Emerson woke up to absolute chaos. He wasn't sure what was going on but it seemed like the house had turned into a war zone while he'd been asleep. There was banging and screaming and Zee was laughing maniacally. He sighed and stretched his arms out and started to push himself up off the bed to investigate the loud noises coming from somewhere in the house. The laughter was getting closer. Just as he sat up his door flew open and he was tackled back down onto the bed. He opened his eyes to find Zee sitting on his chest, grinning mischievously.

"Hi, Em!" Zee chirped. "I love you, best friend! Save me again, please?" The flamboyant, hyperactive boy grinned down at him.

Emerson pushed him off and sat up so he could breathe. Then stared at his roommate in confusion. The smaller man buried himself under Emerson's bedding, giggling quietly, as another figure appeared in the doorway.

Emerson turned to see Dresden standing in his bedroom doorway, with a murderous look on his face, his hazel eyes flashing dangerously. The tall blonde man appeared very disheveled and out of breath, and was for some reason soaking wet.

"Uh.... do I want to know what happened?" Emerson asked him cringing.

"Where is he?" Dresden bellowed. "I just heard him. The little shit rigged the back door so whoever opened it got water dumped on them."

Zee popped back up out of the large pile of blankets, giggling madly. "I tried to warn you, Denny!" He crowed, not the least bit apologetic, "It was supposed to get Lacey! It was payback for the fucking spiders!" He fell back onto Emerson's bed and put his hands over his face with a groan. "Now I have to come up with something else!" He whined. "You've ruined everything, you big oaf!"

Three weeks previously Lacey had went out and bought as many fake spiders as she could find and covered Zee's bed in them. The 19 year old had screeched so loudly the neighbor had called the police, stating someone was being murdered there.

The two took turns playing pranks on each other. Every now and then one of the other boys ended up caught in the middle of their silly antics. Neither Emerson nor Dresden particularly cared for the stupid pranks the other two came up with, but it kept Zee and Lacey entertained enough to leave them out of it usually.

"Don't call me Denny, you little ass! Lacey isn't even home! She went to work an hour ago, moron!" Dresden yelled.

Emerson looked back and forth between his friends, not fully awake and very perplexed. "Wait. What time is it? I work at 4."

"Uhm...." Zee replied uncomfortably.

"Your boss called a while back. I told her you weren't feeling well and you were asleep, but you'd be there this evening for your shift. She said you didn't need to come in tonight but that you needed to call her when you woke up." Dresden informed him. "I was going to wake you up after I had a cigarette but I got distracted by the munchkin."

Emerson immediately panicked and ran downstairs. He grabbed his phone off the charger in the kitchen and dialed his bosses number, a pit of dread in his stomach.

"Hi, Emily. It's me, Emerson. My roommate said you called earlier? I'm so sorry I wasn't awake." He said when she answered.

"Yeah... hey." She said. "I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go. If you could bring your uniform in this evening that'd be great. Your last check will be in the mail. We've just had too many complaints and this isn't working."

Emerson hung up without responding. He had known this was coming. He wished he'd been able to find another job first. He wasn't sure how he was going to pay his portion of the bills. He turned the phone off, not wanting to deal with anyone else who might call him, and trudged dejectedly back up the stairs to find his roommates still bickering in his bedroom. As soon as he walked in they fell silent.

"I guess I'm unemployed." He told them quietly. He shrugged his shoulders, knowing no one was going to be surprised by this. If they'd felt there was any chance of him having a job after tonight they wouldn't have let him sleep so long, he reasoned.

Dresden shrugged. "Its cool dude. We've got you covered for now. I'll text Lace, she gets off at 10. I'm off and so is Zee. Since we're all gonna be here maybe we can do something tonight, get your mind off it and have some fun. It's been a while"

"Yes!" Zee yelled, the argument from moments before already long forgotten. "We haven't done anything in fucking ages! I never see any of you, like ever, and we freaking live together" he threw his hands out flamboyantly to gesture at the other two men and fell to his knees on the floor "I miss you guys!"

"....... you're ridiculous, Munchkin." Dresden laughed.

"Stop calling me Munchkin, Denny! I'm not that short!" Zee whined loudly. 

"Sure. Just as soon as you stop calling me Denny, Munchkin."

Emerson sighed as their petty bickering resumed, knowing none of them were going to leave him alone tonight, especially once Lacey was informed of their plans. "I need a ride to the pizza place first. I have to turn in the uniform."

"Lacey has the car. Text the manager and tell them you're bringing it tomorrow, or we can walk down there if you really want to." Dresden told him. Neither Zee nor Emerson drove. Zee's attention span was just too short. He couldn't concentrate long enough to pass a driving test. And Emerson just couldn't afford his own car. The Edwards' siblings shared Dresden's car. If Dresden was working,

Lacey either rode her bike or walked since the college she attended was near by and her job was at the library on campus.

The three decided to wait until the next day to return the uniform. Dresden went downstairs to find food and texted his sister about the plan for that night, leaving Zee and Emerson in the disaster Emerson called his bedroom. Lacey would be back in about three hours.

Emerson looked around his room, disgusted with himself that it had gotten so bad. He walked around, slowly picking up his old clothes. He heard movement behind him and turned to see Zee was still sitting on his bed, rocking back and forth and humming quietly to himself. He was now surrounded by Emerson's drawings, slowly organizing them into piles.

Emerson thought about when he had met all his friends. Lacey had been first. He had been walking down the hallway, trying to find his English class. She had literally run right into him in her hurry to get to the same class. The petite blonde girl insisted on showing him the entire school, since they were both already late anyhow, and they never made it to the classroom. In fact, at one point they had even been on the roof. They had become friends very quickly after that, and soon after, Dresden had become his friend as well. Lacey's older brother had met up with them at lunch and Lacey had introduced him excitedly, insisting they were all 'besties' from that point on. Both boys had looked at her like she had two heads and Dresden had reminded her that they were stuck with each other, like it or not, being siblings. He then told Emerson to save himself while he still could and run far, far away. Emerson now smiled to himself at the thought.

Dresden had watched out for Emerson and Lacey as much as he could until he graduated at the end of that year, kept them from doing anything too stupid and drove them where they needed to go. When Dresden had moved several hours away for school, he had joked that the town needed someone new to protect the town from Lacey and assigned Emerson the job. Emerson had looked up to Dresden from day one and thought of him as the older brother he'd never had. He envied the siblings relationship in the beginning, wishing that any of his three sisters had cared about him even the slightest bit.

Zee was another story altogether. Emerson and Lacey had been walking back to her parents' house from the Halloween festival that their high school held every year. They had decided to go simply because it was their last year, and had left early because the entire thing was lacking. The 'festival' consisted of three vendors and a couple terrible games. The gym hadn't even been decorated. They had walked a different route than they usually would, wanting to see all the decorations around town. Even if the school wasn't great at celebrating Halloween, the rest of the town was. Halfway home that night, Lacey had stopped and told him she could have sworn she heard crying. She had grabbed him by the hand and dragged him back, retracing their steps past an old alley, where they had definitely heard someone crying quietly. When they found him, Zee had been terrified. He was curled up in a ball, freezing and covered in blood. His parents had thrown him out without anything to protect him from the weather. Emerson had taken off his jacket and put it on the small boy. Then he spent the next two hours convincing the frightened boy that neither of them would hurt him, that they would take him somewhere safe. He then had carried the boy on his back the entire way back to Lacey's house because the poor kid hadn't even had shoes, and it was snowing. Later that evening they learned that Zee had endured years of abuse, never discovered because he had been homeschooled. The boy had absolutely no concept of how the world worked. He wasn't permitted to leave home except to go to the church his family belonged to. His parents had found out that he was gay, beaten him bloody and literally thrown him out the door. Mrs. Edwards had gone to the courthouse the following morning, and had taken the boy back to his parents' house with guardianship papers. His parents had signed the papers and told her never to bring him back. They no longer had a son.

Zee interrupted Emerson's thoughts. "Whatcha thinkin' about, Em?" He asked softly. "You looked sad."

Emerson smiled at him. His friend had changed a lot in the last few years. "You, little brother. I was just thinking it's good to see you happy. Even if you are a pain in the ass." He replied.

Zee grinned back at him. He was also deeply worried for his friend. This side of Emerson made him uneasy, reminded him of his mom. He desperately hoped their plans for tonight would help shake Emerson out of whatever had its claws in him.