chelsea corner (filial) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-01-19 17:54:00 |
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There was snow on the ground and a chill in the air that meant that Gwen had hurried home from work, her scarf twisted around her neck tightly, gloves on and hands buried deep in her pockets. Her ears were cold and her breath had led the way home, hanging in front of her the whole way. She didn’t mind too much, though. It was hard to mind when she had a plan for the day. Bouncing into the flat, she tore off her gloves, but didn’t bother removing her coat or scarf as she made her way down the hall to Chelsea’s room. She knocked and then flung it open, posing in the doorway. “Honey, I’m home,” she announced, “and you’re all I’ve wanted all day.” In the middle of folding the towels she'd just gathered, Chelsea looked up and then looked at the alarm clock next to her bed. Feigning a disappointed look, she sighed, "You're too late. I've already made plans to elope with the boy next door and you know I can't break his heart." “Are you kidding?” Gwen asked, raising an eyebrow at Chelsea. She gestured down the length of herself, taking the opportunity to pose in her rather fabulous red winter coat. “And leave all this at the kerb? I think not.” She walked into the room, smile wide, and refrained from sitting on the bed mostly because she didn’t want Chelsea to frown about her ruining the towel piles. “Besides, he could definitely do with the toughening up of a heartbreak or two, don’t you think?” Chelsea rolled her eyes fondly and set aside a towel. "He already had his heart broken by that girl he was dating forever, remember? I'd hate to make it worse." She paused and pretended to think. "But you do know how to wear a coat and he's very bad at that." “He only wears hoodies,” Gwen said, screwing her face up. “You know you can’t trust someone who only wears a hoodie. You can, however, trust Gwen.” She widened her eyes and tried to look supremely trustworthy and also like someone Chelsea could put utmost faith in. Then, she grinned. “Do you trust me?” As her friend, Chelsea was bound to say she did, and she did, except when Gwen had a plan in mind, and as her friend, Chelsea knew exactly when Gwen had a plan in mind. Warily, she said, "Of course I do, but let's hear what you have in mind first." “I think it’s time,” Gwen said, tilting her chin down, looking serious and doing her best ‘I’m a serious young woman and I was in The Craft’ impression, “for the ritual.” “I thought we agreed that the ritual was outdated and impossible and not our style,” Chelsea reminded, ticking off the reasons on her fingers. “I distinctly remember that.” “Are you putting limits on our style?” Gwen raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Her neck felt warm: maybe keeping her coat and scarf on had not been the best way forward. “I wouldn’t dream of letting you get away with that. You’re doting in your old age.” "I'll ignore that remark," she said with a shake of her head, "but I'm absolutely putting limits on our style." “You know I don't like limits,” Gwen said, serenely, and then she reached for one of Chelsea’s towels. With a lot of emphasis on the action, she would it around Chelsea’s neck, like it was a McQueen scarf shed coveted. “Come on. You know you want to look great and sacrifice some virgins.” There was no use in getting Gwen to put the towel back, so with a resignation that was predictable in the way Gwen-proposes-an-idea always went, Chelsea shrugged and said, "I do want to look great, but can't we spare the virgins this time?" Gwen reached out, righting the towel slightly, still acting like it was a ridiculously expensive garment. “You know I don’t like to spare the virgins!” she said, as seriously as she could, only smiling a little. “It’s part of my favourite bit. You get to frighten them! Maybe we could do Coyote Ugly style dancing with them on the bridge railings too? That’d scare them. You know I love being scary.” "I think you need a new hobby," Chelsea said dryly. "If you're scaring the virgins, what am I doing?" “Helping me,” Gwen said, decisively. She grinned and moved back. “Come on. We’re hitting a bar first and I want to see you slam some tequila.” She didn’t wait for Chelsea to argue. Instead, she left the room, ignoring any protests and heading for her own room to touch up her make up. She knew Chelsea would follow her. It was a ritual. The ritual did, indeed, start in a bar. Gwen’s hand landed on Chelsea’s elbow as she pressed closer to her, voice high as she chanted, “Shots shots shots shots shots.” It was much too early for shots. The crowd was mostly after-workers. Gwen grinned at them all and then looked at Chelsea. “It’s only our birthday week once a year.” "One day, we'll be unable to do this. Physically incapable of it," Chelsea said, groaning as she finished off two in front of her. "And when that day comes, I'm going to commemorate it by not drinking." She pushed two others to the side, elbowing Gwen to draw her attention to them. "You can have these." Gwen giggled, propping her elbow onto the bar and looking down it. One bartender (the cute one) was fixing someone a number of cocktails for a group who were obviously taking advantage of happy hour. The other (less cute) bartender was making his way towards them. Gwen reached for the shots and threw them back, placing the glasses back on the bar decisively. Her throat burned and she pulled a face at Chelsea. “When we’re physically incapable of it, we’ll be old and decrepit women. With great-great-great-grandchildren and our boobs will trail the ground as we walk. Do you really want to think about that now?” Chelsea's reaction made it clear she didn't want to. "But we're witches. There has to be a way to maintain our boob shape. Have you ever seen any of the old witches in portraits with saggy boobs?" “Yeah, but what if that’s just artist embellishment?” Gwen said, playing with one of the empty shot glasses. “They just wanted to spare the vanity of the woman, in case she picked one of her heavy saggy boobs up and knocked them out with it.” She looked at Chelsea, willing her to agree that this was incredibly likely. "You think every single one is an embellishment? Even that really nice old lady in that museum once?" Chelsea looked skeptically at Gwen and then at the empty shot glasses. "Where is the bartender? I want his opinion!" “Barkeep!” Gwen said, sticking her hand out and waving. The less cute one slouched their way, after staring for a moment. “What can I get for you ladies?” he asked and Gwen waved her hand again. “No, no, we’re not after a drink just this moment. Although we’ll take two tequila sunrises. But before that — my beautiful friend Chelsea has a question for you!” Gwen looked at Chelsea. She wasn’t drunk yet, but this was their birthday outing, a ritual. She opened her mouth and said the ridiculous thing. “It’s about boobs but not her own — yet.” "We have a bet going on," Chelsea explained, although they didn't, not really. Gesturing to Gwen, she continued, "Gwen thinks that all artists have covered up the fact that the old women in the portraits you see actually have saggy boobs, but I," now, she gestured to herself, "disagree! They can't all be lies!" The bartender looked between them and laughed, a little uncomfortably, before nodding. "I don't know," he said, "I haven't thought about it, but let me get your drinks and um, think about it." He left much more quickly than he'd arrived and Chelsea frowned. "That wasn't any answer at all." Gwen wrinkled her nose at his back. “Maybe he doesn’t think we’re being serious,” she said, with the air of someone who was learning a horrible truth. “Maybe he thinks we’d joke about saggy boobs like we’re some kind of heathens. When he comes back, I’ll hold him down and you can intimidate him until he admits I’m right.” "I'm not going to intimidate him," she protested. He was well within his rights to not answer them, although it really did make their bet hard to settle. "Maybe I shouldn't have said boobs so much." “We’ll ask again at the next place we go,” Gwen said, reassuringly, and then her face lit up. “Speaking of,” she said, and dug into her coat pocket, extracting a set of well-worn cards. She shuffled them and then spread them out in front of Chelsea. On the flip side of each card was written a location they had to visit if the cards decreed it. She propped her elbow back up on the bar and turned to Chelsea. “Pick a card, any card.” Chelsea's selection was the third card from her left and she kept it face down until she showed it to Gwen. "Please say it's somewhere where we can walk off these shots." Gwen looked from the card to Chelsea’s face and then back again. “Ugh,” she said and shook her head. The bartender appeared with her drinks just as she disgustedly announced, “It’s the art gallery.” "I thought you were going to get rid of that card last year," Chelsea said before picking up her drink, brightening as an idea hit her. "Oh! This'll work well! We can talk to the experts about our question!" Gwen groaned and then laughed, the noises fading together as she brought her drink towards her and put her mouth around the straw. “I can’t wait to see you talk about boobs some more,” she said, her delight obvious. “Drink up, babe.” Chelsea was not drunk and she could walk just fine, but the room was weirdly lit and that was why she nearly ran into someone as they made their turn around the room. A few hushed apologies later, she clutched Gwen's arm and pointed at the painting in front of them, whispering (louder than normal), "See. That one has normal boobs." “She does not,” Gwen said, wrinkling her nose up at the huge picture. The huge anime picture. “I mean, look at it. It’s not in proportion at all. With a head that big her boobs should be swinging and knocking us all out.” She shimmied her shoulders slightly, as if demonstrating what action getting knocked out by boobs would entail, and then she looked at Chelsea very seriously. “Don’t you think she should have bigger boobs?” "She should definitely have either a smaller head or bigger boobs," Chelsea agreed, tilting her head to examine the girl in the painting some more. Her gaze drifted off, and then squinting, she pointed at it again, "Shouldn't she have knees?" “How’s she meant to do anything without knees?” Gwen said, gasping. She brought a hand to her chest and looked at the picture. It was enough to drive a girl to drink. Looking around, she tried to see if there was a nice stash of free wine, but there was not. It was a stroke of genius to stop at the off licence on the way there. Slowly, she put her hand into her bag. “Does anyone here look like an art expert to you?” Tasked with a mission, Chelsea scanned the room, her eyes landing on a prime suspect. Tall, besuited, and old, there was no one else walking around that could've better fit the bill. She raised an arm and waved him over, her hand flapping in front of her until she finally got his attention. He took forever to walk over, but once he got close enough, she introduced herself. "Hi! I'm Chelsea," she said, voice louder than usual, "and this is Gwen. And we have questions!" Gwen’s hand gripped her bottle of white wine which had been poured into a water bottle and suddenly she thought perhaps she should have timed it better. It was too late now. The man smiled at them. He looked benignly friendly. “Yes, of course. How can I help?” “We were wondering,” Gwen said, adopting a serious pose (she wished she was wearing glasses), “about these paintings. Specifically! We wanted to talk about why they weren’t more realistic. Don’t you think it’s ridiculous how she doesn’t have knees?” He looked behind them and then back at them. "I believe it's not meant to be realistic," he offered, but Chelsea found it to be lacking. "But it's her knees! She needs knees!" She turned to Gwen and implored her to agree. Gwen was quick to agree. Her best friend and the love of her life, no doubt, needed her help. “Yeah!” she said, chin up. “She needs knees! How else are those weirdo teenage boys meant to get their rocks off?” "Think," Chelsea said grimly, "of the fetishists." Stumbling out the door, Gwen clutched onto Chelsea’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise they’d kick us out.” Chelsea patted Gwen's hand soothingly. Despite the fact that they had been kicked out, she didn't want Gwen to think it was her fault, when the blame clearly rested with the not-an-art-expert expert. "I can't believe how little they care about us trying to learn something new!" “I just wanted to make sure the animated little people were properly represented! She needed more boobs and some knees!” She was very animated as she spoke and Gwen remembered suddenly her water bottle. Drawing it out of her bag, she took a drink and then passed it to Chelsea. “More wine?” Nodding, she took a drink and held it out for Gwen to take back. "Maybe we approached it all wrong," Chelsea mused. "We should've tracked down the artist instead." “Maybe that’s what we need to do next time.” Gwen nodded at her own suggestion, walking around one of the trees planted at the side of the road to make the place appear more green. Gwen loved cities. They were always so fun. She reached out to place a hand against the bark and not to steady herself — simply to feel a tree bark. And also to steady herself. She wasn’t quite sure how much they had drank. “Maybe I need to use my journalistic skills and you can use your hitwitch skills and we can track down the anime artist and ask why he’s not appeasing the fetishists and giving them some goddamn knees.” "Right." It sounded perfectly reasonable and possible. They'd have to return the next day, find out the artist of the painting, and then track him (or her, but it was probably a man, because of how unrealistic it had looked) down. They had the right skill set for that task. "Right! We'll make him see the error of his ways!" “I can’t believe he held out on us like that,” Gwen said, looping her arm through Chelsea’s. She started to walk, her heels clicking against the pavement, her bag hitting her leg with every step. “And that they wouldn’t recognise how important we are to the anime art movement. We’re not gonna help them make it mainstream at all. Or we can do some art, right, and give them knees.” Gwen reached out with her other hand to squeeze Chelsea’s arm. “Do you want to make some art?” Chelsea clasped her hand over Gwen’s and nodded enthusiastically. “We have a duty to make some art,” she said, almost solemn if it hadn’t been for the fact that she almost tripped over her own feet just then. Recovering spectacularly, she pointed in front of her. “Lead the way!” “For the fetishists!” |