#SamGabeHSAU -

Chuck Shurley is the editor-in-chief of the Lawrence Lion, the high school's newspaper. Everything about Chuck screams integrity and honesty and goodwill. There's not a malicious bone in his body. His girlfriend, Becky, is constantly telling him that's why he'll never make it in the writing world. "You have to be vicious to be a journalist," she says. "You have to be willing to write those things that nobody else is going to write."

"Becky, you make it sound like I've got a Watergate scandal hiding under my bed," Chuck complains. "This is a high school. Nothing happens here."

"This is a high school," Becky parrots. "Everything happens here."

"I know what you're thinking," Chuck warns her. "We're supposed to report on official happenings. Not breakups and fistfights."

"You're just chicken," says Becky. "You're afraid to get yourself in trouble by admitting you were at that party."

Chuck hides his head in his hands. "I'm not writing anything that's going to get anyone arrested!"

"You're chicken," Becky repeats. "Chicken, Chuck!"

And then she stops, delighted at her own cleverness. She tries out the new word she's invented - "Chucken" - but it fails to catch on.

-

What does this have to do with Sam and Gabriel? Well, not a hell of a lot, at first. Except for maybe that Sam tends to read the Lion when he's done with his homework afternoons in the auditorium. Most of the time Sam sits on the piano bench, using the keyboard cover as a desk; sometimes he sprawls on the floor just below the stage where the orchestra sits during performances. Today it's the latter, and he's got his math textbooks open, sheafs of handouts sticking out of every other page like anarchist bookmarks

"How can you read that tripe?" Gabriel asks, peering over the edge of the stage. Gabriel does most of his work on the stage, sprawled out on his belly, looking up every so often to announce his train of thought to the audience-that-isn't. Sam cocks his head and rolls his eyes and endures sudden spontaneous monologues about the sine of X or the Chinese immigrants who built the nation's railways, then goes back to what he's doing. Whatever helps them learn.

(In this way it's much the same as it's been between them since before they got together. They hang out, enjoy each other's company, and once work is done, if they get a chance, they'll talk, or kiss, or end up down below the first row of seats with their shirts hiked up and their lips swollen. They still go out on dates, too, but this is their time to put away all those sorts of expectations and just be themselves.)

Sam answers Gabriel's question with a "It's interesting," he says. "Besides, it's good to know what's going on in the school."

"Why?" Gabriel worms his way up to lean his head off the edge of the stage, looking directly down at Sam. "It's all about school board meetings and dumb-ass pep rallies. You don't even go to them."

"All the more reason to know what happened," Sam says. "In case I've missed something important."

"You know who's missing something important?"

Sam looks up at him. It's sort of bizarre at this angle, his face is craned up toward the ceiling and there's a Gabriel-face hovering there. "Who?"

Gabriel-face gives a big smile. "Get up and I'll tell you."

Sam rises to his feet and Gabriel reaches out, looping his arms around Sam's neck. "The rest of the world," he says. "They're missing out on us."

Even though Gabriel's on his belly like a slug, propped up only by his hands around Sam's shoulders, he still kisses like a master. Sam sighs into it. Then says, "You're melodramatic."

Gabriel smirks at him. "You noticed."

"Maybe you should join the paper," Sam suggests, hoisting himself up onto the stage so he can sit next to Gabriel (and so Gabriel can roll over, going from beached whale to puppy in 0.2 seconds.) "Write a gossip column."

"Ff, I have my extracurricular already," Gabriel says, and pats the stage. "Maybe you should join. Write an advice column."

Sam snorts.

"Dear Sam," Gabriel says, "I am the editor of a school paper, but my paper sucks. How do I liven it up? Signed, Frustrated Writer With a Premature Goatee."

Another snort from Sam. "Dear Frustrated," he says, "Go to the next school board meeting and start a controversy over something. Say, condoms in school. Or dirty text messages sent between two teachers. Then report on it."

Gabriel laughs. "And you think I'm the dramatic one."

"I've just seen too many movies," Sam says.

But in the next few days he finds himself penning an editorial in his head. And then a movie review. And he starts to wonder.

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