I could not resist. I kind of fell in love with the CronKri ship while writing this and...yeah, anyway, Cronus is a major douche in this fic, at least in the beginning. The current day for this chapter is August 29, 1955.

*pssst* I'm tracking this on Tumblr with the tag "just go with it cronkri" if you're into that kind of thing.

Mornings were typically annoying for Cronus, but this morning was particularly irritating. He supposed being a senior should have filled him with a sense of triumph, but really, it was still the first day of school and he really didn't want to go back, not just yet.

He briefly contemplated skipping the first day, but as he hopped into a pair of jeans and rolled the cuffs to the top of his high-tops, he realized he couldn't. He had to drive Eridan to school, after all, and there was no way he'd get away with just dropping him at the front and zooming away. Hell, by then, he might as well just stay there and suffer through the rest of the day. It was only the first day, too, so the odds of getting any homework was slim.

He slid a white T-shirt over his head and scanned his mess of a room for his jacket. The guy on the radio had said it would get into the low eighties today before transitioning to "Cool Cat Cavalcade" by Jimmy Rocket and the Engines (it had been burning up the airwaves all summer), so he wouldn't need the jacket for comfort, just for aesthetics.

He finally found it draped over the back of his chair. He was quite proud of it, actually—black leather with The Lost Boys stitched across the back in silver with a symbol he'd designed two years ago outlined in gold. The symbol was wispy-looking aside from two sharp points radiating at a downward angle from the middle. He didn't have his name stitched onto the front like the girls in Meenah's group (they called themselves the Fuchsia Ladies, something he couldn't help but snicker at), but that was because everyone in the Lost Boys could tell their jackets apart. Rufioh had a pair of orange wings on the back of his and Kurloz had a crown on his and Gamzee had three juggling clubs. They were all distinct.

He tossed his jacket onto his bed so he knew where to find it later and headed to the bathroom. This was the most tiresome part of his morning—styling his hair. He squirted a liberal amount of grease into his hair and began combing it out. He was so absorbed he didn't even notice when Eridan burst in and started brushing his teeth—although when he finished brushing and spat out his toothpaste, Cronus noticed that.

"Jesus, chief, when did you get in here?"

"About five minutes ago. You better hurry—we gotta leave in like ten minutes."

"Lookin' this good takes time," he called at his younger brother's retreating back.

"Then you should take a little more time!" Eridan shot back.

Cronus almost yelled at him to fuck off, but their parents were still hanging around downstairs and he'd catch hell for cussing in the house. He let it go, thinking Eridan was getting too quick for his own good.

He went back to his room, shrugged on his jacket, patted down his pockets for his keys, wallet, and cigarettes, and called for Eridan, charging down the stairs. "I'm gonna leave without you!" he shouted.

"No, you won't," his mother said, crossing her arms as she looked over at him from the kitchen.

"Aw, jeez, Ma, I'm just tryin' to get him to move faster."

"Don't take that tone with your mother," his father said.

He wasn't going to win this one this way. "Sorry, Ma."

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with his apology. "Have a good day at school, you two. Have enough money for lunch?"

"I got enough," Eridan said. He'd appeared again without Cronus noticing.

He wasn't an idiot, though. "Actually, I need another fifteen cents. They jacked up the price a' lunch again."

Eridan opened his mouth, but Cronus lightly elbowed the back of his head. Eridan shut his mouth.

"Here." His father got up and handed him a dime and a nickel. "Have a good day."

"Thanks, Dad." Cronus pocketed the extra change and headed out the front door with Eridan in tow. Just before the door closed behind them, he heard his father saying, "...don't know why he dresses like a delinquent..."

"Jesus," he muttered. They could only be talking about him—Eridan never warranted that kind of ire from their father. Then again, Eridan dressed like a nerd. Cronus was just grateful he didn't wear a sport coat and bow tie like that Jake English kid. He'd never be able to live it down.

In a way, he was envious of Kurloz. Sure, Gamzee wasn't exactly the brightest cat in the cage, but he was still cool—hence his presence in the Lost Boys. Eridan wouldn't be a greaser in a million years. Cronus wished he had a cooler younger brother. Not as cool as him, of course, but cooler than Eridan.

"We don't have to get any a' your loser friends, do we?" Eridan asked as Cronus went to the driver's side.

"Yeah, we do, actually. We gotta get Rufioh an' his loser brother. Get in the back."

"I'm not ridin' in the back like a first-grader!" Eridan protested.

"If you're gonna act like a first-grader, I'm gonna treat you like one. In the back."

They were right outside of the house. Cronus didn't really have any way to retaliate if Eridan decided to get in the front anyway, but the kid was fifteen, so he didn't really realize it. He got into the back seat behind Cronus and crossed his arms over his chest.

Eridan sulked the whole way over to Rufioh's place, which suited Cronus just fine. He preferred it when his brother stayed quiet. After he honked the horn, Rufioh and his brother Tavros both appeared and practically sprinted down the Nitram family's front walk amid the chorus of the barking of their three hundred or so bulldogs.

Cronus definitely did not envy Rufioh for anything except maybe his dark good looks. His younger brother looked like a wimp, although part of Cronus didn't blame him. Their old man was a serious drunk who had a tendency to smack around both Rufioh and Tavros, and their old lady had died about six years ago, before Cronus had met Rufioh. They were also dirt-poor, meaning Rufioh was just as likely to come to school with his hair unstyled as slicked back. His hair today was the latter, meaning it probably hadn't been too bad of a morning for them. No matter how bad things got for Rufioh, though, Cronus seldom saw him without a smile. He just knew he wouldn't be able to handle being in Rufioh's shoes—he'd lose his marbles.

"Hey, man, how's it going?" Rufioh asked, hopping in the front seat while Tavros slid into the back.

"Great, apart from a return to the bullshit a' school."

"Yeah, but we're seniors now. Probably won't be so bad."

Cronus let out a snort of laughter. "You really think that, man? I gotta say, you're way more optimistic than me."

Rufioh shrugged, flipping up the collar of his jacket. It was different from the other three in that his was brown leather instead of black. Aside from that, he and Cronus were dressed identically down to their black high-tops. He leaned back and threw his arms across the seat back. "I just got hope, man."

Cronus didn't know how he could be so damned optimistic all the time. Not bothering to press the point further, he put his car in gear and headed toward school.

"Sweet wheels, man," Rufioh added after a few moments.

Oh, yeah. He was so used to having the car already that he'd forgotten—Rufioh hadn't actually seen it yet. He'd just gotten it in July and called Rufioh to tell him that he had a car in the first place. Cronus had used surprisingly little of his parents' significant money to buy it, a fact he was immensely proud of. He'd worked all summer and the summer before just to get it, and now that he had it, a Chrysler New Yorker two model years ago, he wanted nothing more than to soup it up even more.

"Thanks, man. I can't wait to get her into the shop."

"Why? Gonna take her out drag racing?"

"Nah, I'm gonna beat people drag racin'," he said confidently. He heard Eridan snort with laughter and said, "You tell Ma an' Dad an' I'll kick your ass."

Eridan held up his hands in a placating gesture.

Once at school, Cronus dropped Eridan and Tavros at the front before wheeling around. The moment their brothers left the car, they each pulled out a cigarette and lit up, and Cronus began cruising the back parking lot, hunting for Kurloz's indigo Mainline. It had been their habit the last two years to meet at his car on the first day of school, but this was the first time he'd been able to show up in a car of his own. He'd just given it the paint job he wanted, a deep sparkling purple that would have been a bit flamboyant on anything other than a car, but as it was, it looked sweet, flat-out cherry.

He spotted Kurloz's car and gunned the engine, heading for the parking spot right next to it. Kurloz and Gamzee were sitting on the hood of the Mainline when Cronus pulled up, and Kurloz took one look and nearly lost his shit.

"Hey, motherfucker, you can't—" Then he caught sight of who was driving. "Oh, shit, motherfucker, I didn't see you there! You weren't motherfucking joking—killer wheels!"

"Jesus, Kurly, don't your old lady ever wash your mouth out with soap?" Cronus joked, getting out.

"'Course she does," Rufioh said innocently. "But she stopped after he started smoking it."

Fortunately, both Kurloz and Gamzee found his joke riotously funny and dissolved into insane laughter. His comment had some basis in fact, anyway—the running joke was that both of the Makaras would smoke anything if they could hold a lighter to it long enough.

Kurloz and Gamzee wouldn't be mistaken for anything but brothers, too. They both had the same dark, tangled mass of hair—Kurloz would at least attempt a proper greaser style, but Gamzee's hair had been known to swallow combs with no hope of returning them. They had the same hollow cheeks and dark eyes and insane height—Kurloz was six-foot-four and Gamzee was six-foot-one, an inch taller than Cronus—and gaunt frames, but that was because they were both usually too high to realize they were hungry. Right now, though, Cronus just smelled cigarettes on them. That didn't mean neither of them didn't have a joint stashed for later, but at least for the moment, they were sober.

"Any sign a' the Fuchsia Ladies?" Cronus asked, scanning the parking lot. There were the Captor twins heading inside—he recognized them from last year, so they were sophomores now—and two other cats who were probably brothers, one in a bright-red sweater and the other in a regular black shirt, but no sign of Meenah Peixes's fuchsia Windsor Deluxe or, for that matter, anyone else in her little gang.

"I saw one of the motherfucking Serkets heading inside," Gamzee volunteered. He took a long drag on his cigarette. "Couldn't tell which one. Didn't see anyone else, though."

Kurloz gave a dramatic shrug. "There it motherfucking is. One of the Serkets."

Fine and dandy, in Cronus's opinion. He wasn't interested in either of the Serkets anyway—he'd gotten with Aranea last year and he didn't really feel like chasing after her sister. Damara Megido, too, was old news, as was Porrim Maryam, although she wasn't one of the Fuchsia Ladies. No, if he would be scoring with any of the Fuchsia Ladies, it would either be Roxy Lalonde or Meenah herself, and he would be holding out for Meenah if he had any say.

But there was all year for that. It didn't matter right now if they didn't see the girls until lunch or something. He wasn't really in any hurry to get the school year moving.

"So you gonna motherfucking race her?" Kurloz asked, tapping the hood of Cronus's car.

"Yeah, once I soup up the engine. We'll have to take her to the shop—I didn't wanna start fuckin' with the engine at home, y'know? Plus there's actually cats who know what they're doin' in the school shop at least." Cronus sprawled back onto the grass, staring up at the sky. It was a bright day already and he wished he'd thought to get his sunglasses from the car, but it wasn't so bad yet. Rufioh, Kurloz, and Gamzee continued chatting over him and he closed his eyes, letting himself just enjoy being outside and back with his friends.

It had been a long summer. True, he'd spent most of it working, and part of him missed not being at school already, but he also hadn't been able to see any of the other Lost Boys. Rufioh, he supposed, he could have seen, but he hadn't felt like braving that fucked-up family for very long, and he was pretty sure Rufioh had also gotten a job anyway. The Makaras had been forced to accompany their parents to northern Michigan for some unfathomable reason, though, and so seeing them hadn't even been an option. But it didn't matter. The Lost Boys were back together, a relief. He was finally back with people who actually gave a shit about him instead of his parents, who were a real drag and never did anything but drag him down, and his brother who was just a typical uncool younger brother. It was over.

He heard a bottle being uncapped and felt himself grinning automatically.

"Want a beer, motherfucker?" Kurloz asked. Ever since he'd turned eighteen last December, he'd been the supplier of alcohol, at least until Cronus had turned eighteen two months later. Rufioh would be seventeen until April and Gamzee was still sixteen, but two people buying booze for four had been relatively easy.

"Yeah, chief, hand it over," Cronus said, opening his eyes and sitting up.

Rufioh tossed a bottle over from some unseen compartment in the back seat of Kurloz's Mainline. Cronus caught it easily and popped the top off with his keys. As glad as he was to be back with friends, the actually being at school part really sucked. He didn't know how he'd made it through three previous first days at Lakeside High School sober, but he was glad he didn't have to do it anymore.

The other three had already opened their bottles, so Cronus held it up. "To the seniors a' the Class a' 1956, to the lone junior in our midst, an' to all the chicks who don't know they're gonna bang us yet."

Gamzee nearly spilled his drink, he laughed so hard, and Rufioh mimed wiping a tear from his eye. "Bangarang, brother. For a second there, I thought you were gonna say something sentimental."

"Not a chance."

They knocked their bottles together to a chorus of laughter, and as the first bell rang, warning them to get to homeroom, they tilted the bottles back and chugged them. Cronus finished his in thirty seconds, tossed the empty bottle behind him, and stood up. "Back out here for lunch?"

"You know it," Rufioh said. He rolled his bottle into the parking lot and stood up as well. "Come on, guys. Let's get this over with."

I DID SO MUCH RESEARCH FOR THIS FIC ALREADY YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

The legal drinking age in 1955 was 18 (and it was until the late 1970s), so "underage drinking" here refers to those characters who are 17 or younger. (BTW, Rufioh's dad is not based on any Nitram interpretation, like most of the parents in this fic!)