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THURSDAY JUNE 9, 1983 – SENIOR YEAR – 2 DAYS TO PROM
HIGHSCHOOL HALLWAY, 1PM (between classes)
"Apparently it’s the best game ever made! Sure, it'll take forever to beat, but lucky for us we’ve got all weekend, a bag full of quarters and a surplus of contraband energy drinks I stole from my uncle.” Max jabbered on. “Plus, we'll beat it faster if we play together, even if ya are a bit lousy at video games."
Max hadn't noticed Sam's forlorn expression and faraway look until there was no response to his teasing. Usually, a jab about his video game competency had him snapping back with some clever retort that left Max tingling. That was the basis of their whole dynamic, after-all, yet here Sam was messing with the formula.
Max went in again with the same jab, just trying to get Sam’s attention. "Y'know, ‘cause yer big clumsy fingers don't work the controller all too well."
Still nothing, and with Sam looking off into space like some moody teenage protagonist, there wasn’t anyone to appreciate Max's colossal pout.
"Sam."
Sure, Max was more impatient than the average lagomorph, but even a slower moving rabbit would’ve started getting annoyed after being ignored and left waiting in silence this long.
Without much thought, and with impatient frustration driving him, he lunged forward and got a mouth-full of dog fur, his sharp teeth harshly pressing against Sam's forearm. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to smart, and hard enough to get Sam to snap out of his melodramatic trance - turning his attention back where it belonged, on Max.
"Ow! The hell was that for?"
Max blew some stray dog fur off his tongue and then unceremoniously licked the back of hand to remove a few stragglers. "Gee Sam, when's the last time you took a shower?"
Sam just rubbed his spit-wet forearm lightly, cradling it like it was a much worse injury than it was, the big baby.
"Ya should be thanking me for snapping you out of yer incredibly cliche teenage moping. People were starting to stare." Though, if anything, more attention had been paid to the two after Max had put his sharp little big teeth to work. "The hell’re ya so moody about anyways? We've only got one more day til we're outta here fer good!"
Sam didn't have any fast remarks to shoot back; nothing about Max’s clumsy exposition, or any defense of his video game skills. Instead, he shifted uncomfortably, still cradling his freshly bit arm. "Max, are we really not going to our prom?"
Max didn't hide his surprise and subsequent disinterest in Sam's query, groaning loudly and pulling a face, clearly failing to pick up on the emotional weight it seemed to hold for Sam. "Well, I'm certainly not interested in watching my idiot jerk-off peers stumble around all night in cheap costumes, hoping to get close enough to give each other VD,” He emphasized his disgust with a dramatic gagging motion, “but hey, whatever turns you on.”
The silence from Sam made Max antsy. It wasn't normal for either of them to think too hard about what they said, all their best wit-isms came out on the fly.
Here's Sam messing with their perfectly functional, usual dynamic, again.
Sam sighed, "I know it's stupid,"
"Huuuuge understatement."
"but I was hoping that I'd get some sorta celebration for making it through the last 12 years."
"Last 13. Don't forget about third grade pt. 2." Much to Max’s dismay, Sam didn’t even snort a small laugh at Max’s stupid joke.
"I just... I thought Jenny would say yes! We've always been friendly, and she doesn't have a date yet, and I just... Wanted that prom night experience."
So many parts of what Sam said, and how he said it, had Max feeling all crawly. "Gross, Sam. I didn't realize yer hormones were cloggin’ yer brain this much. Ya sick puppy."
"Quiet pinhead, I meant a dance, and maybe a kiss at the end of the night."
"Yeah, but knowing Jenny, the kiss wouldn't be the end of the night." Max quietly snarked, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.
"Ya really don't care about having a prom experience?" It was rhetorical; Sam knew Max far too well to need any answer.
Ugh, with their rhythm thrown off and the content of the conversation mushier than usual, Max found himself pulled down to the level of actually thinking before he speaks... "Y’know... y’could always go stag, right?" It’s the best he can muster in terms of giving Sam good advice.
"What's the point? Sure, I can dance with myself,” Max snickered at the picture it put in his mind. “but I sure as hell can't kiss myself."
"Or give yerself mono." Max snickered again; Sam still unamused.
"Whatever.” Max looked up at Sam, trying to get a read on him. “I gotta get to class."
Their rhythm was off. This wasn't how they were, wasn't how they were supposed to be.
"I thought we were skipping the rest of the day to go look at roadkill together!"
"I'll see ya later, Max."
Not even a "little buddy"? Max felt a hot pang of worry rush through his body, left wordless as Sam wandered off, looking like some pathetic wounded puppy (not so much unlike the baby racoon he'd heard had been squashed on the freeway that morning by a 16-wheeler).
With this interaction differing so much from their usual repertoire, Max was at a loss. His weekend plans of spending all weekend with Sam, a video game and a plethora of non-FDA approved caffeinated drinks seemed to be looking like a lost cause.
He didn't know how to react to his plans being changed, or to Sam acting so weird.
Besides, looking at roadkill alone was much less fun; without Sam there, there was no one to laugh at the poorly done voices and crass jokes Max would puppet into the pancaked corpses.
SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY, 2pm (looking for roadkill)
Skipping class during the last week of school was an inevitably, that’s how Max saw it. Though, he’d never needed that excuse to skip class during the rest of the year, it certainly seemed more than appropriate now.
Max would often skip during Sam’s free periods. They both benefited from this, Sam needed a bad influence to blame as distraction for not doing any work, and Max needed the type of attention Sam always gave him.
Near the end of the year, Sam always seemed to loosen up a bit and skip class at least once with Max to come out to the road and look at roadkill. It’d become a bit of an annual tradition for them.
Max couldn’t understand why Sam cared so much about going to prom; and he especially didn’t understand why he felt like he needed to bring a girl. Max couldn’t believe Sam had even asked Jenny Tallarico; it felt like new low for him.
Jenny had asked Max to the prom every year for the last 4 years, seeming to get some sorta sick thrill from the challenge (and subsequent rejection he gave her every single year). Max knew what she wanted from him; the way she looked at him and her reputation in the school was enough to tell him he should feel nauseous even being near her.
Despite what most people thought, Max wasn't stupid; he knew what sorta rumours had been spread around about him too. The sorts of rumours that made girls like Jenny think that Max would love to take advantage of a girl who puts out easy. But if all Sam wanted was a dance and a kiss, Jenny wasn't a good choice, even if she would ever go with Sam.
Max wandered along the highway, looking for fresh roadkill.
That was another hard to avoid fact… most girls saw Sam as a bumbling virgin who didn't know the first thing about girls, and even though Max was just as unskilled with girls as Sam was, his cocky attitude, unusual confidence and violent nature seemed to convince the more... excitable girls… that he would be interested in swapping spit.
He spotted a few squashed rats on the highway, off to the side enough that he could get a good look at the morbidly crushed corpses.
Max didn't mind a rumour that made him seem cool, but the idea of doing any of the things these girls seemed to want made him feel nauseous. Though, it may have been the fumes of the decomposing roadkill baking on the hot pavement making his stomach turn.
He thought carefully about the girls in their grade (and some below), trying to imagine any that would say yes to Sam so last-minute, and be innocent enough not to agitate Sam's bumbling virgin status. There had to be at least a couple of promising options, maybe even some girls that Max could talk into taking his awkward friend to the prom… but each time he thought about putting this plan into motion, he felt even sicker than before.
Sure, imagining a girl getting her mouth anywhere near him made him feel dizzy and sick, but the idea of a girl getting her mouth anywhere near Sam made him feel worse somehow – sick and itchy, and uncomfortable in that same way he felt when Sam was messing up the flow of their usual dynamic.
He poked listlessly at a flattened rat on the road and sighed. "Why don't you take Sam to the prom." He squeaked out a goofy voice for the rotting rat, moving its rotten maw with a stick.
Max considered it. "Give him his stupid prom experience and then get to ditch together and go play video games...?"
"Seems like a win-win to me." The dead rat was right; Max wasn’t sure how he hadn’t thought of it before.
HIGHSCHOOL HALLWAY, 3:30PM (end of the school day)
Max meant to make it back to the school in time to catch Sam right as he left class – not that he was coming with his tail between his legs or anything; he always kept his tail upright, right on his lower back.
By the time he was approaching the classroom though, Sam was already out of class and caught up in some embarrassing exchange with a girl.
Max just caught the end of it, only seeing the girl roll her eyes and rejecting Sam outright; the reaction that was to be expected.
Max walked over to his friend a bit sheepishly. "That was…" hard to watch, Max bit his tongue. "...rough, pal. Y’okay?"
Sam seemed relieved to see him, even after their less-than-ideal parting earlier – the rejection clearly having primed him to be glad to see a friendly face.
“Guess we’re playing video games this weekend after-all.” It stung to hear Sam consider their original weekend plans to be a lesser backup plan. Max wanted to roll his eyes but once he caught a glimpse of Sam’s big sad puppy-dog eyes, he froze.
Why don’t we go to the prom together? “Aw, c’mon pal, it’s not so bad.” Max felt uncharacteristically nervous, a bit unsure about how to go about asking something he’d assumed would be mindless and simple.
His body felt uncomfortable and clammy, and he cursed himself for succumbing to social anxieties he’d thought he'd long since trained out of himself.
Sam didn’t say anything again, and the uncertainty and silence only further agitated Max’s heightened state.
Hey, here’s a funny idea: why don’t we go to prom together! “Wanna hit Snuckey’s for some fries and milkshakes? I’m buyin’” Max flashed a small wad of crumpled bills at Sam.
“Where were you keeping-” Sam shook his head and re-phrased his question, already knowing the answer. “Where did you get that?”
Ask a stupid question… “None of your damn business, Sam.”
SNUCKEY’S DINER, 4PM (ordering milkshakes and fries)
Man, wouldn’t it fix everything if we could just go to prom together? “Peanut butter?” Max confirmed Sam’s milkshake flavour of choice and Sam just sighed.
“Might as well make it a chocolate.” Max rolled his eyes.
“Don’t be so melodramatic.” Max turned to the cashier. “One peanut butter shake, two orders of fries," Max thought about the rotting corpses on the hot pavement he’d spent the last hour with, and the advice he’d gotten from a particularly squished rat. “Oh and a strawberry for me.” He paid with his crumpled cash and followed his moping friend to their usual table.
Now he felt uncomfortable in the silence not just because their rhythm was off, or because Sam wasn’t paying enough attention to him, but also because he actually felt bad for Sam.
Sam hardly even touched his milkshake, or fries, just looking out the window, it was all a bit too pitiful for Max to stomach, really.
“Sam.” I’ll take you. “They’ll be plenty of future opportunities to get a communicable disease from a girl with bad breath.” I’ll just take you. I don’t have any communicable diseases! Wait… is rabies a communicable disease?
They sat in silence.
Max didn’t even want the milkshake anymore. He’d hardly wanted it in the first place; he just wanted to get Sam out of this obnoxious funk.
Max grabbed Sam’s untouched glass and poured the tan peanut buttery liquid into his strawberry milkshake, making a gross muddy colour (truer to life in terms of roadkill colours than the plain strawberry, actually). He grabbed a hand-full of fries and crushed them in his palm, dropping the remains into the mess of a shake. He mixed it all around with his finger and licked it off obnoxiously, admiring his disgusting creation.
Sam had been watching slightly out of the corner of his eye and finally he raised an eyebrow at Max’s disgusting display. “What… what’re you doing?”
“Tryna get yer attention.”
“Alright, y’ve got my attention now, what? Gonna mock me for wanting to go to the prom some more?”
“Why don’t I just take ya.” Max didn’t look up from his creation, focused on the greasy, milky mess.
Sam raised an eyebrow and frowned. “I’m not in a jokin’ mood, Max, c’mon.”
“I’m not jokin’.” Max sucked some of his mushy creation through the straw, the suction sound loud and obnoxious. “Since it's got you so upset, just let me take you.”
Sam was fully focused on him again, the way he should be, and Max felt a pang of satisfaction; his plan was successfully turning Sam’s attention back to him.
Sam took a few lazy laps of his milkshake, and he actually seemed a bit cheered up, before feeling the need to clarify: “I mean, I’d really rather take you, y’know…”
Max fought the urge to roll his eyes and was unable to stop the twitch in his right eye. Of course, Sam was still stuck on this idea of needing to be the one to ask; needing some type of macho assurance, even though there wasn’t a single girl in the school who would let him take them.
“Is that a no?” Max crossed his arms, regretting the offer already.
“I wanna take you.” Sam clarified, trying to make it sound like a more polite offer.
“Great. It's settled then. You'll take me, that way you can have that “prom experience” you’re so worried about. The prom, the dance, the…”
Max had to consider it in his mind then, the idea of kissing Sam, something he hadn’t thought about in such a concrete way before.
It made him feel sick to his stomach, but perhaps it was the unholy milkshake creation he’d chugged moments before that was to blame for his stomach’s upset.
They made eye contact and were both silent for a moment, before a huge sharp-toothed grin spread across Max’s face, and Sam gave back a big dopey smile to match, and they laughed together, loud and obnoxious, much to the annoyance of the rest of the diner.
MAX’S BEDROOM, later (dance practice)
Max had resisted the idea of doing any sort of “practice”, and he certainly had made his complaints known, but Sam had somehow convinced him it was better to practice now than to make complete fools of themselves on the gymnasium-turned-dancefloor, (ignoring Max when he pointed out that they’d look like fools either way).
They’d always been physically close; wrestled, cuddled up on a cramped couch to watch movies, stood side by side at the arcade cabinet playing hours of games, but in all their years, Sam had never intentionally put his paws on Max’s body in this way.
A soft hand on Max’s hip, a brush of Sam’s paw against his back; sensations that felt new and foreign coming from Sam.
Max felt dizzy; his body went cold, and he felt like he was going to be sick all over Sam’s stupid wrinkled tuxedo-printed shirt. “This is stupid.” He murmured.
“That’s cause yer not even tryin’! C’mon, get into it.” Sam teased, laughing as he tried to lead their dance.
Despite wanting to tell Sam he’s a lousier dancer than he is at playing video games, Max notices that Sam is somehow pretty good at this. He’s a little clumsy, but he’s got the gist, and he’s right to point out that it’s Max’s who’s holding them back.
Before his brain can fully form the Why am I doing this again? thought, he reminds himself internally that giving Sam the prom experience means that afterwards they can go back to their regularly scheduled plans.
“I am tryin’,” Max huffed, turning away so he didn't have to see Sam’s stupid face while they continued their mockery of a slow dance. “It feels like we keep moving the wrong way.”
“That’s cause yer not letting me lead.” Sam chuckled, continuing to pull and push Max this way and that.
“That’s cause yer not a very good leader.” Max snarked, but it had no edge to it, sounding more like a whiney complaint than a proper insult.
“Ya gotta relax, melonhead, follow my lead instead of fightin’ it.”
Max tried to do it, tried to follow Sam’s lead and relax, but he couldn't, and it made him frustrated and antsy.
He doesn’t know how to move his body, and he hates feeling like Sam is better than him at something like this. He’s supposed to be the cool one, Sam’s just some bumbling virgin who couldn’t even get a date to the stupid prom.
Though, Max supposes that now he has gotten some sort of date after all.
Max wants to complain more, but Sam’s energy was warm and calm, and he doesn't seem like he’d be all that bugged by Max verbalizing his annoyances.
Max tries to follow Sam’s lead, but unable to relax still, he ends up awkwardly yanking on Sam’s arms, a sort of accidental and jerky movement that makes no sense in the dance Sam's trying to lead them in.
In response, Sam makes a slightly frustrated sound and pulls Max’s arm back, just a little too hard.
Max’s left shoulder makes a loud cracking sound, and before Sam can apologize Max instinctively gets revenge, pulling Sam’s arm back equally as hard.
Sam isn’t taken as aback as Max by the pull though, since he saw it coming and so he could brace for it, holding strong against it.
Max smiles, his full-tooth grin unnerving as always, though Sam is happy to see Max a bit more engaged after their previously fruitless attempts at dancing and so he smirks back and uses his hands against Max’s to push him.
Max pushes back, using his surprising-for-his-size strength, holding Sam at a distance with their hands still pressed together.
When Sam’s taking a moment to assess their current position, Max thought he saw Sam looking for something in his room that could be used against him. Not that Sam needed too much help, with almost a foot and 70 pounds on Max, even with Max’s unhinged maniac strength, Sam has the advantage – as long as he keeps away from Max’s mouth.
Even so, Max decides he needs to stop Sam from grabbing any of the assorted violent objects in Max’s room (a boxing glove, a baseball bat, a rusty hammer, etc.) so he squeezes his hands tight, holding them together; his claws digging into the flesh of Sam’s paws, breaking skin in a few pinpoint spots along Sam’s knuckles.
Sam curses and takes a moment to think before pressing a knee forward, getting Max right in the gut, forcing him to let go of Sam’s paws.
Max doubles over before making a quick decision and using his whole body to jump for Sam’s leg, pulling him down by the knee.
Sam topples down on top of Max and elbows him on the way down, though Max doesn't bother trying to dodge it.
Once Sam’s got him tackled, Max acts quick and strikes, biting Sam’s leg, though the fabric of his pants is in the way and Sam pulls away fast enough, before Max could do any real damage.
Max’s jaw aches from the sudden movement of Sam pulling away as he tried to bite him. He rubs his jaw, and in during a beat in their tussle, weasels his way out from under Sam.
Sam rolls over, looking to Max for any sign of another attack.
They lock eyes; Max still smiling.
Max tackles him now, jumping on top of him quickly.
Sam has the physical advantage, but he lets Max sit on him in a mock pin-down, tired from their dancing practice.
“Told ya yer a lousy dancer.” Max pressed his hands against Sam’s chest and smiled triumphantly.
Sam was looking up at him, panting slightly, with a goofy, lazy smile on his stupid dogface. “Uh huh. Whatever you’ve gotta tell yerself t’get t’sleep at night.” Sam’s finally back to returning Max’s quips, fallen back into their usual back-and-forth dynamic.
Max couldn’t believe all it took to get things back to normal was offering to go to the stupid dance with him.
Sam hadn’t been giving him attention, hadn’t been participating in their usual dynamic, was too focused on finding a stupid girl to take to the prom, but now, everything was the way it should be, all because Max asked him.
Max glanced at Sam’s mouth and found he couldn’t look away… not after everything that’d been on his mind that day, not with his mouth so close and the stupid grin still spread across his face.
Sitting on him, their faces closer than usual like this, Max can see Sam’s teeth and tongue, and spit, and he can smell peanut butter and fries on his breath.
He tries to imagine kissing Sam. He does imagine it.
He felt sick again, like all of a sudden he’s realizing the knee to the gut Sam gave him earlier got him harder than he thought...
Max doesn’t know what look he had on his face, or what it was that made Sam feel the need to butt in, but he does. Sam clears his throat, “…I think we’ve got enough practice for now.” Sam shifted to stand-up, motioning for Max to get off of him.
Max stepped away and brushed himself off comically, heart still racing from the impromptu tussle. He smiled at Sam. “Ya think the chaperones will stop us from dancing like that at prom?”