(A/N): It was meant to be short. It was just meant to be a short, past tense recap, and then the day was supposed to change, and things were going to happen. Instead, we got a complete play by play, which means... this is definitely going to turn into more parts. We're back in 1966, with... huh? That's weird. Normally that says 'Evie', not-
Trigger Warning: Basically, Evie's friends assume something bad happened to her. Being an attractive young women who disappeared in a clubbing scene, in the company of a strange man, they assume the worst. They never say anything blatantly, and they're wrong on all accounts, but still, it's present. References to physical violence (some retribution type stuff). There's also some references to sexual intercourse and drug use, none of which are actually happening/shown and are just jokes, but I thought I'd warn you nonetheless.
January 15th, 1966
Viola
It wasn't alarming, at first, when we lost sight of Evie. Hettie had set her onto some bloke- an extremely good-looking bloke, but a bloke nonetheless- and after a minute or two of talking he must've asked her to join him at his table, because she looked back at us with those eyes. The same eyes she'd always given our parents when she really wanted something, but knew we couldn't afford it- and like when we were kids, I set about doing my best to get it for her. There were no puppy dog eyes or crocodile tears on my part now, but after I- and Hettie- gave her the most encouraging looks we could muster, she finally turned away from us and melted into the crowd with her arm in his... which was the last we saw of her that night.
It was, inevitably, Lou who raised the alarm- not fifteen minutes after we'd lost sight of Evie. "I don't see her," She said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard over the music, and she grimaced at the fact that she was yet again being forced to yell to be heard. Lou was quiet at the best of times, and this certainly wasn't one of those; we all knew she only ever came to these places because of us, much like Evie. "I don't like this." She never did. Lou had always been a bit more... cautious, than most folk, but usually, it turned out to be unfounded. Tonight, on the other hand... well, we didn't know that yet.
"You're being paranoid," Hettie told her with a very 'Hettie' laugh- husky and carefree- and tossed her hair enticingly for a bloke nearby. He was nice enough to look at, but nothing like the guy she'd sent Evie off with- it figured that Hettie had sacrificed quite possibly the best-looking bloke in the place in an attempt to get her best friend to come out of her shell. "Maybe you can't see her because she finally decided to live a little, and she's hidden under all those rippling muscles, and- tats." She clasped her hand and batted her eyelashes like she was lovestruck- a very good impression of Evie if you asked me.
"It's only been seventeen and a half minutes," Pip soothed- it was entirely possible he'd been actively timing it, knowing the type of person he was- and when Lou continued to frown, he rubbed her arm comfortingly. Another one for the tally, I suppose. See, the thing is, Pip just kind of showed up one day. Evie and I were sisters, obviously, so we'd known each other since she was born. Evie and Hettie met in preschool but only became friends in Primary, and Lou and I were partners on a project in Secondary School, only for her to really fit into our little group when I introduced her to Hettie and Evie. It wasn't until just a few years ago that Pip joined the group out of the blue one day as if he'd known us all for years. The running theory was that one of us dated him, but the problem is... none of us had any memory of such a thing. Hence the tally.
"You two are such worry warts," Hettie told them with another laugh, not so much as taking her eyes off the bloke she was trying to woo. We all knew, though, if she actually thought Evie was in even the slightest danger, she'd be the first to tear this place apart. I say the first, because the rest of us would surely follow after; Pip next by virtue of his longer legs, then me, and finally Lou, if she wasn't busy comforting Evie by that point. No one laid a hand on Evie, that was the rule- and as much as I wanted to feel like Lou and Pip were overreacting... I couldn't help but think that something had gone incredibly wrong.
"Maybe we should just... get eyes on her," Hettie shot me a look that was half amused, half slyly contemplative. As though she was trying to figure out whether she was the ridiculous one, but didn't want any of us to know she was questioning herself. As if we would ever fall for that. "It would make me feel a lot better- and look, if we're wrong, we'll all buy you a shot."
She narrowed her eyes at me, then poked a finger in my face almost accusingly. "A shot each, no cheaping out and pooling your money to buy me a single and calling it good." Ah, damn. Well, I had phrased it that way on purpose to be able to try to minimise the fallout on the other end, but clearly, Hettie knew us too well to fall for something like that. "And if Evie's off hiding somewhere because she's getting nailed by Mr Ink, you're buying me a whole bottle." I winced but nodded anyway.
"If Evie's messing around with a guy like that, I'm sure she'll buy you the bottle herself." Hettie merely shrugged; it wasn't that Evie was incapable of attracting good-looking men on her own, but one, this man was more than just 'good-looking', and two, she didn't usually bother. She was very pretty- and I say that with as little bias as possible, considering she's my sister, and we happen to share a lot of features. She was also easy to like- I might even say a little too easy to like, sometimes- which tended to bring a lot of attention her way, male or female. It's one of the reasons I assumed Evie was most likely to be the one Pip dated. Maybe he was one of the handful of guys she'd had a pity relationship with for a single day, but... Pip didn't seem like the type. And, I had the distinct feeling my sister was far too lovelorn to ever forget anyone she'd dated, no matter how brief the duration.
We spread out with the plan to meet back at the bar in five minutes- or as soon as one of us put eyes on her- but by the time Hettie joined the rest of us ten minutes later with the cute guy in tow, we were only even worse than before. "I checked the booths on the west side, she wasn't there," Pip announced, clearly already quite close to frantic.
"She's not in the ones to the east, either," Lou informed us as she ducked out of the way of one particularly drunken patron's elbow.
"Women's restroom was clear, along with the back tables," I said, and we all turned to Hettie- who now bore tiny crinkles around her eyes, as the concern started to settle in. The guy behind her took one look at us, then turned to her and asked, "Are they... always like this?"
I expected Hettie's sigh, but I wasn't quite expecting the level of resignation in it, and the way she immediately dropped his hand. "Pretty much. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be getting to have any fun tonight, so- you can go." He appeared mildly disappointed, but after glancing at the rest of us again, he seemed to put that behind him.
"Have you checked the men's, yet?" Hettie opened her mouth, but he cut her off- gently, at least, but still. He wasn't earning himself any points with that one. "People score in there all the time- might be worth checking." Instantly, we all shot Pip a pointed look, and he groaned.
He did, however, diligently start heading in that direction, even as he threw back over his shoulder, "Okay, but if I walk in on Evie in any sort of state of undress, you're dealing with the aftermath." Because it would scar him mentally, or... emotionally? Although we were pretty sure Pip dated one of us- well, Hettie had been pretty much unanimously written off, given the fact that the last time she'd actually dated someone was in Primary School- I was almost certain that the only feelings he harbored for any of us were brotherly... but I could always be proven wrong, and this seemed like a situation that had the power to reveal that sort of thing.
By the time Pip made it back to us, Hettie's beau had taken his leave- with a surprisingly kind wish that we'd find the person we were looking for- and when he got close, I think we were all well aware that he hadn't found her. If he had, either she would've been with him, or he would've looked more... scandalised; as it was, he just looked even more concerned than before. "Find anything?" I asked, and even I could hear how desperate I was starting to sound.
Pip glanced back over his shoulder toward the bathrooms as if he thought he might be being followed- and not by Evie. "It- not her. At least, I hope it isn't anything to do with Evie." That didn't sound good. "So, I couldn't actually get into the men's room to check, because these guys were- well, I'm not entirely sure what they were doing. They said it was off-limits for maintenance, but... I've never seen a plumber look like that." We all instinctively craned our necks to look over to the bathrooms, and Pip hissed and ducked like he was expecting to have to dodge some sort of incoming attack. "Don't look- they were very intimidating!" Right... and was that Pip intimidating, or anyone less confrontation averse, like me, or Hettie, intimidating?
"Do you think it's related?" I asked- because honestly, if it wasn't, then I couldn't care less right now. Usually, I would, both because it seemed to be freaking Pip out, and also because... well, I think we were all a little nosy, at heart, but not right now. "I mean, do you think-" It wasn't just that Evie was missing- none of us had seen the guy she was with, either. You would think even if they hadn't hit it off- even if he'd been despicably rude to her and she'd run off- he'd still be hanging around, but no. They'd both just... disappeared- which was concerning to no end.
Pip seemed reluctant to pass judgement on such a thing, but I couldn't tell if it was because he genuinely didn't know what to think, or because he was afraid of earning the ire of those mysterious men. "I... I don't know. It definitely reeks of them trying to cover something up, but whether it's- I don't think Evie would've gone into the men's room of her own volition- even if that guy was, admittedly, rather attractive." And if he'd done something to her like I think we were all starting to suspect he had, he was about to become the ugliest man in all the British Isles- in our minds, and by our hands.
"Let me handle this," Hettie immediately volunteered, just like I knew she would. "We don't know each other." She informed us, and Pip shrugged.
"Sometimes I wish that was the case-" Hettie was gone before he even had the chance to finish, and halfway across the dance floor, we watched her entire demeanor change. She went from determined young woman to aimless- and very drunk- party girl in the blink of an eye, and suddenly, the men that'd been getting out of her way were now throwing themselves into her path. It took her a lot longer this way, but she got there eventually, and when she got close enough to the bathrooms, she wandered toward the door rather purposefully- if wandering can ever be described as such.
A man dressed all in black quickly stepped in front of her, and clearly said something to her. Even though we were currently too far away, I could almost see the exaggerated pout form on her lips as he tried to turn her away, and after a second of what I assume was meant to be drunken deliberation, she wobbled forward to lean into him, provocatively. Unfortunately, while the man seemed flattered- and at least somewhat interested- he must have valued his job more, because after a long, tense minute, Hettie gave the guy a terse shrug- probably with an accompanying, 'Your loss, buddy', slurred in his general direction- and slowly wound her way back over to us, under the guise of getting yet another drink from the bar.
"Well, that was a bust," Lou declared as quietly as possible given the now inappropriately- surely only to us- loud music, and Hettie turned to flash us a smirk that was equal parts worried and smug.
"Not quite," She said, sticking her hand into one of the hidden pockets I knew Evie had helped her sew into her two-toned pink sequined mini dress. "So, they're definitely not plumbers. In fact, if they're civilians, I'll wear this dress to my mother's on Sunday." I wouldn't put it past her, anyway. But... what did it mean that they weren't- who they said they were? "He said they got called in to fix an emergency, but he couldn't seem to decide what was broken. First, he said it was the sink, but when I tried to wave him off, he said it was one of the toilets, just to try to gross me out." It probably would've worked if it was real, and we weren't so desperate to find Evie. "Not to mention the fact that I couldn't hear any running water or manual labor happening beyond that door. To top it all off, I picked this off him, too."
Hettie didn't pickpocket much- nowadays- but clearly she had some residual skill left over because she held up what looked to be a business card, between two fingers. It was all black- which seemed to be a running theme with these guys- and there was no way I could read anything from this distance, given the lack of contrast. Maybe that was the point. "What does it say?" I asked impatiently, but I knew by the tightness around her eyes that Hettie wasn't making me ask just to inflate her own ego; she was trying to prepare herself.
"It says," She started, then faltered briefly, before forcing herself to push on- likely because she knew that the more time we wasted, the longer Evie was on her own. At their mercy. "It says, 'Hugar Consultants and Contractors'- and I don't think they're in the construction business, to put it lightly."
Oh God, Evie... what have you gotten us all into?
(A/N): Evie: *having fun, finding herself*
Her Loved Ones: 'She's been taken! She's been murdered! Poor, defenseless Evie!'
Evie: *just trying to fuck vampires*
Her Loved Ones: 'Evie has run afoul of the mob, or some other form of organized crime!'
Her Loved Ones: 'Which means now WE have to TAKE. THEM. DOWN!'
The Hunters: *cleaning up Jerremyah and Evie's blood from the men's room*
The Hunters: 'Uh... chill? Please?'
Vi: 'Not on your goddamn life!'
also
Lou: *has 50% of the brain cells*
Pip: *has 30% of the brain cells*
Evie: *has 15% of the brain cells*
Hettie and Vi: *choose to share the other 5%, but Lou lets them borrow from her when they ask*
also
Evie's Loved Ones: 'Jerremyah's sooooo hot!'
Evie's Loved Ones: 'But also, if he so much as touched a HAIR on her head, we're going to LITERALLY MURDER HIM.'
also
The Girls: 'Pip clearly dated one of us, but none of us remember it- who could it be?!'
Pip: *never dated any of them, walked up to Evie thinking she was a girl he went to school with and only realised halfway through the conversation that she wasn't, and was too embarrassed to reveal his mistake. Learned everything he needed to know from Evie herself without her realising, and just decided to act like he knew all of them beforehand, rather than look weird for remembering all of the details she told him*
Pip: *just there for the good 'girl friend' vibes*
also
Hettie: *brings over the cute guy she's trying to hook up with*
Logan Lovett: 'Are they... always like this?'
I had a debate with myself over whether it could actually be Logan, because I'd already described this particular guy as being 'nice enough to look at', but not as attractive as Jerremyah- which made me question myself to try and figure out who was hotter, Jerremyah or Logan. I think, in the end, Jerremyah is (in the face) more conventionally attractive than Logan, whereas Logan usually entices people with his sort of bad boy charm- and to be honest, this is just Vi's interpretation. Other people in the group might be more attracted to him... like, say for example, Hettie.
I also debated whether or not to mention that it was Logan, but then I figured, 'Well, I don't actually know if anyone's still reading this story, so I might as well declare it blatantly for when I have to come back to this in five years and shock myself with what I forgot.' Because I know for a fact, if I left it vague, I'd have no idea who I planned it to be.
Slang:
Nailed = Hooking up/sexual intercourse.
Messing Around = Hooking up/sexual intercourse/making out (like fooling around).
Score = This can mean hooking up/sexual intercourse, or it can mean doing/getting drugs. (Point still stands, shit goes down in the bathroom in multiple ways)
also, Preschool = Kindergarten, Primary = Elementary School, and Secondary = High School