"Spot?" Racetrack could barely recognize the person at his door. The once tall, confident leader now looked more like a sewer rat than a king, with messed up hair and sunken in eyes, hunched over and slouching with a bloody nose.
"Hey, Rae." He spat back in a deep voice. Too deep, Racetrack realized. He hadn't even noticed Spot's voice lowering over the years. In his brain, they just stayed kids forever, but now there was no kid standing in front of him at all. Just a sad looking adult, the kind they'd used to see crouched down alleyways with a cigarette and alcohol on their breath, the kind Jack told them to stay away from.
Jack... Oh, now he was thinking of Jack. He missed him, they all did. But he was right to leave. David's parents had finally passed, Les took over Manhattan, Jack and David got married, and Jack was offered a job out west. They wrote... sometimes. Not often, but nobody blamed Jack- he and David had no other place to go.
Maybe Spot had no other place to go either. The former king didn't look all high and mighty anymore, after all. And after once glance at Spot, he could tell he didn't want to talk about it.
Racetrack shook his head. "Why's that a problem?"
Oh. That explained a lot. Racetrack looked down, not even wanting to know who exactly had punched Spot- because he had a feeling it was someone Spot used to be close to. "I'm sorry, Spottie."
Spot sighed. "Can I stay with you tonight? If it's not too much of a problem..."
"You're not a problem." Racetrack said softly.
"I wasn't before." Spot wiped his nose, wincing as it hurt- Hotshot had probably broken it, he punched hard. "Now everyone thinks I am."
"I don't." Racetrack grabbed Spot's hand, leading him inside. "I don't get it... everyone used to respect you. Who the hell punched you?"
"Nobody respected me, Racer. We were just stupid kids, we didn't know shit. Not a single person over there ever cared about me, I see that now." Spot's eyes watered. Were those tears? No... No, Spot Conlon- the Spot Conlon- didn't cry. He couldn't. But here he was.
"Don't say that. Please."
"Why not?" Spot's voice broke. He hated it. "They literally kicked me out at midnight- it's true. They all were waiting for this. For years."
"You don't know that... come on, let's get you cleaned up."
"Why should we? Only a matter of time before they break it again."
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