"I told Mel. I told her not to tell anyone else about you. You're safe," Iggy informed, throwing his backpack onto the bed.

Darren glanced up from his lap. "Okay." He pulled out the book from his backpack. "I finished it. Is it a series?"

"Yeah. I only have this one, though." Iggy shrugged and carefully set the book into a drawer in his dresser. "Do you know what asexual means?" Iggy asked.

"Huh? Well, sort of. I think it's like, interested in romantic… personal connection things, but not being physically attracted to a person, or being interested in sex." Darren shrugged. "It's different from pansexual."

"And what's pansexual?" Iggy had never heard of any of these, and he hadn't wanted to ask Mel.

"That's 'all'. Like you could be attracted to boys, girls, or anyone else on the gender spectrum," Darren answered, sounding actually knowledgeable about it.

"Oh. So not… kitchen pans."

Darren rolled his eyes. "Don't play that stupid. You knew it wasn't to fucking pans."

Iggy chuckled and sat back on his bed. "Did they teach you that in school?" Maybe he'd missed something in two years after all.

"No… research stuff," Darren admitted vaguely.

"For school?" Iggy wanted to take that class if that was a thing.

"No. Back when I was trying to figure some shit out." Darren turned defensively on his bed, putting his back towards Iggy. "Leave it alone."

Iggy had been trying to keep it light and joking, but it obviously wasn't going that way. Maybe was Darren… Iggy squeezed his eyes shut and wouldn't let the thought happen. He wouldn't let himself think about Darren's sexuality.

If that happened, then Iggy wouldn't be comfortable anymore. He wouldn't let himself sleep with Darren if he was too busy thinking about what Darren was, if he even was anything. Iggy set up on his bed with his sketchbook, but stared blankly at the paper for a while.

Darren came down from being defensive a few minutes later, but Iggy couldn't quite let it drop. "Mel thinks I might be asexual."

"I could see it," Darren agreed slightly.

"But is that normal?" Iggy questioned. "Are a lot of people like that?"

"I don't know," Darren sighed. "I mean, normal is whatever you want it to be. But there's a whole lot more to it. I met a girl once who was gender neutral but preferred female pronouns, and identified as pansexual but with asexual tendencies."

"That sounds… complicated," Iggy grumbled. "What's the tendencies mean?"

"It is complicated. Sexuality, I mean. And it means like…" Darren frowned in thought. "Like she's not completely asexual I think, like she could be interested in sex, but she also tends to… not be. It's confusing." Darren waved his hand. "Now you're making my head hurt."

Well Iggy's head hurt too. He didn't think there was so much to wrap his mind around. He wrote down a few of the words that Darren had listed off with the intention of looking into them. Mark came up and reminded Iggy about his online class.

Iggy groaned and went downstairs to do his homework before dinner. He was just glad it wasn't his night to clean up afterwards. "Can I go to the library?" Iggy asked. "Tomorrow after school or something. And get a library card." He'd missed reading as much as he used to, and he wanted to re-read a lot of things too.

"Maybe. Reading would have to come after homework," Karen made him promise.

"Who reads for fun?" Leslie sneered.

Iggy glared at her from across the table. "It's your turn on dishes tonight," he reminded her.

She flicked a pea at him, and Karen quickly quelled any retaliation before more food would start flying. Iggy finished eating and went back up to the room. He still had some books for school to read, and he figured that would be the rest of his night.

He had a hard time focusing though, and kept going back to re-read parts that he couldn't remember. Darren was in and out listening to music and doing who knew what else. Iggy got bored a lot, and he didn't know what Darren did for fun.

Iggy was almost done with the book when it was time for bed. He didn't have to finish the book that night, but at this rate, he might as well. He didn't care, and then he'd just be prepared for the next quiz without having to remember he didn't do the reading.

"Are you going to bed soon?" Darren asked, already in his sleep clothes. He'd changed his shirt somewhere else.

"I'm going to finish this." Iggy held up the chunk he had left to read.

Darren gave him a disbelieving look and crawled into bed. He pulled the covers up over himself to keep the light out of his eyes.

Iggy kept reading for what he could, trying to ignore that his eyes were starting to feel heavy. He was close enough to finishing the book it wasn't worth going to sleep yet.

Without realizing it though, he was being shaken awake by Darren though. Somehow his bedside light had been turned off already. "Iggy, get up."

"Is it morning?" Iggy groaned. It was still dark outside, so it wasn't time for school yet.

"No, but you fell asleep on the bed," Darren explained. "I figure you might want to move."

Iggy squeezed his eyes shut and let out another tired groan. He'd been doing fine, far as he knew. Maybe he'd woken Darren up with something though. "Thanks," Iggy muttered, rolling off of his bed and dragging the comforter down to the floor with him.

Darren chuckled and Iggy ignored him. He reached up and pulled down a pillow before curling up on the floor with his blanket. He just wanted to go back to sleep for the night.

"Poetry," Iggy sneered. "I don't want to do poetry." He glared down at the assignment sheet, and he didn't care if he was talking to himself in class. He wanted nothing to do with poetry. Too much of it was all about 'feelings', and it was nothing he wanted to share.

It was supposed to be all about the meter of the poem, but he didn't care enough to try on this assignment. He'd fake something out and hope it met most of the requirements just so he could get it done. Or maybe Mel would be good at something like this.

The class ended with the homework due the next day. With that his day was over, and Iggy went for the art room to meet up with Mel.

This time though there was an entire group of people, and Iggy almost couldn't find Mel. He was torn between running and still trying to make the bus that he'd already missed, or sticking it out. Only when he saw Mel did he finally give in and went over to her. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I told you, we need some help for the school dance. This is one of the meetings because it's crunch time," she explained. "The dance is Saturday."

Iggy scowled. "Okay… well have fun." He'd call Mark to get picked up, or maybe he could try walking home.

"Hold on, you're here. We could use all the help we could get," Mel begged. "And it's really fun. You can help me with some of the painting, and besides, you get to know the theme before the regular students do."

"I don't care about the theme," Iggy grumbled sourly. He wasn't even sure what that meant.

"It's Norse mythology," Mel said. "You know, like Thor, Loki, Odin…"

"Like from the comics." Iggy had seen enough of those.

"Well sort of, but we're going more old school," Mel said.

That did sound kind of cool, actually. "I'll help," he agreed grudgingly.

They hauled out huge pieces of butcher paper, all taped together to make massive backdrops. Everything was already drawn out for the most part, and so the painting was about to begin. Iggy was helping with some sort of tree, Yggdrasil. It involved lots of brown that Iggy was trying very hard not to get on his clothes.

Darren for whatever reason wandered by and stood over Iggy. "What's going on?"

"Painting for the school dance," Iggy informed.

"Oh, right. Huh. That's this weekend isn't it," Darren seemed to realize. "Are you going?"

"I don't know." Dances didn't sound like his thing, and the party hadn't gone too well. He imagined an official school dance had even more people.

"Do you want to go?" Darren tried again. "I mean it's pretty casual. Dress shirt and pants, not even a suit or anything."

"The last time we went to something social, I got extra chores," Iggy reminded him.

"I can keep you out of trouble," Darren said, laughing. "I'll just keep you away from… well I guess pretty much everyone, actually." He crouched down next to Iggy and stuck a finger in the pool of paint. "So do you want to go? With me?"

Iggy stalled for a second. The way Darren was asking was more like… but no. He wasn't gay. Iggy's hesitation was enough though. "Do you know if Mel wants to go too?" Darren added. "Maybe she would want to come with."

That made for three of them, which wasn't anything like that. Iggy relaxed slightly. "I'll see if she wants to, yeah."

"Okay." Darren wiped his finger off in an area that was already designated to be brown. Iggy would have killed him if it was meant to be another color.

"Are you going to help?" Mel asked, striding over with a clean paintbrush in her hand.

Darren looked up at her, and then down at the in-progress tree. "I have no idea what's going on."

"Any section that has 'brown' written in it is brown." Mel handed him the paintbrush. "We clean up at four, so we need to kick some ass. Chances are we'll be pulling an all nighter tomorrow."

"Can we do that?" Iggy asked. Now that did sound like some fun.

"Yeah, it happens every dance. Well, till midnight I mean," Mel explained.

"Hey, are you actually going to the dance?" Iggy asked.

"I was planning to. I like seeing the finished work. Are you?"

"Darren and I might go." Iggy pointed over to Darren. "But I think we need to talk to Mark and Karen about it. It's kind of last minute."

"Whose idea was it?" Mel asked.

"Darren. The three of us can go together," Iggy replied.

Mel raised an eyebrow. "Sure." She turned and walked off then, and Iggy frowned. So she still didn't like Darren that much, so then why did Darren suggest going with her?

Iggy glanced over at Darren again. "Why do you want to go to the dance?"

"I haven't been to one since my old school, and so far, the decorations seem a hell of a lot better. And it's not like I want to go alone, so it's better if I drag you along. We can suffer together."

Iggy snorted and put down another thick swipe of paint. Darren dunked his brush into the paint and started to help filling in the tree as well.