Barely registering Christian, Ty, and Cade, when they all asked for a burger, or hot dog, or both, but still being able to address them, Spike Langley gradually gave each of them their orders. His responses, while seemingly natural, were on autopilot and mentally he wasn’t there, not really.

“Order up, host with the most!” He said enthusiastically to Christian.

“It’s going, it’s going. Eat up, pretty lady. No need to drink on an empty stomach,” He appreciatively smiled at Ty.

“An everything burger for you, bro!” He declared to Cade. It seemed Eleazor noticed Spike wasn’t in his usual sorts so he carried on the conversations, which was much appreciated.

More people came and went to grab food from him, right off the grill, and as time passed him by, Spike found his surroundings fading. Getting lost in his head, revisiting feelings he preferred to bury, he couldn’t help but feel empty on the inside. A feeling that resurfaces whenever something like this happens. His mother died, his father died, and now? The girl he thought he’d be with for as long as he thought he’d be alive for, which wasn’t long, but long enough, chose to leave him.

She was gone.

Without a word. Without a single goodbye. Without any care for how he might feel. Ghosting is what his friends would call it. Rejection without finality. She didn’t want to have this conversation. It was too much of a burden for her to give him closure. She liked leaving him hanging, just in case she changed her mind and came running back. Minty could have fun with his friends but when he wanted to explore, he was in the wrong. This had gone on for far too long and he kept letting her treat him like the last option instead of the first.

He wasn’t perfect. Yes, he does have a habit of not keeping his mouth shut and looking at other girls, saying exactly what’s on his mind, but if she wanted to commit, if she wanted him, he would’ve changed. If he could choose between any girl and her, he would’ve always chosen her. He wasn’t a complete piece of shit and when she had nights where she couldn’t sleep, he was the one answering her phone calls. Not Hunter. Not Dee. Not Lucas. Not fucking Mason. HE was the one. And yet, that meant nothing to her and she continued to take advantage of what they have.

His mind drifted further and further into the abyss of his imagination, as he started replaying a time that was a clear red flag.



She never did answer his questions. Not then, not now, and probably not ever. Shaking his head, Spike looked around and apologized to Eleazor. “Hey dude, just order pizza. I… I’m gonna’ go.” Not giving his grill partner any time to ask him what was wrong, Spike let his feet take him away. The party itself was chaotic and he knew right now, he needed to draw. If he kept this going, he would just keep sinking.

Avoiding interactions and any unfolding drama around him, Spike found himself going into Christian’s bedroom, awkwardly walking into lovers doing… stuff… and retrieving his things. The couple was quick to yell at him and cover up. Instead of giving them his attention, not even glancing at the girl’s boobs, he grabbed his backpack and left, unintentionally leaving the door open on them.

Once again, Spike let his feet lead him in a direction. Walking outside, he heard a familiar voice singing and strumming his guitar. On any other day, Spike wouldn’t welcome Rico’s voice because of his jealousy, but tonight he found himself drawn to the tune he was playing.

Joining the crowd, but keeping himself in the far side, to get a side profile of the big picture, which was a talented singer telling his listeners a story through song, Spike sat on the floor. Watching his musically inclined peer showcase his soul in front of everyone, Spike contemplated in silence and bobbed his head to the rhythm.

When Rico opened his eyes, he looked right through the crowd and straight to… Ellie. Or as Spike called her in his comics: Radiance. He knew they had a thing, and weren't afraid to show it, but he never felt comfortable asking Ellie the details. Plus, he preferred when she smiled and emitted her natural aura of life, love, and light. He didn’t want to risk bringing her down in any way, so he kept their conversation to idle chatter, focusing on art and books. This was the first time Spike took the time to watch them and all he could see was how intensely they looked at each other.

With fervent inspiration, Spike started sketching the scene, but in a more fantastical light. He hadn’t made Rico into a concept, but this song and the way he looked at his friend was enough for Spike to put his childish jealousy aside and enjoy the moment. His pencil flowed with the music and when the sad song stopped, with the two ex-lovers disappearing, Spike sat where he was and kept drawing.

With a heavy heart, Rico returned to his perch in the corner following his conversation with Ellie. There was a very high possibility that he had just blown his shot with the girl he loved. He could’ve been a lesser man, he almost wished he was a lesser man; if he was she could’ve been in his arms by now. She had disappeared into the crowd and he had planted himself onto a box with old faithful in his arms; ready to sing some more sad songs.

Glancing at a mess of blonde hair that was sitting before him, Rico dampened the tip of his finger before strumming the strings of his guitar softly. ”If you’re going to paint me like one of your french girls Spike then at least let me keep my clothes on.”

“I can promise you,” Spike kept his deep blue eyes on his sketch and chuckled, “Your naked body has never crossed my mind.” He had enough guys in his head because of Minty. He didn’t need another one, especially one that is good at the one thing he isn’t. Being romantic. If you couldn’t tell, he never really thought before he talked. He just said shit and hoped the results would be in his favor.

The Mascot was surprised at how easy it was for him to capture Rico's personality, inner yearning, and visage. Maybe, he did spend more time than he realized staring at the man over the years. He didn’t even need to look up to know just how he smiled, how defined his eyebrows were, and how soft his gaze was whenever he focused on someone else. Fucking Rico. Suave as fuck. Stupidly charming.

“El Mariachi… Do you like that?” Spike glanced up at the guitarist to see if he got his approval or not, but realized he probably needed to give more context. “Your superhero name. Concept is you live for your job, traveling around to touch people’s hearts with your music. You want to live peacefully but where there is a beautiful sound that can make a god cry, there are enemies that want to steal your gifts away. But that’s the thing! You become stronger when you live and experience life. The more your heart feels, the stronger the song. You not only have the power to empower, or weaken, people with a song, but your empathetic voice can instill an emotion in a crowd, which may impact fate itself. When you get involved with your muse, a beacon, who stands for life, love, and light, you find a conviction to do more with your music…” His voice started to trail off as his eyes went back to the sketch pad. He shaded some parts of Rico’s face.

His concept for Rico was more fleshed out than it probably should’ve been. He had a whole story arc for him already. Divine inspiration was wild. Not many people knew about what Spike drew specifically but right now he just wanted someone to talk to and not hold anything back. He wanted to focus on someone else so he could forget his own problems. Plus, Ellie loved this suave musician. That meant something to Spike, seeing how she was one of the few people who knew why Spike drew and what he drew about.

“Jesús mi amigo...”

Rico was somewhat shocked at the amount of effort that Spike had put into his character. In four years the pair had barely spoken a word, the guitar man wasn’t exactly sure why as far as he was concerned Spike was a bit of an idiot but he was cool. Yet here he was, speaking to the troubadours soul with some sort of superhero type deal. “I love it.”

It was strange; Enrique had never considered Spike a friend, although in a different life perhaps he could, considering they were both thought of as some kind of fools for the school. He has always got the impression that the blonde haired mascot wasn’t his biggest fan and he wasn’t exactly sure why? Ellie knew the comic artist a lot better than he did and she had never mentioned anything.

“Why would you want me to be in your thing, hermano? Don’t you like, hate me?”

That makes sense why he would ask that. Spike had been so stubborn on crossing the bridge of friendship with Rico that he didn’t realize he was coming off as an asshole. It certainly wasn’t because he hated him. When Spike watched Rico, he saw a charm that he would never have. It went deeper than that though. Rico’s relationships had substance. Depth. A deep passion. The closest to that experience that the trailer boy had ever had was with Minty and people would define their relationship as toxic. More lows than highs. Both acting one way when they meant another. Their foundation was childish banter and lies. It was doomed to fail from the beginning.

“Nah it’s not like that. I’m just annoyed like 99 percent of the time that your game is better. I’ll admit I can be a bit of a child,” Spike spoke honestly. Glancing up here and there to get the fine details of Rico’s guitar, he shyly admitted, “I don’t just have friends in my story. The goal is to have a character for everyone that leaves an impact on me here at Rosefell, especially before I graduate. Heroes, anti heroes, and villains alike.”

Whether it is the Queen of Thorns or The Wall, they all add to the story in their own way and help Spike cope with his shitty reality. “I guess after hearing your song and seeing the way you looked at El… I just felt it. So I’m going where the inspo takes me.”

“I feel that, brother man.” Rico was taken aback by Spike’s honesty. He didn’t really think that the boy had this amount of depth about him. This was the most of the real Spike Langley he had seen in all his years in Rosefell; and he didn’t hate it. “I’m the same when it comes to my music. I just feel the flow, man. I listen to the world and let it penetrate my soul and permeate throughout the body until it leaves through the guitar.”

Shuffling off of his stool, El Mariachi moved down onto the floor next to Spike; nonchalantly playing a random tune. “You wanna hear a secret, Mascot? My game sucks. I mean I struck out with some babe earlier cos I dropped a line from fucking Hamilton,” Rico chuckled at the thought of his encounter with Billie earlier in the evening and how it had sent him into a Freako spiral. “I was lucky Ellie ever gave me the time of day and all the other ones? Brother, that's just confidence and being a fool for love.”

“Was it luck? You and El?” Momentarily, Spike put his pencil down and cracked his knuckles. He did take in the information that Rico wasn’t as good as he seemed in the romantic department and appreciated the sentiment that all it took was being confident, however Spike still had his doubts.

This was nice, though. His friends had been so caught up with themselves lately that Spike didn’t realize he needed someone to talk to.

“If love means you have to be lucky, then I’m fucking screwed...” Spike huffed to himself, almost protesting at the idea of love itself. If Rico glanced at the pad on Spike’s lap, he would notice El Mariachi staring up at the sky, his guitar hanging from its strap, as he offered a yellow flower up in the air. Instead of looking at the moon, he was looking at a brunette girl dressed in a black and blue suit, with a luminous aura around her. She was levitating and reaching for the flower.

This was Ellie’s first character costume which was focused on blending her in with the night. While Spike usually thought of yellow when it came to Eleanor, he knew at least for this snapshot moment he would keep it to a minimum so it didn’t take away from the night sky. So, the artist chose to express their love in the form of a yellow flower, which meant optimism, joy, and harmony. Hope especially. For a better tomorrow.

“I suppose in part it can be about luck,” Rico did indeed glance at Spike's drawing pad but chose not to say anything. If Spike was anything like him, he didn’t want anyone seeing his unfinished masterpiece just yet. It was rough but the visage was unmistakable, on his latest page was Ellie. Even in comic book form she still took his breath away. “We also had a shit ton of groundwork laid before we started dating. We were friends for years but not in a close sense. We just knew we had a lot in common, both being artists of a kind.”

The song and dance man mind took him back many months to a party not too dissimilar to this one. It was a rarity to see Ellie at such things alone without Lilith but there she was and she looked phenomenal. “Then there was this party, an underclassman thing so not many people were there but I was there with Hunter and shit, Ellie walked in wearing this red dress. The light just hit her in a way, it made my blood burn. Then it started to rain and everyone started rushing inside but I stood there and I played that damn guitar and sang to her. People were watching but I didn’t give a fuck and neither did she. Love was born that night and it was some kind of magic.”

Spike tried to recall the party that Rico had mentioned but time was a blur to him and at some point all the parties felt the same. He would’ve definitely noticed Ellie in a red dress. “Damn. I missed that. Probably taking care of my Paw-Paw or some shit.”

Still, regardless of what Ellie wore, she would stand out in a crowd. An understated beauty whose smile was blinding. Spike still didn’t know the reason why she gave him that moment, freshman year, but he wasn’t going to question it. They both had a bad night at a party and decided to make the other less lonely. The next day she made sure to put up clear boundaries between them, feeling some regret for succumbing to weakness.

Even so, that was fine because he knew what they had wasn’t this kind of love Rico was describing. A love similar to something Spike’s parents had. What he and Ellie had, it was a platonic kind of love and honestly? He wouldn’t trade that for the world. She was one of the few females he could act somewhat normal around and he wasn’t afraid to tell her days he wasn’t doing okay. Days he wanted to die. Joking all the time got tiring and she saw through his act.

“What… what happened between you two? If that’s okay to ask. One moment you guys are sitting on the school lawn together, being hella’ affectionate, and the next… well. It all stopped.”

This was weird; opening up to Spike Langley of all people but Rico thought he once heard Dee say a stranger is better than a friend and he was right. There was no judgment between the two of them in these moments they were sharing so speaking his truth may not actually be a bad thing. ”I fucked up is the simple answer,” He responded in a brief moment of despondency.

Enrique didn’t particularly want to relive his break up with Ellie. Even just seeing her tonight and being as close to her as he was just before his conversation with Spike was killing him softly. With a great sigh, he continued his story. ”I...with the music, there’s a certain lifestyle and I enjoy that lifestyle, a little too much I guess. It wasn’t fair to Ellie, I was getting fucked up a lot and she was always taking care of me and she deserved better.”

“Is that so...” Spike murmured, as he took in Rico’s truth. He didn’t frown. He didn’t smile. He simply stared at this stranger who wasn’t so different from him after all. Things are always beautiful until they mess them up. Grabbing his pencil once more, Spike slowly tapped it on his sketchpad, “Shit, love is fucking terrifying and you know what I think? I think she’ll wait for you, dude. What I saw wasn’t some lustful infatuation, like I’ve had with Minty. That was something real.” Why was Spike being so open and vulnerable to this kid? Was he that low that he didn’t have a filter? Or was it the alcohol that made his mouth a bit loose?

“Just be careful, man. If I could turn back time, I’d stop my mom from leaving to this stupid convention. There’s moments, I believe, that cause a ripple effect. If she hadn’t died, my dad wouldn’t have forgotten me. Like I always wondered, is love worth it? If there is so much hurt to it, why do we keep chasing it? When my dad finally got back to being a functioning human and realized in order to honor her was to take care of me... Well, he was gone too.”

Heh.

He hadn’t told anyone about his past like this. This was definitely weird, but he couldn’t hold back the emotions burning in his chest. “I guess hearing what you have to say… makes me realize love isn’t about what you get, but what you’re willing to give. And I’m going to keep rooting for you two because we’re all fucked up in our own way, but goddamit! You two belong together. And if there’s one thing I’d like to point out, it's that she's still there.” Ellie hadn’t moved on. Not really. If she wanted to try, she would’ve pulled a Minty and ghosted Rico.

Yet, she was still, in her own way, keeping an eye on him but at a distance. Whether it takes weeks, months, or years, Spike believed in their love story. It made him come to terms with being alone, without Minty, because if luck ever did knock on his door, he would find someone who loved him for him and he loved them for them. Someone who would push him to be a better version of himself, and he them, so they could be happy together. Spike decided if there was something that he’d believe in, it was happiness. Love was too foreign for him to understand. Nevertheless, that didn’t mean he was going to give up on those that have experienced it, like Ellie and Rico.

”Well, well.”

He really had no idea just how deep Spike actually was. The facade of the idiot was slowly slipping away and Rico began to feel a kinship with the mascot. With drink and drugs flowing throughout his system, there was a good chance that he probably wouldn’t remember most of this in the morning but that didn’t matter. Spike was opening his heart to Rico and the mariachi could feel every beat as if it was his own. ”I didn’t know you had any of this in you, hermano.”

The wheels began to turn in Rico’s head. There was a hidden tragedy behind the eyes of Rosefell’s resident court jester and it was a beautiful one. The longing and the feeling of hopelessness drifted around Spike, like a cloud of thoughtful smoke. Lyrics and rhythm began to take shape in his mind and his fingers began to idly strum the strings of the guitar. Instead of his normal flamenco Latin style, Enrique played a blues riff straight out of the south side of Chicago; the Mascot Blues.

Looking up from his axe, a vision and an idea. Turning back to Spike, Rico motioned with his head to a girl entering the garden through the back gate. She was absolutely stunning; with flowing auburn hair, a perfect pear shaped figure hidden beneath a shirt style dress. He felt like he had seen her around school that week; a Liberty for sure but maybe that’s what Spike needed to get over Minty; a different type of distraction.

”Your luck just changed Langley.”

Having zoned out the moment Rico started strumming another tune, Spike sighed in relief, as if this weight lifted off of his shoulders. He liked this tune. Felt like it was meant for him. No longer thinking about his past, Rico and Ellie’s love life, and the concept of love, Spike closed his eyes and rhythmically nodded to the music. It wasn’t long after Rico pointed out a girl in the garden.

Opening his eyes to have a look-see, Spike was stunned and taken aback. He already expected any girl from Liberty to be next level attractive. This whole week consisted of him flirting with them and failing terribly. But this girl, this girl was not trying to stand out and for some reason, it felt like she was something special to look at. Was it her smile or was it how clearly she seemed to look around like she was avoiding someone? Whatever it was, Spike knew he had to know a name.

Part of him felt like he always felt when he looked at someone from Liberty, she was out of his league. Another part of him wanted to take a chance and see if she would give him the time of night to just… be with him. If he could get a name he’d consider tonight not complete crap. Hesitantly, and already putting his sketchpad and pencil away in his backpack, the blonde, emotional goofball asked his new friend, “Should I just… go to her?”

”Absolutely,” Rico responded immediately. ”If I’ve learned anything after everything with Ellie it’s don’t pass up your chances, you may only get one” Putting down his guitar, the boy scanned the girl again, taking her in as he did everybody else, seeing her like a song. From a distance she certainly looked like an indie darling, a girl with soft features but a powerful voice just waiting to be heard but drowning in a sea of over the top characters. ”My advice? Cero Miedo, baby. No fear. Go to her, tell her she looks nice, politely and ask her if she wants a drink. Don’t need anything more than a smile my friend.”

Getting up to his feet, Enrique patted Spike on the shoulder and beamed at his new found confidant. ”She’s all yours brother.” He picked up the guitar and headed back into the house.