TIME WARP: Kodachrome

Josh was pleased with himself for correctly guessing that Sean liked cake enough to eat them in their entirety without help. That wasn't very healthy, but then he smoked copious amounts of marijuana and stayed up until two or three in the morning, so he wasn't exactly the model of healthy living himself.

And besides, this gave him an excuse to drag Sean home with him. "You should come visit my parents with me next weekend." He suggested, eyes wide with hope that this offer would be accepted. "My mom makes the best flourless chocolate cake, I'll ask her if she'll bake you one."

He sighed at the next question, lowering another finger. Now he only had one remaining; he was so close to losing. If his exploits in journalism hadn't been enough indication that he took his politics seriously, this surely was.

"Uhhh, last week, actually." And so many times before that, even. But it wasn't as if he remembered those arguments to discuss them; he had them, and then put them from his mind. "I was on the subway and heard these two girls talking, and they couldn't have been older than us!" He added as an aside, clearly shocked that the Democrats didn't have a monopoly on youth loyalty, "And they were making fun of President Carter and calling him useless and that he isn't doing anything for the energy crisis. So I had to defend him, because he's a good person and he's been working really hard on achieving peace between Israel and the Arabs."

Peace in Israel was a subject near to his heart, if only because it came up in temple a lot, and he felt some loyalty toward what was supposed to be his religious holy land, even though he'd never been there.

"But they wouldn't listen."

He shook his head in disappointment at the folly of other people's inability to appreciate President Carter.

Now it was his turn again, and he had to think long and hard about what sort of question to ask, because they'd covered so much of the typical nosy gossip-related questions.

"Never have I ever attended another religion's worship service."

Josh scoffed at the idea his parents would mind if Sean came home with him. "Course they wouldn't mind." He reassured the telepath hurriedly, "They love meeting my friends!" Donald and Bekah, and even sometimes Richard, had shown up unexpectedly at the Bernstein house on more than one occasion and rather than being an imposition they were invited in with delight no matter what else was going on at the time. The Bernstein family was nothing if not social.

"Besides, I've told my mom all about you." He confessed to the floor, which was suddenly quite interesting. "She's been asking when you were gonna come over anyway."

If she had any inkling that her son had a crush on the older boy she wouldn't have been nearly so pleased, but as it was she was thrilled that some nice young upperclassman was looking after her baby.

"Wow, a Quaker meeting!" Josh looked thoroughly impressed by this, because while Quakers were Christians, they had an almost mystical aura of Peace and Love, enough that he thought they ought to affiliate with the hippies and the other radicals.

With Sean's last question the game ended, and Josh dropped his arms down across the back of his chair. "Yeah, I have." He lowered his chin almost to the chair, as well, looking up at his friend unapologetically. "Yeah, I have. This one guy I went to high school with, he was very...anti-semitic." He grimaced at the memory. "But he was good at school and good with people, and he got to be the Salutatorian and he tried to hold the audience captive" Which was something Josh would have done if he'd been in that position "And he thought it was completely appropriate to give a speech accusing Bekah of bribing her way into the Valedictorian position just because she's Jewish. So I threw my hat at him and uhh there may have been yelling, but I honestly don't remember what I said. Pretty sure it wasn't coherent, though."

He had gotten in trouble for that just as much as Todd had, but he had no regrets about it.

"...So uhhh...I guess that means I lose the game, huh? So what do you get as the winner?"

"Uhh, usually I go down Sunday. I can wait til you get off Church." He usually went earlier than that, but he was well aware that the telepath was a practicing Catholic and he didn't want to make him miss Mass.

Josh's head snapped up at Sean's joke. "Of course it's all good things!" He shifted in his chair, expression defensive despite the light, teasing tone. "There's nothing not good to tell."

He continued to scowl at the memory of graduation. "They made both of us leave. Then we got lectured on interrupting. I don't know if they did anything else to him other than that," He admitted, "But I hope they did, because Bekah was extremely upset about it. She cried about it at our after party, and she never cries."

While he hesitated to say he'd ever been in love with his girlfriend, he was certainly fond of her as a friend, and that alone was enough to earn his enmity. The fact that his family was Jewish only added to his ire.

Fortunately, Sean was the telepath. If Josh had known what the upperclassman's first thought was when prizes were mentioned he might have died from a mixture of desire and embarrassment. As it was, he offered a cheerful smile before removing his headgear and handing it across his chair to the other boy. "Absolutely, I relinquish my throne to Mr. Trout. Are you gonna wear it or just leave it as a trophy?"

"NO!" Yes, absolutely. "It's okay, I don't mind going a little later. I'll just sleep in." He did enjoy sleeping in, after all, and if he told his mother he was late because Sean had to attend Mass she would understand.

"Yeah, more or less. I mean, I tried to but she was still hurt about it, you know? I don't think there was anything I could say to make her completely not upset about it." But he had taken her home with him and gotten his mother to feed her, and she'd eventually stopped crying into his shoulder.

The mood was lightened considerably, however, when Sean placed the hat upon his head, proclaiming his victory.

"I suppose that means we have to go back down, then." He was slightly disappointed, but only because he wanted to keep Sean to himself, not share him with the rest of the party. "Unless you plan on wearing it around campus tomorrow."

He slid out of the chair, running one hand through dark hair and giving the other boy another smile despite his desire to stay right where they were. "That was really fun! And interesting. You've done some cool things."