A/N1: Chinsky – He does play the flute. I had to rewind it like five times to make sure. Normally I update often, but I now am in possession of a j-o-b, and I love school too much to slack on homework. Riight. Nanners-77 – Yay, the slash didn't scare you oft (that's a pun). SD – I'm sorry, but you will forever be SD in my heart. Billy... I hate to get into stereotypes. BUT I WILL. He's such a silly flamer. Confwuzzled – Hmm... another repeat offender! Thanks for the encouragement, because, like, I needed it. And you said effing! I effing love that word, el oh el!

A/N2: I'm disappointed in the way this turned out. And it is pure fluff at the end, but only because everyone is on a drug trip. Believe me, Gordon wouldn't put out that easily if he was himself.

A/N2: Back to Gordon, because I recently reclaimed my sanity.

School of Benevolent Malevolence and Feeling Good

"Gordon, Gordie, Gordon," Billy says, and combs his blond hair back with his fingers. "How are things with you? It's been so so long, too long. We totally need to, ah, ah, talk or something." Ketchup? "It's only been like a month, but a month in high school years is like, forever."

It's been ten minutes, and Billy has been talking, but not conversing. He asks, "how's the weather?" then moves on to all the latest MTV fashions he's not buying into, and tells me about the engrossing gossip he knows about OTHER people.

Billy can't stop moving or lying or digressing. I'm so fascinated with the enigma he's become. The blue t-shirt he's wearing is dirty and smelly, and Billy has never been dirty or smelly. I smile, because smiles hide so many things, like frowns, dead grandmas, and N-fucking-V.

I say, "Shouldn't we be worried about the stuck elevator?"

Billy doesn't respond. The elevator isn't moving, he tells me with an exasperated sigh. After a while he says, "Yeah, probably, unless you're one of those bitches who are always bitching about wanting to die."

"What?" My eyes stare into him, but not at him.

"Do you want to die, I asked. It's a very simple question." His head cocks and he does an almost-grin thing. "I know what you're thinking, Gordon. You've got the cutest face right now, this look that you usually see on old Chinese men. You're thinking 'what if it breaks and we go maybe-plummeting to our respective deaths, and the last person I'll have to see is this tweaked-out asshole.'"

"What?" I say again, very aware of my limited vocabulary skills.

Billy starts chewing on his manicured fingernails. "I'm thinking the same, so don't worry. I'm supposed to be somewhere right now, doing something wicked-intense."

"Like what?"

He contorts his face as if I just said something offensive. "But instead, I'm stuck here" coughwithyoucough "because like, what could we do? Yell for el help-o? Riight."

The big red button labeled "emergency" is now officially jammed. Slamming it with your thumb a hundred-million times can do that. If I were witty, I'd attack Billy with a sharp insult, or some other form of verbal abuse. But tonight, the joke shop is closed up, with rubber chickens left to rot on the window displays.

"Do you have a cell?" I finally ask.

He hops up and down twice. "Left it in my room. Where's yours?"

I dig it out of my jacket. "Batteries are dead. I always forget to charge it."

Billy grins. "Riight."

"They are." I show him the phone's screen.

"Typical. That looks new. Just get it last week or something?"

"No." I'm confused. "Why do you hate me?"

Billy sighs and rocks back on his heels. "I don't hate, man, I'm too tired for hate right now. Oh shit. I think I'm going to like, collapse or something."

But he doesn't. And I just stand there, wondering why he 'dislikes' my guts so much when I never called him a stupidfaggot or anything like all the others when he officially came out.

I sit down, or my legs give. Something that makes me find myself sitting on the floor, leaning against one of the elevator's wall. "Care to join me?"

"Are you fucking insane? Do you know what's been on the floor?"

"Yeah, feet."

"Little kid's sticky candies," he tells me, not missing a beat. "Think about it. Someone's probably spilled vodka or puked in that exact spot you're sitting in. And sometimes people fuck in elevators. Used condoms." He nods at me knowingly.

I rub my eyes. "You're the one who's crazy.

Then Billy reaches deep into his pants. He pulls out a bunch of lint and a couple of pink tablets of questionable origins. "Now. Care to join me?"

He's mocking me. Bastard. I let myself be filled with subtly-disguised disgust.

He gives me an innocent look, which turns into a glare when I don't respond appropriately.

"Sweet Tarts?" I'm going to be naïve.

"Ah, not quite."

"Is that...?"

"Yup. Everybody's favorite pharmaceutical." He pops one into his mouth. "Three left, G-man."

I freak. "What are you doing! Drugs are, are,"

"Bad? Thank you Officer DARE. I did not know that." Billy sits down next to me, kind of close, but also kind of far away. "Look Gordon, sweetie. I've been waiting a long time for this, since yesterday or something. You aren't going to screw tonight up with your moral-morals, are you? That would be bad." He pauses. "I'm going into effing rehab soon, you know. Effing Dewey. Can't I just enjoy myself, please?"

I'm floored. It's been so long since anyone has used the p-word on me, and really, desperately meant it.

"What if somebody catches us and like, we get arrested?"

Billy laughs a little. "I know you're really just worried about your own ass. Don't worry. We're trapped in an elevator. Who exactly could see?"

I don't say anything.

"Worse comes to worse, I'll take the rest at once and, ah, go away."

We sit there for a while, not saying much. Billy pulls out his Walkman and ignores me.

I try to sleep, but can't, and end up in one of those daydream/comatose states. I half-dream about photos and flying off buildings. Everyone I once knew is there, watching but not paying attention.

Suddenly, Billy lightly kicks me. "Wake up."

"What." I grumble. "I wasn't sleeping."

"Hell you weren't." Billy says as if it's settled. "While you were sleeping, I've been busy. You know how there's usually an escape hatch at the top of the elevator, for people stuck in our sort of, ah, situation? I think I've found it."

He stops and looks at me and waits for a response. I've got nothing. And continues, "That ceiling tile doesn't seem right, you know. It looks concaved."

Math terms, at this hour? What's he thinking?

"It's kind of far up there," I say, and pray he's not going to say the words that come out of his mouth next.

"But if I climb up on your shoulders or something, we could get it. Is that cool?"

"You're nuts."

Billy smiles, deeply. The ecstasy is kicking in. "Probably. But come on," he whines. "Let's do it. I wanna get out of here. It's too rectangle-y."

I take a deep breath. "Fine. On one condition though."

"What's that, G-man?"

I've always found it so hard to stick with reality. My imagination has always claimed the bigger part of me. I daydream so frequently that I often miss what people say... or I can't remember. The harder things are, the more time I spend in my mind. At very rare times, it seems more real to me than my life.

My throat catches and I mumble, "...trysomeofyourEx."

He hears it. "Really?" Billy asks, surprised.

I shrug. Billy smiles a little bit more. "Sure, whatever."

He takes the plastic bag out of his pocket and carefully drops a pill into my hand. "One for you now, and we have two left for later."

I put it in my mouth, start to chew, and almost spit it out.

"Nonononono!" He covers my mouth with his hand. "Don't chew, just swallow." Billy urges me.

"Christ on a bike," I say, when I've got the thing down. "That tastes nasty."

He laughs at me, and with me. "Which is why you don't chew it. And we've got like an hour before it'll take effect, so maybe we should, ah, get out of here while one of us still has a clear head."

I nod. This is supposed to be my ticket out of here. What do I mean, this? I don't know.

Billy lets me climb up on his shoulders, because I'm smaller, lighter, not tripping quite so much. The panel he was talking about slides off easily, like it had been waiting for me to climb up onto a gay drug-addict's shoulders to escape from the elevator. I pull myself up to the top of the elevator. Gym class and a thousand daily girl-pushups are finally paying off. Next is the hard part: getting Billy up here with me.

Where are we going to go after I get him up here? Don't know. Don't care. Don't stare at him like that.

He throws my computer bag up to me, and I set it to the side. Then, with me reaching down, and Billy standing on his tip-toes, we fail and fail and fall and then finally succeed.

Billy grins at me, and then points over my shoulder. "Look, a ladder."

It's tucked against the wall so the elevator can work efficiently, but it's there nonetheless. The ladder leads up to an escape door on the roof, yay for us.

It's amazing. Three straight hours of bad luck, and then suddenly, everything is going my -our- way. It's stopped raining too. Well, it's drizziling, but only a little.

"Look," Billy says and points again. Except this time he's pointing at lovely, not like our escape hatch wasn't. But the distant Chicago skyline is something else.

By this time, Billy is long gone. He smiles, but it's nothing new. Maybe, I hope, this time it's for me?

He pulls out his ratty CD player with the high quality headphones, turns the volume up loud, and starts to dance. Billy gives me a look. He wants me to join.

"I've never really danced before. This isn't my kind of music either."

He giggles. "Anyone can dance to techno. Just follow the bass-line."

Then he grabs my hand and pulls me into it. I loose my inhibitions as we dance the waltz, the foxtrot, the rumba, the tango, the monkey, the grind. We rock out in the humid, balmy air of a summer-night-after-the-rain.

After executing a particularly idiotic spin, I stop and see he's looking at me.

I say, "You're not dancing," like it really, truly hurts my feelings. The Ex caught up with me, and my head is spinning, and my body is on fire.

He steps up to me, and holds me, and kisses me deep and hard and for forever. Then he pulls away, maybe realizing that I'm not like him, that I don't like him, that he doesn't like me.

I feel naked without his lips against mine. So before Billy can award himself the title "biggest idiot in the entire world and I'm so, so sorry," I kiss him.

Deeper, longer, harder. And it hurts. He's a great kisser. He's the magic I got just when I needed it the most.

I pull back first. I'm happy. I feel like joy. Like I'm accepted, and everybody loves me, and I love everybody.

Billy says something to me, but I don't catch it. I'm too busy existing right now.

So I say, "I think you're beautiful too."

Because I do.