Halloween: The Encounter

Izzy knew this exercise was a mistake the moment they reached frat row. Costumed youths were waltzing about the streets, yelling and shouting, slurring and stumbling, many of them carrying alcohol in the open, despite being underage. There was music and noise and movement everywhere, and he was not at all surprised when Amy edged towards him and took his arm, crowding his left side, squishing herself between him and Tai.

"Aren't you cold?" Izzy asked, glancing over at her. As promised that day in the mall, she was wearing her little black dress, along with what appeared to be thick black tights and tiny, simple black shoes. Unlike Mimi, who seemed to have a separate pair of shoes for every outfit, Amy had simple, round toed shoes, not entirely unlike penny loafers, in brown and in black. She also had rain boots and a pair of flip flops for showering, and he had noticed the snow boots standing in the back of her closet. That was it. She also had just one purse, although admittedly it was a very high quality one, from what he could tell of such things.

He shook his head to clear out those irrelevant thoughts. The point was, much of her upper body was uncovered, open to the cold night air of late October. "You can borrow the cloak, if you'd like," he said politely.

"She'll be too hot once we get to the frat house," Mimi called from over her shoulder. "I tried to get her to leave the tights behind..."

"I wanted some part of my body covered," Amy muttered into his ear, and he grinned half-heartedly. He couldn't think of a polite, appropriate answer, so he said nothing. "And thanks for your offer, but I don't want to smush my wings."

Izzy nodded and took a look at the spotted ladybug wings tied to the straps of her dress. They seemed rather delicate, a thin skein of material wrapped around a thin, wire backbone. He rather doubted that they would survive the evening, at least given what he was seeing now. Really, it wasn't much of a costume, but there was no denying that she looked... No, no, he didn't have an adjective that he could think while maintaining his normal, detached expression. He tilted his face towards the concrete of the sidewalk to hide it. In addition to forcing her friend into a tiny, sexy dress, Mimi had done Amy's makeup carefully, accenting her eyes with shimmering, golden eyeshadow. Somehow, her eyelashes had gone from incredibly long to explosive, thickened and darkened by some mysterious form of feminine magic. There was a permanent, slightly sparkling spread of color over her cheeks, and her lips had been painted a juicy, shining shade of red, like the skin of an apple.

And Amy had spread glitter liberally across her front at Mimi's command, the same glitter that he had been mercifully spared, although he did have some kind of red stuff dribbling from the corners of his mouth, like a clumsy toddler with a cup of fruit punch. As if she needed some sort of sparkling signal to help people find that amazing view... Mimi had grabbed his chin and turned his face away from Amy and toward her when Amy applied the glitter, smirking into his face all the while. His teeth began to grind at the memory. Mimi wanted him to go insane. That was the only logical explanation for her behavior.

Well, that was only partially true. He knew what Mimi wanted, and the thought had him forming tight fists. His aversion to going out tonight was only half due to his general distaste for partying. The other half was the typical culprit: fear, uncertainty. What if, once Tai had somehow forced a certain amount of alcohol down his throat, he said something to Amy that he normally wouldn't have? What if he announced his affection for her, and she didn't reciprocate? What if she did? He didn't even know which scenario was more terrifying. Without thinking, he passed his fingers over the hand clinging to his arm. Whatever may occur tonight, I hope you'll still be willing to hold on to me on the way home.

Amy's grip tightened, and she smiled and shifted closer, so that their hips brushed with the next step. "Thanks for coming out tonight," she said quietly, tilting her shoulders in what seemed to be an attempt to block out Tai.

"To be honest, I'm surprised you wanted to," Izzy returned. He remembered her aversion to the frat house party where they met.

Amy shrugged and shivered, then crowded him even more, fighting for some warmth. "Mimi would have killed me if I didn't wear the dress. And, anyway, I really love Halloween. The costumes, the candy, the dark themes... I don't know, I just... It's probably my favorite holiday. I would have been really depressed if everyone was out enjoying it, except for me."

"It would have been my pleasure to keep you company." What, did she think he would have left her all alone on a holiday, even if it wasn't one that particularly encouraged togetherness? "You have zombie games we could have played, if you wanted to stay true to the theme." A thin surge of longing worked its way through him at the thought of being completely alone with her for a few hours, with no risk of any of their well-meaning, but intrusive, friends intervening. He almost wished that he dared suggest making their way back to do just that.

"Ah," Amy said reluctantly, tipping her head. "But the costumes...!"

"If you really desired it, I could have worn the cape," Izzy said, forcing a sigh out from between his smiling lips. "And you could have worn your costume." For no one but me, alone in your room, without the leggings... And, perhaps I could have convinced you to allow me to apply the glitter... Suddenly, Izzy noticed the rapid downward spiral of his thoughts, and he twitched violently. When did this situation deteriorate so greatly? he wondered, casting a doleful glance at the full moon hovering in the sky, half obscured by dark clouds. I seem to recall being far more proper than this.

There was a slight pause, and Izzy felt his muscles tensing up. Sometimes he could swear that Amy knew what he was thinking, although of course those fears were baseless. "We'll have fun, Izzy," she said at last. "We did last time, right? Mostly?" Izzy made a noncommittal sound, then frowned as a passing boy dressed as a ninja nearly shoved him off of the sidewalk in his drunken attempt to get by their group. He really wasn't looking forward to a full night's exposure to wasted fools.

They walked on for a few minutes, and then Tai sped up until he was in front of everyone. "This is it," he said, pointing at the house. But Izzy was only guessing at the content of Tai's shouting. Even from outside, the collective noise of music and chatter was loud enough to obscure his voice.

"Matt. Matt! Maaaaatt!" Amy released him and waved her hands, trying to get her friend's attention. The movement caught his eye, and he raised an eyebrow. She pointed towards her ears, and Matt nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets, then tossed a plastic baggie to her. Amy smiled her thanks, opened the bag, and pulled something out of it. She picked up his hand and deposited something soft, foam-like, and flesh colored inside his palm.

Ear plugs, he realized. For a moment, he puzzled over it, then shrugged and put them in. He certainly wasn't concerned about his image, and he could always take them out if he found himself unable to understand his friends. It makes sense that Amy would be concerned about her sense of hearing, as a vocalist, I suppose. Amy passed the baggie around, but most of their friends passed it up. But, as they stepped into the frat house, the din went from loud to skull-shattering, and both Joe and Sora caught her attention and accepted them.

Amy handed the bag off to him this time, and he pocketed it. Then she froze, and Izzy instantly knew why; the crowd of people was immense, and the frat house was hot and humid with their body heat. The only illumination was provided by themed lighting, jack-o-lantern shaped strings of lights, a few flickering, electronic candles, and the like. Amy shuddered and clung to him, one hand around his elbow, the other clinging tightly to his shoulder. Izzy sighed, knowing that no one had any hope of hearing it, and resigned himself to an evening of having her publicly smushed up against him. It's a pity there are no stimuli to encourage this behavior when we're alone. Perhaps a frightening film or video game would induce the same result?

Tai was leading the way into the house, nudging people aside, and, having nothing better to do, Izzy followed, hauling Amy along with him. Apparently Tai knew someone who lived here- Izzy suddenly realized that, with the possible exception of Mimi, Tai had the most active social life among them- because he led them unerringly to the kitchen, where he deposited the bag he had been carrying onto the counter. There was a little more light in here, and Izzy could make out Tai extracting two two-liter bottles of Coke and a huge bottle of rum on the table. That must be party etiquette, Izzy thought. Then he watched as Tai stowed the bag away on top of a cabinet, hinting that there were more offerings within, possibly for the next place they were visiting.

Amy slipped away from him and made her way into her cousin's personal space. She reached in front of him and grabbed a Dixie cup, then picked up the rum. Izzy watched, eyes wide, as she poured some into the cup, stared inside, then deliberately poured more.

"You trying to kill yourself there, Amy?" Tai asked, shaking his head.

"I need it," she said tensely, setting the rum down with a loud thud. She can be crabby when she's on edge, Izzy realized. Amy filled the remainder of the cup with Coke, but Tai shook his head and eased the potent concoction out of her hands.

"I'm confiscating this. Let me pour you another. You'll never get through the night if you drink this much up front." But then he took a deep draught from the cup, and Amy's eyes narrowed. "What? My tolerance is better than yours." Amy sighed and watched him prepare a replacement, which he then handed off to her, with a final warning to drink it slowly. As soon as his back was turned, she took a massive swallow, ignoring the clear disapproval on Matt's face.

The others were moving about the kitchen, waiting in long lines for access to the various containers of alcohol and soda spread about the limited counter space. Izzy's brow furrowed as he realized that there simply was not enough alcohol to meet the demand for more than an hour or so. He supposed that would be their cue to move on to the next place.

His musings were cut off by Tai, who was tilting a cup slightly in front of his face. Blinking, Izzy wrapped his hands around it automatically. Wonderful, he thought, staring into the dark liquid. We meet again, Captain Morgan. He began to wonder if he could hand it off to someone else without Tai noticing.

"Tai! Hey, man! Glad you could make it- and, damn, you brought such cute girls, too!" Izzy raised a brow and turned towards the shouting voice. His eyes fell on a lanky, slightly tanned boy whose build was similar to Tai's. Perhaps they were teammates, or had been in the past. "Amy, Matt, good to see you- nice mask, dude- holy crap, Mimi! Been a while!"

Mimi tilted her head and smiled. "Ah, Danny. Thanks for having us." That seemed to solve the mystery; this Danny was almost certainly from Tai's high school soccer team, probably a year older than they were. He moved with the comfort and confidence of one who belonged where he was, hinting that he lived in this frat house, and it was a bit early in the year for a freshman to be in that position.

"Believe me, you are always welcome," Danny said, winking. Izzy fought to keep his expression neutral. He generally wasn't a fan of flirtatious characters, particularly when they gave his best friend's girlfriend a look like that. "Oh, and I see you brought some supplies. Classy move, I appreciate it."

"No problem." Tai bumped fists with him, or at least tried to; Danny was apparently drunk enough to have some problems with his hand-eye coordination, and he entirely missed his friend's hand. Shaking his head, Izzy returned his attention to Amy, who was standing slightly away from the group in the corner of the room, furthest from the counters and the crowds. She continually drank from her cup, and kept leaning further against the wall at her back, as if she were trying to make more room for herself. Before long, she frowned into her drink, then snuck behind Tai and made herself another. Izzy hastened to intercede.

His hands closed around the rum bottle before she could pour it. "Amy, what in the world are you trying to do?" he hissed, clutching the alcohol to his chest.

"I can't deal with all these people sober." Her voice didn't sound like her at all; it was strained and high. "I need to be a little tipsy."

Izzy raised a brow. "You already finished a drink."

"Tai made it weak, for once," Amy said, sighing. "Because the idea is that we'll be drinking all night. I won't have anything again until the buzz wears off. I don't want to fight my way back to the kitchen, anywho… Cover me." Izzy frowned as she poured about two shots of straight, 100 proof alcohol into her cup, then swallowed them with a choking sound. "Uuuugh, it's so burny!" she complained.

"I can't believe you just did that," Izzy said, his voice sounding surprised even to his own ears. To make matters worse, Izzy already recognized the slight use of the cutesy, odd language that she favored when inebriated. He somehow doubted that Tai had poured her drink as weak as she assumed. He frowned, stole her cup, and tossed it into the open trashcan. Then he fastened a hand to her wrist, determined to keep her in his sights. She smiled, then forced her hand upward, so that it closed around his.

"Thanks, Izzy. I feel better when you're close. I know you probably don't really like this, but… Thanks." Izzy licked his lips, feeling suddenly and inexplicably nervous, and took a large drink from his own cup. Then he cleared his throat roughly and stared into the crowd with great determination.

"Just… Just stay near," he said gruffly. His fingers shifted uncomfortably in hers, especially when her eyes turned to his, wide and overflowing with disbelieving gratitude. He jumped when she jerked beside him.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, glancing about. But the dark and the crowd made it difficult to discern the surroundings, so he could not identify any problems.

"Everyone's gone." She began to nudge her way through the people nearby, and their spot was immediately filled by other guests. Izzy followed her, stepping into the rapidly closing gaps that her passage created. The crowd was like a massive, writhing organism, and securing a route through it seemed impossible. Fantastic sights and colors, dulled somewhat by the darkness, passed rapidly before his eyes as they moved, disorienting him. Drunken kids shouted and laughed, and Izzy edged away slightly, pulling his limbs in close to his core, trying not to allow them to splash him or dance into him. Eventually, Amy said something to him, but she was facing forward, and he could not hear her from his spot behind her. She released him, and Izzy quickly lost track of her in the pulsating human collective.

For a moment, he stood entirely still, cursing himself for the moment of inattention that had caused their separation. Izzy glanced this way and that, trying to see one of his friends through the massive crowd of inebriated youths, but he was too short to get a good view of anything except shoulders and necks. He considered texting Joe or Amy, but he couldn't make out any distinctive features of the room for directions, since its walls were entirely blocked by people. He tried to move through the undulating sea of costumed bodies around him, but he was too small and polite; he kept getting elbowed aside.

If Amy doesn't find someone she knows, she might have a panic attack, he realized, and that thought had him forcefully making a way through the room, edging past people and shoving back when he was shoved. Dark liquid kept sloshing around in the Dixie cup that Tai had forced into his hands, and he was sick of worrying about it. Taking a deep breath, he downed its contents in a few large swigs, grimacing and gasping at the burning sensations down his throat and up his nasal cavities. His stomach turned, and he let the empty vessel fall to the floor, where so many of its discarded brothers lay, crumpled and crushed, crunching underfoot.

Eventually, he began to make out the long, spindly legs of stools through slight glimpses between moving hips and legs, and he did his best to make his way over to the table, hoping to get a higher vantage point from an elevated seat. It was a struggle, but, before long, he was climbing onto a mercifully empty stool pushed up against the far side of a counter, breathing deeply in an attempt to catch his breath. His dark eyes scanned the room, looking for long hair that magically called slivers of light to its silken strands, for a cowboy hat, or some other sign of his friends. But no one familiar was in sight, and he sighed, taking in the room instead. But, as was typical of college dwellings, there was little real furniture (the scant tables and cardboard boxes had probably been cleared out beforehand), and he couldn't make out the details of the posters taped to the walls. All was darkness, chattering, and deafening hip hop.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out and found a text from Amy, asking what had happened to him. He was in the middle of texting her back when a dark, throaty laugh had him glancing away from the screen. All of a sudden, his heart was either working at double time, or had stopped entirely; he honestly had no clue which one it was. Something was horrifically wrong in his chest, that was all he could be certain of.

He was face to face with Shauna, staring into her eyes, seeing her sensuous smile. That angular, pixie-like face was every bit as devastating as he remembered, and, unless he was very much mistaken, her eyes were even more captivating than before. He remembered reading somewhere that cobras could daze their prey by fixing them with a piercing gaze. It was a myth, of course; the prey merely froze out of fear, or in an attempt to avoid being seen, but still… This had to be a similar sensation, and his body went stiff for a moment. Then, slowly, feeling began to return to his body, and his fingers clung to the edge of the counter, as if to steady himself. He forced himself not to panic, to stare at her impassively, and he impressed himself by somehow keeping his expression disinterested and calm. But, of course, he was shocked and horrified, emotions that seemed to work down to his very soul. Normally, his mind was organized and highly structured, but thoughts began to bounce around chaotically within it. I thought I was finally free of you. I should have known better; many of my old classmates attend this school. I've been expecting this, truthfully, but wishing it would not come to pass so intensely that I never really acknowledged that expectation. If there really are omnipotent beings in the universe, I sincerely hope that they at least keep Amy out of this encounter.

He straightened his posture automatically and pulled back from her, instinctively putting as much distance as possible between the two of them. This afforded him a better view, and he almost laughed, darkly and humorlessly, when he realized that she was dressed as Cleopatra. Her eyelids were covered with shimmering golden eye shadow, just like Amy's, and her black eyeliner was applied liberally, with a long, straight line winging out from the far corners of her eyes. Rosy blush, flecked with more gold, covered her cheeks, and her lips, as was her preference, were covered with dark red lipstick. A snake formed a circlet around her black bob, its mouth spread in a hiss on her forehead, its teeth gleaming with fake red gemstones. Her thin, lanky body was sparsely covered with a gold-and-white dress that probably would have been remarkably out of place in the real Cleopatra's wardrobe. There were golden snakes wrapped around her arms, slithering down to her wrists, and her legs were covered with the winding golden straps that held up her sandals.

On the whole, it was a most impractical getup for late October, but Izzy very much doubted that she was concerned with such matters.

"Hey, Izzy," she began, her voice husky and low. "I've been wondering when I'd run into you." She twirled the thin, red straw in her drink, clinking the ice against the glass, and Izzy spared a moment to wonder how she had procured ice, a glass cup, and what appeared to be straight scotch at a college party. Then he grimaced and averted his eyes. What was he thinking? Shauna could get whatever she wanted, even if it meant sending someone out on the street, in costume, to happily buy it for her.

Izzy refused to exchange pleasantries with her, so he went with stating the obvious. "You've spoken to Michael." He cast his dark eyes around the crowd, searching for some kind of escape. If he simply slipped down from his stool and walked away, would she follow? Would she cause some kind of dramatic scene? Seeing Shauna again was bad enough, but he could deal with it. He had been half expecting it for a while now, and, after all, he had already endured an entire one and a half school years of routinely seeing her, having broken up with her in the middle of his junior year. But his slim frame trembled at the thought of Amy being introduced to her. That would be like shoving a defenseless lamb into the jowls of a ravenous wolf, although he wasn't sure if the lamb here was him or Amy. The absolute last thing he wanted, barring true disasters, was for Amy to find out about his past with Shauna before he had time to solidify their strange, tremulous connection. He swallowed down his panic, glanced to his right, and stole the drink belonging to his neighbor, downing it in one great swig, never bothering to identify it. The bracing burn down his esophagus confirmed that it was going to do the trick. His mind offered up a mental apology to the boy beside him, followed by, believe me, I need this far more than you do, friend.

Shauna's saucy smile grew as she watched him. "Mm. Yes, of course. How are you, these days? Michael tells me you're... with someone." Her lower lip protruded, and Izzy realized that she was pulling out her sexy pout.

Izzy broke away from his eye-twitching search for an exit long enough to fix her with a deadpan stare. "That's well within my rights. After all, you broke up with me, if you'll recall. Not that I was ever given the courtesy of a clear notification to that effect." Her implication that she had any right to be upset about his moving on nearly had him choking on his annoyance. He slammed the empty cup down and instantly wished that it were made of glass, like Shauna's. The dull thud of plastic on the surface of the counter was a poor substitute for the high, penetrating clink of glass.

The muscles in her face tightened, and that smile vanished. "Izzy," she said, leaning towards him, wafting an enticing scent, some mixture of dark wood, amber, and orchids, all over him, "about that. I... I'm glad I ran into you. I've wanted to say this to you for a while, now. I was going through a lot when we were dating, I was under a lot of pressure from my parents. I wanted to act, but they wanted me to do something more practical. I only did that to you because I needed-"

"I'm aware of what you needed," he said through gritted teeth. "And I'm not interested in your excuses. If your intention is to expiate your guilt by spouting words at me, kindly refrain from wasting both our time." His fingers began to drum against the surface of the counter. He had never denied an honest repentant his forgiveness before. Holding on to a grudge was a waste of time and energy, as far as he was concerned. But he couldn't seem to let this one go, perhaps because he sincerely doubted that Shauna understood or cared about the pain she had forced him to endure.

For a moment, Shauna's lips curled into something ugly, some bastard child of a grimace and a sneer, but she smoothed it out at once. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, and Izzy felt his brow rise as he watched her lean over the counter, balancing her elbows on its surface. He had never, ever seen Shauna display hesitance or guilt before, but he knew better than to blindly believe in what he was seeing. The beautiful woman beside him could convince anyone of anything almost effortlessly, and he was powerfully aware of that.

"This isn't just about me wanting your forgiveness," she breathed, and Izzy almost lost the words entirely in the surrounding noise, but he refused to lean closer. She paused, no doubt waiting for some response from him, but he wasn't in the mood to humor her. He continued to stare stonily at her profile, his hands toying with his cell, making it as obvious as he could that she was only receiving a token amount of his attention. Finally, she exhaled slowly and turned her eyes towards him. They were wide and soft, almost beseeching.

"Do you like college?" It was a normal, innocuous question, but her tone seemed to suggest that she was making some soul-searching query, like a child asking an adult what happens after death.

But Izzy refused to be caught up in her dramatics. "It's been an education." He moved his eyes to the message Amy had sent him. Where are you? Don't get lost. I'm not lost. Tai's here. It's too crowded, I want to find you. Despite everything, a small smile formed on his face. Her concern and anxiety were evident, even through characters on a screen, and she was so oddly adorable when tipsy (but, she did not, he noticed, make typos or grammatical errors). He reread the message over and over again, letting her desire to be near him warm and soothe. What was he doing, wasting time with Shauna when she wanted him? Then his smile grew as he realized the truth of what he had just offhandedly spoken. What was going on between him and Amy was murky and muddled, and yet it had already forced him to feel and work through a treacherous quagmire of emotions. And he had come out stronger, or at least less broken than he had been when he entered it. "Just not in the way I had anticipated."

For a moment, Shauna stared at him blankly. Then shook her head, as if to clear it, and smiled shakily. "Cryptic as always." She looked at him expectantly, but he felt no desire to return the nicety by parroting her question. After all, he didn't care in the slightest about her college experience.

"Anti-social as always," she added, rolling her eyes. "In some ways, I enjoy college. I get to act every day, and my skills are admired."

"Heaven save you from a world where you aren't admired," Izzy muttered, cutting her off. His tongue pressed against the back of his upper teeth as he realized his rudeness. Apparently, the alcohol he had just chugged was loosening his tongue and his mind's control over it. But he wasn't going to apologize to her, so he let the comment stand.

Shauna's brow furrowed deeply, and she emptied her drink into her mouth in one great swig. Her expression didn't sour at all at the taste. "You've changed," she said, sitting down the glass.

Izzy felt his brow rising. "At your hands." This woman is entirely unbelievable. Did she really fail to notice the effects of the damage she inflicted on me? I knew I was insignificant to her, but this… His teeth began to grind violently, and he forced himself to think of something else, anything else. He began to name all of the moons surrounding planets in the Milky Way. Earth's moon, Phobos, Deimos, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto… I still cannot believe that I ever had any kind of attachment to you- No! No- Hyperion, Phoebe…

Shauna's hands began to toy nervously with the glass, twitching it about the surface of the counter, but she stopped abruptly. Then, she tilted her head down and began to speak, as if she were conversing directly with the counter. "But, even though I'm meeting lots of new people, it's been… Sometimes, it's… Sometimes, it's a little lonely." There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and then Shauna turned her face towards his, lifting her dark eyes compellingly. "Do you know what I mean?"

"I'm afraid I've been having the opposite problem. Lately, I can't seem to keep people from knocking my door down." His tone was dry, and perhaps would have been affectionate if his nerves weren't so fried with his proximity to Shauna. He was thinking of Joe and Mimi prodding and almost bullying him, respectively, to ask Amy out, of Tai shoving him out of his room and into parties, of Amy constantly wanting to be where he was.

But he could also understand why Shauna was feeling let down with college, and his lingering ability to make sense of her moods and emotions frustrated him to the core. In all of her schooling prior to college, she had been the proverbial big fish in a small pool. Everyone knew her, everyone loved her, everyone was dazzled by her. And, although she doubtlessly already had a crowd of followers here, most of the people around her failed to react to her. There was no way for the entire student body to be in the palm of her hand any more; the world had grown beyond her ability to contain and astound it. Still, he thought, grimacing at his cell phone, she must be drunk. She always wanted others to envy her, wanted to create the impression of being a perfect person living a perfect life. Unless…

"Kindly get to your point. My friend is somewhere in this mess, and she's asking for me," he said, making a slight gesture with his phone. Frustration immediately bubbled through him; he didn't want Shauna growing curious about his female friends, which he had never had before, any more than he wanted Amy finding out about Shauna, mostly because the first could easily lead to the second.

"What are you talking about?" Shauna asked, her tone a mixture of innocence and suspicion.

"You want something from me. Otherwise, you wouldn't admit to being anything but blissfully happy and fulfilled." Izzy delivered this statement in a bored, detached monotone. It reminded him of Joe reading off a string of numbers from an experiment to Amy as she typed up their lab report.

For a moment, Shauna's eyes widened, but soon she was producing that velvety, chocolaty laugh, the same one that had once sent shivers down his spine. "Oh, Izzy. You always were direct, but this is a bit much, don't you think?" Izzy stared at her impassively, his expression dull and unblinking. A muscle worked in Shauna's cheek, twitching once, twice, before it smoothed back out.

She leaned into him, and he ordered himself not to retreat, not to show any sign of weakness. One of her long, graceful pointer fingers extended to its full length and pressed against his chest, drawing tiny circles against his manubrium. Her eyes lowered, and her voice dipped into its lowest, darkest, most compelling pitch. "Fine," she whispered, and she moved closer still, until he could feel her breath on his face when she spoke. Disgust and something like hate were building up more and more as she closed the distance between them, but Izzy forced himself not to react. This territory was becoming dangerous, but he wanted to allow her to reveal exactly what she was thinking before he interceded.

"Come home with me," she said, and that fluttering, purring quality that he remembered so well was heavy in her voice. But his body failed to respond as it once had. Frankly, he was revolted, and it was a battle to prevent himself from sputtering like an outraged cartoon character. She had used and discarded him like a snot-encrusted tissue, and she had the gall to expect him to come running back to her at the snap of her fingers, just so she could regain something she had possessed when the world was truly her oyster.

There was some part of him that wanted to grab her shoulders and shake as he tried to make her understand the depths of what she had done to him, but he knew she wasn't worth the effort, and that it would be a futile exercise. So he took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye, and pulled out a technique that he had learned from Amy. "Michael told you that I'm seeing someone," he reminded her, implying something that wasn't exactly true by speaking a truth.

Shauna snorted and tipped her head back, and the unattractiveness of the gesture proved that she was fairly far along in the liquid portion of her Halloween celebration. "You wanna know what he told me? He told me there was a stomping cow clinging to your arm. A bitch who brushed him off like he was nobody. I thought I'd offer you something that doesn't have to be separated into meat cuts before anyone can make use of it."

For a moment, Izzy was so overwhelmed with fury that he couldn't react, and a few seconds ticked by with no sound between them. Then, choice words began to swirl through his brain, all most uncomplimentary towards the woman seated beside him, landing on one final damnation: you are nothing like her. The girl you so disdain, having never spoken to her, having never seen her, is infinitely superior to you.

Although he had always believed that Amy was far preferable to Shauna, having the evidence smeared on his face, where it sat, stinging and burning like wasabi paste, solidified that notion, granting it strange power. "Joe was entirely correct," he breathed. "The two of you, the girl I esteem now and you, are so completely disparate… It's entirely ridiculous to expect her to treat me in the same manner that you did. And, while it may not be possible to stop feeling the damage you wrought in me, it may be possible for me to release some of the fear that it will happen again." Suddenly, finally, logic won out over emotions, and a large portion of his fear fled, paradoxically granting him access to an emotion he had been beating back and denying: his feelings for Amy.

It was painfully clear what he had to do, and the sooner, the better. That thought had him sliding off of the bar stool, and he was so focused that he forgot about Shauna entirely.

"I don't understand," Shauna called, raising her voice. "Where are you going?" Izzy cast a half-hearted glance back at her, his heart sinking as he remembered that she was near. Her face contorted before his eyes, and he had a sudden image of Medusa, perhaps because of all the snakes involved in her costume. "You're turning me down. You're going to find your cow, instead."

He might have been more careful with his phrasing, knowing that an angry Shauna was not a pleasant thing, but he was too focused on finding Amy, and words slipped out of him without much thought. "I prefer her to you in every way. And, even if I didn't know her, I would never have accepted your… offer. There can never again be accord between us, let alone intimacy."

Her face paled, as if he had said something obscene. And, of course, he now remembered that being overshadowed was among her least favorite things. Her lips rose into a sneer, and he could practically feel her brain working, pushing its way through intoxication to come up with some sort of comeback. "Your costume… A vampire?" Shauna asked, flicking her eyes quickly up and down his body. Izzy sighed, knowing that she was trying to retaliate in an attempt to salvage her wounded pride. "I get that. You never did seem to want to go outside during the day. But, then, you never went out at night, either..."

Izzy stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh, dropping his forehead into his palm all the while. "Really?" he said at length. "You're really going to go there when you're dressed as an incestuous, whoring, power-hungry, fratricidal woman?"

Her mouth snapped shut, and her nostrils flared. Izzy knew he should leave now, but it felt remarkably good to finally, finally have the upper hand with her, and his words just kept on coming. "You are aware, of course, that Cleopatra committed suicide."

Shauna's eyes were suddenly steely flints in the distance. "Are you trying to suggest something, Izzy?" she asked, her voice low and hard.

"Not at all," he said, and there was a strange sadness to his tone. Seeing her there, shaking slightly, trying to look proud and strong in the garb of a famous woman… Somehow, he pitied her just a little. He had the sudden sense that her goals and desires could never buy her more than momentary, fleeting happiness. "It's merely a warning. Enjoy your evening."

He ducked into the crowd, hoping against hope that it would swallow him and hide him from her view, and that he could somehow convince Tai that it was time to move on to the next party. He had had just about enough of this one.

Author's note: Wow, Shauna's a bitch when she's drunk, isn't she? That was some harsh stuff she said, there, dude. And Izzy, way to kick some butt! I'm so proud. What is Izzy going to do now that he's finally let go of his fear? Something drastic? Something wonderful? Something incredibly awkward?

Anyway, I meant for there to be tomfoolery in this chapter, but then I realized it was already pretty long, so expect nothing BUT tomfoolery next chapter, from a perspective other than Amy and Izzy. Also, expect the return of a certain annoying psychologist, along with one of his best friends, a certain in-your-face dancer. I know Tai will be one of the perspective characters, but I haven't decided on who else will be up to bat next time… We shall see. But! There will be a lot of fun drunken jokes next time, followed by something pretty romantically loaded, for more than one pair of characters, in the chapters to follow. Please look forward to some mature Sorato content to arrive within the Halloween arc (which is going to be pretty dang long).

Next update will be for Growing Up With You. After that, I'm slowly working on Insurgence. I don't know if Four Years or Insurgence will get the next next update. Hang tight, guys!

Still looking at houses. Thanks for the well wishes guys, you are sweeties!