Disambiguation

Disclaimers: Static Shock does not belong to me. Please don't sue… I am but a poor student struggling to make ends meet.

Summary: Nobody said that college was ever going to be easy, especially you're in denial about an unrealized, unresolved, potential long-distance relationship with your best friend from back home. SLASH, Virgil/Richie, among other pairings.

Radishface

Chapter 1: Hats Off!

Richie knows that he should be smiling. Virgil is up there on the podium, dressed all in red, salutatorian of Dakota Union High, poised to give his speech, eyes blazing with excitement. Virgil's face is a little bit flushed as he begins, voice hesitant at first but gaining strength, until his voice fills the auditorium in all its charisma and sincerity and a thousand smiling faces looking down at him. Virgil is popular, for his easy smiles and his easy humor and his way of putting people at ease, but also for his broad shoulders, dark skin, angular physique. And when Virgil finishes, Freida comes up next, valedictorian and editor of the school paper, delivering a politically charged speech that offends some and elicts whoops from others. Afterwards, Freida takes a spot next to Virgil onstage, and they smile at each other.

It doesn't matter to Richie that the principal is calling the names now; he sees what he sees. He can see Virgil's fingers intertwined with Freida's beneath the sleeves of their dark graduation robes. Richie swallows and looks away, hands fidgeting in his lap, as he whispers a crude, distracted comment or two to Jamie Forrester and Ian Foster about the state of their principal's toupee. They giggle, receptive to any joke; graduation ceremonies are often dull, and this one is no exception. It shouldn't bother Richie to see Virgil with another girl; Virgil has been pining after Freida since the first day of high school, and Daisy has served as a welcome intermission for as long as she's been around. There have been other girls in between, none of them sticking around for very long, for Virgil has a unusual talent for being exceptionally flaky—but there has been no denying his popularity with the ladies ever since he finally let a bit of Static into his Virgil persona, air of easy confidence and strength coloring the way he acted at school. But when Richie sees Virgil whisper something in Freida's ear, Richie is weak with jealousy, knowing that she will be the recipient of Virgil's kisses this summer.

As for Richie, Richie goes about the same way that he used to, slightly off-beat and awkward, he's still awkward now even though he's as tall as he ever will be and both his balls have dropped and his voice no longer spikes between soprano and tenor. Becoming a super-genius makes no difference in his social life; if anything, it has drawn him further into himself. Everybody knows that Richie is smart, too smart to be stuck at Dakota Union High, and most of them leave him alone well enough. It isn't to say that Richie is a total loser or anything, just that he doesn't invite company the same way that Virgil does. Strangely enough, his reclusiveness lends him an air of mystery that makes him attractive to girls; Richie had been on dates, of course, double dates with V, often, here at the movie theater, there at the diner, trips to the shopping mall. V usually brings Daisy and Richie, well, Richie will bring his Monster of the Day, so to speak. He only speaks when it seems necessary, not shy of small talk, but not fond of it. His dates will leave with disappointed, high impressions of him; Richie Foley, he doesn't talk, but he has a lot going on. Richie Foley, that guy's got to have some horrible secret past or something, Richie Foley, what a tragic character!

He is happy spending his time in the Gas Station tinkering away at things for Gear and Static. Lately he's been tweaking the speed settings in his rocket boots and is trying to make Virgil's disk more aerodynamic; Richie hasn't cared to discern whether he is driven by a subconscious desire for motion, for flight, or by simple innovating whimsy.

It will all be over soon, anyways, he might as well give into this last bit of indulgence. He and V—they don't talk about it much—college, that is.

Richie knows, Richie knows with all his heart, that they can not depend on each other like they have. There is a big difference, a thin line, between watching someone's back and looking over his shoulder excessively. This is their time to go their separate ways, for once. How different it will be.

He feels his eyes sting, he feels his throat hitch. Beside him, Jamie Forrester jabs his arm with her elbow and makes a quick, short motion up at the podium; the principal has called his name. It's his turn to go up. And so Richie gets up, and walks toward the stage accompanied by the weary applause of the audience; he has his head held high; inside, he's hobbling. He shakes the hand of the principal, two vice principals, dean of student affairs, the student council advisor, the hall monitor advisor, the head of the janitorial staff, the head chef of the cafeteria, the dean of administration, and the president of the student council with grave determination.

Then the next one standing there is Virgil, in all his red-robed, salutatorian glory, who has his hand already stretched out. Virgil's there, his eyes shining with pride, not patronizing, not directed at Richie, but alight for them both. Richie can barely keep his eyes on him, not when he's feeling like this, and his hand comes out automatically to shake Virgil's.

"You did good, bro," Virgil says, and Richie smiles weakly, weak because of Virgil's smile, because his hand is tired from shaking everybody else's hand, because he is thinking about their futures—their plural futures, with a S, because they won't be sharing one, not really, not anymore. Richie realizes he is being melodramatic, that the sting behind his eyes is returning with a vengeance.

"Yeah," he manages, and wrenches his eyes away.

Freida shakes his hand with a firm grip, a practiced "congratulations," and a smile that will be pasted onto her face for the next four-hundred-twenty-seven students. Richie almost feels sorry for her. Almost.

He walks back down the aisle and takes his seat with a sigh, clutching at his diploma with loose fingers. He zones out, sugarplum fractals dancing through his head, as the rest of the students go up, one by one. When Zhou, Jay is finally called, the entire auditorium breaks loose into thunderous stomping, clapping and cheering. Jay Zhou turns onstage, emboldened by the loudest burst of applause yet, and tears off his robe, launching his graduation cap high into the air.

Richie follows suit, throwing his cap up and out, watching it swing around, tassels flailing wildly, the blue one for the National Honors Society, the yellow one for the Dakota Scholarship Federation, the silver one for the Ocean Science Bowl, the gold one for being in the top ten of the graduating class.

His cap hits Virgil square in the face, and now Richie can smile. Virgil catches it on the rebound and looks around wildly, dreads whipping around his face, and then he spots Richie in the crowd, and flings it right back at him, laughing and flipping him off with both hands.

Richie catches the cap and sticks his tongue out at V, feels his heart surge with benevolence for Freida, compassion for Daisy, forgiveness for his father and all the Bang Babies that ever existed and would exist. The crowd keeps getting louder and louder, and Richie feels his voice join theirs, and suddenly there's a mass exodus toward the exit doors, and Richie is pulled along, feet pounding as he runs, his voice hoarse from screaming, shedding caps and robes and respect along the way.

He almost falls down in the stampede, but a hand reaches out to steady him, pushing him along, keeping him on his feet. Richie is not surprised when he looks up to see Virgil running along beside him, wild grin on his face and cheeks flushed with excitement and a sheen of sweat that's making him glow, or maybe it's unchecked voltage, because Virgil can get that way sometimes, when he's really happy, when he's out of control, he'll start to shine like that, abandoned in his joy. No, Richie is not surprised to see Virgil by his side.

He is not surprised when he realizes, in this riot of mindlessly screaming and running people, that he loves Virgil, loves him as everything and for anything, loves him until his heart will burst from it. He is not surprised by the intensity of the feeling, or the sudden burst of adrenaline it gives him, pumping him to run faster, harder, as if he's trying to break out of his own skin.

Richie is surprised by the total, abject grief of the feeling.

"Rich, man!" Virgil howls, skipping around breathlessly, "we did it! It's over! It's over!"

Cosmic irony, Richie thinks, has a cruel, literary sense of timing. And he has no choice but to grin back.

Two months ago, at the beginning of April, well after March madness had taken hold and passed through Dakota with a whirlwind fury, Richie remembered coming home (not going to the Gas Station, for once) and turning on the television. He'd been flipping through the channels when his mother had gone outside to get the mail. Two minutes later, he heard a surprised yelp, and Richie dropped the remote with a startled clatter and rushed outside to the front porch.

"Mom?! What happened?"

His mother's back was to him, and her tiny frame was shaking. She turned around and looked at him through her glasses, a pointed look, and Richie saw the Big Envelope in her hands, pressed against her chest.

"The last two schools, Richie," she said. "Come on, let's go inside."

Richie didn't look to see the return address on the Big Envelope—he held his breath until they were safely in the kitchen, and his mother dropped the mail on the table. They just stared at the envelope—the big one.

"Look, look," his mother was saying, as if Richie hadn't already looked at it himself. "Look, from MIT—"

It was a big, white envelope, bigger than a standard manila folder, clean and pressed as if it had been delivered from the president of MIT himself. Richie shook his head, feeling as if a million synapses were firing off in his head at once. Which they probably were.

"Yeah," he said, and felt himself sniffle. Shit.

"You did it, Richie!" His mother pulled him into her arms and smothered him in a huge embrace. "You really did it!"

"Mom," he toned, feeling a smile break out on his face, "you know, it might just be a really thick rejection letter."

His mother stepped back, horror spreading over her features for a split second before she started to laugh.

Richie pushed the envelope from MIT off to the side of the table with a sigh. "Let's leave it for when dad gets back."

"You want to call him right now?"

Richie shrugged, "I don't want to interrupt him while he's at work. Plus, it'll be a nice surprise for him when he gets back."

"All right," his mother said, pressing her hands together. "And look—you have another letter. It's a small one." She handed it to him. "But it really doesn't matter, does it? I mean—"

Richie took the small, ivory-colored envelope from his mother, noted the crimson coloring of the return address before opening it up. "Dear Mr. Foley," he read, "we regret to inform you that out of over 15,000 applicants…" Richie looked up in surprise. "It says that I've been waitlisted."

"Really?" His mom looked over his shoulder at the letter. "Oh, but… we don't have to bother with Harvard now, do we? You got into the school of your choice!"

"Yeah," Richie put the letter down on the table and closed his eyes for a moment. "'K, mom. I'm going to go up to my room now. And freak out for a little bit."

And he did. Not so much the freaking out part as the going up to his room part, because Richie had already known that he would get into MIT. The CIA director he had been assisting on busting a particularly nasty human sex trafficking ring five months ago turned out to be on the board of directors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gear hadn't given anything away, but Richie would bet a million dollars that Director Milgram hadn't let Gear's background check slip by without a full-on investigation.

But now—now what?

As if on cue, his Shock Vox buzzed. "Rich," Virgil said, voice fuzzy through the static. "Yo, you there?"

Richie sank down into his bed and flipped the receiver on. "What's up, V?"

"Don't give me that." Virgil said, tone clipped. "I know you checked your mail, dude. What's the verdict?"

Richie ran to his window and threw it open. "V? Where the hell are you? I've heard of house surveillance but this is ridiculous, dude."

"Relax." Virgil said over the Vox, "I'm not checking out your house. I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"So you were checking me out, then," Richie quipped. "I'm so flattered."

"Richie, come on, man, I want to know where you got in—"

"Well, if you want to know, the window's wide open." Richie took a step back into his room. "See you anytime."

Silence, and then the Shock Vox clicked off. Five minutes later, Virgil was climbing through his window, in his civilian clothes.

"Gutsy, dude."

"Hey," Virgil huffed, "I didn't have time to get changed, all right? Plus, why would Static be in a suburban neighborhood in the middle of the day?"

"Bonnie from next door is smoking pot and having underaged sex with her boyfriend Jake. Static: Dakota's anti-drug. Come on, V, I thought we planned out your image campaign already."

Virgil ignored the comment. "I ran over here as fast as I could. Can you blame me for not using the ivy to climb up? I'm just using my God-given talents."

"The Book of Matthew, 25:29." Richie mused. "Very classy, Virgil. But God didn't give you your powers."

"Big Bang, Creation, God, same thing." Virgil said, and sighed. "Come on, Rich. I just wanna know… but you're really avoiding the subject—"

"MIT." Richie spat out, not waiting for Virgil to finish his sentence.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Well," Virgil said carefully, after a long pause, "that's good, right?"

Richie closed his eyes, felt a headache start and then ebb away. "I guess," he whispered. "It's not bad."

"Yeah," Virgil said, voice still tentative. "And it's still on the East Coast. Our campuses aren't so far away, either. Lemme think—by Amtrak, it's only… like a four-hour train ride, or something."

"That's like half a day."

"Four hours isn't half a day, dude."

"Half a day," Richie said, irritated, "like half of the time when the sun's out."

Virgil gave him another careful look. Richie was sick of it. He turned over on his bed to face the wall. "I'm sorry, V," Richie said, suddenly tired. "I just—" He heard Virgil walk over, sit down on the edge of his bed. Virgil put a hand on his arm, squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Richie suppressed a shiver.

"I just—" He felt defeated. "You know how it is."

I'm going to miss you. I'm going to feel like dying, I'm going to miss you that much. I… I… know it.

Virgil nodded, and Richie lay on his bed and Virgil sat there with his hand on Richie's arm, thumb rubbing circles in soothing motions. He moved his hand up, touching Richie's shoulder, then the base of his neck, lingering there, and Richie felt his heart in his throat, clamoring to be let out. What did he want to say? He wanted to say something—

Then Virgil fingers were in his hair, and Richie didn't dare move, didn't dare breathe, except that would be too conspicuous, wouldn't it? His ears were pounding and he could barely hear anything, and was that just a jolt of electricity that coursed through his skull? Now Virgil was trying to fry him?

"You're tense, Rich." Virgil said, voice catching. "I just—let me try something."

Richie nodded wordlessly, resisting the urge to curl into a fetal position. Virgil's fingers hovered over his hair, barely grazing it, and then Richie felt it. A slow spread of warmth, from the base of his skull and down his spine, then through his legs. It paused in his kneecaps, and then continued to his feet. His abdomen warmed pleasantly and his heart slowed its wild pace and a smile cross his face despite himself.

"Amazing," he breathed, keeping his eyes closed, not wanting the feeling to go away. He felt light, slightly buzzed, as if he were going to float away any second.

"Yeah," Virgil's voice came, sounding oddly far away. "It is."

Minutes passed, and then all of a sudden, he fell back down onto his bed with a crash.

"Oof!" Richie's eyes shot open. "Virgil? What the heck?"

Virgil's eyes were downcast, his brows knitted together as if in thought. "It was just an experiment. I thought I could probably do something like that."

"Well, I feel really—" Richie sat up quickly, and stretched his arms. "I feel kind of refreshed. Apart from having the air knocked out of me." He cast the other boy a half-hearted glare. "But what'd you do, exactly?"

"I just—" Virgil shrugged. "I learned somewhere that on top of producing oxygen for your body, your mitochondria also excessively ionize your body—so—"

"So you're telling me that you just flushed out all the bad ions in my body?"

"Yeah." Virgil grinned sheepishly. "Oh, and I made you float, too. But that was just sort of extra."

"I figured as much," Richie huffed. "Well,"

Virgil looked at him with something akin to expectation. Richie felt something warm course through his spine, and wondered if Virgil's homeopathic remedy had left some residual electricity floating around in his body.

"I think my mom's coming," Richie said, studiously avoiding Virgil's eyes. "You should probably go."

"Okay," Virgil said. He reached out and tipped Richie's face toward his, concern plain in his eyes. "Are you sure you're cool?"

Richie felt as if he'd been burned, and resisted the urge to jerk back from the sudden touch. "I'm fine, dude. Just need a little time to adjust to this whole… college acceptance thing."

Virgil took a step back, chuckling. "Sharon started crying when I got my acceptance letter from Columbia. Then a week later, she was bawling when the word from Yale came in. I didn't see what the big deal was."

"You've got to work on that modesty bit, there." Richie said, shaking his head. "It's not going to be attractive to all the rich white Connecticut folk you'll soon be fraternizing with. They want to see a homeboy in his place."

Virgil threw his arms open in a gesture of surrender, but his brazen grin gave his insincerity away. "I'm not trying to impress anybody, honestly. Virgil Hawkins is everything you need. That's the truth, not a front."

"I'll see you tonight on our watch, Static." Richie said pointedly, and waved him off to the window.

He watched Virgil vault their backyard fence and jog down the street, watched as Virgil looked back at Richie's window and waved. Richie waved back even though now Virgil's back was turned, and now he had disappeared around the corner. He felt a little ridiculous, standing at the window like this, like a forlorn princess bidding a suitor goodbye.

Richie caught himself before he could think of anything more embarrassing and promptly cast the thought out of his head.

I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter of Disambiguation! This is the first bit of a much longer work and is also my first foray in the Static Shock fandom; let me know if you think I should continue it! If anything is OOC, it's probably because I don't have a quite as fine grasp on the characters as I would like. I especially love concrit but welcome any and all feedback. Thanks very much for reading!