To Put On An Act [bxb]

Chapter 31 -PARTY POISON AND NEON GODS

content warning: alcohol/underage drinking, mention of drugs

He was still alive. He knew because all of his senses forced him into awareness. Blinking lights blinded his tired eyes, bass vibrated in his stomach, the smell of weed overwhelming him. His mouth was dry. He needed something to drink, quickly, and lots of it.

Alex wasn't sure how he'd even made it here. How he'd managed to get up and wash himself and dress up and get all the way to Min's house without passing Youngbin's on the way. Perhaps it was Margo's patience, if you could even call it that.

Her tough love. Her violent love, maybe. Her insistence that Alex should come along and let loose and forget about all the worries and put on some fishnets because fishnet tights always made you feel better now matter what you were going through. Alex didn't feel all that well. Despite the fishnets.

She'd planned his entire outfit. It was a halloween party after all, or rather a post halloween party. Still, costumes were mandatory. Alex was forced, kindly asked by Margo, to be a demon.

It seemed a little ironic. Maybe there was intent. Maybe it just seemed obvious to anyone around Alex to associate him with a demon. Maybe he was reading too much into a headband with little red horns on it.

His red top hugged his body, clung to his torso, a familiar feeling that, tonight, felt much more like he was restricted, like the harness around his waist was tying him up and holding him in place and keeping him from breathing. But he was here to let loose. As if that was possible. As if his own skin wasn't suffocating him.

"If you see Lani, let me know." Margo leaned a little closer to him so he could even hear her through the music.

"I'm pretty sure Lani's gonna want to keep her distance from me."

"Come on, now." She tried to sound encouraging but Alex was right and Margo knew that.

"Don't let that stop you from having fun, though. You don't need to babysit me." Alex looked around, trying to spot Min, or anybody willing to hand him alcohol.

Min's house was huge and open and fit half the city. Their family was rich rich, and apparently didn't give a shit about their child throwing unrealistically large house parties every month or so. To be completely honest, Alex had never even seen Min's parents despite being friends with them for years now. Did they even have parents? Was Min even real?

"I'm getting a drink," Alex decided, walking into the crowd. He wasn't sure if Margo was going to follow him, and maybe he kind of hoped that she wouldn't. She wasn't his mother, wasn't his caretaker, wasn't his therapist, and he didn't need her to protect him from himself tonight. Didn't want her to. She didn't have to see whatever shit he pulled tonight.

Truth was, if Margo knew how truly fucked Alex was, she wouldn't have brought him here. But today she was probably just hoping for Alex to get medium drunk and forget about him for a bit and maybe hook up with whoever, and then get over it.

Medium drunk wasn't going to be enough. Alex fully intended to stop feeling tonight. Like he'd done a while ago at Min's pre halloween party. But worse. This probably counted as a form of self harm. Maybe he wanted it to be. He most definitely wanted it to be.

Squeezing past people he should've recognised but didn't, Alex made his way towards the kitchen. Already emptied bottles were scattered on the marble counters, along with various kinds of bowls and snacks and halved lemons. The lights here were fluorescent and cold and disgusting, unlike the blue and red and purple ones outside and in the rest of the house. These lights made it easy to see the shit you were drinking. And easy to feel bad about it.