With only half an hour until the party, I was sat on the floor in Chelsea's room between her legs while she sat on her chair to attach my wig into place. Don't get me wrong, it was a good quality wig and was pretty real-looking, but still, every time I touched it, I visibly cringed at the wiry feel of the strands of fake hair.

"It's definitely not going to move?" I asked again, standing back up to my feet.

Chelsea was looking into the mirror while she sprayed down pink and silver glitter into the roots of her dark brown hair. "El, I used the entire pack of bobby pins in that thing. If it falls out on its own, I can't help you with that."

"Well, how do I look then?"

The pale blue puffed-sleeve dress went down to my mid thigh with a white pinafore around the middle. As if I didn't look childish enough already, I was wearing white stockings and Jane's black ankle-strap shoes, and the curls of my blonde wig kept getting in my face so I had to pin a few of them back with butterfly clips. My cheeks were rosy pink with blush and my bright ruby eyes shone through, just to top things off.

"It's so cute, I love it, and it doesn't look nearly as cheap as I thought it would!" she squealed. "Can you zip me up?"

I quickly pulled up the zipper on her dress and she turned around to show me her completed costume. She was wearing a light green dress, and apparently she was going as a fairy princess, wings and tiara and all. Ironically, she even carried around a plastic 'magic' wand.

I opened my mouth to comment on her costume just as Afton waltzed in from the bathroom. Surprise, surprise, he was dressed as, you guessed it, Kelly Clarkson from the Stronger music video. I didn't know what made me want to cringe and jump out of the window more; the brown wig or his screeching singing as he swayed his hips.

"OMG, if this doesn't win the costume contest, I don't know what will," he spoke in a high pitched feminine voice as he flipped his hair and strutted out of the room.

I glanced at Chelsea blankly. "What was that?"

She sighed and shrugged, unbothered. "When it comes to my husband, I've learnt not to ask questions anymore. As long as he's not damaging anything except his reputation, it's fine with me."

"He even has the iconic Kelly Clarkson five o'clock shadow," I laughed as we followed him out of the room.

Once we got just downstairs to the main living area of the guard quarters, I settled down at the same table as usual between Renata and Chelsea. Renata was apparently dressed as superwoman, and in all honesty I never thought a costume like that could suit anyone, but I stand corrected.

When my gaze shifted to the left, I almost dropped dead on the spot when I saw that Santiago was dressed as a motherfricking clown, and one of the scary kinds as well. I clasped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming and my eyebrows furrowed together while I glared intently at the wooden table.

Renata glanced over to Santiago and then to me. "Oh honey, are you scared of clowns?"

I nodded my head slowly without looking up. "Santiago, why did you do this to me?" I whispered.

"I didn't dress like this to scare you, that's just a bonus," he laughed. "I haven't even shown you the machete yet."

"You're afraid of clowns? Since when?" Jane questioned with a judgemental eye roll.

"Since always. All of my other fears disappeared once I became immortal, but clowns—don't get me started."

Trying to ignore Santiago's clown costume, I continued to observe everyone else's costumes. Jane was apparently dressed as Waluigi while Alec, sat across the room, was dressed as Wario, and Corin, who was sat on the table behind us, was dressed as Katniss Everdeen.

"Not bad, Alice," Demetri's voice rung behind me, but he was doing a startlingly good impression of the Mad Hatter.

I turned around to find him dressed fully in costume, makeup, wig and all. It almost made me jump out of my seat, since he was virtually unrecognisable.

"Huh, you do kinda look like Johnny Depp when you're dressed like that," Renata mused.

"Thank you, it took a lot of effort to grow my luscious locks this way." He ruffled the bright orange wig and then my blonde wig with a manic grin and moved to sit back down in his seat beside Felix. Johnny Depp has been replaced.

Felix's costume made me stare at him for a few moments with my jaw dropped like a fish. The costume he'd custom ordered was a giant inflatable dinosaur costume, and his height made it seem like there was an actual goddamn t-rex in the room.

Demetri strode up to the front after a few moments. Of course, he was in charge of running the usual costume contest, and I was more than a little curious to see how this was going to turn out.

He made the entire speech sounding exactly like Johnny Depp. "You are all already aware of how this works, but basically you each have one vote. You may vote on anyone in this room but yourself, because that would just defeat the point of the competition, now wouldn't it? I am collecting votes on this paper now so, if I get to you and you don't have an answer ready, your vote will not count. Good luck everyone!"

When I spun around in my chair to see behind me, I realised that Heidi was staring longingly in Demetri's direction with her head resting in her palm. She looked hot, granted, but she seemed to be too engrossed in everything Demetri did to notice the stares she was getting by almost every male guard.

Demetri leant against my shoulder. "Eli? Vote?"

"Uh…I'll go with Afton I guess," I shrugged.

In the corner of my eye, I noticed Afton punching the air with his fist while his brown wig swayed behind his back. Honestly, as weird as that man child was, he definitely had the most original costume in the room and, from what I'd heard so far, most people agreed.

Obviously, I knew I wasn't going to win, but I wasn't really trying in all honesty. Besides, the prize was getting one of the easier guard duties for a month, so it wasn't like it applied to me in anyway.

A few minutes later with Demetri zipping around and collecting votes, third place was given to some guard who was dressed as a tree, second to Felix, and first to Afton. When Afton's name was called out, he leapt out of his seat and cheered while Chelsea hid her face in her hand. It was going to be a long night, and he wasn't even drunk yet.

Remind me to never party with the guard again.

No one had bothered to really explain to me the effect alcohol can have on a vampire's body, or how tipsy I would be after only three glasses of blood. The party had only been going for half an hour or so and I was already sat on Chelsea's lap cuddling as if we were together. We'd make a cute couple though, not gonna lie.

I spotted Demetri in the crowd somewhere. "Oi, Tweedledee!"

He appeared beside me although he was a bit wobblier on his feet than usual. "Yes, Eli?"

"You should talk to Heidi," I told him.

"And why would I do that?" he laughed.

I sighed and rested my arm on Chelsea's shoulder. "Because, I was looking earlier and she's, like, really into you. Like, she was properly staring, and I think she started drooling as well. Have you talked to her yet?"

He shook his head. "Where is she?"

I pointed vaguely into the distance and he simply gave me a thumbs-up and left. He seriously must've been drunk if he forgot that his ability is to track people.

One of the lower guards came over to me, carrying a full glass of blood. Alcohol blood, obviously.

"Mistress Eli, want another drink? You know you want to?" She pushed the glass towards me insistently.

I began to reach out for it when Chelsea pushed the glass away, ignoring my childish pout. "She's had enough to drink for one night I think."

"Are you saying I'm drunk?! I'm not, look, I'll prove it, want to see me walk in a straight line because I'm sober? Okay."

I suddenly stood up to my feet and stumbled in a relatively straight line. Any grace and beauty from my vampirism had left with the alcohol, so I was about as clumsy as I was when I was human. I got to the other end of the room and flipped my wig before strutting back over.

Chelsea met me half way before I went flying into someone's full glass of blood and led me back over to the table. "Just sit down for now, you could've gotten blood all over your dress."

"Oh, but I love this dress." I picked up the edge of the skirt and swished it back and forth. "It's blue, like the sky. I love the sky. It's dark outside. Your dress is green."

She rolled her eyes and pulled me back onto her lap so I didn't cause any more problems. "How many drinks did you have?"

I looked at my fingers and lifted them up one by one until three fingers were held up. "Three. Three is a weird ass number. Three. Who invented three? That's weird. I like the number seven, seven is my lucky number. I also like seventeen because it has seven in it and I love seven."

Adrian materialized beside us out of nowhere. "Mistress, you're needed in the throne room."

Chelsea sucked in air through her teeth. "Maybe that's not such a good idea…"

I scrutinized Adrian. "What are you dressed up as? It's a really awful costume, no imagination. You could've been anything. You could've dressed up as Spongebob but you didn't. Why? Why didn't you dress as Spongebob?!"

Of course, Adrian wasn't in costume because he was attending this last minute trial, but try explaining that to drunk me. With a roll of his eyes, Adrian pulled me to my feet and began to lead me back out of the party towards the throne room.

"Can I have one more drink?" I requested. "Just one. Or two. No, seven, I like seven."

"How much have you had to drink?" He asked while I leant against him heavily.

I paused for a moment. "Three. I wish it was seven."

"Are you…drunk?" he asked hesitantly.

"What? I'm not drunk, I can even say the alphabet backwards, look. Z…Y…," there was a long pause, "…X…"

A few painful minutes later, the throne room doors were pushed open and Adrian continued to lead me in but I shook him off. "I can walk by myself, Adrian, look, in a straight line." I insisted as I strolled in a slightly zigzag line towards the dais.

"Il mio amore," Aro began, but then paused for a moment. "You are drunk, aren't you?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm sober as fuck, I promise baby." I stumbled into his arms and hugged him as tightly as possible.

Marcus looked like he wanted to correct me for my language but decided to keep zipped instead. I came for him next, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"Hey Marcus," I mumbled into his chest.

He wrapped his arms around my waist with a laugh. "Hello, tesoro. How was the party?"

"So good, it was so fun," I giggled as I moved over to Caius and sat on his lap on his throne.

Caius inhaled my scent from my neck but the alcohol must've put him off a little as he instead turned to face me. "How many drinks did you have?"

"I'm not drunk!" I insisted.

"I am not saying you are drunk, carissima, but how many drinks did you have?"

Again, I counted how many I'd had on my fingers. "Three. I wanted seven because seven is my favourite number. How many more do I need to reach seven? Like, five is it? I think it's less than five. Five plus three…that's ten is it? No, that's eight."

Marcus shook his head with a chuckle. "You'd need four more, bellissima."

I clicked my fingers and pointed to him. "That makes sense. See, you're really smart."

"You took A-Level Mathematics, cara mia," Aro reminded me.

"Did I?" I gasped. "Oh, I did. I passed it as well. Maths is easy, because it's just counting, but weirder. Like, it's just numbers. Easy."

The throne room doors suddenly burst open and a short blonde haired man was being restrained by two of the guards who weren't attending the party. His hair was an absolute mess, but what seemed to get my attention at the time was his massive forehead, weirdly enough.

"Who do we have here?" Aro's feather-soft voice spoke. "This is our little Volterra culprit, hm?"

The man shook his head. "I didn't, I mean…I didn't mean to, I-"

"Dude, what's with your forehead? You look like Megamind, for fuck sake," I interrupted loudly.

He looked up at me, too shocked to form any coherent words. Since Aro seemed pretty fed up of listening to his pleas, he didn't hesitate to execute him quick and fast, his head pulled off with one simple swipe. Marcus was still laughing at my Megamind comment, while Caius just seemed sightly embarrassed.

Aro turned around to face me and raised a perfect eyebrow. "Megamind?"

I nodded. "Mhm, Megamind. I don't like that movie, it's boring. We should watch Megamind. But it's boring so maybe we shouldn't. I don't know, this is stressful."

"And you're not drunk?" Caius clarified.

"Yuh-huh, I'm not drunk at. All. Did you hear my backwards alphabet? I'm really good at it, I'll do it again. Z…Y…X…" I paused for a few seconds. "…W. What comes next?"

"V, my dear," Aro inputted.

I groaned. "You're all smart asses, it's not fair. But after V, it's U. That I know for certain, because I know things. I'm good like that. Knowledge," I tapped my head, "is power."

Caius cocked his head to the side. "So you're not drunk-?"

"I'm not drunk!"

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Author's note: Drunk Eli's dialogue is so much fun to write, to the point where I was laughing at my own jokes haha. I really wanted an excuse for vampires to be drunk, and smeyer never said they couldn't. Who knows? Maybe the Cullens can drink, they just don't. The thought of Carlisle getting drunk though-

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, be sure to leave some feedback because your comments are beautiful, stay safe, and ily lots!