Oh my head, it feels like its spinning...

[RHYS SPRINTER]

Rhys was hiding.

He wasn't even trying to deny it, not even to himself. As soon as he had left his apartment this morning he had high-tailed it to Gingey's, loaded his car with as many boxes of treats that could fit into the empty passenger seat, backseat and trunk, and had sped off to Baum Academy, probably breaking all the rules of the road at 6:37am. He'd made it to the school before seven, had signed in and promptly locked himself in his office. Or, well, the Gym teacher's office that he was using because the other guy was pathetic. Or something.

Rhys was in no state of mind for contemplating someone else's drama, as he'd recently discovered a rather large pile of it lurking in his own life. From Adeen's apparent addiction to the fact that he may not really totally completely be as against Jamie spending time around his place or looking at him or touching him or even breathing near him as he had originally thought. This thought process was perfectly logical, when one took into account the fact that Jamie had kissed him, and Rhys had let him.

This is all completely disregarding the intense blazing rush of forbidden heat that had rushed through him and the fact that his stomach had dropped somewhere near his toes before actually ceasing to exist during said kiss, of course. Such details were not important.

So he was holed up in his office, prepared to do some major thinking. He'd been missing the classes he was supposed to be volunteering for these past few weeks, so he figured he could set the various students to do laps or something equally repetitive and boring, and then make sure they cleaned up all the blood before their next class. It seemed like a good, fool-proof plan. And it had better be, because Rhys needed the minimum amount of distractions he could manage.

Which was why his phone was off, and stuffed to the bottom of the duffel bag full of clothes he had brought along. He was going to spend the night, or maybe a few nights, at a hotel, and pretend he didn't have a cell phone and forgot everyone's numbers. Rhys just needed some space. Talking, or even seeing Adeen or Jamie right now was detrimental to his sanity. He didn't want to think about how much Adeen was hurting herself and how he had wanted to shake her till she saw sense and how he just may be a little less straight than he'd originally thought and how that stupid smirk on Jamie's face made his stomach flip no, no, NO. Rhys just wanted some quiet time to himself. And if he had to resort to Rhys' Special Private Time once or twice, then that was fine.

Really though, being an adult was hell. One minute he thought he had everything figured out. The next, his life was spiraling out of control in front of his very eyes. Thank the great Baker in the Sky that he'd finally managed to get Gingey's back on track. If he hadn't he may just have killed himself and be done with it.

[jessie]

“BUM BUDUM BUUUUUUM! BUM BUDUUUUUM! BUMBUDUMBUUUUUUUM! BUMBUDUM BUM BUM!”

Jesse Gibson was in a movie-dovie mood. He wasn’t in movie-dovie moods very often because he was normally much too busy watching Broadway musicals to even consider watching movies. But yesterday Drake Sterling, his BFF for ever had lent him this wonderful-blunderful movie with the most totally gorgeous music! Like, this was totally the best music ever!

He didn’t even know what the movie was about. It was called Raiders of The Most Dark or something-womething. But that didn’t matter! The music was perfectly singable, and Jesse would sing it all he wanted!

He cupped his hands around his mouth in the shape of a trumpet, pursing his lips together to make a nice trumpety-wumpety noise. “BUMBU DUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUUUU BUMBUM BUUUUUUUUUM!” he finished, curtsying with a flourish as he entered the gymie-wymie. It was time for gym class! What fun! He totally had like, sooo much fun in gym class. His favorite part was the dance unit, when they got to choreograph their own dances! Last year Jesse and his soulmate Bobino had like, totally choreographed a twenty-five minute dance number complete with lighting, swordfights, and arial spins. Of course, the number had called for three stages and a little turn-table thingie like they always used in Les Miserables, which the gym didn’t have. But it had still been amazingy-wazingy!

“Good morning Mr. Sprinty-Winty!” he bellowed, making a grand sashe across the floor. “The earth says hello!” He somersaulted into the air, landing in a beautiful fifth position. “What amazing and wonderful things will we be learning today? I hope we got some stages and a turny thingy installed over the summer, because I totez have some amazing new choreography planned for this summer. Like, you are going to be so excitedy-witedy!” Jesse jumped up and down, clapping his hands, then launched into his routine. His shoes ripped across the gymmie wymmie floor as he leapt and twirled, dancing and spinning until he was too dizzy-wizzy to speak.

[RHYS SPRINTER]

“BUMBU DUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUU BUMBUM DUUUUUUU BUMBUM BUUUUUUUUUM!”

Oh dear God, no.

Rhys groaned, and slid further into his chair. How is it, that he was hidden in his office, his car was parked behind the school's regulation standard sport field, no one had seen him at school all day yet thei student still managed to know when he was around. Was it just a sixth sense? was Rhys cursed? Kind of harsh to think about a kid that way, yeah he knew, but what else could there be?

And then suddenly Rhys was ouit of his chair and marching down the corridor toward the dancing student, eyes wide as he completely ignored the ridiculous questions coming from the first student to come to class. Jesse was...rather flamboyant. Kind of the way a bonfire was hot. Rhys watched the teen spina nd hop and prance around the empty gym. He made no bones about his sexual preference (Rhys winced at his own unintended pun), and didn't seem to care what other people thought of him. Could it be that Jesse somehow knew when Rhys was near because they were both...gay?

It was a stupid train of thought, he knew, but it was also one he couldn't shake. People couldn't sense if other people were gay or straight or anything. Not that rhys thought he ws gay, at least not completely. He was quite sure of the fact that he liked women and all their parts. He'd had enough not exactly practical experience to know that all those soft mounds of flesh did something to him that was just right. He wasn't sure he liked guys that way either, Jamie be damned. Before that infuriating low life had waltzed into his life like he owned it, Rhys was perfectly content to reminisce about the times spent with Adeen, specifically that one night with her and plan many, many more. But then she'd gone and nearly died, and Rhys had been so screwed up that night Jamie had had to take him home, because he just couldn't function, adn then the next day he'd hugged the older man and then everything had gone to hell in a hand basket.

But all of this was besides the point and completely incondusive to his thesis: Was Jesse able to sense Rhys' strange state of sexual preference? It was likely that Rhys wouldn't ever know the answer to this question, since it wasn't exactly alright for him to pull the boy into his office and be all, "Hey, can you tell I'm gay?" or worse "I want to know if I'm gay, and I think you can help me." he'd be shipped off to Riker's before he knew what hit him.

Not that it was much better for him to be creepily standing half in shadow watching the boy contort his body like so. Someone might come in and think he was all perverted and thinking of ways to lure Jesse into his office to have his wicked way with him. And rhys was plotting ways to lure Jesse into his office, but not for that reason.

No, Rhys needed to know just how good Jesse's gaydar was.

"Gibson. Front and center. Quit wiggling liek you got something in your pants." He wanted to bash his head into a wall after those words passed his lips. Apparently, his brain was determined to screw with him.

[jessie]

Gym class hadn’t even begun yet, and already Jesse was having more funny-wunny than he’d had in all of his other classy-wassies combined! Golly jumping junipers, he was so excited. So excited. In fact…

“WE, WE, WE, SO EXCITED!” Jesse jumped a footy-wooty in the air as he belted the words in his glorious chest voice. Like, how had he not thought of that song before? Friday was the best song EVER. “WE SO EXCITED! WE GONNA HAVE A BALL TUH-DAY!” Jesse began to leap and twirl again, augmenting the beautiful-teautiful melody with impromptu choreography.

"Gibson. Front and center. Quit wiggling liek you got something in your pants."

“TOMORROW IS SATURDAY! AND SUNDAY COMES AFTERWARDS! EXCEPT ACTUALLY IT’S MONDAY! SO TOMORROW IS TUEDSDAY! AND THEN WEDNESDAY! AND THEN THURSDAY! AND THEN FRIIIIIIIIIII-oh! Hello there Mr. Sprinter!” Jesse screeched to a halt, glancing up at the gym teacher-weacher. He stood to attention, rigid, like one of the tin soldiers in The Nutcracker.

OH! THE NUTCRACKER! Jesse’s mouth shot open, but he wrestled it shut again. He had to behave for the teacher-weacher! “Mr. Sprinter!” he called cheerily, bouncing lightly up and down in anticipation of the day’s activities. “Mr. Sprinter, whatever will we be doing today? Might I suggest-“

But he faltered. There was something about the poor man’s face that just made Jesse saddy-waddy. What was it? Jesse needed to find it. Nobody should be saddy waddy! Why could anyone be saddy-waddy, in a world with so many Broadway musicals? Les Miserables, Legally Blonde, Wicked, Billy Elliot, Spiderman, Wonderland…how could you ever be sad?

“What’s the matter, Mr. Sprinter?” he ventured. He longed to burst into songy-wongy, but he restrained himself. There would be time for songy-wongies later. “You look sad. You shouldn’t be sad! Be glad!” Suddenly, an idea struck him. “Would you like me to sing a concerty-woncerty for you? I can sing all your favorite songs! Oh, and dancey-wancey too. If you want.”

[RHYS SPRINTER]

Rhys sighed, allowing himself to slump against the door. If he was right, there was another fifteen minutes before the students even began to show up for class, and that was before he had them change into the school's standard Physical Ed. uniform. He was safe to talk to Jesse, for the moment. As long as the conversation didn't stray into anything...personal.

"No song and dance routine, Jesse, please." Honestly, talking to this kid gave him a headache. But other than Jamie, whom he had no intention of seeing right now, Rhys didn't know anyone else who was...attracted to other guys. "I've got a lot on my mind."

How did one go about these kinds of conversations? Now he was starting to realize why some kids took forever to 'come out', or never come out at all. It was insane, thinking of everything that could go wrong. Could he be fired? Would the tabloids find out? He wanted to slap himself. Of course they would find out. He'd be plastered all over magazine covers for weeks. And Baum couldn't exactly fire him, since he was a volunteer, but still, the kids were going to piss him off to the point where he was sure he would have to throw someone through a window. How was anyone even supposed to ask for advice in these types of situations? Sure, society was a lot more laid back about this kind of issue than they were ten years ago, but that didn't mean people would welcome him with open arms. He'd have to go at it the old fashioned way.

"I've got this friend who needs some advice, and it's really eating him up. But the thing is, I don't know what to tell him, and that's really eating me up." The old 'I-have-a-friend' routine was sure to work like a charm. The kid was only, what, seventeen? He couldn't possibly know Rhys was talking about himself, and certainly wouldn't think it when Rhys actually got around to telling him the actual issue. No, for now, Rhys was good.

"Just a bit of grown-up drama. No need to worry yourself." That was the bait. Now, he just needed to wait for the bite.

[jessie]

Jesse had already begun to plan his routine. It was going to be so amazingy-wazingy, he wasn’t even sure which song to begin with! Perhaps “A Whole New World” from Aladdin-Baddin. Perhaps, if he sang Jasmine’s role, Mr. Sprinty-Winty would come in and sing the vocals of dear Aladdin! Oh, what a lovely duet that would be!

This sounded like the bestest planny-wanny in the whole wide world. In fact, it was the bestest planny-wanny in the whole wide world. Jesse smiled, incredibly proud of himself. Goodness VHS Players with a cherry on top, he just came up with the most creative plans sometimes! “A WHOLE NEW WORLD…” he began in a high falsetto, closing his eyes and imagining himself flying through the sky on a wonderful magic carpety-warpety. “A DAZZLING PLACE I NEVER KNEW…”

"No song and dance routine, Jesse, please." Honestly, talking to this kid gave him a headache. But other than Jamie, whom he had no intention of seeing right now, Rhys didn't know anyone else who was...attracted to other guys. "I've got a lot on my mind.

Jesse clapped a hand to his mouth, stiffening abruptly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sprinty-Winty! I certainly don’t mean to distress you, hon!” No singing. No singing. How could one never sing? Not singing was like…not eating. Not breathing! Speaking of which, he’d just heard a song about not breathing on the radio! “I LIVE UNDER THE-“ Right. No singing. No singing. No singing-winging, or he would upset Dear Mr. Sprinty-Winty. And Jesse did not like to upset people. Oh no. That was one of his least favorite things to do.

"I've got this friend who needs some advice, and it's really eating him up. But the thing is, I don't know what to tell him, and that's really eating me up."

Jesse’s face softened with concern. “Oh dear! Oh dearie dearie dearie dearie dear!” Jesse hurtled over towards Mr. Sprinty-Winty, taking a seat beside him. A friend in need! How truly and utterly terrible! Well, Jesse was certainly the person to ask. Jesse loved giving advice. He gave advice to anyone and everyone!

“Whatever does your friendy-wendy need advice about, Mr. Sprinty-Winty?”

"Just a bit of grown-up drama. No need to worry yourself."

“Oh dearie. Oh dearie dearie dearie.” This was bad. This was very very bad. Grown-up drama? That certainly didn’t sound funny-wunny at all. “But Mr. Sprinty-Winty, you look so sad!” Jesse smiled as widely as he could as an example. “See? You should be happy! Life’s no fun if you’re saddy-waddy!” He made a theatrical sad face to demonstrate. “See? No fun. No funny-wunny at all.”

Suddenly, another brilliant idea struck him. Goodness Tupperware, but he was full of wonderful ideas today! “Why don’t I help your friend?” he asked, jumping up and down slightly with the excitement. But no singing. No singing-winging. “Whatever is his trouble? I might be able to help him out!” Oh goody goody! This was going to be such fun!