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It was New Year’s Eve, and Valkyrie had invited everyone over to her house to celebrate. Though he didn’t want to at first, Valkyrie had somehow convinced Serpine to come along to the party too. At first at was alright. Everyone else sat in the living room talking and laughing like normal, while Serpine sat in one of the guest bedrooms reading a book. He could deal with that. I bit of laughter and chatter was fine.
That was until, he heard the music start. It stayed at a reasonable volume level for a while, but then it started to creep up. He tried to ignore it, though that proved to be practically impossible.
He sighed and put the book down, then headed toward the stairs. He wasn’t going to tell them to turn down the music, because it wasn’t his house, and it’s New Year’s Eve. He just wanted to see /why/ it was so loud.
Valkyrie, Tanith, Militsa, and Dexter were all dancing around to the ‘YMCA’ and Ghastly, Skulduggery, and China were talking on the couch. He couldn’t see where Fletcher had gone off to though.
“Right behind you pretty boy.” Fletcher said, scaring Serpine’s soul out of him
“Oh my- Fletcher! Don’t do that!” Serpine snapped, spinning around “you scared the soul out of me!”
Fletcher grinned “as far as I’m aware you don’t have a soul”
“Is that a compliment or an insult? I genuinely can’t tell”
YMCA ended and The Duck Song started playing, and the four dancing started singing it at the top of their lungs. China sighed, Ghastly did as well but was smiling ear to ear at the same time. And Skulduggery also started singing along, just not as loud. The noise was way too much for Serpine, and he grimaced as his ears started wringing. Fletcher looked at him with concern, seeing how much the noise affected him. He hesitated for a second, before lightly grabbing Serpine’s arm and teleporting them outside the house.
Serpine gasped and stumbled for a second before glaring at Fletcher “if you’re going to teleport me please give a warning before hand.”
Fletcher shrugged “sorry. But it’s less loud out here right?”
“Well I-…I guess so.” Serpine grumbled “thanks. I guess.”
“No problem! That’s what friends do right?”
Serpine looked at him confused “we’re friends?”
“I mean, if you want to be.” Fletcher responded back, and sat down on the front steps of the porch. Serpine sat down next to him.
“Sure. That would be, nice.”
The two sat in comfortable silence for a while, just looking up at the stars. Though you could barely see them. That was the one thing Serpine didn’t like about this dimension. A thing called light pollution. You could barely see the stars when you were surrounded by the lights of towns and cities. Where as he used to be able to go out every night when he was at home and see all of the stars.
The Duck Song finished, and Shake it off was on next. That song was an ear worm. Even if you didn’t like it you knew all of the lyrics from how popular it was.
Then the door opened to the house and Skulduggery stepped outside. Serpine looked at him with an eyebrow raised “why are you out here?”
Skulduggery shrugged “the girls tackled Dexter to the ground and are painting his nails right now. Pretty sure Ghastly has succumb to the same fate. Though China should be fine” He paused “and why are you two out here?”
Serpine went to talk but was cut off by Fletcher “the noise was bothering Serpine a lot so a teleported him out here.” He said. Serpine glared at him, and Fletcher gave a sheepish grin
“Right…” Skulduggery muttered, then sat down next to Serpine
(Serpine’s in the middle, so Skulduggery’s on his right and Fletcher on his left)
They sat in silence for a few moments, but then Fletcher said that he would be right back and teleported inside. Leaving Serpine and Skulduggery outside alone.
Skulduggery looked over at Serpine, and tilted his head “you dyed your hair?” He asked. He had just realized that the underside of Serpine’s hair was green.
Serpine shrugged “got bored and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
“I’m back!” Fletcher announced when he teleported back
“Gah! Fletcher! Stop doing that!” Serpine snapped as he jumped back in shock
“Whops. Sorry! But anyways, take this.” Fletcher handed Serpine an icy pole then sat back down and opened his own.
“Uh, thanks.” Serpine said as he took off the packaging. He glanced over at Skulduggery and smiled “you want some skeleton?”
“Tempting, but no thank you.” Skulduggery said
“Ok then, your loss.”
And then Valkyrie burst through the door startling all three of the boys “GUYS!” She yelled, obviously drunk “WE’VE GOT 5 MINUTES LEFT!”
Skulduggery looked at his watch “actually an hour and 5 minutes. It’s 10:55, not 11:55.”
Valkyrie paused “oh.” She looked over at Serpine, smiled, walked over and hugged him. Hard. “It’s good to see you! How long has it been? 5 billion years?”
“Uh Valkyrie?” Serpine said, his voice strained “could you please let go?”
Fletcher raised an eyebrow “how many drinks have you had already?”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…I don’t know. Like…seven or eight…?” She said back in a very slurred voice. Still partially strangling Serpine
“Ok well let’s get you back inside.” Said Skulduggery as he stood up “to your hopefully less drunk girlfriend.”
Valkyrie frowned, but let go of Serpine and stood up. “Ok fine…” She pouted “but! I get to paint you nails!”
Skulduggery just shook his head “I don’t even have nails but sure. You can try.”
“Yayyyyyyyyyy” Valkyrie cheered. She looked back to Serpine and waved “bye snake boy!”
Serpine waved back hesitantly. And when they where gone he turned to Fletcher who was trying desperately not to laugh
“Why is she so strong?” Serpine breathed out “crushed the air right out of me”
“Um I don’t know. Maybe you’re just not strong enough to handle it.” Fletcher said as he ate his ice cream
“Don’t say that.” Serpine said, elbowing lightly in the side
“Ok sorry sorry!” Fletcher laughed out
Eventually the two sat in silence again. Serpine appreciated Fletcher humor. It made every conversation have that extra spark to it. Making it more interesting and worth listening to. Then the silence broke when Fletcher yawned loudly.
“Ugh, I’m so tired.” He groaned as he rubbed his eyes “so sorry in advance if I fall asleep.”
Serpine smiled “it’s fine. Tonight is very chaotic.”
They ended up talking for a while about a bunch of random things. Favorite food, most embarrassing memories, how many drinks Valkyrie probably had, etc. etc. Then Skulduggery came back outside and said that there was now 10 minutes left until twelve, for real this time, and to come inside. It looked like the girls had not figured out how to paint Skulduggery non existent nails so he seemed relatively unscathed.
Walking back inside, both Serpine and Fletcher had to stop themselves from laughing at the sight of Dexter. His nails had been painted very badly in an assortment of different colours, and Tanith was now braiding whatever part of his hair where long enough to be braided. While Valkyrie was putting glitter on his face.
Valkyrie saw Serpine and lit up. She walked over to him and dragged him over to next to where Dexter was sitting, and made him sit down. Ironically, The Final Countdown started playing as there was about 6 minutes left now until new year. Valkyrie sat down behind Serpine and started to braid his hair instead of Dexter’s, and at this point Fletcher was laughing his arse off. Lovely.
4 minutes now, Fletcher had had the decency to get Serpine a glass of wine while Valkyrie kept braiding his hair.
At 2 minutes, Skulduggery got Valkyrie to stop braiding Serpine’s hair so that he could stand up. And Ghastly pulled up the new year countdown on the TV.
At one minute left, everyone started to count down, getting louder with each second. Serpine did count down to, but just not as loud and he stuck to the wall of the room. He had managed to down a glass of wine every minute courtesy of a dare Fletcher had given him. So he was definitely on the spectrum of being drunk.
10, 9, 8! Everyone started to count down
4, 3, 2, 1, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! They all yelled
Then Valkyrie kissed Militsa
Ghastly kissed Tanith
And then Fletcher looked at Serpine and grinned (obviously now drunk to) and kissed him too
Dexter just layed on the floor in the middle of it all
And Skulduggery and China just sat in the couch now talking about anything but the new year.