Happy Single's Awareness Day, everyone! *waves tiny flag and blows party favor* A quick note so you don't yell at me: this is AU, no gods, no magic, no exploding donkeys. Just normal teenagers from a normal school. Capiche?
I do not own the Kane Chronicles.
O-o-O
It was times like these that made Carter hate Valentine's Day.
It was one thing to sit around and eat conversation hearts in English class or laugh at the poor saps who got serenaded by the swing choir. It was another to be dragged to some lame dinner while your parents held hands under the table and giggled like schoolkids.
Oh, and he couldn't forget his darling sister, who was stabbing him with a fork. Happy Valentine's to him.
"Can I help—oh, hi, Carter."
He turned around. "Zia. What are you doing here?" Then he smiled a little and added, "Nice bow tie."
She tugged at the tie around her neck. "Laugh it up. At the moment, I'm here to ask you what you want to drink." She shook her head. "The last time I checked, volunteer basis means you volunteer yourself, although my so-called friends took it to mean volunteering everyone they know."
"You know you love us!" another girl from school called as she passed Zia with a tray.
"Keep believing that," she yelled back. Then she turned back to the table and said, "There's coffee, tea, and water, and if I were you I'd stick with the water. Everything else is disgusting."
His mom smiled. "I guess we'll take water, then."
Zia was barely out of earshot when his dad said, "You know her?" with one of those expressions that made Carter think, Here it comes.
"Yeah," he muttered, "from school."
"Why have you never mentioned her?"
"We only have a couple classes together."
"She's very pretty," his mother added.
"Mom!"
Zia reappeared, carefully placing four glasses of ice water on the table and smiling like she knew exactly what they were talking about. "I'm supposed to double check that you all wanted steak, right?"
Sadie blinked. "How did you know that?"
Zia pointed, saying, "It's on the back of your name plates." She turned, calling, "What do I look like, a magician?" over her shoulder as she vanished into the crowd of overdressed teenage servers.
They sat in silence after that for a good half hour, sipping water and waiting for the food to be served. Gradually kids started trickling out of the kitchen, balancing trays overloaded with more drinks and steaming food that actually smelled pretty good. The back of the room was getting served first, but within a few minutes a rail-thin blond with glasses sliding off the bridge of her nose settled plates in front of his parents.
Zia brushed past, balancing a couple of empty glasses and a pitcher of tea, which did look kind of gross. She had just smiled at him when there was a shout and a crash. A gangly boy slipped and fell to the ground, dumping the contents of his tray on the floor and tripping Zia, who shrieked as the boy's steaming pot of coffee splashed all over her torso. She tumbled down and landed in a pile of green bean and tea mush.
Carter knelt on the floor, grabbing a fistful of napkins from the table and trying to help a few other kids soak up the worst of the mess. He asked Zia, "Are you okay?"
She shook her head mutely and cradled her hand, kicking aside the now-bloodied steak knife that must have sliced her palm open.
One of the adults that must have been running the dinner appeared, dropping more napkins on the unappetizing pile and examining Zia's hand. "I'm taking you to the hospital," he said. "Go put on some clean clothes. You'll freeze."
"Come with me," the blond with the glasses murmured. "You can borrow my jeans, if you don't mind that they'll be too long."
"Here," Carter said, grabbing his sweatshirt off the back of his chair and pressing it into Zia's good hand. She smiled weakly as the blond and another girl pulled Zia to her feet and let her to the bathroom.
"I'll finish this up," the other boy muttered, "You eat."
Carter nodded and climbed back into his chair, ignoring Sadie's cheer of "Carter's got a girlfriend!" and picking at his food, which suddenly didn't look so appetizing. He just poked the fat on the side of his steak as Zia went past, her hand wrapped in paper towels. Not even dessert cheered him up; the so-light-it-dissolved-in-your-mouth angel food cake tasted too sweet.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he muttered.
*#*#*
"Hi."
Carter turned around in the lunch line to see Zia holding out his folded sweatshirt. "I was going to give it to you earlier, but I couldn't find you," she explained.
"Thanks," he said, taking the shirt and pulling it over his head. "Yeah, I was at the dentist. Had to get a filling redone."
"Ouch." She wrinkled her nose. "I hate that. The anesthetic always makes me sick."
"Me too," he agreed. "How are you?"
She shrugged. "I have a twisted ankle and a few minor burns. Had to get a couple stitches. Nothing too terrible."
"That's good."
Zia bit her lip. "Speaking of last night, Alayna said you didn't eat much—which she is mad about, by the way, because she had dish duty, and since we got all the leftovers"—she held out a slice of saran-wrapped cheesecake on a paper plate—"happy belated Valentine's Day. There's no way I can eat the whole cake by myself. My blood sugar will go through the roof."
"Thanks," he said, "You're diabetic?"
She nodded. "Do you want to sit down? I doubt you'll want to eat much, with the filling and all."
"You're not getting food?"
She shook a brown paper sack. "Mystery meat isn't good for my sugar levels. Or my taste buds, for that matter."
He glanced at a passing kid's tray. "That's supposed to be meat? I thought it was refried beans."
"My point exactly." She nodded out at the seats. "Come on, all the tables are filling up."
He followed her to an empty bench, unwrapping the cake and taking a bite. Even with his mouth half numb, it tasted amazing. "Thanks again," he said. "I wish I'd brought you something."
She grinned. "I'll remind you of that the next time you have an entire cake in your fridge that you're not allowed to eat."
"Point taken," he muttered.
At least she had the good grace to hide her laughter behind a cough.
O-o-O
Yes, I know Zia was horribly OOC. That was on purpose. I think if she hadn't grown up in the world of magic and whatnot, she'd have a wicked sense of sarcasm. Yes?
And the dinner thing was basically an exact replica of the Vday dinner my youth group ran, and yes, I wore a bow tie. Laugh while you can. (We didn't have any disasters with the knives, though, thankfully.)
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all get to spend it with your special someone, or—if you're like me and too cool for a relationship *cough*-spend it home alone eating conversation hearts. Like a boss.