It's FINALLY done! SUPER sorry for the long wait. This is for all my readers. Shoutout to LessThanThreexoxo and The Poet And The Writer, for giving ideas.
I do not own My Babysitter's a Vampire. Or Alice in Wonderland.
"It's easier to keep the party a secret if we book this place." Sarah said, shaking off the fear she felt.
"True," Benny agreed, though he didn't sound enthusiastic. That was a challenge with Sarah's telling neck pain. "but what if Jesse crashes the party?"
"Let's hope he's not strong enough to not need an invite."
His scoff in reply gave her confidence. "I doubt he would be. I think he met his match with Grayson."
While hearing that name was never comforting, Sarah knew that if Grayson was keeping Jesse busy, neither of them could bother her and her friends. She nodded in the direction of the catering hall. "Let's go."
A frown formed on Ethan's face when he saw his pen run out of ink mid-way through making his last check off the shopping list. "I swear, this was new when we started." He told Rory, who hoped that was only a joke.
Pushing the cart wasn't as much of a struggle as Ethan thought it would be, but after the experience he'd had, he expected to never want to step foot in a store again.
"Think it was anything to worry about?" Rory asked curiously, not having to specify what it was, even though Ethan hadn't talked about his latest vision since admitting he didn't know what it meant.
"Hope not." He mumbled, hoping he had just perceived things wrong. And if the vision was a reason to worry, Ethan hoped he'd figure that out soon enough.
Just as the checkout lanes were in the boys' line of sight, someone blocked their path.
He stood there picking at his black nailpolish, as if he didn't notice he was in anyone's way. Rory swallowed a sigh rather than a gasp. He was more disappointed than scared that he hadn't been hallucinating before.
"What do you want?" Ethan asked, thinking Grayson wouldn't be moronic enough to start another supernatural fight in a public place.
"I wouldn't be so nasty to someone who's trying to ask for forgiveness." Grayson warned in a whisper.
"After what you did, you don't deserve it." His voice was on the verge of monotone, and he hoped it was menacing enough to make Grayson get the message.
Though nothing seemed to ever be good enough for him.
"Please?" He said, rather pathetically. To the point where it shocked the two friends. Grayson turned his attention to Rory. "You're still standing. And I bet you both know I never meant to mess up so bad." Ethan and Rory looked at each other incredulously, amazed Grayson hadn't realized he crossed the line. "I certainly wouldn't have done it if I'd known then that I actually have a purpose in life." He added. Though he hadn't meant to.
"What pur-" Ethan cut himself short, looking up to find Grayson gone. He was glad, too. Glad enough to joke. "I thought only you did that."
Rory laughed. "Only I can do it so awesomely." He clarified.
Playfully shaking his head, Ethan resumed walking and Rory followed closely behind. When they went to pay, they were intercepted. Right away, they knew Grayson wasn't trying to buy their forgiveness. They turned around to find that confirmed.
"Mr. Temberlon." Ethan said, clearly caught off guard. In response, the man gave a cross between a friendly smile and a sneaky grin. Something Ethan bet Ryellie had seen on the rare occasion she wanted to buy herself something.
"We got this." Rory insisted. He and Ethan had agreed to split the bill, and he didn't feel comfortable letting Noah take care of it. It wasn't his choice, apparently.
"I'm the one who wrote that list. I'm gonna pay for everything on it." Noah insisted. "Thanks for doing the shopping for me, guys."
"No problem." The boys replied, feeling guilty they hadn't gotten the job done before he showed up. Everyone had their part in the planning. Ethan and Rory wanted to do their fair share.
"Why are you girls looking at me like I just transformed into some animal in plain sight?" Grace questioned from the driver's seat of her SUV.
"This is a surprise." Reegan replied from the passenger's seat, putting an odd stress on the last word of her sentence and squaring her eyes at her cousin, who was standing by her window.
"Not really." Rae countered, her voice quiet. She felt distant, even though she was only in the back seat. Sitting behind her aunt rather than her sister. "Aunt Grace always goes out to lunch after she finishes a book." The questioning look she'd given Grace resurfaced when she finished. "She just usually never takes us along."
"I usually finish a book in the same place I start it." Grace pointed out, as if that was her justification for what the twins regarded as odd behavior. "This time it's different. And I could always use the company."
"So could Rae." Reegan thought aloud. "She's been acting all weird lately."
"In the car." Rae reminded her twin, with an irritated tone. It was a strange feeling for her: being frustrated that Reegan would act like she wasn't there, while her thoughts were somewhere else.
"Yeah, and how come you weren't in our car when we came back from work? I had to find out from the boss that you'd already left."
Ryellie's focus shifted to Rae, and she saw her bite her lip in nervousness. Her concern was obvious as she waited to hear what Rae would say.
"I... went to the airport." She saw Grace and Reegan's eyes bulge in the rearview mirror. "I was thinking of going home." From that, they knew she had to have been thinking about doing so for awhile. It wasn't something Rae could or would do on a whim, and it wasn't cheap either. "Even if it was just for a day." Out loud, it sounded crazier than when Rae had first thought it.
Though they agreed on that, the others looked like they understood. Unlike Ryellie.
For Rae, home was wherever Walter and her other friends were. Ryellie couldn't say the same. She'd been neutral to the many places she'd lived in the past, but she truly loved Whitechapel and the friends the town had brought her. So, she spoke up, sounding rather hurt. "Home is here."
Reegan let out an exaggerated sound, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "Well, that was incredibly cheesy."
Rae reached over diagonally to give her sister's arm a playful but defensive tap. As expected, Reegan rubbed the spot as if trying to dull the pain that wasn't there, all while glaring. Rae ignored her overdramatizing, and sent Ryellie a look that told her to take no notice. (Especially since that comment came from someone with a soft spot for romance. Though Ryellie hadn't only counted Benny as the reason for calling Whitechapel home. And their romance had been rather short-lived.)
"Sometimes," Rae admitted, "I like cheesy."
Ryellie put on a smile, and opened and closed the garage door as she went back into the house, knowing that most likely an argument had broken out between the twins, and Grace would be too preoccupied with trying to settle it to do so herself.
When she re-entered the kitchen, she saw Erica looking through the cookbook with Simon.
"We won't need to make the cake until a few days before the party, but we can definitely pick out the recipe and find our ingredients now."
"Whatever gets me outta here sooner." Erica laughed.
"Stop acting like you're not having fun."
"How can you not have fun with the food Simon makes?" Ryellie asked, standing at her grandfather's side.
"Yeah, it's pretty cool." He agreed nonchalantly. "Even if I have no taste for plasma."
Erica chuckled. "It amazes me that you know the truth about us when Ryellie's parents don't."
Simon shrugged. "Sometimes they know more they let on. But I think if Grace did know she'd... she'd have a breakdown."
"Simon." His granddaughter scolded softly. She didn't like when he joked like that. And she didn't like being reminded she was keeping her vampirism a secret. She hadn't reacted well to the shapeshifter secret. She felt hypocritical.
Simon got her mind off that when he opened the cabinet above the stove, to see if there were any boxes of cake batter in there. When he did, his eyebrows drew together. "Who cooked all the pudding?"
From that point on, everyone's focus had shifted completely to party planning. The adults found it hard to remember they had jobs to do at times, being that they served as distractions for the twins. Charlotte came up with the idea to throw her daughters off by having everyone suggest other ideas for parties they could have. The twins outright refused each option, and were convinced their family no longer had anything to hide. Throughout this time, the adults made sure to keep them away from the catering hall, which the kids decided to fix up without using magic. A compromise Benny made to calm Sarah's nerves.
In the end, the place still looked like Halloween. Only difference was that it was supposed to. Not being able to settle on a theme made the decorations seem creepy. There was a hope that the twins would find them as random as they were themselves. Once they stopped yelling at everyone.
Sarah still felt like something was missing, with the party only a few days away. She was looking through her closet for something to wear-with no intention of buying anything new considering the twins had never seen her formal clothes-when an idea came to her. She quickly dialed Ethan, and caught him in the middle of one of his mini-freakouts.
"Sarah, please tell me we didn't run into another problem." (Problems seemed to multiply like rabbits all throughout that week.) "Are we short a chair? Did Benny drop the cake again? Is the hall on fire?"
Instead of dismissing his concerns right away, she answered: "I don't know; I can't see it from here."
He laughed, and his worry dissolved. "What's up?"
Sarah's idea had begun to pan out in her head, and that brought a smile to her face. "By any chance, do you still have those fake fangs?"
"What if they don't go with me?" Ryellie asked, feeling out of place. She was the only one of her friends not in costume, but she could deal with that later.
Benny frowned, thinking that her tone reflect self-doubt. Pondering it more, he realized she was only worried that the twins would somehow still be suspicious.
He said: "Don't worry about it. This isn't exactly an offer they can turn down." In the middle of his sentence, the brim of his tophat slowly slipped down to rest on the bridge of his nose. Ryellie let out a barely audible annoyed whine seeing this, since she was the one who picked out the hat. She stopped being angry with herself when she heard Benny laugh. He used one of his white gloved hands to push the hat back into place, and wondered if his head honestly looked that big to others.
"The girls'll be too busy pinching themselves to question anything." Ethan agreed. In fact, he figured if there was anything to question, it'd be his costume.
He wore baggy, mismatched clothes and his shoes were so worn there was a hole in one, and the sole was nearly completely detached from the other. His purposely unkempt hair was mostly hidden under a patched up hat. Which looked like it'd had a spat with what was left of Reegan and Rae's superglue and lost. Resting on that hat was one of the only telling clues of his ensemble: the crystal ball-which was actually plastic-that he knew he'd get tired of carrying around all night if it hadn't been for Benny's idea. To top it all off, tarot cards were tucked in Ethan's torn sleeve.
"I don't have to do anymore stalling, do I?" Rory-dressed as a sophisticated looking vampire-asked cautiously, as if he was trying to will the answer to be a negative. Reegan had given him so much of a pudding overdose, he didn't want to go near anything she dished out again.
Ethan glanced at his watch. "No, but Ryellie, I don't think there's a way you can have enough time to get the twins before the guests arrive." As much as they were against a party being thrown for them, the group knew Reegan and Rae would flip of people started partying without them.
"Yes there is." Benny assured the others, with a devious sort of pride in his voice. "I've been practicing this one." He was through reciting the teleportation spell before anyone could object. Not that Ryellie had any doubts.
The twins had literally barricaded themselves in their room, with the help of their desk. They had vowed to each other not to go anywhere, thinking they'd only find a party they didn't ask for if they did. Ryellie knew that, but it didn't stop her. She knocked on the door, tapping out a butchered version of Happy Birthday that she made a disgusted face at.
Reegan gave a flat: "What?" as reply.
In contrast, Rae sing-songed: "Who is it?" Which was how Ryellie realized that they were part of the barricade, sitting on the desk.
"Who do you think it is? Who knocks besides Mom?" Ryellie sounded just plain confused. She was sure she didn't use the same amount of force that Grace did when she knocked. Were they expecting somebody else?
The girls pretended to have their feelings hurt, despite their cousin's gentle tone. "Oh, now we're definitely not letting you in." Reegan decided. "No matter what you say."
By the sound of that, it seemed like they were determined to waste the day away. Ryellie thought it may not just take her original idea to get them out. She needed a solid selling point. "Oh, okay. You don't have to let me in. I just wanted to tell you that I made you some dresses. If you guys like them, I'll make some more that you can sell in the store."
Almost immediately, Ryellie heard her cousins scramble to push the desk back where it belonged. Reegan hurried to the door, while Rae put the laptop back in its place. When the door opened, Ryellie saw Rae holding a piece of paper with a longing expression in her eyes. She placed it next to the laptop and quickly joined her sister at the door. They wore twin grins that would put the Cheshire cat to shame.
Ryellie then remembered what she hadn't had a chance to say all day long. "Happy Birthday."
"It certainly is." Reegan agreed, exaggerating a nod
With a giggle, Rae replied: "Thanks."
Ryellie led her cousins into her sewing room, where she had two dresses hanging on the doorknob. Reegan and Rae could tell right away that she had made the dresses with them in mind. (They didn't fit their cousin's style.)
Reegan's dress was strapless, with a slit on the side. The colors were inspired by a lion, since she always acted as the leader. A mix of golds, browns, tans and even specks of white. She had to look close to find shades of faded pink
Rae's dress had a shorter hem, and off-the-shoulder straps. The look of it was modeled after a snow leopard cub, since she was happy being looked at as the baby of her immediate family. (The twins were separated in age by mere minutes, but their differences were greater than that amount of time.) The pattern of Rae's dress reflected her gentle nature in a way. The white and brown colors and black markings were toned down a few notches. There were patches of blue in the mix, only visible to keen eyes.
Ryellie presented the gifts to her cousins silently, handing the girls their respective hangers. For a moment, they were in awe. Then Reegan spoke.
"Wow. I thought we were the only ones good at pegging people's styles. Good job Ry, thanks."
"Yeah, this is awesome." Rae told her.
"I'm glad you like them. Now can you put them on so we can go dancing?"
Rae widened eyes lit up. "That's what you want?" She asked, with a smile. That seemed to be contagious. If only for Ryellie. Reegan's face contorted, and she placed her palm on her cousin's forehead.
"I'm not running a fever." Ryellie insisted with a playful roll of her eyes. "I'm trying to do something special but uncomplicated for your birthday. Since that's how you guys like it."
With that, the birthday girls went to change.
"Hey,Benny." Ethan called.
Benny stopped setting one of the tables-which was really a job for the catering hall employees anyway-and walked over. "What's up?"
Ethan looked up from the bubble machine he had set out on a table toward the back of the room. "Do you know what happened to the instructions for this?"
Benny gave his friend a pitiful look, and a wave of his hand. "I threw them out; why would we need instructions for a bubble machine?"
"So we know how to operate it." Ethan answered, clearly annoyed. He was having trouble doing that. "Maybe I shouldn't have asked for your opinion on which one to get, since this so complicated."
Benny nodded sarcastically. "Oh, right. 'Cause I could never have a good idea. That's your department." The way he motioned to Ethan, it seemed like he was pantomiming throwing him across the room.
"Watch it." Ethan warned.
"You're the one who insulted me! You didn't even know they liked bubbles."
Ethan threw Benny an odd look. "Who doesn't like bubbles?" he asked, angrily pushing a green button to find that it did absolutely nothing.
"Oh, I don't know, the bubble intolerant?"
Watching from the background, Rory shook his head. Seeing Benny try-and fail-to turn the machine on with the red button, he wondered how much longer he could allow this to continue.
"No," Ethan said "it's gotta be the green button."
"Since that worked so well the first time." Benny replied, in a mocking tone Rory couldn't help laughing at.
"Green means 'go'!" Ethan reasoned.
"Well, red means... 'ready'!" Benny stammered. With that, the boys' argument turned into a storm cloud of unintelligible, overlapping, angry sentences.
Rory stepped between them, pushing a button. The outpouring of bubbles brought the quarreling to a dead stop.
With a smirk, Rory said: "Yellow, for 'you're both wrong'." He walked off, to get back to work attaching balloons to all the weights.
After exchanging surprised and sheepish glances, Ethan and Benny chorused a: "Thanks!"
Ryellie and her cousins got in the car, and Reegan drove to where she was instructed.
The twins' eyebrows only raised once they pulled up to the place, and were given headbands with ears that matched their dresses. With a roll of her eyes, Reegan turned toward her sister. "Tell me we didn't fall for this."
"Wish I could." Rae answered, stepping out of the car.
"You're actually going in?" Reegan asked, not budging. Surprisingly, she sounded more curious than angered.
"They already went through all the trouble."
Looking at Ryellie, Reegan sounded downright disappointed. "You guys are such bad listeners."
"Yeah?" Ryellie said, as if she hadn't realized she, the rest of her family, and her friends had ignored the twins' orders. "Well, I hope you thank us for that later." She said, right before she got out of the car and jogged to catch up with Rae.
Reegan eyed herself in the rearview, caught in one of the rare times she didn't have her sister following her every move. Her sadness faded along her frustration, and she found herself genuinely curious to see what was going on inside, where she went to join the others.
By the time Reegan got inside the hall, Ryellie had already gone to change. Rae waved her sister over to where she was headed to meet their friends, knowing they only had a few minutes before the party-goers showed up.
"Hey, guys." Rae greeted happily. Sarah and Jane had joined the boys at that point. Sarah's vampire costume had a splash of glitz. Her dress was metallic black, and her red eyeshadow had some sparkle. Jane was dressed as a witch-one of the first magical beings that came to mind that had a costume that was easy to acquire. Her black dress had a green smoke pattern that made it look like a brewing cauldron. The pointed purple hat she wore had a spiderweb design.
Reegan addressed each of the group by name when she caught up to them. "Hi Ethan, Sarah, Benny, Jane." She smiled smugly at the end of her sentece.
Rory wasn't smiling. (He had gotten over his bad mood, and it seemed like she was trying to drag him back into it.) "You forgot me." He pointed out, though he was sure she had done so on purpose.
"Just like you forgot to say 'thank you' and 'goodbye' to me when I made you pudding?"
Instead of getting upset, Rory laughed at how Reegan talked like she had done that especially for him. "Thanks, bye." That earned him a playful eyeroll.
Rae was more interested in his costume than the pudding incident she wasn't around for. "Rory, did you do that yourself?" She asked him. He looked almost zombified, without the festering flesh. Insanely pale, except around the eyes, where black was smudged. He nodded happily in response, showing her his hands, which were done in a similar fashion. "Ooh, so creative." She complimented, playing with the pockets of his vest upon discovering they were real, and not just sewn in. His words of thanks were nearly drowned out by the sound of his happy laughter. His eyes were laughing too, which is what made Rae notice Rory had contacts in. Her mind equated the colors with grapefruit: one pink, and one pale yellow. (The result of him being indecisive.) "A fashion-forward vampire with butterfly eyes." She marveled. This had the whole group laughing.
Rory's creativite act ended up sparking another one, and Jane brought out one of her many stuffed rabbits to be the last piece of Benny's costume. And that gave him an idea.
"Did I miss anything?" Ryellie asked, with the slight lisp her plastic fangs gave her. She was tugging at one of the puffy sleeves of her ankle length gown, trying to put it in place. It was simple, even for her standards, because she threw it together after making dresses for Sarah and Erica. (Her cousins' dresses were made after the shapeshifter secret got out, so she could get rid of her frustrations. She was happy they went to good use.)
"Just Reegan being Reegan, and Rae's utter fascination with Rory's costume." Benny informed, still a bit surprised at that last part. He turned to see that Ryellie's costume didn't give off a vampire vibe. It was silvery gray. And the clear headband she had on came with one small accessory: a lilac. He expected to feel a twinge of pain seeing that, but didn't. He wasn't numb to it either. For some reason, he found himself smiling. "Oh, and I thought of another trick for my act, thanks to Jane."
"Cool." She complimented, taking an excited yet cautious step forward when she spotted Grandma-dressed up in a star-filled wizard's robe and matching hat-walking through the door. Since one step was all Ryellie managed before she tripped and nearly face planted. Bulgy-eyed, Benny caught her with a second to spare. She groaned at herself quietly and asked Benny: "Do you ever get tired of that?"
"Nope!" He responded happily, with no hesitation. "But I don't think high heels are your thing."
"That's what I thought," She admitted. "and this proves it."She took the heels off, and was about to go find her boots when Benny stopped her.
"The floor's so clean you could eat off of it. Why don't you just go barefoot for a while?"
"A barefoot vampire?" She asked, intrigued by that.
"Sorta makes sense." Benny said with a shrug. "Especially since you can fly." To emphasize his point, he picked Ryellie up and swung her back and forth for a moment, making her laugh. After that, they both practically sprinted to meet up with Grandma.
They greeted her with smiles and hugs, as the party-goes flooded the room. They were too preoccupied with talking to her to notice that they recognized the DJ's voice.
When the rest of Ryellie's family arrived, they stuck out like sore thumbs, since they were out of custome. (Unless they came dressed as their own clones.)
Grace was the first to approach the twins, who were being showered with greetings, birthday wishes, compliments and gifts. "Happy birthday girls. Are you two enjoying yourselves so far?"
"Yeah." They reluctantly chorused in response.
"I'm glad." Grace replied before she went off to dance Noah.
Rae looked at the happy crowd in front of her. It was made up of coworkers, frequent customers turned friends, classmates and club members, and people from around town. The urge to frown tugged at her lips, because she knew there was no one among them from back home. Her longing to see Wisconsin again wouldn't leave her alone. Because of this, she didn't notice a friend of hers who wasn't out on the dancefloor.
In fact, it was Reegan who caught sight of Rory-looking like an island compared to the sea of others-watching the doorway intently. Sarah was soon to separate from the crowd, to usher him over toward them.
"Maybe something came up." She told him uneasily, considering what happened the last time Erica was held up. She worried for both of her friends, but that feeling subsided when she got a text.
She held her phone up so Rory could read: On my way. Slowly but surely. He could only imagine the mocking tone Erica meant that to be in, and slowly, his smile came back.
Ryellie's feet had found their way back into boots, since she didn't want to be barefoot at the table. The food was good, and gobbled down quickly by all, so they could get back to talking and dancing. (And avoid Lucas's long-winded speech about how little girls grew up so fast.)
Ethan and Sarah seemed to have a silent pact that as long as one of them was on the dancefloor, the other would be too. They were two of the many people who seemed to be kept there by some magnetic force.
"Wow." Came a random outburst from Ethan, during one of their countless dances. At first, Sarah thought he was talking about how neither one of them seemed to run out of energy. But she had to make sure. Rather than look at him questioningly, she turned in the direction he was facing: toward the front door.
Ethan had said the same thing about her, and she couldn't blame him for repeating it. "I agree." Sarah told him with a laugh.
"I third that." Benny chimed in.
Ryellie tried to add to the conversation, but ended up muddling through her sentence. "I, uh... me... fourth." She shook her head, making the others laugh along with her. "I should've just said 'yeah'."
The music stopped, and Rory turned his attention to whatever it was his friends were talking about. (Since his face was made up, that hid the color that flooded his cheeks.) It was hard not to notice everyone had done the same. An instantaneous hush swept over the place, and everyone's stares were directed at the doorway. It reminded him of when Cinderella showed up at the ball.
If Cinderella were a goth vampire, wearing a flowing, full length lace-trimmed red and black satin gown adorned with silver buttons.
Erica loved all the attention, but it gave her the sudden temptation to fix her loosely curled hair, which was already perfectly in place. She soaked in the compliments she got from friends and strangers alike.
"Next time you make me a dress like this, you should figure out a preparation time." She told Ryellie.
She only raised her eyebrows in reply, though she admitted to herself it must be difficult to get ready for a party without a reflection.
The music started up again, and Simon walked up to the kids then, with a relieved smile on his face. "I was wondering when you'd get here. I have to give credit is due." As he said this, Miles wheeled a towering twenty one layer cake-that the twins couldn't help but squeal upon seeing-over to the group. (Granted, the cake wasn't as thick as it was tall, and the top layer was a cupcake just big enough to fit their names on. They didn't even get candles to blow out.) Erica had only gotten seconds of fame, because nearly everyone's eyes were on the cake by that point. It was pretty amazing for a last minute replacement.
"The cake," Simon gestured to it, going from bottom to top. "was this lovely lady's idea." Instead of pointing at her like he did the cake, Simon motioned to Erica with both hands. The crowd clapped for her then. Only the sensitive ears of the vampires picked up that Reegan gave a joking roar instead. They stifled their laughter to keep from looking like the Captains of Awkward, and Simon continued. "Please refer to the chart to find your favorite flavor. And enjoy."
"Reegan and Rae should get the first piece." Grace interjected. Gladly, Simon handed them the cupcake.
"Smear your names for good luck!" Charlotte said. Earning an odd look from Grace, and a loving one from Lucas. The girls went to take the suggestion eagerly. They stopped at the last second, and smeared each other's names instead. A few 'Aw's were heard from the crowd, and then laughter erupted when they split the cupcake and devoured it in one bite.
"I call next piece." Ethan, Benny and Ryellie's eyes darted up, hearing the DJ's voice clearly for the first time that night. He had left his post, and had his hands on the twins shoulders as he stood between them. He brought his sunglasses, part of his costume as-what else, but-a DJ, to rest on top of his head. There was no mistaking those gray eyes.
"Hey, Stockboy." Reegan greeted, making those gray eyes roll playfully.
"Is that my name now, Clerk?" He teased back. He confused them when he added: "It's better than Jerkface."
"Who invited him?" Ethan asked, shocked. The twins seemed to be the only ones who knew him, but they hadn't even known about the party.
"We gotta start comparing notes." Benny decided after a short sigh.
Ryellie answered him with a giggle of agreement. She had never actually told her cousins who Zander was. The only mention he ever got was when she'd said Benny stood up for her because of him, and at that point he was known as 'some guy'. Ironically, Reegan and Rae were the ones who nicknamed him Jerkface.
Erica was looking at Zander too, trying to place where she knew him besides school. She mulled over that while he savagely scarfed down his cake. Once he was done, and made sure to clean his face, he filled in the blank for her.
"Hey, Erica. You probably don't remember me. I'm Zander, we shared a dance once." (And just like that, his face was no longer nameless to her.) He lowered his tone to a whisper. "You were having a pretty bad night. I wouldn't wanna hold onto that either." He seemed like a completely different person compared to the one she'd met on the night she and Rory broke up. She didn't know what to make of that, or what he said next. "Save me another one, okay?"
She meant to respond with a simple scoff, but what came out was: "Sure."
He smiled almost thankfully, and looked around the room. He recognized Grandma, Lydia, and Victoria, but he couldn't tell where from. He brushed it off and went back to his DJing gig, knowing the question would come back to nag at him later.
When Zander got tired of spinning records, he brought out his own MP3 player and put on a playlist called Ambiance. Which gave the twins a cheap laugh. This music served as the background sound for Benny's magic act, and was appropriately mysterious.
Though the music upped the hype, the show didn't quite live up to it. Benny seemed to know every coin trick in the book, though he didn't know how to execute them all properly. Half the tricks fell flat, but the crowd was still entertained. He won the audience over with his natural charm instead.
When the show was closing, he decided to try one card trick, with Ethan as his volunteer.
"Was this your card?" He asked overconfidently, holding up a random one.
"No, but I like your enthusiasm." That got a laugh out of the crowd, too.
"'Course not." He said, accepting his failure. "We'll leave the card tricks to you." On that note, Ethan decided to start holding his readings soon. "And for my final trick, a classic. I'll pull a rabbit out of a hat." Benny took his tophat off, and pulled the rabbit Jane had lent him from behind his back. "This one." He clarified, receiving odd glances from the audience. He put the stuffed rabbit into the hat, after showing that both objects were completely ordinary. Then he pulled the rabbit out again, slowly and carefully. Only this time, it was live. Benny bowed, hearing the crowd cheer, and went to hand Jane back her rabbit.
"You cheated." Ethan accused in a sharp whisper.
Benny shrugged. "Technically, it's still magic. Even if it is real."
"Yeah, but then it's not a magic trick."
"It's a lie." Rory agreed a goofy tone. Both his friends gave him a look.
"Fine." Benny said, looking back at Ethan. "Let's see you do better." He challenged.
"You're on." Ethan told him. Though he had a feeling he'd be worse at reading tarot cards than Benny was at doing magic tricks.
Contrary to his expectations, plenty of people showed up to the table Ethan had set up with his crystal ball hat in the center.
They wanted to hear what he had to say. Some people-even complete strangers-had full conversations with him, asking about their futures or the core of their personalities. Ethan was glad to be keeping people entertained, even if winning the bet would probably get him nothing. He just hoped nobody was taking him too seriously. He didn't want to be responsible for telling them what they were about and where they were going in life.
One of the last people to ask him for a reading was Reegan. This surprised him, not only because she was the type of person to never leave the dancefloor, but also since she was angry with him for not wishing her a happy birthday yet. Somehow, he'd forgotten to do that.
"Alright, tell me who I am." She said nonchalantly, folding her arms as she gave her a weird look.
"I need to do that?" Didn't Reegan decide that herself?
"You do if you wanna entertain me." With a sigh, he shuffled the deck and pulled out a single card. The same method he'd been using since he started. He drew the Three of Swords, face up. Reegan silently winced at the picture of swords piercing through a heart. "That's pleasant." She said to him sarcastically. He couldn't blame her attitude, based on what he remembered of the card's meaning.
Sorrow and extreme pain.
That wasn't a pretty picture, and he didn't want to be the one to paint it for her. He suddenly thought to wish her a happy birthday, but changing the subject didn't do him any good.
"Is that supposed to distract me? Tell me what it means." She ordered, pointing to the card. He held his tongue. "I'm the birthday girl!" She said, getting fed up.
"You won't like what you hear." He warned.
"That doesn't mean I can't take it." She argued. With that, Ethan let her in on what he knew. He watched her face drop, but a smile quickly resurfaced. "Well, if I wasn't such a party girl, that might put me in a bad mood." He silently sighed with relief as she thanked him. But she didn't just do so verbally. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He furrowed his brow in reaction.
"What was that for?"
In answer, Reegan spoke in the sweetest tone he'd ever heard her use. "Don't give up hope. I'm not going to, even after that."
As she walked off, leaving Ethan all smiles without really knowing the reason, Rae sat down. She didn't ask any questions-though her eyes were filled with curiosity over what had just taken place-she just sat there patiently, and waited for Ethan to draw a card. It was upright. The Three of Wands.
"What is it with you guys and threes?" He thought aloud, spawning a giggle from her.
"Lemme see if I remember this. Something about dreams turning into reality, right?"
"Sure, take over my job." He joked.
"Sorry, I love this kinda stuff." That made Ethan wonder if one of the reasons she liked him so much was because he was a seer. "So, does that mean dreams like goals or dreams like the ones you have when you sleep?"
She stumped him. "I don't know; good question. What do you think?"
She wasn't sure how to answer right away. "Hmm... I'd kinda like it better if it was the second one. Though that's kinda cheesy."
Ethan shrugged that off. "The card itself is kinda cheesy."
"Sometimes I like cheesy things." Rae told him. It was the second time in about a week she'd mentioned that.
With a smile that made Ethan seem renewed, he said: "Good, then you should love my present."
Rae looked puzzled. "You got me cheese? Is that some kinda Wisconsin wisecrack?"
Ethan laughed lightly, nodding in the direction of the door, and simply answered: "Happy birthday, Rae."
She stared at him for a second, still confused, then turned around. And if her eyes were sore, the sight in front of them took the pain away. Along with the weight on her heart. It seemed like the floor under her feet fell away, but she couldn't care. She moved so fast, she might as well have been flying across the room into the wide open arms of her boyfriend. They met in the middle.
This exchange didn't not go unnoticed by Sarah. Wearing an astonished smile, she hugged Ethan from behind and whispered to him: "You are amazing." with absolute pride.
Walter made the pile of presents Rae had received look like chopped liver. He became an instant celebrity. He looked like one, too, even dressed as a construction worker. (He got the idea for that because he figured the reflective vest would make him stand out. He'd wanted Rae to see him right away.) With gentle dark brown eyes and short curly hair, hidden under his hardhat. In appearance, he was the opposite of Rae. With dark skin and towering height. They wore matching goofy smiles, though.
Almost everyone's attention was directed at him at one point or another. Work friends of Rae's said they'd heard so much about him. He brought new life to the party, and many of the guests who'd gotten bored were suddenly on the dancefloor again, since he could teach them a thing or two, and was good at mimicking other people's moves. Though that was only a hobby of his. Ethan wanted to go talk to him-and find out just what it was that made Rae say they were alike-but he still had one person's cards to read.
Benny asked for some closure with Ryellie.
Ethan wondered how that could be in the cards, among other things. "Closure?" He echoed. "You make it sound like you've broken up."
"We have."
"Not really. You see each other every day." Inside, Ethan knew that's not what made it seem like they were still together. It was more about how neither of them looked at anyone else.
Benny sent his best friend an odd glance. "Following that logic, if Sarah told you that she didn't wanna be your girlfriend anymore but still hung out with us all the time, you'd tell people you two were still together? Because that sounds crazy." He said this as more of a casual observation than ridicule.
"Don't scare me." Ethan said, making Benny chuckle. Then he got on with business. "Okay, so I'll deal one card?" He wanted to get this over with quickly.
But Benny didn't know that. "Nah, how 'bout three?"
Ethan complied, shuffling and dealing three cards face up. First was the fool, which made them both frown. Next was Temperance. They didn't know what to think of that. Lastly, was The Magician.
"That's kinda creepy." Benny commented. Then confusion crept into his voice. "What does it mean?"
Wide-eyed, Ethan held his hands out for a second, silently saying that he had no clue.
"Oh, c'mon, you're the seer here!" Benny made no point to whisper, under the circumstances.
"Yeah, well, you messed with my method." Ethan took another look at the cards. "Maybe it's literal." He theorized.
"You're sayin' I'm a temperate fool?" Benny asked, definitely not happy about that.
Ethan didn't let that stop him from stating his opinion. After all, Benny had asked for it. "Ryellie's the temperate one."
"So you mean we're both idiots?" That sounded worse.
"No," Ethan said, an edge to his voice. Why doesn't he see the point? "Maybe... you're both fools." He didn't worry about sounding cheesy-thanks to the twins-and continued. "For love. But in a good way. Like, you won't give up on each other."
Somehow, that didn't satisfy Benny. His tone had no trace of anger in it. Just disappointment. "Can you shuffle again?"
Ethan did, without a word of argument. The same three cards turned up. He frowned at his failure to shuffle, and tried again. Only to draw the same three cards, in the same order. He swallowed the fear he felt and tried a third time. Same deal. With a grunt of annoyance, he tried a fourth time, and got the same result. A fifth time, he didn't even get through shuffling. The same three cards fell out of the deck before he had the chance.
"This is starting to scare me."
"You mean how bad you are at shuffling?" Benny asked. "Same here."
"It's not me." Ethan stressed, eyes widened and teeth gritted.
"What do you mean it's not you?" Benny asked, reaching for the deck to see if he can do a better job at shuffling. What he ended up doing was set himself up to play a game of 78 pick up. The cards spilled all over the table and floor. Three landed in Benny's tophat, which was also on the table. Against his better judgement, he looked in it, to find The Fool, Temperance and the Magician. All the other cards were face down.
Benny stood up and-to Ethan's shock-put on a smile. "Okay, so Ryellie and I are fools for love and we won't give up on each other!"
Ethan threw his head back laughing, until he realized Benny had flipped his hat over and left the remaining three cards on the table, headed off the dancefloor. "Hey, get back here and help me pick these up!"
Benny seemed to be in another world entirely, as he met up with Ryellie for a slow dance. (Zader had put on the longest, most romantic slow song he could find, right as Benny reached her.) Even though the place was full of people, including her disapproving parents, she gladly accepted. In response, he gave her a look that she could swear meant 'I love you'.
Grace was the first to notice, and turned her husband's attention to them, while they shared a dance of their own. Noah expected her to be mad, but instead she laughed. "They don't even have rhythm together."
"Yeah." He agreed, smiling. "And yet, somehow it works. They just click."
Grace was visibly hurt by this. She sighed. "Rules are rules."
Noah nodded, seeing that she didn't want to discuss it anymore. They held each other tighter.
Lucas and Charlotte danced in a way comparable to Benny and Ryellie, except that threw in jumps and twists every once in awhile.
Not far behind, Ross and Samantha were dancing together. Or trying to. It was difficult when her shoe came off and nearly caught him in the eye. They looked at each other after sharing a startled gasp, confused as how that even came close to happening. "We don't want another trip to the hospital, Sam." He said, getting a happy laugh in reply.
"You look good with an eyepatch."
"Ugh, guys." It was then they realized Jane was practically right next to them, rabbit in arms. They figured she had to be joking, considering things she'd said before. They felt bad there were no other younger kids at the party, but Reegan quickly remedied that. She brought her over to where the grandparents-the young at heart-were. They seemed to be ignoring the tempo of the song and making up their own dances moves. It was quite a sight.
Erica wondered when Zander would come to get his dance-not that she was excited about it-since the party was nearing its end. Rory found her first, but he was more concerned with what he had in his hand."More cake?" She asked, baffled and a bit annoyed.
"Actually," He said after swallowing a mouthful, "this is my first piece."
She gave him a look. "Well, what was keeping you away from it?"
"I was tearing it upon the dancefloor!"
She chuckled. "Should've guessed."
Rory elbowed her playfully, gesturing to his slice of cake with his fork. "Wanna share?"
Erica caught his glance, realizing he was talking about a random memory. One she didn't expect him to have. She couldn't help laughing. "Cheap." She teased.
"But lovable." He piped up.
She was about to respond, right when Ethan bumped into her. He was trying to multitask, and count the cards he'd just finished picking up while searching for Sarah.
Erica gave a low growl. "Watch yourself."
"Sorry." He told her. Then he paused, thinking of something else to say. "Thanks."She looked suddenly lost, as did Rory.
"For what?" Erica asked.
He listed his reasons, with fluctuating emotion. "Helping with the party, coming up with the idea for the best cake I've ever tasted, actually attending the party..." Rory bit back a laugh to try to keep from choking on the cake he just finished.
"finding a rebellious streak," Ethan went on, quoting Sarah and making Erica look at him funny. "not showing up to babysit." Erica almost smiled, finally understanding what he was talking about. "When I think about it, you changed my whole life."
Ethan didn't think Erica would search for something deep to say. And he was right. "You're welcome, dork."
On his way to Sarah, Ethan passed Walter and Rae. They were holding each other as if they couldn't stand up on their own. The boys nodded a grateful greeting to each other.
When Ethan held out his hand for Sarah to take, she asked him, asking: "Is this in the cards?" It was an appropriate question, since she was one of the only party-goers who hadn't asked for a reading.
He shrugged. "I don't know; want me to check?"
She shook her head, taking his hand. "I like not knowing what's coming next." For their first dance together, the couple was in perfect sync.
By this point, Zander came to ask for his dance. Watching Erica walk off with him, Rory quickly noticed he was the only one without somebody to dance with. He tried not to let that get to him. And honestly? He barely had the time. Next think he knew, Zander changed the game. He yelled "Switch!" and everyone scattered to find new partners. (Not wanting to disrespect the DJ.)
It was hard for some to break apart. Some of the new dance pairs were obvious choices (Ryellie finally got to dance with her cousins). Others were unexpected-and hilarious combos.
In all the craziness, Zander handed Erica off to Rory with ease, and sent the vampire ninja a knowing wink as he triumphantly headed back to his post...
Thanks for reading, PLEASE REVIEW! Favorite part? Anything to elaborate on? Ideas? I'll update ASAP! =]