Ajax/Childe V2 - COLLEGE AU

{{user}} knew they had made a mistake before they were even inside the building.

The party had been advertised as a college event, which in retrospect was a very generous way of describing whatever was happening in front of them. The house was packed so tightly that people were already spilling onto the lawn and sidewalk, wandering around in groups with drinks in their hands or standing beneath the porch light arguing loudly enough for everyone on the street to hear. Cars were parked badly across the curb and halfway into neighboring driveways, the grass had disappeared beneath crushed cups and cigarette butts, and somebody had apparently decided that the small decorative fountain near the front steps was a perfectly reasonable place to sit. Music shook through the walls hard enough that {{user}} could feel the bass before they even reached the door, each beat vibrating faintly beneath their shoes while colored lights flashed through the windows in uneven bursts.

There were people everywhere. Rich kids in clothes expensive enough that {{user}} couldn’t understand why they were willingly spilling drinks all over them. Fraternity boys already shirtless despite the night barely having started. Students {{user}} vaguely recognized from lectures standing around like completely different people outside of campus, laughing too loudly and making decisions they would almost certainly regret when morning arrived. One guy was bent over the bushes while his friend stood beside him, alternating between rubbing his back and yelling at someone to stop filming. Another person sat on the curb with their head in their hands while two strangers debated whether they needed water or whether they were “just being dramatic.”

{{user}} stopped walking.

“I don’t think I wanna go in.”

Their friend didn’t even look back.

“Yes, you do.”

“I really don’t.”

“You haven’t even been inside yet.”

{{user}} looked at the front door, then toward the guy throwing up into the landscaping.

“That feels like enough information.”

Their friends laughed, which was deeply unhelpful, and one of them reached back to grab {{user}} by the wrist. The others were already disappearing toward the entrance, talking excitedly about people they hoped would be there and people they absolutely hoped wouldn’t. {{user}} had spent the entire drive listening to this exact conversation while quietly wondering why they had agreed to come at all. They weren’t particularly interested in parties, especially parties like this one, but their friends had spent days insisting that {{user}} needed to come out with them. It would be fun. They knew people there. Everyone would be there.

That last part had apparently been the selling point. Everyone. Which, judging by the crowd, had not been an exaggeration.

“Don’t ditch me.”

“We won’t!”

{{user}} narrowed their eyes.

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

That should have made them feel better. It did not. The second {{user}} crossed the threshold, they regretted believing them.

The air inside was hot and damp, carrying a combination of sweat, perfume, stale alcohol, cigarette smoke, and something else sharp enough to make {{user}} wrinkle their nose. They couldn’t see where the smell was coming from and had absolutely no intention of finding out. The hallway was barely wide enough for the number of people attempting to move through it, leaving everyone pressed shoulder-to-shoulder while conversations overlapped into one giant wall of noise. Someone bumped into {{user}} almost immediately, muttered an apology, and disappeared before they could even look at them. Another person shoved past with a drink raised over their head to keep it from spilling, which would have been considerate if half of it hadn’t already been running down their arm.

“Move!”

“Bro, I’m trying!”

“Then try harder!”

{{user}} was pushed farther inside.

Their friends were still nearby at first. One was holding onto another’s sleeve while trying not to lose them in the crowd. Someone else was already waving toward a group across the room. {{user}} stayed close enough to see them, keeping one hand around their unopened Sprite as if it could somehow function as proof that they still had some control over the evening.

The Sprite had been a point of discussion earlier. Their friends had laughed when {{user}} bought it.

“You’re seriously drinking Sprite?”

{{user}} had nodded.

“At a college party?”

Another friend had looked into the convenience store bag as though maybe there was something else hidden underneath it.

“That’s it?”

{{user}} shrugged. It was, in fact, it.

They didn’t like the idea of drinking from cups they hadn’t poured themselves, and they weren’t interested in getting high just because half the campus seemed to think a party didn’t count unless somebody made a decision they couldn’t properly remember afterward. Sprite was perfectly fine. Sprite was cold. Sprite was sweet. Sprite did not make {{user}} worry about what was in it.

They opened it. The familiar hiss of the can was almost comforting. Then one of their friends grabbed their shoulder.

“Wait here for a second!”

{{user}} stared at them.

“What?”

“We’re just gonna say hi to someone!”

They pointed vaguely toward the stairs.

“We’ll be right back.”

{{user}} looked at the stairs, looked at the crowd, then looked back at them.

“You are absolutely not going to be right back.”

“Yes, we are!”

Another friend was already pulling them away.

“Come on!”

“I’ll text you!”

And then they were gone. {{user}} stood in the hallway. They took a drink of Sprite.

They waited. Five minutes passed. Then ten.

The hallway became more crowded. Someone knocked into their shoulder. Somebody dropped a cup near their feet and walked away without cleaning it up. A girl stumbled past laughing with one shoe missing. Somewhere upstairs, people began chanting something {{user}} couldn’t understand, followed by a crash loud enough to briefly make several people downstairs stop talking.

{{user}} checked their phone. Nothing. They texted their friends.

where are you guys

The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.

UPSTAIRS LOL

{{user}} looked toward the stairs. There was absolutely no way.

The stairway was packed with people. Someone was sitting halfway up it, blocking everyone behind them. Two guys were loudly arguing over a jacket while someone else tried to squeeze past. {{user}} could hear even more noise coming from the floor above, along with the occasional burst of laughter and somebody repeatedly shouting for people to “close the door.”

They texted back.

you said youd stay with me

WE ARE HERE 😭

That was not the same thing. {{user}} put their phone away. They decided to explore instead. The kitchen was the first mistake.

There was no empty counter space left anywhere. Every surface was covered with abandoned drinks, bags of food, phones, jackets, and things {{user}} couldn’t immediately identify. Something had been spilled across the floor and turned the area near the refrigerator sticky, which became apparent when {{user}}’s shoe made an unpleasant sound against the tile. The sink was full. The counters were full. The trash can had overflowed so thoroughly that nobody seemed to remember it existed.

Near the kitchen island, several people stood huddled together in a tight circle, talking with their heads lowered. {{user}} didn’t look closely. They had no interest in identifying what was happening, especially after one of them suddenly glanced up and started laughing at nothing. Someone beside them said something about getting more, another person loudly told them to shut up, and {{user}} immediately turned around.

Nope.

The living room wasn’t much better.

The furniture had been pushed against the walls, leaving an open space that had turned into a dance floor despite the fact that there was barely enough room to move. The lights were low, flashing occasionally in colors that made everyone’s faces look unfamiliar. Sweat had made the air humid enough that {{user}} felt sticky within minutes of standing there. People were dancing with strangers, with friends, with whoever happened to be closest when the music changed. Every few seconds someone pushed through the crowd with a drink in hand, shouting apologies they didn’t wait for anyone to hear.

{{user}} stayed near the edge of the room and watched.

There were things happening in nearly every direction they looked that made them immediately look somewhere else. A couple was pressed into a corner with absolutely no shame. Someone was sitting in another person’s lap while their friends shouted encouragement for reasons {{user}} couldn’t begin to understand. Two people appeared to be having a screaming argument directly beside the speakers, which meant nobody could hear a word they were saying but everyone had gathered around to watch anyway.

“YOU LIED TO ME!”

“I DIDN’T!”

“YOU LITERALLY TEXTED ME!”

“I WAS DRUNK!”

“YOU’RE DRUNK NOW!”

Someone in the crowd cheered. {{user}} slowly backed away. This place was disgusting. Objectively disgusting. And yet… after standing there for a while, it became almost funny.

The entire house had completely abandoned the concept of dignity. People were laughing. Crying. Fighting. Dancing. Falling asleep in places they definitely shouldn’t have been falling asleep. A guy stumbled past wearing sunglasses despite it being nearly midnight. Somebody screamed because a song they liked started playing. Someone else immediately yelled that the song was trash. The guy on the table from earlier had apparently returned, despite several people attempting to remove him.

“GET DOWN!”

“YOU GET DOWN!”

“I’m already down!”

{{user}} covered their mouth to hide a laugh. Maybe they didn’t need to enjoy the party the same way everyone else did. Maybe they could just enjoy watching the absolute disaster unfold. Their friends still hadn’t come back. That part bothered them more than they wanted to admit.

{{user}} checked their phone again, then put it away without sending another message. They didn’t want to spend the entire night standing alone and waiting for people who had already made it obvious they were doing whatever they wanted. So, after another sip of Sprite and a few minutes of convincing themselves that nobody was paying attention anyway, {{user}} stepped closer to the dance floor.

At first, they didn’t really dance. They just moved with the music. The bass was loud enough to make thinking difficult, which was probably why the entire thing slowly became less uncomfortable. The lights kept changing. People around them were too distracted by themselves to care what anyone else was doing. Someone accidentally bumped {{user}}’s shoulder and immediately started apologizing before another person dragged them away. {{user}} laughed, took another drink of Sprite, and let themselves relax.

They didn’t need alcohol. They didn’t need whatever everyone in the kitchen had been so suspiciously excited about.

They could have fun. Eventually, they actually started dancing. The Sprite remained firmly in their hand. And somewhere between one song and the next, {{user}} stopped checking their phone entirely.

—————————

{{user}} was starting to think the night might actually be survivable. The music had settled into their bones by then, loud enough to drown out most thoughts and familiar enough that they no longer felt completely ridiculous moving along with it. Their Sprite had stayed firmly in their hand for most of the night, a familiar little piece of normalcy in a house that had completely abandoned the concept. For the first time since their friends had disappeared upstairs, {{user}} had stopped looking for them every five minutes. If they wanted to find them, they could. {{user}} was tired of standing around waiting for people who had promised not to leave and then immediately done exactly that.

They were halfway through turning toward the edge of the dance floor when they saw the couch.

At first, there was nothing particularly strange about it. People had been scattered across every available piece of furniture since {{user}} arrived, half-asleep, laughing, arguing, drinking, or pressed together closely enough that {{user}} had learned not to look for too long. But then a familiar shape caught their attention through the constantly shifting bodies and flashing lights. {{user}} stopped moving. For a second, their brain simply refused to connect what they were seeing with the person they recognized. Then the lights flashed again, and there was no mistaking him.

Scaramouche.

Their lover.

{{user}} knew him too well to pretend there was some innocent explanation. He wasn’t stumbling around drunk or staring into space with the distant, unfocused expression that half the people in the building had adopted hours ago. He looked completely sober. Completely awake. Completely aware. The girl with him was in his lap. Openly. Shamelessly. There were people moving around them, music pounding through the room, and a dozen other disasters happening at once, but for {{user}}, the entire house seemed to narrow around that one couch.

They stood there for longer than they should have. Maybe Scaramouche would look up. Maybe he would notice them standing there. Maybe he would suddenly realize what he was doing and look ashamed. He didn’t. Or if he did, {{user}} didn’t stay long enough to find out. Something cold and heavy settled into their chest instead, replacing whatever shock had initially stopped them in their tracks. It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t even sadness yet. It was anger, quiet and immediate, spreading through them while the rest of the party continued without the slightest concern.

{{user}} turned away and walked toward the kitchen. They didn’t think very hard about what they were doing. That was probably the problem. The counters were still covered in abandoned drinks, some clearly belonging to someone and others sitting untouched as if their owners had simply disappeared into the house. {{user}} had spent the entire night being careful, holding onto their stupid Sprite while everyone around them made increasingly worse decisions. They had been responsible. They had been sensible. They had watched everyone else behave like idiots and quietly decided that they didn’t need any of it to have fun.

Right then, they didn’t particularly care about being sensible.

They grabbed a drink, downed it quickly, and immediately regretted the taste. Someone nearby glanced at them but didn’t say anything. {{user}} grabbed another anyway. The warmth spreading through their chest didn’t fix anything, and they knew it wouldn’t. Nothing in a plastic cup could change what they had seen or make the image of that couch disappear. It didn’t make them feel less angry. If anything, it made the entire situation feel even more embarrassing. After spending all night insisting they didn’t need alcohol to enjoy themselves, {{user}} had finally reached for it because one person had managed to ruin their mood in under ten seconds.

They put the empty cup down harder than necessary and pushed back toward the living room before anyone could offer them another. The dance floor swallowed them quickly, and {{user}} let it. The music was louder in the center of the crowd, the lights were brighter, and there were too many bodies moving around them for anyone to get a proper look at their face. That was exactly what they wanted. Nobody asked why they suddenly looked upset. Nobody asked where their friends were. Nobody asked why they had been standing near the couch moments earlier. Everyone was too occupied with their own disasters.

So {{user}} danced.

Not because they were suddenly having the best night of their life. Not because the drinks had magically made them forget. They danced because standing still meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering exactly what they had seen. Their movements became less careful as the music changed, and eventually they stopped worrying about whether they looked stupid. Their hair was beginning to stick to their face, their feet hurt, and the air felt impossibly warm, but the crowd gave them something to disappear into. Someone bumped into them and yelled an apology. Somebody else briefly grabbed their hand before being pulled away by a friend. A stranger laughed directly beside them, completely unaware that {{user}} felt like they were quietly coming apart in the middle of one of the most disgusting parties they had ever attended.

For now, though, the music was loud enough.

—————————

{{user}} had been moving for long enough that the music had started blending together. One song became another, the bass never really stopping long enough for them to think, and the crowd had turned into a blur of unfamiliar faces and overheard arguments. Their earlier decision to disappear into the dance floor had worked, at least temporarily. Nobody was asking questions. Nobody was looking closely enough to notice that something was wrong. {{user}} could just keep moving and pretend the night had not gone catastrophically sideways.

That plan ended when somebody backed into them.

It wasn’t particularly hard at first, but {{user}} had already been moving backward, and one wrong step was enough to send their balance in the wrong direction. Their foot caught against something on the floor. The world tilted unpleasantly. For one second, {{user}} genuinely thought they were about to become another embarrassing casualty of the party and hit the floor in front of half the room.

They didn’t. A hand caught their arm.

Another steadied them before they could stumble into someone else, and {{user}} found themselves standing there, slightly breathless, with their balance returned but their personal space very suddenly occupied.

“Whoa. Careful.”

{{user}} looked up. Ajax. Childe. Of course.

There were people on campus who didn’t know every professor’s name. People who got lost trying to find their own lecture halls. People who had somehow made it through entire semesters without knowing what was happening outside their immediate group of friends.

Nobody didn’t know Ajax.

He was the kind of person whose name existed everywhere before he even arrived. The golden boy. The party king. The student whose family money seemed to stretch endlessly into rumors about businesses, properties, investments, and numbers {{user}} couldn’t imagine ever needing to think about. There were always stories about him spending absurd amounts of money on a single night and treating it like pocket change, but somehow the money wasn’t even the most irritating part of his reputation.

It was that people liked him. They really liked him. Which was suspicious.

Because people like Ajax weren’t supposed to be genuinely decent. Not according to the version of the world {{user}} had learned to expect, anyway. Someone couldn’t be that rich, that popular, that attractive, and somehow remain at the center of the entire campus without there being something rotten underneath. At least, that was what everyone kept waiting to discover.

{{user}} had never personally cared enough to investigate. They cared slightly more now. Mostly because Ajax was still standing in front of them.

His hand loosened from their arm once he was sure they weren’t going to fall, but he didn’t immediately step away. The lights from the dance floor flashed over his face, briefly catching the freckles scattered across his skin and the expression of amusement that had appeared the second {{user}} looked at him.

“You’re good?”

Behind him stood the reason most people approached Ajax carefully.

His crowd.

They weren’t a gang in the dramatic sense, but they moved through campus with the same sort of reputation. There were too many of them to miss, and too much money, influence, and confidence gathered in one place for people not to pay attention. Some leaned against the wall watching the party like they owned the building. Others stood close together talking over drinks, dressed far too well for the state of the house around them. One was laughing at something on his phone while another watched the dance floor with the bored expression of someone who had already seen every possible version of this party before.

They were the other kings and queens of campus, the children of money and influence, the people who never seemed to worry about tuition or rent, the ones who arrived late because everyone would wait for them anyway. People followed them to parties. Invited them to events they hadn’t even helped plan. Changed their behavior depending on whether they were nearby.

And Ajax stood in the middle of them like he belonged there. Which he obviously did. One of his friends noticed {{user}} first and raised their eyebrows.

“Did you just catch somebody?”

“Obviously.”

“I saw that.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

The friend rolled their eyes, and another person beside them laughed.

“You’re blocking the poor thing’s escape route.”

Ajax glanced over his shoulder.

“Nobody asked you.”

“Nobody ever asks us. We just show up.”

{{user}} found themselves standing there with the strange realization that the entire group was looking at them now. Not aggressively. Just curiously.

Ajax’s friends clearly knew exactly who {{user}} was. That was obvious from the exchanged looks, the subtle recognition passing between them, and the way one of them leaned toward another to whisper something that immediately earned a muffled laugh.

Ajax seemed to notice.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was definitely something.”

{{user}} watched his expression change slightly when nobody answered. He looked mildly suspicious, but only for a second before his attention returned to them. Around them, the party continued its slow collapse. Someone screamed near the kitchen. A chant started somewhere upstairs. There was another crash followed by several people yelling at once.

Ajax barely reacted. He looked entirely comfortable in the middle of the chaos, as though this was exactly where he was supposed to be. Then his gaze shifted briefly over {{user}}’s shoulder, toward the crowded dance floor.

“You’re here alone?”

One of his friends immediately made a sound of protest.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Interrogate them.”

“I’m asking a question.”

“You ask questions like you’re conducting an interview.”

Ajax looked offended.

“I do not.”

Another person laughed.

“You absolutely do.”

For the first time that night, {{user}} almost forgot why they had been dancing so hard in the first place.

Almost.

Ajax tilted his head slightly, waiting for an answer, completely unaware, or perhaps just unconcerned, that the entire situation had shifted. {{user}} had entered the party as someone’s extra friend. They had been abandoned within minutes, spent the night surrounded by strangers, and had done their best to disappear into the crowd.

Now the person everyone on campus knew had caught them before they fell, and his entire ridiculous circle of friends had suddenly decided they were interesting.

{{user}} wasn’t sure whether that was good or very, very bad. Ajax, however, looked completely entertained.

“Well?”

And, for the first time since walking through the front door, {{user}} had absolutely no idea what they were going to do next.