A/N: OH man I'm sorry I've been so reclusive lately, folks. Unfortunately, we just moved into a new house so I'm having trouble adjusting, considering that I still have like two boxes in my room to unpack and then all the DVDs and books in the second room. I seriously have like ten boxes full of just BOOKS. God.
Anyways this is what I give you. The ending is a little shitty but I'll make up for it next chapter. Cheers!
Dedicated to: Tyler – who may or may not read this, but haha, I figured he should get a chapter since he's so nice. He reminds me a lot of how Amarant is in this fic, animal wise, and his room is a lot like how Amarant's is in this fic. Hm. Maybe I'll con him into letting me take pictures. Who knows.
The thumping undertones of techno music echo even through the walls, seep out of the open door and wash over the line of clubbers waiting to get in. Amarant can't believe he's here, especially in jeans. Most people are wearing shiny material, tight pants or skirts, and tight shirts. But he's in jeans and a tee-shirt? How in the hell did this happen?
"Don't look so nervous," Lani leans up and tells him, "They can smell fear."
"I'm not nervous. I don't give a shit. Why am I here?"
"Because I – Kuja too, Kuja and I wanted you to be," she tells him. "Now shut up and play nice until we get inside."
"Fine..."
The line moves – it's not exactly a long one, but it still makes Amarant annoyed – and Kuja calls out, grinning, "Freya!"
That name sounds familiar. A glance to the doors and he realizes why. "Oh, fuck me," he mumbles.
The blonde woman from earlier stands in front of the doors, arms crossed and smirk on her face. "Well, look who's here."
Kuja looks at Freya in confusion, "Do you know him?"
"Oh, I know him," she growls, eyes flashing even through her false smile. "Vivi could barely walk, you shook him up so bad."
He winces, "I didn't mean-"
"Of course, you didn't mean to," Kuja quickly cuts in, "Freya, dearest, he's sorry. He didn't mean to do it – it was a bad time for him. Please forgive him and let us in?"
Freya looks between the three, and then sighs. "...Fine," she mumbles, stepping to the side, "Fine. But if I ever see you outside of this club, I'm going to hurt you."
"Uh huh," Amarant mutters, and the three pass the blonde woman, who's eyes dig holes into their skulls.
"What in the hell did you do to get Freya so pissed off?" Kuja asks.
"Nearly hit some kid. Wasn't my fault, he ran into the road."
Lani rolls her eyes as a few guys call out to her and Kuja from the floor. "Kuja, go entertain the masses while I go get Amarant nice and shitfaced, would you?"
"Anything for you, doll." The silver-haired male slinks down the steps into the dance pit and is instantly swept up by a few guys.
"That's almost too weird," Amarant mumbles, "I need a drink. Or three."
Lani rolls her eyes and loops her arm through Amarant's, dragging him along the upper part of the floor, to the bar that spans most of the back wall. She leans over and waves to one of the bartenders, "We need alcohol!"
"You told me last time you didn't want to drink ever again," the bartender responds once he gets close enough, and Lani gives him a look. "The usual for you, and what about your boytoy here?"
"Fuck," Lani says suddenly, looking at Amarant. He's looking around the club and doesn't seem to be listening to anything. "What do you drink, Red?" she shouts, because it is pretty loud.
He looks at her and then to the bartender, "Just get me a beer or something. Surprise me."
"That's the wrong thing to ask," the bartender grins, but nods all the same, heading down towards the other end of the bar.
"This place is fucking loud," the redhead mumbles.
"Yeah, you get used to it. I'm glad you came, it's not good for you to stay all cooped up."
"Ain't like you're around anymore."
The bartender comes back with a bottle of Southern Comfort and two shot glasses, "I figured, since your tab is already so big," he tells Lani, who grins, "That you'd rather have something less expensive. So here." He puts the bottle down as well as the shot glasses, and then moves down the bar, looking to help some other people.
"Was that supposed to be a stab at my friendship-capacity?" the girl asks cheekily, pouring the drink until the shot glasses nearly overflow.
"Partially," the redhead responds and throws back the shot easily. Lani does the same, and he smirks, "No problem with that, huh?"
"It's not that strong. And I've been drinking it almost every weekend since I met Kuja, so man, I have nothing left to stop me. My liver, she's rolled over and surrendered in typical college student style."
"There you go, rubbing in your college credits again." Amarant pours the next shot and they continue like this for a good half-hour, slowly but steadily emptying the bottle.
"You know, to be bluntly honest, I didn't think to invite you tonight." Lani waves a hand out at the floor, where Kuja's dancing with a dashing young man and playing up the fact that he does look good in tight clothing. "That asshole wanted to invite you. Of course, since I'm such a good friend to everyone, I thought it would be nice if you tagged along."
Amarant nods, raising an eyebrow, smirking. "Of course," he drawls, pouring out another shot for himself, "It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that when I'm incredibly drunk my morals and good-standing sail out the window?"
"Of course not!" she exclaims, looking struck.
"And of course it has nothing to do with the fact that you'd love to fuck me?"
Lani tries to keep a straight face, "Oh, my God! I'm scandalized here, really!" Her eyes level with him and he snorts, downing the shot. "Red, we had our time in star-crossed lover land, most of junior and senior year. Besides..." Another shot goes to her lips and she speaks into the alcohol, "I'm seeing someone."
"Oh, really?" He raises his eyebrows now, truly interested, "I wasn't serious, either way. Who is your new toy? I hope he has insurance," he mumbles.
"I'll have you know that she doesn't need insurance, she's just as mentally fucked up as I am."
Amarant blinks, and then shakes his head, "I thought you grew out of your bi-curious phase?"
"It's not a phase!" she exclaims.
"Uh huh. That's what you said about punk, goth, emo, and – what was it – oh, the first time you went out with a girl."
"You're just trying to get over the fact that I just turned down a night of passionate heterosexual sex with you because I'm in a relationship with a woman."
"What?" Amarant takes another shot down, "No, no, that's not it." He grins, "I'm just wondering how much I have to pay to watch."
"You're such a woman-objectifying, piggish... man," Lani groans.
"So, does that mean by invite only?"
Lani laughs and socks him on the shoulder – he rolls his eyes and looks out over the crowd again. It's a mass of people – long hair, short hair, all the colors imaginable (and some that aren't); different sizes, people from nineteen-pretending-to-be-twenty-one to people well over thirty. It's kind of interesting; all the people dancing look like they're from cliques that would never mesh. He sees a boy with an excess of chains and spikes making out sloppily with a girl wearing a pink Abercrombie & Fitch shirt.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Lani asks, leaning against him. "Hey, should we get another bottle? We're almost out."
"How long has it been?" he asks, looking around for a clock – there are none.
"Maybe an hour and a half – two hours? We sure are heavy drinkers," she giggles, then waves for another bottle, "Why not, it's all on Kuja's tab."
"What's his deal, anyways?" Amarant asks, frowning, "He's so..."
"Gay?" Lani giggles again and then waves to the silver haired male, who flashes her a grin through loose hair and over the shoulder of a slim, muscled man who looks a good four years older than him. "Yeah, he's pretty bad. But, then again, when you're a fashion major..."
"That's got nothing to do with it," Amarant sighs, "You can tell that has nothing to do with it."
"He's just too pretty. And he's not completely queer, after all – I slept with him once." Amarant looks at her with both eyebrows raised and she waves a hand, accepting the new bottle from the bartender, "Oh, we were really drunk. I think we were high, too; I don't know. It was nice, though – he's sure..." Her eyes go over his face, "Amazing."
Amarant snorts and rolls his eyes. "I'm surprised; you've really slept with every one of your friends."
"Well, no shit! How am I supposed to be a good friend if I don't even know what turns them on?" She grins, "You should try it."
"I don't have friends, don't you know that?" He shakes his head, taking a shot, "Except for you and maybe Cid. And he's, what, sixty?"
"Hah!" She jabs him in the stomach and he winces, "So you would sleep with a guy?"
"...I don't even know where you got that idea. I don't sleep with men; I'm not gay like you or your boy out on the floor."
"Would you sleep with Kuja?"
The question is pretty blunt and Amarant blinks, looking at Lani briefly before taking the last bit out of the first bottle and downing it. The bartender sweeps by to pick it up and the second bottle is opened before he responds, "No."
"Took you a while."
"Had to contemplate how much liquor I could consume before I was over the limit."
"Baby, we just finished a bottle of Southern Comfort together. You're over the limit."
Amarant shrugs just as Kuja comes stumbling up the steps, clinging to the older, muscled man, blonde haired and with a definite "surfer" attitude that strikes Amarant as a little annoying. "Lani, Amarant, this is Foster."
"Hey," Lani greets, and Amarant nods to him. "How much have you had tonight?" she asks her friend.
Kuja looks at Foster, blinking, "Um...?"
"Enough that he can't hardly walk," Foster drawls – Australian, Amarant immediately associates his accent to the proper nationality, "I figured I should bring him to you before someone swept him off for a night in the coke closet."
"Thanks," Lani responds, "It's late, Kuj' – let's take this bottle of so'co to your apartment and finish it off."
"You're not staying?" Kuja asks Foster, who grins.
"Sorry, my sweet, I've got folk here I gotta entertain."
"Oh, such a shame," Kuja sighs, Before transferring himself from Foster to Lani.
Foster looks at Amarant, who takes the third shot from the bottle, "It's hard to be straight with people like Kuja in the world," he says by way of apology, before taking off back down.
"What a jerk!" Kuja pouts, "Are we going?"
"We gotta," Lani consoles, "Come on, we'll go to the apartment, okay? Zidane's probably wondering where we are." Lani grins at Amarant, "Come on!"
They leave the club and Freya's off door so they don't have to worry about dirty looks. Most of the parking lot's empty and Amarant suddenly realizes something.
"I can't fuckin' drive," he mutters, looking annoyed.
"Oh, that's okay!" Kuja responds, "You can stay at my apartment! We've got all this room and there's a television and – oh, my brother's there... oh! Well, you have to come anyways, you aren't driving drunk!"
"It is pretty close, and you can always stay at my place if you're too weirded out by Kuja's drunken antics."
Amarant snorts, "Yeah, fine. Whatever."
They start in the supposed direction of the apartment when suddenly Kuja stops, causing Lani to stop as well. He looks at Amarant, "Hey, go get your CDs. I wanna look through them more extensively." The word "extensively" takes a good two tries before it comes out properly.
"...Okay," he mumbles, and goes to the truck, unlocking it and pulling out the battered CD case. He locks the door and heads back – it's difficult to walk, really, with so much alcohol. At least more is waiting for him at the end of this trip.
They walk along the sidewalks in the general direction Kuja puts them in; Lani and Kuja are supporting each other and Amarant's merely listing side to side in order to keep a general balance.
He leans to the side about five minutes into the walk and hits the wall. "Oh-kay," he concedes, "There we go." He slides against the wall and down to the cement, eyes closing.
"Amarant!" Lani exclaims, "Get up!"
"No, I'm fine here. The cement's kind of comfortable. Go on, I'll... catch up or something."
There's a moment of silence and then, suddenly, he feels weight on his lap. He opens his eyes and Kuja stares up at him, stating, "Well, I guess we're down for now too."
"Lani, I have a drunken fool on my lap. Please explain this."
"Hey, it's Kuja. No shrink in the world could explain him," she sighs, dropping down next to the redhead.
"We're not gonna leave you!" Kuja looks stricken by the very thought and his voice drops very low, "You could be – I don't know, raped!"
Amarant laughs, lowly. "Oh, yes, because a big, muscled ranch hand with a switchblade stands such a high chance of being sexually assaulted."
"Some crazy woman could come and think you're sexy!" Kuja exclaims, eyes wide.
"Now, that wouldn't be rape." He smirks, leaning his head back, "I look like a bum."
"We look like bums," Lani corrects, "Three drunk bums on the corner with a bottle of bourbon and sexily disheveled clothing."
"I dunno," Amarant responds, rolling his head along the wall to rest it on top of Lani's head, "You look more like a prostitute than a bum."
"Oh, like Kuja doesn't!" Lani exclaims.
"If we're prostitutes, does that make you our pimp?" Kuja asks, looking a little stoned and blinking owlishly.
"Oh, I can see that happening," the redhead chuckles, before asking, "Did your dancing partner give you any pills or ingestible items of questionable origin?"
The silver-haired male blinks. "Um... I don't... think so... Why, do you think I'm stoned?"
"I don't know."
They sit there for a while and a few people on their way home from bars or the mall or wherever people come from so late at night pass them. They get a few looks but Amarant glares at some and Lani snaps her teeth at others, so they're generally left alone.
"Can we go now?" Kuja finally asks, "Zidane might not have a key."
"You locked the door again?" Lani asks, annoyed, "I always tell you that he doesn't have a key. Seriously, you're a horrible brother."
"I know," Kuja sighs, a bit too overdramatically to really be serious. He gets up, stumbles back a short bit, and then holds out his hand to Lani. She waves him off and stands herself, dusting off her shirt idly. Amarant gets up as well, and after a few moments of unbalance, he decides maybe he can walk to the apartments.
They stumble forward dazedly for a few more minutes before Kuja finally tells them, "There it is."
The apartments are modern looking but kind of plain – Amarant wouldn't have guessed that someone like Kuja or Lani would live in them. Then, he realizes it's the college apartments, so it's not too strange.
They go through the lobby, which is empty save for a security guard who waves them through in amusement, and Lani jams her finger as she pushes the up button for the elevator.
"Aw, shit!" she mutters, "That fuckin' hurt."
"Poor baby," Amarant drawls without looking entirely too serious. The doors open and they go up two stories, heading down the hall and to the left.
Kuja frowns. "Hey, where's Zidane?" He messes with the door and realizes that there's a paperclip jammed in it. "Damn it! Doesn't he know that's going to ruin the lock?"
"You're not even worried that he knows how to do that," Amarant mumbles, rolling his eyes. He wonders, for a moment, if he should just go back down and head back to his car, but the Southern Comfort in Lani's hand convinces him to stay, just for a little while longer.
They go in and Kuja flips the lights on. It's a pretty big apartment, for being on a college campus, and Amarant's vaguely surprised. It's decorated as he figured a fashionable person would decorate it, with lots of silver and nice couches and white carpets. It's kind of strange, really – he's not used to being in such a... clean place.
"Zidane!" Kuja calls, "Where are you?"
There's some muffled thumps and a few choice swear words before Zidane appears, with one side of his face bruised pretty badly and a bit of dried blood on his chin.
"What happened to you?" Lani asks, eyebrow raised.
"Huh?" The younger brother shrugs and looks into one of the mirrors, before sighing in annoyance, "Steiner got pissed at me 'cos we ditched him."
Kuja goes to his brother and tilts his head to the side, examining the bruise with a suddenly paternal look. "Did you put anything on it?"
"Nah," Zidane mumbles, looking sleepy.
"Here, come on," he quickly picks up his brother's hand, pulling him along to what Amarant suspects is the kitchen. They disappear through the swinging door and Lani flops down on one of the couches, opening the bottle again and taking a swig.
"Want some?" she asks.
"Thank God," he mutters, and sits down beside her. She leans against him and puts her feet over the armrest, sighing and passing the bottle to him. He takes a long drink. "What happened to the kid?"
"Oh his girlfriend has this bodyguard. He's a real tight-ass, you know the kind."
Amarant raises an eyebrow, "He's dating someone with a bodyguard?"
She laughs, "Yeah, she's the daughter of some government guy – a senator or something. Real high-profile."
"Interesting," the redhead mutters, and they both share another look and a few gulps. He looks around and spots the entertainment center. And it really is an entertainment center. The TV is huge and the stereos look even larger. And there's all the videogame consoles – those must be the blonde kid's. And... "Hey... Is that a DDR pad?"
"Yeah." The two look over the back of the sofa and see Kuja and Zidane. Zidane continues, "I got it a few months ago."
"You any good?" Amarant asks the kid, who smirks.
"You're asking me if I'm any good."
"Just wonderin'," the older boy drawls, smirking, "I mean, I don't know if you're one of those casual idiots or one of us good players."
"Oh, damn it," Kuja mumbles and Zidane stiffens slightly.
"Casual? Oh, it's on now, you punk." The blonde glides forward and turns on the TV, pulling out a CD case. "Max, Max 2, Extreme, Extreme 2... I've got more, if you actually are any good."
"Ama', don't do this," Lani mumbles, looking more embarrassed than worried for her friend's wellbeing.
The redhead ignores the girl and stands up, stretching. "Extreme 2 should be quite adequate. What level do you normally play at, light?"
"Bitch, please." Zidane turns the game on and the normal loading screens coming up. "Gotta do it single player, though. I don't have another pad."
"That isn't a pad!" Kuja exclaims, eyes widening as he flops onto the couch, "Gilgamesh spent months on that for us, you ungrateful brat."
The pad is hardwood with four buttons at the top – supposedly for the X, O, Triangle, and Square. The directional buttons are a dark green against black and if he didn't pay attention, he wouldn't have even noticed their existence at all.
"It's nice."
"Thanks," Zidane instantly takes the compliment as the announcer shouts "Dance Dance Revolution!"
"Alright, brat, go ahead. Heavy."
"Heh." Zidane taps the start button – what is supposed to be the start button, at least – and goes down to workout mode. "Is this cool with you?"
"Whatever, so long as I get the higher score."
Zidane rolls his eyes and chooses Player Two, who's a robot. Amarant smirks – Zidane picks "Butterfly."
And then, the blonde promptly busts out several interesting moves. He spend a bit of his time with his back to the screen and uses both feet to hit a few of the buttons – he makes short work out of the song but misses a complicated jump-followed-by-an-8-step routine. Amarant laughs and Zidane shouts at him to shut up, causing him to lose another few steps. He catches the next ones barely and pulls off the rest with style that only a really excellent player could have.
Amarant smirks. "Move over, punk," he tells the kid, who steps off. The pad is the same size as the one at the arcade and Amarant quickly taps the right arrow until "Captain Jack" is highlighted.
He then proceeds to beat the shit out of Zidane's score and style.
Jumps, back-stepping – he always does better when people are watching him. He does half of the song without even really looking at the screen, or at least that's the way he wants it to seem. He moves his hands and even mumbles along with the song, mixing his feet – using left on right and right on left – Zidane shouts something like "Showoff" and he stumbles, but doesn't miss the down arrow because he simply drops himself back and uses his hand.
Zidane is suitably humbled. No "boo's" or "almost's" and only a few less than "Perfect!"
His score is a great many digits higher than Zidane's.
"What the hell?"
Amarant steps off of the pad and turns, arms crossing as he looks over the three. Zidane looks mortified. "You – How..."
"I'm twenty three and I have absolutely no life. You can't hope to beat me."
Lani laughs, suddenly, "God, that's amazing!"
"Suppose that's alright," Kuja says, and Amarant glances at him. He's got his arm over the back of the couch and this half-drunk, lazy smile on his face, eyes showing a little more than Amarant's used to seeing in anyone looking at him. He blinks and Kuja's looking to Lani, "Give me that bottle, if you would please."
Lani passes him the bottle and he takes a swig, before reaching for Amarant's abandoned CD case. He flips through it and then pulls out a CD, flinging it to Zidane, who catches it without a blink.
"So, this Captain Jack is the same one as on DDR, huh?" Kuja asks, smirking as his brother waltzes (quite literally) straight to the stereo system.
"You're not putting that on-"
"Too late," Zidane cuts Amarant off and pops the CD into the six CD changer.
Hands up in the air.