---

"Dick!" Cassidy yelled at the top of his lungs, sounding like a schoolgirl who just saw a spider.  

"What?" Dick shouted back through the wall separating their rooms, sounding annoyed and just a little bit concerned.  Beaver hadn't called for him like that since they were kids.  When he used to have those nightmares he refused to talk about.

"Do you notice anything um...dif-different this morning?" He was stuttering.  Actual, honest to god stuttering.  He hadn't stuttered for years.  This wasn't good.

"Let's see.  You're weirder than usual."  

Cassidy rolled his eyes, but continued the conversation.  He would ignore the sarcasm for now.  He had more pressing matters to address at the moment.

"Tell me I'm dreaming."

"Dude, you're dreaming."

"Fuck. No, I'm not."

"How would you know?"

"Because I just pinched myself and it hurt." 

Cassidy groaned as his brother promptly burst into laughter in the next room.  Cue the "Cassidy is a wimp" remark now.

"God, you're such a wuss."

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Getting dressed.  What is up with you, Beave?  I've come to expect weird from you, but this is getting annoying."

"I can't go to school."

"You're ditching?  Way to go, my man!  Finally my devilish ways rub off on you."

"Your devilish ways?  More like demented ways."

"Don't hate the player, hate-"

"The game?"

"Well...yeah.  You're seriously skipping bro?  What about that test you're been bitching about for the past week?"

"Fuck.  I'll just have to write it later."

"Beaver?"

"Yeah?"

"Unlock the door you dork."

"I can't."

"Come on, it's perfectly normal"

"Excuse me?"

"So you had a little wet dream.  Welcome to the wondrous land of puberty.  Hey!  It's just like that O-town song."

As if half-hearted implication that he had yet to hit puberty wasn't bad enough, the off key singing certainly did it.

"Throw in a body like Jennifer's and you've got the star of my liquid dreams...Oh oh my liquid dreams."

"Shut up!  I did not have...That's not it okay?!"

"You sure?  Then what the hell, Beave?"

"Fine.  Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Yeah, yeah.  Shaking in my Nikes here.  Open up already."

At the exasperated tone in his voice, Cassidy finally caved and threw open the door.  

"Give me back my body!"

"Give me back mine."

"Wait..If you look like me..."

"Yup, you're in mine."

"Dude, we cannot go to school."

"My sentiments exactly."

"What kind of fucked up version of Freaky Friday is this?"

"A very twisted one?"

"I don't know what you're complaining about.  I'm all dorky and small."

"Oh poor you.  I don't exactly like looking like the Good Blond Giant myself."

"Because blond, tall, and awesome is such a drawback?"

"Funny...What are we going to do?"

"We go to school and act like ourselves.  I mean each other.  I mean..." 

Dick could feel his brother smirking at him before he saw it.  Cue the "Dick is a dumbass" comment now.

"It's remarkable how little it takes for you to confuse yourself."

"Have any better ideas, genius?"

"Well, yes.  We just act like each other as if everything's normal."

"That's what I just said!"

"Dick, try not embarass me all right." 

"Me embarass you?  You don't embarass me dude."


----


"What are you doing?"

"Going to school."

"Dude, I bum a ride off Logan." 

"So..." 

Cassidy stared blankly at his brother and winced as he watched himself roll his eyes and sigh.  This was just too weird.

"And I'm the dumb one?  You are me today...I am you..."

"Oh right.  Fine.  Here are my keys.  Try not to wreck my car."

"Yeah, whatever dude.  I won't wreck your pretty ol' station wagon."

"Dick, I mean it--"

"Back to referring to yourself in the third person are we, Dick?" 

Cassidy and Dick jumped and spun around to see their one mutual friend standing in their drive way with his ever present amused smirk in place.

"Logan!"  Why were they speaking in unison now?  Dick shot his brother an annoyed look, but seeing himself shrug and smile sheepishly back at him was just too weird.

"Yeah?  Sorry, did I scare you two ladies?"

"Sorta..."

"I mean, hell no my man."

"I've gotta bounce suckers...I mean I'm going to school now.  Seeya Logan...Dick."

"Okay...Cassidy." 

The brothers both laughed as Logan stared on.  They stopped when they saw Logan's expression, a tentative mix of  "What the fuck?" and "Why, god why?".

Dick, well Dick as Cassidy, drove off, leaving Cassidy, well Cassidy as Dick, alone with Logan.

"So you coming to Luke's party?"

"Luke's?" 

"Yeah, Luke's.  It's early, but it's not that early.  Don't tell me you forgot already."

"Oh yeah yeah.  Sure.  I'm going to Luke's....Are you going to Luke's?"

"Yeah...what is up with you?"

"You don't want to know."

"Okay then.  Let's get educated shall we?"

Logan walked around to the X-terra and hopped in.  It took Cassidy a good ten seconds before he remembered who he was supposed to be and got in the car. 


----


"Psst...Psst...Dick!"

Cassidy turned around to see Madison Sinclair beckoning him.  Oh yeah...he was Dick.  If he pretended not to hear her, would he get away with it?  He slowly stepped backwards and began to turn away, testing out his theory.  

When Madison yanked him into the girl's bathroom, suffice to say, his theory was defunct.  There was no escaping Madison Sinclair.  She was like global warming.  You wished it would just go away, but alas the ozone layer kept on shrinking, the polar ice caps kept on melting.  No escape.

"Come on."

Cassidy abandoned his train of thought to stare dumbly at the person he just likened to one of nature's most potentially deadly phenomenons.

"What?"

At his question, Madison sighed and clucked her tongue for good measure.  How Dick tolerated her very presence was a mystery to him.  

"Do you need a diagram?"

Apparently he did because he couldn't think of one reason why he was in the girl's bathroom with Madison Sinclair and what exactly she expected him to do...Oh no.


---


"Hey Cassidy!  Wait up."

Dick stopped walking when he felt the hand on his shoulder.  His first instinct was to shrug whoever it was off, but then it all came back to him.  Oh hell, he was Cassidy.  He turned to see a somewhat familiar face.  Peter something.  Him and Cassidy had played little league together, but he didn't think that he still kept in contact with him.  What would you know?  The Beav had friends.  Or one friend at least.

He followed Peter out to the bleachers where a couple of other boys sat.  They all looked strangely serious.  He sat down and more or less tuned them out.  It wasn't until the words Goodman and we're going to tell hit his ears did he begin to sit up and litsen.  What was that about the mayor?

After quietly listening to them for another five minutes, Dick got up from the bleachers before breaking into the fastest sprint of his life.

He tripped into the nearest bathroom and gripped the sides of the sink.  No.  That wasn't it.  That couldn't be it.  But when he saw his brother's reflection staring back at him in the mirror, he couldn't help but feel like he failed the only family he ever cared about.


---


Cassidy crept out of the girl's bathroom, checking the hallway before he made a complete exit.  But if anyone saw him, they would see Dick and upon realizing this fact, he instantly relaxed and turned to offer his eternal gratitude to the person who saved him from the clutches of Madison Sinclair.

But when he looked back to say thanks, all that greeted him was an empty hallway.

"Mr. Casablancas."

Oh shit.  The deep gravel voice was unmistakeble.  He turned around and thought fast to explain himself.  What the hell was he going to say?  'Madison Sinclair was holding me hostage' wasn't exactly the most credible defense.

"Hi Principal Clemmons.  I was just...I mean..."

"Frankly, I don't want to know.  Just try not to make it a habit of using the girl's facilities."

"Okay sir...I'll just...go to class now."

"Excellent idea."

Cassidy scurried away as quickly as he could with just one thought pounding in his head.  Dick was going to kill him.


---


"What is the boy's bathroom not hip and happening anymore?"

Dick nearly jumped out of his skin.  Oh fuck.  He was in the fucking girl's--Fuckity fuck.  He still stood at the sink, his grip on the marble still in place.  When he looked up, he caught a flash of blue sharing his reflection with him.  Or rather Cassidy's reflection.  He didn't even know what to think anymore.

"I just had the distinct pleasure of running into your brother earlier.  And now you.  Must be my lucky day."

At the mention of his brother, Dick held on to the sink for dear life and wished that the lead like feeling in his legs would vanish so he could get out of there.

"Hey, are you all right?"  The sarcastic tone in her voice was gone, but that wasn't what he noticed at all.  It was the concern and distress that tinged the question.  

Was he all right?  He tried to think back.  How many times did he ask that question of Beaver?  Seriously asked him how he was.  He didn't.  Not really and he wanted to tell this girl that he wasn't the one she should be worried about.  

Except in an ironic way, this was right.  She thought he was Cassidy and from the way she bit at her lip all nervous and pained, it was pretty obvious that whoever this girl was she liked his brother.  A lot.  And for once in his life, Dick put someone else first.


---


"Tell your brother that we are so over."

Cassidy fell back a little as Madison pushed past him.  He let out a light chuckle.  Hey, at least this beat her holding him hostage in the lavatory of the fairer sex.

Wait...she said his brother.  If he were Dick then she would be breaking up with him.  He made his way through the throng of people condensed in Luke's living room.  With no mirrors in sight, he needed some way of verifying this.

"Logan!  Logan!" 

"Yeah Beaver?"

"I'm Beaver?!"

Logan shot him a bemused look before replying.  "Yes, you are Beaver.  I am Logan.  This is Luke.  You didn't try Corny's crack did you?"

Cassidy laughed right out loud and shook his head.  It was over.  It was finally over.  He needed to find Dick.  Where the hell was he?

"You haven't seen Dick have you?"

Logan tipped his beer towards him.  "Right behind you man."

"Hey--"  Before Cassidy could say anything else, he was crushed into the tightest bear hug of his life.

"Dick...I can't breathe..."  

Dick let go of him, but kept his hand on his shoulder, looking down at him with the strangest expression.  Cassidy couldn't read it and that was odd considering out of the two of them, Dick was the open book.

"Sorry dude.  I just....Can we go talk or something?"

"Sure."


---

"Hey, thank god we're back to normal huh?  Oh um, Madison may have sort of broken up with you and there was this thing with Clemmons and--"

"Cassidy, I know okay?"

"You know what?"  Cassidy was thankful that he wasn't mad, but he expected Dick to be a little pissed.  When did his brother get all woobie?

Dick fell silent.  He didn't quite know if he could verbalise this yet.  But he had to do this.  He had to let him know that he wasn't in this alone anymore.

"I know...I know about Goodman."

"Oh...How do you know?"

"That doesn't matter."

"You weren't supposed to know!"

"Dude, it's all right."

"All right?  It isn't all right, Dick.  It was never all right....You weren't supposed to know."

Neither of them said anything for a long while, just sat outside on Luke's porch.  Cassidy was the first to break the silence.

"So what now?"  

Dick glanced over at his brother and wondered how he could have missed it all these years.  The way his shoulders hunched over as if there was an invisible weight on them.  The way the pain flashed in his eyes, briefly yes, but it was all there.  He just never saw it.  He wished he had.

"Now we get through this.  We're brothers, we deal with this together from now on all right?"

Cassidy could feel his throat constricting and he forced himself to breathe out, the air leaving his lungs in one hard whoosh.  

He expected blame, anger, digust, even just indifference.  Anything but this.  Support was the last thing, the last thing he ever thought he would receive after anyone found out.  

He could feel Dick watching him, waiting for some type of response.  All he could do was nod, which he was rewarded with by a light punch in his shoulder and for the first time in a long time, Cassidy felt like he really was going to be all right.  Correction:  They were going to be all right.

---

"Hey Mac!"

Cassidy looked up to see who Dick was calling out to.  When his eyes fell on her coming towards him, he felt himself gulp.  So that was her name.  Mac.  But how did Dick know?

"Stop thinking.  I have my ways okay."  Dick nudged him forward with his elbow, making him half-stumble, but Cassidy regained his balance just in time to face the girl he'd watched from afar for months, now less than two feet away from him.

"Well if it isn't my favourite bathroom crashing brothers.  Thanks for inviting me."  She spoke to the both of them, but her gaze stayed on him.  I have my ways okay.  He turned towards Dick, but he was already moving away from them, a nod towards Mac, a wink for him.  He shook his head and ducked his head.  Dick.

"Sure no problem.  Wait...that was you?"  He remembered just how he gotten away from Madison.  Madison Sinclair using school grounds to entertain her erotic desires.  I wonder what the cheerleading squad would think of this.  He had bolted before he saw who it was.  It was her.

"Sorry?"  Mac asked him, confused.  He didn't blame her.  Confused was the watchword for this day.

"Nothing.  Do you want to dance or something?"  He scratched at the back of his head, but relaxed when he saw her smile.

"Yeah, I'd like that."


---


Dick sat with Logan and Luke, opting not to drink.  He could see Cassidy and Mac dancing and smiled to himself as Beaver tried to find his rhythm.  They had so much to deal with.  And they would get through it.  Together.  

But for tonight, he figured they could have a little fun.  It was a Friday after all.


---