FicWad

Disclaimer: I don't own /Newsies/. Well, according to the claim-a-musical livejournal community I do...but for all legal purposes I don't. Dwayne owns himself.


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"So then one night my friend, Alex, called me and said, 'Dude, why don't we drive to Florida for a while?' and I was like, 'I don't know if my parents would go for that.' So then he said, 'Dude, you're eighteen now! You don't need to listen to your parents anymore!' So we ended up staying at friend's beach house for a few days."
I nodded absently. Since our last confrontation over a week ago, Chad had begun sitting elsewhere in class, and his seat had been quickly occupied by Wayne (or was it "Dwayne?") who had wasted no time in telling me he was both gay and very interested.

After he finished telling me what he had done during Spring Break, he turned expectantly to me. "So...what did you do over Spring Break?"

Me? Well, I'd pouted, sulked, pouted, sulked, and then, for good measure, pouted some more. "Not much," I replied with a shrug.

"Oh," he said waiting for me to continue. When I didn't, he took it upon himself to keep the conversation going. "Well, over the weekend, I went to this place called Aqua. My friend swore it was a gay bar, but I don't think so. Sure I saw some gay guys, but not a lot. It was still a really nice place, though." He paused and cleared this throat. "Uh...if you're ever free or something...I mean if you wanted to see it...it's a really nice place."

I bit my lip. Not that he wasn't a nice, attractive guy. In fact, had I never met Chad, I probably would have been elated that he was talking to me. But I had met Chad. For now, I didn't want anyone else. But I didn't want to lead him on.

I looked to my right, hoping Tony would intervene. I had forgotten, though, that he had taken to sitting by Jade, who had decided he wasn't too annoying to date after all. How is that even remotely fair?

I sighed as I cut my suitor off. "Look, Wayne--"

"Dwayne," he cut in.

"Right, Dwayne," I continued making a mental note, "You're a really great guy. I just don't think now is the right time."

He nodded thoughtfully for a moment. "So...it's that other guy."

"What other guy?"

"The one who sat here before. See I wanted to sit here before, but I saw him and you and figured you were together. Then I saw he wasn't sitting here so I assumed you had broken up." He smiled sadly. "Bad assumption?"

I shook my head. "No! I mean, yes, but we were never together to begin with."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yet he didn't mind you groping him?"

"Those were accidents!"

The grin on his face told me he didn't believe me. I doubt I'd believe me either. "So if you were never together, why can't you go out with someone else?" My face reddened as his smile grew. "You still like him!" he announced in a sing-song voice.

"Maybe...a little..."

"You should so ask him out. I think you two would make a cute couple. Not as a cute a couple as you and I would make, but a cute couple nonetheless."

"You think?" I pondered this before shaking my head. "No way. I don't think he'll ever want to speak to me again."

"Oh please! You're cute enough that you can get away with doing something stupid. So just do it already!"

"...No..."

"Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!" he chanted, accentuating each "do" with a harsh poke. I knew people were beginning to stare, so I quickly slapped my hand over his mouth.

"If I think about it, will you stop that?" I hissed. He nodded obligingly and I removed my hand.

And I thought about it.

For a microsecond.


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"Psst! Brent!"
I paused among the exiting students. Had I heard that?

"Bre-ent!"

Yep. I scanned the area and my eyes stopped when I saw someone by the soda machines jumping up and down while flailing his arms. "It couldn't be," I muttered to myself as I made my way over. But there was no denying it. He may have been wearing a baseball cap and a pair of oversized sunglasses, but even from far away I recognized Ian.

"What is with the getup?" I asked, both horrified and amused.

"I'm inagito."

"Don't you mean 'incognito?'"

"Whatever. I just don't want to be seen."

"Right. I'm sure no one saw you jumping up and down screaming out to me."

Ah, but they don't know who I am!"

"Hey, Ian!" a girl called out as she passed us.

"Hey, Trish!" Catching the look I gave him, he replied defensively, "I never said I was the 'Master of Disguise.'"

Before he could do a Dana Carvey impression (and I was ninety-nine percent sure he would) I cut in. "So for what purpose were you conspicuously obtaining my attention?"

"...What?"

I snickered. "Why are you here?"

He broke into a grin. "I have good news for you!" After glancing suspiciously around us, he continued. "Chad stayed here for Spring Break. I don't know about the entire week, but while I was here all he did was talk about you."

"Did the word 'bastard' appear in any of these talks?"

"...Maybe...But he still likes you! He's just a bit miffed about whatever the hell you did. In fact, I'd say he's pretty pissed."

I groaned. "Do you have a point?"

"My point," he continued with an exasperated sigh, "is that now s the perfect time for you to talk to him. You don't have to worry about him getting offended or anything because he already dislikes you. Things can only get better."

"...Damn you for having a point..."

He leaned in. "I know he'll be alone tonight. I'm sure you could keep him company in that big...er...medium-sized apartment. It would be the perfect opportunity."

I slumped against the wall. "I don't know."

"Ok let me rephrase that: If you refuse, I will follow you around and pester you until you agree to do this. I don't have another class for three more hours and would love to find a way to kill the time."

I glared at him. "You wouldn't by any chance happen to know someone named 'Dwayne Sepcich,' would you?"

"Yeah! He's a friend of mine! Why, do you know him?"


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6:54
Ian had instructed me to knock on the apartment door at precisely 7:00pm. Part of me feared he had memorized Chad's home routine to the point where he knew exactly when Chad would be showering, thus forcing him to open to door in nothing but a sopping wet towel. The other part of me hoped it.

I tried my best to not look suspicious, lest one of their neighbors decide to report me for loitering. Although if I were detained by the Campus Police, I'd have an excuse for putting this entire thing off-hopefully indefinitely.

I had little time to actually ponder this as the alarm on my watch went off. "Now or never," I muttered, "though I'd prefer the latter." Taking a few breaths to steady myself, I knocked, dreading (and salivating at the thought of) Chad answering in nothing but a towel.

Ian answered the door.

I furrowed my brow. "I thought you said-"

"Brent! What an unexpected surprise!" he interjected in a very loud and very unconvincing tone. "Well, as long as you are here, perhaps you should come in."

I rolled my eye as I entered. "Don't take up acting."

"Look, guys," he continued in the same monotonous voice, "it's Brent. I didn't expect to see him here tonight...or ever..."

Chad was positioned on the couch in front of the television. He gave me a quick glance and then ignored me. David, it seemed, had already left. Josh just looked confused.

"Well, Brent, why don't you stay for a while? I'm sure Chad would love the company. Bye!"

"Ian, what're yo..." I heard Josh ask as Ian dragged him out the door.

I continued to hover by the door and Chad remained on the couch. An awkward silence fell over us. After a minute I decided to break the ice. "Hey." Well, I never said it was a good ice breaker.

"Hello," he replied stiffly.

I glanced at the television. "So...you're watching Law & Order?"

"Yes, and if that's all you wanted to know, the door is directly behind you."

Okay. So he isn't in the best mood. "I just...well...I haven't seen you in a while, so I thought we could hang out or something."

He snorted. "You say that as though we're friends or something."

Ouch. I wasn't expecting him to be that frigid. "I just thought..." I began, hurt creeping into my voice.

"Thought what?" he demanded. "Thought that because we spent one week sharing a book and a couple of months sitting next to each other that we're suddenly best friends?"

"I figured we were close enough of friends to just hang out."

He was silent for a moment. "Maybe we were," he said softly, "but then...you changed..."

"I can explain, though."

He held up a hand to silence me. "Please don't," he replied. "I think I know what you're going to say and I just don't want to hear it. I mean, I did enjoy whatever form of friendship we may have had. So I'd rather just think of it as we drifted apart, not that you...Well...you know."

Until that moment I hadn't known the term "heart broken" could be so literal. Yet standing there, I could feel my heart twisting and tearing inside of my chest. He did know. Not only that, but he didn't feel the same way. In fact, he was so obviously disgusted by it that he was willing to throw away what could be a wonderful friendship over it.

I felt a lump forming in my throat. "If that's what you want..."

He nodded. "It's what I want. I think you should leave," he said before turning his attention back to the television.

As I turned toward the door, I realized there was another emotion creeping inside of me. It was anger. Anger for myself. Anger for Ian and Josh. Hell, anger for Dwayne! The seed which had planted inside me began to blossom quickly. Before I realized it, I had snatched the remote control away and turned off the television, despite Chad's protests. "What about what I want?" I asked. "When do I get what I fucking want?" He didn't answer, he just glared at me as I began pacing in front of him. "I'm just so fucking sick of people like you trying to change people like me, as though we have a choice of being the way we are."

"Oh, but people like me do?" he finally spoke up.

"You bet your ass you do!"

"You know," he said, his voice now completely full of rage, "I don't even understand why you're so upset. I figured you wouldn't want to be friends with a fag anyway."

"Yeah, well I think..." Wait. Pause. Rewind. Replay.

Did he just say...

"What did you say?"

"That's right," he continued smugly, "I'm gay. A homo. Queer, fruitcake, cocksucker. Choose your term."

I don't think I'd been that confused since Brian took me to see that Kevin Costner movie. Aha, see that? I made a Family Guy reference, Ahahaha...or not...

"And you know what?" he asked as he continued his rant. "I knew you'd react this way!"

"Could you shut up for a minute and let me think?" I snapped.

"What is there to think about? Ian, Josh, and me are gay. You're a homophobe. End of story."

I was elated. Hell, I was beyond elated. Sure my potential boyfriend thought I was homophobic, but the fact that in the past five minutes he had gone from being a long shot to being my potential boyfriend was reason enough to rejoice.

He opened the door. "I think it would be best if you left."

"Wait, Chad. I know what you think you know, but what you think you know isn't what you think..." Did that confuse you? Yeah, me too.

"Look," I began, pulling sheets of loose leaf from my back pocket, "I think you should read this before you say anything else." He looked at the folded papers I held out, but made no move to take them from me. "You said you wanted to read my work," I reminded him.

He took the pages obligingly and settled onto the couch. I stood behind him, reciting to myself what I knew he was reading:

"Hey, Brent! Check this out!" my best friend/roommate, Tony exclaimed as he elbowed me in the side. The two of us were sitting in a huge auditorium along with almost two hundred other students. It was the classroom for Dr. Bruce's Human Sexual behavior course, a favorite among most students at the University of New Orleans. Wonder why...

He looked up after a few minutes. "Is this a work of fiction?"

"No," I replied, "I thought I'd take a crack at non-fiction for a change. There are two more chapters after that. I was hoping to finish it off tonight..."

He looked down at the sheets of paper again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I shrugged. "I'm a coward," I admitted. "I was afraid of how you'd react. I wasn't positive you were gay and thought if you were straight you'd be offended."

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, you seemed embarrassed by Ian and Josh and their PDA."

He was quiet for a moment. "I guess it's only fair I confess that I felt the same way about you. I was a little afraid that Ian and Josh would scare you off. When I assumed it had, though, I just felt...pissed off."

"I know," I told him with a nod.

He sat back, grinning slightly. "So we both are idiots, aren't we?"

I positioned myself next to him on the arm of the couch. His hand slowly brushed over mind and I felt that all too familiar heat rising to my face.

"So is that a...uh..."he paused to refer back to the paper, "a 'Major Swoon?'"

I knew my face had to be beet red by this point. "Stop!" I hissed with a playful smack.

"Does this story have an ending?"

"Well, I've gotten this far. I figured we'd get married and adopt two children. First, a Korean girl named Audrey and an African boy named Alexander."

"...Alexander?"

"Well, after Alexander Dumas. Unless, of course, you'd like him to be named after Edgar Allen Poe."

He considered this. "Alexander it is. So two gay men with a Korean daughter and an African son. Think we should get a lesbian live-in housekeeper too?"

"Whatever will keep the neighbors guessing."

He laughed and pulled me closer to him on the couch. Suddenly, everything seemed right.

What? That ending is too corny for you? Well that's life, so suck it up. Since PSYC 1520, I have recommended it to everyone I've run into. Sure it earns me a few stares, but I know they'll thank me later. Sure, they may not find what I found, but the class itself is filled with so much useful information. I mean, who knows when you'll need to know why Graham Crackers were really invented? Okay, pretty much never....but still...uh...there're some important things to learn in it...and...

Ah fuck it! Love is great!


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