Aberrant: Mutant High - Oil and Water [New Semester Mixer Fic]

[GDP_ST]

Alex's faintly bemused irritation disappeared as he gazed back into deep pools of amethyst. To be fair, it had disappeared almost as soon as she had said sorry the first time. The blush, the wide sparkling eyes, and the hand on his were overkill. Very welcome overkill, but still overkill. Alex found himself at a rare loss for words, mouth hanging slightly open as he looked at her. His thinking brain hammered on the doors to the control center, yelling dimly over the surge of hormones. What was it about this girl that made his brain short-circuit?

Say something, idiot!

"Uhh...Aaahh..."

Smooth.

"Umm, that's okay." He managed. "Really. I didn't even notice there was going to be a fight." He smiled a little shamefacedly and held up his beer. "I blame the alcohol." He gave her a warm grin. "Good that you were paying attention to that, though. We definitely don't need a brawl here. It's ruin the night."

[V. Vincent]

If he keeps smiling at me like that, I'm not going to need another drink all night, she thought giddily, unable to stifle an answering grin that, she was sure, made her look like a complete idiot. Between the radiance of Alex’s aura on her skin and the pleasant liquid warmth of the alcohol uncoiling in her stomach, Violet was hovering just this side of euphoria. Heat suffused her skin as she drifted through the endless blue-and-gold seas of his eyes, and she couldn’t help but stare dazedly at him, that same smile plastered across her face. Despite the voice in the back of her head screeching at her to stop drooling and say something intelligent, she was barely cognizant of anything else going on around her as he spoke. The boathouse could’ve been burning down around her ears, and she’d have been lucky if she realized it before the rafters collapsed on her head.

“Yeah,” she murmured dreamily, gazing up at him in absolute rapture. She’d feel guilty about it later, of course, but she was sure Drumm would understand. Alex was, after all, superhumanly attractive, and it was a perfectly normal, reasonable reaction for her to feel as if her blood had been switched with champagne while he was around. It was a side-effect of his manifestation, or something. It had to be.

A moment later, she realized her response had been completely inappropriate for what Alex had actually said, and she took a bracing drink of bourbon as she laughed off her nervousness. Wow. Okay… Yeah. Focus, Vi.

“Yeah, that would totally have ruined the night, I mean,” she corrected quickly, biting her lower lip. It was quickly growing uncomfortably warm, and the texture of his palm beneath her fingertips was sending strange little sparks dancing along the nerve endings. That’s it? Come on, you can do better than that!

“So… It’s not long ‘til midnight. Did you, um, have any resolutions, or anything, for the New Year?” Inadvertently, her eyes dropped to admire the shape of his mouth as she waited for a response.

[GDP_ST]

"Resolutions...?" he asked a little distantly, wondering if he should kiss her, and what her lips would taste like. He blinked and smiled. "Oh, yes! Resolutions. Yes, of course. Umm... Well number one would be to try and gather every positive experience I can out of life here." He blushed a little, trying to maintain his train of thought in the face of her eyes roaming his features. It was distracting, but the best sort of distracting. The sort of distraction that becomes more important than anything else... He snapped back to what he was saying.

"I mean, that sounds corny but... I'm a mutant now. It's not all sunshine and violets... I mean roses!" He blushed a deeper bronze and moved on quickly. "So I plan to make the most of being here. Thats the big resolution. The little ones are all under that heading, really. So I plan to be active: sports, the martial arts club, drama club. And I plan to learn as much as I can about what I can do. Push the envelope a little and be all the mutant I can be." He trailed off, looking down at their linked hands. His fingers gently toyed with hers, twining around them playfully as his eyes met hers once more.

"I was also resolving not to hold myself apart and to make some good friends. It may be premature, but I think I'm off to a great start." he told her with a slow, happy smile for her alone that nearly outshone his aura. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, unconsciously leaning closer towards her, his face barely half a foot from hers now as they spoke. It was loud in here, and he didn't want to shout.

Yes, that was it.

"So how about you? What resolutions are you making, Violet?"

[Shard]

Alek walked over to the refreshemnts, gathered up a small sample of the food, and grabbed a smirnoff for Ari as he headed back, his eyes temporarily drawn to the glowing mutant and the beauty sitting next to him, then he shook his head and returned to Ari, presenting her with the plate and drink. "There ya go. What time is it, anyway? It should be getting close to midnight." He turns toward the others that had approached Ari and waved to them, "I'm Alek. And you are?"

[Hotstreak]

Daniel smiled. "Daniel.." He indicated Glacia. "..This is Diana. Nice to meet you Alek."

He checked his watch. still had time before the fireworks were set to go.

[V. Vincent]

Violet's heart hammered against her ribs, like a bird whose wings beat madly against the bars of its cage in an attempt to escape. If he leans any closer, she thought, I'm going to do something amazingly stupid. Hastily, the young girl averted her gaze from both his eyes and his mouth, fearing the delicious threats they posed to her sanity, and instead studied the cubes of ice in her glass as if they were the most fascinating thing in the room.

"Resolutions. Yes. Umm... Well, I resolve to get in shape this year, to learn more about my abilities, and to establish a more secure, stable foundation in support of my plans for world domination through mind control."

Having said that, she looked up at him, smiled brightly, and glanced back out at the group of people still milling around.

"Director Drumm says it's important for us to have goals," Violet explained cheerily as she watched her guests dancing, drinking, and making their first heady forays into romantic territory. "And," she added with a surprisingly shy grin, "for the record, I think you're off to a pretty good start, too."

[GDP_ST]

The 'world domination through mind control' line was good for a laugh. He tightened his fingers around hers briefly in a gentle squeeze before following her gaze to the other students present. Looking back as Violet finished speaking, Alex returned her shy grin with a smile of his own.

"So I was wondering..." he began in that slow, deliberately casual, rambling way that telegraphed the summoning of courage. "Would you like to go out somewhere together? Or, I don't know, uh, go swimming? Or running? If you'd like an exercise partner, that is. Or go see a movie and grab a burger afterwards?" he realised he was babbling and shut up for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "I suppose the question my brain is trying to chicken out from asking is 'Are you dating anyone, and would you like to?'"

[SalmonMax]

A bit of time passed after Kia left the party...but perhaps to Kazuo's suprise, she did return, and she returned with Morri and Sonja in tow. Sonja went to talk to Violet, but Kia made a beeline right back towards Kazuo with an apologetic look on her face.

"Hey, everything's okay now. Still feel like dancing, or do you hate me because I'm the worst person ever for walking out on you for a little bit?"

[V. Vincent]

Externally, Violet was at least as composed as she'd been for most of the evening. She fidgeted only slightly, turning the cool glass of bourbon in her hands, and only briefly nibbled the pink swell of her lower lip. Internally, however, she was screeching like the giddy schoolgirl she became in Alex's presence and doing the mental equivalent of the "Happy Dance."

Instead of giving voice to her excitement, however, she took a deep breath and reviewed her personal mantra: "What Would Jericho Drumm Do?" It had gotten her through trickier situations than this, and she couldn't help but rely on it at this crucial moment in her adolescent development. Dr. Jericho Drumm would probably smile, look flattered and possibly mildly embarrassed, and subtly divert his admirer's attention elsewhere without completely shooting them down. Strike that. That's exactly what he would do, because she'd seen it happen. To her. ...More than once. Shaking off that unpleasant line of thinking, Violet reminded herself that she had plenty of time. Eventually, he would come around, and she was nothing if not patient. In the meantime, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to tell Alex she wasn't available.

"No," she began tentatively, slowly drawing out that single syllable with a gratified, somewhat abashed smile. "No, I'm not seeing anyone. We could always start with the standard extracurricular activities, get to know each other, and all that, because honestly, I'm not sure I can give you a straight answer right now. Between the bourbon and the hormones, I can't even promise I can stand." Her confession was followed up by another grin and a slightly startled expression, as if she'd surprised herself in saying it at all.

[GDP_ST]

He nodded soberly. Well, sort of soberly. It was a good attempt at a sober nod, at any rate. The air of sage understanding was somewhat ruined by the unruly lock of golden hair that fell across his face and the cheerful grin that accompanied his efforts to swat it aside.

"That's fair. Important decisions should never be made on New Year's Eve. I'm sure I read that somewhere." Alex chuckled. He straightened up from his elegantly lazy slouch, offering a golden luminous hand to Violet, palm up. "So let's just enjoy the rest of the night, and let tomorrow look after tomorrow. I think we're due some fireworks fairly soon." He smiled, the golden motes in his sky-blue eyes lending an unintentional innuendo to the word 'fireworks'.

"Want to count in the New Year together?"

[Kazuo]

Kazuo walked back to the table with the drinks after Kia left him and made himself another Boom boom, slamming it down exactly as he had the first one. After that, Kazuo decided to take it easy on the alky for a bit, and leaned back against the booze table with what was left of the can of 7up he'd used to make the Boom boom, sipping it casually as he watched the party going on around him. He still hadn't decided yet whether this qualified as a cool party yet, but it had definitely been an interesting one so far.

After a little while had passed, Kia came back in, followed by the other two girls who Kazuo'd first come here with, and Kazuo was somewhat surprised when she headed straight for the drinks table where he was standing and stopped right in front of him with a cute look on her face. She even apologized, sort of, for leaving him in the middle of a dance. Kakkoii des, ne?

Unfortunately, whoever the asshole was they had standing in for the actual DJ at this party chose that exact moment to start up Justin Timberlake's 'Sexy Back'. Kazuo fought the pain, and tried not to visibly wince.

"Thas' cool", he said, in response to Kia's news that 'everything was ok'. In response to her question, Kazuo gave her a wry grin and said, "Yeah, that wuz pretty awful of ya, an' I'd prolly be real pissed atcha fer it too, but I been chugging the free booze since ya left tryin' ta drown the humiliation." Still smiling, Kazuo stood up from leaning on the table and spread his arms as if to say, 'see, I'm totally sloshed'. "So let's hurry up an' dance, 'fore I lose this buzz, yeah?"

He set the can of 7up down behind him and started to lead Kia out onto the dance floor again, but then he stopped dead and turned back to Kia with a pained expression on his face. All around them the bass thumpin' sexiness of 'JT' - as interpreted by Timbaland - swirled wildly, making it hard to hear or (for Kazuo at least) to even think. He ran an index finger along the scar that ran horizontally over his forehead for a second and then held it up before Kia in the universal symbol for 'one'. "Gimme a minute. I'll be right back."

Kazuo then stalked over to where the laptop with all the music on it (and the stand-in DJ) were. "Oi!", he shouted over the music as he came within reach of the poor kid who'd unwittingly angered the scary Japanese kid with his selection of music, "yer killin' me here, man!" Kazuo placed one had against the kid's chest and pushed, just forcefully enough to get him away from the laptop as he leaned over it. From out of his pocket, Kazuo pulled out a key-chain that turned out to have a thumb drive hanging from it, which he promptly shoved into the appropriate receptacle on the laptop.

For just a moment, the music cut out entirely, leaving only an awkward silence behind it, into which crept the grumbling voices of various dancing couples only to be quickly silenced as they saw who it was who was fiddling with the playlist. The silence only lasted for a moment, and then the smooth notes of something that sounded like fine Jazz Blues mixed with R&B came pouring out from the speakers.

Kazuo turned from the laptop with finality and walked back to Kia as the music began to swell around him. "Some guy named Tricky", he said by way of explanation as he and Kia took up their positions out on the dance floor. "A friend a mine turned me onto 'im a while back. Th'song's good fer slow dancin', but it grooves enough that it should give all the self-conscious boys an' girls at this party somethin' to move to. Somethin' that aint fuckin Justin Timberlake, anyhow."

And with that, he did his best to let his body just move with the music as he danced with Kia.