The bell was gonna ring soon, right? Christopher Robin had checked out of the ‘where should we go’ discussion bloody ages ago, it simply wasn’t going his way. At least his boy Jar was on the right path. And Lala was fighting his battle with the bitches. All he really had to do was chill out and drink this here chocolate milk. Yeah, life was pretty easy for ol’ Winnie the Pooh. Girlfriend carried a thermos of chocolate milk everywhere, had a high libido, bitched out people who jumped on him for tantrums; his parents were rich, and that enabled him to go to the alps anyway, and it made it pretty easy for him to dick off and snowboard whenever he got the chance — not that he’d be a bum forever, just until he got his own money rolling.

Then he had his little group of homies, that is to say: Jareth, the dude who tried to keep up and made music or something to that effect, Remy, the dude who kind of came as a package group with Jareth (the fuck kinda hippy ass name was Remy, anyway?), Mariah or Desi or whatever, the girl who was very (like, seriously) tiny, had Jareth’s virginity, and a continual supply of gummy bears (which she was sometimes open to parting with), and then Temperance (who like just hung around Lala sometimes it seemed) she was okay, and like blonde, but really he didn’t have too huge of an opinion on her.

And then of course his boy Ryan, who in a shocking move, also voted for the Alps. Right on. Alpward bound or someth—

Jareth had once again lost himself in his own thoughts, and the music playing through the one ear bud that he had in. He had said his piece, what was done was done. It’s not like the official vote was today anyway and, honestly, he was used to being broke as fuck, so any trip would probably be a little bit fun… especially if it was free. Ignoring the rest of the class for lack of interest, or care, Jareth was only roused from his daydreaming by Remy being suddenly at his desk. The blond boy set a folded piece of paper down on his desk, one of those silly football-shaped things, circa middle school. “The fuck is this?” Jareth murmured, just barely above whispering volume.

Remy wasn’t one to pass stupid notes, like, ever - so this was intriguing, to say the least. Jar was unfolding it to read when Remy, Judas himself, announced that his vote was going towards Italy. That little rat bastard! Whatever, he’d be hearing it later for that. Jareth opened the note and read the writing which, while still pretty, was not Remy’s handwriting. Temperance? As in Remy’s cute, soon-to-be sister, Temperance? As if there was anyone else with such a name. Why would she want to meet with Jareth, and why send a note to ask? Jar hazarded a glance over to the blonde, who was currently blushing a violent strawberry red.

Oh—

BRINNNNNNGGGGGGGGG

Holy fucking shit you just never get used to that thing…

Christopher Robin’s head snapped up as the bell exploded into his ears. Why couldn’t those things ring to the beat of the Dre song? You know…

”Ring ding dong
Ring-a-ding ding ding dong
Keep their heads ringin’”

Like that!

The whole class shuffled up and out of their seats, some muttering continued conversations about the senior trip. Jareth hung back, still a little bit stunned by the realization of what the silly folded piece of paper in his hand might mean. He was probably overthinking it, maybe it was something school related… yeah. That didn’t keep his palms from feeling clammy, though. Welp, there were only three minutes from now until English class started, so he better get a move on and face the music - whatever melody it might be.

Friday, the original motion picture was a good movie, wasn’t it? Man, he’d have to watch that when he got home. Oh, hey, wait. Where’d everyone go? Lala was gone, Desi was gone, only he and Jar remained… Weird, that like never happened. Standing up from his desk and adjusting his sunglasses that were hanging on his shirt, Christopher Robin tapped his friend on the shoulder. ”Yo, earth to Jar. What’s up, dude? You’re zoning hard and my man Mr. Clarke here has got shit to do, and it ain’t babysittin’ us.”

“Uhh-” Jareth replied rather unintelligently as he swiped up his patch-and-pin covered backpack and stood up. “Tempy sent me a note about wanting me to meet her before English… which is like… now. I dunno why.” he said with a shrug. It wasn’t a lie, he didn’t know, he just had a feeling.

Christopher Robin flipped his shades opened and pulled them on as he leaned down onto Jareth’s desk, putting his hands on either side of it as he nodded slowly. ”Let me tell you why, Jar.” Christopher Robin reached up and pulled one side of his sunglasses down slightly (people unaccustomed to Christopher Robin’s antics may have wondered why he put them on in the first place — dramatic effect), ”Jareth, my brother… she wants to suck your soul through your penis.”

The left corner of Jareth’s mouth turned up in a smirk. Sure, he was pretty nervous because… well fuck, it’d been a while, but he was excited too! “Yeah, one can hope.” he replied nonchalantly, “It’s definitely not for homework help—”

”Of course it ain’t for homework help, my dude, you’re a dumb motherfucker. Now come on, we gotta get out to the hallway I have thoughts I must converge. Thoughts that came to my mind during my nightly ritual of a joint and a bag of popcorn.” Christopher Robin gestured and started to head out of the classroom.

Jareth slung his backpack over one shoulder and followed after. “Oh boy, this should be good. Lay it on me.” he opened once they were out in the hall. Whatever it was better be quick, surely he’d already wasted a whole minute being… stupefied.

”Alright, so I’m chillin’ and I’m snacking away and I’m watching YouTube videos and I click on a video dedicated to my favorite lil furry bastard, that’s Conker, the poor little squirrel who gone and had himself a bad fur day for our amusement some fifteen years ago in 2001 on the Nintendo 64 console. Now, as you may or may not know, there is a copy of Conker’s Bad Fur day on campus—”

“Yes, I know. I kind of have a hot blonde waiting on me, can I get the short version?” There wasn’t any bite to his words, but his friend could get pretty long winded, and Jareth didn’t want Tempy to think he was being a dick. Or ruin to his chances of being able to do something with his -- yeah, well. Get to the point, CR.

”We gon’ rescue Conker. We gon’ save him from his prison. And we gon’ take him and the entire Nintendo 64 down to the shack and we gonna play it. Now you may be thinkin’ to yourself ‘Oh, Tigger, you got such mad stacks! Why don’t you go buy it yourself!?’ Well, I’mma tell you why, and that’s because dammit, my mama raised me right and she raised me to take matters into my own hands and I ain’t lettin’ that little squirrel suffer in that lockbox no more!”

“Wait…” Despite Jareth’s previous encouragement to speed this conversation along, he stopped and turned to look Christopher Robin dead in the eyes. “Are you implying that we are going to engage in an act of breaking and entering?” he asked in a serious tone.

”That is correct. Although, really it’s more like a hippy thing? We’re freeing a squirrel. He’s just digital.”

“I’m in.” Jareth said simply, and then began walking back towards their next class again. A rebellious, low key criminal act? Hell yeah, Jareth was in! He didn’t care much for video games, but it might be fun to have around when they get stoned in the smoke shack. “Where? When? And are there gonna be ski masks?”

”Here, the den. This weekend. Probably, I’ll consider it. I should probably briefly consult with my girlfriend before I do this, she usually has pretty good plans. But I mean like… Joe will probably just give us the key…”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Jareth replied with another signature smirk. “Let me know officially after you talk to your girl. I gotta go and... maybe get a girl of my own? Shit. How do I do this? Does my hair look okay?” he asked as they were rapidly approaching the hall the English classroom was in.

”Dawg, check it out. I’ve been in the longest and best relationship of all of our peers, and the secret is. You just wait until she’s sleeping, then ya kiss her. Boom.” Christopher Robin said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. It had been that easy for him! Jar was at least like… 10% as cool as he was, and Temperance was hopefully maybe as good as Lala.

Well, nah, no one was as good as bae. But hey, there was a chance that she’d sleep with his boy, so whatever.

“What?! That’s creepy. Yes, I know it worked for you, but for the rest of the world that’s like… date rape or something.” Jareth sighed dramatically. It was looking like he was on his own here. “Thanks anyway.” Jar closed and headed off to greet the local hot mess express.

Christopher Robin made a face in his friend’s direction. Oh, yeah, so creepy. So creepy it got him in a (hopefully) lifelong relationship with the only woman his heart would ever desire. Speaking of which… Christopher Robin polished off the last bit of the chocolate milk and sauntered into the English classroom, plopping down next to his girlfriend at their shared desk. ”Jar says I’m creepy. Am I creepy? Hi, baby.” Christopher Robin punctuated his statement with a quick kiss on Lala’s lips and then turned his attention to the teacher.

Learn time go time.

Before the bell rang, Remy made sure he jotted everything on the board in his notebook designated for his secretarial duties. Though, once the bell rang, he glanced at Jareth and then Temperance for a brief, very brief, moment. With a slight grimace on his face, he gathered his things and left the classroom, as quick as he came in. Only homeroom was done.

Today was going to drag.

Walking in the hall, hugging his notebook, he sighed to himself and wondered how much he had left to unpack. This whole transition thing was annoying. His father was letting the school nurse and her daughter move in before they even got hitched.

God. Just kill him.

The past couple of days were some of the most stressful days of his life. Helping Temperance with all her shit and bringing it to the basement. Answering too many questions of a toddler girl named Bonny-Lee, who was also his baby sister and who couldn’t help but ask a butt load of questions since new faces were in their sanctuary. She was and well, is, trying to understand that daddy found someone to fill his empty void since their mom past away years ago. There was too much change going on. Frankly, Remy wasn’t that FOND of it. Even if the school nurse was an absolute doll and took care of him, getting use to this change would take time.

Too focused on his thoughts, he didn’t hear his father’s voice from down the hall. ”Rem, my boy! Think fast.” And a football was darting down the hall to his face...

Of course, dad. Of course.

Yeah, he wasn’t prepared, but when was he ever? Maybe he should just let the ball… hit his face. His dad should know better, then to throw FOOTBALLS down the hall. What did he want anyways? Probably to talk about something in regards to Tempest, the school nurse. What should he do? Drop his book and try to catch it, or let the ball hit his face?

Aidan noticed Remy’s father call out to his son. He watched the football thrown toward Remy, who either didn’t notice it or didn’t care to try. Either way, Aidan dropped his belongings and snapped his arms outward, catching the ball mere inches from Remy’s face.

Aidan brought the ball towards him and wound up for a toss back. He gave the toss a little force while replying, “ Nice pass, Coach, but I don’t think Remy cares enough for football.” Aidan picked up his things and looked towards Remy, “Sorry about that, Rem. You ok?”

”Yeah… thanks. This is nothing new, y’know.” Remy eyed Country, who was honestly everything Ray wished Remy could be. The ideal son. A gentleman and a boy fucking amazing at sports. Football in particular. What did Remy have to offer? The blonde boy’s gaze went toward his scrawny arms... yeah. Cooking. Like a housewife. Sucky reflexes. Sucky agility, endurance, and everything else that is respected on the field. Do you want to know why he likes to be a mascot? Because he can be stupid, behind a mask, and people would STILL love him.

Dad, well, he was harder to pin. It seemed that Remy was just… never good enough. Or at least, would not be that ideal strong boy that can pick up his sisters when they needed a man to be their foundation(s).

Old fashioned, through and through.

Within time, Ray finally approached his son and one of his star students, Aidan Pierceman. Great kid right there. Knew how to fix cars. Knew how to throw and catch a ball. Took care of ladies all fine and dandy. A great boy indeed. ”Since ya’ll have three minutes, I won’t keep you too long. Your mom wants you to visit her during lunch.”

”You… want me to start calling her mom?”

”Yes. See her. At lunch. And try to learn a thing or two from Aidan. He’ll be a star one day! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to rush to the gym… who knows what those seniors will do while I’m gone!” Before Remy could even say anything his father was already gone. Jesus. He was fast.

”Uh, yeah, sure… one day.” God his dad sucked. Securing his bag on his shoulder, Remy glanced over towards Aidan, who honestly didn’t need to see any of that. Yeah, they should get to class.

The air around Aidan immediately became awkward as Remy and his dad conversed. Aidan looked towards his friend. Remy was a cool guy. A little of a jokester, but Aidan didn’t mind. Hell, he welcomed his antics every-now-and-then; school could get real boring sometimes.

” Uhh. . . “ was all Aidan could muster at the remark Coach made about him becoming a star, “ Hey man, if it’s any consolation, I don’t plan on being a star. I’m just gonna use football to get into college, if that. It’s just a game. I just want to learn all I can so when I get to college, life will be a little easier.” The duo was approaching English class when Aidan asked, What about you? You have any plans on leaving this town?”

When did he and Aidan have a conversation like this? Never. This was rare. They had different friend groups. Sure, the school was small and they knew everybody, but it still wasn’t the same. Eh if not then, might as well be now, right? ”For now… I’m learning whatever I can from my grandparents. Maybe I’ll even learn a thing or two from wherever we choose to go for our senior trip, but yeah, I don’t know where I’ll go for college. Looks like my dad will be fine… maybe to Denver? It’s not like a drastic change, but it’s a big enough change for me. I just… want to be good. At what I do. And all I really care about doing is cooking. Is that weird?”

“I don’t think so. Hell, most folks see me as a big dumb jock. I’d like to study history for a living. I am, however, good at football. Might as well use one thing to achieve something else.” Aidan genuinely didn’t see anything wrong with a guy wanting to cook. If a man wanted to do something, who was he to judge? Aidan entered the English classroom ahead of Remy. He turned around to look at Remy before heading to his seat, “ Nice talking with ya, Rem. And if you need any help on any of those history projects, let me know. I’m more than happy to help.”

Maybe, Aidan would be a good person to ask help from. He was nice and handsome. Getting involved with someone like him wasn’t so bad? Aidan was everything his father idolized. It was about time Remy took the time to get to know him. ”I’d… like that. Nice talking to you too, Aidan! Same for… whatever I’m good at.” Taking a seat in his usual seat, which was beside Jareth, but he was busy doing…. other thing, Remy took out his history book and tried to salvage his history homework that his sister-to-be ruined.

“...just wait until she’s sleeping, then ya kiss her.”

Jareth shook his head at the thought of Christopher Robin’s words. At least he was good for comedic relief, if not legitimate advice. CR had tried, and Jareth truly appreciated the sentiment, it’s just that not everyone finds their soulmate by stealing a kiss from one of their childhood best friends. Yes, that’s how it really happened for Pooh, and it was story that even Jareth found endearingly charming, though he would never admit that.

That was enough dwelling on that, he had a task to focus on. A real task, and it was life or death, man. Of course, the possibility of finding someone that might sleep with you as an awkward teenager always felt like life or death, didn’t it? Was he an awkward teen? Teen - yeah, awkward - okay, maybe a little… he had to work on that.

Try to look cool, Jar. Jareth gave himself an internal pep talk, because someone had to. Doing his best to follow his own instructions, Jar hooked one of his thumbs in the pocket of his skinny jeans and walked with his shoulders loose and comfortable. He appeared confident, definitely no trace of the internal anxiety showing through, at least he hoped not. Temperance was waiting a few paces away from the entrance to english class, presumably waiting on him. You got this. he thought to himself and strolled over to her.

“Hey… what’s up?” Jareth opened casually. In all of his two full minutes of over thinking, he had not prepared an opener. Fuck. He sounded like an oblivious idiot. Girls were hard! This was hard! Even still, he met her gaze and the corner of his mouth lifted in a friendly smile.

Temperance could feel her heart beating a thousand miles a minute as her trembling knees brought her over closer to the alluring form of Jareth Wells, maybe a bit too close. Why did she think this was a good idea?! She’d never been on a date or asked anybody out, and yet here she was! Stupid Lala and her stupid peer pressure! The anxiety-ridden girl’s green eyes peered up at the taller boy, her lips half agape as she wondered how to begin.

“H-hey, Jar. Soooo…” There was really no easy way to get the words out. She went silent for a moment and awkwardly twirled herself about, expecting something to just pop into her head. Nothing came though, and there she stood, just milling around in front of Jar. “Uh… I’m just gonna… uh... “ Temperance felt like a fool since she didn’t know what to do, her eyes wide like a doe in headlights. Quickly, she tried to get back on track. “Er… What I mean is... Do you like food?”

Jareth watched the nervous blonde stumble around her words. It was cute, really cute, actually, and it helped to settle his own anxieties. He laughed a little, nothing more than a breathy chuckle, and then nodded. “Yeah, I love food.” Jar grinned and pulled in his lip rings, a nervous tic, before saying the next part. “Why? ... would you like to go get some, sometime, maybe?” Wow, Jar, really smooth… honestly, this is why you only ever dated Desi. Even then, that was probably out of friend pity.

“Oh… Yeah, food is really great isn’t it?” Really, she felt like the dumbest blonde on the planet right now. Everybody likes food. Wincing at her embarrassing blunder, her cheeks flushed red. And now he was turning the tables on her, indirectly asking her on date! Oh boy, little Miss Temperance was hardly prepared for this! Her fingers coalesced together, and her hands pressed against her chest, like a clumsy nun during prayer time. “Er… I’d love if you’d… do me.” Her extremely awkward reply had her cheeks erupt an even brighter crimson. “I mean I’d really love if you’d do that with me! Alone, without people and stuff! Not the other kind of do! Unless, well… um… Nevermind!” This had to have been the strangest clusterfuck of a date proposal ever. Leave it to Temperance to do it too… Lala undoubtedly would give her grief about this moment forever.

Jareth remained silent for a moment. Sometimes it was best to stay quiet, this was probably one of those times. Not that he could say anything if he wanted to, as Temperance rambled on in an attempt to bury her miswording, and he was also stunned silent with eyes as wide as saucers. “Uhm… okay. Yeah, uhh.” Jareth finally stuttered unintelligently and then cleared his throat. “Let’s just start with a date, yeah?” Not that Jareth would totally mind if they jumped right to the other stuff, but, there was an order to these things. That and Remy would totally kill him if Jar just casually slept with his soon-to-be sister. They’d cross that river when it comes… if it comes.

“We could get pizza, and go bowling, at King Pin?” Jareth offered as a potential option, chewing at his lip again. He would offer to go to some place in Littleton or Denver, but he didn’t have a guaranteed car to get to those places. Not to mention that he just passed his driver’s test on Saturday - he hadn’t even told his friends about that yet. He had kept it a secret just in case, you know, he failed… that would have been embarrassing. It was still best to keep it local for a first date, in his opinion. “Or if there is something else you had in mind?” It was her who passed the note, after all.

Temperance breathed an internal sigh of relief when it was obvious her slip up hadn’t scared her date away. In fact, he was making all the plans, which was absolutely great, since she didn’t have a single thing planned. Winging it, that was her modus operandi! “That sounds great! Friday evening probably works best for me. My mom wants me to go shopping with her on Saturday, I think anyway.” She wasn’t sure if Remy would be working Friday, but if he was then well… it wasn’t bound to be a problem. Suddenly, the tardy bell began to clang, much her to chagrin. “We should probably… get in class.” she uttered. Impulsively and perhaps a bit prematurely, the blonde stood up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek before quickly ducking into the class, leaving him no time to respond. At the very least, she hadn’t headbutted him… What a surprise!

Just when they had finally settled to a calm, normal human conversation, she did that. Jareth’s eyes were once again wide, and his cheek felt hot where she kissed him. He liked to think that it wasn’t because he was blushing, what a horridly un-emo thing to do, but he was probably doing just that. Maybe if he was prepared for it, he wouldn’t have, but how could he have known she’d be that bold? And then she just spun around and left him there.

Wait!

Friday wouldn’t work, it was game day. He had marching band and - Jareth’s stupefied smile was replaced with a grim scowl - other things to do for the game. Unfortunately he couldn’t tell her that, because he just got kissed and ditched. Was that even a thing? It was now. Oh well, he still had an upcoming date, specific weekday to be decided, and that was a reason to smile. So, Jareth strutted into English class, fashionably late, wearing a huge cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, and took his seat beside his bestie. This day might not be so bad after all...

Pressing her thumb on the eraser of her number two pencil, Lorelei watched as the class dispersed and headed toward Mr. Vanderfield’s fortress, kingdom, or what he’d prefer to call it: his very own Lothlórien.

Welcome to the fairest realm of the Elves in Middle-earth!

If there was one thing Westworth had, it was most definitely memorable teachers. Teachers you would never forget even when you were in your thirties raising your own and forging something out of yourself, while building everlasting friendships. What would she be doing in five or even ten years? Honestly, Lala had no idea and… didn’t really want to think too much into that.

The future.

Her hobbies and talents were weird, to say the least, but if there was anything that could get her far, it would probably be her need to manage something and get nearly impossible things done under stressful time crunches. Pressure was something she thrived off of and if and when she set her mind on a project, may it be her own or for someone else, she would accomplish it at all cost. Sure, she was laid back about most things but she was still one of the better people to partner up with for group projects because she had drive and a head with overflowing ideas. A world of her own that was inspired by her loved ones’ passions, talents, and want to do great things. They inspired her… and that’s all she really had to work from. Her skill set was so broad, it kind of stressed her out. She knew what she was good at and what she was capable of doing but she had no idea about… what the fuck was she going to do after graduation.

The bell rang which gave her the perfect reason to stop thinking about troublesome topics. Since her and Christopher Robin sat next to each other in English, she didn’t really need to say bye to him, he’d catch up eventually. Grabbing her things, she gave Temperance a wink and a not-so-subtle whisper, “Good luck, baby girl!” and then caught up with Desi, who was already ahead of everyone. Walking beside her friend, Lala took a moment to put her pencil behind her ear, then used that same hand to nudge Desi’s shoulder, “I heard Mister Blaise is going to tell us about our final today, what do you think it’s gonna be? He’s fucking weird. Watch. We’re all gonna have to dress up as characters from Tolkien’s universe. I can believe it.”

Mariah looked over at Lorelei and furrowed her brow in thought for a moment. What did she think the final was gonna be? Well, for one, work. And for two… ”Well, if you ask moi, it’s gonna go one of two ways: It’s either gonna be hilariously gay, or straight amazing. There’s really no in-between, he either pushes it to the limit or keeps it low and slow. Or, something like that. I’onno. Want a gummy bear?” She asked, reaching into her sweater pocket and retrieving a few of the snacks. She popped a couple into her mouth and held out the other ones for Lala to either take or disregard. ”Everyone’s avoidin’ the no money thing. It sucks. To be honest, with our overall work ethic in the class as a whole, we’ll probably make like six grand and go to somewhere in-state. Forget out of state, let alone out of country. Except for you and Winnie dah Pooh, I guess you two will head out to the Swiss Alps on graduation day and leave all of us in lil ol’ Westworth behinddd.” Mariah puckered her bottom lip out in a pout and sighed dramatically, before grinning and rolling her eyes.

”Nobody would blame you!” She said, twirling one of the ends of her cap around, before tugging it further down on her ears.

Winter was coming.

Death was coming.

Giving Desi a contemplative stare, Lala reached for a couple of gummy bears, preferably Blue Raspberry, but she took whatever she could from the handful regardless of the type. Leave all of us in lil ol’ Westworth. “Even if we find ourselves leaving, we’d make sure to come back. This is our home, after all.” Placing a gummy bear in her mouth, she chewed on it in frustration, looking straight ahead. Letting out a grumble, which wasn’t necessarily meant to be out loud, she shoved the rest of the bears in her mouth. At last, her lips and actions projected her mental dilemma and she inquired with a mouth full of candy, “What are you gonna’ do? After graduation? Just become a cat lady and be happy?”

”Actually, no. I don’t even really like cats that much, I just happen to have a kitty. Believe it or not, ever since I got the job at the store, I’ve been saving pretty much all my money because I wanna go on a world tour before I decide what I wanna do. I’onno what I wanna do! I ain’t good at much, and I’m not that interesting. So I just wanna see what’s out there before I commit to something crazy… lifelong. And, uh, point of order, but I think Winnie’s home isn’t really Westworth, it’s more ten feet in the air or fifty miles downhill, carving out his, ahem, legacy.” Mariah explained, turning into the English room and gesturing for Lala to follow her. ”But what do I know? You’ve been dating him for like, seven years.”

“You’re right, he’ll go far.” Lala looked at the teach and gave him a salutations greeting (a nod and half-ass salute) before making her way to her desk and plopping her ass down, “I think once I figure out what I’m doing, my parents are traveling the world… again. So, maybe Westworth isn’t home. Whatever, I’ll figure it out eventually.” Taking the pencil out from behind her ear, she lightly drummed at her desk, giving the room a tempo.

”Well, your home is where your heart is, and since yours so obviously belongs to a storybook character, maybe just follow him around. Nothing wrong with turning up the housewife game, plus he kinda needs a babysitter. He spends too much time high, I think. On life, of course,” Deserae added quickly, glancing over at the teacher. ”Speaking of…” Turning to head toward her own desk, Mariah gestured at the doorway, where Christopher Robin was slipping in.

Christopher Robin made a face in his friend’s direction. Oh, yeah, so creepy. So creepy it got him in a (hopefully) lifelong relationship with the only woman his heart would ever desire. Speaking of which… Christopher Robin polished off the last bit of the chocolate milk and sauntered into the English classroom, plopping down next to his girlfriend at their shared desk. ”Jar says I’m creepy. Am I creepy? Hi, baby.” Christopher Robin punctuated his statement with a quick kiss on Lala’s lips and then turned his attention to the teacher.

Learn time go time.

There wasn’t much time to give Desi a weird look about becoming a housewife. Was she housewife material? She was good at taking care of Christopher Robin but that didn’t make her housewife material… did it? Her boyfriend graced her lips with a quick peck and then she responded back with a, “Hi, Piglet. You’re fine.” in return, ignoring going too deep into the ‘am i creepy’ question, since it looked like Mr. Vanderfield was going to talk any second now… that grin said it all and that mustache was always so distracting.

"You know what I love most in this world?" The jolly old man had a little skip to his walk as he circled his students in his fantasy realm.

”I’m gonna guess not shaving cream. Maybe… like, hairy hobbit feet?”

"Ah, Christopher Robin, always a delight to have in class. If only you knew, beards have a way of… growing on you. Well, not you.” Turning on his heel, he looked down at the two lovebirds that sat with each other wherever they could get away with it. Taking note of the annoyance written in Lala’s expression, perhaps thinking too much about unnecessary things, he chuckled to himself and the coursing thoughts in his mind.

English. The class where kids could escape from their responsibilities and woes. "Where was I… oh yes, what I love most in this world besides all things Lord of the Rings.” He walked past his other students noticing Temperance cheeks were kissed pink.

Interesting. Young people were so interesting. Blaise remembered the good ol’ days like it were yesterday...

"Well, that’s easy.” He went to his closet decorated like it should lead to a dungeon and disappeared for a moment. Leaving the kids to chatter and what not for the time being.

“My beardless boy is cute.” Lala teased, adding to Mr. Vanderfield’s remark. The bdm picked up with her pencil, as she waited for their teacher to come back out of the closet. When he made his grand return, her left eyebrow rose. The old man was carrying a shit ton of moleskine notebooks and dropped it on Remy’s desk.

"Be a chap and pass these out." Blaise requested and knew Remy wasn’t one to argue and so the boy abided. While Remy walked around the classroom giving everyone a notebook, Blaise strolled to his record player and played David Bowie Ziggy Stardust on low volume. Rest in Piece Bowie.

"Here.” He surveyed his class and tapped his pointer finger on his temple (his noggin).

Straightening himself up, he continued to emphasize what he loved, "Or in Spongebob terms, your…” The old man mimicked the Sponge’s hand gestures, "Imagination.”

Back in the front, the eccentric man calmly pet at his beard and informed his students on their yearly homework, "What you’re looking at is your Final. You have an entire year to fill those books with whatever you want. Your thoughts, stories, drawings -- the possibilities are endless. Every couple of weeks, I’ll have you Show & Tell one of your entries. Describe what was going on in your mind when you created it and show the class. Perhaps it could lead to mind-blowing discussions or even better, heated debates. Who knows? Treat these books with care, I’d like to see them in one piece by the end of the year. Got it?"

The old man was on a roll, so he didn’t wait for anyone to respond, he was ready to talk about the next thing! "If you have any questions, see me after class. Now. The moment I’ve been waiting for. Your first group project of the semester!” With dramatic flare, he pulled at his projector screen, which immediately flew up with a loud CLANK and the groups with their themes were revealed.


"We’ve been learning many themes in the Shakespearean universe. The Friday before Halloween, I would like you to present to the class a short play of your own. Only one scene is required but there must be a beginning, middle, and end. Let the story go in a full circle or leave us with a cliffhanger. There’s no limitations, except the ones you make. I want to see what you all can do. Okay!" Clapping his hands together, causing it to echo in the room, Mr. Vanderfield gave them their task for today, "We only have so much time. Break into your groups and start cooking up plot.”

The loud sound of Kieran kicking the door open resonated in the room. Lorelei’s silent gaze glanced up at him for a brief moment. Was that necessary? Well, if you’re going to make a grand entrance might as well go the raging barbarian route, amiright? No. It was annoying. For her, at least.

“You’re late, Kieran.” Mr. Vanderfield looked at the Asian with pure amusement, still stroking his beard in thought, “In any other class, breaking school property would lead to detention, or worse, suspension, but I wasn’t fond of that door either. What happens in Lothlórien, stays in Lothlórien! Please join your group, they will bring you up to speed.”

Since Kieran wasn’t in Lala’s group, he wasn’t one of her concerns. Her attention went back to the matter at hand: the group project. Half of her team was already together, so she refused to get up. One of the perks of sitting next to her boyfriend in nearly every class. Pressing her thumb on her eraser, she leaned back in her seat and thought about their topic. Fate. Fate? FATE. What an ambiguous term. That could lead to just about anything. They could make a dumb excuse and do absolutely nothing. Say something like “it was fate that our scene was uneventful.”

Eh, but Vanderfield was cool and he put her in a team with people she liked and loved, which makes him 20 percent cooler in her book. They could make something absolutely ridiculous and see how many people they could make laugh. GOALS. Regardless, they were going to do something great, and it would hopefully be hilarious. “Got any ideas?” She asked her boyfriend with a bright smile, while they waited for Temperance and Jareth to make their way to them.

Jareth’s grin upon entering the class was sadly not returned by his best friend. If anything, Remy looked a little peeved about something… maybe he was remembering what happened to his history homework? Thankfully, Vanderfield didn’t call him out for being a late to class like he had with Kieran. Jareth normally wouldn’t care too much about being late, or upsetting teachers, but Blaise was a cool guy. He liked Bowie, he even went so far as to call Jareth the Goblin King upon first meeting him, and then geekily laughed at his own joke, how could Jar not be charmed?

The projector screen flickered, presenting the project groups to the class. Jar smiled wide when he saw that he would be grouped with CR. This would be good, shenanigans would be had, and laughs for all. Then there was the last name on the list: his newly acquired date. Oh boy…. fate, indeed. The emo got up from his shared desk with Remy and pulled up a chair to the lovebirds’ desk. “What a group, eh?” he said before taking his seat and waiting for the brainstorming discussion to commence.

To be honest, he, bae, Jar, and that one girl got fuckered by the groups. The betrayal and treachery one was way cooler, fate sucked. What even popped up when you Googled fate? Probably something cheesy and superstitious. “Man, we really done drawn the short stick.” CR grumbled in response to Jar. Sure, he liked that he was with his friend, his girlfriend, and Temperance (her parents definitely had something to say about fate, since they sentenced her to a life of the name ‘Temperance.’ Christopher Robin wanted a hit of whatever they were smoking), but come on. BETRAYAL AND TREACHERY WAS RIGHT THERE, DUDE. “Now what the crazy old man gonna be expectin’ is somethin’ that ends with me and Lala bein’ all fated to be together forever and shit, well I’m ‘bout to throw him a curveball.”

Christopher Robin (finally) pulled his sunglasses off, leaning forward on his elbow as he stared across the desk at Jar, “Now I’m not goin’ into this expectin’ to fail, nobody plans to fail, cuz nobody wants to be a loser. Me? I’m plannin’ all the time, I got so much stuff goin’ on up here—” Christopher Robin tapped his forehead with the arm of his glasses, “— that I don’t even know how I keep track o’ all of it. Ain’t nobody in this room gonna be expeckin’ what I have to offer.” Christopher Robin nodded slowly, hanging his sunglasses off of the collar of his shirt, nodding to himself.

“Now I know what both of ya’all are thinkin’: Bae is thinkin’: ‘get on with it Piglet you lil shit’ and Jar is thinkin’: ‘do you ever shut up?’ Now I’mma address that question, the answer to that question is a heartfelt no. No, I don’t shut up. Now I’mma address lover’s thoughts too. I’mma get on with it right now. The endgame here is that we throwin’ a curveball. Now, what might that curveball be? Our skit is gonna end with me kissin’ Jar right on the lips because ain’t no one gonna be expectin’ that. And that’s how we get an A.”

Jareth raised an eyebrow at his good friend’s proposal. Now that was certainly an interesting idea. He rolled the thought of kissing his friend - in front of the entire class - around in his mind. The entire class included Temperance. Would that be bad? Did chicks think guys kissing guys was hot in the same way that dudes thought girls kissing each other was? He’d have to ask Desi for her thoughts on that later, she’d be honest... probably. Whatever, he could be up for it regardless. “Oh, Pooh Bear, if you wanted to kiss me all this time, you coulda just asked. You didn’t have to come up with some elaborate excuse.” Jareth teased in a lilting voice with his hand over his heart, which quickly dissolved into laughter.

Fate? Mr. Vanderfield gave them such an easy topic! Everyone was fated to die. That’s the natural way of the world. Temperance mused on the subject as she meandered over to her partners, stuck between the topic and her future date with Jareth. The fact that the two were paired together… complicated things. Honestly, she had not expected to talk to him until after lunch or something. Now she was just going to be even more awkward than usual, especially after she planted a kiss on the raven haired boy.

Rather than sit next to Jar, Temperance forced a chair between the ever-charming Christopher Robin and her best friend, silently pleading to some god that the brunette boy would get some sense into his head and jump off a bridge. One day, one day, Christopher Robin would be out of her life. It might be 50 years from now when one of them died of old age, but if she knew anything was destined in life, her best friend would be single once more. Lala deserved better! Not this second-rate doofus!

“Why you and Jar? I think it would be better if Lala and I kissed. I mean, she and I are really comfortable together. Plus, you never know how many homophobes might be in this class… People might think you’re actually gay and lynch you. Everybody loves lesbians though. True facts.” she informed he-who-shouldn’t-have-been-named. Her green eyes fell on Jareth’s face, and almost immediately, her face went a beet red as the lyrics to an old Taylor Swift song played in her head. As the blonde sat there, she attempted to play it cool and not ignite any curiosity in her other group members. Unfortunately, everything on her face spoke a different message.

“I’m down for some lesbian shit but are you? Lala trailed her gaze from Temperance's blaring red cheeks to her boyfriend’s baby face. She didn’t look too into the whole ‘her girl best friend purposely put herself in between her and her Piglet’. By now, she was use to Temperance doing that. Probably missed her or something. All the time.

“I’m always down for some lesbian stuff!” Temperance hesitated when she realized what she had just said, a mortified look on her face. “I…wait, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“I think that’s exactly what you meant.” Lala readily teased. If there was one thing Temperance was great at doing, it was amusing her. She was amusing.

“Well, I’m all for it, whether it’s CR and me, or—” Jareth paused when his words reminded him that this might mean Lala and Temperance would actually kiss. That’d be fucking awesome. “—you two.” Jar didn’t let his eyes settle on any of their faces for too long, most importantly not Tempy’s, he probably end up blushing again, or something equally awkward. Especially when she just said she was always down for lesbian stuff. Was he going on a date with a lesbian? Did that mean he was girly? Fuck.

Jareth drove those thoughts out and cleared his throat. “Could even be both pairs, I’ve never given a fuck about what the homophobes think, not gonna start now. Let ‘em try and lynch me.” Though, most people assume he is super sad and shit and is gonna end up lynching himself. He wasn’t. “Anyway, how are we going to tie in the whole fate theme? It can’t just be only gay shock value, that won’t impress Vandy.”

Sigh. Christopher Robin had to put the sunglasses back on as he acknowledged Temperance (who for some reason put herself between him and his girlfriend). Chicks were tough work man, if only he was in a group with like Jar, Remy, and Ryan. Then he wouldn’t have to put his sunglasses back on for a second explanation that frankly shouldn’t have been necessary. At least Bae didn’t give a fuck. “Bitch, please. First and foremost, I am plenty comfortable with Jar here. Secondly, not everyone likes lesbians. You ever heard of the Westboro Baptist Church? No? Google that shit. Learn something. Experience life. Don’t actually Google it, they suck.” Christopher reached up and grabbed one of the lenses of his sunglasses, pulling them off slowly and looking down at the desk. Truthfully, he didn’t care what Lala did, she could kiss Temperance all she wanted, didn’t matter. CR still had her virginity.

Heart too, but he couldn't brag about that with the boys quite as much.

Still looking down at the desk, he placed the sunglasses down, lenses face down. “Now, I’mma take my third point and I’mma address your assumption that the crew is littered with homophobes. I can’t believe that you would think so lowly of your own classmates, the only people you know, the only friends you got, so as to think that they got an issue with two dudes — two friends, mind you — suckin’ face. Butt sex and what have you. Not only that, you done gone and implied that they’re okay with two girls suckin’ face and scissoring and shit. Now let me tell you that I —” Christopher Robin finally looked up, turning his entire body to face Temperance as he shook his head, ” — am just disappointed in you. That is my final point.”

The blonde could only shake her head at the boy beside her. He was an idiot, plain and simple. “Christopher Robin, you can’t argue with statistical facts. There are 109,591 lesbian videos on PornHub at this very moment. Conversely, there’s only 36,083 guy-on-guy videos. It’s pretty clear that the audience prefers lesbians based on that.” Temperance educated her group on the statistical analysis of the very popular porn site’s gay categories. The numbers she pulled out were way too detailed to be made up, revealing more than she intended once more. “And how do you know there aren’t any homophobes in the room? People are hypocrites and liars. And thieves. My real dad used to watch lesbian porn all the time when I was a little girl, and he absolutely hated gays. I’m just saying, you never know what people are thinking. Like Vanderfield could totally be a Nazi.”

Unfortunately for Temperance, as soon as CR finished his sentence, his attention was put elsewhere, somewhere that matters: the window. The clouds were thickening, and it was what, October? Not much longer before snow came and then life was good again. This was kind of boring, and they’d really made no progress. Christopher Robin had exerted about as much effort as he could for schooling, at least until History class.

He’s gone, Jim.

Before Lorelei could comment on her new found knowledge of her friend (Temperance watched way more porn than she thought the blonde would ever do), the teacher strolled up to their group to see how much progress they had made. Lala’s mind was stunned at the thought that Temperance probably watched lesbian porn every night. She should get her porn for her birthday or something. Or was that weird? Buying your friend porn….

“Be careful with bringing up Nazis, you might make someone Führerious. Oh, I crack myself up. I know, I’m terrible. Lay it on me. What do you have?” He crossed his arms and examined their facial expressions waiting for one of them to speak up.

“Gay… shit.” Lala wasn’t sure if the boys would kiss or her and Temperance… or both? But what they did know was there was going to be same gender kissing somewhere in their scene.

“Yeah, nothing super ingenious yet. Give us time, we’ll try not to suck too much.” Jareth said to the teacher. It was true, they honestly had shit for plans. Jar was a creative kid, he drew comics and wrote music, both of which told stories. CR had an unyielding wellspring of imagination, especially when he was high. Who knows what the ladies were capable of. This group could do something really great if they put their minds to it.

“Very well, I don’t expect you to have your scene made today, but do know you perform in two weeks. Make some magic!” And the teacher left the group to go to the next.

Once Vanderfield was out of earshot, Jareth looked over at CR and leaned across the desk. “We should totally get baked and bounce ideas off of each other. We’ll come up with a solid plan, I’m sure of it.” He looked at the girls now. This would be a good test to see how chill the blonde cutie really was. “You in? This weekend maybe, blazing planning session?”

“...have you ever heard the song The Trees by Rush?” What were they talking about? Probably the project, or something. Christopher Robin’s mind was elsewhere. “I bet teach has. It’s a good song. About trees. You see, the oaks are just too lofty and they grab up all the maples light. There’s unrest in the forest, the maples scream oppression. The oaks just shake their leaves — the maples, you see, are quite convinced they’re right. The maples, they form a union, and they demand equal rights. They’re gonna make the oaks give them light, cuz the oaks are just too greedy y’know? Anyway, now there’s no more oak oppression, for they passed a noble law, and the trees are all kept equal, by hatchet, axe, and saw. Oh, I gots a plan a-brewin’, mhm. ...but I will never turn down some time in the sky, so sure. We can do that.”

“Uh…”

Before Temperance could object, Lala nudged her on the side, gently in the ribcage area, “Come onnnnn, you know you want to. It’s like what we do, but with the boys.” She had a cheesy ass grin, as she not so subtly pointed her thumb toward Jar, obviously implying a chance for Tempy to get laid. “We should totally smoke in my treehouse. It’ll be fan-fucking-tastic.”

Of course. Lala with even more peer pressure. Temperance hadn’t ever smoked with anybody other than her best friend, so the whole scenario seemed sacrilegious. But… There was no way she could turn the offer down now. “Yeah. I’m game.” What this could foretell was anybody’s guess. Probably nothing good, though. In fact, she wagered they’d all fall out of the tree house, on account of them being too high.

Remy hadn’t looked at the groups on the projector screen yet since he was too busy passing out the final to everyone. A notebook where they could put absolutely whatever they wanted in it. Maybe he’d put some of his future recipes on some of the pages. He could even get his buddies’ reactions to trying his possibly failed (or successful) attempts. That could be fun. Their reactions were priceless - he may have gotten a kick out of them trying his bad attempts. When he finished his duty and returned back to his seat, he finally glanced up and scanned the teams. Dreams versus reality? Neat topic. Now who was in his… wow. That’s a lot of girls. Every other team seemed to have a good ratio of boys and girls, but his team? Girl central. The teacher clapped his hand signaling everyone to break into their teams and brainstorm their project and so, he did.

Standing up and leaving his things at his desk (besides a notebook and pencil so he could write down their ideas), Remy dragged his chair and pulled it beside Desi’s domain. Plopping down once more, he waited for the other girls to join them. While he waited, he wrote on his notebook all their names, their topic, and put a couple of bullet points for when they did start cooking up plot.

”So… acting. Yeah, I suck at it.” Remy lowly addressed his friend. That wasn’t a lie. It was so embarrassing. He could hardly do speeches in front of the whole class, why do you think he ran for secretary rather than vice or prez? All he had to do was write, remind, and run around a lot. Not talk in front of everyone.

Sophia sat in her seat while Remy was passing out their final assignment, she would listen to what Mr. Vanderfield said about the final project. They could write down anything that they wanted she smiled thinking that she could just write down a lot of her own music into it and then present it, to the others in their class what inspired them. Sophia also started to get ideas for just simply decorating the whole project with some drawings as well.

Her attention then went back to Mr. Vanderfield when he gave them their first group project, seeing their names and spotted her name in group two. Dreams VS Reality would be interesting. Sophia grabbed all of her things and got up she spotted Remy sitting next to Desi smiling at them for a moment before grabbing a seat of her own pushing it with the other desks. “Maybe we should give you the lead role then.” Sophia said jokingly knowing that Remy was bad when it came to acting.

Hahaha- very funny Sophia Teasingly rolling his eyes but not saying anything, Remy twirled his pencil in his hand and shot Sophia a friendly glare.

Madi wasn’t thrilled about this project. Her brother was the actor in the family, not her. She gently chewed on her lip as the groups began to come together, and she finally took it upon herself to stand up and walk over to her own group. Head held high, she walked over to Remy, Desi, and Sophia and took a seat across from Desi, offering a small wave to the others. Come on Madi, don’t be wimp

”So anyone have any ideas?” she asked, hoping someone would speak up and take the lead, allowing her to follow along for the majority of the project. Under normal circumstances, Madi was much more forthright with her ideas. But it seemed that today, she wasn’t one for speaking up. Just throw something out there. They’ll love it, let’s be real Madi thought to herself. She took a deep breath, before blurting out her idea. ”Maybe we could do something about a guy who’s dreams are all influenced by his real life, only better. But when he becomes too enamored with the dreams, he realizes that he can’t really, live in them. I don’t know, something along those lines maybe?”

In that moment, it dawned in Remy's noggin that no matter where this would go... he would be a lead. He was... THE ONLY GUY. Taking a moment to think about Madi's suggestion, Remy heavily sighed. There was no escape, he might as well pitch his idea that Madi inspired, even if he didn't like it. Regardless, Remy refused to fail and if it required him to suck it up and be the fucking lead, so be it. He would do it. He'd die doing it, but he'd do it.

Clearing his throat, Remy voiced his opinions, ”I think there was intention in the whole… one boy and many girls dynamic we got here. Mr. Vanderfield might be a bit wacky but he knows what he’s doing… at least I’d like to think he knows what he’s doing. ANYWAYS.” Get to the point, man. ”Going off Madi’s idea, what if the guy character has four girls in his life? Sorta.” He gestured to each of them, ”And maybe one is his crush, the other is his sister, the other is his childhood friend, and the last one is a girl of his imagination. His dream girl, but she’s only in his dreams. A combination of the three main girls in his life. Am I making sense? So yeah. The scene could be like him starting off sitting in his bedroom and then he hears the voices of the women in his life. Cute things his crush says, advice from his sister, and… loving words from his childhood friend that he overlooks. He falls asleep and there we can go wild and enter his dreamscape world! Where his… tour guide is his waifu, which looks like his crush, sounds like his sister, and acts like his childhood friend. He furrowed his eyebrow a little, his idea was probably shit, ”That’s-- all I got.”

Really, for a high school, the gymnasium was like the gladiatorial arena of Roman times. The place where the lambs were fed to the wolves. In this case, the lambs were the unathletic kids, who were lined up to be destroyed by the (totally fair) teams that the gym teacher had drawn up. Dodgeball day. It happened too often, Mariah thought, but she knew damn well why it happened as often as it did…

“OH, savage! It’s dodgeball day!”

The only other time that Christopher Robin ever got this hyped up was when he watched a snowboarding video and got ready to shred himself. He fucking LOVED dodgeball day. He’d play it every damn day if he could. Throwing balls at his friends? Being allowed to hit people with shit without there being any complaints? Sign him the fuck up. Of course, most of the boys in their class were this way. Throwing red balls at people was the best.

“Man, those teams are not fair, at all. What is Coach thinking? Oh well, at least I’m on the good one, ya? Tough luck, Rem.” Mariah said, giving Remy a pat on the back and jogged off to go start running warm up laps. Here we go.

PE was great and dodgeball day was even better. What was not-so-great were the teams listed on the whiteboard. In any other class, Jareth would be stoked to be in the same group as his best friend. But, gym class? Well, athletics never were Remy’s strong suit - more like a weak suit… a really weak suit. ‘Sorry, Rem,’ Jareth thought to himself as he longingly stared over at CR with puppy dog eyes. He supposed the fates couldn’t align and pair him up with Christopher Robin twice in one day. At least Jar would have the chance to pelt The Big Evil Ex with dodgeballs… silver linings!

“Dad… I think I’m--” Cough. The blond boy tried to play it like he had done many times since he was a child, avoiding strenuous activity such as all things gym class, acting ‘terribly sick’, Sickness ran through his blood. He was known for being the sick kid! Pneumonia, strep throat, the common cold, you name it! Remy’s had it all. Taking off his beanie hat, he wiped it on his face, making it seem like he was cleaning imaginary sweat off his forehead, “Oh yeah… I don’t feel so hot. I feel god awful. Maybe I should visit my future… mom. Get meds, go home, call it a day. Y’know, for my health?”

Scanning the kids in the gym, taking attendance in silence on his clipboard, Ray listened to his son’s whining. Goddamit, Remy. When were you gonna learn this didn’t work on him? Never did. Not when you were six, not now. There were many things that needed to happen since his boy was an almost adult man, like how to hold the fort while Ray was out of town. How was his son going to protect the love of his life if all he did was bitch and complain? If there was one thing the bulky man was going to do before Remy graduated high school, it was instill values that every lady would appreciate. Or like that Disney movie Mulan went, that his daughter was obsessed with: I’ll make a man out of you! “Drop and give me ten.” Ray nonchalantly said, bringing his gaze from the kids who already started jogging to his son.

Remy gave his father a ‘what, why?!’ face. “Dad, I just said I’m dying”

“Yeah and if I find out that you ain’t sick from Tempest, you’ll be more dead. What’s it gonna’ be, boy?”

This fucking sucked. Remy watched as his father took his beanie hat away and gave him that ‘no excuses’ look. Grumbling to himself, Remy dropped to the floor and started to do push ups to the best of his capabilities. Really, they were kind of pathetic, but he did his best. Ray strolled away and went by the whiteboard, watching all of his students warming up.

Loreilei threw herself on the floor beside Remy so he didn’t feel like the odd ball out. “Hey, Smiley.” She adjusted her body so she was aligned with him and gave a calm smile. ”Don’t think too much, just do. You know what helps me?”

Remy was laying on the floor, totally not ready to do anymore… he only did three. “What, Lala?”

“Think of a song with a beat and go with the beat. Or be like me and totally sing and move with the song. Give me a song.” Lala tried her best to encourage her friend to enjoy his time for once in the easiest class (in her opinion).

“Any song… you won’t judge me?” Looking up at the brunette, Remy narrowed his eyes in suspicion and wariness. Not bothering to respond to that comment, Lala gave him a ‘duh’ face as well as an eye roll. When did she ever judge him? Sure, he was a more feminine boy, and had interests his dad didn’t think was suited for a man, but that had nothing to do with her opinion on him. The blond boy crept closer to the girl and whispered a song in her ear, which made her genuinely smile. Adorable.

“When I say three, start the song from the beginning and follow my lead. One… two…”

“Three…” Remy whispered and both him and Lala lifted themselves up and went down on the beat. He watched her head bob to the song playing inside both of their heads and kept up with her. If you’re wondering what song was playing in their heads? It was: Crazy by Britney Spears. In no time, he was done with ten pushups and actually did fifteen! His arms were sore, though…

Looking up from the floor, Remy stared at his friend’s hand, huffing a little. Lala was hovering over him, offering to help him up, “Lets do some laps.”

Okay, yeah… he could do this. Grabbing his friend’s hand, she pulled him up and they started jogging behind the charge. It was nice having a friend like Lala.

Running was the best form of physical activity, in Jareth’s opinion. The agile emo started each and every morning with a run and, were he the type to join an organized sport, Ray had no doubt that he’d be a star on any track team or speed-reliant sport. And Ray tried to convince him to join a team, really, and he continued to do so quite relentlessly. Jar had already joined the marching band, how was that not enough for these small town vultures? He missed the luxury of city schools, you were free to slack off in class and be good at PE without people bugging you to improve yourself and all that. Fuck.

Needless to say, the raven-haired boy practically flew around the indoor track for their ‘warm up’ run. Jar cut across the gym floor to jog beside CR, because he wasn’t quite fast enough to totally lap the avid snowboarder. “Dude, these teams totally blow.” he opened in his first verbal complaint of the class.

“Still gonna kick your ass, though.” he said with a smirk.

And that, dearest Jareth, is where you were wrong. Where Christopher Robin’s team had the luxury of not only Christopher Robin, they also had Ryan. The cherry on top was that Jareth was also bogged down by Remy, Tempy, and Kenzi, who were all unathletic, sucky, or lazy respectively. “Nah, bro. You die first. Then it’s easy pickins from there. I’m sorry that Coach decided to sacrifice you, BUT. They expected one of us in the wreckage, brother. But don’t worry. The fire rises.”

Jareth’s smirk faltered momentarily. What CR said was pretty much one hundred percent true, Jar knew that, but he wasn’t gonna let it pysch him out. The odds might not be in his favor, not even remotely, but he was competitive as all hell. “Dude, just because I’m emo doesn’t mean that I’m dying any time soon. I’m too fast to be caught, and too skinny to make for a large target. GG. You’re going down, but don’t worry, I’ll tell tales of your bravery to the homies.” A grin replaced the slight smirk - a false grin - the grin of a man that knows his time is short.

Uniforms weren't necessary unless you were in one of the 'competitive' sports the school had to offer, which weren't many and consisted of faces everyone knew. Small school, remember? As long as you followed dress code to a degree, you could wear whatever you wanted. For gym class, Coach preferred if the ladies didn't showcase their stomach and cleavage, but other than that he was pretty lenient. He didn't want to seem like a tyrant of a gym teacher.

Rachel Watts, Westworth's 'basket case' (thanks, dad), had already stripped out of her outfit of the day, which was on the more preppy side, she supposed, and currently was standing in front of a locker putting her black gym shorts on over her floral rose colored underwear. Her sports bra matched in a pinkish red tint but unlike her underwear, it did not have lace, design, or anything engaging. Her sneakers rested on the bench, along with her perfectly folded gray tee. There was a hair tie around her wrist, a single beauty mark above her belly button, and as she bent over, a tumble of her blonde curls spilled over her shoulders and cascaded in the air. The color of smooth honey when in the light, there was warm reddish hues and a hint of butterscotch. Rather than make her look washed out, her thick hair gave her round and pale face a sunny disposition, only adding to her memorable smile.

The blonde that stood at 5'6" and weighed a lovely 119 lbs made an indistinct sniffle nose, wafting in the odor trailing in the girls’ locker room, “Ash... did you just get done smoking?” she finished pulling her shorts up. They had taken a detour to gym class so they were most likely missing warm ups right now.

“Huh?” Came a voice, followed by a giant tidal wave of deep blue hair crashing around the corner. Ash brushed it out of her face, looking at Rach with a squint as the locker room lights revealed her freckles. “Oh, uh, heyyyy. Yeah, guilty.” She giggled, disappearing again before reappearing with many various items of clothing. “I had no idea anyone else was in here. You’re not gonna tell the coach, right?”

“Oh please, you know me better than that.” Rachel reached inside the locker and dug into her backpack, pulling out her vanilla perfume, “This isn’t much and I only use it if I reallyyyy need it, but it’ll cover up some of the smell.” She approached her friend, still very much only in her sports bra and shorts. Offering her scent to Ashley, she added with a grin, “If anything you can totally act a little koo-koo like me and Coach will think you haven’t slept for days!”

A chuckle escaped from the older girl’s lips, surprisingly loud as it echoed throughout the room. “Koo-koo? Nah, that ain’t you.” She said, trying to preoccupy herself by fumbling around with her jeans button, so as to tear her eyes away from her best friend. God damn my sexually charged teenage mind, she thought, taking the perfume from Rachel. “Thanks.” Ashley sprayed some of the perfume in question, the smell wafting up her nostrils. She normally never used fragrance, but hey; she’d rather be covered in chemicals than found high in school. Her grandma would never let her hear the end of it, not to mention the double-up in chores she’d be tasked with and the stricter curfew. Granny Samson knew she hated being cracked down on, but it was usually the only way to get Ash in line.

“Hm. Smells nice. What is it, vanilla?”

“Mhm!” Rachel pushed pieces of her wild curls behind her right ear, keeping her full attention on Ashley’s face, “It’s nothing exciting... I don’t like wearing perfume but Abigail thinks every lady should have some sort of scent to add to her ‘allure’.” Abigail was Rachel’s step mother, who honestly was a pain in the teen’s ass, but she dealt with her when she had to and only called her ‘mom’ when her dad was near. The blonde narrowed her rapture-blue eyes briefly as she noticed a faint eyelash under her friend’s left eye. Absentmindedly, she leaned in close to Ashley’s face and gently glided her pointer finger on her cheek. For a moment that felt like forever, their faces were inches away from each other, until Rachel pulled away and brought her finger close to Ash’s lips, "Blow and make a wish!”

Ho, boy, Ash thought, hazel eyes firmly widened and breath bated. In a locker room with a barely decent (cute!) girl inches away from her face, and she wasn’t even legal yet in most of America. Finally taking a sharp inhale of oxygen, she blew the eyelash from Rach’s finger - the gust of breath managing to catch some of her golden curls - and wished for a tiger cub (because who wouldn’t?!). She stood frozen momentarily, before gears turned in her head and reminded her that she couldn’t stand in the locker rooms forever, and she actually had to get changed and do stuff. “Uh, I should maybe get changed before it gets even later than it is.” Ashley quickly swapped out her incredibly comfortable ripped jeans for her starchy, horrible gym shorts, still trying to push back her sexual frustration as she tried to organise the mess of clothes in front of her.

Oh yeah, what time was it anyways? 11:05 AM. Rachel gazed down at her wristwatch and shrugged at the sight of the time. With little to no care that they were fashionably late, she grabbed the bottle of perfume and returned it to her bag’s front pouch. Finishing getting dressed wouldn’t take too long for her, she was already halfway done! Grabbing the nicely folded t-shirt off the wooden bench, Rachel pulled it over her head and dramatically sighed, “Did you see the teams? It’s like a bunch of barbaric orcs, minus you and maybe a couple of others on that side, versus peaceful hobbits, who don’t want anything to do with this war! I guess we do have Jar and Fifi… but still. I think Coach is a sadist.” Her head popped out from the opening, as she clicked her tongue in disapproval.

Ashley had to hold back a sigh of relief as Rachel put her shirt on, taking a moment to process what she was saying. “Peaceful… hobos?” She questioned, before shaking her head and moving on. “I’d hardly call CR barbaric.” Ash giggled, throwing her hoodie, beanie and shirt on the floor, before quickly throwing her gym shirt on. It wasn’t the best of shirts, but at least it wasn’t as bad as her shorts. Either way, she didn’t see why they needed to change. She’d done more impressive things than throw balls at people aggressively in casual clothing, and it didn’t exactly ruin the clothes. Who even invented the godawful rule that you had to change for gym? God, it was annoying as all hell. “Anyways,” she grinned, perhaps a little too sadistically, ”who said we couldn’t take the shi-- uh, horrible teams, and turn it into something fun?” She craned her neck around to look at Rachel, displaying her grin in all its’ glory.

While tying her shoelaces, Rachel glanced up to meet Ash’s gaze and raised an eyebrow, “That look is the look that says: I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.” ...pull the bunny ears out to the side away from the shoe and voila! A square knot is made. Switching to her other foot, she curiously inquired, "Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.” What? Rachel was usually a willing participant and she trusted Ashley. This would surely be fun! Like the Cheshire Cat says in Alice in Wonderland: Every adventure requires a first step,

“Alright… let’s see.” Ash sat down, face full of concentration. “Okay, so you go into the gym, and tell Coach that I can’t be there just yet - say I’m having woman issues or something, I don’t know - and then just find yourself someplace where you can memorise the gym for the most part. Then, I sneak to the breaker box, and turn off the lights. Bam, place is dark as shit and Coach probably won’t even care, ‘cus extra difficulty or whatever. Dodgeball in the dark, baby!” She got to her feet in triumph, fistbumping the air as she laughed. Packing away all her clothes, she leaned against her locker. “Man, this is gonna be awesome.”

Oooooh! This would be a thrilling turn of events for Dodgeball day! The gym didn’t get completely dark because of some of the windows but it was dark enough to obscure everyone’s visions. Though, didn’t Joe forget to pull up the blinds today? Maybe the gym would be completely dark. Rachel didn’t really know but this would be exciting regardless! Wait, how would they know who tags who out? We’ll find out when the lights are back on... I’M SO EXCITED. The blonde wasn’t amazing at Dodgeball but she wasn’t horse shit either! She was mediocre at best. “What are we waiting for?! We can’t waste any time! There’s probably one more lap left.” Before she scurried off to distract Mr. Delaney, she pulled Ashley into a comforting, warm embrace, “You’re so smart!” And with that, Rachel released her friend and ran off.

Oh, okay, hugging, that’s a thing, Ash thought, taken aback and hesitating slightly before managing to quickly embrace the hug. Boy, she was going to have to get used to this. “Have fun!” Ash barely managed to call after her friend, giggling to herself as she made her way to the breaker box.

With no spatial awareness and a high voice that most likely everyone could hear her over the music, Rachel jogged out the locker room and went to the big man. Coach. “The Crimson Wave has come and claimed Ashley!

“Jesus, Watts. Can you get any louder? I don’t think the whole class needs to know that.” Ray wrote a check mark by Rachel and Ashley’s names on his list as “here”, rather than tardy, since he was happier they showed up rather than run to the nurse like his son wanted to do. Awkwardly clearing his throat, he gestured toward the running kids, “Get at least one lap in.”

“Y’know, Coach. If you think of a woman’s period as something like shark week, it wouldn’t make you feel that uncomfortable! It’s totally normal and be grateful we upgraded to tampons and maxi pads, rather than using rags we would have to wash and reuse. Yah technology!”

“Watts.” Coach furrowed his eyebrow at the eccentric girl with hardly any filter.

“Okay. Running, lappin’, no Crimson Wave for meeeee!” After happily waving at Remy’s dad, she turned on her heel and started sprinting down the gym.

Gym class sucked. Really, school in general kinda sucked, but hey. This was the curse of the American government’s power over everything! School. Mandatory. If you don’t show up, your parents get arrested because you’re a truant. Lawson had no idea who the fuck came up with that, but they deserved to be FIRED. Because of them, here he was. Attending school. Trying to do math, being forced to do homework, interacting with people.

But hey, at least there was always good music during gym class. In all honesty, it sucked less than the other classes he had to attend. Lawson just wanted to know what fucking garbage weighted ‘random’ generator the coach used to make up these teams. Christopher Robin and Ryan, arguably the two most athletic (and easily the most competitive) lads in the class on one team? And then you put Remy, Temperance, himself, and Kenzi on the same team? Bullshiiiiiiiiit. Bullshiiiiiiiiit. At some point in Ray Delaney’s mind, he had thought these teams were not only a good idea, but they were ‘fair’ and ‘balanced.’

Coach must have been taking classes on balance from the same people who’d balanced ice mages in WoW, because this made no sense. Looking around the gym, he spotted Kenzi up in the stands. Per usual, she was the one who had the most sense of everything. Fuuuuuuuck this shit. Glancing at the list of teams one last time, Lawson considered his options. Go sit next to Kenzi, and double team the coach when he tried to get them to do shit, or take the chance to hit Ryan and CR with hard rubber. Truly, the dilemma of the century.

Eh, Kenzi looked like she had the bleachers on lock. However, the absentness of his friend posed a problem to the young lad, and watching Rachel walk away from the Coach, Lawson took this chance to step forward and voice his concerns. Stepping up in front of Mr. Delaney, while his peers ran around him, doing laps or… something, Law had made a conscious decision to skip warm up and so far so good, Lawon spoke to the big guy.

“Hey, Coach. You seen Kenzi sitting up on the bleachers. Now, everybody already knows that she ain’t budgin’, lad. Now, this poses a problem, because our already terribly balanced teams are thrown off even by Kenzi’s sudden, and completely expected, decision to sit in the bleachers and let the rest of us get, ahem, excuse my French, fucked. Brutally. You see, Coach, they say all men are created equal. Well, you look at Remy and you look at Ryan and Christopher Robin and you know that that’s not true. See, normally when you make gym class teams, there’s a 50/50 chance of winning for each team. But, CR and Ryan are genetic freaks, and they ain’t normal, dude. And then you add CR’s ho to the mix? And my team got a 25% chance at best of beatin’ them. Then, you add Kenzi to the mix also? My team’s chances of winning drastically go down! Because Kenzi KNOWS she can't beat team one, and she ain’t even gonna try! So that gives them a 66 ⅔ chance of winning, and my team a 33 ⅓ chance of winning. So, you take my team’s 33 ⅓ chance of winning, minus the 25% chance of winning that CR’s girl gives us, and we got an 8 ⅓ chance of winning this game of dodgeball! But then you take CR and Ryan’s 75% chance of winning if they was to go against the whole class alone, and then you add 66 ⅔ percents chance of winning, and their team got 141 ⅔ chance of winning this game of dodgeball! See, Coach, the numbers don’t lie and they spell DISASTER for my team during this game of dodgeball, dig?” Lawson threw his hands up in the air, as if this all made perfect sense. Which it totally didn’t, but whatever. He had a point he was going to get to.

Ray furrowed his eyebrows. Why were all these kids nonsensical? And on top of that, no one ever wanted to try. You got his son that wanted to escape and knowing Remy, he’d fake an injury or something stupid, just so he could join Kenzi on the bleachers or go where he wanted to go originally, the nurse. Then you got girls and their womanly troubles and no filters, what so ever. He might have been slightly annoyed at Rachel for telling the world that Ashley was on her period and she was not. And now, you got the boy that could talk on, and on, and on, dancing around his point, just so Ray could be reasonable (and a huge possibility the boy just liked hearing his voice). God, some days being a teacher was damned stressful, but he loved it, so c’est la vie. “Are you suggesting Christopher Robin and Ryan versus the entire class? Or do you want me to rework the teams where I debuff team 1, so team 2 can get away with slackin’? Please enlighten me with what The Law thinks would benefit my class.”

“You know, what I’m actually sayin’ is you should scramble the teams, but now that you mention it, CR and Ryan would have a 75% chance against the whole class alone. I thought I was clear about that? But, whatever. Scramble the teams. Make things less sucky.” It was only seconds after Lawson spoke that Christopher Robin zero’d in on it and complained.

”Awww, what? Don’t do that! These teams are fire. Straight supa hot fire. Leave ‘em be. Getting shit on builds character.” He said quickly, calling out from across the gym, where he’d been getting situated to dumpster Jar and co. Come on, coach, don’t ruin this for him!

FiFi was practically vibrating with excitement to play dodgeball. It didn’t even matter remotely to her that the teams were not balanced, she didn’t even consider that. So many of her friends were on her team, even her bestie! They would play, they would have a blast, and they would definitely win. All this complaining was only sending out bad vibes. “CR’s half right, Law. Let’s do this, just be confident, throw really hard, and it will be their team who is ‘building character’.” FiFi said cheerily, adding finger quotations to the last part.

Everyone started getting in position, one side far more miserable than the other, unless you were Rachel, who appeared to be a ditz nearly all the time. Wrapping her arms around her other best friend, Ffiona, who was thankfully on her team, the curly haired blonde excitably chirped, ”You ready to get some booty? And by booty I mean pelting balls at people. Extra points if you hit their butts.”

“Yes, girrrl. That’s the spirit!” Ffiona responded and shook her own teal gym short-clad booty for emphasis. “We’ll call it the Booty Bonus.”

Lala, who was stretching her arms on the other side, couldn’t help but smile at this. Rachel talked a lot louder than she realized. “I’m sure FiFi wouldn’t mind getting some actual booty either, huh?” Teasingly chuckling, Lorelei gave her friends a smug look and a cheeky grin.

Ffiona’s speckled cheeks went from ginger pale to beet red in less than a second. “Hey!” she squeaked defensively. It was one thing to have her virginal status called out like that in front of the entire class, it was another thing to be called out by LaLa. FiFi shook it off, she had to, before her cheeks betrayed her any further. Instead, she set off to do the unthinkable - and skip-ran over to Kenzi in an attempt to coax her from the bleachers, and join the game. If anyone could get the spunky ‘ask me how much I care’ girl to do something, it was Ffiona. Most people eventually caved just to get her to stop talking.

As the day had went on, Jade found herself drifting through most of it. English proved to be rather uneventful. She found out that she had a group with Nicholas Chen and that Aiden guy. It was apparently centered around lies and betrayal. It was as if the big guy upstairs was having a little fun with irony, considering Jade knows all too well about those two things, and they are two things she will never be able to escape. It’s not like it really mattered, anyway. It was an assignment. Regardless how she felt about it, Jade would do her part despite how much it seemed meaningless to her.

When English let out, Jade had trig, which was, if nothing else, another excuse to drill useless information into the poor students' minds. Jade couldn't tell you what he taught because she found herself drifting in and out. Even if Thorne was kind of hot, it didn't change the fact that it was a math class and Jade couldn't process math so early in the morning. She needed to escape fast, lest she go a little insane.

Eventually, when the bell had rung, Jade got her shit into her bag, and jolted for the door in a brisk walk. She didn’t want to get stuck behind the mob of students who had the same idea. Thankfully, she wasn’t part of the masses that would have difficulties squeezing through the door. It helped to had picked a seat closest to the door.

And with that, Jade went to her next class, which was her first elective. Thankfully, it was a class that she was looking forward to. And it was also one that flew by. Creative Writing that was taught by the English Teacher. It was pretty much a rinse and repeat of trig: teacher spent time talking about what assignments were going to be assigned, but at least Jade found herself entirely focused on what he was saying. To her, this course meant just as much to her as music did. It was an outlet in which she could creatively express herself. As such, Jade actually was excited. Yeah, she might be a bit of a nerd in that regard.

Sounded off the bell, and Jade was once again free, being left to her devices for the brief period in-between periods. In that time, Jade put what she needed to in her locker, and only got what she needed for what seemed to be a hellish nightmare of a class: P.E. Everything about this class was dreadful. From who taught it to how everyone that Jade knew despised her, she was not looking forward to it one bit. Halfway to the gym, she had the thought to just skip it. Not like she would be missed. Jade might get into trouble with the principal and it’s likely she’ll hear it from her Aunt Veronica - maybe her Uncle Charlie too if he’s home, which usually he is.

After contemplating it for about half of a minute, Jade shrugged. There wasn’t much use in her missing the first class. What’s the worse that could happen?

And, as Jade would reach the gym, and see what was going to be planned…

You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?

Of all things, a fucking dodgeball match. And her team didn’t exactly have a lot of tanks, now did they? A couple, but not enough. While there was certainly a decent number on the opposing team, Jade couldn’t help but grit her teeth when she saw Jareth Wells was on the opposing team. Somewhere deep in her gut, she felt an odd sensation go through her body. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it - but Jade didn’t have time to dwell on it. Time was ticking, and she needed to get changed.

Location was girl’s locker room, and Jade was in front of the little locker that had been assigned to her. She quickly got changed into the assigned gym clothes that consisted of black gym shorts that came to about mid-thigh and a grey shirt. Due to Jade’s mildly-curvy body, the shorts felt a little tighter than they should have. The shirt was a little loose due to Jade’s thin torso(minus her bust).

While Jade was in the process of tying her sneakers snug on her feet, she overheard two voices talking: Rachel and, if her memory served her right, that Ash chick -the one always hanging around Rachel like some kind of puppy. It’s cute to a degree, but Jade often wonders when Rachel will get a clue. They seemed to be talking about a bunch of boring crap. Something about vanilla perfume and a few other things that Jade phased out for her own sanity. She was about to leave until she heard something that caught her interest: they had a plan for the dodgeball game. And from the sounds of it, Jade was liking where it was heading. She snickered to herself, knowing that P.E. might just not be as dreadful as she had thought earlier.

Jade wanted to keep a close ear on them, so she shadowed them casually. She would only wait a moment or two after they left the locker room before she left herself, keeping her blue-green eyes on them as she walked about the gymnasium. She was probably about five or so feet away. It was far enough as to not raise additional eyebrows(come on, it’s Jade, so of course she’s going to get eyes staring at her), but definitely close enough so that she could be of earshot.

Before Jade took the lap, she saw that Rachel girl was chatting with the Coach. If only she could get closer, but eyes were staring at her, so she had to take that lap. That didn’t mean she couldn’t go slow, which was exactly what Jade did. Her reason behind this was to do it at a pace so that Rachel could pass her, and when she did, Jade said, “I heard you chatting with Rachel. If you’re going to do this - like for real - I want in,” Jade’s arm went on Rachel's shoulder, aiming to slow her, “After all, us girls have to stick together, after all.” Jade gave Rachel a mischievous wink.

For the past minute, Ray quickly went over the rules and held onto his whistle, getting ready to signal the start of the game. They knew the drill but for the sake of those who didn’t listen, he would reiterate himself - as per usual. Dodgeball wasn’t an odd occurance in his class. He loved it. It truly gave his students the chance to experience the exhilaration of competition and perhaps one day he’d take them to Denver and have them play at Sky Zone. “--No team time outs. Gym class is only so long, kids. This is an elimination game. Objective. Take out the other side until there’s no one standing. Easy enough? You’re out when the ball hits you, if the ball rebounds off of someone and hits you, or if a defending player catches the flying ball and nopes it from being counted as a hit. Got it? Get it? Good. Headshots aren’t permitted. Hit someone’s head, you’re out. Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.” He paused for a second and glanced over at his son, “And for god’s sake, try. This should be fun for everyone.”

Remy gave his father two thumbs up and a faux grin, but really, he just wanted to leave. Too bad his father would notice him missing in an instance. Sighing to himself, he broke eye contact with Ray and scanned the red rubber balls at the center of the court, preparing himself to run and getting sweaty hands from nervousness.

“At the blow of my whistle, the game begins.” Coach signaled the almost beginning of the game.

Thwump.

There was a loud noise as the lights hit and darkness fell across the gym, near complete darkness; it was October in the mountains of Colorado: it was cloudy and the windows didn’t give much light; the sun was blocked out. So, in the darkness, Mariah froze, her heart still.

Fuck the dark.

Mariah didn’t like the dark, she didn’t fuck with the dark, she didn’t play in the dark, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to play dodgeball in the dark. What devil had cast this hell upon them? “See ya. I am not playing in the dark,” the tiny girl said, tossing the dodgeball up above her head. “I hereby willingly submit to any punishment that you see fitting of this, but I’m ollie fuckin’ outtie, coach. I don’t do the dark. Nyctophobia, look it up.” As she spoke, Mariah was already heading toward the hallway, where her friend the light still existed. Freedom.

It wasn’t even like she disliked dodgeball! Just darkness. Darkness was terrifying. People die in the dark, far more often than in the day. Hasn’t anyone ever watched a movie? Don’t play in the dark, dude.

Ah, fuck. Who the hell turned the lights off? These kids really didn’t want to play, did they? “I don’t want to be responsible for injuries, so I’m going to check the breaker box. And alright, Mariah, you’re usually on top of things so you have my clearance.” What? He wasn’t dumb. Kids messed with the breaker box all the time. “If it isn’t the breaker, then gym class is cancelled. Unless. You can convince me otherwise.” Huffing to himself, he pulled out a small led flashlight that was in his pant’s pocket and switched it on.

Remy took this as a perfect opportunity to escape. Segwaying to the exit, trying his best to avoid the human traffic, Remy shyly voiced, “I, uh, you know how I get… dark… hit things… injuries. I should make sure Desi doesn’t leave school, or something, yeah? Yeah…”

“If I let you leave, everyone will want to leave, Remy.” Coach scoffed.

“I’ll bring my a-game next time! PLEASE.” The lanky blonde boy begged in the dark. Why couldn’t his dad let him have this one thing? He NEVER missed class. One wouldn’t hurt! GODDAMMIT.

“Coach! You have me, I’ll kick booty even if we’re at such a huge disadvantage and now it’s completely dark! Spoopy. Let’s do this!" Rachel excitably cheered. No fear, no game. She was prepared, regardless of where they stood. She was going to have fun.

”Eh, coach don’t even worry about it. Me and my boys boutta throw down in this dark shit ain’t got nothin’ to fear, let your boy roam free. Ya ever seen Free Willy? With the whale? Well this Free Remy. Free his ass to run after lil ol’ Desi and keep her alive. Save her. Keep ‘er safe. Chill chill.”

“... fine.” Begrudgingly, Coach agreed and added one last thing before his son made a successful escapade, for once, “Keep me and Tempest posted. I’ll be home late for dinner, got a big game coming up soon.” At least big for a tiny school.

Oh thank goodness. Thank you Christopher Robin! “Got it. See ya later." If Remy could, he would give Jareth a personal goodbye but it was too dark so he turned on his heel and scurried out the exit, where there was light. “Desi! Wait up!”