xp_logs | Possession Night, part four

A very drunken Nathan and Marie indulge in the crazy banter, and then decide to fly home. Yes, really. Not unexpectedly, they both wind up in the lake.

Nathan was doing his almighty best to fulfill the second half of his vow and drink himself into oblivion. The tequila bottle was better than half-empty when he saw Marie approaching.

"You're not having any of my tequila," he informed her immediately. "Braddock has already helped herself. Get your own."

"Sharing is caring, Nathan," Marie said, the silly grin on her face evidence that she'd probably already had plenty of her own. She had lost track of her shot count long ago in an attempt to keep up with Cain's drinking. Much like keeping up with Logan, it was a bad goal to have.

"Yes, well, I don't like you." Nathan gave her a bright smile. "So get your own drinks, because all the tequila is mine."

"You do too like me," Marie pouted, flopping into a chair across from him, but making no attempt to take the tequila. "What's not ta like? Ah didn't beat you up when Ah was possessed."

"Oh? Do I take that to mean that you beat someone up?" Nathan leaned towards her, conspiratorially. "Do tell."

Marie giggled and leaned forward, barely avoiding knocking her head against his. "Well, back in the day Ah took a swing at Scott. But that was really Logan. And the last time, Ah beat up Remy. But shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!" She waggled her finger at him. "Don't tell anyone!"

"You beat up Remy?" Nathan tilted his head - and tilted a bit too far. Thankfully, he was in a booth. "What is it with Remy and getting beaten up? I think he's trying to beat my record, the bastard..."

"Is there an award?" she asked tilting her head to try and make his right side up again. "Maybe Ah should start playing. But it's awful hard to beat me up. Unless," she lowered her voice to what she thought was a whisper but was still regular volume, "you set me on fire like Jimmy. Cyndi. Haller. David. Whatever his face. Whoosh!"

"I think you've been set on fire quite enough this year, missy. It's clearly starting to give you a complex," Nathan said solemnly. "Sort of like me and this arm." He tugged at the sling. "Break it, dislocate it, burn it... one of these days I'm just going to have it amputated so my friends can't do it in anymore. Well, okay, so the guy who knocked me out of the tree wasn't a friend. But he was an exception!"

Marie held up her hand, face growing equally solemn for a moment. "No more fires. At least, no more hair fires." She soon started giggling again. "This has been the weirdest week ever. And that means something! It means...Ah dunno what, but something!"

"Oh, pish." He wasn't sure where he'd picked up 'pish', but it had a certain ring to it. "This has not been that weird. Just because you weren't around when the Askani in my head were taking themselves for little strolls doesn't make this weird."

"My personalities go for strolls sometimes too," Marie said. "But in my body. Did the Askani have," she paused, fluttering her hands in the air, "their own little bodies too?"

"They made them. Kind of like he did." Nathan waved his good hand at Jim.

"Wish mine would do that," Marie said slouching into her chair. "Ah'm hot. We should go for a walk." She pulled at the material of her gloves, but left them on.

Nathan emptied his glass, then refilled it again, raising it to her as if in a toast. "To the woman who actually can stand having Logan in her head."

Waving frantically, Marie soon had a glass of some amber colored liquid in her hand and she raised it up to Nathan. "To no more themed injuries," she said, then downed the entire glass.

"Repetition is bad!" Nathan said, laughing - a little too loudly, as he drew eyes from all directions of the bar. "If they're going to beat the crap out of us, the least they can do is be inventive about it!"

"Yeah!" Marie agreed. "Creative beating or no beating at all. That's the new rule."

Nathan was still laughing. "You're very weird," he said, and downed the glass.

"Which is why you like me! So shaaaaaare." She reached out a hand, fingers wiggling towards the tequila bottle.

Nathan tugged it closer, away from her. "Tequila has special meaning. Go drink some... pedestrian whiskey, or something," he grumbled at her.

"Pah. You are lucky Ah like you enough to let you have your bottle. Ah could take it if Ah wanted ta." Her hand dropped to the table and she let out a sigh.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Why are you sighing? You sound like Scarlett O'Hara."

"Sir, you are no gentleman," Marie said with a giggle that quickly turned into a hiccup. "Don't rightly know why Ah was sighing. Didn't even realize Ah had."

"You were. Woeful sighing. You need to work on that. Unless the whole point of the sighing is to get someone else to work on it," Nathan said rather carelessly.

"Woe? But Ah have no woe. Woeless am Ah. How can someone else work on my woe? If Ah had woe that is." Marie paused to rub the side of her head, having dizzied herself with her words.

"If they have woe when you have woe, then they want to make the woe go away," Nathan said, with perfect logic. "If they follow you around pretending they're a walking woe-remover..."

Marie just blinked at him and then started laughing. "Woe-remover," she managed to get out. "That's a good one."

"Do you have a woe-remover, Marie?" The question was oh-so-serious, except for the slightly malicious amusement in Nathan's wide gray eyes.

"Ah, uh, no, yes....maybe?" she stammered. "Ah'm so confused and not just 'cuz Ah've been drinking." Marie cast an accusing look in Nate's direction.

"Would I confuse you? I think you just can't hold your liquor, that's what I think..." Nathan realized his glass needed filling again. "You know, there's something to be said for lowering of inhibitions. You should think on that."

Marie cocked her head and her look turned to one of bewilderment. "You would if you could. And thinking is too hard right now." She was soon distracted by the waitress bringing her over another drink and she held.

"Yes, sometimes there is entirely too much thinking. I agree entirely." Nathan tossed back the tequila in his glass, making a face. "I miss the voices in my head," he muttered under his breath.

"Want some of mine? Ah've got plenty to share," Marie said, her voice semi-serious before she tossed back the shot the waitress had brought over.

"Yes, because I really want some of the people you have in your head in my head. I liked my voice. She was special." Nathan knew he was sounding wistful... or maybe just sulky, he didn't know which. "Except she was also a manipulative mother... conniving with bitch, but, well. We all have our faults."

"Ah like some of my voices," Marie protested. "It's just the mean ones Ah don't want around anymore." She brushed a few strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her face. "You're weird about your voice."

Nathan eyed the tequila bottle. It was... not quite gone. But he'd killed most of it, and that had been the point. "Didn't you say a little while ago that you wanted some fresh air?" he asked a bit vaguely. "We could always fly home. You and me and the big fiery bird..."

Marie nodded, polishing off the latest drink the waitress had set in front of her. "Sounds like a country song," she said as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

"Shush," Nathan said, "or I'll have to start singing." He took Marie's arm and steered her towards the door. "And hurry up, before they catch us and insist we need... um, escorting or something."

"Flee!" she said as she all but pulled Nate out the door. "We'll escort each other," she said once they had made their way to the back of Harry's. Letting go of Nate's arm, she floated up and if she was wobbling in the air, it was barely noticeable.

Nathan looked around furtively, to make sure no one was watching. "You're a very boring-looking flyer," he said as light blazed around him, the firebird's wings opening, if a little less gracefully than usual. "I mean, you just sort of hang there."

"Means Ah can sneak up on people and don't announce to the world Ah'm coming fifty zillion miles away," she teased. "Show off."

Nathan propelled himself upwards, nearly whacking Marie with a wing -by accident, of course. He wouldn't have done that deliberately. "Sneaky is highly overrated," he said haughtily, starting in the direction of the mansion.

"So is showboating," she replied, rolling out of the way of the wing. Unfortunately, she couldn't control her roll as well as she usually could and she ended up somersaulting forward for a few feet until she straightened out again.

"I am not showboating! It has symbolic importance," Nathan growled at her, dipping dangerously towards the treetops as he flew. There was a lot more wing-flapping going on than usual, as if he was forgetting that he wasn't actually a bird. Jean would have scoldded him.

"Symbolism, shymbolism," Marie slurred as she held a steady course over the tree tops beside him. The fact that it was taking more concentration than usual to do that wasn't readily apparent. "'s overrated."

"Bullshit!" It would be good if he got a little higher. Just because she'd laugh at him if he crashed. "Symbols are everything," he lectured at her from about twenty feet above where he'd been a moment ago. "Symbols are what you have when you don't have the people anymore."

"Symbols are what you let them be," she said and the somehow managed to start going left when she meant to go right. "Oops," she said as she wheeled around.

Nathan was laughing mady at her. "The mansion is this way, you lightweight-" Whoops. There were those treetops again, and whoops time two, he was in them! Nathan yelped, the firebird wrestling with the branches that seemed to be dragging him downwards. "Help! Attack-woods!" he called, still laughing like a madman.

"That's why that firebird of yours is silly!" Marie chided him, slowly maneuvering herself to grab the firebird's tail and pull up.

Nathan could not stop laughing. She was dangling him by the tail, and this was just too, too funny. "Look at me, Ma, I'm flying!"

"No, Ah'm flying!" she corrected him. "You're dangling."

"Dare you to see how far you can throw me!"

"You're on," she said, spinning around to get leverage and releasing the tail of the firebird vaguely in the direction of the mansion.

The next ten seconds or so would have been vintage footage for American's Funniest Mutant Home Videos, had anyone been around with a camera. Nathan went tumbling 'head' over claws in the direction of the mansion - and crashed into an empty field, all without losing the exoskeleton.

#Whee!# was the somewhat reassuring telepathic response.

"Oops," Marie said as she floated over to where Nate had landed unceremoniously in the field. "Sometimes Ah don't know my own strength."

Nathan was doing his best impression of a staked out firebird, wings flung wide. Only the sound of choked laughter was reassuring as to his health, as he certainly wasn't moving.

"Um...is this where you say 'Ah've fallen and Ah can't get up' and Ah accidentally fling you when Ah try and help again?" she said, the edges of her lips quirking upwards.

The firebird struggled back upright, and Nathan looked up at her, the expression on his face purely disingenuous. "No," he said. "This is where I return the favor." He flung himself upwards and right at her, laughing again.

"Eep!" she squealed, attempting to dart out of the way - which on a normal day would've been no problem. However, after drinking her bodyweight in alchohol, Marie suddenly found it harder to tell up from down and left from right, leading to some very confusing loops through the air.

Fortunately, Nathan was also not particularly coordinated himself. Not that he was ever the best flyer around. He counted it an accomplishment that he managed to actually chase Marie in the general direction of the mansion, even if she was still managing to keep ahead of him.

"You dared me," she called over her shoulder. "That made it ok to throw you. How was Ah supposed to know you'd go so far?" She narrowly avoided a grove of trees, her feet trailing through the leaves.

"Fair's fair!" He just had to speed up a little, and he'd catch her. Putting a little more telekinesis into it, Nathan careened wildly over the treetops and the open fields, almost - but not quite - keeping pace with Marie.

"Ah didn't dare you! Or double dare you!" The words were spaced apart by giggles as Marie weaved through the sky, until she unexpectedly shot up and stopped in midair, grinning as Nate continued on underneath her. "Neener."

"Hey! Knock it off with that... agility stuff," Nathan complained, trying to turn around in mid-air. He was entirely too drunk for such a move, however. He began to turn, but only wound up in the treetops again. Swearing, he propelled himself back upwards, but clipped one wing and tumbled through the air once more.

Right into the lake.

That's not what was supposed to happen. Of course, it was hilarious to watch the huge splash that arose as Nate and his firebird crashed into the lake. She laughed the entire time it took her to reach the lake's surface, making herself count to ten to get her breathing back under control before diving in.

Of course, going into a lake when Marie was already having trouble telling up from down wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done. Grabbing ahold of his exoskeleton yet again, Marie began pulling in some direction, hoping it was the right way.

#ARE YOU TRYING TO DROWN ME, WOMAN?# The telepathic roar would have been far more impressive had there not been a whole lot of mental laughter going on, too.

Reversing directions, Marie concentrated on her thoughts. Her time as a telepath had helped teach her how to structure thoughts to make them easier to read. What if Ah say yes?

#Then you're doing a very good job!# The exoskeleton was indeed filling with water, and Nathan, though he couldn't quite stop laughing, was also struggling a little more enthusiastically to get back to the surface, remembering the river in Moscow.

Maybe you need to go on a diet. Marie thought as the pair finally broke the surface. "All this extra weight makes you unwieldy," she said with a pat to the exoskeleton.

Nathan proceeded to demonstrate his maturity level by sticking his tongue out at her. Splashing around with an excess of enthusiasm, he made his way towards shore.

On the shore, bare feet sunk into the mud and grass, a large figure stood silhouetted in the light from the mansion as Nathan awkwardly beached himself.

"I swear, Moira's going to make me shackle you to the stool next time we go down to Harry's," Cain said disapprovingly, looking up at Marie. "And you, young lady, oughta be ashamed of contributing to the delinquency of a senior citizen."

"He started it!" Marie said with a pout as she landed on the shore, her drenched hair and dripping clothes making her look even younger than she was. "He's a bad influence," she added, nodding sagely. "Shouldn't be allowed 'round lil' kids."

"I beg to differ, you brat. You started it." Actually, Nathan wasn't precisely sure about that, at this point in the evening, but it seemed like the thing to say. Inspiration struck, and he gave both of them the most benevolent and saintly smile imaginable.

And then shook - the exoskeleton, that was, as if the firebird was a dog which had just emerged from the lake. There was a truly impressive amount of water trapped inside and between the layers and layers of shields.

Cain stepped back from the spray of water, then reached out and grabbed the glowing firebird by the beak in one hand, shaking vigorously as if he were trying to retrieve a tennis ball from a stubborn dog's mouth.

"I'm only gonna say this once, ya drunk moron," Cain growled, audible even over the shaking and splashing. "You go makin' a fool out of yourself crashing into everything in sight, and Moira ain't gonna be the worst of your problems, get me?" He let go of the firebird and turned to Marie. "And you," he scolded. "I could understand bein' all stupid if you had Logan stuck up in your head again, but jesus, girl. You got a good head on your shoulders, don't go off bein' just plain stupid, you hear?"

Marie ducked her head, scuffing her foot against the ground. "Yessir," she muttered. Turning around, she stuck her tongue out at Nathan and then lifted off to head back to the mansion to dry off and sleep.

Nathan collapsed the exoskeleton, the wings folding inward almost primly. "I only act like a drunken lunatic on special occasions," he informed Cain, turning towards the boathouse. "And she did start it. I'm almost positive."

Cain watched both Marie and Nathan walk off, chastened. He wavered for a moment, then sat down in the wet dirt, laughing softly to himself. Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a tin flask, undid the stopper and took a long drink. "Kids these days..." he mumbled, then lay down on the lakeshore and fell asleep.