"Are you sure? I don't think I'll be any good."

"Don't be stupid, Art, you'll be great. Besides, I can't join track all by myself, can I?" Hank Olson said, slinging in arm over his friend's shoulder. Art Baker sighed. "And you know you want to. Don't you go for weird long runs every morning?"

"That's different," Baker said. "That's for fun. I thought you hated running."

Olson snorted. "No. I hate running forever. I'm a pretty badass sprinter, if I do say so myself. I beat Collie Parker the other day." Who then proceeded to swear at him and practically scare him away from running forever, but Olson wasn't about mention that. He didn't want Baker to leave him. He'd made a friend that wasn't as much of an asshole as he was, and he wanted to keep him.

"So you're just going to do the hundred meter?"

"Maybe the two hundred, too," Olson said. "But that isn't the point. Are you coming or not?"

Baker sighed. "Fine. I'll do track. I'll run the mile or something."

Olson grinned. "Fantastic," he said.

Since the school wasn't all that big, it was more focused on getting actual people to go out for sports than getting good people. At least, Olson figured this was the case when he went to go show the assistant coach that he was, in fact, a sprinter and not just lazy and saw some short kid stretching by where he was going to run. Said short kid was Gary Barkovitch, AKA the kid that nobody actually liked and that Collie Parker had accidentally mistaken for a girl at one point.

Whenever Olson was feeling bad about himself he liked to think about that and he felt better.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Olson asked. Barkovitch looked up.

"Stretching, Dumbo," he said. "What about you? Too lazy to do anything other than the one hundred?"

"Shut up, I'm a sprinter," Olson said. Barkovitch snorted.

"Sure."

"Oh, like you are," Olson said. "The only thing you can run away from is your problems. Hell, I bet you I'm faster than you by a second."

"I run a hundred meter dash in a lot more than twenty seconds, sorry," Barkovitch said. Olson gaped.

"What the - you asshole, the only one who's that slow is... I dunno, fucking paraplegics or whatever!"

"They can't run," Barkovitch pointed out. He seemed extremely in control of his surroundings, but Olson could tell it was a front that he'd carefully crafted just for this incident that he'd definitely known was going to happen. And maybe Olson was freaking out a little bit because he was pretty sure that half the guys on here still didn't forgive him for totally screwing up their last basketball game and they'd... see him doing another sport and want to murder him or something.

"Why don't we race then?" Olson said. "See who's actually faster."

"Fine," Barkovitch said, straightening completely. He came up to Olson's nose. Hey, he'd grown. "Who's gonna judge?"

Baker was jogging around the track, talking to that ginger idiot that Olson hated. "Hey! Baker!" Olson yelled, waving him over. Baker said something to ginger idiot and jogged over.

"Yeah?" he said, brushing hair away from his face.

"Judge for us," Olson said. "Who's faster."

"He's your friend, that's not fair," Barkovitch said. Baker looked offended.

"I wouldn't favor Olson over anyone. Not even you," he said. Barkovitch gave him the finger. Olson gave it back to him, because he really thought it was creepy when Baker did anything that had to do with profanity and he'd just rather get it out of the way. "So, how are you going to do this? Should I tell Abe to get off of the track?"

"Nah, he's all the way at the other end. We should be fine," Olson said. He took his position, wishing he had some blocks to go off of but deciding that it would be stupid to ask. Barkovitch got ready right next to him.

"Um, okay," Baker said. "Go?"

Olson was off. He didn't look at Barkovitch because that would've been stupid. He just kept going. Except Barkovitch was ahead of him. Shit.

"Won't you just come back?"

Olson gripped the phone tightly. He was in his underwear, sitting crosslegged on his bed. "No," he said. "I'm never coming back. Ever. That asshole is taking steroids, I swear."

Baker laughed. "Okay," he said. "But, seriously. You're going to start failing-"

"I don't give a shit," Olson snapped. It was silent. "...But if you could pick up my homework and maybe tell me how to do it that would be nice."

this turned out more baker/olson than barkovitch/olson but man the main concept is there here you go emma