A Scarlett Ruin

Chapter Ten

The first free day when school broke for winter holidays always ended in a party. It didn't matter that the snow was lying in sloshing puddles on the roadside – it was too big of a tradition to break. Luckily the party just happened to coincide with Mason's birthday, a beautiful sort of clockwork. Not that any of them would have complained about one more party in their life. But at least that way it was almost assuredly a good time all around.

That year, the party they hijacked just happened to be something akin to a rave. In an empty warehouse on the outskirts of town, sticks and neon clothes and lights flashing like an EDM concert, with the music even louder. Julian wouldn't have been surprised if the whole town had been trembling from the bass. It felt as if his chest would surely disintegrate under the pressure. All signs of a good party, he was rather certain. He'd downed enough freakishly glowing shots to make it one, at least, with all sorts of people around them cheering on Mason's big day – more than half of them strangers from the state school.

Yet the straight alcohol burning its way down his throat didn't make him blind to the way Declan's hand had clenched over the inside of Mason's elbow when they stood still, reciting a cheery happy birthday to the pulsing music. It felt beyond him at that moment, so Julian only pretended he didn't see. He couldn't be fucked, quite honestly. It wasn't his problem.

He'd been banking on the alcohol giving him a jolt to join the festivities that were raging on around him, but all it did was make his head ache and give him the overwhelming urge to be alone. There were always too many fucking people around these days. His skin felt as if it was crawling. And Julian didn't want to feel like this, knew that in no time at all he'd once again want to be the centre of attention – it always worked like that – but he just couldn't be arsed.

There was only a light a slight fuzziness around the edges of his vision and mind, coming from those ridiculous vodka shots. After that he remained rather straight, for him at least, forgoing the tabs of e that doused the bloody building. Apparently they'd been joined by the fucking Santa of ecstasy, even if that sounded rather like a porno. In the end it wasn't enough to entice him into the middle of that throbbing mess of that sweating and swaying crowd. Not for him. At least not that night.

Still it didn't stop him from leaning back against one of the walls, fittingly slimy, with a mickey in hand as his eyes scoured the crowd in front of them. The lights flashed in front of him, letting him catch only half seconds of movement before the crowd was swimming in a different colour.

In a gold light he caught the first glimpses of his boys.

When he focused on Amir, the light had already turned blue, casting him eerily with his tongue stuck so far down some bird's throat it was a miracle she wasn't gagging, but she was probably lucky if she didn't have a gag reflex with him. It was always a more the merrier thing with him, because there was boy dancing from behind him, their pelvises so tight and rubbing with arms stretched around that it was impossible to tell who's limbs belonged to who. Considering that was only par for the course, Julian allowed his eyes to shift away, feeling lazy with the alcohol glugging through his system.

The lights flashed green in time for him to find Mason. He had his arm hooked around a girl's shoulders that was from his year, hips pressed so close there was surely no room for jesus. The girl looked to be kissing her way up his neck, yet Mason's eyes were wide open, reflecting the light, and staring over her head to where Declan stood only feet behind her. There were people swaying and grinding all around him, but Declan was stock still as the lights showered him in a purple sheen that only highlighted the sweat on his forehead and the dark patch in the middle of his chest.