Jennie, Terry, Vodka

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Terry assists Jennie's love affair with vodka. Discussion is had.



Terry whistled to herself as she walked, following the melody that flooded her ears through the headphones. It didn't help block out every sound but enough that so long as she didn't concentrate on it, she could pretend it was just white noise. Of course, as much as the Stravinsky helped with the sounds, there was nothing wrong with her eyes and the sight of Jennie sneaking out of Monet's room roused Terry's curiosity. "Hey, Jennie," she called, "What's up?"

"Drinking," was Jennie's automatic response. She hefted a full bottle of blueberry vodka. "Monet lets me keep my stash in her room, as there is an underage Japanese girl who is both sneaky and devious in mine." In her other hand she clutched a bottle of fancy carbonated lemonade. "After the surprise we all had to today, and someone's cope failure, I need to get royally shitfaced."

Terry reached up, pulled the earbuds down and tuned in, just for a moment, to the general mansion chatter. Her eyebrows went up, "Manuel's here?" It only took a second for her to make a decision, "Well, fuck. Come on, you can use my room."

"You are a Queen, you know that? A queen, pure and simple." Jennie followed her into the other girl's room.

----

"So, yeah," Jennie said, finishing relaying all of the sordid details of the day. She took another long swallow of her drink. She'd gotten the idea for the blueberry vodka and lemonade from a billboard, and was pleased to discover the advertising was true. "Forge has his head permanently attached to his own rectum, everyone's in a tizzy, and I will bet you fifty dollars that Marius will spend the next week studiously avoiding me, him, and everyone else even remotely connected with the fun that was Europe."

She clutched at her drink, feeling the slow burn of the alcohol work its way through her stomach and up into the rest of her body, lip twitching She poured another generous helping into her glass.

Terry glanced enviously at the cocktail and ate another bite of ice cream. "Manuel's always been a bit of a polarizing figure, hasn't he? Caused me and Bobby a few unhappy moments. I really don't know that he ever understood why we were angry." She rested her head on her hand, "What are you going to do about it? Him being back, I mean."

Jennie thought for a moment. "I don't honestly know," she said. "I mean, Manny could be a shit," she gestured to Terry with her glass. "A royal shit. But..." she traced the rim of her glass with a finger. "He ...was always decent to me. Probably because he knew I'd beat the hell out of him if he did anything. And he saved my life." She shut her eyes, and just for a moment had a brief flicker of memory. A body laying in the street, twisted, broken, and a pulse of red light. She opened her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

Jennie sighed and set her glass down. "I supposed I should talk to him. For starters."

"He's going to be short on friendly, familiar faces. The new students might warm up to him but everyone else, there's too much history for it to be that simple." She switched from ice cream to tea, cold to hot. They were just props really. She could hardly taste either. Part of her was counting hours until she could wake Bobby up and talk to him about this. "The trouble with Manny is that he was always trying to be decent. He just didn't have any real concept of what that was."

"No," Jennie sighed. "No he did not." She hopped up onto Terry's countertop, kicking her socked feet out in front of her. "I for one will give him the benefit of the doubt. He knew this was a burned bridge. I don't think he would come back here unless he was serious about what he was doing."
She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "It's just, it's opening up things that I wanted to stay buried. Marius is my best friend. But he also used me and nearly got me killed," she said quietly.

Terry had read that report. Over and over again, trying to see what went wrong, where they could have stopped it before things got so bad. Trying to see what warning signs were missed. "We've all done stupid things. Few of us have done so many and been forgiven as often as Manny. I wouldn't tell anyone not to talk to him. But I'd caution them against going along with his ideas. If you've forgiven Marius and want to be friends with Manny, that's your choice."

Jennie rubbed her eyes, pressing her fingers to them and exhaling loudly. "I don't care what anyone else says or thinks, you know me," she looked up and smiled wryly at Terry. "I never have been one to follow the popular opinion. I just, I know what's going to happen because it always happens. No one is going to trust Manuel, he's going to react to it, misinformation, misinformation, blah blah blah," she waved a hand in the air. "Marius is going to avoid him, avoid me, I'm going to feel like shit because I'm being avoided, blah blah fucking blah," Jennie took another drink and then picked up the bottle.

"You can join me, you know. I'm not going to kill this thing by myself."

"That's not fair." Terry sat up sharply, "If no one trusts Manuel, it's not without reason. I trusted him well enough. I trusted him while he lied to me in the name of helping. It was a small enough thing, by comparison but it's reason enough. He did it to himself, Jennie and you know it." She shook her head at the offer of drink, "No thank you. I've my tea and I made promises."

"Right, and you're entitled to not talk to him or trust him," Jennie said, looking at her cocktail and then the bottle, shrugging and taking a swig out of the bottle instead. "He's a shit, Terry. But he's a shit who spent a year in coma because of me," she took another drink. "And the funny thing is, it was because of the one selfless thing he ever did in his whole life. Ironic, innit?"

Terry wasn't sure what to say. She didn't hate Manny. It would have been like hating a snake for biting. But she certainly wasn't going to trust him again either. "Maybe it was penance."

Jennie's eye twitched. "Maybe it was for all for us," she whispered. She took another drink. "You know, this isn't bad. Does taste like blueberries."

"Smells like it too. Sounds like a waste of good vodka," Terry sipped her tea, letting it lie bitter on her tongue before she swallowed. "If he's changed...that's good. And hopefully, he'll show that no matter how people react to him. He can't possibly be expecting anything less."

"Nope," said Jennie. She ran her fingers along the ridges of the vodka bottle, letting the smoothness soothe her. Perhaps it was better this way. She couldn't go on pretending forever, and if things were irreparably damaged because of this, then perhaps things weren't as strong as she thought.

But that was for another day. Tonight she was getting shitfaced. She took another drink. "Why the no drinky drinky?" she said to Terry. "I don't have cooties."

"Alcohol would take care of that even if you did." Terry shook her head. "I promised I wouldn't. Not until I'm legal in this damn country. Bobby
would prefer if I never did again but it seemed like a good compromise. You go ahead."

"But he's not here," Jennie said, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. "And if I never told anyone that you did, and it never left this room..."

Terry hesitated, tempted. Torn. "It doesn't work like that. You've got to be worthy of trust more than just when there's witnesses."

"Sweetie, what's the worst that could happen? I'm here. I mean, you're legal to drink in Ireland, and you drink there, right? What's the difference here?" Jennie took another drink. This might be slightly unnecessary, but she didn't want to look like the complete boozehound here.

Terry took another sip of her tea then set it down very deliberately and walked away. Through the living room into the bedroom. The bottle of whiskey was there still, in the bottom drawer. Like a promise or a test or something in between. She brought it back with her and tipped a generous amount into her tea. "Good enough?"

"Ah," Jennie said, raising her neglected glass. "A toast. To the return of some things that we would have rather have stayed in the past?"
"And to a future that's not as bleak as it looks right at the moment." Terry tapped her mug against Jennie's glass lightly.

"Cheers," said Jennie, and then knocked back the rest of her drink.

Comments

[x-m.livejournal.com]

I know the rest of this was a serious log but "Monet lets me keep my stash in her room, as there is an underage Japanese girl who is both sneaky and devious in mine."

Azzy, mate. That is absolutely what Monet would do. I love you for it. ;)