DISLCAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS.

also, again, don't do drugs.

Chapter 9

Where The Wild Things Are

Jason

"Yo, Jase, ready?"

Leo's curly head of hair popped into the bathroom as I splashed my face with water and sprayed on some deodorant.

"Yeah," I nervously rubbed my wet hands onto my jeans. I know it was rather effeminate to worry about one's appearance but I wondered if my attire was appropriate for a high-school party. As you might've guessed, my experience with teen parties was extraordinarily limited.

It was mainly because nobody really ever invited me to those parties but it never appealed to me. What? I'm serious. Would you like to fail your classes, ruin your future- all for some drunk weekends and plausible hookups?

But I felt like the people who party here was different. Back in my old school, those who went out and did all sort of things were the rich burnouts that you know would always rely on their parents trust funds to clean them up and here, the kids seemed to be like the type I should stay away from and the type your mothers told you to watch out for but for some messed-up kids, they were actually pretty damn smart.

"I'm done," I announced, coming out. I switched off the lights of the bathroom.

"Finally," grumbled Leo, who was playing Candy Crush on his phone. He hopped off his bed and locked the dorm door, then push himself into a position on the floor with his belly facing on the ground and rummaged under his bed for something- I didn't know what- and pulled it out.

It was a vodka bottle, half empty, flecked with some dust bunnies on the cap.

"How long has it been there?"

"Since the start of the term," Leo admitted loftily with no shame.

"Why is it half empty?"

Leo sheepishly smiled, "Boredom has a funny effect on people but anyway, I like to believe a shot before a party is the only way to go but since I'm too broke for shot glasses-" Leo's smile turned wicked, "-we'll drink from the top."

With an assured confidence, Leo unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle down, swallowing a large gulp. He winced at the taste and wiped his mouth, grimacing.

"Your turn."

I gripped the bottle, removing it off him. "I thought I'm gonna be sober to take care of you."

Leo shot me a look, something that went along the lines of are you fucking with me, "One shot wouldn't kill you."

Oh God. I took a deep swallow of the vodka, feeling the drink burning down my throat. "Ugh," I groaned.

"That's it," Valdez patted me on the back and retrieved the bottle from me. "Now let's get this party started."

It baffled me how they got away with a party in full-swing in a boarding school full of delinquents but according to Leo, they never been in trouble for it before. You see, the teachers didn't stay on campus during weekends. They go back to their homes on Friday afternoon to visit their families and spend time with their kids so the government hired a team of matrons to take care of kids during the weekends. The team of matrons were corruptible and some of the painfully rich kids here had no problem shelving the money to pay them off to keep their mouths shut about the things that go on.

When Leo and I arrived, despite the early hour, some of them were already drunk from the looks of it. A good majority was dancing as the speakers plugged to extension cables blasted a remixed version of Flor Rida's GDFR. The girls were swaying their hips sensually, moving their shorts-cladded bottoms to the bass drop, while boys held onto those hips and the crowd gyrated to the energy of the song. It looked like some sort of Nevada desert rave. There was a table located slightly further, which was littered with a big collection of booze and Michael Yew- the self-appointed DJ- had headphones on with a makeshift DJ EDM set and he was spinning pretty hard, feeling the vibrating, techno beat pumping into the sweet desert air.

Leo led me to the table where the boss was kept and began pouring two cups of what looked to be rum and coke. "Cheers," he bumped their red cups of the concoction and drank it. I took a sip of my drink. I didn't taste much of the alcohol so it was easier to drink.

Percy and the group were smoking up- or more specifically Thalia, Nico, Clarisse and Piper were passing a joint between each other, which shocked me considering I didn't think Thalia would allow Piper to be anywhere near her or me.

"Hey," Piper greeted brightly, blowing a column of white smoke out in the air and then passing the rolled-up joint to Niko. Piper stood up from the plastic seat and enveloped me in a hug, then Leo. "You made it. I thought you said no."

"It took a while for me to convince him," grinned Leo, "But then I mentioned how the probability of getting laid was much higher and he was all for it."

"Of course, you did," snorted Annabeth, who waved away the smoke when Nico accidentally blew it to her face.

"That's my baby brother, guys," said an exasperated Thalia, who refused the joint this time, and frowned at me, "I can't tell you to go back, can't I?"

"Guys, shhh!" Piper interrupted, jerking up from her chair excitedly, "This is my favourite song!"

A new song was being played over the ear-splitting speakers and Piper was bobbing her head up, one hand in the air, "Eat, sleep, rave, repeat," Piper chanted, hopping out of her chair, "Jason, come on and dance with me!"

"Um…"

Piper didn't even let me say yes or no before she dragged me to the sandy floor where the crowd was at.

"Everybody, keep your hands in the air!" Michael Yew yelled in the mic. Jesus, how did anyone not find about this? "And jump!"

Piper had both hands in the air, full out raving when the beat dropped, head shaking, hips swivelling, her low-cut top almost bursting and her shorts rid up. She reached into her pocket and extracted out a magenta pill with a butterfly imprinted into it.

"What the fuck is that?" I asked with my mouth pressed to her ear so she could hear me.

This close to her I could smell her vanilla 'n' weed perfume. I study the outline of her lips when she smirked, the details of her face ever-present. "Molly," she whispered back, "Want one?"

I swallowed nervously. The alcohol from a few seconds ago struck a sudden headache in my head. "I…" I looked as she placed the pill in her mouth, then washed it down with the rum and coke in her hand.

"Hey, need more booze?" a random schoolmate of ours yelled, grinning widely.

"What are you offering?" giggled Piper, coiling an arm around the boy's neck affectionately like he was a long-lost friend and kissing the boy on the cheeks.

"Vodka," the guy smirked at her.

"Why not?" She held up her cup and he poured at least half of the bottle's content into her drink. She saw me awkwardly standing in a bumping group of grinding teenagers and shook her head, laughing. "Jason, baby, dance."

"This is not my scene," I told her and she laughed harder. Was she already high?

"Loosen up," she advised, smiling, and turned so her back faced my front. She guided my hands and placed it on her hips and she began moving so I followed her lead. "Have some," she handed me her cup. "You have good reason to get drunk."

At some point, a part of me said fuck it and gulped the whole thing down. "Hey, about that pill…" I trailed off, turning her around like a gentleman, and she smirked.

"Yeah?" she pressed her hand on my chest as the world seemed to fade from us. Her smile was a glistening red one with teeth showing. I swear some of them looked like vampire teeth. "You want one?"

My brain was fearful of what could happen but my heart beat the curiosity to try. I nodded wordlessly and her fingers slipped into her pocket, pulling out a turquoise one with a smiley face. She gently brushed the pill against my lips. I parted my mouth and the pill landed on my tongue. It tasted like sugar.

A few minutes later, I danced better than I ever did and I was seeing colours and tasting sounds and the world seemed painted in this effervescent brightness, overly saturated in its colour. The neon pink tank top Piper wore seemed to glow brightest in the world and her skin practically gleamed with moonlight. I hated EDM usually, but I found myself enjoying the simplistic, repetitive beat gunning from the speakers, which was blasting its own remixed version of Get Low. The sky was littered with stars staring down at us. A low desert breeze ruffled us. I felt Piper clasp her hands around her neck, intertwining her fingers as she danced with me. Without permission or fear, with a feeling of invincibility in my veins, I pulled her close and kiss her. This was the best feeling in the world.

Our mouths were meshing and she pulled out of the kiss, giggling, drinking the vodka and by then, we have progressed from drinking out of the cup to drinking out from the bottle. "Chug," demanded Piper with a twinkle of a giggle, pushing the tip into my mouth, and I opened my mouth wide, swallowing a huge chunk of vodka in. I winced and gasped when it elicited the adrenaline to pump even faster and Piper's scream of happiness was just a shout in the wind as she gripped me by the neckline of my shirt and kissed me again.

When we broke apart to take another drink, that was when we see five people looking at us.

Percy and Thalia and Nico and Leo and Annabeth.

Fuck me.

"Jason?" prompted Thalia, face cloudy.

By then, I wondered what it was like to be in trouble but by then I was numb enough say fuck it.

I laughed but it came out like a thin giggle and tried to catch a lime green colour coming at me.

"Shit," Thalia swore and glared at Piper, who was dying from laughter at me swatting at the air for colours in my head. "Is he fucking high, Mclean?"

"Thals, I'm not! CHIll!"

"Did he just said 'dill'?" Leo's eyebrows furrowed.

"I'll take that as a yes," sighed Annabeth, who grabbed my arm, and inspected me. Like a doctor, she stared me in the eye and pushed two fingers onto the nape of my neck. Her fingers were cold and ran a shiver down my neck. "His eyes are dilated, pulse rising extremely fast."

Thalia pushed Piper off me, forcing her to stumble and causing her to lose her control of the bottle, which fell onto the sand and inexplicably shattered. "What the fuck did you give him?" she screamed at Piper.

"Thals, don't!" Percy tried to intervene but Thalia was mad.

"You stay away from my brother!" raged Thalia and punched Piper in the face, then grabbed me and dragged me away. I flinched at the force of her strength.

"Thalia, please-"

"No, Jason," barked Thalia, "I refuse to let you talk to her. I'm taking you back to your dorm."

"No, I don't want to. I want to stay here and-"

Thalia's features blurred together due to my intoxication but her blue electric eyes were still clear and seething in rage, like fired-up sapphires burning in the embers. "Jason, you can't. Okay? Any more and you'll get addicted and fuck up your future…"

"It's my future and it's my choice…"

"I'm doing what's good for you," countered Thalia, lips pursed, hips jutted out as she ushered me far away from the party.

But then everything started to mesh together and a haze hung over the blur and I slumped down, unconscious.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's just sleeping."

"Oh, okay. Well, tell me when he wakes up."

The eyelids of Jason's right eye peeled itself open, the skin splitting itself apart for colours to chase away the darkness behind those lids. Leo was sitting at his desk, tapping away at his laptop, working on his American History paper when he saw my mass of messy blonde hair and white skin stirring from my bed, muttering 'fucking hell' under his breath.

"So he awakes," announced Leo. "It's Saturday afternoon. You slept through the morning."

"I feel like shit."

"Yeah, it's called a come-down. Happens when you take molly."

I rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling this huge weight of sadness sit on my heart. "Is there anything I can do about it?"

Leo's hand went underneath the desk he was working on and ripped out an envelope that was taped underneath it. He tossed it towards me, along with his blue bic lighter, and said, "Smoke it up."

When he saw my look of disbelief: "Believe me, it works."

"Yeah, because science says to solve the problem to drugs is more drugs."

"See, you're all moody now. Smoke up and you'll feel better."

I sighed. I spread the leaves on the bedside table and tore the piece of paper into smaller strips, then rolled it into a joint- I see Leo do it more times than I needed to know the basic steps. I placed it to my lips and lit it up. The heat of the smoke travelling into my bloodstream helped balance my serotonin levels and within ten minutes, I started to feel slightly better.

"I think I'm gonna head out for a while," I told Leo after I packed it up and taped it back underneath the desk for him.

"Where?"

"Places."

"Jase, your sister is pissed and believe me, as your roommate, if you go find Piper now, she'll skin me alive."

"She doesn't have to know."

Leo snorted, "Funny how this is coming from you."

"I just want to apologise to Piper," I said, "For what happened with Thalia."

"So you do remember what happen."

Of course, I do."

Leo sighed and said, as if he was going against his better judgement: "Fine but be back soon, okay?"

"Okay."

I slipped out of my dorm and into the hallway, which was mulling with trickles of students walking in and out, exchanging small talk between dorms. Most of them were recovering, wearing shades indoors and nursing hangover headaches while gossiping about everything that happened the night before.

It wasn't hard to find Piper when I didn't see her at her dorm. She was by the benches behind the school, secluded with fences and cactus, smoking and drinking out a bottle of Jack while reading a heavy leatherbound book and scrawling furiously in it.

"You're still drinking?"

I startled her as she jumped slightly when her eyes flickered upwards. There was a splotch of purple and blue surrounding her right eye and I realised that must be the bruised eye Thalia punched yesterday. She smiled that enigmatic smile of hers, lips twisting into a half-smirk and half-smile of genuine happiness and sly mischief, "I'm always drinking." She patted on the empty space beside her, "I'm 96% not sober all the time."

"How are you still alive?"

"I ask myself the same question every day," she blew smoke out and continued scribbling into the leatherbound book.

"What are you doing?"

"Philosophy."

"Oh, okay."

"Yeah, I'm reading a collection of works from Greek philosophers- like Socrates and Aristotle, who is, by the way, ninety-nine percent wrong on everything."

"Oh, okay. How come?"

"I'm trying to find some flaws in their logic and there are plenty. Especially the ones about God since they all seem to think there is one."

"You're Atheist?"

"I hadn't notice," she gestured to the bottle lying comfortably on her lap and the cigarette in between her fingers, "But yeah. I guess I mean, I'm baptised Catholic and shit but I haven't been to a church in, like, the last ten years."

I smiled, "Yeah, same. I mean, I'm not Atheist but I'm not religious or anything."

"Good because religion is such a human travesty," she stomped, "I mean, like if there was anything more unnecessary than Donald Trump running for president and Kanye West's fashion label, it's religion."

"For someone who's 96% drunk of the time, you're pretty impassioned."

She shrugged, "Better than fighting for nothing."

She had a point.

"I'm sorry by the way," I said, "For Thalia."

"It's fine."

"Does it hurt?"

"It did but it's okay now," she touched her eye. "So Jase, other than checking up on me, what brings you to my humble abode?"

"I just want to make sure you aren't mad at what Thalia did," I explained, "She can be a bit overprotective."

"A bit?" repeated Piper, "Look, it's none of my business but maybe you need to tell her that you don't really need it anymore. I mean, you're seventeen not seven and you can make your own decisions."

"I know," I fidgeted uncomfortably, "But she means well."

"Yeah, I know she does," Piper rolled her eyes, tapping her cigarette to release the ash building up on the tip. "I'm just saying stop making excuses and stop letting her control you. It's your life to fuck up, not hers, and maybe you need to tell her that. It's about damn time you start living for yourself and not other people because that's the only way you'll ever really be happy."

She had a point.

please review! they make me happy. 3