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vocesmente2011-10-10 08:48 pm
themistoklis) wrote in vocesmente2011-10-10 08:48 pm
It's Time to Talk (Part Two)
Title: It's Time to Talk
Fandom: Fake News, Strangers with Candy RPF, Misc. Comics RPF
Summary: The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.
Character/Pairing: Jon/Stephen, Amy/Paul, Jimmy, Denis, Janeane
Rating: PG, some cursing
Length: ~3,500 words (this part), ~24,500 words (total)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Flashbacks are in italics. "Stevie" (in the fic) is the name Stephen went by as a little kid. Also, several characters in this story are asexual. Hallelujah It's Raining Labels, this Psychology Today article, this Lexicon, and this definition of queerplatonic may be useful if you want to look into asexuality and related concepts.
Thanks: Thanks topoliticette and paperscribe for in-depth beta services and everyone who commented on the first few thousand words of this story and told me to keep going with it. Thanks to aybara_max for the wonderful art.
It's been raining for three days. Stevie thinks it's going to rain forever and ever. He presses his face up against the window and when he breathes out, fog spreads over the glass.
Playing alone inside is not fun, but he cannot ask for a ride to Jimmy's. All the cars that go by crawl through the puddles and still splash waves.
Stevie wonders if he could borrow his sister's galoshes.
---
"I mean, it was a nice gesture," Stephen says, his face pressed into his locker door. The ridges of the vent hurt his forehead and make his glasses dig into his skin, but he's too tired to lean back.
Jimmy is busy trying to open his locker. They always get to school early -- Jimmy can't work the twist locks very well, and it takes a lot of practice for him to open his locker on his own. Every year he spends at least the first five minutes telling Stephen how the locker combinations stay the same every year, so if you remembered your combo from last year, you could just break into the new student's locker, blah, blah…
"Isn't one of your older sibs gay? Couldn't she have just, you know… directed you to--" Jimmy sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and squints, trying to wriggle the lock open.
"Sister."
"Ah. So even less experience than your mom--"
Stephen groans and taps his forehead against his locker a couple of times. "Oh my God, my mom does not have experience!"
Jimmy giggles, and his hand slips. The locker slips open, too, and Jimmy gasps. "Wait, wait, what'd I do?" He looks at his hand and then presses the piece of paper with his locker combination flat against the door, looking back and forth between the numbers and the lock.
"I think we might have to come back to this after homeroom."
Sighing, Jimmy sticks his locker combo in his pocket and stuffs his lunch into his locker. Stephen makes a mental note to come back by this hallway before lunch so he can get it out and keep Jimmy from starving. Then they stare at their class schedules and head down the hallway towards the other end of the school -- Jimmy to the room next to band, Stephen to the closest exit to the trailer his homeroom is in. It's going to freeze in the winter.
Halfway there Jimmy bumps their shoulders together. "You do realize that your mom has had eleven kids, though," he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Stephen sticks his fingers in his ears and starts singing the theme song to Gilligan's Island.
"Which means she has at least eleven times more experience than you--"
"THE MATE WAS A MIGHTY SAILING MAN, THE SKIPPER BRAVE AND SURE!"
"But probably more, because nobody gets pregnant the first time they try eleven times in a row…"
"THE WEATHER STARTED GETTING ROUGH! THE TINY SHIP WAS TOSSED!"
Jimmy laughs and covers his eyes with his hand until he stops. Stephen cautiously lowers his hands from his ears. They stop outside the door to Jimmy's classroom and fidget for a minute, watching E and F-surnamed students make their way into the room.
Then Jimmy clears his throat. "Did you tell her?" he asks, sticking both his hands in his pockets. He glances over at his classroom and then back at Stephen. "About, you know…?"
"No." Stephen presses his lips together.
A few people pass by them. A couple of people elbow their way between the gap Jimmy and Stephen have left between them, and Stephen draws back to keep from getting a backpack straight in the glasses. By the time it's clear again, the teachers are standing in the hallway and looking at people still loitering, as if to ask, 'Do you really want a tardy your first day?'
Adjusting his backpack back to its original position, Stephen shuffles his feet. "I guess I better go. Um. See you in chemistry?"
"Yeah, right." Jimmy scans Stephen's face and takes a step back. "Is Jon driving us home?"
Stephen nods, and Jimmy smiles a little before waving and fleeing into the safety of homeroom. Stephen gets a look from his teacher and ducks his head, scurrying out the door. It looks like there's not even a covered path out to his trailer, which means he needs to start packing an umbrella in his bag this year.
The thing is … he knows. He knows what he is. So does Jimmy. They figured it out together, first swiping Jon's psychology magazines when he was doing homework while they hung out in his room, and then going on the Internet when those didn't help. Jon even went on a few websites with Stephen. And he and Jimmy have told just about everybody that's important to them both.
(Granted, Jimmy has to keep telling the Fallons, because they keep 'forgetting.' He does it every few months now. He figures eventually it's got to stick.)
But Stephen can't tell his mom. She'll think he's afraid, or second-guessing himself. And he isn't. Stephen is absolutely sure of who he is.
And he manages to get to homeroom as the bell rings, so he's not someone taking a tardy home on the first day of class. Though he is stuck, for the third year in a row, sitting next to the guy who doesn't believe in deodorant.
---
Amy is the only person in homeroom whose name starts with S. Everyone else is T, like nobody'll notice that she's Se, not Sz. She thinks it's probably because her homeroom teacher last year complained about the … everything.
She pops her gum when their teacher sticks his head into the hallway to check if anyone is lagging behind the bell. The kid next to her opens his eyes but doesn't raise his head, and Amy shines a smile at him. She presses her gum into the wrapper and folds her legs up underneath herself, rapping out a rhythm with the end of her pencil while the morning announcements drone on.
The kids in this room aren't as familiar to her. She mostly knows people from the other end of the alphabet.
They stand and sit for the pledge, and Amy pulls her cell phone out and rests it in her lap. She scrolls through her morning messages, looking up at the teacher at the appropriate times. One elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand is enough to make it look like she’s paying actual attention.
From: Sweetie Stephen (7:31 a.m.)
I’m stuck next to that guy again.
From: Paulbert (7:36 a.m.)
I don’t think the people in this class could even count the stars on the flag, let alone pledge allegiance.
From: Paulbert (7:36 a.m.)
Except Cooper.
From: Paulbert (7:37 a.m.)
He says hi.
Amy tells Stephen to start carrying some nose plugs in his backpack and says hi back to Anderson while disparaging Paul for having so little faith in his fellow seniors. They are the class that masterminded the net of bouncy balls unleashed onto the gym last year. Although to be fair, that was mostly Amy and Janeane. And Denis. (But Denis was basically a human ladder.)
While other people fill out their clinic cards, Amy writes some names in the cover of her five-subject notebook. Mr. Paul Sedaris and Mr. Paul Dinello-Sedaris and Dr. and Dr. Sedaris.
Eraser flecks off in her mouth while she chews on the end of her pencil, and swipes all of the names away. Changing names is a lot of paperwork. And they'll make better careers without changing, anyway. Though she wouldn't say no to an honorary doctorate or two.
The end of the teacher’s speech reminds everybody to have school spirit. Amy thinks she'll try out for the debate club this year. It'll be good practice.
---
"Will you help me with health homework?" Jimmy whispers.
Stephen looks up at the teacher's desk. They've got a substitute today, one who doesn't want them to talk, but she's not looking at them. He glances sideways at Jimmy. "Sure." He hasn't been to health yet, but he has his textbook.
The worksheet says 'list your ideal qualities in a romantic sexual partner.' Stephen flips it over. The back is blank. He scoots it back over to Jimmy and uses his pencil at the top to underlines 'romantic.'
Jimmy shakes his head so his hair swishes. His cheeks are bright red.
Stephen stares at him for a moment.
Then he crosses out 'romantic sexual partner' and writes above it 'best friend.'
Some of the flush fades from Jimmy's face, and he smiles just a bit.
---
"Boring boring boring boring boring!" Stephen says, before Jimmy can ask. Jimmy laughs, hugging his books to his chest, and Stephen bumps their shoulders together. "How was your day?"
"Uh, three borings and two mildly interestings?" Jimmy shrugs. "Art should be fun but all we did today was ice breakers."
The icebreakers had involved talking about yourself and two important people in your life. Jimmy had done his mom and Stephen. Most people had done a parent or a sibling and a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although Jimmy's pretty sure that most people, including his teacher, thought that he was doing a boyfriend when he talked about Stephen.
"I still can't believe we didn't get the same period for art."
"I know, right?" Jimmy sighs. That had been a let down when they'd been comparing schedules. "Maybe next semester."
Jimmy figures Stephen talked about his mom and Jon. And he tells himself if they'd talked about three people, Stephen would've talked about him, too.
But he decides not to ask, anyway.
They skirt through the carpool line and walk right into the parking lot, jumping over a couple of broken bottles (That was fast, Stephen thinks) to meander down to the gravel lot in the back corner. It's near where the school buses park when they aren't picking people up.
"You'd think your hotshot boyfriend would have snagged a better parking spot," Jimmy says, picking a thorn off his pants when they shuffle through a bush to avoid the couple making out on the stairs.
Stephen rolls his eyes. "The soccer field's just across the road. This is a better parking spot, to Jon."
"Oh." Jimmy squints across the street at the empty fields. "Right."
He hangs back when they get closer to the car and Stephen darts forward to jump on Jon, who drops the newsletters he was reading to hug Stephen back. Jimmy fiddles with the straps on his backpack and shuffles around the other side of the car, pretending not to notice Stephen kissing the tip of Jon's nose.
"How was your day?"
"Boring, boring, boring--"
Jon giggles and Stephen laughs too, letting go of him to walk around and hop into the front passenger's seat. Jimmy sits behind him and holds his backpack in his lap, careful not to sit on any of the papers scattered over Jon's backseat.
"Sorry about that," Jon says, twisting around to move the papers he can reach from the driver's seat. "I have to go to the post office today and I was trying to sort everything into stacks. How was your day? You're taking AP Euro this year, right?"
Jimmy relaxes his grip on his bag. "Yeah. Did you take that?" It's his first Advanced Placement class and he's not entirely sure what to expect, even after reading the syllabus about ten times at lunch. All he knows is the book weighs about a million tons, even more than this year's literature anthology, and he's already got reading to do.
Turning sideways in his seat, head against the window, Stephen pulls his glasses off and starts cleaning them with the bottom of his t-shirt. Jimmy relaxes just a little and pushes his backpack to the floor between his feet, leaning in so he can hear Jon better.
"Yeah," Jon says, smiling a little at him. "It's not so bad if you keep up with the reading. Study the book for the multiple choice tests and the class notes for the essays."
They talk for a few minutes about what Jimmy needs to do to get on his teacher's good side before Jon decides the carpool traffic has died down enough for them to actually get out of the parking lot. Jimmy feels less like he's made the worst decision of his life by taking this class, and more like he can aim for something more than a C.
Stephen only turns towards the front of the car when they're in the street. "Can we go to the post office with you?"
There's a pause as Jon pulls into a turning lane. "You want to wait in line at the post office with me?" he asks.
"I like the post office," Stephen announces. He folds his arms over his chest and presses his lips together like he does when he's trying not to laugh too hard at himself.
Jon meets Jimmy's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Do you want to go to the post office?"
"No," Jimmy says. Smiling, Jon opens his mouth to speak again, but Jimmy leans forward into the gap between the two front seats before he can. "But I wouldn't mind walking next door to the coffee shop."
"We win!" Stephen says, high-fiving him.
Jon shakes his head. "You have warped ideas about winning, Colbert."
---
They have sixth period together, so when the gym teachers let them go to lounge on the bleachers -- since nobody has the right clothes today -- Janeane climbs over a pile of sophomores to stretch out on the top row with Denis.
"I'm beginning to think putting gym off till senior year was a bad idea, Garofalo," Denis mutters, lying down on the bench. It's the only way for his gangly legs to get any room up here. "Do you have any idea what the boys' locker room smells like?"
"I don't particularly want to." Janeane pulls her math book out of her backpack and starts scribbling down the answers to tonight's homework.
Denis lifts his head to stare at her for a minute and then thumps back against the bench. "Let's just say Kiwi's gotten me into club bathrooms that smelled better."
Janeane sets her pencil between her teeth and fumbles around in her backpack for her calculator. She'd probably be more horrified if she'd actually ever used a bathroom at one of the clubs Kiwi had a habit of bringing them to. Usually the line was enough to make her just hold it until she got home.
"Did you hear that Erica Hill transferred to Abilene?"
She spits her pencil out and pulls her hair behind her ear. "No," she says, frowning. Erica wasn't in any of her classes, but that didn't mean anything. She'd just figured Erica had doubled up on honors classes.
Denis squints at her. She guesses the overhead lights are hurting his eyes. "You know what that means?"
"Quiz Bowl team is going to lose to Abilene for the fifth year running?"
"You're LGBTQute president."
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and then Janeane carefully tucks her homework into her book and folds it shut. "No I'm not," she says, turning her calculator off. "I'm treasurer. Treasurers don't get promoted to president."
Denis crosses his legs and folds his hands over his chest. He doesn't say anything, and Janeane holds up one hand, sticking out a finger for each club officer she can remember. Erica Hill, president. Brian Williams, vice president. Janeane Garofalo, treasurer. Anderson Cooper, historian.
"Brian should be--"
"Graduated, remember?"
"Who the hell graduates high school early?" Janeane snaps, shoving her book and calculator into her backpack. She puts her elbows on her knees and sets her chin in her hands, kicking the bench Denis is laying on when he starts snickering at her. "Treasurer is a nice low-key thing to plaster on college apps. We'll just hold another election."
Smirking, Denis says, sweetly, "Everybody always votes in current officers first. And every new person who wants to run is going to want your nice low-key position."
Janeane kicks his bench again and looks away from the gym teacher peering up at them. "That was not how I wanted to spend my afternoons this year," she mutters. Denis doesn't say anything.
This year was supposed to be basically the same as all the other years, only with scholarship and college applications and then a relaxed second semester. Janeane doesn't want to deal with organizing meetings, finding a classroom to gather in, or getting shouted at over the phone or in the principal's office when the inevitable dust-up over their presence on campus offends some delicate flower of a parent.
"I'll help out, if you want," Denis says, softly.
Janeane rubs at her eyes. Well. It would be better if she had somebody around she could actually count on to help. "Vice President Leary it is."
A confused look flits over Denis's face. "Wait, that's not--"
"Too late. You've been drafted."
"There has to be an election."
The bell rings, and they both stand up, waiting for the bleachers to empty a little before stepping into the aisle. Janeane tosses an arm around Denis's shoulders and gives him a tight squeeze. He makes a little noise of protest but doesn't shove her off. "With my endorsement, you're sure to get all the votes you need."
He shakes his head and Janeane laughs.
---
At the post office, Stephen and Jimmy leave to go over to the coffee shop with a five from Jon to get something from him, and wander back in with their drinks a few minutes later. Jon has taken over a counter in the corner and is sorting carefully.
"Need any help?" Stephen asks, leaning up against his side for a moment. Jon half-smiles and shakes his head, taking a sip of his coffee before going back to the paperwork. Stephen reads the first lines of a few of the cover letters and bites the tip of his tongue. "Hope these all pan out for you," he murmurs.
Jon giggles, relaxing slightly. "If I win every one of these, my first year of college would be totally paid for," he says. Stephen smiles just a little bit and starts sipping on his coffee, even though it's still too hot.
"Where do you find all these contests?" Jimmy asks, setting his elbows on the counter.
"Books and the Internet and the guidance counselor's office." Jon licks his thumb and flips through a stack of paper before shuffling it into an envelope. "If you want them when I'm done you can have them. The books."
Jimmy lights up and Stephen smiles a little, slurping his coffee a bit. "Really?" he glances at Stephen and pulls back slightly. "I mean, um…"
"It's okay. I'm the baby of the family. If there's one thing I've already set some spending money aside for, it's scholarship books," Stephen says, shaking his head. Jon rubs a hand over his arm and Stephen leans into his touch. "I think I'll be safe after the first two hundred applications, huh?"
He keeps steadily sipping his coffee and wishing that he'd bought a bigger cup for the next few minutes, while Jon dutifully copies down addresses and applies return address labels and presses down the corners of stamps. Jimmy asks if there are any school-specific scholarships, and Jon says that you have to wait sometimes until you've actually applied to the school, and there are a lot for out-of-state students.
Stephen excuses himself to go find a trash can even though his coffee isn't totally empty yet. He stands on the sidewalk, feet balancing on the edge of the curb, and gulps down the last dregs.
Being the baby of the family means there are a lot of scholarship applications in his future, too. More than Jon and Jimmy will send off combined, probably. But he doesn't know how many college applications he'll even try for. A safety school, he's not stupid. But…
Everyone in the family keeps asking if he has any ideas yet. And he shrugs, because he's still got till next year to believably not be looking too hard.
A few minutes later Jimmy comes out. Stephen can tell without turning around, because he can hear him slurping up the last of his icy coffee thing. He teeters on the edge of the sidewalk, pushing his weight forward and then dropping back on his heels when his toes threaten to touch the street.
Jimmy slurps his drink one last time and tosses it into a trash can, shuffling forward until he can touch his shoulder to Stephen's. "There's still a year, you know."
The inside of Stephen's throat is sticky. "I know."
Jimmy links their fingers together and Stephen squeezes his hand in return.
"And, hey, it's not like you're leaving too," Stephen says, resting his head on Jimmy's shoulder for a minute. But it's kind of an uncomfortable position, so he stands back up. "No graduating early, right?" he asks. His voice is mostly even.
"Oh, well, if you need me…" Jimmy sighs.
Stephen laughs so hard he has to sit down.
Part Three
Fandom: Fake News, Strangers with Candy RPF, Misc. Comics RPF
Summary: The last year of high school always means talking about the future. Even when some people still have another year left after this.
Character/Pairing: Jon/Stephen, Amy/Paul, Jimmy, Denis, Janeane
Rating: PG, some cursing
Length: ~3,500 words (this part), ~24,500 words (total)
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Notes: Flashbacks are in italics. "Stevie" (in the fic) is the name Stephen went by as a little kid. Also, several characters in this story are asexual. Hallelujah It's Raining Labels, this Psychology Today article, this Lexicon, and this definition of queerplatonic may be useful if you want to look into asexuality and related concepts.
Thanks: Thanks to
politicette and paperscribe for in-depth beta services and everyone who commented on the first few thousand words of this story and told me to keep going with it. Thanks to aybara_max for the wonderful art.It's been raining for three days. Stevie thinks it's going to rain forever and ever. He presses his face up against the window and when he breathes out, fog spreads over the glass.
Playing alone inside is not fun, but he cannot ask for a ride to Jimmy's. All the cars that go by crawl through the puddles and still splash waves.
Stevie wonders if he could borrow his sister's galoshes.
---
"I mean, it was a nice gesture," Stephen says, his face pressed into his locker door. The ridges of the vent hurt his forehead and make his glasses dig into his skin, but he's too tired to lean back.
Jimmy is busy trying to open his locker. They always get to school early -- Jimmy can't work the twist locks very well, and it takes a lot of practice for him to open his locker on his own. Every year he spends at least the first five minutes telling Stephen how the locker combinations stay the same every year, so if you remembered your combo from last year, you could just break into the new student's locker, blah, blah…
"Isn't one of your older sibs gay? Couldn't she have just, you know… directed you to--" Jimmy sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and squints, trying to wriggle the lock open.
"Sister."
"Ah. So even less experience than your mom--"
Stephen groans and taps his forehead against his locker a couple of times. "Oh my God, my mom does not have experience!"
Jimmy giggles, and his hand slips. The locker slips open, too, and Jimmy gasps. "Wait, wait, what'd I do?" He looks at his hand and then presses the piece of paper with his locker combination flat against the door, looking back and forth between the numbers and the lock.
"I think we might have to come back to this after homeroom."
Sighing, Jimmy sticks his locker combo in his pocket and stuffs his lunch into his locker. Stephen makes a mental note to come back by this hallway before lunch so he can get it out and keep Jimmy from starving. Then they stare at their class schedules and head down the hallway towards the other end of the school -- Jimmy to the room next to band, Stephen to the closest exit to the trailer his homeroom is in. It's going to freeze in the winter.
Halfway there Jimmy bumps their shoulders together. "You do realize that your mom has had eleven kids, though," he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Stephen sticks his fingers in his ears and starts singing the theme song to Gilligan's Island.
"Which means she has at least eleven times more experience than you--"
"THE MATE WAS A MIGHTY SAILING MAN, THE SKIPPER BRAVE AND SURE!"
"But probably more, because nobody gets pregnant the first time they try eleven times in a row…"
"THE WEATHER STARTED GETTING ROUGH! THE TINY SHIP WAS TOSSED!"
Jimmy laughs and covers his eyes with his hand until he stops. Stephen cautiously lowers his hands from his ears. They stop outside the door to Jimmy's classroom and fidget for a minute, watching E and F-surnamed students make their way into the room.
Then Jimmy clears his throat. "Did you tell her?" he asks, sticking both his hands in his pockets. He glances over at his classroom and then back at Stephen. "About, you know…?"
"No." Stephen presses his lips together.
A few people pass by them. A couple of people elbow their way between the gap Jimmy and Stephen have left between them, and Stephen draws back to keep from getting a backpack straight in the glasses. By the time it's clear again, the teachers are standing in the hallway and looking at people still loitering, as if to ask, 'Do you really want a tardy your first day?'
Adjusting his backpack back to its original position, Stephen shuffles his feet. "I guess I better go. Um. See you in chemistry?"
"Yeah, right." Jimmy scans Stephen's face and takes a step back. "Is Jon driving us home?"
Stephen nods, and Jimmy smiles a little before waving and fleeing into the safety of homeroom. Stephen gets a look from his teacher and ducks his head, scurrying out the door. It looks like there's not even a covered path out to his trailer, which means he needs to start packing an umbrella in his bag this year.
The thing is … he knows. He knows what he is. So does Jimmy. They figured it out together, first swiping Jon's psychology magazines when he was doing homework while they hung out in his room, and then going on the Internet when those didn't help. Jon even went on a few websites with Stephen. And he and Jimmy have told just about everybody that's important to them both.
(Granted, Jimmy has to keep telling the Fallons, because they keep 'forgetting.' He does it every few months now. He figures eventually it's got to stick.)
But Stephen can't tell his mom. She'll think he's afraid, or second-guessing himself. And he isn't. Stephen is absolutely sure of who he is.
And he manages to get to homeroom as the bell rings, so he's not someone taking a tardy home on the first day of class. Though he is stuck, for the third year in a row, sitting next to the guy who doesn't believe in deodorant.
---
Amy is the only person in homeroom whose name starts with S. Everyone else is T, like nobody'll notice that she's Se, not Sz. She thinks it's probably because her homeroom teacher last year complained about the … everything.
She pops her gum when their teacher sticks his head into the hallway to check if anyone is lagging behind the bell. The kid next to her opens his eyes but doesn't raise his head, and Amy shines a smile at him. She presses her gum into the wrapper and folds her legs up underneath herself, rapping out a rhythm with the end of her pencil while the morning announcements drone on.
The kids in this room aren't as familiar to her. She mostly knows people from the other end of the alphabet.
They stand and sit for the pledge, and Amy pulls her cell phone out and rests it in her lap. She scrolls through her morning messages, looking up at the teacher at the appropriate times. One elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand is enough to make it look like she’s paying actual attention.
From: Sweetie Stephen (7:31 a.m.)
I’m stuck next to that guy again.
From: Paulbert (7:36 a.m.)
I don’t think the people in this class could even count the stars on the flag, let alone pledge allegiance.
From: Paulbert (7:36 a.m.)
Except Cooper.
From: Paulbert (7:37 a.m.)
He says hi.
Amy tells Stephen to start carrying some nose plugs in his backpack and says hi back to Anderson while disparaging Paul for having so little faith in his fellow seniors. They are the class that masterminded the net of bouncy balls unleashed onto the gym last year. Although to be fair, that was mostly Amy and Janeane. And Denis. (But Denis was basically a human ladder.)
While other people fill out their clinic cards, Amy writes some names in the cover of her five-subject notebook. Mr. Paul Sedaris and Mr. Paul Dinello-Sedaris and Dr. and Dr. Sedaris.
Eraser flecks off in her mouth while she chews on the end of her pencil, and swipes all of the names away. Changing names is a lot of paperwork. And they'll make better careers without changing, anyway. Though she wouldn't say no to an honorary doctorate or two.
The end of the teacher’s speech reminds everybody to have school spirit. Amy thinks she'll try out for the debate club this year. It'll be good practice.
---
"Will you help me with health homework?" Jimmy whispers.
Stephen looks up at the teacher's desk. They've got a substitute today, one who doesn't want them to talk, but she's not looking at them. He glances sideways at Jimmy. "Sure." He hasn't been to health yet, but he has his textbook.
The worksheet says 'list your ideal qualities in a romantic sexual partner.' Stephen flips it over. The back is blank. He scoots it back over to Jimmy and uses his pencil at the top to underlines 'romantic.'
Jimmy shakes his head so his hair swishes. His cheeks are bright red.
Stephen stares at him for a moment.
Then he crosses out 'romantic sexual partner' and writes above it 'best friend.'
Some of the flush fades from Jimmy's face, and he smiles just a bit.
---
"Boring boring boring boring boring!" Stephen says, before Jimmy can ask. Jimmy laughs, hugging his books to his chest, and Stephen bumps their shoulders together. "How was your day?"
"Uh, three borings and two mildly interestings?" Jimmy shrugs. "Art should be fun but all we did today was ice breakers."
The icebreakers had involved talking about yourself and two important people in your life. Jimmy had done his mom and Stephen. Most people had done a parent or a sibling and a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although Jimmy's pretty sure that most people, including his teacher, thought that he was doing a boyfriend when he talked about Stephen.
"I still can't believe we didn't get the same period for art."
"I know, right?" Jimmy sighs. That had been a let down when they'd been comparing schedules. "Maybe next semester."
Jimmy figures Stephen talked about his mom and Jon. And he tells himself if they'd talked about three people, Stephen would've talked about him, too.
But he decides not to ask, anyway.
They skirt through the carpool line and walk right into the parking lot, jumping over a couple of broken bottles (That was fast, Stephen thinks) to meander down to the gravel lot in the back corner. It's near where the school buses park when they aren't picking people up.
"You'd think your hotshot boyfriend would have snagged a better parking spot," Jimmy says, picking a thorn off his pants when they shuffle through a bush to avoid the couple making out on the stairs.
Stephen rolls his eyes. "The soccer field's just across the road. This is a better parking spot, to Jon."
"Oh." Jimmy squints across the street at the empty fields. "Right."
He hangs back when they get closer to the car and Stephen darts forward to jump on Jon, who drops the newsletters he was reading to hug Stephen back. Jimmy fiddles with the straps on his backpack and shuffles around the other side of the car, pretending not to notice Stephen kissing the tip of Jon's nose.
"How was your day?"
"Boring, boring, boring--"
Jon giggles and Stephen laughs too, letting go of him to walk around and hop into the front passenger's seat. Jimmy sits behind him and holds his backpack in his lap, careful not to sit on any of the papers scattered over Jon's backseat.
"Sorry about that," Jon says, twisting around to move the papers he can reach from the driver's seat. "I have to go to the post office today and I was trying to sort everything into stacks. How was your day? You're taking AP Euro this year, right?"
Jimmy relaxes his grip on his bag. "Yeah. Did you take that?" It's his first Advanced Placement class and he's not entirely sure what to expect, even after reading the syllabus about ten times at lunch. All he knows is the book weighs about a million tons, even more than this year's literature anthology, and he's already got reading to do.
Turning sideways in his seat, head against the window, Stephen pulls his glasses off and starts cleaning them with the bottom of his t-shirt. Jimmy relaxes just a little and pushes his backpack to the floor between his feet, leaning in so he can hear Jon better.
"Yeah," Jon says, smiling a little at him. "It's not so bad if you keep up with the reading. Study the book for the multiple choice tests and the class notes for the essays."
They talk for a few minutes about what Jimmy needs to do to get on his teacher's good side before Jon decides the carpool traffic has died down enough for them to actually get out of the parking lot. Jimmy feels less like he's made the worst decision of his life by taking this class, and more like he can aim for something more than a C.
Stephen only turns towards the front of the car when they're in the street. "Can we go to the post office with you?"
There's a pause as Jon pulls into a turning lane. "You want to wait in line at the post office with me?" he asks.
"I like the post office," Stephen announces. He folds his arms over his chest and presses his lips together like he does when he's trying not to laugh too hard at himself.
Jon meets Jimmy's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Do you want to go to the post office?"
"No," Jimmy says. Smiling, Jon opens his mouth to speak again, but Jimmy leans forward into the gap between the two front seats before he can. "But I wouldn't mind walking next door to the coffee shop."
"We win!" Stephen says, high-fiving him.
Jon shakes his head. "You have warped ideas about winning, Colbert."
---
They have sixth period together, so when the gym teachers let them go to lounge on the bleachers -- since nobody has the right clothes today -- Janeane climbs over a pile of sophomores to stretch out on the top row with Denis.
"I'm beginning to think putting gym off till senior year was a bad idea, Garofalo," Denis mutters, lying down on the bench. It's the only way for his gangly legs to get any room up here. "Do you have any idea what the boys' locker room smells like?"
"I don't particularly want to." Janeane pulls her math book out of her backpack and starts scribbling down the answers to tonight's homework.
Denis lifts his head to stare at her for a minute and then thumps back against the bench. "Let's just say Kiwi's gotten me into club bathrooms that smelled better."
Janeane sets her pencil between her teeth and fumbles around in her backpack for her calculator. She'd probably be more horrified if she'd actually ever used a bathroom at one of the clubs Kiwi had a habit of bringing them to. Usually the line was enough to make her just hold it until she got home.
"Did you hear that Erica Hill transferred to Abilene?"
She spits her pencil out and pulls her hair behind her ear. "No," she says, frowning. Erica wasn't in any of her classes, but that didn't mean anything. She'd just figured Erica had doubled up on honors classes.
Denis squints at her. She guesses the overhead lights are hurting his eyes. "You know what that means?"
"Quiz Bowl team is going to lose to Abilene for the fifth year running?"
"You're LGBTQute president."
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and then Janeane carefully tucks her homework into her book and folds it shut. "No I'm not," she says, turning her calculator off. "I'm treasurer. Treasurers don't get promoted to president."
Denis crosses his legs and folds his hands over his chest. He doesn't say anything, and Janeane holds up one hand, sticking out a finger for each club officer she can remember. Erica Hill, president. Brian Williams, vice president. Janeane Garofalo, treasurer. Anderson Cooper, historian.
"Brian should be--"
"Graduated, remember?"
"Who the hell graduates high school early?" Janeane snaps, shoving her book and calculator into her backpack. She puts her elbows on her knees and sets her chin in her hands, kicking the bench Denis is laying on when he starts snickering at her. "Treasurer is a nice low-key thing to plaster on college apps. We'll just hold another election."
Smirking, Denis says, sweetly, "Everybody always votes in current officers first. And every new person who wants to run is going to want your nice low-key position."
Janeane kicks his bench again and looks away from the gym teacher peering up at them. "That was not how I wanted to spend my afternoons this year," she mutters. Denis doesn't say anything.
This year was supposed to be basically the same as all the other years, only with scholarship and college applications and then a relaxed second semester. Janeane doesn't want to deal with organizing meetings, finding a classroom to gather in, or getting shouted at over the phone or in the principal's office when the inevitable dust-up over their presence on campus offends some delicate flower of a parent.
"I'll help out, if you want," Denis says, softly.
Janeane rubs at her eyes. Well. It would be better if she had somebody around she could actually count on to help. "Vice President Leary it is."
A confused look flits over Denis's face. "Wait, that's not--"
"Too late. You've been drafted."
"There has to be an election."
The bell rings, and they both stand up, waiting for the bleachers to empty a little before stepping into the aisle. Janeane tosses an arm around Denis's shoulders and gives him a tight squeeze. He makes a little noise of protest but doesn't shove her off. "With my endorsement, you're sure to get all the votes you need."
He shakes his head and Janeane laughs.
---
At the post office, Stephen and Jimmy leave to go over to the coffee shop with a five from Jon to get something from him, and wander back in with their drinks a few minutes later. Jon has taken over a counter in the corner and is sorting carefully.
"Need any help?" Stephen asks, leaning up against his side for a moment. Jon half-smiles and shakes his head, taking a sip of his coffee before going back to the paperwork. Stephen reads the first lines of a few of the cover letters and bites the tip of his tongue. "Hope these all pan out for you," he murmurs.
Jon giggles, relaxing slightly. "If I win every one of these, my first year of college would be totally paid for," he says. Stephen smiles just a little bit and starts sipping on his coffee, even though it's still too hot.
"Where do you find all these contests?" Jimmy asks, setting his elbows on the counter.
"Books and the Internet and the guidance counselor's office." Jon licks his thumb and flips through a stack of paper before shuffling it into an envelope. "If you want them when I'm done you can have them. The books."
Jimmy lights up and Stephen smiles a little, slurping his coffee a bit. "Really?" he glances at Stephen and pulls back slightly. "I mean, um…"
"It's okay. I'm the baby of the family. If there's one thing I've already set some spending money aside for, it's scholarship books," Stephen says, shaking his head. Jon rubs a hand over his arm and Stephen leans into his touch. "I think I'll be safe after the first two hundred applications, huh?"
He keeps steadily sipping his coffee and wishing that he'd bought a bigger cup for the next few minutes, while Jon dutifully copies down addresses and applies return address labels and presses down the corners of stamps. Jimmy asks if there are any school-specific scholarships, and Jon says that you have to wait sometimes until you've actually applied to the school, and there are a lot for out-of-state students.
Stephen excuses himself to go find a trash can even though his coffee isn't totally empty yet. He stands on the sidewalk, feet balancing on the edge of the curb, and gulps down the last dregs.
Being the baby of the family means there are a lot of scholarship applications in his future, too. More than Jon and Jimmy will send off combined, probably. But he doesn't know how many college applications he'll even try for. A safety school, he's not stupid. But…
Everyone in the family keeps asking if he has any ideas yet. And he shrugs, because he's still got till next year to believably not be looking too hard.
A few minutes later Jimmy comes out. Stephen can tell without turning around, because he can hear him slurping up the last of his icy coffee thing. He teeters on the edge of the sidewalk, pushing his weight forward and then dropping back on his heels when his toes threaten to touch the street.
Jimmy slurps his drink one last time and tosses it into a trash can, shuffling forward until he can touch his shoulder to Stephen's. "There's still a year, you know."
The inside of Stephen's throat is sticky. "I know."
Jimmy links their fingers together and Stephen squeezes his hand in return.
"And, hey, it's not like you're leaving too," Stephen says, resting his head on Jimmy's shoulder for a minute. But it's kind of an uncomfortable position, so he stands back up. "No graduating early, right?" he asks. His voice is mostly even.
"Oh, well, if you need me…" Jimmy sighs.
Stephen laughs so hard he has to sit down.
Part Three