Camden Town (Amara)

Camden Town, 9-ish-pm. Without knowing a safe place to apparate to, Jerome had used the London Underground - his first regret of the evening. The Northern Line had very few passengers on it, but the one he was lucky enough to share a carriage with was drunk, staggering, and asking every person he came across what the next station was.

Jerome had said 'Euston' and the man thought he'd said 'you stink' so Jerome had to get off at bloody Euston and wait for the train behind it to avoid getting hit.

Now he was in Camden and approaching the address, he was at his second regret. Loud, pulsating music. A condom filled with beer being dropped out a window at passers by. Girls shouting. Boys shouting louder. The smell of a discarded kebab on top of a bin instead of inside it...

He wanted to sink away before he'd actually gone in the place, but then he remembered something more important: Amara would be alone here without him if he left. So he stood there, hands inside the pockets of his jeans, looking down at his T-shirt, his trainers, his very plain choice of clothing. At least he wasn't going to stand out, even if he was with Amara...

@Amara Jordan

Amara almost couldn’t believe that Jerome had actually agreed to come with her to the party. She had chosen a muggle party where they wouldn’t have any trouble with people like Melanthius Burke. She hoped that meant that Jerome would be able to actually let loose a little bit and enjoy himself. That was what he agreed to after all, wasn’t it?

Luckily, she had been here enough that she knew the perfect place to apparate to, a little alleyway where no one ever ventured that she had used before. And just as when she had used it before, it was empty when she arrived. She only had a short distance to walk from there and she found herself wishing that she could check her crystal as she walked to make sure Jerome wasn’t chickening out on her or something. If he did then she would just go by herself but she wanted to show him a good time. She considered him a friend now and she wanted him to see how much fun he really could have.

Before she even reached the house the sound reached her. A smirk came to her lips as she walked a little bit faster. She was maybe a few minutes late, having taken a little more time sneaking out than she had hoped but she had eventually made it. The sight of the house was a welcome one but she didn’t take the time to inspect it as she looked around outside for Jerome. A few guys cat called her as she walked by and she just shot them a cheeky smirk over her shoulder as she walked passed. Then she saw him.

”You actually came! Isn’t this great?” she said as she reached him, smiling brilliantly as she hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her skin tight black jeans. ”What do you think? Ready to go get a drink? I’ll bet they have a ton of stuff to choose from here” then she grabbed his hand to pull him inside. ”Just stick with me, I’ll keep you safe.” she teased.

@Jerome Estrada

After having studied every nook and cranny of the photo she had sent, he thought he'd be nicely prepared to see it in the flesh, and give her a perfectly ordinary greeting. However, as soon as he saw the bounce of her curls and her confident stride, he was struck down again by how sexy she looked. Her top may have just been some kind of lingerie, but the way she had draped part of the jacket over - like a half-drawn curtain teasing the view - he felt more stirred by it than if it was on full show.

Her jeans hugged her slender curves. It was all black, very naughty, but very, very nice.

"Yeah..." he breathed, unsure of what he was responding to. It was just that her full, pouted lips were moving and he felt obliged to respond in some way or another.

Before he knew it, he was being dragged along behind her. Only then was he reminded of the situation.

"You don't have to keep me safe! I'm the one who has to keep you safe. Definitely don't drink anything that's been mixed, okay? Just stick to bottles if you have to. At least you know it hasn't been tampered with..."

Oh shit. This was bad - this was definitely bad! Why did he agree with this?!

"Whose house is this, anyway? Do you even know?"

@Amara Jordan

Amara rolled her eyes at him as he was lecturing her before they even stepped over the threshold of the house. Of course, he would be worried about her safety when she was trying to just get him to let loose and have a little bit of fun. ”Just lighten up, Jerome! Have a little fun!” she pursed her lips. ”I know better than to drink something someone hands me. This isn’t my first time at a party like this. it may be his first time but it wasn’t hers by any means.

She shrugged her slender leather-clad shoulders at his question. ”Some guy’s.” she didn’t actually know him all that well but that really didn’t matter. ”I met him at a party a while back and got the invite for this one a couple of weeks ago. That’s what you do at parties, you make friends and have fun.” okay, so maybe she didn’t even know the guy’s name to call him a friend but what did it matter. She had finally made it to the drinks and spotted a bottle of whiskey with one of those pourers on it. She held it above her head to let it splash into her mouth before holding it out to him. ”here, open up!” she made to pour it into his mouth if by some miracle he agreed.

@Jerome Estrada

"Alright, alright - I'll try[I]. At least the music isn't terrible."

And it wasn't so loud that he couldn't hear anything Amara was saying - at least not in this room.

He had his concerns about this [I]guy and who he was, or what he was after, but Amara didn't seem to want to try and find him. That was probably a good thing. Speaking of guys, though - there were a lot of them looking at her. As they passed, they checked her out. From their seats, in conversation, they glanced over. Some were elbowing their friends and nodding over to her, like a pack of hungry wolves.

He thought he understood why Ashton was so paranoid now.

As he turned back to her after doing a sweep of the room, there was a bottle hovering over him. He gave her a reproached look. "I'm definitely not doing that. I'll just..." He saw a few beers with a bottle opener, and popped one open. "I'll just stick with this, okay?" But he didn't drink it. "Anyway - did you have a good birthday in the end?"

@Amara Jordan

Amara knew that there were eyes on her the whole time they walked through the crowded space but instead of shrinking away from the attention she maybe added a little more sway to her hips and raised her chin just a bit more. She thrived on the attention, she always had. Sure, she didn't realize how it could make Ashton or anyone else jealous to have so many eyes on her. It wasn't like she was going to be leaving with any of the guys who were eyeing her up and down. She just loved knowing that she was desirable, that they all wanted her. What girl didn't? Sure, most of them hid it but she put it all on full display.

A little pout came to her lips when he refused to let her pour the whiskey into his mouth but he then went for a beer and she decided to just let it go. At least he was drinking something. "More for me." And then she was tilting her head back and holding the bottle above her head so that the stream ran into her mouth. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand then before smirking at Jerome. "It's the day before we head back to school, but I know it'll be fun. I have the whole night planned out. I'm going to get so wasted. I just hope I can make it to the train the next morning." She said with a laugh, one of the downfalls of her birthday being the very day before school started meant that she had probably spent the last three or four years still half drunk from the night before.

@Jerome Estrada

He could only manage to look disapproving for a moment, as with any time she brought attention to her mouth, his eyes were drawn in and couldn't look away. When she wiped over her lips, they still were glistening, succulent, like honey. He forced himself to look at the beer he was holding.

"But you're drinking tonight - isn't that enough? Can't you just-- I don't know. Go for a nice meal or spend the day out in Brighton or Bath or Oxford or somewhere nice... a picnic? Roller skating, dodgems, theme parks: there are so many other things you can do..."

He sighed. No matter how he looked at it: this wasn't his scene, and it never would be. He looked around the room, unamused at what he was seeing: a drinking game played with cards, stoners on the couch grinding their jaws, ominous bangs, crashes, someone trying to hang on a ceiling light. Someone slammed into the back of him, and he jerked forwards.

"Whey!" several people chorused, as his beer went flying and smashing over a counter.

Glaring at the culprit who pushed him, he saw it was a shirtless lad who had I AM A MASSIVE CUNT written in marker on his back. Someone said to him: so you're a massive cunt then? and he swung his fist at them. A row of simultaneous jeering erupted: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

A bottle smashed, a girl laughed, the I AM A MASSIVE CUNT guy was slamming another kid into the wall...

It was too much.

"Can we try another room?" he complained, rubbing his hand over his eyes and forehead.

@Amara Jordan

Amara smiled at him as he named off all the things she could do for her birthday instead of getting drunk again. "I'll spend the day with my family, my brothers, and my parents. I'm sure they'll have something nice planned." She pressed the whiskey bottle to her lips this time. "But this is where I come to unwind. These are my people." She said as she threw her arms in the air, gesturing to the people around them. This was where she was the most comfortable. This was her scene.

Then he jerked forward and she reached out as if she might steady him but he seemed to right himself and she let her free hand fall back to her side as she watched the events that played out with the two other guys with a grin on her lips. She was probably the one laughing as they roughed each other up. Fights sometimes happened at parties like this but they rarely escalated to anything serious. Though, Jerome seemed uncomfortable. She snatched up another beer for him and opened it, keeping it in one hand with the whiskey bottle still in the other hand. "As you wish."

Then she weaved her way through the crowd that had gathered to watch the fight, looking back over her shoulder to make sure that Jerome hadn't gotten separated from her. Seeing that he was there, she relaxed a bit. Once out of the major congestion of people, she grinned again as the music got louder the further she moved into the next room. She moved her hips to the music as she walked. It took a moment to find a somewhat empty place in the next room where people weren't dancing or just standing around drinking but she finally managed, turning once more to Jerome. She lifted the beer bottle to her lips and took a drink before holding it out to him. "Maybe try not to spill this one?" She said with a smirk, obviously just teasing him. She didn't even think of how he might not want to drink from the bottle after she had, didn't know why she had drank from it anyway when she still had the half-full bottle of whiskey in her other hand but she had and now she waited for him to take it.

@Jerome Estrada

He couldn't perceive anything unwinding about the house party, nor did he agree that these people were her people. Not because they were muggles, but because they would never care for her. Not really. He doubted she knew many names or, if she had done, they'd been forgotten.

The only good thing about going through that room full of thudding music was the way she moved to it. He felt as though she could make any music decent enough if it went along to the swerve of her hips...

Out the other side, and he felt the tension in his shoulders drop - a fraction. She managed to occupy his hand with another bottle quick enough, after wrapping the neck of it around her own lips first. He couldn't be less disgusted by it. Had it been anyone else's mouth, he probably would've been. "I don't chuck bottles around on purpose, unlike everyone else here!" he protested, but realised she was taunting him.

"There must be some magic or potion that can get me through this..." he muttered, very quietly, as they were in muggle vicinity.

Then he looked down at the beer in his hands.

The potion to get him through it?

Jerome took a sip, wincing immediately afterwards. Then he took another sip, and it wasn't so bad. He still was pulling a face, though. "Perhaps it is better that you're getting all your drinking out the way before school starts. Because, I've decided, you won't be doing it at all this term." He seemed rather resolute about that, as though it was plain fact.

@Amara Jordan

Amara never cared if the people she partied with knew her name. She never cared that she didn't know their names either. All that mattered was that she could just be herself around them. They didn't care who she was or anything like that. They just wanted to have a good time, just like she did. And she felt that their combined need to just let loose called to her. She thrived on it. A smirk came to her lips when she realized that Jerome was defending himself before realizing that she had only been teasing him. "Loosen up, Estrada. I was just kidding. I know the massive cunt was the one who caused you to throw it across the counter." She said with a wry grin. Obviously, the guy had been on the wrong end of some prank or bet or something but Amara thought it was hilarious. The fact that it was probably the truth written on his skin only made it all the better.

Amara rolled her eyes when he mentioned a potion or something to get him through this. Did he really think it was all that bad? She smirked when he finally seemed to realize that was exactly what the beer was for. "Oh come on, it can't be that bad hanging out here with me." She said with a laugh before pressing the mouth of the whiskey bottle to her lips once again and taking another swig.

She nearly choked on it. She swallowed hard, sputtering a bit as she heard his words. "Wait a minute! You said I got a few passes and just to stay away from you when I did it so you didn't have to catch me! There's no way you can try to keep me from doing it at all." She glared at him.

@Jerome Estrada

He took another good, long slog of the beer and felt disgusting for it. It was as though he could perceive his braincells evaporating before his eyes.

Jerome held up a finger as his head was level again. "One of those passes has already been used. If you get drunk on your birthday and are hungover on the train, then technically that stands as an offence to the rules. As soon as you are on that train, you are representing the school. If you are hungover from a consequence of drinking, well..."

He made an exaggerated grimace.

"So that means you have one other. After that, I'm going to ensure you can't get away with it. Even if it means checking your dormitory every day. Measuring it to the molecule on your breath. I won't have it."

Perhaps he was enjoying himself now. Just a bit.

@Amara Jordan

Amara couldn't believe the audacity he had to try to tell her this right now when she was trying to enjoy herself! She glared at him. "As if I'd hide it in my room when I know you could bloody well come snooping. I'm not as stupid as you apparently think I am." Gah, she needed a drink! Then she remembered that she still had the bottle in her hand and she tipped it back once more. This was not turning out the way she had hoped that it would. He seemed to be trying to do anything he could to kill her buzz rather than trying to have fun himself!

"You can't yell at me for something I do before school starts. If I'm not drinking on the train then it doesn't count as one of my passes." She thrust her chin up a little higher in a stubborn gesture. "What are you going to do, follow me around everywhere, Estrada? That's a little creepy." She pointed out. Then she just shook her head. "You know what? We're supposed to be here to have fun. I'm going to go dance." She said as she moved away towards where people were dancing near the huge stereo system as she began to move to the music, holding the bottle in the air as if it were some sort of prize before lowering it to her lips again, dancing to the beat the whole time. Sure, she had only walked a few steps away from Jerome but still, she kind of felt bad and looked over to where she had left him. She had to make sure he was still okay over there alone.

@Jerome Estrada

"I think I have the only say on what counts as a pass, seeing as I'm the one giving it to you!"

When she said about him following her around, and that it was creepy, a very obvious and glaring blush crossed over his cheeks and part of his nose. "N-no, not everywhere! I-I mean, I won't follow you, as such, just..." His blathering was drowned out by the sound system, more or less. Then she strode away to make a very firm point: I Am Here To Enjoy Myself So Stop Being A Killjoy.

He took that like a crack in the ribs.

At least he could watch her dance a bit more. But that really was creepy, wasn't it? Unless he joined in? He could see other boys eyeing her around the speakers, gravitating towards her, like a pack of hungry hounds. He wasn't any better.

He took another swig of beer.

"Hey," said a would-be breathy sort of voice, but hidden under layers of alcohol. Jerome, looking at the owner of the voice, saw a girl with multiple piercings and a purposefully torn dress and purposefully laddered tights. The side of her head was shaved, and poorly dyed blue. "You're cute. Want to fuck?" She had this look on her face as though she might stab him if he said no.

"Er - well..." he began, looking at the spike coming out of her chin. Somehow he thought even snogging her would be painful, not that he'd want to even try that.

@Amara Jordan

Amara knew that he had a point, he had made the terms of the agreement so he could decide how they played out. She couldn't help but feel a little betrayed, though. She pursed her lips. "I thought we were becoming friends, Estrada. Was that just a guise to be able to get me in trouble easier once we go back to school?" She asked, wondering if that might be the case. She always seemed like the trusting type and usually, she was, but she could be suspicious at times as well. It would hurt if that was the only reason he was acting friendly to her... Even if she never wanted to admit it.

She just shook her head. She needed to just walk away and get her head straight. Which, she had to admit was increasingly difficult with the amount of whiskey she had downed already in such a short amount of time. The floaty light feeling was beginning to hit her and she reveled in it. Oh, how she loved this feeling! She felt like she felt her own body on such a higher level as she danced around all of the other people. There were eyes on her, she could feel them but what she wasn't expecting was to see that Jerome's were among them as she turned back to them. She watched him watching her for a few seconds.

Then some girl came up to him and though she couldn't hear what the girl had to say, Jerome looked like he might be a little startled. She sighed. She had promised to look after him. Even if he had made her mad, she would keep her promise since that girl looked like she might eat him alive. She moved through the crowd, acting as if she didn't have a care in the world, her hips still swaying when she reached him and wrapped the fingers of her free hand around his wrist. "Were you coming to dance with me?" She asked him before giving the girl a little smirk, obviously saying to back off.

@Jerome Estrada

"Yes," he said, very quickly, as soon as Amara's voice entered the air and gave him an excuse to get away.

He couldn't have moved quicker. Even if he was being chased by a starved tiger.

Jerome didn't know what happened to the girl after that, and he didn't want to look: he was focused on an area in front of the speakers and only looked at Amara when he thought it was safe to look up. His shoulders relaxed as he clearly exhaled in relief. "Thanks..." he said, smiling sheepishly at her. "And before you say anything - point taken. I owe you one. So you can ignore what I said about the hangover on the train. You still get two passes - only two."

He stuck up two fingers right at her eye level, so she couldn't possibly miss them, then chuckled.

New problem: dance floor. His laughter and smile ebbed away to uncertainty, and he glanced around self-consciously at everyone else. The girls seemed natural at dancing, the boys didn't. They were just waving or jabbing their hands or, if they got lucky, were feeling up one of the girls as she swirled her hips around. He looked back at Amara and his eyes moved down the length of her - taking it all in from closer proximity.

@Amara Jordan

Amara gave the girl a cheeky little smirk as Jerome followed along with her like he couldn't get away fast enough. Sure, they were just friends and all but there was nothing like the confidence boost of seeing another girl looking at her with jealousy in her gaze. Amara rolled her eyes when he spoke over the loud music. She leaned in a bit to speak into his ear so she wouldn't have to scream. "I told you I'd keep you safe and she looked like she wanted to eat you alive." She laughed a bit. "I think saving your life from her should earn another pass." She said with a smirk. She wasn't dwelling on the fact that he still seemed to want to catch her once they were in school. She just wanted to live in the moment!

"Don't tell me you don't know how to dance?" She said as her own body moved to the music almost as if it had a mind of its own. She didn't even think anything of him taking in the sight of her, thinking maybe it was just because he was nervous about dancing himself. She could remember her first party like this when she had been nervous to dance. "Come on, just move. It's not like anyone is watching." Even if she knew people were probably watching. She wanted them watching.

@Jerome Estrada

Her breath tickled his neck. He could take in her scent - whatever perfume she was wearing, warming his nostrils. There was a hint of alcohol behind it, but he wasn't compelled to mind. He just leaned his head closer, as though he needed to, to hear her. He didn't, really. Despite the noise, he could hear pretty well.

"No more passes," he stated stubbornly, despite all the pleasure he had feeling her curls tickle his skin. "And I do know how to bloody dance..."

He didn't have a clue. But Amara was moving, so he moved with her. It wasn't entirely tragic: he blended into the way of the crowd easily enough, but no one seemed to care anyway. "You know you're going to have to learn ballroom," he teased, not realising that his bottle of beer was almost empty or that it was getting to his head already. "That will be expected when you're with him and his family. Unless you're going to do the first dance on a bar top and drop jaws..."

@Amara Jordan

It wasn't surprising to her that he would have to lean in closer to hear her over the music, she had expected it actually so she thought nothing of the action. A little pout came to her face when he said no more passes. "You suck." She said in response. Not her usually witty comebacks but she thought that about covered his refusal to let her get away with it. "Why do you want to get me in trouble so badly anyway?" She couldn't help but asking. It never had made sense to her, especially if they were friends. She would cover for her friends until her last breath if she needed to.

A look of horror came to her facial features as he mentioned needing to learn ballroom dancing. It all seemed so stuffy and boring to her! Dancing was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be about expressing yourself, not about dancing the exact same way everyone else around you was. She sighed even though the sound was lost in the thump of the music's bass. Then he made his next suggestion and a mischievous smirk replaced the frown. "They wouldn't know what to think. Could you imagine the looks on all those stuck up pureblood's faces?" She had leaned in closer, knowing that what she said wasn't something to be talked about around muggles. But the thought was amusing to her. "Ashton's nothing like them... But sometimes I just don't know how well I'll fit in when it comes to his family and everything. His sister is great but his parents... I just don't know, I always just feel like I have to put on an act in front of them." She had stopped dancing, her worries resurfacing even as her head spun. She probably would have never said as much if she weren't already pretty tipsy. She decided she wasn't tipsy enough, though, because she tipped the bottle back once more, taking an even longer gulp as it burnt all the way down.

@Jerome Estrada

Ashton is nothing like them.

Yeah, right, he thought. Perhaps he wasn't stuck-up and pretentious like the Burke family, but he still had their ideology.

He wasn't enjoying seeing her guzzling back the drink. He thought, at least for one night, he could withstand it just to see exactly why she did the things she did. As he suspected, it was her avoidance strategy. When he mentioned things that could make her nervous, she drank more. She dulled out the worry. Killed it off.

Jerome took the bottle from her without warning. With his other hand he led her back, away from the speakers for a second, to actually get a word in that could be heard. "I'm not trying to get you into trouble - I'm trying to stop you from drinking so much, as you can never do anything in moderation. Whether that's drinking, smoking, agreeing to marriage proposals without thinking..."

"It has to be all or nothing with you. You're afraid of people seeing what you're really like, so you live as the worst possible example of yourself. That way, at least you can control others' opinions of you: they'll either see you as a lively party girl, or a shameless drunk. But they'll never see that you're kind, that you're determined, driven, brave, caring, protective, clever..."

Some other party-goer grabbed the whiskey bottle from his hand and went off with it, finder's keepers. He let them.

"Amara, those are the qualities people want to see. They're the qualities that make us friends."

He hadn't let go of her hand the entire time.

"You're so much more than all this."

@Amara Jordan

Sure enough, as she tipped the bottle back again she couldn’t feel the worry that she wouldn’t be good enough for his family, couldn’t recognize the almost paralyzing fear that she would be the black sheep of the family and that she would either cause him to have to choose between her and his family or that he would be ostracized from them because of her. She didn’t want that. She knew that she would never turn her back on her family and while his seemed to accept her for the moment, how long would it last when she stopped acting, when she was just herself instead? She focused on the burn of the liquor and that took away that fear, at least for a moment.

Before she even knew what was happening, the bottle was being taken from her hand and she just blinked at Jerome, her lips forming a pout. She followed him though, when he led her away from the speakers and the majority of the people. ”I was thinking.” she started to interrupt when he took a breath but he forged on, cutting her off once more as she had no choice but to listen. Her vision blurred a bit as she realized that tears were building up in her eyes. No! She couldn’t cry in front of him. She couldn’t let anyone see she was weak. Enough people had seen her weakness when that video had been sent out. So she tried to blink them away and instead focused on the person who had snatched her bottle of whiskey right out of Jerome’s hand. ”Hey, bring that back! but it was no use, they had already disappeared. At least it had given her a moment to pull herself together once again before she turned back to face Jerome. Not that she could have gone far when he had ahold of her hand.

”You're wrong, Jerome. This is who I am. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me and if you don’t like that this is who I am then maybe we’re not friends anyway.” she hated to say such things when she knew that this was yet another coping mechanism she used. When anyone got too close and didn’t see her for who she wanted to be seen as, she pushed them away. She made them not want to look any deeper. She was in self-destruct mode. ”I brought you here thinking you might be able to have some fun with me as friends but you just want to try to psychoanalyze me instead. This was a bad idea.” Being well on her way to being drunk didn’t help her self destructive ways either as she pulled her hand away from him and attempted to stumble away through the crowd.

@Jerome Estrada

Suddenly her eyes were glistening, her joyful, happy-go-lucky countenance ebbed away and was replaced with self-doubt, sadness, fear. He watched in astonishment as the tears threatened to fall, and he hated that he was the bearer of it. No better than Ashton - making her cry, he thought despairingly.

"Amara--"

He never thought himself as a bad person. But at that moment, he felt the worst possible example of a human being. She was pulling away from him. She was rejecting him.

"N-no, that's not what I was trying--" She was already weaving through the crowd, stumbling, getting out of sight. "Amara, I am your friend!" But his call was lost to the thump and grind.

Immediately he pursued her - in the direction that she'd gone. Any trace of curl or black jacket had his head turning, but when he realised it wasn't her, he truly felt lost in this unknown, unfriendly world. It was okay, he told himself - these were muggles, it could be worse. A lot worse.

Thinking that he may have seen a trace of her heading upstairs, he climbed the staircase - weaving around odd couples and pairings of drug-sharers on the steps, until he entered the first door he came to. Strangely enough, it was empty. Someone's bedroom, but only big enough to host a bed and a nightstand. Jerome sighed. He had to find her before she started drinking again, and fast. The only thing was, as soon as he turned, he almost immediately collided with someone else.

@Amara Jordan

Amara thought that she heard Jerome yelling something over the crowd, that he was calling out to her but she told herself she was hearing things. She told herself that he didn’t care that she was walking away from him. He didn’t really care about her. Of course, she knew better but the alcohol helped her to keep going, helped her to pretend that he would never try to follow her.

She needed another drink badly. Even if she knew that she would just be proving Jerome right if she took another drink. It didn’t matter. She weaved her way through the crowd, forgetting her promise for the moment as she just tried to run away. She needed to run away from him, away from the truths that he spoke. She ended up in a smoky corner and who did she see but that girl who had approached Jerome before. She was had a bong in her hand and somehow Amara ended up with it in her own.

She was coughing from the smoke when the girl nudged her. ”isn’t that your guy going upstairs?” Amara almost told her that Ashton wasn’t there when she realized that the girl must have been talking about Jerome. She looked up and sure enough, he was heading upstairs. She handed the bong back and made her way back through the crowd as she followed him. It was hard to tell what he might find up there but she had promised to look after him and she knew she would feel awful if she didn’t. So, she made her way up the stairs despite the fact that he was already out of sight. Luckily, he had left the door open to the room he had entered and she started in after him.

That is, until he turned suddenly and ran into her. She grabbed at him, trying to keep herself from falling over. ”shit!” she said as she just knew that she was going to end up on her butt. And it was going to be so embarrassing! She just knew it.

@Jerome Estrada

The impact wasn't them smashing their noses together at least, but as he wavered, he wavered, firmly in her grasp and momentum took over. Instinctively he clung onto her as they toppled forwards (her, backwards) and he lost the ground beneath his feet, placing them onto the floor in a heap of tangled limbs.

Well, that would have been the only embarrassment he suffered. Only when he fully realised how they'd landed, his face rushed with heat and he was scarlet, looking down on her.

He'd landed right on top of her. Her thigh was brushing his leg. She looked like a sinking mermaid - curls everywhere and splayed out across the carpet. His heart thumped chaotically against his chest, his breath was laboured, hitching, as he looked down at her beneath him...

Then he realised she could have been seriously hurt.

"A-are you okay?" he managed to splutter, managing to pull himself up enough that his palms were either side of her shoulders.

@Amara Jordan

Things didn’t go as expected! Really, she hadn’t thought things through. She just knew that she was falling and she tried to grab onto Jerome in an attempt to save herself from hitting the floor. Instead, she had apparently caused them both to topple over because she found herself in the middle of the hall on the floor… with Jerome on top of her. The air was pushed from her lungs from the impact of being the buffer between the two. She did a mental run through of her body parts. It didn’t feel like anything was broken but she knew she would probably feel this in the morning.

It wasn’t until Jerome lifted himself from her, looking down from where he held himself over her and spoke that she took a moment to realize the extent of their position. It could probably be seen as… questionable if it had happened on purpose and she couldn’t help the way her breathing sped up a bit at the thought. ”I think I’m okay…” she said, not sounding entirely sure as she looked up at him, her dark eyes staring into his face but she didn’t move. It was the alcohol that kept her from trying to squirm away, right? Yes, that had to be the case. That and the shock of the whole thing. ”are you okay?” her voice still held that slightly breathless quality as she asked.

@Jerome Estrada

"Yeah..."

His heart was thrumming pleasantly against his chest. He felt it clawing down to his stomach, making knots, and up to his mind, where he conceded that every part of his body wanted to remain exactly where it was. He didn't move an inch, and she wasn't moving an inch. It couldn't be that she was feeling the same way as he was, he knew that: she was intoxicated and upset, probably still bewildered by how they'd ended up...

And yet, and yet.

His eyes were moving rapidly against her features. Her glistening lips, her lovely nose littered with freckles, her glistening eyes...

She was still upset.

His thumb was stroking her face.

Well, not exactly her face - just underneath her eyes, where he'd made her cry. Wiping away the tears because he was her friend, he thought, but in reality it was so much more than that. It was obvious. His tender gaze, the way his eyes dipped behind lids and looked at her, in admiration...

"I will always be your friend..." he murmured, moving down to his elbows, resolute yet dream-like, eyes sweeping to her lips as his eyes closed.

@Amara Jordan