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‘’C’mon Dubs, It’ll be epic!’’ Impulse is practically vibrating with excitement in front of me. I frown, my dad would not approve of this plan and I say as much out loud. In response, a yellow card in the shape of a gem is shoved in my face.
‘’No, see, that’s the genius thing! It’s actually a quest, written by your dad! He can’t be cross if it’s his own orders, right? And really Bdubs, how would he even find out? He’s in a different county right now! Pleaaaase?’’ Wide brown eyes stare at me from a distance measured in inches. So I take the card with a sigh, eyebrows rising as I look over the note seemingly written in my dad’s handwriting.
‘’Well,’’ I start hesitantly, ‘’ this is my dad’s handwriting, but I still don’t understand why it needs to be at my place. Your house is more than big enough for our group to meet.’’
‘’No, it has to be at yours. My cousins are visiting from Las Nevadas and they’re pains to deal with. Besides, you have the biggest house of us all, it’s practically a castle!’’ Impulse is practically begging on bended knee now, and I can’t think of any more protests. So I nod, not seeing the little flash of triumph in Impulse’s eyes as he jumps up to hug me.
‘’Great, see you tonight then! Don’t worry about the invites, I’ll handle that! If you could buy some food and drinks that’d be awesome, don’t forget your Xisuma costume! okay byeee.’’ I shout a ‘wait!’ to his retreating back, but he turns the corner before I can give chase. He hadn’t said it would be tonight! Anxiety fills me as I frantically look for the nearest supermarket to my route home. Double-checking with my dad if this is really alright has completely slipped my mind as I start making a plan of attack.
It's 7pm when the doorbell rings for the first time, and I fiddle with the mask I’m wearing as I rush to open it. Impulse stands, grinning back at me in a derpy squid costume, balancing cake boxes on one hand. He brushes past me before I can even say hello, heading straight for the basement door next to the stairs. I scramble to catch up to him, visor making it difficult to see.
‘’Wait!’’ I shriek frantically. ‘’You can’t go in there, it’s off-limits if dad’s not here! I’ve put out everything in the family room upstairs, come on.’’ Impulse just scoffs, twisting the knob decisively. I wring my hands, looking from the stairs to Impulse descending to the basement, before following him with a heavy sigh. The basement is clean, if a bit sparsely decorated. My eyes flick to the door on the left wall, not looking at all out of place if you didn’t know what lay beyond. A cleared throat pulls my attention back to Impulse, who has put down the cakes and is now fiddling with some chairs.
‘’Come help me set up these chairs for later, then we can bring the rest of the stuff down here before people start showing up. Nice X costume by the way, Doomsuma is a classic.’’
I headed over and soon we had things arranged like Impulse wanted it. Just in time it seemed, because as we set the last box of cookies down the bell upstairs rung again. We moved up together to go greet people, complimenting the various X costumes that walked in. All-in-all we were with 11 hermits total, me and Impulse included, which was honestly less than I had expected him to invite. We moved back downstairs, where Impulse immediately took over as host, something I gladly let him do.
‘’Everybody, come on in! in the centre here we have refreshments, feel free to take some whenever you like. We’re still waiting on one more person, but he’ll not be here for an hour yet, so go ahead and start to mingle!’’ With that he inserted a disc in the record player and headed over to Cleo to see if she was alright after tripping during his speech. I moved further back to the wall, sipping from my bottle as I observed everyone loosening up. Despite my worries, it all seemed to be going smoothly so far.
Hypno and I were sitting and talking when a purr from beside me made us look down. Gina, my cat, had snuck downstairs and was happily rubbing up against my pant leg before jumping up to go snooze next to me. There was some ribbing from the others as I continued petting her while continuing my conversation. Not long after that the basement door was opened wider and X himself emerged from the steps, stopping halfway as he got a good look of the room.
‘’AM I DRUNK?!’’ he asked confusedly, stepping down the final steps. Joe headed over immediately, nudging X in his side.
‘’you’re not yet, but here, have a drink!’’ putting a bottle to his lips with a grin. X took it over, chugging the last bit inside.’’ Impulse had brought the alcohol, something I wasn’t thrilled about. I hadn’t had more than a sip, not liking the taste, before switching to coke. Speaking of Impulse, he was clapping his hands to try and get our attention.
‘’Now that our guest of honour is here, we can start with the entertainment. First up, we’re gonna play some musical chairs. I’m sure you’re all familiar?’’ we all nodded. There was some confusion during the first round, as people moved against the flow, causing most of us to tumble over. When we explained everything again the second try went smoothly. Impulse was responsible for the music and stood, looking at us run circles around the basement, with a grin on his face.
There was a heated battle over the final chair, but in the end Grian pushed away Ijevin with a cry of ‘’It’s not over’’, securing his win for the first round. Ijevin, False and Tango headed to the middle, pouting over the lost battle. The second round I had to fight with Cub for a bit, but eventually ended up victorious. Cub and Joe couldn’t find a different boat in time and joined the others. It was getting dicey, the six of us with only four chairs left.
The third round disaster struck, as Keralis was just a smidge quicker than me. Cleo and I moved to the jukebox, grabbing something to drink to calm our racing hearts. I heard people making bets but didn’t join in, instead watching them circle the remaining two chairs. The music stopped and there was a bit of debate over X or Keralis getting the point, but I’d seen Keralis pushing X off after full contact and defended him. So with a grumble Keralis joined us in the loser circle, and it was all down to Hypno and X. Rather fittingly, considering the theme, it was X who eventually came out on top, winning 5 bucks and a 50% off coupon for our school’s coffee place.
We moved back to dancing for a bit and I lost sight of Impulse in the swaying arms. A cleared throat made us all look to the table set up in the corner, that wasn’t there before. There were several stacks of money set on top, and I got an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. Surely Impulse wouldn’t have taken that from upstairs, right?
‘’Everyone, before the night gets too late, please don’t forget to grab your party favours, courtesy of Bdubs’ dad!’’ My eyes widened and I rushed forward, hoping to salvage as many of the stacks as possible, but I couldn’t prevent most of the people there from grabbing some. I turned betrayed eyes up to Impulse, who just laughed. Somewhere upstairs a door slammed, but I didn’t pay attention as I started to shout over the music. Then my blood froze in my veins.
‘’BDOUBLEO DOG, WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE WATCHERS IS GOING ON HERE?!?!’’
Dad was home, and he was pissed.
Someone turned off the music even as my head whipped around to the stairwell, where dad was standing with his hands on his hips and an angry glare on his face. My friends, probably feeling the storm brewing, grabbed up all their belongings and ran to get out of there, brushing past my dad as he stalked towards me determinedly. I heard Cleo trip again, but she quickly got up and moved on.
‘’Dude, you didn’t ask your dad?!?! You’re so dead!’’ Grian whispered oh so sympathetically, scurrying to the side and leaving me standing nearly alone beside the ransacked table of cash. Impulse was still next to me and for a moment I thought he would confess, but then he too moved to the side and to the stairs, shouting something about going home over his shoulder. I don’t think dad noticed any of it, as focussed as he was on my rabbit-in-headlights self.
‘’Dad! I- it’s not what you think, I swear!’’ I scrambled to explain myself, taking hurried steps back as Dad moved towards me. My back hit the table of cash, and dad’s eyes moved down automatically, noticing for the first time the loose bills laying there. Furious eyes turned back to mine.
‘’isn’t it, son?’’ He asked quietly. ‘’Because from where I’m standing it looks a lot like a party. An underage drinking party, with my money as party favours. But by all means, enlighten me as to what else this could be?’’ Sarcasm was practically dripping from the words, and I flinched back.
‘’It- it is a party, but you gave permission! At least- sort of…’’ I stuttered over the words, voice fading out at the truly deadly look shot my way. ‘’… it was a quest?’’ the words were nearly unintelligible, spoken more to my shoes than to my dad’s face.
‘’It was a quest. That’s the lie you’re going to go with? You do realise I’m the one that wrote the quests, right? I’m fairly certain I never added ‘Throw a party in my basement without asking’ to the list. Then again, I could forgot in my old age, why don’t you show me the quest card? If you can do that, then we’ll forget all of this, clean up and go to bed, hmm?’’ Dad’s voice had turned smooth as butter, and it put me on edge.
I looked over the table behind me, checking the seats we’d used after I couldn’t find it, even moving the carpet in the hopes it had fallen out and under there. Defeated, I realised Impulse probably still had the quest card with him. I turned beseeching eyes back on my dad, who’d been watching me stoically.
‘’I don’t have the card, my friend does. I swear though, it was your handwriting! Please dad, you have to believe me!’’ I pleaded. Dad just turned away, walking back up the stairs and leaving me standing there. ‘I hate disappointing people, but I hate disappointing dad the most’ I thought to myself bitterly, tears stinging behind my eyes. It wasn’t long though before dad returned with some trash bags, handing one over to me. I grabbed it, confused.
‘’First, we’re going to clean up this mess. Then, you’re going to message everyone who was here tonight and ask for the money back, anything missing afterwards will be coming out of your allowance. Next, you’re going to take a shower, you reek of beer, and get changed into your pyjamas. It’s 1 am and you have school in 6 hours. After school tomorrow you will come straight home, you’re grounded for at least the next two weeks. You’d better have your homework finished by the time I get home, because after dinner you and I are going to have a discussion about this sort of behaviour. Are we clear?’’
I gulped, nodding my head as I moved to clean up the left-overs spilled all over the floor. Dad moved to gather the half-drank beer bottles littering various surfaces, nose wrinkling at the stains now decorating the carpet. It was quiet for a while as we moved around each other, cleaning the room, but it wasn’t long before I was sniffling wetly. There was a sigh from somewhere behind me, before my dad’s arms turned me around, pulling me to his warm chest. My sniffles slowly turned to sobs, my chest tightening with guilt. Dad calmed me down, stroking a hand through my hair and muttering soft words.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to calm down, and even longer to pull back from the warm arms encircling me. I was dead tired now, swaying on my feet and blinking slowly, my eyes feeling gritty. Dad noticed, guiding me to the stairs with a sigh. I fought weakly, the basement still wasn’t clean after all, but dad just shushed me as we entered the upstairs bathroom. I tried to pull away from the washcloth assaulting my face, but dad kept me still and I was too tired to do more than whine unhappily. A bit of my clarity returned when I felt my slacks being undone, slapping away the hands with an embarrassed ‘’c’n do it m’self da’’.
Afterwards I was led to my bedroom, going to collapse on top of my covers. Dad pulled me back, moving to turn back my blanket even as I grumbled unhappily. He tucked me in, stroking my hair until I fell into sleep with a softly mumbled ‘’love you, dad.’’