rager teenager! – piper & dante

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

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"There's Bastian," Pearl says, clinging onto my arm in excitement and maybe a few months ago I would've had some interest in Helen reincarnate –

A hundred eyes follow him across the room, and he's just infernally beautiful – like the kind that could start whole wars between seas and mountains and gods. But ya girl is trying to bang before she dies a virgin, and there's no time for chewing on sweet, puffy daydreams, or enacting a ten year scheme to get a Fray to date me. I'm coming up with an action plan. Tonight.

The music at this party bounces around like bubblegum, stretching and pulling in my arteries until I feel like it’s about to burst in my brain, oozing pink. On my fourth drink now, I’m pure energy.

"Pearl," I turn to her, "Tonight, I’m going to have sex."

I got new stationary, so I've been working on my to-death spreadsheet. Like, I'm still unsure when to actually kick the can though? When I turn eighteen? Or hold out until twenty-five? It honestly seems like it all goes down from there based on what I’ve seen in my sixteen years of fieldwork.

Dying according to life is messy, tragic, and unfun, and I'm over that.

I'm going to be dying according to me.

Like when I was ten, Clementine threw me a surprise birthday party – except, it's kind of fucking brutal as a kid to think all your friends didn't care about you? Plus, I'd been manifesting my double digits since the moment I'd turned nine and she really didn't capture the space-plus-unicorns theme I wanted. Then, in the chaos of birthday paraphernalia and rituals, I gave Jasper Calloway a bloody nose when he popped up in my face.

I hate surprises, death included.

It must be the Virgo in me.

Anyways, it'd be a total loser move to have not even, at the very least, kissed someone before I died. I want to hear the swelling orchestral movements, I want to see my life in slow motion, I want to feel like my whole existence has become more exquisite, more magnificent, more meaningful because of it.

My world, but in glitter.

"Dante. For that to happen, you have to actually talk to someone?" Pearl's implying that I'm some kind of misanthrope that's been hibernating in her chrysalis for the past few months yet failed to emerge any prettier than bug goop – which is totally true, but this attack is still completely uncalled for.

Swiping her drink out of her hands, the atmosphere already feels like soft fuzz on my skin. I drink. It tastes like a thunderclap in electric blue, struck by lightning now burning through me.

Okay, okay – looking around the party, everyone's grouped up, wearing the impenetrable social armour of numbers, but there's one girl standing alone near the punch bowl. Not someone in my class, but I've seen her around the jungle of hallways. Her name is…? Piper? Oh yea, Piper-something, and she somehow got cursed by the shaman of rumours and fell off the high school food chain but I don't even know what happened.

Whatever, she's pretty so who even cares!

"Help me look hot," and I'm already unbuttoning the collar of my shirt for some damn clavicle action, because that's all I’ve fucking got. Pearl lends me her lip gloss, it tastes like strawberries, and here. I. Fucking. Go.

It feels like air is rippling in the room. When I walk towards Piper, I'm holding my breath, and in my first inhale to say something, the feathers in my stomach float and dive, fluttering all around me. I'm standing right in front of her, holy shit, say something.

"Hi," what am I doing, "I'm Dantalion," who am I, "Do you want to hook up?" Oh my god.

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

I shouldn't even be here. At first, when I got the invite, I thought it was a joke. That or they were pulling something on me, like snapping pictures of me after I've had one too many drinks and I'm passed out headfirst in a bush. I used to be the girl who held the camera, giggling until my stomach starts to ache and grabbing the nearest shoulder to steady myself with each blinding flash of light. Maybe it would be karma from the universe, some sorta divine retribution for all the shit I've done. But with being sent to the detention center and having to stare at the blank slate-grey walls, or even breathe the anemic air on top of seeing dad laying on a silver table with six bullet holes in his chest, I think I've had enough of the universe's shit to cover a lifetime. So yeah, I shouldn't even be here, but here I am camped out right next to the punch (which, of course, is just vodka with fruit juice) bowl with a plastic cup in my hand and no one to talk to. The music is too loud and it echoes throughout the room, bouncing off the walls and pounding against my skull. I stand with my back against the wall, left heel up on the baseboard, intensely watching the cherry red drink swirl inside my cup. God, this felt so weird. Haven't been to a party in over a year and I already forgot how they work. I used to go to them all the time, the careers that trained at the academy by our school would always give me cheeky winks and ask me to go. Sometimes I went, sometimes I didn't. It was hard being popular, but I made it work. Everything was easier then, but the thing about being friends with rich, haughty kids who chase applause and grandeur is that once you aren't useful to them anymore then you're pushed to the side like I was. There was no one waiting with bated breath for me when I got out. I raise my eyes and drink in my surroundings, the myriad of colors dancing across the walls and clandestine conversations drowned out by the music. I could feel the beat shake the floorboards. Everyone here has someone attached to their side like an extra limb, pearly smiles painted on their faces, and a euphoric high flaring in their eyes. All of it reminded me of how alone I was. A girl walks over to the punch bowl but stops and stares at me. I wait for a second for her to spit whatever she was thinking out. Was there something on my face? I knew I shouldn't have eaten one of those brownies, but they looked so fucking good and I haven't had one since before I got released. She continues to stare and I raise my eyebrow, "Um if you're looking for the punch bowl, it's right behind you..." I point my finger to the glass bowl on the table next to her, but she shakes her head and blurts out, "Hi. I'm Dantalion." Her voice cracks a bit like a broken record. "I'm Piper," I say casually, bringing the plastic cup to my lips and pretending like I remember how actual conversations go. "Do you want to hook up?" I almost choke on the punch. My eyes meet hers and I can see the hesitance swimming in them. You know what? Fuck it. Not like I have anything left to lose. "Yeah, but next time maybe tell me how pretty I am first," a grin tugs at the edges of my lips. My heart races against my chest and I know this is the feeling you get pooling in your stomach right before you take the plunge off a cliff into the water. Maybe this will be fun.

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

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So no one told me getting to bang was actually this easy.

I used to wonder how it was done – the way two people could turn eye-sex into sex-sex from across the room. With sweet tongues and mysterious gestures, the non-virgins spoke to each other in some foreign language of adulthood I guess. And now I'm here, at sixteen years old, on the precipice of getting my whole world rocked and I don't even know what to do.

Ripred. Why don't they teach us anything important in school? Every adult who remembers trigonometry is probably a loser or dead.

"Oh – okay, um, I think there's an empty room," I say, inching out of the drinks corner. I'm stumbling through the crowds of people towards closed doors, trying the handles until one clicks open and – here's the scene that spills forth, as rotten as milk knocked over:

There's a couple making out against the wall, clothes strewn haphazardly on furniture, the two tornadoing across in a blur of limbs and more clothes are coming off and what the fuck do they not see us standing right here oh my god is that a dick?? – I slam the door as fast as I can before anything super fucking unholy happens before our eyes, spinning around to face Piper.

My face feels like the sun.

"Uh. Let's try upstairs."

Up the spiral staircase, it's quieter there, but my eardrums feel like they're burning with the beat and the bass still, heart reverberating to the sound as I unlock a bedroom and lead us in. Some string lights are already on, setting the mood, bulbs twinkling and taunting and what the hell now?

Suddenly I'm very aware of Piper, like she's actually come into focus, each feature sharp and fragile. And she is pretty, with the kind of eyes that tessellate in different colours, the light catching new pigment every time she moves. I feel like I'm staring at an infinite painting. My head spins; my brain feels like the bottom of the punch bowl, sad vodka-soaked strawberries already softening into pulpy mush.

"Tada. Ummm here we are."

Okay Dante, get it together – grabbing my consciousness by the shoulders, I shake.

I should kiss her.

I've never kissed anyone but how hard could it be? She's standing right in front of me.

So I lean in, close my eyes because that’s what they do in movies –

And

and?