Author's Note:
DAKKI: ((fluffs petticoats)) As a farewell to this fic, we have organized a little party to say goodbye.
SATURDAY: ((appears with a cake inscribed with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK AND DAVE" in purple icing)) ((whispers)) Dalton made it... He worked so hard on the lettering and wouldn't erase it when he realized it wasn't actually their birthdays.
DALTON: ((waves oven mitts at readers)) I used my easy bake!
KNOX: And the frosting was made with eggs, sugar, milk, and a cup of love!
DAKKI: Ew.
SATURDAY: ...In any case. As this story has drawn to a close, thank you guys so much for reviewing! No virtual tackles of affection could ever convey the enormous amount of gratitude we feel for you.
DAKKI: And you really don't want to be virtually tackled by Knox or Charlie.
SPOT: I don't tackle. It smudges my mascara.
DAKKI: ...
CHARLIE: ...
KNOX: ...
JACK: ...
DAVID: I have the waterproof kind!
…and now, on with the fic!
Toxic
Chapter Four—Droggo, Droggo
--
The bus ride to Anchorage from Denali National Park took nearly eight hours, but it seemed like much longer since we all had our heads stuck out the window after about fifteen seconds. Racetrack was the only one of us unaffected by the stench of a Sasquatch (or Canadian) in heat, as he had been smart enough to bring along his Sharper Image foam nose plugs, which not only block all offending odors, but also, for the comfort and convenience of the wearer, contain a tiny FM radio that can be tuned to any regional station!—so, as we craned our necks out of the bus window, trying to avoid an aroma that smelled like a potent combination of a garbage dump in New Jersey and the cologne that Spot used to wear, we also got to hear Racetrack singing along with an all-day Joni Mitchell marathon on K-Bear. Spot, of course, was only further turned on by the smell, and spent the whole ride with his head resting against his boyfriend's chest, murmuring sweet nothings in his furry ear.
"You know," Swifty remarked, somewhere around mile forty, "I am still kind of amazed that Spot even managed to get Big—er—Drog—"
"How about 'Big Droggo'?" I suggested sarcastically.
"Perfect!" Swifty said. "Anyway, how do you think Spot managed to convince the bus driver to let him on? I mean, wouldn't he realize something was up?"
Bumlets shrugged. "He put sunglasses on him. And a Red Sox cap." Both Bumlets and Swifty had been talking much more on the bus trip that they usually did, mainly because the fact that they had their heads sticking out of different windows made it difficult to make out.
"But he's seven feet tall and covered in fur," David said pedantically. God, he was sexy. "Everyone here knows about Bigfoot. Wouldn't somebody figure it out?"
"He's wearing sunglasses," Bumlets repeated, as if he was talking to a very small child, or possibly Spot.
"I see," David said, and then ducked back inside the bus for a moment as we drove past an enormous birch that threatened to decapitate everyone.
Over in the seat next to Bumlets, Racetrack was doing his little sitting-down skippy dance, his eyes scrunched closed, completely oblivious, crooning along with Joni. Not singing. Crooning.
"I know you don't like weak women, you get bored so quick—and you don't li-ike strong women, 'cause they're hip to your tricks…it's been diiiiiiiiiiiirty for di-irty…"
All in all, it was a fairly enjoyable bus ride back to Anchorage. After about 7 hours, Bumlets located several clothes pins which had been in his pockets for reasons unknown, and we were able to finally bring our heads back within the vehicle and speak normally to each other. Spot kept us all entertained by showing off his extensive portfolio of Leonardo DiCaprio pictures, making each of us chose our favorites, and then flinging the entire binder at Racetrack's head when he announced that he didn't like men.
"He chose...poorly," said David idly, watching Race bandaging his head up with his sweatshirt.
Droggo was agreeable enough. He did not seem to be interested in pictures of half-naked (or, in the case of some, all naked) Leo DiCaprio, so he sat back and listened to "Mexican Wine" by Fountains of Wayne on Swifty's iPod for the entirety of the bus ride. Swifty, too soft-spoken and polite to voice his concerns, spent the ride alternating between kissing Bumlets passionately and cringing every time Droggo's claws scratched the smooth surface of his MP3 player.
I, naturally, was watching David.
"Is 'abnegate' spelled with an 'e' or an 'a'?" he asked, looking imploringly up at us with his pen resting against his lower lip. He had that sexy, I'm-trying-to-carry-on-a-conversation-without-completely-coming-out-of-my-homework-imposed-reverie look on his face, and his hair kept falling into his eyes. Man, I loved it when he was smart...
Race blinked. "What the hell does 'abnegate' mean, anyway?" he demanded.
"Just because you have the vocabulary of a Pop Tart doesn't mean everyone else does, too," said Bumlets smoothly.
Race chose to ignore this. "Fine! I alter my question. What I want to know is how you managed to get yourself homework during the summer of your senior year, Dave. That's just madness."
"I asked my teachers for some extra writing assignments to keep me up to date for college," said David easily, his eyes back on his paper as he began to scribble furiously again.
"You LOSER!" Spot laughed, looking up from his Leonardo DiCaprio portfolio.
David looked up. "Why?" he asked, eyebrows raised in mild surprise.
Which sent them all into hysterics.
"I asked Mrs. Watkins for some summer reading," I said loudly, because David was looking hurt and I hated to see him embarrassed. "I've already read five novels, all of which being over four hundred pages long."
All right, so I was exaggerating just a little bit. In all honesty, the longest 'novel' I'd read all summer was Sports Illustrated—but I wasn't about to admit that in front of the love of my life. Besides, David was looking at me with an expression of extreme gratitude on my face. I felt smart, for once.
At least, I think he was looking at me with gratitude. I wasn't exactly sure.
Race poked me. "I had no idea you knew how to read, Cowboy!" he said in mock astonishment. I threw my hat at him.
We reached Anchorage after what seemed like a millennium, and the seven of us all stood up to gather up our things. Bumlets nearly went mad running around the bus and demanding to know if anyone had seen his shirt, until Swifty admitted that he had thrown it out the window because he liked Bumlets better shirtless. Bumlets yelled and looked desperately out the window as if his shirt would be lying there waiting for him, and when it wasn't he was determined to make the bus driver turn the entire bus around. Halfway down the aisle, however, he seemed to decide that Swifty's mouth was much more interesting, and he sort of forgot about his shirt.
"Honestly, boys, have some DECENCY!" Racetrack called, rolling his eyes as he pulled on his sweatshirt.
David turned to me, a smile turning up the corner of his mouth. He flicked his hair out of his eyes. "Have you really read five novels this summer?" he asked, and it suddenly struck me how very close we were. Ohh shit.
"Um...well..."
"You haven't." He grinned, and I ran a hand through my hair and looked away. "Well it doesn't matter," he laughed, "and I'm not mad at you for not knowing who Jules Verne or Victor Hugo were that time last week."
"I did know! I just...forgot."
And then to my utter surprise, David, instead of shrugging or walking off or making a joke at my expense that nobody would get anyway as it hinged on remembrance of some minor character in the earlier work or Molière, just smiled and looked straight at me with his beautiful eyes, and punched me in the arm. Even once I had managed to pick myself up off the ground I was still in too much of a romantic daze to hear what he was saying (David didn't have any real friends until he was about sixteen, and he still hasn't perfected the art of the friendly punch), and only realized that he wanted me to come with him when I realized that everyone else was going into a grocery store across the street from the bus depot.
Once I got in I was amazed to see that Spot, for once in his short life, was acting completely calm while standing in a place of retail, not trying on the packaged underwear, or begging Racetrack to buy him stickers, or making suggestive comments to me about the alternative uses of a zester. In the months that I had been with him I had always thought that nothing could be worse, but now I realized, all to late, that there was something: he and Droggo were standing with their arms around each other, singing "Tonight" at the top of their lungs, right in the middle of the frozen food aisle.
"Oooooonly yoooouuuuu, you're the only one I see, foreveeeeer," Spot warbled (he was a perfect soprano, and sounded almost alarmingly like Carol Lawrence).
"And there's nothing for me but Spot Conlon, every sight that I see is Spot Conloooooon!"
"Droggo, Droggo…"
Over in the fresh produce section, Racetrack was standing next to our shopping cart, a five-month-old orange clenched in his fist. He was glaring at Spot and Droggo hatefully, undoubtedly thinking that anyone but him playing Tony was a travesty to the musical theater tradition—deep down inside, he was never happier than when he was up on stage, singing about how tough the Jets were and then pirouetting across the street. I could tell he was aching to sing. And finally, he got his chance: Droggo reached over and took a frozen burrito off the shelves, biting into it wrapper and all, and leaving just long enough a silence for Racetrack to jump up onto the zucchini display, close his eyes, throw his shoulders back, and belt for all he was worth:
"TODAAAAAAYYYYY, THE WORLD WAS JUST AN ADDRESS, A PLACE FOR ME TO LIVE IN, NO BETER THAN ALL RIIIIIIGGGGHHHHHT! BUT HEEEEERE YOU ARE, AND WHAT WAS JUST A WORLD IS A STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR--TONIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!"
Even though Spot was glaring at Race like he was about to rip his throat out, he couldn't stop the rest of the grocery store from giving a standing ovation, or the bag boys from breaking into an inspired impromptu rendition of "Gee, Officer Krupke!" that was possibly even better than the one in the movie.
"Have you guys been practicing every week, or something?" Spot asked one of them irritably as he unloaded our groceries onto the conveyer belt.
"Twice a week, actually," he admitted, tossing a lock of Pantene-blond hair out of his eye. Grinning, he stuck a hand out to shake with Spot, who suddenly became very interested in a display of double bubble. Shrugging, the blond boy turned to Racetrack and introduced himself.
"Kid Blink. Anchorage Central High drama club—I'm playing Action. Hey, you know, we could use a good Tony. Ours has mono, and you were fantastic."
At which point Race blushed like a cooked lobster and muttered something about how he really didn't like singing at all and had only gotten the part because his girlfriend had been playing Graziella and wanted him to come with her to the auditions.
"Oh," Kid Blink said, his smile having fallen a little bit at the mention of the word girlfriend. "So…did that relationship work out?"
"Well, sure," Bumlets said, leaning in to put a bag of avocados onto the belt ("dancers need all the protein they can get!"). "At least until she caught him in the stagecraft workshop with Anybodys. Then it was over pretty fast. One of Race's longest relationships, actually—how long did that one last, three weeks?"
"Four," Racetrack said defensively.
"Really," Swifty said candidly to Kid Blink, "you wouldn't want him. He's such a commitment-phobe"—at which point Blink did his own fairly impressive lobster impression, and rung our groceries up in what was probably record time.
Spot and Droggo were rather grouchy as we climbed back onto the bus, probably irritated at Racetrack because he had stolen the spotlight from them. (A seventy-year-old woman had approached Spot and complemented his vibrato, but he had informed her kindly that, "Sorry, I like men", before continuing on with Droggo.) Swifty was trying to arrange Bumlets' hair so that he had a West Side Story hairdo, and Dave was reading and walking at the same time. Ohh, the talents that boy had...
Race, I realized after a moment, was nowhere to be seen.
I nudged David in the shoulder and he looked up. I tried not to notice that he was reading a Jules Verne book. "Um... Where's Race?" I asked, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't there.
Dave's eyebrows lifted slightly and he looked around the bus, but Racetrack, it seemed, had vanished from the face of the earth. "I should probably go check back in the store," he said, starting to get up.
"Nah, I'll do it," I said quickly.
What an act of justice! Putting myself on the line for the man I love! I straightened up proudly and marched off the bus, and I was pretty sure Dave sighed with relief. Because who wants to go back into a grocery store full of singing teenage boys, anyway? Boys who sing out of their own free will give me the heebie-jeebies.
"Excuse me, ma'am," I said, approaching an old woman with what I hoped was a kind smile on my face. "You haven't seen my friend, have you? Short, dark-haired, lots of singing?"
The old woman blinked up at me. "Your friend?" she asked, working her gums. "Oh, the one that likes men and Sasquatch?"
I paused. "Um... no, wrong friend. Thank you anyway."
One of the bag boys looked up. "Oh, that Tony kid? He went out back, I think," he said.
"Okay, thanks," I said, smiling at him, and I crossed the store wondering why the hell Race had decided to exit the building that way. "If I miss the bus, I'm going to be very upset," I muttered, and I cracked my knuckles and pushed open the door.
The site that greeted me was enough to almost knock me over out of sheer surprise, but I managed to grab the doorframe before I crashed into that same old lady who was now wandering around looking for her false teeth. ("Oh, here they are! I hadn't noticed they'd stayed in that watermelon when I bit it...") Race and that bag boy Kid Blink were leaning against the wall together, kissing so passionately that they put Bumlets and Swifty to shame. As I watched, Kid Blink reached up to pull off Race's shirt, and I leaped back and closed the door as quickly as I could, completely forgetting to be quiet.
The sound of the door slamming seemed to echo throughout the entire store. I froze, squeezing my eyes shut and praying that I would live through this experience to see Dave again.
The door opened slowly, and the world froze. Don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me...
"Uh... Jack? What're you doin'?"
I opened one eye and found myself almost face-to-face with Race (I could never really be face-to-face with him because he was eleven inches shorter than me), and, to my immense surprise, he was grinning. Kid Blink was behind him doing that lobster impression again, and his hair was kind of tousled.
I turned pink. "Um... What?"
"You look completely constipated, dude. Are you okay?"
"I AM NOT CONSTIPATED!" I yelled irritably.
"That's good, dear," said the little old lady, hobbling past me again to go pay for her groceries.
I had almost started to cry by that point, and Race just laughed and smacked me lightly on the arm. "Jack, I need you to tell the others somethin', mm'kay?" he asked me. "I ain't comin' on the bus back with you guys. I was thinkin' of stayin' in Anchorage for a little while to—"
"YOU CAN'T GET MARRIED, RACE! YOU'RE TOO YOUNG!" I gasped.
"No, we're—"
"IS IT EVEN LEGAL IN ALASKA?"
"JACK!" Race smacked me again, a little harder this time. "We're not getting married, so stop being such a dick. I'm stayin' in Anchorage for a little to help the theater production out. Their Tony has mono, and since I know the songs and everythin'..."
I coughed. "Oh."
"Yeah."
"Dave's gonna freak out. He hates spontaneous plans."
"Dave hates spontaneous anything. Screw Dave."
"I will! — I mean—" My eyes widened, I coughed again, and then I turned and sprinted in the other direction. "SEE YOU LATER, GUYS! SEND SPOT POSTCARDS OR HE'LL CRY!"
"See ya, Cowboy!" Race called after me, laughing through his words.
Blink smiled at the other boy after I had left. "Man, I knew he liked that David guy. He gave off the strongest crushing-on-another-boy vibes I've ever seen."
"Amen," said Race with a grin.
I knew that if Spot found out about Race and Kid Blink, he would probably whine nonstop about how any gay guy—and probably any straight guy—in that store should have gravitated straight to him, and Blink was a fool for picking Race instead. Then Droggo would probably get jealous, and although I didn't really know a lot about what Sasquatches were like when they were angry, his claws were big enough that I didn't want to find out. So, instead of telling the truth, I opted for the easiest lie: I said that Race had stayed in town to do some studying at Anchorage's Prussian Doily Museum, which was, I added, considered to be among the best in the nation. I didn't really need to worry, though: Spot and Droggo were busy singing "Light My Candle" and couldn't hear a thing, and Swifty and Bumlets, as usual, were completely absorbed in sticking their hands down each other's pants. Of all the people on the bus, I think David was the only one who actually heard me.
"Jack," he asked me seriously, as I walked over to sit down next to him, "what would you do if you had a hammer?"
"I'd hammer in the morning and I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land. I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out warning, and I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land," I replied truthfully.
David just smiled a beautiful, uncontained kind of smile, looking down at the stack of books in his lap. "That's exactly what I'd hoped you'd say," he said quietly.
"Why?"
"Well," he said, "when I became of age, my mother called me to her side; she said, 'son, you're growing up now, pretty soon you'll take a bride (or whatever gender of life partner may be dictated by your sexual preference),' and then she said, 'just because you've become a young man now, there's still some things that you don't understand now. Before you ask some girl (or boy) for her (or his) hand now, keep your freedom for as long as you can now.' My mother told me, 'you better make sure your potential life partner knows the lyrics to every Peter, Paul and Mary song ever recorded.'"
I was so overcome with joy that I didn't even have enough sense to ask why his mother had set such strange guidelines. Or why, for that matter, David seemed to have once lived in a Smokey Robinson song. All I could do was smile, as I debated whether to start laughing or crying--and then, overcome by emotion, I began to sing. My voice was cracking, and I was almost completely drowned out by Spot and Droggo, but David heard, and that was all that mattered.
"Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea…and frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honalee…"
"Don't worry, Jack," David said, noticing the tears that were streaming down my face, "that song always makes me cry too."
And at that point there was no reply better than leaning in and kissing him on the mouth, so warm and deep that I thought I might never resurface. The engine was roaring beneath us, the musky scent of the amazing Canadian Sasquatch had pervaded the bus, and the sound of a horny Brooklynite singing "I'm Just a Girl Who Cain't Say No" drowned out the birdsong and violins that I knew should have accompanied the moment. It was as if every fantasy I had ever had was coming to life, right here on this rickety Greyhound bus in central Alaska.
"How did you know I was in love with you?" I said at last.
David grinned. "You talk in your sleep, Jack."
"Oh."
At that point, Bumlets removed his hands from Swifty's blue jeans and sat down happily beside me, propping his feet up next to Dave. "I saw that," he said.
I blanched. "Saw what?" I asked nonchalantly. Dave lifted his textbook to cover his face, which was bright red, apparently unaware that his book was upside-down. I coughed for what seemed to be the fiftieth time this afternoon; I was beginning to think I was developing asthma.
"You know..." Bumlets nudged me and started making out with the back of his hand.
"That thing was down my PANTS, dude!" said Swifty in horror.
Bumlets stopped. "Oh yeah."
"Budge up, will ya?" Spot demanded, shoving Swifty further into the seat and propping his Leonardo DeCaprio binder open on his knees. "Swifty, honey, you never chose your favorite Leo picture. Please do so now."
"HONEY!"
And so, as the train moved farther and farther from Anchorage, Swifty was forced to select his favorite half-naked picture while David reached over and grabbed my hand, the tips of his fingers stained silver from the graphite of his mechanical pencil. I was in absolute euphoria--it was like an LSD trip with butterflies and angels and boxer shorts flying about. And I found myself thinking that Alaska wasn't that bad after all... Maybe we could come back next year.
Then again, of course...
Man, I may end up with poison ivy in very awkward places. Hmm. Perhaps Puerto Rico would be a better choice.
FIN
DAKKI: AND NOW, as a present to ALL of our loyal readers, Dalton and Knox have made each and every one of you dessert.
And SO…
SAPPHY (Sappherella, Sapphykins, and Sweet Sapphola) gets a vanilla cake with strawberry filling and a candle shaped like Vinnie Delpino
DREAMER gets a yellow cake with psychedelic purple frosting and the assorted quotes of Charlie Dalton written in green
BRAIDS gets a rainbow cake with fish-shaped sprinkles
MADISON SQUAREgets a lemon-lime cheesecake with a graham cracker crust
ERIN GO BRAGH gets an angel's food cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream
LUTE gets a devil's food cake with German chocolate icing and a candle shaped like DeWitt Talmadge Caspary III
SILK-N'-STEEL gets a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
UNINVISIBLE gets a blackberry pie and a gallon of vanilla bean ice cream
Aelia O'Hession gets a banana cream pie
and SINGIN'-NEWSIES-GOIL gets a pan of snowman-shaped meringues.
SATURDAY: And most importantly, thank you, and never try this at home.
The GENII shall return this summer.
Until then…
TE ADORO TO YOU ALL!
DALTON: And please review!