Log: Mermaid & Karma Who: Arla Lawrence and Xi'an Coy Manh When: Friday morning, around 4 AM Where: Arla's room, the wine cellar, then Arla's room What: Arla can't sleep and all the liquor in her room is gone, so she goes to the wine cellar for a nightcap----to find Xi'an there with much the same purpose in mind. They go back to Arla's room to drink and talk about politics and moving on from the past until Arla falls asleep. Note: This log makes reference to events in this log.
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It wasn't that Arla had stopped drinking. She definitely hadn't stopped drinking. She was just pissed off that people kept talking about it, so she did it less. She drank alone, recreationally, like it was water----and on nights when she couldn't sleep, she needed some booze to knock her back out.
Except, when she rolled out of bed and went for her trusty bottle of Tanqueray, it was empty. So were the other bottles tucked under her desk. A whole bunch of empty, useless bottles. ---Which meant it was time for a field trip.
Shuffling along in her pajamas, a robe and slippers thrown on, she made her way across the hall to the wine cellar. No one would miss a bottle of wine if she just stole a bit as a sleeping aid.
Xi'an kept odd hours -- sometimes because she couldn't sleep, sometimes because she woke up in the night, and sometimes because she was reading something she couldn't put down. Tonight, she'd woken up from a particularly nasty dream, restless to get up and do something. Xi'an wasn't a huge fan of wine, but she'd acquired a certain love for sherry while she'd been travelling. A glass or two of oloroso couldn't hurt if it helped get her back to sleep -- or just kept her company over a book. Either or.
She hadn't expected company, though, and hardly seemed dressed for it, baggy unflattering sweatshirt and stained sweatpants and all that. But one look at the hair, and it was immediately obvious who was coming in the door while she was on her way out.
"Do I come with a homing beacon?" Xi'an said tiredly, the bottle of sherry cradled protectively in her hands when she looked over at Arla. "Or am I just lucky tonight?"
Arla grinned lazily at Xi'an, leaning up against the door frame. "Oh, baby, I'll make sure you're always lucky. Every night." As she walked past her, she gave her friend a smack on the ass. "Tell me there's a bottle in here that no one will miss if I take it... I don't want Hank on my ass about how I drank a priceless 1734 bottle of... whatever." Arla was a drinker but she didn't do wine.
Xi'an snorted, shrugging and glancing over the shelves again. "I have no idea. The only wine I drink is the wine I bought. You can always share mine if you like sherry. It's the least I can do."
Arla turned, squinting at Xi'an. "Sherry's like drinking children's cough syrup," she said, deadpan. "But bring it on."
Offering the bottle -- sans glass; please, it wasn't like she was going to catch a disease -- Xi'an smirked. "Consider it brought. Your room or the kitchen?"
Arla took the bottle, took a swig, and felt the comforting tang of alcohol on her tongue and the burn down her throat. Sweet, but... it'd do. She grabbed Xi'an by the arm and dragged her across the hall and to her bedroom. The lights were far too bright in the kitchen for this late at night and she'd never get to sleeping.
"I don't see you enough, you bitch," she muttered, flopping down on her bed with the bottle and kicking her slippers off. "What with you being all important with rebuilding the country and shit. You done with that yet? I don't follow politics, I figure it'll all even itself out on its own."
"I take care of the SHIELD parts that Fury decides he wants me to do." Notably more sober than Arla on any given day, Xi'an seemed painfully calm next to her friend. Sitting on the bed, she stole the bottle back for a slightly more graceful drink before handing it back. "I'm in and out, but I'm home either way. You should try following this election; it's putting the country back together, after all."
Arla narrowed her eyes and looked sideways at Xi'an before she took another drink. "Why," she said sourly. "It'll be put back together and then fall apart again, or it'll be put back together. I'm fine just waiting to see how it all turns out. I don't give a damn who runs the country."
"Because you don't have a right to bitch about the state of things if you're not involved in the politics," Xi'an replied bluntly.
Arla snorted, chuckling. "Oooooh, Xi'an, all up in arms." She waved the bottle about, threatening to spill it, and when a splash of liquid did fall over her hand she cradled the bottle up against her chest, protectively. "I've got every right to bitch about whatever I feel like----but politics is something I don't do. They're all corrupt, they've all got hidden agendas, and even if we're supposedly saving the world it's going to suck in one way or another, so... fuck it, I really don't care, sweetie."
She offered Xi'an an infuriating, smug smile, and passed the bottle back against Xi'an's chest. "I got enough to bitch about without thinking about politics."
Xi'an watched Arla carefully, more concerned over whether or not she'd crack herself over the head with the bottle of sherry. "Everyone has a hidden agenda; it doesn't matter if they're in politics or not. As it is, non-voters really shouldn't complain when someone they don't like gets elected; participation is the spirit of democracy. No participation, no spirit, no say."
Studying the bottle in her hand for a moment, she took a swig. "But to each his own."
Arla rolled her eyes. "Says the immigrant. Of course."
"Says the legal American citizen. I've been in America for nearly twenty years; why does that matter?"
Arla took the sherry back and drank again. "Because when you're not born here you're told all kinds of bullshit about this country, whether it's good or bad. But whatever, you can go on with your good ol' democratic spirit..." She was still a Morlock at heart, she still wanted to live underground in her own little world where things like politics and money didn't actually matter. That was where she was coming from. She'd lived for ten years without sunlight, without politics, without money. She still wasn't fully into this whole topsider lifestyle.
"You'll find plenty of Americans with good old democratic spirit." Xi'an made a face. "It's a highly imperfect system, but it's better than a dictatorship -- and I know that from experience. If I could give it all up and live underground where none of it mattered ... I don't know, maybe I would. But I can't."
"Tch." Arla sighed. "Dunno why we couldn't."
"Because that's not how it works," Xi'an said softly, pulling up her legs and hugging her knees.
"Can't hide forever, I guess." Arla took another drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Thinking about all this made her feel a little sick. The 'real world' hadn't exactly been all that kind to her, either, but... then again, all of her problems had stemmed from trying to go back to the past and find vengeance. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"No. You really can't." Reaching over, Xi'an took the bottle back for a long, indulgent drink -- pulling back and staring at it again before taking another. "Best you can do is move on, really."
"I'm trying. I am trying, Xi'an." Arla's mouth twitched and she looked up at the wall above her bed. There, in blood, was the null sign that she'd made the last time Xi'an was here in her room sitting on her bed----and Arla had been in a completely different state. She'd never gotten around to trying to wash it off.
Xi'an looked over, flinched when she saw the sign. She remembered that. God, did she remember that, in painful, vivid detail. "It takes time. ---We'll wash that off this afternoon, hm?"
"No," said Arla, taking another drink----and then passing the bottle back. "It reminds me where I've been and where I'm going."
"Does it? Or does it make it harder to let go?"
Arla frowned, looking up at the symbol again and hugging her knees against her chest. "...We'll wash it off this afternoon."
Xi'an reached over, squeezing Arla's knee. "Sometimes the past needs to stay there," she said quietly.
Arla shifted, and then she was slumping, resting all her weight on Xi'an, her cheek up on the other woman's shoulder. There was something comforting about Xi'an's irritating directness. Arla was direct, but she was also incredibly neurotic and tended to let things get out of hand... Xi'an just put her in her place. Comforted her without coddling her. So Arla could slump on her. It wasn't very comfortable.
"I'm still not getting political," she mumbled.
Xi'an shifted, looping an arm around Arla's shoulders and glancing back up at the bloody mark on the wall. "That's okay. We'll work on that."
Arla mumbled something else, but within a few seconds it was obvious from the light sound of her snoring that the liquor had done it's job and she was conked out on Xi'an, her face smushed on her shoulder.