"My GPS says I should take a left here to get to that second club," said Cy.
"No! Go right!" shouted Roy.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Positive. Go right."
Cy shrugged and turned right, driving T-Car1, to all outward appearances, a lime green minivan, through the streets of Jump City on a warm summer night. A minute later, the road hit a dead end at the loading docks of an abandoned warehouse.
"Another wrong turn. Never -hic- never listen to Roy," muttered Garth from the front seat beside Cy. His carping didn't make even the slightest impression on Roy who sat smirking in the back seat between Dick and Ty with Wally on the other side of Ty at the window. Luckily superpowered teen boys tended to be slender. And luckily the seventh of them was able to turn himself into the green cat presently looking over their shoulders from the hatchback area behind the back bench seat.
But it had been a night of wrong turns. First there had been Roy's venture into sartorial extremes. After everyone agreed to go out and celebrate Wally's last day as a single guy, they'd all changed into their best night out clothes. Aqualad returned to the great room from his guest room in a black Armani suit with a white Brioni shirt, and charvet tie, high class all the way. That was Robin's impulse too. He returned to the great room in a Canali suit and shirt. Kid Flash zipped back in a similar dark suit with an untucked white Cit shirt with a pattern of little flowers sewn into the cloth.
Speedy returned to the huge room wearing tight red leather pants and a black silk mesh shirt.
"Nice shirt, speedster," nodded Roy but Wally just stared back.
"What?" the archer feigned ignorance.
"What the hell are you wearing, Roy?"
"Clubwear. We're gonna go to at least one club in the course of the night."
"Jesus, Roy. You look like you're expecting to go to a string of Vegas sex clubs and then the Playboy mansion. You too, Ty," he said as Ty emerged from the stairs in black leather pants and a blue paisley shirt.
"Can we? Pretty please!" Roy pleaded with palms pressed together in supplication.
Wally took a deep breath. "I'm gonna pretend that I'm certain you're kidding. Come on, guys. We're gonna be together tonight. Could we not look like some of us stepped off the set of Boogie Nights? And, Gar. Vic," he added upon noting the distressed jeans and printed t-shirts both wore. "Jeez, a little more effort than that, huh? You can always leave a suit jacket in the T-car."
Amid much grumbling, Gar, Vic, Roy and Ty went back down stairs and returned minutes later dressed like Wally. Garth smiled at Wally. At last, someone asserting some standards!
Finally the group was ready and they all trooped up to the roof.
"Put on your cloaking rings now, before you forget," said Dick to Cy and Gar.
Cy pulled his ring onto one finger and immediately he had only consistently dark skin and two carmel brown eyes. Gar was about to pull on his but stopped.
"We don't have seating for seven in T-Car1, anyway, do we. I may as well morph small and then put it on when we stop, right?"
Everyone agreed to this and Gar turned himself into a green siamese cat jumping gracefully into the car then up over the back seat after Wally opened the door. Before the others got in, Cy pressed one of the buttons on his special set of keys.
Blip-Blop!
Two high pitched chirps like any other car might make. Only, like a transformer cartoon or something, the sleek silvery T-Car1 immediately adopted the outward appearance of a lime green minivan.
"Oh, man!" said a disappointed Ty. "Aren't you smart enough to give us some cool wheels?"
"I'm genius enough to be able to make our cool wheels look like something completely uncool," said Cy.
Everyone else got in amid some more grumbling. "Whatsa matter, couldn't make it a Pacer wagon like Wayne's World?" sniffed Roy.
"Nope. Too small. I tried to." said Cy before flipping a series of controls that looked like radio preset buttons but which caused the vehicle to start flying off the roof and across the bay toward Jump City. He landed it amid the deserted part of the warehouse district, turned a corner and they were just another bunch of guys out for a night of fun in a shitty car.
The first place they went was a huge club just barely out of the warehouse district. It had been a trucking company's headquarters just a few years before. Cy parked the minivan and the guys piled out. Gar changed himself back to human, dressed in his good clothes and then pulled on his cloaking ring. Instantly, green skin became pale and his hair became blond. The changeling appeared to be a pretty boy rich kid.
The guys got in line outside the club. They were 20 people back from the entrance but the line moved fast. At the door, two huge and very overweight guys, one white one black, in ill-fitting suits were checking ID's. The white one looked bored checking Wally's "Wally Swift" ID. He handed it back without saying anything. The black one looked at Dick's ID.
"Anal Retentive?" he grumbled to snickers from six of the seven.
"Alan!" Dick corrected him. "Alan Ray-tahn-teef!"
"Oh, yeah," said the security guy looking at it again. "Alan."
"It's, um, french," explained Dick to nothing more than a roll of the eyes by the security guy.
But that was the only trouble they had. The others got through with no problem including "Garth Flounder". A few more moments and they were all in and settling into a large leather semicircular booth. Roy immediately pointed out how well his fake ID's had worked and then made a point of telling the staff that this was a bachelor party for for Wally.
This seemed to Wally to be an almost magical phrase. He'd been in restaurants when the staff was told it was some kid's birthday resulting in a cake and singing. The magical words "bachelor party" seemed to bring not cake but alcohol and cause every girl in the place to stop by their table at some point to look at him. Wally got up and danced with a few of them, surprising them with his quick feet, nothing for a super speedster, of course. And almost all of them kissed him, just pecks on the cheek, but it was something that had never happened to him before. One pinched him, where girls tend to pinch boys. He was also pretty sure that another boy had pinched him as he made his way through the crowd with music blaring. It seemed that boys tended to pinch boys there as well.
Let's see what's going off the market! That seemed to be the sentiment as groups of girls stopped by their table. Everyone seemed to be astounded that a boy like the orange haired one would be marrying so young. Are you sure you don't . . have to? Wally assured them all that it was love and not necessity. They all asked about her and Wally would say something simple and vague like "She's really pretty and very smart." But no matter what he said, he got the vague feeling that they all felt he was making a mistake.
It didn't matter. The guys were having a good time. They had a lot of alcohol, too. Wally had a couple beers and one each of the same mixed drinks that Roy was having. Roy seemed kind of disappointed that they didn't affect Wally more. He would've loved to have seen the teen speedster staggering and slurring his words. But, true to his super speed metabolism, he was pretty drunk at 9:12 but by 9:14 he was sober again.
There was a whole range of different reactions among the seven of them. Cy had no trouble drinking as much as anyone else. Temporarily blond Gar started acting a little off kilter half way through his second beer. Party animal Roy still seemed on top of his game after 5 mixed drinks. Ty almost got into two different fights and sat beside Roy cursing out various people in club he'd felt had disrespected him after matching Roy drink for drink. Dick drank a little less than most of them and had almost no reaction to it. Garth first tried to refuse any mixed drinks or even beers. He asked for a specific bottle of wine, a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild 1949 but the waitress just looked at him as if saying "Are you freaking kidding me?!" Roy and the others pushed him to go along and be part of the group. Garth refused some more but finally relented, muttering misgivings about alcohol using up the water in a gentleman's system and other . . side effects.
Wally turned to Roy. "Is it okay for Garth to drink?"
"Oh sure," said Roy before spying a spectacularly hot girl and getting up to pursue her across the club. Wally caught a glimpse between dancers of Roy, on the other side of the club, kissing just a minute later. Hmmph! Roy.
Wally turned his attention back to the table. As was the case most of the night, he had Garth to one side of him and Dick to the other, neither one very comfortable with the party atmosphere. Dick seemed to be annoyed at how Ty kept drinking even though it had clearly exacerbated his bad temper. And Gar was slurring his words to Cy about some girl looking at them. Wally saw Dick's deep frown.
"Is it that bad?"
"No. I-I suppose it's not that bad. I just don't like to see my team like this."
Wally tried to console him that things were covered. They had extra manpower there. "Hot Spot", he whispered, pointing across the table at Ty, as well as Speedy and Aqualad Wally noted, with massive Justice League power coming in the next morning. And word had been spread through the grapevine to every crook in Jump. Everything was going to be fine. Nothing would happen. And it was just this night, anyway. But Dick was pretty clearly resolved to be upset. So, with a sigh, Wally turned to Garth on his right. The long haired atlantean seemed to be in better spirits. He smiled at Wally. But Wally was shocked to see a slightly glassy eyed look on the face of his highminded friend.
"No more shpeedster to dream about after -hic- tomorrow -hic-"
"We can still be friends, can't we, Garth?" asked Wally putting an arm over Garth's shoulder.
Garth nodded and slowly a smile came over his face.
"I was -hic- I was mad at you, Wallash a-about your not telling me the . . toof . . but now I see that you an' Jinz dinnit -hic- dinnit wanna hurt me. "
Wally nodded. "That's what it was, Garth. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to mislead you to gain anything. You were just so insistent about your views, we . . we thought we'd be hurting you to say anything else. I'm sorry."
Garth patted Wally's head, an unusual gesture for the Atlantean.
"You really would've li-hic-liked Le -hic- Corsaire, Wall-hic-Wally. Wunnerful ath-th-thletic boys like -hic- you. You should be one of 'em, Wally. You'd be -hic- you'd be . . great."
"Um, thanks, Garth. That's very kind of you."
Garth said nothing but only slid the arm he already had around Wally's shoulders down to his waist and pulled the speedster tight to his side. Wally let him. He needed to keep an eye on him. He was worried about Garth. He'd never seen him like this. He was always sophisticated, articulate Garth. This was a shock. What had Garth said about a gentleman's system using up water to process alcohol? Maybe that was it. Wally pushed a glass of water in front of Garth. "Here Garth. Drink up." Garth let his head rest, for a moment, affectionately on Wally's shoulder then gulped down the water.
A minute later, Dick tapped on Wally's arm. "Um, weren't we going to leave this place by ten according to Roy's plan?"
Wally nodded.
Dick showed him his watch. It was 10:02.
They agreed that Wally should go try and find Roy and that Dick would get the others ready to go back to the lime green minivan. Wally moved quickly through the club but at a speed that most people could manage. He finally saw the spectacularly hot girl, fixing her hair, skirt, bra strap and blouse in a mirror as the music blared around her, but there was no Roy. It took Wally another minute to find Roy deep in close talking conversation with some artist type who Roy later told him had decorated that whole club.
"Ten o'clock. Gotta go, Harper."
Over his shoulder, Wally saw the artist type raise his fist beside his head with thumb and little finger out. Call me. And he thought he detected the slightest nod from Roy.
The second club was hard to find. First there was a wrong turn, and even when they arrived outside it, Roy, the party planner, expressed uncertainty that it was the right place. There were no signs. There was just a black door on the street with a guy in front of it holding a clipboard. They all trooped out of the lime green minivan again and Gar turned back from cat to human, pulled on his clothes and his cloaking ring and they marched up to the entrance. There was something different about this club right away, but Wally couldn't quite put his finger on it. The guy outside checking ID's was certainly different, not a huge fat guy but a pretty boy blond guy whose hair must've taken an hour to set up in the sweeping, cantilevered way he had it. And, he stared right at both Gar and Wally in a way that could not be misunderstood. It was worse than the girls in the last club kissing him, thought Wally. Inside, the second club was smaller, nicer looking but darker too. The group took a booth just off the dance floor but you could barely see the dancers.
Immediately, the alcohol got started again. Wally didn't drink much and Dick just had a single beer but the others were throwing them back fast and furious all over again. Gar had to leave for the bathroom and the others suspected that he threw up but he steadfastly denied it. Ty's temper was worse than ever and only Roy intervening saved a fight with a guy who'd danced over and stepped on Ty's foot.
Garth, sitting to Wally's right, seemed composed but out of the blue asked Wally if there was something he'd always wanted to do but hadn't had the opportunity. Wally tried to come up with something.
"Hmm. Always wanted to do but haven't had the chance . . ? Hmm. I don't know . . maybe-"
Before Wally could finish, Garth surprised him by pulling him tight to his chest and then being faster for having induced shock in the orange haired speedster, putting his mouth over Wally's and giving him a deep french kiss. Wally tried to squirm free.
Mmmmf! Mmmmf! Mmmmf!
But Garth was strong enough to swim to the bottom of the ocean and withstand the pressure. He held the speedster tight. To Wally's mortification, it seemed like half the club had stopped to watch the kiss. It came in a brief gap between songs and someone at an adjacent table had started tapping his glass with a fork the way they do at wedding receptions to urge on kissing between the groom and bride. The whole place seemed to be cheering on him being kissed by . . Garth!?
Finally, after a minute, Garth released him. Wally gasped for air as the club burst into applause. Wally turned nearly as red as the bottom half of a Kid Flash suit. Garth only gave a faint smile and whispered in Wally's ear. "My sincere apologies, Wallace, but I've wanted to do that since we first met. I couldn't do even that tomorrow."
Wally shrugged. "It's . . okay Garth. But don't do that again."
Garth nodded okay.
Wally got up to use the bathroom. He expected to get jeering remarks from other guys in the club. But a guy he passed on the way into the bathroom said something about him and Garth being a great couple. Then, as he unzipped in front of a urinal, a guy washing his hands said, "That cute long haired guy's a great kisser, huh?"
And suddenly Wally realized. He hadn't seen any women. The music selection. Cheering on Garth kissing him. It was a gay club!
"I said that really cute long haired guy's a great kisser, isn't he?"
"Um . . yeah."
Wally made his way carefully back to their booth. He still got his butt pinched twice navigating his way through the crowd and when he got back to the booth he could see from Dick's stiff body language that Dick had also figured out that it was a gay club.
"Wally!" Dick whispered furiously as Wally settled back in between him and Garth. "This club . . . it's . . . !"
"I know!" Wally hissed back.
Cy and Gar had also figured it out, to judge by their expressions. Garth was gulping down some more water to get back to feeling normal. Roy and Ty didn't look particularly bothered by the fact that they were in a gay club. But the clear consensus was that they had to go. If it hadn't already been, it was settled when two blond boys going past, stopped at the table and pronounced it the "betht looking table in the club!". They stared particularly at little Dick Grayson.
The waiter for that particular table got a 175 percent tip thanks to Dick, Cy and Gar throwing twenties on the table so that they could leave immediately without having to wait for a check.
"Sorry guys," said Roy, back in the lime green minivan. "I told you I wasn't sure about that one. This next place is guaranteed pleasure."
"Where to?" asked Cy from behind the wheel.
"Exposure, the premier Jump City Gentleman's club," said Roy eliciting cheers and whoops from all but Garth who simply rolled his eyes.
"So tawdry," he muttered.