Quinn had imagined his first week at rich people school to be a bit more exciting, but so far, almost every lesson had consisted of forced introductions and fake friendly welcomes, then moved on to the same boring stuff they did in his old school: over analyzing poems, solving unrealistic math problems, staring at maps.

He had plenty of classes with Ciel, who pushed him through corridors towards the right rooms, and reminded him to do his assignments like every evening before and after dinner, and then in the morning before breakfast, but that was kind of the only thing they'd talk about whenever they were in the same room together.

And then he'd had a couple of classes with Felix, who'd at least greeted him with a very pleasant smile and a wave and sometimes a reminder of the party on Saturday. Aside from these two, Quinn hadn't spoken to a single other person yet. Well, nobody had really attempted to speak to him, either.

Which was fine, most of the students in his classes didn't seem like the kind of people he would've wanted to be around anyways, but now it was Saturday, and voices echoed through the woods as Quinn made his way towards the lake to be around them anyways. Ciel had explained the way there, just having to walk north off campus past the track field and that spooky little greenhouse straight into the forest, following a path for a couple of minutes.

So to call that a party was pretty generous. What Quinn saw when he finally arrived at his destination was more like many little get-togethers of varying party degrees, groups spread around the bank of the lake that laid surprisingly still, reflecting the moon and night sky.

To one side he saw a couple of guys playing beer pong on a picnic table blasting godawful club music from a speaker, somewhere further down, at another picnic table, they just sat and drank and yelled for some reason.

To the other side, he saw about the same, three different songs playing over small to unreasonably large bluetooth speakers scattered over multiple groups of students.

Not really a party though. No dancing or singing or like, having fun in any way. But it was an all boys school, and thus an all boys party, and if there was one thing mostly straight teenage boys sucked at extremely hard, it was having fun.

Somewhere distant, close to a wooden pier reaching into the lake, Quinn spotted a campfire, the only natural light illuminating the landscape, not like the plastic torches and LED lights of music boxes that changed colour at every beat.

Quinn sighed, sticking his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket. The good one, the fluffy one that made him look a little like a polar bear, the one that was way too thick for a September night but at least looked cute.

Was he supposed to bring his own drink? Where did they even get the drinks from in the first place? Wait, did the teachers know about this? And they allowed it? Quinn was suddenly very occupied with the logistics of this so-called party as he walked aimlessly into some direction.

Okay, hold on, where did the people get their music boxes? These big ones surely did not fit into people's luggage. So were they school owned? Quinn hadn't even considered the fact that this might've been an official school event organised by staff. But they wouldn't call it a party, then, right? 'Party' kind of insinuated that there was at least alcohol.

Well, but rich kids were weird and could probably get high off of anything if they pretended hard enough, so maybe everyone was just drinking water. And Quinn would ask for alcohol and then they'd tie him to some bricks and throw him into the lake for having the audacity to think about underage drinking.

"Quinn! Get over here!" See, they were already calling him to sacrifice him for his thought crimes. Ah, no, wait.

His head snapped towards the source of the calls to see Felix, sitting at the campfire he'd just mindlessly walked past, waving him over. On his lap lay an acoustic guitar, and next to him sat a couple more guys, all of which eyed Quinn as he came closer.

"The new guy, Quinn." Felix gestured at him, grinning. "Ciel's roommate"

Quinn just decided to raise his hand in greeting, replicating Felix' smile. Five pairs of eyes stared at him in awkward silence, until one looked away and three shifted, the last one keeping eye contact. That would've felt like flirting if it wasn't for the fact that everyone at this school had very bad homophobe vibes.

But he kept eye contact, and eventually, those blue eyes narrowed when he started smiling at Quinn.

"Quinn? Like Quinton Harvey?" The guy's voice was low and deep and didn't quite feel like it was natural.

"The one and only," Quinn answered, bowing a little.

"Not a chance! You look more interesting than I expected!"

"Well, thank you-"

"I'm Nicolas Benson. Call me Nico, though. If you'd like."

Felix furrowed his brows now, looking at Quinn, then at Nico, like he knew something Quinn didn't and would probably never find out, and lastly his glance fell towards the other boys sitting around the campfire, none of which looked particularly happy to be there, or to see Quinn.

"You've got fun hair," Nico noted now when Quinn sat down on one of the logs that had been propped up around the fire as seats. "How'd you get Osborne to allow this?"

"I guess he's just glad it's not pink anymore." Quinn pushed the black strand of hair out of his face, grinning. "I told him it's the best I could do, so-"

"It was pink before? That's pretty fucking cool." A smirk played its way onto Nico's lips, and Quinn was really starting to question if this couldn't actually be flirting after all. But straight guys could be weird like that, sometimes.

"By the way," he now nodded towards the other guys, acknowledging their existence for the first time. "These are my buddies. You already met him, I see?" He nodded towards Felix. "I'm surprised he picked you up, he isn't the social type usually." Felix furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes in the way you'd look at your parents when they tell lies about you to your relatives. Nico then pointed towards the boy next to him.

"That's Dev, Felix' roommate and second best painter in this school, if I may say so."

Dev, thick dark hair, brown skin almost glowing in the campfire light, had his arms crossed, his attention turned toward the flames that reflected in his deep brown eyes. He looked up once, briefly acknowledged Quinn, then stared back down. Talkative lad, for sure.

"That hunk of a guy is Isaac, he likes making statues and shit."

"I do woodworking," Isaac corrected, indeed a hunk. He was massive, skin pale like he was a marble statue himself, and built like one as well, his hands rough and littered with scars.

The guy next to him was basically the exact opposite, tanned skin, soft round features, a curly head of black hair, looked almost tiny next to Isaac.

"Milo," Nico introduced him, though deciding to leave out any further info about him. Milo just shot Quinn a quick insecure smile, and Nico moved on, gesturing towards the last boy.

"I can introduce myself, you know," he said before Nico could even open his mouth. "Zach. I'm a painter, and I study realism. Probably one of the best ones at Oakwell-"

"One of the best," Nico emphasised, and Zach pressed his thin lips together until they almost disappeared.

Zach, that was a name Quinn was fairly sure he'd heard before. Felix and Ciel had both mentioned him before, and neither of them had seemed particularly fond of him.

"That's a lot of names," Quinn joked. No, yeah, it wasn't much of a joke, honestly, he'd forgotten half of these guy's names already.

"Y'know, they're not all that important. It's fine to memorise just mine." Another point for the 'Is Nico Flirting?' counter. One that was getting suspiciously high. Was now the time to tell everyone that Quinn was still in the 'getting over a breakup' phase? How long could he really stay in that phase in the first place?

"Do you drink, by the way?" Nico didn't wait for an answer. "Milo, would you pass a beer?" Oh, well, great. Beer, the pinnacle of drinks, for straight boys at least. Quinn took the bottle offered to him regardless, took a painful sip of it and smiled, thanking Nico.

"Where do you guys get the alcohol, by the way? Like is that allowed?"

"We order a couple of crates. Staff is fine with it as long as it only happens once a year and we're civilised." Nico did a grande hand gesture, and a smile to go along. Oh, these rich kids didn't even know what it actually meant to be uncivilised, but sure, keep drinking your beer. "Now, what to do to start this very civil evening off?"

Felix tapped against his guitar, cocking his head to the side. "I was going to play the song I-"

"Nobody cares about your weird ass song, Felix," Zach complained, and Quinn already began to understand why he was the public enemy to Ciel and Felix. "We gotta play some actual music. Anyone got a speaker?"

Zach started typing on his phone, then waved it around with Spotify open as one of the other guys whose name Quinn had forgotten reluctantly pulled his backpack closer and began rummaging in it.

"I'm not listening to your shit, Zach, it doesn't even sound good on LSD," Nico groaned, and Zach's head snapped up.

"You got LSD?"

"No, you dumbass, why would I have LSD? Are you insane?"

Would be quite uncivilised of them to do drugs at a so-called party, wouldn't it?

Zach reached for the small speaker that was being held up to him, connected it to his phone and began playing some EDM song that was so incredibly regular and unremarkable that Quinn couldn't tell if it was an actual track or just part of an ad, and it blended into the background quickly.

"So, Quinn." Nico leaned forward a bit, then taking a exaggeratedly large sip from his beer bottle. "What do you do? Like, what are you into?"

Pretty boys, the colour pink, Charli xcx, handsome boys, and the universe. And guys with light eyes. Green like Shane's. Or blue like Nico's.

"Oh, not much, you know," Quinn ended up answering, because the Nico flirt counter had to rise just a little more before Quinn was willing to talk about all that. "I do like the stars, I guess. I'm a lot into astronomy."

"Ooh." Nico raised his brows, the corners of his mouth rising with them. "Felix and Dev are into that too."

"That'd be astrology," one of the guys, the one with the doe eyes, Dev, commented. "Astronomy is the science of space. Astrology is-"

"Oh, that zodiac bullshit. Hate when people switch it up, like, no, I don't give a fuck if you're a Capricorn. People get caught up in these pseudoscience scams and overlook the actual, y'know, wonders of the universe." Maybe Quinn had a slight hatred for astrology. Shane loved telling him that he was a "typical Libra" after every argument, that was kind of all he knew, and more than he wanted to know.

Nico hadn't stopped grinning, though his eyes had changed from curious innocence to something more satisfied. Quinn assumed that he'd given the correct answer then. Score. Now on to see how far he could get with this guy.

"Oh, yeah, someone finally gets me! People are always so fixated on vague abstract ideas that they end up not wanting to see the real. Isn't that right, Dev?" Nico patted Dev's back, who flinched at the touch. "I always tell you to get your head out of the stars and into the real world, that'd do wonders for your art and your brain."

Nico laughed, and Dev stared at the fire in front of him, his lips pressed together, just for his gaze to shoot up at Quinn for a second. Quinn was surprised there weren't lasers coming out of him to murder him right then and there.

"You know what," Nico continued, "I like you. I feel like we think alike."

Dev now shot another look at Quinn, a worse one, much worse, his eyes narrowed as he bit the inside of his cheek. And he wasn't the only one staring holes into Quinn now, because Zach did as well. Oh, fun. He'd made two enemies already. Why did that feel kinda... satisfying?

Yes, Quinn should've attempted to make friends at this school, find people he could hang out with and all that, but he'd already known from the beginning that finding friends among stuck up rich nerds wasn't going to be an easy task, so he'd made peace with the idea of simply not finding many friends at all.

Aside from Felix, and maybe now Nico, and perhaps one day even Ciel, he was fine with simply never having a positive interaction with anyone. He'd never been one to have a large friend group anyways, even in his old school he mostly stuck to Grace, Shane, and whoever these two introduced him to.

But finding people that couldn't stand him, annoying the shit out of rich boys for simply existing, that was intriguing. And he didn't even have to do anything, say anything, they just decided to hate him. Why try to fit in when standing out was so much more fun?

"Okay, do we wanna play something? A drinking game or anything? It's starting to get boring." Nico stretched, then crossed his arms behind his head as he eyed the group one after another. "Anyone got any party game ideas?"

"Have you ever heard of just chatting and drinking? What's up with those stupid party games y'all always wanna play?" Felix still had his guitar in his lap, leaning against it with a frown. Not a party person, it seemed like. Drinking games were a must. Get drunk first, then you can talk, preferably about all your issues or hopes or dreams or trauma.

"Bit basic maybe, but truth or dare?" Nico swiftly ignored Felix, who then continued to protest.

"Truth or Dare is never fun because all y'all say is 'oh, make out with someone', 'get locked in a bathroom with someone', 'fuck, mary, kill'-"

"That is fun," the buff guy said, "you're just a prude. Though, we don't have any girls here, so like, no use in playing."

Oh, horror, a brief reminder of heterosexuality. Come on, as if straight guys didn't also make out during drinking games sometimes. Did straight people ever have fun?

"As if it doesn't get extra interesting when it's only dudes, come on." Quinn leaned forward, a grin on his face, deciding to bring in the fun that these guys very much lacked, though he was only met with a gagging noise from Zach.

"What, you wanna watch guys kiss? You're a pervert, man!"

He shouldn't have said that. Because now Quinn had found his target. He threw his head back, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"You don't? You don't wanna see two manly sweaty guys shoving their tongues down each other's throat? Doesn't that turn you on so much, ugh-"

Laughter from Nico, loud and deep, and between it, Zach squeaking as he stumbled over his words: "Ew, what the fuck, stop with that gay shit, why would you think I'm into that, that's disgusting, stop-"

Someone else laughed, another one made gagging noises too, but that Dev guy was notably still, his face twisted in absolute disgust, and for half a second, he stared at Quinn in a way that was so full of hatred, he may as well have exploded from it. Hit a nerve, eh? Not a fan of those gays?

"You know that's totally not funny though, right?" Nico now said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. "Like don't call gay people disgusting, not a good look, mate."

"What, are you gay, or-"

"No! Dude! But maybe don't say that it's disgusting-"

"Can we just play a fucking game?" Felix interrupted, his voice much louder than Quinn had ever heard it before, almost thundering, and heads turned. Though Quinn was the one that had kind of provoked this conversation, he wasn't mad at Felix for ending it.

Was that a moment of allyship? Or more? Honestly Felix being straight would've been the greatest disappointment of all time. He was too pretty, had an insane build that was more visible when he wore his uniform, now hidden underneath a giant Nirvana hoodie, he played guitar, for fucks sake. He was the tall rockstar type that Quinn was drawn to, he was a bit like Shane even, just more gentle looking. His smile was a little softer, and even when he raised his voice it didn't sound scratchy or rough.

Fucking hell, Quinn, quit that. He was supposed to still think about Shane. It'd been only a week- exactly a week, and here he was ogling another guy, multiple even, because Nico was fine as well, and so was the woodworking dude, and even Dev, if it wasn't for him cursing Quinn with every look he threw into his direction.

They did break up, correct? That wasn't a nightmare Quinn had following all the stress? It wouldn't be the first time Quinn would dream of a breakup, though usually these dreams included other insane dream things like him transforming into a moth and eating his brother's entire wardrobe as an act of revenge.

"There's literally no use in playing truth or dare, it'd be boring as shit."

"If you just came up with dares that weren't sexual it would be much funnier in general."

"Okay, Felix "The Virgin" Murakami."

"Being horny 24/7 is not normal, actually."

"Why don't you just suggest a game, huh?"

"I already told you I don't need to play a game, I like just sitting by the campfire and chilling."

Quinn's surroundings slowly faded back in and he took a sip from his beer, just to put the bottle down again instantly, far away from him. His eyes now fixated on the campfire as they unfocused, watching the orange tongues rise and fall and dance.

Quinn had always been drawn to fire, drawn to the light like a blinded insect, fighting the urge to just walk straight into the flame. Maybe Icarus kinda had a point. If given the chance, Quinn wouldn't hesitate to fly into a giant floating ball of fire, no matter the consequences.

"Quinn?" Nico's voice snapped Quinn out of his thoughts. "Any suggestions for a game?"

"Uhm, I'm fine with anything."

"Alright. Truth or dare, then."

      You'd hope a bunch of teenage boys forced to pretend like they were all proper would have more of an idea on how to have fun. They didn't. They had one night to let it all out, but all they did was awkwardly ask bland questions while drinking brackish water.

Quinn couldn't save it. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to save it. If these heathens deserved any saving at all.

"Okay... Nico, truth or dare?"

"Truth." Again.

There'd been too many truths this evening, and most of them boring as hell, to him at least. Some of the guys had hollered and wheezed when Dev answered the question 'Did you have any flings over this summer?' with an exhausted 'I guess', then refused to elaborate. Quinn could've cared less about these guy's love lives. Except for maybe Nico's.

"Anyone got a good truth this time?"

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Quinn blurted out, his only chance to ask something relevant for him. Nico lips were pressed together, eyes narrowed for a second, then he grinned.

"Nah." Okay. Another piece of info Quinn could put on his 'Is he flirting with me?' conspiracy cork board.

"Girls don't like him for being too pretentious," Zach commented, and Nico shook his head with a sigh.

"I have to focus on my studies and wouldn't want long distance anyways. So why would I try to date right now? Makes no sense." He shrugged, took a sip from a newly opened bottle of beer. "Some people don't need a woman to validate every step they take."

"Right, because that's what Zach and Dev do for you already. And all our teachers," the woodworking guy noted, and Dev didn't react nor move at that, though Zach rolled his eyes so aggressively they might as well have fallen out of his skull.

"Can we keep playing?" Aw, come on, they'd just gotten to the 'opening up about feelings' part. "Hey, Dev, truth or dare?"

Dev snapped out of his trance, opened his mouth to probably answer 'truth', as he'd done throughout the whole night, yet before he could say anything, Zach cut him off again.

"Just say dare this time."

"I'm not taking a dare from you, Zach."

"I'll give you one." Nico grinned now, his eyes flickering back and forth between Dev, Zach and Quinn, the red glow of the campfire reflecting on his face. And, surprisingly, Dev actually slowly nodded.

"Whatever, fine. But nothing dumb, I'm not trying to make a fool out of myself." Now why did Dev glance at Quinn when he said that word?

"It'll be funny," Nico said, the grin on his face audible through his voice. "Jump in the lake."

"What? That's-" Dev furrowed his brows, his face twisting in disdain, shaking his head. "Absolutely not."

"What? But you can swim, right? So it shouldn't be a problem, it's not that bad."

"I'm not jumping in, Nicolas, forget it."

"A dare is a dare." Zach shrugged, then nodded towards the pier reaching into the lake. "Just do it, pussy."

"Honestly, it'd be pretty cool of you if you did it. Like to really break out of your shell." Nico's voice was smooth and warm, a stark contrast to Zach's scratchy one. "Y'know, if you really don't want to, then don't, I'm not forcing you, but-"

"I'll do it." Quinn wasn't sure what had hit him to say this, to raise his hand and grin, but the way Nico raised his brows now, scanned Quinn up and down (add that to the flirt counter), made him get up and take off his jacket already. "Like taking a quick bath is a big deal or anything."

"See, that's what I need. Someone fun enough to do it with no hesitation." Nico got up as well, then patted Dev's back with a smile, who only turned more sour with every passing second. "You got lucky, bud."

The lake was still and dark and absolutely not ready for what was about to hit it. Lights and stars reflected on its surface, quiet bubbles and waves drowned out by the various music boxes blasting all along the lakefront. And Quinn stood at the edge of the pier, staring right down.

He could swim, pretty well, well enough, but something about this dark mass swallowing him whole did perhaps scare him a little- No, not scare him. He wasn't scared. Quinn Harvey was never scared.

Nico had followed him to the pier, so had Zach, the big guy, and the small guy. Felix had stayed behind, as had Dev, though his stare felt as close as ever.

"If I die," Quinn said as he turned around to Nico, putting his hand on his heart, "let my story be heard. First Oakwell Scholarship student that died."

"Didn't that guy from four years ago-" The short guy said before being interrupted by the tall one.

"He survived, he's fine now."

"Oh, good."

Damn. Okay, that was some backstory Quinn didn't feel like uncovering.

"Gonna be honest," Nico said now, stepping towards the edge of the pier to stand next to Quinn, putting an arm around his shoulder. "You're fun, actually. I didn't expect that. The scholarship kids are usually... Y'know. Bit different. Bit odd. They're either nerds or stupid as shit, but you?"

Quinn was, in fact, also a nerd and stupid as shit, but Nico didn't need to know that just yet.

"It's always nice to find someone that thinks a bit more like me, you know? Someone who's... really equal."

Equal. Quinn wasn't equal to any of these guys, especially not to Nico. But he could pretend like he was. That the things that made him different also made him so much cooler. More interesting. He was a star the brightness of which Oakwell students had never seen before. And some were going to hate him for being blinded by him. Other's, though, surely were going to love him for it. Or at least respect him.

"You ready?" Nico asked, and Quinn took a deep breath, then grinned. He was born ready. So Nico pushed him.

      The lights in their room had already been dimmed when Quinn returned from that supposed party. Jumping into a lake was all fun and games (though it was less of a jump and more of a fall), until he had to actually get back out and then deal with the aftermath of being fully submerged with all his clothes on.

Quinn had ended up sitting as close to the campfire as humanly possible for another hour to avoid freezing his ass off, and at least his socks had dried in that time, but wet curls still stuck to his neck.

"The fuck happened to you?" Ciel asked when Quinn quietly shut the door behind him and tossed his jacket (now also wet, but from the inside) onto his bed.

"I jumped into the lake," Quinn said, pulling a towel out of his closet, wrapping it around his head.

"Why?"

"Truth or dare."

"Oh."

"Bet you're jealous you didn't come, huh?"

"Honestly, I'd hoped you could've maybe stayed away for a little longer."

"That's not something you say to a friend, is it?"

"Quinn." Ciel sighed, checking the time on his phone. "We're not friends. Now get ready for bed, or at least be quiet, I need sleep and you better not take that from me."

☆-☆-☆-☆

WC: 4438

we are getting into the juicy stuff.... meet The Boys. what do we think about these guys? 👀

WOOH thank you so much for reading this chapter! please vote and comment and do all that fun stuff to show me you're enjoying what i'm throwing at you (or not enjoying?????) i give you a kissie byeeeee!!!

song of the chapter:

Members Only by Nothing But Thieves