Stopping only once for coffee, Gerard and Frank made it back to the center with about fifteen minutes to spare. Gerard parked the car and they both got out, unloading the only bag Frank had brought along with him and the older man trying his best not to grab the boy’s face and kiss him behind the open trunk before he had to leave again.

Frank slung his bag over his shoulder, flashing his counselor a grin that he was going to have to pay dearly for the next day. They made their way inside together and Gerard signed Frank back in, minimal words being exchanged between them before Frank nodded meekly at Gerard and gave him a little “Thanks” as a guard approached to escort him back to his room.

Gerard stood there for a moment and watched as he walked away. For some reason it sucked more than he thought it would.

-----

“Oh, someone I don’t know has just walked into my room. Can I help you?”

Frank smiled at his sarcastic roommate as he stepped through the door, tossing his bag to the floor and falling onto his bed silently.

“Dude!” Jeph exclaimed, jumping down from the top bunk and looking expectantly at Frank. “I had to put up with Pete for way too fucking long for you to be smiling right now. Where have you been?”

Frank’s smile dissolved instantly and he replaced it with a rather disbelieving disgruntled expression. “Had a seminar kinda thing…” He shrugged, stalling to come up with a convincing enough elaboration. “…where I had to, talk. To people, I mean. Yeah it was shit.”

Jeph squinted at him curiously, his head tilting to the side a little. “How come I didn’t have to go?”

Frank mirrored his puzzled expression, his hands waving slightly in confusion. “How the hell would I know? Mr. Way told me last week about it and said I had to go, didn’t think I had much of a choice.” He wanted to laugh out-loud at his neat pack of lies.

Jeph scoffed and took a seat on the floor then proceeded to perform quite useless leg stretches as he continued to talk. “So, he said you had to go? That’s really weird, we’re both here for the same thing; I would’ve thought I’d have to go too.”

“I don’t know dude…” Frank rolled over, his arm and leg hanging off the bed as he watched Jeph grip his hands at the end of his foot. “…maybe you’ll have to go this weekend or something?”

“God I hope not. I’ll shoot that motherfucker.”

“Who?”

“Way. A whole day with him? Fuck, I’d rather sleep in a cow.”

Frank smiled at his friend’s preference. “Oh…Jeph, why the hell are you stretching? You pull a muscle or some shit?”

Jeph looked up quickly, a disturbing glint in his wide eyes as he let out a deep breath and shook his head slowly. “I’m preparing.”

Frank rolled his eyes and huffed. “Don’t worry, I don’t think Gee’s gonna make you dance as well.”

“What?”

Frank swallowed, only just realizing what he had referred to his counselor as. “You’re preparing yourself for when you have to dance like Pete did.”

Jeph released his foot and slumped back against the wall, a knowing smile tugging the corners of his lips. “You slut.”

Frank’s eyebrows stitched together, he maybe even stopped breathing, but he still questioned his friend slowly. “Oh, why am I a slut?”

“Frank.” He said plainly, his head tilting to one side before tilting back to the other. “Frank.”

“What?”

“Oh come on. Do I seriously have to ask? You really want me to say it?”

Frank’s stomached flipped a couple of times, the smirk of Jeph’s face telling him that there was not going to be any way out of this. He tried to play it off though, giving his friend his best confused face.

“Dude, I actually don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Whatever man. I ain’t gonna push it, you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” He laughed softly, but mostly to himself. He stood up, making a complete idiot of himself as he began to pirouette across the room, tapping the door with a lovely sweep of the hand before prancing back to the middle of the room and facing Frank. “I’m stretching for…” He cleared his throat to add an indistinct accent, “…this afternoon, we shall be annihilating the infamous Nick, via Pete’s plan…” He dropped the voice, “…which is glorious, may I add.”

“Well thanks for the heads up Jepha. What if I wanted to stretch too?” Frank quickly got up from his bed, attempting a hopeless round of star jumps.

Jeph watched on for a moment, joining in on one or two before laughing as he muttered, though loud enough for Frank to hear. “I’m sure you done plenty of stretching over the weekend.”

Frank stopped jumping and he glared at his friend a little coldly. He knew Jeph knew something other than a ‘seminar’ went on, they’d known each other far too long to not be able to instantly pick up on one another’s lies. Really, Frank would have been more surprised if his friend hadn’t picked up on it. Still, he wasn’t about to just lay his weekend out on the table. Whether they had promised it to one another or not, if Frank wanted to continue his sexual charades with his counselor he had to keep it quiet, which meant that no one was to know.

“It’s embarrassing how unfunny you are.” He spat, retreating back to his bed.

Jepha smiled as he made intimate and rather animalistic actions into the air in front of himself before stopping abruptly. “Don’t worry man, I won’t say anything.”

Frank closed his eyes, wishing he had rehearsed something to defend himself with before coming back into the room. “Whatever. Tell me what’s going on with Nick and Pete then. You know I’m there, right?”

“Fuck yeah dude. Pete has shit all set up, you included, even though we didn’t know where the hell you were, I told them we couldn’t leave you out.”

“Nice. So, what do I have to do?”

-----

A few hours passed, during which Frank and Jepha had geared themselves up for another confrontation with Nick. Frank hadn’t forgotten that Pete was planning on a sweet payback, but as he and Jeph we’re playfully boxing with each other, Jeph had explained that Pete decided he was just going to let it go, that was until yesterday when Nick had lodged a piece of watermelon at Pete’s head while they were in the cafeteria. Apparently, Pete was relatively calm about it, knowing he already had a way to get back at the smartass, but Bob on the other hand was furious at his down-right immature action and had stormed right over to him, saying nothing, instead punching him right out of his chair. This had given Pete more than enough reason to finish what he had started.

Outside, like an alliance, Frank, Jeph, Bob and Pete were casually making their way across the yard. Malice sparkled in Pete’s eyes as they approached the basketball courts, Bob and him whispering between themselves, guessing the kind of reaction Nick and his friends would have.

“He will cry.”

“Maybe whimper?”

The four made their way into the courts, Frank gently pulling the small rusted gate closed behind them and kicking the piece of wood that held it open behind it, - Bob’s suggestion to stall the guards from getting in too quickly. Nick and his friends stopped in the middle of their game, the ball left to roll along the cement and they all looked at each other, waiting for someone to make some kind of a move.

“Boys.” Nick greeted, spite lacing his tone as he smiled cockily to his two friends. “Hope you’re not planning on doing anything too stupid.”

Frank raised his eyebrows and Jeph scoffed softly into his hand as Pete spoke. “Actually Nick, I came to call a truce.”

Nick laughed overly-loudly, nudging his friends as encouragement for them to laugh along with him, and so, they did. His face straightened. “Yeah, fuck off.”

Pete sighed, his hands raised defensively as he took a step forward. “Seriously man, we’re all in here for fuck knows how long and there’s really no reason for this shit anymore.”

“I don’t give a shit about reasons. Now get the fuck off my court.” He jutted his chin forward as he turned his back to the four of them, muttering “asshole” as he did so.

Within that split second, Bob and Jepha ran to Nick’s friends, tightening their hands around their arms and slamming them into the wire fence that surrounded the court. Nick quickly turned back just as Pete’s fist collided with his jaw and Frank grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to the ground.

With Jepha and Bob distracted in their own effort of keeping Nick’s friends as far away from the other three as possible, Frank positioned himself on Nick’s back, keeping him pressed firmly against the concrete as Pete gave him a nice boot mark across his ribcage. Nick let out a groan and Frank just pushed his face harder into the ground, struggling to stay balanced on the boy’s back as he reached down to grab his arms and lay them out flat in front of him.

Pete quickly made his way over to where Frank was holding Nick’s arms out, pulling items out of his back pockets and throwing them haphazardly onto the floor. Nick instantly grew considerably more horrified, screaming as loud as he possible could for his friends to ‘get the fuck over here’, it was no use though, they were each having a difficult time getting away from Bob and Jeph, fists flying into their faces and/or stomachs as they attempted to return the hits themselves.

So as Nick’s pleas fell on deaf ears, Pete crouched down on the ground, Frank almost laying across Nick’s back as he gripped the boy’s wrists to hold him in place and he watched as Pete began to pour lighter fluid all over his hands.

Nick panicked completely, his body jerking underneath Frank’s, who for a moment there thought he was going to go flying off him.

“FUCK! Frank, hold him fucking still-”

“-I’M TRYING! Fucking, just hurry up.”

Nick’s screams and curses littered the entire yard as Pete dropped a lit match in each of his palms, fire spreading across his skin instantly. Pete laughed as he stood back up, racing to climb onto Nick’s back to help Frank hold him down a little longer.

Frank winced, able to feel the heat of the flames on his fingers and so, slowly, he dragged his hands a little further up Nick’s forearms.

“Now play basketball you filthy piece of fucking shit.” Pete spat, digging his elbow into the back of Nick’s thigh.

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME! FUCK!” Nick’s body shook uncontrollably and Frank and Pete quickly flew up from the boy’s body, just as about six guards came racing into the courts.

Bob and Jepha let Nick’s friends go, all four of them stumbling away from each other, not one of them free of blood. Like springs retracted from under him, Nick bounced up from the ground, still screaming like crazy and he darted outside the courts, throwing his hands into the dirt of the yard and slowly but surely putting the searing flames out.

By then, both Pete and Frank were being restrained by guards; the vicious men taking a firm hold of them by anywhere they could get their hands on. Pete hadn’t stopped laughing though, nor had he taken his eyes off a completely petrified Nick and despite the pressure around his throat, -due to the guard holding him by the back of his hoodie- Frank couldn’t help but burst into his own fit of laughter, at both Nick and Pete’s reaction.

The guards spat threats and curses at them, their grips becoming tighter as they attempted to drag them out of the courts and back into the center. Pete probably couldn’t care any less though, he knew he would be suffering a new bout of consequences when he had begun to conjure up his sick little plan and to see Nick squirm and hopelessly battle his way through it, had proven more than worth it all.

He didn’t feel bad that he had gotten his friends into probably just as much trouble as he was going to get into. He had never once forced them to go along with it, in fact, he had questioned Bob and Jepha on countless occasions yesterday if they were seriously up for it or not. Of course, Frank couldn’t be asked, his lack of presence had made that a little difficult, though Jeph had made it perfectly clear that Frank would definitely not have a problem with it and that if anything, he would have been rather encouraging.