lost_boy | (no subject)

This was it, my very first birthday party.

I was nervous and excited and I was probably driving Eddie and Magnus both absolutely mad with all my checking and rechecking of things. I wanted to make sure everything was exactly right, because I had never thrown a party before and although Magnus had helped me quite a bit, I still felt like I needed to make sure I didn't make a mess of it. I knew the rules -- no going upstairs, no alcohol -- and I would make sure everyone else knew it, too, because I didn't want to disappoint Magnus with any terrible behaviour. He was doing me a very big favour, letting me use his place and his pool to have a proper party and I wasn't going to take that for granted.

There was food and drink of all kinds, and plenty of snacks. The pool was lit up with different colours that would get brighter as the sun set and all sorts of inflatable toys could be found so people could just float if they wanted to. At the shallow end of the pool was a little floating basketball net and a bunch of inflatable balls to use with it. There were toys for diving, even a little obstacle course under water with rings people could swim through. The towels were big and fluffy, the chairs were comfortable, and there was even a big birthday cake with my name on it and seventeen candles, although that was for later.

All I had really wanted, I told Magnus, was for it to remind me of his party with all the colours. The one where Eddie and I had first kissed, and he had come through for me. The decorations were fun and bright and everywhere I looked there was a different coloured light.

I had invited all my friends, regardless of their age, so that meant there were little kids on the guest list and adults, too. A part of me worried some of the other kids around my age might think that was weird, but in the end I decided I didn't care that much. I wanted my friends to be here with me, all my friends, and not all my friends were the same age. I liked that about them all very much.

As the first people started to arrive, I clutched Eddie's hand nervously, beaming at him, then kissed him quickly on the cheek before going to greet people. I was supposed to be the host, after all. It was my first party.

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"I'm glad you do too," she says, and means it. Jamie's group of friends is eclectic and wide-ranging--even more so than one might expect, in a place as strange as Darrow--but somehow, the idea of a pool party seems to suit every one of them. It was almost its own kind of magic, separate from anything Magnus might have conjured up for the party itself. "And your dad's not wrong, entirely. Though it's hard to imagine waiting to do things sometimes, isn't it?" She grins again, bright and happy.

"It's swam, I think," Rosie says, after giving it a moment of due consideration. "But I knew what you meant." She looks down at the bright plastic rings still looped around her arm. "I was going to play with these on my own, just...I don't know, muck around and try to dive for them, but if you wanted to practice swimming, I could toss them for you? Just here in the shallow bit, of course."

He nods enthusiastically at how awful it is to wait. "I hate waiting," he tells her, both a little ashamed and a little amused because she seems nice enough not to judge.

"Swam," he repeats so he'll remember, and brightens up. "Yeah! We could take turns," he adds, considering the fact that she'd wanted to play on her own before. "I could throw them for you too."

"Brilliant," Rosie says, sliding the rings off her arm. "Turns it is." There's something about Luke that reminds her, just slightly, of Jay in their first all-too-brief meeting. Maybe just that both boys were small and fair-haired, with a slightly overawed air that Rosie was even speaking to them at all; whatever it is, it makes her smile.

"I'll throw first?" she offers, holding up the first ring, a bright orange patterned with glittering stars. "Get ready."

He grins, pleased that she likes his idea and nods. "Ready," he announces to her, eyes flicking between the bright orange ring and the pool ahead, getting his hands ready to swim after it.

As Luke gets into position, the energy and tension practically vibrating off of him as he gears up to swim after the ring, Rosie squints, taking aim. Having only ever been halfway-decent at sport--and even that, only on very rare occasion--her throw is a little wobbly, with only a fraction of the power she'd meant to put behind it. It works well enough.

The ring sails through the air, plopping into the water again a few feet away.

It's still better than Luke could throw it, and he happily swims after it, squinting into the water until he's just about over the spot. Then he takes a big big breath, poofing out his cheeks a little, and dives himself downward, kicking to get himself down so he can pat along the bottom since he can't really see underwater.

His fingers close around it and he pops back up to the top, waving it. "Got it!"

"Okay, now it's your turn." He flings it away from Rosie, but just like with the frisbee in the park, he isn't quite a straight shot and it curves a little bit, landing across the line of where the shallow end starts to drop down. "Oops..." Good thing it was him throwing and not her.

"Oops!" she echoes, but it's teasing and bright, no trace of meanness in her tone at all. He'd done his best--better, really, than Rosie had even with the slight error in his aim. She smiles at him, then takes a breath and pushes herself forward towards where the ring had fallen.

Where it landed, on the slope between the shallow and deep ends, means the ring starts to roll once it hits the tiled pool floor. It's a bit of a chase, but Rosie grabs the ring before it gets too far, thrusting it up out of the water in triumph before her head resurfaces. "Good job," she says, panting a little as she paddles through the water back to where Luke's standing.