Music pumped in my ears and through my body as I threw back a quick shot of vodka in the kitchen and tucked the little glass back away in one of my pockets.
We'd really gotten started at 8. The party had been going for almost 2 hours, and things seemed to be well. I hadn't seen any drama yet. No one was fallout drunk yet. No property damage had occurred. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. All good things, and everything I could hope for.
When I looked out back, I found kids hanging out by the lake. Guys and girls in swim trunks and bikinis, playing around in the water. There were lights on by the water. If anything would get us busted, it would be that, but hopefully people weren't paying too much attention on the other side of the lake.
I maneuvered my way through the crowd of people inside of the house, careful not to get any drinks spilled on me as I moved through the premises to try and get outside. I had tried to take a headcount of people entering, but stopped when I'd gotten to sixty and kids kept coming. It was a moot point. From then on, I only paid attention to the people that I knew on a name basis who showed up.
A lot of people gave me pats on the back and other stuff when I tried to get through the crowd. A few almost made me stumble. I must note that I wasn't drunk. I'd only had two or three shots, far apart from each other since things got started. I had a pretty decent buzz going, but other than that, I felt fine.
Finding some of my other cohorts getting some air on the still crowded back patio, I threw my arms open wide in celebration, "I love it when a plan comes together!" I yelled, throwing my arms open wide, almost winging a porcupine kid in the face, "Whoops! Sorry, Max!"
"It's all good! Would have hurt you worse, dude!"
No doubt. Would have gotten an arm full of quills for it. Throwing out limbs half-hazardly in a room full of mutant kids. Not the best idea. Halfway bleeding out surrounded by others with music blasting would have been quite a way to end my night. It would have been strangely appropriate though
Sitting on the railing, watching over all of the proceedings, Hisako still played the pessimist, "This is going surprisingly well," She admitted, "...I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Her negativity towards anything that was my brain child was not well-received by Julian – the person that had put up most of the resources to make the party happen, "Oh, come on. Quit being dramatic. We did this right. Why does something have to go wrong?"
"Because we're involved," Hisako deadpanned, pointing her cup my way, "More specifically, because he's involved. We don't have a good track record of things going smoothly."
"I should probably be more offended by that than I am," I felt the need to say, "But that's why I've gone to great lengths to make sure nothing goes wrong."
Hisako remained unimpressed, "You goaded two people into leaving-."
"Yeah, he did!" Santo interrupted from the background.
"-You convinced Julian to buy all of the beer."
"Yeah, he did!" This time, it was Julian who yelled before quietly pulling me aside, "I'm getting reimbursed for that, by the way, right? Not that I need it, but, you know."
I understood. Even if the guy came from money, making him pay for everything would have been a dick move, "We made everyone who showed up kick in some cash. Ruthie?" On cue, Ruth pulled out a wad of cash rolled together with a rubber band, which she then threw over to Julian, "See? We good?"
"Good enough," Julian said after flipping through the bills, counting it all up, "Yeah, this just about covers it. Way to go, Marcher," I gave him a thumbs-up in return, "Where's half my team?"
Santo was easy to find, and Brian wasn't too far away. It was the others he was looking out for. I gained some respect for him trying to keep track of all of his friends.
I started listing Hellions to help him out, "Sooraya didn't come, but you knew that already. That Kevin is off trying not to touch anybody, and I think Cess is staying close to him," Which seemed odd to me, unless it was for more than platonic reasons, "Does she have a thing for him, or something?"
"Yes," Julian said, sounding annoyed by the entire affair, "But he's dead-set on that girl from the New Mutants. What's her name? The blonde one."
There was a moment of compassion from Hisako, "And Cessily is stuck on him? That sucks."
"You're telling me," Julian grumbled, crossing his arms as a dark look came across his face, "That's just one of the problems we have with those losers."
Nope. Not tonight. I nipped that in the bud in a hurry, "Ah, no," I said to the telekinetic, "This whole thing wasn't put together so you could spend the whole night raging about something. Have a drink, grab a slice of pizza, and save that shit for tomorrow."
Despite the ease with which negative emotions came to him, a quirk of a smile found its way to Julian's face, "I'm pretty sure Santo ate the last of the pizza."
"What? We got like fifteen boxes!"
"You know how many big mutants are here? You should have doubled up."
"AAAAAHHH!" I rubbed my hat around on my head in exasperation. I had gotten like a slice when I'd brought the boxes in. Now all there was to eat were chips and stuff, if there were still any of those.
Hisako clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at me, "Don't ever go to a party planning to eat, Bel. That's day one stuff, mister expert."
Oh, what would she know about it? I rolled my eyes and went along my way to check in on more of the party. When I made it back inside, I felt a tug at my sleeve before Laura slipped into my line of sight. She had taken note from earlier to try and keep from scaring me.
She seemed fine, which was good. A scene hadn't been made, so that was also good. However, I was hardly prepared for what came out of her mouth, "Bellamy, someone asked me to have sex with them. What should I tell them?"
Of all the personal things to come out and ask me…
I squinted at her and then looked around the party as though I would actually spot who she was talking about. I did not, "They asked you to what?"
Laura didn't repeat herself, instead going into better detail for me, "They did not say it in those words. They tried to be subtle," She pointed up, "He asked if I would like to go upstairs. I could be wrong."
I sighed and rubbed the hat on my head, "No, you're not wrong," Which led to why she was asking me about it. She had free will, didn't she? "Do you... do you want to have sex with anyone?" I asked.
I wasn't judging if she did. Absolutely not. After all, somebody had to get 'em some strange on a Saturday night, and more than a few obviously would. When I said the house was fully furnished, that meant bedrooms too. Poor, poor homeowners.
Laura didn't even have to think before she answered me, "No."
My response was just as instant, "So just say no," I said, as if it were obvious. It seemed easy enough to me, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and you don't need any other excuse."
Especially when it came to banging somebody. 'No' should have been the only thing you needed to say to move past it.
"But-."
I pointed right in her face to stop her excuse, "Ah-ah-ah. No. There are no 'buts' in this situation if you're trying to keep somebody out of yours," I said to her, "Why would you need to ask me that?"
Laura tensed and quickly clammed up, "I... do not wish to talk about this."
Whenever she shut herself up, it was really hard to get her to open back up. If I wanted to know more, and that was probably not the time or the place for that kind of talk, I wasn't going to get it then. I gave her a pat on the shoulder that I hoped was comforting, "Other than that, how are things going? Is this too much for you?"
"I am not unfamiliar with settings like this," She said.
That wasn't a yes or a no. Such a confusing girl, "Well if things get to be too much, Hisako and Ruth are out back and Eddie is-," It wasn't hard to catch sight of my friend floating above a crowd in the living room, leading the kids gathered there in... something, "-Making an ass of himself."
Saying that out loud was the magic word, as Eddie spotted me and Laura at the back of the room. He grinned widely and gestured for me to come to the front, closer to the music. I shook my head no. He wouldn't take no for an answer.
Cupping his hands to his mouth, he actually shouted over the music and got everyone's attention, "Ladies and gentlemen, the guy who thought this whole thing up is among us! Turn around and give it up for the solar-powered man with the plan himself! Bellamy Marcher!"
They did just that. All of a sudden, dozens of eyes were all on me. Laura was smarter than I was, and quickly made herself scarce the moment people started turning around, leaving me alone with the awkwardness. Damn her. And every single one of us would have done it to another one of us. What a Paladin thing to do. She really was one of us.
I waved and smiled, moving through the crowd until I could get to Eddie, yanking him down to the floor by his pant leg to throw an arm around his shoulder, "What in the blue hell are you doing?" I hissed at him. I could smell the alcohol on him, "How drunk are you?"
"Fairly," He admitted shamelessly, "Come on, dude. I'm your hype man! It's what I do!" He defended before reaching out to the sound system to turn the music down, "Bellamy says he wants to say a few words!" He said out loud to the people.
Cheers rang out through the house, while I tried to get out of it as gracefully as possible, "What? No the fuck I didn't," Eddie backed away, leaving me among the throng of mutantkind, "I-, you-, goddamn it, Eddie," I said the last part to myself.
I never felt like I was particularly good at this kind of thing. I could run my mouth just fine, but I did the best spewing my particular brand of bullshit to a handful of people. You know, a more intimate kind of setting. There were others way more gifted at addressing crowds.
Resigning myself to my fate and deciding to give Eddie a swift kick in the backside as soon as I got out of this, I fell back on my number one piece of advice for success: fake it 'til you make it.
I cleared my throat and stood up on a footrest nearby, "Hey. How's everybody doing tonight?"
Cheers and woos went up. Always an easy way to get a response. Of course, it would have been a sad state of affairs of I had asked that and everyone had stayed silent. It would have meant that the party sucked.
"I'm gonna make this quick so we can all get back to having a good time," I said, getting some people to raise their cups in the air, "I've only been here for, what, six months? Well, I just wanted to say, even though this place scares me to death sometimes... even though it's really rough around here from time to time... I've never had more fun anywhere else in my life."
"Yeah! Xavier's!"
I couldn't help but laugh at that ringing endorsement of our school, "A lot of that is all thanks to the Paladins. I love you guys," I could see Eddie float above the crowd, hands cupped to his mouth to heckle me from across the room, "Shut up, Eddie," Some laughs at my main man's expense, "But a lot of it is all of you. Every day I wake up, I have no idea what to expect from you nutcases, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So thanks for making this the craziest semester I've had at any school. Let's do it again in the fall."
There. I kept it short and sweet, and I got a pop at the end. That's public speaking 101, folks. Say what you need to say, and get out of there. Slap some hands on the way out, look around for who it was that pinched my butt in the crowd. That whole deal.
I found Laura in the kitchen, comparing two different flavored bags of chips, "Thanks for backing me up in there," I said sarcastically, reaching into one of the bags she held to get some for myself.
Laura was completely unapologetic about leaving me high and dry, "There was nothing I could actually do to help you," She had a point. That didn't make it any better.
"Have you ever heard of emotional support?" I asked, "That would be like me ditching you in the middle of this house full of weird people and leaving."
"You did do that," Little Miss Claws was quick to point out, correctly, I might add. I couldn't help but see the way she munched on her chips afterwards as kind of smug.
I had to take a moment to try and spin things in my favor again. Thankfully, I had chips to chew on to buy time, "…I mean like, really leaving. And taking Eddie, Hisako, and Ruth with me," When Laura tensed up and stopped eating, I felt more bad than victorious, "…I wouldn't actually do that, you know. I'm not that much of a dick."
"No. There is a problem outside."
"How can you tell?" I asked, before I saw some people gathering by the windows and door at the back, "Forget I said anything."
Outside, wouldn't you know it, the full roster of the New Mutants were confronting the present members of the Hellions, down one member. I seemed to have made it just in time, as the more excitable members of both teams were moving in to get physical.
I fired a beam of light that cut into the ground between them, drawing a line, "Hey, all of you, cut it out!"
One night. They couldn't go one night without finding an excuse to get into it. I had asked everyone to be cool. Personally gone up to everyone and begged them to let go of whatever stupid grudge they had going on hold until tomorrow.
"You can do this any other time. You can't do it here. I won't let you. I don't care who started it. Whoever throws the first punch, I'm throwing the last."
"Stay out of this, Bel. This isn't about you."
"Yeah, it's time for these jerks to learn a lesson."
I couldn't make 11 people back down from a fight all by myself. I had no authority and I wasn't that badass. Even if Laura had my back, which she seemed to if her claws slowly sliding from between her knuckles was any indication, we would just make it worse.
I let the glow fade from my eyes and hands, putting up an arm to hold Laura back, "Fine. I will stay out of it. But the bouncer won't."
Noriko and Julian stopped glaring at each other to turn and look at me in confusion, "What bouncer?" The latter asked.
David was the first to spot him, "Uh... guys?" He said, pointing up to the darkened roof of the house, where my protection detail was lying in wait to prevent any problems from arising, "Bellamy, what is your wolf thing doing here?"
"Working security," Wolf spoke for himself, the sharp edges of his metal body gleaming in the light. The red eyes of his visor stared down at the riffraff, "Please disperse. This is meant to be a peaceful gathering," He requested as the chainsaw emerged from his back and started to softly rev.
A massive wolf robot created to hunt mutants was a better deterrent than one loudmouthed teenager who could throw light around. Expensive too. It took me guaranteeing him three brand new, pristine games of his choice to get him to help. And he wouldn't share them later either.
Jay Guthrie put his hands up and backed away. Good man, "I'm not in this," He said, using his wings to lift off of the ground.
All it took was one. One person bowing out. The one with the lowest threshold for it. Jay was the single most neutral member of his own team. Sooraya would have been the same for hers had she been around. After Jay sat out, the rest of the chain began to break.
First Laurie, because she really didn't have much of a taste for the inter-squad warfare. Then Josh, because they were dating. Then Kevin, because he had goo-goo eyes for Laurie. Then Cessily, because she empathized with Kevin.
Santo would get bored and wander off if too much time passed before fists started to fly. Julian would admonish him for a lack of focus, while at the same time losing his own. Sofia would blow the whole thing off once the tension broke (way to go, Santo). David would stay level and let cooler heads prevail, and he would encourage Noriko to do the same and calm down.
It worked like dominoes. Knock the first one down, the rest would follow.
As the two sides broke apart and made their way to separate areas of the party, I pulled Laura to the side and spoke softly to her, "I've got a new thing for you to do if you're bored," I said, "Stick around the New Mutants or the Hellions. Whichever ones you think you can stand the most. I still want you to enjoy yourself, but make sure nothing else kicks off. Call Wolf or me if it seems like something will."
I didn't think it would again that night – at least not with the entirety of both teams at once – but better safe than sorry.
Laura nodded and went to walk away before stopping. She fixed me with a gaze from her deep green eyes, scrutinizing me, "You lied to me."
I felt taken aback. I didn't lie any more than any other teenager, but I definitely kept from lying to my friends, "What? I never lied to you about anything," I argued.
Laura shook her head and told me her reason for saying so, "When you came to find me that evening in the cafeteria, you said that you were not good with people," She recalled the conversation we had back when she'd first been placed on the Paladins, "What you just did, you displayed an understanding of human nature and the personalities of the people around you. You knew exactly how they would react to everything that just happened. Someone who is bad with people could not have done that."
While I was always one to accept credit where credit was due, this time she was giving me too much for what I did, "Just because I understand people doesn't mean I'm good with them. I controlled the situation, Laura. I had to bring Wolf in to diffuse it," I walked past her toward the house and gave her a pat on the back, "If I were good with people, I would have been able to talk them down myself."
I appreciated her confidence in my abilities, but it was important that she had an accurate picture of what I could do. That she believed in me was encouraging. I just didn't want her to put me in a situation where I would let her or anyone else down.
But man, throwing a party was more work during the damn thing than I thought it would be. I walked around to the front and sat down on the stoop outside. There were still people around there, talking and taking a break from the smothering atmosphere inside. I could see the appeal to getting away for a bit.
A pair of arms wrapped around my shoulders. I caught the scent of a familiar girl as a weight rested on my back, "You really handled that well! At least by what I could see from the window," Megan's voice drifted into my ear, "Everyone was expecting a big fight."
"I was expecting a big fight," I said with a sigh, leaning back against her, "I'm glad I did this once, so I know to never do it again."
Megan was the single most chipper girl I'd ever met, "Oh, come on! At least you did it! Nobody else can say they pulled off something like this lately," What a bright soul, "I can't believe you got all of this together!"
"Spread the word that you've got beer, food, and everyone's gonna be there, watch the people show up."
It must have been in my words just how spent I was from everything I'd been doing all day. Running all over town, keeping things in line, "You look kinda tired," She observed.
Mentally tired? Yes. I might have actually been able to get to sleep that night. I turned my head and put my forehead against Megan's cheek, "Hey. You wanna get away from here for a little while?"
She took me up on my offer and we started walking together. She stayed on the ground as we walked through the trees, close to the lake. The way the moonlight reflected off of the water and onto her almost made her glow.
I was caught staring and put on the spot, "You look really cute tonight, Pixie," I said, using her nickname, "Should have tried to stay boo'd up with you all night instead of trying to be responsible."
Megan tugged on my hat and gave me a big, white grin, "Pretty cheeky, aren't we? Hitting on me and taking me away from the party like that. Most guys are just asking girls to go upstairs instead!"
When she put it that way, it did sound like I was trying to get in her pants, "Oh, you know me. I'm just a big overachiever," She pulled my hat down over my eyes and I laughed, "I didn't even mean it like that. Not that I wouldn't be down if you were interested."
I was just playing around with her. We'd gotten pretty close, but I found it odd that she hesitated, "…You wouldn't have anywhere else to take us if we did leave," She said. There was an implication there, and it wasn't lost on me.
It made my eyes go wide. Was she serious? If there was even a chance, I had to probe the possibility, "I don't really have a roommate. Just Saberwolf, and he's here keeping watch over the place."
And were it to lead to me getting laid, I would lock his metal ass out for the night. Without a moment's hesitation. He would be fine. He could sleep in the common area. He would understand.
…No, He wouldn't.
He would get over it though. I'd just up his bouncer's fee from two new games to a Nintendo Switch.
This was going well. It was going too well, actually. I'd dodged too many bullets today. Logic dictated that something was bound to come up that would screw me over. It had happened way too much for me to just be blindly optimistic.
I wasn't the only one who felt that way apparently. Megan started glaring at nothing in particular, which started making me jumpy.
"What?" I asked, looking around as though I would be able to spot whatever it was that had her on edge, "What is it? Did someone blow up the house? Set the woods on fire?" It would have been just my luck.
Megan's nose wrinkled up, as if she were daring the world to try and throw something distracting at us to ruin our privacy, "No... I'm just waiting for something to butt in on us,"
Both of us stood there and waited quietly for several seconds, anticipating some kind of interruption. A text. A phone call. A friend running up to us. An inconsiderate drunk busting us out on getting close. Nothing.
Was the Lucy that was the universe finally going to let good old Charlie Brown Bellamy kick the football? I decided to take that gift and run with it.
"Fuck it, I might as well," I muttered to myself.
Megan looked back to me in confusion until she caught on to what I'd been going for, "Oh," She said quietly, reaching up to wrap her arms around my neck, "Yeah, you should."
I leaned in, closed my eyes, and finally got my goddamn kiss. It must have been pretty good, because Megan didn't rush to end it. She pressed herself against me, and I was more than happy to hold her there while we tied tongues. I heard her wings beat in the air a few times before we finally broke apart.
Megan kept her eyes closed for a few seconds and stayed on her tiptoes savoring the moment before finally cracking an eye open to look at me, "You taste like vodka, Bel."
How embarrassing. She tasted sweet to me. It was a shame I couldn't return the favor, "Sorry."
Had I not been slightly lit before heading outside and then got sidetracked several times, I probably would have popped a stick of gum first to clear the alcohol taste.
She stood back and crossed her arms, seemingly judging the kiss, "It wasn't bad though. And aside from that, you're a really good kisser," She admitted with a big smile and a rosy blush, "I'll give you a solid B."
I could feel how stupid the grin on my face really was. It didn't matter. I was a winner tonight, "That's the most important exam grade I got this semester."
"Second-most important, maybe," Megan corrected, giving me her hand to grab hold of, "Weren't you going to 'take me upstairs'?" She asked with a wag of her brows.
Yes. Yes I was. And valuable time was wasting.
A gentleman wouldn't go into any further into the evening's details, so I won't. I will say, however, that I didn't make it back to clean up after the party. On my way back to the dorms with Megan, Saberwolf was informed via secondhand text that he could find another place to sleep that night.
Also - and this is a handy piece of information for you girls with superpowers - did you know that there's no such thing as a 'walk of shame' when you can fly?
...Goddamn it, I love this school.