"Someone remind me why we're doing this again." I ask, staring sullenly at the house a couple of houses down. The music coming from inside could be heard from a block away and whatever light show was going on could probably be seen from space.
"U-um, because Desair asked us to come?"
Meron's hands were shaking a bit and there were a couple beads of sweat dripping down her neck. I would have thought that it was funny seeing how nervous she was if not for how pitiful she looked. She was dressed nicely, though, in a red knee-length dress with a gold belt and brown suede heel-boots. Her blonde hair was done as it usually was: in a half-up half-down style with a braid.
"We're going to the party because Desair asked us to and Meron needs to get laid."
Meron choked on air.
"I would say the same about Veloce, but.."
Weirin shut up when I glared at her and it was worth it even if I was proving her point. She had decided to drag us all to this party with her whether we liked it or not. She probably just wanted to watch us suffer for her own enjoyment.
"We can always turn back, though. Right, Weirin?"
Ah, Keritzel. Too naïve for his own good.
"No! We are most definitely not turning back! Do you know how long it took me to do my makeup? And my hair? And my outfit? 3 hours, Keri! No way in hell-"
"Okay, okay, we get it. We don't have a choice, as always. It's fine. I'm sure we'll all survive until the morning."
For all that Keritzel tried to keep the peace, he always found just the wrong thing to say. Diffusing the situation was all that I could do, because once Weirin gets mad she tends to take it out on either me or her green-haired bestfriend-turned-boyfriend and once she gets going there's no stopping her. This has happened enough times that it's only natural to be wary of it. I'm not, like, scared or anything. Obviously. Just thinking about the last time… actually, let's not.
And even if Weirin was being a bit dramatic, she wasn't lying. She really had spent around 3 hours perfecting her look: straight purple hair, knee-length black dress with a wine-colored belt, and black suede heel-boots.
Keritzel wasn't looking all that bad either with his simple black dress shirt, white pants, wine-colored belt, and dark brown dress shoes. Weirin had picked it out for him and insisted that he wear it instead of his usual jeans, white shirt, and green jacket combo. His hair was, of course, as unruly and green as ever.
Weirin, to her dismay and my relief, was too busy with her own get-up to force me into whatever monstrosity that she had likely bought for the occasion. I was wearing my usual gray t-shirt, black jeans, and brown lace-up calf-length boots- all of which matched my wavy white hair. Weirin liked to say that my boots looked like something from a stupid roleplay game, but they were mine and I didn't care what her pompous ass said about my boots.
I sighed aloud. That was an old argument and not even one that particularly mattered. What did matter, however, was that we had finally arrived and Desair was making his way from the front of the house and towards us.
He was dressed in all black, which made his blue hair stand out even more than usual. He looked almost as nervous as Meron and he visibly steeled himself before approaching.
"Hey guys! It's great that you all could make it. There's drinks in the kitchen and we've cleared a space for dancing in the common room if you wanna come in."
"Yay! Free drinks! Let's go, Keri!"
Weirin grabbed Keritzel's hand and pulled him into the house, not giving him any choice in the matter. She threw a half-hearted "Have fun girls!" over her shoulder before disappearing with Keritzel in tow.
The three of us watched them go and then stood in an awkward silence for a few seconds before I figured that it was probably time that I take my leave as well. It's usually best to find a hiding spot before Weirin coerces me into beer pong.
"I'm gonna go get a drink if that's okay with you, Meron."
"O-okay. I'll just stay with Desair, then."
I gave a nod of acknowledgement before heading off, but I made sure to meet Meron's eye before I entered the fray. I wasn't willing to leave her alone with Desair if she really didn't want to be and I new that Weirin was counting on me to make sure that nothing went awry. Even if she was older than us, Meron had a sort of meekness to her that made her great prey for the type of people that you never want to be caught alone with.
She caught my eye and gave a small nod, signaling to me that she would be fine for now or at least that she felt safe with Desair, which was good enough for me. The guy seemed pretty okay from what I new of him, which was a lot given how much Meron gushed about him.
With that out of the way, I vanished into the house, unaware of pair of silver eyes that followed me from the front porch.
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2 hours later and things are finally starting to wind down enough for me to start thinking about finding Meron and leaving.
I had found a nice spot to hide out, right in the kitchen where everything but the occasional wine bottle had been abandoned. Someone had moved all of the beer outside an hour ago and I was still nursing my 2nd red solo cup. I was pleasantly buzzed, but not enough to make much of a difference.
It seemed that the kitchen was not as safe as I thought, however, because some guy stumbled in, saw me, and decided to stick around. He was leaning on the counter in a way that he probably thought was cool, but it was obvious that he probably couldn't stand without swaying too much.
"You come 'ere ofen?" he asked with a heavy slur in his words.
"I'm not interested."
"Ah, 'ome on. You 'onna leave a guy hangn'?"
"Yeah."
"Come on sweehear, 'm not tha bad."
I heaved a sigh. It was probably about time that I check up on Meron again anyway.
"Not happening."
I moved to walk past him when he grabbed my forearm, surprisingly fast despite his inebriated state.
"Why no? We could 'ave some fun."
"Get the fuck off me." I said, wrenching my arm out of his grip. No matter how fast he was last time, I was prepared for it now. He wasn't even that big of a guy. I could definitely take him, especially as drunk as he was.
Right when I was about to just bowl him over so that I could get past him, a shadow appeared in the doorway behind him. I stopped, about to tell them to get out of the way when the sound of flesh-hitting-flesh registered, and the guy crumpled to the floor.
A woman a bit shorter than me was standing right behind him with her arms raised, obviously being the one to have knocked out the guy on the floor. She had bizarrely colored hair; brown and white locks intermixed pulled back into a ponytail, bangs falling into her face but not enough that it was impossible to see her silver-colored eyes. She had a sloped nose and sharp jawline. Overall, she made a very attractive woman, a fact that did not go unnoticed.
The woman was wearing a black ACDC shirt and black jeans with black converse. She even had black eye shadow. Hell, she had a black tattoo on her left arm, webbing that started at her wrist and disappeared into her t-shirt. What was with all the black?
She dropped her arms and stepped over the guy, looking up at me with a playful grin and leaning her hip against the counter, not unlike the Frat boy now sprawled on the kitchen floor.
"So, you come here often?"
Her voice was a little gruff, but the tine was playful. I quirked a brow.
"You knock people out often?", I threw back.
"On occasion."
My eyebrow climbed a bit higher.
"Well, am I gonna get a thank you? I did just save you from a creep, you know." The grin was still there, although it was looking an awful lot like a smirk at the moment.
I gave her a considering look.
"I had it handled, but I appreciate the help."
"Oh, really now. And I assume that you standing there and glaring hard enough to shoot laser beams was 'handling it'?" Oh, she was definitely smirking now. Her whole being screamed 'I'm messing with you and enjoying it'. Even her eyes were laughing.
I decided to go along with it. This party was boring anyway. Might as well have some fun.
"Exactly. If you had given me a couple more seconds he would have pissed himself, I swear. Had him cowering in his boots." Never mind that he was wearing boat shoes. Ugh, how fratty can you get.
She huffed a laugh. "Ah, I see. Should've just left him to you, then. Sorry for intruding, but I can never keep to myself when I see a beautiful woman in need of saving." Oh, her eyes were sparkling now. I took a sip of my beer before placing the cup on the counter between us. A proposition of sorts, if she cared to notice. If not, well, it probably wasn't worth it anyway.
"I was just about to leave anyways."
She picked up my discarded cup and threw her head back, thoroughly draining it. Proposal accepted, and eagerly at that. My eyebrow made a reappearance directly below my hairline. She set the cup down and I couldn't help but watch the way that she licked her lips afterwards. Okay, I'll give it to her. That was kinda hot.
"Let me walk you home."
I couldn't stop the immediate "At least buy me dinner first" that slipped out of my mouth. I glared at the now-empty cup. Damn alcohol.
Thankfully, she took it in stride. She even laughed a bit, and oh wow was that a sight. Fucking melodic, too. She put her hands up by her shoulders in the universal 'I mean no harm' gesture.
"Just walking, I swear. I won't even try to steal a goodbye kiss. Unless you want me too, of course." The smirk was back in full force and she had the fucking audacity to wink.
I took a minute to think about it. I would probably have to check up on Weirin, Keritzel, and Meron before I left. I was only 2 beers in, if that, so it wasn't like I couldn't make my own way home. The company would be nice, though, and she seemed to be able to handle herself well enough...
"Fine. On one condition. I need to check up on my friends first."
The woman- wait a second. Wasn't I missing something?
"I don't think I caught your name."
She laughed as if I had said something funny.
"No, you didn't. It's a bit unique, so I tend not to hand it out to people I don't know."
"Well, I'm afraid I probably have you beat there," I said as I started walking past her, already mentally cataloging all of the places that my friends could have gone off to. Weirin was usually passed out by now, so..
The woman grabbed the back of my shirt as a moved past, causing me to look over my shoulder at her.
"You show me yours and I show you mine?"
I huffed a laugh and turned around fully.
"Sure. It's Veloce," I said, presenting my hand to her.
She shook it.
"Oh wow, that is bad." I gave her an unimpressed look. "My name's Blackbird."
I hummed. "Certainly unique. But not as bad as fucking Veloce of all things."
She- no Blackbird- laughed again, and I noticed that she hadn't let go of my hand yet. Oh well. It was out of my control. And if I squeezed her hand reassuringly? No one had to know.
With that over with, I turned again, pulling her with me out of the kitchen to go find wherever the hell my friends had fucked off to. I could only hope that it wasn't beer pong. Not again. Never again.
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Well, we found Weirin and Keritzel pretty quickly. Or, more correctly, Weirin found us.
"Veloce! Veloooce! Veloce, look at me!"
As soon as Blackbird and I left the kitchen I was attacked by an overgrown koala. That is to say, Weirin appeared from absolutely nowhere and clamped on to me, not seeming to be planning on letting go any time soon.
"Veloce, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to let her drink this much. I looked away for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom and when I came back she was doing shots."
I sighed. That sounded like Weirin.
"It's fine, Keritzel. Besides, you're the boyfriend here, remember?"
"Ugh, don't remind me."
Keritzel seemed a bit more frazzled than usual, but that wasn't exactly a surprise. Drunk Weirin could get a bit handsy sometimes. Like right now-
I grimaced and grabbed her wandering hand from where it had been sliding towards my ass. "Hey, Weirin, why don't you and Keritzel go back to his place, okay? I'm going back to my apartment anyway, and-"
"Veloce! Are you finally getting laid?! Yay! And Meron too! Hey Keri, can I get laid too?"
I felt my face flush and Blackbird started fucking cackling behind me, the bastard.
"What?! N-no! No getting l-laid! And w-what was that about Meron? Did she and Desair-"
Keritzel was cut off when Weirin promptly let go of me and jumped onto him, latching on like a parasite. She really was a fucking Koala. Who new. Oh wait, I did.
"I'm tired, Keri. Let's go home now. I'm getting sleepy." Keritzel's face flushed when Weirin nuzzled her face into his neck and I heaved another sigh. Another trait of drunk Weirin: her mood swings were so abrupt that they could give you whiplash if you got too caught up in it.
"Do you have any idea where Meron is, Keritzel? I wanna check in with her before I leave."
Keritzel had to pull away from Weirin's face, which was now too close to his for him to concentrate. A drunk Weirin was basically just regular Weirin but amplified. She was shameless enough when she was sober, but drunk she could cover for herself and Keritzel.
Weirin answered, or gave what she probably thought was an answer, before Keritzel could open his mouth.
"Meron and Desair, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-"
"What are you, twelve? Where's Meron, Weirin?"
Blackbird still hadn't stopped laughing, the asshole. And if she looked kinda cute bent over and laughing her ass off? That was besides the point.
"Uhhh they were talking on the couch earlier and then they left." And then she shrugs. She fucking shrugs.
I groaned in frustration, told Keritzel to get Weirin the fuck home, tightened my grip on Blackbird's hand, and started making my way through the mass of bodies between us and the stairs.
"Oh my- oh my fucking god. That was fucking hilarious! Your purple friend is a goddamn riot! And the look on the other kid's face when she told him that she wanted to get laid was just- fucking amazing, that's what it was. Fucking great." Blackbird was still wheezing a bit as we started up the stairs towards what was hopefully Desair's room. I didn't care at this point if I was going to be interrupting anything, I just wanted to be able to go home.
"I'm glad that you find amusement in my suffering."
"Aw, c'mon Vel it wasn't that bad. She was just drunk, she couldn't help it."
I did a double-take at the nickname. Vel? I don't think anyone's called me that before. That was...
I didn't realize that I had stopped on the stairs until Blackbird was asking me why.
"Hey, what's wrong? Oh- shit sorry, it's okay if I call you Vel, right?"
I stood stock-still on the stairs as I thought about that for a moment. Did I really mind at all? Was it because it happened to be Blackbird who said it?
"Hey! You're blocking the stairs, Lesbos!"
I sighed and continued the ascent.
"Yeah, it's fine. I'm just not used to it."
Blackbird didn't seem to have anything to say to that. When I looked back at her over my shoulder her brows were furrowed and she seemed to be in deep thought. Perfect. First she knocks out some guy for me and now she's worrying about me. Because I froze up at something as stupid as a nickname. I sighed again, something I seemed to be doing a lot of this evening. My frustration was mostly gone now, simmering on low heat in the back of my mind. That was probably thanks to the small amount of alcohol still running through my veins.
Oh well. Not much that I could do about it now.
When we finally reached the floor with most of the bedrooms I was thankful to find that there were names on the doors. I quickly located the one that said 'Desair' and knocked, probably putting a bit too much force behind it.
"Hey, is Meron in there?"
"Veloce? I-is something wrong?" At least she was alive. That was one point in my favor.
"No, I just wanted to check in on you. I'm leaving right now and I told Keritzel to bring Weirin home, so it would just be you here. Are you gonna stay, or do you need someone to walk you home?"
I could hear muffled whispers through the door, but I wasn't actively trying to listen in, so I didn't really catch anything. Then I heard footsteps sound on the other side of the door, and I backed up a bit, accidentally bumping into Blackbird. I was able to regain my footing before I fell over, but Blackbird wasn't so lucky. Before she could fall though, I grabbed her around her waist to steady her, effectively smushing our bodies together. Just then, the door opened.
"Well I was going- oh." Meron stood in the doorway with her mouth falling open a bit and her cheeks a brilliant red. She composed herself enough to squeak out "I'mgonnastayhereokaybyehavefun" and then slammed the door in our faces.
I sighed for the nth time that night. There's no way that I was going to be living this down.
"Great. She probably won't be able to look me in the eye for a month."
"Your friends are all very, uh... interesting," Blackbird said, staring somewhat stupidly at the closed door in front of us.
"Well that was all of them, so I hope that you got your fill."
"Oh, thank god. We can finally get out of this hellhole." Blackbird stepped out of my hold and I almost did something stupid like miss the feeling of her body pressed so firmly on mine. She grabbed the hand that I had used to steady her and pulled me towards the staircase.
"You had that bad of a time?" She seemed perfectly fine when she knocked that guy out earlier, and I couldn't see any traces of a typical bad day in her posture.
"Well, not exactly," she said as we started down the stairs, "It's just that, there was this girl, ya know? With flowy white hair and a really nice ass and I couldn't get her off of my mind ever since I saw her walk into the party, so I wasn't able to get hammered to the point of numbness like I usually am. Drinking away my problems and all that." She waves a hand in dismissal. "So eventuallly I found her, but it turns out that she's got horrible personality and even worse friends. And she's making me walk her home!" The sarcasm in her voice was palpable.
"Yeah, I get what you mean. What an asshole."
While she snickered at that, my mind was whirring. Was all of that true? Had she really been unable to keep me off her mind? I mean, it's not as if I'm unaware of my looks, but... really? All night? And so much that she just had to come find me?
"Yeah, I'm too chivalrous for my own good. It's a curse." We reached the bottom of the stairs and started heading for the door that led out to the porch.
"I thought chivalry was dead."
A dramatic gasp.
"How dare you. How dare you. I came out to have a good time and I am honestly feeling so attacked right now."
I rolled my eyes at the overused joke. We reached the porch and walked down the stairs, continuing onto the path to the sidewalk.
"So, are we doing this then? It's pretty late, you might just want to head to your own place."
"No way. I already made the offer, and I stick to my promises. Besides, you make good company."
I stopped when we reached the sidewalk and played out tonight's events in my head.
Weirin dragged us all to a frat party, courtesy of Desair. Some creep tried to force himself onto me. An absolutely stunning woman dressed in all black knocked him out and single-handedly saved my evening. And now she wants to take me home like some sort of proper gentleman. Gentlewoman? Ah, and she had apparently been thinking about me all night. Sounds like one of those romance novels Weirin always denies reading. Hell, maybe she planned all of this. Wouldn't surprise me.
"What about that other girl?"
Blackbird gave me a questioning look.
"The one with flowy white hair, nice ass, and bad personality. Didn't you promise to take her home?"
"Oh, her. Yeah, she was too much for me. I prefer girls with weird friends who can shoot laser beams out of her eyes."
I huffed.
"Such a specific type. How will I ever compare?" I shot her a grin. She gave me a blinding smile in response and tightened her hold on my hand.
"I think you'll manage just fine."