Disclaimer: Don't own The Human Genome, If You Were Gay, or Newsies.
Ch. 5—Cake and Sodomy
Skittery pounded on the door. He always woke Mush and Blink on weekday mornings, though he had missed Monday to recovering from his hangover from Friday (STILL). When neither Kid Blink nor Mush answered the door, Skittery deftly jimmied the lock and let himself in. To his surprise, both Blink and Mush where already up and about. Mush was standing in front of the mirror on their wall, exfoliating his face, and Blink was in the corner, wrapped in a towel around his waist.
"Morning, Skitts," Mush greeted.
"Don't look, Skittery, I'm getting naked," was Blink's 'hello.'
Skittery said, "Guys, guess what today is!"
"Judging by the fact that Snitch isn't with you, I'd say Wednesday."
"Yeah," Skittery allowed, "but there's more to it than that. It's October 21st—his birthday!"
Blink walked over, dressed in dark wash jeans and a forest green button-down. "Good thing I got a present for him a while ago, then. I wonder where it went..."
Mush bit his lip. "It wasn't those pink fuzzy handcuffs we used last week, was it? Or the raspberry-cream Heightening Sensations lube we finished off on Sunday?"
"No, and no," Blink said. "I got those for us. I got him..." After trailing off, Blink glanced at Skittery. "Well, I want it to be a surprise for both of them. But it's probably in my sex drawer."
Kid Blink walked over to his dresser and yanked open the bottom drawer. In spite of himself, Skittery leaned over and looked in—he'd never actually seen his friend's sex drawer. The contents included several gay porn DVDs and magazines, a few pairs of handcuffs, bondage straps, chains, condoms (though Blink and Mush never used them), a vibrating cock ring, a dildo, and several bottles of lube.
Skittery felt faintly sick.
--
At 8:32, David rushed out of his dorm, sprinting towards his first class at full speed. He was late. As he neared the classroom, though, he saw everyone milling around outside and no sign of the teacher.
Some would call it crazy or mean that his first thought was of Sarah—specifically, What's she done this time?—but David just knew his sister's style very well. Following his hunch, he sought her out, playing solitaire in the dorm commons.
"Sarah, what'd you do?"
Sarah smirked, then went so far as to let out a short laugh. "You know the principal's email here is easier to hack than Mom's?"
"What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing much. Not on par with some of my old tricks... Just all the teachers are currently on their way to a surprise teachers' convention in frickin' Chicago. It should take them a few days to sort this one out."
David stared at his sister's beaming face for a second and then began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
--
"I can't believe this... this fucking discrepancy of the school's! My parents are paying for me to get a fucking education, and they just call off class because the teachers have fucking disappeared... UNTIL. FURTHER. FUCKING. NOTICE!" Bumlets paced the length of his dorm room angrily, running his hands through his hair.
Dutchy rolled his eyes. "Bum, man, it's not like your parents are hurting for money." He tapped his thumbs on his knees, feeling jittery. "They can go to Rome for a month with the money they carry in their fucking wallets—what's a few days of them paying for an education you're not getting?"
Bumlets shot Dutchy a withering look. "Dutchy, we can't all fail out of life."
The silence in the room was thick, everyone waiting for Dutchy's next move.
At first, Dutchy didn't react. Then, no expression on his face save for a slight twitch next to his right eye, he stood up and walked out.
"Shit, Bumlets," Snoddy said. Something in him wanted to follow Dutchy, but assuming he knew Dutchy as well as he thought he did, he was probably going to go sulk with Specs and... do whatever it is they did. Snoddy hoped that "whatever it was they did" involved nothing of a sexual nature—the thought of Specs naked made him nauseous. Besides, at this point, following Dutchy would probably be akin to a death wish.
"He deserved it," Bumlets insisted.
--
Clickclickclickclickclick.
Schfffffflurp.
Clickclickclickclickclick.
Tssssssss.
Schfffffflurp.
Clickclickclickclickclick.
Wshhhhhhhh.
"Double latte, hurry it up."
Harsh, loud voices.
Racetrack sat leaning back in a chair at his café. As soon as they heard there were to be no classes, Spot and Jack started going at it again, so Race had made his escape to his usual sanctuary. For some reason that he couldn't quite put a finger on, seeing Spot and Jack make out (or do anything else) had become nearly unbearable lately, so he'd found himself at his café more and more.
Something in his brain was disconnected today—he just sat sipping a coffee and eating some pastry he didn't remember ordering, and certainly didn't intend to pay for, and listened to the sounds of life continuing around him. His eyes couldn't seem to catch up with everything, although they caught an occasional image, like David walking in the door.
David walking in the door.
...David walking in the door?
"DAVE." Race's mouth moved and the word came out, but he wasn't sure where it had come from.
"Oh, hey Racetrack." David paused by his table. "Watcha doing?"
Race tried to think about the question and come up with an answer, but his mouth barked, "Coffee," before his mind could even comprehend the words.
David smiled and started to say something, but Racetrack's mouth was on a roll. "David, hey, d'you know anything about why we don't have classes? I heard you would."
Now David laughed. Race noted something faintly angry and hysterical in the laugh. "My sister... she does some crazy shit. She got all the teachers sent off to Chicago for a fake teachers' convention. The principal has no idea where they all are."
Race's mind was still stuck on the word 'sister,' trying to remember what it meant, when his mouth said, "Sit down."
David obliged and, hailing a waitress, asked, "Where're Spot and Jack?"
Scrunching his brow, Racetrack desperately tried to hunt down the identity of this 'Jack' person—he remembered Spot—skinny and hot (Race did not just think that) and gay. "Sex," he said. He still wondered what a 'Jack' was.
Without much of a reaction, David asked in reply, "Do they do that as much as it seems like?"
Didn't think, didn't need to, mouth moved, "Yup."
David nodded. "You're not really awake yet," he observed.
Race grinned and held up his mug. "Coffee. Need more."
The two sat in silence for a few minutes as Racetrack guzzled down the rest of his mug with the triumphant, desperate air of a drunk with someone else's ale. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and blurted, "I need more."
"Complete sentences," David joked, "Good job!"
"Fuck you. Waitress?"
"Coming," David assured him. "So how've you been?"
Racetrack frowned, trying to remember what 'coming' meant outside of sex, then saw the ginger-haired woman stop by their table and pour more coffee into his mug. Silence resumed.
"Um..." David's eyes darted to the tall man sitting a table over. "So what's the deal with Jack and Spot?"
Now Racetrack remembered Jack—sandy-haired, looked like he would be warm to cuddle next to, taller than he or Spot. Race shrugged and blurted, "Horny," into his mug.
"So they are, like... gay?"
A nod. "Why?"
"No... reason." David blushed, thinking of his dream the other night about Jack.
Race was mostly functioning now, so he set down his mug and said, "Pretty much anybody can fuck Spot. Jack's a bit more emotional. Which one?"
"What?"
"Which do you want?"
David was startled by Race's blunt manner. "Is it that obvious?"
"Nope, just guessing."
"Damn it." David sipped his coffee and glanced again at the tall man. "So, uh, are either one... okay, screw it, how does one, y'know, tempt Jack?"
Race took a long gulp of his coffee. "Mostly, you have lots of sex with him and eventually he'll start wanting more. He already tried to get Spot to date him." It was probably just his imagination, but David thought Race sounded a little jealous.
With another shifty glance at the tall man, David asked, "Is there any other way to do it?"
There was a long, quiet pause, then Racetrack snickered. "Virgin."
"So?"
Race shook his head. "You could always try leading him on a little, then rejecting him. Jack can't just let something go like that."
"Okay, but how do I get on his radar in the first place?"
A shrug. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself."
--
Jake tapped his fingers edgily on his thighs and tapped his feet on his bed in a sporadic rhythm. His phone was sitting in a Position of Ultimate Importance—between his feet. His knees were spread so he could see the phone if it rang.
He was dressed in a plain gray button-down shirt and nice jeans. A bouquet of flowers sat in water on his bedside table, and a guide to the top seventeen most romantic restaurants in the area rested on the sheets next to him.
"D'you think she'll call soon, David?"
David sighed and flipped a page in The Human Genome, which he had picked up immediately upon his return to the dorm and not set down since. "I don't know, Jake. It's only been fifteen minutes since you asked her to call you."
The room resumed silence.
Ten minutes later, a tinny rendition of If You Were Gay echoed through the room. An excited Jake flipped open his phone. "Amanda?... Yeah, I wanted to take you out for lunch and a—...Yeah, like a boyfriend, I—...What?... Oh... No, I underst—...Of course not, I wouldn't—... Well, maybe tomorrow?... Oh, I see... So not tomorrow. How about—... Oh. Never? At all?... Oh... No, I'm fine... Yeah... No, doesn't matter... Okay... Yep, goodbye."
Jake snapped his phone shut. There was a beat of eerie stillness, then he threw the restaurant guide at the mirror on the wall. He yanked the flowers from the water, shook them off, and pulled out a lighter. David's eyes widened.
Stems with heads of dancing fire fluttering from a high window to a broken yell of "BITCH!" is an interesting sight.
David looked at Jake. "She said no?"
"Yeah. Fucking bitch."
The human genome had never been more interesting.
--
Skittery, Snitch, Kid Blink, and Mush sat cross-legged in a circle on Skittery's floor. The lights were off, the only light coming from sunlight filtering in the window, and a four-layer chocolate cake between them (and a few bags of barbecue chips by Skittery). There were seventeen mismatched candles burning in the cake.
"Make a wish, babe," Skittery said through a mouthful of chips.
Snitch screwed up his eyes, muttered something under his breath, and beamed.
"Blow 'em out!" Mush was on his knees now, clapping. He loved birthdays.
From under the bed behind him, Snitch whipped out a small travel hairdryer and carefully extinguished every candle but one. "See, Skittsy? I've got one boyfriend." He leaned over and planted a kiss on Skittery's mouth, barbecue flavoring transferring from Skittery's lips to his own, and pulled the candle from the cake. "I refuse to blow out this boyfriend."
"What? You refuse to blow me?"
Snitch looked confused, then laughed. "Let me rephrase that—I refuse to extinguish this boyfriend."
Skittery and Snitch beamed lovingly at each other, so Blink took charge. "Okay, we don't have plates or forks or anything because Mush and I got distracted on the way to the store, so just... dig in with your hands or mouths, or anything you can."
Snitch face planted in the cake.
--
Sarah clicked open her email and glanced over the subject lines, thinking, spam, spam, spammity, spam as she deleted the unimportant ones. Then she double-clicked on the one from her boyfriend, titled "I gotta tell you."
To: Sarah
From: Alex
Subj: I gotta tell you
Sarah—
How's school treating you? Found any good friends or stud muffin guys? And how's David doing? I know he was never really the popular one.
Um... okay, I have NO idea how to tell you this. But... er, don't get mad, babe, okay? I swear I love you and this is one of the hardest emails I've ever written.
Gretchen says I should get straight to the point, so I guess I will.
We're dating. Gretchen and I. I'm sorry. I really, genuinely am. What you and I had was amazing while it lasted. I've never had a more devoted girlfriend than you. But the thing is I'm just not quite ready—y'know, not mature enough—to have a long-distance relationship. I'm too into instant gratification. Besides, you're kind of young for me. I mean, my 22nd birthday's next weekend and you're only 18.
You deserve better than me, Sarah. Find yourself a nice, doting boy closer to your age and give him your all. I'm not worth you. Don't cry over me. You'd do best just to move and forget about me.
Love, Alex.
Sarah blinked. She wasn't sad, and she certainly wasn't surprised. Very, very angry, but nothing more than that. She slammed shut her laptop and slowly, deliberately walked out her door. Barely two minutes later, her knuckles rapped three loud, clear knocks beneath the familiar golden twelve.
"Yeah?" It was Itey, wearing nothing but his monkey boxers.
"Be my boyfriend or I'll kick you in the nuts," Sarah said without pretense.
"Um." Itey looked shocked. "Okay?"
Sarah kissed him firmly on the lips.
--
"Spot. Spot. ...Spot, are you listening to me?" Jack sat cross-legged on Spot's bed, no pants on, leaning on the wall.
Spot snapped his gum and said, "No."
"Well, maybe you should—"
"Jack, shut up." Spot glared, meeting Jack's gaze full-on for the first time in a few days.
There was silence for a few minutes, then: "Spot, listen to me."
"Jack, SHUT. UP. I'm fucking serious."
Jack shut his eyes and leaned his head back on the wall. "Why?"
"I'm sick of this—it's always 'Spot, Spot, Spot! Me, me, me!' Just fucking—stop being so clingy and needy all the time, God damn it!"
"Fine. You know what?" Jack's head shot back into position and his eyes opened. "If you can't accept me for who I—"
"Christ, Jack, you sound like a fucking thirteen-year-old girl!"
Jack rolled his eyes and pulled on his boxers. "Ugh, fuck this. Fuck you. I'm—just—ugh! Fuck!"
"Nice, Kelly. Get the fuck out of my room."
Jack grunted and punched the wall. "Fucking—it's my room, too!"
"Just. Get. Out."
With what he hoped was a dignified glare, Jack pulled on a pair of pants and left.
--
Jack huffed aimlessly down the hallways of his dorm, hoping to walk out his anger or find somewhere else to go. He was just turning back to go give Spot a piece of his mind when he saw a familiar figure walking towards him down the hall. "David!"
David stopped when he reached Jack. "Heya."
"Dave—uh, wanna grab some dinner with me and, like... catch up on stuff?"
Squinting up at Jack, David shrugged. "Sure. I just gotta—uh, when?" He remembered Race's advice. "I'd love to, thought. Just—um, yeah, when?"
"Tomorrow at..." Jack bit his lip. "Six?"
Keep it in your pants, Dave, don't let him make you a horny idiot. "That—yeah, that'd be great."
Jack grinned. "Good—meet me... Oh, fuck, I'll just come to your room at six. You're with Jake, right? I mean—you room with him?"
"Yeah." David smiled a little. "Well, I gotta go."
--
Racetrack would be at his café, Spot was sure. At least, he really hoped so after taking half an hour to get there. He pushed open the front door and instantly spotted the Irish-Italian sipping coffee at a table smack-dab in the middle of the room. Spot walked over and, with no introduction, plopped down in the chair opposite Race. When Race, wrapped up in the newspaper he was reading, didn't notice him, Spot rapped his knuckles on the table. Racetrack jumped.
"Oh—hey, Spot. Where's Jack?" Race's eyes traveled over the air behind Spot, then back.
"Fucked if I know," Spot said.
Race took a large gulp of coffee. "You get in a fight or something?"
"Yeah. Whatever, he's a faggot."
Trying not to smirk, Racetrack said, "So're you, Spot."
"Ugh, you know what I mean."
"Yeah..." Racetrack looked at Spot, who sat tapping his hands on the tabletop. His eyes darted around the café enough that Race wondered if he was afraid to be seen there or something.
"How the hell do you sleep if you drink all this coffee all the time?"
Race shrugged, but made no move to answer.
"Race?" Suddenly, Spot's eyes snapped to Race's own, burrowing into his skull with frightening intensity.
"Yeah?"
"Are you gay?"
"What?!" Race glanced around the room and leaned forward. "Of—of course not!"
Spot narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. He simply resumed glancing around the room.
"Why do you ask?"
Brutally honest, as always, Spot answered, "I'm horny and you seem pretty gay sometimes. Honestly I don't give a damn unless it means you'll blow me."
Race couldn't tell why he felt a little disappointed. "There's a bathroom, go jack off."
"Nah." Spot picked up Racetrack's almost empty coffee and sloshed the dregs around in the bottom of the mug, then drank deeply so it was empty. "God," he said as he slammed the cup back on the table, "what do you do when you're here all this time?"
"Not much," admitted Race. "I guess I read a lot more now, but mostly I just... y'know, sit around and try not to think about you and Jack."
Spot had been chewing his thumbnail and now spat a bit out into his napkin. "What, that bother you?"
"Um, yeah, a bit."
"You some kind of homophobe?" Spot's back was ramrod straight and his hands clenched on the table.
Race held his palms up in a surrender position. "No, no—it's just... ahhh, I'm not quite sure."
"Right." Spot pulled out a ten dollar note and dropped it on the table. "C'mon, let's get out of here before your hair turns gray. You're getting fucking antisocial."
The two burst out of the door into the crisp night. Spot, shivering a little for lack of a jacket, glanced both ways down the sidewalk. Each side was a strip of neon, cement, and glass. He clearly had no idea what was where after dark.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Racetrack muttered. He grabbed Spot's hand, but on contact jumped back. He cleared his throat and murmured, "Right, well. C'mon."
With Racetrack slightly in the lead and Spot hurrying to stay a half-step behind, the boys walked. They kept walking for upwards of fifteen minutes, when Spot finally asked, "Where the hell are we going?"
Race glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, this place I know... we're almost there, don't worry."
Spot smiled slightly and shook his head. "What a guy," he said to himself under his breath as he sped up to fall into step with Racetrack. "Seriously, where are we going?"
Glancing again at Spot, Racetrack just gave an aggravating smile. "Seriously, you'll find out! Um... you're not allowed to think it's lame, by the way."
Spot slid his eyes over to look at Racetrack. There didn't appear to be any real apprehension behind his statement, so Spot said, "Oh, great. We're going somewhere you think I'll think is lame?" Racetrack just continued to smile, and Spot thought, He's kind of hot.
For a few silent minutes, Spot and Race continued to walk at a not-quite-leisurely pace down the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan. Every now and then Race would duck through and opening between two people and Spot would have to grab his forearm or elbow in order not to lose him. Suddenly, Race stuck his hand out in front of Spot. Pointing to the right, he murmured, "We're here," and ducked off the sidewalk into an alley. Spot followed him, putting aside his misgivings. There seemed to be nothing special about this alley, save for the fact that it was tiny—only a little wider than Spot's shoulders.
Although he had claimed this was the place, Racetrack was now walking faster than ever towards an invisible goal. Still, Spot followed him. When he looked behind him and saw how far down the dank, smelly alley he had come, Spot whispered, "This had better be good." And when he turned back around, Racetrack was gone.
He didn't want to admit it, but Spot panicked a little. He had no idea whatsoever how he had gotten to this alley, and now that the slight euphoria he had had in Racetrack's presence had crashed, Spot felt like he was going to start hyperventilating. He kicked a small pile of trash and swore loudly.
"Spot!" The voice, hushed yet projected, came from high above.
"What the fuck!" Spot yelped. His head shot up, eyes searching for the source of the voice.
"Shhh! I'm up here!"
Then Spot located Racetrack's face peering down at him from the roof of the old brick building, only three stories high or so. "How the fuck did you get up there?"
"Shh! There's bricks sticking out. Climb them, and for God's sake, be QUIET!"
Spot flipped Race off, then proceeded to feel the wall to locate the bricks sticking out. When he finally did, he pulled himself up by a handhold and slowly settled his weight on the lowest brick. He continued in this fashion until he felt Race's hand grasp his and begin to pull. With minimal help, Spot pulled himself up onto the roof. He opened his mouth to speak, but Racetrack clamped a hand over it.
"We're on top of a really old recording studio," Racetrack explained quietly. "it's empty right now, but the buildings on either side aren't, and they're taller, so if anyone chooses to look out the window and sees us, we're in deep shit. So walk quietly, talk quietly, but—don't restrain yourself." Race wasn't quite sure what he meant with the last sentence. Spot didn't even seem to notice. He just licked Racetrack's palm, then started nibbling it until Race took it away.
"Fine," he replied, his voice pitched for Racetrack's ears only, "but I wanna know something."
"Yeah?"
"How the fuck did you get up here so fast?"
Racetrack laughed. "I'm magic," he teased, walking carefully over to the corner near the street. "C'mere."
Spot clapped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to standing. He ambled over to Race's side, hands once again deep in his pockets, and looked down. People scuttled along the sides of the roads, and cars and taxis lit up the night. The air around Spot had an electricity and energy exclusive to night.
"Trippy," he commented.
Racetrack snorted. "Trippy? Seriously, Spot, did you just describe that as trippy?"
"Shut up."
"Oooh, feisty!" Race held up an arm to block the light punch coming his way and laughed.
Spot felt jittery just below his belly button. "Yeah, I am—doesn't it turn you on?"
Racetrack opened his mouth to answer, but a window one building over opened and a man yelled, "Hey, kids! Clear out of there, you're breaking the law!"
Without thinking, Spot shouted, "What're you gonna do about it, big boy?"
The man answered, "Well, I'm supposed to be off duty, but nobody ever fired an officer for arresting after his shift!"
Race and Spot shared a look, eyes wide, deer-in-headlights expression firmly in place. Spot told Race, "Oh. Shit," to which Race replied, "Yeah."
Then, simultaneously, the boys looked back at the window. It was still open, but Spot could see the cop pulling on a jacket and getting ready to walk out of his apartment. With an uncharacteristic squealing laugh, Spot said, "Shit! Shit! Shit, Race! We gotta run!"
With that, Spot and Race began nervously laughing as they crouch-ran back to the edge of the roof with the impromptu stairs. Racetrack went first, scaling down the wall with expert precision and speed. Spot, however, was even slower than the first time, due to the nervous giggles escaping his throat against his will. When he finally hopped off the last brick and collapsed laughing against an equally breathless Racetrack, the policeman was rounding the corner, already jogging.
"Oh, shit!"
Racetrack grabbed Spot's hand, not thinking, and began to drag him farther down the seemingly endless alley. Behind them, the officer's footfalls sped up to match. He breathed hard and grunted, contrsating will with their breathless gasps and uncontrollable cackling.
Time was irrelevant—Spot and Race ran hand in hand, laughing harder than either ever had, fueled almost as much by simple adrenaline and a good mood as by the po following them. Neither had any idea how long they had been running or how far they had come when they started to lose him. Once Race realised that the cop was no longer even in the same street as them, he pulled Spot out of the intricate maze of alleys they had been following and into the crowded street. Still clutching each others' hands and giggling, the boys stumbled into a random building—an indie music store, as it happened.
Race collapsed against the wall just inside the door, breath coming in hooting spurts, ripping through his body. "Oh... my God!"
"Holy shit!" Spot laughed. "Holy shit!"
Suddenly, both boys abruptly became silent and looked at their hands, still intertwined. Neither spoke—they barely breathed. Racetrack could feel his face, red already from exertion, turn a probably unflattering shade of purple. Spot was slightly apathetic. He didn't mind clutching Racetrack's hand ad laughing, having fun with a boy almost like a normal person. He looked up from their hands to Race's face, burning, eyes fixated on their fingers. Spot, for once, did what seemed like the right thing to do. He leaned in and kissed Racetrack.
A/N: Ho-ly crap. This chapter is 4,419 words long, not counting this Author's Note. That's 24 pages handwritten (and I almost always handwrite my chapters first). That's not long for some people, but for me it's crazy-long. The longest thing I've ever written was 8,000-something words long, and I didn't write that all in one go, as I did this. I wrote that over the course of a month or more. The chapter I thought was superlong last time (chapter 3 of this fic)? It was only 2,900-something. I spell-checked it, but otherwise it's unbeta'd, so I'm sorry if there are any typos. I have more to say, really, but my wrists are killing me from typing this, so I'm gonna go. Till next time! -Selanfene