Kevin chose to take a different route home from school than usual. It wasn't that he didn't like Danny and Josh, it was just that they were always hanging around him, and he kind of felt like they were cramping his style. A guy had to have his space, after all. And if he'd gone home his normal route, they'd have been right there waiting for him, as usual, wanting to walk home with him, at least as far as their paths went together. So he'd ditched them. He didn't feel great about it, but he didn't feel that bad, either.
The street he went down instead was one he didn't usually get a chance to travel, and he slowed his walk to admire the storefronts as he passed—antique shops full of old furniture and ancient china, a musty-looking pet store, and a strange, dull shop that he didn't notice at first.
Kevin paused, peering into the store's windows. It was hard to tell what the place was selling; sections of their display were full of glass bottles, like a pharmacy, but there also seemed to be all manner of other things—clothes, books, and shelves and shelves of strange boxes and parcels, few of them marked. He peered up at the store's sign; "The Solution Shop. Problems Solved," it read. Very strange.
On a whim, Kevin pushed open the door to the dusty ringing of an old shop's bell. The interior was warm and pleasant, with an odor like a well-loved book. An old man shuffled around behind a counter in one corner, square spectacles perched on his elegant nose, and white hair in disarray. Kevin smiled—he loved old shops like this.
He took his time inspecting the shop's merchandise, his eyes roaming over glass bottles of snake-oil cures and exotic tinctures. While he looked, he thought about the shop's sign—"problems solved," it said. A strange offer. Maybe it was supposed to be a medicine store, like some kind of old-fashioned pharmacy, or something? But that didn't explain the clothes, or toys, or other odds and ends in the displays.
"Can I help you?" came a voice from the counter, deep and musical. The old man had stood, and was peering at him nearsightedly.
Kevin shrugged. "I'm not really looking for anything in particular," he said.
"Oh, we have plenty of that," the man answered incongruously. "Do just name anything. What problems might you be having, young man? What do you want out of life? Just name anything. Anything at all."
'What a weird guy,' Kevin thought, but he felt strangely compelled to answer the man's question.
"I want to be popular," he said out loud. This was true. He wasn't exactly hated at school—St. Michael's school for boys—but no one ever payed much attention to him. He wasn't particularly good at sports, or academics, or anything else, really, and he just didn't stand out. He'd always wanted more, wanted what he saw that the jocks had, wanted the respect and admiration of his classmates, and the flirtatious glances from the girls' school next door. In one word: popularity.
"You have friends," said the old man, his eyes fixed on a corner of the room by the ceiling. Strangely, it didn't sound like a question. Kevin thought about Danny and Josh.
"Yeah, I guess," he said dismissively. "But that's not really the same thing. I mean, that's just those two guys. And they're sort of dorks. I want to be popular; I want everyone at school to like me, not just those guys."
"Well then," said the old man, "I may have just the thing for you."
Kevin raised an eyebrow skeptically, but made his way to the counter as the old man ducked behind it, rummaging amongst his shelves. When he came out, he held a large brown glass bottle with a faded label. "This is a cologne," he said. "Guaranteed to make you more attractive to anyone and everyone. Just give it a little dab, and you're bound to notice a difference."
"Uh-huh," said Kevin, not believing a word of it. "And how much is it?"
"Tell you what," said the old man, pushing the bottle across the counter towards him. "I can see you're skeptical, so let's just call this a free trial. You take that, use it, and see if you're not a hundred percent satisfied. If you want more, you can always come back and buy a bottle, but this first one's on the house. What do you say?"
Kevin still wasn't sure he should believe the guy, but he couldn't really think of a good reason not to take it, if the guy was giving it away for free. "Sure," he said finally. "Okay." He grabbed the bottle off the counter and pocketed it.
"Just be sure to read the instructions on the label," said the shopkeeper. "And follow them to the letter."
"Will do!" Kevin promised. He started to turn, but the old man grabbed his wrist.
"Be careful," said the shopkeeper earnestly. "The illusion that is popularity can often make one realize who one's true friends are."
"Uh, sure," said Kevin, weirded out. He tugged his arm out of the man's grip and made his way out of the shop, not sure what to think.
The next morning, Kevin was nearly out the door before he remembered the bottle of cologne. He picked it up from where he'd set it on a bookshelf next to his bed, and glanced at the label, reading the directions. "Remove stopper. Place one finger over the mouth of the bottle and turn upside-down quickly once before righting. Dab wet finger behind ears or around base of neck. Do not use more than one such bottle-tilt per day." He shrugged and followed the instructions, wetting a fingertip and dabbing the stuff behind his ears. Honestly, he didn't smell anything: not from his fingers, and not even when he took a whiff directly from the bottle. It was probably just water, and the old guy at the shop was a quack, he thought.
But as he went through his day at school, his opinion started to change. People behaved noticeably differently towards him - guys he barely knew went out of their way to talk to him, his teachers were a lot nicer than usual, and the jocks even offered him a seat at their lunch table. For the first time, Kevin felt noticed—and more than just noticed, he felt liked. The only people who didn't act any differently towards him were Danny and Josh, but they were easy enough to avoid, especially with the attention of his newfound friends.
Surprised and impressed, Kevin looked more closely at the bottle's label that night. "Irresistable," it was called. "Makes the world your friend." Well, it certainly seemed to.
The next morning, Kevin put on two splashes of the stuff. If one splash worked so well, he figured, a little more would probably be even better. He wasn't wrong. That day was even better than the last. People fell over themselves to help him out—offering to carry his books, giving him the best seat at lunch, opening doors for him. People who hadn't even known he'd existed before were desperate to talk to him. Kevin felt like he was the center of the world. Even his teachers seemed to want to curry his favor. Kevin's eyes nearly bugged out of his head when his history paper was handed back; he'd gotten an A on something he'd just thrown together overnight without even reading the assignment. He'd been expecting a D, if not an F.
That night, Kevin held the bottle of cologne in his hands and stared at it in amazement. How could that shopkeeper have given him something so effective for free? Well, the real stuff was probably really expensive. He'd better make the most of it before he had to shell out the big bucks for another bottle.
The next morning, a Friday, Kevin didn't even bother with the little bottle-tilts. He poured the cologne from the bottle directly onto his skin, rubbing it onto his neck and chin, around behind his ears, and even splashing a little bit into his armpits. He felt powerful, ready to take on the world, as he made his way to school.
He noticed the effect immediately, as soon as he walked into the building. Students and teachers walking down the hall stopped to stare at him as he passed by, and some even turned to follow him. Kevin laughed to himself. By the time he got to the door of his homeroom, he had a substantial crowd of around a dozen people following him. Kevin ducked into his classroom, expecting the crowd to disperse, but to his surprise, they followed him inside.
His first sense of alarm came when he sat down in his seat, and the crowd converged around him. It wasn't just students, but several teachers too that had followed him into the classroom. More students were filing in for homeroom, and as soon as any of them entered the room, they seemed immediately drawn towards him. Kevin was surprised and disconcerted to see the worshipful, glazed looks on their faces.
It was one of the teachers—Mr. Carlson, his history teacher—that first reached out towards him. The man's hand fell on his shoulder and began to pet it almost hypnotically, as though he was amazed that Kevin actually existed. Kevin tried to draw back from the touch, only to find that one of the bolder students behind him had reached forward as well, and was touching his arm.
"What's going on?" came a voice, as Mr. Jenkins, the homeroom teacher, walked into the room. The bell rang. "That's the bell," said Mr. Jenkins. "Everyone take your s..." he trailed off as he caught sight of Kevin, and came to join the crowd.
"I'm sorry Mr. Jenkins," Kevin tried, "I don't know what-" but at that moment, more hands began to reach forward, petting his hair, his face, and his arms. One hand slipped under his shirt and began to feel along his ribs. Kevin scowled and pushed the hand away, turning to see who had done it, only to have someone else do the same thing from the other side as soon as his back was turned.
"Hey!" he protested. "Stop that!" But no one seemed to be listening. Now at least three different people had their hands up Kevin's shirt, fondling his bare skin. One hand rose up and pinched at Kevin's nipple, and he yelped at the unexpected pain of it.
This sound seemed to be the cue for everyone to move in. Suddenly the press of bodies drew in tighter, and it seemed as though everyone was touching him at once. Hands were all over him, under his shirt, lifting it, raising it over his head, slipping down into his pants and underwear. Someone's fingers undid the button of his jeans and pulled down the fly while others yanked the fabric down around his hips. The mob helpfully lifted him, allowing the hands to slide the fabric down his legs and over his ankles, taking his shoes and socks with it as they left him completely naked.
Kevin tried to open his mouth to yell, to protest, but as soon as he did so the hands were there as well, fingers feeling his tongue, his teeth, the insides of his cheeks.
The hands moved him, lifting him up and splaying him face-down on the flat surface of his desk, holding him down against the cold wood. Kevin tried an inarticulate cry for help, but the sound was muffled by the wall of bodies around him, and then drowned out by the sound of the morning announcements droning into the room over the loudspeaker. Both voices were ignored. Instead, all kinds of hands—the smaller, nimble fingers of his classmates, and the larger, callused palms of his teachers—roamed over his skin, petting, pinching, caressing.
One of the larger hands trailed down his spine, fingers smoothing lovingly over each ridge of vertebra, before ending at his tailbone and squeezing his buttocks. Another hand, smaller, moved in under the first and began to rub at the cleft between his cheeks, massaging it, tenderly groping at the flesh. Fingertips pushed at his anus, pressing down with an almost obscene rhythm, fingers pressuring the ring of muscles, not entering him but teasing as though about to.
Up around his head, hands cupped his face, threaded through his hair, and tugged lightly at the soft, curly blond locks. Fingers continued to explore his mouth, petting the wet orifice and exploring it as though mesmerized. One of his classmates jostled forward slightly, the crotch of his pants right in front of Kevin's face, and Kevin could see by the taut fabric that the boy was hard. With growing panic, his eyes roved the bodies around him, only to discover that all the men were hard, their erections straining through their pants as though trying to reach him. The closest classmate took another step forward and rubbed the bulge in his pants against Kevin's cheek. Kevin could smell the boy's musk even through his jeans.
Kevin began to struggle in earnest, but the myriad hands held him down as though it were nothing. Over his protests and squirming, the touches continued systematically, unmoved by Kevin's frantic attempts to escape. Another hand seemed to be vying with the first for access to his butt, and the first moved over reluctantly. Kevin's entire body jerked as a pair of wet fingers came into contact with his anus, lining themselves up with obvious intent.
These fingers pushed in an identical rhythm to those before, but their wetness meant that friction no longer stopped them at a mere pressure against his entrance. Instead, with a little pushing, these fingers slipped inside him, crooking and feeling around his insides, exploring him like all the other hands.
Kevin felt another touch of warm flesh against his side, somehow subtly different from the hands, and craned his head as much as he could to look behind him. One of the students had undone his pants and pulled down his underwear just enough to allow his penis to poke out from his fly. He was rubbing his half-erect length against Kevin's side, apparently reveling in the slide of skin against skin. Moments later, others were doing the same. Of the roughly thirty people in the crowd surrounding Kevin, at least twenty of them had their cocks out and thrusting against Kevin's skin.
This included the classmate in front of Kevin's face whose cloth-covered length had been pressed against Kevin's cheek. Freed from its confinement, the boy's penis rubbed lovingly against Kevin's face, smooth against his cheek. Soon another penis joined it, rubbing against his other cheek. And as the principal finished the morning announcements and the bell rang for first period to begin, the fingers in his mouth held his jaws open wide so that another penis could slip between his lips.
The first period bell meant most of the kids from homeroom were supposed to leave, to move on to their first period class. But no one moved; the fingers delving into his anus continued their exploration, the cocks surrounding him continued to rub against his body, and the boy in front of him began to thrust into his mouth, causing Kevin to gag and bringing tears to his eyes.
More students filed into the room for their first-period English class. But instead of taking their seats or even questioning the mob in the center of the room, they joined the crowd, each quickly pulling their cocks from their pants. Soon there was not a single man in the room without his penis exposed to the open air, and most of the naked members had some form of contact with Kevin's flesh. Some men rubbed their cocks in his hair, others pinned their members under his armpits in search of any warm, moist cavern in which to thrust. Still others grabbed his fingers and curled them about their own phalluses, moving his hands back and forth across their sensitive flesh.
The fingers inside him continued their exploration, but apparently some of the people behind him were not content with granting this privilege to only one man, and suddenly another set of moist fingers belonging to another hand entirely also joined in, slipping in beside the first pair and scissoring, opening him up.
A third hand joined soon thereafter, and then a fourth, until eight fingers were pumping into him with uneven rhythms. Then nine, as one hand added a third finger, and ten, as a second hand did as well.
Mr. Jenkins, who had been thrusting into one of Kevin's armpits, was the first to come. The first pulse of the warm, stick spray hit Kevin in the side of the jaw, and the second on his cheek where it was distended by the cock inside his mouth. The seed was soon smeared over his skin by another man's member as it rubbed against that same cheek.
As Kevin's face burned with shame to the tips of his cock-filled ears, several of the fingers left his asshole. Kevin had little time to process this before the remaining fingers—it felt like at least half of them—spread him open to either side and someone began to shove his cock into the distended opening.
Even as the anonymous man's member speared him, however, the fingers in his anus did not withdraw. They continued to hold him open and, as the man finished seating himself and began to thrust, pulled against the walls of his rectum, pushing into him with each pulse of the man's cock. Shortly, the other fingers rejoined them, filling him up, making it feel as though the cock inside him was covered in strange ridges that stroked at his insides.
The man in Kevin's mouth came long and hard. Kevin had never tasted a man's semen before, and the salty, bitter taste gagged him as it flooded against his tongue and down his throat. The man had barely withdrawn before another cock had taken his place, and the thrusting into Kevin's mouth began once again.
Now the men around him began to come in earnest. All over his body Kevin felt splashes of semen, points of liquid warmth that appeared in scattered clusters and dripped down his sides. Hot splashes hit the sides of his face, his hair, his back, arms, sides, buttocks. He felt it pool in the small of his back, and drip down over his temples. Each time a man came, he was jostled out of the way, and another took his place, beginning the thrusting all over again. With the influx of students from the first period class, there were now over forty people in the room, and no piece of Kevin's flesh was left alone for long.
The man in Kevin's ass came, and the fingers pulled him open once again to receive another. Three rounds of this ensued, cocks spurting one after another to fill his anus with cum, as the fingers continued to massage his insides. Finally, when the third withdrew, Kevin felt his body being shifted. The cock in his mouth, the fourth such one, was regretfully withdrawn as Kevin was pulled away.
This reprieve did not last long, however. Kevin managed to catch a glimpse of a teacher he did not recognize sitting on the edge of one of the other desks before he was turned around, back to the man, and impaled on the teacher's cock. Kevin groaned as the length slid into his already abused opening, unseen fingers once again reaching in and pulling him open to allow him to accommodate the massive intrusion. The crowd groaned in sympathy, and another man—this time one of Kevin's classmates, stepped forward. Dozens of hands grabbed his legs, pulling them up and apart, as the new boy—a jock Kevin knew called Randy—positioned his own cock at Kevin's entrance, beside the obscene stretch of flesh already splitting him. The fingers delved inside Kevin, pulled, stretched, and maneuvered the pliant flesh over the tip of Randy's head, giving him just enough purchase that a firm shove seated him inside Kevin alongside the teacher. Together, the two men began to thrust once more, fucking Kevin at the same time, while the hands pulled Kevin's upper torso to the side, returning his mouth the cock which it had left bereft moments earlier.
This new system seemed very popular. Kevin's anus was so tight with the pressure of two cocks at once that the men inside him came rapidly. It seemed to Kevin that he had barely been set down on their cocks before one of the men had come inside him and he was being lifted once more, shifted around, to allow a new man access to his succulent orifice.
In the midst of the constant shifting, stretching, and impaling, others continued to come in his mouth and generally about his person. His skin was soon coated with a fine sheen of cum and sweat, and he had swallowed so much of the stuff that his stomach roiled with it. His face in particular had a rather thick crusting of seed, and Kevin kept his eyes closed rather than risk the invasive burning of dripping liquid, or an unfortunately-aimed shot. It also helped him to shut out the sight of the hungry cocks around him as they molested his body, although the lack of visual only accentuated the painful pressure of the thrusts that split his anus.
By the time the bell for second period rang forty minutes later, Kevin's asshole was so flooded with cum that each new cock slid in with barely any trouble. They'd shifted his position again; now he was lying on top of one of the men fucking his ass, while another stood behind him. This gave much easier access to the men fucking his face, who came with increasing regularity.
Kevin heard the bell ring with something like dread, his heart rate speeding up as the door began to open once more. Second period, however, was the time of day when his friends Danny and Josh had class in this particular room, and Kevin was startled to hear their voices—the first he'd heard since the hellish orgy had started—cry out in bewilderment.
"What the f- Kevin?! Holy shit man, what's going on? Hey, get the fuck away from him! Get the f-"
Kevin opened his eyes to see Danny and Josh, horrified expressions on their face, attempting to push their way through the crowd. The crowd, however, was having none of it. Though they weren't violent about it, they merely retaliated to Danny's and Josh's shoves by administering shoves of their own, knocking the boys back. The two young men, slight for high school juniors, were no match for a crowd of such a size. Kevin found the energy to wrench his head off of the cock in his throat long enough to yell, "For fuck's sake, call the cops! And don't let anyone else in the room!"
This was all he had time for before his mouth was gently but firmly shoved back down onto the cock in it had been servicing, his communication cut off. But the boys did as they were told; Danny went outside to stand guard in front of the door while Josh locked the classroom from the inside and dialed 911 on his cell phone. Past the muffling effect of layers of bodies around him and cocks thrusting up into the shell of his ears, he managed to make out the words "gang rape" and "quickly" and the school's address in Josh's frantic, high-pitched voice.
The five minutes it took the police to arrive was long enough for the man fucking his mouth and both men in his ass to finish and be replaced. Several students had managed to get into the room before Josh and Danny had sealed it off, and Kevin wouldn't be surprised if there were fifty people in the room now—almost more of a crowd than the classroom could handle. As nearly as he could tell, all of them except the most recent had already come in him or on him at least once, many of them more often.
The loud banging on the door was clearly audible even to Kevin, as was the call, "Police! Open up!" Though he couldn't see it past the bodies, Kevin could clearly picture Josh running to the door, unlocking it to let the officers in. Kevin strained to see the three uniformed men as they pushed their way into the press of bodies, until they stopped at the sight of him, their expressions stunned.
After a few silent moments, one of them picked up his radio, pressing the button. There was a loud beep, and static. "Base, this is Montgomery. Acknowledge."
"This is Base. We hear you."
"The situation is not critical, but I think the two new rookies—Tanner and Checkis?—should get down here. I think this will be good training for them. Over."
"10-4, Tanner and Checkis on their way. Out."
The officer put away his radio, and Kevin felt any hope he might have had sink down into the depths of his stomach as the officers began to undo their flies. With a feeling of despair, he felt hands tugging in his hair, wrenching his head down to take Officer Montgomery's cock into his mouth. The other two nameless policemen took their places in the circle around him, rubbing their cocks against his hips while they waited in line to do his ass.
Five more minutes later there were sounds of a scuffle outside as Danny attempted to stop the two new police officers from coming into the room and failed. Tanner and Checkis joined the fray.
These two officers were not a good addition to the group—they were creative individuals, and it wasn't long before they made use of their handcuffs. With his wrists cuffed together behind him, Kevin's palms were a ready-made receptacle for Officer Tanner as he straddled the young man's back, thrusting into the immobilized hands.
Meanwhile, Checkis stood by Kevin's rear, watching as another standing officer thrust with abandon into Kevin's asshole, his cock scraping against that of the man lying under Kevin, also penetrating him. After a few moments of listening to Kevin's quiet whimpers as the two men fucked him, Checkis began to move. Kevin started as fingers pried into his already over-filled asshole, stretching it even wider. He tried to struggle, but he was horribly weakened, and could barely make even a token protest.
Still the fingers delved into him, and then started stretching him, widening him, until it hurt so bad that he screamed around the cock in his throat, as Officer Checkis began to push the end of his night stick into Kevin's anus beside the two cocks. The instrument was at least as wide as the cocks themselves, and much longer, and Checkis shoved it in deep without mercy. The smooth wood slid easily against the cum-soaked flesh of Kevin's rectum, pushing deeper and deeper inside him until over a foot of the dark wood was lodged inside. The men in Kevin's anus groaned at the extra tightness of the stretch, and came.
The night stick remained inside Kevin from that point on. Eventually, as the second period wore into third, a second stick was added, and Kevin felt himself bleeding from the unnatural strain. They switched his position again, handcuffing him spread-eagle between four desks, the hands ramming the nightsticks sharply over and over into his anus during the adjustment, until the crowd could settle back in and a pair of cocks join the sticks once more.
Third period wore into fourth, and fourth into fifth as the crowd fucked him over and over. Some of the older men, the teachers and the police, took a while between releases to become worked up again, but the forty-some high school boys, with the exuberance of their youth, continued on like machines. Some of them came four or even fives times with barely a break, switching from his mouth to his armpit to his anus to his hair almost without pause. Kevin passed out from weakness and pain halfway through fifth period, only to wake up in the sixth period to men still fucking him just as earnestly.
Danny and Josh had at least done their job well, and kept anyone else from entering the room, so there were no new tormentors at the ringing of each bell—although Kevin wasn't honestly sure if they would have even fit in the room. By the middle sixth period, the eerie silent fascination seemed to be beginning to wear off, and the men started talking to each other.
This was almost worse, and Kevin did his best to block out the conversation that filtered down to his ears:
"Oh man, his ass is so amazing. I think I'm gonna want it again in a second."
"Yeah, I know, but also, how soft is his hair? God, I just want to come in it over and over. Maybe I'll rub another one off into it while I watch you fuck him. It's so hot, with his ass all stretched like that."
"You think he could fit another night stick in there? I mean, the cops still have a couple they're not using."
"Nah, look how wide he's stretched. He can barely manage that much. Isn't it awesome though? It's like he's got four cocks in him at once. Only Kevin, man. Only Kevin."
"How late can you stay to keep fucking him tonight? I've got football practice, so no one's expecting me home until five. I plan to stay right here and fuck him the extra two hours."
"Oh man, you're lucky. Nah, I gotta catch the bus home at three. Put a couple loads in his mouth for me though, 'kay?"
"Sure, of course. I'll have his sweet little mouth swallow a couple extra loads just for you. And I'll make sure he knows it's from you, too."
"Sweet. Thanks, man."
And so it continued. Sixth period became seventh, and seventh the final eighth. Tears of relief flowed down Kevin's face when the large majority of the students filed out at the final three-o'-clock bell, grumbling as they did so. All that were left were four teachers, the five police officers, and about half a dozen students. If he'd had any energy left by that point, Kevin might even have been able to struggle free, but they saw to that eventuality by keeping him cuffed at all times—the spread-eagle position seemed to be a favorite, although this time it was face down.
For two more hours he was raped, the remaining men growing creative as the crowd size dwindled. The older men were not as resilient as the students, and so when no one was available to occupy his anus, they filled it with all five of the policemen's night sticks. One teacher had a blast rocking the wooden sticks into his anus, thrusting with a quick, efficient rhythm, as Kevin's body spasmed on the ground. Another time, the officers seemed to delight in shoving the barrels of their pistols inside him, fucking him with their guns while Kevin remained stock still, too scared to move even the slightest inch, lest one of the firearms go off.
Finally the last of the students and teachers departed at five, leaving only the police officers. Kevin prayed for them to leave, but such a decision did not seem universally agreeable.
"We could keep him in the cells, let the night shift fuck him," argued Checkis.
"Yeah," seconded Tanner. "We could even get the drug dogs in on the action. I'm sure Duke would love to tie a knot in that amazing little ass."
"Tie a what?"
"That's what dogs do, when they fuck. They get, like, this big lump in their cock that goes into the bitch and keeps them tied together for hours. Don't you think this little bitch would love that? Having a big ol' goose egg-sized ball shoved up his ass?"
"Yeah, but what're we gonna keep him there for? It's not like he did anything wrong."
While they argued about what to do with Kevin, the janitor came into the room. The officers, momentarily distracted, laughed as the man was overcome by Kevin's strange attraction. The old man—gray-haired and missing most of his teeth—shoved the long handle of his pushbroom up Kevin's ass and fucked first the boy's mouth, and then his anus in tandem with the broom handle, while the policemen looked on. They even helped out by thrusting the broom handle viciously in and out of Kevin's anus when the janitor moved back to Kevin's mouth.
Finally, after the janitor had gone, even the cops seemed to lose interest in Kevin. They uncuffed him and left him sprawled on the classroom floor while they made their way out of the school and back to their station.
Delirious with pain and completely unable to move, Kevin lay still until, to his surprise, he heard the soft voice of Danny by his ear.
"Come on man, we need to get you to a hospital or something."
Danny lifted him up, throwing one of Kevin's arms across his shoulder, while on Kevin's other side, Josh did the same with Kevin's other arm. Carefully, gently, they hoisted him to his feet and helped him limp his way to the door.
"No hospitals," Kevin rasped, shaking his head. "Just get me home."
"Sure thing man," said Danny. He held Kevin upright while Josh went and retrieved Kevin's clothes. As they cautiously dressed him, Kevin felt an unbearable surge of gratitude towards them, his true friends. They'd kept him as safe as they could, they'd waited for him, and above all, they were not judging him. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes as Josh's arm returned to his shoulders.
"Come on Kev," said his friend. "Let's get you out of here."
When he had recovered enough to look for it, Kevin was completely unable to locate the shop that had sold him the cologne. The bottle itself he'd poured down the toilet as soon as he'd gotten home. Though he forever harbored a grudge against the man who had sold it to him, he had to admit that he'd realized who his true friends were, and in the end, he was the better for it.