Marie-Ange and Amanda, post-Siege Convo

[xp_tarot]

Amanda confronts Marie-Ange on how weird she's been for the last few months, and they get down to why and how the alternate universe of Siege Perilous affected how Marie-Ange sees her best friend.



While it wasn't unusual for Amanda to get back to the mansion before Marie-Ange after work (she usually had something to research back at their suite which held a section of her magic texts or she had ducklings to mentor), it was unusual for her to be sitting on the couch waiting for Marie-Ange to come in. It was more unusual for there to be a new bottle of vodka and two glasses sitting on the coffee table in front of her. As the door opened, she nodded and indicated the armchair.

"Grab a seat. We're going to talk about this."

Marie-Ange almost dropped her phone mid-text. Almost - if it had been anyone else than Amanda, they would not have even noticed the slip as she caught it and dropped the device into her pocket smoothly. She nodded - set her bag and coat and gloves down and then got right back up to go to her bag. "I found a reminder to myself in my phone that said "buy orange juice"." She said, pulling a bottle from her shoulder bag, the little kind of orange juice you got at the bodega on the way to the train. "Good to know my own precognition is trying to make my difficult conversations more palatable, if only literally." She sat, set the bottle down and cracked it open.

Amanda chuckled and reached for the vodka as Marie-Ange poured the juice. "I figured you'd have had a hint," she replied easily. "Makes this a lot easier." She topped up the glasses with vodka and gave Marie-Ange time to get settled and take the first sip before continuing. "So, what's the problem, exactly? That you were in a relationship with another woman, or that you were in a relationship with me? 'Cause you've been weird ever since that whole thing - not that anyone else would notice 'cept me, but there's definitely weird."

"It is mostly the first one, a little the second one. That you was so broken to Selene, and the real you is so very much not that..." Marie-Ange pointed at Amanda's boots, her jeans, the vinyl album covers that hung on one wall - that Marie-Ange had insisted they get framed, and had very quietly not told Amanda how much a good framing with a custom matte and UV-protective glass cost. "The other you was you, but also so very not. She had the boots, but she also had that Black Court outfit, and a stylist I did not have to bully her into seeing, and you know all this, because you were her, or ... remember being her?" She looked into her glass, swirled the juice and vodka together unnecessarily and then took a long drink. "Mostly it is that I am having a crisis of sexuality I should have had at sixteen, if it had not been for Monet St Croix being a bitch at me."

Amanda grimaced and took a gulp of her own drink before speaking. "Broken is the nicest way of putting it," she agreed, sighing a little - she had her own thoughts about that version of herself, and the final battle with Adam Destine. "But I get it. It's like the only way we could ever get together was if we were both completely fucked up. Which is one of the saddest things about that whole situation." She sipped again and continued. "But that was the point, wasn't it? Getting the most emotional response out of us? For you and me, apparently that was getting us together."

"New and raw emotion, and... " Marie-Ange made a little noise of disgust, took another drink, and then flopped back into the depths of the armchair. "This would be easier if we had come out of that stupid fictional world with any sort of attachment to those memories. We live together. You put up with my art supplies everywhere and odd hours and cleaning my fake eye, which is absolutely the most disgusting thing ever, and I would kill for you." She paused, and almost smiled. "I would kill someone I liked for you. I like blonds. I like people who swear a lot. I like people who eat terrible food." And the rest of her drink disappeared. "So I do not know why I cannot just figure out what the difference between me and her was, and why this is so hard to wiggle into my stubborn brain."

"Then stop trying to figure it out, Angie." Amanda sounded almost amused and she leaned forward to refill her roomie's glass. "This isn't a thinking thing, it's a feeling thing. And you don't even have to feel it now, if you're not up for it - just let it go, to quote that bloody Disney movie that Meggan and I watched one Christmas. I'm not going anywhere, and if we stay best friends then that's good, and if you jump me one night, that's good too." She smiled, a warm and heartfelt expression. "You've been such a constant in my life, you've known me longer than anyone here, and you're not getting rid of me anytime soon."

"I am ... " Marie-Ange started, took a drink, shuddered at the much larger ratio of vodka to juice this time, and then took another drink. "I think, if that other you had not faltered, the other me would have stolen you to New Orleans and kept house. At least I hope she would have, because I refuse to believe that even a me that is that selfish would not fight eventually for someone she loved, and I think that was the emotion that Roma was trying to get from us. Perhaps. Maybe. I do not know. I hate not knowing." She got up, walked over and flopped into the other side of the couch. "I.. She had some kind of sexual revelation in New Orleans, maybe we just need to take a vacation and eat creole food until our mouths are on fire and then I will wake up with a hangover and not be thirty-three and trying to look at myself in the mirror and ask if I really am straight."

Amanda rethought the comment she had been about to make about going on a naughty weekend, and paused for a moment. "Does it matter?" she asked at last. "What you are, I mean. Straight, bi, pan, gay... or maybe just Amanda Sefton-sexual, do you have to nail it down and define it?"

The arm of the couch was not comfortable to lean back against, but Marie-Ange did it anyway, affecting a dramatic huff. "Yes, because I am a hypocrite who tells other people not to worry about finding the right words, and then I get caught up in the same problem myself."

The witch giggled, a sound that few heard, since she usually was more of the sardonic snort sort of person. "Oh, Angie, that's just you all over. And if I was a shrink, or someone who has seen a fuckton of them, I'd say you were deflecting things by focussing on what to call it instead."

"Saying things makes them real." Marie-Ange said, head still half off the arm of the couch. "It makes them not just a silly future in cards and notebooks, it makes them real and once they are real, you cannot take them back." She lifted her head up. "I am greedy and selfish, I want all the things she had, and not to have to worry about if it goes wrong and I lose it all again. She lost everything, and I do not even have the grief she must have felt."

Amanda set down her drink and scooted along the couch until she was right next to her. "Names have power," she said. "Maybe that's why I don't always use them - actions always tend to mean more, I s'pose." She reached for Marie-Ange's hand. "I'll be here," she continued, squeezing it a little. "You know that, but it can always bear repeating. I'll be here, whenever you need me, and whatever you need me to do."

Leaning on Amanda was far more comfortable than leaning on the arm of the couch. Prettier too, but Marie-Ange was not going to say so, because she couldn't remember who had picked out the couch. "I am not sure if you have noticed, but I am very terrible at doing things for myself without making it dramatic. Also..." She squeezed Amanda's hand. "Did you quote Frozen at me?" Her voice broke a little with the effort to not giggle. "God at least it was not Mary Poppins. I just want to know. Maybe we should just take a trip to New Orleans, finally, no? We do keep having all of our major life moments there, it seems."

"If I did, I'll never admit it," Amanda replied with a chuckle. "And Ms. Colbert, are you inviting me for a naughty weekend?"

"We have had an alternate universe, fought one of Kevin's ex co-workers, dealt with so much, have either of us had a vacation at all since... " She faltered. "Have either of us had a vacation at all since my eye? A real vacation, not a working vacation, England does not count, we had to deal with that stupid library."

"Sounds like we're overdue then." Amanda squeezed Marie-Ange's hand. "And whatever happens, happens, yeah?"

Comments

[xp_echo]

Love this log, guys. I love their Dynamic.