Saturday Night - Jezebel

[x-roulette.livejournal.com]

Jennie goes out for the night in order to distract herself from the anniversary of her mother's death, and makes an unpleasant discovery. She tries to run away from things, but ends up in even more trouble.

WARNING-- disturbing imagery




Jennie'd been restless all day, foot jiggling relentlessly whenever she was sitting down, tapping her fork against her plate as she chewed mechanically during lunch, and wandering in and out of her room all afternoon before finally putting on something nice and stepping out. She hitched a ride with another group that was going into town that night after spending the day searching in the woods, but split off from them saying she just wanted to walk around and she would get a ride back home later. It was brisk out, and she still wasn't used to it being so cold in March. Back home it would have already been in the seventies, with the cherry trees bursting into fluffy pink blossoms.

"It's how you know spring is here," her mother would say. Jennie bit the inside of her cheek and rubbed the back of her neck, before shoving her hands in her pockets and walking faster into town.

Spring wouldn't come to New York for another couple of weeks, anyway.

She went to the bar just as a dare to herself to see if she could still get in. A low-cut top and a bat of the eyelashes used to get her inside no problem, but the door guy was new and she hadn't been out in a while. He frowned a little at her fake id and Jennie got a little nervous, but luckily when the other guy on duty came over he recognized her and waved her in, but not before asking where she'd been.

"Sick," she said, with a little shrug. "I'm better now."

Since she'd gotten in she'd might as well have a beer, she reasoned. It would have been lame not to, and she'd been in a weird mood anyway. Maybe something would help.

One beer turned into four, and that's when she saw her. She'd been arguing with the bartender, a young guy with greasy blonde hair and a scraggly beard, about the band whose t-shirt he wore, leaning over the bar in such a way that she was grabbing his attention, when she caught sight of her in the mirror. Hair was too dark, but it was frizzed out, curling slightly over her collarbones. The face was sweaty, eyes half-lidded and drunk, and recognition was so sharp it took her breath away. She could feel the crowd pressing into her back, and suddenly she felt hot and shaky. She ran her fingers through her hair in an effort to flatten it, but it wouldn't do any good. There she was, staring her right in the face.

She'd used to be much worse, back home. It wasn't just the excessive drinking, everyone she knew did that. Even the popular kids. It was the effort to prove to herself that she could have what she wanted, whenever she wanted. Taking other girls' boyfriends for herself, or any boy for that matter. Feeling good for even for just the small amount of time it took, disappearing into dark cars and bedrooms, the dark blurring the edges that would have bothered her in the harsh light of day. Need, want, take. That had been her motto.

Nice girls didn't do the things she did, nice girls went with nice boys who opened the doors for them, not ones who were prone to being arrested or carving things into their arms while high, nice girls didn't smell like beer and smoke and cheap perfume stolen from a Macy's counter, and nice girls waited, with the right boy on a nice bed with lots of candles, not on someone's parents' bed during a party when they were thirteen and too drunk to realize what they were doing. Nice girls weren't bitchy to their roommates for no reason. Jennie'd never wanted to be a nice girl back then, but in the last two years something had changed in her without her even noticing. The girl she used to be now felt like a bruise that would never quite heal, hurting only when she banged it on something hard.

In the bar that night, Jennie realized that as far as she ran, she would never escape exactly what she was afraid of. She saw it in the face that was staring back at her through the mirror. And that made her feel like something sharp was stuck in her chest. It was almost comforting in a way, like she could stop being afraid that she would show up, because there she was. She tore her gaze away from the person in the mirror and signaled the bartender again, there was only one way to make the anxiety go away.


---


The bartender set a cup of coffee in front of her purposefully, cutting her off. Jennie stared at it like a foreign object.

"'M fine," she slurred to the guy who'd been sitting next to for the last hour or so, and shrugged a little unsteadily. His name was Matt or Mike or some other miscellaneous "M" name. He was from Michigan originally, out there for college, and for the last ten minutes he'd been moving his leg closer and closer to hers until their thighs were pressed together. "I only had a couple," she added, enunciating carefully.

"I know," he said, nodding. He leaned in a little closer, and Jennie could smell his aftershave, something sharp and strong. "Are you sure you don't have a boyfriend? A girl like you must have one. You're not lying to me, are you?"

It was one of the oldest bar pickup lines in the world. If she had been sober Jennie would have rolled her eyes and said something scathing. However, she humored him because she wasn't sure she could slip off the stool without falling over. "'S true," Jennie said. "I'm just that big a bitch."

Mike or Matt raised his eyebrows, surprised. He leaned in even closer, curling his fingers around her elbow. "Now, who told you that?"

"Everyone."

"Nah, still don't believe you." From his expression, Jennie wondered if she had intrigued him. He looked like she had just told him she was wearing a thong.

"Why you keep callin' me a liar? 'M not a liar." Jennie said, trying to look affronted, but the effect was ruined when she turned her head too fast and weaved unsteadily.

"Woah now, it's okay," this time he slid his arm around her, under the guise of trying to support her. She could feel the heat of his arm, pressing into the small of her back, and suddenly she felt very tired. She barely smothered her yawn.

"Sleepy," she said apologetically. Matt or Mike smiled again.

"You got a ride? Because there's no way you're driving yourself. I can get you home, no problem." His smile turned slightly wolfish.

Jennie peered at him through half-lidded eyes, running through her options. On one hand, she could call a cab, but she wasn't sure if she had enough cab fare. Two, she could call someone at the mansion, but who would be awake to pick her ass up at this time of night anyway? Plus, drunk and probably breaking curfew by now. And three...three was Matt or Mike. And, really, what the hell? It'd been so long anyway, it wouldn't hurt anything.

Only, when they were parked and she was pinned up against the passenger side of the car, with his tongue in her mouth as he ran his hands over her, Jennie felt torn. A part of her just wanted to let herself go, take what she wanted from this guy and then ditch his ass as soon as she could. But was this what she wanted?

His hand was rough and chapped as it slid up under her shirt, pushing up the underwire of her bra and cupping the soft skin of her breast, squeezing it painfully. She gasped and shut her eyes, which only made him kiss her harder. His other hand became a little furrowing squirrel, forcing it's way down the waistband of her jeans. And suddenly, Jennie was angry.

This is not what I want, stop stop stop stop

She jerked her head away from him. "No," she said, "Don't." She forced an elbow up near his chest and pushed him away roughly. "I said stop."

"Come on baby, it's okay," He said softly, rubbing her breast over her t-shirt. She squirmed away from him.

"No, I said no. Get off me," She tried to shove him away again, but he caught and held her wrist. He tried to tell her it was okay again, when it very definitely was not okay. Jennie's eyes narrowed dangerously. Who did he think he was? Before she could think about what she was doing, she punched him in the face.

He recoiled to the other side of the car holding his nose and swearing, while she reached behind herself and yanked on the doorhandle, falling when the door opened. She spilled out onto the side road where they had parked, scraping her hands on the rough asphalt. She got to her feet unsteadily, using the car for support, before turning and running off down the road.




Jennie's made it home, but she's too drunk to go to the right suite. Instead she stumbles into the boy's suite and awakens a sleeping Marius. Neither are still really over the events of the summer. And it shows.




The hallways that were hard to navigate in the dark normally, were now almost impossible when smashed. The walls twisted dangerously, but Jennie'd stuck her finger down her throat and made herself throw up even before she'd reached the main gates, so there was no danger of that. Her head ached terribly and her mouth tasted like acid, but at least she'd made it all the way home. On foot even. Now, to find her room.

The doorway was familiar, so it had to be hers. Stealth was key here, because if she woke people up smelling like a distillery, well, she didn't want to even contemplate how that might destroy the other girls' opinion of her entirely. She grabbed the doorknob (that's funny, wasn't it supposed to have a handle on it now for Yvette?) and opened it, stumbling into the suite's common room. Which very definitely was not her suite's common room.

"Ooooh, shit. Sorry, wrong room, just leaving," she said, trying to pull herself up by the door.

At this time of night the excuse would have been uttered to empty air in most other suites. This one, however, happened to be occupied. Said occupant had fallen asleep on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest and legs kicked out in front of him with BBC on after a day of fruitless searching for a lost girl, true, but even exhaustion did not make this a state maintainable through the absolute lack of grace that was Jennie's entrance. He'd cracked an eye when the doorknob started to turn. Now he sat up just in time to see the girl spilling onto the floor. Dark eyebrows raised.

"Well," Marius said as his friend groped pathetically for the door, taking in movements that seemed quite focused and yet devoid of anything like coordination, "I see someone's been havin' themselves a very good evenin'."

Of course, it had to be the boy's suite. No wonder the door looked familiar. Jennie tried to straighten up, standing and counting to five to see if she would fall over. Not that Marius hadn't seen her drunk before, but she'd just walked into the wrong suite. She was delicately grasping at whatever remained of her dignity at that moment.

There was evidence that she'd had a night, but from the lipstick that was almost smeared off, mascara-tinged tear tracks, and a skinned knee through the hole in her jeans, it was probably one that wasn't fun.

"'M fine," she insisted. "Very fine. I leave now." She very carefully tried to turn and walk out of the suite, but she only stumbled again.

"Ah, do you hear that? That is the sound of belief not occurring. Better lies have come from far soberer lips." Marius pushed off the couch like an uncoiling spring. Out of respect to those sharing the suite the only illumination was from the kitchen and the television, but the lighting necessary to disguise the shape Jennie was in could be achieved only at subterranean levels.

Unhurried, Marius intercepted her unsteady path to the exit and placed one hand on the door, casually leaning his weight against it and, coincidentally, completely barring the way. He then waited to see if she noticed.

There was a muffled "oof" as Jennie ran into him, then as realization clicked she hissed and recoiled a little too fast, barely keeping her balance. "You're in my way," she said. "I need to go to my room. Sorry I woke you. You can go back to bed now."

"Wasn't yet in it, if you'll recall. Which I find it in myself to doubt is possible in your current condition. It was, after all, a good forty seconds ago." Marius regarded her a moment longer with steady yellow eyes, unmoving. "You sure there's where you want to be right now? Your flat is somewhat inexclusive. I can't say as I find it your most brilliant idea to court discovery by your flatmates. Who, additionally, may incurr some trauma from this sight."

There no way he would know it, but Marius's last statement struck an already raw nerve within Jennie. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swiped at them with her arm. "Fuck you," she slurred, "I'm already a bitch. They might as well get the full show, they'll get to see drunk bitch. And if you don't get out of my way, 'm about to become drunk angry bitch."

There was belligerently drunk, and then there was the window into Deeper Issues. Marius stared at Jennie's tearstained face and took a long look through the blinds.

"Right," he said, setting the fingertips of one hand on her shoulder in an attempt to propel her away from the door, "now you definitely shan't grace your flatmates' presence anytime soon."

"No," Jennie said, jerking away from Marius violently. It was a testament to some inborn sense of self-preservation that her voice never rose above the quiet volume Marius was using with her. "You can't make me do anything, Manny's not here, and you can't keep me here," she backed away from Marius until she ran into the couch. She dropped into a crouch and clutched at it like a lifeline, resting her head against her elbow to stop the room spinning.

Marius' face, until now a mask of casual concern, went as flat as if she'd just slapped the expression off.

"True enough," the boy said quietly. "Pardon me."

Moving with slow purpose, Marius went to the suite's refridgerator and removed the pitcher of water kept there to chill. Then he strode over to where Jennie was floundering by the couch, sickly pale, disheveled and completely wrecked, and poured the entire contents over her head.

If the boys of the suite had been blissfully unaware of Jennie's presence, there was no mistaking her high-pitched shriek as Marius dumped ice cold water over her head.

She wanted to be angry, she should have been by all accounts, but it hit her then-- maybe it was the combination of all the drinks she'd had, her own pity party at the bar, the feel of that guy's hand, rough and insistent, and now the cold expression on Marius's face-- the whole of the night finally slamming into her the moment she stood still. She was cold, wet, and her head hurt. She put her head in her hands and took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

Don't cry, you don't do that. You don't throw your issues all over everyone. You're stronger than this. Breathe.

The shriek brought a Kyle, messy hair, pajama pants a size too big, and no shirt wandering out of his room. And then he paused, and scratched his head, which did nothing to make his hair worse, as it was a bird's nest already. "Kinky. You kids have fun, I'm goin' back to sleep." He shrugged, gave Marius a thumbs-up and turned to go back to his room.

Marius nodded after the other boy as he lowered the pitcher. "Beauty. Should he awaken from Jen's bloodcurdling screams, please encourage the same spirit of apathy in Julio. Happily continuing reverberations lead me to believe that despite all logic we remain unnoticed by the Samoan." There was some incomprehensible mutter of assurance from the other boy, muffled by a closing door. Marius turned his full attention back to the panting girl on the floor. He put the container on the coffee table, smoothing down his wrinkled shirt in an unhurried way. "Right. Now, shall we speak as the rational adults we have supposedly become, or is there to be more hurling of invectives? Because the next pitcher will contain orange drink."

He was answered by a loud sniffle and a mumbled yes. She moved her hands from her eyes to clutch at her arms and tried not to shiver in the most pathetic way possible, and then hauled herself up using the couch. Whatever they were going to talk about, Jennie wanted to make sure it wasn't delivered to Marius's feet.

"What?" she demanded, pushing her sodden bangs out of her eyes.

Marius crossed his arms over his chest. The careless accent he normally employed was absent in his next words. They were clear, precisely ennunciated, and completely without patience.

"You know I am content, even enthusiastic, to let the barbs pass. Confrontation is tiresome. However, since you have seen fit to provoke me with the one blade you know could only draw blood I am now forced to tell you that, pissed to the edge of blindness or not, your lack of tact has become unacceptable. Normally I find it to be one of your more charming qualities. Now the entire school, particularly that portion which lives in your close proximity, has seen it plummet to depths unknown. Or rather depths which are, in fact, known, but only to the likes of my charming mother."

Tirade delivered, Marius exhaled. Some of the heat drained from his voice.

"My apologies, Jen," he said, tone softer now, "For once again bein' a poor friend. I'd forgotten the anniversary."

The anniversary. He wouldn't have remembered anyway, Jennie hadn't seen fit to remind him, or anyone for that matter. That was private. This last month she felt like she was slowly collapsing in on herself, and it obviously was noticeable. But who could blame her, really? Her entire life she'd been taught to push things away, put them aside for a mother who needed more care than her daughter. A mother who would be up to fix breakfast in the morning, and be so drunk by afternoon that dinner meant whatever she could steal from the convenience store. And whose face Jennie had seen staring back at her through the mirror.

And that's what did it. She was crying, so angry at herself, but she couldn't stop. "God....dammit," she choked.

Now she was crying. It made him feel like a heretofor undiscovered form of pondscum, but some things had needed saying. Marius hesitated, then moved to retrieve a box of kleenex from beside the lamp. Kneeling in front of his shaking friend, he offered her the whole box.

"No worries an' no stubborn pride, mate," he said, his voice lower now. "Take as needed."

"I went out, tonight. 'Cause I needed to and I went to that place on 5th, and I was in there and I looked in the mirror and I got all sad and then I started drinking and then some asshole picked me up and wouldn't freaking stop when I told him to so I broke his nose an' an'... I saw her...I-I saw her, she's me an' I'm her, an' an'..." Jennie groped for a kleenex, but clenched it in her hand and pressed it to her temple. "She was a terrible awful lousy shitty mother, and I'm just. Like. Her." She paused to blow her nose.

"An' how does one figure that, then?" Marius tone was genuinely confused. He gestured at her with his free hand, olive fingers curved around the mound of white scartissue. After the last attempt he suspected actual touch would not have been welcome. "You haven't a substance abuse problem. Nor, unless you're keeping rather an impressive secret, have you fallen pregnant by a multi-millionaire. Pardon, I know this is a serious matter but I'm simply havin' some difficulty placing the connection." He wondered when he should ask for details on the man's name, description, and frequent hangouts so he could find him and quietly beat him to death. Unfortunately even Marius had enough tact to know that time was not now.

Jennie mopped at her face with the kleenex. "It was the drinking. Excessive drinking, sleeping with anyone and everyone. Sweet one minute, total raving bitch the next. Hurting the people I love when I don't even mean it." She drew in another shaky breath. "Mom didn't start out a complete pathetic wreck of a person, she ended up that way. Like, when I was little and I would get all freckly in the summer she'd say that the sun had given me little tiny kisses on my nose, but then she started getting worse and worse and when I got older she threw me out of the house because I was slutting around and why am I even telling you this?" Jennie pressed a hand to her forehead and tried to collect herself. "And...she did it because I was like her. I was turning into her. Like mother like daughter."

Marius stared at where his friend sat hunched in pain, and found his mind drawn back to the first night he'd met Forge, now over a year ago. Sitting in a bed in the Medlab, his prosthetic arm blackened from heat and explosion, powerless -- and rescued from Magneto. A reality that had been, on only Marius' second day out of isolation in a strange place to find himself with stranger powers, completely unfathomable to him.

Looking at Jennie now, Marius felt the same painful tug of awareness. Despite all he'd been through -- what they had been through, and all he himself had done -- he was not prepared for something like this. Not at all. The only thing he knew for a certainty was that suddenly the kleenex in his hand was pathetically insufficient.

"Ah," Marius said, because there was nothing else to say.

The girl took several deep breaths to halt the crying, grabbing more kleenex to wipe away the tears, and the water Marius had thrown on her. She felt soberer now, the cold water and the crying probably contributing to that. She felt numb, raw, and strangely enough, honest. So maybe not completely sober.

"It's inevitable," Jennie said after a small moment of silence. "There's more of her in me than my father. I mean, why did she even have me in the first place? She didn't have to have me, my father wasn't going to force her to do anything, he didn't even know."

Yellow eyes blinked as some thought percolated Marius' shock. "Well -- how's that bad, then?" he asked, head tilting. His curling hair, now almost fully regrown from Halloween's shaving, brushed his eyebrows. "Is that not good? That is, if your dad hadn't any idea you existed does that not make your mother's intentions rather more pure? Seems had he been told your father would've tendered compensation. Eagerly, one is led to believe after sharin' a few words with him. Just because your mum was bollocks at the showin' doesn't mean she didn't care." The image of his own mother flashed back to him, curly-haired, striking, and utterly without mercy. Marius added, "In her way."

"Yeah," Jennie said quietly. "I know. It's just so hard to reconcile the Mom who did love me, who took care of me and the Mom she became. It's like she was two different people. I wanted her to be the Mom she was, the one that called me sunbaby and could you know, function enough to take care of me, and I always wondered if I was somehow responsible for her downward spiral. Which is dumb, as Samson has beaten into my head during therapy," she made a face and wrung out her hair.

Marius rose. He returned an instant later with a towel from the suite's linen closet.

"Here," he said, extending the fluffy blue cloth to her. "I . . . don't so much know as what to say to that. Except, maybe, that it seems you've spent an undue amount of your life carin' for those set on tearin' themselves apart." There was a long pause before he finished, "An' who make all the rest pay for it."

Jennie stared at him for long moments after she accepted the towel and began to carefully dry her hair. Over and over again she had been told what happened wasn't her fault, that her entire life was a roadmap of abuse and neglect leading her to the situations she had found herself in. But what people didn't realize that even taking away her culpability just made it worse. That just underscored the inevitability that she would wake up one day and find she had turned into her mother.

Besides, the situation that was the previous summer had happened because she had learned to be an enabler. Some people still wondered why she'd been so ready to forgive the unforgivable, when to Jennie it had been a no-brainer. What Marius had done was hurtful and extremely stupid, but he hadn't intended her any harm. And neither, really, had her mother.

"Make me a promise," she said finally. "You won't let me become my mother, and I won't let you do something like that again."

Marius blinked again, then shook his head. "That's . . . a bit of a difficult promise to make. Not because I won't try. I shall, to the very best of my ability. That place . . . that was no good. An' those roadsigns I'll be watchin' for, because next go around I'd just as soon take the first exit off."

He lifted one hand, palm-up, eyes dropping to the scar the size of a silver-dollar and remembered what it had felt like to hold Yvette's arm in his bare hand. And the sensation of Jennie's flesh, slick from rain and sweat, tearing under his.

"But it wasn't just you sufferin' from a terminal loss of perspective on the way," he continued, almost in a whisper, "so I have doubts as to what that ability is."

Jennie reached over and took his hand. "What I mean is, if you catch me snorting meth, disappearing for days at a time and making friends with people who don't bathe on a regular basis, tie me to a chair or something. And I promise to, I dunno, tie you up and shove you in a closet next time you're about to do something really stupid. And not in a kinky way."

"Apologies in advance if I've got a bit of lag noticin' the signs. In my social sphere the drugs of choice are prescription or nothing." Though the first to cheerfully declare he was lacking on the side of observation, Marius was guilty enough of emergancy tone-shifts that Jennie's was about as subtle as a brick to the back of the head. The acceptance of his hand, though, did not go unnoticed.

He crossed his legs under him and reached over with his free hand to twitch a sodden piece of hair from her eye. "Happily," he said, going with the shift, "it appears I am not the final safety for a potential downward spiral. My inexcusable lack of recall for important dates was remedied last night as a consequence of an inquiry from a certain flatmate. Who then promptly fled the country, which is an act fraught with meaning I am sure. Corroboration was then attained from a small girl we are both in acquaintence with. I call it fortunate you are surrounded by those whose sensitivity to impendin' fall is considerably more attuned than my own. It is generally accepted my head is of a density to cause cosmic distortion, but I wouldn't precisely say you slipped through the cracks in regards to the rest of the world. Or those within these walls, that is."

"Like I said, stark raving bitch." Jennie mopped up some of the water on the floor with the towel in her free hand. "Misery does not want company, misery wants to be left the hell alone." But her suitemates, and most of all Crystal, did not deserve the treatment she had been giving them for the past weeks. A small part of Jennie marveled at the fact that they actually noticed, and cared, despite her viciousness.

"I owe them an apology." Jennie met Marius's eyes. "And you. Just because I'm unhappy at something doesn't mean I get to tear everyone else down."

Marius met her gaze with an ironic smile. "Them an' all the other innocent victims of your wrath, however warranted, yes. As for me, no worries. To be perfectly honest, had I failed to take the point of your comment the pitcher would have been rather less a factor in a night already full of fluids enough."

When she'd asked for the promise he'd wanted to give it -- Marius still had the uncomfortable suspicion that he should have done -- but Jennie's reminder about Manuel's power and what he'd done with it had cut. Last summer he had crossed a line. It was one they had both agreed to not inspect too closely, but safer for everyone, he thought, if it was stayed away from entirely. There was enough question about how far she'd fallen into him then without creating additional opportunity.

Additionally, Marius was candid enough with himself to doubt a situation where he was delegated to keep an accurate gauge of anyone's self-control could possibly end well.

At Jennie's next pass the boy plucked at the end of the towel, whisking it through her fingers in mid-wipe. "Allow me," Marius said as he seamlessly resumed the cleanup. "I should be a poor host if I made the guest clean up the water which I had dumped. On her no less. However, I must stand firm that you shall not tonight attempt a return to your flat. The most problematic of your cohabitators may have embarked upon one of her weekend migrations, but I shouldn't take it for granted a tirin' day of altruism will have created in the rest a failure to notice their rolemodel of a successful graduate-to-be is utterly shedded. Thus, to bed with you. Mine, specifically."

"Uh," came Jennie's reply. "I'm sorry, your bed? What's wrong with the couch?" She patted it. She already was probably going to have be thoroughly lectured on breaking curfew unless Forge could be bribed. But unlike the other girls in the mansion Jennie's baking skills thrived only under direct supervision and she doubted that Lorna would help out for reasons of 'I was drunk and out late.' But that was tomorrow.

"Plus, not that drunk really anymore, and I already bruised my hand on some guy's face," Jennie flexed her fingers.

Marius rolled his eyes, the yellow flashing in the light of the television screen as he moved to continue mopping. "Good to see the self-esteem is still safely intact. But no. The couch shall be occupied by myself. The bed shall be occupied by you. My apologies for the crushing disappointment."

"My clothes are wet," Jennie said, plucking at her damp t-shirt, "I'll have to borrow something." Realization struck and she put her head into her hands. "In your bed and in your pants, all because of one night of drinking. I really am easy," she moaned. But there was the barest hint of a smile in her voice.

"Indeed. I shall never forget the countless nights of red-hot sex which repeatedly failed to occur in Europe despite my repeated insistance that that which is done in a foreign country does not count. Fortunately ours is a deeply spiritual love. Which I assure you comforted me deeply in those many months of celibacy." Marius unfolded his knees and rose. He held out one hand to her, palm-up, sodden towel still held at his side. "Up with you, tramp."

Jennie grasped it, letting him haul her to her feet. The momentum knocked her off balance, pulling her into him. She used the opportunity to give him a small hug.

People were horribly complicated, this was something she knew well. X plus Y did not always equal Z. Sometimes it equaled purple, or Baltimore, or something as equally and wildly unexpected. A small part of Jennie had to wonder if she would have forgiven Marius if she had not grown up the way she had. People were flawed, they could love you and still hurt you because they were not very good at it. And sometimes all people needed was a second chance.

She was still tying him up and locking him in a closet the next time he tried anything stupid, though.

"Muahahha. Now you're all wet," she said from his t-shirt.

"Karma is a cruel mistress. For instance, I am being embraced by an attractive girl. Under normal circumstances this would be what we refer to as 'pro'. However, she is drunk an' one of my better mates. These warrant classification as 'con.' Thus I am justly punished for my past misdeeds." With a heavy sigh Marius returned the hug, brief but genuine, before carefully prying her away from his torso.

"Right," he said, "now you are poured into bed. Earrings, shoes an' beltbuckles off. Any other article of clothing you wish to remove are to be done without my knowledge lest there be a sparking of nocturnal temptations. You may do so whilst I slide an informative note under your flatmates' door assuring them that you have not been kidnapped. People are quite paranoid."

"I wake up with you spooning me, I don't care if you are my best friend, I'll break another nose," Jennie said, removing her earrings and slipping out of her shoes to stick them into, and blithely hoped Marius wouldn't notice the fact that her socks didn't match. "Next time kidnapping happens, it'd better be for something fun. Like sushi. Kidnapping sushi."

Marius snorted. "Ah, if only there was an outing where the only concern was potential poisoning. I'm sure the fishes would turn out to be zombies of some sort. Next time, however, bodyguards. For example, Kyle is the sturdy sort. Or borrow Crystal's. I'm sure she'd donate him for a worthy cause." He waited patiently for Jennie to unbend before gently pushing her towards his room. "No worries, your virtue is safe from me. Take whatever clothing you desire. It is at your disposal. Much like my dignity."

"I would say something about the next time, but it is inevitable, like the spring rain." She tottered unsteadily when he pushed her, and she yawned. "Goodnight Marius, and ...thank you."

Marius smiled from the doorway of his room, his hand already on the doorknob as the drone of Mondo's gentle but incessant snoring vibrated the door the next suite over. "No worries, mate."