Amanda and Adrienne (Backdated to Sunday)

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne meets Amanda for drinks Saturday night and the next morning a horrific discovery is made.

After a long Saturday of shopping, Adrienne pushed her way through the crowd packed in like sardines around the bar at Finnegan's and searched for Amanda. She wasn't a huge fan of the downtown bar on a Saturday night, preferring to just sit and talk to Amanda and have a couple drinks without all the bustle and noise around them. But it wasn't meant to be, and she wanted to catch up with her friend more than she wanted peace and quiet, so she shoved a few more steps forward and kept searching, finally spotting the blonde witch at a table at the back of the bar, underneath the ceiling-mounted television. "Isn't there some way you can use your witchy powers on all these people to make them think they're nuns or something, so they all leave?" she asked by way of greeting when she made her way over to Amanda.

"Not on a Saturday night in New York - the city sort of wins that particular battle of wits," Amanda replied cheerfully, holding up her half-drunk pint in greeting. Between the beer she'd consumed and the vibe of the weekend city, she was feeling no pain. "Thanks for meeting me."

Adrienne waved to the bartender to indicate that she'd like the same as Amanda and sat down. "The fact that a city can win a battle of wits freaks me the hell out. I hope you know that," she muttered to her friend with a dramatic shudder. She was pretty sure that no matter how long they were friends she wouldn't get used to magic. "You don't have to thank me. It's been far too long. I'm really glad we could catch up," she smiled. "How's work been?"

"The usual, tho' not so many field trips to imminent death," Amanda replied. "I've been in the office mostly, researching stuff." Including Nico's possession problem, which she was drawing a blank on so far, but that wouldn't stop her. "Teaching the next generation of people who mess with the natural order of things." This was added for Adrienne's benefit - Amanda knew what her attitude towards magic was. "You?"

The psychometrist snorted at the comment. "Influencing the next generation of people who mess with... everything," she smirked. "They're coming along nicely at it, if I do say so myself. I was especially proud they nearly beat Gar in the fantasy baseball playoffs this year. The three of us together came so close to beating his smug ass."

"I thought the unicorn outfit for the losers was a nice touch. Especially the bit where he sent them to that kid's hospital. Don't tell anyone, but I think your boyfriend has a soft streak in him." Amanda winked conspiratorially over her beer.

"I'd agree with you, except if I did that, I'd be worried he'd find out and then I'd have to kill him," Adrienne shrugged, smirking at the wink. "But you wouldn't say he had a soft streak if you knew what my price for losing to him is." She gave Amanda a melodramatic shudder. "I get a unicorn costume to wear, too. But it's not something I can wear to a kid's birthday party. And there's also a tattoo involved. Jerk. I wouldn't be so upset if I hadn't been ahead of him in the standings the entire fucking season," she grumbled, taking a long gulp of the beer that had just arrived.

"Pervy unicorn costume. Now that also sounds like Gar." Amanda snickered at Adrienne's grumbling. "And what kind of tat? A cute little beaver to match his?"

Adrienne shook her head, mouth occupied with another swig of beer. "A cute little beaver would actually be preferable in this case. It has to be the Blue Jays logo." She wrinkled her nose. "And the worst part is that I was the one to instigate that provision of the bet. It was supposed to be him and a Red Sox tattoo, not me and a Blue Jays one, damnit! I don't even know where to go to get Jays tattoos!" Adrienne was holding out hope that she wouldn't find a place that had Blue Jays tattoos in the city and that Garrison wouldn't be able to order them from the Jays Shop in Canada.

"Oh, I can help you with that," replied the witch, crushing Adrienne's hopes by being helpful. "I know someone here who can set you up nicely. New York has everything, don't you know?"

"Seeing how I've got a mansion car loaded to the ceiling with shopping, yeah, I think I know," Adrienne responded with a wry smirk, thoroughly disappointed at Amanda's offer to help. She downed the rest of her beer in three long swallows and waved her hand for another round. "If we're going to go find me a Jays logo to put on my body, I'm going to need to be a lot drunker." Was drunker a word? "More drunk. Not sober." That worked. "So what do you teach to people who mess with the natural order of things? Is it sort of like 'here's the best place in the city to buy Eye of Newt'?"

"Mostly 'how not to mess with the natural order of things'," was Amanda's wry reply as she finished her own drink. "The thing about magic is, you need to be careful how you use it, for all sorts of reasons. And of course, trying to teach that to teenagers is impossible. All they want to do is make their lives easier and play around with their powers. Fuck, I was the same when I was their age. Took a scary old voodoo witch down in New Orleans to get through to me."

"So... now you have to be the scary old voodoo witch? Is that the way it works?" Adrienne inquired innocently. "I have some Mardi Gras beads I can give you if you think that would help your image."

Unfortunately for Amanda - and probably completely on purpose for Adrienne - Amanda had been taking the first mouthful of her fresh pint when Adrienne spoke. Beer went up her nose as she snorted, resulting in a spate of coughing and spluttering. "Bloody fuck, Adri, if Tante ever heard you say that..." she managed at last, still laughing at the mental image of herself as a swamp houdon. "'M not sure who she'd kill first, me or you."

Adrienne slapped her friend on the back in an attempt to help her stop choking on her beer and tried to look completely innocent of any culpability in the scenario. "I'd say I'm not afraid of someone I've never met, but if she does magic, then yeah, I'm afraid anyway," she admitted. "So if you can't become the scary old voodoo witch, maybe the next best thing is to send the kids down there? Or bring the scary old voodoo witch here?"

"Think of every voodoo witch you've ever seen in a scary movie and multiply her by 20. Then you're getting in the range of Tante Mattie. She bosses Remy around, for fuck's sake." Amanda's voice was tinged with fondness - she actually liked the scary old lady more than her words would indicate. "But a field trip down to the swamp might not be a bad idea. I took Nico down, back when I first wound up with her, and it left an impression."

"If you do arrange a field trip, wanna take Tandy with you?" Adrienne suggested hopefully. "Although knowing her love of scary movies, she'd probably just get a huge kick out of it."

"Stop trying to offload yours on me. I already have enough teenagers to look after," Amanda replied, mock-grumpily. She poked her tongue out at her friend and cautiously sipped at her beer again, nose still ticklish with the previous attempt. "How's Tandy doing with the nightmares and all? She still freaked about that D'Spayre thing coming back for her?"

Adrienne polished off the second beer and waved for another round. "'Offload' her, I like that." She nodded approvingly before considering Amanda's questions. "She's doing much better with the nightmares. I mean, her quote-unquote breakup with her quote-unquote boyfriend brought them back for a little bit, but they're not nearly as frequent anymore. I think Haller's really been helping her. Not that that surprises me," she added quickly. "The man really knows his shit. Uhh, about the D'Spayre thing, I mean," she clarified, head already starting to get fuzzy thanks to the rapidity with which she'd downed her first couple beers. "Not the breakup thing. Not that he doesn't know... you know what I mean," she trailed off in frustration.

"Yeah, I know." The gossip grapevine reached all the way to the Snow Valley offices, and Haller and Betsy's break up had been... explosive. "Let me know if she needs to talk about it - Tandy, I mean. Demons are my specialty." And with that thought came the need for more beer, since those weren't exactly fond memories. "'S refreshing, actually, having Billy around. No 'orrible magical trauma to speak of, fairly stable family life, no hang ups beyond worrying about what his friends might think if he tells them he's a fairy..." Amanda gave a snort. "I almost don't know how to talk to him."

"I'll do that," Adrienne nodded. "It might do her good to talk to a demon specialist," she grinned, tipping her new pint towards Amanda in a salute. She drank as she pondered her friend's comments about Billy. "Yeah, I don't think I can help you there. I don't really know how to talk to him, either." Billy was probably the student she'd interacted with the least since she'd returned to the mansion, probably for the reasons Amanda had suggested, coupled with the fact that he didn't seem as interested in her classes as Clint- another non-traumatized, non-unstable-family student- did. "Not that I'm all that good at talking to the ones who are traumatized," she added with a shrug, "but the 'norms' are even more difficult." She took another swallow. "Do you ever think things like that and then think 'holy fuck, where did I go so wrong in my life that I think things like that?'"

"All the time," Amanda replied wryly. "Then I do shots and it all goes away."

Pursing her lips and then nodding as if she thought this was the best plan ever, Adrienne waved to get the bartender's attention and signaled for a round of shots.

***

Paaaaaaaaaaain. So much pain in her head. Whyyyyyyyyyy? Reluctantly, Adrienne opened her eyes, then snapped them closed again when she found sunlight streaming in through the window. She'd had just enough brainpower around the wicked hangover headache to realize that the window was in Amanda's bedroom. It took a few moments to get around the headache before the fact that she was in Amanda's bedroom sunk in. But when it finally did, it became a hell of a lot easier to push the hangover to the back of her mind and wake up fully.

The first thing she did, eyes still closed, was touch a hand to the side of the bed and flip the mental switch she now possessed to turn her powers on, so she could confirm that she hadn't actually slept with Amanda, just in her bed. Which she supposed was still technically sleeping with her, just not with her. It made perfect sense to her pained brain.

She rolled out of the bed and staggered into the kitchen for a glass of water, holding her aching head in her hands. After downing the water she found the energy to fill the coffeepot and switch it on before collapsing onto Amanda's couch under the exertion of the effort. It was only then that she noticed how itchy the inside of her hip was. What the hell was that about? Puzzled, she rolled the waistline of the jogging pants Amanda must have loaned her down an inch and found a little patch of medical gauze with tape around the edges at the top of her left leg, where it joined the groin. Ick! Had she injured herself there? How the hell had that happened? Frowning, she pulled at a corner of the tape, eyes widening and jaw dropping when she saw what was under the gauze.

And suddenly, she didn't need her powers to know exactly what had happened as, to her horror, it all came flooding back to her.

"Amanda! What the fuck?!" she screeched, striding across the living area and back into Amanda's bedroom. "What the fuck did we do?!"

The rumpled blonde head disappeared under the pillows. "Loud," came Amanda's whimper. "Too loud. Brain hurts."

"Get up now," Adrienne said, still screeching as she became more and more distraught about what had happened. She whacked Amanda with a pillow. "Get up and tell me why I have a fucking Blue Jays logo tattooed on me!"

Amanda raised her head from under the pillow, looking confused. "You said you had to. For the bet with Garrison. Remember?" She honestly didn't know what the problem was. "You asked me to help you out, so I did."

Adrienne could only sputter, horrified, eyes wide and jaw refusing to stay hinged. "It- but- but... it... but I... it was... I..." She gaped for several seconds before the stuttering brain was ignited out of neutral and into forward motion once again. "Holy shit, Sefton! It was supposed to be temporary! It was supposed to be a temporary tattoo!"

"Temporary? The fuck?" Amanda gaped at her friend. "You never said it was supposed to be fuckin' temporary!"

Pulling at her hair, Adrienne stifled a scream. "Why would I permanently put a Blue Jays logo on my body?!" she wailed.

"I don't know! It's baseball, you an' Gar are balmy about it! Maybe it was some sort of couple thing!" Amanda retorted, her south London accent coming out in the combination of hangover and adrenaline. "Do I look like someone who knows about temporary tattoos?"

"I don't know! I figured yes!" Adrienne answered, exasperation ripe in her voice. "I didn't realize knowing about one precluded you from knowing about the other!" She groaned, but she recognized that there was nothing that could be done about it now, so there was no use being angry at Amanda about it. Besides, she could always get it removed. Still holding the pillow, she flopped down on the bed onto Amanda, holding the pillow over her head for a moment before rolling off. "You owe me big time for this," she said as she mock-suffocated Amanda, tone hinting at playful. "You realize that, right?"

"Would breakfast make a dent in that owing you?" Amanda asked, hopefully, brushing her tangled her back. "One of my full fry ups?" She gave Adrienne a hopeful look, full "puppy eye" mode.

Adrienne hit her with the pillow again. "What with me being a vegetarian, I'm gonna go with no; no deal. Still owing. I should warn you, it'll probably take jewels. Perhaps a crown of some sort."

"Bloody hippy," Amanda retorted, grinning as she responded with her own pillow this time. "Hey, can I have a look at it, at least? See what I'm in trouble for and all?"

Adrienne pondered this question with narrowed eyes. "I suppose so," she said, in a tone to indicate that she hadn't already decided to show it to her. "Someone should see it, I guess, before I get it removed. And Christ knows I'm not showing it to Garrison! I'd never live this shit down." She pointed a finger at Amanda. "And if you breathe one word of this to him, I will come after you in such a way that no amount of magic or scary old voodoo witches or my-boyfriend-is-a-cop-related guilt will be able to save you. Got it?"

Amanda held up one hand . "No telling. Witch's Honour. Cross my heart and hope to be horribly dead." She sat back among the pillows and rumpled duvet, looking at the bandaged spot on Adrienne's thigh expectantly. "Besides, how bad can it be?" She didn't voice the thought that Garrison would be seeing it if Adrienne ever wanted to have sex with him again - she was in enough trouble.