puck laughed, raising two eyebrows at his drunk-and-strumbling friend. puck had only just gotten here- fashionably late- and had only pregamed a little, so he was probably the closest thing to a sober person in the room you’d find. “ what the fuck did you DO, iz ? ” he asked, dragging izzy onto his feet and making a move to try and pull his friend into a quieter corner to hide out. pj was ride or die like that. “ and i’m really, REALLY gonna hold you to that promise, man . ”

Izzy huffed and stuffed his hands in the pockets of a vibrant magenta jacket, one that clearly had seen better days, them being maybe 35 years ago. Not to mention, he couldn’t have already been grossly less on-theme with his fresh green buzz, something he claimed was inspired by Yates’ very own ‘lush greenery,’ despite the fact that it was autumn in Preaker, and that meant trees were boasting every shade of red and yellow; not exactly green. Throwing his head back in relief, he started on his story as PJ dragged him away. “I just called some girl hot in, like, a democratic-nominee sort of way. Like, you know, to be the president. Like, I don’t know. Didn’t know that was an insult,” he grumbled. “Dude, I got you. It’s me. Anyway, why are you, like, sober? That’s equivalent to, like… I don’t know. Some really bad crime. Zodiac level.”

leo: jst found out the only mosquitos tht bite u r girl mosquitos???

leo: bella swan tease

leo: feeling used dont text 💔

leo: jk wyd

leo: i might need some help im at a party n i think im finna bout to fall into a k hole

leo: i need u to make sure i dnt turn into a vegetable i need my legs or i can never tap dance again

leo: i hvnt even broken in my new clogs yet 🥺 my oma would be rolling in her grave dnt do this to her..................

izzy: wtf are u talking about mosquitos don't bite u

izzy: don't they sting u? wtf? shut up

izzy: let a mosquito give u that good succ

izzy: wtf. where r u. why r u doing this without me .................

Bounding into Kincaid, the residents of the house had seen Darby around enough that the sight of her walking in unannounced wasn’t very strange. But maybe it was considering she had been gone for weeks. She had convinced herself to go over to see Izzy before her confidence faded. she wished she had some sort of liquid courage in her stomach. Hesitating only a moment outside of his door, she knocked softly, straightening the slip she had on the same color as a golden dawn. Then she opened in, barging into his room before he could protest. “Surprise. Betcha thought you saw the last of me,” she joked, falling back onto the humor she was accustomed to when she was uncomfortable. Flinging herself onto his bed like she had never left it, her smile fell, falling into an expression of guilt and regret as she looked at Izzy. Was his hair that color when she had left? “So I know we’re not technically speaking right now, but I just got out of rehab. Feel like I get a pass to start over, y’know?” She proposed, straightening up, her hands falling primly onto her knees. “And I kind of missed you. So. There’s that.” @izzythomps​

He was lying in bed as his legs were propped up against the adjacent wall, dirty clothes strewn about while half of the linen covering his mattress lay discarded across a floor littered with granola bar wrappers and old papers with surprisingly high grades in red marker. Music blaring through earbuds, he didn’t hear Darby when she first entered, her figure out of the corner of his eye being the thing that signaled her unexpected arrival. Izzy shot up immediately at the sight of her, nearly falling back onto his ass as he blinked, still registering her presence as the other side of his bed sank. Plucking the earbud out of his ear, he grinned lopsidedly at her with a softness that he usually didn’t cling to. “You sound like that blonde girl from the witch season of American Horror Story,” he referenced not-so-brightly before ruffling her hair with a sigh. “Hm. Okay, I guess,” Izzy huffed before sporting a goofier, fuller smile. “You missed me? Wow. Darby ‘The Simp’ Albright. A new superhero! Someone call Marvel right now.”

“you know, it’s not that hard to just focus. you’re like an untamed rabbit.” selene speaks through gritted teeth, the grip on her pencil so intense she will definitely have a new callous come tomorrow morning. these are the first non-math related words she has spoken since they began studying, save for a few hushed exclamations of fuck under her breath. under the harsh library lights, she feels almost as if they are filming some comedy show where she is the brunt of the joke. her eyes drift from the calculus problem to izzy’s green hair. on any other occasion she might have admired it, but she is so frustrated that even this annoys her. “can bleach and dye your hair every other week but can’t even try to do a simple fucking differential equation…” she mutters this— it is meant more to release her own frustration than to begin a conversation— before promptly moving her eyes back to the textbook in front of them. with a frustrated sigh she points at the next problem set, underlining a particularly easy equation for him to try out. @izzythomps​

Izzy was tapping a mechanical pencil -- one the color of a ripe Granny Smith to match his vermillion buzz -- against the table, establishing a rhythm that he had stolen from the theme song of a corny sitcom he watched earlier. “A rabbit?” he asked, perking up and immediately ceasing his makeshift drumming. “Silly Selene, Trix are for kids!” As if he had said nothing at all, he began humming the melody of the earworm living in his head and ignoring the poor girl next to him before he started bopping his head to a soundless song; perhaps the soft buzz of the fluorescent lights above them, but even Izzy couldn’t be sure. “Yeah, because this makes me look cool,” he countered, raising an eyebrow at her. “Math is, like, not cool. Obviously. Who gives a fuck about ‘x’? Not I.” He snorted at his own lame joke before his eyes widened to the size of the moon, turning to face her and ignoring the equation. “You’d look good with purple. Hair, I mean. Would’ja let me do it?”

Part of her felt angry, frustrated with his jealousy. After all, they were no longer together. But mostly she felt guilt, feeling like a part of her still belonged to him, was his. His lack of a smile made her nerves flutter, butterflies kicking around her stomach like they were trying to escape a jar. The tone he used with her stung, like she had been poked with the tip of a hot knife. “Why are you out here, then? Is this some kind of hissy fit?” She asked sharply, before her face softened, walking around to make him look at her face. “Because you don’t sound fine. You sound like you’re angry with me,” she informed him, Huffing out, she took another drag from her cigarette, arms crossed protectively over herself. Her eyes drifted downwards towards her shoes, refusing to look back up at his face, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry if I did something.” She wasn’t sure how to act. Whether to push for more or pull back from him, enjoy the obvious jealousy he had or apologize for causing it. 

Her question elicited a childlike grumble from him as if he were a petulant child that had just been ordered to turn off the television and make his way to bed, which had only really furthered Darby’s point. “Jesus, Darby,” he groaned, the joint pressed between his fingers with a vice-like gripped that only lacked his usual lax demeanor, “would it kill you to believe that I just wanted to, like, being alone for a second? Not everything’s about you, for fuck’s sake.” The last sentence was biting and even unnecessarily cruel, but he didn’t apologize and instead stuck the paper back between his lips, inhaling as if the smoke were the words that just left his mouth. “I’m not angry with you, fuck,” he lied. Well, half-lied. He was mostly angry at himself for reacting the way he did, for not being able to just get over her. Darby’s demeanor incited a pang of guilt to bloom in his stomach, prompting him to swallow hard and dry. “Just forget it. Not like it matters.”

Careening out of the library in search of Izzy, Darby had a cigarette clutched in her hand like a lifeline, taking quick drags in between stomping through the grounds. She trotted down the stairs, wrapping her furry coat around her shoulders tighter, eyes darting about wildly. It didn’t feel good watching him walk out of the party, knowing that she was probably the reason. She wondered how much he had seen, and the thought made guilt pang in her stomach as her heels clicked down the sidewalk, finally spotting him. “Hey,” she said softly, touching his arm with her hand, attempting to give him a small smile. “You okay? Peeing out here or something? You left kinda quick. Keep in mind, public urination is a criminal offense.” The joke fell flatly, awkward, slurred out with her drunken speech, cheeks growing red from the cold. Part of her had wished when she was kissing Adam that it had been him instead, her feelings for him still stirring in her. But she didn’t know what to do with them, where to place them now since they had broken up. “It’s kinda cold out here. don’t freeze a toe off or anything. @izzythomps​

Izzy didn’t know where he was going when his shoes began carrying his inebriated self out of Alderidge faster than anyone could utter the classic “Off with their heads!”; he only knew he needed to leave, and fast. He couldn’t even fool himself and say that the air was too stuffy or the game was too rowdy because it would be a lie so blatant that it would disgust even him. Anyone who knew the magenta-haired boy knew he found his second home where the music got louder and the bodies got sweatier, but this was different. He knew at his core that it was because of what had just happened, what Darby just did, and the ugly, familiar feeling of jealousy tugged at his stomach. He was against a tree when he felt her on his arm, mid-drag of a joint he stuffed in his pocket earlier. Darby. The last person he wanted to see, but somehow the only person, too. Izzy didn’t laugh at her joke, didn’t bother to. “Um, okay?” he answered, the malice in his tone apparent. “It’s not even that cold, Darby. Like, I don’t know why you’re out here. I’m fine.”

Giving Izzy’s reaction, Toby felt it safe to assume he wasn’t in the mood for conversation, with the way he all but curled into himself, as if trying not to be seen. He looked startled, too, like he was too focused on something else to even notice Toby had been sat on the couch - it didn’t surprise or offend him, he knew that he could be quiet when he wasn’t asking a hundred questions a minute. But Izzy was warming up in the next second, almost as if some button had been switched. Though he was confused by the sudden change of pace, the corners of Toby’s mouth were twisting into a grin of his own, the other boy’s laughter incredibly contagious, “What’s so funny?” he asked, the same moment Izzy was revealing that it was Toby himself, “Oh - well, thank you,” He had no idea what he’d done to illicit so much laughter, “Your laugh - it’s highly infectious,” It was easy for Toby to get lost in general conversation if someone wasn’t there to guide him through it. This felt like the opposite - if Izzy was a tour guide, he’d just ran off and left Toby to venture through the world’s largest museum all on his own, “Yes,” he eventually said, treading carefully, attempting to find his footing once more, “why wouldn’t I be? I’m usually pretty serious. Unless I’m not - but then I’d say I wasn’t serious. So I think I’m being very serious - except now I’m not so sure. I think I’m at about… 75% seriousness. More serious than not.”

Izzy stopped then, staring at Toby with a wrinkled brow, but a cartoonish grin remained on his features, almost as if he was caught between two conflicting emotions; joy and hesitation. Of course, Toby had to know what had been so funny. But then again, what if he didn’t? What if he sincerely had no idea how he humored Izzy so? Part of it was endearing, he thought, and then resorted to a cheeky grin once Toby paid him a compliment. He had promptly forgotten that he was supposed to be hiding at all, and his shoulders rose and fell with a large, falsely sheepish shrug as he framed his face with his hands. “Aw, shucks,” he beamed before laughing again, this time with an air that could be seen as more nervous than merry. “...Uh, right.” He looked Toby up and down, a glint of suspicion in his eye. The boy looked too young to be a narc, Izzy thought, and he did seem genuinely helpless. “I don’t know, man, I’ve just never seen someone at a party not know how to roll before. Are you in the right place?” It was a half-joking statement and one that meant no malice, but Izzy, incredibly not self-aware, had no thought that it could possibly be seen as a gibe. He snorted, giddy again at Toby’s analysis of his own seriousness, and nodded, “For fuckin’ sure, brother. Let me know if you require any assistance.”

“I’m not that pristine,” she quoted back, letting out a laugh, shaking her head at him. He could slouch into the role of Bender nicely. The skateboard and the flannel helped. But Darby had always seem him as more impish than apathetic. “Is she the one that dropped out of beauty school? Or the one in the catsuit that dances all sexy for John Travolta? Think I’m the dropout, actually. Sandy’s too boring. It’s like, time to catch a dick, girl,” she mused, shooting a look back at him as she started walking towards Calloway, waiting for him to catch up with her. His gaze caught her off guard, as he always did, wondering if something still lingered for him besides the physical like it often did for her. Sucking in a breath and trying to push the thought aside, remain in the moment, she was unable to as he neared her, plucking the flower out of her hair. “Of course I’m a lady. I’m about to go full Florence Nightingale on you,” she joked, poking him in the chest with a bitten-down nail, chipped red nail polish flashing under the sun. “Maybe lady isn’t the right word. Being well-behaved is fucking dull.” Pushing open the door to her house, she bit her lip, mouth curling into a grin. “Just let me look at it, okay? I’m well-versed in injuries. Used to have to clean my brother’s,” she told him, hoping that mentioning James wouldn’t make things too uncomfortable. 

“What? No, Sandra Dee was, like, her own person,” he corrected, nose wrinkling. “Like, a fuckin’ actress back then. Marilyn Monroe and all that. One of them. Probably married a baseball player or something.” Izzy snorted then, indulging in a dramatic eye-roll before a goofy grin hugged the apples of his cheeks, “Fuck, you sound like you’re out of the ‘80s or something. Madonna reincarnated. Wait, isn’t she still alive?” It was an anomaly that someone could supposedly be so knowledgable about old Hollywood starlets as opposed to modern pop culture, but then again, Isaac’s whole existence seemed to be an anomaly. And then Darby poked him in the chest and a warm feeling flowed throughout him, like something pink and thick now injected into his bloodstream. It was embarrassing and, quite frankly, terrifying that she still elicited this sort of reaction out of him simply by doing something so insignificant, so familiar. Shaking the thought away, he shrugged and his shoulders slouched beneath his flannel as they relaxed again. “Well, like, duh,” he agreed, “being well-behaved is no fun. Can’t do shit that way. ‘Specially nothing illegal.” He knew they were probably bad influences on each other, especially him on her. He knew Darby had more of a reputation to uphold than he did, but she clearly didn’t care too much. And like a moth to the flame, he’d return to her side if not like a friend, like a lost puppy. “Fine, fine,” he huffed with a small grin, not pressing the ‘whole James thing’. “If you insist, Madam Pomfrey.”

Bass blasting, walls shook to the beat of a song Toby didn’t know, watching people he didn’t know bop their head along, on a couch in the middle of a house he didn’t know. Strangely, though, he felt oddly at home, legs tucked up so he could sit cross-legged on a couch with a book balanced in the middle of his lap, “Hello,” he was quick to greet the person who made themselves comfortable in the open space beside him, pointing to the rolling papers and weed splayed across the book in front of him. There were more crumpled papers across the surface, some that’d fallen haphazardly onto the couch in between them - it was obvious he’d been attempting this for a while, “Someone asked me to roll for them, but I’ve never done it before. And then they just left! I’ve convinced myself they’ve gone home, but I’m very determined to figure this out, now. Do you know how to? I’m not quite sure what to do with this otherwise. Would it be rude to give up? I don’t want to disappoint anyone if they come back looking for a miracle, but my fingers are just not the nimble, deft workers they were expecting.”

It hadn’t even been an hour before a grossly inebriated Izzy had made it into his first altercation of the evening, presently stumbling through Kincaid’s living room after narrowly dodging a few punches from a guy whose girlfriend he somehow simultaneously flirted with and insulted all in the same breath. Dark eyes blown wide in search of a hiding place as if he were the mouse seeking shelter from a lion, the magenta-headed boy curled up onto the couch and nearly jumped in surprise when a voice from next to him bled through the monotonous Drake pumping throughout the house. Izzy could only stare at the boy next to him with a furrowed brow and a bewildered face before he began cackling like a hyena, clutching his chest. “Oh, fuck,” he managed through giggles, “shit, you’re funny, dude.” It wasn’t until he calmed himself down that he raised his eyebrows at the brunette, “What, you’re not, fuckin’, like, serious, are you?”

“Hm. Maybe. We better check. How many fingers am I holding up?” She asked him, cheekily holding up her middle finger in a lame joke. Her eyes lingered on him a second too long, caught off guard by how he still managed to look good despite his bizarre outfit. Looking at her ex sometimes caused a lump to form in her throat, a pang of longing that couldn’t be satisfied by their frequent hookups. It was like craving that couldn’t be satiated, always telling herself that it would be one more time and she could stop. She rolled her eyes, shielding the blue irises from the sun with her hand as she let out a small laugh. “You wish. This is a purely innocent visit to Chez Albright. The siren will not lead you to slaughter today,” she commented, nearly blushing under his gaze. “Aw, you’re too kind. Maybe I won’t swallow you whole after all. I’ve been practicing how to unhinge my jaw,” she joked, readjusting the orchid flower she had tucked behind her ear, plucked off a plant in her room. “Swear I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’m a lady.”

Izzy indulged in theatrics then, dark eyes partaking in a dramatic eye-roll before succumbing to a lopsided, boyish grin. He took Darby’s hand as she gave him the offensive finger and brought her hand down as if he had been incredibly offended by the scandalous gesticulation. “Such obscene finger gestures from such a pristine girl,” he drawled in his mediocre-at-best impression of Judd Nelson as teenage cinema’s favorite dirtbag. He had been likened to John Bender a few times in his younger years, the comparison usually coming from crotchety old teachers (except for the head of the theatre department, who linked him to Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Isaac preferred this analogy, too) but never thought anything of it. “Innocent visit? Well, gee, you’re just Sandra Dee reborn, aren’t you?” Izzy quipped, looking at Darby. He wondered if he had really just stolen the girl’s glasses because he simply liked looking at her -- he always had. He liked her eyes, especially. This was an uncomfortable acknowledgment, though, and he began to feel uneasy at the mere thought. So to deflect, he plucked the orchid from behind Darby’s ear and examined it. “Pretty. Try a daisy next time.” Tucking it behind his own ear, he scoffed. “A lady? Alright, if that’s what they’re calling it nowadays,” he japed, winking at her.

“I don’t know why my mom thought I was responsible enough to take care of them. I can barely take care of myself,” she admitted, a loud laugh escaping her lips at his next words. Her admission was truer than she cared to admit - Sofia’s life was one big, hot mess.  “If I left him there my aunt would have bit my head off. I would be dead.”

Izzy snorted and shrugged, nodding briefly in agreement. “Anyone who actually has their shit together is either lying or fucking boring, so,” he said, eyes lighting up at a sudden memory as he went into the smallest pocket of his ratty JanSport, pulling out a joint and already beginning to light up without checking their surroundings or asking Sofia if she would mind. Exhaling after taking a puff, he quirked a brow and frowned apologetically at the girl, “Oh, fuck, you want some?”

“I visited my parents for a few days and they entrusted me with children.” Sofia blinked once, her brows furrowing as she recalled the moment that her mom asked her to babysit for her aunt. “Huge mistake on their part, really. I accidentally left one in the grocery store and didn’t realize until I was on the freeway and halfway back to the house. I think it’s safe to assume they’ll never ask me to do that again. I am not built to deal with kids.”

Izzy was stumbling through the day, half-drunk and half-asleep when he registered someone speaking to him, and to her words, he replied with a wrinkled nose and dramatic frown. “Kids? Ew, fuck that.” The topic made his stomach flip and his face hot as he took to crossing his arms over his chest as if her harmless comment had been an arrow pointed directly at his chest. “Fucking… Kudos to you for going back. I would’a just left ‘em.” 

“Fantastic idea, comrade,” she replied, linking arms with the boy. “No, sometimes you get banned at it’s only for like two years. Sometimes it’s for eternity though. I knew a girl who got banned from Whole Foods for life because she tried stealing melatonin. Amateur.” She propped open the door for him to enter and closed it behind him. Entering the Winthrop kitchen, she immediately rummaged the cabinet for the box of Froot Loops, promptly pouring them into her mouth straight from the box. “Obviously pink. It’s classic. But they’re cow-print, too. Why? Wanna play cops and robbers with me?”

“That’s, like, not banned,” Izzy retorted, face screwing up as if he had just caught the scent of spoiled milk. He raised his eyebrows, intrigued at the short story of the girl who had an unfortunate experience at Whole Foods before stepping into Winthrop, trailing behind Jade like a lost puppy before snatching the cereal from her and pouring the box’s contents into his own mouth. “I like purple,” he announced with a mouth now full of colorful mush. It was perhaps an ironic statement, considering the boy’s magenta head of hair. “I’d say Hawaii Five-0 roleplay, but like, ew. Maybe do some Criminal Minds shit.”