Disclaimer: Not mine. JP's.
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This is Max's POV, and it takes place on New Year's Eve. I hope you all had a good Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa, and have a happy New Year!
-Max
Costume Party
"Maaaax, I'm hungry. Can we get hot dogs?" Gazzy whined from behind me.
"Yeah," added Nudge. "We keep passing stands on, like, every corner. And they smell so good..." she trailed off with a dreamlike expression. I sighed.
"Fine. Next one we come too," I conceded.
We were back to New York, and back to New York hot dogs. I had to admit, they did make them well here. And they weren't hard to find. It only took a couple minutes to come to another hot dog vendor. The hot dogs were rotating on a rack in a circular glass casing, and a bored-looking guy in his forties with a tall white chef's hat was standing behind a bright red cart with Harry's Hot Dogs written in gold cursive on the front.
"Bingo," I said, smiling slowly, approaching the guy, and his mustache seemed to twitch. "Um, we'll take twenty-one. Hot dogs. With ketchup and mustard."
He glared at me suspiciously for a moment, before whipping out a calculator and saying in a heavy New York accent, "That's thirty-one-fifty."
"Do you take credit card?" I asked, doubtful. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head, more to himself than to me. "Okay, then," I said tightly. I quickly counted the bills and handed them to him.
It seemed to take forever for him to finish handing out the hot dogs, but finally he handed me the last one.
"And here," he said, handing Nudge a pink flyer. "In case you're interested." We smiled and thanked him, and started down the street again.
"Ooh, a party!" Nudge exclaimed. "New Year's costume party, right outside the Met on 5th Avenue and 82nd Street. Drinks, dancing, and fireworks. The fun starts at eleven." she read.
"It sounds like fun!" Angel chimed in. "Max, can we go? Pleeease?"
"Sure. And afterwards, we'll streak through the park," I said. We were supposed to be fighting for our lives, not indulging ourselves in party.
"Aww, Max, come on, please?" Gazzy said.
"It is New Year's," Iggy reasoned. I wasted a withering look on him.
Fang shrugged. Iggy glared at me. Gazzy pouted. Angel frowned. Nudge - I looked away, but it was too late.
"Awww, come on, Nudge, that's no fair. You know I can't resist the Bambi Eyes."
"So... yes, then?" she asked, and I could hear her smiling.
"I never said that!"
"THANK YOU!" she squealed, grabbing me around the waist. I looked toward Fang helplessly over Nudge's head, who, most helpfully, smirked.
"Fine," I said sharply. "But after this, I'm instituting a stringent no-party policy."
Two hours and a hundred dollars later, we were walking out of Creative Costume Co. with four plastic bags full of cloth and plastic. Angel was a bee. She had a round ball of fluff around her middle which was striped yellow and black, black tights, and a pair of white mesh wings. Nudge had eventually settled on a sparkly purple fairy costume but she was also considering a zombie. Gazzy was some kind of evil creature thing that nobody seemed to be able to describe.
"You look like a dinosaur," I ventured.
"No, an alien," Fang corrected, after giving Gazzy a once-over.
"You're... a beast," suggested Nudge, coming up from behind us.
"Well thanks for the great description," Iggy said, exasperated. "Now I really understand."
Iggy wanted to be a bomb.
"You can't be serious," I told him. "It's possible to take obsession a little too far."
"Why not?" he asked. "It's original. You can't deny that. Do you think there's gonna be anyone else there dressed as a bomb? No. Of course not. It's striving to be unique, not over-obsession."
So he eventually ended up with a Magic 8 Ball costume (don't ask me why they had any of those in the first place) with a piece of red string taped to the top of it. Fang opted for a vampire.
"Classic, not too flashy," he reasoned.
And I was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I had a blue and white checkered dress and sparkly red shoes.
"Total, you can be Toto," I told him. He grudgingly agreed, but only after endless complaining about not being able to be, as he put it, "that creepy clown guy" from The Dark Knight.
Finally, eleven arrived. We took turns getting dressed up in a public bathroom and made our way to the Met. We stood around for a couple minutes as the place filled up, until some guy dressed in what appeared to be a huge ball of fur got up to the microphone, tapped it, cleared his throat, and began to speak. I heard Gazzy snort at the sight of him.
"Um, happy New Year's everyone. The dance floor is over on the left, and the drinks are to the right. Well, your left, my right. Have a good time, and let's get this party started!" Everyone around us cheered, but I just stared at the guy and shook my head.
"Come on, Max, let's go dance!" Nudge shouted at me over the roar of five hundred people. I reluctantly followed her over to the dance floor, as loud hip hop music vibrated through my body. The floor was large wooden tiles, and there were two big black speakers on opposite corners of the floor. A huge pink and green sign hung above us which showed a person dancing, like ipod ad. I could see a dj at a black table taking requests. Nudge grabbed my hands and started jumping in time to the music. I laughed and joined her, having no idea what I was doing, and finding it strangely enjoyable. Fang was swaying to the beat, looking uncomfortable. Angel was trying to waltz with Iggy, to stop him running into anybody, but it was more jumping around because he was so much taller than her. Gazzy was... exploding. That's the best way I can describe it. I'm not sure how it would be said, but he was basically going on a rampage around the dance floor that made me wonder if he had flipped, and leaving a wide berth of empty space around him. Eventually he got up, out of breath, and joined hands with me and Nudge in our little jumping-dancing circle. Fang did the same. I-don't-know-how-many songs later, the guy who made the announcement at the beginning barreled onto the dance floor, jumping and spinning in some extreme air guitar move.
"Look! It's the hairy one again!" Gazzy cackled. I grinned at him. On my left, Fang was jumping awkwardly, his hair flopping in his face, making me giggle in a most Unmaxlike way. He grinned at me, and I think I smiled wider.
"Look, I don't mean to ruin the moment here or anything, but you have no idea how uncomfortable this is, and plus I really need to pee," Total's voice came from my bag, to my alarm.
"Total" I hissed at my bag, "You have to wait until I give the signal to talk. What if someone was looking?"
He glared at me wordlessly, and I made my way off of the dance floor. I felt Fang tap me lightly on the shoulder.
"I'll come," he said quickly.
"It's fine, you can keep dancing. I'm probably gonna go get something to drink, so..."
"No, I'm thirsty too."
"Okay. If you want."
We pushed through the crowd of people to the curb, where I took Total out of my bag and waited for him to finish his business, as Angel liked to call it. Then we made our way over to the drinks stand.
There was a long table lined with black cloth, and a man in a tuxedo behind it. Next to it was a ten-foot-tall pyramid of martini glasses stacked precariously on top of each other. I walked over towards, it, curious.
"Fang, what would happen if I touched that?" I asked, my voice light.
"Let's not find out," he muttered, grabbing my arm and steering me toward the table. The guy in the tuxedo was staring at me warily.
"Could I have a fizzy lemonade?" I asked. "Like, lemonade and Sprite, or something?" Wordlessly, he grabbed a plastic glass and poured in some lemonade from a pitcher and some Sprite from a can.
"Just a Coke," said Fang, and the man handed Fang a can from an ice chest. I started to take out the money, but the guy shook his head.
"It's free. New Year's," he said, and I smiled at him.
"Thanks," I said, and we walked back toward the crowd. It looked much more uninviting from outside it. "I need a breather," I told Fang, and he nodded.
"I'm going back to Angel. I want to dance some more," Total told me as he hopped out of my arms.
"You weren't even dancing," I reminded him, but he was out of earshot. For some reason, this made me laugh. Fang took my arm again and we crossed the street. He looked me over curiously.
"You're... oddly perky tonight," he commented.
"I'm delirious, is what I am," I told him. "I can't believe I agreed to this. I mean, what was I thinking? A New Year's costume party!"
"Max, Max!" Fang interrupted. "Relax. It's New Year's. You know, starting over, beginning of the rest of your life..."
"However long that may or may not be," I muttered, turning away.
"Exactly," said Fang, grabbing my other arm and making me look him in the eye. "So why not live a little? While you have the chance?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but I failed to find words. The intensity was mounting between us, and one of us was about to do something, when I heard everybody chanting in the back of my head, and I looked away.
"Four... Three... Two... One..." Everyone yelled, and there was a bang overhead. Fireworks exploded above us, like red confetti against a velvety blue-black sky. It seemed to fall for a moment, then it disappeared, but it was followed by more of them. I stared up in awe.
"You know what this means," I heard Fang say, distracting me from my reverie. I looked at him blankly.
"What?" I asked. He seemed to take a breath.
"It means that now I have to kiss you," he told me.
"Whaa?" I asked, but his mouth was on mine before I could finish the word. His lips were soft, warm, sweet. I instinctively started to pull away, but his words echoed in my mind. Why not live a little? While you have the chance?
And you know what? For once, I took his advice.