This Has Disaster Written All Over It
Acepilot

AN - No.30 in the Road series. This fic was written in 3 hours by hand in my Education tutorial and History lecture on Wednesday afternoon. I'm so going to fail...I hope you enjoy the fic. I seem to write a lot of stories set at parties and stuff, don't I? This is a very old idea that I finally managed to put down on paper. It was a bit of fun to write - I really just wanted Phil, Dil, Tommy and Chuckie to be able to spread their wings as parental figures. That was the whole point of the story.

Disclaimer - the characters of Phil, Dil, Chuckie and Tommy are property of KlaskyCsupo. James, Cara, Marcus, Andy and Sophie are my own creations.

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Phil sees me coming first, and shoots me a knowing grin. He taps Dil on the shoulder and nods at my younger uncle. He, too, breaks out in a grin as he turns to face me, and I begin to feel decidedly nervous. Chuckie sees me approaching and looks less enthusiastic but still knowledgeable. Dad just rolls his eyes and looks amused.

"You know," Phil is the first to speak, "when you invite a girl to a party, manners would generally dictate that you have to at least talk to her."

"Else they tend to get sort of miffed," Dil agrees.

"I think we've all had that problem, though," Dad defends me.

"Not me," Chuckie offers. "Angelica demands attention. I'm too gutless not to give ti to her."

"Alright, alright," I cut of the tirade. "Are you guys going to help me here or not?"

My uncles and father exchange knowing looks and seemingly silent communication. I'm getting the feeling they've known what they're going to say all night - maybe even since I announced last week that Sophie would be coming to this party - and they're just doing this to infuriate me.

Finally they stop their theatrics and all turn to me simultaneously. I have to resist the urge to take a step backwards.

"Compliment her hair," Phil tells me. "Girls love to get compliments on their hair."

"I dunno," I tell him, giving him a bit of a suss look. "I don't think she's a hair kind of girl."

"They're all hair kind of girls," Phil assures me.

I look to dad for support, but he just shrugs. "Yeah, he's right. Hair is a surefire winner."

I'm still not entirely convinced, but I've got nothing better to go with. "Okay," I cave, reluctantly. Taking a deep breath, I turn around, away from my viziers, and see the girl who I've condemned myself to pursuing standing just a handful of metres away from me. She's wearing a blue blouse and a black skirt, chatting with Cara bout something or other.

She's wearing her hair...in a ponytail. I try to remember if I've ever told her that I like her hair up. Because I do, actually. She has a very pretty face, and whenever she wears her hair down, I can't see it.

Alright, it's now or never.

Cara sees something over my shoulder and suddenly excuses herself from the conversation. I chance a glance behind me and am not entirely surprised to see Phil making a bad attempt at looking innocent.

I shake it off and march forward before I lose my nerve.

Sophie turns and sees me intently coming toward her. She smiles softly, one of the first displays of affection I've ever recieved from her. I take it to heart and charge onwards, trying to keep my pace reasonable, but I'd be surprised if I'm succeeding. I come to a shuddering halt in front of her and try not to shake to much from my nervousness.

"Hi, James," she says to me with an amused voice. "Finally notice that I came?"

Hi, Sophie. Are you having a nice time? It's a lovely night, isn't it? Your hair's beautiful tonight.

"...uh...you've got nice hair."

She offers me a slightly disbelieving look and I feel the part of me in charge of my interactions with other people glow red in embarrassment and sulk of to get drunk.

"I've got to go," I manage, kind of vaguely, and back away quickly before spinning around a fleeing like a little girl.

Phil nods. "Maybe you should have started with something like hi," he suggests.

"Shut it, you," I growl. "I'm not listening to you anymore."

"Your loss," Phil assures me, and leans back to watch the show.

"Any other ideas?" I ask Dad, Dil and Chuckie.

"Compliments are still your best bet, I think," Dad tells me.

"Why not try saying you like how she's dressed," Dil suggests.

"Her clothes?" Chuckie asks, sounding a bit uncertain.

"What's wrong with her clothes?" I ask, somehow offended.

"Nothing," Chuckie assures me. "It's just...well..."

"Well what?"

"I can see you messing this up really badly," Chuckie tells me. "Clothes is a difficult compliment. I just think it's a bit risky after you bungled complimenting her hair so badly."

I probably look quite insulted. "Well...nyah. I can compliment her just as well as the next bloke. You just watch."

Half-fuming, I just barely catch the sound of Phil's snickering as I storm over to Sophie.

She's looking at me with a gaze that seems to settle somewhere between concerned, insulted and highly amused. "Hello again."

I take a deep breath. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. I'm not. "Hi," I finally say, for the first time all night. I let out the breath I was holding, hopefully not too audibly, and allow myself to relax. This isn't so hard! I can do this. "Are you having a good time?"

She smiles and me, eliminating the concern and insult. "Yeah, I am, actually. Your cousin Cara has been trying to tell embarassing stories about you, but she keeps forgetting parts."

"She'll probably confer with Andy and Marc and get back to you," I tell her, maybe rolling off the tongue a little quickly but otherwise doing fine. I feel like I'm on a roll at last, and I decide now is probably a good time to try and slip in my compliment. Nothing too obvious, just sort of...sidle up to it. "So...I like you in clothes."

Hang on.

"Pardon?" Sophie asks, a bit alarmed.

I run the last twenty seconds back in my head. "Those clothes," I ratify, slowly, cautiously, aware that this entire attempt to court the girl is hanging by a very thin thread. "I like you in those clothes." That sounds a bit specific, doesn't it? "I mea, I like you when you're not in those clothes, too. I'd probably like you in no clothes at all."

I take five seconds to think about that.

"Excuse me," I request, speaking as clearly and frankly as I can, before turning around and walking very carefully away, as if I'm afraid I'm going to trip myself over.

Phil is banging his head on Dil's shoulder in a sort of 'where did I go wrong' manner. Chuckie holds out his hand and, without looking back at him, Dad puts a folded up twenty into his hand while staring straight ahead at me with a look of disbelief and betrayal on his face.

"You guys are really bad at this," I tell them, stalking past Phil and rounding the table serving as a makeshift bar. I start fixing myself a Tequila Sunrise and glare malevontly at the whole lot of them.

"We can't be that bad," Phil defends himself and his brothers. "We're married. You're the one messing everything up. You can't even compliment the girl without tripping over your own tongue."

"Well, how did you guys hook up with your wives?" I ask in frustration. "I'll bet it wasn't by complimenting their hair."

Dad shrugs. "It's kind of a blur."

"I think I might have said she was pretty," Chuckie offers.

Dil shakes his head. "Long story."

"We danced," Phil offers.

"Yeah, actually, now that I think about it, we danced at some point too," Dil tells me. "At some point. There was a lot of music, anyway."

I look at the generation that begat me and wonder at how any of them have gotten to the point of having kids at all.

"Why don't you try asking her to dance?" Chuckie asks, clearly out of ideas. "Apparently, it works."

"Actually, no," Dil cuts off any conceivable response, "I think the dancing thing didn't go very well with us." He has a far off look in his eyes, as if remembering some painful or obscure memory.

"Whatever. You know, I think I'm going to go and ask my female influences for help with this," I tell them, jerking my head toward the other side of the room where Mom and my assorted aunts are mingling.

That scrambles them into action. "No!" Dil pleads.

"We'll do better," Phil assures me. "We just...well, we'll come up with something."

"Good," I say.

And so we stand in silence for a few minutes.

"Alright, so we're not going to come up with anything," Dad declares. "Maybe you should just talk to her."

"About what?" I ask.

"Anything," Phil tells me. "Anything at all. But try not to make any...jokes."

"Why not. I'm funny. Aren't I?"

"Well, that's a matter of opinion," Dad slips in. "But remember why you had to work so hard to get her here in the first place? That little thing with all the jokes she didn't get?"

"Oh. Yeah." I flush red. "Alright, no jokes. Can I go now?"

Phil shrugs. Dad indicates me forward. Dil nods. Chuckie kind of buries his head in his hands in anticipation of disaster.

I turn around and find myself instantly standing toe-to-toe with her.

"Hi," she all but breathes on me.

I feel the world suddenly shrink rapidly. "Hi, Sophie."

"Are you going to try to compliment me?" she asks.

I ponder the question for a second, before very carefully settling on, "No, I don't think so. I don't seem to be having a good run of that at the moment."

She steps closer again and we're almost touching. "Good. Do you want to go for a walk or something?"

My eyes go very, very wide. "Yeah, I think that sounds...nice."

"Good," she tells me. She slips her hand into mine, and tugs me away from the crowds, toward the unoccupied end of the street, where things are darker and quiet.

I'm not quite sure if I, in my attempts at seduction, actually did anything right, here, but regardless, I can hear Dad, Phil, Dil and Chuckie exchanging high-fives and victory yells behind me.

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