapy?"

Another loud snort. "Uh, no. David would just decide that all of this came from Raoul's resenting his parents. He thinks everything fucked up about me comes back to me resenting my parents. Which is why I don't go to therapy anymore. Do you want to leave my room now? I think I'm going back to sleep."

Ahmed didn't need to be told twice. Rising from the bed, he nudged the wastebasket closer to Erik with a small smile. "Just in case," he said. "Alright, sleep tight, dude. Try not to have too many Raoul-centric wet dreams." He ran out the door the second before Erik could throw a pillow at him. Behavior of that sort was almost enough to make Ahmed stop worrying about Erik. Almost, but not quite. Nothing was ever quite enough to make him stop worrying about Erik.