Young Writers Society

All it took was Elias leaving and Carter glancing at them from over on the couch for Benji to freeze. He had been doing so good, but something about that look just made him tense up.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked.

"I'm fine," Benji said. He thought for a moment, looking away from the ground and up at Daniel instead. "Are you?"

Daniel froze.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Daniel said, a little too quickly and a little too nervously. He took another awkward sip of his drink. "I'm very much enjoying myself right now."

Benji just gave him a look.

"I am!" Daniel protested. When Benji kept staring at him, he faltered. "Okay, I'm not fine. But you're not doing okay right now, either, and I think you might be doing worse. You look like you're...uh...about to have a panic attack."

Benji stiffened. Was it really that obvious? He didn't think it was a full blown panic attack, but he could feel himself getting nervous right now. Daniel wasn't entirely off. It was just weird realizing how well Daniel could read him.

"Not that it's obvious," Daniel quickly clarified. "I just know you don't like social situations, so..."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

Benji took a deep breath.

"...Carter was looking at us," he finally admitted, voice quiet. "And it just makes me feel like he knows I don't belong here. I've never been to a party like this before, and it just feels so wrong. I keep feeling like everyone knows that I'm not normal."

He was expecting to see a look of pity on Daniel's face, but all he saw was understanding. Which didn't make any sort of sense. Why would Daniel of all people get that? He was more normal than Benji would ever be, even though he had his...quirks.

Daniel shifted a little. "He's, uh, probably not looking that much at you."

Benji blinked. It could have been an attempt to comfort him, but the hesitation made it sound like Daniel knew exactly why Carter had looked in their direction.

"It's because of you," he guessed.

Daniel gave a little nod. "The events we've met at were outside of campus. They're not really...like this."

He gestured at the room.

Benji nodded, too, even though he didn't entirely understand.

"His family is wealthy, too," Daniel clarified.

"Oh," Benji said.

"Yeah," Daniel replied.

...That explained Daniel's earlier reaction.

"But would you fite Gordon Ramsay for Bo-Bo?" Jerica cut in, putting his elbow on Bo's shoulder awkwardly as she leaned forward to look at the ratchet rat-man. The shot had been a bad idea. And suddenly bad ideas seemed like a good idea just then. "We were just talking about that before you walked up."

Jerica leaned between Bo and Lordy clumsily and grabbed another shot from the table, keeping her right arm on Bo's shoulder to steady herself... kind of... and reaching her left up to bump Lordy's rat nose with the shot.

"Cheers!" She downed it with a grimace.

Suddenly it all made sense in Elias's mind. The assurance, the touching, the matching outfits...

"They're dating?" he spat, staring at Daniel talk to Benji a little ways away. Elias turned his head back and forth between them and Carter, a grin starting to pull his lips. "How'd you figure that out? I didn't know they were dating, so I dunno how long they've been at it. Oh hey, let's just ask and find out."

He nodded towards them, waving his hand over. "Hey!" he yelled out. "Daniel, Benji! How long have you two been together?"

---

Mel happily downed the shot, but while the others bickered, she was busy trying to chew through the gummy. She was honestly tempted to spit it out and watch someone freak out that there was a rolling eyeball on the ground, but after biting into it, the lemony flavor kicked in and it was pretty decent. It was probably Bo's attempt of making a lemon shot or something, yes definitely intentional.

"Oh!" she said after swallowing down the gummy and hearing Bo's compliment. She smiled brightly and curtsied in front of him, brushing a ringlet of hair over her shoulder. "Thanks! I like your costume too. You're that guy from Ratatouille, right? I love that movie! Rats are hilarious."

Her eyes then drifted to Lordy, and although she wanted to join Jerica's self-inflicted round of shots, realization seeped in and a silly grin was plastered on her face.

"OhmyGOSH!" she said with a giggle, placing one hand on Lordy and Bo's back. "This is so cute! Lordy is your Ratatouille rat! Awwwwh!"

Daniel and Benji both froze.

"We're not-It's not like that-" Daniel stammered, cheeks burning. He almost looked over at Benji out of habit, but realized that would probably confirm Elias's completely wrong interpretation of their friendship. Benji had gotten upset when Carter had looked at them. That kind of accusation would be even worse. He wanted to do something to comfort Benji and distract himself and prove Elias wrong-

He faltered.

He couldn't help it. He glanced over at Benji. His face was even more red than it had been when Daniel called him an angel earlier. But Benji didn't really look...upset. He just seemed confused. He had pressed a hand against his cheek as he stared down at the ground.

"We're just friends!" Daniel quickly protested. He knew it would make more sense to just stand by Carter and Elias right now, but he wasn't even sure Benji was paying attention. He wasn't going to leave the person who didn't like large group gatherings alone at a party.

After a moment passed, he grabbed onto Benji's arm and guided him over to Carter and Elias.

"We're just friends," Daniel repeated. He shoved his hands into his jacket's pockets.

Carter looked over to Elias, pleasantly unsurprised by his boldness in making assumptions and making the situation that was clearly a non-dating-and-probably-still-flirting phase into something else. It did tickle him a little bit with amusement, seeing how flustered Daniel and Benji got, but he didn't want to rub it in with a smug grin. Still, he did raise his brows and faked a surprised smile as he laughed the kind of laugh one would use to ease the awkwardness of a situation. One that was tense at first, and grew more relaxed at the release.

"Oh, don't think too much about it. I think it was the thematically matching outfits," Carter said with a small dismissive wave of his hands. "Sorry. Why don't you two come over."

He waved his hand to urge them closer.

Carter turned to Kayla, with his arm over the back of the couch, around her shoulders.

"Have you met these two?" he asked quietly.

"I don't think so," Kayla hummed. "I think I have a class with one of them, maybe, but we haven't really talked. Are they cool?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're cool," Carter affirmed softly, patting her shoulder before turning his attention back to Benji and Daniel expectantly.



Bo smiled at first at Mel's compliment for his costume, but the moment she attached Lordy's rat costume to his Linguini costume, several very different emotions and images ran through his mind.

First, he for some reason pictured Lordy as a little rat in his hat, trying to control him by tugging on his hair. He hated that his next thought was Lordy joking about doing that to his dad instead, and the cursed memories of Lordy and his father's interactions leaked back into his mind. He stared blankly at Mel for just a second as he tried to push those things to the back of his mind and he let out a loud, short, boisterous laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

What were the odds? Why didn't he see Lordy dressing as a rat anyway? He should've expected that. He used the same costume at the football game.

And... Bo didn't think he washed it. He decided not to think about that either.

"That's funny," he said, quickly composing himself, even though he found himself feeling more awkward than anything. He turned his attention to Mel again.

"Okay, so you're an angel," he asked. "Where's your devil?"

“Probably in a park somewhere,” Jerica slurred, getting progressively drunker. Her mind flitted back to the bizarre mostly-blacked-out conversation she’d had with Lordy at the beginning of the semester. She still had so many questions. And she was too drunk to keep them inside. “Hey, am I allowed to talk about JR yet Lordy? Now that guy was evil incarnate.”

It was weird being talked about when they were just standing a few feet away. The wording just made Daniel feel...uneasy. Not that he hadn't already been feeling that—interacting with Carter had that effect on him. Daniel was suddenly feeling very much out of his comfort zone, and he wasn't all that sure he knew how to get back into it.

Daniel glanced beside him. If Benji wasn't comfortable, he could just come up with some excuse for them to go somewhere else-

Benji had already started walking over to Carter and Kayla.

Oh.

Taking an awkward sip from his lemonade, Daniel followed.

"Hi," Benji said to Kayla. He seemed shy, still, but there was a confidence there that Daniel hadn't entirely anticipated. He had seen little spurts of it here and there, but it was stronger now. Maybe it was the alcohol he wasn't even getting drunk on speaking, but Daniel decided he liked this surprise side of him. "I'm Benji."

"I'm Daniel," Daniel said. "Daniel Leeds."

Lordy blinked at Jerica's question, "JR?"

Something didn't feel right. The room around Lordy seemed almost distant, even though he was more than aware of everyone around him. It was as if he was only there in spirit. He glanced down at his arms for a moment.

Yup, still a rat.

Shaking the thoughts from his head, he grabbed the bottle of liquor from off the counter and took a swig of it, "The hell do you wanna talk about that kid for?"

---

Morri thought the question over, "My first instinct is to always say I'm here to babysit Lordy- I'm sure you can tell he can be a bit of a nuisance on his own. However, I also enjoy the energy of a bunch of college kids dancing to horrible music and singing drunkenly off-key."

Morri took a sip of his beer and looked around. He noticed a few more of his students- Carter and Elias specifically- together on a couch nearby, but he doubted Evaline was ready to socialize. Epecially considering she was standing here talking to a teacher and not to other students.

"But you, Evaline," He looked at her, "You seem anxious, as if you don't really want to be here. So what is it that really convinced you to show up? Perhaps I can help you find what you're looking for?"

He gave her a small smile, "Or... who?"

"Oh, my bad," Elias said when he realized that he wrongly assumed that Daniel and Benji were dating. They were just friends... or so they say.

The two of them finally came over and everyone was introduced to each other, but then a random thought entered Elias's mind that he blurted out loud.

"Hey Dan, if your name was Jerry, a neat matching outfit you two could've been was Ben & Jerry's," he said absent-mindedly, imagining them dressed up as cartons of ice cream. "I don't think Ben and Danny's has the same ring to it, though."

---

Bo's question made Mel's eyes lit up as she remembered that Evaline -- her devil, of course -- was still waiting for her to return from the drinks. But now she could also bring friends over! Maybe she would be more comfortable if she knew other people.

"Oh yeah! My friend Evaline is dressed as a devil. Kind of," Mel said with a little giggle.

She glanced at Jerica and Lordy, who were hitting it off shit-talking JR, as one does. She also knew that they both have already met Evaline, so she focused on Bo and Rek instead.

"Have you guys met her? I left her with Morri who's a little less ratty, so she's probably doing fine, but you guys should totally meet her if you haven't!" she said enthusiastically.

---

Evaline stifled a "hah" towards Morrigan's sarcastic remark - at least, she thought it was sarcasm. She'd have sarcastically said something like that, but she hardly knew Morrigan, so she didn't actually know if he enjoyed going to random drunken college parties.

She followed his gaze and saw Elias sitting on a couch on the other side of the room. It wasn't hard to spot him since he was in a giant inflatable dinosaur costume, and he sat near several people she didn't recognize. Evaline thought about saying hi to him, but really didn't feel like introducing herself to the people she didn't know and then likely get sidelined in a conversation she knew nothing about. Part of her wished she could drink so she'd find the courage to do so.

Evaline turned back to Morrigan as he spoke again, knowing she was looking more and more dismayed with each passing word.

Was it that obvious that she was anxious and didn't want to be here?

His smile and last question sent heat to her cheeks as she felt herself shrinking in size from embarrassment, not sure what to make of the implications. What was this, a therapy session?

"Why do you assume I came here for someone else?" she said defensively, crossing her arms. "Maybe I'm also here because I enjoy the energy of drunk people dancing to horrible music and singing off-key."

"Yeah, fair," Jerica agreed, deciding she didn't want to waste energy talking about J.R. after all. He was expelled and very much not-her-problem anymore. For now, all that mattered was shots. And good company.

She still had her hand on Bo's arm to steady herself, and, suddenly, became acutely aware of how muscular it was. She felt herself flushing ever so slightly, embarrassed at herself for how attracted she was to him. It wasn't ever going to go anywhere, so what was the point in entertaining fantasies? She wasn't going to destroy their entire friend group by making things awkward by flirting with Bo.

No.

She pulled her hand away from his arm and reached for another shot instead, deciding that was a better use of her focus than on how tall and strong and attractive Bo was.

She downed the shot then turned back towards Bo and Lordy -- but she spun around too quickly and went stumbling into both of them. Her eyes went wide and she grabbed onto Lordshire's arm, trying to catch herself before she fell.

~

Rek felt his cheeks get warm when Mel mentioned Evaline. She was... here? Rek wasn't sure whether he wanted to see her again or not. On one hand, he'd hit it off with her before the... incident. And he held out hope that they could be friends, especially now that they'd talked it out. On the other, things still felt so awkward with anything involving her.

"Oh, uh, yeah," Rek said with a nervous laugh. "I've met Evaline. She's... here?"

"Oh, yeah! I've met Evaline several times," Bo said with a smile. "She's been over at our apartment--"

Bo stopped suddenly when Jerica stumbled forward, running into him, and then Lordy. He reached out and grabbed Jerica's arms to steady her before it looked like she was going to fall.

"You ok, Jer?" he asked, trying to keep her upright and make sure she wasn't about to fall again.

Well that was embarrassing.

So much for distracting herself from Bo. Now she was in his arms and -- she started laughing nervously and flushed an even deeper shade of red. "Yeah, I'm chill." She laughed again, feeling awkward and very much not-chill. "... Bro."

Bo nodded, slowly letting go of Jerica as he watcher her carefully. Her answer wasn’t too convincing.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked more quietly.

Jerica swayed -- staying upright by sheer force of will alone. She did feel like she needed to sit down. "Maybe..."

Considering they weren't far from the snack table, Bo just pulled out a chair and slid it right behind Jerica.

"There ya go."