I heard the pounding beat as I ascended the stairs and groaned. A guitar solo ripped through the halls, splitting my head. I don't know why Snitch even bothered with the full-blast stereo anymore; everyone in the dorm knew it meant he was having sex again.

I considered turning around and just going back to the library... but I really needed my notes. So I sighed in resignation and pounded my fist on the door. "Snitch!" I shouted. "Open up! I gotta get my notes!"

No answer. No surprise.

"Dammit," I muttered, stepping back from the door. This was so annoying. Sure, it could have been worse; think of the chick in Urban Legend. At least I'd never walked in on Snitch doing the horizontal mambo. Gross, man!

But goddammit, why did he always do it every stinking time I left the room? He must have Swinger on speed-dial or something... even though our phone doesn't have that option.

"Snitch, open the goddamn door!" I shouted, pounding on the door again.

"Excuse me?"

I turned to see a very tiny girl standing behind me. She probably would have been whispering if it weren't for Snitch's earsplitting music.

I stared at her. "What?"

"My roommate, Lute? She has my keys, and she's told me before I could reach her at this dorm...?"

"Lute? Swinger, you mean?"

"Yeah," she responded, smiling. "That's her."

"Well, you could reach her here... if my roommate wasn't fucking her brains out right now."

She was quiet, blinking at him.

"Oh... well, that's a nice image." She gave me a strange look. "Thanks."

I grinned. "No problem, kid. What's your name?"

"Alex." She smiled again. "People call me Shortie."

"I can see why," I laughed. She barely reached my shoulder.

"Uh-huh. Well, since our roomies are indisposed-" she coughed forcefully "-and we both seem to be locked out therefore... do you want to go out for coffee?"

I looked at the door. It seemed to almost be pulsating to the beat... and that conjured up some interesting images as well.

I grinned at her. "Sure. He won't last much longer; the song's already halfway through." I paused as she laughed. "But yeah. Better than giving myself a headache by waiting out here."

She beamed. "Great!"

We moved down the stairs and out of the dorm, leaving Snitch and Swinger to their... music?

The dorm was quiet when I returned an hour later. Thank God. I knocked on the door and Snitch answered this time. When he saw me, he grinned stupidly.

"Mush! Where you been, man?"

"Having coffee while waiting for you to finish your business. You guys are disgusting."

"What?" He shrugged, smiling innocently. "We were listening to music."

"Don't be an ass." I rolled my eyes as I hung up my jacket. "We both know what you were doing."

He grinned. "Guilty," he said, not looking like he felt at all guilty.

I rolled my eyes again. "You're such an asshole."

"Snitch scowled at me. "Yeah, you're just jealous."
"Of what?" I answered. "She's only with you for the sex!"
"You make her sound like a whore!"
"Isn't that what she is?"

"What interest would a 'whore' have in me, then?" Snitch narrowed his eyes, challenging, mocking. I scowled.

"'Cause you're big."

"What?"

"You know what."

Snitch thought about that for a minute, then raised his eyebrows. "Oh, yeah!" He grinned. "Of course." He blinked, then narrowed his eyes again. "Wait, how do you know it's big? You've never seen it."

"Well, you're Italian aren't you?"

"Only half."

"Oh, well, that just means it's hairy."

His face jerked in surprise. "What?" He gawked at me, and I grinned, pleased with myself. "It is not!"

"You're only half Italian? What's the other half?"

"British." His back straightened and he smirked with pride.

"Oh, that just means it's small and hairy."

He slumped. "Oh, I hate you. I hate you so much. You are going to die for that."

I grinned and shrugged. "Sorry if I have to tell the truth all the time."

"Besides, not like you'd be a very good judge," He pouted. "You're half black. Everyone knows that you have two inches more on yours. That makes you biased."

It was my turn to gawk at him. "How the hell do you know that?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, everyone knows."

"That's such a stereotype!"

"It's true, isn't it?"

I paused. "Well... of course."

He cocked his head to the side and studied me. "You're a liar."

"Well, we're all liars when it comes to our individual Li'l Snitchies and Li'l Mushies, aren't we?"

He laughed finally. "The first thing you've said all night that actually makes sense."

I shoved him backwards so that he fell onto his bed. "Yeah? Better than anything you've ever said in your entire life."

"That made no sense," he responded. "So I retaliate with: 'Your mom!'"

"Your sister!"

"Don't touch my sister, child-molester."

"Child-molester?"

"Child-molester."

"You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Yes, thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me-" he stood up and grabbed his jacket, swinging it over his shoulders "-I have to go pick Swinger up from band practice." He opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

"Yeah, and you'll have sex in the car on the ride back."

He paused, looking thoughtful. "Never done it in a car. Thanks for the idea." He winked and jogged down the hallway as I groaned loudly, exasperated both with myself and with him.

He returned twenty minutes later, which was a surprise. What was even more surprising was how pissed he was; he threw his jacket into the corner instead of hanging it up... and that's a big deal. It was his letter jacket from high school, with his soccer and academic letters. He prized that thing.

"What's wrong, man?" I asked, sitting on my bed in my boxers with a textbook in my lap.

He turned to look at me and I was surprised again to see just how pissed he really was. "She's with-holding."

"What?"

"She's going celibate."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He put his hands in his hair and collapsed onto his bed. "Her roommate, Shortie, just broke up with her boyfriend. So Swinger, being the stupidly loyal friend she is, has decided she's with-holding sex until she can get Shortie hooked up again."

I blinked in surprise. Not at the fact that Swinger had opted for celibacy; two months straight sex with a freak like Snitch would turn any smart woman into a nun (but whoever said Swinger was smart? She had gone almost a full year with the guy and was only celibate), but more because Shortie hadn't acted like a girl fresh on the market. She'd seemed pretty content, actually.

"Did she break up with him, or him with her?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?" Snitch answered snippily, sitting up and taking off his shirt.

"Shortie. Who broke up with who?"

He snorted. "Like I care? All I care about is making sure she gets a guy so that I can get-" He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes stayed focused on some invisible point straight ahead before he turned to look at me. "Hey," he said quietly. "You're single."

I frowned. "Yeah. So?"

"So be Shortie's boyfriend."

"What?" I sat up straight, shocked that he'd be so brash as to suggest it. "You're kidding! I barely know her!"

"But you know her."

"We went out for coffee! Once! While waiting for you and Swinger to finish your fuckfest so we could get into our dorms!"

"Hey! Don't you want a girlfriend?"

"Someone I barely know?"

"That way worked for me and Swinger!"

"Yeah, sure. I want a relationship exactly like yours and Swinger's." I rolled my eyes. "God, you're stupid."

He glared at me for a minute, sulking, before the clouds shifted out of his face. I raised my guard, certain that he had something not good up his sleeve.

"Hey... Mush... you remember freshman year... that pledge party for Beta Theta Pi?"

I tensed, knowing exactly where he was going.

"The one with lots of beer... which you drank a ton of... and the truth or dare game... and I, the naive, virgin frosh-pledge wannabe that I was... had a camera?"

I shut my eyes and bit my lip. "... Yeah.." I said.

A slow grin snaked onto his face. "I still have the pictures from that party, y'know."

"Yeah... what's that got to do with this?" I asked, already aware of the answer.

"Here's the deal: you date Shortie, and no one sees those pictures. Right?"

"That's blackmail!"

"So?"

"You can't do that to me!"

'Why not? We both benefit."

"How?"

'Well, I get laid... and no one has to know that you once wore a Wonderbra and Yu-Gi-Oh Underoos in a drunken stupor."

I scowled at him. "I hate you."

He grinned. "I know." He yawned, and stretched out on his bed. "Think it over tonight, then tell me your answer tomorrow." A cheeky smile flashed my way. "Night!"

I glared at him as he turned his light out, rolled over and slept, still in his jeans and sneakers; he did that all the time. I resisted the urge to throw my textbook at his head.

Y'know, maybe he was right. Shortie had been nice enough... and pretty cheerful. She liked the same kind of things I like; we had both ordered Vanilla Frappachinos, sat and discussed the good bands like Rooney, Green Day, and Jimmy Buffett. She was a drama major, looking for a career in the theaters, while I was in journalism looking to be an anchor. We were both taking singing lessons just for the hell of it. She was full-blooded Jewish, and I'm half.

I put my book on the bedside table and slid down under the covers, turning off my light.

Maybe I'd give it a shot. For a while.

Snitch turned his cap backwards and eyed Mush. The bronze-skinned boy tapped his bat on the plate.

"Just pitch the damn ball, asshole!" he shouted. "Quit playing Bambino."

Snitch's nose twitched as he wound up ad pitched the ball. Mush swung, missed, and nearly cracked himself on the shoulder. He dropped his bat and gave Snitch the one-finger salute. "Damn your curveballs!"

Snitch raised his arms in the air, grinning. "I am God! Worship my godliness!"

"Um, if you're God, can I just turn Satanist now?" Mush smirked.

Both of them were college seniors, hanging out in the park on a clear March Saturday. Shirtless, sweating from the humidity, and lacking the maturity to care, they continued their pointless banter.

Out in the parking lot, two girls emerged from a silver Saturn. One had longer, light brown hair swept into a tight ponytail. The other had shorter, darker hair hidden underneath a baseball cap.

"Do they always fight?" Shortie, the light-haired girl, asked.

"Nonstop since I met them," Swinger, the other girl, responded snippily. "It's cute."

"It's annoying."

"You get used to it."

Mush and Snitch, unaware that their girlfriends had arrived, switched places, with Mush on the pitcher's mound and Snitch holding the bat.

Shortie and Swinger opened the trunk of the car and lugged out a cooler. "Swinger, I gotta know," Shortie said, "how the hell do you date Snitch?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've only known him for a year, and I have difficulty putting up with him. But you've been dating hi since freshman year, and you're still happy. How?"

Swinger smiled. "He's not the jackass he makes himself out to be, to tell the truth. He just likes people hating him." She lowered her voice in a poor imitation of Snitch's voice: "'When people start hating you, you know you've succeeded in life!' I don't know how he came up with that, but it's his policy."

"Well, you didn't say he wasn't stupid."

"No, I didn't. 'Cause he is. Y'know what else? We don't have sex as often as people think we do."

"What?"

"He does that stereo thing all the time. I've arrived at his dorm at least fifteen times to hear him blasting that stereo at full volume, simply because he wants people to think he gets laid all the time."

"That jackass!"

Swinger thought it over. "... Maybe. But he's amazingly sweet too, when it's just us."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Swinger paused, chewing on her bottom lip as she reached into the car and pulled out a blanket. "I probably shouldn't tell you this; he'd kill me if he found out I told."

Shortie stared at her roommate. "Okay, now you have to tell me. What?"

"You know how Mush asked you out last year? After the coffee? And how he kept persisting and pursuing you?"

"... Yeah?"

"You owe that to Snitch."

"...What?"

Swinger grinned. "Snitch, playing his asshole role, told Mush that I'd refused sex with him until you had a boyfriend again." She put her hands on Shortie's shoulder. "I did no such thing. I just told him on the car-ride back from band practice about how much you'd enjoyed yourself with Mush that day. Somewhere between our dorm and his, he decided he needed to get you guys together."

Shortie blinked and glanced at the baseball field, where the boys were arguing over whether Mush's pitch was a ball or strike. "That's sweet... in a twisted, horny sort of way."

Swinger laughed. "Sweet, twisted and horny... that's Snitch to perfection," she said, pulling her hair into two bouncy ponytails and pocketing her cap. "Now come on. They promised us a picnic. We better go claim it before they 'forget'."

Shortie grinned. "Okay, but they have to get the coolers, big strong men that they are."

"Good deal."

Swinger and Shortie jogged over to the baseball diamond, throwing themselves against the chainlink fence and yelling sweetly at their boyfriends.

Just another example of a perfectly normal college relationship.

***AUTHOR'S NOTE***

I wrote this for Shortie! Because I love her! ^_^;

I don't like the end, to tell the truth... but I honestly couldn't think of anything better.

And some of the conversations between Snitch and Mush... O_o My friends actually sound that bad? Yes they do. Hence why they're my friends. AHAHAH. ^_^; I love them. I do.

No, seriously! My friend David (who's Italian) and Ben (who's half-Italian, half-British), had a conversation like that one not too long ago... not like with those two it's a surprise, but still! It was really funny, and I had to include it in a story.

Next story is currently titled World Clash Tour 2006, and it'll be pretty cool. I like it so far, even though right now I'm at a stretch. It might be kinda long though... but it's not like my fiction isn't getting longer these days. I'm almost disappointed with myself if I write something that's less than three pages (though I suppose that being able to write really short stories is a gift; I have all the respect in the world for drabble writers. I can't write drabbles without serious thought and contemplation; I'm simply too complicated!

Is that a pun? If it is, it's intended. ^_^;

Okay, I gotta go finish getting ready for school now. Bye guys!