“Uh, Wash?”

            “Huh? Yeah, what’s up, South?”

            The blonde looked him up and down again, raising an eyebrow with nothing less than an amused expression.

            “Can I ask why you’re wearing North’s hoodie?”

            Wash felt the blood rush to his face, praying that it wasn’t visible as he looked down to see that yes, he was in fact wearing a purple hoodie a size too big for him rather than his usual grey one. He kept his head bent, hoping that South missed the look of pure “Oh shit” that crossed his face when he realized, trying to come up with some excuse as to why he was wearing her brother’s clothing.

            “Hey Wash! What’s with the purple, man?” York walked up behind him, throwing an arm around his shoulders and grinning at him before looking down at the offending object. “Guess you picked up North’s stuff after our game night last night, huh?”

            It took Wash a second before he shook himself out of it, nodding quickly. “Yeah! I guess that’s what happened!”

            South shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, alright, whatever.” She had apparently lost interest in the conversation, walking away to go talk with CT instead, leaving York and Wash behind.

            “Thanks for saving me, man. I don’t know how I would have gotten out of that one.”

            “Hey, no problem. Though, at least she didn’t see that I’m wearing his T-shirt underneath this.”

            He pulled at his own brown jacket, revealing just a little of the dark green shirt collar beneath it.

            “Wait, where are you going? We need you if we’re going to defeat the Ogre Guard to get passed the twelfth gate!”

            Lavernius Tucker had never felt like more of a dork than when he uttered that sentence. He was a junior in high school, on the soccer and baseball teams, and was not a bad looking guy. Except, he didn’t have a girlfriend. Or a lot of friends in general. The reason being?

            He spent all of his free time leveling up in an online magical world with two internet dorks.

            He had met Church when he had first signed up for Arysen, an online MMORPG. He was paired with the other in his training group, and once they realized they were different classes (Church being a Mage, while Tucker was an Archer), they ended up sticking together when the train-ies split up. They met up with Caboose another while later, a Ruffian class who’d managed to get into the Forbidden Castle in the Ruins of Outlast by himself. They took him in, and became a team.

            And now, Church was leaving just as they were about to get into the Realm after the twelfth gate, to go to some… what had he said?

            “It’s prom, dude. I have tickets and a date. I can’t skip, even for this.”

            Oh right. Prom. Tucker’s prom was that night as well, but he hadn’t asked anyone. Maybe he should have, if Church was ditching them for it.

            “Going with your girlfriend?”

            “She’s not my girlfriend, Caboose. But yes, I’m going with my friend, Alison.”

            “Tch. Yeah, well, have fun dude.”

            “Yeah, sure will do. I’ll have tons of fun at my fucking junior year ‘Great Gatsby’ themed prom.”

            That comment made Tucker stop dead and his character on the screen froze up. The three of them had a strict pact that, hey, I don’t know where you live, you don’t know where I live. Sometimes there were little tidbits of information, like the tree behind their house, or the street a couple blocks down. All towns had those, right?

            All towns, however, did not have ‘Great Gatsby’ themed proms on the same night. Tucker looked over to where the prom poster was up on his wall, reminding him to get a date. Oops.

            “Tucker, you ok? Why did we stop?”

            Tucker looked back at the screen, his hands still frozen on the keys.

            “Did you say ‘Great Gatsby’ themed?”

            “Yeah?”

            “And it’s tonight?”             “Yeah, dude, in like an hour. Why?”

            Caboose’s voice interrupted them.

            “You’re kidding.”

            “Why would I be kidding, Caboose?”             “Because only Blood Gulch, Texas is having a ‘Great Gatsby’ themed prom tonight.”

            There was utter silence over the lines, all three characters standing still on screen as the realization hit them. Tucker was the first one to speak up.

            “You go to BG High, don’t you?”

            There was no response.

            “Both of you.”

            “Maybe.”

            Church’s voice was laced with uncertainty. There was no way…

            “There’s no way.”

            “That’s what I was thinking.”

            “What are the odds…”

            “Low.”

            “Shut up, asshole.”

            The banter was like it normally was, but the edge was gone.

            “Don’t you have a prom to get to?”

            “Yeah. And I also have a meeting with two other losers on Monday morning at 7 o’clock outside the band room. Right?”

            “Hey, who’re you calling loser?”

            “You, Tucker. You.”

            Tucker snorted, shaking his head.

            “Well, now that I know you’re here, it’s gonna kill me unless I meet you.”

            “Same,” Caboose agreed.

            “Alright then, it’s settled. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put on a tux.”

            Church’s character disappeared from the screen and his voice cut off the line. Tucker said a quick goodnight to Caboose before signing off as well. He could hardly sleep that night, and he wasn’t sure if he was excited or nervous for Monday to come.

---

            ‘Nervous is definitely the word to use,’ he thought as he climbed the front steps, taking a left and heading down the art hall. He made his way through a couple more twists and turns, eventually coming out to a spot where he could see the band room doors, and the figure leaning against the wall next to them, checking his phone.

            Leonard Church had been in his history class the year prior, but the guy had never spoken to him. He was the Junior Class VP on the student government, and one of the heads of the debate club. He was also, most definitely, not the type of guy to talk to a soccer/baseball player.

            He got a look at the other figure approaching Church and almost stopped in his tracks. How he hadn’t put together the name Michael Caboose before almost shocked him, but then again, he hadn’t been looking for his best friends in his school. Leader and Founder of the Checkers club (because he hadn’t understood chess, but wanted a club made for a game anyway) and member of the anime and robotics clubs, Caboose was that guy who could build a working microwave out of scrap metal and then trip, knock it over, and break it just as quickly.

            He watched as Church looked up and saw Caboose heading straight for him. He held up a hand, stopping the brunette in his tracks, and said possibly the nerdiest thing Tucker had ever heard in real life.

            “State your name, class, and rank.”

            “Michael Jupiter Caboose, Ruffian stage 3, rank 67.”

            The information was correct and Church dropped his hand, looking the brunette over as Tucker started forward again. They both looked up when they heard him, but he was already speaking by the time Church opened his mouth.

            “Lavernius Andrew Tucker, Archer stage 4, rank 67.”

            He reached them just as he finished speaking, watching Caboose’s face morph from confusion to recollection before turning to Church. “Your turn.”

            “Leonard Lexington Church, Mage stage 4, rank 67.”

            Tucker nodded thoughtfully, looking back at Caboose. “So… Jupiter, huh?”             They all smiled at that, and Tucker noticed that Church looked a lot better when he wasn’t scowling.

            “This is so fucked up.”

            “No.”

            “But Tucker!”

            The aqua soldier sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel his willpower draining the more he looked at Caboose’s pouting face before finally he threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ll color with you.”

            The blue soldier bounced happily on the balls of his feet for a moment, grinning proudly before turning and running down the hallway, a stack of paper and a ragged box of crayons in his hands. “Come on, Tucker! Let’s go!”

            “I’m coming, I’m coming. Bow chicka bow wow.” He muttered the last part quietly, entering the main room to see Caboose already seated on the floor, a piece of paper in front of him, trying to get the box open. He sighed quietly, seating himself opposite the brunette and holding out his hand, grinning as the other handed him the box. He popped the lid, dumping them out of the floor and scanning outside for Church. Their ‘leader’ had left about an hour previous to do some recon of the cliffs and red base. Usually it took him two hours, but Tucker wanted to be sure he wasn’t on his way back early.

            Caboose was already drawing colorful spirals on a sheet, apparently not phased in the least by the unceremonious way Tucker had dropped his crayons on the floor. The aqua Spartan grabbed a few, taking a piece of paper and drawing anything he could think of. A cat, a tree, a crude drawing of Church with the word loser next to it, a bird, etc, etc. He had never been very creative with his drawings, even when he was a kid. Eventually he got tired of drawing and just started shoving the crayons into an empty chamber. He’d have to be sure to take them out later, or else someone might end up with crayons in their gun. That would suck.

            He was just about to start taking them out when a piece of paper was shoved into his face. He looked up, studying the stickman drawing of a blue and an aqua person standing on what looked like the roof of the base, a little sun in the top right corner and a light blue sky scribbled behind them. The two figures were smiling, and there was a small blue heart suspended between them.

            “Look Tucker! I drew us!”

            That made Tucker look at it closer. Sure enough, the aqua guy was just a little shorter than the blue guy. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, when Caboose let go of it, letting it fall until Tucker reached out and grabbed it.

            “You can keep it, if you want. I have a bunch of drawings of all of us; you and me, me and church, you and church, all three of us. So that one will be yours.”

            Tucker watched him as he spoke, taking a moment to study the rainbow that was now appearing on Caboose’s new paper. He was quiet for a minute before he said the only thing that came to mind.

            “Thanks Caboose.”

            He got a grin in return, setting the paper down behind him before grabbing another one, doodling for a while more before Church returned. He yelled at them to clean up, leaving to take off his armor as Tucker and Caboose started gathering up the crayons. They piled them into the box, the chamber that Tucker had been filling earlier nowhere to be seen, before grabbing the paper and heading off. Caboose went to put his stuff away while Tucker walked to his room. The two paper’s he drew on were crumpled up and thrown into the trash, but the one from Caboose was set neatly on his desk.