Uh-huh.

This right here was her shit.

Like, seriously. Great fuckin' party, yo. Lights were dark, people were loud, and the music? Yeah. It got her fuckin' boppin'. Whoever set up this house - the Tanner guy, maybe; she didn't really need ta know the specific shit - did a good job on the playlist, because it'd kept her movin', drinkin', talkin', dancin' for like, four hours straight at this point. Like, for realz. She'd stepped right in, heard that song on the radio (HOLLYWOOD WHERE THA FUCK U @) and she was immediately in her fuckin' zone. She'd taken her arm off'a Charelle and after that the time was like, an outright blur. Lights, people, music, they all blended togetha' in her head, flew because right now? Probably like, the funnest party this outright season. One she'd def remember if she made it to tomorrow mornin'.

The good shit had to come to an end, though. Not the party - party was still goin' fuckin' strong with the music, DJ seriously had some good taste - but more like this girl herself. Like, her body was fuckin' dead, man. She could feel the pain all ovah her and odds were she was still gonna feel it when the summer holidays finally hit.

Sorta sucked that it had to end but hey, still part two. There was a couch she was pushin' herself towards like, right on the other side of the room. Once she got there, put her butt right down on it, then yeah. She could possibly make this party fuckin' perfect.

'Cause there was like, a little bit of an art inta' havin' a good time. There needed to be like, a guy or a gal that was just as fuckin' dead as her headin' to the same couch. Once they were both there, they'd have a chat, and odds were pretty good they'd go home with each other. Have like, a ridiculous amount of fun just doin' dumb shit with one anotha'. Playin' vidya with the squad. Seeing how far this girl right here could go without up and outright losin' herself.

Party right now was a solid nineteen outta ten. If she got someone to take her home, if someone wanted to do dumb shit with her?

Yeah.

Cherry on the fuckin' cake.

So she moved. Flopped. Toppled and felt the cushion massage against all tha aching.

Looked, watched out, to see if anyone else would try ta catch the prize layin' right on top of this couch.

>> AXEL FONTAINE: MEMORIES START

Axel Fontaine had never met a party he didn't like, but at the moment he could swear the bass coming from the speakers was resonating at the perfect frequency to make his goddamn soul vibrate. Like, he got on some vague intellectual level that other people came to these things to dance, and sure he had very specific and scathing opinions on most of this particular playlist, but it was mostly just a volume thing? It was throwing him off his game, but he couldn't complain about it without sounding like some old fuck throwing kids off his lawn.

He'd turned up late- he always turned up late, or else he turned up early and left before things got into full swing, but usually the end of the party was the part that appealed. The whole middle bit was a lot of dancing and shitty music and okay, occasionally he'd go for it, usually on the whim of some girl cute enough to bother indulging. But he did his best work when things started to quiet down, when his guitar wasn't drowned out by a cacophony of noise. So he turned up with his guitar strapped to his back, kinda drunk, kinda high, a cigarette tucked behind his left ear. Ready to move.

Man, though, between the music and the still huge crowd, maybe he was still too early? Or maybe this was just one of those parties. Those ones they made shitty movies about, the "treasured reminder of our wasted youth" party. Or some bullshit like that. Honestly, Axel didn't care. He came to parties for two reasons, both of which involved differing definitions of the word fuck. One down, one to go.

He made his way through the crowd, one hand steadying his guitar against him (if someone broke his baby someone was getting a whole other kind of fucked up tonight, and that was it's own kind of fun, admittedly, but maybe not tonight), nodding in recognition at the people he knew. The usual suspects, mostly, and he couldn't help but consider the possibilities as he passed by. He'd rather find a quiet corner, but if Charelle wanted to dance he'd be willing enough to oblige. He'd need to put his guitar down either way, though, which was enough to keep him from stopping.

Eventually Axel sighted his prize- a couch just out of the way enough that he'd be able to hear himself think. A couch, he noted, that was partially occupied. He moved out of the crowd, toward it, toward her, and oh. Oh. Oh.

Hey.

"Hey, babe," Axel said. His smile found the perfect midpoint between grin and smirk. "This seat taken?"

Axel didn't know her, but he sure knew the look in her eyes. The way his gaze flitted up and down her body was as subtle as a freight train.

"Heyyy..."

Dude in front 'ta her was tall. Little lean. Wasn't exactly a Mr. Big Wall of Fuckin' Muscle type'a dude like some of the other guys who'd come to her before, but hey, dude in front 'ta her still had some of his own. Wasn't exactly, like, an outright preference, but hey, this girl liked her eye candy, and she def. appreciated havin' it stand right in front of her. He wasn't like, the cutest guy in the school or anything but hey, plenty fish in the sea, plenty cute boys right here in George Hunter High. He was one she recognized, too; not one this girl had talked to but hey, dude played his guitar fuckin' everywhere. Rule of causality n'shit kinda guaranteed that they'd eventually do it.

And this looked like onenatha times that the rule of causality n'shit kicked in sooner rather than later. He was lookin' at her.

And as she looked at him, took her eyes up n'down his body, she could tell somethin' pretty well.

She giggled.

Tonight was gonna be fun.

"Iunno," she said. "I'd give an answer, but given how forward you're bein'..."

She pushed her body up a little. Let her back and head go above the couch cushion.

"Ten bucks says you'd sit down anyway."

Axel grinned. Sometimes this part was easy, and sometimes it was a pain in the ass. A chase was fun sometimes, sure, but Axel had a special fondness in his heart for a girl who knew exactly what she wanted.

He slid his guitar off his back, setting in to sit beside her. There was plenty of room on the couch, he didn't have to sit so close to her, but hey, there were benefits to pressing your advantage. He gave her a sidelong glance, this time taking a proper look at her face. Axel absolutely recognized her, though he couldn't say from where or when; even a face in a crowd would start to feel familiar if it cropped up enough times. Definitely from George Hunter, though that was usually a safe bet. Probably a friend of a friend, or some other number of friends down the chain. He almost thought he could put a name to her- something with a T, maybe?- but the risk of guessing her name wrong way outweighed the benefits of getting it right.

She was real cute, though. Not the hottest girl on the planet or anything, or probably even in the room, but way cute. He had a personal weakness for the kind of girl he'd have to pick up to meet mouth to mouth. Her outfit was also a weakness, which was to say she was only sorta wearing one.

Axel settled, idly strumming an open chord. See, ideally he would ask for a request, and she'd give one, and he'd play it, and she'd be all kinds of impressed, but that last time he'd tried that he'd been hit with a song he'd never heard of in his life, and it turned out his blank stare was a bit of a turn-off. On the other hand, it was impossible to tell whether something-with-a-T was the kind of girl who'd prefer an ironic rendition of Wonderwall or an unironic rendition of Thinking Out Loud. He'd play it cool, for now.

"I'd pay up, but s'a bit too obvious to be worth the cash. You got a name, mystery girl?"

"Tee. Rojas."

She let her body lay back as Mr. Guitar Guy sat himself right next ta' this girl's ass. Well, more like right next to this girl's head but like, whatever. Teachers were the only people who gave a shit 'bout the details anyway. Point was that Mr. Guitar Guy — Alex or somethin'? she'd heard the story about some phantom dude who could make all the chicks give him blowjobs usin' his guitar — was like, pretty close to her. Enough so that if she pushed herself she could nuzzle his leg with her head, which she... was pretty sure he'd like? Given that like, he was bein' the least subtle guy in the Milky Way and given that he was probably hopin' he'd play his siren song to her tonight? Odds were a little bitta repropriation would send him inta' overdrive. Odds were that he'd try ta' give her the killin' blow after that.

And hey, that was fine with her. School made her wanna fuckin' die like, every day. This girl didn't see any issues with lettin herself burn up when shit was actually good.

Just had ta' get that fire sparkin' first.

"You owe me. Effective immediately."

'Tee.' Seriously? Jesus. It couldn't be more obvious that she was fucking with him. Joke was on her, though, since Axel didn't care nearly enough to ask more questions.

"S'Axel. Fontaine. Doubt you've got another Axel to confuse me with, though."

He played the first few chords of Rhiannon. It was one of those comfortable songs, the ones he could play in his sleep, the ones his idle fingers moved into when they had nothing better to do. It wasn't much of a decision on his part, and it wouldn't have been a good one if it was. He could make a whole lot of probably-accurate assumptions about something-with-a-Tee, and "has a working knowledge of Fleetwood Mac singles" would not be one of them. There was a kind of strategy to this whole partially-literal song and dance, the whole balance of picking a song whoever Axel's target of the day was would know versus choosing a song that sounded good coming out of his mouth versus picking a song he was actually decent at playing versus blah blah blah.

He didn't bother overthinking it, usually. It didn't really matter, because usually everyone involved was half-drunk and it turns out when someone's half-drunk the fact that you're singing and playing an instrument in their general direction was apparently attractive enough. He kept playing. He didn't start singing yet, though. Instead he looked at her, cocked eyebrow, obvious as you like. There was this implict question hanging in the air when it came to girls like her, and her silence would answer it as well as words would.

"Look. Okay."

Mr. Guitar Guy — Axel; this girl's guess was close enough for the grand prize — started doin' his thing. Playin' his song. Sorta hard to like, really get into tha whole mood of the piece when there was anotha piece fuckin' blarin' across the room, but hey, points for tryin'. Honestly there wasn't a real point in him doin' it, but, y'know. Sorta hard not to feel a lil' honoured by the fact that Mr. Guitar Guy decided that he was gonna try and cast his voodoo blowjob spell on her. Wasn't really workin' it's magic on her like she hoped it would but, like, hey, Guitar Guy honestly didn't even need ta try. He was good enough, he looked like he'd take her on a ride, so... y'know what? Guitar wasn't even needed. All he had ta do was be the Guy.

Prolly best she tell him that, though. Cut the chase. Speedrun this whole fuckin' encounter.

"You don't, like, have ta do your song n' dance here if you don't wanna," she said, pushin' her head riiiiiiiight up against his leg. "Whole point of sittin' here in the first place was to get whoever sat here first to do fun shit with me, you're makin' it pretty clear you wanna do fun stuff with me, so..."

She pushed her body again, got her head riiiiiiiight up onto his leg. Not really his lap or anythin' he'd want, but y'know, that was the value of the taste test. Looked him in the eyes.

"Like, whenever you wanna do somethin', I'm down."

Axel chuckled under his breath. Almost snorted, actually, but he managed to hold that back. No sense in testing this girl's patience.

Really, at this point she didn't even need to say anything. Practically laying in his lap about two minutes after meeting was a real clear "fuck me now" that the words coming out of her mouth only served to emphasize. Okay, he had to admit, he was a tiny bit disappointed—the chase was always fun, and the opportunity to perform was always irresistable—but the smirk on his face betrayed reality. He played another couple of chords before he paused and let his hand slip down to something-with-a-T, idly stroking her cheek, a move he'd call daring if they hadn't already skipped like twenty steps forward.

She really was cute. There was every chance she'd never talk to him again after tonight, but he kinda hoped that wasn't the case. Not that he knew a damn thing about her, but hey. Maybe they'd get on alright.

"That your way of sayin' you wanna get out of here?"

"Yeeeeeeeeeee."

She tried ta get up. Give Ax— eh, Mr. Guitar Guy was the cooler name — the message that 'hey, even if I don't really give a shit about whateva you were playin' just then your mystical blowjob powers are workin' on me, let's do it.' Given tha fact she just sorta flopped right back down, given the fact that her body still hurt like fuck? Then, uh, yeah. Prolly not gettin' up. Prolly still needed ta recover from some horrible party related injuries.

...Eh.

He'd prolly already gotten the message.

Just had ta act on what it said, at this point.

"Let's gooooooooooo..." She said, as she pushed herself up again.

Dios, tonight was gonna be fun.

---

The room was dark. Silent. The two were in bed, together. Her left hand was on his chest, try'na move to a comfy spot where she could put it down. Her right arm was under his body, locked in embrace, grabbin' his hip. Her legs — both left and right — were both up and under his left, locked in a sorta... hug, was prolly the best word. Her head was against his neck, brain trapped right in his aura as she kissed it, again and again and again.

The deed had been done a lil' while ago.

Now came the borin' part.

"Heeyyyyyyyyyy..."

She found a spot on his chest with her left hand. Let it drop. Gave the spot a tap or two.

"So... what'chu do 'round here?"

Axel yawned. Loudly.

That, in and of itself, said a lot, because Axel actually made a point of maintaining some level of post-hookup decorum. Sure, that was mostly because it increased his chances of getting laid again in the future, but hey, it was something. Right now, though? Right now Axel was somewhere else entirely. This particular emotion he was feeling wasn't unusual, but it was kinda hard to categorize? "Regret" came to mind, but regret felt too strong. Regret was when you got too drunk and fucked your best friend's girl. Getting kinda drunk and hooking up with a girl who wasn't the wrong one in any serious respect but was, in retrospect, still definitely the wrong one? That was just... boring, mostly. Yeah, that was the feeling. Boredom.

Judging by the way something-with-a-T (he still hadn't gotten her name, cared even less what it was now than he had an hour ago) kept her legs wrapped around him, her mouth pressed against his neck, he got the sense that she wasn't feeling quite the same way. Yeah, he had definitely been here before. There were worse places to be, but the urge to sit up, push her off, escape, it was still very much there. He'd play it cool, though. He always did.

She spoke. He blinked.

"Huh?"

Real cool, yeah.

Man, Guitar Guy wasn't puttin' effort into this part either?

Dios, no wonder this guy had ta resort to doin' the stuff he did.

"Y'know, like, what sorta stuff are you into? What kinda things do you do around school?"

She pulled her head out from his neck. Tapped her fingers on his chest.

She could still make this work. Just had ta lay on a little bit of the charm.

"I mean, I knew you before now, I'll still likely know you after now, so I may as well know a lil' more."

She was right. Their paths would definitely cross again. The weird part was that it took this long for the two of them to actually meet; the GHH party scene was by no means small, but it was at least insular enough that you saw the same faces night after night. And yeah, if he searched his memory banks he could see something-with-a-T's face in the crowd, blurry, half-forgotten. So maybe this hadn't the best idea, maybe this had been a mistake—that was the word he'd settled on, not a regret but a mistake, like taking one too many shots, a bad decision but not something to dwell on. Maybe this had been a mistake, but he didn't want to have to pointedly ignore this girl for the rest of his high school career.

Axel glanced down at her, his hand moving up almost unconsciously to stroke her hair. He'd made worse mistakes. She was still real cute in the metaphorical light of day.

"Y'know, guitar. Singing, fighting, video games. The band." He grinned. "Too much of a cliche if I tell you to catch us playing sometime?"

Yeah, definitely worse mistakes.

"You got a real name, Tee?"

He still didn't care, not really, but calling her "something-with-a-T" in his head over and over was exhausting.

"Teresa."

Man, did it seriously take this long for Guitar Guy to figure out this girl's name? She knew all the shit about, like, shotgun weddings (even participated in a couple of em' herself, sorta preferred actually gettin' to know the dude herself, but cest la vie or whatever the saying was) but generally when she or Charelle or whoevah got into one they at least sorta had an idea of who the other dude (or... chick, in Charelle or whoevah's case) was. Fact that this dude right there didn't even know what her name was until now, really emplified how much she'd rushed into this.

...

Maybe it also meant this girl was capable enough to like, take names without even giving her own?

Either or. She woulda shrugged if she could, but, like, bed and all. Sorta preoccupied right now. Both with position and with talkin' to Guitar Guy.

"And I mean, we're prolly gonna see each other again at some point, so why not there?"

Brief pause. Sorta had to probe into this a bit more.

"Depends on what sorta stuff you play, though."

"It's like... kind of hard to describe. Like, alt-rock sorta stuff." Axel managed to shrug despite his position on the bed, a true accomplishment in apathy. God, he was exhausted. Post-fuck exhaustion was a real familiar mood, to be fair, but usually he at least dragged himself back to his car before crashing. He was seriously considering just falling asleep here, though. There were worse ways to fall asleep than with a cute girl wrapped around you, and the worst of the aftermath was playing out right now anyway. Didn't seem like a few hours of sleep could make shit more awkward.

Maybe he'd take her out to breakfast or something. Not usually his style, but he felt like he owed her, somehow.

"We're good. Think we'll make it someday. Guess every asshole with a rock band says that though." He laughed a little, wryly. "Judge for yourself. We're playing in a couple of days. S'at a party, you'd probably be there anyway."

>> Axel Fontaine continued in twenty-first century romance

"A'ight," girl said. "I'll be there."

She moved her hand off his chest, brought it to her side.

"Guess that means we're gonna get ta know each other a little bit more."

And was that girl okay with that?

---

Heh.

Didn't take long for some dude ta shove his dick right into the jaw of the angler.

"Heyyy..."

Dude in front 'ta her was tall. Little lean. Wasn't exactly a Mr. Big Wall of Fuckin' Muscle type'a dude like some of the other guys who'd come ta her before, but hey, dude in front 'ta her still had some of his own. Wasn't exactly, like, an outright preference, but hey, this girl liked her eye candy, and she def. appreciated havin' it stand right in front of her. Hair was only okay - little emo, but she didn't judge - nose looked... fuckin' off, but hey, it was a good enough package. He wasn't like, the cutest guy in the school or anything but hey, plenty fish in the sea, plenty cute boys right here in George Hunter High. He was one she recognized, too; not one this girl had talked to but hey, dude played his guitar fuckin' everywhere. Rule of causality n'shit kinda guaranteed that they'd eventually do it.

And this looked like onenatha times that the rule of causality n'shit kicked in sooner rather than later. He was lookin' at her.

And as she looked at him, took her eyes up n'down his body, she could tell somethin' pretty well. Dude wanted her ass.

And, like, here was a thing this girl right here had learned over the years: dudes sorta stopped thinkin' well whenever they wanted an ass.

And if they wanted that ass? If they stood a chance of actually gettin' that ass? Dudes would do fuckin' anythin.'

---

She giggled.

Yeah.

These next coupla days were gonna be fun.

((Studied The Practical Tactics Of Pickups...: Concluded))