"Jack, you're a slut," Spot said simply.

"No I'm not and stop saying that," he retorted. "You've been calling me a slut all day."

"That's because you are one. Slut."

"How mature," Jack rolled his eyes and reclined on the grass with his red plastic cup, keeping it upright so it didn't tip over. "What gives? You've been on edge since last night…more than usual."

Spot rushed his fingers through his hair and sighed. They had arrived at the party a mere twenty minutes ago and already he was sick of it. Spot didn't do parties well. There were too many people around who used to beat him up. He tended to shy away from drunken idiots who would yell 'Hey, it's Tinkerbell!' and then maul him.

"And, plus," he said. "I don't see what the big problem is."

"You showed up to Mush's house shirtless last night," Spot reminded him.

Jack sat up and eyed him over his beer, one eyebrow cocked.

"That's because Snitch showed up, had fifty heart attacks, and literally dragged us all there. Besides, it's not like I was trying to, like, seduce Mush," he screwed his face up. "He's like my brother."

Spot shrugged. "Who said anything about Mush?"

He just smirked in that knowing way of his before draining his cup and rising to his feet.

"I'm off to get tossed," he blew a kiss at Spot. "Have fun."

"Fag!" he shouted after him.

Jack flipped him the finger good-naturedly and Spot went back to sitting alone on the grass. He looked around the crush of St. Cloud youth, looking for his friends. Not surprisingly, he didn't see any of them. Skittery muttered something about Elizabeth Gordon (who Snitch called Lizzie Borden) and a pitcher of grapefruit margaritas and had hadn't been seen since. He had been acting weird all day since the whole unmentioned thing with Snitch. Spot was beginning to believe that they had had sex and were freaking out.

He nearly chortled out loud to that one. Speaking of Snitch, he spotted him lurching drunkenly towards him. Knowing Snitch, it was probably only his second or third—pushing it—since he wasn't very good at holding his alcohol.

"Skits is off losing it to Lizzie Borden," he crowed. "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave poor Skits forty whacks!"

He dissolved into laughter that Spot couldn't simply chalk up to drunken stupidity.

"What happened between you two?" he decided to broach, raising his brows.

But Snitch obviously didn't hear him—or wasn't too drunk to ignore him—and just stumbled off. Spot settled back on the ground and laid back, staring up at the sky.

The stars were twinkling up there like they hadn't a care in the world. Or maybe it was swamp gas or something that made them glow extra bright.

"Whatcha doin'?" a form blotted out the swamp stars and Spot found himself staring up into Mush's face.

He sat up and stretched. "Bored. I hate parties."

Mush nodded and let his head fall platonically onto his shoulder. A shiver went up Spot's spine. One he couldn't make sense of. He and Mush and everyone else had always done this, this friendship stuff that was usually only seen in bad John Hughes movies between the poorly dressed heroine and the poorly dressed best friend who was secretly in love with her. Why did it make him feel so squicky now?

--

Skittery stumbled out onto the patio, wanting to commit homicide for a cigarette. His encounter with Liz had been less than spectacular. For one, he kept laughing…and then he threw up on the over the side of the bed. Needless to say, she was turned off. He just…he shook his head. Stepping out past the pool, he noticed a very familiar pair of legs sticking out of the hot tub. Apparently, Jack had had too much to drink and was now doing handstands in the hot tubs…leaving no part of his naked body up to anyone's imagination.

Skittery felt his body tighten and looked down. Oh, God. Was he getting aroused? First the thing with Snitch and now this? What the hell was wrong with him?

"Skits!" Snitch cried, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "Just the douche I wanted to see. I'm really sorry, man. Really…really sorry. But I love you! I love you! You're like…Skits!"

He vaguely wondered if the beer in Snitch's hand wasn't laced with anything or if he had had anything else other than booze that night. This suspicion deepened when Snitch planted a big wet one on his cheek.

"I love you!" he squealed, sounding not unlike a fourth grade girl.

Skittery shoved him away, spine stiffening. He needed fresh air and a cigarette. Although, one didn't exactly lead to the other but his mind was really too frazzled to work it out. He wanted out of there now.

He neared Jack who was still doing handstands in the tub and rolled his eyes. Yes, he had been planning to get naked himself that night but not publicly. And he definitely wasn't going to do any fucking handstands. He grabbed Jack's ankle and shook it.

"What the fuck?" he sputtered, coming up splashingly.

The girls in the tub with him—whom he was paying no mind to—let out giggles and jokingly held their hands in front of their faces to block the water.

"Can we go now?" Skittery asked impatiently.

Jack cocked a brow and leaned his sopping body against the edge of the tub. The singular motion of him doing that, all naked and soaked and such, made Skittery's heart start to race just as it had with Snitch on the floor last night.

"We've only been here an hour," he complained.

"And you're already wasted," Skittery retorted. "Let's go."

"Didn't find your Slayer?" Jack joked, pulling himself from the water shamelessly.

He had to lower his head. "No…"

He watched Jack slip into his clothes and boots, the shirt clinging wet and obscenely to his body.

"Fine," he threw an arm around Skittery and used his free hand to rub under his nose. "Gather the others. We're going home!"

He turned the last sentence into a wailing version of 'Homeward Bound' in a very off-key voice. The hot tub girls giggled.

"Bye, Jack!" they chorused.

"Girls love a gay boy!" he exclaimed, skipping ahead of Skittery, which was a funny sight in his combat boots.

"Jack, I think they think you're straight," Skittery rubbed his temples.

"Bully for them then," Jack laughed, using a British accent he didn't normally have.

He rolled his eyes.

"I'm driving your car," he stated, wedging a hand under Jack's arm to keep him upright. The not-so-sexual encounter had sobered him up but good.

"There's Spot and Mush!"

He followed the line of vision from Jack's pointed finger, which was only slightly to the left of where Spot and Mush actually were.

"We're bored," Mush stated when they neared them. "The clubs in Orlando are open until two. And it's eleven."

Skittery cocked a brow. Mush wasn't usually one to jump and yell to go to clubs or do anything remotely nefarious.

"What?" he read the look. "I'm sober, your honor. I'm just bored and…I wanna go!"

He widened his eyes a little and nudged Spot who did the same, albeit begrudgingly. Skittery had to look away. The combined power of their big-eyed stares was impossible to deny. There was no weapon forged by man that could combat it. Hephaestus himself would have to forge a special shield just to block the sheer puppy-dog quality of their look…even if Spot did look like he was going to rip out Skittery's throat ala Roadhouse if he didn't agree to go to a club.

"Fine," he relented.

Mush jumped up and threw his arms around his neck. For the third time in not even two days, a chill went up Skittery's spine in a way that he didn't like at all.

"Thanks, Skits!" he exclaimed.

"We just need to find Race, Blink, and Snitch," Spot stated rather bluntly.

"We're here."

They turned to see Race moving towards them with a not so stable Blink hanging off of him.

"I have a fucking audition for the fucking musical Monday!" Blink burst into wild laughter. "I think I'm still gonna be fucking wasted!"

He dissolved into laughter and collapsed against Race who staggered under the additional weight.

"And I," he cast a glare at Blink, "stayed sober to make sure he didn't do something crazy like strip off his clothes and jump in the hot tub…"

He gave Jack a once-over from his sopping hair to his droplet-covered boots.

"Although I see someone beat him to it."

"We're going clubbing!" Jack proclaimed. "It was Mushy's idea!"

Skittery rubbed his ears. Jack tended to yell when he got drunk. Race looked impressed.

"Really?" the look changed to a frown. "I don't like clubs. People tend to bump into me…a lot."

"Me neither," Mush shrugged. "But I'm bored and besides, it's a new experience for me since, hello, my super fearful mother would have seventeen heart attacks if her poor baby stepped into a club. Aaaand…I want to try out the new fake IDs Jack got us."

"You got us fake IDs?" Spot cocked a brow at Jack.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "They're in my car!"

Race rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. Let's gather Snitch and vamoose."

--

Spot wasn't a fan of clubs. Hypothetically speaking of course. He had never actually set foot in one until tonight so he couldn't really pass judgment. However, from what he had seen on television, it wasn't his scene. Scantily-clad girls and sweaty boys. Fun-fun.

"Where'd Mush go?" Race leaned over the balcony in which they were seated at one of the many tables on it.

The balcony overlooked the incredibly large dance floor that was a sea of people dancing wildly to some annoying club music.

"What do you mean?" Skittery asked.

They were the only three remaining sober. Jack, Snitch and Blink had decided that they weren't inebriated enough and decided to use the aforementioned fake IDs—which made them all, apparently, twenty-two when none of them except maybe Jack could pass for more than nineteen at best—to obtain more booze.

"I mean that he was here one minute and gone the next," Race stated coolly. "Hence the question, 'where'd he go?'"

Spot went to shrug but noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Off from their table was Mush. He was leaning alone against the banister keeping someone from taking a ten foot dive onto the dance floor and his foot was tapping to the beat of the pulsing house music. He wanted to go to him on the grounds that he looked really lonely. The strange feelings and John-Hughes-shivers he had been feeling earlier that night had nothing to do with it.

The music changed so some trumpet-heavy thing that Spot knew all too well was the intro to that annoyingly catchy song 'Hips Don't Lie' by Shakira. He had been forced to listen to it many a time in English class when the teacher allowed the students to play some of their own music while they worked. One girl, who actually was from Columbia, put that CD in and the song on repeat. It had grated Spot's mind to no end and complained about it but no one listened to Tinkerbell.

Much to his surprise, Mush's tapping increased as the lyrics began. His legs gave a tremor before Spot noticed his hips shaking from side to side. Mush was…dancing? As the lyrics went on, he got into it. It was like everyone else disappeared and all Spot saw was Mush locked in his own private groove. His body moved like liquid to the music. Spot blinked his eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Spot watched as the boy he had known for his entire life—except for those bleak moments in which he recalled nothing but tastes and vague shapes—became someone else. He wasn't the prone-to-sleeping, son of the hyper-sensitive woman who owned a kickass car. He was…well, kind of dancing like a girl so the word 'vixen' could be the only way to describe him.

"Wow," Race remarked, his voice grounding Spot if only momentarily. "Look at him go."

Watching him dance, Spot felt himself stand and go near him.

"Hey, Spot!" Mush called jovially. "What's up?"

"I never knew that you could dance like this," he admitted.

He giggled and continued his dancing, making Spot feel something that he knew from health class and countless masses at St. Thomas's to be wrong.

"Does it make you want to speak Spanish?" he asked coyly.

Spot smirked at him. "Nicely done, Meyers."

He tugged on his arm. "Dance with me, Spot."

He let a horrified look slam onto his face. "No."

"Come on," Mush chided, pulling him towards his body.

Spot felt his body want to press up against every inch of him, feel his heart beat in time with his…and he didn't understand it. Yes, he knew all about being gay or homosexual as the PC folks called it but he never once thought—even when remembering his Tinkerbell days—that he would be one. Now, there he was, getting all hot and bothered around one of his best friends.

Mush finally pulled him towards him, Spot admittedly letting himself be pulled and felt his hands on his waist.

"What are you doing?" he asked, mortified.

"Lighten up," he laughed. "We're dancing and it's not even the lambada. Besides, we need to be in sync. Watch me."

He moved his hips side to side and motioned for Spot to do the same. He felt ridiculous but did it anyway.

"Loosen up, you're all uptight," he whispered into his ear, a laugh chasing his words.

"Well," Spot managed to retort. "I'm all up against another guy. You expect me not to be uptight?"

There must've been something in his tone because Mush replied by, ugh, singing part of the song although not without tweaking the words.

"Ooh, Spotty when you talk like that, you make Nicholas go mad," he sang with a laugh, changing how his name was pronounced so it would fit the beat. "So—"

"Spare me," he found himself laughing.

"Then dance right," he countered.

Rolling his eyes, he let Mush lead him in the dance. He turned him around so his back was pressed up against his firm chest.

"Let your butt swing," he laughed. "Like a chavala."

Spot turned his head so he could almost get a glimpse of his face. "A what?"

"I dunno. Vanessa Castillo told me it. Ooh, or puta. Swing your butt like a puta or puto as the case may be."

"And what is that?"

"Whore," Mush explained before putting his hands on his shoulders and shaking him slightly. "Now dance like one!"

--

David was awoken Sunday morning by someone pounding on his door. Not wanting to wake anyone else, he all but slid out of bed and slogged down the stairs to the front door. Much to his surprise, Jack stood on the porch, looking tired and grumpy.

"Jack?" he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

He yawned. "I have a bitch of a hangover."

That didn't answer David's question and really just posed another one. One that he didn't care enough about Jack to ask.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated.

"Oh, to work on our project," he laughed. "I know I should be in bed, moaning about never drinking again but I totally got a surge of inspiration during my escapades last night."

David noted that he was clutching a can of Diet Coke for dear life so he knew that his suddenly happy mood didn't dampen the apparent hangover.

"You can't come in," he blurted. "I mean…my family's asleep."

He shrugged. "Fine by me. Let's head over to my place. I don't think my dad ever sleeps."

There was a catch on the edge of his voice that David didn't know that he really heard or not.

"I have to get changed," he felt suddenly very lame for wearing the Harry Potter pajamas Les had gotten him for Chanukah.

"No time, Dave," he yanked on his arm. "I don't want to pass out from the pain."

He took a long sip from his Diet Coke and started down the walk. David realized he had no choice but to follow him—bare feet and pajamas and all—or else Jack would most likely wake his entire family with the knocking. He trudged after him down the street and past the four houses to Jack's house, which all suddenly seemed impossibly wider and Jack's house an epic distance away.

"How come you always wear long sleeves?" Jack asked randomly, taking another pull from his Coke.

"What?" he tugged on the cuffs of his pajama shirt.

"Long sleeves. You're always wearing sweaters and stuff when we live in Florida."

David lowered his head. He didn't want to discuss that. It meant discussing his family and he didn't want to. No one could know. It had to remain secret.

"I—" before he could finish that sentence, Jack reached out with his free hand and yanked his sleeve up. David pulled his arm away but it was too late.

"You're a cutter?" he cocked a brow. "Never would have figured you. Well, maybe. You're always alone."

"I didn't do it for attention," he said quickly.

Jack rolled his eyes. "I figured. You didn't strike me as the type. For one, you actually wear boys' pants and two, you don't dye your hair tar black or inside-of-the-banana yellow."

David laughed softly and it felt good. He hadn't laughed in awhile.

"Why do you do it?"

He wasn't going to tell Jack that. Their friendship—using the term as loosely as possible—didn't extend that far yet. He just lowered his head and kept walking.

"I used to think about it too," Jack said softly, sipping his soda again. "After my mom died. I thought…the depression I guess…I thought it was hereditary. My dad crawled up and I…I don't know. You remember, right? I went through that bad, 80s goth phase? Looked like Robert Smith? Death rock, skulls and crossbones, everything. I just felt…poisonous, toxic. I used to call myself Jackal and hated everyone. Even my friends."

He shrugged but David looked at him.

"You can keep talking," he said quietly. "I mean…"

He smiled. "Yeah, I know. Wouldn't know to look at me. But it's because of my friends. They told me all about these kids who went too far until their lives just stopped making any sense and they blew their brains out. I never was the deep but…it got pretty bad…"

His voice trailed off as if he was stumbling into forbidden memories. They lingered outside of Jack's front door, neither really wanting to go in. David wanted him to go on. The things he was saying…they made sense to him.

"Go on," he urged.

"Kind of anxious about my woes aren't you?" he laughed but it but the laugh sounded forced and fake. "Anyway…everything seemed to blur and blend in my head and I got really paranoid. I thought everyone was out to get me. According to Blink—er—Louie, I got sent home once for talking to myself in homeroom. I don't remember that though. They pulled me out of it. Then I went to camp and I came back all…refreshed I guess would be the word. I grew, matured and all that. Hit puberty too."

He laughed and this time, David was sure it was real.

"I didn't want to hurt myself," he admitted. "I was always too scared to. I never wanted to no matter how bad things got. But one night, I just got so fed up with the sobbing and vomiting and the hating and I just…God, what am I saying?"

He was babbling and letting Jack into his life. He didn't want that. He didn't want him—or anyone for that matter—knowing about his fucked up family.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, Dave. Come on, no more talking about the depressing stuff. Now it's all John Paul Jones. I have not yet begun to fight, Dave! Say it with me! I have not yet begun to fight!"

For the second time ever—and twice that morning—Jack made David laugh.