WHO: Lila Lovelock & Matías Hernandez Rodriguez. WHEN: Wednesday, October 19th. WHERE: Lila's apartment. SUMMARY: Mat stops by with a box of Fireball thanks to the WW of the E and the two drunkenly hatch a Bad Idea Plan. PROMPT: In Medias Res.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted the box of Fireball,” Lila said suddenly as she shook her empty glass in a drunken attempt to signal she wanted another shot. When Mat had arrived at her apartment with said box in tow, she had been skeptical, but with a few shots down she was feeling fairly good. Both of them seemed to need this after the surprise announcement the previous day that two other Tales from the Land of Oz were in town. “But I still don’t think college kids should have this. This is an adult juice box. For people like us with jobs and retirement savings.”
Matías nodded gravely as he poured another shot onto the flat, smooth surface of her counter. It took a minute for him to realize he’d missed the glass entirely and tried again, this time with some success. At least there was cinnamony adult juice box juice in the tiny - way too tiny, how did Chris manage to pour these things? - shotglass.
“I told you,” he said, words measured and slow. It wouldn’t do to let on just how drunk he was. There was still at least half the box left. “Fireball is amazing.”
Reaching forward, she dipped her finger into the newly formed puddle of Fireball and splashed it about for a few seconds. A sober Lila might have cared the liquid could possibly damage the counter, but drunk Lila just didn't care. “Yes. Amazing,” she answered as she made grabby hands toward the shot glass. “Oh my god! You know what we should also do that will make us feel better?”
The witch blinked at her, willing his vision to -- no, not that close, he did not need to see Lila’s pores, but really, he’d have to remember to ask her what sorts of skincare products she used because she really did have remarkable skin --- yes, there it was. The two Lila’s were now one Lila, which would have been too much for sober Matías, but drunk Matías thought this was considerably more manageable.
Carefully, he handed her the shot, cinnamony alcohol sloshing over the side and onto his hand. He sucked it off his skin. Mmm. Cinnamon.
“What?”
With a smile, she took the shot and quickly drank it. The small glass was slammed down on the table as Lila’s smile widened to almost scary proportions. “We should get some food!” she exclaimed as her hand landed on Mat’s and gave it a quick squeeze. “Because if we’re going to keep going, we are going to need food!”
That was probably the second most brilliant idea he had heard, after, of course, 1.5L boxes of Fireball being on sale. “I have GrubHub on my phone.” He gave her hand a little squeeze back before pulling it back to attempt to fish his phone out of his pocket.
“Oh, yes! Yessss.” GrubHub was a great idea right now. “What should we order? I want something good. Savory. Some place that will deliver dessert and go good with this box!”
Mat’s thumb flicked across the screen, already blurry vision momentarily worsened by scrolling through the options. “Italian? They’ll deliver tiramisu.” Which, his alcohol-soaked brain informed him, wouldn’t really go well the Fireball. “Or Mexican. Churros.”
Sighing deeply, Lila gave the two options some deep drunken thoughts. Tiramisu was delicious, but Mexican was closer to the food her mother had cooked when she was a child. Briefly smiling at the memory, she made her decision. “Definitely Mexican!”
As he placed their orders and sent them through - bless you, PayPal, for not requiring him to try to remember where his jacket was, which was the carrier of his wallet - he grinned. It wouldn’t taste anything like the food his mother cooked (soon, it would be Thanksgiving and Christmas, which meant, soon, it would be tamale season), but churros and Fireball just seemed like the perfect match his head.
“Twenty minutes,” he announced. “And then we have food. And churros.”
Clasping her hands together, she gave a small wiggle and an even smaller squeal of excitement. “Thank you! This is perfect.” Or perhaps that was just the Fireball talking. “We should have drinks and dinner more often. Oh! With everyone from Oz! We don’t really have dinners. Why don’t we have dinners? I think we like food.”
“I like food,” Matías confirmed with an enthusiastic nod of his head. “And the Peter Pan Tales had a dinner. I think. Or it was a lunch, I can’t remember, but the point, dear Glinda, is that we ought to do something, too.” He tried to point at her, but Glinda 2 had moved slightly to the left.
“Psssh. Peter Pan. Frank was so much cooler than J.M. Whatshisname,” she answered with a dismissive shrug. They had more books anyway. “But yes! We should! I can cook! Oooooo or we can have a potluck!”
“Potluck sounds like a grand plan.” Grand plan. Mat chuckled. That nearly rhymed. “We should organize a potluck. We can invite Dorothy and Scarecrow and East and the coward.”
Lila grinned. “We can invite everyone! Like, really. That would be nice!”
Mat’s grin matched Lila’s. “We should invite them and have it on…” He looked at the calendar conveniently hanging on the wall in her kitchen and picked a date at random. “The 29th.” There was something on the thirtieth, he vaguely recalled. Something to do with Esau. He would be expected to go to whatever it happened to be, but the day before was good.
“The 29th is perfect!” Somehow, her grin became wider and she reached for her shot glass once again. “This is going to be wonderful. We’re going to have such a good time!”
His own glass was back in his hand and he raised it at Lila. Both were filled, and he couldn’t recall if that had been Glinda, him, or magic. Likely magic. There was still magic around, wasn’t there? Even though they were here and not there? The thought left as quickly as it came. “It will be a marvelous time.”