*appears in a puff of smoke* *coughs* Ahem... sorry. Tanytway, greetings, world! *beams and waves* Guess what we did last chapter? THAT'S RIGHT! WE BROKE A HUNDRED! *throws confetti* And the 100th reviewer was none other than my very favorite, one-hundred-percent Italian, Jack-obsessed dancer, RAVEN! *tackle glomps Raven* Much love, sweetie! XD Well, everyone, welcome to chapter six of But I'm a Prep! This is one of my favorite parts of the movie, so this is probably going to be my favorite chapter. And I have a feeling it's gonna be a lot of other people's favorites, too. ^____^ ON WITH THE CHAPPIE!
Disclaimers: Sita owns nothing, except for Mayfly. Yay, short disclaimers!
Warnings: Language, underage drinking (^_^;;), slash
#NOTE: This chapter is dedicated to Hilary, BIAP's loving husband. We all love and miss you, dearie. MUCH LOVE! LOOOOOOOVE FOR THE HIL!#
But I'm a Prep!
Chapter Six
The next five days absolutely sucked.
Sure, Medda was hard on us before, and she'd watched us like a hawk from the very beginning. But this... this was a completely different level. Every night, she'd check to make sure that we were in bed at ten-thirty sharp, then check back at midnight, two, and four, right on the dot. I don't think she even slept any more, because she'd developed quite a lovely left eye twitch. During the day we'd try to act like we normally would, but it was pretty damn hard. Everywhere we went, everyone we talked to, everything we did... she saw. It was creepy.
I really didn't have it that bad, though. Although we never once mentioned the incident in the Screening Room, Racetrack and I got to the point where we could openly refer to ourselves as "friends," which I liked. A lot (oh, shut up, stop laughing!). And we had a very amusing time driving our oh-so-lovely and talented instructors so crazy that even Satan herself started to dread having to teach us the ways of heterosexuality.
But the others... well, they didn't have it as good.
Even though Heels hadn't been the most sociable girl in the world, pretty much everyone had liked her (except for Itey, who didn't like anyone). And everyone had really liked Snitch. So, pretty much the entire teenage population of True Directions was bummed. But Mandy... oh, God. I felt so bad for the poor kid. It was like she couldn't even think any more. And, honestly, I don't think she could. When she lost Heels, she turned into some kind of little robot or puppet or something. Her eyes were blank. Completely and totally blank. And that scared me. She went to class and participated in Medda's stupid anti-gay activities, but she wasn't really there, you know? Whenever she had free time, we'd find her sitting under the same oak tree behind the Training Building, staring off into space, and brushing her hair like Heels used to do for her (Heels had been absolutely obsessed with Mandy's hair). We tried to snap her out of it, but she wouldn't even look at us, let alone speak.
Skittery? No one knew how Skittery was; he'd been locked in the Doghouse for a week. I could only hope that he was doing okay, though common sense told me that he was probably far from "okay."
Nobody at True Directions was "okay" that week. We'd all lost some friends.
And, yes, we were all friends. Every last one of us. How could we not be? We'd gone through stuff that no teenager should have to go through. Hell, no adult should have to go through it, either. We'd experienced real discrimination. It's insane that people are judged every single day by their gender or skin color or, in our case, sexual orientation. What's more is that they're judged by people who don't even fucking know them! And I knew. That's what makes me really sick. I knew it was happening every day, everywhere, but I never raised a finger to try and stop it until it happened to me. I never even thought about how much it was happening to everyone else.
Well, have you?
Probably not.
You know, maybe you should.
*~*~*
"You got it?" I glanced over at Race who'd already managed to chuck his massive garbage bag into the dumpster (the blue dumpster, of course; heaven forbid that we put it into the pink dumpster right next to it), despite being really frickin' short.
With a slightly animalistic grunt, I swung back and hurled it upwards.
It missed the dumpster completely.
Race choked back a laugh.
"Oh, shut up," I grumbled.
"Does da wittle baby need help getting da big, bad twash bag into da gawbage?"
"Kiss my ass."
"Shave it first."
"I hate you."
"I know." With a quiet laugh, he picked up the bag and effortlessly tossed it into the dumpster. I rolled my eyes and playfully smacked him upside the head as we started our trek back towards the boys' dorm.
"God, how'd you ever make friends back in the real world?"
"I didn't," he replied nonchalantly, plucking a cigarette out of his pocket. "You want one?"
"No, I don't smoke. You didn't have friends?" Race snorted before popping the cigarette into his mouth.
"Of course I didn't. I was 'that Italian asshole," which, as I recall, has also been your nickname for me last month."
"Sorry about that."
"Eh, s'okay. It's nothing that I haven't gotten before. It's pretty much all I'd hear from the steroid-enhanced jocks and the bulimic cheer-" He stopped in mid-sentence and looked at me sharply before staring back at the ground.
I believe an explanation is in order.
The joking cheer that we'd done ("two, four, six, eight, God is good, God is straight!") had progressed into a bit of a running gag where one of us would slip into "cheerleader mode" and talk like a stereotypical valley girl ("like, totally!") and pretend to do cartwheels. It was stupid but amusing. All the joking had eventually led to me telling him about Zooey and how I felt really bad that she had to find out about me being gay through Smartass, the school gossip. From then on, he'd tried his hardest not to say anything bad about cheerleaders, knowing how much I cared about Zooey.
He usually failed miserably, but, hey, he tried. And that really did mean a lot to me.
I gave him a half-smile.
"Go ahead. Say it." He smiled back and shook his head.
"I... I didn't."
Dammit, why'd he have to be so fucking cute?!
"Thanks." He smiled and lit his cigarette before trudging along with his hands in his pockets. I quickly glanced up at the full moon before staring back down at my shoes.
Yay, awkward silences.
"So what about you?" I raised an eyebrow.
"What about me what?"
"Friend-wise, I mean." I frowned and thought about it for a few seconds.
"I thought I had friends. I really did. I mean, I was one of the 'popular guys,' you know? So I figured that I had lots of friends. But not one of them has tried to contact me or anything. They don't really seem to care." Racetrack smirked mirthlessly.
"It's kinda funny. You popular kids really don't understand what the deal is, do you?" I blinked.
"Guess not."
"If you're popular, nobody actually likes you. Other popular kids don't like you because they're too busy worrying about themselves. But they pretend to like you because that's the socially acceptable thing to do. The unpopular kids don't like you because they think you're asses. But they pretend to like you because they think everyone else does. It's the craziest system I've ever heard of."
I stared at the ground.
"Oh. Wow."
"Sorry, guess I was a little blunt, huh?"
"That's okay. At least you're honest." He grinned sheepishly as we scurried up the stoop to the front door. At the same time, we reached for the doorknob and our hands met.
We looked at each other for a few seconds. Just kinda looked. I don't know what he was thinking of, but the phrase running through my mind was something along the lines of, "holy crap, he's gorgeous..." And there was something there. You know how, sometimes, when you walk into a room with two people who hate each other, you can feel the tension in the air? That's kinda like what this was, but it wasn't tension. Well, it was like tension, but it wasn't. Confusing, much?
Then he blinked, and whatever it was that had been there was gone.
Without another word, he turned the doorknob and headed inside.
Was he... blushing?
I felt a slow grin spread across my face as I followed him in and shut the door quietly behind me.
*~*~*
I opened my eye blearily and glanced around the room. The clock on the wall informed me that it was about quarter to twelve.
I blinked and frowned at the noise coming from the bathroom. It definitely sounded like more than one person was in there. They were talking quietly and rapidly.
Something was definitely going on.
I scratched my head as I struggled to my feet and padded towards the door. I opened it and winced as the light streamed into my very unprepared eyes.
"Well, look who decided to join us."
I scrubbed the sleep out of my eye and squinted at Spot and Racetrack.
"What are you guys doing?" I mumbled, yawning.
"It's Saturday!" Spot shrieked.
"You wanna get us caught?!"
"Sorry... it's Saturday! Are you coming?" He waved a vaguely familiar neon pink flier in my face. Quite suddenly, I remembered Ireland telling me about the little "field trip" that her neighbor had set up.
I frowned.
"I don't know guys..."
"Aw, come on!" Race said, grinning as he pulled on a rather tight black shirt boasting the words "Dashboard Confessional."
"Never pegged you for an emo fan, Race."
"Oh, shut up," he muttered. He smirked at me before struggling into a pair of baggy black jeans.
"So, are you coming or not?" Spot asked impatiently, twirling part of his maroon feather boa.
.... feather boa?
I decided to take the time to study Spot's outfit.
He was wearing a pair of tight, black shorts. They were so tiny, they rivaled those of Mush and Davey, which I didn't think was possible. His shirt was tight and ended quite a few inches above where it should have ended, not to mention the fact that it was silver. And let's not forget the glitter. Then, to top it all off, was the aforementioned maroon feather boa.
"... how the hell did you manage to sneak that in here?" Spot cocked his head to the side.
"What do you mean?" He blinked, then grinned in realization. "Ooooh, you mean this thing? Secret compartment in my suitcase." He twirled around. "Ain't I sex-ay?"
"No, you're just an idiot."
"Oh, girl, no you di-ennnt!" Spot said, snapping his fingers. Racetrack rolled his eyes and pulled on a black cabby hat.
"You never answered me, Blink," he stated, completely ignoring Spot. "You coming or not?" I bit my lip.
"I don't think so. I mean, if we get caught, we're screwed. And I don't wanna get booted with just a month left." Racetrack sighed.
"Whatever," he grumbled. He brushed past me, looking a bit annoyed, with Spot at his heels.
I sighed and trudged back to my bed. For a few minutes, I laid there, hoping to God that they wouldn't get caught.
And then I realized something.
If Race and Spot got busted, they were out. And it'd be just me and Skittery (once he got back) in the room. And no offense to Skitts, but it'd be pretty damn depressing to be stuck in a room with him all day.
Besides, I was seventeen. I needed to live a little.
So, I got up, pulled on a pair of jeans and one of those shirts with stupid messages on them ("The beatings will continue until morale improves"), brushed my teeth at light speed, and headed for the door.
What's the worst that could happen?
*~*~*
I crept through the night, constantly glancing over my shoulder.
This was a baaaad idea, Blink. What have you gotten yourself into?
Right when I was thinking about turning back, I felt someone poke me in the shoulder.
I believe my scream went something like this: "AGAYAAAH!"
"You're gonna get us caught, monkey-child!" Q mumbled, twitching violently. "Quickly! To the get-away-mobile! WHOOSH!" With that, she darted towards a large, black van at the gates of True Directions.
I reluctantly followed her and jumped in, just as someone was about to close the doors.
"Look who's here!" Race said with a grin. I rolled my eyes and grinned back as I settled into the seat next to him.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," I muttered. I squinted and glanced around the van to see who had decided to come. Race and Spot. Itey (whoop-de-doo). Q. Speed. Chaser. And I think I saw Stage sitting on the floor.
The guy in the passenger's seat turned around and smiled politely at us. His hair was wavy and black, and he wore glasses.
"Hi, everybody!" he said pleasantly.
"HI, SPECS!" Stage crowed. The boy grinned and rolled his eyes.
"Hello, Stage. For those of you who don't know me, my name's Donovan, but people tend to call me Specs for obvious reasons. And this," he stated, pointing to the blond boy in the driver's seat, "would be Lucas, or Dutchy."
"Yo." Dutchy grinned and waved before putting the car into drive and pulling off.
"Specs and Dutchy are ex-ex-gays," Race informed me.
"Oh, yeah, Ireland told me that you guys used to be at TD." Specs shuddered visibly.
"Oh, God, don't remind me."
"We're lucky that we wised up and ran off before we went completely nuts," Dutchy said gravely.
"So, what, you're saying that we should all run?" Chaser asked inquisitively. Specs shook his head.
"Nah, it's not about that. It's about what you want. Some people wanna be who they are. Other people have to keep it hidden. We're about showing you other options so that you know which one you want to do." He grinned, slightly evilly. "Of course, we also want you to have fun in the process."
"So, you guys run, like... the underground homo railroad?" I asked innocently. Race, along with most of the other kids in the van, burst into laughter. Specs fought back a snicker.
"I guess you could put it that way." He reached quickly into the glove compartment and removed a short stack of plastic rectangles - ID's. "It won't be an exact match," he said, studying us intently before glancing back at the pictures, "but it'll do, I think." He smiled cheerily before handing me one with a guy who actually looked a good bit like me, except for the whole patch thing.
"Should I lose the patch?" Race raised an eyebrow.
"You can take it off?" I frowned.
"Well, yeah. I mean, I'm not horribly disfigured under there or anything." I reached up, calmly slipped my eye patch off, and placed it in my pocket.
It'd been a while since I'd taken the thing off (besides showering; most of the time, I even left the damn thing on to sleep), so the left side of my face was quite pleased to be able to breathe again. I scrubbed at my left eye, which was a much lighter blue than my right one, and sat back in my seat. Race leaned forward to take his I.D. from Specs before he glanced at me.
And, I swear to God, his jaw dropped.
I frowned.
"What?" He didn't answer for a few seconds. He just kinda stared at me.
You know, he said it so quietly, that I could barely hear him. Nobody else did, that's for sure. And the funniest thing is, I don't even think he realized he said it. But he did.
"My, God... you're fuckin' gorgeous..."
My heart pretty much stopped at that point.
Did... did he just say I was...?
I tried to say something, believe me I did. But nothing came out. Not a damn sound. So, I had to settle for staring at him in shock while he stared back with pretty much the same expression.
I was suddenly kicked sharply in the shins. Wincing from the pain, I glanced behind me to find Itey glaring murderously at me.
Okay, so I guess someone else did hear...
"This is it, guys!" Dutchy called.
"WOO-HOO!" Speed cheered.
"Shut up, Speed."
"Shut up, Chaser." They then proceeded to stick their tongues down each other's throats.
"Is anyone else feeling the Zazu and Sully vibes?" Stage questioned from the back.
"Huh?"
"Zazu and Sully? SNL? Rachel Dratch and Jimmy Fallon?"
We stared blankly.
Stage sighed.
"'You're queeah.' 'You are.' And then they make out."
"OOOOOOH!"
"Hey, guys, we're gonna pick you up at, like, two, okay?" Specs stated. "Ireland offered to do the two A.M check on you guys, so Medda won't be in your rooms until four. Sound good?"
"Awesome."
"Rock."
"SCHMORGESBOURDE!"
"Thank you, Q."
"Okay, we'll see you guys then!"
We all piled out of the nondescript van and watched as Dutchy and Specs drove off. I turned to face the building that we were in front of and stopped dead in my tracks.
It was small and smoky, and I could hear bad techno music blaring from the inside. On the side of the brick wall was a massive rainbow sign that blared the word COCKSUCKER. A rather large, stone rooster sat in front of it.
A gay bar. Lovely.
"I can't believe I'm going to a gay bar," I muttered as I trudged inside after Spot.
"Where else would we go?" Race asked quizzically.
"Point taken."
I wrinkled my nose at the smell of smoke. I could barely see five feet in front of me. A rather long bar sat at the opposite end of the large room where I could vaguely see a boy and a girl playfully tossing a glass to one another. People were dancing lewdly to really horrible techno music and making out at random intervals.
Race put his hand on my shoulder and cocked his head towards the bar.
"Come on, we're gonna get something to drink."
"I don't drink."
"You do now." He grinned mischievously, grabbed my arm, and dragged me towards the bar where I noticed Spot with his lips attached to the lips of the bartender. "Having fun?" Race muttered sarcastically. Spot blinked and pulled away, beaming.
"Race, Blink, this is my boyfriend, Jack." Jack grinned and tipped his cowboy hat. "Jack, these are my friends, Blink and Race." We exchanged the customary "nice to meet you" banter until a girl with long auburn hair came up behind Jack and smacked him playfully on the head with a dish towel.
"Move your lazy ass, Jacky-boy," she reprimanded playfully. "Go over there and take those nice gentlemen's orders."
"Yes, Mother," he called over his shoulder as he trudged towards the other end of the bar. The girl grinned and shook her head before turning her gaze to us.
"Friends of Spot's?" she asked light-heartedly. We nodded as she amiably extended her hand. "The name's Michelle, but call me Raven." She smiled and leaned forward on the bar. "So, what can I get for you kids?"
"Three rum and cokes," Race said nonchalantly as he popped a cigarette into his mouth. He raised an eyebrow as he noticed Spot and Jack playing tonsil hockey on top of the bar. "Better make that two. Spot looks like he's a bit busy." Raven chuckled as she reached beneath the bar to grab the necessary ingredients, whatever they were. I'd never drank a rum and coke in my life. As a matter of fact, I'd never really drank anything, except for a sip of wine every now and then at a wedding or something.
"Those two..." Raven muttered fondly. "I set them up, you know. The three of us have been like this for years," she said, crossing her fingers to make her point. After a few seconds of pouring and mixing and flipping and various other bar-type tricks, she pushed two glasses towards us. "It's on me," she said with a grin as Race and I both reached for our wallets. "You're stuck with Spot; you deserve a little something back for putting up with him."
"I HEARD THAT!"
Raven snickered. "Spoco pervertito." Race started laughing and proceeded to choke oh-so-gracefully on his drink.
"What'd she say?"
"She just called him a dirty pervert." Raven grinned and flipped her hair behind her ears.
"I better go drag my colleague off of the bar. Just yell if you need anything." With a flippant wave, she sauntered over to the opposite end of the bar.
For a few seconds, the two of us just sort of sat in silence, watching everyone drinking and dancing. It was sort of nice, if you ignored the blood spouting from your ears due to the awful music. But, a few seconds later, the song ended and a rather nice, slower song came on.
Quite suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Glancing up, I saw a reasonably tall, good-looking guy with almost-black hair and eyes nearly the same color.
"Wanna dance?" he asked quietly.
I blinked in surprise before laughing nervously and clearing my throat.
"Oh, erm, no thanks. Thanks, though! But no thanks." The dark-haired guy shrugged.
"No problem. Just thought I'd ask." With that, he turned and started to slip back through the crowd.
Racetrack stared at me incredulously.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Huh?"
"He asked you to dance. What, you can't dance with a guy for three seconds?"
"Race-"
"Go catch him, you dork! Live a little!" I rolled my eyes and set down my drink.
"Fine, fine..." I clambered to my feet and jogged after the guy. After what seemed like a really long time, I caught up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Er... sorry, I don't usually dance, but if you still want to..." He smiled.
"Sure. I'm Phase."
"Blink." With that, he slipped his arms around my waist like we'd known each other all our lives. I tensed up a little. I mean, come on, I'd never seriously danced with another guy in my life. Not even one of my friends, let alone a complete stranger. But after a few seconds, I sorta relaxed into it. It was sorta nice.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Itey dancing with Race. And that kinda pissed me off. But I figured that I'd ignore them.
It was about then that Itey caught me staring. He smiled evilly before slowly and deliberately moving his hand to Racetrack's ass.
Something inside me sort of... exploded at that point.
I jerked away from Phase and stalked out of the bar's back door without even looking back.
I found myself in a dank alley, strewn with various old boxes and other forms of trash. I paced around in a circle for a few seconds, staring at the ground.
Don't cry, Blink. Don't cry. Do NOT fucking cry...
"Dammit," I hissed as a single tear trailed down my cheek. I leaned my head against the cool, stone wall of the bar and just kinda sat there for a few seconds. When that didn't do anything productive, I punched the wall, which made me feel a bit better, though my hand hurt like a bitch afterwards.
"Blink," a voice said quietly. I whirled around to face Racetrack. I gottta admit, he looked like he wanted to kick himself. "Blink, we weren't doing anything, I swear to God."
"You weren't doing anything?! He was grabbing your fucking ass, Race, don't tell me you weren't doing anything!"
"It's not like I told him to do it!"
"You sure didn't look like you were gonna do anything to stop it!" By this time, I was crying pretty damn hard, though I didn't realize it. Race crossed his arms and just sorta stood there, alternating between looking pissed and hurt.
"Why does it bother you so much?"
I froze.
"What?"
"Why does what I do with Itey bother you so much, Blink?"
Now, what the hell was I supposed to say to that? "Because I've got a massive-ass crush on you, and I'm jealous as all hell?" I think not.
"It's none of my business," I said, smiling mirthlessly and focusing my attention on a torn-up cardboard box. "Do whatever the hell you want."
Race was silent.
"You want me to do what I want?" he asked quietly. I glanced sharply at him.
"I couldn't possibly care less."
"What I really want?" My eyes narrowed.
"Screw y-"
I wanted to finish that sentence. Truly, I did.
But after he grabbed me and kissed me, I sort of lost interest in what I was saying.
After a few seconds of standing there in shock, I did the only logical thing that I could think of: I shut my eyes and started to kiss him back.
We only broke apart when we realized that we couldn't breathe any more.
Simultaneously, we collapsed onto the broken-down bench near the dumpster.
"That... that was..."
"Amazing," Race finished softly. I looked at him for a bit and smiled sheepishly.
"Can we do that again?" Race grinned, leaned forward, and gently brushed his lips against mine.
A few minutes later, I was pretty sure I heard the door open. And I was pretty sure that I heard someone who sounded an awful lot like Itey mutter, "son of a bitch." And I was definitely sure that I heard the aforementioned door slam again.
But I was so... busy... that I really didn't give a damn.
*~*~*
The ride home was interesting.
I was half-asleep with my head in Race's lap, which was nice, especially since he was kinda stroking my hair. We had to deal with the catcalls and the teasing, of course, but that was to be expected. Every time I looked up, Itey would glare at me and demand to know what I was gawking at.
We got home at about three and had to sneak into our rooms through the window in the garden. Why? Well... let's just say that we saw Davey and Mush on the front stoop doing something that Medda definitely would have deemed inappropriate. It was actually sorta funny.
Just as we reached the window, Ireland skidded around the corner.
"Guys, get inside, quick!" she whispered frantically. "Medda's up, and she heard you! She's coming to check! Go, go, go!" Spot, Race, and I immediately scrambled in through the window.
"We don't have time to change!" Spot hissed.
"Just get in bed and pull the blankets up all the way," Race replied. I took a flying leap into my own bed and buried my head under the blankets just as I heard the door creak open.
The room was absolutely silent for a few seconds.
Then, the door closed, and the footsteps we heard grew steadily fainter.
A hand suddenly pulled back my blanket, and I found myself staring up into Racetrack's eyes. He grinned, leaned over, and gently pressed his lips to mine.
"'Night," he whispered.
"G'night." He hopped back into his own bed, and I rolled over in an attempt to make myself more comfortable.
For the first time since I could remember, I fell asleep with a smile on my face and my eye patch off.
End Chapter Six
I don't think I'm happy with this chapter. At all. But, hey, what can you do? I might go back and rewrite it later; what do you guys think? No time for individual shout-outs today. I must post this before I go to bed. Next time, though, I promise! And reviews would be luuuuuuurvely! *love to all*