Survival Of The Fittest

Ethan took a quick sip from his beer and raised his beer at Jaq.

"I think I heard somebody mention at least some type of heavy liquor so you should be in luck. I will be right here if you need anything"

Ethan smiled as he saw Jaq walk away in her quest for tequila. All he had to do was to start texting his friends first thing tomorrow and everything should be all set. Though as he finished the beer and tried his best to do the mental math he began to inwardly pale, he would be almost completely broke in order to cover all the expenses for the party. Looks like I am going to be working overtime for the next couple months which is going to be an oh so fun experience.

Mallory nodded as Susan gave her reason for turning up. Well, going to parties for fun was pretty much the best and only reason for going. The lack of cute guys wasn't a problem to Mallory. Guys didn't like her, and that was fine because she didn't like guys, either. (Or girls. Or anything weird, like horses and sock puppets.) It was a mutual 'meh' situation.

Mallory watched Susan chug another can, half-expecting her to choke as well because she was being too damn good at it. But nope. No choking. Mallory didn't try to replicate the feat again. She knew when she was beaten, even if it wasn't really a competition in the first place.

"Show-off," Mallory said amiably, when Susan was finished with her current can of O'Douls. "I'll have to try with soda water next time. It would be less expensive than choking on beer. I'll try it later, though. Choking doesn't help parties at all.

"Actually, could really go for some music right now, as well. Party without music is like rum and coke with only coke. I guess we could go find the stereo or whatever and fiddle around with the volume, right?"

Mallory started edging around the table of refreshments and such, making her way towards the stereo. She passed by the kitchen as she did so, and caught a glimpse of Joey and What's-His-Face holding some white things that looked like aspirin. Good, if they already had aspirin they wouldn't mind louder noise. Or they'd get pissed off because they had headaches, but parties were meant to be loud.

She located the stereo and started prodding at the volume button. It was already on, though far too quiet, and playing Flo Rida music. Mallory wasn't that big a fan, she preferred rock music to his kind of stuff. But eh, at least it wasn't sugary pop music. Ew. After turning up the volume some, she made her way back to Susan.

"That loud enough? Hope Joey and what's-his-face don't ask us to turn it down. They were already taking aspirin. Wusses."

According to R.J, the game was just the Bulls against the Heat. He didn't seem that happy though. He stumbled as he got up to get some beer.

Wow. It's like he's about to collapse inwards.

He then came back to the couch as one of the players got a three point shot. R.J.'s reaction made it clear he was not pleased with that.

"I'm hoping you didn't put any money on this game," she said, taking a chip out of the bowl and eating it.

"Yeah, me too..."

Did he have any money on this game? Maybe with his brother or some of his friends? If he did, this was gonna suck. If he didn't, it still sucked. Ruth hated this, especially since it was at Chicago. His home town. He didn't live their long, but he loved it anytime he visited. This game was practically over, there was no hope left. He gave a little huff, and his upper body fell on to the couch, his legs still on the ground. Cup lying on the table, R.J. stared at it blankly. Then music came on. It was FloRida, R.J. knew that much. What he was singing, was up in the air. It didn't matter, but it was making Ruth feel a little bit better. He looked nonchalantly at Claire.

"Wanna dance?" he asked.

Jaq slinked away towards the kitchen. She hadn't seen any terribly hard liquor in the living room, but Travis had announced that he'd brought some booze as well. She turned her shoulders to manuever between the other party guests. They all seemed to be female. Except one, but upon closer inspection, it was just a brutish one. She felt herself slightly bump into somebody, the Asian girl. Jaq turned her head to make brief eye contact, just to see who it was. Upon not recognizing her, she simply raised her eyebrows in acknowladgement and went on her way.

She entered the kitchen to see Travis and Joey taking some mystery pills. Her interest piqued, and she moved closer. Joey looked over, his face bright with excitement. She smiled at the first time druggies. Pills were too intense for her, but she remembered why she was here. She moved towards the party back-pack and unzipped it. Whatever was in there, he certainly wasn't ashamed of. He'd probably like to see how impressed she was by his stash.

"Trav, you got any tequila?"

Joey waited for the effects to take it. His blood was flowing faster now, but that was just due to his excitement. His heart was pounding, and his stomach was turning. The placebo effect convinced him he even felt a little light headed. He hid his reactions to these red-herring symptons, he'd feel like a wuss if he felt it before Travis.

Even though this drug would probably hit him pretty hard in the next few minutes, he didn't want to freak anybody out. Being the life of the party was one thing, but getting naked and baking cookies would be another. He waved to Jaq as she entered, and then went back to grinning at Travis in wait.

Trav felt excited. He'd wanted to try E for quite some time, and now the high was just a half hour or so away.

He noticed Joey looking over at someone who'd just entered the kitchen. Travis turned, and after realizing who it was, he smiled warmly at Jaq. The attractive, exotic looking girl had intrigued him from the first time he'd met her, and he had fantasized about having her more than a few times in the past.

"Ugh, Jaq... you know I can't drink Tequila anymore."

Trav had loved Tequila before. It was the only thing he drank, while most of his friends prefered Vodka. Then it happened. One of the wildest nights he'd had in his life, drenched with Tequila shots and crazed partying, followed up by crashing at 6 am. The story should have ended there, but that day he'd been woken up by parents at 7 am. He'd signed up to a "day-camp" at the local kindergarten, where he was obligated to take care of kids all day. He had still been drunk when he got there. It had been fine at first, but around noon... the hangover had struck him. While taking care of those kindergarteners would be bad even in a sober state. a pounding headache and vomiting every 30 minutes had been enough to almost kill him. Thankfully his partner had covered for him, so he'd managed to get away scot-free, minus the never ending repulsion he felt when he thought of tequila.

"I can't even smell the stuff now without feeling queasy."

He sighed and shrugged.

"Hold on, I might have some. Let me have a look."

He pulled up his backpack, opening it carefully. As he rustled through his bag, he kept mumbling "Hmmm, is it here? Nonoo... Hmmm... yeah... Maybe..." until finally exclaiming loudly:

"AHAAA! EUREKA!"

He pulled up an old Tequila bottle from before..... that night. It had less than a third of its contents left within, but it should be more than enough for a skinny girl like Jaq, and any friends she might feel the need to share it with, to get properly drunk. He placed the Tequila on the table, and gave her a quick wink as he quickly put the little plastic bag with the remaining pills into his backpack. Might not be the best idea to show the entire party that he was carrying Mdma on him. The morality freaks and the white knights might pop up and give him shit for it.

With a wide grin, he handed the bottle over to her.

"There we go, m'lady. I hope this small token gift shall please you..."

He took a dramatic pause.

"... and get you royally fucked up on this wonderous occation."

Mallory called Susan a showoff, and Susan faked a muscleman's pose, flexing her right arm. She was no weakling, but she wasn't ripped either, so she was pretty sure the gesture had its desired lack of effect. Someone bumped into Susan, but before she could reply, Mallory had decided to do something about the music situation. That was a pretty amenable proposition.

As they moved, Susan caught sight of Travis popping pills in the kitchen and rolled her eyes but let it pass without comment. Well, whatever. If the cops came storming in, she wouldn't get busted for anything. Maybe Travis would wake up a little if his parents had to come bail him out of jail. Then again, he'd most likely power on just like before. Some people just couldn't be changed.

At the stereo, Mallory cranked the volume up. That just brought home how woefully deficient the musical selection was. Rap? Rap wasn't good for parties. At least Lady Gaga or something like that would've been danceable. This, well, maybe somebody could dance to this, but it wasn't Susan's idea of a good time.

"This sucks," she said to Mallory. "And I don't think they'll mind thenoise. I think they might be getting high."

Maybe they really had been taking aspirin, but Susan didn't for one minute believe that Travis would be doing so unless it had been discovered that aspirin and cheap beer combined to produce hallucinations. She took a glance around the party again and, yes, there were still no decent-looking boys. Who was she even supposed to dance with? The flaw in the dance plan was becoming rather more evident. Dancing with Mallory wouldn't quite be the same.

"Hang on a sec," Susan said. She eyed the stereo, then went back to her pack and fetched a CD book she'd brought along. A few pushes of buttons, a quick break in the music, and Third Eye Blind was blasting instead. Susan set the other CD on top of the player, shiny-side-up.

"That's better," she said. It was, too. Her choice wasn't exactly obscure enough to alienate anyone. Besides, she was pretty sure the host (and most of the other guests, come to think of it) would be too smashed to even notice her little change in the evening's program.

With Jaq off looking for Tequila Ethan had the time necessary to set up the party next week when he finally found the reason why none of his friends had shown up, they had gotten the crucial text message before he did. One of the seniors on the defensive squad was pissed of at the perceived lack of effort in training so had got Coach Lemelli to organise a special practice for, judging by his watch, today. Right now all he wanted to do was skip practice and see where this night would take him, but no, that would only make everything else with the team worse, and he could not afford to alienate his teammates this early on in the season. He let out a futile sigh and polished of his beer before preparing to wrap up this night.

He quickly headed into the kitchen to give a quick goodbye to the only people he knew at this party. "I am sorry I have to bail so early, but I just found out I have practice in about six hours so I need to grab some shuteye before practice. Oh and I will be trying to host a party at my house next week if you guys want to come."

Taking a moment to smile at Jaq he opened the door and headed of into the night.

((Ethan Johnson continued elsewhere))

"Getting high, huh? Well, whatever. As long as they don't drop anything into the beer I don't really care." Mallory had another gulp of beer as she glanced back at the kitchen. She didn't understand the appeal of drugs. Even with things like alcohol... she liked beer, sure, but she also liked to remember what had happened when she was drinking it. She had a bad enough problem with thinking things through as it was. She didn't need some weird tablets to mess it up more.

Although... she might consider it if it was one of those drugs that let you 'see sound.' If Mallory found some of whatever that was she'd probably go for it, even just once, because being able to see music... that sounded like it would be the most beautiful thing ever. But otherwise she didn't see the point.

Susan fiddled around with the stereo for a few moments before Third Eye Blind started blasting. Mallory grinned and punched Susan on the shoulder lightly.

"Thank god, that's so much better. Why would anyone choose rap over rock? Besides, every time I hear a Flo Rida song it's about the club. We get it, clubs are awesome, do they really need fifty bajillion songs about them? And at a house party, it kinda feels like it's going 'the place you're not at is awesomeeee!' They don't play 'house parties rock' songs at clubs, do they?"

Mallory bobbed her head a little to the music before doing a strange sort of half-dance, which just made it look like she needed to pee. Still grinning in a slightly tipsy fashion, she finished off her beer and tossed the empty can in the direction of the bin, although she was paying much more attention to the music than she was to her aim.

R.J. looked so forlorn over the basketball game. Claire didn't blame him. He was a pretty big Chicago Bulls fan, and so it must have hurt him to see his team lose. She figured it was like watching someone like Humphrey Bogart getting an Oscar nomination for a really fantastic role, only to lose it to Adam Sandler.

Claire then noticed that the music was changing. Some of the sporty girls in the kitchen were playing around with the stereo system. That's when R.J. turned to her.

Wanna dance?

Claire shrugged.

"Why not?"

She quickly stood up and moved to an open space in the living room. That's when she realized she had no idea how she should dance. She wasn't that familiar with the music, and she wasn't that skilled in dancing. But R.J. asked her to dance. He wanted to get down and boogie, so she decided to nut up and just go for it.

She began to sway from side to side. Claire was still uncertain if she looked like she was really dancing or experiencing vertigo, but she tried to make the best of it. She began to move her arms slightly. She imagined it looked sort of like a train, how the sticks on the wheels (What the hell are those called?) moved to make a sort of invisible cylinder shape.

What a feeling, bein's believin'.

Claire just hoped R.J. wasn't too embarrassed by how she looked.

"Why not?"

Allright, so Claire was up for some dancing. That was good...except R.J. remembered he couldn't dance, or at least not very well. He was a bit buzzed, so that might be a problem. He finished his cup, and went to show his moves. As long as there was a big open space, he shouldn't have to much of a problem not tripping over his own self. He was ready to start dancing to FloRida when he realized the music had changed. He didn't know what the name of the band was, but he could tell the genre. Rock. Different genres called for different dance moves. He started bobbing his head back and forth, and rocked his hips left to right softly. He felt like they were doing pretty well, although Ruth didn't really know what qualified as good dancing. He was just sort of winging it, trying to enjoy himself.

"There we go, m'lady. I hope this small token gift shall please you..."

Jaquilyn turned to look over her shoulder and gave a wicked half smile, blinking as she did so. She was bent over to reach into the back pack with her legs crossed at the shins. She stood as she received the bottle from Travis.

[/i]"... and get you royally fucked up on this wonderous occation."[/i]

Jaq pulled the cap from the bottle and raised the top of it to her nose. She circled it around, letting the liquid swirl and breathe. She grabbed a cup with her other hand and quickly poured herself a small amount. From eyeballing it, it looked to be about two shots with change.

She closed her eyes tightly, pouring the liquid to the back of her throat and swallowing it quickly. The burn followed, and her eyes watered a little bit. She blinked the tears back in before taking the cup back down, she didn't need her mascara running.

"Ahhhhh." She inhaled the first cold breath following the alcohol. "Thanks boys." She returned to the couch to find the target of her flirtations missing.

She turned towards the door to see a final smile before he left. She waved back, wiggling her fingers. Once the door closed, she sighed and began scoping out again.

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Joey was feeling a bit of nausea. He started to worry a little bit. Discomfort following a new drug was often a bad idea. Maybe Travis had gotten some bad stuff from a dealer, maybe he was taking vitamins. For all he knew, he was getting ruffied.

Warmth. It flowed over his body slowly, like somebody pulling a comforter over him. A big goofy smile appeared and looked over at Travis. Joey lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, the slight friction between them feeling like pure bliss. He rubbed his hands together to stimulate more sensation. Even breathing felt magnificent.

He wandered out into the living room to see all his friends. His very best friends. He loved them all so much, and it was so great that they could all be there. They were all such good people, he jut wished this party would be nice enough to reward them for being so special.

The music hit his ears, and it sounded like angels singing. Joey tried to make his way over to the stereo to turn it up, but saw a dancing Ruth before he could make it there. The small boy was quickly grabbed in a big bear hug.

"YOU are my beeeeeeeeeest friend."

Joey clearly felt the effects of the drug before he did. The way he started rubbing himself and moving his arms around was, as Travis had learned over the past month or so, the telltale sign that "Holy shit, Joey is high as a kite". And that had been just smoking weed!

Unfortunately, as it usually is with drugs, someone has to start tripping later than the others. Trav wasn't sure if he had a slow metabolism or some shit like that, but what he did know was that it took him longer to get high than his friends. Not resistance wise, mind you! He had the resistance of a kindergartener to most substances, although he was slowly working up his resistance to booze and weed. It simply took him longer to feel the effects.

Travis grinned at his friend. "How're you feelin', buddy?"
Joey didn't seem to hear him. He violently jolted out of his chair and began moving into the livingroom. Trav heard him shout something about being best friends with everyone there. Trav just chuckled and got more comfortable in his seat. No need to move out on the dance floor until the E hit him.

There he was, deep in thought.... And that was when the can hit him in the face.

Susan chuckled at Mallory's observation. It was true, really. The major appeal of these parties seemed to be that kids could pretend to be adults at them. It was a practice run of sorts, complete with drinking and drugs and sports on TV and sex and loud music. There were players and lightweights and all the other stuff Susan had been told came with nights out on the town. Of course, her direct experiences were limited, but she figured the reports of older people and pop culture couldn't be too far off the mark.

"I don't think there are 'house parties rock' songs," Susan said, replying to Mallory's musical observation. Then again, that sounded like something which might exist. What did frat boys listen to?

Then Mallory was launching a can, and it looked like it was heading somewhere she probably didn't mean it to go. Susan cringed slightly, but kept her smile on.

"Two points," she quietly muttered to Mallory.

"Well, there totally should be house party son--oh, shit," Mallory trailed off halfway through her reply as the can she'd thrown collided with the face of that loud, drugged-up guy. She couldn't help but giggle a little, because come on, that's great aim in a totally horrible way.

Susan gave her two points for it. "Whaaa--that is so worth more than two points, faces are hard to hit. They're tiny. Sometimes. Except on fat people. Ugh, not the point here..." Mallory scratched the side of her face absently, just barely resisting the urge to hide and hope he hadn't seen who threw it. But no, she'd face up to it. Ducking was the coward's way of doing things, and she wasn't no goddamn coward.

"Uhh, I'll be back in a minute, better make sure I didn't break his nose or something shitty like that," Mallory said, shrugging in a 'might as well' kind of way. Then she trotted over to Loud, Drugged and Drunk Guy. (She should probably figure out what the hell his name was while she was apologising.)

"Ahh, um... my bad? Didn't break your face or nothing, did I? I mean, if I did, that's really shit and I'm sorry. Not that I'd be un-sorry if I didn't break anything, but your face was so in the way of the garbage bin and--okay, this isn't going anywhere. Sorry."

She hoped she hadn't broken his nose. She hadn't broken a nose in years.