𝓒𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓼- 𝓜𝓲𝓰𝓾𝓮𝓵 𝓞'𝓗𝓪𝓻𝓪

The Drunken Mistake

You hadn't meant kiss him. You really hadn't. You'd been hopelessly drunk. Still, it had been selfish and wrong, and the guilt of it twined up your arms like poison ivy.

<<<<<<<< One hour earlier >>>>>>>>>

You tipped into somebody's arms. Everything was spinning, spinning, spinning. The sunset cast a golden glow over the atrium.

Your chilled drink sloshed against the walls of your cup, and you knocked back the contents. They burned down your throat, alcoholic and strong like gasoline.

You'd already kissed Paxton Parker, lifting up the hem of his mask and pressing your mouth against his. Up on the rafter, his breath had felt hot and eager and his hand had loosely slung around your back.

Five spots, you remembered dizzily thinking, tracing your finger from his wrist to his elbow, down the red dots lining his bold blue suit. And then you'd tilted, tumbling off the rafter like a flightless baby bird. Paxton had dived after you, one hand gripping onto a web connected to the ceiling and one hand looped under your thighs. You'd draped your arms around his neck and continued kissing, dangling in the middle of the room like a glittering chandelier.

Shadows of spider people had whizzed and swooped all around, dark outlines against the open, orange-tinted sky. The music pumped like a vibrant heartbeat. Paxton's pulse thudded slow, his neck sticky with sweat from the exertion of holding both of you up.

He'd deposited you on the ground, ripping off his mask with that mean, selfish glint in his eyes. He'd grabbed you by the waist and kissed you again, before shoving you back into the crowd none too gently with a self-assured smirk. "Not bad, (y/n)."

You'd kissed the next spider variation you'd collided with on the electric floor. Bodies rhythmically swayed to the music, and a cheer fluttered upward as Hobie recklessly tumbled from the sky and landed, his arms flung wide like a circus ringmaster.

Disgruntled, you took another sip of the foul liquid. Kissing hadn't made you feel better. With your lips swollen from mashing them into strangers, you felt as if you'd coated yourself in cheap, caked make-up. You'd only kissed one other boy in your life, and then abruptly, in the fragile span of an hour, you'd kissed three more.

Hobie was clearly just as drunk as you. He swayed over, his spike-studded shoulders roughing through the crowd and earning him a few well-deserved glares.

"(Y/n), I've been looking everywhere for you," Hobie said, flashing a quicksilver grin. "So you and Miguel are in love now and all that?"

"I kissed Paxton," you flatly said. Sour resentment stirred beneath your skin. You didn't tell Hobie that you'd kissed Miguel, too, and how he'd smelled like vanilla and kissed like a thunderstorm. Hobie stared at you in shock, before barking out a laugh that shook his thick, dark curls.

"That's the spirit."

"Hmm." You took another sip, biting down slightly on the lip of the plastic cup.

"Slow down, (y/n.) I'm impressed, but I didn't expect this from you," Hobie slurred, a light laugh in his voice. He didn't really try to stop you, though, watching as you gulped down another mouthful.

"Oh, don't act all superior. You're drunk, too."

"Touché."

After a pause, Hobie rakishly grinned.  "So you want to make out?" He definitely struck you as the type to kiss his friends for kicks.

"No." You emphatically glared. You'd had enough of pointless kissing.

Noir pushed through the crowd, his private-eye hat tilted at an odd angle. Arachnida hung off his arm, flushed and giggling. When he saw you and Hobie, he rubbed his temple and muttered, "C'mon, guys. Not you, too."

"Sorry, Noir," you and Hobie dutifully chorused, but then you glanced at each other. With the elation of co-conspirators caught in a ridiculous crime, Hobie's mouth quirked upward and you giggled.

"Well. The three of you went and got yourselves drunk," Noir scolded. Arachnida dropped her head his shoulder. She'd let down her tight ponytail, and her hair tumbled in soft blond waves down his back. "And you're the worst of the lot," he snapped at Arachnida, adjusting his hat with a flustered cough.

"I think I might throw up," she mumbled. Noir looked appalled.

The sunset melted into a glorious blanket of stars, thrown over the black sky. The drunken chaos of the party withdrew and ebbed like a wave pulling back from the sand.

In the peaceful quiet, you, Arachnida, and Hobie sat on the floor in a circle together while Noir paced the room and picked up empty cups. You lay on your back with your head in Arachnida's lap, hair splayed out. Staring up at the swirls of stars, everything spun.

Stupid Miguel. You wanted him to like you, with his sharp glasses and his broad shoulders and his ridiculous never make compromises poster.

"Noir! Come sit with us!" Hobie called, beckoning him over with a grandiose hand gesture.

"I have to clean up the mess that you made," Noir said, slinking along the floor. He zipped up to a high rafter to gather a hollow cup. In the darkness of the night, his stark, grey spider suit morphed him into a secretive shadow. You tilted your head back, but you could barely see him.

He reappeared from an entirely different direction with bottles of water. Noir chucked one roughly at Hobie, who grunted as it smacked into his chest.

"Sober up. I'm not cleaning all this by myself." Noir tossed water bottles gently to you and Arachnida. The flimsy plastic crinkled in your hand.

"Noir come sit on the floor with us," Arachnida begged, catching his wrist between her fingers. His irritated glare softened.

"It's not a good look to get drunk, you know," Noir grumbled, but he slid onto the floor beside her. "It's not cute, Arachnida."

"Yes it is. I'm always cute." She grinned at him with devil-may-care confidence.

"You're not cute when you're sleeping," Hobie pointed out, taking a dramatic swig of his water. "You snore with your mouth open and all that."

"That's not true! (Y/n), tell him!"

"Arachnida sleeps like a princess," you loyally lied, and she shot you a grateful smile that showed all of her charmingly crooked bottom teeth.

Then, Miguel stepped out into the starlight, his hands holding his waist. He took a deep, shuddering inhale, tilting his head all the way back with his eyes closed. You were surprised to realize that he looked immeasurably sad.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to no one in particular, his tenor voice carrying through the atrium like fall leaves on the wind.

Arachnida's eyes widened, and she sent you a panicked glance. Hobie grimaced, shrugging his shoulders in a silent, we're doomed.

When Miguel's eyes finally opened, they landed on you with a click of mutual recognition. With quick intelligence, he swept the cup-littered scene and narrowed his gaze with annoyance.

"Uh oh," Arachnida groaned as he strode over, straightening his posture with terrifying height.  But you couldn't think of that. All you could think of was how he kissed you to "get it out of his system." How you're naive heartbeat had sang when he'd touched you in the lab. How you'd believed he liked you.

With a flash of fury, you decided to take Hobie up on his offer to make out. You wanted to make Miguel jealous, to show him that he meant just as little to you as you did to him.

You glanced at Hobie, and remembered dizzily thinking, I can't kiss Hobie, his lip piercings would hurt my tongue.

Through the distorted haze of the alcohol, you lunged up from Arachnida's lap and kissed Noir. Right on the mouth.