Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

The music was blaring loud in the house, intoxicated teenagers dancing close to each other while others were just flirting or talking in groups. Evan Kirkendall was known to throw the best parties ever and he was one of the only kids to have a decent stereo system which is why people from both Dulaney High School and Towson High School were there. Though some got along well, there was some rivalry between both schools. Contrary to what everyone would think, it was not between both football teams, their rivalry ended as soon as they were off the field, it was in fact between two groups of friends who simply did not like each other. Tonight was no exception. The party ended early for both groups after being kicked out by people who didn’t want them fighting around the house. The fight continued in the street and the night ended with Alex breaking his arm. After the English boy fell to the floor, letting out a yelp of pain as the bone in his arm cracked and broke, a very drunk Vinny Petrocelli delivered a swift kick to the injured boy’s stomach, making Alex loose his breath momentarily and curl a little more on himself, his uninjured arm holding his stomach. Vinny then left with the other boys from Towson High School except for Zack Merrick who had disappeared mysteriously.

After Jack Barakat, Rian Dawson and Danny Kurily had helped Alex back on his feet, the boys from Dulaney High School left on their own side, already plotting against the other group.

The next day at school, Alex confirmed to the three boys that he had indeed broken his arm. To say that the other boys were pissed would be an understatement. This is why, in Danny’s head, they had to fight harder than ever against the other group. A broken bone was more serious than a couple of bruises and cuts. So obviously, this was about to get more serious.

“Rian? You still know that Jeff guy?” Danny asked, an almost sinister look on his face.

“The one who makes bombs?” Danny nodded, smirking and a shiver ran down Jack’s spine.

“Danny, what are you planning?” The skunk-haired boy asked, obviously scared.

“We won’t kill them… We’ll just show them that we can play hard too. We just want them to be scared.” Danny explained.

“And what exactly is your plan?” Alex questioned.

“We’ll wait for a little while but I can’t tell you what we’re gonna do, I don’t want you to pussy out of this. But for now, we wait, we don’t do anything.” Danny said.

A little over a week later, nothing had been done on both sides and Danny decided that it might be the right time to do what he had planned. He had already bought the bomb from Jeff and had told the three other guys to meet him at his house around 10 ‘o clock. It was a Friday night and he knew exactly what their enemies from Towson were doing. Once his friends were there, they all got in the car, Danny telling them that the plan would be revealed when they’d get there. It was obvious to them that Danny was really excited about this plan of his. He drove to a park that was about 10 minutes away from his house and that was surrounded by a forest. He pointed to a car parked on the side of the road.

“I don’t car whose car this is, but they came in this car.” He said. “They always hang out in the forest right there and the car is far enough that they can’t see it. My plan is to blow up this car. No one’s gonna get hurt but they’ll see how far we can go.” Danny explained. “Alex, you can’t do much because of your arm so you’ll drive. We’re gonna leave the car a little further away and when we’re done, we’ll run there and you drive away as soon as we get in. Rian and Jack, you come with me, if they see us, I can’t beat them on my own.” He then drove a little further and got out of the car, leaving his place for Alex to take it.

“That’s kind of unfair though. I don’t think we should do this, I mean, it’s Zack’s car and Zack wasn’t even there when they broke Alex’s arm.” Jack tried. In his opinion, Danny was clearly taking this too far this time.

“Like I said, I don’t care whose car we blow up, what’s important is that they know what we can do. How do you know it’s Zack’s car anyway?” Danny asked, suspicious.

“I saw him driving it, obviously.” Jack replied.

“Alright, whatever, let’s go. Alex, get ready to get us out of here.” Danny said, picking up something from under the driver’s seat.

He started walking towards where Zack’s car was parked and Jack and Rian followed, nervously stealing glances at each other. They stopped when they reached the car and Danny put the box on the ground as carefully as he could, opening it.

“I’ll take care of this, you guys, make sure no one sees us.” Danny said, picking up the bomb from the box, handling it with care.

Rian and Jack were looking around nervously, their heart pounding in their chests while Danny worked under the car.

After a couple of minutes, Danny got back up. “Alright, we got one minute to run away.” He said to the two other boys as he started running. Jack and Rian ran away as fast as they could and they had almost reached Danny’s car when they heard the sound of the Zack’s car blowing up. They quickly got in the car, screaming for Alex to drive and, soon, they were far enough to not see the crime scene anymore.

“You guys have been awesome!” Danny exclaimed, still excited about it. The only reply he got was a soft “hmm” from Rian. “Oh come on you guys! That was great!” He said.

“I think we might’ve gone too far on this one. I mean, people could’ve died.” Jack said from the backseat.

“No one died Jack! I told you that the goal was to scare them. We didn’t even hurt anyone.” Danny argued.

“No, but he’s right.” Alex said. “We could go to prison for this!”

“Yeah but as you can see, I had planned it well enough to know that I wouldn’t kill or hurt anyone.” Danny said, shutting everyone up.

Later that night, Jack was in his bed, turning and tossing over, unable to sleep due to the guilt that seemed to be eating him from the inside. He needed to call Zack, to apologize and tell him that it was not his idea and that he didn’t have a choice. And even though it was past 3AM, he did it. He dialed Zack’s number on his cellphone. When Zack answered, he was angry. Not only did Jack and his gang blow up his car but now, the skunk-haired boy was waking him up in the middle of the night.
“What do you want, Jack?!” The older boy asked, annoyed.

“I’m sorry. I tried to tell Danny that we shouldn’t do this. Even Rian and Alex didn’t want to do it but we didn’t have a choice. I’m so fucking sorry.” Jack said, his tone of voice pleading for Zack to forgive him.

“But what kind of idea was that, Jack? Oh, let’s blow up someone’s car, it’ll be great! Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?!” Zack said angrily.

“I know, like I told you, this was not my idea, it was Danny’s but obviously that went too far.” Jack explained.

“Jack, the guys were starting to talk about setting fire to your houses. They’re pissed.” Zack said, a hint of fear in his voice. “I can’t believe this started as some stupid prank war, years ago. This needs to stop.”

“I know. And I don’t want to lose you for something so stupid. You mean too much to me for that.” Jack said, sighing.

“I know, it’s the same for me. I love you Jack and I don’t want to lose you but I’m afraid that if this goes on, someone will seriously get hurt, maybe even die.” Zack explained.

“Yeah, we should talk to the guys and see what happens. DO you forgive me though?” Jack asked, still feeling guilty.

“Yeah, I understand you didn’t have a choice.” Zack said. He didn’t want to forgive Jack so easily but he couldn’t stay mad at him.

“Thanks.” Jack said, finally letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “So, I’ll talk to Rian, Alex and Danny when I see them and you talk to Matt, Vinny and Grieco, alright?”

“Yeah, this needs to stop. I’ll probably talk to them Monday at school.”

“Alright, I was thinking the same too.” The younger boy said. “Anyway, I’m sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s alright. Good night, I love you.”

“I love you too. Good night.” Jack said, before hanging up.

He laid back down and, now that he knew that Zack forgave him, sleep seemed to come to him pretty easily.

On the next Monday, Jack was nervous. He knew that he needed to talk to the guys and make this stop but he didn’t know how it would all turn out. He decided to talk to them during lunchtime, this way, everyone would be together at the same time. When the time came to tell them though, it seemed to be harder than he thought.

“I think we should stop this with the guys from Towson.” He finally said, his voice shy and quiet.
“Why?” Danny asked.

“It’s just that this started as a prank war, years ago and this week-end, we blew up a car! I don’t think it was supposed to turn out like that. If this goes on, one of us will be dead by the end of the year.” Jack explained.

“You’re just a pussy, Jack! No one’s gonna die.” Danny argued.

“Well, I think he’s right.” Alex said shyly.

“Yeah.” Rian added. “Alex got his arm broken and someone could’ve gotten badly hurt Friday night.”

“Alright, so be it. I’ll leave you pussies alone.” Danny said, getting up from his seat at the table and walking out of the cafeteria.

Jack watched him walk away and when he was out of his view, his cellphone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at it, relieved to see that it was only a text from Zack.

‘Grieco wants to meet you guys at the park after school. He’s afraid that you’ll attack us again.’ It said.

‘Okay, we’ll be there.’ Jack replied.

“Thanks for bringing it up Jack.” Rian said after a while. “I wanted to say something about it because of Friday but I didn’t really know how.”

“Yeah, there might be something else. You’ll understand later I guess but Grieco wants to meet us after school at the park. He’s afraid that we’ll attack them again.” Jack said.

“Alright.” Alex said and Rian nodded.

When Jack, Alex and Rian arrived at the park, Zack and Grieco were already there. As soon as he saw Zack, a smile spread on the skunk-haired boy’s face. He ran to him and hugged him tightly, happy that they could finally tell their friends about their relationship.

“Uh, hi. What’s going on?” Rian asked confused when he saw Jack and Zack hugging.

“Did you tell him?” Jack whispered for Zack motioning towards Grieco who seemed just as confused as Rian and Alex.

“No, but tell them.” Zack whispered back.

“Okay.” He said then turned towards his friends. “Zack and I have been together for like seven months. We talked at a party deciding that it didn’t matter that we were supposed to be enemies and we just hit it off and I took him on a date a couple of days after and yeah... That’s mostly why I decided to bring up the subject of stopping all of that at lunch. I don’t want to lose him.” He concluded.

“That makes a lot more sense now. I thought it was weird that you were talking about Grieco not wanting us to attack them.” Alex said. “Where are the other guys anyway?”

“Matt and Vinny?” Zack asked. “I think they have too much pride to stop. They just want to prove that they’re better than everyone.”

“And what about Danny?” Grieco asked.

“He said we were a bunch of pussies and walked away.” Rian said.

“Alright. Can we count on you to not be a bunch of assholes and not attack us?” Grieco asked.
“If you don’t attack us, we won’t. We just figured it was best to stop this before someone dies, y’know.” Jack explained.

“Great. That’s all we wanted.” Zack said, placing one of his arms around Jack’s shoulders. Jack smiles and kissed Zack, happy that they didn’t have to live their relationship in fear anymore.

Notes

Title Credit: Heroes - All Time Low
Hey! I'm not dead! So, this one was kinda long to write 'cause I wasn't sure what to do with it... Also I'm back in college so, either it'll take more time for one-shots 'cause I'll actually concentrate on what I should be doing like I told myself, or it'll take less time because I won't be able to concentrate like what happened last semester... Whatever, only time will tell, I guess.