FicWad

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Oh, how I weep. All teachers are corruptions of actual teachers at my former high school.

Warnings: Slash, language, some stuff that probably makes me a bad Catholic.



Failing Jesus


Chapter Two: Fitting the Pieces Together


With a relieved sigh, I shut the door to our room behind me, brushed the remaining lovebugs off of me, and tossed my bag on the bed nearest to the door.

Snitch and Skittery had already pulled the sofa out into a bed that matched the other two in the room, complete with fuzzy, green blanket. And they'd already launched themselves into a full-blown make-out session. Racetrack was lying on the other bed, a pair of headphones melded securely to his ears, his eyes closed. I swear, I thought I heard Ashlee Simpson blaring from his CD player.

Humming softly along with "Autobiography," I pulled my bible out of my bag and shoved my binder in its place. I kept my Goldfish stashed near the bottom of my bag, since we were technically supposed to bring all of our snacks to the lobby of the biggest building, the one with the conference room and the snack room. Right. Like that would happen.

Then, with an expression of fierce determination, I snatched my bug spray, dashed outside, sprayed our door as thoroughly and as quickly as I could, and then collapsed back inside.

Racetrack glanced up briefly, then turned off his CD player, a smirk on his face.

"Glad to see they haven't eaten you."

"Ha, ha. Very funny." Frowning, I turned my attention to Snitch and Skittery, who were still making out. "How long do you think they're gonna keep that up?"

Race's smirk turned evil. "Until we do something about it. DOGPILE!" he howled suddenly as he launched himself on top of the sofa-bed.

"OW! Racetrack, you /freak/!"

"Race, get your bony-ass elbow out of my ribs!" Snitch managed to wiggle around a bit until I could see his face. "Blink, help us!"

I laughed. "Sure, no prob." Grinning to myself, I ran across the room and, with a flying leap, landed on top of my friends.

"OH, MY GOD, I HATE YOU!"

"Jesus, that /hurts/!"

Somehow, through the laughter and the screaming, Skittery managed to slide out from the bottom of the pile and pull Snitch out with him. That, however, managed to completely flip me over and made Race lose his balance. I somehow ended up on my back with Racetrack halfway on top of me as Snitch and Skitts sat on the floor and laughed at us. The bastards.

"Okay, I hate you guys," Racetrack muttered, fighting to keep the smile off of his face, as he struggled up onto his elbows.

"Hey, you guys are the ones who dogpiled /us/!"

"Race, I love you, but could you possibly get off of me?"

"Sure. Hang on, though, you've got a lovebug in your hair."

"God /dammit/!"

He laughed and reached forward to flick one of those horrible, omnipresent things out of my bangs. I made sure it wasn't planning on flying back to lay eggs in my skull, then blew a piece of hair out of my face.

I blinked when I realized that Race hadn't moved.

He was just kind of... looking at me. At first, I figured that he'd discovered a nest of those damn bugs in my hair and was wondering how to break it to me gently. But I soon realized that that wasn't the case; his eyes were too wide, too filled with something that looked an awful lot like confusion. The hand that he'd used to remove the bug from my hair hovered near me, moving slightly closer, then a bit farther away, like he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. And that was a bit unnerving. I'd never seen Racetrack look like he didn't know what to do. Confidence was a part of his character; he always knew what to do, and even if he didn't, he sure as hell wouldn't let anyone else know that. So I had no idea what was going on.

His hovering hand moved closer at an excruciatingly slow pace until he finally brushed his fingertips against my cheek. It wasn't anything, really. If I hadn't been paying attention, I probably wouldn't have felt it. But something about that one touch sent this... I don't know this, wave of heat just crashing through me. I knew that I was blushing, but I had no idea why.

"Check it out, I'm the Moses of bugs!"

Racetrack jumped suddenly at Snitch's comment, and whatever I'd seen for those few seconds was gone, just like that. He quickly rolled to the side and struggled into a sitting position, and I noticed that he was breathing more heavily than usual. Quickly, I glanced up. Snitch was parading in front of the open door, coating himself with my bug spray.

"I'm, like, parting them!" Snitch crowed. "They can't touch me! Hahaha, they can't touch meeeee, they can't- oh, crap, it touched me," he muttered, frowning as a bug landed on his shoulder.

Racetrack cleared his throat and got to his feet. "If Snitch is done being a dumbass, I think we have to go to the lobby." With that, he snatched his bible off of the table next to the sofa-bed and walked quickly out of the room.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Skittery looking at me, a thousand questions written in his eyes. But I was too busy staring, shocked, at the wide-open door.

What the hell had just happened?

-----

I tried to totally forget about what had happened as I trudged along the trail to the Center's main building. But Skittery and Snitch ended up walking a little bit behind me to talk about... I don't know, boyfriend things. So, I was left with nothing but my bible and my thoughts.

I tried to sort myself out. Believe me, I did. I tried to answer all the questions sloshing through my head, one at a time. But I couldn't come to a set conclusion on any of them. I didn't know why Racetrack had been looking at me like that or why I felt the way I did. I just didn't /know/.

So, by the time I walked into the lobby, I was even more confused than I'd been ten minutes before.

"Hey!" I raised an eyebrow as Racetrack walked towards me.

"Um, hey."

He frowned. "What's the matter?"

Well, obviously he wasn't worrying about it. And if he wasn't, why should I? It was probably nothing, after all. Just some kind of weird... thing. A thing that happened. Yeah, that's it.

"Don't worry about it."

He shrugged and nodded as we headed towards the counter to grab a blank name tag. Quickly, we both snatched a Sharpie, making sure that they were the same color, since that's how they divided us into groups, and scribbled our names on them.

"Where are Snitch and Skitts?"

"I'm really not sure."

Suddenly, one of Jack's shrill whistles pierced the air.

"Hey, guys! Now that everybody's got their name tag, we're all gonna move into the conference room for the opening prayer!"

We glanced at each other, then headed into the pale green-carpeted room without another word.

Much to my surprise, Snitch and Skittery had already claimed four seats near the middle of the room. Yes, the middle. Teachers have already realized that the troublemakers sit near the back. Get with the times, people. The middle is the new back.

"You guys got here fast," Racetrack commented as we collapsed into the two empty seats. Skittery shrugged, grinning.

"We snuck in through the snack room because Snitch wanted some of that citrus peach fruit drink shit from the drink machine."

"The snack room is locked."

Snitch snorted as he held up a paper cup filled with what I could only assume was the citrus peach juice. "Like that's ever stopped me and my almighty lock pick."

"I can't believe you brought a lock pick on retreat."

"I can't believe you brought porn on retreat."

"He's got a point there, Blink."

I made a face at him and slouched down in my seat as Mrs. Olivarde, our class moderator as well as one of our many religion teachers, stepped up to the podium in the front of the room.

"Hey, guys, welcome to Senior Retreat!" she said, smiling broadly. "I hope you're all excited to be here, because I know I am. So, let's stand really quick and get started in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

"Amen," we chorused automatically as we hopped to our feet.

"God, we'd like to take this time to give You thanks for allowing us to blah, blah, blah..." Of course, she didn't actually say the words "blah, blah, blah." That's just what my brain started translating her opening speech into, once I started tuning her out.

I'm not Mrs. Olivarde's biggest fan, so I've gotten to be an expert at ignoring her.

Instead of watching her, I shot a few inconspicuous glances over at Racetrack. He was picking at a developing hole in the left sleeve of his "Boycott Reality Television" shirt and looking generally bored. Not awkward or pensive. Just bored.

I nodded to myself. Okay. Good. He really wasn't dwelling on it like I was. So, it was okay to just forget about it and enjoy retreat. No big deal. Okay.

"... so, let's begin this retreat with an Our Father. Our Father, who art in heaven..."

Automatically, we reached out to join hands with the person next to us, just like we'd done every Sunday for as long as we could remember. Snitch's hand was sort of sticky. I was praying that it was from my suckers that he'd stolen or from the citrus peach juice. Then again, knowing Snitch, you really don't know where his hands have been.

Then, I reached out to take Racetrack's hand, and I totally forgot that Snitch was even /there/.

As soon as our fingers brushed, a kind of a shock ran through me. It wasn't like an electric shock, like I'd grabbed a bare power line or something. No, it was more like... like heat, really. Like I'd grabbed a hot coal or something. Except, instead of burning myself, I kind of absorbed the heat, and it shot all throughout my body.

If that made any sense.

I heard Racetrack breathe in sharply, and he jumped a tiny bit. Then, just for a second, his hand squeezed mine.

I bit my lip. So he'd felt it, too. Or something like it at least.

For the entirety of that prayer, we never looked at each other. Not once. We just concentrated on remembering the words as his hand slowly and steadily tightened around my own.

Then, it was over. We dropped hands and plopped back down like nothing had happened. Racetrack went back to fiddling around with the hole in his sleeve while I stared blankly at the chair in front of me.

"Blink, you okay?" Snitch asked, concerned. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine," I replied with a forced smile.

I was lying through my teeth. I didn't exactly know what was building between Racetrack and me, but I did know that whatever it was, we couldn't keep ignoring it for much longer.

-----

After an unnecessarily long introduction from Mrs. Olivarde and Mrs. Miller, another religion teacher, they split us into groups for the "mini-sessions," as they were calling them. Unfortunately, Snitch and Skittery were in a different group; they'd chosen red just before their little break-in. So, we stayed where we were for the "What is Love?" mini-session, while they headed off to one of the smaller rooms upstairs for "Relationships and Commitment."

I'm not going bore you with the details of the mini-sessions, believe me. However, I will proudly state that Racetrack and I paid absolutely no attention to the first three. We spent the "What is Love?" session quietly commenting on Mrs. Olivarde's crooked teeth and her tendency to laugh at her own jokes. The next session, "Rosary Knots," which took place under the supervision of the incredibly awesome Mrs. Brogan, involved attempting, and failing, on my part, to make rosaries by tying knots in a certain way. I sucked majorly; Racetrack rocked at it. He was constantly leaning over to help me with my pathetic excuse for a rosary, and every time his fingers touched mine, a much milder version of the shock I'd gotten during the Our Father swept through me.

By the time we got to "Relationships and Commitment" with the Duprays, which basically consisted of, "don't worry, you'll find the right girl someday," I'd come to a very tentative conclusion. It had gotten to the point where every time Race flashed that grin at me, which was surprisingly often, something low in my stomach would clench and twist around itself a little. Plus, I'd started to study little things that he did, things that I probably wouldn't even have noticed before. Like how he chewed on his lower lip when he was thinking and how he kept tying and untying his shoes when he was bored.

It's possible that I was wrong, but don't you usually do things like that when you... you know, like someone?

I was almost positive you did.

Okay, so maybe I did like Racetrack. That would have been fine, except for the fact that Racetrack was a /boy/. Which meant that I was... /shit/.

Could I really have gone this long without realizing that I was gay? I mean, Nathan Lane didn't come out until he was, like, fifty. But... but I couldn't be gay. There was just no way. It was too...

Come on, Blink, finish the sentence.

Much to my surprise, I couldn't. What was the big deal about being gay? Some guys liked girls, some guys liked other guys. Did it really matter which one I preferred? I was still me, after all, still the same person that I always was.

I finally decided to just... go with it. I didn't think I could make any decisions about who I was attracted to and who I wasn't. Not yet, anyway. But I could just follow my instincts and let them take over. If they led me to Racetrack, I'd deal with it. If they didn't, that was fine, too.

"Blink, did you die?"

The sound of Racetrack's voice snapped me out of my own little world. I raised an eyebrow when I found myself at the foot of the stairs, directly across the room from the door marked "Meditation."

I gave Racetrack a sheepish smile. "I totally spaced out for a minute. Sorry. God, I don't even remember walking here..."

He let out a soft laugh as he opened the door, and I fought to keep from blushing like a twelve-year-old girl. Together, we headed into the small, dark room.

All the lights had been turned off, and the furniture was pushed to the side. There was just a big empty space and a bunch of bored-looking teenage boys sitting in a big circle on the floor around Mr. Reasin. He grinned at us as we settled down in one of the corners.

"You guys have it easy," Reasin commented, grinning. "You get the Meditation session right before break and dinner."

"Aren't we just the lucky ones?" Racetrack replied with a slight smirk. I grinned and jabbed him in the ribs. He jabbed me back, which evolved into an all-out jabbing war.

Reasin watched us for a minute or two, vaguely amused, then hit the play button on the CD player at his feet. I don't exactly know what was playing, but I've got to admit, it was really relaxing. Probably Enya, or something like that.

"Okay, you guys have done enough meditation sessions to know how this works. Close your eyes."

Obediently, I leaned back against the wall and did as I was told. I heard Race grumble irritably as he tried to shift into a comfortable position, which ended up with him leaning heavily against me.

I smiled slightly as Reasin began to speak.

"You are walking along a beach, completely alone. You are warm and comfortable. Take deep breaths... hold one in.... let it out..."

Of course, after a minute or two, the inevitable occurred: I fell asleep. And I actually had a dream, something that rarely seems to happen any more.

I dreamt that I was sitting in the passenger's seat of a car. It was nighttime, and I was glancing out of the window and watching the highway fly past as I gently scratched behind the ears of a small, black cat on my lap. Racetrack was in the driver's seat, and "No Voice" from Bare was playing.

"Did I ever tell you about my ghost, Aaron?" he asked suddenly. I shook my head. "Nope."

"I was moving, and I got a call from some guy I'd never met before who said his name was Aaron. And I knew he was a ghost. But I don't know how. He asked me if he could get me anything, and I asked for a piano. When I went outside, he'd somehow gotten ahold of this little, toy piano that I'd had when I was a kid. It had been broken for years, but he somehow got it looking like new. So he must be a ghost."

"Wow..." I whispered, continuing to pet the quietly mewling kitten. Then, Reasin's voice echoed suddenly into my dream. Or what was left of it, anyway.

"... your last session, guys. Break for thirty minutes, then dinner. Come on, get up, shake your friends if they've fallen asleep."

I groaned and reluctantly shook myself awake. "What a stupid dream," I muttered to myself.

I suddenly realized that my hand was still moving, like it was still petting the cat from my dream. So, I looked down.

Racetrack was sound asleep with his head in my lap, and I'd been slowly running my fingers through his hair for God knows how long.

I jumped slightly when I realized what I was doing. Not so much because I was freaked out, but because I'd done it totally subconsciously. I hadn't even realized that it was happening.

Race muttered something under his breath and cracked open an eyelid. Then, suddenly, both eyes were wide open and staring up at me, dumfounded.

I swallowed heavily as he gazed up at me, but I couldn't bring myself to move.

"Ahem."

Then, just like before when we were on the bed, everything was gone. We glanced around the room, dazed, and found that we were the only ones left.

And Reasin was watching us, his ever-present, vaguely amused smirk on his face.

"You two had better get going. You've still got a half an hour before dinner, and I'm sure that there's something you want to do."

Then, with a slightly wider grin and a shake of his head, he walked out of the room, humming under his breath.

-----

"Halt, mortals! Before thou mayest enter, thou must produceth thy contribution to the contraband!"

Racetrack and I exchanged glances, then stared at Snitch.

Skittery rolled his eyes. "Just get out the goods."

"Oh!" I snatched my bag and yanked my binder out. "As you all know, I brought my binder of Buffy porn."

Race grinned and pulled a case of cards from his own bag. "I brought cards."

"No shit. Where would you be without at least one deck of cards on you at all times?"

Racetrack shrugged. "You never know when you'll need them. But these aren't ordinary cards," he replied, tossing the deck to Skittery as he spoke.

"... Race, there are naked guys on these ."

"Yes. Yes, there are."

"And where did you get cards like these?"

"France. Where else?"

"Ah. Great." Skittery cleared his throat and cheerfully held up a book. "Snitch and I hereby contribute a CD player, mass amounts of CDs, and this book of gay porn entitled /Fratsex/."

"Wow, sucks to be Blink on this retreat, doesn't it? Poor little straight boy."

"Skitts, you so know that Blink is gay."

"Snitch, shut up."

"Hey, it's not my fault that you're in denial!"

"Snitch. /Seriously/. Shut up about it."

Snitch blinked, startled, as one of those uncomfortable, prickly silences descended on the room. I shot a quick glance at Racetrack, who'd suddenly found the dead lovebugs on the windowsill insanely interesting.

Finally, Snitch nodded. "Sorry, dude. I didn't mean to, like... you know, piss you off or anything."

"Yeah. I know." Another silence. "Um... I think I'm gonna head down to dinner a little early. I'll see you guys there, okay?"

I didn't wait for a reply; I just turned and walked out of the room.

I guess that being teased for something doesn't really hurt until you start to consider the fact that it might actually be true.

-----

Dinner passed without any other incidents, though I noticed that Snitch and Skitts were being a little awkward. Racetrack was completely silent, which was not a very good sign. So, I was relatively relieved when we headed back to the conference room.

"I hope you all had a nice dinner!" Mrs. Olivarde said, smiling her crooked smile as the last of our classmates filed into the room. "Now, I'm passing around a hand-out that all of you should take in order to prepare you for Reconciliation."

I fought the urge to slap my forehead. Crap, we were basically expected to go to confession. I'd totally forgotten about that.

"These are just a few questions that you could ask yourself, which should help you think of sins to confess."

I raised my eyebrow as a six-page packet was dropped into my lap.

"These are 'a few sins?'" Racetrack muttered as he flipped through the packet.

"'Have I wasted time at home or at school when I could have been productive?'" Skittery read incredulously. "That's so not a sin!"

"Neither is being gay."

"That's on there?!"

"Third page, near the middle."

Shocked, I flipped quickly through the packet. Sure enough, near the middle of the third page was the question, "have I engaged in homosexual activity (i.e - kissing or inappropriately touching a member of the same sex)?" The question just below that read, "have I experienced inappropriate fantasies involving a member of the same sex?"

"This is such bullshit," Snitch muttered. "I mean, they always told us that being gay was against the Bible, or whatever, but it never really hit me until now."

"I don't think I'm fucking sinning by being with someone that I want to be with," Skittery added as he placed his hand protectively over Snitch's.

"You're not," I replied softly. "I mean, sinning is choosing to go against what God wants, right?"

"Right."

"So how can it be a sin when you never chose to do it? You were born that way; it's not something that you can stop."

"That's a really good point..."

"I'm not going to confession."

All other conversation stopped, except for the dull drone of Mrs. Olivarde rambling on in the background, and we all just stared at Racetrack like an alien baby had eaten its way through his chest. Confession during retreat was a huge deal at Jesuit. Everyone did it. They couldn't exactly force us to go, but if you didn't go, the teachers basically coerced the rest of the student body into believing that you physically couldn't confess something that you did because it was just so horribly, disgustingly wrong/. This usually led to random meetings with your counseler and probably a few well-placed phone calls to your parents, which, in turn, caused a lot of unnecessary stress in your life. So, we just decided to go along with it. I'd never even /heard of someone in our class not going to confession.

Skittery asked the obvious question. "Why not?"

Racetrack shrugged. "God didn't say this shit about being gay. People did. There's nothing wrong with being gay. I know it, you know it, God knows it, and that's all that matters. It's not our fault that people suck. But why do we need some random guy to tell God what we did wrong? I mean, priests fuck up, too. We all fuck up." He slouched a bit lower in his seat. "I don't need to tell my sins to anybody but God, and I think He understands that."

It made sense, when you really thought about it.

The four of us sat silently as Mrs. Olivarde wrapped up her speech.

"We've got four priests this year, so things should move pretty quickly! Let's get going, boys!"

Almost simultaneously, my entire class got up and headed towards the back doors, chattering noisily. Snitch and Skitts looked at Racetrack, exchanged glances, and followed the herd out the back.

I noticed Racetrack briskly walking towards the side doors that led back to the rooms. So, I followed him.

"Hey, wait up."

He raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you."

He didn't say anything for a few seconds. He just stared at me, like he was studying me or something. Then, he smiled.

"Thanks."

"Excuse me, but where are you two going?"

We both glanced up to find Mrs. Olivarde blocking our exit, her hands on her hips.

"Back to our room. We're not going to confession."

"Why not?"

"Because we're not. Why, are you planning on forcing us?" Race spat.

Her eyes narrowed, but she stepped out of the way without another word.

I felt an impossibly wide smile spread across my face as we stepped outside. The setting sun splashed the trees and the lake with a golden glow; it looked like a picture from a book or something. I immediately felt sorry for the rest of my class. They didn't know what they were missing.

"Hey, Blink, thanks. Really."

I shook my head, still grinning broadly. "What can I say? You had a good point. Besides, I didn't want you to be stuck by yourself."

"I'm happy I've got someone with me. And I'm even happier that... well, that it's you."

I turned to face him, but he kept his gaze trained on the ground as we trekked towards the two-story building.

"Really? Why?"

He glanced quickly at me then, but he only answered me with a shrug and a little smile. "I don't know. I just like being around you."

I had to hide the fact that I was blushing, so it was my turn to stare at the ground. "Thanks, Race. I... um, I like... you know, just-"

He cut me off with a soft laugh. "I know." He raised an eyebrow suddenly. "Hey, look."

I followed his gaze up to the sky. The sun hadn't totally set yet, but the moon had already risen, along with a couple of stars. Instead of being their usual pale selves, the stars and the moon caught the last golden light from the sun and seemed to be tinted with yellows and oranges and mixtures of the two that I'd never seen anywhere else.

"Wow... that's amazing."

Racetrack looked back at me. "Yeah. It is."

We just watched the sky in companionable silence for a minute or two before resuming our walk back to the room.

And it didn't bother me in the slightest when he reached over to lace his fingers through mine.


End Chapter Two


Author's Note: This chapter contains both my actual opinions on Catholicism and being gay as well as confession. Don't know why you needed to know that. I guess just because I needed an A/N for the end of this chapter, and that's all I could think of to say.