Disclaimer: I do not own Recess or any of its characters.

Author's Note: Sry its been so long since I last updated, but I had to memorize these lines for English class from Julius Caesar and do my stupid report for World History.

Chapter Seven

*The Party*

TJ and Gretchen stood uncomfortably by the snack table while they waited for the rest of their group to arrive. Neither could wait to see how Gus's and Mikey's dates turned out to be. TJ had brought his own pop, a Dr. Pepper, because he knew if he drank any of this punch here it would be spiked. Even at seven o'clock when the party was just getting started.

Suddenly, in through the door came Spinelli and Lawson. Spinelli spotted TJ and Gretchen, waving at them and motioning that she would be there in a minute.

"Lawson, if you so much as even think about drinking, I will have to punch you and run you into the ground," Spinelli informed him. Lawson was a heavy drinker and nobody had known how Spinelli would react when they got to this party, knowing how strongly Spinelli felt about the use of alcohol. Everybody thought Spinelli's strong refusal against drinking was because her brother had just died two years ago when he had been hit by a drunk driver. It had devastated her and the entire family.

"Come on Spin," Lawson said, "Lighten up a bit, I bet if you have a drink then you wouldn't feel the same way about it."

"Seriously Lawson, don't even touch the stuff," Spinelli warned him, "I'm gonna go talk to TJ and Gretchen for a bit, then I'll be back."
As Spinelli left to go talk to her friends Lawson joined his friends. They all looked at him with slightly amused glances as he refused to take a drink.

"Come on Lawson, we all know you drink," one of his friends tempted him, "Is the girlfriend keeping you reigned in or something?"

"Well, she told me not to drink ...," Lawson hesitantly said.

***

As Spinelli watched Lawson from the other side of the room she could tell that his friends were giving him a hard time about not drinking the beer because she told him he couldn't. She felt bad about commanding him not to drink, yet she knew that if she didn't Lawson might very well get drunk and she would feel obligated to leave with him, him being her boyfriend and all.

But she didn't think she could stand driving with a drunk guy, it would just be too overwhelming and nerve-wracking for her. She gave him an encouraging smile and turned back to Gretchen, whom was watching Vince across the room with Ashley A., trying to look as if she wasn't looking, and TJ, whom seemed very quiet from his usual self.

"Hey guys," Gus greeted as him and Mikey came through the doors with their dates. They then went on the dance floor, but came back soon to tell them how their dates had been going, using the excuse of getting some punch.

"You have to help me," Gus begged of TJ and Gretchen as Spinelli and Lawson decided to share a dance, "This girl is awful, she actually sat me down at dinner and asked me all these questions that no normal sixteen year old boy would know the answer too. Like, am I thinking of marriage? How many kids do I want? Would I marry her? Do I cook? I mean, its like we were 40 and needed to get married, in like, two weeks."

"You think that's bad?" Mikey inquired, "We were sitting in this restaurant, talking about her dream of becoming a big star and liking to recite poetry. So, she whips out a book and reads the most awful poem I have ever heard. She compared the sun to a beam of light. I almost died of heart failure and headache at her recitation."

"So, I take it her poem did not strike you as beautiful?" Gretchen ventured a guess, amused at Gus's and Mikey's plights. Mikey just gave her a death stare as TJ smirked.

"Well, you might not have to worry about them great girls of yours too long, they seem to be taking a liking to Menlo and Randall," TJ said, pointing out the fact that the two girls were talking rapidly with Menlo and Randall.

"I'm trying to decide if being dumped by a girl who likes Menlo is worth getting rid of psycho chick," Gus muttered under his breath as they both walked back over to their dates.

"Hey Gus," the girl, Tanya, greeted him, then she looked nervously at Menlo, "I know that the dating service set us up and everything, but it didn't say that we had to spend the whole night together, or even any of the night, and I'm really sorry, I know how much this might hurt your feelings, but I think that I've found the guy for me."

Gus looked at her, then looked at Menlo, trying to figure out a way to convey at least a small sense of sorrow of her leaving, but not so much that she would feel bad and try to stay with him. He didn't want that. Besides, Menlo would be perfect for her, she would ask him a bunch of questions and he would retaliate with identical questions.

"Whoa, um, Tanya, I, well," Gus said, uncomfortably as Mikey kind of smirked at him, "I think that you and Menlo would make a great couple, and you know, a dating service can't always be right, so I think you should go and have a fun time with Menlo."

***

"Hey, I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick, do you think you can handle being here by yourself?" TJ asked gently. After Gretchen had nodded TJ ran for the bathroom. The party had been going in swing for two hours now, Gus had gone to do something else, probably celebrate the easy dismissal of Tanya while Mikey was still dancing with his date, Alexia, but she was making eyes at Randall, while Mikey was giving almost everybody the save me look.

Spinelli had come around every ten or twenty minutes, but spent most of the party with Lawson, hanging onto his arm. Gretchen could tell that it was getting harder and harder for Lawson not to take a drink while Spinelli was talking with her friends, and the result of that was Spinelli was coming over less and less, but just then Spinelli decided to put some trust in Lawson and she came over to drag Gretchen onto the dance floor, leaving Lawson with his friends.

***

"Hurry, she'll be gone at least four minutes, give me a beer," Lawson begged off of his friends, who just smirked at him for a moment.

"But wait, I thought Spin almost had a ball-and-chain on you, and she said you can't drink," one of his friends teased. Lawson just flipped him the finger.

"Look, I've been at this party for two hours, we only have less than an hour to go before Menlo calls off this party, more than likely because of a fight held in his house, and if I don't have a beer, I'm gonna blow," Lawson informed them, taking one of their beers and swigging it.

***

Vince could almost feel his head exploding. He'd already had four beers, and it was only four beers, and he felt as if he was going to fall over right then. Then suddenly one of his friends from behind him called, sounding like a cannon, "Hey Vince, there's a virgin drink over here."

He turned around to see his friend holding up a Coke bottle by the table with food on it, then he sat there, trying to process what virgin drink meant, then it hit him, he was out worse than he thought, of course a virgin drink was a non-alcoholic drink. He then tossed a can of beer over to his friend, "Well, why don't you just make it a non-virgin drink?"

His friend slowly poured half of the Coke out, filling the empty half up with the beer, while Vince watched with utter glee, some poor fool was going to get drunk tonight, probably some big loser, trying to get away with a virgin drink.

***

TJ slowly walked back to the refreshment table, seeing that both Spinelli and Gretchen were over there he decided it was okay to drink his Coke. He took a drink, but he was too busy talking to Spinelli, looking at Spinelli, that he didn't really notice the taste of beer in his Coke. He always brought a Coke to these kinds of parties, he had made a pact with Spinelli when her brother had died that he would never, ever drink at a party. She hadn't wanted to lose the most important person to her in the school at the time. As TJ's brain began to have a weird reaction with the beer, TJ sourly thought, well, I'm not the most important person to her anymore, now am I?

***

"Lawson!" Spinelli disgustedly exclaimed as she walked back over to her boyfriend five minutes later, he looked totally wasted, "Please, please tell me you did not have more than one beer."

"Well, I could," Lawson said, still sounding almost normal, "But I'd be lying."

"At least he knows the difference between a lie and the truth at the moment," Spinelli mumbled under her breath, then she looked at him and sighed, "Well, just, please, I beg you, just, don't drink anymore, and try to find somebody who isn't drunk to drive us home. Actually, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and ask TJ to do it."

***

TJ finished his Coke, and without thinking reached out for a glass of punch. Gretchen wasn't really paying attention, she was too busy staring at an obviously drunken Vince and Ashley to notice that TJ was about to drink some spiked punch. Spinelli then walked up to the two of them, looking hacked off. Spinelli followed Gretchen's gaze, then rolled her eyes.

"Come on Gretch, give it up, he ain't coming back," Spinelli informed her, "Heck, I wish he was sometimes too, but man, he's with an Ashley now, that's just grounds for being discriminated from in our group."

"I know," Gretchen said, sighing and turning to her, neither noticing TJ start his third glass of punch, "It's just, he's so hard to let go, I know there's good down there. Somewhere, as you should too."

"I do know, somewhere, deep down, he knows everything he did was wrong, but everybody does it, like Lawson, he's drunk right now," Spinelli said quietly, then she turned to TJ, "By the way Teej, I was wondering, what the heck is wrong with you?"

***

TJ ignored Spinelli as he spotted Vince. Vince needed to be put in his place. He had hurt everybody in their group, plus, TJ had suddenly had a big burst of anger and resentment and he didn't know who to direct it at.

Still ignoring Spinelli, who was calling him to come back, he walked slowly over to where Vince was standing.

***

"Vince, ya know, when I told you to screw an Ashley, I didn't mean literally," a voice behind Vince said. Vince thought he knew who's voice that was, but he also thought he was drunker than he thought because this guy sounded very drunk, and this guy never got drunk. As Vince turned around he saw that it was, in fact, TJ.

Then he groaned, of course, he was stupid. TJ always brought a Coke to parties. Vince had just made him break the number one promise he had ever made in his life, just by spiking his drink. For the first time since Tuesday Vince felt really bad. And he didn't think it was only because of the five beers consumed, "Um, Teej, there's something I have too ...,"
But then TJ took a swung at him, catching him in the eye. Before Vince had time to recover TJ threw himself on top of Vince and just started swinging. Vince didn't waste time to give himself a little edge by throwing TJ off and standing up, while spectators were gathering, yelling the traditional, "Fight, fight, fight," while Menlo was trying to make sure nothing valuable got broken.

***

Mikey heard the word's fight, and he and Alexia ran over to where the fight was taking place, soon followed by Spinelli and Gretchen, who actually knew what the fight was about. Mikey peeked through the crowd and saw Vince and TJ taking swings at each other, 50% of the time missing due to drunken behavior, but the hits that did connect made each boy stagger and fall back for a second.

Then Mikey saw Gus fight his way through the crowd to try and draw the two apart, so Mikey quickly did the same. As soon as Gus got up to the fight he grabbed Vince by one arm and pulled him away from TJ, as did Mikey with TJ when he reached the front.

Both of them dragged TJ and Vince away from the crowd, closely followed by Spinelli, Gretchen, and Ashley A. And Ashley A. was angry.

"You know, Vince can sue for that," Ashley A. snapped at Spinelli.

"Yes, and I'm sure the brilliant excuse of I was drunk and this guy made a swing at me, and yes judge, it was underage drinking would hold up really well in court," Spinelli snapped back at Ashley then she turned to Gretchen, "You make sure to drive TJ home, I'm gonna get Lawson out of this party before he has anything else to drink. At all."

***

Mikey and Gus left the kitchen to let Ashley A. and Gretchen clean up Vince and TJ. As Mikey went back to Alexia, she looked nervous and worried.

"Mikey, I know that, well, I just found somebody who appreciates my poetry," Alexia said, "So, I was wondering, would you mind if Randall takes me home?"

"The only reason Randall appreciates your poetry," Mikey said, uncontrollably, he was in a bad mood, "Is because he knows nothing about the subject."

Then him and Gus walked off, Gus patting him on the back, offering him a ride home.

***

"Look, Teej, there's something I have to tell you," Vince said as Ashley A. and Gretchen went to rinse off the wash rags, "I was the one, I spiked your drink, well, actually I didn't, but my friend did under my orders. Even though I didn't know it was yours, but it was still no excuse. And I'm really sorry."

"Wait, you're apologizing?" TJ asked, looking out at him from one swollen eye.

"Yeah, I mean, what I did was really harsh," Vince said, through a bruised lip.

"We may be able to put some decency back into yet my boy," TJ said, smiling to himself, right before barfing all over the floor.

"I'm not switching back over," Vince quietly said, knowing that TJ could hear him, but before he could say anything Gretchen and Ashley A. returned.

"Man, I'm not even sure if you can walk," Gretchen muttered to herself, helping TJ up to take him to his car, "Oh yeah, I'm driving."

"Dude, its my car we came in," TJ pointed out.

"Well, its a good thing then we only live one block from each other, isn't it?" Gretchen asked promptly, deciding TJ could walk over to his house to pick up his car tomorrow. When he was sober. And before Spinelli strangled him.