A/N: Ugh, I am so so so so sorry about how long this update took! I promise, the next one will be faster! Anywho, thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/alerted. I know that's long over due as well, so...forgive me! I hope you like this anyway, and I promise this story is going somewhere. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Hairspray, last time I checked...

"We're the new face of failure

Prettier and younger, but not any better off

Bulletproof loneliness

At best, at best

Me and you

Setting in a honeymoon

If I woke up next to you."

--Fall Out Boy, "Me & You"

Mid March, 1962

"Okay. So I'm your cousin, Monica, and I'm visiting from Washington, D.C. Right?"

"Right. So just…act like a cousin, alright?" Corny asked, pulling his keys out of the ignition. Brenda pouted, pulling her thin pink cardigan closer. The lone street lamp in front of the slightly run-down apartment building they had pulled up to cast a weak pool of yellow light into the car.

"What does that even mean?" she huffed, turning to look at him.

"It means…just," his hands gestured outward in a 'personal-space' motion, "keep your distance, okay?"

Brenda sighed, leaning over the cup holders filled with change, gum wrappers and a crushed empty Styrofoam coffee cup that still reeked of bad fast food coffee to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Fine. Okay. That's great, I'll remember that. Let's go," she groaned, already out of the car.

The neighborhood wasn't the greatest. Most of the buildings looked run-down, and it only looked like one trolley line ran through the area, not to mention the cigarette butts strewn across the sidewalks. There was a bar down on the corner, and when the door opened every so often to admit rowdy clumps of people or let out groups of staggering, slurring patrons with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths; shouting and laughter could be heard clearly from where Brenda was standing. One group of people loitering on the corner eyed Brenda curiously through clouds of cigarette smoke. She wondered if she looked young compared to the other girls people in this building brought home, or if she was dressed too nicely. Probably both.

"Do you ever go in there?" Brenda asked, nodding to the bar. Now she could see what the neon red sign on the door said: 'Tooley's', though the 'l' was about to flicker out.

"Uhm, no," Corny replied too quickly, leading Brenda to believe it was one of his regular haunts he mentioned often. He hurried up the stoop to the unlocked door of the building, not glancing back to see if she was behind him, though she was. The 'lobby' of the building was as about as classy as the rest of the neighborhood. The doorman leaned against the wall, chatting with some girl with dark circles under her eyes and more lipstick then Brenda had ever seen on any one person.

"This is the cousin?" Doorman asked without taking his eyes off Lipstick Girl.

"Right." Corny reached back and grabbed her hand, pulling her up a narrow flight of stairs in the corner.

"I thought we were supposed to be 'cousin-y'. Most cousins over the age of seven don't hold hands."

"Oh, no one'll notice. They're beyond that sort of comprehension. It's Friday night, ya know?" He winked slyly over his shoulder.

"Well, then why'd you tell me to keep away in the car? I- whatever. Isn't there an elevator?"

Corny laughed without looking back. "Did you see one in the lobby, Bren? Do you really think a building that barely has plumbing would have an elevator?"

"Wait. Shit, there's no plumbing here?" Brenda stopped dead in her tracks, clinging to the flimsy railing. He paused, sighing as he turned to look at her.

"Bren, seriously. There is plumbing. You would smell it, babe, if there wasn't." He turned and continued up the narrow flight of stairs, causing Brenda to roll her eyes as she followed him.

"How much longer?"

"You're just a right little chatterbox tonight, aren't you?"

"Do you need me to stop talking?"

"No. Go on."

"Well, now I don't have anything to say."

The two walked in silence for a bit, until they reached their destination. Corny slipped the key into the lock, and hurried into his apartment, leaving the door open for Brenda, which she promptly closed behind herself as she entered. The front room was a mess; magazines and old newspapers were strewn every which way, a sports jacket tossed over the TV in the corner, the sofa looked like it was liable to burst at any given moment. Basically, it was everything Brenda expected it to be. The apartment had the faintest scent of mildew and stale coffee.

"Your apartment smells bad," she announced, though she was sure he wouldn't be able to hear from his place rummaging around in the kitchen. Brenda sighed and picked her way into the kitchen, which was just as neat as the front room. She collapsed into one of the two hard wood chairs placed around a rather old table in the center of the kitchen, crossing her legs at the ankles and sliding her pink sweater off. Corny turned around triumphantly, clutching a lighter and a package of cigarettes in his right fist. He held the cigarettes out to her in offering.

"You smoke?" Brenda asked, her eyebrows raised.

Corny shrugged, sticking a cigarette in his mouth before lighting it. "Why's it such a shock to you?"

"Well, I mean, it makes your teeth go all yellow. And then your lungs go bad and you can't sing."

Everything a TV personality doesn't want.

"Besides," Brenda added. "You shouldn't offer cigarettes to a minor."

"There are lots of things you shouldn't offer a minor," he said with a wink. Brenda sucked in a quick breath, surprised, before letting it out in an almost sigh. Laughing, she reached out to take a cigarette and stuck her wad of gum on the bottom of his kitchen table. He wouldn't care. Her mother said she shouldn't smoke. It wasn't ladylike.

But, then again, she had never exactly been the epitome of ladylike. And now, more then ever, that seemed to shine through, as she sat awkwardly in some worn-down kitchen smoking. They sat quietly for a while. This felt so…different from all the other times Brenda had spent with him. In his dressing room, there was a sort of danger to it. At any moment anyone could walk right in. But here, they were completely alone. It still felt dangerous, but in a different way. They could do, say anything, and no one would ever know about it.

And Brenda's mother thought she was at the library. Like she'd spend a perfectly good Friday evening doing her history project. After the moment stretched on far too long, Brenda huffed, leaving her cigarette in her mouth as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm bored," she said around the cigarette, almost causing it to fall into her lap, which would have ended badly since she was wearing a brand new dress.

"I don't know what to tell you, Bren."

"Yes, you do." Brenda nodded, uncrossing her arms in order to remove the cigarette from her lips. He narrowed his eyes at the girl.

"That doesn't even make sense."

Brenda rolled her eyes, coughing as she snuffed out her cigarette in a small ashtray placed on the kitchen table.

"You know…" she trailed off, lowering her voice. Brenda stood up, crossing in front of the table over to Corny, fingering his tie before sliding it off.

"I'm bored," Brenda repeated huskily.

"Well. Maybe I can think of a few ways to entertain you."

"I think you just might."