Archive of Our Own ^beta

PRELUDE

One would think that with all their exposure to it, none of the Dead Poets would be fazed by Knox's lamenting anymore, but alas, it was not so. For the past week pretty much the only thing Knox had talked about was how much it sucked that he didn't have a date to prom and how he wished he could ask "this one girl" that absolutely everyone knew meant Chris, including Chris herself.

"Honestly Knoxious, just ask her already," Charlie says around a mouthful of fries. Everyone else had abandoned Knox to congregate at the other end of the long table, but Charlie, ever loyal, stayed behind for Knox to vent to. "If you don't hurry up, someone else is gonna ask her, and then you're gonna end up taking your mom to prom."

Knox moodily stabs at his sad excuse for a salad. "Yeah, who are you going with then?"

Charlie washes down their fries with a sip from their water bottle, which has their own moderately terrifying mixture of Kool Aid and Dr. Pepper. Knox is unsurprised but still disgusted, so much so that he almost misses it when they answer simply, "Meeks."

"What? You're going with Meeks?" Knox asks, incredulous and a little exasperated, because of course he's the last one to get a date. "Since when?"

Holding up one finger, Charlie finishes the last of their Kool Aid concoction before turning to the other end of the table and shouting, "Hey Stephen, wanna go to prom with me?"

Stephen looks up from his phone for a second and studies Charlie for a moment to see if they're serious, then nods slowly. "Yeah, alright."

"Cool." Charlie gives him a thumbs up and turns back to Knox. "See, was that so bad?"

•••

"Does this mean I have to get you a corsage?"

"Absolutely." Charlie doesn't even look up as they say it, stuck in the middle of a rapidfire texting session Knox had started to brainstorm his "promposal" that Charlie quickly abandons. As they shove their phone in the open part of their backpack, Charlie can hear the same conversation buzzing in Stephen's pocket too.

Charlie zips up their backpack and shoulders it as the two fall into step besides each other on the way to their respective classes.

"Too bad your eyes are brown," Stephen says, adjusting their glasses, "or I'd make some terrible joke about matching them now."

"Do they make mud corsages?" Charlie wonders out loud. The currents of the hallway get them stuck in the alcove under the stairs for a moment, and Charlie turns to see Stephen laughing a little. "What? What's wrong with mud?"

Stephen sighs and shakes his head before saying in a dramatic voice, "As a wise person once told me: 'using mud to describe the color of someone's eyes is uncreative and a byproduct of capitalism's constant demeaning of those who deviate from traditional beauty standards.'"

"You know some wise people," Charlie agrees. Stephen tugs down the brim of their hat a little in retaliation. "Hey, hands off the goods."

"The goods?" Stephen says, raising one eyebrow.

"The goods, Meeksie, the goods," Charlie says in an awful Italian gangster impression.

Stephen rolls his eyes but fixes Charlie's hat for them anyway. Some of their bangs have escaped to one side and Stephen gently tucks them back under the hat as Charlie looks at him curiously.

"I don't know if I should trust you when it comes to anything related to fashion anyway," he says. "You can't see yourself but trust me, we're better off if I'm in charge of this part."

"I'll have you know I am a fashion icon," Charlie says, but not with their usual amount of bravado. Some part of them is far away from the conversation, running miles ahead as Stephen takes a step back towards his class.

"Your sweater is on backwards," he calls as he walks away.

"Don't question my sartorial choices!" They yell after him, but Stephen waves them off with a backward hand.

•••

Knox's history class is relocated to the library for research and he gratefully uses the time to try to convince Neil and Todd to join the "Team Chrox" prom campaign.

"Sorry, did you say Crocs?" Neil asks first. He keeps his notebook in front of himself in a valiant attempt to not get too off-track, but he's been a lost cause as soon as Knox had started talking.

"No," Knox sighs, "Chrox. You know, Chris and Knox? Chrox? It's a ship name, you know, like how you two are Anderperry."

"Anderperry is a way better name than Chrox," Todd says without looking up from his books. He's way better at staying on task than Neil, but Neil is better at thinking outside the box; it's part of the reason they do so well together on group projects.

"That's not the point," Knox interrupts before Neil can agree. Secretly he thinks so too, but Chrox is the best he could come up with. "The point is I have no ideas for how to ask her and I need to hurry up because she could get asked at minute because she's amazing and everyone is in love with her." He ends his rant by slamming his face into the open book in front of him, which only softens the blow a little.

Neil patiently pats Knox's hand and suggests, "You could write her a poem! Or you could make a punny poster like all those ones on Twitter, I bet Meeks would help you. Ooh, ooh, serenade her! Girls like that."

That gets Todd to raise his eyes from his work, and he looks at Neil with a skeptical look as he says, "Nobody likes that, period."

Neil considers it for a moment before revising his statement. "Okay, but Chris might."

"Have you ever met Chris?" Todd asks before turning back to his notebook.

"I can't sing anyway," Knox says, "and I'm not funny enough for a poster. Plus, I want to be original. I don't want it to be some generic thing. How did you ask Todd?"

Neil looks at Todd with a question in his eyes, and Todd looks back equally inquisitive. "Did I...?"

"I think we sort of just assumed," Todd says. "I don't think either of us ever asked the other."

"Great," Knox says. "You two are too perfect to be of any help. You're gonna end up getting married like it's no big deal and have your two point five kids and I'm gonna die alone in my sad, empty apartment. Ugh, what am I gonna do?!"

Todd, who had drifted off slightly when Knox said "married", comes back to suggest, "What about a poem though? She might like that."

"Yes!" Neil leaps forward in his seat a little, way too invested in the idea. "We have to write a love poem for class anyway, you can read it to her in class and ask her then, it'll be great!"

Knox is just as excited by the prospect and immediately pulls out his English notebook. "I'm gonna do it, right now, I'm gonna write her a poem and I'll bring her flowers or something and ask her to prom in front of everyone and it is going to be awesome."

He quickly starts scribbling all over the page. Todd can't help the sudden wave of preemptive secondhand embarrassment that doesn't so much wash over him as lap at his feet, but he pushes it down in favor of finishing his paper that's due in, oh, less than a week. Definitely a more pressing issue.

•••

Later, when Neil is with Todd on the bus to his house, he pulls out one of his earbuds and gestures to Todd to do the same.

"Remember earlier when we were helping Knox with his plan to ask Chris to prom?"

Todd hums in the affirmative, so Neil continues, "Are you mad I never asked you? I mean, you know, properly."

"What? Why would I be mad?"

Neil shrugs, suddenly less confident. "I don't know. Knox was going on and on about making everything special and I thought maybe you might have missed out on that."

The bus stops and they get off, Todd reaching for Neil's hand as soon as their feet hit the asphalt. The weather is nominally the tail end of spring, but the day is cool and bright, and Neil feels the urge to suddenly start skipping down the street.

"For what it's worth, I don't really care about that stuff," Todd says. His earbuds are dangling from one hand, still faintly playing music. "Especially the kind of stuff that draws a crowd. To me, that's pretty much a recipe for disaster."

"Yeah, but what about romance?" Neil asks, unwilling to let the conversation end. "We don't really do any of that kind of stuff. I mean, I can't remember the last time you wrote me a poem." Neil says it jokingly, but Todd stops in his tracks and tugs on Neil's hand until he turns to look at him.

"Practically every poem I write is about you," he says. "Where have you been?"

"You know what I mean," Neil says, but the look on Todd's face says he doesn't. "I mean, we don't do romantic gestures like that."

Todd starts walking again and Neil follows him only half a step behind. "We went on that picnic in the cave last weekend."

"And Charlie gatecrashed it," Neil finishes. "I don't know, sometimes I just feel like I don't try hard enough."

They've reached Todd's front door and their hands drop as Todd searches for his keys in the front pocket of his backpack. He waits until he finds them and unlocks the door so he can look Neil in the eye as he says, "Neil, you do more than enough. I don't need fancy, public declarations of love—really, I prefer the opposite. And it isn't a bad thing that we didn't have to talk about going to prom because that means we're on the same page without even having to say a word. So stop worrying that this means you're not good enough because if anything this just proves that you are good enough and you do enough and we're more than fine."

Neil laughs a little, looking completely enamored, and touches his forehead to Todd's. "You know, for someone who doesn't talk all that much, you sure don't have any trouble with words." Todd blushes and looks away, but still kisses back when Neil leans in. "I love you."

"And that is why you didn't have to ask me to prom," Todd says as he opens the door and steps back into the empty house, Neil following him with a grin.

•••

Meanwhile, Charlie had decided to skip the bus and walk home to give themself time to think some things over. The feeling of Stephen brushing their hair back had lingered since that morning and they hadn't been able to focus on anything since. It was like their forehead was on fire all afternoon, like a fever but without any of the nasty symptoms—or at least, different ones. Instead of a cough and fatigue, Charlie had touched a live wire and been galvanized, and everything since then had been more exciting and terrifying at the same time. It wasn't a particularly new feeling, but because the sudden intensity of it and the person it was directed at, Charlie needed a breather from other people.

Charlie had always had a soft spot for Stephen, and not just because he let them copy his homework. True, if it weren't for him, Charlie would be failing four of their six classes, but Stephen has always been someone Charlie could count on; there was a reason he was the first person Charlie came out to. Stephen was smart, and witty, and caring, and a good listener, and always there to talk Charlie off the ledge when their ideas got too recklessly stupid. He'd been such a constant fixture in their life, were they really willing to risk all that over a stupid crush?

A few rocks get kicked out of the way as collateral damage to Charlie's feelings crisis, scuffing the toe of their sneakers. Why did it have to be Stephen for their dependent psyche to latch onto next? Why couldn't it have been someone completely unrelated to their emotional well-being?

And then Charlie remembers the way Stephen always saves them a spot at the lunch table and that one time they'd gotten caught in the rain and Stephen let Charlie borrow a sweater they never wanted to return, and then nothing matters except finding a way to get Stephen to close enough that they can feel that electric shock again.

These are the burdens we all must bear, Charlie supposes, and honestly? They could do a lot worse.

•••

Knox slams shut the front door and bounds up the stairs to his room. His mother's calls to "Take your shoes off and stop running around the house like a wild animal!" fall on deaf ears as he already mentally starts the fourth draft of his poem. Everything about it has to be perfect, and it has to be done fast, because the assignment is due tomorrow.

He's also got to get some flowers. Knox adds that to the scribbled to-do list in the top left corner of the page bursting with shitty rhymes and half-developed metaphors. He's got a lot of work to do.

•••

Charlie finds Knox the next morning staring at his locker with all the resignation of an inmate on death row. When Charlie taps him on the shoulder, Knox jumps about a foot in the air, quickly slamming shut the locker door behind him as he whirls around.

"Jesus Christ, Charlie," he says, breathing heavily. "You scared the crap out of me."

"You doing alright?" Charlie asks as Knox reopens his locker.

"I'm doing great. I'm totally ready to ask the love of my life to prom. I just have to not talk myself down before I actually do."

Charlie leans a shoulder against the lockers next door and shakes their head. "Knox... What happened to the whole 'she will be mine' thing?"

"That's still happening," Knox says, "but the whole 'possible rejection and public humiliation' thing is more of a pressing issue at the moment."

The one minute bell rings and Knox slams his locker shut, flowers and poem on the nicest paper he could find safely inside to wait for later in the day. Charlie follows him down the hall to their Spanish class and says, "Carpe diem, Knoxious. Just remember that: carpe diem."

Knox nods determinedly as Charlie goes to their seat in the back. Even though Chris is also in that class, Knox somehow manages to act completely normal and still not spoil anything about what he has planned for second period.

Everyone is well aware what's going to happen, even Chris, who Ginny had warned that morning as vaguely as possible, so when they walk into Mr. Keating's room, everyone is both buzzing with excitement and anxiously holding their breath. There is still the usually sitting around on top of desks before the bell rings, everyone there as early as possible, but all of the conversation is carefully directed around any mention of prom.

Class starts and Keating invites students to read their homework at the front of the room like usual. Even he seems to know something is going to happen, because he immediately opens it up to volunteers instead of his usual method of picking on random people who obviously didn't do their assignment first.

Knox raises his hand immediately and Keating gestures dramatically towards the front of the room like it's the stage at Carnegie Hall instead of just more of the same scuffed wooden floor. Charlie whoops and applauds a little as Knox stands and walks to the front of the room. There are scattered claps from the rest of the room and Gerard gives Knox a thumbs up as Ginny leans forward to tap Chris on the shoulder and hand her the flowers Knox had given Ginny for safekeeping earlier.

Chris accepts the flowers with a smile, completely unsurprised, but Knox doesn't notice as he clears his throat and focuses his eyes on the words he has practically memorized by now. Her desk is conveniently in the center of the front row, so when Knox looks up, they make eye contact.

"To Chris," Knox reads. Chris smiles a little, twisting the leaf of one of the flowers in her fingers unconsciously. "The heavens made a girl named Chris, with hair and skin of gold. To touch her would be paradise."

At this part, Chris covers her face in her hands and Knox almost stops before he sees Ginny smiling wryly behind her and gesturing for him to keep reading. He continues, "I see a sweetness in her smile, bright light shines from her eyes, but life is complete; contentment is mine, just knowing that she is alive."

As soon as he finishes reading, the class starts clapping politely. A few guys in the back are groaning and pretending to gag, but Charlie pretty much single-handedly drowns them out.

"Oh my god Knox," Chris uncovers her eyes just long enough to see Knox's earnest yet terrified face still standing in front of her desk.

Using the noise as cover, Knox asks, "Chris, will you go to prom with me?"

"That was..." She doesn't know how to finish the sentence and lets it hang there as the clapping dies out and the silence becomes evident.

"So?" Knox asks. He's trying not to crumpled the poem in his hands, but with every second that passes without an answer, he can feel his heart contracting, and his hands want to follow. He checks to make sure he hasn't actually wrinkled the paper, and when he looks up again Chris is standing in front of him.

"Yes, Knox," she says with a smile. "I'll go to prom with you."

It takes some time for Knox's brain to process her answer, but when it does he smiles so wide that it hurts. "Really?"

"Yes," Chris laughs, and she leans up and kisses him on the cheek before going to sit back down in her seat.

Knox has officially short circuited. Keating has to come up behind him and gently lead him back to his desk with a hand on his shoulder.

"Alright," Keating says, "now that Mr. Overstreet has officially shut down, who's next?"

•••

Knox is Keating's student assistant for the class after, so he stays behind as Chris and the rest of his friends leave. As soon as the bell rings again, Knox is out of his seat before any of the freshmen in the room even notice class is over. Keating laughs a little when Knox is momentarily delayed by his backpack getting caught on the doorknob, but Knox doesn't even hear it as he frees himself and dashes down the hall to Chris's math class.

He gets to the right room and leans against the wall to both catch his breath and look cooler than he actually is. Charlie is the one who opens the door and they raise an eyebrow when they see Knox already there. They clap Knox on the shoulder and say nothing as they walk away, just smile and wink.

A few more people walk past, and then Chris is there, holding her flowers and trying to lift up one of the ones that is already wilting. She catches sight of Knox almost immediately and smiles as she waves. "Hi."

"Hi Chris," Knox says in that breathless way he always seems to talk around her. "I was just down the hall and I thought I'd see if you wanted to walk to lunch together."

"Sure."

They head towards the cafeteria together as Knox says, "So... Prom..."

"Yeah!" Chris says. "I'm really excited! Ginny and I were going to go dress shopping this weekend, I'll send you a picture when I pick one so we can match."

"Of course." Knox can't help but smile at her excitement, but he still has something he has to ask. "So, when you said you'd go with me, did you mean...?"

Chris doesn't stop, because the hallway is crowding and the rush of people would force them to keep walking anyway, but she does slow down and look Knox in the eye. "Romantically, yes. I kinda got that from the poem."

"Okay, good." Knox smiles even wider and he's glad his lips aren't chapped because he'd probably be bleeding now if he was. "Just making sure. Good."

"Good." Chris repeats as she grabs his hand and pulls him forward into the sea of people.

•••

When school ends that day, and every day after for the rest of the week, Knox practically skips out of the building with Charlie following behind at a more sedate pace. The two live on the same street and always sit together on the bus, so Charlie lets Knox run ahead safe in the knowledge they'll still have a spot saved for them, like a parent who takes their kid to the park before their nap to run off all their extra energy.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this euphoric for this long," Charlie remarks, a few days after "Team Chrox" really took off. It's Friday and Knox has been talking about how Chris is getting her dress tomorrow for several minutes.

"I feel like I could do anything," Knox says.

•••

"You're so lucky you already have a dress." Chris turns back and forth in front of the paneled mirrors at their third stop of the afternoon. Chris has a very specific dress in mind and pretty much won't stop until she finds it in real life, whereas Ginny is mostly just along for the ride and bought the second dress she saw at H&M.

Ginny looks up from her phone just in time to see Chris frowning at her own reflection. "Yeah, well you're lucky you look like a princess in literally everything you wear. We all have our strengths, Chris. Mine is just not caring about prom."

Chris folds her arms over the luridly pink beaded dress she's wearing. "You totally care, don't try to pretend you don't. Also really? Ginny, no one can look good in this." She gestures at the mess of neon pink fringe and beads and whatever else the dress is. Why is she even trying this one?

"And yet..." Ginny trails off and turns back to her phone. "I thought you were looking for something blue anyway. Cinderella, right?"

"Yeah, but like Hilary Duff Cinderella, not Disney Cinderella," Chris says as she goes back into the fitting room. There are two more dresses hanging on the back of the door that she hasn't tried on yet, but she already knows they won't be what she's looking for. She untangles herself from the beads and fringe (seriously, why?) and starts changing back into her own clothes.

"I'm pretty sure that's technically also Disney Cinderella, but I get it." Ginny's feet appear underneath the door and Chris passes her the dress she just took off. "At least it's not Grimm Cinderella."

"God, what would that even look like?" Chris asks as she pushes the door back open, adjusting her shirt.

She grabs the other two dresses as Ginny replies, "Bloody, I would imagine. Also, actually covered in cinders."

"I'll stick with poofy and blue, thanks."

There's one more store in the mall they haven't tried yet, so they head for the escalator and try not to get run over by moms with too many kids to handle.

"This is gonna be the one," Ginny says, "I can feel it."

Chris nods and flips through the photos on her phone of the runner up dresses. Everything else was shaping up to be the perfect prom—the guy, the after party, the limo, the friends. She already knew how she was going to do her hair, already had her shoes and her mom promised to lend her her diamond earrings. Now all she needed the dress, which apparently was the hardest part.

"I hope you're right," she says as they walk in the store. And then she sees it: light blue, a full tulle skirt about knee length, a ribbon around the middle, no glitter or beads or random ruffles. Simple, but beautiful.

"Oh shit," Ginny says, but Chris has already taken it off the rack and is halfway to the dressing rooms. Ginny rushes after her, already pulling out her phone in preparation for the inevitable necessary photoshoot.

•••

School gets busy for the next few days, teachers knowing full well that most of the upperclassmen would be skipping Friday to get ready for prom and therefore trying to spread out the extra day of work throughout the entire week. An extra ten minutes of lesson crammed into every class shouldn't be that much, but with every class doing it and adding homework on top of that, everyone was stressed out and occupied.

Being who he is, Stephen is taking it especially hard. He hadn't originally been planning on going to prom and was banking on that extra day to stay caught up. Granted, he was probably still going to come to school, unless Chris roped him into helping her get ready in which case... Alright, so he probably wasn't going to come to school, but he could still do his work fine at Chris's house, and he had no reason to be stressed, and yet here he was.

Stephen takes to spending his lunches his library, notes and textbooks spread out around him, old timey metal lunchbox abandoned in the bottom of his backpack. That's where Charlie finds him Wednesday afternoon as he wades through his chemistry notes.

"Fancy seeing you here," Charlie says as they sit down in the closest chair not covered in paper.

"Yes, haha, Meeks is a nerd." Stephen doesn't even look up from his typing. His laptop is whirring tiredly, the only other sound in the library besides their voices.

Charlie rolls their eyes and leans their chair back on two legs. "Not what I was going for, but that too."

"Sure, right." Stephen pushes the back of Charlie's chair with the end of his pencil, forcing the chair back onto all four legs. "Then what did you want?"

"To make sure you don't run yourself into the ground," Charlie says. Despite Stephen's protests, they start piling up his notes and putting them away. "Meeks, dude, you know I love you, but you can't stress yourself out about this so much."

"Come on, Charlie, stop," Stephen says as he tries to take back his notes. "I have to finish this lab report for chem and then I have to work on my english paper and-"

"When's it due?" Charlie interrupts.

"What?"

"When's the lab report due?"

Stephen sighs. "Next Tuesday."

"Then do it this weekend," Charlie doesn't so much suggest as order. "And I know you're probably already on draft number two even though that paper isn't due for another week, so just relax for a sec?"

Pushing his glasses up on top of his head, Stephen rubs his eyes and sighs again, but lets Charlie put his notebooks and folders in his backpack for him. As Charlie zips shut Stephen’s backpack, he leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. "Thanks," he says.

"No problem," Charlie says. "You're not taking care of yourself, someone has to do it."

"I can take care of myself," Stephen replies, brows furrowed.

"Yeah right," Charlie says disbelievingly as they stand up, taking Stephen's backpack with them. "Now come on."

Stephen stands up too, although he's not entirely sure why. He takes back his backpack and follows Charlie out of the library. "What? Where are we going?"

Charlie leads them through the hallways until they get to the music room. "We've both got free period now, we're gonna go outside and you're gonna breathe in that great fresh air and not do homework for once."

"Really? Charlie, how the hell do you think we're gonna get in and out without anyone noticing?"

Charlie says nothing, just raises and eyebrow and leans back against the door next to the orchestra room that leads outside. The door swings open easily and Charlie smiles widely as they step backwards onto the grass.

"It's an old door, the magnetic lock thing doesn't work anymore. Also," they lean down to pick up a quarter off the ground, "good ol' coin in the hinge trick."

"Of course."

Charlie lies down on the grass and uses their backpack as a pillow, quickly joined by Stephen, who instead sits up against the wall. Their little corner is cast in shadow, but the sun must have been shining there all morning because the bricks are still warm. Stephen feels himself practically melt into the wall, the warmth seeming to drain all the tension out of him that he didn't even know he'd been holding.

When Charlie opens one eye and sees how relaxed Stephen is, they laugh a little. It's not that Stephen is usually a tense person, but the past few days had definitely taken their toll. Just last week Stephen was helping Charlie with some chemistry homework and talking about how excited he was for his college tour trip to New York with his mom after school ended. When Charlie mentioned it again the day before, Stephen had snapped at them, something about how much of a longshot it would be for him to get into any of the schools he would look at and how much harder he would need to work to even have a shot. It was pessimistic and completely out of character for him, and Charlie knew it. That was the point of this whole escapade—a break for Stephen to take a breather and calm down.

"You're welcome, by the way," Charlie says after a while. A breeze ruffles through the trees of the forest across the soccer field and a sparrow hops towards them before realizing they don't have any food and turning away disinterestedly.

Stephen, who by now has opened his eyes and is trying to coax the bird back with a corner of his sandwich, doesn't say anything. He does smile a little, though, so Charlie takes it as a win.

The sparrow takes off and Stephen eats the food himself. Somewhere deep inside the building the bell rings and echoes out the open door. The sound elicits some Pavlovian response in him and Stephen feels the sudden need to stand up and walk back inside. Hopefully one day that feeling will stop, but in the meantime he just sits up and looks over at Charlie.

"Thank you," he finally says.

Charlie sits up a little, leaning back on their hands. "Not a problem."

"It's just that the whole future thing is becoming a reality, you know? Like all the stuff I put off for later, vague plans of getting into college and graduating and moving out and all that are suddenly so close and it's like I'm realizing now that I actually have no idea what's gonna happen or how to do anything and I'm gonna be an adult in a month, an adult, Charlie, how the fuck do I do that?"

During his spiralling Stephen had failed to notice Charlie moving to sit next to his stretched out legs, but suddenly he looks over and they're right there. "Stephen..." They say, putting one hand on his shoulder. "It's alright."

"Is it?" Stephen asks. "Because right now it feels like everything has been slowly falling apart for a long time and I only just noticed."

Charlie looks at him for a moment before shaking their head. "You know, for the smartest person I've ever met, you really can be an idiot sometimes."

"That's reassuring," Stephen scoffs. Charlie snaps their fingers in front of his face.

"Earth to Meeks. Come on, man, this is ridiculous. No, wait," Charlie quickly backtracks when Stephen starts pulling away, "I don't mean you're ridiculous, I'm not trying to invalidate your fears or anything. I just mean that it's not as big of a problem as your brain is making it out to be."

When Stephen doesn't say anything, Charlie continues, "You're a genius, Stephen. I mean, none of us know what we're doing, that's kind of the point. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you don't have to worry so much either. If anything, all those Ivy League fuckers are gonna be on their knees at your doorstep. Any of them would be lucky to have your stupid, brilliant brain." Charlie taps him on the side of the head and smiles, sarcastic on the surface but genuine underneath.

Stephen takes a deep breath before sitting up, pulling his legs underneath him. He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead, realizing how badly his head hurts. Even with his eyes closed, he can tell when Charlie moves to sit at his side and leans back against the wall too.

He opens his eyes and looks over to see Charlie texting someone. Stephen can't help but laugh a little; they've always been good at bouncing back from heavy stuff. "You know, you're not too bad yourself. You’re not as stupid as you look or pretend to be, you can't fool me. Smart knows smart."

Charlie waves him away dramatically. "Meeks, please, you're too much."

That finally gets Stephen to genuinely laugh for the first time today, so Charlie celebrates the victory by throwing an arm around his shoulder. Stephen automatically leans in, resting his head on their shoulder.

"So, you order my corsage yet?"

"Of course, babe. Only the best for you."

•••

Charlie is almost done their history paper when their phone starts buzzing wildly and falls off the corner of their desk.

"Shit," they say, ducking to reach for it but failing as it hits the hardwood floor of their bedroom.

"That what you get for leaving shit all over the place," their older brother, who is already back from college for the summer, says as he walks past Charlie's open door.

"Fuck off," Charlie replies, and ignores his indignant response in favor of reading their texts, even as the phone keeps vibrating in their hands.

meeks (3:14pm)
hey, so what are you wearing?

meeks (3:14pm)
no not like that

meeks (3:15pm)
i mean to prom

meeks (3:15pm)
what are you wearing to prom

meeks (3:15pm)
thats what i meant, dont make it weird

Charlie laughs and lies on their bed as they start texting back.

charlie (3:17pm)
at this point i dont think u need me to make it weird

charlie (3:17pm)
u did that all on ur own, congrats

meeks (3:17pm)
shut up, you know what i meant

charlie (3:18pm)
yea and i also know what u SAID u mean and i kno that theyre two diff things

meeks (3:19pm)
just shut up and tell me what youre wearing to prom so we can coordinate

charlie (3:20pm)
im just sayin

charlie (3:20pm)
the gentleman doth protest 2 much, methinks

meeks (3:20pm)
PICK A COLOR CHARLES DALTON

charlie (3:21pm)
ok, mr bossy! maroon

meeks (3:22pm)
thank you

charlie (3:22pm)
see, was that so hard?

meeks (3:22pm)
no thanks to you

charlie (3:23pm)
rude

charlie (3:24m)
so..... meeks...... what are u wearing?

meeks (3:24pm)
dont

charlie (3:25pm)
i meant 2 prom, meeks, gosh, dont jump 2 conclusions

meeks (3:25pm)
its a surprise

charlie (3:25pm)
[EYES EMOJIS]

meeks (3:26pm)
no, im not wearing a kilt

charlie (3:26pm)
BUT U COULD TOTALLY MAKE IT WORK

•••

Gerard stares wistfully out the window at the gym class playing soccer while he's stuck inside doing math, of all things.

"Hellooo?" Ginny waves her hand in front of his face. "Dude, come on, stop zoning out on me, these secants aren't gonna find themselves."

"Look how nice it is outside," Gerard says, not hearing her. "Do you think Hager will let us have class outside?"

"Have you met Hager? This is the guy that won't let you go to the bathroom unless it's the only thing preventing the apocalypse, and even then I'm not sure he would."

Ginny pulls out her phone underneath her desk, but thankfully Gerard is enough of a giant that with their desks next to each other, there's no way the teacher could see her anyway.

"Are you texting Knox?" Gerard says as he leans over to look at her screen. "Tell him he still owes me five bucks from the other day."

"Why does he owe you money?" Ginny asks as she dutifully types out the message.

"He wanted to win Chris a stuffed animal when we were at the mall," Gerard explains, trying valiantly to do his work, "but he kept fucking it up."

Gerard is staring out the window again when Ginny says, "Knox says he'll get you something from the vending machine instead, what do you want?"

"A frisbee."

Ginny starts to reply before she realizes what it is she is typing. "Wait, what?"

Sighing, Gerard leans forward to rest his head on his arms. "Why am I inside? Look at it, look how nice it is out there!"

Ginny pats him on the arm and says, "Just a couple more hours and you'll be out of here, free to traipse through the flowers to your heart's content."

"Yeah, you're right... Hang on, is that Charlie?"

A shape that looks a lot like Charlie runs across the now empty soccer field outside the window behind Hager's head, quickly followed by what is no doubt an annoyed Stephen.

"You've got to be kidding me," Gerard says as they watch the silent pantomime of Charlie running back and forth across the pitch with Stephen's backpack.

Stephen catches up to them and Charlie tries valiantly to hold the bag up and out of his reach, failing to remember that the two are basically the same height.

When Stephen gets his stuff back, Ginny can see the brief moment of contemplation in Charlie's eyes before it happens. "Oh no..." She whispers, but it's too late and Charlie is tackling Stephen to the ground. Gerard and Ginny both wince, but Stephen seems unfazed as he immediately starts to fight back to reclaim his backpack.

Their wrestling is interrupted by the bell announcing the end of class, which is apparently loud enough to hear from outside as they both look up and happen to make eye contact with Ginny. She waves and they jump apart, Charlie giving Stephen a hand as he blushes spectacularly.

"Idiots," Ginny says, shaking her head as she puts away her unfinished math problems. That just means more homework, she guesses, and thinks herself a reminder to cancel her plans with Neil that afternoon to finish it. "I can't believe they haven't gotten their shit together yet."

She walks out of the room, followed by Gerard who says under his breath, "I can't believe they got to go outside and I didn't."

CANON

Unsurprisingly, Stephen is right, and Friday morning finds him an extra hour of sleep before Chris's car is pulling up in front of his house and honking loudly.

Stephen is pulling on his other shoe when he gets a text from Ginny saying, "Please hurry before she stress-breaks the horn." He shakes his head and grabs his backpack before heading out the door.

"Stephen!" Ginny calls out the passenger side window as he walks down the driveway. "Please save me!"

"I don't know if I can do anything about that," Stephen says, throwing his stuff in the backseat before following. Chris is spaced out in the general direction of the tree in the front yard and doesn't even notice Stephen is there until Ginny turns the radio off.

"Ready?" Ginny asks.

"Huh?" Chris replies. She turns around to see Stephen, who waves a little. "Oh, Stephen, hi."

"Are you okay?" Stephen asks when she turns back and and starts driving back to her house.

"Yeah," Chris says, waving a hand dismissively, "I'm totally fine, not stressed at all." She doesn't seem to notice Ginny turning around to shake her head and mouth at Stephen, "So not fine."

Chris turns the radio back on and the rest of the drive to her house is quiet besides the Top 40 coming out of the speakers with a slight whistle. They weren't particularly good speakers.

When they get to Chris's house, she gets out of the car without a word and goes inside. Stephen and Ginny exchange a look before following her inside and up the stairs to her room. Her dress hangs from the top of her loft bed, the rest of the room in uncharacteristic disarray with makeup strewn across the desk and piles of notebooks and books stacked up against the walls and furniture.

Chris herself is standing in the middle of the room, silently staring down her dress with her arms folded. When Stephen looks to Ginny for guidance on what to do, she just shakes her head.

"She's been doing this all morning," she whispers. "I don't know what's wrong but she always snaps out of it eventually."

At that moment Chris turns around and it's like nothing had ever happened, and over the course of the afternoon she seems to become more and more relaxed, but neither Stephen nor Ginny forgets that confusing moment.

•••

Thankfully, Todd's suit still fits him, even though it's been two years since he got it to wear to his brother's graduation. Leaning in towards his mirror, he carefully ties his tie. He and Neil had gone out last weekend and bought it and Neil’s matching bow tie. Absently, Todd notices his charcoal suit and dark green tie kind of make him look like a Slytherin, but whatever, no one will notice.

His brother Jeff is visiting before he climbs a mountain in Brazil or something and had been willing to let Todd borrow his car for the night, so Todd is in charge of shuttling Gerard and Cameron to Ginny’s house, where everyone was meeting to take pictures. He wishes he could be picking up Neil, or that Neil was coming to get him, but that would involve either Todd being out to his parents or Neil’s parents not being awful, so they were just going to meet at Ginny’s and drive to school together instead.

When Jeff hands Todd the keys, he says, “I remember my own prom fondly. I went with Stacy Berkhart, I bet Mom and Dad still have the pictures.” He leans over to ruffle Todd’s hair and loosen his tie a little. “Loosen up, baby bro. You gotta look nice for the ladies, sure, but not stuck up.”

Todd fixes his tie and hair as best as he can. “Thanks,” he says, holding up the keys before leaving the house as fast as he can without running. Only a few more minutes until he sees Neil, he reminds himself. He can do it. And hey, at least he dodged a bullet with the whole doting parents thing.

•••

In front of another mirror at almost the exact same time, Charlie is putting on the final touches of their outfit, brushing invisible lint off their maroon suit and readjusting their hat an imperceptible amount over and over again. For all their bluster—which is just that, bluster—Charlie is always a little terrified to go out in public in anything that could be construed as a “daring” look, and a black turtleneck under a red suit with matching shiny black boots and a porkpie hat is definitely that.

The doorbell rings, thankfully interrupting them before their train of thought turns into more of a trainwreck. Charlie takes a second to retie one of their boots before grabbing their phone and taking the stairs down to the front door two at a time. Maybe if they go fast, no one will notice they’re gone, and they’ll escape the gauntlet of awkward parent fawning.

When they open the door, Charlie's breath audibly catches. To be fair, Stephen does look good with his matching maroon skinny tie, but that's not why. No, that would be the boots on his feet, the same as Charlie's but red. They aren't bright, there's no place like home red, a more muted maroon, but they both match the rest of his outfit and completely stand out.

Charlie quickly recovers and wills the tears back inside their face, but the gratitude in their voice is noticeable even as they joke, "Gosh, Meeks, if you were trying to seduce me, I think you won."

"Charlie Dalton," Charlie's aunt calls from inside, "if you think you're going to escape without letting me take pictures, you must be surely mistaken."

"You don't look like such a trainwreck yourself," Stephen says as he follows Charlie inside.

Charlie elbows him in the side and Stephen just nods, having been fully expecting it. They join Charlie's mom and aunt in the living room and suffer through a few minutes of awkward poses before escaping to Stephen's car.

"You do look nice," Charlie says once they're on the road. Stephen's car is old and its radio is shitty, so Charlie goes sifting through the CDs in the center console.

"Thanks," Stephen says, a little surprised; it's not every day Charlie gives a genuine compliment not shrouded in sarcasm. "You look good too. Nice boots."

Charlie is glad for the easy turn in conversation, as their music search could only serve as a distraction for so long, and they find a battered mixtape they made ages ago and slide it in. "You too," they say, laughing.

The conversation flows easily after that, Stephen talking about helping Chris and Ginny get ready, and Charlie fielding anxious calls from both Knox and Neil all day, and it isn't long before they're pulling into Ginny's driveway.

"Oh, wait," Stephen says when Charlie goes to open their door. "Before I forget, here." He reaches into the backseat and pulls out a fogged up box, which he opens to reveal a bundle of flowers wrapped in a dark red ribbon.

"I know I promised you a corsage," he explains, "but when you mentioned you were gonna wear the hat, I thought this would work better."

Stephen passes Charlie the flowers and they turn them over to see a pin back attached to the ribbon.

"You can pin it to that little bit on the band of your hat, y'know, where it's kind of folded over?" Stephen says. "Or not, whatever."

Charlie takes of their hat and does exactly that. When they put it back on, smiling, part of their hair hangs over their eyes, and Stephen reaches out to fix it. Time gets a little sticky-honey slow, but before Charlie can get their mouth to form any words, another car is pulling up in the driveway next to them.

Chris waves excitedly at them from the other passenger seat with Knox driving and Neil in the back, and they all get out to congregate on the lawn. Todd arrives with Gerard and Cameron not long after and Neil basically throws himself at Todd. They stand there hugging for a while before they reintegrate back into the group.

Soon enough Ginny has to throw open her bedroom window and shouts down from the third floor for everyone to meet her, "in the backyard before we get a noise complaint." Her parents are there, more than willing to act the photographer for their mostly ridiculous posing.

Gerard almost falls completely into the pond and the group decides it’s a good enough sign as any that it’s time to go, heading into their cars in whatever combinations are easiest.

When they get there, a little late because Gerard had to dry out his shoes, the party is already in full swing. That is to say, almost the entire school is there and the Beyoncé song is just starting it’s second key change.

Charlie, Stephen, and Gerard immediately take off in the direction of the dancing crowd, Neil right behind them as he tries to pull Todd along with him. Ginny and Knox linger behind, both talking to Chris, and Cameron drifts off in the direction of the punchbowl, but the rest are tearing up  the dancefloor—if by tearing up the dancefloor you mean dancing wildly, and if by dancing you mean flailing limbs to the point where people around them are starting to back away warily.

When the song changes to the Matt Nathanson song Chris has been playing non-stop for the past month, she practically bolts across the room to join the rest of her friends. Knox and Ginny don’t really have anything to talk about without her, so they shrug at each other and follow her.

•••

Eventually Ginny excuses herself and finds a table at the edge of the crowd. While everyone else had been dancing, or at least trying, she had just been hanging around the edges, moving enough to not stick out but too uncomfortable to actually dance.

Cameron joins her after a little while, and they drink punch and make small talk, until Gerard throws himself exaggeratedly into the chair in between them.

“There are so many people here,” he says, draining his plastic cup of punch immediately. “The body heat radiating off the crowd alone made me sweaty.”

“That’s what you get for dancing,” Cameron says as he slides Gerard his own punch. Gerard gratefully drinks it too, a little slower this time.

“Plus, you’re wearing like eighty layers,” Ginny points out. “Jacket, vest, shirt, undershirt. I’m surprised you’re not entirely liquid by now.”

Gerard pulls at his yellow bow tie and leans back in his seat. “They really should’ve thought this through.”

“Who? The people who invented prom?” Gerard reaches for Ginny’s cup too but she swats him off. “You should’ve gotten more if you were thirsty.”

“Yes the people who invented prom and also seriously? Come on, Gin, you’re my date! You’re supposed to get me punch!”

“In name only,” she says, drinking the rest of her punch.

Gerard frowns and shrugs off his jacket before hanging it over the back of his chair. “I guess...”

“I completely forgot you guys came together,” Cameron adds. “I mean, you don’t even match.”

“That was kind of the point.” Ginny gestures at her dark purple dress and Gerard’s bright yellow bow tie and vest. “Contrasting colors.”

“But,” Gerard says as they both lift up their feet, “matching shoes.” They are both wearing converse that match their own outfits.

Cameron nods. “Makes sense.”

•••

After another three cups of punch, Gerard is finally satiated. Stephen and Todd join them at the table as Charlie and Neil start an unsurprisingly intense Britney Spears dance off that expands to include the entire crowd. They both look particularly pleased after the DJ adds a third Britney song in a row and they bow out gracefully to rejoin their friends.

“Alright,” the DJ’s voice rings out through the gym’s shitty sound system, “I think that’s enough for now, but thank you, gentlemen, for

Charlie collapses across the table panting, almost putting their face in cake. “I am... so tired.... Can we go home now?”

Ginny pulls her plate away as Stephen says, “We haven’t even been here half an hour yet.”

Neil, who is in a similar state slouched over on Todd’s shoulder, groans. “We made a mistake.”

At Ginny’s persistent pushing, Charlie gets off the table and starts eating her cake. When she tries to take it back, they say something about recharging their batteries, and the cake is already mostly gone so she gives up and goes to get another piece.

She runs into Chris at the food table and realizes she hasn’t seen her for a while. Chris is talking to another cheerleader Ginny only kind of remembers the name of, so she skirts around the edge of the table to avoid being dragged into a situation where she needs to.

The other girl leaves and Chris notices that her best friend is on the other side of the table. “Ginny! Hi! Where have you been?”

Ginny gestures over her shoulder and Chris sees the table with the rest of her friends.

“Doing damage control,” Ginny explains. “Also Charlie ate my cake.”

Chris nods, not at all surprised. She tries to push a loose strand of hair back into her bun, but it just springs back into her face. “It’s good cake.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ginny says. They head back to the table, weaving their way through the crowd that has all hit their breaking point at the same time and is leaving the part of the basketball court that serves as the dancefloor.

“Have you seen Knox?” Chris asks, but before Ginny can answer, they see that he’s already at the table. Charlie has a hand on his shoulder and it looks like they’re trying to ardently give him advice while Neil sits on the other side and shakes his head every other word. “That can’t be good.”

“What’s up?” She asks as she sits in the empty seat on the other side of the table.

Knox’s head shoots up, a guilty look on his face, but Neil and Charlie just both smile and say, “Nothing,” at the exact same time. Chris doesn’t say anything, but she still notices that as soon as she looks away to talk to Stephen, all three go right back to their whispering.

•••

Even the DJ can’t keep up the fast pace and eventually a slow song sneaks it’s way in amongst the kind of pop that demands dance routines that has dominated the night so far. As the first acoustic guitar chords play, Neil and Todd look at each other and just as quickly disappear onto the dance floor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Todd move that fast,” Chris remarks to Ginny. Ginny nods around her forkful of cake and Chris is about to continue when she feels someone tap her on the shoulder.

She turns around to see Charlie, of all people, standing behind her. “Chris,” they say, holding out one hand, “may I have this dance?”

Chris makes a confused face, but nods and takes their hand. Before the table she can see Charlie raise their eyebrow at someone, but she doesn’t see who.

“Charlie,” she says as she places one hand on their shoulder and one in their hand, “not that I don’t love you, but what’s all this about?”

They start swaying and Charlie smirks as they lean in to say, “Knox has been trying to figure out how to ask you to dance all night and I figured he needed a push.”

Both start laughing before they get shushed by some other dancer. Chris is still laughing, albeit quietly, as she says, “Well, thank you. I’m glad we got this chance before you start another competition and Stephen has to drag your dehydrated ass home.”

“I am perfectly capable of dragging my own ass home, thank you very much.” Charlie says. “I can’t believe you think so little of me, and after all I’ve done for you. When you two get married, you better thank me in your vows.”

Chris shakes her head before changing the topic. “Anyway, when are you going to ask Stephen to dance?”

Charlie steps on their own shoelace and almost stumbles before catching themself. “What do you mean?” They ask. “Didn’t you see our sweet Maroon 5 number?”

“You know full well what I mean, Charlie Dalton.” She fixes them with a stare.

“I do not,” Charlie says, but they won’t meet her eye.

“You’re the one who asked him,” Chris points out.

Charlie is searching for an answer when the song ends and transitions into something a little more upbeat. People start to come back from their tables and Charlie lets their hands drop as they drift off into the crowd. Chris watches them go, but when they look up and see her still watching, she mouths, “This isn’t over,” and makes a gesture to say she still has an eye on them as she backs out of the sea of people.

•••

After a second failed attempt at trying to get everyone to start a conga line, the DJ puts on what seems to be the greatest hits of the early 2000's and leaves their corner of the stage.

“How much would you give me to go up there and hijack the music?” Charlie asks. They’re standing in one corner of the gym with Neil and Stephen, far enough away from the crowd that they both can actually hear each other talk.

“I think it’s more of a question of how much I would have to give you to not,” Stephen says. Neil doesn’t seem to hear either of them as he is checking his phone every few seconds, waiting for Knox’s text saying where he went. The gym is ridiculously hot and he’s had to undo his bow tie and unbutton his collar.

“That’s fair,” Charlie says just as Neil’s phone lights up. “What’d he say?”

“He’s back by the bathrooms,” Neil reads. “He says the staircase is open and there’s no one out there.”

“Fantastic.” Charlie abandons their plastic cup on the closest table and all three head towards the open door at the other end of the gym. There’s a teacher standing in the doorway, but he leaves after a few seconds and they grab Knox. Neil slides a gum wrapper in the lock and they sit halfway up the stairs.

“Open the window,” Charlie says to Stephen as they take off their hat. While he props open the window and fresh air comes in, Charlie takes a joint out of where they’d tucked it into the inside band of their hat.

Knox whistles and says, “Charlie, if I ever need to plan a heist or smuggle something out of the country, I’m coming to you first.”

“I appreciate it, Knoxious,” Charlie says. “Now who’s got the lighter?”

Neil passes them a lighter and they flick it on, the light suddenly making the rest of the stairway look dark in comparison. Charlie inhales before passing the joint to whoever is closest, leaning over to the window to blow out the smoke. Although it’s unlikely that anyone realizes they’re up there, they’re not taking any chances this late in the year.

The air is quiet as they pass around the joint, the heavy bass of whatever is playing in the gym only barely noticeable vibrating through the concrete stairs.

Charlie stares out the half open window as the sun sets across the street. Neil passes them the joint and they ash it on the windowsill. “On a scale of one to ten,” they say, “how high up there do you think this is in terms of rebellious teenage stereotypes?”

“Sneaking out of prom to get high?” Knox asks. “Probably a ten.”

“Is that more or less than terrorizing kids on Halloween?” Stephen asks from where he’s sitting in the corner. He lost his jacket a while ago, and with his suspenders and sleeves rolled up, Charlie forgets to blink for a second.

“I think it’s somewhere between graffiti and getting the cops called to your party,” Neil says. Gerard had texted him when he noticed everyone missing and is now mad at them for leaving without him. Neil is trying to explain that they couldn’t all leave at once or people would get suspicious, but his thumbs aren’t fully cooperating.

“What kind of graffiti though?”

“Hmm?” By the time they’re able to refocus on the rest of the people in the room, Charlie has completely lost the thread of conversation.

“Because desk graffiti and, like, bridge confetti are two totally different things,” Knox says.

“Confetti?”

“Shit. You know what I meant.” Knox reaches for the joint but Charlie holds it out of his reach, despite the fact that they’re shorter. Knox doesn’t seem to notice and doesn’t even stand up from his stair, just lets his arms fall sadly.

“I’m cutting you off,” Charlie says, but when they go to take another drag, they find their fingers empty and Neil blowing smoke at the ceiling. “What the fuck, dude.”

Knox starts laughing until Charlie kicks his foot and says, “Yeah, well I danced with your girlfriend. What have you done all night, huh?”

“Shut up!” Knox says, kicking back, but Charlie has already jumped out of the way. “That’s not fair, I mean, you and Meeks haven’t danced yet, you can’t fault me.”

“Okay, first, Meeks and I aren’t dating,” Charlie says, pausing as Neil passes back the joint. “And two, Neil and Todd have been basically inseparable all night, so it’s totally fair.”

“Whatever,” Knox says. Charlie leans forward to blow their smoke at him and he kicks them in the shin.

“Fine.” Charlie hands Knox the joint and turns to Stephen. “Meeks, may I have this dance?”

“What song is even playing?” He asks, and they all shut up for a second as they try to identify what little of the bassline they can hear.

“‘American Boy’,” Neil finally says with a grin, his ridiculously good sense of hearing coming in handy for once.

“Nooo,” Stephen says at the same time as Charlie triumphantly punches the air.

“What! Stephen, you have to, you’re my date,” Charlie says as they pull him to his feet.

“I bought you the corsage and drove,” Stephen says. “My duties as prom date are fulfilled.”

“Please,” Charlie whines, bouncing in place roughly in time with the song. Stephen just stands there as Charlie swings their connected hands back and forth and bobs their head.

“Look, I love Estelle as much as the next guy,” Stephen starts, but is interrupted as Charlie tries to twirl themself under his arm. “Oh my god.”

“You’re the worst date ever,” Charlie says as they twirl back and start to dance terribly by themself. It’s kind of like a bird’s mating dance mixed with a bad impression of Estelle’s dance in the music video.

“Please tell me you’re recording this,” Neil leans down to whisper to Knox, leaning one arm on the stair railing. Knox just nods and holds his phone up a little higher as Stephen shakes his head and Charlie grabs his hands to spin them both around.

•••

Once the smell of weed has mostly dissipated out the window, they head back to the gym to satisfy everyone’s craving for chips and Neil’s craving for Todd. Stephen swings shut the window as Knox and Neil go to check that there’s no one in the hallway downstairs. As he goes to join them, he notices Charlie up the stairs, staring at something down the hall.

“What’s up?” Stephen asks as he joins them.

“You ever realize how fast time passes?” Charlie says. The hallway is kind of creepy in the dark and the light coming from the stairs illuminates the last cloud of smoke as Charlie blows it out.

“It’s like it just happens normally until you start paying attention,” they continue, “and the all of a sudden it starts going faster and faster and then it's like that when a movie reel runs out but is still going and the film is just flapping there all useless.”

Stephen hums and Charlie turns to look at him. “We’ve only got one year left,” they say, gesturing at the wall of senior panoramas behind them. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“Keep going, I guess,” Stephen says as he shrugs.

Suddenly Charlie leans forward and kisses him. It’s off-center and so short, and neither of them registers it happening. Knox calls out that the coast is clear and they head down the stairs together without saying a word, Charlie snubbing out the joint and opening the window for a second to throw it onto the lawn.

Thankfully the gum wrapper was still in the lock and they sneak back into the bathroom to do damage control on their slightly bloodshot eyes before going back into the gym. For a second Charlie thinks they might be caught, but then someone spills their drink all over the floor and they’re able to make it back to the table without a hitch.

Gerard punches Knox in the arm and Charlie just shrugs at Ginny’s knowing look, but everyone gets their cake and Neil gets his Todd, so everything works out.

After a few more minutes a slow song clicks on. Neil gives Knox a not so subtle nudge as he and Todd leave the table.

“Um.” Knox clears his throat and tries again. “Hey, Chris?”

Chris looks up from where she had been drawing patterns in the icing on her plate with her plastic fork.

“May I have this dance?”

She nods and Knox stands up before walking over to take her hand.

“Fucking finally,” Charlie says under their breath, and Ginny snickers beside them. Over time the table had lost some chairs, so Charlie was leaning on the table itself, trying to avoid the spot where Gerard had spilled Diet Coke earlier.

“Did you want to dance?”

They didn’t notice that Stephen was standing in front of them until he spoke up. “What?”

Stephen readjusts the collar of his jacket, having put it back on from where it had been lying across the back of one of the remaining chairs. “Chris said she and Ginny were thinking we’d all go soon,” he explains, “so if you wanted that dance, now’s your shot.”

“Yeah, sure.”

The song playing was the epitome of 80s movie prom, although it sounded more recent. Stephen would probably know the exact band, album, and release date, if Charlie asked. He was kind of a human Google.

“Walk the Moon,” Stephen says unprompted. “‘Aquaman’. Feels like we’re underwater.”

Charlie nods, arms wrapped around Stephen’s shoulders. The two lights at the front of the gym are now blue squiggles waving back and forth over the crowd and a few people have already left, lowering the volume of the ambient noise.

As they turn, Charlie can see Gerard and Ginny dancing like one would for an upbeat song but slower, and Cameron in the corner with a small flock of girls surrounding him. Stephen follows Charlie’s glares and huffs a laugh, turning them away again before Charlie starts ranting.

Over Stephen’s shoulder Charlie can see Chris with her head on Knox’s chest as he says something to her. She smiles at whatever is it and leans up to kiss him, and Charlie watches as Knox’s eyes widen before he kisses her back. On the other side of the gym Neil has pulled down one of the hanging streamers and draped it around Todd’s neck over his tie. They’re silently laughing and only vaguely dancing, but Todd is smiling wider than Charlie’s ever seen him before.

“Everybody gets a happy ending,” they say loud enough that only Stephen can hear.

“Yeah?” He asks. Charlie nods and the brim of their hat hits Stephen in the forehead. “Ow, alright, I believe you.”

“Sorry,” Charlie apologizes, but the laughter in their voice disagrees. Stephen tickles them a little and they flinch away, saying, “No, don’t, I really am sorry.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Stephen replies. “Besides, this isn’t even the ending, y’know?”

It’s as much a question for himself as for Charlie, but they answer for both of them. “Yeah. That’s how it works. One door closes...”

Stephen hums and rests his forehead on Charlie’s shoulder. He knows that as soon as the song is over everyone will be high energy and headed off to get pancakes at the closest diner, but for now he just wants to take a moment to breathe. Charlie seems to agree as they rest their head on top of his and keep swaying.

CODA

"Come on, Gerard, pancakes," Ginny says as she shakes his shoulder. He's slumped over and falling asleep on the table, but at the mention of food, he perks up.

"Oh thank god, pancakes" Gerard says. He launches himself up and and out of his chair, grabbing his jacket and Ginny's hand.

"Whoa, whoa." Ginny leans back before he can run straight out of the gym, weighing him down. "Alright, slow down there, speed racer. We have to find the rest of the others."

They run around collecting their friends, which is a lot easier now that most of the crowd has left. Quick stops to the bathrooms, the back corner of the gym, and the bench around the corner from the front entrance has everyone and their shoes neatly collected and excitedly packed into their cars.

When they get to the diner, dragging chairs over and sitting in the windowsill to make space for all nine of them. A familiar waiter comes over to take their order of more fries than they have people as Chris struggles to get her dress in the booth without having it drag on the sticky floor.

"This was a mistake," she says as she tucks as much tulle underneath herself as she can. Knox is helpfully trying to give her more room, but Ginny keeps elbowing him whenever he infringes her space.

"Pretty sure you can't complain since you spent months looking for it," Stephen points out. A few of the others hum in agreement and Chris is about to respond when a bunch of her dress slides out from under her and she almost falls out of the booth.

When good ol' Darrin returns with a friend to bring them their fries, the group orders some combination of pancakes and waffles, as well as Charlie's inexplicable biscuits and gravy, which they assure everyone else is a perfectly normal thing to have for breakfast but that no one believes.

Neil leans back and drapes his arm across the back of the booth. "So, on a scale of one to ten, how well do you think that went?"

"Eleven," Gerard says around a mouthful of fries.

Cameron waves his hand dismissively. "Twelve. I got three numbers, I'm gonna be riding this high for the rest of the month."

Gerard raises an eyebrow, seemingly impressed, and leans across the entire length of the table to fist bump him. They start talking about the unlikelihood that any of those girls text him back and the rest of the table moves on to other topics of conversation.

The food is gone just as quickly as it arrived and after eating almost everyone is hitting their second wind. The group decides to walk around the neighborhood, even though it's nearing midnight.

"I'm seriously rethinking the heels," Chris says after a few blocks. She makes Knox stop so she can brace herself on his shoulder as she takes off her shoes. She throws them away, one landing in whoever's front lawn they're standing in front of and the other being caught by Ginny.

"Better?" Knox asks. Ginny picks up the second shoe and hands them both back to Chris.

"Much," she says adamantly as they hurry to catch up. Everyone had continued walking while they were stopped and were now halfway down the street. When the three reach the rest of the group, Charlie, Stephen, and Gerard are attempting and failing to do the yellow brick road walk, and Todd is in danger of falling asleep on his feet, leaning heavily into Neil, who has one arm around his waist.

"You scuff my boots, you die," Charlie warms the third time they almost all fall into the gutter.

"Has anyone ever told you you have an unhealthy attachment to your clothes?" Neil calls over his shoulder that doesn't currently have Todd's head on it.

"Yes," Charlie responds. "You. Several times. Today."

"Just making sure you knew."

Todd mumbles something about assigning value to inanimate objects that only Neil can hear, but no one thinks twice of it when Neil laughs hard enough to fill the entire block.

A few more turns brings them to a park, where Chris and Charlie run for the swings. They kick up woodchips on their way, tilling up damp mulch in their wake. When Chris sits down, the edge of her skirt just grazes the ground. A few swings and woodchips start to catch on the tulle, but she doesn't notice.

Cameron climbs the little tower and sits on the roof as Gerard tries to go down the slide. He doesn't make it far, only sliding about half a foot before his feet touch the ground. Knox and Neil get roped into pushing the swings, Ginny replacing Neil when he tries to run under Charlie's and almost knocks them both down.

When Neil tries to sabotage them again, Charlie ends up chasing him through the playground. Rambunctious laughter from Neil and yelling from Charlie follow them, the only way to tell which direction they're in in the dark.

"You know there's a curfew, right?" Stephen says the third time the pair run past his spot upside down on the monkey bars. In retaliation, Charlie steals his glasses and pushes him aside like a curtain to run away with them.

As Stephen joins the merry chases, Cameron says, "Seeing as we're all minors in a public park after dark, maybe we should heed that whole law thing."

Todd, who is semi-awake and sitting at the foot of some of the playground's steps, sticks out his foot the next time they run past. Charlie notices at the last minute and manages to step over him, but stumbles on the landing long enough for Stephen to grab catch up and grab his glasses out of their hand.

"Goddammit."

"You deserved that," Stephen says, straightening up and putting his glasses back on. "We should probably go, though."

"You're right," Chris says. She reaches for her shoes and hands Knox back his jacket. "Who's coming to my house?"

Everyone walks back to their cars together, Ginny, Neil, Todd, and Chris headed for Chris's for eighties movies and little sleep as Knox takes home Cameron and Gerard. In the parking lot, Chris leans against a lamp post next to Knox.

"I guess this is where we say goodnight."

Knox nods and sways forward an inch. He feels drawn to the way the light surrounds her, making the outline of her dress and hair fuzzy and unreal.

"Okay..." She drawls. "Goodnight then." She stands up straight and starts to turn away, still smiling, before Knox catches her elbow and she looks back up at him. "Hmn?"

Knox laughs and shakes his head before finally kissing her. Everything outside the reaches of the street lamp's glow disappears for thirty seconds. Behind them, the others in the car smile when they pull apart and say an inaudible goodbye. Chris returns to the car and stares dreamily out the window as they leave the parking lot.

Todd turns on the radio and it starts in the middle of a vaguely familiar song. Even though she doesn't know any of the lyrics, Chris finds herself humming along the whole way home.

•••

The sky is somehow impossibly darker by the time Stephen's car reaches Charlie's block.

"Here, stop here," Charlie says when they're still a few houses away from the right front door. "Don't wanna wake them all up."

Stephen complies and turns off the engine as he asks, "How are you gonna get in? Did you leave a window open to climb through?"

"Stephen Meeks, you know me so well," Charlie says with an exaggeratedly fond smile. "Of course I always have an exit strategy."

Stephen hums, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. As great as their friends are, when they're all together it can get a bit loud, and the silence is a welcome reprieve. Even Charlie doesn't feel the need to say anything, content to watch the outline of the trees shift as a breeze blows through.

"I should probably go," they say after a while. If they don't say something now, they could just go on forever in the quiet.

"Yeah, no, definitely." Stephen readjusts his glasses and comes back to Earth. "I wish we could see more stars."

Charlie looks at him, a little confused, a little in awe. One second of a decision and they dark forward, kiss Stephen on the temple, and duck out of the car with only a, "Night, Meeks."

Even after they're gone, Stephen stays in the silent care. There are still enough stars to look at tonight.

•••

"I forgot my jacket in your car, hold on."

Neil follows Todd not so subtly, his jacket very obviously hanging on the back of a chair in Chris's kitchen. Walking down the driveway, he doesn't see Ginny rolling her eyes or hear Chris sighing.

Todd doesn't say anything until they've climbed into his backseat, Neil still under the guise of looking for his jacket.

"You know you're not fooling anyone, right?" Todd asks.

Neil shrugs and tugs him forward by the slightly-wrinkled lapels. "Got you back here, didn't it?" Their lips connect, just like Neil had planned.

Todd leans back and laughs at Neil's parting whine. "Pretty sure you did that all by yourself."

"Thank god for my charm and good looks."

This time Todd kisses him, possibly just to stop him talking, and doesn't stop until they're both too out of air to say anything.

"See, that's the goodbye I was looking for," Neil eventually says. Todd blushes as he continues, "At least, the one I've been hoping and wishing for. The one I've been dreaming of. Waiting all my life for."

"Shut up."

Neil does just that, instead kissing Todd everywhere he can reach.

"Neil," Todd says warningly when one kiss lands dangerously close to his open eye. "Don't make it gross."

"I can't help it," Neil replies before kissing the back of Todd's hand. "I'm completely overcome with love."

"Prom went well then?"

Neil laughs and the sound rings through the empty car until Todd can't help but join in. "The best," he says. When he kisses Todd this time, it is more gentle, although no less earnest. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Todd presses their foreheads together, their noses fitting against each other like puzzle pieces. He closes his eyes as trying to look at anything that close gives him a headache, but Neil doesn't want to miss anything. For everything that had gone not quite right or wasn't perfect or ideal, there were a million wonderful things he'd never thought of.

Eventually they will have to part, Todd will drive home, Neil will go back inside to eat all of Chris's cereal, but this moment would always be happening in some way, in some universe, and that was okay by him.