(no subject)

[gala_apples]

Title: Laughter And Fun: Must All Never Be Undone
Crossover: Bandom/Macdonald Hall
Pairings: Mikey/Gabe, past Mikey/Matt/Kim, Mikey/Boots, Gabe/Pete, Mikey/Gabe/Pete, Bruno/Boots, Cathy/Diane
Rating: nc17
Wordcount: 17 578
Warnings public sex, homophobia
Summary: After being expelled for having sex in a secluded stairwell Mikey and Gabe are sent to a Canadian boarding school. Gabe would point out to his parents that that isn't really a location likely to make them have less sex, but he'd like to avoid a worse alternative. Once they arrive he's glad he didn't mouth off. As it turns out, Macdonald Hall is just about the perfect place for an adventure filled senior year.
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission
Author's Notes: This was written for crossoverbigbang. A visual of Bruno and Boots can be seen here


Exam week sucks. There are many things Mikey knows to be true, and one such fact is both January and June exam week sucks ass. He’s confident that everyone else knows it to be true too. There can’t be a single person who actually enjoys the pressure of being seated in a gymnasium with five hundred other students and told they must remember every sentence they’ve been taught for the last five month, and if they don’t their future is likely ruined. It’s not a good scene.

It’s made worse by scheduling conflicts. With six classes a semester, every student in the school -except those with spares- will be writing two on one day at least once. Some poor bastards have two a day for three days straight. Mikey considers himself fairly lucky with four afternoon exams, two morning exams, and only one double day. Better off than Frank, anyway, with five mornings and a spare. Mikey doesn’t think well in the morning. Morning exams are from nine to eleven, with an extra half hour for those with accommodations like Nate, who takes longer to write with his opposing hand because his right wrist is broken. Afternoon exams are from one to three with the same half an hour give. If you’re unlucky enough to have one in both the morning and afternoon unless you have a car there’s no sense in leaving.

Mikey doesn’t have a car. He has a bus. Sometimes he has a Gerard. Rarely he’ll have a Mom or a Dad or an Elena. Normally he’s fine with that. The 77 route is a five minute walk from his house if he takes back lanes, ten minutes if he takes the sidewalk. It takes him everywhere relevant to his life. Days like today though he could really use the burden of maintenance and rising gas costs and worrying about whether or not some shithead is going to break a window and take his docking station.

A better option to being able to drive himself to sanity for a few hours would be one of his older friends whisking him away. Mikey has a whole handful of those. Gerard has always been three grades above him, and Ray’s the same, making them both sophomores in college. Gerard’s roommate Geoff is incredibly cool, Frank’s joked more than once that he wants to be like him when he grows up. Bob is a freshman. James is a senior in high school, but he’s already been accepted, and accepted their acceptance, so unless he bombs an exam bad enough to bomb a course and not have enough credits to graduate, his marks don’t matter. He’s probably not even studying. It’s only Mikey and Frank -the sole juniors- that have to give a shit. In a perfect world, one of his older friends would be illegally idling in the bus loop in a monster truck to take Mikey away to a land of unicorns and wrestling and Japanese anime. Unfortunately this is real life. Gerard and Geoff and Bob and Ray are probably doing crazy awesome grown up things, and Mikey is stuck surrounded by over five hundred peers, trying to demonstrate his reading comprehension to the best of his ability.

Ostensibly he’s got two hours to study, once he turns in the question sheet and the blue answer booklet in which you’re only allowed to write on one side of each sheet. What Mikey’s really got is two hours to read and reread his notes and not retain a word and start to have a panic attack because he can’t remember anything and become more and more certain he’s going to fail and flunk out of school and it’s just all very bad.

It’s also possible he’ll have to deal with Gabe trying to deal with him having a panic attack. More likely he’ll have an argument with Gabe because Gabe will be cramming and when Gabe panics he gets bitchy. Normally Mikey can deal with his bitchiness. Normally it’s fine because they don’t panic at the same stuff so they can mellow each other out. In this situation -Gabe bitching combined with Mikey stressing- things will almost certainly result in a fight. He’d like to take the opportunity to reiterate bad.

There’s only one thing Mikey can think to do that will make this end well. It’s sort of stereotypical teenage guy solution, but as Gerard once said about intelligent brunette virgins that survive to the end of the horror movie; stereotypes exist because they’re awesome enough that everyone wants them all the time. Of course there are situations where stereotypes are totally shitty, like adults thinking all kids who wear black want to blow up their schools, but stereotypes and cliches aren’t always bad.

There are four staircases from the basement to the main floor. Two lead from the east and west walls of the cafeteria to either side of the school, a third on the north wall goes directly outside. They’re what Mikey likes to classify the business staircases; the structures the school needs to legally have in case of a fire. Beyond that, there’s the one play staircase. It’s a recent add on. Still before Mikey’s time, but within the last ten years. It’s sole purpose is so the band kids have a door close to the band room so it sucks less to haul their instruments around. Mikey’s had secondhand accounts to prove he’s not the first to think of sex there. The difference is his exes fucked there in the time between final class rehearsal and that evening’s performance. Mikey is smarter than initiating something in the same location as sixty bored band kids.

Waiting for Gabe to exit the gym after finishing his own exam is easy, if boring. A cluster of teens form with him as everyone slowly trickles out, other people waiting for their friends. It’s easy to tell the valedictorians from the slackers, the former discussing what they thought the answers should have been, the latter discussing summer plans. Eventually there are the terrified faces of the special few that couldn’t finish their exam in the two hours and had to be told pens down. Gabe isn’t with them, and Mikey’s sure he didn’t miss him earlier. The only logical answer is Gabe must have finished before him. Which means he’ll be studying somewhere with his friends, no doubt being a total bitch about it. Mikey’s job just got harder. The wrong kind of harder.

***

Gabe is good at studying. It’s like gambling. The teacher is all the other players. They won’t tell you what’s on the test, but if you ask questions they’ve got tells you can read if you observe well enough. The other students are the onlookers standing around the table. They have opinions, but don’t affect your own game. The education system is the house, always in it to win. Gabe’s been playing poker with his dad and his dad’s friends since he was twelve. He knows how to gamble.

The gambling analogy only works when he considers himself, otherwise it’s more like a war. Gabe is a team player, a good soldier. The battle is only as won as the number of men left bleeding out on the field. Gabe’s mental stability is only as good as the weakest grade received. And from what he can tell, his friends all have fatal areas.

Ryland is sleeping in, no exams today, and Nate won’t come in until quarter to one for his. Probably in pyjama pants. He’s not much for dressing up if he doesn’t have to, and he’s the kind of guy that considers clean jeans and a shirt with buttons a high class wardrobe. It’s just him and Alex and Victoria against the world. Well, and like a thousand other students, but a soldier can’t worry about every member of the infantry. Gabe’s got Cobra Squad, and that’s more than enough to worry about.

Gabe has tried helping Alex study. It’s something akin to blowing off his own limbs with a RPG. For a boy that can juggle a list of thirty ingredients for his four course meal, he sure the fuck can’t memorise a list. And sociology is all lists, from levels of consciousness to the strands of retributivism.

And he’s not even trying anymore, he’s just sitting beside Victoria and eating.

“You’re not even trying anymore!”

“I can’t study and eat carrots and dip! I’ll get the dip on everything!”

“And trust me, it would be a huge waste to drip it,” Victoria interjects. “He made it himself.”

“You make everything for yourself, except list based anagrams. How hard is it to-”

“Gabe let’s go for a walk.” Gabe didn’t even see Mikey walking up to them, but there he is, interrupting him. He looks like he’s exploding out of his skin, and Gabe thinks he knows his boyfriend well enough by now to say that his mental state is exactly what his physical state seems. Mikey crumbles like a Styrofoam cup under pressure, and exams are second only to group projects in stressors in a teenager’s educational life.

Just because he can recognise the anxiety doesn’t mean he has time to deal with it. Calming Mikey down is going to take a while, and Gabe wants to be sure he’s got all his definitions lined up.“I’m studying, man.”

“He’s staging an intervention.” Victoria looks at him pointedly. Gabe’s seen that look before. Victoria is about three sentences away from throwing something at him. He knows from experience that she never cares what item it is, how expensive or how many sharp edges. She just lets it fly. Seeing as the only items she has with her are a bowl of jello and her binder, Gabe would like to avoid getting to that point.

“We all love you very much,” Alex adds.

Gabe follows Mikey down to the cafeteria, and then through the double doors that act as another sound barrier to the massive band room, choir room next door. Gabe’s heard the band. They should be in the bowels of the school. They finally stop at the landing of the band room’s private staircase. “An intervention, huh?”

“That’s what they called it.” Mikey emphasises they.

“Oh yeah? And what do you call it?”

“Therapeutic dick sucking.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I heard it’s the new Freud.”

Gabe is willing to test out that theory. He drop to his knees. The floor is a bit grimy, like the janitor doesn’t bother to come back here to mop. Gabe doesn’t blame the man. The only people that ever see it are the band and choir kids. Well, them and the occasional stoner that uses the staircase as a direct passage from the smoking area beside the student parking lot to the greasy french fries in the cafeteria.

Getting Mikey off first is sort of pointless. Mikeyway is a champion dicksucker, and more than that, he genuinely loves it. Nine times out of ten Mikey like sucking Gabe so much he gets hard from it, and then he needs a second blow or a handjob. But in all honesty, blowjobs are never pointless. He’d be happy to just go back and forth on blowjobs for the rest of his life, never doing anything else. As far as Gabe is concerned, there are only four places Mikey’s cock should ever be. His mouth, his hand, and his ass make the top three, submerged in water is the lagging fourth. For someone that looks so spindly, Mikey’s actually an impressive swimmer. He could easily take a job as a lifeguard somewhere, if the idea of holding someone’s life in his hands wasn’t too much pressure for him.

He fits his mouth perfectly, as always. The way Mikey’s cock matches his mouth proves there’s some sort of God, or fate, or destiny. Gabe grabs Mikey’s thighs to hold him in places instead of his ass because that’s what his boyfriend likes better, and goes to town. He does want his turn eventually, after all.

When he hears the door at the top of the stairs creak, he doesn’t stop. Nor does Mikey pull him off. Gabe smirks around Mikey’s cock, not that anyone can see it. Some stoner is about to get an eyeful. Hell, the stoner can even stay to watch. Gabe’s maybe got a thing for being watched. They can only join in if they’re really hot though, and if Mikey’s cool with it.

***


Mikey’s aware he probably looks like a drug dealer. He’s on the sidewalk outside a high school full of impressionable teenagers. He’s got an nondescript trenchcoat pulled tight around him, and he’s pacing as he waits for something other than a dial tone to come out of the cell phone pressed against his face. But it can’t be helped.

Finally he answers. Mikey thinks it’s a muzzy ‘whaa’, but he talks over him. “Gerard. I need you to come pick me up.”

“The fuck?” he replies in his I just woke up I can’t be expected to drive places in the morning tone.

Mikey understands the tone, really, he does. He doesn’t like being forced to do favours for people right after he wakes up either. Gerard got home for the summer a few weeks ago, and he adjusted to sleeping in until three within days. He halfheartedly offered to drive him to school until high school got out, but it didn’t take a genius to see he was really hoping Mikey would refuse, so he did. Mikey’s a good little brother.

Normally he’s fine with riding the bus. Today that’s not going to work. His iPod is dead and there’s no way he can make the meandering 45 minute bus trip in silence. Not with what just happened. Not with knowing that Gabe is stuck in a car with his father wherein he’ll be driven to his mother’s so they can yell at each other about who’s fault it is the other one’s son is so fucked up. Mikey knows Gabe hates when they refer to him as ‘your son’. Mom and Dad are going to be pissed, but at least they won’t attempt to repudiate him as their offspring.

“I seriously need you to pick me up.”

“You said-”

“Like right the fuck now. I’ve got Principal Watts glaring at me from the front door. I am literally not allowed on school property and I have no idea how long it’s gonna be until he decides that’s the sidewalk too and makes me stand in the middle of the street.”

To Gerard’s credit when he asks what the fuck happened he doesn’t expect an answer, or even wait for an answer. He just tells Mikey he’ll be right there and hangs up. Gerard’s one of the few people he knows that won’t talk on the phone while driving.

It seems like it takes his brother forever to arrive at the school. The entire time Principal Watts is standing just outside the front door, staring at him. Mikey’s not sure what he thinks he’s gonna do. Is he supposed to run up to the building and explode in a fountain of come beside it? Shit. If he could he would. It would be preferable to the discussions that are about to go down tonight.

When the car does pull to a stop, Mikey almost wants to sit in the back so he doesn’t have to look Gerard in the face. It’s weird, how getting caught makes you ashamed of actions you felt totally fine about committing. Sitting in the back seat will only make it feel more like an interrogation though. He slinks into the front seat and prays for once Gerard will notice a person’s body language and just leave him alone.

Gerard is physically incapable of leaving people alone. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing an exam?”

“Yeah. But exams are written on school grounds, so.”

“So they’re going to completely fuck up your GPA because of some mistake or whatever?”

Mikey sighs and scrunches down lower in the passenger seat. “It was kind of more than a mistake. I got expelled, Gee.”

“Okay, that’s okay. You’ll find another school to go to. It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, after Mom and Dad stop freaking out.”

“Yeah after that. But really, the important part is how are they settling things? It’s not fair that you’d miss credits from this afternoon and tomorrow’s exams. Did Watts tell you, or do Mom and Dad need to make sure you’ve got your student rights?”

Mikey could almost smile. It’s the difference between high school Gerard and university Gerard. Now that he’s surrounded by interest groups, he’s got all this activism bubbling up in him. It’s not that he’s changed his opinions on stuff. Mikey can’t ever remember a time where Gerard was interested in policing what women do with their bodies. It’s just now he tells the person they’re a moron for reasons a, b, c, and d directly to their face as soon as they state their moronic opinion, instead of waiting until he’s alone and muttering about it.

“He said he would send a teacher to the house and have him watch me write it, to make sure I’m not cheating.” Like he even would. Mikey might be inappropriate, but he’s not a cheater or a liar.

“Private tutoring is kind of skeevy.”

“You can sit on the counter and watch he doesn’t besmirch my fucking honor, okay?”

“So what happened to expel you?”

Nice neutral statement, Mikey wants to comment. He doesn’t. Tonight Gerard might be his only support. It won’t help, but it’ll be nicer. Being a jerk to Gerard only lowers his chances of being supported. “Basically, I guess some kids were stressed about the exams, and they were smoking up. Watts went to bust them and they took off in all directions. I guess he thought some might have went down the band stairs, because that’s where he went. Gabe and I were stressed about the exams, so we were. You know.”

“Relieving stress?”

Mikey doesn’t answer. It’s so fucking stupid, in hindsight.

“Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole-”

“Oh, go right ahead,” he replies grimly. It’ll give him a chance to prepare for the comments Mom and Dad are sure to have. They won’t be as brutal as the Saportas -or at least not as subtly hurtful- but it’s not going to be fun.

“Okay. So, sorry, but didn’t you learn your lesson? The exact same thing happened with Matt and Kim, right? Like literally the exact same thing?”

“No!” Gerard looks at him. Mikey amends “not quite. They did it waiting for a band concert. They had way more people in the direct area than we did. And lightning’s not supposed to strike twice in the same place!”

“I don’t think that metaphor is gonna save you.”

“Like I even told them it happened to Matt and Kim. I didn’t even tell them I was dating Matt and Kim.”

“They knew.”

“What?” There’s no way his parents knew he was dating a girl and a guy at the same time. Hell, he didn’t even tell Gerard until they were almost done the relationship.

“Mikey, everyone knew. You are not nearly as subtle as you think you are.”

“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to know their deviant son is at it again.”

“Mikes. My suggestion? Stop moping, and start thinking about what excuse you’re going to give that doesn’t sound like an excuse. And maybe try it out on Elena before you tell Dad.”

It sounds like a plan to Mikey. Besides, it’s not like either of them are home right now. They don’t even keep cell phones on their persons, which is how Mikey got away with his parents not coming to pick him up from the office.

She’s watching Jerry Springer when they get in. She keeps her eyes on the screen, and Mikey knows better than to say anything until a commercial. She beats him to it. “What’re you doing home so early?”

“Elena, I’m expelled. I got kicked out because my Principal was a homophobic douche. Okay, technically it’s because I was involved in a lewd and lascivious act on school grounds. But mostly it’s because my Principal is a homophobic douche.” Matt and Kim got suspended for sex and he and Gabe got expelled for sex. If that isn’t homophobia in action Mikey doesn’t know what is.

“So basically, you and Gabe were stupid, but your Principal was even more stupid, is what you’re telling me?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

She shrugs against the floral velvet. “Good enough for me. Don and Donna are gonna have more to say than me though.”

Fuck, he loves Elena. Seriously. Best grandma ever. “What’s this ep about?”

“Cousin fucking. Don’t fuck Joe, Mikey.”

Mikey splutters and shudders and wheezes as Gerard laughs and Elena smirks. Mikey loves his family. No matter what happens next Gerard and Elena will have his back. Mom and Dad too, once they get the shouting out of their system.

***

The ride home is a soup of silence, blasting air conditioning, and tension. Gabe doesn’t press his face to the glass and fog the window to draw a heart when they drive past Mikey at the end of the walkway, but he comes close. It’s impossible to say how long it will be until he gets to see his boyfriend again. They’re both in a lot of trouble.

Gabe doesn’t hazard an attempt until they’re home, and he’s hanging his keys on the magnetic hook on the fridge. “Dad-”

“No. I don’t want to discuss anything with you we haven’t talked about with your mother.”

Gabe is pretty sure that’s a direct lie. His father is going to spend the whole afternoon figuring out his solution, and then he’ll present it like a full, opt in package to Mom. It’s the way Dad is. It’s a large part of the reason they divorced. His calm control makes her feel oppressed, and her wild moods make him feel overwhelmed. Once they get into a cycle of Mom overacting to throw off his bonds, and Dad tying himself down tighter to try to fix the situation everything just gets uglier and uglier.

“What time is she off of work?”

“Six, I believe.”

That means it’s going to be an awkward four hours of silence. Gabe would like nothing more than to get this over with now. However, he has about a decades worth of experience in what happens if he pushes now. The outcomes are landslidingly bad. When he was six and he whined too hard for a bike he got his roller skates taken away. Considering he just got outed as a dicksucker in about the worst of ways, pushing would turn this really bad really quickly. Gabe would like to avoid being put in a Christian straight camp. He has no doubt his father would be willing to cross religious streams if he felt pushed to it. So he decides to keep his fucking mouth shut, until it’s more advantageous to use it.

“I’m going-”

“Go study in the dining room. Unless you would prefer spending two years at your next school, instead of one?”

His father also has a habit of rhetorical questions. In certain moods Gabe likes to answer them. As he passes him exiting the room he stays wisely mute.

The headphones he pops in his ears after he opens his binder eat some of the stiff silence. They also make him half deaf. It takes his dad pulling one out to get his attention. “Cell phone.”

“What?”

He doesn’t repeat the request, just continues. “I won’t have you making escape plans.”

What does he think this place is? Alcatraz? There are two doors in his house, and no iron bars or mile and a half swim to the street. If he really wanted to escape, if he didn’t care that he was burning bridges he’d just walk out, he wouldn’t need to make a plan with cohorts.

“Phone, Gabriel.”

Gabe scowls for effect. The loss of it doesn’t really matter to him. He’s got the cellphone from his previous plan somewhere in his closet if he suddenly becomes desperate. Besides, it’s not even two. Everyone he knows is writing an exam, except Ryland and Mikey. Somehow he thinks Mikey is busy.

Eventually he gets in the car again, for his second awkward drive of the day. There’s no hug at the front door, which isn’t surprising. He only gets hugs from Mom when he’s earned them. They take their shoes off, and Gabe assesses the situation. No matter how the next bit plays out, it’ll end with him in his room. He might as well show initiative and storm upstairs. It’s a false sense of control, but ask anyone in the placebo group if they minded their relief being false. Ethics of behavioural testing, just another thing he didn’t get to prove he knows.

It’s not long before he hears someone moving to the bottom of the stairs. It’s possible it’s Ricky or Paula, but he doubts it. If his mom hasn’t foisted them onto the neighbour, then they’re playing in the basement. His dad’s voice carries up to the second floor easily. “Gabe. Come downstairs.”

Well, that’s it. The eye of the storm has passed, and he’s about to be caught in a whirlwind of shit. It’s time to batten down the hatches.

His descent of the stairs is a lot slower than his climb was. Gabe uses the time to brace himself. At this point of the proceedings, it’s more important he pick a good entry for speaking than what he says. If he waits until they explain everything, they’ll consider it a done deal and won’t listen to any objections. If he starts too early they’ll accuse him of being stubborn. Unfortunately needing to jump in at the exact right moment means he needs to actually listen to all the things they’re saying. It’s a painful proposition.

The proper place to object comes up soon enough. Gabe doesn’t have a complicated retort. He doesn’t need one. All he needs is to repeat his dad’s plan. It’s ridiculous enough that hearing it out of someone else’s mouth should jolt him into sanity. “You’re going to try to cure me of being a fag by sending me to an all boys sleep away school. In Canada.”

Sometimes Gabe doesn’t understand how his father’s brain works. He’s not sure he could think of a location more likely to produce a massive amount of consensual gay sex.

“Yes.”

It hurts a bit, that Dad doesn’t tell him to not call himself a fag. But really, what was he expecting? It’s not like his parents are tolerant. There’s a reason he didn’t come out when he started dating Mikey.

“Diego, don’t say that. Gabe isn’t a fag.”

“He was caught having intercourse with another boy.”

Before Gabe can protest that it totally wasn’t intercourse, he was just sucking dick, his mom answers his dad. “Right?” She says it so certainly, like she’s just expecting his confirmation. “I don’t know how your father could think- No, no. You’ve dated girls.”

“Yeah, I’m bi.” Well, pansexual really. There’s this really hot trans person at school, Jeffree, that he’d totally date if he wasn’t with Mikey. But that’s an explanation for a different time.

“So you can go back to dating girls then!”

“No, I’m with Mikey.”

“But he’s not a girl!”

Gabe isn’t a praying kind of guy. He can’t even remember the last time he went to synagogue. But if he were, he’d pray that Mikey is having an easier time of this than he is. No one deserves this.

***

can i come over?

Mikey looks at the text. He’s not sure what to do with it. He can’t remember the last time anyone he cared about asked to come over. They just show up. Hell, even Kim and Matt sometimes randomly show up and Mikey lets them in without a problem. Unlike Gerard, who tends to go for batshit girls, Mikey’s still cool with his exes. Matt is not the setting pictures on fire while sobbing kind of guy.

He squints at it, like that’ll tell him why Gabe is asking something so strange. It doesn’t help. At a loss, he just sends back yeah free whenever

Gabe rings the doorbell an hour later, and that’s new too. Mikey doesn’t like it. He storms down the stairs, preparing himself to ask his boyfriend why he’s distant all of a sudden. It’s the plan right up until the door is open, and he’s pulling Gabe’s lank body in for a hug. It’s only a second until Gabe is hugging back.

“I still like you.”

Fuck. His parents must have been worse than Mikey had thought, if whatever they said made Gabe doubt things. For an instant he hates the Saportas more than he’s ever hated anyone before. Then he remembers what’s important; making sure Gabe is proud. Not just bravado proud, but truly likes himself and knows every person that doesn’t is an asshat.

“I like you too.” The words are against Gabe’s collarbone, but he’s sure he hears them. Hears everything else in the words too.

“So,” he says, pulling away with a slightly more real smile on his face, “wanna eat popsicles or something? It’s stupid hot outside. It’s June, what the fuck.”

“It’s a five minute walk, suck it up dude.”

“It’s ten minutes. Not everyone wants to get shanked in your creepy ass back lane.”

“All the grape are gone. That’s Gerard’s favourite. But I think we still have orange and cherry?” Mikey heads to the kitchen, Gabe following behind him. At least until Mikey enters the kitchen and skirts past Mom making herself a cup of coffee. When Mikey pulls the coated in ice yellow box out of the freezer triumphantly and turns around to brandish it, Gabe’s still in the doorway.

“Cherry or orange?”

“Um. Mrs Way, can I have one of your popsicles?”

“I don’t care. Have ten.”

“Thank you, Mrs Way. Mikey told you I was coming over right? I wouldn’t just come without permission. I know how rude that is.”

“Gabe, relax. You’re acting like this is your first time here. And we all know that’s not true, since you did get expelled for screwing. And if it is true I don’t want to know. In my mind my son doesn’t put out on the first date.”

Mikey works to keep the flush of embarrassment off his face, but it’s really not that bad. At least her words have gotten him to smile.

“Cherry or orange. Tell me or I’m just pulling one out.”

“Orange then.”

Mikey grabs a handful and tries to see through the white paper. It’s always easiest to tell the purple ones, which is how they disappear as soon as there’s a new box in the freezer. Once he pulls two orange out he puts the box away. Mikey wants to taste the same as Gabe when they start making out.

Mikey takes Gabe to his room and closes the door. Gabe seems shocked. It can’t be by the messiness, he’s seen it all before, and Gabe’s bedroom at his mom’s house isn’t much better. It’s not any of the trippy posters either, Mikey went on that shopping spree a month ago.

“What?”

“You closed it?”

It takes him a second to realise what he’s talking about. “We don’t have an open door with significant others policy, you know that. You have been here before.”

“When it was just your grandma, not your parents. And they know!”

“It’s not like she’s got dementia, and that’s why she allowed it. No one cares. Hell, they probably think better to give us a space here before we find somewhere else public.”

“Hah fucking hah.” They both take their first bites of popsicle, and around a mouthful of orange ice Gabe asks “you sure your mom is okay with me coming over?”

“Did she look bothered? Because trust me, Gabe, neither of my parents have a poker face. They’re like these crazy little supernovas or something. Big explosion of gassy rage that fucks up everything around it, but settles down in a few minutes or hours, and everything’s cool again. if she wanted to tell you to get the fuck out, she would have told you to get the fuck out.”

“So you’re sure then.”

Mikey stares at him. “What is your deal?”

“I just want to spend a lot of time here, before September.”

“Why?”

“Come September I’m gonna be in a boarding school in Canada.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

Gabe shrugs and takes another bite. “I guess they were having problems finding a good high school in this country?”

Apart from the sarcasm, Mikey knows his are having the same problem. The other main school in this area is private, and Catholic. They can afford the tuition, even though it’s stupidly high. The money isn’t the issue. The issue is all five Ways know he’s going to end up dumped on the sidewalk within a week. Someone will say something ignorant, it’s a given. He might not get fistfight angry, but he’ll say something back. Most likely equally offensive, possibly with an atheist slant. Inevitably either a teacher will overhear or some true believer will rat him out. The virtual impossibility of a religious school leaves a school elsewhere, or homeschooling. Gerard votes for the latter, pretty vocally in fact. That, to be frank, is probably the clincher against it. Mikey’s already close enough to Gerard’s basementy habits of DnD and computer games and poor hygiene, his parents don’t really want to encourage it more by providing him with a educational environment in which he never needs to leave the house or get dressed.

“Good idea.” He hears Gabe ask what’s a good idea, but he doesn’t stop to explain, just hustles down the hall. All four of them are in the living room, watching Elena’s Jerry Springer.

“Since you’re planning on paying the private school fee, and Ill get kicked out-”

“Mikey-”

“It’s not a threat. I’m not being dramatic. It’s just we all know I will. But what if you paid a little more to get me an experience I can write college apps about?”

Dad sounds a bit skeptical when he asks “what’s that?”

“Canada.”

“What?” Gerard’s not skeptical, just confused.

“I want to go to boarding school in Canada.”

***

“I vote Nate never gets to drive again. All in favour?”

Gabe raises his arm to Victoria’s proposition. “Aye.”

“It’s his car,” Alex points out.

“Dude, if it was his crack pipe, would you still let him use it however he wanted?”

Nate laughs. He’s pretty used to them ragging on his driving. Gabe wouldn’t bitch if he thought it would upset him, unless he really meant it.

Ryland shakes his head. Gabe’s not sure he’s just not working out the whiplash until he says “when Nate drives we have adventures. It makes life more fun, that he doesn’t know his right from his left.”

“It also cuts in to the time until closing time.”

That Nate objects to. “Oh come on. There are seven water slides. We don’t need to be here six hours.”

“Need? No. And Ryland doesn’t need his awesome sunglasses, and Gabe doesn’t need his new fluorescent swim trunks, and Alex doesn’t need to have four kinds of cheese-”

“Five.”

“Five in the sandwiches he brought. And hell, I guess I don’t need to be by far the hottest of all of us. But it’s all part of the experience just as much as riding the same seven water slides for the six hours this place is open is.”

“Technically it opens at nine.”

“Summer starts at noon, what planet are you from?”

Once again, Gabe agrees with Victoria. There’s something very wrong with the world if any student sees any am hour. Unless of course they’re staying up to it. That’s totally fine. And to slide down the checklist, Alex’s waterpark catering is sure to be delicious, Ryland’s glasses are brilliantly tacky and hideously glam, and Victoria is so hot Gabe would lust after her in a second if he didn’t know she could kick his ass.

Most importantly, his swim trunks are amazing. He plans on wearing them as often as he can. Not too hard a proposition, his friends love the water. Even Mikey can be harassed into joining them sometimes, although he’d dress in 1920s bathing clothes if Gabe let him. He’s an indoor pool kind of guy. Gabe’s not sure what the sun and the Way brothers did to piss each other off, but they’ve never reconciled. Sunburns and long sleeve shirts abound.

“To Miss We’re Wasting Time, I suggest we have this argument while we’re standing in line. Wouldn’t want to waste more time.”

“I suggest you suck my dick.”

“No no. That’s Gabe’s job.” Nate answers loudly over the sound of all four doors slamming.

“Gabe is dating someone.” Sometimes it’s fun to refer to yourself in third person. “And I don’t know if Mikey would be up for Victoria with a strap on.”

“Up for, or up for?” Alex asks with a leer in his voice.

“Dunno. Why don’t you text him and ask?” Gabe doesn’t care if he does. It’s not like Mikey will be offended. Alex won’t though. Of the five of them, he’s the least likely to follow through with dares and bets and other stupid shit. Some would call it a character strength, some a character flaw.

The line isn’t as long as it should be for July. Maybe there’s a storm coming in, and Gabe’s wasting the money he’s slapping down on the plastic counter. None of them are hurting for allowance though. Two good hours of stupidly high life risking water slides is worth the entry fee. The loaf of bread sized lockers are five bucks extra, after a brief consult they decide to get two. The waterproof wristbands curl around their wrists, and they’re set.

Gabe loses everyone, somehow, between the fifteenth and seventeenth inner tube ride. He blames it on the long pebbly walkways that precede the final individual staircases. Victoria can handle running up them, the soles of her feet are immune to little pains like rocks after enduring high heels day in and day out. He and Ryland have a long enough gait that they can go up the stairs two at a time, but Ryland’s a total sissy about the walkways, and will only walk along the edges where the stone meets the fake grass. Alex is probably on one of the steeper slides you’re not allowed to use tubes on. He always claims that having a layer of plastic between his ass and the water slows him down. He doesn’t seem to understand the obvious fact; that if the tube hits the pool wrong -or right, depending on definition- you get to go flying like a skipping stone.

Gabe has confidence that they’ll find each other eventually. Still, once he spots Nate he modifies his stair running style to stick with him. Group fun days are more fun when you’re with at least part of the group.

After the twentieth splash into the pool Nate declares he’s momentarily had enough. They go to the locker bank for a nice, shaded rest. All the other areas are in the glaring sun as much as the pools are. The locker Alex and Ryland are sharing has the sandwiches, but he and Nate both have their phones. Among other things, they’ve both got the Words With Friends app. Nate threatens to stomp him into the bright green astroturf, and then it’s on.

When Victoria and Alex and Ryland join them, they’re still playing. They declare a mid-game draw to devour Alex’s food. Everyone is appreciatively silent, savouring the crisp cheddar, and other kinds Gabe doesn’t even recognise.

It’s not until they’re digesting that Ryland speaks up.

“I still don’t see why you can’t come back. Couldn’t you go to the school board? You know, tell them to back off ‘cause he’s being homophobic or whatever? Everyone knows about Mikey’s exes doing the same thing with no consequences. You could threaten to sue.”

“Nah. I mean I don’t know if our school has a gay straight alliance, but it’s not like they could challenge it anyway.”

“But you could get, like, a gay straight lawyer.”

Gabe thinks it’s a nice try on Ryland and Nate’s part, but it just isn’t feasible. “Uh, I don’t know if anyone here has ever read the school’s Code of Conduct-”

“Did that come with our schedules because I lost mine like thirty times.” They’re all aware of this, they’ve each had a few experiences with Ryland frantically asking what class he’s supposed to go to. It’s kind of astounding when as late as May Ryland doesn’t know what class he has next if he doesn’t have that paper, but they roll with it.

“They gave it to us when they gave us the school blueprint freshman year.”

Nate cackles, “dude, that was gone from Ryland’s binder like twenty years ago than.”

“Well as it turns out, a grand total of no sex is allowed on school grounds. Bringing up hypocrisy would only get Kim and Matt in trouble. Mikey wouldn’t want to do that to them.”

“But why do you have to leave leave? Why can’t it be a boarding school in New York?”

“Because that would be expensive as shit, and it wouldn’t punish Gabe for being the unholy evil that is bisexual.”

“Thanks.”

She rolls her eyes. “If I wanted to eat vag, I’d have no problem with it. I don’t, but I wouldn’t care if I did, and I really don’t care what orifice you’re into. I’m not saying you are evil, I’m saying your dad is an idiot.”

“Thanks.” It’s a different tone as Gabe repeats the word. If only they were coming with him. Never mind that Victoria’s a girl, and that Nate’s family wouldn’t have that kind of money, Gabe still wants them to be with him at Macdonald Hall.

***

There are a few reasons Gabe is driving. Some of them can be explained to parents and friends and the border patrol. The most important reason is private.

It is Gabe’s car, but that isn’t really the point. Gabe’s not fanatical about driving his own vehicle. Mikey would bet he doesn’t even want the car, not with what the ‘gift’ stands for. The school is a fair distance from town if Gabe needs anything, but that’s not the reason his parents gave it to him, even if that’s what they claim. In reality it’s a two fold thing. His parents didn’t send him on a plane because they didn’t want to waste money on the disappointment child and Gabe didn’t argue because it wouldn’t change their minds. It’s a lot easier to give the piece of shit five hundred dollar car to Gabe and tell him to have a nice life than it is to try and understand him.

Gabe is a more experienced driver. Over the summer Mikey got his license, mostly to make the adults around him shut up about getting his license. Gabe’s had his more than three weeks.

Gabe is also better suited to driving. He’s got perfect eyesight. He’s able to multitask things like listening to the music, texting, and keeping his eyes on the road. He remembers to look in the mirrors.

Ownership, experience and quality are all technically legitimate reasons for Gabe occupying the driver’s seat. The real reason Gabe is driving the full length of this journey -eight hours and thirty four minutes if Google Maps has it right- is because it helps the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. If Gabe drives when he’s stressed the road rage takes over. It gives him the chance to bark at everyone on the road for sucking rather than deal with the shit in his head. Knowing that your family has exiled you and having no idea what the future will bring are stressors, but being able to call the person in front of you going ten miles per hour too slow a jackass helps.

Gabe pulls into a hotel parking lot after driving for four hours. They’re somewhere near Syracuse, which means three more hours until the border, and then two more to the school. Mikey doesn’t question it. He’s had practice being a great passenger; jerks don’t get offered rides a second time. He isn’t a backseat driver, map handler, or time keeper. The only way he might be considered annoying is that he’s an anarchist against the ‘driver picks the cd’ and ‘the driver decides which gas station to pull into’ laws. The first law irks him because some people have no idea what the classics are. Every road trip must include at least one play of Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music White Boy. The second he rebels against because some gas stations don’t have their own no-name brand of slushie. He cannot be expected to be in a car for more than twenty minutes without a slushie.

After securing a room -at four pm they don’t have to wait for a room to be cleaned, they only have to get their key- they take the elevator up to the eleventh floor. They put down their bags and Gabe goes to the bathroom. Mikey flops down on the bed without moving the sheets back. When they used to go on family vacations he’d usually sleep on the comforter. Gerard hated it but Mikey would whine enough that he’d give in and rearrange the sheets for him. He still likes how it feels, how easily you can roll over on the slick blankets.

Gabe comes out of the bathroom. There’s no flush, so either he didn’t bother to flush, or he didn’t use the bathroom for that reason. Mikey is leaning towards the second option, especially when he walks past Mikey and flops on the second bed without saying anything. He wants to believe it’s not a sign. Normally Mikey doesn’t even believe in signs. This whole thing just has him off kilter. He read somewhere that moving is the third most traumatic thing, after death and divorce. He always thought that was silly. Putting your shit in a box, taking it a few streets away, and taking it out of the box couldn’t be that bad. Maybe it’s just that he’s hopping countries, not districts, but Mikey feels off.

Apparently Gabe feels worse.

Mikey waits for a bit for his boyfriend to speak up. Anything from snapping to sniffling, any reaction is an in that he can use. But Gabe just lies stiffly on the other bed, hands balled in fists, staring at the popcorn stucco ceiling. Finally he just asks, hoping he’ll get an answer. “Gabe, will you tell me what’s wrong? I’m not saying I can fix it, but-”

“This is my fault. It’s my fault like five times over. I got stressed enough that you had to have sex to shut me up, I didn’t pull off in time for plausible deniability, I told you where I was going instead of shutting the hell up, and when you said you were coming I got excited. And I can tell you already don’t want to here and it’s only been four hours. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry.”

It’s almost fascinating, in a electroshock therapy sort of way, how Gabe can bounce between being completely immoral and thinking everything ever is his fault.

“The sex was mutual because we were mutually stupid. But I don’t regret this choice.”

“You were sad in the car.”

“I was thinking of Gerard.” That’s probably a huge part of what makes this feel weird. Knowing that he won’t see Gerard and his sketchbook and dirty clothes every few weeks is kind of fucked up.

“You can’t possibly tell me you won’t miss him.”

“No. Fuck, of course I can’t. But realistically? Gerard, James, Ray and Bob are all in university, and Frank goes to the Catholic school. I wouldn’t see them every day if I stayed home anyway. Conversely, I wouldn’t have seen you at all. I want to be with you. Even if we’re not dating, I want to be your friend. And really, what’s dating except having sex with your friend? I can’t see not wanting to have sex with you any time soon.”

Gabe rolls over to look at him. “Really? That’s what you think dating is?”

“You think something different?”

“No, not really. The person you’re with should be your best friend. Except, then why didn’t it work with you and Matt and Kim? I know you’re still friends with them.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I mean you don’t talk about them as much as James or Frank or Gerard, but I figured that was the ‘don’t talk about your ex to your current’ thing.”

“No. Don’t care. If you’ve been doing that about Bianca, talk away.”

Gabe shrugs against the slick comforter. She wasn’t as nice a break up as Mikey had. “But if dating is fucking your friends, and Matt and Kim are still your friends?”

“They were best friends, I was just a friend. Like if Ron and Harry went to Padma Patil or Ernie MacMillan. Even if Ron was with Padma first, the triad will never be even.”

“But you think it could be?”

Mikey smiles. “One break up didn’t sour me on polygamy as a concept. Ron and Harry just need their-”

“Draco?”

“Are you kidding me?” Mikey grins as he says it though. If they can argue about Draco’s redemption arc Gabe must be a little better.

***

It’s been farm land on either side of the highway for a while, and then all of a sudden there are two schools. Gabe drops to about ten miles an hour trying to figure out if it’s just a sprawling campus. According to the website his dad quoted at him Macdonald Hall only hosts seven hundred students, this much school seems a bit showboaty. “Is it both of them?”

“No. That one says Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Girls,” Mikey answers, pointing.

“A boarding school for girls beside a boarding school for boys? I hope Canada has sex ed.”

The first sign that things are different here is that there’s no student parking lot. Apparently in a school of seven hundred, none of the students have their own car. At Washington approximately half the students old enough to have a car did. They end up parking in the visitor’s lot. It’s that or the long driveway.

It’s a good walk in, the lot being beyond the football stadium. Gabe’s no lightweight, but when you ask a person to fill a suitcase with everything they need for a year, it’s gonna be a heavy bag. “Good thing we don’t need our own furniture.”

“Fuck.” Mikey replies, emphatically. Mikey’s brought, like, books and manga and stuff. Hardcovers weigh more than clothes.

“Where do we need to go?”

“One ten, I think.”

“No, it was three something.”

“Uh, no.”

They both put down their bags to check the packets sent out a few days ago. More accurately, received a few days ago, both packets were marked as being sent a month ago. Clearly Gabe won’t be sending letters home. The paperwork proves they’re both right. Mikey’s in 110, Gabe’s in 317.

“Oh my god. They put me in the wrong room.” Gabe’s voice gets steadily louder as he waves the crumpled paper pulled from the registration packet. “Oh my god this is bullshit. This can’t stand! They put me in the wrong room!”

“Yeah, they did that to me too one year. Put me with Elmer, if you can believe it. His world is not my world. And Boots with George. I really don’t know what Sturgeon was thinking.”

Gabe whirls around to see a guy probably around his age. He’s shorter than him, but then nearly everyone is. Thicker too. He’s got the classic hockey player build, not that Gabe watches hockey, or any sport, really. If Gabe had to group him he’d guess indie-stoner, between the shaggy dark brown hair, and the orange and brown striped shirt, and feeling comfortable commenting on a stranger’s conversation.

“Well this is shit, I’m not putting up with it.” He’s been exiled to a different country, he’s not doing it without Mikey. “Where do I go to protest?”

The guy smiles a huge grin. “This year’s gonna be fun,” he says almost under his breath. “Put your stuff in your room, and I’ll take you to the Fish.”

“Your advisor is the fish? Mine’s the Cobra.”

The guy looks a bit confused but doesn’t stop smiling. Either it’s the stoner in him, not surprised at being confused, or the indie in him not wanting to appear affected by others.

“His spiritual advisor. He tripped balls and saw a giant cobra and now he thinks he’s a prophet or some shit.”

Mikey says it with affection. He’s allowed to mock Gabe about it, they’re dating. Gabe still has to tune him up a little. “Hey, don’t you go being a non believer in front of stranger. The Cobra hates wishy washy brethren.”

“Yeah, this year is gonna be good.”

Trying to get the conversation back on track, Gabe asks the important question. “How did you fix it?”

“The roommate thing? Saved the life of an ambassador’s son.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Not the kind of thing that happens twice,” Mikey comments dryly.

“Just come hang out with us in the rec room for a bit and everything will be okay. It’s Macdonald Hall, after all, everything is always okay.”

That sounds very idealistic. “Are you being paid to make this place seem happy?”

“What? No. I love the shit out of this place. Me and Boots and the guys just go out of our way to preserve the sanctity of Macdonald Hall. Everything gets better eventually.”

The rec hall turns out to be around the back of the football stadium. Bruno tells them a highly unlikely story about Manchurian bush hamsters nesting underneath the stands on the way. Even though Gabe doesn’t really believe him, he’s fond of the art of bullshitting, and listening carefully almost takes away the pain of the canvas handles of his bag cutting into his hands.

Once inside Bruno takes them directly to a cluster of armchairs. There are only two left empty. Bruno takes one. Gabe looks around for the nearest chair to steal -there are a bunch of tables across the room- but Mikey sits on one arm of the armchair and he has to quickly sit on the other to distribute the weight before the chair tips.

“Guys, this is Gabe and Mikey. They’re new. Boots still not here?”

“Guess not. He’d know to come here first.”

A fat guy frowns around a soft pretzel. “What’s wrong with them? I mean, don’t get offended, but Bruno isn’t known for being normal. And he never invites someone to our group, it’s always us being told to recruit. There’s probably something wrong with you.”

Gabe shrugs and looks at the group. “We’re normal to us, but not everyone is us, right?”

Bruno grins. He says ‘well said’ the same moment with a guy with hair so black it’s almost blue mutters ‘that’s what we’re afraid of’. Gabe chooses to listen to Bruno. He’s got a good attitude.

Still smiling, he introduces the guys. Black hair is Larry, the one with marker stains on his hands is Chris, the one with ink stains is Mark, the fat one is Wilbur, and the redhead covered in bruises is Sidney. Just as he finishes a lighter shade of brunette -the kind where you can’t tell if the blond is streaked brown, or brown streaked blond- walks in. He doesn’t seem particularly special on first look, but Bruno is immediately taken. He stands and rushes to the other side of the room to envelop the guy in a hug.

“That would be Boots,” Chris tells him. “they’ve been best friends since they were twelve.”

Gabe sees more than best friends in the hug, but he’s willing to admit he could be wrong. Just because this country has gay rights doesn’t mean everyone here is gay, that’s just Republican horsecrap. Still, might as well lay his values down first thing. No sense in being friends for a month before he finds out they’re straight edge and he needs to dump them for saner people. When they rejoin the group, both of them on armless padded computer chairs, Gabe slips onto the abandoned armchair so he can be comfortable and announces “you should all join my church. It’s the church of hot addiction.”

“Will it upset the sanctity of Macdonald Hall?” Mark asks sarcastically.

“It shouldn’t,” Gabe says serenely.

“Boots, we can totally do that, right? A church isn’t on the list right?”

A text comes in from Mikey. It’s just one word bob, but Gabe knows what he means. Boots has the same look that Bob gets around Frank, a combination of platonic love and extreme aggravation.

“Oh. Guess I should explain. We made two awful teachers fall in love so they’d honeymoon and leave us alone. But we maybe got a bit too enthusiastic because the Fish banned us from, what was it?”

“Committees, coalitions, associations, unions, organisations, clubs, syndicates, conferences, brotherhoods, interest groups, lobbies, societies, commissions, and task forces.”

“Yeah, all of those. He just rattled them off in a list, then said it was the most enforced rule from then on.”

“He’s kind of a buzzkill then.” Gabe was hoping to not go from Watts to Watts 2.0.

“Yeah, but Mrs Sturgeon’s awesome. She started this prank war last year, when he was getting all extra curmudgeonly.”

“So what’s your church believe?”

“You know. Have fun, do shit. We believe that god has lust for everything.”

“It’s a good stance on life.” Mikey adds blandly.

“You made two of your teachers get married?” Gabe wants details, something he’s sure Bruno’s willing to give.

“Well, it wasn’t just us. Miss Scrimmage’s girls helped too. They’ve got these two girls, Cathy and Diane, who are basically Bruno and Boots with girl parts. And they-”

“Oh God, Mark. Stop. You’re telling it wrong.”

“I run the newspaper, Bruno. I know how to tell a damn story!”

“Yeah, like a journalist. You leave out the heart, because it’s more important to match wordcount. So Gabe, basically...”

Some untold time later -Gabe doesn’t know how long, just knows he’s got dried spit on his wrist from wiping his mouth after laughing so hard he was drooling- two guys come walking in, interrupting Bruno’s further stories about Wizzle and Peabody. The taller of the two looks crestfallen, and sort of dazed. Like a sad stoner, or something. “They roomed us again. It’s like they want to confuse our visitors.”

Larry laughs. “I think we can handle it.”

Boots points. “That’s Pete, and Wentz.”

“First Elmer, then Wilbur, then Wentz. Canadian parents must have it out for their kids.”

Wilbur says something around his sandwich that Gabe can’t understand, even though he’s had probably an hour of practice. Since they’ve been seated, Wilbur hasn’t stopped eating. Gabe’s beginning to think he has a compulsion.

“Wilbur said he’s proud of his name. He had to fight Wizzle for it, Wilbur Hackenschleimer was too long for Wizzle’s data system and he forced him to shorten it to Hacken for a while.” Gabe doesn’t need to understand chipmunk cheeks speech to know that Wilbur’s calling him something nasty.

“Wentz is his last name. He’s Pete Wentz, but Pete’s been here since we were all twelve, and Wentz came when we were fourteen, so Pete’s got dibs on being Pete.”

don’t tell them I’m Way

It only takes a second for Gabe to figure out why. If they decide to go the nickname route like Wentz or Boots and start calling him Mikeyway he’s just gonna get homesick. Crying because he wants Gee is not fun, nor is it a good first impression.

***

Mikey keeps meaning to suggest they dump their stuff off in their temporary rooms, then go find Mr Sturgeon and convince him to rearrange things. At least a dozen times he decides he’ll bring it up at the next pause in storytelling, only to get interested in the story that is prompted by some detail in the last story. Most of these guys have been boarding since they were in junior high. From kidnapping cats to creating earthquake machines, six years builds up a lot of interesting stories.

Before he knows it it’s dinner time and Wilbur is carrying all four of their suitcases out of the rec hall like it’s nothing. Pete sees him looking. “He carried a piano, once.” Okay, so apparently four suitcases is nothing.

Seeing his unquenching appetite it’s not particularly shocking when Wilbur goes straight to the dining hall instead of dropping their bags off. Once Mikey smells something they inform him is poutine he’s suddenly happy to eat dinner first. Everyone manages to fit at one table, a few that weren’t in the rec hall joining them. Mikey’s particularly interested in Elmer. With the glasses and crew cut he doesn’t look like the kind of guy that would set off a lazer and klaxxon alarm system just to meet his crush. On the other hand, Frank looks cute and childlike to most adults, and he’s dirty mouthed as hell.

They split up, after. Bruno, Boots, Larry and Gabe are in dorm three. Mikey follows them, even if he should be going with Mark, Sidney, and Elmer to dorm one. Even if he can’t stay tonight, he wants to see the room they’ll one day both be living in.

“317? I guess you’ll be living with Aiden...something. Montrose, maybe? Do me a favor and piss him off.”

“Uh, okay?” Mikey probably won’t. He made the choice to get a student visa and come here, he doesn’t want to get suspended in his first week.

Boot looks distinctly pissed off as he continues “George might have been a money centric snobby bastard, but at least he was full of disdain, not hate.”

“Fear not, Boots,” Bruno answers. “Maybe this is the year they kick his ass out.”

They find 317 and say goodnight. It’s only eight, but they’ve been informed that curfew is at ten. If Mikey needs to be in his room and settled enough to turn off the lights by then, there probably won’t be enough time to visit Bruno and Boots in their room. Opening the door it’s pretty basic; two beds, two desks, two closets. If anything it’s a slightly upper class college dorm, not a military-esque barrack. There’s drywall instead of white cinderblock, and the room has its own bathroom. Half the room is already occupied; the bed against the window has a tiger blanket on it, and there are a few posters of shitty bands like Creed and Thousand Foot Krutch on the wall beside the window.

“You wanna put yours up?” It’s gonna take a while to put up the rasterbation Gabe printed off before they left, but Mikey doesn’t mind. Nothing like a five foot tall face of Justin Timberlake to combat Christian rock.

“No, not yet. Maybe I won’t be staying here.”

“We can hope.”

Mikey still unzips Gabe’s suitcase and helps him start hanging up his shirts. Gabe is surprisingly picky about his clothing being wrinkled. Mikey couldn’t care less about his, but he doesn’t mind helping his boyfriend fix his things. They’re still transferring his jeans to the small dresser when Aiden comes in. They all introduce themselves, and then Aiden grabs his pyjamas and a towel and ducks into the bathroom. It’s a move Mikey doesn’t really understand. Why shower just before bed? Going to bed dripping and making the entire pillow have a wet spot doesn’t sound good to him.

“I should probably go back. Find my own room.”

“Don’t make friends with your roommate. You won’t be with him long.”

Mikey wants to believe that Gabe’s right, but he can’t really. Ambassador’s sons don’t come along every day, and look how well they did with their last attempt of trying to make a principal see reason. Instead of letting Gabe see his doubt, he pulls Gabe to sitting on the unmade bed for a kiss.

He loses time for a bit after that. He hears the roar of the water going from showerhead back to tap, but he doesn’t pay it much attention. It’s a far secondary sound to the rush of blood in his ears. Mikey doesn’t hear much of anything until the vaguely accented voice interrupts them. “I really don’t want that in my face.”

“Okay, then can you go away for five minutes? I’m just saying goodnight.” Mikey thinks it’s a reasonable request. It’s not like he’s telling Aiden to go hide in the bathroom right until curfew.

“No. This is my room.” The shut down answer is coupled with Aiden sitting on his bed and pulling back the blanket. He lounges with a novel in his hand; Where The Red Fern Grows. Mikey’s dislike instantly quadruples. That was the worst book he ever read, and this guy is reading it on purpose. It’s a sign of bad character, just as much as the rudeness.

Gabe looks at Mikey. Mikey shrugs, sure he knows what Gabe is thinking. It’s not like he has a problem with public displays of affection. And really, this guy has brought it upon himself. Gabe swings himself over until he can plant a leg on either side of Mikey and start kissing him again. It’s a showier kind of kiss, more head movement than necessary and louder noises. The kind you do at a club, when you’re confirming to all the teenagers around you that you know you have the best catch in the room, and you’re going to devour him whole.

“Ugh!” The guy scrambles off his bed.

“We’re not gonna stop. In fact, we’re gonna get progressively gropier. So, maybe you should fuck off for five minutes.”

Aiden bolts into the hall without bothering to close the door. Something Mikey’s learned in his few hours at Macdonald Hall is the students -or at least the guys they were hanging out with- are nosy as fuck. As Aiden keeps making offensive retching noises, half the dorm sticks their heads out the door.

“I knew the roast beef looked wrong.”

“I think I’m gonna puke. I always puke when other people puke.”

“Maybe he read the wrong bible, and now he’s possessed!”

“This is why you never eat the roast beef!”

Just as Mikey’s about to close the door to the rabble, Bruno comes down the hall and asks directly “what’s wrong with Aiden?”

“He wouldn’t go away. We made out.”

“So did you do that to make him go away, or...”

Gabe huffs. Mikey’s seen it before. It’s a dangerous warning sign, like when Frank starts cracking his knuckles. He doesn’t go straight to brawling or bitchiness though, just explains with an edge in his voice. “We were making out because he’s my boyfriend. Who I fuck. A lot. We got kicked out of our last school for fucking.”

“Blowjob,” Mikey reminds him.

Gabe climbs off the bed and sticks his head out the door. “Hey dorm three. If I have Mikey blow me that’s sex right?” He gets a chorus of yeses. “See.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t sex, I said it wasn’t fucking.” He grabs his phone from the nightstand and texts Gerard. just outed ourselves, hope Canadians like gays.

“How’s that going for you?”

“What, the blowjobs? You wanna watch?” Gabe leers but Mikey thinks he sees a bit of truth to it. It’s not exactly a new kink for Gabe.

“No, I meant. Never mind. I’ll go find somewhere for Aiden to crash for the night. You start thinking of a way to get things this way permanently. I suggest against planting evidence of a panty raid. That worked out really badly for me and Boots.”

“Uh. Okay?” Mikey looks at Gabe who shrugs.

“Night. Again.” Bruno exits, and Mikey gets up to close the door behind him.

“You know what? No.” Aiden’s voice comes from through the pine. “You’re not chasing me out of my own room.”

Out of sheer instinct Mikey pulls down his jeans and throws himself face first towards the wall. It’s become less and less of a surprise over the months that Gabe runs on the same wavelength he does. He doesn’t disappoint now, lining up with his chest to his back just an instant before the door opens.

“It’s my room too and- Oh my God! Stop it, you perverts!”

In Mikey’s opinion it’s moved beyond wanting to share a room now. Instead it’s about not letting a bigot win. Mikey cants his ass back so Gabe is sliding roughly between his cheeks. He moans in a fake porno voice “oh, don’t ever stop!”

The door slams and Mikey can’t help but snicker against the drywall. Beneath the satisfaction though he’s feeling suddenly unsatisfied. Evidently Gabe feels the same. He pushes his dick once more against Mikey’s ass, and this time it’s a lot harder.

“Wanna use that?”

“Where’d you put the lube?” Gabe answers.

Mikey strips off his shirt. Instead of getting the lube himself he stays still with his chest against the warming drywall and instructs Gabe. That’s when the door is knocked on again. With a sigh Mikey turns and pulls up his pants. Sex is clearly not meant to be.

Gabe is either too grumpy to be decent, too distracted to remember, or is Proving A Point. Whatever the case he opens the door with his junk out, and Larry gets a good look at it. He doesn’t give Larry a chance to say anything, just scowls and confronts him with “look. You guys are being big Canadian cockblockers.”

Larry laughs. “You realise that’s not an insult, right?”

“In the church cock blocking is a sin. We consider it especially heinous and we have dedicated parishioners that investigate that vicious crime. I could tell you some stories, man.”

“Okay, A? That entire thing was a rip from Law and Order. B? Speaking personally, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. And lastly calling me Canadian is not an insult. If I said you’re a New Jersey nut job that wouldn’t work, would it? The first bit isn’t an insult.”

Spectacularly foiled, Gabe moves on. “What you want, anyway?”

“If you really want to live together everyone in this dorm will back you up that he’s homophobic. Not just ‘cause Bruno would want us to, although he already seems to be pulling you into the group and people in this school don’t tend to piss off Bruno Walton. But mostly because that’s bullshit. Unless you’re hurting someone and they don’t want you to, or there’s shit or animals involved, you’re not a perv.”

“We’ll probably take you up on that later. Right now,” Mikey gestures to the important parts of this scene, namely Gabe’s erection and his concealed cock.

“Yeah. Enjoy. The walls are construction standard soundproofed, but your neighbour can hear screaming, so keep it to medium.”

Gabe closes the door. He looks pretty thoughtful, for a guy with a hand around his dick. “Good numbers so far. One asshole, but a full dorm of people that think that’s horsecrap, and a Headmaster that will apparently care, in a good way.”

Mikey nods. Clearly not an utopian bliss, but that exists pretty much nowhere. “You still want me?”

“Is that answer ever supposed to be no?”

Mikey can’t think of a time it ever would be. In answer he kicks off his jeans and drifts back to the wall. He’s standing the same place, he can still feel the warmth he left before. He widens his stance, bracing against the drywall. The first touch is Gabe’s lubed finger against his neck. The slick glide down his spine makes his muscles clench. It doesn’t matter that Gabe fucked him this morning at the hotel, Mikey always wants him.

Gabe starts with two fingers. His body is used to it. Every nerve in his lower half wants this. Gabe pushes the head of his cock in and Mikey rocks back. He doesn’t sink in all the way, but it’s enough for Mikey to squeeze around, feeling it.

“Want this?”

“I always want you.”

It’s nothing but true. Of all the friends that Mikey’s been with -more than Gerard knows- Gabe’s been the best. He doesn’t fulfill every need, and as a staunch believer in polygamy Mikey doesn’t even think it’s possible for one person to do so. But Gabe’s come the closest, and Mikey’s pretty sure he’s open to the idea, if it comes to that.

***

Gabe surveys the crowd around the John A Macdonald statue. It’s nowhere near the number he expected. It’s not like he thought he’d need to hire a bus to take them, but a cab or three, maybe, jammed as full as the driver allowed. With five people including himself, there’s even a seatbelt for every participant.“This is it? And you’re sure everyone knows.”

Bruno nods. “I told the Blabbermouth. Threatened his life if he told the teachers, but I’m positive every student heard at least five times. I guess not too many are interested in a concert.”

Pete -Gabe likes Pete Wentz more than Pete Anderson, who is nice but kind of an idiot, so Wentz gets to be Pete in his mind, while Pete Anderson is just Anderson- shrugs. “I guess not everyone wanted to break curfew. It’ll be late by the time we get back.”

“What genre is it anyway?”

Gabe’s sure either he or Mikey have dropped the band name in the time between finding out about the Toronto concert and meeting the lack of group on the lawn. Either Bruno didn’t pay attention, or he’s never heard of Time Screech. Gabe would have bet good money that that’s impossible, but maybe not. “Electronica.”

“I’m out.”

Mikey says it for him. “What?”

“I don’t like that kind of music. When I break a rule, which, to be realistic some would say is-”

“Constantly?”

Bruno corrects, “often, I have a reason for it. A goal. Sneaking out to do something I hate doesn’t work well with my personal standards. Call me when we’re seeing classic rock.”

With that he heads back for dorm three. Gabe shrugs. He’s still going. He’d go alone if he had to, but Mikey’s got a similarly good taste in music. Gabe can’t remember the last time he went to a concert without Mikey and Ryland in tow, even before they started dating.

“Brings me back to my childhood.” Pete says, once they’ve made it all the way to the parking lot, and are climbing in.

“What, electronica?” Gabe’s childhood music wasn’t that at all, but every kid listens to whatever their parents are into for the first ten to twelve years of their life. Maybe the Wentzes really liked Crystal Castles.

“No. Breaking the rules to see musicians. Of course this is a concert and back then it was just stoner jam sessions. But yeah, I skipped some classes in grade nine, so they sent me to a school where I couldn’t skip because I lived in the school.”

“They didn’t have boarding schools in Chicago?”

Pete shrugs. “Better than bootcamp, I guess.”

There’s no epic line outside the club. It makes Gabe lose faith in humanity, a bit. On the other hand, they can get tickets at the door instead of paying a ridiculously steep price from a hovering scalper, which Gabe appreciates. Better to have money in hand than in the hand of some guy in a geometric print hoodie. Especially considering he’s legal age in Canada.

“Here’s to hoping I don’t get brutalised in the pit,” Boots raises an imaginary glass and nods his head.

Pete snorts. “That’s like three quarters of the fun.”

“I’m on the hockey team with Bruno, remember? How much did he spaz the last time I got checked? This time he can’t go and shove the guy that shoved me, so he’ll take it out on me. Or on the universe, which will somehow end up with Cathy and Diane and Miss Scrimmage’s shotgun!”

Gabe tilts his head in interest as Pete answers. “I don’t doubt all of that. Good thing I don’t have a Bruno. Mosh or die!”

With that comment, Gabe fully expects Pete to disappear on them. Sure enough, once the opener starts one song Wentz is with them, the next he’s gone. Gabe hopes he’ll be okay. He’s the smallest of them, he could easily get smashed around to the point of broken noses and heavy bruising.

The next time he looks away from the stage to do a body count, he gets something more surprising than the tiny violent friend disappearing to be violent around large people. Gabe gets the tail end of Mikey pushing Boots away from his face.

“Boots, I gotta say you’re pretty lucky I don’t punch you in the face for kissing him.” Gabe’s shouting more to be heard in the crowd than because he’s angry. It’s not the loudest band he’s ever heard, but it’s no acoustic group either.

“You don’t own him.”

Mikey answers for Gabe. “No, but we have a thing and how did you know you weren’t fucking it up by kissing me?”

“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want to ruin what you have, but you don’t understand what it’s like. There are seven hundred guys at Macdonald Hall. Not a single one of them is out. And then I go home, to a village, basically. My home town is small enough that it doesn’t even have a school. I would have had to bus over to the next town, so they sent me here instead. If one in ten is gay, that makes for me and some middle aged guy in the summer, and seventy guys that are totally closeted at school. And then there’s you two. I’m eighteen. I wanted my first kiss.”

Gabe doesn’t really know what to say to that. His situation sucks, that’s for sure. Maybe that can be Bruno’s project for this semester. In the past he’s got Macdonald Hall on TV more than once, got them a pool and a rec hall, and basically manipulated a teacher into getting married. Gabe can’t see peer pressuring gay pride being more difficult than any of the above. Especially when all of dorm three have already proven to not give a shit. But bottom line is Mikey’s not attracted to Boots, and he shouldn’t have to kiss people he’s not attracted to. Boots isn’t ugly, he’s just the athletic type. Boots has actual muscles, he plays a school sport each season. Apart from enjoying swimming, Mikey isn’t much for athletes. And for as much as it affects Gabe, maybe he’d be more accommodating if it was someone he liked.

Luckily, Gabe doesn’t really have to say anything, supportive or not. A moment after Boots is done shouting over the music a well meaning giant picks him up and away he goes on top of the crowd.

When the opener ends and neither are back, Gabe looks at Mikey. “You find Boots, I’ll find Pete.”

“Kay. Text me if you’ve got him.”

They separate and start moving through the crowd. It only takes Gabe a second to spot Pete. Electronica concerts are fairly conducive to bright colours, but not everyone can manage a combination of purple jeans and a red and yellow shirt. He’s standing in the herd at the bar. There’s no telling how long he’s been standing there. There’s only one bartender, and there’s no line, only a mini-moshpit of thirsty customers.

From a distance Pete’s got the right idea. Gabe could use a drink between sets too. As Gabe gets closer he realises Pete’s actually pretty miserable. The secondary reason might be that some eighteen year old from Manitoba just got denied alcohol, apparently that’s not Ontario’s drinking age. Primarily though, it’s because a bunch of women Gabe would call skanks unless Victoria was around to hit him are trapping Pete.

Standing just behind them he can overhear their comments. Most of it is interspersed between drunken giggles. They might think they’re hitting on him, but Gabe thinks it’s kind of gross, and judging by his expression, so does Pete. At the very least it’s really raunchy. Gabe’s not known for subtle, but he’d never attempt to pinch a stranger’s nipple then say his are larger.

“You’re hot, really. But I have a boyfriend!”

Gabe watches with a tinge of approval. Pleading opposite orientation is generally a good strategy. There will always be assholes that think they can change your mind, but for the most part a no with a reason is listened to more than a flat out no.

“I’ll go away if you prove it.” It’s a leer, nothing but.

Pete looks desperate. Gabe can’t just hang back. He wouldn’t want those women on him either. He pushes through the women and slings an arm around Pete’s shoulder. He has to bend down to get a kiss, but judging by the women’s ooohing, it looks good even with the height difference. A hand slipped down to Pete’s ass just seals the deal.

“Changed my mind. I want a grape Smirnoff, not a lemonade,” he says, deliberately campy.

“Whatever you want, love,” Pete answers, clearly relieved.

They wait for the women to buy their tequila shots before relocating their hands. Pete’s sexy smile slides off as he says “sorry about that.”

“Sorry it was the only way you could make them go away. Drunk faghags can get kind of brutal.” Gabe knows that much from experience.

“It’s not like it was traumatizing. It’s not like I’m straight.”

“What a perfect friendship! I’m not straight either!” Thankfully Pete takes the comment the way it’s meant to be, and sings Cartman’s best friend song in falsetto in return.

Gabe’s phone vibrates against his thigh. He pulls it out, not surprised to see a message from Mikey. Boots is smoking up with the giant in the parking lot When he looks up again he sees a place to cut in and shout four waters at the bartender. Even if he can’t get a Long Island, he’s still thirsty, and he’s sure Mikey will be too. Might as well order for all of them. Once he’s got them in the crook of his arm they leave the bar, other people pushing into the space they once occupied.

As far as Gabe’s concerned, he got the better unsolicited kiss. Pete is much more his type, in looks and personality, than Boots was Mikey’s. The good personality continues when they get back. As soon as they wade their way back to Mikey he confesses. “I’m sorry, I had to kiss your boyfriend.”

“Well, that’s not cool.”

“I said I-”

“Kiss me too.”

Gabe’s waiting for a ball of primal my mate jealousy to careen through his head like a pinball game, but it doesn’t. If anything, it’s the opposite. Watching Mikey make out with someone he finds attractive is pretty entertaining, in the same way that a Victoria Secret runway show is. He doesn’t know whether to devote everything to watching, or if he should divert energy to gross motor movement like groping himself.

When they break away, it’s almost a disappointment. Enough so that Gabe mutters, barely audible over the conversation of others on the floor “You don’t have to stop.”

“Whoa. What?” Pete bites the lip Mikey had just an instant ago.

Gabe’s not entirely sure how to do this. He’s never initiated a third. Mikey would be able to do this better than he could. But Mikey is waiting for him to talk, albeit with a confirming smile. If Gabe doesn’t take this chance then he loses it, and he’s not quite ready for that to happen. “I mean, I’m not speaking for Mikey. But as far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to stop. Kissing, that is.”

Pete looks wildly between them. “Is that, like, a thing you guys do?”

“I do. I date more than one person I like at once. Gabe’s new to it. We do both like you though.”

“That’s really-”

“Weird?” Gabe offers. A bit late he shoots an apologetic look at Mikey. It’s not that he thinks Mikey is weird for dating Kim and Matt together. It’s just other people probably do, realistically. Unless Mikey told him Pete doesn’t even have the benefit of knowing how well it worked for Mikey and Matt and Kim for a while, to prove that it’s not all that weird.

“Kinda? Just really intense. I don’t know if I could handle it.”

Mikey shrugs. “Think about it. We’re interested, if you ever are.”

“How much longer for Time Screech?”

Gabe pulls out his cell to check. He doesn’t really mind the blatant conversation change. It’s not like he’s going to demand an answer right now. Mikey’s got the right of it; just keep the options pleasantly open.

***

Mikey can’t bring himself to get up, but he does crack open an eye when Gabe gets the door. The irritatingly vigorous knocker is Chris. Mikey makes more of an effort to appear awake. Chris is most likely here for him. He’s become more Mikey’s friend than Gabe’s. Even though the way he reminds Mikey of Gee in some ways still hurts a bit, he’s different in interesting ways too.

“I really recommend you figure out a place to hide while you plan your strategy.”

Mikey can’t muster up the agitation Chris is showing. He yawns through asking “hide from who? And why?”

“Bruno wants to cut you both right now.”

“What for?”

“Well, I was a bit tired when he called our seven am meeting, and he was a bit incoherent, but as far as I can figure out, you’re hussies that sullied Boots’ honor. Or one of you is, at least. He was red eyed and raving, it was pretty obvious he’d been up all night, stewing.”

Gabe startles. “How does he know? Never mind why does he care, how does he know? He bailed, I didn’t tell anyone, and I doubt Mikey did.”

“Yeah, no. Pass me a shirt.” Mikey catches the t-shirt Gabe throws, and starts pulling it on. “You think Pete ratted us out?”

“Wasn’t he in the pit?”

Chris shakes his head. “It wasn’t Wentz. Boots’ younger brother Edward goes here too. From what I know, either he told Edward and Edward decided to tell everyone because closets are for old men. He calls us that a lot, it drives Bruno insane. That or he told Edward somewhere not so private, and it spread.”

“So Boots kissed Mikey, in that order, and now Bruno is mad at Mikey? That makes the kind of sense that doesn’t.”

“You do remember we’re talking about Bruno Walton, right? The guy who made us collect ten thousand soda cans because he wanted to get in the Guinness book of world records so we could raise attention for the school? Look, everyone that went to that meeting is gonna try to cool him down. But like I said, he’s Bruno. Escaping until he deflates a little is your best bet.”

They’ve only been at Macdonald Hall for a few weeks, but they both know it’s true. Rather than go to class they go to the library. Skipping class at a boarding school gives them a lot smaller chance of getting away with it, but they do what they have to do.

As the You’re Now Officially Late bell rings, Gabe crosses his arms. “Tell me again why we’re avoiding him?”

Mikey snorts. It’s pretty obvious to him. “Because he will punch us in the face. And don’t say we can take him. Maybe you could, but not me. He’s a blocker on the football team, he’s a goon on the hockey team, and I couldn’t win a fight against a five year old. Just because I’ve watched all the Springers doesn’t mean I have good chair throwing technique.”

“I guess I could study shit. Kinda need to.”

Mikey knows the feeling. A lot of things are the same, but he’s been docked marks in English for not randomly throwing U’s in words, Chemistry measures things in milliliters, and he’s missing the entire elementary foundation of History. He’s had to Wiki nearly everything in his notes for more details.

Larry finds them at the end of classes. “Yeah, I figured you’d be here. It’s sorta remarkable, how many skipping students think they’ll never be found in the library.”

Mikey shrugs. It’s not like he didn’t get things done. For all that he missed class, he learned a lot. “You’re the office boy, right? We’ve officially got detention?”

“Not quite how we do things here. Punishment tends to be physical labour, like raking leaves.”

“So more parental than educational.” Mikey gives Gabe a good look, complete with raised eyebrow. Neither he nor Gerard have raked leaves in their lives.

“I guess. Officially? The Fish is requesting your presence. Off the record? I’d stay here at long as you can. You’re gonna get dishwashing whether you’re there in five minutes or there in an hour. But he’ll send you to your room, and Bruno has it staked out. The longer you can avoid it, the longer he has to realise step one of the plan might not work. Step one is breaking your noses, by the way.”

When they eventually leave, it’s for dinner. There are only a handful of students in the cafeteria so early. It’s just barely six thirty, the biggest wave is at seven with another at eight. Mikey waves a hand at Wilbur but they don’t go over. He’ll gather the rest of the group to him as they trickle in, and that includes Bruno. Instead Gabe leads them to a table with a few fourteen year olds. The trio don’t even look over, too busy arguing the merits of different plants in Plants vs Zombies.

It’s all calm until Myron Blankenship comes into the hall. He scurries from table to table like an ant, only dispensing crumbs instead of picking them up. When the Blabbermouth reaches their table Mikey braces himself to hear again about Corey Zane’s security blanket. Instead he gets “Bruno and Boots are gay. They were making out.”

“Really?’

“I tell only the truth.”

“Good for them then, I guess,” is the extent of the younger guys’ reactions. Mikey’s pretty sure everyone at Macdonald Hall knows who Bruno and Boots are, they’re fairly legendary. Still, not everyone is going to be emotionally invested in the lives of two senior students.

For his part, Mikey’s happy. Not just because Bruno can’t be mad and vendetta seeking any more, although that factors in. He and Gabe have been at Macdonald Hall two weeks. In that time it’s become equally obvious that Bruno is a good guy, if a bit obsessive and afraid of change, and that Bruno and Boots are an old men in rocking chairs on the porch kind of couple. What they’ve got is almost enough to make him believe in twosomes. Really though, depending on if Bruno is bi, a quad between them and Cathy and Diane would be the most stable. Since Boots kissed him last night and came out, Mikey’s been hoping for this end result.

“I guess we should go see the Fish?”

“Might as well finish eating first. If punishment is anything like parental punishment, we’re about to get confined to our rooms. Larry said it too, remember?”

Mikey thinks on the way back to their shared room that it’s probably the first time he’s ever been sent to his room. That’s not the way his parents work. Still, it’s not too bad. Eight hours of kitchen duty to replicate the time they missed today, and an apology to each teacher. Mikey can handle that.

What gives him pause for a moment is seeing Bruno and Boots sitting against their closed door. Gabe handles it much more blase. “Excuse us. We’ve been instructed to go inside immediately.”

“Yeah. We could have told you the Fish doesn’t like skippers.”

The two follow Gabe into their room as if it was their own. Mikey can’t help but notice Bruno’s left hand in Boots’ right. Mikey grins behind their backs, then steps around them to sink to his bed. The mattress isn’t quite soft enough for him, but Mom and Dad promised their first massive care package would have egg carton foam.

“So I was a bit upset when I found out that you got to Boots before I did.”

“A bit?” Boots looks at him incredulously. “Mark told me you called a group meeting to discuss brainwashing, the perfect murder, and favourite kissing techniques.”

“So I was moderately upset. But Boot pointed out that if I’d just been out, we could have kissed when we were fundraising for the pool, or when we accidentally got Coach Flynn drunk, or whenever, really. Turns out he liked me too.”

Mikey thinks a you don’t say would be poorly placed, so he carefully elbows Gabe’s ribcage in warning.

“We’re going to tell Cathy and Diane tonight, so they don’t get pissed off they were the last to know. You should come with us to take the credit.”

“Kay.” After all, what else is there to do at one in the morning?

***

Seeing Cathy and Diane is a four step process. First you have to sneak out of the dorm. Then you have to run across the lawn and four lane highway. Then you need to get their attention. Then you need to get to the second floor. Not the most complex thing, but harder than staying at school. It tends to be worth the effort. Cathy is insane in the same beautiful inspiring way Bruno is, in the same way Gabe likes to think he is.

The first step is easy enough. In dorm three Mr Fudge rules, and he could sleep through an invasion. Has, in fact, if you ask around. For as much as invasion means three hundred teenage girls. It’s less sneaking and more casually opening a window and climbing out. According to Bruno they could even walk out the front door without being noticed, but the window is tradition. Gabe’s not sure how much he buys that, considering Boots is shaking his head behind Bruno’s back, but he and the Cobra like confidence.

Sprinting across the highway is equally easy, at least for him. Gabe can see where Wilbur or Sidney might die in the attempt. Mikey doesn’t much approve of the running either.

Getting the girls attention is done old-school. Boots -he has better accuracy- and Bruno -he has more enthusiasm- pick up some of the rocks that line the flowerbeds. Once they’ve got a handful they start throwing them at the proper window. Apparently Scrimmage doesn’t allow cell phones, something about texting not being polite and therefore not feminine. While the girls of Scrimmage’s listen to the rules as well as Bruno’s crowd does, in this case the Headmistress has parental help; Burtons and the Grants have their daughter’s cells confiscated before they leave for the semester.

It’s the fourth step Gabe finds difficult. More unnerving than physically hard. By some great fluke Diane and Cathy’s room is beside one of the five drainpipes that line the side of the long building. Gabe’s been up and down it twice, but considers his safe travel pure coincidence. A length of metal isn’t meant to hold up under human weight. The reassurance that Bruno and Boot have been up and down it for six years, that it’s been there forever isn’t reassuring in the least. ‘Forever’ only means it’s had a decade to rust.

Bottom line though, is that meeting Cathy and Diane in their room is the best way to talk. The weather might be okay for a lawn party now, but pretty soon it’s going to get cold. Not talking is not an option. Gabe knew five minutes into meeting Cathy he was gonna have to see her at least once a week. He’ll just have to put up with the inconveniences that entails.

Halfway up the drainpipe Gabe’s pocket vibrates. A quick look down proves it can’t be Mikey, both of his hands are currently occupied. He pulls his cell out as soon as he gets both feet flat on Cathy and Diane’s pink carpet, amid enthusiastic greetings. The text is from Pete. It’s only four words: I kinda like intense.

Gabe grins as he shows it to Mikey. Who knows if it’ll work long term, for him or Pete? Hell, Mikey might be the one to say stop. The potential of it though... They could have something really good. Gabe wants to have something good.

Once the box of Froot Loops is passed around and everyone has a handful of sickeningly sweet cereal to snack on, Cathy probes their intentions. “So boys, what’s up? Any special not-committee we’re joining? Sidney do anything especially horrifying? Blabbermouth figure out how to set up a blog yet?”

“No, and don’t you dare ever suggest that!” Bruno’s vehement about it. From what Gabe’s heard, there was some incident with a lucky penny that Bruno holds a grudge about.

“You don’t usually come visit over nothing,” Diane points out. “There’s gotta be something.”

“We do have something to tell you guys. But uh. It’s.” Boots trails off.

“Is it good or bad news?”

“Good?” Boots replies, lilt in his voice making it seem like a question.

“It’s awesome,” Gabe corrects. If someone can’t be enthusiastic about their relationship in the honeymoon period, he doesn’t know when they can be.

“Spill!”

When it becomes clear that Boots is frozen, Bruno dives in. He’s redfaced and clearly uncomfortable, a far cry from his attitude earlier. Gabe would bet it’s because he has to talk instead of just doing something. In Bruno Walton’s life, words are calls to arms, not for explaining his actions. He manages to get them out with a bit of bravado. “So we’re pretty gay. And we’re together. Don’t get us wrong, you’re both really hot, and if I liked vag I’d really want you, and if Boots did Boots would. But as it is-”

Diane interrupts. “We’re both taken, so you don’t need to feel bad for turning gay and leaving us to pine.”

Even confined to the room, with the door open you hear a lot of dorm opinions. The vast majority of it, as the news spread, was shock that Bruno wasn’t ever going to be with Diane, and that Boots wasn’t ever going to be with Cathy. The consensus was that those two relationships were written in the stars. Evidently, even Bruno and Boots thought it, in their own ways. Diane’s comment turns the tide immediately. Bruno and Boots go from shyly happy to confused. On Boots it’s just a different expression, but Bruno resolves every situation by acting out.

“Who?” Bruno demands. “You didn’t even have us screen him! There are a lot of bad seeds in the world! Even at MacDonald Hall! Does he even go to Macdonald Hall?”

“Our first kiss was when we were twelve. I really don’t think there’s anything you need to say to us.” From the twin stunned looks, Gabe would be willing to bet Bruno and Boots are both stuck on the first half of what Cathy said.

“You never said anything.”

“You never said anything.”

“This is new. Your thing isn’t at all!”

“Oh come off it, Bruno. That,” Cathy waves her hand from Bruno to Boots “is old. Just because you didn’t act on it doesn’t mean you two didn’t have as much to say as we did.”

“Well we’re saying it now!”

“So are we, asshole!”

To prevent some of Gabe’s new favourite people from getting into an all out brawl he jumps in with “so clearly there should be a G.S.A. spanning both schools, considering that the homos are just coming out of the woodwork.”

The sudden inspiration on Bruno and Cathy’s faces is amazing. Cathy gets out a notebook and starts scrawling ideas. Bruno shouts his own, then grabs a second lime ink pen from the mug on the desk and writes his in the margins when she doesn’t transcribe fast enough. It’s like seeing the Cobra in action, slithering into them and possessing them. Gabe doesn’t care the slightest that Diane is scowling at him for beginning something that is sure to end in riots, television cameras, and just general madness.

They stay late, brainstorming. Even the naysayers eventually get into it. The later it gets, the more fun the ideas get. Gabe particularly likes the glory hole kissing booth, where you get an anonymous kiss, and have to guess if it was a male or female kissing you. Aside from just being fun, it seems like a good way to prove everyone’s a little bi, when you turn off the lights.

Boots breaks the surge of creation by looking at his watch. “Holy shit! How is it four?”

“Relax. It’s not the first time we’ve stayed up late for a cause, and it won’t be the last.” At Boots’ I am going to deny you sex glare Bruno hastens to add “but ladies, we probably should get going. See you later?”

Over Diane’s protest that they can just email them, Cathy confirms the meeting. Boots is the first out the window, followed by Mikey and Bruno. Gabe waits until all three have shimmied to the ground before climbing out. Too much weight would probably mess with the structural integrity, and he has no interest in free falling from the second floor.

“Halt!”

Gabe grins, though he doesn’t stop running. He’s heard about Scrimmage chasing the boys with a shotgun in practically every cool story, a tradition for the rebel if there ever is one. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get to experience it. It really makes him feel like he belongs at Macdonald Hall. And from what he’s seen, it’s a good place to belong.

Comments

Laughter And Fun: Must All Never Be Undone

[eileenlufkin]

This was fun to read.

Re: Laughter And Fun: Must All Never Be Undone

[gala_apples]

Glad you liked it!

[turps]

Well that's one way to be expelled. Poor Mikey and Gabe. I loved the scenes with them and Gabe's friends.