xp_logs | Miles & Maya, Saturday night (Reply)

Miles goes to take a breather and finds Maya, also out recollecting her spoons.

“No! oh my God, don’t you dare!”

Maya had pulled up a seat a few meters from the pool area and was currently sketching party members, she’d gotten bored with wandering and talking and had decided to put in some practice. She was currently sketching two boys about to throw one of her fellow cheerleaders into the pool, not that she minded, it was one of the particularly bitchy ones she didn’t get along with.

With Becky once again snared into a conversation with her friends that Miles had no part in, he'd excused himself for some fresh air. The pleasantly cool evening was a balm against his drunken haze. Perhaps he shouldn't be drinking so much. On the other hand, beer.

Armed with a freshly filled cup, he spotted Maya taking a breather, too, and went to join her. "Are you drawing at a party? You brought pencils and shit? Giiiiiirl."

“What?” Maya asked. Glancing up at him, she’d caught maybe half of what he’d said due to the current noise levels. “Um, talking is hard? It’s too noisy and most of the people here can’t sign for s. h. i. t and besides, I got bored playing Halo with Bobby and figured I’d spend some time out here. What have you been doing?”

“You Jerks! You got my favourite skirt all grody with pool water!”

The cheerleader who’d ended up in the pool was now busy throwing what looked to be pool toys at the two jocks and adding to the level of sound along with the music and the general white noise of human voices.

Oh right, deaf. This must be hell for her, Miles thought. He pondered for a moment and then, suddenly struck by genius, he took out his phone and rapidly typed something onto the note-taker app that he could hold out to Maya to see. "What are you drawing?" it read.

Thank God. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Probably because she’d never had to get along in such a sound based world before she’d come to the mansion. She grinned at Miles openly and pulled her own phone out of her pocket to bring up the notepad.

“The cheerleader and her friends” Maya wrote and showed Miles the phone before taking it back and writing some more. “Trying to work on my showing movement skills. So, enjoying the party?”

"Tests done. School almost done. Perf time for party." Miles drank deeply from his cup while he waited for Maya to read the message, and then quickly typed another. "Need air tho. Smells like gym class inside."

“Not surprised, most of the people inside are from our gym class” Maya noted, eyeing the cup. “What are you drinking?”

Miles didn't bother to type out the answer. "Beer," he said, over-enunciating the single syllable. "It's gross. You want some?"

Maya hesitated for a moment before reaching for the cup and taking a large swallow, and almost spat it back onto Miles but managed to keep the absolutely disgusting tasting liquid down.

“That’s foul,” she complained, shuddering dramatically as she gave him back his cup. So not worth the lecture she no doubt would have received from her family about underage drinking. “Is that what it’s meant to taste like?”

The reaction, not unexpected, sent Miles into a fit of laughter so vigorous that he fell off his chair. Thanks to an impressive display of gymnastics, the fall turned into a controlled tumble so he didn't split his head open, and instead got quickly back to his feet. But he didn't stay upright for long because everything was spinning and did the concrete turn into quicksand? At least falling onto his butt was just embarrassing and not fatal. Still, he kept laughing.

Normally such a display of mirth at her own expense would have sent Maya into a snit of epic proportions, but Miles was lucky enough to be someone Maya considered worth her time, even if only just. She grinned at his antics, drunk people were seriously weird.

“Laugh it up, fuzzball.”

"Fuzzball?" It was a struggle to speak even those two syllables, but Miles managed. "I'm not fuzzy! I'm smooooooth, see?" Finally back on his feet, more or less steadily, he rubbed his face to show his lack of stubble, and then to further demonstrate, as if it were necessary to defend his hairless honor, lifted up his shirt to reveal chiseled abs (literally the best part about spider powers, not gonna lie) but not a strand of body hair. "No fuzz!"

“Foul on the field!” Maya cried, now laughing despite herself at his antics, and possibly also admiring the whole chiselled abs thing, not that she’d tell him that. “Put your shirt down, you nutcase. How much have you actually drunk?”

"I dunno, I can't count. After the ACT this morning, I'm done with math for a long time. Like, at least until Tuesday." The next time pre-calc met. He sat back down and took back his cup, which he promptly drained. "You know, this stuff tastes better the more you have. It's kinda like magic. Huh, I wonder if Stephen or Clea did something to it . . ."

Maya wasn’t about to be the ‘Maybe you should slow down’ person in their group, she hated the whole ‘responsible adult’ script that most adults tried to feed them. As if any of the ‘responsible’ adults were really adults at all. Being over eighteen didn’t mean you got the right to behave like you knew better.

“I think that’s just because you’ve beaten your taste buds into submission,” Maya replied, keeping an eye on his lips to make sure she got the words. He’d forgotten the phone notepad but frankly, she figured he was too drunk right now to have particularly useful hand/eye coordination anyhow. “You know, I bet I could suggest anything to you right now and you’d do it.”

Miles nodded thoughtfully. "Probably!" he agreed. "Exceeeeeept nothing for the M-word so the SM-word. That, I know better. Also whatever it is, I should ask Becky first. I don't think she'd be very happy if I, like, went full desnudo. And, like, if I'm gonna get lucky tonight, I can't make her angry, know what I mean?"

“It’s true, guy’s heads are only on one thing,” Maya replied, amused despite herself. “I’m not gonna make you kiss anyone, although those jocks over there could probably use the enlightenment. Mostly I was thinking of a game of ‘Never have I ever’.”

"You need more'n two people for that!" How boring would that be? "How 'bout I go in and get Becky and Bobby and Yana and whoever else and we can play. Also I can get more beer."

“You read my mind,” Maya said, getting to her feet and offering him her hand. “How about we both go get them and the beer, so that you don’t fall on your face.”

"Ugh, good thing Spidey Uno isn't here, he'd never let me forget this. Even though who knows if I even remember in the morning, anyway, you know?"