WC: 2,761
Trigger Warnings: underage drinking, panic attacks and emetophobia
Lani is practically bouncing with excitement as she and Sue make their way into the house party. It was fairly big, what with the owner apparently having moved into a much larger place recently. There was plenty of room for plenty of people, which was good because plenty of people showed up!
Sue had offered Lani to come with them and their friends. She didn’t know their friends very well, but there was no way Lani was ever gonna give up a chance to spend time with her Susie!
So here the two of them are, squeezing in with a couple others through the doors. Inside the place music is booming, about two or three notches higher than Lani could normally tolerate, but it would alllll be worth it.
After all, Sue would be here with her this entire time. There was nothing she wouldn’t put up with for them!
“The others should be here soon,” Sue informs, looking up from their phone. “We all agreed to be here by at most 7.”
“What time is it?”
“6:34.”
Lani grins wide. “Great! That means we have some time!”
“Time?” Sue asks, pushing up their cute little fake glasses. “For?”
“Us to dance!” Lani laughs. She grabs Sue’s hand and pulls them forward into the house and towards any place that wasn’t crowded with people. Eventually they end up in what must be some sort of TV room. There’s a long sofa lining three of the four walls and an obscenely large TV on the fourth, nothing but a pushed aside table in the middle of the space.
The room is also conveniently devoid of others.
“Perfect!” Lani beams, flicking on the lights. A fan turns on as well, and Lani huffs proudly, ribbing Sue a bit. “Lookat that, I even managed to get us air conditioning. Everybody say, ‘thank you Lani!’” She puts a cupped hand to her cheek and then mumbles in a higher voice, “Thank you Lani!”
Sue laughs so hard that when Lani looks over, their face is red. Which in turn makes Lani’s face a little red. They were so pretty when they laughed…
“Okay, okay, I’m the funniest prince in the world,” Lani jokes after getting their fill of a laughing Susie. “But c’mon! We’re gonna run out of time!” Lani tugs at Sue and spins the two of them in a moving circle until they’re in the middle of the room. She stops and lets Sue keep spinning out, keeping a hold of their hand before they can fall. “And may I have this dance?”
Sue is laughing so hard. “You do know Ed Sheeran is on right now?”
“And?” Lani asks, raising a sly eyebrow.
Sue doesn’t stop laughing.
+++
As it turns out, time flies when you’re having fun.
Sue’s phone pings as the two of them are in the middle of shimmying to the music together, informing the duo that the others had finally arrived.
“Aww, phooey,” Lani pouts. “Right when we were just really starting to have fun, too!”
“There’s plenty of time left in the night for us to dance more, Lani,” Sue chuckles, going to the side of the room where the two of them had left their bags.
What Sue doesn’t know though, is that they’ve just sealed their fate.
“Tell them we’re busyyyy!” Lani whines, diving for Sue’s phone on the couch. “In fact, I’ll do it!” she laughs, tapping blindly at the phone.
“Oh, Lani!” Sue giggles. “Don’t do that! We all promised we’d meet up!” They go over to her, reaching for their phone.
Lani giggles right back, pushing the phone under her back, sandwiching it between her and the couch. She crosses her arms with a fake pout. “I’m sorry, Mxter, but this station is uhhh, closed fer repairs,” she says with an exaggerated accent. She then sticks a hand up, palm up. “That is ahh… Unless you think ya wanna dance with destiny?”
Sue smirks, putting their hands to their hips. “And who exactly is destiny to me?”
Lani grins and bounces up, tackling Sue into a hug. “I’m your one and only!” she laughs.
Sue laughs along with her, but it’s so airy it sounds like they’re not breathing as they do it.
Lani pulls the two of them to sit next to the phone on the couch, Sue sitting across Lani’s lap. “Let’s just relax a bit, and then we can meet up with them, alright?”
Sue hums, hesitant, but then Lani squishes herself up against them and hits them with the puppy dog eyes. “Pwease?” she begs.
Sue relents immediately. “I-I’m sure they’ll be fine without us for a moment.” they agree. Lani snuggles their torso more, giggling.
Only for Sue’s phone to ping again.
“Ughhhh,” Lani groans, lifting up so Sue can reach it. “Fine, fine. We’ll go.” She looks up at Sue, ready to quip something else, but there’s a frown on their face. “What’s up, buttercup?” she asks, kicking her legs.
“Paige can’t make it…” they mumble.
“Oh no!” Lani gasps. “That’s the little frail one, right? White hair?”
Sue nods. “He was looking forward to it so much though…” Sue stares at the message. “This… this doesn’t read right.” They quickly tap at their phone, and continue doing so for a moment. Lani holds them the whole time, humming.
“Lani,” they say eventually, “There’s been a change of plans.”
“Huh?” Lani blinks, snapping her out of her blissful state of being. “What?”
“Paige is lying for some reason,” they say as if that explains everything. “So we’re going to see what’s wrong.”
“We?” Lani asks, tilting her head.
“The Bro Crew,” they answer, lifting up. They look at the ground as they turn to Lani, lip bitten and twiddling their thumbs. “I-I know I invited you with the intention to stay with you the whole night, but Paige…”
“Is important to you,” Lani finishes for Sue. “I get it.”
“Well, wait!” Sue gasps. “You’re just as important to me, too!”
Lani smiles, basking in that. “I know, silly! But it sounds like he needs you more than I do right now.” She stands up behind Sue and holds out a hand. “I’ll always be ‘round for you, partner,” she says in a mock southern accent, “So you best always be there for your pals when they need ya!”
“You say the most nonsensical things,” Sue smiles warmly. “I’m a little obsessed with it.”
Lani’s Love-O-Meter maxes out then and there, causing her to burst out in a laugh. “Only for you, Susie!”
Sue laughs quickly and airily, and Lani smiles.
Sue’s phone pings again and the atmosphere is brought back down.
“Ah…” Sue mumbles. “I really must go.”
“I know, I know,” Lani sighs. She gives Sue one last big hug and then waves them off. “I’ll miss you, my sweet Haruhi!” she says, badly mimicking Tamaki’s voice.
Sue graces Lani with one last giggle before waving back and leaving the room.
The music becomes louder the second Sue’s frame leaves the door. Lani flops back on the couch with an awful pout. Ugh. What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Somebody from the backyard screams and several others follow behind.
Oh right. This was a party.
Lani stands again and stretches. Well, she thinks, going to scoop up her bag, Might as well get some punch or something.
+++
“No, no!” Lani slurs, laughing. She’s got a big cup of some weird tasting punch that she’s been nursing for about the past hour and 20 minutes. It was really hard to drink it straight up for whatever reason. “Lllook, III’m tellin’ ya, it’s like they don’t even know half th’ time!”
“No!” says whoever the hell Lani is talking to. “But don’t you like, call them pet names and shit? They have to know!”
“Nnnnope,” Lani sighs, popping the p. “I’m not tryna rush them or nothin’, y’know? But like, fuck! What’s a girl gotta do!”
“Well, maybe you should play Ms. Bad Guy for once?” says another person. When did they get here? “You know, like… be like ughhh I can’t believe you didn’t notice that I changed my hair! After like, only cutting a bang off or something!”
Lani stares at them. “...The hell is wrong wi’h you?”
“Oh, don’t be so mean, Yvonne!” laughs the first one. “She’s just trying to give you some advice!”
Lani squints her eyes. “Who th’ hell is Yvonne?”
Both of the girls blink. “Wait. Are you not Yvonne?” one of them asks.
“No???” Lani answers, confused as hell. “I’m Lani?”
“Who the hell is Lani?”
“Me!”
The other girl stands up. “Ugh. C’mon, Stace. She’s clearly some weirdo loser who just wanted someone to complain to.”
Stace(?) stands as well and puts her nose up in the air. “Yeah, Trace. Let’s get outta here.” She makes one last glare at Lani before leaving, though. Only so she can spit, “Fucking freak,” before trotting away with the other.
Lani…
Lani sits there.
Lani sits there for a long time.
The music is loud. The punch tastes weird. Sue’s gone. People are bullying her for no reason. She doesn’t know anyone here. Sue’s gone. The floor is doubling. She feels like she’s gonna throw up.
Sue’s gone.
Lani’s rapid breath catches in her throat and she covers her mouth, dropping the cup of whatever she was drinking and letting it fall to the floor. It spills everywhere, but luckily not on her.
Unluckily, she slips on it immediately after taking one step.
She’s suddenly all upside down, ass first in the stuff.
Fuck.
Lani slips and slides her way up as the warped sounds of laughter enter her ears. Her eyes shoot from one side of the room to the other, honing in on anyone laughing. Were they looking at her? Were they laughing at her? Was she going to be the new laughing stock of a school she didn’t even go to?
Her stomach rumbles and she holds it with one hand and covers her mouth again with the other. Oh god.
She had to find a bathroom. Now.
+++
Lani heaves over a porcelain and feels like shit. Whatever the hell was in that punch did not agree with her not one bit.
She breathes heavily and feels an unstoppable urge to cry. So she does.
“Fuck!” she wails. “Fuck!”
Why was the goddamned music so loud? Would anyone even hear her over this? Could she even hear herself?
She wishes Sue were here.
Lani goes back and forth between dry heaving and sobbing her eyes out for what feels like fifteen hours too long. At some point she ends up banging her head on the wall behind her, needing some kind of stimulation to keep her kicking.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
She bites her lip harder and harder.
At some point the taste of bitter copper spills into her mouth, and only then does she stop.
Ow.
She bit through her lip.
“...F’ck.”
+++
Lani stands over the reddening sink, crying as she applies a cold press to her lip. She sniffs and shouts and hisses and the whole nine yards. It hurts like a bitch and she can’t keep it there for long, so she has to dab it on again and again, restarting the pain every few seconds.
People rattle around outside and Lani feels like ripping the sink off and throwing it at them. SHUT THE FUCK UP! she wants to yell. DON’T YOU SEE I’M DYING IN HERE?
Lani does not do that.
Instead she begins breathing heavier again, faster. She clutches at her chest and white knuckles the sink.
Something knocks at the door, the handle shaking after.
No, no, no. There could not be someone trying to get into this stupid bathroom right now. Please.
Another knock.
Oh god.
Lani was going to vomit again.
+++
When the poor teen finally feels well enough to shuffle out of the bathroom, she just wants to go home. Home, home, home. She thinks about her warm bed. Her cozy mattress. The good book she was reading on the bedside table. Her untaken pills that were sitting next to it.
…Ah.
That… would explain some things.
Well, whatever. It wasn’t like one day was gonna kill her. Besides, this day was over as far as she was concerned.
She uses the walls to navigate her way back into the living room, where a good amount of people still are. People are whispering, giggling, pointing… Somebody’s mopping… The room is starting to close in on her…
Lani fills with panic for what must be the umpteenth time this night. She rushes past everyone on wobbly legs so she can get her thankfully unraided bag. She squeaks a, “S-orry for the mess,” before trying to tear off.
But she’s grabbed just barely by her backpack.
She chokes a bit, unprepared.
“Yo,” says Lani’s captor, looking at her with bored eyes. He’s got short silver hair with a ponytail and bright blue eyes. “If you made this mess, why the hell am I cleaning it?”
“Um,” Lani sys smartly.
The other person rolls their eyes. “Look, I don’t actually really care, I’ve been on Make Sure Piper’s House Doesn’t Get Torn Down duty for the past three hours. You are the first and probably last person I will find who has owned up to their mess. So like, thanks.” He lets her go and hands the mop over. “But like, I’ve got other shit to do. Finish this and then do whatever, but don’t leave a mess.” With that, he walks off, most likely to try and find something else to clean.
So, here Lani stands, cleaning up her own mess, people pointing and laughing at her. Maybe? Things have been blurry for the past… minutes. Maybe people were just pointing. And laughing. In general. But everything feels so targeted. And it’s all so much. It’s all so much.
It’s all too much.
Lani clutches her head and cries, dropping the mop and hunching in on herself. She stands there and sobs and heaves and everyone is looking at her and everyone is pointing at her and everyone is laughing at her.
With one last quick breath, Lani rushes out of the living room and into the nearest hallway, following nothing but blind memory of where the entence was. The place was weirdly constructed, being taller rather than wider, so the hallways weren’t always covered, but they were corridors nonetheless.
Somehow, someway, Lani makes it out of the house. She makes it out and stumbles into the mediocre-ly kept lawn and falls to her knees and lays on the ground.
There she stays, sobbing for a couple minutes more.
When the sensation of dirt finally processes under Lani’s hands, she jolts up and dusts herself off. God. Was she really wallowing in the dirt of all places?
This was pathetic.
She was pathetic.
Lani rummages through her bag until she can feel and pull out her phone. She taps on her speed dial for her mom and waits for her to pick up.
“Honey?” Tansy asks as she picks up.
“Moooooom,” Lani cries, “Pick me upppp. Pleasseeee.”
+++
Tansy sighs as she feeds her daughter some tylenol. “Honey, what the hell were you doing at that party?”
“It’s th’ one Susie invited m’ to…” Lani warbles. “They hadta leave ‘nd I got all ssaaaaad ‘nd siiiick ‘nd…” She hiccups. “I dunnooooo!”
“Shhh,” Tansy soothes. “It’s okay. We can talk about it later, okay?”
“L’ter?” Lani repeats.
“Later,” Tansy nods. “For now, try ‘nd get some sleep. You look like you need tons of it.”
“Mmmh…” Lani mumbles. “Lights?”
“Of course, sweets.” Tansy gets up and flicks the lights off, causing the automatic night light to turn on. “Get some good rest, okay Lans?”
“Yaaa…” Lani drones, eyes slipping closed. She feels her whole body sink like lead into the bed the moment she lays still.
Oh god.
How the hell did she even end up here?
If Sue just… hadn’t left… maybe tonight wouldn’t have gone so bad…
She hopes rumors about her don’t start spreading around Sue’s school. If she ever heard them start telling her about this thing they heard happened while they were gone and it was about her? Lani would just up and die. Right on the spot. Just, snap!
Lani groans and drags her hands up to scrub at her face lightly.
God…
Sue…
Lani sighs. She had it too bad.