The night before; Saturday at five in the evening.

Music blasts from speakers posted next to the DJ stand and the floor vibrates with the beat. Neil sips at a cocktail recommended by the bartender and watches the sea of people doused in colorful lights. Some are scattered around, standing in groups or sitting down, while the majority are dancing. The crowd in front of the DJ is a swarm of energy, moving as one entity in sync with the rhythm. His head bops lightly to the music and he lets himself get a little lost in the hypnotic atmosphere.

It’s a good way to keep his mind off the trip back to school tomorrow. Back to everything he left behind for the week and would eventually have to face. He can’t run from reality no matter how much he wants to. And he really, really wants to. Reality sucks.

He places the glass back on the counter after emptying it and waits for the bartender to return. At least that’s what he wanted to do. The second the glass touches the polished wooden surface of the bar, a figure plops down into the seat next to him, leaning uncomfortably close and invading his space. Neil barely looks at them, leaning away and bringing his wrist up to check the time on his watch.

Five o’clock. Not too late, not too early. But, he does have a flight to catch tomorrow so it would be good idea to start making his way back to the hotel. From his periphery, the figure shifts even closer and he feels the phantom burn on the side of his head. With a sigh, he turns to look at the person, a girl with a mischievous smile and half lidded eyes.

“Can I help you?” Neil asks flatly. The reaction he garners is far more than he is expecting. Her eyes widen and glitter under the lights, the smile pulling up into a grin.

“Are you here alone?” She tilts her head to the side, eyes like a hawk watching his every move. This is… weird. Is she drunk? Where are her friends?

“That’s uh… I’m not really interested in any-” He’s cut off mid way when her hands wrap around his arm and she all but flies out of her seat, yanking him along with her. She is deceptively strong for someone that petite and he finds himself being dragged away. He can’t even wrestle his arm out of her grip with the way it’s latched onto him. “Hey! What the- what are you- let go!”

Now, Neil is not a small guy. Not even close. He’s just above average height for his demographic, and though he’s not the most fit, he is certainly bigger and wider than other betas. He has enough muscle on his bones to be considered pretty strong. Yet no matter how much he struggles he can’t escape the boa constrictor like hold this girl has on him. If she's not an alpha than she's one jacked beta or omega.

He’s squeezed through clumps of people until she brings him all the way to other end of the bar where a group of four people are huddled together in various states of displeasure. Upon approaching, they look up and he catches how they all look at him in understanding.

“She got you too, huh?” One guy, in an offendingly bright red shirt, calls over the pounding music from where he’s leaned up against the counter, arms crossed. “Welcome to the club- er… club inside a club.”

“Don’t bother fighting. You won’t win.” A girl sitting by red shirt's feet growls out, holding a half empty mug of beer.

What did he just get dragged into?

“Sorry, what is happening right now?” Neil flounders, his captor releasing him to walk over to the bar, leaning over the counter and waving at someone out of sight. Before he can blink she’s back in front of him and he jumps.

“I’ve been collecting people for the night, and I think you’re the last one we need.” She spins around to face the others, throwing her arms out and grinning like a maniac. “It looks big enough to me, this should work just fine!”

The bartender appears, likely the person she called earlier, and she pauses to bound over and speak to him. Neil watches her babble words that he can’t hear over the rest of the club noise and turns his attention to the people who’ve been gathered alongside him. He is way out of his depth right now.

“I’m so confused, what is going on?” He directs the question at anyone willing to answer. The girl to his left seems too distracted with glaring at their captor to pay him any mind and it’s the guy to his right that answers.

“I didn’t really catch her name, but I think she goes by Bella.” The guy jerks his head toward the girl bouncing on her toes at the bar who somehow manages to pull red shirt into her conversation with the bartender. “According to her, she’s trying to gather all the 'sad and lonely' looking people she can find here to try and help make them less sad and lonely. Drink away our problems together or something like that.”

“I didn’t think I was giving off the sad and lonely vibes.” Neil comments to which the guy beside him snickers.

“Me neither, but here we are. I’m Al by the way.” The guy, Al, offers a hand. Neil eyes it for a second before taking it and giving it a firm shake.

“Neil.” He nods and they let go. Angry girl to his left moves forward to help beer girl off the floor. Just in time as Bella turns back to the group with a bunch of drinks lined up on the counter behind her.

“Alright guys, it’s party time!” She gestures for them to take a seat in front of the train of shots. “We’ll be playing a little drinking game to get to know each other better. Then we can get to the fun part of actually going out and doing things.”

She keeps saying things as though she’s referencing plans they all know about and have agreed to. It keeps throwing Neil for a loop and he just got here. Not to mention, this is the last thing he expected himself to be doing tonight.

Although, as he passes his gaze over the others, he thinks he sees what Al was talking about before. It’s reflected clearly in their expressions and their posture, each one of them holding an air of melancholy. Even if he couldn’t see it, he’s at least aware of his own feelings. It’s his cheating boyfriend’s birthday and he’s here at a club in Las Vegas. And as the members of their newly formed group seat themselves one by one at the bar, he takes a second to think.

Maybe it’s the buzz from the cocktails he drank before this. Maybe it’s the dread in his stomach from knowing what he has to face tomorrow. Or maybe it’s the invasive thought that tells him how Neil’s absence won’t affect Kash as much as he hopes it will. After all, Kash has someone else to spend his birthday with, someone he likely would have preferred to spend it with, anyway. So yeah, maybe these strangers, who gave in to join the whims of their crazy captor and were already looking a little brighter for it, tugs at something in his chest. Whatever it is, Neil allows himself this moment. Just for tonight.

Neil lets himself let go.

He joins the group and picks up a drink. It takes a little bit to join the conversation, but Bella is friendly enough to make the process easier. They go down the line to introduce themselves, and state their favorite drink to Bella’s demand, and end up with said drink by the time everyone’s finished. Empty glasses pile up in front of each of them, Neil being no exception, and he’s sure he won’t remember anyone’s name after this.

His own responses to the conversation start off simple and the more fuzzy his insides become, the more he talks. Angry girl and Al click with him right out of the gate and he finds himself sharing jokes and stories with them the most. Red shirt slaps Neil's shoulder and belts out a laugh at something he says, then everything after becomes a blur in his mind.

At some point the drinking game becomes a drinking challenge. Whoever can drink the most without getting sick wins. Everything goes to Bella’s tab and no one questions it as the energy builds and something in Neil sparks to life.

One second they’re at the bar and the next they're on the dance floor. Their group jumps and moves to the music as one unit within the bigger unit, in their own little world. The six of them are like a beast of their own design. Beer girl is head banging with red shirt while angry girl and Bella dance at their own tempo. Neil and his tendency to flail his arms when he dances accidentally whacks Al in the face. Rather than being bothered, he takes Neil by the hand and the two of them end up, dramatically and exaggeratedly, circling the group in a mock waltz with deadly serious expressions on their faces.

They're all back to the bar shortly after for more drinks and some water. Red shirt suggests a casino and angry girl sneers. From there rises talk of taking their party out of the club and into town, more fun and more options to be had in the city than if they stay in one place. The consensus is quick and unanimous.

Angry girl is significantly less angry with more than a few drinks in her system and they end up piled into her car. Neil is too far gone to be able to know the make or model. All he knows is it has no roof and Bella is sitting between the backseat headrests, then they are tearing down the street whooping and hollering into the winds. Whether they go the speed limit or above it doesn’t matter, especially when they manage to evade the sound of sirens without any trouble shortly into their adventure.

The travel log of the night goes as such; karaoke, a costume shop, an arcade, casino (to angry girl's displeasure), tattoo parlor, then finally to the convenience store. Their war path leaves a trail of feathers and glitter, music blasting from the car radio and their throats shredded raw from singing and shouting. Neil has glitter on his face and a tutu on his waist, but he barely thinks about it as he feels like he has wings and can fly over the moon if he jumps high enough. Feather boas, tiaras, ridiculous glasses, neon hats, everyone is adorned with some wild accessory and they wear them proudly.

It’s cutting into three in the morning when they make a pit stop at a park, illuminated by street lamps and Christmas lights wrapped around tree trunks. The second the car rocks to a halt, beer girl yanks open the passenger door and flies toward the sidewalk. Red shirt, who was allowed to be driver at some point in the night, shuts off the ignition and punches the air.

“Break time!” He shouts, and on command they pile out of the car.

Neil finds himself enchanted by the Christmas lights and wanting to take a closer look, so he wanders into the park. He’s overcome with the urge to climb one of the glowing trees and as he approaches, a root catches his foot, sending him tumbling to the ground. Grass replaces the lights and he coughs around a mound of weeds that get shoved into his mouth. It takes more effort than it should for him to roll over onto his back, getting his face out of the dirt. The sky is a murky gray above him, the city lights and exhaust fumes in the atmosphere blocking out the stars and infinite darkness behind them.

Peaceful. It’s almost serene. No clear shapes of clouds can be seen but he swears a cat is stretching toward the edges of a tree in the corner of his vision. While he muses over this, something flops down beside him, warmth pressing against his arm.

Groggily, he turns his head to the side to make eye contact with Al and his dopey smile. Neil returns it with a crooked smile of his own and offers a fist. Al fistbumps him awkwardly, lacking all sense of coordination and not really lining up properly.

“Did you fall?” Al’s voice warbles, his tone lifting and dropping incorrectly, barely understandable. Neil understands.

“Nah man, I flew.” He responds, his tongue twisting over the words and making them come out slurred.

“Sick.”

“Yeah.”

They lay there and chuckle to themselves like morons. Al’s laugh is a snorting, chortling thing and it makes Neil’s chuckle escalate to uncontrollable laughter that feeds back into Al’s. It has them shaking and curling into themselves, trying to stop it and only making it worse until their sides pinch in pain. Only when they're lightheaded and dizzy, spawning a sudden nausea, do they finally calm down.

The neon green hat on Al’s head falls off and lays above him on the grass as he brings his gaze up to the empty sky. Neil follows suit, looking for a new shape as he's lost the image of a cat from before.

“Not so lonely anymore, huh?” Neil speaks then, not sure what spurs him to do so. Al nods.

“Nope.” He pops the p and grins. “Almost forgot why I was, actually. Do you remember?”

“Hmmm… maybe.”

“Wanna know what mine was?”

Neil twists his head to face him again, brow raised. Al turns to face him, the grin still beaming if not a bit conspiratorial, a blade of grass clinging to a clump of his hair.

“Hit me.” Neil challenges, squinting and smiling.

“My true love of ten years is getting married and I’m one of the groomsmen.”