Where Were You When The Lights Went Out?

Racetrack: Denial

Racetrack had never liked school to begin with. And most especially did not like English class. Math he could do; he was good with numbers, and science he could fake because really, it was mostly stupid formulas and once he had the numbers, he was fine. But English sucked.

He glanced around the classroom and his mood got even worse. Because there were all of his friends, people he normally liked spending time with, but lately things had been a bit... Awkward. Blink and Mush were shooting each other nervous, happy looks across the room; they had been acting odd for the past couple of weeks. Inseparable, more so than usual... And Race could swear he'd seen them holding hands on their way into the building, before realizing there were other people around. Then there were Specs and Dutchy; Specs was bright red, blushing, and Dutchy was grinning and writing. Specs looked over at Dutchy and his blush got deeper, but he smiled warmly at his boyfriend. And Jack and David were both alternately writing and shooting each other loving, happy looks. David was practically batting his eyelashes every time he looked up.

Race made a face. All his friends were couples now, officially or not. And he was the only single, odd man out. Which sucked. He hatedcouples, and now he had no one else to spend his time with.

He groaned and turned back to his essay. He hated essays. And he really, really, really hated this essay topic. When he'd first picked up his pencil, he'd almost broken it in half in frustration as he read the question. It figured; idiot teachers would have to go and ask him about a topic which he never, ever, ever discussed. With anyone. Ever. Period.

Not even his best friends knew, because for all they'd exchanged stories about the blackout, he'd covered with a simple, "Ehh, Brooklyn." And that meant he didn't feel like talking about it.

Racetrack hated Brooklyn.

*

First, let us get one thing straight: I am. Straight. Ah ha, see, it's funny. But the truth is that I, Anthony "Racetrack" Higgins, am not attracted to boys. At all. Ever.

Really.

I am straight as an arrow, though when you think about it, that's kind of a stupid phrase. Arrows are long, and hard, and have a bit of a thing on the end that's supposed to get shoved into something else. And they get pulled in and out of quivers a lot. I'm just saying, maybe the phrase should be about a slightly less phallic object.

Can you tell I don't want to think about this? You can? Gee, I'm subtle.

All right, with that very important fact established, let us move on. The next most important fact is that I detest my step-brother and everything he stands for. He is, one might say, a macho, swaggering, wannabe body builder who got stuck with an exomorph frame. (See, I'm smarter than he is, too; I know what the hell that means. It means he's got a skinny body type, and no matter how obsessed he is with weight lifting, he will always be a shrimp. Which I find way too amusing.)

I don't like him, I don't like his father, and I'm not a fan of my mother, particularly, either. And as a result, I live with my dad; but during breaks, the custody agreement insists that I spend time with Mom and her new family, and I get to share a room with one Sean "Spot" Conlon, who I detest with a burning passion. He is, of course, the step-brother in question.

Mom and the assholes live in Brooklyn. I hate Brooklyn. Which is why I can get away with not telling my friends about this; they know how much I hate it, and that any time I say I was in Brooklyn and don't answer, the topic is firmly off limits. Because my family—or rather, Mom's family, which I really wish I had no part of—can get psycho.

But this wasn't the normal drunk Irish stereotype, the way it usually is. (Blink and I would bond about his dad and my step-dad, if I ever wanted to talk about it, which I don't. I live with my actual father. Brooklyn is a bad dream. Denial? La la la, no denial here! ...Shut up.)

This was me, grabbing the subway back to visit my actual friends, and him, being forced to go visit his grandmother or something. I think he was actually going to skip out on that and go get piss drunk somewhere, but I don't actually give a damn. The upshot being, we were both in the subway when everything lost power. The lights went off, we stopped moving abruptly and the inertia threw everyone around for a second.

Now, look. I'm not a paranoid guy, but everyone in the subway car got a bit... freaked out. It was the last car and there were only five of us back that far, me and him included, and none of us knew what was going on. As a group, we all kind of gasped, and some lady began screaming about terrorists, but her husband got her to shut up. Some WASP-y woman tried her cell phone, giving off a blue glow which was the only light there was, and had no reception. Of course.

"Oh my God," she yelped. "Oh god, what if it is terrorists? What if, what if there's been an attack and, and oh my god..."

The couple clung to each other. The other woman sat there and repeated, "Oh my god oh my god," over and over.

I wanted to yell at her to shut up, but wouldn't have, because I was pretty freaked out too. And anyway, that would have been mean, and while I can maybe be a bit blunt sometimes, I'm not a genuinely mean guy.

Spot, however, is.

"Shut the fuck up," he snarled at her.

To which I, defender of random strangers' honor, replied, "You shut the fuck up." Yeah, it was certainly because I didn't want to see him be mean to a random stranger who was clearly already freaked out enough, and not because I just hate him. Of course.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," he snarled back.

"I'll tell you whatever the fuck I want to tell you," I spat back at him.

For the record, yes, this is how all of our conversations sound, and no, I don't think we've ever managed to say a complete sentence to each other that didn't involve the F-word.

He glared at me, which I couldn't really even see, and I glared back.

"What... What do you think happened?" the first woman asked her husband.

"I don't know," he answered seriously. "Let's go see if we can find out." He felt around in the dark for a minute, found the door up to the next car, and lead her out, I guess to ask around or something.

"Oh my god what if we all die?" the hyperventilating lady asked no one in particular.

"We're not gonna die," I said, still irritated, though more with Spot than with her. "If it was some kinda bomb we'd be dead already."

Spot snorted. "Fucking sunshine, aren't you?"

"Shut up."

"You shut up."

"Screw you!"

"Screw you!"

And I think that was the witty repartee that convinced the hyperventilating woman to go seek shelter in another car, likely hoping that the people would swear at each other less. Ha, you'd think she'd know New Yorkers better than that. Though okay, I admit, Spot and I take the cursing at the top of our lungs thing to a bit of an extreme. But I can't help it, he brings out the worst in me.

Apparently, he brings out other things in me too. Tings I don't want to think about. But I'll tell it like it happened, because... I honestly don't know. I guess I'm going to have to think about it someday, anyway.

So Spot and I were still sitting in the back of the subway, alone in the car, in the dark, and kind of nervous. Because... Well, for all my talk about how if a bomb had gone off we'd be dead, we were stuck there, in the dark, with no explanation. Maybe, like, the bomb had just taken out the front of the car. Or maybe at any moment another train was going to ram into the back of ours. For all we knew, maybe a lot of things. So we were just a tad bit on edge.

Finally, after a long, awkward silence, Spot muttered, "So now what?"

And me not liking him, I answered, "Now I hope you die before I do, so I can at least enjoy the rest of my life."

"Oh, you're so funny," he answered, which was a lousy enough comeback that I smirked in the darkness. But it got better, because he kept talking. "You think we're gonna die?"

"Yeah, sure. We're gonna die."

"I don't want to die."

Spoiled prick. "Yeah, well, me neither," I answered out loud.

"I mean, I can't die. God wouldn't let me die a virgin."

There was a long silence. And just at the moment I started laughing, he started yelling, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

But shutting up was not exactly my plan at that moment. "You're a virgin?" I manage between guffaws. Now, for the sake of honesty, I'll admit that I was also a virgin, but I wasn't going to go announcing that fact, even if my life was in danger. And I certainly wasn't going to admit that to Spot, of all people.

"Screw you," Spot snarled at me.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't want to be the one to..." I may actually have giggled, trying to find the right euphemism. "...Pop your cherry," I finally finished.

"Shut up!"

So apparently, Spot's comebacks aren't so good when he's stressed. And clearly, me making fun of him was not alleviating the stress any. So imagine my shock when, again, Spot continued talking.

"Anyway," he muttered, sounding sulky. "You'd like that."

"Excuse me?" I demanded, turning to face him.

"You heard me." I could hear him smirking in the darkness. He must have realized he'd hit my sore spot. See... People at school tend to assume I'm gay. I mean, I don't think I give off that kind of vibe, but I am friends with Jack, and David, and Specs, and Dutchy, not to mention Mush and Blink, who I'm pretty sure are gay. And, you know, when all of your bets friends are also all of the gay guys in school, people tend to assume.

But I'm definitely not gay. Nope. Not me. Just a little sensitive, because people always think I am. Which is why it irritated me so much when Spot made that comment.

"I am not gay," I snapped. "And anyway, even if I was, you're not my type."

"What, you prefer body builders? You like your men ripped and covered in tanning oil?" he suggested.

I had two options here. I could either deny that I liked men at all (which I don't) or I could insult him. Me being me, well...

"Yeah, sure. Better ripped and oily than skin and bones, all attitude but too damn shrimpy to back it up."

"Shrimpy?" he repeated. "You're calling me a shrimp?"

"Yeah," I answered. "A shrimp who's all talk, and no muscle."

I suspect he narrowed his eyes, but I couldn't really see. But I could feel.

I certainly felt it when he tackled me.

My spine hit the edge of the seat, which hurt like a bitch, and I think my head snapped back. It didn't quite hit the floor, but I got whiplash something fierce, and his body was sprawled over mine, one arm wrapped around my ribcage, pinning my right arm to my side.

Now, I'm right handed, but that doesn't mean I can't use my left hand for anything. And since I was in a bit too awkward of a position to squirm out from under him, I did what anyone in my situation would have: balled my left fist, pulled back as far as I could manage, and punched the sucker in the face.

It was his turn to have his head snap back, and he slid off me on to the floor, landing on his back, and for some reason I just snapped and all my frustration at this kid came out. I followed him on to the floor between the seats, straddling his chest with my knees, and punched him with my right hand. And I am right handed, so this one did significantly more damage.

"You bastard!" Spot snarled, once he'd managed to catch his breath, and he reached up to shove me off him, or so I thought. Actually, he reached up with one hand and wrapped it around my throat, pushing me upwards and off him, and pretty effectively blocking my windpipe.

It occurred to me that I may have misjudged Spot. The guy was a shrimp, but as it turns out, he was able to back up his attitude after all. I toppled backwards into the wall of the car and hit my head, and Spot was suddenly back up on his knees, pinning me to the wall with one hand and punching me in the face with the other. I felt blood begin to trickle down my face and was pretty sure that was going to leave one hell of a bruise, but I was running on adrenaline so it didn't slow me down too much. I shoved his hand off of me and shoved, tried to get to my feet, but he grabbed my leg and I crashed again, falling on top of him, and then it's kind of hard to describe what happened, but we rolled around, trying to shove each other away, kneeing, elbowing, whatever we could do to try and get control and cause each other pain.

And somehow, we ended up wedged underneath a seat, him on top of me, not able to roll anymore. We were stuck.

I realized that the second before he did and tried to sort of shimmy to the side, as much to avoid his fist as anything else, but couldn't get very far; instead of blackening my eye it grazed the edge of my skull and hit the floor. He began swearing (we later discovered he'd sprained two fingers at that point) and tried to roll off of me, but couldn't. We were wedged there, bleeding, bruised, and still not sure what the hell was going on that had caused the subway to stop and the lights to go out.

"This is all your fault," he finally snarled at me.

"You're the one who shoved us under the seats!" I accused.

"Because you punched me in the face!"

"Yeah, well you tackled me first!"

And then we had one of those long, silent moments, and he began to squirm on top of me, trying to get to the side or something, anything to get out. And all that did was make the two of us more stuck, not to mention more awkward. It was like getting a really, really terrible lap dance. From someone I hated. And was in no way attracted to.

He finally just lay still, his arms again pinning mine to my sides, the bottom of the seat cutting into his back. "This is your fault," he said again, no longer sounding quite as pissed about it, more just... Resigned and freaked out.

"You started it," I answered.

"So what if I did?"

We were quiet again and finally he mumbled, "We need to get out of this..."

"Yeah."

"Uh..."

"I'll... try and move to the left and you go to the right and maybe we'll..."

"Yeah."

So I began to move to the left. And so did he. We stopped and glared again, still nose to nose. "My right!"

So we began moving again, the correct directions, and a long shimmy that I don't really care to think about later, he rolled off of me and landed next to me. Of course, now we were kind of squished in side by side under the seat, but not trapped, and being the normal guy I am, I got to my feet and retreated a few seats away from him.

Somewhere around then, I noticed that it was actually starting to hurt where he'd hit me. My neck was sore from being shoved around like that, and I had a large, tender spot right at my nose, which was dripping blood still. "Asshole," I muttered, in a voice he'd normally never have heard. But the dark subway was so quiet that, well, he did.

"You were egging me on!"

"You broke my nose!"

"You broke my hand!"

And somehow we were on our feet again, stomping towards each other, glaring—well, squinting, really. And neither of us was going to back down, so soon we were nose to nose... well, nose to chin... again.

He shoved me, but not hard. I shoved back. We stood there and glared.

"So still think I'm all talk?"

"I still think you're a shrimp."

"I'm taller than you."

"Who's not?" I shrugged, and glowered.

He snickered. "You're a real jerk."

"Look who's talking."

"You've never been nice to me, ya know."

"Yeah, well, you aren't exactly a joy to live with."

"So why don't you just stay at your dad's?"

"If I could, I would."

More silence, but calmer. I was pretty sure he wasn't going to tackle me again. And I should have kept my mouth shut. But... Well, I can't. So...

"So you're a virgin."

"So fuck you."

"What, you into boys or something?" I smirked. "You say that to me an awful lot."

"You say it to me, too."

I started to reply, and then stopped. Spot hadn't answered my question. "Wait... Are you?"

"So what if I am?" he hissed, leaning down and right in my face. I couldn't see more than a vague black outline, but I could feel him centimeters from him, feel his breath against my cheek.

"So nothing," I said, suddenly self conscious. "Some of my best friends are gay."

"Spoken like a true homophobe."

"I'm not homophobic!"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not!" Which is true. I may not be gay, but, well, look at my best friends. Not a straight guy among them.

"Prove it." He shoved me a little bit again.

I shoved back. "How?" I demanded.

And I really didn't expect what happened next. Spot reached out again and I figured it was to shove me, but instead he snaked an arm around my body, stepping in close again, and pressing his lips to mine.

I only opened my mouth to object. It certainly wasn't to let him slip me tongue. Which he did. And I had absolutely no idea where this came from, because... gross. It was Spot, for God's sake, and just ew.

But, uh, I didn't shove him away from me. I don't know why that is. But by the point I even realized what was going on, his tongue was pretty far into my mouth, and I really don't know what I was supposed to do. Again, I started to resist, but what was I supposed to do? His grip around my body was pretty tight, and all me trying to talk did was somehow become me moving my tongue and I certainly didn't mean to kiss back, but...

Well, you know. Stuff happens sometimes whether you mean it to or not, so yes, I can admit it. For whatever reason, which I still don't know or understand, I kissed Spot back. Honestly, I think he was more surprised than I was, but after a moment, his hand traveled over to my side, resting there kind of lightly and gently. Spot didn't strike me as the type who did anything lightly or gently, but it felt kind of nice.

In general, I mean. Not because it was Spot. Gross.

Finally my better senses kicked in and I pulled away. Spot's hand dropped. We stepped apart, and I stumbled back a step, almost tripped, and sat quickly in one of the seats. Spot sat across the row from me, and we didn't talk for awhile.

It seemed like an hour before he said, "So now you know."

"Yeah."

"You try and make my life a living hell, and I'll beat the crap out of you. Again."

"You didn't beat the crap out of me."

"You keep telling yourself that." I could hear the smugness in his voice.

"So..." I said after awhile. "You want me, or what?"

"Excuse me?"

"You kissed me."

He snorted. "You wish I wanted you."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"I dunno." I could hear that he was a little less comfortable now.

"You don't want to die a virgin?" I suggested snidely.

"Shut up."

So I did, and so did he. And then it was too quiet. "So... Uh... Does your dad know you're gay?" I asked.

"Uh, no. And he'd better not mysteriously find out, either."

"What? I'm not gonna tell him."

"Really?"

"Please. I don't care enough to tell him."

"Yeah, sure." He sounded like he was smirking again. "So you telling me you didn't care at all when I kissed you?"

"Nope."

"Nope?" he asked incredulously.

"Nope. Honestly, Conlon, you could kiss me all day and I wouldn't care."

I would like to point out, in my own defense, that I was not inviting him to kiss me all day. Nor did I expect him to do anything in response to that statement. And I most definitely did not expect him to stomp across to my seat, shove me back against it, and kiss me again.

So the whole him not wanting me thing? Yeah. That turned out to be a lie. Or so I can only assume by the fact that, once again, Spot Conlon's tongue was in my mouth, while he straddled my lap and tangled a hand in my hair, his body pressing mine against the seat.

There was absolutely no reason for me to be enjoying that. There was also absolutely no reason for me not to shove him off my lap or punch him in the face again.

But I didn't.

I kissed him back. Again.

He moved closer to me, which I didn't think was possible, but was less moving and more thrusting a little bit and I accidentally bit his tongue in an attempt to not groan. Spot responded by pulling my hair slightly, though it wasn't too hard, but he did jerk my head back and begin to suck at my exposed throat.

That time I bit my own tongue. I was not, absolutely, under no circumstances, going to give him any indication that I enjoyed it. Because I didn't. Nope. Not even a little, tiny bit somewhere in the back of my mind. At all.

Yeah, I'm not fooling anyone. I don't like the guy and I'm not attracted to men, but goddamn, Spot knows his way around a body. And considering he's still a virgin, I don't know how he learned things like this... Must have been lots of screwing around. I don't know; it's not like I was going to ask.

But I did wrap my arms around his shoulders and let him kiss me again. We tumbled over to the side, and he pressed me down into the seats, him lying over top of me with one leg still on the floor for balance because the seats were kind of thin. His arms finally released my body, but only so they could reach underneath my shirt, fingers trailing against my skin.

I shuddered slightly. "Spot!" I finally managed.

"Problem?" he answered, not moving off of me, leaning forward to breathe in my ear as he spoke.

"I—" I started, but he licked my ear, and that was just playing dirty. I shoved him and he lost his balance, slid slightly down my lap and moved so he was sitting next to me. "What... What are you doing?" I demanded.

"If you don't know, I haven't been doing a very good job," he murmured in my ear.

"No, I know that, I just... Why the hell are you..." I really couldn't think of a word to describe what he was doing to me. Sexing me? That just sounded bad. Hitting on me? No, he'd skipped hitting on—unless you count a fist fight as foreplay—and had gone straight to feeling me up. "Why are you doing that to me?" I finally demanded.

He shrugged; I could feel it next to me. "You telling me you're straight?"

"Yes."

"I've met your friends—"

"And they are my friends. Not me."

"Right. But I've also seen you. You give off that vibe."

"I am not gay!" I yelled for the second time.

"Well, you didn't seem to mind screwing around with me," he pointed out.

"I did so mind, you just... Startled me." I crossed my arms over my chest, sunk down in the seat and... Well, sulked, really.

"Uh huh." He sounded far too amused. "And besides... You said you thought we were gonna die."

"So?"

"So then this doesn't count. We're gonna die. So we might as well screw around and die in a good mood."

Now, normally, I'd have laughed that off. But consider how screwed up I was at that moment: for all I knew, we were going to die; I was suffering from a headache and maybe even blood loss from the fight; and confused and thrown off my stride by the fact that Spot had just been kissing me and trying to get my shirt off. So I wasn't thinking quite so logically at that moment.

So I said, "Yeah... Yeah."

And that was all the permission he seemed to need or want, because he started nipping at my ear again, hand going to my chest, where he promptly resumed groping. I turned to face him and he kissed me, and the next thing I knew, we were lying across the seats again, and for the next... however long, I didn't look at my watch... the world was just me, Spot, and the chairs. A struggle not to fall off as things got more intense; a struggle not to freak out as things got more intense. Clothing was shed, and I'm not saying how much. Lips are made for kissing, but no one ever specified just what they were made for kissing.

It turned out to be about four hours by the time were rescued from the back car, long after we'd stopped... What we'd been doing. I mean, neither of us was quite ready to go all the way, but we found lots of other ways to wear each other out.

We followed everyone out of the subway, called my mom, and spent a really boring, crappy afternoon and evening together trying to get home. We didn't speak more than about four words from the time we finished up to the time we got home... And we haven't said more than about another dozen since then. There's been no discussion of what happened, and certainly no more... happenings.

I've done a lot of thinking, though. And came to the conclusion that, well... Screw what people think. I know I'm straight. And I know that because I've screwed around with a boy and have no interest in doing it again. Fun, but not my cup of tea, you see? I'm not attracted to him. I like girls.

And I still hate Spot. That will never change. Even if he does look kind of good wandering around the apartment in boxers with his hair all messed up when he first gets up in the morning...

*

The bell rang and Racetrack was genuinely startled, looked up abruptly. The page of fabrications he'd been working on—probably the best fiction he'd ever written—wasn't quite done, but he didn't really care. He slapped it down on the teacher's desk, and dashed out to his locker before any of his friends could catch up with him. Spot was heavy on his mind and he didn't want to talk about it. At all.

Of course, David's locker was only two down from his, and within about thirty seconds David and Jack were leaning on the row of lockers, making out. He growled lightly and Mush skidded to a halt behind him. "Race! You look pissed, what's up?"

"Nothing," Race growled.

"Really? You okay?—hey Blink, wait up! See ya, Race." Mush gave his back a pat and skidded off down the hallway to catch up to Blink, a grin spreading across his face.

"Couples," Race muttered irritably, glaring down the hallway at them, only to have his glare broken up by yelling coming from the room he'd just left.

"You wrote what?!"

"The truth!"

Race groaned and began to open his locker, trying to block out Dutchy and Specs's yelling.

"The truth?!" Specs's voice was hitting an octave usually reserved for girls and guys who'd been castrated before puberty. "The whole truth?!"

"Yep!" Dutchy sounded amused.

"Aaaaaaaaugh!"

And with that, they came running down the hall, Dutchy significantly faster than Specs but pausing to let him almost catch up and then dashing forward again. And down near the end of the hall, Dutchy finally allowed himself to be caught, laughing too hard to run, but Specs practically tripped into his arms and they ended up wrapped around each other, kissing between bouts of Specs yelling.

Race slammed his locker shut hard, and Jack and David both stared over at him. "You okay?" David asked.

"Why do people keep asking me that?" he yelled back, and David winced, only to have Jack wrap a protective arm around him.

"It was just a question," David sulked.

"I hate everyone." He stomped off towards his next class.

Jack and David exchanged looks. "You think he's coming to terms with being gay?" Jack asked.

"Nah," David said. "Denial."

"Hmm. You're probably right." Jack smiled. "Glad we don't go through that."

They watched as Race pushed past Specs and Dutchy, and could hear a loud, angry yell echo back through the hallway: "I hate couples!"

"Denial," they said together, and grinned, before starting off to their next class.

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