Discover Top Posts Tagged with #nocstarter

time: around 10pm, 4 October place: Atwood’s, off to the side somewhere ( @saffrcns )

It’s a party. There is music, there is dancing. There is alcohol in absurd quantities, a glass never emptied. There is everything that Ani loves to lose herself in, easy conversation and booze and the noise of a dozen people all around her. Once, she would have closed her eyes and given in to it, let everything else seep out of her and away, spun and spun and spun until the room spun for her.

Tonight, she does not. She’s had a few drinks, of course, and she hasn’t gone anywhere, but tonight she is a wallflower. Standing off to the side, watching everything going on. She wants to reach out towards someone, say something, do what she does best, allow her camouflage to let her shift to match the colors and vibes of the room. But everyone is in conversation, groups of twos and threes, no room for her to interject, to slide in between, to pull someone away. She takes a sip of her drink, her eyes passing across the people before her, and she has not, in so, so long, felt this distant from any of them.

But then there is Saffron, moving across the room towards her, pulling Ani’s eyes towards her like it’s the only focal point in the world. And the ache doesn’t disappear, not fully, but it abates, oh, it abates.

‘Hey,’ she breathes, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips as Saffron moves within earshot. ‘Having fun?’

#nocstarter #( &. if you do not tell the truth about yourself | woolf )

date: october 8th, 1991 time: 5:07 pm availability: open

it is only a few minutes after five and normally the meet the societies event lasts for around three hours. it’s longer than he’d prefer and he’s thrumming his fingers on the table anxiously. it isn’t that he doesn’t want to talk about invictus --- the thing he is proudest about during his time at orion is the society --- but being swarmed by strangers, their probing questions and insatiable curiosity, can be rather tiring.

invictus has always been something akin to untouchable to those at orion who aren’t in it. he supposes that’s true of all exclusive societies, but invictus has perhaps the worst reputation. trouble and error have followed it through its history, both public and private.

alistair hopes he leaves the club on its feet when it comes time to graduate.

he looks up to see a familiar face in front of the table and a feeling of relief washes over him. still, he says, “ if you’re planning on leaving any time soon, i hope you have my suffering on your conscience. ”

he plans to be here until the event is over. he signed up for it, yes, but that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy that choice.

#nocstarter

time: nearly midnight, 4 October place: Atwood’s ( @rowstock )

There were people here she didn’t want to see. People here she hadn’t seen, nearly at all, since the end of last year, since everything had fallen apart. Some she’d purposefully avoided -- Lillian, Giselle, Boris as always -- and others had been byproducts of that, or accidents. Most of them, she didn’t really want to see, couldn’t see without the feeling of something eating at her insides, without the sudden coldness of dread.

Horatio wasn’t one of them. If she hadn’t seen Horatio since the end of last year, it was only because she hadn’t seen anyone, only because she’d been keeping to herself more, moving from class to class to library and back to her room without much in the way of conversation at all. Only because he’s been caught in conversation with any of a number of people, all night, that she didn’t want to talk to. Alistair. Some of the new first years. She isn’t ready, fully, to jump back into all of this.

But as she spies Horatio alone, for a moment, pouring himself another drink across the room, no one else in sight, she decides that perhaps it’s time to remedy that.

‘You wanna pour me a little bit of that?’ she asks, letting herself drop into the easy smile she always uses with him, holding her empty cup out between the two of them as she moves into his space, voice low enough for just the two of them to hear. She doesn’t want to draw attention, just wants to spend a little time with someone she genuinely wants to be near and not someone whose orbit she’s been pulled into because of obligation, or guilt, or fear.

#( &. was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? | murakami )#nocstarter

time: 8:25pm, 4 October place: the hallway, Atwood’s ( @alistairefox )

Dinner is... perfect. Like something out of a satirical novel about rich people. Everyone’s sat at the table, relaxed, drinking, chatting amiably, laughing, having fun. And she... Well, she is panicking, just a little, just quietly, alone in her seat. This is the first time, after all, that they have all been together since. Since the summer, since she nearly left and didn’t come back. Since she’s started having nightmares about what they did. Since she’s started having nightmares about losing them all.

These are the people, she thinks, I used to call my family. Now, it feels like I never knew a thing about any of them at all. A room full of strangers, eating and drinking and laughing. It feels like they are mocking her, this facade of normalcy. She has to leave, has to get out--

She slides her chair back from the table, and it scrapes a little against the wooden floor. She puts her napkin down, and some combination of the words excuse me and be right back and just a second come tumbling from her lips as she makes her way through the door and out into the hall, out where maybe there will be some more air, out where she can be alone-- until she hears the door open again, behind her, and turns to see Alistair there.

Of all people. Fucking Alistair. She hasn’t even had a chance to catch her breath, yet, to slow her racing heart.

‘Ah, bathroom,’ she clarifies, gesturing a hand in the direction of where the bathroom is, and it’s a needless explanation. He probably isn’t even looking for an explanation. Probably doesn’t care that she’s out here at all, probably didn’t even notice when she got up and left the table. But something about his composure puts her on the defensive-- it always does, makes her feel caught out and lost, a little. He knows what he’s doing, see, Ani? Why don’t you?

#( &. things are sweeter when they're lost | fitzgerald )#nocstarter

time: 8-ish, just before dinner, 4 October place: Atwood’s ( @secondstxrs )

She knows, intellectually, that there are meant to be new people here tonight: three of them, first years, newly tapped to be members of Invictus. But that doesn’t mean that she’s emotionally accepted the addition of new faces to their normal flock. She hasn’t met any of them -- hasn’t met anyone yet, this year, a month of school gone by like a fever dream, or a coma, days smearing together into one like paint dragged across a muddied canvas. Is there any time she has spent outside of her room or the library? Is there anyone she’s spoken to who did not initiate the conversation?

Still, it’s time to make good with the new recruits. That’s what tonight is about, after all: pretend everything is normal, so Invictus can live on in spite of what they did last year. So at the first unfamiliar face she sees, she resolves herself, steels herself, and heads over to approach him.

‘Hey, I ah, don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Ani, I’m a second year. You are...?’

#( &. I'm not young enough to know everything | barrie )#nocstarter

time: sometime after midnight, 4 5 October place: Atwood’s ( @chriisties )

She’s drunk. Well and truly, now, after more drinks than she can remember the night clearly enough to count. She should be trying to sober up, at least a little, at this point: it’s late, getting later, and she’s certainly not planning on sleeping here, never does, would rather go back to her own room and wake up in her own bed hungover than confront the fact that this place has enough space to spare that they could all live here, if they so fancied.

But... she’s not sobering up. Not any time soon. Because the alcohol, warm and acrid, has made a cloud around her head, a soft blanket of ignorance and apathy shielding her against the sick feeling she’d had as she made her way over to the party, the sick feeling she’d had since last spring and the way it had worsened at the sight of these people, at the idea of being here again.

There are a few bottles left that aren’t empty, yet, and she grabs one, not bothering for another cup, takes it from the bar cart it’s sat on and turns, holding it out with a grin to Kit, just behind her.

‘Well, no one else is using it, right?’