Yogsmas - Yogscast (COMPLETED)

Day Eleven - "you look like a panda with that around your eyes."

On the eleventh day of Christmas, the Yogscast gave to me,

A Sad Drunken Quiz - Kim Richards(Nanosounds), Lewis Brindley(Xephos), Hannah Rutherford(Lomadia), Ross Hornby(djh3max), Alex Smith(Alsmiffy)

Everyone had those kind of days right?

Those days where all they wanted to do was bury themselves under layers of bedcovers with a laptop and a personal servant who brought comfort food and perhaps a dog for company. Those days where interacting with other people felt weird and horrid and tiresome. Those days where your forcibly dragged out to a local pub quiz by your over-excitable friends and their gorgeous faces and willingness to interaction attitudes.

The pub door swung open and the music that was bleeding out of the door suddenly streamed out in a loud gasp, people mingling in bumbling groups with beer in their hands and drunken smiles on their faces, the bartender with a pale face and energy draining out of it, the so-called 'quiz master' stood proudly on the stage flicking through his cards and re-reading all his questions. You tugged awkwardly at the rim of your dress, the layers of the skirt spilling out round you in a puffy way that suddenly made you feel a lot less like a Disney Princess then it did in the changing room. Your heels were digging into your feet, clicking on the laminated yet sticky wooden floor, your toes aching from the walk from the taxi and several layers of uncomfortable make-up across your face to make you look even slightly half-decent enough to come out - not to mention to cover up your bloodshot eyes and huge dark bags.

You let out a heavy sigh, plastering a smile onto your face as Lewis turned around with a glowing grin, his face lit up in an adorable way as him, Ross and Alex stalked ahead of you girls. Hannah was wearing a sparkling shirt and long tight leggings that clung to her flatteringly and Kim was rocking a Rachel Amber styled chequered shirt with her bright red hair to match. You felt too dressy all the sudden. Too exposed. Too over-the-top. All the compliments you'd received at the beginning of the night rushed out of you. Not many other people were dressed well in this room, some of too in far-too-tight-fitting dresses and some in blazers and trousers that looked suspiciously like work clothes. You were too dressy.

"Hey, Py? You feeling OK?" Kim asked bringing you out of your thoughts, her gentle touch on your arm coaxing in you back into reality.

You nodded, slowly and stiffly at first before more surely the more you did it, "yeah. Yeah. I'll catch up with you guys in a minute. I'll uh, be in the bathroom."

Kim frowned slightly, Hannah had followed after the boys and left the two of you behind, her grip tightening on your forearm slightly before releasing all too suddenly, "alright. I'll see you there OK?"

You nodded again, watching as she took as step backwards to follow her fellow Yogs, glancing back every so often as though you were a pet she was leaving alone for the first time, or a child who had said they didn't want to go home. You felt like a child though. You felt stupid and panicky and embarrassed for your feelings.

Stumbling backwards, you moved away from the front door, steering yourself towards the bar where you leaned against the closest unoccupied stall letting out a slight sigh and feeling your cheeks heat up. Why were you acting like this? Your day had gone fine so far, nothing was going wrong, it was just your imagination, making you feel stupid and worthless.

"Hey sweetheart," you heard a purring sickly voice from beside you, where a tired looking, drunken man hung off his stall next to you, "how's your night going?"

"Fine until you started talking," you muttered under your breath, pulling yourself away from the bar and stumbling back into the crowd, attempting to weave your way through the dancing drunken happy people. Your heel slipped underneath you, the shoe dropping off your foot and disappearing into the mass, you let out a groan, breathing heavily to calm yourself down before crouching down, having bouncing knees knocking into you as you crawled back through to fetch that stupid god-damned shoe. One knee bashed into you, knocking you onto your side causing the other shoe to slip off and be kicked away. You felt hot angry embarrassed tears forming in your eyes and without thinking you wiped them away viciously, smearing make-up away and across your eyes like a bloody raccoon. You hissed, tucking your bared vulnerable feet up close you to before letting out a weak stupid sob that racked through you with your throat feeling tight. You were surrounded by stupid happy dancing drunken strangers who had no idea that crawling through them was a sobbing stupid wishing-they-were-drunk 27 year old.

A sudden voice broke your thoughts, "Py? Py, what are you doing on the floor?" it was Alex. Relief rushed through you and you latched onto his offered hand as he pulled you up out of the crowd and tugged you towards the slightly more open area. You felt slightly more exposed then before now, without shoes and with black eye shadow now likely resembling something from Monsters Inc. You sniffed a little, yet again wiping the tears that were still forming at the edge of your eyes much to your annoyance. It seemed, the more annoyed you get, the worse the tears get.

Smith let out a little chuckle, keeping himself close, but not too close, just a comforting distance as to not lose the only sanity in your mind right now, "you look like a panda with that around your eyes."

You sniffed slightly, giving him a lop-sided look, frowning softly, as though you were looking for all the answers in his bright slowly more and more concerned eyes, "It's all part of my disguise," you told him bluntly, letting your eyes drift across the rest of the room, catching vision of the others lounging around oblivious whilst Kim was biting anxiously on her nails, "I plan to run off and join the circus."

"You're not running away as far as I'm concerned," he said sternly, causing you to look at him suddenly. His jaw was clenched slightly, but it softened the instant he realised you were looking. You couldn't help but let your mind wander back to your fan-girl days where Alsmiffy was undoubtedly your favourite. This kind of situation would of been your stuck-in-teenage-mindset-angst-dream, but now, you kinda wanted to sink and disappear into the ground and melt away into a annoyed, embarrassed mess of horridly uncomfortable dress.

"Why do you care?" you whispered harshly, crossing your arms across your chest angry suddenly. Why did everyone treat you like a child situations like this? Running away was childish, why would Smith think you would do something like that? Because you were acting like a child?

Smith let out a sigh suddenly, keeping his voice low and soft, "are you OK Py? Like really? Why were you hiding in the crowd like that, sobbing on the floor?" his jaw tightened again at his wording before he relaxed yet again.

"I... I don't know. It just got too hot, it got too much." you rambled, waving your arms to cool yourself down and to calm your nerves.

"Having one of those days, huh?" he guessed. You shrugged lightly, nodding.

"I," you huffed suddenly, all at once you throat was tight and your eyes welled again, speech feeling more and more difficult, "I feel so useless. I look stupid in this bloody dress, it's all puffy and crazy. I can't walk in heels and my feet hurt and now I've lost them both and they were so expensive. And I can't find Christmas presents for everyone fast enough and I'm worried about Kim and Simon and Martyn and Kyle and I just want this Christmas to be perfect." you felt yourself rambling, getting more and more panicked with your cheeks heating up and another tear - laced with black from your over-powering mascara.

"Hey, hey, hey," Smith said, keeping his voice gentle and slow, "it will be. Here, leave your shoes in the crowd, if they hurt your feet they couldn't of been worth it, someone will just carry you around. You've got plenty of time to get presents, aren't you going out with Katie in a few days? And, as for the dress, you..." he paused suddenly, shaking his head as though remembering what he was saying, "you look fine to me."

"Thanks Alex," you whispered, feeling your voice crack slightly. You really could rely on them, your closest friends.

"Come on, let's go win a pub quiz," he said, offering out a hand at you. You hesitated slightly, feeling your stomach flip suddenly and you slowly, slowly, lowered your hand into his. His fingers wrapped around your hand instantly and he tugged you away from the crowd and from your abandoned shoes.

For the rest of the night, you answered at least three of the pub questions seriously, somehow came third against the rest of the drunkenly forgetful groups participating and didn't feel the suddenly overwhelming urge to cry at all. Thank you Alex Smith was all you could say.

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Who doesn't love a little Alex-loving? Man I had fun writing this one despite the somewhat sadnessness of it :) guess what, Kim's freaking 31 in 4 days time. I have a crush on an almost 31 year old. That's so weird.

Enjoy for the Palex shippers - I need to think of better shipnames, any ideas?

- A xxx