Back at the boys' place - the prequel

[Youngbritishbitch]

This is designed to be read after the story it is a prequal for. There isnt a whole lot of fighting in this part, more just the story of how 2 girls that didnt know each other ended up back at a flat shared by two guys...
The fight part of the story was written before I had the idea for this. The feel of Emma and Liz is a bit different between the stories. But i am ok with that. It shows everyone has their own story sees everything their own way, everyone has their own truth...and as always if you cant vibe with that write your own perfect error free story rather than dissing mine...

Part 1. Emma, Saturday morning...

I wake up with the same heavy blanket of *nothing* pressing down on my chest. It's Saturday morning, light seeping through my cheap blinds in a way that feels accusatory. I've felt this way for days--a low-grade hum of malaise that makes everything seem coated in grey fuzz. I'm Emma, nineteen, at university, and currently winning at life by being 5'2", built like a sparrow, and sporting a nest of curly black hair that even Charlie XCX on her wildest day would side-eye.

Last night, my friends finally dragged me out. "You need to shake it off, Em!" I let them convince me, a decision I replayed on a loop as I lay awake in the dark.

I hadn't dressed for an occasion. I dressed for armor: my oldest, softest blue jeans, a baggy black hoodie for a band no one's heard of, and my trusty leather jacket. Comfort wear. My plan was simple: drink until the fun kicked in. It never did.

The Student Union is a beast of a building. I'd been lurking in The Dungeon, the basement bar, where the darkness felt like a hug. Giving up, I decided to bail early. Taking the stairs to the ground floor, I entered the long, neon-lit corridor that always feels like a runway.

To my left, a room pulsed with thumping dance music. To my right, another throbbed with rock anthems. And ahead, the grand staircase led up to what I privately call the Posh Princess Bar--bright, spacious, with a glittering mile-long bar. It's where all the glossy people go to see and be seen. My goal was invisibility.

Hood up, gaze locked on the scuffed linoleum floor, I became a ghost. As I passed the foot of the princess bar stairs, my peripheral vision caught a small cluster of people. I only saw them from the thighs down. My eyes refused to lift. But one detail burned into my brain: a pair of bubblegum-pink jeans.

*Who even wears pink jeans?* I thought, a spike of petty disdain cutting through the fog. *What a fake wannabe.*

My internal monologue was interrupted by a commotion ahead. Venue security, broad-shouldered in black polos, were blocking most of the corridor, acting as a human wall between two seething groups. The angry shouts were primarily from two girls, their voices sharp as broken glass. A fight, or the messy aftermath of one.

All I wanted was to get to the exit. Mumbling a series of "excuse me's," I tried to slip through the narrow gap between a security guard's back and the wall. One of the arguing girls was especially mouthy, her voice dripping with a performative rage, shouting curses that seemed designed for an audience.

A shocking, visceral thought sliced through me: *I wish I could just punch you in the face to make you shut up.* The violence of it startled me, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth. I pushed through, finally bursting out into the cool, rainy night.

The walk home was a slow, wet sobering-up. The rain felt cleaner than the stale beer smell of the union. But the quiet of my bed was worse. Sleep was a country I had no visa for. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks I knew by heart. I heard my flatmates stumble in an hour later, their whispered giggles and clattering attempts at quiet in the kitchen like a sitcom I wasn't in. I didn't call out. I just lay there, marinating in my own static.

At 5:10 a.m., the glow of my phone painted the room blue. No notifications. Just the time, a stark digital confirmation of the night I'd wasted. I must have fallen asleep sometime after that, because the next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning, and the heavy blanket was still there, waiting for me.

Part 2. Liz, Saturday morning

The morning light filters through my mismatched curtains, painting stripes of gold across my rumpled duvet. I stretch, a slow, cat-like unfurling, and smile at the ceiling. No hammering in my temples, no desert-dry mouth. Just the pleasant, fizzy echo of a good night out. Two years ago, I cracked the code: a strategic, pre-sleep visit to the porcelain throne after a night on the booze equals a clear-headed morning. Genius, if I do say so myself.

I sit up, running my fingers through my long, dark blonde hair. It still smells faintly of my fancy coconut shampoo and argan oil conditioner, a small victory after a night in a smoke-and-sweat-filled union. My gaze falls on the floor, where my favourite pink jeans are pooled in a sad heap. Right. The stain. Some over-enthusiastic dancer with a vodka-cranberry had baptised them on the way to The Lounge. A minor casualty of war.

It *had* been a good night. Laughing until my sides ached with Sophie and Maya, singing horribly off-key to cheesy anthems, feeling the bass from The Lounge thrum through the floorboards of the entire student union. My little tribe. My heart feels full just thinking about them.

Then, the memory surfaces, not with a bang, but a quiet, persistent tap on my conscience.

We were leaving Lush, that wine-bar place with the sticky floors, heading for the proper beats of The Lounge. Coming down the stairs, we got stuck in a bottleneck at the bottom. A security team was a human wall, holding back two groups posturing and shouting, the air thick with spilled beer and people being a bit twaty.. We paused, watching the aftermath with the detached amusement of bystanders.

That's when I saw her.

A girl, trying to weave through the scrum. She looked so small, swallowed by an oversized black hoodie, the hood pulled up, and a battered leather jacket. I couldn't see her face at all--just a glimpse of jeans and scuffed trainers. But I knew. I don't know how, but I *knew* with absolute certainty that she was sad. A deep, hollow kind of sad that seemed to radiate from her, making the noisy chaos around her feel like a cruel parody.

My feet had itched to move. I don't like seeing people sad. It's a physical thing for me, a twist in my gut. I was about to push forward, to tap on that leather-clad shoulder and ask if she was okay, when she slipped through a gap in the bodies and vanished into the dark corridor leading outside, swallowed by the night.

I hadn't thought of her again last night. The music, the lights, my friends--they'd pulled me back into the bubble. But now, sitting cross-legged in my softest pyjamas, the silence of my room feels heavy. I hope she's okay. Wherever she is. I send the thought out into the universe, a little silent wish for a stranger in a hoodie.

The memory of her is quickly shoved aside by a cringier, more immediate recollection. Bryan. Oh, *Bryan*.

My pal Bryan, with his nice smile and questionable dance moves, had cornered me near the speakers in The Lounge. The music was pounding, and he'd leaned in, shouting something I couldn't hear, before going in for a snog. I'd turned my head at the last second, so his lips landed awkwardly on my cheek. I'd laughed it off, patted his shoulder, and melted back into the crowd with Maya.

Now, I bury my face in my hands. What did I do? Did I laugh too much at his jokes at pre-drinks? Did I agree to dance with him for one too many songs? I mentally replay the entire evening, scanning for any flicker of flirtation, any signal I might have accidentally sent. Did I touch his arm when I was talking? Compliment his shirt? I come up blank. Nothing. Nada. Just me, being my usual friendly self, which apparently, to Bryan, translated into: *Please, attempt to bypass my personal space.*

The warm glow of the morning is now tinged with the mild annoyance of social ambiguity. I sigh, flopping back onto my pillows. The sad girl in the hoodie, the stained pink jeans, the misguided snog attempt--they're all fragments of the night, pieces of a story that felt so straightforward while it was happening.

I decide the only solution is a giant mug of tea and a debrief call with Sophie. She'll dissect the Bryan situation with forensic precision, and we'll laugh until the weirdness fades. As for the girl... I'll probably never know her story. But I hope, wherever she is this morning, she has someone to make her a cup of tea, too. And I hope Bryan checks his interpretations of friendly banter. Some mysteries are simpler to solve than others.


Part 3 Gordon and Dave, Saturday afternoon.
The afternoon sun, a weak and watery thing, was already beginning to sink when Gordon and Dave finally collided in the grimy kitchen of their shared flat. The air was thick with the stale, sweet smell of last night's spilled beer and something earthier that clung to Dave's clothes. They moved with the careful, deliberate slowness of men nursing both a hangover and a deep-seated resentment.

"Total washout," Gordon grunted, slumping into a chair that groaned in protest. His eyes were bloodshot, not just from fatigue, but from the hours spent staring at the small, bright screen of his phone, a world of performative intimacy that felt more real to him than the one outside.

Dave merely nodded, a plume of smoke escaping his lips as he leaned against the counter. "Union was dead. Zero talent."

It was a lie they both silently agreed to uphold. The truth was a gallery of averted eyes, polite but firm rejections, and the cold, clear laughter of women who saw right through them. The memory was a bruise they wouldn't acknowledge.

Gordon's face lit up with a mean little spark. "Did you see that scrap? In The Lounge? Two birds going at it before security ruined it."

Dave's lips curled. "Should've let them carry on. Might've been worth watching then. See a bit of actual... action." He dragged on his joint, imagining fabric tearing. "Who d'you think would've won? The blonde or the one with the dark hair?"

They bickered pointlessly for a minute, assigning fictional strengths and weaknesses to women they'd never spoken to. The argument wasn't about the girls; it was about asserting their own imagined superiority in judging them.

"We should've followed them," Gordon mused, a predatory glint in his eye. "See if it kicked off outside. Could've offered them our place. You know, to settle it out of the rain."

The idea landed in the fug of Dave's mind and took root, ugly and fast. A slow, unpleasant smile spread across his face. "Getting two birds back here to fight... that would be next level. But not mates. Mates would just bitch and make up. We need proper jealousy. Real heat."

A plan began to coagulate in the greasy air between them. They'd go out tonight, but separately--they always had more "luck" apart, which meant they were slightly less repellent as solo acts than as a combined unit of desperation. The objective, however, was no longer just to "pull." It was to engineer a conflict.

"But how do we get them to actually fight?" Dave pondered, the logistics of manipulation now fully holding his interest.

Gordon's eyes darted around the cluttered living room, landing on a dusty cardboard box peeking out from under the sofa. "The old boxing gloves. From our Freshers' Week 'boxing social'." The event had been a disaster, a pathetic attempt to look rugged that had ended with Dave spraining his wrist throwing a wild punch at a heavy bag.

"We leave them out," Gordon said, the words slick with calculation. "Somewhere they'll be seen. A talking point."

"Yeah," Dave agreed, nodding slowly. "But it can't look planned. Has to look like... like we just forgot them. Like we're the kind of guys who have boxing gloves just lying around." He seemed to genuinely believe this fabricated persona was alluring.

They plotted with the intensity of generals, their conversation a low, toxic murmur. They'd identify their targets, flirt with them separately, drop subtle, poisonous compliments about the other. *'Oh, you're so much more easy-going than that other girl I was chatting to.'* *'She seemed kinda high-maintenance, you're way more fun.'* They'd stoke the embers of insecurity they assumed every woman carried, fanning them into flames of rivalry.

A dark, practical question finally surfaced from Gordon. "What if it doesn't work? What if they show no interest in fighting? What if they just... laugh?"

Dave was silent for a long moment, the only sound the faint sizzle of his joint. He took a final drag, exhaling a cloud that seemed to shroud his features. When he spoke, his voice was calm, matter-of-fact, and utterly chilling.

"Then we don't let up. Girls are always jealous of each other. It's in their DNA. We just keep playing them. We whisper. We compare. We make sure they know they're in competition. For us. We keep at it until they want to fight. Until they *need* to prove which one of them is better." He stubbed out the end, the finality of the gesture mirroring his words. "They'll do the work for us. They always do."

The kitchen fell quiet. The plan was set. It wasn't about attraction, or connection, or even simple, crude desire. It was about turning human emotion into a spectator sport for their own barren entertainment. As the last of the daylight bled from the sky, Gordon and Dave, best friends and partners in a very specific kind of grime, began to get ready, their movements now animated by a purpose that was, in every possible way, unwholesome.

Part 4 - Liz, Saturday night
Liz liked to feel good on a night out, feel sexy. Thats how she felt looking in the mirror. Tight black trousers. She felt her bum looked amazing in them. A simple tight pink vest that accentuated her boobs. She couldnt pull off mini skirts, not with her ugly knees. And long skirts made her feel she was turning into her mum. As for skimpy tops that barely covered her boobs...just no. She felt ridiculous in those. And ridiculous isnt sexy. She never went out toimpress, let alone pull. She had had one night stands but those were just...accidents.
Later in The Lounge she is dancing oblivious to the boys eyeing her up. Only a quick loo break can interupt the dancing. Her friends know she will be there until closing, they head back up to Lush, planning to return for her later. Si bumps into Dave. No, he wont be back in Lush later and he doesnt have anything left anyway. Liz feels thirsty. Grabs a free bottle of water from the bar but cant find her friends when she looks for them. She sees the white powder guy, remembers him from earlier. He asks if she is looking for someone. She says her friends. He hasnt seen them but she can hang with him for a bit. He has a bit more powder. She takes him off to dance. They leave before closing. She lets him take a photo of her outside the union on his phone. She doesnt notice him sending it to someone on whatsapp or the vile messa?e captioning it.

Part 5 - Emma, Saturday night.

She had spent an hour that afternoon wrapped in Abi's arms, crying. She didnt know what this feeling was. There was sadness. But also a rage. Felt she was going to self destruct. Abi helped as good as she could but she had never had to be someones support blanket before. "We need to get you laid" was one of her pearls of wisdom. She didnt want to go out tonight really, but again let herself be talked into it. Abi had also decided Emmas tight black tshirt was fine but the black jeans had to go. In its place, Abi's tiniest micro skirt. Abi also insisted Emma wore the matching red pushup bra and thong set Emma had bought ages ago. It was still basically new. She felt self conscious that her boobs were too small. But then the bra made her self conscious about people she knew, who knew she had smaller boobs, and what they would feel that said about her trying to impress. Abi knew Emma was hesitating again, so rushed them out.
They started in the dungeon. At different times she got approached by guys wanting to talk to her skirt. Not her. Her skirt. She tried but just couldnt be welcoming to them.
Up to the Outsiders, the rock club night upstairs oposite The Lounge. There werent any tables left but a couple of areas were left for people to sit around on the grubby floor. She tried dancing but wasnt feeling it. Went and sat on the floor. A guy slumped down beside her. Asked if she was ok. She mumbled something about being tired. She noticed his tshirt. A band she liked. She mentioned it, they spoke a bit about music. He wasnt really her type but he seemed sorta nice. Though she couldnt quite remember what he said his name was. Her gang came back and sat around her. She felt Abi watching her. Remembered Abi's words..."we need to get you laid." She blurted out to him "so are we gettin outta here or what?"

Part 6 - Dave, Saturday night.

He is in Lush, but not happy about that twat Si asking if he had any stuff on him. He isnt a dealer. But Si's girlfriend was hot, so he gave them a little so she would realise he is a bit dangwrous, a bad boy.
Later, he has been dancing for a while in The Lounge. He sees Si's girl dancing, seems to be on her own. A couple of guys seem to be trying to get to dance with her. She either ignores them or is just so lost in the music and powder she doesnt realise they are there.
He feels a vibration in his pocket. Leaves the dancefloor to check it. A message from Gordon. Rather, a photo of a bird in a tiny skirt showing off the crotch of her red knickers. "You in there?" he texts back? Gives it a few seconds, no immediate reply, so he puts the phone away and goes sharking around the room a bit again. He sees Si. Snogging some girls face off. But thats not his gf. They seem to be with all their other pals though. Maybe the dancer isnt his girl after all. He gets a drink. On the way back to the dancefloor Si and his pals are leaving. Si sees him, says they are off up to Lush. Will he be up there later. "Nah. Nothing left anyway mate" he lies. Scouts around a bit more. Tries his luck with a few girls but nothing. Then he sees Si' not girlfriend looking lost. She sees him. He can tell she recognises him. He heads over. No, he doesnt know where they are. He can hang with her though. And he has some stuff left. She beams at this. Pulls him onto the dancefloor.
A bit later she wants to go. He will walk her back as far as he can she lives a few streets further on than him. She kisses him. Outside she lets him photo her. He sends it to Gordon.

Part 7 -Gordon, Saturday night

The night isnt going well. There was a slapper in the Dungeon he liked but she was way out his league. His gran would say she was wearing a belt not a skirt. He tried it onwith a couple other girls down there but nothing so up to Outsiders. After a while she is there too. Dancing. You can see her fucking pants. She must be well dirty. He sneaks a photo, sends it to Dave. He goes sharking but still nothing happens. Then he sees her again, sitting on the floor, back to a wall. She doesnt look happy. Fuck it he has nothing to lose. He can be Mr Nice Guy. He sits beside her. They get talking but she doesnt seem that into him. When her friends came back to join her he was about to cut his losses and go. Then she said " so are we gettin outta here or what?"

[Youngbritishbitch]