"The Lost Ones"

Thanks, V.

With the tip of a finger, Mac traced the hard edge of her licence—the fake one she never thought to use because, well, because she wasn't the type. Sure, she'd compromised her ideals for money, for sex—the cash in high school, sex in college—but booze and strobe lights weren't her style, and that god-awful house music made her head spin in a bad way. Still, she'd broken up with Max the week before and Veronica had left town two weeks prior, so she needed something to do, something that would end up keeping her occupied for the night.

They let her in, the club popular enough to be used to fakes but not care. The more the better, Mac thought their policy would be. It was crowded, pumping repetitive beats that rang in her ears and pulsed through her boots, and Mac squeezed her way to the bar. Girls were wearing next to nothing, colourful rags that draped over shoulders and exposed midriffs, and the guys were casual in jeans and tees, an easy life. Mac looked herself over, tasteful jeans and heavy boots and a light blue shirt, but still they'd let her in so it must have been okay.

The bar was busy, guys with their arms folded over the edge, possessive and pushy, girls leaning forward so the bartenders would look their way. Mac waited until she caught the eye of the single girl on the other side and ordered a rum and Coke with ice. It was easy to drink.

She took one sip and turned her shoulder to bustle through the crowd but arms and chests pressed hard against her, so she downed the rest of the drink and waited to order another. It came surprisingly quickly and Mac saw a clearing, tore through it briskly. Yes, there was definitely a reason she never came to these places.

The lights turned red, blue, purple then green as Mac stood by and watched the floor, bodies crammed together and arms flailing to an almost-rhythm that didn't quite hit the beats of the song. She was reminded of Parker and hoped her friend was enjoying summer with her parents, and suddenly Neptune seemed very small and Mac herself felt insignificant. She finished her second drink and left the glass on a small table in the corner, an inconspicuous drop in the ocean compared to what else was happening in this place.

Feeling the rum run through her, Mac stood and watched the dancers, watched how they moved, how they touched, strangers took each other by the necks and kissed intimately only to walk off a second later. As much as she didn't understand this world, Mac was desperately searching for a reason to understand it, and she supposed that it was all about feeling good. Feeling good. Right. She understood that. Her whole relationship with Max was based on it.

Max…

No, better off without him. The philosophy major content with helping people cheat their way through life. Figure that one out, Veronica. But Max had made sex okay for Mac, he'd washed the memory of Cassidy away and usurped something within her Bronson couldn't. It had to end though, the sex felt like guilty sex after a while, or guiltier sex, and Max became toxic. There was almost no life in him and Mac could really only settle on one dead boyfriend for a lifetime.

"Okay, so you're like the last person I expected to see tonight," said a voice beside her and Mac seized with fear.

It was Dick. Casablancas. Shit. She turned to him, noted his mussed hair and cologne she could almost taste, and gave him an unimpressed look.

"Oddly, I didn't think I'd see you here. I probably should have," Mac shot back with unsuppressed malice.

He held a beer, two actually, one in each hand, and was casual in a white tee and jeans. He seemed to be going for the unironed, rumpled kind of casual and Mac had a passing thought that he had probably been drunk long before he'd walked into the club.

"Yeah, this is kind of my scene. Unlike you. What'd you want to get drunk or something? Should've just asked."

Dick shook his beers and took a long sip from both, emptying them one after the other.

"Maybe." But Mac's voice was almost drowned out by the thumping music. She glanced towards the bar and noticed a rare opening, hoping Dick would swallow it up, but when she turned back to him he was looking at her intently. She raised a brow but he just smiled mischievously.

"Come on, there's a balcony out the side here. We'll get some drinks and talk."

Mac dropped her mouth, shocked, but Dick had already taken her by the hand and marched her towards the bar. He ordered four beers and paid in excess, telling the tender to keep the change. There was almost a time lapse and Mac reawakened when she was sat on a low marble stool, outside and the night was warm. Dick sat opposite her and placed three beers on the little table, cracking one open in his hands for himself.

"So you came here alone? Where's Logan?"

"Who knows? Brooding in a corner somewhere over Hot Stuff, probably. Hot Stuff the first, 'cause I don't think he really cared for Hot Stuff the second all that much, you know."

"You know they're my friends, right?" Mac was indignant, somewhat insulted. But this was Dick, what did she expect?

"Right, whatever. You asked. So why are you alone? Where's that guy, what's his name? The one with the hooker."

Mac looked straight at Dick as his eyes wavered. He crushed his can and began working on a second. He didn't meet her eyes.

"Max."

"Right."

"We broke up."

Dick looked at her then, a flash of sincerity marking his eyes as though he really cared. "Really? I'm sorry, that sucks."

"How's your dad?" Because taboo seemed to be the theme of the night.

"In jail. How's yours?"

Mac felt a hot prick at the back of her neck, incensed at the fragmented conversation and she was sure her face was red. "Dick, what are we doing here? Don't you want to be in there, with people you actually like?"

"I don't like people. Hate places like this but I go to 'em anyway. I want to be alone but I never want to be alone. Guess I'm complicated huh, when did that happen?"

Without meaning to Mac stared into the face before her, Dick's eyes roaming about the place but his mouth was contorted into a pained mask. "Well, you've been through a lot these last few years. It's no surprise really…"

"Except these things haven't happened to me," Dick shot back immediately, squaring his face and looking Mac dead in the eyes. "I wasn't blown up, or run down, or raped. Nobody killed me. My dad's in jail for cheating the system. Me? I'm here drinking it all away but none of it happened to me, you know?"

"Doesn't mean it doesn't affect you," Mac said quietly, more to herself than him. Dick caught her words, his eyes searching hers for the briefest moment before he looked away.

"Those are for you," he said, pointing a quick finger at the two beer cans left on the table.

"I don't drink beer."

"Gets you drunk," Dick replied, sculling his second—eighth if he was counting honestly.

Mac took a second to sigh and shrug, then worked her fingers in a deft motion to open a can. She tilted her head back and let the heavy liquid cascade down her throat. Thinking it best not to breathe she swallowed each river as they came until the can was empty. But the memory of Cassidy, on that night with a glass of beer in his hand, sculling it down as Dick encouraged him, made her stomach churn with disgust and Mac felt sick. Maybe he wasn't as gone from her mind as she thought, and sitting drinking with his brother certainly didn't help.

She must have given something away in her face, because Dick looked at her curiously. "You okay?"

It was then that she looked at him, really looked at him. Dick Casablancas, the bully. Dick the fiend. Dick, the one with her now when no one else was. She'd pushed Max away, Veronica had run. Dick was here, and feeling the same pain Mac was.

"How do you do this every night?" she asked quietly after a moment's pause.

Dick shrugged. "It's something I just do. Don't think too much about it. I do this to stop thinking, it's better that way."

"What does not thinking get you? Bad choices, bad headaches, bad everything. There's got to be a better way."

"If you think of it let me know."

Sans a drink, Dick leaned forward in his stool, elbows on the table and hands resting on his chin. He gave Mac no choice but to look at him, and his own eyes seemed to gain focus as he stared at her. God how he'd made her life hell, taunted her, teased with ill-humour. But he had always been jealous, angry that he didn't have what Beav had. Beav had smarts—Jesus, he'd orchestrated an elaborate murder for Christ's sake—and Mac was a level above, a computer whiz. Mac would run the world some day. She had her hair low over her eyes, an almost unnoticeable blue streak running down the front that matched her light makeup. Her lips, usually turned up, were now struggling to lift, turned down in a reversed smile.

To break the reverie Mac reached for the last remaining can of beer and opened it, this time drinking one long sip and setting it down. "Maybe thinking is overrated."

Dick smiled at her.

"So I know you could leave with any one of those girls in there," Mac said quickly. "Why are you here with me?"

"You're interesting. You're smart. I've never seen you drunk."

Despite herself Mac laughed. It was an unexpected laugh, but a real one. She sobered quickly, checked herself. "Still, you and I have never been friends. My very-distanced company is better than what you'd find in there?"

"Thing about casual sex? It's obvious you're trying to empty yourself of something. It's predictable. Talking to someone, that's less predictable."

Mac knitted her brows. Dick said something smart? This night was full of surprises. "But I could leave, right now, and you'd have to drag some other poor girl out here. What's in it for me?"

"I bought you two beers."

Roaming her eyes about the table in front of her, catching sight of the only can with substance left, Mac felt compelled to drink the last of it. She sculled it, feeling a burst of energy, and crushed the empty in her hand.

"Now you can buy some other girl two beers," Mac quipped as she stood and turned to leave, but Dick caught her hand and pulled her to him.

Suddenly unsteady on her feet, Mac leaned into him and her cheeks burned with embarrassment as her hand pressed against his warm chest.

"Feeling alright there?" he asked with a smirk.

"Dick, c'mon."

"Hey, at least stay a while. Sober up."

"I'm not that bad."

Dick tilted her head up with a hand on her chin. She looked at him with a calm resolve and sure enough, she wasn't that drunk. But Dick wanted her to stay nonetheless.

She pushed him away, her hands now fists, but he grasped her arm as she turned. He leaned in and kissed her, his hands circling her shoulders, and Mac seized up. Cassidy's brother! She broke away when she could and looked at Dick with shocked eyes. Not that he hadn't tried to kiss her before, but this felt different, sincere even. Dick was resigned and watched as Mac ran from him, from the balcony into the club, into the mess of bodies.

Shit. The night's wind pushed in on him and Dick stood, alone, on the outside as the party raged on inside. He couldn't go back in—wouldn't—and he knew Mac wouldn't come back. He'd keep waiting though, because he knew he wasn't the only lost one searching for somewhere to belong in this vast universe, in this strange placed called Neptune.