Assistant

(Day 54: Thursday Night)

"So," Carlos starts as tries to keep balance on the gaming rig. "Any more thoughts on… you know."

Jay leans back on the floor, "Still researching."

"Still," Carlos complains. "It's been like two weeks."

He laughs at Carlos's near fall, "Keep your eyes on the road." but then Carlos gives him another annoyed look and falls off of the platform." He turns onto his back his rubs his arm, before he sees Jay hover over him.

"You okay?"

"Fine," Carlos irritably replies, before he starts to stand up. "Just fine."

"Good," Jay smiles before stretching out his arm, but then there's a knock and Carlos's attention strays to the door instead. He starts to walk towards it, and when Jay says, "Controller." Carlos briefly turns back to toss it to him.

When he faces the door and opens it he offers a half surprised, half confused expression, "Chad?" He glances back at Jay, who has stopped to observe.

"Hey." Carlos notices him leaning on the doorpost. "So, I was thinking—"

"You're not going to ask me out, are you?" Carlos interrupts.

"What?"

"Your arm," he explains, before he looks towards it.

"Oh." Chad laughs it off, "Habit." before he brings the arm down to his side.

Carlos looks at him in suspicion as he slowly comments, "Okay."

"You're going to do my homework," Chad smiles.

Carlos furrows his eyebrows at him, mouth wide open, "What makes you think I'd ever do that?"

"You need the money, right?" Chad assumes. "I'll give you five dollars for every night I copy off of you, plus an extra twenty for every report or project you do for me."

"Copy?" Carlos questions. "What about the classes we don't even share."

"Oh," Chad exclaims. "Let me explain. You do my homework, and then I copy it so that it's in my handwriting. The reports you will type."

"And where is this supposed to happen?" Carlos skeptically comments. "The library?"

"No. Of course, not," he laughs. "It's happening in my room."

"Your room. As in… your dorm?" Carlos turns back to Jay in question, but he just seems to be amused by all of it.

"No. The room I have at my castle two hours away," Chad sarcastically answers. "Yes, the dorm I have here. And people call me an idiot."

Carlos looks at him in annoyance, "What if I don't want your stupid money?"

Chad nods as he looks up, "Well, you could reject the offer." before he smirks at him. "But then I'd have to post that wonderful photo of you in that beautiful, mini dress."

He mumbles, "I was wondering why no one mentioned it yet."

"Sooo, you can either take the money or you can let everyone see you wearing a dress."

Carlos glares at him, "I hate you."

He looks at him unsurely, "Isn't that some kind of compliment where you come from?"

"Shut up." Chad merely smiles. "I don't understand. Don't you have like a ton of girls doing your homework for you?"

"Yeah," Chad slowly responds. "You see, I went out the other night, and now my girlfriend thinks I cheated on her."

"What were you doing the other night?" Carlos questions.

"That's private."

Carlos laughs, "And you wonder why your girlfriend thinks you're cheating."

"Point is," he interrupts, "I'm no longer allowed to have girls enter my room, and therefore I have an opening available. Would you like to take it, or would you rather have everyone know that you model dresses in your free time?"

"It was one time," Carlos objects.

Chad makes a face, "They won't know that." Carlos groans. "Come on. You would have a chance to earn a ton of money, plus you'd be spending time with me. What's there not to like?"

"You," he emphasizes. "There's you."

Chad smiles, "I get it. You don't like me. But I bet that if you got to know me a little better, then I could change your mind."

Carlos gives him a look, "You're the substantiation of a sleazy guy."

Chad slowly gestures before quickly commenting, "I don't know what that means." but his smile remains. "What I do know is that I need my homework done, and you're doing it."

"Why me?"

"Because, I can bribe you. Because, I can blackmail you. Because…" He trails off, "You're smart and… I don't know. I just have a good feeling about you. You'll be great."

Carlos shakes his head in disbelief, "I don't even turn in my own homework half of the time. I forget. Like easily. Seriously, I've been asked if I do it on purpose just because I'm trying to look cool or whatever."

Chad lays a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry. We can fix that." and when Carlos looks down at the hand it slides off. "So, what do you say? Will you be my new assistant?"

"That's what you call it?" he raises an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

His smiles widens, "Well, yeah. I had to call it something. I couldn't just post onto my account that Rachael was doing my history homework. The teachers would have seen it."

"Because assistant is just so much better," Carlos counters, before he shakes his head. "It sounds like the start to a bad porno."

"Well," Chad looks up. "Now that you mention it…" He laughs at Carlos's expression, "Stop being so serious. I'm only kidding. Don't worry. It's just homework. You'll be great."

"When?" he questions.

"Starting tomorrow night," Chad grins. "After dinner. Don't be late. We need to get it done before curfew."

"Yeah. See you, then," Carlos comments before shutting the door on him. "Jerk." Jay can't help but laugh. "What? What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing." Jay teases, "Just that you're Chad's new assistant."

"Because he has a girlfriend now," Carlos counters. "Which means that he's not going to cheat on her, which means it really is just homework." He continues to smile, clearly not buying it. "Look. Chad's a prince. He can't be even remotely gay. That would be like against the natural laws of nature or whatever."

"Technically, Evie is a princess," Jay reasons, "and we all know she has something going on with Mal."

"Okay, but Chad has a girlfriend," Carlos defenses. "How do you explain that?"

"No one is a hundred percent straight," Jay justifies. "And given the way he was acting, I would say he's at least a little curious about you."

He lets out a stressed breath, "Okay. Let's say Chad is curious." Carlos lifts his left hand up, "He has a girlfriend, a girlfriend who he wants to be with so much that he's willing not to have any other girls be his 'assistant'. There's no way he's going to cheat on her."

"Mal has a boyfriend," Jay reminds him, "and you don't see her slowing things down with Evie at all, do you?"

"She's a heat sucker." Carlos debates, "It's different."

"Okay," Jay accepts. "But what if he is curious? What would you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"If he asked you to do some things with him, then would you?" he inquires.

"He's blackmailing me," Carlos points out. "Whether I would and whether I'd like to are probably two completely different answers."

"So, you're not curious about him at all?" Jay wonders.

Carlos slowly smiles, "No. I'm not." as he makes his way towards Jay, wrapping his arms around his neck. "I prefer guys with a darker complexion."

Jay unsurely asks, "Is that a reference to my skin color?"

"No, you idiot," he laughs. "It's a reference to your hair and eye colors." His thumb moves over his cheek, as he uses a hand to get Jay's hair out of his face, "Although, your skin tone doesn't hurt either."

He frowns, "I don't know whether to be offended or not."

Carlos slightly shakes his head, "Just take the compliment." before he kisses him.

Jay sighs, "We can't do this."

"Come on." Carlos complains. "It's been like forever."

"If I can wait, then you can too." He gives him a look, before Jay sternly responds, "I'm not hurting you, not until I've done the research."

Carlos lets go of him, "And how much longer is that going to take?" Jay doesn't respond. "Come on. You can't be just a little rough?"

"No," he firmly answers.

Carlos slightly shakes his head, "I don't get." before he raises his voice. "Why are you punishing me like this? I didn't do anything wrong."

"Is that what you really think I'm doing?" Jay softly questions. "Punishing you?" Carlos doesn't speak, his eyes becoming glossy with tears. "I'm not trying to hurt you. That's exactly what I'm trying not to do. I don't want to see you in any pain. I'm not trying to punish you."

Carlos gulps, "It was fine before, before you knew. And then you stopped being rough, and then now you don't want to do anything at all? What did I do? Why are you doing this?"

"The stuff we were doing wasn't enough for you," Jay tries to explain.

"So, you took that away too? I wanted more. Not less." Jays lets out a breath but otherwise stays silent. "And I understood that you wanted to understand this more." Carlos shakes his head, "But are you even trying to research? I feel like you're stalling on purpose."

"I'm not," Jay tries to reassure. "I really just can't find much of anything. All I keep getting are these definitions, vague ideas, and what seem to be stereotyped causes by people who clearly don't know anyone who's gone through it." Carlos stays quiet, so Jay takes a step forward, "Trust me. I'm not stalling. I just… I feel like if we were to do anything, then I wouldn't understand it enough to keep you safe or happy."

Carlos whispers, "I'd be happy just to know that you're open to it and trying."

Jay shakes his head, "In order for me to be comfortable with this, I need to know that I won't actually be hurting you, that it's safe and not something you don't actually want."

He sadly laughs, "What? You still think I'm doing this to hurt myself?"

It takes a minute for Jay to answer, "No. But maybe it's something you've just grown used to. Maybe you can learn not to want it."

Carlos gives him a look, "Are you even listening to yourself?" but Jay doesn't respond. "And no. It's not something I want to learn to ignore or eventually not want. I just want it."

Jay is quiet for a moment, "I'm not going to do anything until I know more, but if you really feel like the usual stuff is better than nothing, then we can do that. You just have to promise that you won't guilt me about not doing it when we are doing the normal stuff."

Carlos lets out a breath, "Fine. That's fine." He stresses, "For now." and Jay smiles at him. He smiles back, "And actually, now would be great." before he walks up and kisses him.

- Can you guys tell when I run out of room on a page and don't want to go onto the next? I feel like you can.

- So, Chad's not really going to become a "main" character or anything, but I'm honestly curious here: Do you think he's stupid or smart just based on the scenes he has shown up in? I'm not sure myself. Is both an answer? Oh, and, by the way... a loyal follower of this story had a chat with me (thank you, again), and it's been brought to my attention that the way I'm writing this isn't in the most normal format. I should have probably warned you all before, it's not going to be very structured. For the most part the flow is just going to be organic, to the point where sometimes even I don't know how the characters will get from point A to point B. So, you don't need to be overly worried about every single thing that gets brought up, because some (or a lot) of it may be saved for later. Until then it's just information to add to the character... honestly, it's going to be a slow ride. I'm doing each character's storyline at the same time, not one at a time, so there will be times when there appears to be a lot going on; however, it also means it won't be like those TV shows that display a mental disorder for a single episode, "cure" it, and then move on just as fast as it developed like some dummkopf. I like the slow development of things and then watching how the characters react to it all... You can disagree with me. You can prefer action, but since I like to do more psychological things I'm not sure how much action this story will get, regardless of how much may seem to be happening at once. Seriously, if you don't like psychology or character development and working on relationships, then I have absolutely no idea how you've made it this far. That being said, let's get back to Ben.