log: [Marius and Jennie and Family] - Yeah, Merry Christmas

[x-roulette.livejournal.com]

It's Christmastime in Connecticut, and two of Xavier's finest are busy annoying some of the less likeable members of Jennie's family. Only, the tables get turned on them. The result is definitely not something they'd expected.



"Wow, look at him go," Jennie said, tilting her head like she was watching an exhibition match. "Seriously, his tongue's got to be halfway to her lungs by now." The boy in question was her older half-brother Dorian, who, after bringing some barely-legal Romanian popstar to his father's annual Christmas party, proceeded to exuberantly probe the interiors of her mouth and sides of her face at every given opportunity.

"Call me old fashioned, but I think this one's going to last. Not like that Swedish one, whatshername..." Jennie waved a hand airily. While Christmas was normally time for family, the Niarchos clan did all their family togetherness on Christmas eve. Christmas day was for the extended family, and for any friends in the neighborhood. Which happened to be a lot.

"Truly it is a sight to which I now find myself welling with Christmas Cheer. Or some sort of emotion, at any rate. I am put to mind of the follies of my youth, or, as it is otherwise known, that time when I could still be bothered." Marius smoothed the collar of his wine-red shirt as he made an idle note about the technique of Dorian's date, which involved a regrettable excess of drool. After a month spent entirely in Xavier's-issue sweats it had been fortunate he'd finally made the effort to reacquire a suitable wardrobe, although after Ari's outlining of his function at this gathering a tracksuit had been briefly considered just for value of sheer obnoxiousness. Marius lifted his glass and gave the contents a disparaging look. "You know, it has never before struck me how much less festive cider is sans alcohol content. People are no more attractive now than they were at the start of the night. Present company of course excepted as yours is an unimpeachable beauty that can only increase over time."

"Yes, unfortunately I do have to deal with these people on a semi-regular basis, and I'm pretty sure spending the whole evening drunk would not fly with Dad." While rumors were making the rounds that Ari's 'other daughter' was in attendance, Jennie felt it best to stay low-key and out of the way for her family's sake. Plus she didn't feel like being some sort of exotic exhibit on display.

"Way to go with Grandmama by the way," Jennie added, taking a sip of her own cider, "She's retreated to her room with the whole sherry bottle and nobody's seen her since noon."

The boy smirked. "Yes, who could have foretold that I, of all people, could find it in myself to irritate. Oppressively. To the point there is no means of escape but copious drinking. Absolutely shocking, I tell you."

"There's my little sister!" Dorian was just inebriated enough to where the he was pushing past social grace into drunken belligerent. Jennie rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of irritation," she muttered into her glass as her brother strode up unsteadily behind them. He clapped Marius on the back.

"How're you two doing? Enjoying the festivities?" Dorian was the sort of good-looking boy who could wander in unshaven, in the same clothes he wore yesterday with carpet fibers stuck to his face, and still have every woman in the room cooing over him. And he knew it. Still, it was his indiscretions that had led Jennie to her father, so she owed him some thanks for that. Which is why she only smiled politely at him.

"S'fun," she said, nodding. "I'm having lots of...fun."

Marius beamed maniacally at the older boy, his accent sliding seamlessly from Potentially Advised Elocution Lessons into Unbearably Australian.

"Indeed, mate! Though alas, not as fun as some! Jen's quite tired of holdin' a mop with which to absorb the veritable sopping of my envy." The invasive and extremely heavy touching was received somewhat more easily due to the fact that, unlike Xavier's, he and Jennie were the only ones above baseline human in the room. Marius grinned and raised his free hand to tap the corner of his mouth. "Incidentally, that bit've lipstick just there is not at all to your colourin'."

Jennie barely suppressed her giggles as Dorian, unperturbed, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah," he said, raising his eyebrows suggestively, "That Maxi, she's a wild one."

"I thought her name was Anya?" Jennie said, placing her hand on hip and tilting her head.

"Right!" Dorian said, pointing at Jennie for emphasis. "You're right, God. Anya. Anya's a wild one." He clapped another hand on Marius's shoulder in the drunken male ritual of heavy touching.

"Careful Marius, Anya's shooting you dirty looks." Jennie said wryly. "I think she has competition."

"I'll have you know I am quite irresistible." Completely unfazed, Marius gestured over his shoulder with his glass to the man holding his shoulders. "Except, apparently, to you. Why don't you ever touch me like this anymore?"

Jennie casually inspected her nails. "Like I've told you before darling, you have to earn that kind of touching. I haven't seen any earning lately." Marius had decided to continue his role as Jennie's oppressively foreign boyfriend to the more annoying of Jennie's relatives. Jennie would have denied it outright, but it was too funny to watch.

"Oooh, come on," Dorian said. He released his manhandling of Marius to grab Jennie's shoulder and push her up against Marius. "It's Christmas, have pity on the man," he winked at Marius.

"Alas, yours is a petition without hope, for my mistress is la belle dame sans merci." At the rate the older boy was going and the expression on Jennie's face as she stumbled forward Marius was calculating the odds of how much longer it would be before Dorian was tragically crushed to death beneath a falling chandelier. While not normally one to be troubled by exuberant lechery, Marius wondered the sort of noise Dorian's head would make if he gave it a good smack. However, Jennie's family, Jennie's lead. For the time being he stuck to the part. "The bounds of your cruelty are truly those beyond measure, Jen. You know all I want for Christmas is your Love."

"Careful, mon petit lapin," Jennie said through clenched teeth, "I always save the best for later," she threw a pointed look at her older brother. "And not in front of company," she added sweetly. Yet Dorian wouldn't release her, and she held her hands close to her chest to keep from touching Marius.

"Pfft, I'm family," Dorian said with an evil grin. Jennie was starting to suspect he wasn't as drunk as she originally thought. "Go on, give the man a kiss."

Marius suppressed a wince of anticipation at what long experience had told him the expression on his friend's face was about to lead to. Dorian needed to be stepping away. Quickly. Which, Marius knew, would not be happening. Ah, look. Jen is now approximately thirty seconds from ending her first Christmas with her newfound family on criminal charges.

Jennie's father could certainly have been prevailed upon to provide a voice of quiet reason and firm separation, but unfortunately he was nowhere to be found, and Marius was well aware there was a phenomenal gap between himself and both necessary skills. Time for how he could see to end the harassment, then. In the interest of averting the imminent maiming Marius gave Jennie a broad grin and lay a hand lightly on her shoulder.

"Well then," Marius said, "you heard the man." And leaned in to give Jennie a quick peck on the cheek.

"Fine," Jennie said, turning quickly to give Marius her own peck on his cheek. It was one of those circumstances where one party was trying to anticipate what the other party was doing, while the other party was doing the same. Usually something like this lead to people not being able to step around each other in a narrow hallway. For Jennie and Marius in this instance, they both aimed for the opposite cheek. Only, they missed.

And kissed each other on the lips.

In contrast to some of his suitemates, past or present, Marius was quite familiar with kissing girls. Many girls. For reasons far less virtuous than preventing the violent murder of a half-sibling. "The excitement of discovery" was long since passed; his last few years had been spent happily occupying "that which one does as often as possible."

And yet somehow, despite all his experience, the only thought that arrived in his head when his best friend's cider-tinged mouth hit his full on was:

GAAH!

"There we go! That's what I like to see! Except now with tongue!" Dorian's laughter was abruptly cut off when Jennie punched him in the solar plexus. Dorian folded like a lawn chair.

I...we....ack...with..with...the... The slightly deranged expression Jennie wore was a mix of shock, more shock, and rage directed squarely at Dorian; who she correctly blamed for the mess.

Jennie herself was familiar with kissing. She liked kissing, a whole lot, and was quite good at it. Sadly, kissing her best friend was one of the last things she had ever considered, and was met with the reaction of: "Urk"

"Sorry mate, love proved!" Marius whirled away from the tableau to take a hard swig of the cider still held in one hand, yellow eyes very definitely not on the girl he'd just been kissing and cursing the utter worthlessness of every non-alcoholic beverage known to man, the ones that had been issued to him at this party in particular. Distance was suddenly required. Fast.

Jennie recoiled just as fast, very pointedly looking in the opposite direction and considering giving Dorian a good kick in the ribs to distract from the sudden extreme awkwardness of the whole situation. Thankfully, she was saved by her sister, who came barreling out of the other room.

"Omigod, Jennie, guess what just happened!" Olivia exclaimed, gripping Jennie by the shoulders and pointedly oblivious to the fact that Dorian was still bent over, wheezing.

"What just happened?" Jennie asked dazedly.

"Like, okay so there's this kid I've known since elementary school, right? And we're both sitting on the couch, and he does the stretchy thing to like, put his arm around me? Only he doesn't just put his arm around my shoulders. Next thing I know, his hand is on my boob, and he's honking it!"

The rapid pace of the conversation combined with the unexpected turn of events of the previous few seconds left Jennie only catching the last bit of Olivia's story. "You got your boob honked?"

Marius smiled brightly as he looked from Jennie to Olivia and back again. "Right, so, I need to not be here for the tale of your younger sister's holiday molestation. I'll be off to mingle." Suddenly. On the opposite side of the room.

"You...you do that," Jennie waved at her friend's retreating back, still sounding dazed. "So, who honked your boob?"

"This kid!" Olivia said, grabbing her sister by the arm and dragging her towards the other room, "I'll show him to you, only, please don't kill him because his Dad's a Kennedy and that would make things messy."

"I'll only break both his kneecaps," Jennie promised before she was drug out of the room.

Meanwhile, Dorian's date managed to get Dorian upright and directed him to a nearby chair. "So. Worth it," he said, in-between gasps of pain.

"Right, then. Merry Christmas." Marius pulled his eyes away from Jennie's retreating back and, despite the inherent futility, downed the rest of his drink.

Tomorrow's drive back to Westchester was going to be fun.