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vocesmente2011-10-10 08:52 pm
themistoklis) wrote in vocesmente2011-10-10 08:52 pm
It's Time to Talk (Part Three)
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: ~4,400 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.
Stevie cannot walk very fast because he has short legs, but he huff puff puffs after Amy and Paul as they ride their tricycles around the cul-de-sac.
Amy rides in slow wide circles and Paul tries to make sharp turns but he usually falls off on the concrete. Then he grips his knee and holds it because it hurts. But Stevie trots over to him and kisses the scrape and then it is all better.
Amy and Stevie and Paul are best best best friends.
---
"You can never have too many best friends," Stephen says, bouncing onto the bed behind Paul, who's sitting upside down with his legs up on the wall. Paul grunts and pokes at the screen of his video game, and Stephen watches for a minute before mimicking his position, pressing his legs up flat against the wall.
Amy has a bunch of pins stuck in her mouth and is bent over a half-finished skirt besides, so Stephen doesn't understand the mess of syllables she spits out. But Paul has a PhD in Amy-whispering, so he laughs.
Stephen nudges him. "What'd she say?"
"She said she got us buy one get one free," Paul says, ruffling Stephen's hair without tipping himself over. Stephen giggles, ducking his head and folding his arms over his face.
Winking, Amy hums against her pins and goes back to stitching the poodle onto the bottom of her skirt. When she's done she's going to move onto Paul's. They're going trick-or-treating in matching sock hop outfits this year. Halloween is still a few weeks off, but Amy wants to do a few test runs of the costumes beforehand and needs to finish them early.
There are no school papers or posters in Amy's room, unless you count the Harry Potter house crests she bought off the Internet a couple of years ago. Stephen knows she's applying because he knows Paul's applying, but he doesn't know where and he doesn't plan on asking until they tell him. And they're not telling.
"Did you hear that somebody called the school and cussed out the principal?" Paul asks, a few minutes after Stephen's legs fall asleep against the wall. Even Amy looks up from her work and raises an eyebrow at them.
He pushes his glasses back into place and turns his head sideways. "Like, a crank call?"
Paul shakes his head. "Some parent. 'Cause of Janeane and Denis."
It's probably not charitable, but Stephen can kind of understand why someone would call the school and complain about Denis. Denis is … stubborn. And opinionated. But Janeane? She thinks the same way Denis does, but usually, when she's insulting you, you don't realize it until later, and even then you're not sure.
"What'd she do?" Stephen asks. "Pull Denis off of somebody?"
Paul pulls some curls away from his forehead. "They switched clothes for the yearbook photos."
"What?" Stephen does some mental arithmetic and can't help but get stuck picturing Denis in capri pants that aren't supposed to be capris. "Denis is like a foot taller than her."
Bending over her sewing basket, Amy spits out her pins. "The seniors have to wear those stupid fake clothes, remember? The girls have to wear a top that looks like a black dress and the boys have to wear the top half of a fake tuxedo. They just sit over your shoulders."
"Denis wore a dress?"
"The shoulder parts of a dress, I guess," Amy says, giving Paul a calculating look. She starts sticking her pins into the fake cloth pumpkin she has to keep everything organized. "How'd you find this out?"
Paul lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers. "Dr. E came to yearbook class and pulled Carlson out to tell him it wasn't appropriate for him to go gossiping to his parents," he says, and Amy cackles, clapping her hands. Stephen hides a smile behind his hand.
"Do they have to retake their pictures?" Stephen asks.
Twisting so his legs fall sideways on the bed and he can sit up, Paul shrugs. Stephen feels a bit dizzy watching him lean back to put his shoulders against the wall. "Dunno. But can you see anybody making Janeane do that over again?"
Stephen grins. "Nope."
Half an hour later he and Paul are bent over Amy's computer, navigating Facbeook to find Halloween photos from last year. They're trying to remember where the houses with the good candy are, so they can pick a neighborhood for trick-or-treating. It's not worth all seven of them (Stephen, Jimmy, Jon, Amy, Paul, Denis, and Janeane) tromping all dressed up and lugging pillowcases if they're not even going to get good stuff to trade.
It's an annual tradition. Stephen knows that they're all kind of too old for it now, but it's the last year that they'll be able to do it together. So when he asked, everybody said yes. Even Denis, and Stephen had kind of been expecting for Denis to laugh in his face. Although it maybe helped that he'd asked Denis at Mass.
He doesn't have a costume yet. "Do you think I should do drag this year?" he asks. They're already buying makeup for Paul, if he tags along on that trip he could get some too.
"I really think you should wait till you're of legal age to actually try that stripper getup, Stephen dear," Amy drawls.
Blushing, he ducks his head. "No! I wouldn't wear that, you know, to walk around in."
"The heels would probably kill you anyway," Paul says, winking. Stephen takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirt, and Paul taps his finger against his chin. "Unless you want to go with Princess Leia you probably won't have any way to coordinate a drag costume with Jon's."
Stephen puts his glasses back on and huffs. "How do you know Jon's going to be Han Solo?"
"Uh, because he's been Han Solo for five years running?"
Amy snickers, and Stephen blushes again. "No, I can't do that. Jimmy already wants to be Princess Leia. If I wanted to coordinate I'd have to wear the slave outfit and I'm sure that would make my legs look terrible," he says, running a hand through his hair.
"You could be a 50s girl with us," Amy suggests. She holds up the felt poodle she's just traced.
Leaning over the side of the bed, Paul finds Amy's fabric scissors and hands them over to her. "You could be the poodle," he says, grinning.
Stephen pulls a pillow up to his face and giggles. "I will not be collared, Dinello."
"Just reuse your Legolas costume from this summer."
"That's boring," Stephen says, making a face. The summer had been the first time he'd LARPed -- live action role played. He still had the Nerf bow and arrow set it had taken forever for them to track down. And, more importantly, the wig.
Paul winks. "Not if you figure out how to say trick-or-treat in elvish."
"Oh." Stephen tilts his head to one side. "Well in that case."
After a while, Amy asks, "Do you know what Mrs. Leary said about it?" She's stitching the poodle onto Paul's skirt.
It takes a minute for Stephen to remember the photographs they were talking about earlier, and then he looks up at Paul, biting his lip. All he knows about the Learys is that they're Catholic, sit a few rows to the side from his family at church, and somehow Denis's older brother is allowed to go by Kiwi. He doesn't remember what Denis's father is like.
Paul scratches his head. "I think she did Denis's makeup."
---
Sometimes Denis gets very very quiet and does not talk for days. Jon doesn't find it weird because he's used to it, and he can do Denis's talking for him. He hardly even notices anymore until the new girl, Janeane, who isn't really new since she's been here for four months, asks him about it.
"I dunno," Jon says, hunching his shoulders and feeling like he should know. Janeane purses her lips.
On the way to recess they both take one of Denis's hands and walk around the track with him. They make two loops and in the middle of the third one Denis starts to sniffle, so they sit down on one of the old rotting jungle gyms.
They're late coming back into class, but Jon thinks it's okay. Denis would've been embarrassed if anyone could've told he'd been crying.
And he says he feels better now, which is what counts.
---
Jon just grunts when Janeane comes and sits down on his back. She pats his cheek and he turns his head sideways, so his face isn't pressed into the sheets anymore. Which lets him breathe, although he is stuck staring at the wall until he can twist around and turn his head the other way. Not that Denis staring blankly at the Princeton Review website is that much more interesting than the wall.
"We've already filled out a lot of the Common App," Janeane says, brightly, taking a swig of Gatorade. Jon thinks she sounds a bit manic. "We could just pick schools based on whether they use it or not."
"I'm pretty sure my mom would cry if I did that," Denis says, vaguely. He wiggles the mouse when the computer brings up the screensaver and keeps staring at whatever he's staring at.
Janeane clears her throat and slips off of Jon to nestle back against the stack of pillows at the top of her bed. It's been a really long time since Jon's slept over, and he's always been too embarrassed to ask what she does with six pillows while she's sleeping. He does laugh softly when she stretches out her legs and rests her feet on his back, though. He would ask for some of her Gatorade if he had the energy to sit up.
"Yeah," he says, yawning. "But I think she's going to end up crying as long as you get in somewhere."
"Oh, thanks." Denis rolls his eyes. "Good to know I've set expectations of me high."
"You know what I mean. She loves her little braniac," Jon says.
Denis blushes a little. "Yeah. I know."
He picks at some lint gathering on Janeane's sheets and doesn't say anything for a moment, waiting to see if Janeane or Denis is going to mention it. But they don't, so Jon makes a heroic effort and props himself up with his elbows. Janeane protests, because that knocks her feet off of his back, but he just flips her the bird and she finds one of her pillows to set under her feet.
"So, uh… Stephen told me that you two switched clothes for the yearbook," he murmurs, tossing a piece of lint to the floor. He glances up -- Denis has turned pink again, and Janeane is staring at her nails. "Did you… I mean…"
Denis folds a leg underneath himself, balancing awkwardly in his chair. "It wasn't a big deal. The photographer didn't even say anything," he says. He's plucking at the loose threads of his sock like Jon was playing with the lint.
Tilting her head to one side, Janeane shrugs. "We just took the things he handed us and then swapped. I don't even think he was paying attention." She rolls her eyes. "We shouldn't have to wear whatever they tell us to wear, anyway, just so they can look better."
"The dress top was kinda ugly," Denis concedes. He smoothes out a bump in his sock. "It itched, too."
"Why'd you do it?" Jon asks.
Neither of them say anything, so Jon reaches out and whacks Denis's knee with the back of his hand. It takes some stretching, and he nearly falls off the mattress, but it does make Denis smile.
Jon shakes his head. "I'm not gonna laugh."
Denis shuts the laptop and then opens it again, running his finger along the edge of the keyboard. He wipes the dust off on his shirt. Janeane clears her throat, and Jon glances over at her in time to flinch before she pushes her pillow up against his side. "We figured it'd be easier for Denis to get a dress top if we swapped than if he asked for it."
"Oh." Jon looks over at Denis again. Denis is staring at the laptop. "So, uh… You missed wearing dresses?" he asks.
He can remember Denis wearing Janeane's dresses, when they were little enough that Janeane still owned dresses and Denis would actually fit in them. But they were usually princesses and dragons and wizards when they played dress-up. He doesn't remember Denis looking at dresses since then.
"I… yeah," Denis murmurs. He swallows so hard that Jon can hear it.
"Bet you looked nice."
Denis blushes, and the corner of his mouth twitches. "Thanks."
"What'd your mom think?" Jon asks, trying to look at Denis's face without being too obvious about it. He wishes he'd been there. But their photo appointments had been random and his had been on another day.
"She said I had to take a picture in a nice shirt to send out to family," Denis murmurs. He starts to shut the laptop again and Janeane makes a little noise that makes him let go of it. Then he lifts a hand and rubs the back of his neck. "But that we could put that one on the mantle."
"That's nice, man."
"Yeah," Denis says, half-smiling. He stares into space for a second before shaking himself. "So, uh, what cities are you thinking about? For school?"
Jon rubs at his eyes. He really should've slept more last night. But he couldn't, and Stephen actually sleeps like a normal person, and he feels weird bothering Jimmy too much when Jimmy is signed on to IM at three in the morning because he's pretty sure Jimmy stays up that late only when he's doing homework. Denis only has the desktop at his house, so he's never on past midnight or twelve thirty, and Janeane refuses to stay up past one.
"Dunno," he says, yawning. "You?"
Denis shrugs. "Boston."
"Baws-ton," Jon and Janeane say in unison.
Denis glares at them. "And Chicago."
"Do you have family in Chicago?" Janeane asks, twisting the cap back onto her drink.
"No." Denis blinks and shakes the mouse again to make the screensaver go away. Jon wonders what he could possibly be staring at, but the screen just looks gray from this angle.
Janeane throws her Gatorade into the trash can next to her desk. "I like Chicago," she says. Jon isn't sure, but he thinks that Denis's face turns a little pink. It could just be the red shirt he's wearing, though.
Shutting the lid on the computer, Denis turns the rolling chair to face them and clears his throat. "Have you asked Stephen and Jimmy where they'd like to go yet?"
"No." Jon traces one of the plaid squares on Janeane's sheets.
Denis's eyebrows jump up.
"I'll ask."
"You'd better ask soon," Janeane says, nudging him with her knee. He lets her push him and crosses his arms to put his head down again. "Have you talked with him about school at all?"
Jon shuts his eyes instead of answering, but he's sure that Janeane and Denis shoot each other a sideways look.
---
With all the books in her bag, Janeane feels like she'll be lucky to make it out to the buses. And she nearly falls over when she rounds the corner from her locker and find Stephen and Jimmy huddling there. They jump and she jumps and then they both drop to the ground to help her pick up all the spilled books.
"Uh. Hey," Stephen says, hitting her in the shin with a chemistry textbook when he tries to hand it to her. She winces and he goes pale.
"We wanted to ask you something," Jimmy says, taking the book out of Stephen's grip and standing up with a pile of them in his hands. Janeane slings her bag off her shoulder and holds it open so he can put them back in.
"'Cause you're in the GSA," Stephen says, wringing his hands.
Janeane puts her bag down at her feet, getting the feeling she might not make it to the bus in time. "Yeah?" she asks, resting a hand on her hip. Stephen stares at it and she drops it back to her side.
"Is it just for gay and straight people?" Jimmy asks, staring at her.
She remembers being at his house once and watching his mom mark his height on the kitchen wall. "Nope," she says, shaking her head. "We really gotta rename it sometime." She picks up her bag and starts walking towards the buses again. When they follow her, she looks over her shoulder at them.
"W-what about…" Stephen falters, and looks at Jimmy, who puts an arm around his shoulders. Stephen takes a deep breath. "What about asexual people?"
Janeane stops and turns around. Maybe she'll just call her mom and ask for a ride home.
---
"Are you staying after school today?" Stephen asks.
Jimmy is digging through the back of his locker, trying to figure out if his candy bar fell out of his lunch bag, because it definitely isn't there now. Stephen has to tap him on the back and ask again before Jimmy realizes that he's there.
He leans back from the locker and clears his throat. "Yeah. Aren't you?"
"I was thinking about skipping but only if you did," Stephen admits. He has that sheepish look on his face that he always gets whenever he gets caught being less than perfect but not actually bad.
Jimmy hooks an arm around his shoulders and hugs him close, and Stephen surprises him -- a lot -- by putting both his arms around Jimmy and hugging him back. For a second Jimmy is so startled he doesn't know what to do, except think about all the people who don't hug him, but then the second is over and Stephen's let go of him and Jimmy didn't even do anything.
But he makes himself smile, anyway, because Stephen is his friend and he does like being hugged. Off the top of his head, he just wishes that it happened often enough that it wasn't a complete shock when it did happen.
"You look a little down," Stephen says.
He puts an arm across Jimmy's shoulders, which is more normal for them. Jimmy shuts his locker door, and Stephen walks him down the hall towards their next classes, which are across the hall from each other. It only takes a couple of minutes to get there, so they've still got about five minutes to hang out in the hallway. It's far enough into the school year that none of the teachers have the energy to talk about loitering and time that could better be spent studying.
"I'm probably just coming down with something," Jimmy says, leaning against the wall. He hugs his extra books to his chest.
Stephen purses his lips. "You wanna go straight home?" he asks. When Jimmy raises both his eyebrows, Stephen flushes pink. He laughs, clearing his throat and choking on it some. "I mean -- for you, not me."
A group of people bump past them and Jimmy rearranges his books in his grip to keep from dropping them. "The meeting'll only last an hour. I can tough it out," he says.
The tilt of Stephen's head is doubtful.
"Besides, maybe it'll be interesting," he says. He smiles, perking up. "I saw Denis and he said it was going to be about college and stuff."
That makes Stephen roll his eyes and slump against the wall for a moment. Jimmy almost laughs, because he looks so pathetic, but Stephen hasn't really said anything about Jon going to college, so Jimmy's not going to go there if Stephen isn't ready to laugh about it.
"Jon can look after me if you're that worried and want to go home," Jimmy suggests. Jon and him hang out sometimes. Jimmy likes it, because Jon is pretty cool. Even though Jimmy's parents seem to think there's something weird about him hanging out with Jon when Stephen isn't around.
Stephen shakes his head. "No, I'll stay with you," he says. He sucks his lower lip between his teeth and hugs Jimmy again.
This time Jimmy has the presence of mind to hug him back, and rest his head on Stephen's shoulder for a moment. Stephen is hugging him so tight he doesn't even want to look up at the clock to see how much time has run out on them.
"I'll stay with you too," Jimmy says, and Stephen tightens his grip. Jimmy keeps his head on Stephen's shoulder, and Stephen doesn't seem inclined to move back to look at him, either. He wishes he were psychic, even though the other day he told Stephen his superpower would be flying. "Are you doing okay?" he asks, quietly.
That makes Stephen let go of him, and Jimmy regrets asking it in a flash that makes him feel guilty the second it's over.
"I don't wanna talk about it." Stephen takes Jimmy's hand as he speaks, which is the most confusing thing he's done all day, until he looks up at Jimmy and his eyes are watering a little. He sniffs. "But that's our whole problem, isn't it?"
Oh. Jimmy leans in and touches his forehead to Stephen's. "I'll… be around. If you want to talk to me after you talk to him."
"But you need to be there, too," Stephen says, his voice pitching up slightly. His grip on Jimmy tightens until it hurts.
"Okay, okay," Jimmy whispers, hugging Stephen again. "I promise I'll talk about school too. I promise I won't avoid it." Stephen sniffles into his neck, wetly, and doesn't make a move as the bell rings. Jimmy doesn't know if this should make him feel better or worse.
---
Janeane is contemplating the chunks of ice in her strawberry milk when Jimmy and Stephen sit down across from her. She pokes at some pink ice with her straw and looks up over the rims of her glasses at them. Stephen looks the same color as the milk, but Jimmy looks normal. Of course, Jimmy's eating a bag lunch and Stephen has … well, Janeane doesn't know what he has, but it's on one of the school's blue lunch trays.
"Did your table get overtaken?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.
The two of them normally sit in the courtyard, during the right weather, and it's not all that cold yet. Of course, the longer you keep sitting in the courtyard, the harder it is not to get stuck sitting on the cafeteria floor during the winter. And Janeane normally sits with Sam and Jason, but they're both out with mono this week.
Jimmy shakes his head. "We kinda wanted to ask your advice about something," he says, unrolling the top of his lunch bag.
Cautiously sipping her milk, Janeane keeps staring.
"And, uh, share the pleasure of your good company," Stephen adds, smiling shyly at her. It catches her off-guard enough that she actually laughs, and Stephen beams, shooting a little proud look at Jimmy.
Janeane shakes her head and rests an elbow on the table, poking her fork at the spaghetti and meatballs slumped on her tray. "I'm incredibly bored, so ask away," she says, yawning. Eating would probably help her be less tired.
"You should use your imagination to entertain yourself," Stephen says. Janeane snickers and he blushes a little, ducking his head. He pokes at his mystery food and clears his throat. "Sorry you got stuck in lunch without Jon and Denis, your last year."
"Bound to happen some year." Janeane shrugs.
But she never knew how boring twenty-five minutes of her day could be after having lunch with the two of them for three years running. No offense to Sam and Jason, but it's not the same. Especially when one or the other of them is always off doing makeup work in the library or working with a club.
Jimmy glances over at Stephen and bites into a sandwich. When he can talk again, he asks, "So … have you and Denis talked about, you know, college?" and Janeane thinks that's a weird way to ask her advice about, obviously, Jon.
"We've been doing applications together," she says, though. She breaks some ice up in her milk. "Talking about what cities we want to be in, mostly. He doesn't seem sure. I don't think he really knows what he wants to do yet."
The two of them share another look and Janeane wonders if they managed to develop that telepathy they'd talked about in middle school. "I think it'd be good to be in the same city as somebody you know," Stephen murmurs. "Even if you're not at the same school."
"Better than being alone," Janeane says. She tilts her head to one side and studies their faces for a moment. They both look mildly ill, though Jimmy's tearing into his sandwich anyway. "You know Jon's not finished with his applications, right? I know it's early for you two but you must have an idea of what kind of location you'd like to be in."
Stephen flushes strawberry-milk again and looks down at his tray. "Have you and Denis talked about what … what you'll do if you're not at the same school?" he asks. He picks up whatever's on his plate and dunks it in ketchup before nibbling at it.
Getting asked about it makes Janeane nervous in a way that not talking about it hasn't. She looks between the two of them again, but she can't read anything on their faces but worry. "No," she says, shifting her weight. "I mean. We're friends. We'll stay in touch."
At least, she had assumed they would. Before Jimmy and Stephen went and asked.
They both stare at her, and then Jimmy smiles a little. "I bet you'll end up going to the same school," he says, confidently, like it's supposed to reassure her. He even reaches over and pats the back of her hand.
Janeane stares at her milk. She's not hungry anymore.
Part Four
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: ~4,400 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.Stevie cannot walk very fast because he has short legs, but he huff puff puffs after Amy and Paul as they ride their tricycles around the cul-de-sac.
Amy rides in slow wide circles and Paul tries to make sharp turns but he usually falls off on the concrete. Then he grips his knee and holds it because it hurts. But Stevie trots over to him and kisses the scrape and then it is all better.
Amy and Stevie and Paul are best best best friends.
---
"You can never have too many best friends," Stephen says, bouncing onto the bed behind Paul, who's sitting upside down with his legs up on the wall. Paul grunts and pokes at the screen of his video game, and Stephen watches for a minute before mimicking his position, pressing his legs up flat against the wall.
Amy has a bunch of pins stuck in her mouth and is bent over a half-finished skirt besides, so Stephen doesn't understand the mess of syllables she spits out. But Paul has a PhD in Amy-whispering, so he laughs.
Stephen nudges him. "What'd she say?"
"She said she got us buy one get one free," Paul says, ruffling Stephen's hair without tipping himself over. Stephen giggles, ducking his head and folding his arms over his face.
Winking, Amy hums against her pins and goes back to stitching the poodle onto the bottom of her skirt. When she's done she's going to move onto Paul's. They're going trick-or-treating in matching sock hop outfits this year. Halloween is still a few weeks off, but Amy wants to do a few test runs of the costumes beforehand and needs to finish them early.
There are no school papers or posters in Amy's room, unless you count the Harry Potter house crests she bought off the Internet a couple of years ago. Stephen knows she's applying because he knows Paul's applying, but he doesn't know where and he doesn't plan on asking until they tell him. And they're not telling.
"Did you hear that somebody called the school and cussed out the principal?" Paul asks, a few minutes after Stephen's legs fall asleep against the wall. Even Amy looks up from her work and raises an eyebrow at them.
He pushes his glasses back into place and turns his head sideways. "Like, a crank call?"
Paul shakes his head. "Some parent. 'Cause of Janeane and Denis."
It's probably not charitable, but Stephen can kind of understand why someone would call the school and complain about Denis. Denis is … stubborn. And opinionated. But Janeane? She thinks the same way Denis does, but usually, when she's insulting you, you don't realize it until later, and even then you're not sure.
"What'd she do?" Stephen asks. "Pull Denis off of somebody?"
Paul pulls some curls away from his forehead. "They switched clothes for the yearbook photos."
"What?" Stephen does some mental arithmetic and can't help but get stuck picturing Denis in capri pants that aren't supposed to be capris. "Denis is like a foot taller than her."
Bending over her sewing basket, Amy spits out her pins. "The seniors have to wear those stupid fake clothes, remember? The girls have to wear a top that looks like a black dress and the boys have to wear the top half of a fake tuxedo. They just sit over your shoulders."
"Denis wore a dress?"
"The shoulder parts of a dress, I guess," Amy says, giving Paul a calculating look. She starts sticking her pins into the fake cloth pumpkin she has to keep everything organized. "How'd you find this out?"
Paul lifts a hand and wiggles his fingers. "Dr. E came to yearbook class and pulled Carlson out to tell him it wasn't appropriate for him to go gossiping to his parents," he says, and Amy cackles, clapping her hands. Stephen hides a smile behind his hand.
"Do they have to retake their pictures?" Stephen asks.
Twisting so his legs fall sideways on the bed and he can sit up, Paul shrugs. Stephen feels a bit dizzy watching him lean back to put his shoulders against the wall. "Dunno. But can you see anybody making Janeane do that over again?"
Stephen grins. "Nope."
Half an hour later he and Paul are bent over Amy's computer, navigating Facbeook to find Halloween photos from last year. They're trying to remember where the houses with the good candy are, so they can pick a neighborhood for trick-or-treating. It's not worth all seven of them (Stephen, Jimmy, Jon, Amy, Paul, Denis, and Janeane) tromping all dressed up and lugging pillowcases if they're not even going to get good stuff to trade.
It's an annual tradition. Stephen knows that they're all kind of too old for it now, but it's the last year that they'll be able to do it together. So when he asked, everybody said yes. Even Denis, and Stephen had kind of been expecting for Denis to laugh in his face. Although it maybe helped that he'd asked Denis at Mass.
He doesn't have a costume yet. "Do you think I should do drag this year?" he asks. They're already buying makeup for Paul, if he tags along on that trip he could get some too.
"I really think you should wait till you're of legal age to actually try that stripper getup, Stephen dear," Amy drawls.
Blushing, he ducks his head. "No! I wouldn't wear that, you know, to walk around in."
"The heels would probably kill you anyway," Paul says, winking. Stephen takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirt, and Paul taps his finger against his chin. "Unless you want to go with Princess Leia you probably won't have any way to coordinate a drag costume with Jon's."
Stephen puts his glasses back on and huffs. "How do you know Jon's going to be Han Solo?"
"Uh, because he's been Han Solo for five years running?"
Amy snickers, and Stephen blushes again. "No, I can't do that. Jimmy already wants to be Princess Leia. If I wanted to coordinate I'd have to wear the slave outfit and I'm sure that would make my legs look terrible," he says, running a hand through his hair.
"You could be a 50s girl with us," Amy suggests. She holds up the felt poodle she's just traced.
Leaning over the side of the bed, Paul finds Amy's fabric scissors and hands them over to her. "You could be the poodle," he says, grinning.
Stephen pulls a pillow up to his face and giggles. "I will not be collared, Dinello."
"Just reuse your Legolas costume from this summer."
"That's boring," Stephen says, making a face. The summer had been the first time he'd LARPed -- live action role played. He still had the Nerf bow and arrow set it had taken forever for them to track down. And, more importantly, the wig.
Paul winks. "Not if you figure out how to say trick-or-treat in elvish."
"Oh." Stephen tilts his head to one side. "Well in that case."
After a while, Amy asks, "Do you know what Mrs. Leary said about it?" She's stitching the poodle onto Paul's skirt.
It takes a minute for Stephen to remember the photographs they were talking about earlier, and then he looks up at Paul, biting his lip. All he knows about the Learys is that they're Catholic, sit a few rows to the side from his family at church, and somehow Denis's older brother is allowed to go by Kiwi. He doesn't remember what Denis's father is like.
Paul scratches his head. "I think she did Denis's makeup."
---
Sometimes Denis gets very very quiet and does not talk for days. Jon doesn't find it weird because he's used to it, and he can do Denis's talking for him. He hardly even notices anymore until the new girl, Janeane, who isn't really new since she's been here for four months, asks him about it.
"I dunno," Jon says, hunching his shoulders and feeling like he should know. Janeane purses her lips.
On the way to recess they both take one of Denis's hands and walk around the track with him. They make two loops and in the middle of the third one Denis starts to sniffle, so they sit down on one of the old rotting jungle gyms.
They're late coming back into class, but Jon thinks it's okay. Denis would've been embarrassed if anyone could've told he'd been crying.
And he says he feels better now, which is what counts.
---
Jon just grunts when Janeane comes and sits down on his back. She pats his cheek and he turns his head sideways, so his face isn't pressed into the sheets anymore. Which lets him breathe, although he is stuck staring at the wall until he can twist around and turn his head the other way. Not that Denis staring blankly at the Princeton Review website is that much more interesting than the wall.
"We've already filled out a lot of the Common App," Janeane says, brightly, taking a swig of Gatorade. Jon thinks she sounds a bit manic. "We could just pick schools based on whether they use it or not."
"I'm pretty sure my mom would cry if I did that," Denis says, vaguely. He wiggles the mouse when the computer brings up the screensaver and keeps staring at whatever he's staring at.
Janeane clears her throat and slips off of Jon to nestle back against the stack of pillows at the top of her bed. It's been a really long time since Jon's slept over, and he's always been too embarrassed to ask what she does with six pillows while she's sleeping. He does laugh softly when she stretches out her legs and rests her feet on his back, though. He would ask for some of her Gatorade if he had the energy to sit up.
"Yeah," he says, yawning. "But I think she's going to end up crying as long as you get in somewhere."
"Oh, thanks." Denis rolls his eyes. "Good to know I've set expectations of me high."
"You know what I mean. She loves her little braniac," Jon says.
Denis blushes a little. "Yeah. I know."
He picks at some lint gathering on Janeane's sheets and doesn't say anything for a moment, waiting to see if Janeane or Denis is going to mention it. But they don't, so Jon makes a heroic effort and props himself up with his elbows. Janeane protests, because that knocks her feet off of his back, but he just flips her the bird and she finds one of her pillows to set under her feet.
"So, uh… Stephen told me that you two switched clothes for the yearbook," he murmurs, tossing a piece of lint to the floor. He glances up -- Denis has turned pink again, and Janeane is staring at her nails. "Did you… I mean…"
Denis folds a leg underneath himself, balancing awkwardly in his chair. "It wasn't a big deal. The photographer didn't even say anything," he says. He's plucking at the loose threads of his sock like Jon was playing with the lint.
Tilting her head to one side, Janeane shrugs. "We just took the things he handed us and then swapped. I don't even think he was paying attention." She rolls her eyes. "We shouldn't have to wear whatever they tell us to wear, anyway, just so they can look better."
"The dress top was kinda ugly," Denis concedes. He smoothes out a bump in his sock. "It itched, too."
"Why'd you do it?" Jon asks.
Neither of them say anything, so Jon reaches out and whacks Denis's knee with the back of his hand. It takes some stretching, and he nearly falls off the mattress, but it does make Denis smile.
Jon shakes his head. "I'm not gonna laugh."
Denis shuts the laptop and then opens it again, running his finger along the edge of the keyboard. He wipes the dust off on his shirt. Janeane clears her throat, and Jon glances over at her in time to flinch before she pushes her pillow up against his side. "We figured it'd be easier for Denis to get a dress top if we swapped than if he asked for it."
"Oh." Jon looks over at Denis again. Denis is staring at the laptop. "So, uh… You missed wearing dresses?" he asks.
He can remember Denis wearing Janeane's dresses, when they were little enough that Janeane still owned dresses and Denis would actually fit in them. But they were usually princesses and dragons and wizards when they played dress-up. He doesn't remember Denis looking at dresses since then.
"I… yeah," Denis murmurs. He swallows so hard that Jon can hear it.
"Bet you looked nice."
Denis blushes, and the corner of his mouth twitches. "Thanks."
"What'd your mom think?" Jon asks, trying to look at Denis's face without being too obvious about it. He wishes he'd been there. But their photo appointments had been random and his had been on another day.
"She said I had to take a picture in a nice shirt to send out to family," Denis murmurs. He starts to shut the laptop again and Janeane makes a little noise that makes him let go of it. Then he lifts a hand and rubs the back of his neck. "But that we could put that one on the mantle."
"That's nice, man."
"Yeah," Denis says, half-smiling. He stares into space for a second before shaking himself. "So, uh, what cities are you thinking about? For school?"
Jon rubs at his eyes. He really should've slept more last night. But he couldn't, and Stephen actually sleeps like a normal person, and he feels weird bothering Jimmy too much when Jimmy is signed on to IM at three in the morning because he's pretty sure Jimmy stays up that late only when he's doing homework. Denis only has the desktop at his house, so he's never on past midnight or twelve thirty, and Janeane refuses to stay up past one.
"Dunno," he says, yawning. "You?"
Denis shrugs. "Boston."
"Baws-ton," Jon and Janeane say in unison.
Denis glares at them. "And Chicago."
"Do you have family in Chicago?" Janeane asks, twisting the cap back onto her drink.
"No." Denis blinks and shakes the mouse again to make the screensaver go away. Jon wonders what he could possibly be staring at, but the screen just looks gray from this angle.
Janeane throws her Gatorade into the trash can next to her desk. "I like Chicago," she says. Jon isn't sure, but he thinks that Denis's face turns a little pink. It could just be the red shirt he's wearing, though.
Shutting the lid on the computer, Denis turns the rolling chair to face them and clears his throat. "Have you asked Stephen and Jimmy where they'd like to go yet?"
"No." Jon traces one of the plaid squares on Janeane's sheets.
Denis's eyebrows jump up.
"I'll ask."
"You'd better ask soon," Janeane says, nudging him with her knee. He lets her push him and crosses his arms to put his head down again. "Have you talked with him about school at all?"
Jon shuts his eyes instead of answering, but he's sure that Janeane and Denis shoot each other a sideways look.
---
With all the books in her bag, Janeane feels like she'll be lucky to make it out to the buses. And she nearly falls over when she rounds the corner from her locker and find Stephen and Jimmy huddling there. They jump and she jumps and then they both drop to the ground to help her pick up all the spilled books.
"Uh. Hey," Stephen says, hitting her in the shin with a chemistry textbook when he tries to hand it to her. She winces and he goes pale.
"We wanted to ask you something," Jimmy says, taking the book out of Stephen's grip and standing up with a pile of them in his hands. Janeane slings her bag off her shoulder and holds it open so he can put them back in.
"'Cause you're in the GSA," Stephen says, wringing his hands.
Janeane puts her bag down at her feet, getting the feeling she might not make it to the bus in time. "Yeah?" she asks, resting a hand on her hip. Stephen stares at it and she drops it back to her side.
"Is it just for gay and straight people?" Jimmy asks, staring at her.
She remembers being at his house once and watching his mom mark his height on the kitchen wall. "Nope," she says, shaking her head. "We really gotta rename it sometime." She picks up her bag and starts walking towards the buses again. When they follow her, she looks over her shoulder at them.
"W-what about…" Stephen falters, and looks at Jimmy, who puts an arm around his shoulders. Stephen takes a deep breath. "What about asexual people?"
Janeane stops and turns around. Maybe she'll just call her mom and ask for a ride home.
---
"Are you staying after school today?" Stephen asks.
Jimmy is digging through the back of his locker, trying to figure out if his candy bar fell out of his lunch bag, because it definitely isn't there now. Stephen has to tap him on the back and ask again before Jimmy realizes that he's there.
He leans back from the locker and clears his throat. "Yeah. Aren't you?"
"I was thinking about skipping but only if you did," Stephen admits. He has that sheepish look on his face that he always gets whenever he gets caught being less than perfect but not actually bad.
Jimmy hooks an arm around his shoulders and hugs him close, and Stephen surprises him -- a lot -- by putting both his arms around Jimmy and hugging him back. For a second Jimmy is so startled he doesn't know what to do, except think about all the people who don't hug him, but then the second is over and Stephen's let go of him and Jimmy didn't even do anything.
But he makes himself smile, anyway, because Stephen is his friend and he does like being hugged. Off the top of his head, he just wishes that it happened often enough that it wasn't a complete shock when it did happen.
"You look a little down," Stephen says.
He puts an arm across Jimmy's shoulders, which is more normal for them. Jimmy shuts his locker door, and Stephen walks him down the hall towards their next classes, which are across the hall from each other. It only takes a couple of minutes to get there, so they've still got about five minutes to hang out in the hallway. It's far enough into the school year that none of the teachers have the energy to talk about loitering and time that could better be spent studying.
"I'm probably just coming down with something," Jimmy says, leaning against the wall. He hugs his extra books to his chest.
Stephen purses his lips. "You wanna go straight home?" he asks. When Jimmy raises both his eyebrows, Stephen flushes pink. He laughs, clearing his throat and choking on it some. "I mean -- for you, not me."
A group of people bump past them and Jimmy rearranges his books in his grip to keep from dropping them. "The meeting'll only last an hour. I can tough it out," he says.
The tilt of Stephen's head is doubtful.
"Besides, maybe it'll be interesting," he says. He smiles, perking up. "I saw Denis and he said it was going to be about college and stuff."
That makes Stephen roll his eyes and slump against the wall for a moment. Jimmy almost laughs, because he looks so pathetic, but Stephen hasn't really said anything about Jon going to college, so Jimmy's not going to go there if Stephen isn't ready to laugh about it.
"Jon can look after me if you're that worried and want to go home," Jimmy suggests. Jon and him hang out sometimes. Jimmy likes it, because Jon is pretty cool. Even though Jimmy's parents seem to think there's something weird about him hanging out with Jon when Stephen isn't around.
Stephen shakes his head. "No, I'll stay with you," he says. He sucks his lower lip between his teeth and hugs Jimmy again.
This time Jimmy has the presence of mind to hug him back, and rest his head on Stephen's shoulder for a moment. Stephen is hugging him so tight he doesn't even want to look up at the clock to see how much time has run out on them.
"I'll stay with you too," Jimmy says, and Stephen tightens his grip. Jimmy keeps his head on Stephen's shoulder, and Stephen doesn't seem inclined to move back to look at him, either. He wishes he were psychic, even though the other day he told Stephen his superpower would be flying. "Are you doing okay?" he asks, quietly.
That makes Stephen let go of him, and Jimmy regrets asking it in a flash that makes him feel guilty the second it's over.
"I don't wanna talk about it." Stephen takes Jimmy's hand as he speaks, which is the most confusing thing he's done all day, until he looks up at Jimmy and his eyes are watering a little. He sniffs. "But that's our whole problem, isn't it?"
Oh. Jimmy leans in and touches his forehead to Stephen's. "I'll… be around. If you want to talk to me after you talk to him."
"But you need to be there, too," Stephen says, his voice pitching up slightly. His grip on Jimmy tightens until it hurts.
"Okay, okay," Jimmy whispers, hugging Stephen again. "I promise I'll talk about school too. I promise I won't avoid it." Stephen sniffles into his neck, wetly, and doesn't make a move as the bell rings. Jimmy doesn't know if this should make him feel better or worse.
---
Janeane is contemplating the chunks of ice in her strawberry milk when Jimmy and Stephen sit down across from her. She pokes at some pink ice with her straw and looks up over the rims of her glasses at them. Stephen looks the same color as the milk, but Jimmy looks normal. Of course, Jimmy's eating a bag lunch and Stephen has … well, Janeane doesn't know what he has, but it's on one of the school's blue lunch trays.
"Did your table get overtaken?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.
The two of them normally sit in the courtyard, during the right weather, and it's not all that cold yet. Of course, the longer you keep sitting in the courtyard, the harder it is not to get stuck sitting on the cafeteria floor during the winter. And Janeane normally sits with Sam and Jason, but they're both out with mono this week.
Jimmy shakes his head. "We kinda wanted to ask your advice about something," he says, unrolling the top of his lunch bag.
Cautiously sipping her milk, Janeane keeps staring.
"And, uh, share the pleasure of your good company," Stephen adds, smiling shyly at her. It catches her off-guard enough that she actually laughs, and Stephen beams, shooting a little proud look at Jimmy.
Janeane shakes her head and rests an elbow on the table, poking her fork at the spaghetti and meatballs slumped on her tray. "I'm incredibly bored, so ask away," she says, yawning. Eating would probably help her be less tired.
"You should use your imagination to entertain yourself," Stephen says. Janeane snickers and he blushes a little, ducking his head. He pokes at his mystery food and clears his throat. "Sorry you got stuck in lunch without Jon and Denis, your last year."
"Bound to happen some year." Janeane shrugs.
But she never knew how boring twenty-five minutes of her day could be after having lunch with the two of them for three years running. No offense to Sam and Jason, but it's not the same. Especially when one or the other of them is always off doing makeup work in the library or working with a club.
Jimmy glances over at Stephen and bites into a sandwich. When he can talk again, he asks, "So … have you and Denis talked about, you know, college?" and Janeane thinks that's a weird way to ask her advice about, obviously, Jon.
"We've been doing applications together," she says, though. She breaks some ice up in her milk. "Talking about what cities we want to be in, mostly. He doesn't seem sure. I don't think he really knows what he wants to do yet."
The two of them share another look and Janeane wonders if they managed to develop that telepathy they'd talked about in middle school. "I think it'd be good to be in the same city as somebody you know," Stephen murmurs. "Even if you're not at the same school."
"Better than being alone," Janeane says. She tilts her head to one side and studies their faces for a moment. They both look mildly ill, though Jimmy's tearing into his sandwich anyway. "You know Jon's not finished with his applications, right? I know it's early for you two but you must have an idea of what kind of location you'd like to be in."
Stephen flushes strawberry-milk again and looks down at his tray. "Have you and Denis talked about what … what you'll do if you're not at the same school?" he asks. He picks up whatever's on his plate and dunks it in ketchup before nibbling at it.
Getting asked about it makes Janeane nervous in a way that not talking about it hasn't. She looks between the two of them again, but she can't read anything on their faces but worry. "No," she says, shifting her weight. "I mean. We're friends. We'll stay in touch."
At least, she had assumed they would. Before Jimmy and Stephen went and asked.
They both stare at her, and then Jimmy smiles a little. "I bet you'll end up going to the same school," he says, confidently, like it's supposed to reassure her. He even reaches over and pats the back of her hand.
Janeane stares at her milk. She's not hungry anymore.
Part Four