Time to meet The Plastics. Don't forget to donate to Nifty https://donate.nifty.org/

 

Chapter 11

 

\\\ Nick ///

 

"Hey Nick, are you joining us?" I jumped and turned around to see two girls standing behind me. I must have been plucking up the courage to open the door longer than I thought as I never even heard them approach. One of the girls I'd seen in my science lessons but the other one I only recognised from sitting with Lucas at lunch.

"Oh...hey Casey...uh yeah, Lucas kinda invited me over, hope you guys don't mind." This felt like a really bad idea. I stood there holding the door handle, unsure whether to open it or just turn around and walk away when the other girl spoke up.

"Did he invite you to come in or just stand there like a lemon?" She asked. I felt myself blushing and took my cue to pull the door open. I tried to be a gentleman and let the girls in first although that could have also been a stalling tactic on my part.

"Don't be mean." Casey said as they both walked by. I looked into the room and saw Lucas with two other girls going through a routine but they obviously hadn't seen us yet. I was so tempted just to let go of the door and get out of there but it was suddenly too late. "Hey Lucas, look who we found outside." That sealed it; I had no choice but to go in now. I tried my best not to look straight at Lucas as the music stopped and he walked over to us followed by the other two girls. I knew I'd probably break out into a goofy smile or something equally embarrassing if I looked his way so I just looked around the room instead.

"Hi Nick, I was beginning to think you weren't coming." I couldn't help myself then as I broke out into a smile, no matter how hard I tried not to. Lucas was standing right in front of me wearing a body-hugging, long sleeve shirt and some compression tights with shorts over the top. He looked more like he was about to kick a ball around rather than dance, even though he was barefoot, but I still liked the way I could see the contours of his body. He wasn't quite as big as any of the Fleeks but you could definitely see some definition there and it made me wonder how he'd look if he were a bit bigger, even though that probably wouldn't happen.

"I see you've already met Casey and Amber, and these two lovely ladies are Jemma and Zara." He motioned over his shoulder to the other girls as they both gave me friendly smiles.

"So are you ok now? I heard about what happened in your English lesson." Casey asked.

"Wait, what happened?" Lucas asked before I could answer and I was surprised by the look of concern on his face.

"It's nothing; I sorta had a panic attack when I thought I'd forgotten my homework." I lied. I couldn't really tell them it was because I'd hugged Lucas before the class. "Anyway, Lucas said I could ask you guys anything about him no matter how embarrassing." I knew I had to change the subject and I could instantly see the look of regret on his face as Amber flashed a wicked smile.

"Oh you're in for it now Lucas, fire away." She said as Lucas looked slightly worried.

"Shouldn't we be practicing? We've only got the studio for an hour." He said, desperately trying to save his own hide.

"Yeah well, we can come back another time. Come on Nick, ask whatever you want." Amber said as she led us over towards the mirrors and sat down on the floor. We all joined her and I could see there probably wasn't going to be much dancing today.

"Ok, um...I guess I'll start with the obvious question about how you all met." I suddenly realised I didn't know what I wanted to know about him, I mean, what could I ask that wouldn't make me look like a stalker?

"That's easy, we all knew each other from dance classes and primary school but we didn't meet Lucas until he started here. We were in this studio and this weird kid suddenly flounced in wearing rainbows all over his clothing, like he was trying his hardest to let everyone know he was gay." Lucas was turning an incredible shade of red as Amber told the story of his first week of school. "It took us a full week of styling and trying to convince him that less is more."

"Yeah, but now he's taken that the complete opposite way and ditched anything that screams gay." Jemma added. "What's going on Lucas, you turning straight?" He was squirming even more now and I kinda felt bad for him, but I was still curious at the same time.

"No, of course not...I just...didn't see the need to make it so obvious anymore." He suddenly became very interested the bottle of what looked like some kind of milkshake he'd plucked from the floor beside him. He definitely didn't come across as your stereotypical gay guy, probably more straight acting like me.

"So tell me something about Lucas that I don't know, has he got some deep, dark secret I should know about?" I looked over at him again as he started to drink from the bottle.

"There's probably a lot about him you don't know yet but one thing that always surprises me is that he's stronger than he looks." Amber's remark seemed to catch Lucas off-guard and he started choking on his shake. I quickly smacked him on the back a few times, surprised that it actually hurt when I made contact with him, though I should have known he would be tensed up as he was coughing. He waved me off and managed to swallow between coughs. "He never has a problem lifting any of us up when we've danced together."

"Well...you guys aren't exactly heavy." He protested as his breathing started to return to normal. He was right though, all the girls were slim and didn't look like they weighed too much, but it kinda made me wonder if he'd be able to lift me up.

"So do you guys get to perform a lot?" I asked, trying to stop myself thinking about Lucas having his way with me.

"Occasionally, we just tend to spend a lot of time in here trying out new moves and routines. We could show you if you're all done trying to embarrass me." Lucas said and again I felt a little bad for him but at the same time I was enjoying just hanging out with his friends.

"Ok, but I've just got one more question for the girls. I know why Ben and his friends are called the Fleeks, but why are you guys called the plastics?"

"What? Who called us the plastics?" Amber asked, looking slightly angry about it. I was beginning to think I shouldn't have mentioned it but it was too late now.

"Uhh...that's how Tom introduced you on my first day."

"Right well he's getting his bollocks removed the next time I see him." Uh oh, maybe I should give Tom a heads up before Amber caught up with him.

"So do you guys not get on with the Fleeks?"

"We do...sort of...but there's a bit of history with some of us." Casey replied. "Jemma used to go out with Jamie and Amber's got a crush on Ben."

"Good luck with that, he's going out with my sister now." Lucas said, leaving Amber looking even more pissed off.

"Shit! Well I'm not gonna fight Sammie for him."

"Good, cos there's no way you'd win."

"What, you don't think I can take her?" Lucas didn't even reply, he just laughed as he started getting to his feet.

"Come on, let's go through that routine again." He said as the other girls stood up to join him.

I sat back against the wall as Zara started up the music again and they went into whatever they'd been practicing before I arrived. Lucas seemed to be throwing himself into it like he was trying to make sure it was perfect, which for all I know it could have been. What surprised me more than anything though was how flexible and athletic he was, I mean, all of them were twisting and turning all over the place but Lucas was spending a lot of time in the air with his legs at angles I could never dream of. Parts of the routine also involved some of them doing flips and handsprings which made me think they could give the Fleeks a run for their money.

The more I watched Lucas, the more mesmerised I was by his movements. All the while though I was thinking about what music would complement his dance style and after a while I just tuned out the sound system that was filling the room with music and hearing my own melodies filling my mind. After a few minutes I suddenly realised the music had stopped and they were all giving me a weird look.

"Are you ok? You looked a little spaced out there for a minute." Jemma said.

"Huh? Oh...sorry, I kinda got lost thinking about something." I replied.

"So how'd you like that routine?" Lucas asked.

"It was cool." I was trying not to sound too smitten. "I can't believe how flexible you guys are though."

"Yeah well, make the most of it. Dancing boy here wants to put some muscle on so that'll restrict his movements a bit." Amber said.

"No it won't. I'm still flexible when I'm big." Lucas said and we all looked at him funny. "I mean if I get bigger. I've seen bodybuilders do the splits and all that so adding a little muscle shouldn't stop me." His face had gone bright red as he trailed off and I was beginning to think he was embarrassed about wanting to be bigger. Personally I'd like to see him with a lot more muscle but that probably won't happen.

Lucas had clearly decided he'd had enough of being embarrassed for one day and invited me up to teach me some moves. I'd never thought of myself as a great dancer but I seemed to have a good sense of rhythm, add that to the training I'd been doing with the Fleeks and I could also bust out some pretty good flips as well, even if I couldn't get my foot behind my head like Lucas.

I began to feel more relaxed as we messed around talking about school and other trivial stuff. I didn't get much information out of the girls about Lucas though, mostly because I couldn't think what to ask them, or anything I could think of might have come across as weird. All too soon it was time to head home but we decided to meet up a couple more times that week, and someone came up with the idea of all the girls joining the Fleeks for lunch one day but that turned out to be a bad idea. Besides Amber making some rather graphic threats towards Tom's testicles, there was also far too many of us around the table to be able to communicate well so we just went back to how we were before.

I was still a little pissed off about the performing arts building being shut off the following week, but as the guys told me more about what was happening for Halloween I actually started to look forward to it. The main auditorium would be used for a dance, as it was like a big dance hall with a stage at the end for performances. Then the performing arts building would be turned into a genetic research facility where we'd get a guided tour and, if things went the way they had in previous years, everything would go wrong and we'd end up running for our lives.

Ben told me about the previous year where it had been a haunted mansion theme and, even though they didn't like to admit it, all the guys had jumped out of their skin at least a few times. No school I'd ever been to had ever done anything like this so I was getting really excited about it. We talked about costumes as well and the school always encouraged us to wear scary or creepy costumes rather than just dressing as superheroes or celebrities, so I started wracking my brain trying to think of what to wear. Being dirt poor kinda limited my options as well, even though Ben offered to take me to the costume shop and treat me. I was still too proud or stubborn to accept charity so as I'd used some of the money I'd earned from the busking to buy some new clothes, I decided to hack up some of my older ones to make a cheap, zombie outfit. All I needed now would be some cheap face paints to complete the look and I'd be sorted.

The rest of the week in school was kinda weird. Most days when I was walking through the corridors between lessons I occasionally noticed people looking at me like they recognised me, and then often smiling if I made eye contact. One of the younger kids even held up his hand for a high five, even though I'd never seen him before. Turns out it was Noah's little brother Aaron. I started to worry that my panic attack episode was becoming the talk of the school, or that people were talking about that hug with Lucas. Ben told me not to think about it and that people would soon move on but it preyed on my mind for a while, at least until it was forced out by my anxiety about going to see Lucas at the weekend.