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University AU
Jan. 26th, 2023 12:20 amIt starts at a party - which is rather unexpected for Martin, who famously hates them. (Or he would be famous for it, if enough people ever remembered his name.) It's at the house of someone else - Chris, he thinks, who knows Steph, who're both on his course - and it's just like all the other student parties: loud and overcrowded and he's only been there fifteen minutes when someone he's fairly certain he doesn't know spills what feels like an entire pint of Bacardi and Coca-Cola down his back. But he can't leave yet: he saw the look on Seb's face the last time he fled a house party within an hour of arriving, and, six months into his university career, Seb is currently still the only person he can just about call a friend here.
So he retreats stickily to the kitchen instead, where at least the music isn't quite so loud and there aren't so many people and at the very least he can stand with his back to the cupboards so no-one can see his Bacardi-ruined shirt -- though surely they must be able to _smell_ him from Mars; he's going to be smelling rum and coke for weeks.
He's not sure how long he's been there, but it's long enough that he's on his third or fourth can of Carling (it tastes horrible, but all beers taste horrible; at any rate it's the least foul out of anything else he's found so far) and is seriously wishing he'd brought his textbook along to pass the time until he can escape without looking like a total sad case -- when a girl stumbles in, giggling.
She's clearly been drinking, but the kitchen's only other occupants are currently absorbed in sucking each other's faces like conjoined black holes so there's no-one else to see when Martin catches her.
He lets go fast, as soon as he's fairly sure she's not going to fall over, because in his limited experience, girls' reactions to physical contact from him have generally been along the lines of 'oh God get off me' - but rather than shove him away the newcomer clings to him, still laughing, as she steadies herself.
So he retreats stickily to the kitchen instead, where at least the music isn't quite so loud and there aren't so many people and at the very least he can stand with his back to the cupboards so no-one can see his Bacardi-ruined shirt -- though surely they must be able to _smell_ him from Mars; he's going to be smelling rum and coke for weeks.
He's not sure how long he's been there, but it's long enough that he's on his third or fourth can of Carling (it tastes horrible, but all beers taste horrible; at any rate it's the least foul out of anything else he's found so far) and is seriously wishing he'd brought his textbook along to pass the time until he can escape without looking like a total sad case -- when a girl stumbles in, giggling.
She's clearly been drinking, but the kitchen's only other occupants are currently absorbed in sucking each other's faces like conjoined black holes so there's no-one else to see when Martin catches her.
He lets go fast, as soon as he's fairly sure she's not going to fall over, because in his limited experience, girls' reactions to physical contact from him have generally been along the lines of 'oh God get off me' - but rather than shove him away the newcomer clings to him, still laughing, as she steadies herself.
