Author's Note: Whoa, where the fuck have I with this story? Sorry about that, guys, if any of you cared enough to get pissed at me. I've been writing a lot of original work and kind of drifted out of fanfiction for a while, but then Dakki-my-love and I have been reunited in a new fic "The Kowboi Klub" (READ AND REVIEW) and I re-realized the true beauty of the newsies fandom! (And, of course, the true beauty of torturing Spot Conlon.)
Disclaimer: Don't own the newsies, lyrics belong to their respective bands, etc.
I never give you my pillow, I only send you my invitations
And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down
Boy, you're gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time
-"Carry That Weight," The Beatles
-
For the first time in his life, Spot Conlon was beginning to feel genuinely guilty about something he himself hadn't directly initiated. He wasn't used to this feeling, and he didn't like it at all.
He watched Bumlets maneuvering with the true agility of a dancer through the maze of bowling balls, baseball caps, and half-eaten sandwiches that was his kitchen, putting away the First-Aid kit and trying desultorily to clean up, and he found himself wondering why the rest of the school hated the dark-haired boy. And why the rest of the school hated Racetrack, who was tossing a rubber ducky rather menacingly at Swifty, who was practically crying. They really were just normal guys, weren't they?
He choked slightly, realizing what he had just thought. Normal guys! Clearly they weren't normal guys if the instincts of all his classmates had pointed to that circle of friends as unacceptable. There must be something wrong with them, something he hadn't quite noticed yet.
And then Bumlets did a graceful sort of pirouette in order to avoid stepping on what looked like a violin, and Spot realized: they were rejects because he had rejected them.
Not Spot specifically, of course; he had never spoken to one of the dreaded outcasts before his rather tragic loss of hair, and therefore had had no opportunity to declare them inadequate for normal social life. He had always let Jack and the Delanceys do all the talking, and it had been them, mainly, who had rejected Racetrack and his group of faggot friends. And naturally the rest of the school had listened to them.
"Why the hell are you guys still here?" Bumlets demanded of the other three with his upper body hidden in the freezer. "I thought I told you to get lost, didn't I?"
"Hey, whatcha doin'?" Race asked, completely ignoring Bumlets's previous question.
The dark-haired boy emerged with a grin. "Cherry Garcia ice cream," he said, and he closed the freezer, grabbed a spoon, and pulled himself up onto the counter.
Swifty smiled too. "If you don't give me some of that shit, man, I'm gonna slit your throat."
"Then by all means, have some!" said Bumlets.
"You are so giving me some too," Racetrack demanded.
It really was kind of a scary thought, though, Spot mused as he watched Swifty and Bumlets sharing a spoon. (The word homosexual drifted lazily through his mind, but he pushed it away and continued to ponder the workings of his high school.) He and his friends hadn't really been all that many: maybe five or six? And yet they were able to define the social success of seven or eight reasonably decent teenage boys.
No, not reasonably decent, he corrected himself firmly. Jack wouldn't have chosen them if they were reasonably decent. David was reasonably decent; these guys were just…
Different.
"Hey Spot, you want some?" Swifty asked, waving his spoon at the other boy.
Spot blinked, slightly startled. He had assumed that he was going to be left out of their cute little ice cream party because he was so separate from them and the way that they functioned. But he loved Jerry Garcia.
"Come hear Uncle John's band!" said Racetrack, and Spot got up and made his way precariously through the mess over to them.
"You ever had this stuff before?" Bumlets asked.
Spot shrugged. "Probably not. My mom's always formulating ways to make the household more perfect, and one of her plans was to make sure we all ate healthy. I haven't had a decent ice cream cone in years."
"Well this shit is good," said Race with his mouth full, nodding slightly, and then: "You listen to your mother?"
"Dude, I think she checks after I take a shit to make sure I do listen to her," said Spot seriously.
Swifty laughed and took another bite of ice cream. "Man, what all of us wouldn't give for normal parents, eh?"
"Ha, amen to that."
Race shrugged, looking strange.
Spot looked around awkwardly and then said, "So Bumlets, you got any clean spoons around here or am I gonna have to eat this shit with my fingers?"
"Um..." Bumlets looked across the kitchen to the sink, which was a mountain of dirty dishes and pots and pans. "Probably not, and it's not really worth the trouble of trying to look for one. The fact that we've found two is quite an accomplishment. Just share with Race or something."
Spot blinked.
"Aw c'mon, I don't have STD's or something," said Race, smiling and offering his spoon to Spot.
Spot reflected that the ice cream seemed to have sedated Racetrack, making him surprisingly good-natured. He dug into the container and then put the spoon in his mouth, and was instantly gratified with not only an explosive, cherry-vanilla kind of flavor but also a warm spoon, which turned him on like crazy. He turned to stare at Race, who mistook his facial expression as one of happiness instead of horniness.
"It's good, isn't it?" he said, looking just like a little kid with his eyes open wide. "It's, like, Grateful Dead's music personified or something. If 'Box of Rain' were to taste like an ice cream flavor, that would so be it."
"You are such a freak," said Swifty.
Spot swallowed the ice cream, holding the spoon in his mouth perhaps slightly longer than was necessary, and then offered it back to Racetrack and said, "Do you guys want to go to the movies or something?"
There was a long pause.
"...What?" Swifty said finally.
"I dunno, just thought I'd ask..." said Spot, slightly embarrassed. He tugged at his hat. "I mean it's Friday afternoon and we're sitting around eating ice cream and getting high, and I mean why not? We could go see, like, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' or something."
Bumlets choked slightly. "Johnny Depp has the sexiest teeth ever in that movie. They're, like, absolutely perfect."
"You seen it?" Spot asked in mild surprise.
"No, just the commercials."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hang on, man," said Race, waving his spoon in the air with ice cream still on it. It fell after a second and hit the floor with a wet thump, and Racetrack frowned at it for a moment before continuing. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"Why the hell would I do what?"
"Take us to the movies."
Spot grimaced slightly, confused. "Didn't I just explain...?"
"Why the fuck would you want to be seen in public with us?" Race demanded, poking Spot in the chest with his spoon. "You're too detached and superior to be seen in the company of renowned social failures. Do you have some sort of, like, elaborate scheme hidden up your sleeve?"
"All I have hidden up my sleeve is an immense amount of bandages, thanks to Bumlets!" Spot exclaimed in frustration.
"Ha," said Race, looking grumpy. The ice cream drug seemed to have worn off extraordinarily quickly, and now he had returned to his usual cynical and mistrustful self. Except this time he had a spoon with which to gesticulate.
Spot sighed softly and decided to try a different angle. "Look, man," he said in a voice he hoped sounded at least vaguely kind and truthful. "I wanna take you guys out because you bandaged me up and you're real nice, and I know Bumlets has a major crush on Johnny Depp."
"It's true," said Bumlets, nodding.
Swifty shifted a little where he was standing.
Race narrowed his dark eyes and stared at Spot, who stared right back and tried to look like he had good intentions. Which he did, in truth. And plus he wanted to see Johnny Depp too, despite the godawful haircut his character had in the new movie.
"Well?" Swifty demanded finally, poking Race in the ribs. "You done giving him an x-ray or whatever? The ice cream's melting."
Bumlets looked at the container in his hands and saw that its contents were indeed melting. He lifted it up and licked the surface of the half-melted ice cream, and Swifty shifted slightly again.
Race threw his hands up in the air as if in defeat. "Okay, whatever!" he snapped. "We'll go!" He tried to storm off but tripped over a broken stereo in the middle of the kitchen floor, grumbled a few choice words, and picked his way grudgingly across the room and into the hall.
Spot felt that, somehow, he had won something more than just an argument there.
Ten minutes later they were all sitting in Spot's beautiful black Mercedes, admiring it from all angles while Spot pretended to be nonchalant as he turned the keys.
"Man. You have the sweetest ride in the world," said Swifty in amazement.
"I know," Spot gloated, finally cracking and running his hand tenderly across the dashboard. "I got it for my birthday and I still had to pay for, like, half of it. This thing is better than my dad's car."
Bumlets traced his long fingers along the leather seating, looking rather in awe. The entire inside of the car seemed to be gleaming gold, and he couldn't stop moving his hands over it. He accidentally touched Swifty, who was sitting next to him, and Swifty looked at him with dark eyes.
"Sorry," said Bumlets.
"Forget it," said Swifty.
Race was sitting rather sullenly in the passenger seat next to Spot, arms crossed over his chest. The superiority of Spot's car seemed to have frustrated him, but Spot couldn't figure out why.
So he did what he always did when he was confused: he ignored the problem and put on some music.
He saw Race flinch out of the corner of his eye and then pause, looking slightly startled. He stared at Spot, who stared right back for as long as he could before turning back to the road. Finally, Race said in tones of incredulity, "The Shins?"
"What, don't you like them?" Spot asked, eyes still on the road. He glanced in the rearview mirror because Bumlets and Swifty were being oddly quiet, but for all he could see they were both staring out their windows, apparently lost in thought. He smiled slightly.
"Of course I like them, they kick ass!" Racetrack snapped.
"So what's then problem, then?"
"The problem," said Race, bending down to tie his shoe, "is that you listen to Metallica and Rage Against The Machine."
"So?" Spot was enjoying this conversation immensely. He reached forward and turned up the music because it was halfway through the album and on one of his favorite songs, Weird Divide. It had been stuck in his head all week.
Race seemed frustrated. "So, what the hell are you doing listening to a flowy, weird, European band like The Shins? Are you schizophrenic or something?" he demanded.
"Look," said Spot evenly, "as a self-proclaimed nonconformist, you of all people should understand the idea of not restricting yourself to one musical genre alone. It's just not healthy!"
Race opened his mouth to speak, thought for a moment, and then closed it again looking incredibly pissed off. Spot smirked. In truth he had been embarrassed by how alarmed Race had been by his metal the other day, and he had decided to test out other fields. The Shins had intrigued him—he already had The Garden State soundtrack which toted two songs from Oh, Inverted World.
He bought both of their albums in one afternoon and listened to them on repeat for hours while doing his homework, and it made his mother cry with happiness.
They pulled into the movie theater, and Bumlets seemed to regain his animated personality at the prospect of watching Johnny Depp's teeth for two hours straight. "This is going to be so much fun!" he crooned as they got out of the car, wrapping his arms around Spot and kissing him on the cheek. "I LOVE YOU!"
Spot made a sort of strangled noise and wrenched Bumlets off him, staggering backwards and falling against his car. "Bumlets, that is entirely unnecessary—"
"Hey, look at that! Spotty's got a boyfriend already!"
All four of them whipped around and found themselves face to face with Oscar Delancey, Jack Kelly, and both of their girlfriends. "Well well well, what have we here?" said Jack, smirking. "Long time no see, eh, boys?"
Spot looked at him, trying to quell the enormous urge in his chest to beg to rejoin them and their upper-crust position at the high school. "What do you want, Jacky-boy?" he asked tiredly.
"We're goin' to see 'Charlie and the—" Oscar began, but Jack shushed him hurriedly and turned a little pink. He quickly changed the subject.
"Spot, you see to have taken to these guys pretty quickly. You takin' 'em out on a huge date?"
Racetrack sighed delicately. "Jack, it really depresses me that you seem incapable to comprehend the fact that mocking us about our sexual orientations doesn't faze us," he said coldly.
"True, but Spotty's always been kinda insecure about that kinda thing," said Jack, his smirk broadening.
"You seem incredibly conscious of the sexualities of your peers," said Racetrack.
"Well I ain't," said Jack.
"You're going in circles," said Race.
"No I ain't!" said Jack.
Race rolled his eyes. "Fuck off, Cowboy," he said softly.
Jack froze, staring at him. "Don't. Call me. Cowboy."
"What's this?" Spot asked, highly amused, looking back and fourth between the two.
"It's nothin'," said Jack immediately, and he glanced back at Oscar, Amber, and Sarah, who were looking confused.
"Yeah, it's nothin'," Race repeated dryly. "Fuck off, man, or I'll explain."
And they left, but it wasn't before Oscar got in the last word of, "You fucking faggots'll regret this."
Bumlets, Swifty, and Spot all watched them go before turning to Race, who was grinning. "Cowboy?" Swifty repeated, lifting an eyebrow.
"He's so touchy about his sexuality," said Race by way of explanation. "I used to call him that to piss him off, like my own little role-play character for him. Wouldn't that be cute? You could give him a cowboy hat and a whip and a pair of gratuitously tight blue jeans, and..."
"Oh my God," Spot laughed, amazed. "I can't believe you would—"
"You are so SICK!" Bumlets snorted.
Race shrugged. "It freaks him out."
"Ha, I would hope so!"
They made their way into the cinema and bought four tickets to 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,' and filed into one of the theaters and sat down four in a row. Bumlets grabbed Swifty's hand in anticipation, and Swifty didn't seem to mind at all. Spot grinned.
The movie began, and right from the start Spot knew that this was going to be one of the most enjoyable experiences he would ever have at the movie theater. Bumlets gasped a little and looked as though he were squeezing Swifty's fingers off the moment Willie Wonka's face appeared on the screen, and Swifty looked as though he were enjoying himself immensely.
Racetrack, also, was having a good time. Spot was surprised by how amused the short, mean Italian was by the strange humor of the movie; it felt like he was laughing at every other line, and Spot was very pleased with himself for selecting such a well-liked movie. He was smirking more than he had ever smirked in his life.
"I. Love. Johnny. Depp," said Bumlets as they exited the theater a few hours later, Swifty subtly massaging his faintly purple fingers.
"So do I," Racetrack practically oozed. Spot looked at him, incredulous, before realizing that the other boy was kidding. "Man, Bumlets. I mean 'Pirates of the Caribbean' I can understand. I even get what's hot about him in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape.' But he was so... fucked up in this movie!"
"I thought it was cute," said Bumlets.
"You're cute," said Racetrack.
Spot found the whole thing absolutely adorable (or as adorable as three social rejects could get), and he figured that the only thing that could make this situation better would be alcohol. None of them were exactly of age yet, and getting smashed more frequently certainly wouldn't help his grade point average for senior year, but his mother's determination to keep her precious son away from intoxicants had heightened his interest in underage drinking.
Besides, he figured, he wanted to see what would happen to Race when he was no longer restricted by his own severe ethics. It could be interesting.
-
The rain had stopped a while ago, but it took Spot a long time to recognize that, what with the distractions of Johnny Depp's teeth and now his third beer bottle held loosely in one of his hands. He wasn't quite sure how he had come to have said bottle, taking into account the problem of being eighteen years old and looking like a twelve year old girl. He vaguely recalled Racetrack saying that he had some at home, but that couldn't be right. Race looked like a twelve year old girl too.
"Spot, you are so fun," Bumlets slurred, patting Spot on the head. "I love you even more than I love your car."
"Thanks," said Spot, starting to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Nobody had ever liked him more than his beautiful Mercedes. He suddenly felt extremely cool.
Swifty, who wasn't quite drunk yet, looked on as Bumlets restyled his hair while looking into one of the black puddles that spotted the dark pavement. They had decided to camp out behind the cinema with their booze, away from the streetlights and subsequent discovery by the cops, and now they were all seated lazily on the damp asphalt under a large tree.
Spot looked up at the sky, the real enormity of it hitting him for the first time in a long time. "Do you think there're aliens out there?" he asked as he took another swig from his beer. "Those constellations look like my freckles," he added, hoping that he sounded cool and that Racetrack would be impressed.
"Yeah, there's gotta be aliens," said Race, looking imploringly at Spot as if waiting for him to confirm this idea.
"I'm an alien," Bumlets sniggered, and then he cracked up, leaning heavily against Swifty.
Race didn't seem to hear him. "We can't be all alone out here, right?" he said, and his face was oddly blank. "There's gotta be someone—someone else, something; I mean, the universe is big," he finished lamely. His vocabulary seemed to have diminished slightly as a result of the large amount of alcohol he had consumed in a very short period of time.
"Yeah, I think there is," said Spot. He somehow felt that Race needed to be comforted, although he couldn't imagine why.
Race's image doubled and tripled and then slid back into one again, and Spot closed his eyes and watched the explosions of color before him. He felt rather sick, dizzy, and he didn't want any more beer. He wanted to black out and he almost did, but then he felt Racetrack's hand on his wrist.
"What?" he demanded, but Race was smiling goofily and he nodded at Bumlets and Swifty.
Spot glanced at the two boys and saw that Bumlets was saying something softly, looking down at his fingers as he traced them across the concrete, and then he looked up and met Swifty's eyes and they seemed to freeze for a moment. They looked as though they were about to kiss, their faces inches apart, and yet Spot knew that that could never happen because Bumlets was in love with Johnny Depp and Swifty was a hetero.
Spot had always maintained that no matter how drunk you got someone, it's not going to be enough to brainwash them into going against their own sexuality. Well, not unless they were so smashed they couldn't tell male from female, but Swifty certainly hadn't reached that point. It took more than alcohol to change something as huge as a sexual orientation.
Swifty didn't seem to care that much right now, though...
Bumlets pulled away suddenly, pirouetting, and ripped off his t-shirt. "I feel like I've been inside for, like, a gazillion years," he sang, and he began to do one of his ballet routines right there on the damp concrete in his black Converse sneakers in the middle of February. He was ridiculously beautiful. He had such grace.
"You are so weird," Swifty laughed, but he looked like he had something really fucked up going on inside of him.
His face swam in front of Spot's eyes, and Spot groaned and threw his half-empty bottle against the back of the cinema building. It smashed with a sound that seemed magnified by the night, echoing in his seemingly empty head. "This was such a bad idea," he murmured, but even has he said it he seemed to forget what he was talking about.
Racetrack, on the other hand, drained his third bottle and reached for a fourth. "I love cheep beer," he slurred.
"Don't you wanna, like, stop?" Spot asked dully. He felt as though he were floating on an ocean, being dragged in and out as the waves broke. He closed his eyes and pictured it. It made him think of that song "Champagne Supernova."
"Nah," said Race, popping the cap off his bottle. "I'm totally addicted... Alcoholism runs in th' family, anyway. Doesn't matter. Stupid, really..." He trailed off and looked at the bottle in his hands. "I pro'lly should stop, though," but he took a swig anyway.
"You've got alcoholics in the family?" Spot asked, incredulous. No one had ever told him about Race's family before, and he was intrigued as to what kind of people gave birth to such an unusual, beautiful combination of wits, stubbornness, attitude, sensitivity, and mud-brown eyes.
Race nodded slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "My dad's a big one; gets drunk all the time." He took another swig. "T-totally fucked. Don't doubt my brother's g-gonna end up the same way, but fuck him..."
Spot rubbed his neck awkwardly. "When—"
"And you know, it wouldn't bother me, it really wouldn't," Race plowed on, waving his bottle around slightly. "It he drank himself s-senseless every night n' left me the fuck alone, I wouldn't give a shit."
"Does he... I dunno, beat you and shit?" Spot asked, wondering if he was pushing his luck, waiting for the bomb to go off.
Racetrack stared at him, the bottle inches from his lips, thinking slowly. He was gripping the wall behind him with white knuckles. "Yeah," he said after a long pause, and took another swig of his beer. "Yeah, he does."
Swifty and Bumlets pirouetted by—or rather, Bumlets pirouetted by and Swifty did a sort of drunken time-step. Both seemed entirely unaware of what Spot and Race were talking about, and it occurred to Spot blearily that perhaps it was better that way.
"F-fucked up," said Race softly, and he began to taken another swig but Spot took the bottle gently away. "What?"
"This shit ain't good," said Spot.
"Look, man," Race began hotly, grabbing for the bottle, "you're not—"
"Just shut up. I think we should go home."
Spot knew that the wasn't nearly as drunk as the other three were, and as this had been his idea in the first place he felt kind of responsible for them; he decided that he should be the designated driver for the four of them. "Uh-uh," said Bumlets upon hearing this plan. "No dice. Me and Swifty'll walk 'cause I don't wanna get into a car accident and die or somethin'."
"Yeah, maybe you're right..." Spot mused.
"I gotta piss," said Swifty idly, crossing his legs.
Spot groaned. "Okay," he said, trying to think clearly. "Bumlets, take Swifty to the bathroom. I'm gonna walk Race home, and we'd all better pray to God that my car's still safe n' sound when I come get it tomorrow morning. If it ain't, I'm castratin' all of you."
Bumlets seemed to like this idea, and he took Swifty' hand and lead him back into the cinema to use the restrooms.
Race was still looking kind of hollow, either lost in thought or too drunk to function. Or maybe both. Spot helped him up and slung his arm over his own shoulders, and he asked, "So where do you live, again?"
"I dunno..." Race groaned, leaning his head against Spot's shoulders.
"You don't know?"
But Race was out, back into his little horrified drunken state, and Spot sighed in defeat. He slid his arm around the other boy's waist for further support and recognized the fact that he was going to have to take Racetrack into his own home for the night.
Ordinarily he would have been thrilled at the prospect, he realized dimply as he helped Racetrack to walk, but he wasn't horny right now. Surprisingly, all he felt was concern and something along the lines of sympathy, and all that mattered to him was getting this boy somewhere safe, somewhere away from the alcohol and from his father, he supposed.
Racetrack seemed to be asleep on his feet when the reached Spot's house, almost his entire body weight leaning against Spot's for support. Spot tried as hard as he could to maneuver the darkened house and climb the stairs without waking his parents, and it felt like eternity before he finally pushed open the door to his bedroom.
He lay Race down gently on the bed, and Race looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and said, "Are you gonna sleep with your hat on?"
Spot smiled slightly. "No," he said, pulling it off along with his t-shirt and climbing softly onto the bed next to Race. "No, I wasn't planning on it."
"Cool," said Race, and he patted Spot's head sleepily.
Spot laughed, and after a moment he reached over and put his arm around Race's waist. And Race let it stay there.
And that was cool, too.
-
Shoutouts:
riah-the-bee: Aw fuck, you got me there. Yeah, I switched Mush from a popular jerk to an adorable outcast and completely forgot that I had him in two places at once. Not cool! But thanks for reviewing, man! Yay for Bumlets's hair!
LadyRach: Ha, yes, Princess Bride kicks ass beyond belief. I know what you mean about the outcast groups, too—I mean stereotypically they're always there, but I don't really have on in my school either. We all, like, cherish the gay guys. But maybe that's because they're all in musical theater, and kick ass at it. ...Anyway, thanks for reviewing!
Liams Kitten: "...? what mental hospital did SHE escape from?" Except totally NOT, because you are my favorite reviewer in the whole wide world. And the fact that you laughed at the slitting wrists joke just makes you even more amazing at life. And I still can't get over how funny your story about ice cream trucks and Jewish songs is. We are so getting married.
Iambic Pentameter: Gotta love The Princess Bride, man. Star Trek! HA! Racetrack would kick ass in Star Trek! I see a great future for that idea in a fic, what do you think? Anyway, thanks for reviewing, I love you!
Raven's Light: Thanks so much for reviewing!
Dreamer110: "Aw, I love Race... He always seems to be in denial about something. I just adore the kid." That is the most perfect description of Racetrack Higgins I have ever heard in my life. I love you. Thanks for reviewing!
Unknown-Dreams: Dude, a review for each chapter—that is so the way to win me over. Thank you so much! Oh, and I agree, I am so incredibly turned on by the idea of Bumlets doing ballet. I always though it was some weird kinky thing about me, but maybe I'm not alone!
Braids21: You know, it totally breaks my heart every time I have Jack being a dick to Spot and Race and everyone. I think I might magically have him being like, "APRIL FOOLS I'M NICE! YAAAAAY!" Anyway thanks for reviewing, I love you to death! (Update your stuff soon, all right? You're killin' me here!)
Erin Go Bragh: You give the longest reviews EVER, and I love you for it. Hooray for summertime, thanks so much for reviewing!
Author's Note: Ha, where the hell did this come from? Kinda long, coming from me. I dunno what inspired me. Anyway, I love you all; leave me a review and I'll make everyone chocolate-chip cookies!
-Saturday