Christmas Party

Nick let out a nervous breath as he got out of his mother's car and walked towards Mark's front door. It was currently six at night at it was getting dark out, his mother told him to call her when he wants to come home or get a ride home if it is after eleven. It was his first party, his mother was surprisingly alright with him staying until the party ended even if it went on past midnight. Mark had told him the party would probably keeping going until about two in morning.

Nick sighed as he grabbed the door handle and turned it. Here we go... As the door opened he could instantly feel the loud rap music in his chest. As he made his way into the large foyer he could see kids around his age and older all dancing, drinking, and eating. There were pizza boxes, trays of food, kegs of what seemed to be beer, and basically anything one could want at a party scattered around.

He was a bit surprised to see beer and alcohol just sitting around at a mostly Christmas themed party filled with kids his age. A lot of the guys were wearing over-sized Santa coats and the most of the girls were wearing Santa hats and some were wearing short Christmas-themed skirts or tight fitting dresses. Over eighty percent of the people attending were dressed up in some way, Nick was part of the other twenty. It was a Christmas themed party, but he didn't know that people would dress up. Even the rap music playing was Christmas themed in one way or another.

Though, the main attraction to this party was obviously not the theme. Kids just wanted a way to get drunk. Getting drunk is what most of them were doing, too. Most of the kids dancing and grinding had a beer bottle or cup in their hand. There were some not currently drinking, but Nick suspected they would join in later on in the night.

He had gotten drunk before in the other world, he understood the appeal. He knew he would participate himself, but he would rather spend the first few hours sober. He made his way over to one of the tables, it was covered in pizza boxes and had a few stacks of paper plates around it. He took one of the plates and loaded it up with three pieces of pizza and began to eat as he walked around on the outskirts of the dance floor.

He did not really know anybody here. Originally he was planning to just go find Mark, but it was almost impossible to actually find someone in this crowd. He would maybe ask someone if the music wasn't so loud and if most people weren't completely wasted. Hell, a couple of people were already passed out this early on in the night because they drank too much.

"Hey, you're that kid aren't you? What was your name again? Nick?" Nick heard a voice say behind him. Whoever said it was basically yelling but thanks to the deafeningly loud music he could barely hear whoever was talking.

As he turned around he saw three guys, they were a couple of years older than him judging by their looks. They were in casual clothing but he imagined they went to his school. Granted, not everyone at this party went to his school. They looked pretty rough for private school students, they were muscular and looked like they had been in a number of fights judging from a couple of faded facial scars each of them had. "Yeah, that's me..."

The men grew large grins on their faces, the largest man in the small group walked over to him and put his arm around Nick's neck in a friendly manner. "I heard you are quite the fighter, though I also heard you got your ass kicked and then got stabbed."

Nick scoffed. "Well, three on one is not exactly a fair fight."

All three of them laughed at Nick's comments, the one closest to him talking again. The other two had yet to say a word. "We agree. Come on, let's go find a better place to talk." The man made a wide motion with his arm and began to lead Nick away from the main room.

After a couple of minutes of walking they made their way onto an outside balcony on the second floor. They could talk without having to shout now, the music was just background noise. The man moved away from Nick to sit on the railing that surrounded the balcony. "My name is Gareth. These two are Van and Aden."

The two beside Gareth nodded as a greeting when they were introduced. They didn't seem to talk much. "Well, I would introduce myself but you obviously already know who I am."

"Indeed we do. Sorry to bring you to a rather secluded place, I hope you don't feel too nervous after what happened to you. I just didn't want to keep shouting over the music." In truth Nick was a little wary of being lead to such a deserted area of the house.

"It's fine, I understand. So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Ah, well, as you might have guessed we go to the same school. I'm a senior, these two are juniors. We are part of a multi-school fight club that gathers on the weekends."

"Isn't the first rule of fight club to not talk about fight club?" He began to think back to the underground fights that he was introduced to in the other world. He would have to go back there one day and see if he could make some money.

"Heh, yeah, but it is rather hard to recruit for something if you aren't able to talk about it. The fights we have are completely fair, we set clear boundaries to prevent serious injury, and it is grudge-free. We figured someone like you might be interested in joining."

Nick chuckled. "Why would you think I would be interested in such a thing? Because you heard I got in one fight with someone?"

Gareth shrugged. "More because you won. We figured it was worth a try to recruit you, it is hard to come by fighters in our school. We have six members on our team, we could use a seventh. If nothing else you can use the opportunity to win a bit of cash on the side, but you do have to fight in order to be a member of the club."

Nick thought it over for a second, deciding it was worth a shot. He was confident in his fighting ability and he could always heal his injuries before getting home. "Sure, I'll check it out I suppose. It is more productive than watching gaming videos on YouTube."

"We gather on either Saturday or Sunday. I will find you at lunch on Friday after break to tell you where we are meeting. If you will need a ride just tell me and I will pick you up. Here's my number." Gareth took out his phone and showed Nick his contact information, Nick quickly put it in his phone.

"Alright, why don't you just text it to me?"

"Because that is evidence of the fight club. We only talk about it in phone calls or real life."

"Conversations could always be recorded..."

"True, but keeping it to real life and calls prevents people from looking through your phone and finding out about fight club."

"I guess so." Nick slid his phone back in his pocket.

"Here." Gareth threw something to Nick, upon closer inspection he saw that it was a black ring with a silver fist engraved into it. "That is proof that you are a member of the club to other participants. If someone shows up to the club without one of those we know that they don't belong there."

Nick put it on his right ring finger. "Perfect fit."

"Shall we have a drink to celebrate?" That was the first thing he heard Van say, he saw him pull a bottle of whiskey seemingly out of nowhere along with four shot glasses. It seems he came prepared. He sat the shot glasses on the thick balcony railing and poured four shots.

"I don't see why not." Nick grabbed one of the glasses and the others followed his lead.

"To our new member!" Gareth yelled as he raised his glass, Nick and the other two also raised their glasses before they all downed their shots. Before Nick could say anything his glass was already being filled up again.

"And this one is to a fun night!" Once again they all raised their glasses and downed their shots.

"I think I am going to get another slice of pizza, I'll see you guys around."

"Alright, we will be here for a little while longer if you need us."

Nick left downstairs to get another slice of pizza, he also took a piece of cake. There were several cakes that he had not noticed before in the kitchen. He decided to drink soda with his food instead of beer after he had a sip of beer and decided that he didn't like it. There was no shortage of beer or alcohol. There was also spiked eggnog which he did try a sip of.

There was a lot of dancing, and surely other things, happening but he was not interested in that. He didn't know the first thing about dancing, he did not plan to humiliate himself by trying to improvise dance moves. Though people seemed to be just grinding instead of dancing at this point. Nick just came to the party because he was invited, the alcohol and food was the only reason he was staying. Both of those things were quickly depleting, however.

He had not seen Mark at all in the two hours he has been here, he wouldn't be surprised if Mark didn't even know he was here. "Guess I should do some exploring..." Nick grumbled, setting down his sixth shot of the night. The alcohol was slowly starting to affect him, it made him slightly off balance but not enough to keep him from doing normal tasks. It was nothing like the drunk goggles one of his home school teachers had him wear once.

He made his way upstairs and began to look around into the rooms. A couple of the rooms were locked, though he could hear muffled giggling or moaning inside of those rooms. "Ugh, get a room..." Nick complained under his breath. "Oh... Guess you did..."

After checking several locked doors he got to the first unlocked door, though it was just a bathroom. He was surprised at the scale of the bathroom however, he was not sure why someone would need such a large bathroom. Most of it was empty space. After staring at the oversize bathroom for a couple of seconds he closed the door and did more exploring. As he walked around he was distracted by a sound coming from one of the rooms.

The door was unlocked, when he went inside he was surprised at what he found. The room was filled with people, pizza, alcohol, and soda. There were probably about twenty people in the room, they were all sitting on or gathered around the three couches that sat in front of three different giant screens. He was able to recognize that they were playing video games. He could even recognize the games thanks to watching people play them on YouTube.

As he looked around the room he also saw a familiar face, Mark was on the center couch and was playing a racing game against three other people on the same screen. Nick didn't want to distract him so he just took a shot of whiskey and began to eat his ninth slice of pizza so far tonight.

"Fuck yeah! First place again! Suck it!" Mark shouted, standing up with his arms triumphantly held in the air. "Hey, Nick! When did you get here?"

"I've been here for a couple hours, I've just been downstairs drinking and eating up until this point. I got bored so I decided to do a bit of exploring." His words were a bit muffled due to a bite of pizza in his mouth.

"Ah, alright, wanna play?" Mark held out his controller for Nick.

"I've never really played video games besides on my laptop or phone, but I will give it a shot as long as you don't mind that I suck." Nick said, grabbing the controller and climbing over the couch to sit down.

"Hey, if nothing else we will all get a good laugh." Mark chuckled as he made his way behind the couch. "So don't worry about it."

After fumbling his way through selecting a car and voting on a track to play the race started. He was given a brief explanation on what to do, so he held down the gas as it counted down to the start of the race. Once the countdown was done all of the others quickly shot off down the road, but Nick was not far behind them. At least he wasn't far behind until the first corner. Everyone began to drift around the corner while Nick tried to turn normally and smashed into the guard rail.

Everyone laughed as Nick tried to correct the orientation of his damaged car and get back up to speed. "Remember what I said about drifting? Drift around the corners or you will fall behind. You can use Nitro to catch up."

Even though Mark said he could use Nitro to catch up the second he used it all of the others did to as if just to spite his attempts to regain some distance. It was a racing game, after all. "Damn..." He grumbled. Driving a virtual car while slightly intoxicated was no easy feat.

After a couple long minutes of Nick continuously crashing and losing ground on the other drivers he finished dead last."Better luck next time." Mark said, trying to not laugh Nick handed off the controller to another person.

"I probably would have done better if I had not had seven shots prior to that race." Nick said as he hopped over the back of the couch and stood next to Mark while the next set of players sat down.

"Only seven? Shit, we are all running on nine or ten by now." Mark burst out laughing and slapped Nick on the back.

"I'm trying to take it slow so I don't end up passing out early on. Besides, I can't afford to pass out before I make it back home. My parents don't care what time I come back tonight as long as it is before they wake up on Christmas morning."

"You will be home before morning, as I said before I have people willing to drive home anyone that doesn't have a ride whenever they need to go."

"It is crazy how insanely loaded you are, having your maids and butlers driving people home as designated drivers."

"I get that a lot. I was just lucky to be born into the family of the owners of a successful corporation. A lot of people say I am like the token rich kid in an anime." They both laughed.

"Well, my family is pretty well off but we are nowhere close to being in the same boat you are. If we need or want something we are usually able to buy it, but nothing like you have."

"Do you know what your parents are getting you for Christmas?"

"I don't know what they will get me, but I asked for a video game console and a couple of games I thought looked good. I also asked for a high-end desktop that I could play games on too as well as use for other things."

"That is a lot to ask for. That is going to be close to a two or three thousand dollar price tag."

"I know, but my parents have been surprisingly generous since I recovered from my paralysis. I think they are trying to catch up on fifteen years worth of gifts. I never really needed much of anything before, y'know?"

"I couldn't imagine going fifteen years without being able to move. Not being able to do much of anything besides watch TV or talk."

"You get kind of used to it, though looking back on it I realize how boring and empty my life was. If I was ever permanently paralyzed again I wouldn't be able to take it."

"Well, let's hope that never happens to you. Or me, for that matter. Wanna do a shot?" Mark asked, pouring two shots in a couple of clean shot glasses.

"Might as well, maybe if I drink enough I will magically become better at video games. Or at least I will think I got better, and that's all that matters."

Six shots, four pieces of pizza, five humiliating defeats, and four hours later Nick decided to head home. He got a ride from one of Mark's butlers and was home before he knew it. He tried his best to hide the fact he was drunk as he quietly made his way to his room just in case his parents were still awake. He face planted on his bed and was asleep before he knew it.