Bleeding: Rooftops

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Marius pushed the door open, thinking even how he did how wholly pathetic this was. Young, rich, and in a foreign country, and what was the plan for tonight? The roof of the hotel with a bottle of alcohol and a straw. Well, Marius thought as the hot summer air hit what skin was still exposed on his face. Always did wonder what rock bottom was like.

Not that he had anything else to do. No club tonight, and he couldn't even bring himself to care. He hadn't really enjoyed the experience in months. It was a necessity. Marius was sick of necessity.

The next obvious step was to ask Manuel, but he'd been acting as transition-donor for weeks. He needed the break, too. So they were all taking the evening off, and that was almost a relief, but since he wasn't feeding all he had to fill the night was the heat on his face and shadows where he knew the world should be. Discomfort, and distortion, and always, always, the steady, relentless rasp of the respirator around his neck. In and out, over and over, until the sound of his own breathing made him want to scream.

And then there was tomorrow.

Marius' fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle as he stepped onto the roof. Sod that. Drown it.

Too bad the roof of the hotel was already occupied. Jennie sat on the shallow incline near one of the eaves of the windows, with two bottles of cheap wine and a few stolen cigarettes from Manuel. Taking the night off had been her idea, but Manuel had ended up pushing Marius for it. Jennie was wearing down, slowly but surely, and they all needed the break. Jennie was having trouble sleeping during the night, and her appetite had all but dried up. Without sufficient fuel, her powers began to turn on her body for its source. Jennie was starting to become noticeably thinner and paler.

She took a drag off the purloined cigarette, letting the smoke burn her throat before exhaling slowly. She'd quit back in January, after enduring months of constant nagging from Marius. She hated to fall back on old bad habits, but she was stressed out and quite drunk, so she didn't care anymore.

Then she jumped guiltily and palmed the cigarette when she heard the door to the roof slam behind her.

There was an uncomfortable moment as boy and girl stared at each other, mutually nonplussed by the unexpected company. Then Marius cleared his throat.

"Oi, Jen," he said, subtlety attempting to convey through nonchalant bodylanguage that in spite of appearances he had not in fact come to the roof with an unopened bottle of Polish vodka and every intention of finishing it himself, "thought at this hour you'd be sleepin' the sleep of the virtuous."

Jennie was about to reply, but the cigarette burned the inside of her palm. "Ow, sonofabitch," she hissed, shaking her hand vigorously to rid it of the stinging pain. She caught Marius's look at what she was holding in her other hand and shrugged guiltily before flinging the offending cigarette away.

"'S what I get for doing that again. Stupid karma." Her words were only slightly slurred, having drunk only most of the first bottle of wine. She looked back up at Marius, blue eyes meeting orange. "Couldn't sleep, decided to relax," she smiled a bit and waved the almost-finished bottle at him.

Marius' brow wrinkled in disapproval as his attention automatically fixed on the glowing cigarette butt as it arced and bounced across the roof. "Ah, Jen, you know those things do you no good. You were at what, eight months the last go?" He shook his head and settled on the incline some distance away from her, bottle scraping against the concrete. "It's Manuel's bad influence, isn't it? Suppose it's our own fault. We were warned he was a corruptor of youth."

"Speak for yourself," Jennie retorted, peering owlishly at the bottle in his hand. "That's Polish vodka, isn't it? That's like what? Drinking gasoline?" She took another swig out of her bottle, wiping her mouth with a pale wrist. "And I only smoked two," she added lamely.

"My choice of alcohol is perfectly acceptable," Marius said with great dignity. He gestured to the bottles at her side. "You are not one to disparage. How did you come to that remarkable vintage, then? Did they not have the champagne in a box you fancy so much? You should settle on either lungs or liver. Body is a temple an' that. Vandalize only the one part per go."

"Meow," Jennie replied, "Aren't your boxers in a twist?" She polished off the first bottle and then flung it out towards the roof of the building across the street, clapping her hands and cheering when she heard the satisfying smash. She reached for the other and began unscrewing the top.

"To answer scathing comment number one, they had screwtops and I wanted to be in a state where handling a corkscrew would become impossible. And two, you and Julia would have gotten along astonishingly well." Her voice adopted a higher pitch as she mimicked her friend, "'Jesus, Jen, you have got to stop that. You keep hacking up lung butter and you're turning your bronchial tubes into beef jerky. Do you want me to show you those pictures again?' Nag nag nag..." She finally opened the second bottle and took a drink.

Marius snorted. "She was clearly a woman of intelligence. Pity she's not here. Perhaps the might of our combined common sense would make an impact."

"Pity, that," Jennie said quietly, unconsciously mimicking her friend's speech patterns. "I'd give anything to see her again. 'S been over a year, and I don't ever stop missing her." She scrubbed her eyes irritably, there would be no crying tonight. Not now.

The power he'd gotten from Manuel at the last donation had almost run through his system, but a purple-blue thread of sorrow still tugged at the edge of Marius' vision. Belatedly, the name registered -- pictures Jennie had shown him once of her and a girl with frizzy brown hair streaked with blue. Julia, her friend. The dead one.

"Well," Marius said, suddenly feeling very stupid and not a bit uncomfortable, "not much to be done for that, but if necessary I should think I make a passable girlfriend. If nothing else, I am always prepared to volunteer my excellent taste in shoes."

"You are totally my gay boyfriend," Jennie said softly. The silence passed, while a warm breeze ruffled Jennie's bangs.

"Julia was so bright," she said finally, "the kindest, sweetest person I ever met. People like her, they don't get to stay. They burn out too quickly, or get snuffed out."

"Right." Marius stared at the hand on the bottle he held, a black smear in the darkness. "But that's life, yeah?" he said quietly. "The good never does stay."

"No," Jennie said sadly, "No it never does." She stretched out from where she had almost curled in on herself, leaning back on her elbows. Paris sparkled out before them, the night quiet except for the mild sounds of traffic and Marius's respirator.

Sod it. Marius cracked the bottle's seal and slotted the straw in. He didn't eat or drink in public anymore. He just didn't. He couldn't live on marrow alone, but working around the respirator was messy, and complicated, and on the whole not worth the effort. The last time he'd bothered to put anything in his stomach had been this morning.

Some moments, however, you really didn't need to be sober for, and if this wasn't one of them he didn't know what was. Marius pushed the straw under the lip of his respirator, navigated it between heat-cracked lips, and took a drink.

Jennie heard Marius cough and turned to see him shudder, and then take another drink. Jennie winced in sympathy, and then took another drink herself. She was pushing past the warm state of drunk into the state where it felt like her head was underwater.

"Say what you will about," she paused and squinted at the label, "whatever the hell this is. At least I will still have stomach lining." She then snorted, remembering something. "Reminds me of the time I had the flu and you and Manny got in a argument trying to recommend the best alcohol to kill it."

"Yes. I offered you impeccable advice, which I am now myself taking." The burn was hideous, and against a dry throat it was even worse. Fortunately after the first few sips his mouth went numb. The aftertaste was another matter, but on an empty stomach he wouldn't be noticing that for long. Marius took another sip, eyes fixed on the street below. "Wonder how the rest of that lot're gettin' on. Must be lost without us. Days dull and listless. Shouldn't wonder Forge doesn't even bother leavin' the lab."

Jennie was in the middle of a drink when Marius mentioned Forge's name, and she jerked, inhaling the wine. She put the bottle down between her bare feet and coughed violently. "Oh, geez, Forge," she gasped, "I completely forgot. Fuck," she hacked again, "Ow, it went up my nose."

Marius smirked around his straw. "Ah, don't tell me you've forgotten your fair suitor -- but then, I suppose it's only natural. Difficulty singlin' out the one face among the droves an' that." His head tilted slightly as she continued to cough, a dreadlock falling into his face. "Here, go easy. Lungs've seen torment enough tonight."

"Oh, bite me," Jennie wheezed. She took another drink to see if that would settle things. "Ugh. No, I was supposed to do. . .something. Crap. I forget again. I'll remember it when 'm less drunk, I suppose." She weaved a little unsteadily. "Head's all mushy now."

"Yes, where you are concerned less drunk would not be a bad idea," Marius said, happy to notice he was currently heading in the opposite direction. However, he was discovering it was difficult to manipulate a numb tongue around the slender tube running down his throat. Maybe more vodka would wake it up.

"In my experience," he continued thickly as Jennie wobbled up from her perch, "the inebriated phonecall? Never a good move. Often they lead to the incoherent confession of dire secrets. He's a fragile boy, Forge. May not survive the truth of your terrible past."

"My terrible past," Jennie declared as she stood unsteadily, "Is none of his frigging business. Anything I told you is to be kept in the strictest of confidences. No sense in him knowing he's dating trash." She weaved over to Marius, arms outstretched for balance. "Hold that," she said, thrusting the bottle at him. "'M going for a walk," she enunciated carefully.

The words were punctuated by a pat on his head. Marius blinked and looked up to regard his friend dully, suddenly finding himself with a bottle in each hand.

"My lips're sealed," he replied as Jennie turned to stagger off. "You now, you should call it in for the night. No worries" he hefted the wine bottle to shake after her, "your vaguely horrifying vintage is safe with me."

"Merci beacoup, Marius. No, not callin' it a night. Not yet. Gonna clear my head. A walk to clear m'brain." Jennie sing-songed. She wobbled carefully down the incline, arms out like she was walking a tightrope. "Une annee sans lumieres. . .je monte un cheval. . .qui porte des oeilleres," she sang softly to herself. Jennie paused unsteadily, near the lip of the roof. "Why the fuck would you ride a horse without blinkers? 'S what that means right? Oeilleres?"

She gave an exaggerated shrug, and was about to turn to walk back up the incline, but the movement was too quick for her inebriated state and she lost her balance, about to slip and fall the seven stories to the street below.

Later he didn't know what made him move -- mutant prescience, or the unsteadiness in her gait pinging some kind of internal trigger, or just predictive intuition grown from too many nights with too many friends under the influence -- but whatever the case Marius was already pushing to her feet as Jennie made her misstep. The world blurred around him as he surged forward and Between, the bottles that fell from his hands a distant memory. A momentary sensation of darkness and heat, and then the distance was closed and he was out the other side again. Marius' outstretched hand slapped against Jennie's arm as his feet hit solid concrete again, and the momentum he'd begun the teleport with staggered them back and off the incline, safely away from the edge.

"Well, hope you're bloody satisfied," Marius panted as they stumbled to a halt on level concrete, hand still locked around her arm and heart pounding in his ears, "I sodding hate doin' that."

Jennie stumbled and clutched at Marius's shirt, desperately trying to regain her balance. Trembling slightly, Jennie looked up at him, and then reached up and pulled the straw out of his respirator. "My hero," she said weakly. Then she sneezed from the smell of the sulfur.

"Bloody right I am." The adrenaline had flushed the pleasant buzz right out of his system, but he still felt a defiant surge of pride. Jennie's arm was bare against the teeth of his palm, but even halfway to drunk and running on reflex he hadn't bitten her. Not that far gone. Never that far gone.

"Bed for you now," Marius said firmly. He maneuvered her upright again, slowly relaxing the grip on her arm though not surrendering the support. He nodded his head toward the edge of the roof and the Parisian night below them. "No whinging or tearful denials. You, mademoiselle, are pissed off your arse. The nearly plummeting to your hideous death would be what we call a sign."

"But I'm not sleepy!" Jennie protested. Adrenaline was running through her system, not enough to kill the drunk, but enough to where she was still shaking. "I need to sit down, and calm down. Heart's going to pound out of my chest." She shrugged out of his grip and sat down heavily, with her head in her hands. "World's spinnin' a bit."

"Right, so long as there's no more roof-divin'. I do not guarantee a second trip through the firey hell-dimension on your behalf. Couldn't exactly take you through if you went over anyway, you needin' skin an' all."

Marius remained standing, watching her where she sat with her face cradled in her hands. After a moment he turned away, looking instead at the lights of the city below them. "But here, Jen -- thanks. For bein' here with me. It's . . . thanks."

Jennie shivered violently for a moment, lifting her head and rubbing her arms, as the realization to how close she had come to death finally hit her. Then Marius's words penetrated the fuzz of her brain, in spite of the uncomfortable drunk and near-death experience. They had to, it was the first time he had ever thanked her.

"Yeah," she said, "I'm here, to walk off rooftops and have you burn your clothes to save me." She looked up to where his back was turned. "Anytime," she added softly.

"Thanks," he said again, softly, then, after a beat, looked down at his clothing. As jaunts went he'd done worse, but they were definitely seared. He himself had hardly felt the passage; there was just the barest hint of unnatural coolness against his skin. At least the new step in his mutation was worth something.

Marius flicked the dreadlocks away from his face, and when next he spoke his tone was once again airy. "No worries. Didn't think much of the shirt anyway. Now, let's go get you poured into your room. I'd like to have a go at sleep before tomorrow's errand, an' the sooner you do the same the sooner you can enjoy what is certain to be a truly fantastic hangover."

Resignedly, Jennie lifted her arms for Marius to pull her up. She stumbled slightly when he got her to her feet, but kept her balance. "Oh yes, I should have thought of that when I bought that crap, wine hangovers're the worst." She let herself be supported on the way to the door. "'M sorry about the almost falling off the roof thing," she paused, then added, "God, you stink. . ."

"So I hear." The filtered air of his respirator rasped as Marius negotiated the doorhandle, holding up his friend with his other arm. "But as I have just saved your life, I want no comments about a lingering odour of sulfur. Manuel's complaints have already been duly noted. Tell you what: I'll put extra effort into the personal hygiene tomorrow. Just for you."

"You're such a sweetheart."

The door to the roof clanged shut behind them. The next day, Jennie would feel extremely embarrassed about the events on the roof. But for now, she allowed Marius to force water and aspirin on her, and put her to bed.