#aristocrating

The party starts out tame, just SMH and their guests. The boys who live in the dorms and off campus filter in around 10, with a few friends apiece, except – Jack notices, because he was watching – Whiskey. Whiskey shows up alone, around eleven PM.

Until then, Jack and Lardo play Bitty and Shitty in beer pong. Jack and Lardo keep winning, but only because of Lardo’s intensely ingrained skillset; she’s deeply focused on the game, while Jack spends most of the night staring at the door, willing Whiskey to walk through it; even if only to know that he’s okay. By the time he finally does, Jack notices the Haus steadily filling up, and Bitty’s taken Lardo and disappeared into the dance floor. Jack pushes between clusters of students, skirts around the walls, standing on his tiptoes to see over girls in heels, but he’s lost Whiskey before he’s gotten a chance to talk to him.

Word’s somehow gotten out about the party. By 11:30, the Haus is packed, and Jack wonders who the hell invited half of campus to a 4-bedroom frat house of questionable structural integrity. Jack’s trying to keep watch over everything, to make sure nobody’s blacking out or dying – but his mission switches focus after he witnesses, from across the room, Whiskey, doing a keg stand, and falling over immediately afterward. Two of the Waffles – Jack forgets their names – pick him up, draping his arms on their shoulders, and drag him over to the foul, evil couch. Whiskey’s laughing like a madman.

“Hey,” Jack interrupts Shitty, who’s complaining about the prosecutor on a case the firm he’s interning with is handling. “I’m sorry, I gotta --”

“Do your thing, brah,” Shitty says, patting him on the back. He’s swaying dangerously. He was doing dabs with Holster in the bathroom upstairs before he found Jack, and he’s on maybe his tenth beer of the night. He’d gone out of the way to mention around beer number five that he hadn’t partied like this since undergrad. He may not even remember this. Jack pats Shitty on the head, and Shitty rubs up into his palm, purring like house cat in a sun beam.

“Haha. Thanks, Shits.” Jack hugs Shitty, thumping him on the back. Shitty burps for a full three seconds.

“I love ya, man!” Shitty shouts, nearly toppling backwards as he pulls away. Lardo glances meaningfully at Jack, as she arrives just in time to push Shitty away, up the stairs, and, Jack suspects, to bed in one of the boys’ rooms. Unfortunately, Jack doesn’t think Lardo’s judgment is worth letting Whiskey get into too much trouble.

And it looks like Whiskey’s in trouble.

Jack pushes through throngs of people – this is more what he had expected to see surrounding Whiskey post hat-trick – and manages to step on more than one toe, jostle more than one elbow, apologizing tensely, before he finally arrives in front of his target.

Whiskey’s busy chatting with some girl, as if he didn’t just fall over backwards onto a couple of rookies.

“Uh-oh,” the girl says, looking up at Jack. She looks back at Whiskey, giggling. “Old man alert.”

Whiskey turns around a little fast, and sways slightly as he does it. “Oh. Jack. Hey. Can I talk to you later?” The consonants of his speech are a little too soft, the syllables slurring together.

“I think we should talk now,” Jack says, crossing his arms over his chest.

The girl chatting Whiskey up rolls her eyes, and says to him, “I think your mom wants you.”

Jack replies curtly, “I think the cops would love to see your ID.”

She immediately stands up and departs into the crowd, muttering, “Fuck this.”

“Hey!” Whiskey snaps, turning on Jack. “She was funny.”

“She looked like she was fifteen,” Jack sniffs.

“And, what, I look thirty-five?” Whiskey retorts. “Who’s the one robbing the cradle, here?”

Jack rolls his eyes.

“Whatever, I’m getting another drink,” Whiskey grumbles, rising and stalking off towards the kitchen.

“Don’t --” Jack starts, grabbing Whiskey by the arm.

“No, you don’t!” Whiskey whisper-shouts, yanking his arm back. He loses his balance a little, stumbling into the doorframe. He straightens his shirt, and mutters, “Leave me alone, Jack.”

“But --” “What, so you saw my parents yell at me and you think that makes you special?” Jack can barely hear over the music thudding out of the speakers in the corner, Ransom DJ’ing with an especially hefty soundtrack of 90’s R&B. Whiskey looks livid, and he’s swaying on his feet, and he’s backing away from Jack, and Jack’s stupid enough to follow. “Fuck off!” he shouts at Jack. It’s loud enough that a few people notice, though thankfully no one Jack recognizes glares at him over the rim of their solo cups.

Jack waves nervously, then bounds after Whiskey, who’s made it to the kitchen and is manhandling a fifth of vodka. Jack watches, panic-stricken, as he manages to get the lid off, nearly drops it, and pours a generous amount into a cup, though even more of it ends up on the kitchen table. Jack’s stuck behind a group of girls singing along to Destiny’s Child, blocking the whole fucking doorway, who don’t notice Jack frantically trying to get around them. He finally catches up with Whiskey after he’s added a splash of orange juice to his cup, downing the mixture in three gulps.

Jack grabs his cup. “You’re nineteen!” He shouts.

“So?!” Whiskey shouts back. “When you were nineteen you were on the news for this kind of shit!”

“Exactly,” Jack says darkly, and he leans over, wraps his arms around Whiskey’s waist, and heaves Whiskey up and over his shoulder, fireman-style.

Whiskey shouts wordlessly, and starts pounding his fists against Jack’s back.

“Put me the fuck down!” Whiskey screams, writhing and kicking. Jack carries him out of the side door in the kitchen and around the side of the Haus, and Whiskey continues shouting. It draws the attention of a cluster of smokers near the porch, and Whiskey freezes. Jack keeps walking, around the corner and out of sight. Whereupon Whiskey continues protesting, all barbed insults and kicking feet.

He doesn’t put Whiskey down until they’re at the end of Frat Row, and Whiskey nearly collapses under his own weight.