It's Burning Me Up [Closed]

[Evan Brackett]

With a grunt, Evan plopped down on one of the school’s folding chairs, pulled off his hoodie, and slung it over the back. He tousled his hair to make the mess seem more on purpose than not before pulling at his pants legs. They were riding up uncomfortably high, exposing his ankles and white socks. When it became clear that there was nothing Evan could possibly do to get the pants to cover his legs, the phaser crossed his arms again, leaned back, and pulled his legs under the chair. Hopefully no one would notice. Yeah right.

Dammit. He should have just worn his jeans.

The next thing he did was glare at Robbie. “I hope you’re satisfied now,” he yelled over the music. The blond better be happy. He had played dress up and came along, even bringing Levi down with him. That point was, in fact, the only good thing that came out of this. Maybe getting to hang out with Levi at the quiet dorm would have been a thousand times better, but at least they were still able to hang out.

Evan sighed and looked at the younger boy. Levi was so withdrawn when it came to what had happened to him, and he hadn’t made many friends since he showed up a few weeks ago. Really, Van didn’t know much about the other boy, but if the prior hour was any indication, this kind of thing wasn’t something that he enjoyed either. The tall boy worried that he would be as angry with him as he was at Robbie. “You doing all right?” he asked Levi sincerely.

[Levi Xu]

"Yeah, I'm okay. You?" Levi scooted his chair closer and leaned in so he could hear Evan better over the music. He wasn't really interested in dancing, so if Evan wasn't going to go find someone to dance with, maybe once Robbie found a partner, they could sneak off and go back to the dorm, where it wasn't as loud.

"Oh, hey, there's Stella." Even though he knew the girl couldn't see him from this distance, he waved anyway. He was starting to recognize more faces and names of other students, but the albino girl was particularly easy to spot in the dim light. He watched her talk to Zac, and of course started wondering about why Evan hadn't asked her. They'd seemed to be friends when he'd met Stella, and she had been holding onto his arm. Plus, they were both attractive, and sweet.

"Hey Van, can I ask you something?" He turned to the older boy and cocked his head to the side, trying to figure out how someone like him didn't have date to something like this. "How come you didn't ask anyone to the dance?"

[Robbie Wilkes]

Robbie shrugged and contained his smile when Evan yelled at him over the music. "Well, yeah!" He finally grinned, pleased as punch with himself. He didn't think he was taking advantage of Evan's compliance because he would most likely be obliged to comply to Evan's whims if the roles were reversed. They were friends, it's what friends did. Wasn't it?

"Hey guys, you are going to dance right? I mean you don't gotta dance with me or anybody else but you will dance right?" He asked. It was finally dawning on him that the two boys would rather be anywhere else but here. But it was a dance!, his logic justified. Everyone liked dances, didn't they? It was a chance to goof off and be with friends and goofing off with them! Dances were awesome!

A song Robbie liked started playing just as Levi turned to Evan to have a somewhat private conversation and it set Robbie to rock in his chair. Nobody caught his fancy yet and he hadn't yet spotted Estelle and her date so no harassing was necessary so dancing in his seat was probably the next best thing.

[Evan Brackett]

“I guess I’m all right,” Evan said with a shrug. Apart from being angry with Robbie and feeling like he looked like a mess, Evan was actually doing fine. No stranger had tried to molest him yet! That was a new record. He smiled when Levi moved closer and leaned in (and a away from Robbie) himself.

"No. No way," he shot out without a second thought. First off, he was wearing an outfit that barely fit and was uncomfortable to wear sitting down, let alone dancing. Second, he simply couldn't dance, and he didn't want to make himself look more foolish than he already thought he did. How his distaste had gone unnoticed Evan wasn't sure, but apparently he wasn't trying hard enough to deter Robbie's attention. "There's gotta be some girl who needs a guy to dance with. Go find someone," he urged the blond on.

The question made Evan shift uncomfortably in his chair. He didn’t want to tell Levi about Fifi because he preferred that no one knew about that, and he wasn’t ready to tell his new friend about his homosexuality. On top of that, it wasn't like he had any platonic girl friends to take either. Stella was one of the few nice girls he had spent any time with, and they only hung out that one time he had escorted her to downtown. "Um," he muttered with a blush. "Just because..." That wasn't a very convincing argument, but he didn't know what to say.

Evan moved his chair even closer to Levi's when Robbie started rocking back and forth in his chair. "Why don't you just go dance?" He didn't believe for a second that Robbie couldn't find someone.

[Levi Xu]

"Not yet. Maybe later?" For once, Levi's answer was more polite than Evan's. Granted, the younger boy had actually learned how to dance when he was younger. (Nomi had wanted to learn and forced him to be her partner. She claimed it would help him when he got older. And perhaps it would, just not tonight, apparently.) "Yeah, go ahead, Robbie."

Levi was content to just watch the dancing and high school intrigue from afar that night. It wasn't nearly as bad as he feared it would be. If no one cared that he was just there to hang out with Evan, then he was happy enough to be there.

The younger boy grinned a bit wider at the blush on Evan's face. Aww, he'd struck a nerve. And he just wouldn't be himself if he didn't continue on with his line of questioning. "That's not an answer, Van. Did you not have anyone to ask? Did she already have a date? Do you have to duel over someone's honor?" He hoped the stupid smile on his face was enough for the other teenager to get that he was kidding around. Really, if it meant that for all intents and purposes, Evan was his date, Levi didn't mind why.

[Evan Brackett]

He watched as Robbie walked off, and Van relaxed for the first time since arriving. “See yah later,” he muttered politely as he hung his arms loosely at his side. Once Robbie was well out of ear shot, Evan turned to Levi. With a snort he admitted, “I seriously thought for a moment that he would drag me out on the dance floor like he dragged me out of my bedroom.”

“Duel over someone’s honor?” he repeated with a chuckle. “No. Nothing like that.” He found the prospect funny at first, but the longer he thought of doing such a thing, the more his heart sank. He would make for an awful duelist. His hand to hand knowledge was limited at best, and his practical experience was even more pathetic. Rough housing with his brothers simply wasn’t the same thing. And even if he could control his power properly, it wasn’t as if it’d be useful in offensive fighting. “I hope I don’t ever need to. I’d probably lose, and that would really suck.” Besides, losing someone in a fight was worse than losing the fight itself.

Disheartened, Evan shrugged. “No, I just didn’t want to come. These types of things aren’t really fun or anything.” He kicked at the auditorium floor a few times before resting his legs out in front of him and staring at his tennis shoes. “I mean, you weren’t planning on coming either, right?” he asked sheepishly.

[Levi Xu]

((OOC: Warning! This post contains spoilers for season 4 of Skins!))

"Bye, Robbie." Levi gave the other teenage a small wave, but his eyes followed him as he crossed the auditorium and went to talk to a girl with dark hair and a boy Levi automatically pegged as dead. It was far from the first time he'd "known" someone was dead--his doctor back at the hospital, for instance--and it never went over well, so he didn't mention it to Evan now. He did, however, chuckle at the older boy's comment. "You sure you don't want to? You can still catch up to him and wow him by busting a move." His was said with a hand gesture that was part miming a DJ scratching a record, part hip-hop appropriation, and two parts flail.

"Nah, you'd be an awesome duelist. I could be your second. And even if someone managed to beat you, you'd still have tired him out, and I could just shoot him." The freshman shrugged, then his eyes opened wide and he laughed weakly, trying to make that sound more like a joke than he'd intended it to be. He didn't actually want to shoot someone, but in case it was needed, he knew how, now.

"And that's less fun," Levi shrugged again, now worried about whether Evan was enjoying himself. "I wasn't going to come either, but this works for me. I mean, I was planning on bugging you all night anyway, why not do it all fancy?"

[Evan Brackett]

Levi’s little gesture was amusing, to say the least, and it helped lifted Evan’s mood. “No, I’m just going to pass,” he replied with a chuckle.

The brunette nervously ran his fingers across the back of his neck at the mention of shooting. “Yeah, well. That’s still not quiet the same as me winning,” he pointed out. “And I’d probably be dead anyway, which, you know, I’d kinda prefer to avoid.” He followed up with smirk; it was his own attempt at morbid humor. That was what he assumed Levi was going for, anyway, being unaware of the boy's training.

“You never bug me,” he muttered with his head still down. Evan always enjoyed the other boy’s company, even when they were somewhere he didn’t want to be. Like a school dance, for instance. “Um...but there isn’t much to do here and I already established that I am not going to dance.” He looked up with a sheepish smile. “I don’t know why I let Robbie talk me into this.” Except that wasn’t true, because Evan now had a pretty good idea why he had agreed to go, and it had nothing to do with Robbie.

The phaser glanced around the auditorium looking for something else to do, but all could see besides other clusters of students and the dance floor was the refreshment tables. "Anyway," he began, grasping at straws, "Do you think anyone's managed to spike the punch yet?" Van actually didn't frequent the Rumor blogs, but something like that wasn't exactly unheard of at a high school function.

[Levi Xu]

Levi's face fell, because while he had been joking, he hadn't considered the fact that if he was the second and he actually needed to do anything, that meant that his friend would be dead. He went pale and leaned against the older boy, trying to keep the vivid image of Evan, sprawled out the same way Mr. Underwood had been, out of his head. "No...I don't want that either," Levi murmured.

But he didn't want to drag the older boy down. (Or even let him know that he was this upset. Evan didn't know about M.S.A.D. and Levi didn't want him to.) So he tried to brighten up. "Robbie seems nice. He probably just wants you to have some fun. That's what these things are for, right? Other than making single people who don't like being single feel bad about themselves." Of course, that could be taken the wrong way.... "Not that you do. Do you?"

Why was it that they could talk so easily in the dorms, but introduce fancy clothing, music, and a lot of people gyrating to themselves, and suddenly Levi was struggling with conversation. He just wasn't comfortable pretending to be normal when he was surrounded by kids who actually were. "I dunno. We could go and see? I mean, that would make this more fun." He doubted that anyone had spiked it though, not with the lion around.

[Evan Brackett]

The diversion worked. Evan put his arm around Levi as he leaned on him, but the phaser didn’t notice how his joke had backfired. “If Robbie was actually nice, he would have left me alone instead of kidnapping me,” he stated. “I’m more inclined to think that he didn’t want to be bored rather than he was trying to get me to have some fun...or maybe you’re right.” Robbie had been annoying, but Evan really couldn’t be definitive either way.

Van shrugged, “No, not really.” He’d never been one of those people who complained about being alone on Valentine’s Day, but it wasn’t something he really concerned himself with before. Now that Levi got him thinking about it, he realized it did bother him just a little. It wasn’t as if he felt bad about himself, though, or that he had ever taken the initiative to fix his own single problem.

The response he got made the brunette laugh. He didn’t think anyone would have spiked it either, although he wouldn’t deny that it would make the dance much more interesting. “Yeah, can’t hurt to take a look,” he agreed while standing up. “Come on, then.” Evan wandered over to the punch, weaving around people while still staying as far away from the dance floor as he could manage. He grabbed two cups and handed one to Levi before taking a sip of his own.

“It’s a little tart, but I don’t think it’s spiked,” he commented with an awkward laugh. “What do you think?”

[Levi Xu]

Was it a diversion? Levi just took the arm around him as an excuse to lean a little more against his friend. Evan made it hard for him to be lonesome or morose. No matter how hard he was trying. "So he didn't want to feel bad about him being single then?" He smirked and looked up at Evan, "I can believe that, but I don't know him all so well." He shrugged a bit, then added, "I thought so. You just don't seem like the type to get mopey over girls."

Of course, the whole point of the Spider-Man movies was that if he was with someone, they would be in danger. That's probably why Evan didn't mope over girls.

When the taller boy got up, Levi hopped up too. Punch was boring, but possibly spiked punch was much more interesting. "If it is, I bet it was Vincent. He does stuff like this." He'd only met Sam's friend briefly, since the older boy had be adament that he "not get corrupted" by the goth boy.

"Thanks," Levi grinned as he took the plastic cup of punch. Yeah, it tasted like the boring, normal kind. Oh well. "It doesn't taste like beer. That's the only thing I've had. So I dunno. I guess we'll find out soon though."

[Evan Brackett]

Evan chewed on his lip as he thought. “Maybe,” he said hesitantly, “But Robbie seems to try to stay single, even though he flirts a lot. I mean, there’s no way all of the girls he’s talked to didn't reciprocate.” He smirked at Levi’s other statement. “Well, no. Not over girls.” Subtle.

“Vincent Verax?” he confirmed, tensing up. After all, Evan’s first hand experience with Verax gave him plenty of reason to be afraid of the goth. If only his own horrific encounter had been brief. Those were nice jeans, and it really bothered him that he never got them back. “Ah, yeah...You have no idea.” The brunette wasn’t going to delve deeper into that, though. Getting stuck in the wall of the girl’s bathroom was one of the experiences he wanted to keep as secret as possible; a task that was difficult enough already considering that there was a photograph floating around.

Evan smiled back at the other boy. “You’re welcome.” He shrugged and swirled the punch around in his cup--which was, honestly, more fun than going there and drinking it had been. “I guess so.” Once again out of ideas for things to do (that did not involve just sitting around or dancing or getting punch), he turned to his friend. “So...Since this investigation was a failure, what should we do now?”

[Levi Xu]

Levi nodded as his friend spoke. Yeah, that seemed to make sense with Robbie's personality. Inexplicably, the blond boy was one of the few people Levi picked up nothing about, so he didn't have any secret info from his power. "So neither of you are mopey then. Jes--Someone I used to know always seemed to be pissed off about everything. You guys are more chill."

"Oh!" Levi grinned a bit wider when Evan mentioned the goth boy's name. "So you've met him too, then? He's kinda interesting, isn't he?" Really, Levi had some idea when it came to the trouble Vin had caused. Sam liked to tell stories, and he liked to let him. He got to hear about all of the awesome exploits the older group had wormed their way into over the years, and it made it seem like he'd been around longer, experiencing the fun part of Hammel he didn't get as often.

"I dunno. This was your idea." Levi finished off the punch in his cup, then licked the red stain from his lips. "And by your idea, I guess I mean it was Robbie's idea. How'd you become friends with him?" Levi had been doing this recently, asking questions when he didn't know what else to say, because if he was the one asking, then the other person tended not to ask questions of him. "Or....maybe you tell me who to watch out for? I only really know you and Sammy and Zac." Speaking of which... Levi looked around the auditorium, but didn't see either of his other two friends. Eh, whatever. Maybe later he'd go and search for them.

[Evan Brackett]

Evan frowned at Levi’s excitement, nodding. Clearly, the other boy’s experiences (or at least, the stories he had heard) had been much less traumatic. “I guess interesting is one way to describe him,” Evan said with a shrug. There were a lot of words the phaser would use to describe Vincent, and very few of them would be positive in nature. Considering how out there the goth was in comparison to everyone else, interesting could pass for one of those few.

“Okay,” the brunette muttered while hanging his head, guilt rising up in him again for bringing Levi along. After a moment’s hesitation, he answered the question. “I don’t know. We’ve had a few classes together, and he liked to talk to me.” Van shrugged. “He’s a fun guy to hang out with most of the time.” Admittedly, Evan didn’t have many friends either, even though he had been at Hammel for a much longer time. And while he had heard of Sammy and knew Zac, he didn’t really like either of them. The phaser actually had no one else to be there with. “Uhm. No, that’s okay,” he said while looking around himself. “I don’t see Robbie anywhere...We should just leave. I can tell him tomorrow that we got bored and left early.”

Evan tossed his cup in the garbage and headed towards the exit. “Wanna watch a movie instead?” he asked with a grin. “It’s better than wasting our time here.”

[Levi Xu]

Fortunately for Vincent, Levi had not yet heard about the incident with the girls bathroom and the wall. Nor how Evan's pants had been removed in the process. Nor how there was a photo of said lack of pants floating around the school. "Sam says I should avoid him, but they're best friends, so I never know when they're kidding."

Levi shrugged when Evan turned down his idea. He didn't mind people watching--or gossip for that matter--but if Evan wasn't into it, that was fine. It wasn't really a bit deal to him at all. He'd just been looking for something to do.

Like a movie. And then, he didn't even have to wear a borrowed dress shirt. "Sounds good to me. Let's get out of here." He followed Evan out of the dance, mirroring his grin.