runtowardsomething | (no subject)

(no subject)

It isn't a birthday party.

Beverly has been adamant about that. She's never actually had one before, more inclined to let the occasion pass as little fanfare as possible, and she doesn't intend to change that now. Still, she can't turn eighteen and not do something. It's a big milestone. A huge one, really, and fucking terrifying at that. There's so much she's still clueless about, so much it feels like she's running out of time to make up her mind about.

Tonight, though, she doesn't want to think about that. She just wants to enjoy not being a kid — a little girl — anymore.

Having settled on a good destination for the night — a bar near her house, the sort of relaxed place that lets anyone in and only requires ID from anyone ordering drinks, so those under eighteen can still freely get in and those of age, herself now included, can reap the benefits that come with that — she texts some friends, inviting them to come meet her if they want. For her part, she finds a reasonably sized table to claim, then heads over to the bar. There's something painfully refreshing about not having to aim for a bartender who looks like he won't bother to card her if she looks at him just right. It's even better when she presents her ID as asked, and the bartender, seeing that it's her eighteenth birthday, tells her the drink is on the house.

It's not much of a sign, exactly, and wouldn't be even if she were to believe in such things, ultimately pretty meaningless. Still, there's a tiny little sprout of something that might be optimism inside her. Maybe, just maybe, it will be an okay year.

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I knew Beverly wasn't calling it a birthday party, but it was all the same, and that was why I had a small giftbox in the pocket of my coat. There was a keychain inside, which I knew could be a terrible gift, but I'd put a lot of thought into this one, wanting to share something with Beverly that was special to us.

The keychain was silver, delicately crafted, with a small mermaid on the end. A reminder of the good things we had been able to see on Peter's Island.

For now, though, I just wanted to celebrate and I came up to Beverly's side and threw my left arm around her shoulders. "Happy birthday!" I said excitedly.

As soon as she sees Jamie, Beverly breaks into a grin. There are times it still catches her by surprise that she actually has friends here, that she's liked, and that seems especially so at a time like this. With Jamie, though, it just makes sense. It always has, practically since they first met, years ago now. Celebrating her birthday without him would simply have felt wrong.

"Thanks," she says, leaning into him, wrapping an arm around him in turn. "I'm glad you made it." All of this was pretty spontaneous, she knows, the better to keep it low key. Still, that could easily have backfired, and she's more than a little relieved that it didn't.

I made a face at Beverly and said, "Of course."

She had been my very first friend in Darrow. Maybe not my first friend ever, not after Sal and Charlie, but it still felt like it sometimes. Sal was gone, buried on the Island, and Charlie... well, Charlie was a pirate, I knew, alongside some other version of myself. But Beverly and I were here and she was the friend I was experiencing all this life with now.

"You can't think for a second I'd miss it," I said, then grinned. "Or that Eddie would let me if I tried, which I wouldn't."

"Good point," Beverly says with a laugh. She wouldn't have questioned that either of them would be here, really, unless they had some previous plans. So close to Valentine's Day, she wouldn't have been able to blame them if they did. Her being so grateful that people have shown up has far less to do with them, though, and more to do with the part of her that's still always a little astonished that people care that much about her.

"I didn't want to do something big," she adds, an explanation of sorts. "Just to be around friends."

"I think that's the best kind of birthday," I answered. My first party had been a rather big affair, at least in part because Magnus had made it seem as if I ought to go all out when having my very first party, and I had loved it. Every second had seemed impossibly perfect and I had spent the entire day truly feeling how lucky I was.

But I didn't think I would ever have such a big event again. Not for a birthday.

"Have any grown ups asked you what it feels like to be eighteen now?" I asked, grinning as if I were sharing a secret. "Even though it feels mostly like the day before, when you were still seventeen?"

"Pretty much all of them," Beverly confirms, letting out a laugh as she nods. "Even though, yeah, it's not all that different from yesterday." Any differences she does feel are, she's pretty sure, just because she knows she should, not a product of turning eighteen but of her own awareness of the date's significance. Exciting as it is, it's not the same as it would have been back home, where becoming an adult would have meant finally being able to get out on her own, not living under anyone else's control anymore. Here, she has stability, she's actually fucking happy. She's just not considered a kid anymore.

"I mean, it's a big birthday. But it's not like I woke up today just going, Ooh, wow, I'm an adult now."

"You can drink alcohol now, which you've never done before, of course," I said, my eyes comically wide before I broke into a grin. It was funny, the way grownups seemed to think turning eighteen suddenly made everything different. I was glad Beverly seemed to agree.

"Do you want to open your present?" I asked. "I know you said it wasn't really a party, but I still wanted to get something for you."

I knew Eddie had done the same thing, too. We weren't going to let this go by without celebrating it properly.

"Oh, clearly," Beverly replies, her smile widening. They both know perfectly well that isn't the truth, of course, but that doesn't make it any less significant to be able to do so legally now, not relying on skeevy bartenders who wouldn't card a girl batting her eyelashes at him or the cheap shit people bring to high school parties. It makes it fun to joke about, too, taking some of the weight out of it.

Right now, though, presents supersede drinks. It doesn't really even matter all that much — she wouldn't have expected or asked for people to bring her gifts — but that isn't going to stop her from enjoying what's here. "I do, yeah," she says. "Show me, show me."

As often happened when I gave someone a gift, I was suddenly overcome with nerves, but I passed Beverly the small box all the same. I hooked my hands behind my back, my actual hook around my left wrist, and then rocked back and forth on my toes a little, waiting for her to untie the ribbon and open the box.

The mermaid keychain was pretty and delicate, but the woman at the store assured me it was strong enough to be shoved in a bag or in a pocket.

"Because... because not all of Peter's Island was so bad," I explained. "And I'm glad you got to see the pretty parts."

Beverly has gotten few enough presents in her life that she never really knows what to expect when she opens one here. The mermaid keychain is particularly surprising, though, glinting prettily when it catches the light. Even before Jamie explains, she thinks she gets it, too. Maybe not precisely what prompted him to choose this specific gift, but the general idea, at least. He wouldn't have picked something like this accidentally or without thinking it through.

Smiling, she leans forward to give him a hug, careful not to smush her present in the meantime. "I love it," she says. "And I'm glad I got to see the pretty parts, too." Being on that island may have been a fairly horrific experience, but she doesn't regret all of it. There's something nice about getting to see where her friend spent so long, and parts of it really were beautiful.

I smiled, hugging Beverly tight, my chin on top of her head for a moment. I was so much taller than everyone now, but I didn't feel any different than them, or like I stood apart. They were still mine, the family I had chosen, the one that had chosen me.

"The lady at the store said it's strong enough to be in your bag or your pocket," I told her. "So you don't have to worry about breaking it or anything. I mean, if you want to you use."

I thought she would. I hoped she would. But sometimes my mouth just said the things the scared part of my brain still felt.

"Oh, I definitely want to use it," Beverly assures him quickly, head tipped up so she can shoot him a grin. It's annoying — in the way where it's really kind of funny, actually — how much taller than her he is now. The same goes for nearly all of her friends, in fact. Even Eddie probably has about half a foot on her, and if there's any downside to being eighteen now, it's that she can rule out any belated growth spurts. The height she's at now is where she'll stay.

It really doesn't matter, though, aside from being something for her to tease her friends about before they can tease her. Later, though. "It's so pretty. And now there's no way I could lose my keys."

I laughed and said, "I wanted something pretty and useful."

I knew Eddie had gotten her a necklace and I didn't mean the necklace wasn't useful. It seemed so meaningful and that in itself was so important, but a necklace, it felt more intimate. Something that was meant to be shared between Beverly and the friends who had been through everything with her. I knew she would love Eddie's gift, too.

"Now do we get to have official drinks together?" I asked, my smile growing brighter. I didn't drink often, but I was certainly going to buy her a drink tonight.

"Obviously," Beverly says brightly. She isn't much of a drinker, really, and up until now, has often done so just because of the thrill in getting away with something she shouldn't be able to do. This is a special occasion, though — being able to order for herself and not having to worry about being carded. She picked this place in large part for that reason, so she could drink without having to make today about drinking, not wanting to leave out Hopper or her friends who are still underage.

"I don't even know what to order now that it's not just whatever I can get away with."

"Something fancy," I said, even though I didn't really know what that might entail. I didn't like drinking very much, I thought beer tasted kind of gross, and wine wasn't much better. Champagne was good, but that felt like a special event sort of drink, and that was the extent of my experience.

"Maybe we should ask the bartender," I suggested. "I still don't order drinks very often."

Eddie and I didn't eat out a lot, we tried to budget and save our money, but tonight was special. We had put aside money just to treat Bev.

"Alright, let's do it," Beverly says with a laugh. It's as good an idea as any, and if she doesn't like what winds up being suggested, there's no reason she can't get something else instead. Drinks are by no means cheap, so she knows she can't go overboard in that regard, but it is her birthday. She might as well try something new, give herself a chance to really figure out what she likes.

Clasping Jamie's hand, she leads him over to the bar. It's quiet, fortunately, so it isn't hard to find a place to stand or to get the bartender's attention. "Hi," she says, just a little awkward, flustered in a way she didn't expect to be when it's not like she hasn't drank before. "What would you recommend for a special occasion? It's my birthday."

For a moment, before he seemed to notice me, the bartender's eyes went over Beverly in a way I found a little creepy, although that may have just been that Beverly was like a sister to me. Then he took in our joined hands, my height, and the hook at the end of my other hand, and his gaze shifted abruptly.

I felt strange about that, too, because we were just friends. Holding hands didn't mean he couldn't still flirt with her if he wanted to.

Mostly I found flirting and dating all very confusing.

"Is your friend buying?" the bartender asked and I nodded. The bartender grinned and said, "Then something expensive. A French martini. I think you'll like it."

For just a moment, Beverly isn't quite sure what to do or how she feels, torn between liking the positive attention and being too used to guys being fucking creeps. She learned the prevalence of that far too young. At least this time, although she's only a few hours on the right side of eighteen, he isn't eyeing someone who's obviously a child. The bartender seems to shift focus quickly, anyway, which helps. If he were just leering at her, she would be feeling very different.

Even if he were, she's surrounded by friends — family, really — the only people she's ever told about the worst parts of her past. None of them would let anything happen, Jamie included.

"Alright, I'll try that, then," she says with a bright smile. "Sounds like as good a place to start as any."

"Two of those, please," I said, because although I had no idea what a French martini was, I thought I should have one as well. We could make a toast. Or we could just drink our expensive drinks and have a good time.

I paid the bartender and then dropped a tip in the beer glass they used as a tip jar.

When he delivered our drinks, I picked them both up and handed one to Beverly, grinning at her. "I hope it tastes good," I said, because I had no idea what we were about to drink.

"Me too," Beverly says with a laugh, taking the glass from Jamie and then lifting it slightly. Just holding a glass like this feels fancy, kind of like when she's managed to sneak a glass of champagne on New Year's. It's the sort of thing that she suspects will wear off sooner rather than later, even when she doesn't expect to do a whole lot of drinking. For now, though, there's a thrill just in being able to do this legally, and not just grabbing a beer at a party or whatever. "Cheers."

She takes a sip then, thoughtful as she does so. "It's good," she decides. "Sweeter than I expected, but good."

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