Who: Adri, Clare and eventually Remy What: Clare needs a drink....or seven Where: The Daily Pint, then the Macmillan-Burke Booty Castle When: BACKDATED to Sunday 2/28/16 Rating: drunk ----------------------------------
As if the week of Joel’s book release wasn’t going to be stressful enough, it had to start off on the fifteenth anniversary of the day Clare’s parents died. Of course, not many people knew this. Remy did, of course, and Zac as well, but Clare usually tried not to make a whole thing of it when the day came around. When she was younger, in the first few years after it happened, she’d gone a little overboard in both the grieving and the overcompensating while pretending not to grieve. Then Remy came along and Clare had to grow up, fast. She couldn’t very well be a blubbering mess every 28th February while raising a young girl who had also lost both of her parents. She had to show Remy some of that stiff upper lip business. Let her know that things would eventually be all right.
So Clare often tried to sweep the day under the rug. Wallow in sadness in private for a few minutes here and there throughout the day, but mostly carry on as if it were any other. But this year was a little different. Not only was it a significant anniversary, but she also had a thousand things going on with the book and with Remy and with Zac that she couldn’t just relax and clear her mind. Throughout the day she kept wondering what her parents would say if they found out she had successfully sold the film rights to an entire book series. It was a thought that at first filled her with pride, but as the day went on that pride gave way to the sad realization that it didn’t matter because her parents would never know. Nor would her brother. It was a small thing, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She couldn’t distract herself from it either, but every time she tried she had to remember all the outstanding issues and problems that needed to be solved there in the present.
One such issue involved getting a single signature from Joel on a contract. She needed it signed as soon as possible so she could move forward with about ten other things she needed to get started before they left on the book tour. All he had to do was take ten seconds out of his day to open an email and e-sign the document. It was all very simple. But she’d been testy with him that morning about a few other things, which resulted in him giving her an “uh huh” before proceeding to ignore the rest of her texts, emails, and phone calls.
Waiting for him to get back to her was driving her crazy, especially because it was either stress about that or think about her parents. She bungeed back and forth between the two for hours before eventually calling Adri and telling her she needed a drink. It was a Sunday and they both had to work the next morning, but Clare figured a drink or two with a friend would be a nice enough distraction. They met at The Daily Pint (a venue choice Clare would later regret as she should have picked something less British) around half seven and Clare tried to take her mind off things by teasing Adri about Airman Scott. But it was difficult to make the distraction stick, and every time Clare’s phone lit up on the counter she looked down, hoping the notification was about Joel signing the document.
The latest notification happened when she was nearly finished with her first glass of scotch. It was from her email app and the subject line involved Joel’s name. Clare had her hopes up for half a moment before realizing it was only her Google Alert, probably pinging because another teen was blogging about him looking like a DILF.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Clare glared down at her phone, completely interrupting…whatever it was Adri had been in the middle of saying.
Adri had been on call since four in the morning and had received no less than forty-seven messages from the answering service of varying levels of concern/potential emergency before she made it to her office at eight. She always went to work dressed in her usual business dress attire that she slipped her white coat over as usual. She always had a few spare pairs of clean scrubs she kept in her office since she worked with kids, often who were sick, and accidents happened. She had made it through one of her two white lab coats, and two of her three sets of extra scrubs before the day was finally through. When Clare had called her, Adri had been contemplating collapsing into bed but something in the way Clare sounded – and the fact that she said she needed a drink, rather than wanted to grab one, since it was Sunday – had her telling Clare she’d be over shortly before she went to change into something that looked presentable enough to be seen by other human beings.
To Adri, Clare seemed a bit more irritable than Joel usually made her when he was being an immature brat. But going out for drinks because one needed it didn’t necessarily mean they walked to talk about whatever was bothering them, so Adri was content enough to discuss Airman Scott while Clare teased her. She lifted her martini for a sip and was launching into a random story about their pre-Valentine taco ‘date’ as Clare picked up her phone when it beeped a message alert. Her right eyebrow arched up her forehead at the outburst and the glare on Clare’s face.
“Sooooo,” she said. “What’s the frat boy doing to piss you off today?” she asked in an almost singsong lilt.
Clare lifted her eyes from her phone, looking sheepish for only just a moment. "It's more what he's not doing," she grumbled before lifting her glass for another sip. "He's ignoring me. Because he's a moody little prat and it's not as though we have actual business to take care of." Clare scowled and downed the rest of her glass in one go.
Adri opened her mouth and nodded slightly. “Ahhhh,” she said. “...Is he worth the hassle? I mean...there’s a point when money is less attractive than your own sanity, isn’t there?” Adri used to ask herself this on a near constant basis during her residency years. She never did ever quite find the right answer for herself, though.
Clare arched her eyebrows in Adri's direction as she set her glass down. "Are you joking? Working with him is going to make my career. Besides," she said with a wave of her hand, "they're all mad, the lot of them. Writers." She muttered it as though she hadn't once wanted to be a writer herself.
Adri arched both her eyebrows this time. "What does that say about your psyche, willingly surrounding yourself with - what did you call them that time we were at that weird charity auction? 'Nutters'?" She smirked.
Clare flagged down a bartender and lifted her glass to let him know she wanted another scotch. "Please," she said, looking at Adri again, "as though doctors are any better."
Adri smirked. “I’d never argue that. I surrounded myself with kids...and their batshit crazy parents,” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. Her martini was only halfway finished and Clare was moving right along. “It’s a miracle the world is overpopulated. An honest to god, damn miracle.” She said as she put her elbow on the table and dropped her chin into her hand. “How they continue to successfully survive, I’ll never fully comprehend.” She smirked.
“Hmm,” Clare agreed with a distracted hum as she looked back down at her phone. This talk of parents and survival was getting her brain going again. Maybe if she could just get Joel to respond, she might be able to relax more. She picked the phone up and fired off a text to him that may have involved asking if he was ignoring her on purpose and accusing him of immaturity. Probably not the correct route to take, but she wasn't thinking completely straight today. By the time she was done, her new drink had arrived and she lifted it immediately for a sip.
Adri arched her eyebrows as she watched her friend across the table. “Okay, I have to ask – what else is going on?” She asked. “This is…” she waved her hand to gesture toward Clare indicating her general…mood? Vibe? Something. “More than your usual annoyance at Joel.” Hopefully she wasn’t just imagining it, right?
Clare glanced down at her phone and then up at Adri and frowned slightly, considering. It didn't take long before she said in a tone that was perhaps much too casual, “My parents died fifteen years ago today.” She took another sip of her drink and waved her hand dismissively, “It’s silly, but it’s added stress.”
Adri gaped across the table at Clare as she flippantly announced the anniversary of her parents’ death. She wondered for a moment how she had not known that before this moment even though she was certain Clare hadn’t mentioned it before now, after Adri had prodded - right? Had she? No. She hadn’t. “...I think you and I have incredibly different definitions of silly…” She blinked, too stunned to really focus on how she probably should reply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know...obviously,” she frowned and cringed at her own comment.
Clare shook her head quickly. "No apologies necessary," she insisted. "How could you have known?" Adri obviously knew that Clare's parents were dead and had died in a tragic accident, but it wasn't as though Clare had informed her of the exact date and time. Anyway, Clare took another sip of her drink, a larger one this time.
Adri tried to force herself not to frown. She shrugged. “No, I mean, I know I couldn’t have, but still. I’m sorry you’re dealing with bullshit from Joel while also thinking about...that,” She frowned and then mentally scolded herself and took a sip from her drink, a much smaller one than Clare took of her drink.
“Yes, well,” Clare paused and took another large sip before glancing down her her phone, “he’s a prick.” She knew he didn't know about the anniversary either, but she was still irrationally angry at him for being a complete prat to her today after she babysat him and let him sleep in her bed on the day of his father’s death. He'd been a complete mess. Clare, on the other hand, was much more mature. Which was why she quickly swallowed down some more scotch.
Adri almost grimaced at the extra consumption of scotch. “You know I own scalpels...we can take care of asshattery with surgical precision,” She opted for joking with a severely small lopsided smirk.
Clare barked out a laugh. “Unfortunately I can't harm him. It would prevent him from eventually making me more money.”
“Okay, well, at the least we could scare him into submission?” Adri replied. “C’mon, think of how much fun it’d be! Fun is stress-relieving!”
Clare laughed again. "It is nice to think about," she mused, swinging her glass back and forth to make the liquid swirl. "Wipe that smug smirk off his face." She narrowed her eyes down at her phone, since she couldn't aim her glare at him. Then she took another drink. She was nearly finished with this second glass already.
Adri slowed her own consumption of her drink when she noticed the speed at which Clare was drinking hers. “So, since your stress is amplified today, we should obviously focus our energies on ways to punish Frat Boy for his douchebaggery, clearly,” since it was obviously Clare didn’t want to talk about the parent stuff. In the meantime, Joel did finally text back, to tell Clare that he had been at the gym and his phone was in his locker. It was radio silence again after that as he made his way home from the gym.
Clare smiled at Adri. It was comforting to know she also had a dog in this race, although it was a different kind of dog. “That sounds--” She cut herself off when she saw her phone light up. She took a moment to frown at the text and mutter, “He couldn't have been at the gym all day.” Well actually, maybe he was. Maybe that was the kind of routine he needed for upkeep on that stupid upper body of his. But anyhow, Clare typed out a response of And?, hoping he would respond straight after. Of course, she didn't get anything back. Clare set her jaw and dropped her phone back down to the bar with a clunk.
“I sent him a text immediately,” she said to Adri with narrowed eyes. “I don't care where he was all day, I just need him to give me a goddamn answer.” Was he doing this on purpose? He had to be doing this on purpose.
Adri grimaced as she watched Clare with her phone. Even being on call as a doctor for kids, whose parents tended to overreact most of the time, seemed less irritating than having to deal with Joel. “I wouldn’t put that past him from the few times I’ve been in the same room with him,” Adri mused as she lifted her martini for a small sip. “Does he know...about today?” She asked curiously.
Clare's eyes were still down on the phone, as though staring at it long enough would make him respond faster. “He knows it happened, but it's not as though I told him the date.”
“Ahh,” Adri nodded. She wasn’t sure what else she should offer that would be helpful in this situation. She was tempted to text Remy to advise Joel to knock it the fuck off, but knowing what she knew about Joel, he probably wouldn’t know how to do that without making it obvious he was doing it because he was tipped off.
A text did appear on Clare’s phone, but it was from Remy, featuring a picture of a very fake book shelf with one real book on it. Remy’s standing in front of the book case, holding it open just under her nose and arching her eyebrows and obviously grinning even though the book was blocking it. Inside the book was hollowed out and there was a gold foil wrapped chocolate Oscar statue. The message read: Limey!! I’ve been trying to think of things to text you for a while to check on you, this seemed like a sign, if ever there was one… Found grandpa! There’s only one actual book on this book shelf and this is what we found inside!!
Clare's eyebrows arched when a text came in while she was staring at the phone, but her shoulders slumped when she saw Remy’s name. No offence to Remy, of course. Don't know what my father is doing all the way in LA, but happy you found him., she responded once her initial disappointment faded. Then she looked up at Adri. “Perhaps I should give you my phone so I'll stop staring at it.”
Remy sent back: Clearly he’s here to hide chocolate for me to steal….>>
Adri arched her eyebrows and, before she could stop it, a devious gleam lit up her face. “Yes!” She said too quickly and held her hand out. “Give it here – there’s havoc to wreak!” She was joking…mostly.
Clare looked down at phone again, regretting her own idea, and then handed over the phone with a sigh. “All right, all right.” Once the phone was in Adri’s possession, Clare knocked back the rest of her drink and signaled the bartender for another.
Adri grinned. “Atta girl!” She said rather than taking too much concern about the fact that Clare was already moving to her third round. She put the phone face down on the table in front of her. “Now that that’s settled, I think there are still Airmen to discuss.” She didn’t even glance down when Clare’s phone beeped and buzzed on the table, but she narrow her eyes at Clare and set her hands down on it to prevent her from grabbing it. “Wait until you’re done your next drink – And no chugging it down in one gulp!” She said.
Clare glared at Adri even though, again, this had been her idea in the first place. “If you're going to keep the phone from me, at least put it in your bag so it's not sitting there, torturing me like this,” she pointed out as the bartender came back with her third glass. She picked it up and took a large gulp straight off.
Adri complied but kept her on phone on the table so she’d know if it went off since hers would be work related as well. She asked the bartender for a water and ordered a basket of fries (or chips, whatever the hell they were calling strips of fried potatoes) when he swung by with the drink. She left her martini half-finished and looked over at Clare, cringing at the large gulp she took of her drink. “I feel obligated to ask you if you want to talk about it,” She tried not to frown too much and went ahead assuming that Clare would know she meant about her parent’s death anniversary and not Joel’s immaturity.
Clare knew what she meant, but that didn't stop her from gesturing with her glass and saying, “He's an arse, what more is there to say at this point? I'm sure you have worse stories about him than I do.”
Adri pressed her lips together and screwed her face up into a tight grimace. “Oh honey, I’m sure I do and if they’re insufficient, I could call Christie for refreshers,” She scrunched her eyes and sighed. “But,” she sung the word out, “that’s not what I meant,” she added, with just a small arch of her eyebrows.
Clare let out a quiet hum and sipped again from her drink. “There isn't much to say, is there?” she shrugged. “I try not to dwell on it very much these days. I spent too long dwelling on it when I was younger. I’d be an utter mess. Then I started taking care of Remy, and that was enough of a kick in the arse to get it together again. I couldn't exactly fall all over myself mourning my parents when trying to set a good example for her.”
Even though she knew the basics of the story, it never really actually struck Adri how incredibly batshit crazy the story was. Not the part with Clare’s parents dying; obviously such things could happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The logistics and domino-like way things fell for both Clare and her niece were pretty insane. It was the part where Clare had inherited guardianship of her niece, and at the rough age she had done it that was fucking with Adri’s mind in the moment. At her current age, she wasn’t entirely sure she would readily take in her younger siblings, or the two of them that were still kids at least – and they younger two were both in their teens already anyway. Okay that was probably a lie. She would more than likely do it…but she would damn sure drag Christie home by her teeth to help! So even with that thought, Adri wouldn’t have been alone in the mess…with a pre-teen, like Clare had been.
Dropping her elbow onto the table, Adri set her chin into the heel of her hand. “I genuinely applaud the fact that you mentally survived the things you went through, Clare,” she said in earnest. “But also – and I’m just saying this for the record and then you can change the subject to whatever you would like to drunkenly rant about once all that scotch kicks in on you – Remy’s an adult now…and you’re allowed to spare a day every now and then to be a mess.” She scrunched up her nose a moment. “It’s a good way to maintain the appearances of sanity for the rest of the year like the rest of us,” She added with a smirk.
Clare wrinkled her nose and shook her head (the scotch was already starting to kick in) at Adri's praise. She then proceeded to heave a sigh and roll her eyes (good-naturedly, at least) at the rest of it. "I'm merely staying true to my cultural stereotype," she joked before lifting her glass again.
“Uh huh,” Adri nodded skeptically. She paused to thank the server that brought over the water and fries/chips/whatever she had ordered. She pushed the fries to the middle of the table but further toward Clare than her. “The war’s over. You can bypass the keep calm and cheerio stiff upper lip stuff once in awhile. I’m not saying all the time. Just...occasionally.” she shrugged. “But also - eat.” She added as she grabbed a fry for herself to take a bite out of.
Clare snorted quietly and looked down at the fries/chips as she plucked one from the basket. "I don't exactly know what you're asking of me," she pointed out before taking a bite. Did Adri want Clare to break down in tears or something?
Adri shrugged. “At the moment I’m asking you to eat some of these so I don’t have to hold your hair up later,” she smirked. Tears definitely wouldn’t be necessary and weren’t preferred either. But she could dwell on it and talk if she wanted rather than not.
"You wouldn't have to do that regardless," Clare scoffed as she chewed, which was extremely ladylike. She at least waited until she swallowed before continuing, "I can't remember the last time I drank so much I was sick." She certainly wasn’t going to be like He Who Must Not Be Named, puking in flower arrangements. Thinking of that reminded her that Adri was holding her phone hostage. He may have texted back by now. Clare eyed Adri’s bag.
At her current rate, Adri thought Clare might wind up eating those jinxing words tonight. She spotted Clare’s line of sight and shook her head. “Your drink’s not done yet - and don’t go chugging the rest!” She quickly added, narrowing her eyes and reaching for another fry in the basket.
Clare turned her eyes to Adri and slowly narrowed them. When she lifted her glass next she didn't chug it, but she did take a sizable gulp. She chased it with another chip to appease Adri. After another sip, she finally said, "Of course I'm sad about it, but I know there's no use in wailing and whinging every year. I won't say I've ever got used to not having my parents—or my brother, even—around and available, but...these things do become easier with time. There are things about them I've forgot by now." She said that last bit easily, but then paused and frowned a moment later when what she said actually hit her.
Adri shook her head as she watched Clare’s scotch antics all for the sake of checking her phone to see whether or not jerkoff Joel had texted her back. She paused mid-chew through a small bite of fry as Clare said those last few things. That statement was incredibly sad. Having divorced parents was a much different ballgame than having dead parents, obviously so Adri wasn’t entirely sure where she could related to tragedy on this scale. “Like what?” It was suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a stupid question but it kind of just came out before Adri had released she had asked it out loud instead of just thought it.
Clare dropped her eyes down to the chips. "Oh, you know. Places we went on holiday, food my mother used to make, the sound of their voices..." She pulled another chip out of the pile and turned it over in her hand before pulling it in half. "Other things that I'm not even remembering I've forgot." She tried to shrug nonchalantly before putting half the chip in her mouth and looking up, but she sounded a bit forlorn.
Adri frowned as she chew her fry. She thought about just throwing her bag across the table to give Clare her phone back after making her answer a question like that. But instead she just reached over to dig the thing out. “Think you can teach me how to forget my step monster's voice?” She forced the little quip out as she pushed the phone across the table to Clare to let her check it.
"It's not exactly a teachable skill," Clare said, grabbing the phone a little more quickly than she intended. "You don't have to take pity on me," she added, even though she wasn't exactly about to complain. She turned the screen on to look over her notifications.
“Yeah, well, it’s not fun having you glare Clare daggers at me either,” Adri pointed out as Clare snatched the phone and checked it. Even Adri was sure there wouldn’t be anything there from Joel. Adri picked up her glass of water and took a sip. She grabbed a fry to take her time with as she waited to find out the final text mystery verdict.
Of course there wasn't anything from Joel. He was a fucking knob, and as Clare slammed her phone down on the bar, she glanced up at Adri. In that moment she was so very tempted to gossip at her about what drunk Joel told her in Cabo, just so it would get back to Christie. But she couldn't for both moral and business reasons. Pity that. She lifted her glass and finished it off, definitely feeling a degree of swirly drunkenness now.
“So!” Adri squinted her eyes in thought for a moment and tried to decide on a topic shift. “How’s Zac?” she asked, arching her eyebrows and pushing the basket of fries just a smidge closer to Clare again.
Clare wrinkled her nose. “Zac is...complicated,” she said with a sigh. “We keep having these moments.” She shook her head to convey exactly how she felt about those ‘moments’.
Adri set her elbow on the table again and propped her chin in the heel of her hand. Without a word, she pressed her lips into a thin line and arched her right eyebrow in her patented (or trademarked?) 'Do tell me more,' expression to urge Clare on for details.
Clare sighed before sharing what happened during the shopping trip she took with Zac the other day, going into more detail than she normally would have since the scotch had somewhat loosened her tongue.
Midway through her story, the bartender came by with a refill for Clare, which Adri almost told him to take away. She gave the bartender, instead, her half-empty martini after stealing the toothpick of olives from it and turned back to Clare. “You’re having quite a weekend, aren’t you?” She asked with a sympathetic frown.
“That I am,” Clare sighed, pulling her new glass toward herself as she checked her phone again. She scowled down at it for a moment before looking up. “Weekend. Weeks. Months.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “A week ago, Remy found a box full of stories I wrote after my parents died. They were...intense. I didn't want her to see them. But she read them and she went into a guilt spiral and…” She trailed off with another sigh before taking a sip from her drink.
This conversation was offering a lot more in the way of personal details than Clare usually offered with the minimal amount of prying Adri had done. Obviously that could be attributed to the alcohol. Adri almost felt bad not working as hard to get the goods this time around, but everyone needed to vent every now and then, right? Clare was probably overdue, from the sounds of it. Adri arched her eyebrows slightly. “Guilt spiral like she felt guilty or guilt spiral like she laid it on thick to guilt trip you?”
That made Clare laugh. “Both,” she said with a sardonic smile, gesturing with her glass. “One naturally led to the other.”
Adri grimaced as she chewed one of her olives. “Does that happen often to you two? Around the different anniversaries?”
Clare shrugged. “Lots of things happen. Sometimes an anniversary is uneventful, other times tensions rise. It's not something that can be predicted.” But that was the aftermath of grief for you.
“Sounds like this year has been worse than some of the others, though?” Adri pulled the last of her olives off of the toothpick it was stuck on and popped it into her mouth. Her own phone buzzed and she blindly reached for it from the bar to give it a cursory glance. It was a message from the on call answering service and she glanced over at Clare as she read over the message and began to reply so that they answering service could call them back for her since it, thankfully, wasn’t something that necessitated her calling them directly. She put her phone back down on the bar and leaned and lifted her glass for a sip of water.
“There's a lot happening this year. And it's a curse year,” Clare rolled her eyes. When Adri picked up her phone, Clare took that moment to look at hers. Of course there were no new messages, so she thought it was a great idea to text a sloppy ??,,??,???????!!????????! to Joel. Then she set her phone back down again.
Adri paused a moment. She had forgotten about that curse year thing. With a slight tilt of her head and a thoughtful expression on her face, she murmured, “Hmm…perhaps twin adventure caper should be postponed in that case…”
Clare brought her attention back to Adri and took another drink from her glass. “Fortunately for the rest of the world, curse years only affect Macmillans.”
Adri mustered a joking, silent, ‘phew,’ as she mimed wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “Is this something that’s spanned generations, orrrrr are you two just the lucky winners of this shit show of a consolation prize?”
"Our family doesn't have the best history, but seems as though the curse has hit our generation harder than others," Clare lifted one shoulder in a shrug and then downed more of her drink.
“Soooooooo what you’re really telling me right now,” Adri titled her head and smirked. “Is that you’re going to throw one hell of a New Year’s Eve party come the end of this year?” She picked her phone up again as if it might have beeped from the on call company and sent Remy a message to warn her that Clare might be a wee bit drunk at the moment.
Clare snorted. "New Year's Eve is still technically during this year, so we wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves in case the curse decided to go for maximum irony." She looked down at her phone again when Adri looked at hers, but again: no messages.
Adri arched her eyebrows as she put her phone down. “You’ve thought of everything, then huh?” She considered this curse year idea again thoughtfully and added. “I mean...all things considered...cursed luck or not...your gene pool made it this far, so…?” That was something, right?
"Barely," Clare said, lifting her glass with a roll of her eyes. She didn't know if Remy planned on having any biological children. Clare certainly didn't want any, so it was possible the gene pool was at the end of the line. She managed not to talk about all that out loud though, and instead occupied herself with downing more of her drink.
She managed to order one more before Adri cut her off. Clare was normally still somewhat put together when she was drunk, but once it reached a certain point it was difficult to maintain or even care about that facade. She was now at that point, swaying slightly in her seat and leaning her elbow on the table.
She still hadn't received any texts. So she straightened up in her seat and picked up her phone, declaring, "I'm going to phone him. Enough with texts. I'm going to phone him on his mobile and his landline and I’ll do it until he answers."
“Ohhhhhhh, no no no, nooooooo, nooooope,” Adri reached out and snagged Clare’s phone from her. Seeing Clare sloppy was a major rarity. “It can wait til the mornin’, honey,” She slipped Clare’s phone and her own into her purse and flagged the bartender down to settle their tab with a quick scribble of her name on the receipt. She had exchanged a few more texts with Remy after having cut Clare off on Scotch and ordered a water for her instead. Now the tab was settled. “Or at least until you’re home and I’m not around to swipe your phone,” She said, moving to her feet. She slipped her purse across her shoulders and held her hand out for Clare. “C’mon ya lush - hey, what do they call lushes across the pond?” She asked. Clare was drunk enough for that to be a distraction, right?
Luckily the British had many words for drunk people, so Clare rattled off a few in succession even as she tried to reach for her phone instead of taking Adri's hand. Her aim wasn't so great though, and she wasn't exactly moving that fast.
Adri snickered and easily caught Clare’s hand. “Let’s go, Drinky Crow,” She tugged on Clare’s hand but not enough to really pull her far since she didn’t want to knock her off balance and have her fall out of the chair. “Imagine it, Clare!” Adri let out a dreamy sigh. “You can badger the frat boy from the comfort of your own home...in your pajamas…” she let out another wistful sigh and grinned.
"Drive me to his and I'll beat it out of him," Clare muttered, giving up on her search for the phone with a sigh as she let Adri pull her upright. The world spun when Clare stood, and she leaned on the table with her free arm, staying still for moment to let things settle once more.
Adri snickered but then her hands went out and hovered near Clare waiting to see if she’d need to attempt to catch her, suddenly glad she wasn’t in heels. Not that she wouldn’t be able to handle it in heels. Not the point. Once Clare was mostly steady, Adri looped an arm around her waist and led the way, slowly, out to her car.
"You don't have to carry me," Clare insisted, though she made no move stop leaning her weight on Adri. "I'm perfectly capable—" Her boot got caught in a sidewalk crack and she stumbled a bit, nearly taking Adri down with her. That's when Clare started laughing, since clearly she was not perfectly capable.
Adri grimaced and kept them off the ground. She kept them moving and couldn’t help snickering when Clare lost it and started laughing. She was a bit worried about how Clare might hold up on the ride. Thankfully it wasn’t too far of a ride. “You’re perfectly capable of letting me help you, is what you are,” She chuckled. she was relieved when they reached the car and grabbed her keys from a pocket of her purse. She hit the button for the lock and then reached out and opened the door. “Your chariot, royal highness,” She smirked.
Clare leaned on the car as she waited for Adri to open the door, and it took her a moment to straighten up again afterward. Then she practically fell into the car, laughing the whole way. "I'm not part of the royal family, no matter how many people tell me I look like Kate."
Adri watched Clare to make sure she didn't fall (other than into the car). She laughed at Clare's comment. "I dunno, if I were you, I'd consider using that fake connection to your advantage, Kate," she joked as she helped Clare get situated in the car so she could shut the door and head around to the driver side.
Clare struggled with the seat belt, but Adri helped her. By the time Adri came around the front of the car, Clare was slumped down in her seat. “I wouldn't want to be a Royal,” she considered. “I'm sure they're cursed as well.”
"Hmm..." Adri hummed as she turned the key in the ignition to get the car running. "Perhaps...but if their curse might be a better tradeoff, hey?" She smirked, hooked her own seat belt and paused to 'check her phone,' or rather, to quickly text logistics with Remy, who was already on her way home with Regan to intercept drunk Clare for Adri's drop off. Adri looked over her shoulder and put her blinker on. Soon they were on the road for the short trip back to the Macmillan - Burke abode, with frequent glances from Adri to Clare, to check on how she was faring.
Clare's drunkenness really settled in on the way home, and by the time Adri pulled her car into the drive, Clare heaved a groan at the prospect of getting up. She slumped down further in her seat, the chest portion of the seatbelt hitting her under the chin.
Adri looked over at Clare after she cut the engine. She opened her mouth to speak but her phone because to buzz from where it had been stuffed into one of the cup holders. “You just sit tight for a sec, okay?” She said as she pulled her phone up and read the message. She muttered a curse under her breath and sent a message back with instructions for them to relay a message that they were to tell the parents to take their kid to the hospital and that she would meet them there. She put the phone back down in the cupholder. She unbuckled her seatbelt and in the next moment was out of the car and jogging around to the passenger’s side. “I’m really sorry to do this to you, Clare,” She said when she opened the door and leaned across the seat to unbuckled Clare’s belt, trying to keep it from hitting Clare while keeping Clare from pitching forward into her own lap at the same time. “But I have to go, and quick, so we need to get you inside,” She said as she started trying to help Clare from the car.
“Hm?” Clare hummed, not really sure what Adri was saying to her. She lifted her head at least.
Adri frowned. She felt reluctant to leave Clare with Remy when she was as drunk as she was. Remy was an adult, sure, but she really was just a kid still, wasn’t she? “House,” Adri said as she mentally ran through a list of things to tell Remy to look out for. Just in case. “We need to get you inside,” She said it slower this time. “I had a work call,” She added as she tried again to help pull Clare from the car and to her feet.
Remy had been home long enough to wash her face, throw her hair up into a messy ponytail and change into more comfortable clothes. She and Regan had left the Oscars after party they were at to head home after Adri’s initial text to let her know that Clare was drinking rather heavily and possibly spiraling out. Okay. Adri hadn’t exactly said those things, but Remy had assumed them from the messages that Adri did send her. She had been watching out the window of the front sitting room when Adri had pulled into the drive and had waited a long few moments, shifting from foot to foot, trying her best to wait for Adri and Clare to make their way to the door. When she could bear to wait no longer, she headed for the front door and out across the walkway toward the driveway, where Adri was trying to help Clare get out of the car.
Clare let Adri start to pull her up, but didn't do a lot of work to help her with it. “Work call,” Clare echoed, eyes squinting. “I've also got a work call.” She tried to pull away from Adri’s grasp so she could duck back into the car and retrieve her phone from Adri’s bag.
“Hey!” Adri struggled to keep Clare from breaking free. “Stop - Oh no you don’t! Knock it - Clare, I’ll personally hand deliver you your phone so you can regret drunkenly texting Joel when you wake up hungover and I will apologize for being a shitty friend then but I have to meet parents with a sick kid at the hospital and I’m not strong enough to throw you over my shoulder and cart you inside while you’re tantrum - plus I don’t want you to puke down my back. C’mon!”
Remy had picked up her pace into a jog when she saw Adri struggling and then frowned and didn’t even get to speak before Adri was scolding her aunt. “Aunt Clare?” She hadn’t actually used her usual nickname for Clare since the incident earlier in the week. The name came out sounding a very muddled mixture of concern, guilt and maybe a little bit of fear. She had taken care of drunk friends before, hell she had been around Clare when she was drunk before - and had been drunk with her too obviously - but Clare seemed much more intoxicated than Remy had imagined. “You’re on call??” She asked Adri right away, the guilt in her tone increasing right away as she tried to find somewhere to step in to try and get Clare away from the car. “Why didn’t you call me? I could have picked her up so you could leave!” Remy’s guilt was quickly morphing into panic - was some little kid going to die because Clare was out having some drinks with her friend??
Adri shook her head. “It’s not the kind of emergency that I need to be there five minutes ago but I need to get there. I’m sorry - we got a little out of hand,” And by ‘we,’ she meant Clare. Admittedly, Adri regretted preaching during the beginning of their conversation about letting go and having a breakdown day now since she knew Clare was going to have a terrible hangover in the morning.
Clare couldn't really put up much of a fight, so Adri successfully prevented her from landing back in the car seat. When she heard Remy's voice she lifted her head lazily in her direction, swaying on her feet. “Rems!” she greeted, sounding a bit slurry. “I need you to make a call on my behalf.”
Remy was frowning still. Her brow came to knit together when Clare started speaking and swaying. She automatically reached out toward Clare to help steady her as Adri tried to readjust her grip. “Uh...yeah...yeah, sure,” She glanced past Clare and to Adri and then turned her eyes back to her aunt. “I can do that...but let’s go inside first so whoever we’re calling doesn’t have to listen to the wind,” She arched her eyebrows as she suggested it and swooped in between the car door and Clare’s other side to hook arm around her waist and keep her from trying to get back in the car.
“Great idea,” Adri agreed with a false grin.
“Why don’t I help you inside...and Adri can grab your phone for us?” Remy asked, trying to stop frowning.
“Well, all right,” Clare conceded, though she didn't seem happy about it. They shuffled toward the house and Clare almost missed the first step on the stoop. But she didn't.
Remy took over helping Clare and Adri let go so she could lean into the car and go back into her purse to dig out Clare’s cell phone. Remy tightened her grip around Clare’s waist and gripped her arm tighter to keep her from stumbling on the step. “Are you alright?” She meant about the step, but in her head she also meant about everything else. Remy used her foot to push the front door open further for them.
“Who even knows?” Clare replied, gesturing vaguely with her right hand and accidentally smacking it against the door frame as they entered the house. She hissed out a curse and drew her hand in to her chest.
Remy’s frown deepened. She turned them and led Clare into the front sitting room to get her into the closest chair there. “Hang here for a second, okay? I’m gonna grab your phone from Adri so she can get to the hospital, alright?” Remy waited a moment and watched her aunt with concern. She was really drunk. Extremely drunk. Remy couldn’t recall at the moment if she had ever seen Clare this drunk before.
Clare mumbled something in ascent as she sank down into the seat. As soon as Remy left the house, Clare’s eyes started drifting closed.
Remy frowned again. She hesitated and then went jogging for the front door and out to meet Adri on the walkway. “How much did you give her to drink??” She said as Adri handed Clare’s phone over to her.
“I didn’t give her anything to drink, she’s an adult,” Adri replied reflexively in her own defense. “She’s having a rough week. She went a little too far. Happens to the best of us, kid,” she gave Remy’s shoulder a small squeeze.
Remy’s lips pressed tight when Adri said that bit about Clare having a rough week. Remy hadn’t exactly helped whatever other stuff Clare was dealing with by rifling through the box she had found.
When Adri realized Remy might be doing that guilt spiral thing Clare had been talking about, she ducked her head to catch Remy’s eyes with her own. “She’ll feel like shit tomorrow and then she’ll be alright. I really would stay to help, but I have to get to-,”
“The hospital, right,” Remy nodded. “Right, yeah. Go, go, we’ll be fine,” she assured as she waved Adri on.
Adri hesitated a moment then gave Remy a quick hug and rushed back to her car. Remy turned back to the house. She inhaled a deep steadying breath at the front door and then stepped inside. She shut and locked the doors behind her and tucked Clare’s phone into her back pocket as she headed back into the sitting room to Clare.
Clare lifted his head a few moments after Remy shut the doors. “Hm?” she hummed, looking around with half-lidded eyes.
Remy leaned over in front of the chair. "Why don't we get you to your room and changed into something comfy?" She arched her eyebrows, figuring just hauling Clare out of the chair would be a bad move.
“Oh, all right,” Clare said, but it took her a minute before she realized she needed to move. She put her hands heavily on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. Immediately things started to spin and she shut her eyes tight, which only made the feeling get worse. She went all wobbly and started listing to the side.
Remy ducked her shoulder and swooped an arm loping around Clare’s waist as soon as she saw it start to happen to steady Clare. She looked over at her aunt and tried, but failed, to stop frowning. "Will you be alright?" She meant to make it to the back bedroom since, even though Clare wasn't a heavy human, Remy didn't think she could carry her as a drunk deadweight.
As Clare leaned on Remy and waited for the spinning to stop, she snorted in a very undignified manner. “Who knows?” she said once again, before letting out a laugh followed by a groan.
Remy frowned and dropped her eyes to the floor since she'd have to watch where they were going. "I'm sorry," she murmured before she started to lead a slow procession through the house toward Clare's room.
Clare's dizziness returned as she started moving again, so it took a long, long time for them to make it through the house. "Why'd I pick the room in back?" Clare murmured once they were halfway there.
"I think it had something to do with it being the master bedroom and having your own bathroom," Remy replied, focused on navigating them to the aforementioned room. Her tone lacked its normal buoyant, upbeat tinge since she was busy letting her thoughts get away from her while also worrying herself into ulcers about Clare's drunken condition. She helped Clare to the bed and sat her down on in before she crouched down to get her shoes off of her as her first order of business.
Clare immediately laid down and stared up at her ceiling. Her fan had been left on, and looking at the twirling blades was not helping her spinning head. She cringed and closed her eyes, breathing slowly in hopes the feeling would fade.
Remy glanced up when Clare moved to lay down, having spotted the movement from the corner of her eye. She finished with Clare's boots and stood up. She kept an eye on her aunt as she headed toward her bureau to rummage for some pajamas to help her change into. She headed back to the bedside. "C'mon, sit up and we'll get you into some pajamas, then you can sleep," she suggested, hoping Clare's stomach held out for them.
"I can sleep without changing," Clare pointed out, cracking her eyes open but putting her arm over them so she didn't have to look at the fan anymore.
Remy shifted on her feet. She felt anxious. She felt guilty. She had spent most of the day feeling guilty that she was scheduled to go to some stupid Hollywood parties on the anniversary of her grandparents' death. Now she also felt guilty that she had helped push Clare to near passout drunk. "If you're going to be stubborn about it, at least climb into bed properly," She started contemplating ways that she could roll Clare into her side and keep her propped for the night to sleep without the potential for choking but was quickly starting to realize that she was likely going to be too paranoid to leave Clare by herself for the night.
Instead of moving, Clare just laughed. "Y'sound like me," she slurred. "You're just like me, when I was taking care of you. You're even the same age!" That just made her laugh harder.
Remy's eyebrows hiked up her forehead when Clare laughed. The comments that followed made her freeze as she had already been thinking about the fact that her existence had wound up ruining Clare's life. There were lots of times when she was younger, before and after her dad, her grandparents' and her mother's deaths, that she had thought about wanting to be like Clare. In her teens she had convinced herself that there were just some things she'd never succeed at, but there were still things she'd picked up and appropriated from the last decade or so. Remy doubted she would have been able to handle the things Clare had had to handle, though, like having to raise her.
"Okay...ha, ha...very funny, let's go, get movin'," She stammered a time or two as she reached out and swatted at the outside of Clare's knee.
"Now I'm the comedian...we've fully swapped," Clare said, not moving and just chuckling. "The shoe is on the other foot." She lifted her left leg to make her point, not realizing her shoes were already off. When did that happen? "You're in for quite a ride," she said as she let her leg drop down again.
Remy flinched. She bit her tongue to keep from expelling a round of profuse apologies to Clare. "It wasn't all bad..." She murmured quietly, mostly to herself. She frowned again. With a quick shake off her head, she cleared her throat and went on. "If you move into bed properly, I'll give you your phone to drunk dial whoever it was that you wanted to drunk dial, " she said.
Clare lifted her arm off her face. It felt heavy. “Hm?” She wanted to drunk dial someone? Oh, yes. She did. “I used to give you incentives to get to bed as well,” she said, bending her legs to put both of her feet up on the bed. “Ice creams...biscuits...you used to hide those on your own of course, so what was the point? You loved to hide things.”
“Hiding little things reminds me of Dad and Grandpa,” Remy was sure Clare had found all of those things anyhow, even the one particular journal she had had when she first moved in with Clare. It was the only journal she ever hid rather than just leaving it out, left lying around wherever in her room it had been when she finished writing in it at any given point. That first one had held a lot of scribble involving her anger and sadness about her parents being gone, held long rants about how angry she was with Tao for leaving her and making her into a burden Clare didn’t want to actually be saddled with and, of course, was also full of all the things she had been scared of – namely, at the time at least, being taken away from Clare or, alternatively, having Clare send her away. Even though she never said so, Remy was certain Clare had found that journal from the way it was sometimes put back not quite right in its hiding spot.
“I’m not the only one who hides things,” Remy pointed out, as she had truly discovered this past week. She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment and came back with the small, empty wastebasket from it. “Trashcan’s next to the bed in front of the nightstand if you need to puke,” she said. She frowned when she realized she probably wouldn’t be able to get the covers out from under Clare to tuck them around her. Remy pulled Clare’s phone from her pocket and set it on the nightstand. She grabbed the folded throw blanket from the end of the bed and shook it out. She draped it over Clare and, without thinking about it, leaned over and wound up tucking the blanket around Clare the exact same way Clare used to tuck her in at night.
“There's a diff’rence between hiding things and not sharing everything. No one has to share everything,” Clare mumbled, not even sure if Remy could hear her as she moved around. She reached out blindly for the phone, missing a few times before she grabbed it. And then she dropped it as she tried to pull it closer.
“Clearly,” Remy mumbled as she forced herself not to sigh. She was still frowning as she crouched down to grab the phone from the floor. “Go to bed,” she said instead of handing the phone back to Clare. She stuffed the phone back into her pocket – if Clare couldn’t pick the thing up, then she shouldn’t let her go drunk texting people, right? – and went into the bathroom to fill up the cup by the sink with water. She walked back out and set it on the night stand for the morning, or the middle of the night if needed, and made her away around the other side of the bed. She put the phone down on the opposite nightstand this time. She kicked off her shoes and pulled the covers back to crawl in. She lifted the pillows on that side to prop behind her back as she sat against the headboard and scooted over until she hit Clare’s shoulder. “Roll over to your side,” She ordered, giving Clare a nudge with her leg.
“You can't force me to share everything,” Clare said, still blindly reaching for the phone even though it wasn't there. “Any doctor…therapist...would say that.” She grumbled when Remy nudged her and very slowly moved onto her side, facing the nightstand. “Where's the phone?”
“I’m not trying to force you to do anything,” Remy scooted over again once Clare had rolled onto her side so that she was sitting almost against her back so she wouldn’t be able to roll onto her back again. She readjusted the pillows behind her back and remained seated back against the headboard. “Who are you trying to call?” she asked, rather than saying where the phone was now.
“The Author,” she said with no small degree of disdain. She scowled at the nightstand before adding, “And you may not be ‘forcing’ me but you're guilting me.”
Remy shook her head even though Clare wasn’t turned toward her. “Nnnnnnoooopppe,” she answered, though she did drag her own phone out of her pocket so she could pretend to go back to the notes she had been working on earlier in the afternoon before it had been time to prepare for the party stuff…that she had then left early to come home and make sure Clare was alright. Clearly she was not. She sent Regan a quick text to say that she would see her at breakfast since she was going to be spending the night in Clare’s room.
“Yes, you are,” Clare insisted. She rolled over onto her other side, messing up the blankets Remy wrapped around her in the process. When she saw the phone in Remy’s hand, she reached for it and pulled it out of her grasp. “Give it back,” she said, thinking it was her own.
“I lost all of them too, y’know,” She murmured to herself. She rolled her eyes again and managed to reach over to hit the power button to cut the screen off so Clare wouldn’t be able to text Joel from her phone. “That one’s mine, not yours,” she pointed out with a small sigh. She wondered if Clare knew the passcode to her phone the way Remy knew the passcode to Clare’s. In light of the whole ‘can’t force me to share,’ shit, she wasn’t going to even ask. She’d probably find out in a minute anyway. She adjusted the covers in her lap so they weren’t a total shit show and waited as patiently as possible instead of trying to wrestle the phone from Clare and risking making her puke or something. It was curse year. She wasn’t going to tempt fate into making/letting Clare choke on her own puke. She leaned her head back against the headboard and turned her eyes to the ceiling.
“That doesn't mean I have to share my terrible stories with you,” Clare muttered, trying to input her own passcode. When it didn't work, she figured it was because she was hitting the wrong buttons. So she put it in again and again before growling in frustration.
“I’m not the one still talking about them,” Remy pointed out. She reached over when Clare growled and snatched the phone back, with care. “It’s not working because it’s my phone,” she typed her passcode in which brought up the background picture – which was currently the scanned picture she had pulled out of the garage the other day…with Clare’s box of things. She turned the screen toward herself and frowned at the pictures for a moment, then she hit the power button to turn the phone screen off again and dropped it to her lap. “Go to sleep. You can pull Joel’s ponytail in the morning,” She put her head back against the headboard again.
"Oh," Clare said, frowning as she squinted at the phone. She craned her head to look at Remy and tried to move to sit up. "Where's my phone? I need to pull now. I need to pull his limbs off. One by one."
Remy felt the movement and saw it out of the corner of her eye. Without looking over, she reached out and put a heavy hand on Clare’s shoulder to keep her from sitting up. “I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will and yet I am the confidence of all to live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?” She turned to look over at her aunt and arched her eyebrows. “That was the last riddle Grandpa ever left me in the dictionary,” She said. “Know what the answer is?”
Clare gave Remy an extremely confused look, her forehead all wrinkled up and her eyes all squinty. It took her a few moments to parse what Remy said, and even then she didn't fully understand it. "....time?" she asked, thinking more of one of the riddle answers in The Hobbit than of what Remy had actually said.
The right corner of Remy’s mouth quirked up for just a moment. “Close,” she shook her head and leaned closer. “Tomorrow,” She said, dropping her voice to a loud mock whisper. She sat back up and tilted her head against the headboard. “Which is exactly when I’ll give you your phone back and you can proceed to dismember your moneymaker via text for whatever it is he did this time,” she said.
Clare dropped her head down to her pillow and winced. She was silent for a few moments before she finally said, "You're too good at this."
“Yeah, well,” Remy shrugged to herself. “Had a good teacher,” she glanced over at Clare and absently reached out to fix the messed up covers around her. She considered apologizing again for reading through Clare’s stories and notes, but Clare was pretty drunk and Remy didn’t think an apology could hold proper sincerity if the person you were apologizing too was incapable of remembering. She also considered asking Clare if she was responsible for ruining Clare’s life since, again, Clare wouldn’t remember come the morning, right? She was also least likely to consciously filter an answer right now to spare Remy’s feelings, right? Remy bit lightly into her bottom lip as she tried to resist the two guilt driven urges.
“Aunt Clare?” She almost cringed at herself when she realized she sounded pretty much like the younger version of herself, calling Clare’s name like a question before she was going to follow it up with another loaded question or some other comment about being stuck with her like she had when she was much younger. It made her stop and think about the time Frank had broken up with Clare and the conversation they had had afterward, when Clare had found out she was awake and listening because she had sneezed.
Clare wanted her phone still, but she was also very tired. She was just drifting off into a heavy-headed, swirly sleep when Remy spoke. Approximately ten seconds later, Clare responded with, "Hm?" It was more out of reflex to Remy's inflection than anything.
Remy thought Clare had already fallen asleep. She hesitated when she heard the hum and looked over at Clare. She absently combed her fingers through Clare’s hair for a moment and considered just saying goodnight. She leaned over and kissed the side of Clare’s head. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to have the life you wanted,” she said quietly before she sat back against the headboard once more.
Clare was quiet again for what probably felt like a long time before she finally murmured, slurry with both drink and sleep, "This life's good too."
Remy let herself frown more freely than before. She went back to combing her fingers through Clare’s hair and just let her go to sleep. “Whatever helps you sleep, right?” She sighed to herself and added an, “I love you too,” to the silence of the room.