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It started, like most ridiculous things do at Middlestick Elementary, during a movie.
It wasn’t even a good movie either, mind you. No car chases or disembodied heads or explosions as far as the I-could-see; just some boring period drama Ms. Mobley threw on with a bunch of stuck-up British people just... talking for what felt like hours-upon-centuries on end.
Bradley was just about ready to lose his mind.
“Stace... how can you sit through this?” he whisper-whined to his buddy the next desk over. “This movie’s so dry, I think even my eyes are getting ashy!”
He horked and hurled in anguish, his very body withering away. The balding old guy on screen talking in raspy, mangled old English looked just as close to death as Bradley felt.
Rolling her eyes at his usual theatrics, Stacey shushed him rather firmly.
“Quiet, Bradley! How am I supposed to keep track of all the political intrigue involved in Duchess Maraline’s coup against her corrupt father if you’re blabbering in my ear distracting me?”
“But Stace-”
“SHHHHHHHHHHH.”
Okay, so it wasn’t just her paying attention to this boring movie.
Whatever.
Slumping into his chair, Bradley pouted at the injustice of it all. Not only did he have to watch some boring, stuffy old-white-people movie, but even his own best friend refused to pay attention to him!
What he would give to not have to deal with this-
“OW!”
“SHHHHHHHHHH!”
“Geez, sorry...”
Grumbling, he rubbed the back of his head as he picked up the paper ball from the floor.
Considering the two distinctive chortles he heard behind him, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who lobbed the offending wad at his defenseless head-top.
Lance.
Because of course he did.
Once the two made eye contact, the taller boy’s smirk only grew as he waved coyly (yet condescendingly, of course) at the other boy, before turning to laugh with his funky little buddy in the desk next to him.
Fuming, Bradley unfolded the note only for a rock to bounce off of his desk, (no wonder it HURT!) and a doodle of sorts.
It was a picture of him and Stacey, but he was in a girly princess getup while Stacey had him in her arms, dressed up as what he thought was supposed to be a knight, and all these gross and mushy hearts surrounded the two while he hugged her.
The SISSY PRINS SCRADLY (duh) AND HIS NITE STIKLER ThE BUFF
Oh... so THAT’S the game he wanted to play, huh?
Inspired, Bradley tore out a sheet of loose-leaf, got out his favourite doodling pencil, and got down to business.
“HEY, SCRADLEY!”
Stacey and Bradley stopped dead in their tracks, just barely making it past their lockers.
“What’s the BIG IDEA?!”
“I dunno what you’re so happy about, B-man,” Stacey said, tracking the fuming, blushing disaster hurtling towards them like a bottle rocket on the fritz. “I don’t even think you’ll be able to walk after Lance gets his hands on you!”
In response, Bradley’s smile only got wider.
“You’ll see.” He smirked as he turned to face the redhead head on.
“And what do I owe the pleasure, my good stooge?” Bradley asked, tone light as Lance grabbed him by the shirt and hoisted him up to eye level.
“The only pleasure I’m gonna get is POUNDING you to a pulp, dweeb!” Lance snarled back, waving his free fist dangerously close to Bradley’s face.
“Not to say that Bradley doesn’t totally have it coming,” Stacey cut in, content to watch the ensuing clownery unfold. “But what could he have done this time to get you so heated?”
Wordlessly, (and still holding up the smug bespectacled boy,) Lance dug into his pockets and thrust the crumpled-up piece of paper at her.
Stacey looked at it.
And then, Stacey blinked, rapidly.
It was a drawing, that much was obvious. Though, Bradley was built like a tank and smiling like he won a lifetime supply of Cheez Poopers. He was dressed like a knight, but it was hard to tell because his biceps were drawn so huge, that the armour itself was bursting at the seams. There was a dead, suspiciously Mr. Coffin-shaped dragon next to him, and a hulking, steak-knife of a sword protruded from its massive belly.
The usual Bradley-brand power fantasy, that in itself wasn’t all too shocking.
But what really got her, was what, (or who) Sir. Brads-a-Ton cradled triumphantly in his muscular grip.
MY HERO!!!
Prins Lance, with hearts in his eyes, was smooching the gallant knight’s cheek for all he was worth.
“Um. What... is this, B-man?”
She knew what she was looking at, of course, but seeing Bradley finally be so upfront and direct about his questionable and long-standing... thing for Lance was throwing her for a loop.
In response, Bradley chuckled.
“Oh... y’know, just proof that Mr. Tough Guy over here can’t take what he dishes out.”
Offended, (and somehow blushing an even deeper red than before,) Lance dropped the other boy with a resounding ‘OOF’.
“Oh yeah?!” Lance growled, jabbing a finger into Bradley’s forehead. “Well, we’ll see about that, LOVERBOY!”
Huffing, the taller boy stomped away, leaving a very satisfied Bradley (and a very confused Stacey) to watch his retreating figure.
“That’s what he SAYS,” Bradley mused. “But how can he honestly beat that?”
“AUGHHHHHHHHH!”
The next morning, Stacey was greeted to the sight of Bradley having what looked to be an existential crisis of massive proportions at his desk.
“So,” Stacey began, meandering towards the other boy’s seat as she took in his full body dread.
“You’re here early, B-man. Didn’t take you of all people to be the punctual type!”
Bradley groaned again, head cemented firmly to desk.
“I’m NOT, but... I had to check, okay?” Somehow, Bradley’s voice sounded even more pathetic up close with his head down. “I came in early to see if Lance pulled anything before we got here-”
Oh... So THAT’S what this was all about.
“And then I found...”
Stacey gave him a curious look. (Not like he’d have been able to see it, though.)
“...You found... what, exactly?”
She got her answer when the miserable kid thrust a sheet of paper at her general direction.
Taking a closer look, she squinted. Hard.
It was a (surprisingly well drawn) picture of Bradley standing by a bunch of lockers. He was surrounded by sweat drops and hearts, and was looking behind himself as if scared of being spotted. Blushing, he held a big, garish love-note in his hand and was just about to slip it into a humdrum, nondescript, run of the mill locker.
The one helpfully labelled ‘LANCE’S LOKKER,’ of course.
I HoPE LANCE DUZENT SEE mE PUT ThIS IN HIS LOKKER! I DONT WaNT HIM 2 NO HOW KOOL N SMARTE N HANSOME I thINK HE IS!!!
She lowered the loose-leaf.
“Uh... huh.” Stacey hummed, loud and skeptical enough for the boy to hear.
“So, you... do realize that Lance just left you the most OBVIOUS love-letter in the history of forever, right?”
“Of COURSE I DID, STACE!” Bradley shouted, head shooting up from his desk like a catapult. The tip of his nose was red from how hard he was blushing, which Stacey took as a good sign from her chronically clueless friend.
“You gonna do anything about it, B-man?” The faster Bradley and Lance did something about their weird... thing for each other, the better it would be for everybody in the long run-
“Uuuuuh, DUH, Captain Obvious! You really think I’d let Lance take the lead in this and beat me? No way, man!”
Stacey could be shooting on 2s for how fast she was blinking.
“But Bradley... that’s not what’s going o-”
She could barely get a word out before Bradley was up and out of his seat, seemingly re-energized.
“No time to talk, Stace,” he said, grabbing his bag. “I got another half hour to REALLY throw Lance off of his game and not ONE SECOND to spare!”
“Be right back!”
Swerving past Stacey and veering around a confused Dill, Bradley sped off to parts unknown.
Still stupefied, Stacey glanced at the clock.
“BRADLEY! CLASS STARTS IN FIVE MINUTES, YOU DOOFUS!”
Sauntering towards their first class of the day, Lance and Russell blinked as a purple blur, faster than a speeding lame-o, zipped past them towards the library.
“Huh. I wonder what’s gotten into SCRADLEY...” Lance sneered, watching the other boy’s shadow with a fondness that didn’t quite match his snide tone.
He turned to Russell.
“I bet that dweeb is TOTALLY losing it after seeing that pic I left on his desk!”
He puffed out his chest with pride.
“There’s NO WAY he’s gonna be able to top THAT, ain’t that right, Russell?”
Russell blinked the slowest, heaviest and most exhausted blink of his entire ten years of life.
It was going to be a long week.
And what a long week it was, as Bradley and Lance’s antics escalated in the ways that only their antics could.
They started out small, at first.
A sticky note tucked away on the inside of a desk, a lovingly rendered illustration of Prince Brad-leo kissing the back of a giggling Prince Lance-lien’s bare hand,
(Polly took careful note of its placement on the corner of her brother’s only full-body mirror when she came home that night.)
A “missing final page” haphazardly stapled to the back of a beloved comic-book, the Amazing Rubber Guy and Ultra Violent-Ray teaming up to defeat the Big Bad Lederwolf from Uranus,
(Melody spotted it as the new cover of Bradley’s art binder while they swapped notes for history class. The new cover of his favourite art binder.)
The fervoured passion a young artist took to his loose-leaf, giggling like a madman at the sight of him and his maybe-rival holding hands,
(“Lance is gonna FREAK when he sees this!” Bradley snickered, and Stacey just... wanted to hit him. Preferably, very hard.)
Though admittedly, that was typical Lance-and-Bradley foolishness, save for all the lovey-dovey stuff. Things didn’t start getting outright disconcerting until Bradley came by Stacey’s for their annual sleepover that weekend.
“So, Bradley,” Stacey said, placing the giant bowl of popcorn on the couch as she laid out her sleeping bag. “What’s on the watch-list this week? I hear the Super-Duper-Suspect-Science Channel is gonna be airing nothing but ‘The BLECHS Files’ until midnight!”
She leaned in a bit closer to her friend, grinning conspiratorially. “I think they’re playing your favourite two-parter too, ‘The Blood Thirsty, Body-Surfers from You-Know-Where?’”
What Stacey expected, was for Bradley to go off-the-rails at such a perfectly Bradley suggestion. However, the boy continued to fish through his backpack, nonplussed.
“I’m not sure if you heard me right, B-man,” Stacey said, perturbed. “BLECHS Files? Marathon? Blood Thirsty Body-Surfers?” She wagged her fingers for emphasis and EVERYTHING, but the calmness with which Bradley turned to face her... was very un-Bradley-like.
“Heard ya loud and clear, Stace,” he said, dumping out the bag of cassettes onto their sleeping bags. “But... I had something a little more cultured in mind for this week!”
“Oh really?” Stacey laughed, leaning over to inspect his haul. “Like what, ‘The History of the World’s First EVER Talking Booger?’”
“Nah, but good pick for next week, though!”
“As if, Booger-man.”
She spread out the tapes into a more manageable pile, but her excitement turned into gentle confusion as she took in each title.
“So! What do ya think, Stace?” Bradley asked, peering over his friend’s shoulder. “Good haul?”
She turned to look back at him.
“Uh... are you sure this is the right haul, B-man? I mean...”
She held up a box for emphasis.
“‘The Hitman and the Heiress’ I get,” Stacey said. “There’s that really cool shootout near the end on the train with the ninjas and the mobsters after Kirk Dangervalley finds Princess Lin Fan and they FINALLY confess their undying love for one another after spending the whole movie hating each other...”
She scooped up the rest of the tapes.
“But ‘Left with the Breeze’? ‘Lovely in Lilac’? ‘RESTLESS IN REGINA’? You sure you didn't get this mixed up with your mom’s rentals, B-man?”
“Nope!” Bradley grinned, and- okay, maybe he was always onto something with that Aliens From Uranus stuff, because this was NOT normal Bradley behaviour!
“But Bradley,” Stacey stammered. “I’ve known you for most of my life! If there’s anything you hate more than missing monster movie marathons, it’s missing monster movie marathons for- and I QUOTE-”
Her voice went nasally.
“‘Those gross, boring, mushy, lame, kissy-wissie romance movies for weirdos!’”
“Hey!” Bradley exclaimed. “...I don’t sound like that!”
“And I have the singing voice of a car alarm!” (Stacey pointedly ignored the “could’ve fooled me” muttered by her companion.)
“Seriously, B-man! What is UP with you today?”
Had, the boy let out a defeated groan.
“Okay, okay, you caught me! These movies are totally lame, but I’m getting desperate, man!”
“You’re getting... desperate?” Stacey asked, and good grief, if this was going where she thought it was going-
“Yeah!” Bradley exclaimed. “Lance has been going all out trying to one-up me ALL WEEK! He let me cut in line for lunch yesterday, hasn’t shot a single spitball at me for days, and he even said my shirt looked ‘nice’ today, Stace! NICE!”
Seemingly oblivious to Stacey’s dumbfounded expression, Bradley continued, pacing in place.
“I dunno what he’s planning, but none of my efforts to trip him up have been working, and you’re the only person I know who actually LIKES this junk! So desperate times call for-”
He glanced at the pile of cassettes below, swallowing down the bile that threatened to spew from his mouth.
“Ugh, desperate measures.”
“He took notes the entire time, Melody! NOTES!”
Melody chewed thoughtfully around her mouthful of quinoa-and-tofu salad.
“Eerie...”
“And this wasn’t the usual, copy-the-back-of-the-textbook stuff either, he was going all out really trying to...”
Stacey turned green, looking sick to her stomach.
“...LEARN SOMETHING!”
Shocked, Melody dropped her fork.
“Stacey... I’ve READ his history notes, and I think that’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard!”
The other girl let out a sickened groan, which prompted Melody to reach over and pull her into a comforting hug.
“HOOOOOOOLY MACKEREL! IF YOU GUYS THINK THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE ORDINARY...”
Ears ringing, Stacey and Melody flinched as Dill joined them at their table.
“I MANAGED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH LANCE... COMPLETELY WEDGIE-FREE!”
The two girls could only gape at him.
“No way...” they muttered in unison.
“UH... DUHHHHH, YES WAY!” Dill fired back, waving his arms up and down for emphasis. “OTHERWISE, I WOULDN’T HAVE OPENED THIS CONVERSATION BY SHARING THAT CRUCIAL PIECE OF INFORMATION... BASIC SENTENCE STRUCTURE, YOU GUYS! GEEZ, YOU CAN BE REALLY OBTUSE SOMETIMES, YA KNOW!”
Melody and Stacey shared an unimpressed look.
“But, what happened, Dill?” Stacey asked.
“WELL, IT WAS RIGHT AFTER MATH CLASS YESTERDAY WITH PRINCIPAL COFFIN...”
“PSST! Hey, dweeb- I MEAN, Dill! Can I talk to you for a sec?”
Stopping short of leaving the classroom, Dill spotted Lance’s eyes peaking out from behind Principal Coffin’s desk.
“GEEZ LANCE, I ALREADY TOLD YOU ABOUT A BAMILLION-ZILLION TIMES! IF THIS IS ABOUT NEXT WEEK’S MATH TEST, I’M NOT LETTING YOU COPY OFF OF ME AGAIN-”
With lightning fast reflexes, Lance rushed to cover Dill’s mouth.
“SHHHH! You want the whole floor to hear you, dude?” Lance hissed... still inexplicably whispering to the other boy in the empty classroom.
“This ain’t about the math test... it’s about something else, okay?”
Taking Dill’s confused blink to the affirmative, Lance pulled back his hand.
“okay... so like, what do you want with Me, lance?” Dill whispered back. (Which, for him, was just the average person’s indoor voice.)
He was about to answer, but then froze, mouth agape and eyes bugging out as if he was ready to keel at over any second.
“HOOOOO- oops sorry- hoooooooly mackerel! you can’t just Stop a guy right at the end of class if you don’t have anything Important to say! they could’ve had an important meeting or a doctor’s appointment or be like... a Millisecond away from a total bladder meltdown! if this was sooooooo important, why didn’t you ask me sooner-”
His patience tried, Lance cut Dill’s trademark ramble short.
“IT’S ABOUT SCRADLEY, OKAY?” He wheezed back. “You guys are like... friends or whatever, right?”
Dill stared blankly at him.
“NO DUUUUUUUUUHHHHH! IT’S NOT LIKE WE TRADE COMICS LIKE ALL THE TIME OR SIT AT THE SAME LUNCH TABLE OR GO BIKE RIDING TOGETHER OR HAVE SLEEPOVERS OR-”
“Okay, OKAY, I GET IT, DUDE!”
He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but Lance’s grip on his shoulders felt tighter than necessary.
“So you guys are pals or whatever, FINE! So that means you’d TOTALLY know about all the nerdo stuff he’s into, right?”
Dill squinted at the other boy, who was turning red with how intensely he was glaring at him.
“i guess... but why would you care?”
“That’s for ME to know, and for you to care LESS about, if you know what’s GOOD for ya, DILL-WEED,” Lance growled back.
“Now, cough up the deets before you’re the first kid to ever get wedgied DIRECTLY into orbit!”
“... No offense, Dill,” Melody interjected. “But technically that conversation wasn’t ‘completely wedgie free.’”
“DETAILS, SCHMEETAILS, MELODY!” Dill shot back. “IF MY UNDERWEAR REMAINS FIRMLY ATTACHED TO MY PERSON, IT COUNTS AS A WEDGIE-FREE ENCOUNTER! SHEESH!”
“Easy for you to say...” Will said somewhat resentfully to the group as he ambled towards the other side of the table. The over-exerted elastics in his briefs left a telltale trail behind him in the dirt, and he sat next to Dill with a wince.
“Lance and Russell just totally ambushed me outta nowhere and raided my locker!”
Melody gasped.
“Are you okay, Will?” She asked, concerned.
“Yeah... though I wish I could say the same for my underwear...” He took a sombre look at the cottony carnage sticking out from the back of his yellow shorts. “Well... that, and my comic-book collection.”
“That’s not their usual MO., at least for their non-Bradley targets...” Stacey pondered. “Did they take anything specific?”
“Yeah! My super, limited edition ‘Techno-DORKS’ tie-in comic!” Will said. “I waited WEEKS for it to come in, and as soon as I opened my locker, they pulled a fast one on me and ran off with it laughing!”
“That’s definitely Lance and Russell for ya,” Melody interjected. The rest of the table nodded in agreement.
“Though... I have no idea why they took that specific comic... ‘Techno-DORKS’ seems a little bit too... beyond them to know or even care about...”
“YEAH...” Dill trailed off, sweating a bit. “THAT’S WEIRDLY SPECIFIC OF THEM, WILL...”
“But back on topic, guys,” Melody started. “What are we gonna do about this?”
“About what, my comic?” Will interjected.
“No Will,” Melody replied. “About Lance and Bradley going nuts trying to out-romance each other!”
Will’s eyes widened with shock.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa-woah, WHOA. Wait, hold on a minute.”
The entire table turned to look at him.
“... Lance has a crush on Bradley?”
The entire table squinted at him.
“NO DUH!”
Will flinched in his seat, raising his hands up in surrender to his friends’ collective annoyance.
“Okay, okay, GEEZ! I was only asking...” he mumbled. “I didn’t see it coming, what with Lance picking on him all the time...”
“Take it from me, Will,” Stacey said. “Lance picks his nose harder than he actually picks on Bradley.”
“YEAH, AND BRADLEY IS NOT THE KIND OF DUDE TO BOTHER SOMEONE LIKE LANCE FOR AS LONG AS HE HAS UNLESS HE’S GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF IT, TOO, YA KNOW!”
In response to Will’s confused expression, Melody cut in.
“Think of it as like... a really intense game of Battleship!”
Commander Brad B. Goode, the world’s most renowned naval officer, stared down his fleet from the ship’s upper deck. Rifling through his inventory of Super Cool Missiles, his eyes narrowed with intense, hawk-like concentration.
Once faced with his chosen co-ordinate, he fired his SC Missile with a flourish.
“B5!” He called out in his deepest, most commander-y voice. “I predict a direct hit with my Cootie Launcher!”
Opposite of him, Captain Lance McLawless, decked out in the best of his Pirate-gear, let out a frustrated groan.
“ARGH... a direct miss! Ya gotta try harder than that to hit bulls-eye, Scrad-Be-Badd!”
Commander Brad B. Goode smirked. “You don’t have to ask ME twice, you scurvy rabblerowser.”
He geared up to slam another missile in place, before-
“D-9.”
Eyes lidded in satisfaction, McLawless’s smile grew smug. “Crushed your most treasured ship with nothing but a canon-ball, Mister COMMANDER.”
The Commander looked back at his board, eyes widening as he looked to his tiniest ship.
“ARGH...” He groaned, all while fighting back a smile. “Consider the S.S. Brashley... sunk.”
McLawless reclined in his chair, as smug as ever.
“Well, you old land-lubber, you got plenty more chances to take me out, don’t ya?”
The Captain smiled for real at the double meaning.
“I wouldn’t sound so eager if I were you, Lawless. I might just miss again, y’know. Gotta keep you on your toes so you don’t get too big for your britches-”
Lunging over their boards, Lance caught the other man by the overly prim-n-proper collar.
“WHAT did you say about my britches, DWEEB?”
“Hey-HEY, lay off man! It’s only a figure of speech!”
“Well, I’ll figure YOUR speech if you don’t hit another one of my ships!”
“So what you’re saying... is that they’re both playing to lose on purpose?” Will asked, still a bit confused by Melody’s extended metaphor. “But why?”
Melody looked about ready to answer him, until-
“AHEM.”
The entire table turned to face the tiny, yet familiar newcomer.
“Well, William,” Polly exposited, confident as ever when it came to unravelling the minds of the psychologically complex.
“It appears that both Lance and Bradley have conceptualized this elaborate facsimile of romantic courtship through intricate bonding rituals such as gift giving, compliments, a significant decrease in poundings or wedgies, amongst other such positive behaviours, as way of gauging their underlining romantic attraction to each other WITHOUT needing to abandon the safe veneer of hypermasculine bravado that has since sheltered them from deep-seated fears of rejection brought upon by Lance’s own internalized homophobia, and Bradley’s own internalized biphobia and transphobia, respectively. As long as their true intentions can be masked by the simple act of friendly competition and casual one-upmanship, they still have a layer of irony to fall back on lest for whatever reason, their affections aren't mutually requited.”
The rest of the table blinked at her.
“That... and neither of them are any good at being all lovey-dovey.”
Polly sat next to Stacey at the end of the bench, plopping down Pepperoni’s immaculately taxidermied corpse right next to her.
“Seriously, if I have to help my brother find any more words that rhyme with “pounding” for his sonnets, I think I’m gonna ralph...”
“Woah...” Stacey exclaimed, leaning over to the smaller girl. “Lance is writing POETRY now?”
The rest of the table predictably devolved into either coos or boos at the very concept.
Polly nodded, eyes downcast. “Though... ‘writing’ is too generous a word to describe what he does to the English language with his... “poetry.” He ‘eviscerates’ it, more like...”
Clutching Pepperoni closer to her tiny body, Polly groaned.
“When... oh WHEN will this egregious abuse of the Oxford Comma END?”
Observing Polly’s hysterics. Melody leaned over to Stacey.
“Forget what I said earlier, Stace,” she muttered into the other girl’s ear. “I think Lance the Playwright might actually be the scariest thing I’ve ever heard!”
While the other three attempted to calm Polly down, Will caught a whiff of... something in the air.
“Hey uh... Polly? Did you forget to give Pepperoni a bath this week or something? He REEKS!”
As the rest of the table smelt the air, Polly gave the golden poodle a great big sniff.
“Considering that I wash Pepperoni with the only the most hypoallergenic, unscented, and environmentally-friendly cleansing products, he shouldn’t smell that particularly malodorous!”
“UGH!” Stacey retched, the smell hitting her like a sack of bricks. “If that’s the case...”
“What’s that FUNKY smell?”
As if freshly unearthed from the nearest dumpster, the entire table couldn’t help but turn to face the noxious newcomer.
“...”
He looked at them.
“...”
They looked at him.
“... What?”
“We could ask you the same thing, Russell!” Stacey retorted, squinting (though, not by choice) at the short and stinky little man.
“Yeah, don’t you and Lance have more comics to steal?” Will pointedly added, glaring at him.
“...”
They looked at him.
“...”
He looked at them.
Then, he deflated, exhaling with a full-body weariness that the rest of the table immediately understood.
“... Too much tension,” he said simply. “Can’t... take it anymore.”
Taking a seat next to Pepperoni, he stared blearily into sights unknown before letting his head hit the table with a dull and resigned ‘THUNK’.
Polly, ever the compassionate type, grabbed a Kleenix from her lunchbag before covering her hand to pat the miserable boy on the back.
“FIRST BRADLEY STARTS WATCHING ROMCOMS, THEN LANCE STARTS WRITING MUSHY POETRY AND STOPS WEDGIE-ING PEOPLE NOT NAMED WILL,” Dill recapped. “BUT NOW RUSSELL IS TOO TIRED TO HANG OUT WITH LANCE?! HOLY MACKEREL, IT FEELS LIKE WE ALL JUST WOKE UP TRAPPED IN ‘THE TWILIGHT ZONE’ OR SOMETHING!”
“UGH... tell me about it, Dill.”
Startled by the new presence, The energy at the table shifted from annoyance to outright concern as a dour Bradley squeezed between Dill and Will and joined the table.
“Hey uh... what happened, B-man?” Stacey asked, eyebrows furrowed with worry.
Startled by her question, Bradley immediately sank in his seat, adjusting his hat.
“...donwannatalkaboutit.”
Polly cocked her head at him, still rubbing calming circles into Russell’s shoulder.
“Are you sure, Bradley?” She inquired. “Because, according to many of the most reputable institutions dedicated to effective psycho-social intervention, venting one’s frustrations to a group of trusted confidants can go a long way in alleviating any lingering uncertainty and anxiety regarding sudden epiphanies in your life-”’
“Okay, OKAY, I’ll talk!” He interrupted, pointing at the little know-it-all. “No more big words out of you!”
As the rest of the table gave him a glare that roughly translated to ‘Get ON With It,’ (Polly however, just looked miffed at being cut off,) Bradley unrolled something from under his hat for everyone there to see.
“So, I was headed out of math class to meet up with you guys, when-”
“Lemme guess, Lance just threw that at you and ran off?” Will asked, eyes glaring daggers at the ‘Techno-DORKS’ comic he now had in his hands.
“Yeah!” Bradley chirped. “... How’d ya know?”
Will shoved more of his briefs back into his shorts.
“Lucky guess.” He replied flatly.
“I have no idea how he even found out, especially as a Non-Dorker! Dorkers are sworn to secrecy over new releases!”
Dill took a massive bite out of his egg-salad sandwich, still sweating.
“So for him to throw this EXACT comic at me out of the blue? It’s like he’s TRYING to get my attention, it’s the worst!”
Going unnoticed by the rest of the table, Russell rolled his eyes.
“... Is the attention bad enough to fork up the comic?” Stacey asked with a shark-like grin.
She gave a little nudge to Melody.
“Cuz I do know someone who’d DEFINITELY appreciate the reading material if you want someone to take it off your hands, B-man.” Giggling nervously, the bespectacled girl went red at that. (And, so did Will... but for different reasons.)
“No way, man!” Bradley said, tone defensive as he shielded the comic from her grabby hands. “A free comic is a free comic!”
Deflating a bit, he fiddled with his glasses, looking at anywhere but the table.
“Plus uh... Nefarious Plot or not, it was still pretty cool of him to have gotten it for me in the first place...”
His nose went curiously red, but he said nothing more.
So, with the subject seemingly dropped, the table went back to eating their lunches in peace, talking quietly amongst themselves as they enjoyed the crisp spring weather.
“Hey, uh...”
All eyes back on Bradley.
“You guys wouldn’t happen to know if Lance is still one Micro-Man short of completing his Mighty Mean Action Men collection, right? Just to, y’know... level the playing field a bit?”
Polly squeaked as Russell, with Herculean precision, chose that exact moment to bang his head against the table.
The next day, they spotted Bradley scribbling into a notepad in front of his locker after-school.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Stace?”
“Melody’s right, ya know. Interfering with the goings-on of this unusual courtship could lead to unforeseen negative circumstances... Need I remind you, these are two willfully obtuse boys we’re dealing with, here.”
“Well, I’m this close to dealing with willfully acute BRAIN DAMAGE if I have to put up with another SECOND of those two doofuses pretending they aren’t making kissy faces at each other!”
Bradley was still writing away as Stacey, Polly and Melody approached him, too caught up in whatever Definitely-Lance-Related Scheme he was plotting to hear the trio stomp, skitter and wheel over.
“Hey Bradley-”
“QUICK!”
Eyes still squarely glued to his notepad, he pointed the butt-end of his pencil at Polly. “Pick a number between 1 and 12!”
“...and NOT a decimal number, ya little showoff,” he added, preempting Polly before she could do much beyond take a single breath.
The smaller girl huffed.
“I hope you realize,” she said. “that you’re going to be left with a much more homogenized numerical output than you probably anticipated for, ya know.”
Rolling his eyes, Bradley spun his hand at her in a gesture roughly translatable to ‘Get ON With It.’
“Well... how about number 7?”
That was apparently a good answer, as Bradley quickly jotted it down with a grin.
“Number 7, huh? Current home of the Underwater-Volcano-and-Giant-Earthquake disaster movie INSTANT CLASSIC, ‘Randal’s Cove’? A good choice!”
Sharing a look with Melody, (who could only shrug at the apparent connection,) Stacey hovered over Bradley's shoulder.
“I know I’m gonna regret asking,” she groaned. “But what EXACTLY are you up to now, Bradley?”
“Simple,” Bradley peeped, finally looking up at the three girls. “I’m planning a movie date!”
“... With Lance?” Stacey asked flatly.
Bradley side-eyed her.
“Uh, DUH. Who else, Stace?”
Polly beamed.
“See? He’s getting closer and closer to self actualization! No need to look so perturbed, you two!” she stage-whispered in excitement to Stacey and Melody, who could only stare bug-eyed at the brazenness of it all.
“Cuz you see, I think I’ve FINALLY got it all figured it out!” He exclaimed, his pencil pointed at his chicken-scratch writing as if it held the answers to the meaning of life itself.
“Lance keeps doing all of this small stuff to throw me off, see, not enough to be like, totally obvious and all up-in-your-face, but enough to get under my skin and keep this whole song-n-dance going, right?”
“That, would be the point, Bradley,” Melody stated, cocking an eyebrow.
“He wants to be in the lead, but he’s gotta play it cool so I don’t catch on... so imagine how big of a doofus he’ll look like when I, Bradley, with all my immaculate foresight and multilayered, strategic planning, totally show him up by springing this on him before he can! It’s foolproof!”
Stacey pinched the bridge of her nose, that aforementioned acute brain damage starting to kick in.
“So. Lemme get this straight,” she sighed, looking to the heavens above for strength. “You, one of the stingiest guys that I know, are totally willing to shell out ten bucks in potential Mr. Fizzy money... just to go watch a movie with Lance? ALONE? And you don’t see anything... kind of weird about it?”
Bradley looked at her as if she grew a second head.
“I... really don’t see what you’re getting at here, Stace. You sure you’re feeling alright?”
Eye twitching, the poor girl looked just about ready to explode, until-
“YO, Scradley!”
The Forces That Be seemed to really have it out for Stacey’s sanity as Lance, (and, that smelly Russell,) stomped down the hall towards the little quartet, stance stiff but brimming with purpose.
Sidestepping the girls, he made a point of squatting down, looking Bradley dead in the eye, and, rather pointlessly, placing his hand above the other boy’s head so he could loom over him like a lumbering but all around ineffectual gangster.
“So...” Lance’s hardened expression was already twitching from the effort of keeping it in place. “Got any plans Thursday night, DWEEB?”
For all that posturing on Lance’s end, Bradley looked quite blasé at the redhead’s theatrics. He cocked his head to the side, smirking.
“That all depends on you, tough guy,” he sneered, grinning a smug little grin as he watched Lance sweat trying to steel himself. “I’m a busy guy, so it’s gonna take a preeeetty hard bargain to get a hold of-”
Two 20% off coupons for movie tickets got shoved directly into his face.
“Uh.”
Lance doggedly refused to look at him.
“It took me and the little dude THREE full boxes of Mr. Fizzy to find even TWO of these things, so you better pick a movie right now OR ELSE!”
Bradley glanced back-and-forth between the crumpled coupons and Lance’s impatient glare.
“So...” Bradley drawled, his even stare making up for his uncertain tone. “How’s ‘Randal’s Cove’ sound?”
“Depends,” regaining his metaphorical footing, Lance tilted his head back with a smirk. “Isn’t a 7:30 showing a little bit past your bedtime? ‘Specially for a big and scary movie like that?”
“That depends...” Bradley shot back just as quickly, an easy grin spreading across his face. “You planning on keepin’ me up?”
Tables thoroughly turned, Lance spluttered and went red in the face.
“Good!” Bradley chirped, swiping the coupons from Lance’s shaky grip. “Guess we got ourselves a DATE, then!”
“Uhh.” Lance looked down at his open palm, marvelling at it still being attached to his body.
“So, meet me at my place for 7? Good, good.” Bradley tucked-n-rolled out from under the taller boy’s arm, not really expecting an answer. “I guess I’ll see you then, Lancie-Pants.”
Then, he got up from the floor, scooped up his backpack, and, with a spring in his step, meandered past the little group.
Suddenly, Lance snapped out of his reverie.
“HEY DWEEB!”
Bradley turned around.
“You better make sure you’re ready on time when I come to get ya!”
“What,” Bradley snorted, shrugging his backpack onto his shoulder. “And keep a pretty little thing like you waiting?”
Pointing fingerguns-style at Lance with his free hand, he even had the audacity to wink at him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
And off he went, leaving Lance just about ready to have a conniption, and leaving Stacey, Melody, Polly, and Russell to process... whatever any of that was.
“...Huh.”
Stacey was at a loss.
“Well...”
Melody was baffled.
“Fascinating!”
Polly was enthralled.
“...”
“... Whoa.” Russell deadpanned. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“Whaddaya MEAN, dude?!” Lance snapped, blushing hard enough to look faint as he grabbed the shorter boy’s wrist and headed in the opposite direction. “YOU were the one who told me to ask him out!”
“Whaaaaat?” Russell whined.
Watching the duo leave, Melody coughed.
“So...” She asked, turning to Stacey. “You think Bradley’s gonna need any more advice, or-”
“No way, Mel!” Stacey exclaimed. “I’m pretty sure Tromeo over there knows EXACTLY what he’s doing, so I’m staying out of this. That doofus is on his own now, NO IFs, ANDs, or BUTs!”
“Okay so whaddya think, Stace? Cap forwards or cap backwards?”
He turned the brim backwards.
“I feel like backwards best shows off my roguish, boyish charms, but Lance would be expecting that, y’know?”
“Though...”
He brought the brim front-wards.
“Cap forwards offers the right amount of mystery and unexpectedness that’ll leave him totally unprepared! Or maaaybe I should flip it to the side...”
Thursday Night could not come fast enough as Stacey, bored out of her skull, watched Bradley adjust his trademark red cap in the mirror for what felt like the billionth time now. His jean-jacket was open, but paired up with his usual denim capris, the boy looked more like a walking, talking pair of pants than anything she’d consider fashionable.
Not that she’d have any luck telling him that, though.
“Aren’t you taking this whole, ‘Totally-Not-A-Date’ thing a BIT too seriously, B-man?” she called out from the edge of his bed. Cradling her chin in her hand, she could already feel her butt going numb from how long she’d been sitting there.
“I mean... it’s just an action movie!”
Bradley spun around to face her.
“Ah-HAH! But you see... that’s EXACTLY what he’d WANT you to think!” He exclaimed, his hat now crooked on his head. “Just cuz it isn’t some mushy chick flick-”
Stacey’s pointed glare made him pause.
“I mean... just cuz it isn’t some lovey-dovey romance movie, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t aim to dress to impress! It’s the principle of the thing!”
“Oh, I’m SO sure.” Stacey rolled her eyes.
“How we doing for time, anyways?” Bradley called out, buttoning up his jacket.
Stacey checked her watch. 6:42PM.
“You got another 15 minutes, loverboy.”
“Do I?” Bradley replied, and it pained Stacey to so clearly hear the smirk on his stupid face rather than see it.
“Isn’t Lance supposed to pick you up for-”
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.
“Oh. Of course,” she groaned. “Spoke too soon.”
“As I’ve said, my dear sycophant,” Bradley hummed. “You gotta be two steps ahead before you take even a single step forward when facing off against a dastardly mastermind such as him.”
Following him out of his room and towards the front door, Stacey couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him again.
“Now old girl,” he said, fiddling with the lock and chain. “Watch and see how a REAL man expects the unexpect...”
He trailed off, and the door was now wide open.
“Uh.”
And there stood Lance, (and of course, the ever-present Russell,) looking back at him just as shell-shocked.
But, he looked... different.
Instead of his usual puke-green shirt, he had on a really nice dark blue graphic tee, probably of some random grunge band Bradley never heard of. Over-top of it, he wore a second-hand, green bomber jacket that probably saw better days, but something about its strategic patch-work managed to give it its own unique, thrifter flair. Completing the ensemble, he paired up his usual pair of kicks with a comfy pair of dark-brown jeans.
All and all, especially with his undercut looking neater than usual, he looked...?
He looked... Uh.
“You look...” Bradley croaked out. “Really good, Lance?”
Man, his throat wasn’t this dry a second ago... and why did his face suddenly feel so hot?
Lance didn’t seem to be faring any better, looking down at the shorter boy as if he sprouted a second pair of eyes or something.
“Y-YEAH, well...” Lance scratched the back of his head, looking at a particularly interesting piece of green gravel near his feet. “You don’t look half bad yourself -OW- I MEAN... blue uh, really suits you, dude.” Rubbing at his aching side, he shot a glare at Russell.
“Uh... thanks, man!” Bradley squeaked out. The second that both boys made eye contact, they jolted away, blushing.
It seemed like the This-Is-Really-Happening Hysteria finally set in, so Russell, ever the perceptive type, decided to throw his buddy a line.
“NHREHEGHEGEH,” He grunted, nudging Lance yet again in the side.
“DUDE- Oh wait, YEAH!” Lance then dug through his inner coat-pockets to awkwardly hand something off to Bradley.
“... A can of super duper limited-edition, Kola-Champagne Flavoured Mr. Fizzy? All the way up here?” Bradley cradled it with the tenderness of a fragile, newborn child. “But... how did you-”
“I HAVE MY SOURCES, OKAY?” Lance grunted. “So are you like... ready to go now, or whatever?”
“Y-Yeah!” Bradley replied, looking about ready to jump out of his skin. “Lemme just... see where I put those coupons. Don’t wanna have to end up paying full price, right?” He wheezed out a reedy, nervous laugh as he dug through his pockets.
Stacey, feeling ever so merciful at the sight of her bestie being this out of his element, decided to lend him a helping hand.
“Uh. Back pocket, B-man,” she snorted, pointing to the back of his jeans.
“RIGHT, r-right... I knew that!” Bradley got out the two (surprisingly immaculate) coupons and shoved them into his jacket pocket.
“So...” He held out his arm to Lance. “Are you ready to embark for the cinema, my good man?”
“Depends...” Lance replied, holding out his arm to Bradley. “Bet I could embark us there faster.”
“Bet I could look cooler doing it!” Bradley was getting very aggressive with his outstretched arm.
“Oh, you’re ON, SCRADLEY!” Lance barked back.
Then, through an act of co-ordination too absurd to properly describe, the two boys managed to end up together, arms tightly linked and staring daggers into each other’s eyes.
“Ready?” Bradley asked.
“More than you’ll EVER be, dweeb,” Lance shot back.
Finally, all-the-while they still glared intensely at each other, they began to frog-march down the street in near perfect unison.
Stacey and Russell watched on as the two idiots ventured off into parts unknown.
“So. They finally did it, huh?” Stacey mused. “I hate to say it, Russell, but I’m kind of proud of them!”
She turned to face him, only to hear the shorter boy sniffling.
“Yeah...” He replied, blowing copious amounts of snot into his filthy handkerchief. “They grow up so fast...”
“Yeah,” Stacey parroted, smiling a fond little smile at the other duo’s receding silhouettes.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...Wanna play violent video games and never have think about romance until we’re like, thirty?”
“Please.”
“So much for getting here early...”
“Hey man, how was I supposed to know that every kid in town was gonna be here?”
“Oh, I dunno... maybe it’s because it’s the BIGGEST MOVIE EVER RELEASED IN THE HISTORY OF ALL TIME?”
Tickets cashed and a good half-hour of waiting left to go, Bradley and Lance, still joined at the elbow, stood stoically in line outside of the door to Theatre 7 with the rest of their fellow movie-going aficionados. Lance had a Xtra-LARGE bag of popcorn in his free arm, while Bradley managed to have his prized can of Mr. Fizzy, two straws, and a large box of BRAINIAX chocolate candies cradled expertly in his grasp.
“Dude... you’re really telling me you’d rather see some dumb volcano movie over ‘Air Felon’?” Lance asked, incredulous. “You got all the COOLEST and MANLIEST movie dudes around hijacking a plane from other, BADDER movie dudes... and yet you’d still rather see some volcano blow up?”
Bradley seemed to ponder this.
“True...” He conceded, leaning a bit closer into the taller boy so that he could cradle his chin in deep thought. “BUT! Action movies with a bunch of hot buff guys are a dime a dozen in this day ‘n’ age! How often can you say you were there to see an Epic Volcano Movie, IN THEATRES opening week?”
“Hmmm,” Lance drawled back, the duo shuffling up with the rest of the moving crowd. “Probably, oh I don’t know... LAST MONTH? And sorry to say dude, but that OTHER volcano movie? Total garbage!”
The bespectacled boy nearly dropped his snacks with how aghast he looked.
“But Lance...” Bradley sputtered. “They sent LAVA directly into the OCEAN! By dropping a BUILDING on it! How is that NOT the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?!”
“... Cuz the lava looked like they just spilled a can of Orange-Fizzy all over the camera and called it a day! It looked totally fake!” Lance exclaimed, sending stray kernels flying with how hard he was gesturing.
“And the way how that conductor dude melted when he jumped into the lava to toss that other guy to safety? There’s NO WAY he would have burned up like that, Scradley, NO WAY. Everybody kept saying that that movie cost like a million dollars to make, but honestly? Even those theatre-kid dweebs could make a WAY better movie with just pop-rocks and confetti than ANY of those rich dudes up in Hollywood could throwing money around!”
Bradley blinked up at Lance, quietly awed.
“Huh,” Bradley said, mouth quirking up into a small grin. “Didn’t take you for such a movie-buff, man!”
“YEAH, WELL...” Lance mumbled, his neck going suspiciously pink as the poster for some self-important political drama caught his eye. “I guess the squirt’s been rubbing off on me a bit... she really likes looking into all that movie magic stuff, or whatever.”
With a sickeningly sweet-n-saccharine smile, Bradley leaned into the side of the taller boy’s face.
“Well! Good thing I can appreciate a man with such a refined eye for the cinema-TIQUE then, huh, Mister Movie Magic?” Patting Lance’s forearm, he even batted his eyes coquettishly up at him, just to watch the other boy squirm.
“UGH, lay off me, man!” To Lance’s credit, the most he did was try to shrug him off, but it wasn’t the epic freak-out Bradley was hoping for. “I don’t wanna catch anymore of your gross, nerd-cooties!”
Though, he didn’t make much of an effort to unlink their arms, or even to push the shorter boy away for being so close.
Weird.
Bradley didn’t get the chance to comment on it though, as the theatre doors finally opened up ahead.
“Finally!” Bradley exclaimed, tugging the other boy forward. “Took ‘em long enough to let us in, eh?”
Lance scoffed.
“They probably had to go around waking everybody up cuz of how BORING it was,” he sneered, still letting himself be dragged along by his shorter companion.
“C’mon Lance, it’s gonna be great and you know it!” Bradley shot back. “Besides, if you’re so ABOVE disaster movies, why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“Dude, it’s only cuz YOU wanted to see-” Lance went quiet, and the fact that he could sweat that visibly, that quickly, in a fully air conditioned building, was simply a feat onto itself.
Waiting for an answer, Bradley stopped to face him, his expression quizzical.
“I MEAN, uh... Y’KNOW...” Arm now freed, Lance scratched at the back of his head with the frantic energy of a person suffering from a particularly bad case of head-lice. “I guess it’s like, good, or whatever to give stuff a second chance? To branch out? I dunno, maybe this one’ll be good?”
Bradley beamed up at him, and Lance couldn’t help but crack a shaky smile back.
“Now THAT’s the spirit!” Bradley whooped, lunging up to link his arm over the other boy’s shoulders as they headed towards the door. “C’mon, if we hurry, we can get one of those two-person seats at the back!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m hurrying.” Lance’s weak scowl looked more like a pout than anything else.
“Just... lighten up a bit, alright? I’m telling ya bud, you’re gonna have a great time!”
Lance’s gaze shifted from annoyance to... something softer. Not so much in his overall expression, but mainly in the eyes, and it threw Bradley for a loop.
“Hmn,” he replied steadily. “Then I guess I will, Scradley.”
And there was something about the tone of his voice, something off, something new, that made Bradley feel a twinge of... something not entirely unpleasant at the pit of his stomach.
Surprised at himself, he blinked at what felt like warp-speed.
... What the heck was that all about?
He quickly shook his head.
Whatever. All of that hokey, “self-actualization” mumbo-jumbo could wait, he and his date had a disaster movie to catch.
“... Well, THAT was a disaster.”
“Hmm? Wuzzat now, Scradley? If I didn’t know any better, it almost sounds like... I was RIGHT or something!”
“C’mon Lance... Don’t make me SAY it.”
A good hour-n-forty-nine minutes later, the duo left the theatre, Bradley looking disgruntled and Lance looking gleefully and unrepentantly smug.
“I just don’t understand,” Bradley ranted, hands now out of his pockets and waving about in the air. “You’ve got people being boiled ALIVE in hot springs, sweet old ladies walking through flesh-eating ACID, a whole village about to get flambéed to death by an ERUPTING VOLCANO... and yet like HALF the movie was spent with some boring guy and his boring family being BORING and keeping us away from all the cool, action stuff? What was that?!”
Lance was full-on grinning now.
“You really want me to answer that, dude?” He asked, reveling in his companion’s misery.
Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, Bradley pointed an accusatory finger at his sneering visage.
“... If you say ‘THAT was the reason why we should’ve watched Air Felon’ ONE MORE TIME, I’m taking the bus home.”
Cackling, Lance instead hooked his arm around the shorter boy’s shoulders and brought him closer to his side. “Lighten up, man,” he chuckled. “I mean... it was complete bunk, sure, but it would have been totally worse if I wasn’t there!”
Bradley couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile at that, leaning his head onto Lance’s shoulder as the taller boy unfurled his fingers so that they’d rest comfortably on his arm.
“You’ve made yourself a point there, my good chap,” he replied. “The Muppet voices during the boring bits were an inspired choice.”
“C’mon man, it wasn’t all me,” Lance muttered, going pink in the face. “That ‘Hungry Lava of DOOM’ idea? That stuff made everything so much more bearable! Seriously, if it weren’t for the coupons, I totally would have made that movie dweeb give us our money back!”
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Bradley shrugged. “All that meant was more snack money for us, right?”
Lance hummed in agreement, and the two fell into a comfortable silence as they walked back to Latchkey Gardens.
And as hey made their way down the near-empty city streets, still joined at the hip, the streetlights above casting the world around them in a hazy orange glow, Bradley got to thinking, like really thinking for once.
Why was he having such a great time tonight, especially with Lance of all people?
For as foolproof as Operation Asking-Out-The-Enemy was, he expected way more fights and awkwardness, for it to morph into their usual antagonistic dynamic as he played up all the mushy stuff. Heck, he even expected at least one threat on his skivvies to pop up here or there from it. But tonight, Lance was seemingly on his best behaviour, and the scariest part was that... Bradley didn’t mind at all?
It wasn’t as if they didn’t have fun together as a unit before, (though... calling the disaster they made of Melody’s birthday party in any way “fun” was pushing it,) and it wasn’t as if Lance himself was all that unpleasant to be around most of the time. (Barring all the wedgies, of course.)
But... seeing the so-called bully so relaxed, so quick to laugh at all of his dumb jokes, (and not in a derisive way, either,) to eagerly point out a goof or plot-hole that he somehow missed, to see him look totally at ease around Bradley without his macho cool-guy shtick getting in the way?
It meant something, but right now, Bradley felt too lazy to piece the rest of it together.
“Y’know...”
Startled, he turned to face Lance. He was still kind of out of it, sure, but any opportunity to get out of his head was definitely fine by him.
“I bet the two of us could make a WAY better movie than THAT, right?”
“What uh, what makes you say that, Lance?”
The redhead looked way too offended over such an innocuous question.
“You kidding me, dude? You’re like... a movie genius! You always have all these out-there ideas that no one else could come up with! Seriously, Hungry Volcano Of Doom? Who wants revenge on the main guy for waking it up? Who even THINKS of that, man?”
“Aw, shucks,” Bradley muttered, his face heating up. “I mean, for as totally astute as you are to take note of my unparalleled creative brilliance, it’s not like I can take ALL the credit, y’know?”
“That ‘Amazing Rubber Guy’ cover you drew a while back? It looked totally KILLER, man! Seriously, if we ever teamed up to make something, there’s no way you wouldn’t be drawing stuff for it!”
“... Heh.” For a split second, Lance looked just as flustered at the praise the other boy was heaping onto him.
“Y’know what, Bradley? You’re totally right!” He grinned, puffing up his chest. “With your movie stuff, and my art stuff, we could make the coolest Volcano Movie around! Those dweebs up in Hollywood would have to be some REAL boneheads to not jump at the chance to hire us-”
It suddenly hit him that he’d been talking to dead air for a solid minute now.
Surprised, Lance turned around to see Bradley standing only a few steps behind, staring at him wide-eyed like a deer trapped in the headlights of an incoming truck.
“...Why’d ya stop, man?” Lance asked, confused.
“Uh...” The shorter boy scratched the back of his head, now pointedly refusing to make eye contact. Even from Lance’s line-of-sight, the tip of Bradley’s nose looked... redder than usual.
“You uh... you just called me Bradley. You NEVER call me Bradley.”
Something absolutely mortified clicked into place on Lance’s expression.
“WELL! I MEAN...” He babbled, his face growing hotter by the second. “That’s your name still, right? I mean, I totally respect it if you changed it again, like you’re your own dude and you should do whatever you need to to be happy ‘n’ all but seriously, if you’re thinking of something super lame like Deven or Lester or Ashley, I-”
Shaking his head, Bradley huffed out a little laugh.
“Nah nah, it’s nothing like that,” he muttered, still smiling to himself. “It’s just? It has a nicer ring when you say it, y’know?”
Caught off guard, all Lance could do was stare at his bemused companion, before quickly glancing at the nothing on his bare wrist.
“Oh MAN, is it that late already?” He gasped. “Wow we really should be getting BACK soon, huh?!”
Before he could protest, Lance swiped Bradley’s hand out of his coat-pocket and began to drag the two of them home.
“I assure you, Mister The Bodyguard, I’m perfectly capable of finding my own house, thank you.”
“YEAH WELL... I wanted to do it, so THERE.”
Now back in familiar Latchkey territory, the duo finally reached the door to Bradley’s. The lights weren't on inside, which meant that Stacey and Russell probably dipped a while ago.
“Well, here’s my stop, I guess,” Bradley stated, letting out a nervous chuckle as he dug through his pockets with his free hand. He still hadn’t let go of Lance’s. “I guess this outing wasn’t a complete wash, huh?”
“Guess so...” Lance replied, sounding way too angsty about the whole thing than expected. Bradley however, was too distracted turning out every pocket he could think of to notice. With one final pat-down of his jacket pockets, he gave Lance a panicked, questioning look... to which the taller boy responded by pointing to the conspicuous sticky-note left on the side of Bradley’s mailbox.
Check under the Royal Welcome, Sir GENIUS.
Signed, Your Most Thoughtful And Considerate of Friends,
~ Stacey S.
And of course, there was a smug little doodle of her holding up the key, too.
Figures.
Snorting, Bradley fished out the spare key from underneath the doormat, jimmying it into the lock before-
“Hey Brad- I mean uh, dude?”
Turning to face him, Lance had been so quiet that Bradley nearly forgot that he was still there.
“I uh... I just wanted to say that, um.”
He was scratching at the back of his scalp again, face as dark as a tomato under the glare of the streetlights, and that something rattled at the pit of Bradley’s stomach again, making him feel... pleasantly queasy watching the redhead fumble over his words.
“Listen, I just wanted to say that... I had fun, y’know? And I uh... wouldn’t mind doing this again, as long as it was with you and stuff... I guess.”
“OH! Uh... Yeah, yeah man, me too!” Bradley stuttered in response, but, in response to what, he wasn’t too sure.
Then Lance was back to not making eye-contact, something that suited Bradley just fine because hey wait a minute, what was that last part, again?
I wouldn’t mind doing this again... as long as it was with you.
So, he had heard that right, then. It wasn’t just his mind... somehow playing tricks on him.
And, if he did hear that right, what did it mean that he felt the exact same way?
Because yes, Bradley did have fun tonight, and wouldn’t mind going to see more schlocky movies with Lance in the future, or wouldn’t mind getting more cool art from him, or being the one to make him crack something brighter than a scowl for once or getting to be the only person able to make him blush such a distressingly cute shade of red any time he caught his attention-
“Yo! Earth to Scradley!”
Jolted out of his thoughts, Bradley finally noticed that Lance was staring.
“You feeling alright, man?” He asked, offering a nervous smile. “You’ve been lookin’ at me like I have a big, fat target on my forehead or something!”
“I was? Oh gee, I guess I had been... sorry about that, man,” Bradley coughed out a watery chortle. “I guess I should. Really be going then.”
He made no further effort to move.
Lance squinted at him.
“Seriously, dude,” he sneered. “Are you waiting for a goodnight’s kiss or something?”
Lance chuckled at that last part as if he was joking, but even Bradley, poor, Dumb-As-Rocks Bradley, could hear the bald-faced, unspoken hope buried underneath that weak, dorky little snicker, as clear as day, and alright, he could NOT take it anymore-
Now, Bradley had never been one with a good handle on his impulse control; his friends, family, and myriad detentions served over the years could greatly attest to that. If an idea popped into his head, no matter how dumb, how short-sighted, or ill conceived it was, he’d make good on that urge and follow through, no matter the consequence.
So, what was Bradley’s first course of action after hearing Lance’s lame-even-for-him, barely-a-joke joke?
Well, not only for him to shout back an impassioned, “No, YOU are!” as if it was the Sickest Clap-Back in recent memory, but to reach up, grab the other boy by the cheeks to pull him down, and then lean up to kiss him full on the mouth.
The kiss couldn’t have lasted more than about like... ten seconds, tops, but the wave of calm and rightness that washed over Bradley as his eyes fluttered shut made it feel like as if time for him had just... stopped entirely.
“Y’know, this ain’t half bad for my first kiss,” he thought, smiling with bemusement to himself before- wait... Wait, WAIT A MINUTE-
Pulling back, (and not being pushed back like he expected,) he was now both in the arms of, and face-to-face with a shell-shocked, wide-eyed, and incomprehensibly firetruck-red Lance.
For seconds on end, the two boys could only stare at each other in stunned silence, as crickets chirped on and as cars drove by.
Lance continued to stare at Bradley.
Bradley continued to stare at Lance.
Then Bradley, ever the charmer, found the perfect way out.
“Oh MAN, would you look at the TIME!” He announced, looking over to the nothing on his wrist as he jumped out of Lance’s arms to reach the door. “Wow, ha-hah, it really must be getting late! Time REALLY DOES FLY when you’re having fun, huh?” Making quick work of the lock, he opened the door and made a mad dash inside.
“Anyways I totally had a great time tonight and it was mega cool and all so uh. See you at school tomorrow, then? Great, great.”
Lance nodded dumbly at him.
“Well, bye!”
The door slammed shut.
Lance continued to stand there, frozen in place. Then, his hand cautiously rose to touch his lips.
The door swung open.
“Hey uh.” Bradley’s tawny face peeked out from behind the door. “Same time again next week?”
Blinking at him, Lance gave a slow, mechanical nod back.
“Cool! Well, goodnight! Get home safely, I guess!”
Locking the door behind him, Bradley leaned against it before sliding gracelessly to the ground, carefully removing his glasses so he could hopefully smother himself to death before the night was over.
“’Get home safely, I guess?’” He cringed, burying his face in his hands as things finally, FINALLY, began to sink in. “... Smooth move, BRAINLESS-Man.”
And as the days went by, things slowly returned to normal at Middlestick Elementary.
Well, for as normal as they could be, what with Lance and Bradley’s... thing for each other now apparently resolved.
To Stacey at least, not much seemed to change on the surface.
She still got wads of paper aimed at the back of her head whenever Lance whiffed a shot and missed his target, she still had Bradley going all ‘21 Questions’ on her over hey, do you think Lance would be into paper maché models giant mutant rat-lobsters from Mars-
(“From Mars? Knowing you, B-man, I was expecting them to be from Uranus.”)
(“Hey... What’s wrong with mixing it up once in a while?”)
(“Oh nothing... I’m just glad you’ve officially brought up your total number of jokes to TWO, now.”)
(“Oh, Har-dee-har, Stace...”)
Heck, it wasn’t even if they stopped doing that weird, fight-flirting thing they did! (Though, seeing the look on Bradley’s face whenever Lance managed to get one over him was priceless, now that it started happening more often.)
But, things didn’t manage to click until Stacey ran into the two of them after-school one sunny afternoon.
“Okay, so GET THIS: turns out the volcano was possessed the entire time!”
“Dude... that’s a WEAK twist. You can do SO MUCH BETTER than that!”
After a good half hour spent looking for her buddy, Stacey spotted Bradley (and Lance, of course,) sitting together under the old pine-tree by the music portables. Bradley had his back against Lance’s chest, hat tucked under the taller boy’s chin and knees up to his stomach as he tore out and tossed another ball of paper from his notepad to the ground. The other boy had his arms wrapped loosely over Bradley’s midsection, cringing with disgust at... whatever it was that he was scribbling away at.
“... Okay, you got me there, it’s totally lame if the volcano itself is possessed... but imagine if it became like... free real estate for the ghosts it managed to mow down in the past! Volcano Ghosts from Beneath The Earth’s Core!”
“Hmm,” Lance pondered. “It has a nice ring to it, now that you mention it!”
Bradley looked ready to snark something in response, but stopped to wave as Stacey made her way towards the duo.
“Hey, B-Man! Lance.” (The taller boy grunted in hello.) “I was wondering where you ran off to!”
She glanced at the ring of crumpled-up paper scattered around the duo.
“What’s all this?”
“Oh y’know... just me and my exceedingly handsome associate over here brainstorming ideas for our next movie,” Bradley replied, ironically pinching Lance’s cheek. Blushing, the redhead swatted his hand away, but didn’t make any attempt to get up.
“Yeah,” Lance added. “Turns out, me and The Scrads over here have a lot more creative... uh. Y’know, that word where it’s like, you work really well together cuz you have a lot in common-”
“Synergy?” Bradley and Stacey suggested in unison. (The former looked confused at the nickname, but didn’t comment on it.)
“Yeah! We had more of that thing together than expected!” He ruffled the shorter boy’s hat affectionately. “This little dude really knows his disaster movies.”
Bradley stuck his tongue out at him. “Well DUH, how else were we gonna make the best Volcano Movie Ever without my expertise?”
As she watched the couple shove playfully shove at each other, Stacey couldn’t help but feel happy for them.
“Well, I’m glad to see you guys finally managed to work things out!” She beamed. “Seriously Bradley, after all that talk over ‘beating Lance at his own game’, I was so ready to declare you a lost cause-”
“WAIT A MINUTE,” Lance cut in, staring at the shorter boy in his lap. “... That entire time, you thought I was just messin’ with ya?”
Seemed like Bradley managed to inherit Lance’s Rapid-fire Sweating ability, too.
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” He exclaimed, smiling a nervous, toothy grin at him. “You can be so hard to read sometimes, I had no idea what was up with you until WAY later!”
For probably the first time in their entire shared nine years of life, Lance and Stacey for once, managed to be on the exact same page.
“I/HE LITERALLY ASKED YOU OUT!” They both exclaimed, truly baffled at the depths of Bradley’s brainlessness.
Gaze flickering between his Bee-Eff and his Bestie, Bradley shrugged.
“... Listen, so much of it flew over my head, alright?”
Just as Stacey gave herself the Facepalm of the Century, Lance unceremoniously (but gently) dropped Bradley on the ground with a surprised OOF.
“The Volcano Movie can WAIT, cuz it turns out I gotta school this dweeb in romantic junk now!” Lance shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Bradley’s forehead.
“Oh YEAH?” Bradley shot back, jumping upright to point his accusatory finger at Lance’s forehead. “Well, not if I totally school you FIRST!”
“Oh, YEAH?”
“YEAH!”
“Y’know what, Bradley? YOU’RE ON!”
“I’m gonna give you so many flowers, you’re gonna be DROWNING in love, Lance!” Bradley shouted, shoving his things into his backpack.
“Oh, YEAH? Well I hope you’re prepared to be dined, dude, cuz there’s a really nice Island Restaurant that just opened up downtown with YOUR name on it!”
“That sounds LOVELY! I’ll see you THEN!”
Stacey, still bearing witness to the scene in front of her, could only blink as she watched the two diplomatically shake hands before stalking off to plot.
“Y’know what they say...” Stacey sighed, shaking her head as the two idiots departed.
“I guess all’s fair in love and war!”