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ax_main2018-06-02 04:21 pm
ax_shinigami) wrote in ax_main2018-06-02 04:21 pm
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Brigitte and Duo - June 2
Brigitte and Duo have a long drunk chat under a tree at the year-end party. Somehow, they end up married.
Brigitte had been sort of stumbling around a little, wandering from person to person to say hello. She really liked this drinking thing. It was like. Loosing inhibitions, like when she was transformed, but none of the anger. And interacting with people seemed suddenly like so much less of a big deal!
Which was why she found herself swaying (it was almost to the beat, sort of) towards Duo. They were easy to sway towards, what with the sparkly legs. Leggings. Whatever. She tilted her head as she reached them, examining their shirt. "Are you really into plurality?" She blurted out of nowhere, then blinked and awkwardly added, "Um, hi."
It took a moment for Duo to register that the girl was talking to him, another to figure out exactly what she'd said. They were just on the other side of tipsy which made all the little things just a tad slow, but they smiled all the same because she seemed very pleasant, even if she asked the oddest questions. "Hi! And... not really? I'm fairly certain there's only one of me."
Brigitte wasn't sure about that. Duo, two, they pronouns, and that shirt. With the two statue head things, Easter Island heads maybe? She gestured laconically at the shirt. "Do you like symmetry then?"
Duo looked down at the shirt, a little puzzled by what Brigitte was getting at. "Pink Floyd, I like Pink Floyd." They tapped their chest. "This is them. Not them them, um, an album cover. They don't really look like that. Unless they've gone bald and lost their teeth which is quite possible considering how old they'd be now, but yes, I like Pink Floyd."
Oh, a band. At least she thought it was a band. A super old one. "I dislike music on principle," Brigitte frowned, not realizing she was still swaying slightly trying to catch the beat. "I dislike a lot of things on principle."
"Then you'd definitely like Pink Floyd! They hated lots of things too, and had so many principals." Duo spread their hands apart as if that indicated 'so many' somehow.
Brigitte swayed backwards from the hands. "But how can I like them if I don't like music? It doesn't, um, work? Follow? Make sense," she settled on with a tiny nod.
"I am making sense," Duo insisted. "Not liking music on principle doesn't make any sense. What is the principle youre being guided by?"
"It's the principle of my life," Brigitte replied, equally insistent. "It just is. Being a fan of something is just, like, so lame. Ginger agrees," she added, as if that proved it.
Duo pulled their shirt out from their chest so they could frown down at the upside-down album art. It did look lame at the moment, but then again, it was upside-down. "Ginger hasn't listened to The Wall. There's nothing lame about Roger Waters exploring the death of his father, of the problems of authority, of a domineering mother, of the isolation of performance through one of the most ambitious and glorious rock albums ever. Yes, The Division Bell was meh-" Duo poked at the eye of one of the heads in the picture- "but the t-shirt was on sale! Have you listened to The Wall?"
"Ugh," Brigitte groaned. "There's nothing like making millions of dollars off of your, your so called emotional mainpain to make me super unin, um, un-interested," she enunciated.
"You would like Comfortably Numb," Duo rambled on, almost as if they hadn't heard her. "Just a little pinprick, you may feel a little sick... I missed words there. A line or something, but it doesn't matter, it's so good, whether or not they made a million dollars."
"Comfortably numb sounds like a good state to be in," Brigitte said, looking off into the distance. And pinpricks usually were associated with feeling sick. Then she snapped back to lightly glare at them. "Not that I'm saying I'd like the rec-er, um, the album."
Good lord, she was stubborn. "I have it on my phone. You and me, under a tree, l-i-s-s... s-n-i-n-g to Pink Floyd for five minutes." They offered their hand to Brigitte.
Brigitte stared at the hand, confused at what it was doing there. "People don't touch me. Or, I don't touch people? One of those." She tossed a chunk of hair behind her shoulder and huffed. "But whatever, play your mainpain album, so I can tell you how much I don't like it."
"Whatever!" Duo repeated. The offered hand transformed into a pointer directing Brigitte to the trees just beyond the crowd. "Out there, just beyond the fringes of the school's party population, is a tree with a large bottle of mexcal underneath it. It goes extremely well with supposed manpain, so follow me."
"Mex-cal?" Brigitte stumbled over the word, following behind. "What's that?"
"Dunno. I never heard of that before. But if you're thirsty I've got mezcal. Better than tequila? No. Better than soda? Yes." Duo reached the tree and put out a hand, not because they needed to steady themself, but more because the tree looked like it might need the steadying.
"Mezzz-cal," Brigitte dragged it out, trying to get it right. "I haven't tried tequila yet, but." She paused, not sure how to end that sentence. "Um. Are we sitting down?"
Duo stared at the ground, frowning. "I'm not sure," they whispered. "It seems like a long way down, doesn't it?"
"It does!" Thank fuck they made some sense. "Let's just stand. Lean?" Yeah, maybe lean.
That solved one problem, but the bottle was still on the ground, so Duo had to get down there somehow. "I need help. Your mutation doesn't involve levitation, does it?"
Brigitte thought about that for a minute. "I don't think so? I think I only see people getting killed..."
"You were meant to get to know me," Duo said, their eyes growing wide. "I'm a god of Death."
"No shit," Brigitte breathed out, eyes wide as well. "Like Hades?"
Duo considered that for a moment. "No, that's big time God of Death. I'm Shinigami, and from what I know, there are more of us. We crawl inside people and whisper invitations of death to them." Well, they'd never actually done that. "Or jump inside you and get you killed in the crossfire of a shoot out. That works too."
"Ohhh," Brigitte was enraptured. She'd studied death a lot, in her free time. "That's Japanese, right?"
"A shoot out? No, I'm fairly sure that's univeral. It happened to me, and I wasn't in Japan." That wasn't the right conclusion. Not at all. Duo took a few moments to rifle through what they'd said. "Oh, shinigami? Yes, that's Japaness for shinigami."
Brigitte snorted, not sure what was funny but pretty sure something was. "Were you in America? Fucking Americans practically plant, pant, um, pa-ten-ted shoot outs."
"If they did, Salvadorans perfected them." They held up a hand, thumb up, index finger pointed at the crowd of kids in front of them. "Bam! Of course it's a great help when the other side isn't armed."
"Well obviously," Brigitte glanced out, imagining the students laid out on the ground and covered it blood. It was so vivid for a second she wondered if she was having a vision. Eh, probably not. "Why bother with mechanical phal, um, dick, if someone else might fire back." Fuck, she knew she had better words than this. "Guys with guns are the biggest pussies."
Duo shook their head and slowly lowered their hand. "No, pussies are respectable and charming, those men were nothing of the sort. Just murderers, that's all."
"Charming?" Brigitte was confused. If he was actually meaning the body part, she wasn't sure how it could be charming. And anyways. "Murderers can be charming. Lotsa serial killers are called charming."
"Not this man, él era un pedazo de mierda. Shit, he was shit. A piece of it. The biggest."
Brigitte started laughing at that mental image. She tried to bring her sleeve up to her face to cover her mouth, except there wasn't any sleeve there. She was confused for half a moment before she remembered deciding to say fuck it and show off the ladder of scars stretching from her wrists to her elbows. "Oh!" She shoved her left arm, wrist out, in Duo's face. "We should totally tell people you're a shitty shini-thing. Ooo, or maybe that I'm crazy resistant to your magical ways?"
The full set of scars looked impressively delicate all laid out on her arm. They leaned in closer, almost close enough to bump the scars with their nose. "Wait are these invitations or wards against me?"
"They're science," Brigitte let him look, oddly proud of them. Or what they represented. She added, "And survival. Can you be warded against?"
"I have no idea. Want to see? Just a hand, I'll just take over a hand." They held up their hand, wiggled their fingers and gave Brigitte an inviting smile.
"Sure," Brigitte held out her right hand. The left was for Ginger and blood oaths. "If you make me do anything embarrassing I'll destroy you," she said without changing her inflection.
Duo gently placed the fingertips of their left hand on Brigitte's palm. "I would not do that, ever. I promise." They said it softly while looking Brigitte in the eyes, then pushed their fingers into her hand. There wasn't any cool effect: no light, no ripples across her skin, just Duo's hand slowly dissappearing until their wrist was sitting against her palm. They could feel a path to slip in and take over, but the idea was anathema without permission, so they settled for simply bending down her fingers to touch their wrist. All except the middle one. Duo started giggling before tugging his hand back out again.
"That's so fucking cool," Brigitte smiled, keeping her middle finger pointed outwards as she twisted her hand in a circle.
The giggling didn't stop when Brigitte ended up flashing him the finger, in fact, they couldn't stop. They reached a feeble hand up to slap it away. "Please, put that thing away!"
"You're the one who put it up!" Brigitte half-squawked, half-laughed.
"And you can put it down now!" The giggling stopped abruptly as Duo rememebered why they were out there. "Brigitte, we still haven't got the mezcal. We need to sit down. We need to drink." They dropped down to ground and reached into a breach in the tree's trunk where a bottle was tucked. "Look! I found it!"
"Weren't we... not gonna sit?" Brigitte asked, then shrugged and collapsed herself. Go where the booze is, she supposed. "Ow," she said distantly as she landed on her tailbone. Good thing the tiny stuff healed pretty quickly when she was transformed.
The bottle was open in an instant and Duo took a good swig of it before passing it to Brigitte. "We were, but we changed our minds. Much better to sit and drink. I think standing and drinking is illeagal or something?"
"I think that's driving, which I can't do. Can you?" Brigitte took a swig and abruptly started coughing.
"Nope. Too young, too not-supposed-to-be-in-this-country. I am an alien." Duo caught sight of Teddy walking through the party crowd and waved a hand at him. "Not his sort of alien though."
Brigitte took another drink, smaller this time, and handed the bottle back over. "We're Earth aliens, too. Me and Ginge. But the Professor made it so it looked like we were here legally. I still can't fucking believe there are real aliens here."
"There are gods here. There are fish princes here. There are beautiful women who write in their skin here." Duo tapped Brigitte's arm. "It's all fairy tales and myths here, and I love it."
Brigitte frowned down at her arm. Was he talking about her? She ran her fingers gently over the scars. They were writing, she supposed. A scientific record. She looked back up at Duo and replied, solemn, "Fairy tales only end well in Disneyland."
"You're wrong again. Trust me. I'm basically Aladdin right now, a nothing who is happily dating a prince, and I think that's a very good end to a fairy tale."
Brigitte crossed her arms, feeling insecure. "That's great for you, but my sister and I? We're the big bad wolves. We're not supposed to get a happy ending. We're supposed to fuck up, and the righteous heroes will come in and take us down. "
"Three strikes and you're out!" Duo yelled and threw their arms up into the air. There were a few odd looks from the party goers but they didn't pay them any mind. "You're really bad at this, you know? I think you're Persephone, and now that you've drunk of the mezcal of the God of the Dead, you're bound to me, and I am an excellent person to be bound to. I am very cheerul and won't hear of any of that 'we're big bad wolves' shit." There were darker implications to that myth, but none that Duo could sort out at the moment.
"What?!" Brigitte yelped. "You can't just, just Persephone me!" She looked at the bottle in betrayal before she smirked, remembering more of the myth. "And if you try my sister will totally Demeter your ass."
Duo shook their head sadly. "I don't need to try. You already drank. You're a tragic princess now, not a villain."
That was true, which clearly meant that Brigitte could grab the bottle back and take another swig. At least she was a tragic princess. She wiped her mouth dry and used the hand holding the bottle to point at them. "Yeah, but if you try to keep me, she'll do worse than destroy the world's crops."
"Well, I'm considerably less creepy than Hades, so I'll settle for drinking together on occasion." They deftly grabbed the bottle for a drink, frowning at the contents. "How did it get so low, so fast?"
"Ummm," Brigitte was pretty sure there was an easy explanation for that. "Are you spilling it?"
"Me?" Duo squeaked indignantly. "How could I when you were holding it? It must be you. How am I going to get anywhere close to drunk if my wife keeps spilling the alcohol?"
"Wife?" Brigitte squawked back. "Fuck that. The only, only ball'n chain I'm gonna be grouped with is the one I drown you with."
"Look, I'm not happy with it either! I'm in a sort-of monogamous relationship with a person I adore, but you drank my mezcal so you're to blame for this mess." Duo eyes widened as they realized what they'd said. "You drank the mezcal! That's where it went!"
Brigitte opened her mouth in outrage before she realized she wasn't sure if she could say he was wrong. "Well," she blustered, "you bought my hand in matri-marriage with it, so it should be mine anyway!" She smirked, pleased with the logic. She was the best at logic.
Fuck, she was right. Duo closed their eyes and leaned their head back against the tree. "You take it then. My wedding gift to you. I like whiskey better anyway."
"Not much of a gift, something you don't want," Brigitte grumbled, but took a swig from the bottle she had won. Using her awesome logic. "Why didn't you get whiskey, then?"
Duo slid a little to the side, straightened up, then slid a little to the other side. Thankfully Brigitte's shoulder was there to stop them and they settled for leaning carefully against her. "Home. I wanted to have a bit of home."
Brigitte froze when he collapsed against her. She looked down at his head, eyes wide. He was... touching her. And she didn't know what to do about it. It couldn't be comfortable; she was nearly all bones. Though maybe he was just looking for heat? She was running wolf-warm. Fuck. Fuckity fuck. But doing something about it also seemed like way too much work. "Um. That's. A good thing?" She said, strangled.
"Not really, but it feels good for a night." Duo closed their eyes, the realized they were a little too close to passing out for that, and so tried straightening up again. Success. "I need to drink more. The engine is sputtering."
Oh thank fuck. It really wouldn't have looked good if she killed her husband (or, maybe just spouse?) on their wedding night. Mostly because they'd know it was her. Still, she was feeling strangely sad for Duo. "Here," she said, shoving what was left of the bottle into their hands. "You can buy me more for our anniversary."
They smiled at Brigitte, touched by her generousity. They'd picked an excellent wife, even if they hadn't really picked her at all. "I will. I'll buy you the very best." They took the botttle, had one more long drink and passed it back. "That's better."
Hmm, sometimes taking pity on people got you free shit. Brigitte told herself to remember that later. "Alcohol makes lots of things better," she agreed.
“Always. I really should drink it more often – that’s a little scary though. I suspect I might be the sort who would like it a little too much.”
Snorting - definitely not giggling - Brigitte replied in a soft sing-song voice, "You put the fun in functional alcoholic!"
“Al-co-hol-ic,” Duo said slowly. “I don’t get it. There’s no ‘fun’ in alcoholic.”
"Nooo," Brigitte drawled, "but there is in, in that other word." She'd been happy enough to get it out the first time, no use pushing her luck.
Duo frowned at her. “Dear wife, I think you’re drunk. You’re not making sense anymore.”
"Really?" Brigitte considered that. A satisfied smile slowly stretched across her face. "I think that means I won."
They opened their mouth, ready to object, but Duo couldn't even remember this being a contest. Which... seemed to imply she hadn't, but peicing that thought together into something coherant wasn’t possible.
"I think you did," Duo conceded.
"I should go, um, brag. To Ginger. Tell her a beat her. 'Cause I'm drunk." She nodded firmly and placed her hands in front of her to start to pull herself forward onto her knees. "So is she, but I'm drunk, too. Which means I win."
“And I’ve got to go find Loki.” Duo leaned forward, fully intending to get up, but instead just rocked back to lean against the tree. They needed a few more moments before the body would listen. “In a minute. I’ll go in a minute. You go tell your sister about your victories.”
"I will," Brigitte paused to pat them on the knee before she clumsily stumbled to her feet. She looked back down at them and offered a half smile. "And I'll, I'll always remember that you helped me win. Even if it means we're married now."
Brigitte had been sort of stumbling around a little, wandering from person to person to say hello. She really liked this drinking thing. It was like. Loosing inhibitions, like when she was transformed, but none of the anger. And interacting with people seemed suddenly like so much less of a big deal!
Which was why she found herself swaying (it was almost to the beat, sort of) towards Duo. They were easy to sway towards, what with the sparkly legs. Leggings. Whatever. She tilted her head as she reached them, examining their shirt. "Are you really into plurality?" She blurted out of nowhere, then blinked and awkwardly added, "Um, hi."
It took a moment for Duo to register that the girl was talking to him, another to figure out exactly what she'd said. They were just on the other side of tipsy which made all the little things just a tad slow, but they smiled all the same because she seemed very pleasant, even if she asked the oddest questions. "Hi! And... not really? I'm fairly certain there's only one of me."
Brigitte wasn't sure about that. Duo, two, they pronouns, and that shirt. With the two statue head things, Easter Island heads maybe? She gestured laconically at the shirt. "Do you like symmetry then?"
Duo looked down at the shirt, a little puzzled by what Brigitte was getting at. "Pink Floyd, I like Pink Floyd." They tapped their chest. "This is them. Not them them, um, an album cover. They don't really look like that. Unless they've gone bald and lost their teeth which is quite possible considering how old they'd be now, but yes, I like Pink Floyd."
Oh, a band. At least she thought it was a band. A super old one. "I dislike music on principle," Brigitte frowned, not realizing she was still swaying slightly trying to catch the beat. "I dislike a lot of things on principle."
"Then you'd definitely like Pink Floyd! They hated lots of things too, and had so many principals." Duo spread their hands apart as if that indicated 'so many' somehow.
Brigitte swayed backwards from the hands. "But how can I like them if I don't like music? It doesn't, um, work? Follow? Make sense," she settled on with a tiny nod.
"I am making sense," Duo insisted. "Not liking music on principle doesn't make any sense. What is the principle youre being guided by?"
"It's the principle of my life," Brigitte replied, equally insistent. "It just is. Being a fan of something is just, like, so lame. Ginger agrees," she added, as if that proved it.
Duo pulled their shirt out from their chest so they could frown down at the upside-down album art. It did look lame at the moment, but then again, it was upside-down. "Ginger hasn't listened to The Wall. There's nothing lame about Roger Waters exploring the death of his father, of the problems of authority, of a domineering mother, of the isolation of performance through one of the most ambitious and glorious rock albums ever. Yes, The Division Bell was meh-" Duo poked at the eye of one of the heads in the picture- "but the t-shirt was on sale! Have you listened to The Wall?"
"Ugh," Brigitte groaned. "There's nothing like making millions of dollars off of your, your so called emotional mainpain to make me super unin, um, un-interested," she enunciated.
"You would like Comfortably Numb," Duo rambled on, almost as if they hadn't heard her. "Just a little pinprick, you may feel a little sick... I missed words there. A line or something, but it doesn't matter, it's so good, whether or not they made a million dollars."
"Comfortably numb sounds like a good state to be in," Brigitte said, looking off into the distance. And pinpricks usually were associated with feeling sick. Then she snapped back to lightly glare at them. "Not that I'm saying I'd like the rec-er, um, the album."
Good lord, she was stubborn. "I have it on my phone. You and me, under a tree, l-i-s-s... s-n-i-n-g to Pink Floyd for five minutes." They offered their hand to Brigitte.
Brigitte stared at the hand, confused at what it was doing there. "People don't touch me. Or, I don't touch people? One of those." She tossed a chunk of hair behind her shoulder and huffed. "But whatever, play your mainpain album, so I can tell you how much I don't like it."
"Whatever!" Duo repeated. The offered hand transformed into a pointer directing Brigitte to the trees just beyond the crowd. "Out there, just beyond the fringes of the school's party population, is a tree with a large bottle of mexcal underneath it. It goes extremely well with supposed manpain, so follow me."
"Mex-cal?" Brigitte stumbled over the word, following behind. "What's that?"
"Dunno. I never heard of that before. But if you're thirsty I've got mezcal. Better than tequila? No. Better than soda? Yes." Duo reached the tree and put out a hand, not because they needed to steady themself, but more because the tree looked like it might need the steadying.
"Mezzz-cal," Brigitte dragged it out, trying to get it right. "I haven't tried tequila yet, but." She paused, not sure how to end that sentence. "Um. Are we sitting down?"
Duo stared at the ground, frowning. "I'm not sure," they whispered. "It seems like a long way down, doesn't it?"
"It does!" Thank fuck they made some sense. "Let's just stand. Lean?" Yeah, maybe lean.
That solved one problem, but the bottle was still on the ground, so Duo had to get down there somehow. "I need help. Your mutation doesn't involve levitation, does it?"
Brigitte thought about that for a minute. "I don't think so? I think I only see people getting killed..."
"You were meant to get to know me," Duo said, their eyes growing wide. "I'm a god of Death."
"No shit," Brigitte breathed out, eyes wide as well. "Like Hades?"
Duo considered that for a moment. "No, that's big time God of Death. I'm Shinigami, and from what I know, there are more of us. We crawl inside people and whisper invitations of death to them." Well, they'd never actually done that. "Or jump inside you and get you killed in the crossfire of a shoot out. That works too."
"Ohhh," Brigitte was enraptured. She'd studied death a lot, in her free time. "That's Japanese, right?"
"A shoot out? No, I'm fairly sure that's univeral. It happened to me, and I wasn't in Japan." That wasn't the right conclusion. Not at all. Duo took a few moments to rifle through what they'd said. "Oh, shinigami? Yes, that's Japaness for shinigami."
Brigitte snorted, not sure what was funny but pretty sure something was. "Were you in America? Fucking Americans practically plant, pant, um, pa-ten-ted shoot outs."
"If they did, Salvadorans perfected them." They held up a hand, thumb up, index finger pointed at the crowd of kids in front of them. "Bam! Of course it's a great help when the other side isn't armed."
"Well obviously," Brigitte glanced out, imagining the students laid out on the ground and covered it blood. It was so vivid for a second she wondered if she was having a vision. Eh, probably not. "Why bother with mechanical phal, um, dick, if someone else might fire back." Fuck, she knew she had better words than this. "Guys with guns are the biggest pussies."
Duo shook their head and slowly lowered their hand. "No, pussies are respectable and charming, those men were nothing of the sort. Just murderers, that's all."
"Charming?" Brigitte was confused. If he was actually meaning the body part, she wasn't sure how it could be charming. And anyways. "Murderers can be charming. Lotsa serial killers are called charming."
"Not this man, él era un pedazo de mierda. Shit, he was shit. A piece of it. The biggest."
Brigitte started laughing at that mental image. She tried to bring her sleeve up to her face to cover her mouth, except there wasn't any sleeve there. She was confused for half a moment before she remembered deciding to say fuck it and show off the ladder of scars stretching from her wrists to her elbows. "Oh!" She shoved her left arm, wrist out, in Duo's face. "We should totally tell people you're a shitty shini-thing. Ooo, or maybe that I'm crazy resistant to your magical ways?"
The full set of scars looked impressively delicate all laid out on her arm. They leaned in closer, almost close enough to bump the scars with their nose. "Wait are these invitations or wards against me?"
"They're science," Brigitte let him look, oddly proud of them. Or what they represented. She added, "And survival. Can you be warded against?"
"I have no idea. Want to see? Just a hand, I'll just take over a hand." They held up their hand, wiggled their fingers and gave Brigitte an inviting smile.
"Sure," Brigitte held out her right hand. The left was for Ginger and blood oaths. "If you make me do anything embarrassing I'll destroy you," she said without changing her inflection.
Duo gently placed the fingertips of their left hand on Brigitte's palm. "I would not do that, ever. I promise." They said it softly while looking Brigitte in the eyes, then pushed their fingers into her hand. There wasn't any cool effect: no light, no ripples across her skin, just Duo's hand slowly dissappearing until their wrist was sitting against her palm. They could feel a path to slip in and take over, but the idea was anathema without permission, so they settled for simply bending down her fingers to touch their wrist. All except the middle one. Duo started giggling before tugging his hand back out again.
"That's so fucking cool," Brigitte smiled, keeping her middle finger pointed outwards as she twisted her hand in a circle.
The giggling didn't stop when Brigitte ended up flashing him the finger, in fact, they couldn't stop. They reached a feeble hand up to slap it away. "Please, put that thing away!"
"You're the one who put it up!" Brigitte half-squawked, half-laughed.
"And you can put it down now!" The giggling stopped abruptly as Duo rememebered why they were out there. "Brigitte, we still haven't got the mezcal. We need to sit down. We need to drink." They dropped down to ground and reached into a breach in the tree's trunk where a bottle was tucked. "Look! I found it!"
"Weren't we... not gonna sit?" Brigitte asked, then shrugged and collapsed herself. Go where the booze is, she supposed. "Ow," she said distantly as she landed on her tailbone. Good thing the tiny stuff healed pretty quickly when she was transformed.
The bottle was open in an instant and Duo took a good swig of it before passing it to Brigitte. "We were, but we changed our minds. Much better to sit and drink. I think standing and drinking is illeagal or something?"
"I think that's driving, which I can't do. Can you?" Brigitte took a swig and abruptly started coughing.
"Nope. Too young, too not-supposed-to-be-in-this-country. I am an alien." Duo caught sight of Teddy walking through the party crowd and waved a hand at him. "Not his sort of alien though."
Brigitte took another drink, smaller this time, and handed the bottle back over. "We're Earth aliens, too. Me and Ginge. But the Professor made it so it looked like we were here legally. I still can't fucking believe there are real aliens here."
"There are gods here. There are fish princes here. There are beautiful women who write in their skin here." Duo tapped Brigitte's arm. "It's all fairy tales and myths here, and I love it."
Brigitte frowned down at her arm. Was he talking about her? She ran her fingers gently over the scars. They were writing, she supposed. A scientific record. She looked back up at Duo and replied, solemn, "Fairy tales only end well in Disneyland."
"You're wrong again. Trust me. I'm basically Aladdin right now, a nothing who is happily dating a prince, and I think that's a very good end to a fairy tale."
Brigitte crossed her arms, feeling insecure. "That's great for you, but my sister and I? We're the big bad wolves. We're not supposed to get a happy ending. We're supposed to fuck up, and the righteous heroes will come in and take us down. "
"Three strikes and you're out!" Duo yelled and threw their arms up into the air. There were a few odd looks from the party goers but they didn't pay them any mind. "You're really bad at this, you know? I think you're Persephone, and now that you've drunk of the mezcal of the God of the Dead, you're bound to me, and I am an excellent person to be bound to. I am very cheerul and won't hear of any of that 'we're big bad wolves' shit." There were darker implications to that myth, but none that Duo could sort out at the moment.
"What?!" Brigitte yelped. "You can't just, just Persephone me!" She looked at the bottle in betrayal before she smirked, remembering more of the myth. "And if you try my sister will totally Demeter your ass."
Duo shook their head sadly. "I don't need to try. You already drank. You're a tragic princess now, not a villain."
That was true, which clearly meant that Brigitte could grab the bottle back and take another swig. At least she was a tragic princess. She wiped her mouth dry and used the hand holding the bottle to point at them. "Yeah, but if you try to keep me, she'll do worse than destroy the world's crops."
"Well, I'm considerably less creepy than Hades, so I'll settle for drinking together on occasion." They deftly grabbed the bottle for a drink, frowning at the contents. "How did it get so low, so fast?"
"Ummm," Brigitte was pretty sure there was an easy explanation for that. "Are you spilling it?"
"Me?" Duo squeaked indignantly. "How could I when you were holding it? It must be you. How am I going to get anywhere close to drunk if my wife keeps spilling the alcohol?"
"Wife?" Brigitte squawked back. "Fuck that. The only, only ball'n chain I'm gonna be grouped with is the one I drown you with."
"Look, I'm not happy with it either! I'm in a sort-of monogamous relationship with a person I adore, but you drank my mezcal so you're to blame for this mess." Duo eyes widened as they realized what they'd said. "You drank the mezcal! That's where it went!"
Brigitte opened her mouth in outrage before she realized she wasn't sure if she could say he was wrong. "Well," she blustered, "you bought my hand in matri-marriage with it, so it should be mine anyway!" She smirked, pleased with the logic. She was the best at logic.
Fuck, she was right. Duo closed their eyes and leaned their head back against the tree. "You take it then. My wedding gift to you. I like whiskey better anyway."
"Not much of a gift, something you don't want," Brigitte grumbled, but took a swig from the bottle she had won. Using her awesome logic. "Why didn't you get whiskey, then?"
Duo slid a little to the side, straightened up, then slid a little to the other side. Thankfully Brigitte's shoulder was there to stop them and they settled for leaning carefully against her. "Home. I wanted to have a bit of home."
Brigitte froze when he collapsed against her. She looked down at his head, eyes wide. He was... touching her. And she didn't know what to do about it. It couldn't be comfortable; she was nearly all bones. Though maybe he was just looking for heat? She was running wolf-warm. Fuck. Fuckity fuck. But doing something about it also seemed like way too much work. "Um. That's. A good thing?" She said, strangled.
"Not really, but it feels good for a night." Duo closed their eyes, the realized they were a little too close to passing out for that, and so tried straightening up again. Success. "I need to drink more. The engine is sputtering."
Oh thank fuck. It really wouldn't have looked good if she killed her husband (or, maybe just spouse?) on their wedding night. Mostly because they'd know it was her. Still, she was feeling strangely sad for Duo. "Here," she said, shoving what was left of the bottle into their hands. "You can buy me more for our anniversary."
They smiled at Brigitte, touched by her generousity. They'd picked an excellent wife, even if they hadn't really picked her at all. "I will. I'll buy you the very best." They took the botttle, had one more long drink and passed it back. "That's better."
Hmm, sometimes taking pity on people got you free shit. Brigitte told herself to remember that later. "Alcohol makes lots of things better," she agreed.
“Always. I really should drink it more often – that’s a little scary though. I suspect I might be the sort who would like it a little too much.”
Snorting - definitely not giggling - Brigitte replied in a soft sing-song voice, "You put the fun in functional alcoholic!"
“Al-co-hol-ic,” Duo said slowly. “I don’t get it. There’s no ‘fun’ in alcoholic.”
"Nooo," Brigitte drawled, "but there is in, in that other word." She'd been happy enough to get it out the first time, no use pushing her luck.
Duo frowned at her. “Dear wife, I think you’re drunk. You’re not making sense anymore.”
"Really?" Brigitte considered that. A satisfied smile slowly stretched across her face. "I think that means I won."
They opened their mouth, ready to object, but Duo couldn't even remember this being a contest. Which... seemed to imply she hadn't, but peicing that thought together into something coherant wasn’t possible.
"I think you did," Duo conceded.
"I should go, um, brag. To Ginger. Tell her a beat her. 'Cause I'm drunk." She nodded firmly and placed her hands in front of her to start to pull herself forward onto her knees. "So is she, but I'm drunk, too. Which means I win."
“And I’ve got to go find Loki.” Duo leaned forward, fully intending to get up, but instead just rocked back to lean against the tree. They needed a few more moments before the body would listen. “In a minute. I’ll go in a minute. You go tell your sister about your victories.”
"I will," Brigitte paused to pat them on the knee before she clumsily stumbled to her feet. She looked back down at them and offered a half smile. "And I'll, I'll always remember that you helped me win. Even if it means we're married now."
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Loved this, though! I'd love to read the aftermath where they're sober. ;)
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