(Completely and absolutely positively a one-shot, but who knows? Had an idea and haven't been on the forum in nearly a decade. Hope all is well. Content warning for substance use as it does play a large portion in the plot.)
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2027. Long Island, NY. 10:48pm.
Can't Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue was playing for the third time of the night. The song, in the vein of its namesake, had found its way irrevocably looped in the teenage partygoers' ears. Besides, who really cared how many times the song played as long as Ally Blaire continued to stand and dance on her kitchen table. She knew how to throw one hell of a party, and spring break was off to a great start. Donned in her rhinestone-encrusted sheer top and bellbottoms, she led an orchestra of half-wasted teenagers in a symphony composed of drunken sways, hoots and hollers, and incoherent rambling. It was like looking at a beautiful Fosse dance that was choreographed in a broom closet. The lights reflected off of Ally's shirt, sending back beams of multicolored lights reflecting into the sea of partygoers. She was their ringleader, their muse, their disco ball.
Her Brigitte Bardot bundles of blonde hair bounced with every move she made, timed perfectly to each beat of the song as she continued to sway her hips and half-bounce to the rhythm of the music. Her best friend, Kitty, danced next to her on the table. Smaller than Ally, half as loud, hell, some would call her invisible. But when she was around Ally, she shined. Ally did that to about everyone though, everyone just beamed when they were in her presence. Kitty would've never been able to word that in a way to Ally, but it was a mutual understanding between the two of them. Ally didn't need Kitty in the way Kitty needed Ally, but they were best friends and wouldn't have had it any other way.
Parties like this at Ally's were nothing new. Anytime a holiday break hit, everyone knew an invitation from Ally was coming soon. She always claimed her parents never knew, but everyone was almost positive they just turned a blind eye away from it all. The parties were always talked about for weeks after. Something was always bound to go down, whether it was relationships forming or breaking down or people getting sick beyond recognition, the halls of Ally's massive home had seen it all. Nothing was new within these walls and nobody really minded all that much; as long as somebody was coherent enough to take responsibility for the damage control of whatever situation was playing out, all was well.
Tonight was no different. The night was still young. Red solo cups were still half full, the music was still blasting, and nobody had passed out yet. By those standards, anybody would agree that the party was going pretty successful. Any party was going to be “successful” for a mess of New York public high school students as long as free booze was being offered. With the prices of things nowadays, anybody would be glad to attend an event with free booze. Nobody was ever certain how Ally found a way to buy everything, and it just fed the theories that her parents knew everything, but also nobody really cared that much to ask as long as their cups were still full, so it was essentially null at the end of the day.
Everybody was always expecting drinks to be flowing at the parties, but Ally’s new relationship with the long sandy blonde haired Warren Worthington sitting in the corner of the kitchen with an electronic cigarette, meant there was a whole different game being played tonight. Warren didn’t have the most upstanding relationship by any means, and Ally’s interest in him shocked…most, to say the least. Warren dropped out of school a couple of years ago, but always lurked around Ally, so he was never too far from the crowd. Nobody really talked to Warren about anything personal, but why would they have? Warren was a dealer, and that’s all anybody cared about when it came to interacting with him. Frankly, that was the only reason Warren was there tonight anyways. He didn’t like these parties, but quick and easy business was a plus and he wasn’t going to turn down a quick cash grab by any means.
It was pretty much the expected things Warren was offering. Blunts, 8-balls, tabs, the usual party circuit. The three of those alone were enough to score Warren several hundred for the night, but every now and again, he’d bring out something new. Usually all vacuum-sealed in plastic bags, he was like a candy store owner. Dishing out and serving multi-colored capsules and sheets donned in imagery of dripping smiley faces and skulls. If they were dumb enough to buy the stuff, Warren was going to sell it. But tonight, he was offering something new.
They were small gray tablets with X’s softly embossed onto the top of them. Nobody had ever seen them before, and to be totally honest, Warren hadn’t really either. But, if the people above him passed it to him, he was to sell it. That was the business Warren got himself into, and he knew that. He wasn’t even positive that he had even managed to catch the correct name of it. All he could remember was some jumble of letters that may have made out to spell MTNT, and that alone was enough for Warren to try and remember. He couldn’t have been bothered to ask what it was or what it did, he didn’t partake. He couldn’t have been bothered to know what basement lab it was concocted in, all he had to know was how much he had to sell it for.
Business was popular tonight once the word got around that Warren was in attendance. People flocked to the corner of the kitchen, stumbling around the open layout of the house as they tried to feign discreteness as if people were unaware of what they were doing. The usual suspects of course, but there were always new faces Warren would see coming to get something. It was always fun to see the people who would come and get the products, some people Warren would’ve never expected. Tonight, Scott Summers was the face he wasn’t expecting to interact with.
Throughout the night, Scott had barely left the living room couch. Everything was loud, people were making out feet away from him, and he couldn’t remember a slightest hint of why he had decided to come tonight. But, now here he was, standing feet away from Warren in the corner of Ally Blaire’s kitchen about to ask for drugs. Scott was smart, better than this to be completely honest, but it was senior year spring break. He had done nothing for the past four years but study and work and tire over extracurriculars to ensure he gave himself the best future. There were two months of school left, if there was any time to let loose, now was going to be the perfect time. The two continued to stand there for a moment, lingering in the dwindling silence as Can't Get You Out of My Head finally ended and Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club began playing from the speakers.
“Yeah - what’s up, Scott?” Warren asked, being muffled by the thunderous amounts of noise echoing around the home.
“Yeah - uh - hey.” Scott said, still awkwardly standing feet away from Warren.
“Dude, I’m not gonna bite. What do you want?” Warren coaxed, his tone latent with undertones of both charm and sliminess.
“Just like, well, what do you have? Or, well, what do you think I’ll like?” Scott asked.
At this moment it became incredibly apparent to Warren that Scott had never done something like this before. There were now two ways Warren was able to take this situation: shoo Scott away in order to escape liability for any first timers’ bad luck or absolutely revel in Scott’s naivety and upsell the absolute shit out of him. If Warren remembered anything about Scott, it was the fact that his parents owned a horse farm upstate, and that certainly wasn’t something cheap to flex.
“Well -” Warren paused and looked over his merchandise, “I just got this new stuff. They’re supposed to make you just super chill, y’know.” Warren said, gesturing towards the tablets of MTNT he had laid out.
“What are they?” Scott questioned.
“Does it matter? They kick in fast and they make you feel good.” Warren rebutted, looking back up at Scott.
“How strong is it?”
“Strong enough to make you feel funny, but not strong enough to make you die.”
“Well, - “ Scott paused, he couldn’t really believe he was thinking about doing this right now, let alone be essentially mid-transaction with Warren, “how much?”
“65, but I’ll cut you a deal for 50.” Warren responded. He was lying through his teeth about the price being 65, he just knew boasting a discount was always more likely to get people to follow through with it. His dad was a salesman, so despite being an absentee parent his whole life, at least he had taught him how to do something.
“You take Venmo?” Scott asked.
Warren pulled out his phone and they exchanged Venmo information. Of course Warren used a different Venmo than his personal one. Scott didn’t understand what about the username @b4nsh33 related to Warren’s profession at all, but as long as this purchase wasn’t going to be tracked down, he didn’t care. The $50 were exchanged, and Warren handed the tablet of MTNT to Scott.
“Just, snap it in half and take it with water. It’s like a pill.” Warren said.
“How long should I wait for it to kick -” Scott began, before being interrupted by Warren.
“Dude. Just take it and stop worrying about it.” Warren sneered, clearly fed up with the conversation. These interactions didn’t usually take this long, nor did they require Warren to have to explicitly explain and guide his buyers along the way.
Scott finally made his way past Warren and into the kitchen, holding the tablet of MTNT in his hands. His hands were just slightly trembling, and it could’ve been for a multitude of reasons. For starters, Ally’s house was remarkably cold even with the crowds essentially filling up every inch of open space in the home, or it could’ve been the Coors Light he had drank earlier, or the fact that he just participated in his first drug deal ever. If it was the latter, Scott knew what he needed to do to get over it. Just do it, like Warren had said. The longer he stood around and thought about it, the more he was going to regret the entire thing. In Scott’s eyes, Warren didn’t seem like the kind of guy to offer returns and refunds either. He was $50 out already, and there wasn’t going to be any negotiations into getting that back.
He grabbed a red solo cup and filled it with water from the sink, snapped the gray tablet into two pieces, and filled his mouth with water. He held the two pieces up to his lips, and once again, raced about whether or not this was going to be a good decision. He had never done anything like this before, so there were obvious nerves, but also, Scott had never seen anything like this before in his life. There was a beat, the pieces just centimeters away from his lips. Whatever, he thought, and downed the two pieces.
Cheeks full of water, and there’s silence.
The entire party seems quiet.
He swallows.
The raucous noises continue.
Warren said nothing about how long it was going to kick in, and with no experience with this stuff before, Scott didn’t know if it was going to be five minutes or five hours. All he knew to do was go back to the living room and get comfortable on the couch. He had spent half the night there anyways, he might as well return to a comfortable spot and wait for it to settle in. Once he got back to the couch, he was surprised to see the couple that had been making out had left, but the boy’s flannel had been seemingly left in the chaos. Gross, Scott thought. Not only that, but he was surprised to see Emmaline Frost sitting in the absent spot left by the couple. School council president, beautifully platinum blonde and porcelain skinned, Scott was surprised to see her at the party in the same way most people were surprised to see Scott there.
“Oh, Emma, you’re here?” He asks quizzically.
“Well, I could say the same for you Scott.” She jokes in response. “This doesn’t really seem like your crowd.”
“It’s not.” He replies flatly. No stuttering or pauses, just flatly. It’s evident that he doesn’t belong here, and he knows it.
“Then why come?” She asks.
“Senior spring break, go big, y’know.” He says.
“Yeah, totally.” She says, wryly laughing. She takes a sip of the drink in her cup and stares at Scott. In a seemingly recurring pattern with anybody who has a conversation with Scott, there is an extended moment of silence. He sits back down in the spot he was previously as Emma scoots over and makes room on the couch.
“Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but, where’s Jean?” Emma asks.
“We broke up.” He turns and says in response. There’s a joking tone in his voice, but there’s a sense of sadness in his cadence. “Not meant for this moment in time, but you know, who knows?”
“Yeah, who knows?” Emma says, sipping on her drink again. “I just didn’t know if you knew she was out with Duncan tonight?”
Scott didn’t know. Emma knew he didn’t know. He’d rather not think of his now ex-girlfriend hanging out with the man who came before him. She’d much rather stir the pot than sit here in silence with Scott for a moment longer. Scott searches for words, but the room slowly starts to creepily inch warmer and warmer. Not a comfortable warm by any means, there’s heat.
“Oh, uh, yeah, yeah, I knew.” Scott replies.
“No, you didn’t.” Emma slyly snaps back, staring deeply back into Scott’s eyes.
He doesn’t know how to reply. Whether that’s the fact that arguing with Emma is pointless or that he thinks he feels the effects of that mystery tablet slowly creeping up his spine, he couldn’t be sure. And besides, he’s supposed to be using this night to forget about Jean.
A blast of heat again. Scott can feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
“Everything ok, Scott?” Emma asks.
“Yeah, I think I just need to go to the bathroom.” Scott tries to get to his feet, but stumbles in his balance. Emma has a moment of almost getting up to help him, but she truly couldn’t be that bothered. The only moment she decides to rise to her feet is when she considers the hilarity that may ensue watching the Scott Summers stumble his way to Ally Blaire’s household bathroom and blow out his guts. Emma walks with him to the bathroom near the kitchen.
There is heat. Again. Pulsing, fiery heat rushing from Scott’s head. It’s so hot he feels sick. Once they get into the bathroom, he falls to the tiles. His arms wrap around the cool porcelain of the commode, his head laying on the shag rug of the bathroom. This has got to be whatever he had kicking in, because this is definitely not from the Coors Light. Emma stands in the doorway of the bathroom, just looking over Scott laying on the floor.
“You good, Scott?” She asks. It almost sounds like she cares, but Scott knows it's a baseless and unempathetic ploy at being able to spin a story.
“Yeah, I’m just - really, really - hot -” Scott says, going to continue when suddenly, darkness falls. The entire room goes dark. Another blast of heat flashes across Scott’s face. It’s like he’s standing directly in front of a blast furnace, letting the wisps of flame flick against his skin. A miserable, scorching pain follows suit. He lets out a deep groan of pain.
“Scott, what’s up?” Emma asks, her tone suddenly less apathetic and showing a hint of concern. “You don’t look very good.”
He can’t form words, all there is the feeling of fire forming behind Scott’s eyes. It’s like someone lit a match and shot it up his nostril. His brain feels like the remnants of a smoldering house, still littered with hot coals and ablaze pieces of wood. Heat again, and an excruciating pulse of pain and Scott cries out in a shriek of agony.
This is a pain he has never felt before. He is sure nobody in the world has ever felt this pain before. With a completely pitch black vision, he can’t see what’s going on. He can hear it, and he can smell it, but he has no idea the horrors emerging on the bathroom floor. Emma, however, still standing in the doorframe of the bathroom, is left dumbfounded, staring at the nightmare unfolding in front of her.
Scott can smell burning as the fiery pain intensifies, he can hear pieces of hair scorching away and burning into the air. He can smell meat, flesh, charring ever so slightly. Emma is left to watch as the skin around Scott’s eyes seemingly melts away. Seemingly combusting in on itself, and then suddenly, in the chasm of what remained of Scott’s eyes, a beam of red light emerged, blasting straight through the ceiling and the roof, leaving a beam of moonlight to shine into the bathroom. Emma could only find herself screaming in response, and in response, a somehow still conscious Scott began screaming as well. In the midst of their mutual panic, Scott flailed, casting the beam of light around, causing massive holes of destruction to form in their path. Screams could be heard, singeing through drywall, groans of pain. Scott found himself back where he started, staring at the ceiling, feeling as pieces of shingles, drywall, and miscellaneous rumble tumbled onto the bathroom floor around him. The heat was beginning to subside.
Minutes seemed to pass as Emma just stood there dumbfounded, Warren now finding himself positioned outside the bathroom with her, watching the sight unfold. The two were even more shocked to watch as the beam of light sputtered out and stopped. For a brief moment, they could both see the chasm in Scott’s face. Just seemingly absent of any tissue or bone or skin. As if his face was a cake and the slice containing his eyebrows and eyes was devoured. They then watched as Scott’s orbital sockets and nerves reformed themselves, his skull reappearing, his skin relaying itself on the tissue of his face, his green eyes rolling themselves back into his sockets. Scott’s face looked no different. He sat up from the floor, and stared at Warren and Emma. Silence, once more.
Then he turned and threw up. Emma then keeled over and threw up in response.
“So…bad trip, huh?” Warren asks.
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(Hope you enjoyed this weird little prelude. Wanted to find a way to combine horror like Talk to Me with mutants and things. Who knows if I'll continue it, but it was fun to write!)
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