WHO: Marina Andrieski & Dorian Pavus WHEN: Post Julia’s disappearance WHERE: Marina’s penthouse WHAT: Coming home with a new kitten and feels TRIGGERS: Mostly a lot of feels
Marina was effectively...more drunk than she intended to be. She’d been sober when she got the kitten that she was carrying in the carrier she was given at the shelter. She had considered more kittens, but it was probably better not to end up with a horde of cats at this point. What if she disappeared? Who would take care of the cats while she was gone? She very carefully put the carrier down and adjusted the wards just enough so she could walk in. The shimmering of the wards enough to show she was back. She stumbled through the door, careful to catch herself on the doorframe.
“Honey, I’m home.” It was a joke that seemed funnier to her now than it probably would have normally. “I brought a friend. I don’t have a name.” She frowned. “They named her something like Wo...no. Melon? I don’t remember. Something dumb.” A pause. “Where’s FB?”
After Marina announced she was going to explore uncharted Vallo islands, Dorian knew better than to try to stop her - besides, he wasn’t her keeper anyway and she didn’t want him to be. He was simply her friend and would be for as long as this Maker-forsaken world kept him in its clutches - sometimes he wished he could just be blipped back home, vanishing like a particularly long sigh, but there were few people he would rather stick around for. Marina was one of them. She’d been kind to him when he needed someone - more than that, she’d really been there for him in a way that not many were. He didn’t need a nanny either, or to be coddled, but having someone care about your well-being (in their own way) was not something he’d forget easily.
He’d been in the living room, reading a book while Blackwall rested at his feet - and FB decided to lick his own ass while perched on the windowsill, as cats do. The wards flickered and shimmered, and Dorian paid them no mind - she was back and safe and that was what mattered. “In the living room, darling,” he called back, using an actual bookmark to ensure he kept his place. “What ha - oh.”
Back and safe and drunk, he noticed, when he got up to meet her. “FB’s right here - you brought him a companion, I see?” Also have a little water, Marina. He was already moving to get her some.
Marina made a face when he mentioned water. “Water is for babies.” She sat down anyway, considering the carrier for a moment as FB started growling and started coming closer. “Don’t complain, you big butthead,” she said, moving to tap his head when he got closer, earning her a swat. “That is your sister Hoo…whatever her name is.”
She squinted at Dorian after a moment. “Good job not killing the cat. I don’t want to kill you, but I will.” Which was not really comforting or scary at this time. She picked FB up, holding him against his will. “Stop struggling. Baby. Just cause Julia didn’t let you in doesn’t mean not Hoolia can’t come be your sister.”
Hoolia?
Were this not an incredibly serious situation (Marina having just lost one of her dear friends to the whims of Vallo), Dorian would have burst into undignified laughter. But since this situation did call for the utmost in solid support and decorum, he would remain mostly silent on the matter of that - horrible name.
“You’re going to have to tell me this whole story from the beginning - I thought you were going to an island? Was it an island of cats?” he asked, pouring Marina a glass of water and pointedly setting it down before her - she wasn’t at the stage of ‘vomit spraying on the pavement, singed nose hairs because you smell alcohol on your own breath’ drunkenness, but she was certainly inebriated and he was just glad a cat was the only thing she picked up on the way home.
The cat he wiggled his fingers at in the carrier, a friendly greeting. “Nice to meet you, Hoolia.” Andraste’s tits, that really was awful.
Marina made a disgruntled noise. “I said Not Hoolia cause I can’t think of it but it can’t be Hoolia just cause I’m weird.” She picked up the water, disappointed to find it was water. “I went to one of those islands and stuff and there was stuff there and it was all dumb like everything else, so I went to get alcohol, but it was next to the cats and I thought cats wouldn’t suck and then I saw this idiot with the face and it was all sad meows and had a dumb name I can’t remember anyway. And then I adopted her and got a few mini bottles and then I came back cause Eleanor said don’t pass out outside and also the kitten can’t sleep outside like this.”
She waved with a vagueness that explained nothing about what she meant. “Don’t let me become a drunk or I’ll be as disappointing as my dad and then I’ll have ruined my life.” She murmured most of this into FB’s fur as he continued to try to escape. She sighed after a moment, setting him back on the ground, watching as he ran off upstairs with a small hiss.
“He is NOT happy.”
None of this made sense, but Dorian really didn’t expect it to - point was, Marina was depressed and drunk and they had a new cat at the penthouse, thus he supposed he ought to simply work with that. She was (mostly) alright, so he’d count it as a success - because, yes, he’d been concerned that she could wander off to one of those uninhabited islands around Vallo’s mainland and get caught up in some nastiness. He knew she was fully capable of taking care of herself, yet it wouldn’t stop him from worrying - because he cared or something ridiculous like that.
He sat as well, pouring a glass of water for himself so Marina wouldn’t be alone in her consumption of liquid life. “Oh, trust me, there is no letting you become a drunk,” he chuckled bitterly. “Not for either of us.” At one point, he’d gotten close - when he downward spiraled into the slums of Minrathous, hiding from the likes of his father. But awful parents weren’t a reason to disintegrate your liver, and he’d realized that by - whatever the phrase was. ‘Getting his shit together.’
“I’m sure FB will come to accept the companion in time. One who is not Hoolia.” Thank the Maker because - no. He understood where Marina was going with this, however. “Another acronym, perhaps? I’m certain you can come up with one in your inebriated state.”
She dragged the crate over, picking it up for a moment. “What is your name, cat?” An acronym. Something like Fucking Bert. But she wasn’t angry choosing a name this time. She was just sad. “Her face is all split.” Which was in regards to the coloring. “Reese Cup is a dumb name but she looks like chocolate and peanut butter.” She couldn’t name it Tree or something else dumb. She tried to think through all the things that Julia even liked and she didn’t feel like making that into a name.
She put her finger into the carrier, only slightly aware of the cat chewing on her finger. “JG, but I’ll change the name every time someone asks.” Yes. That was the way to go about it. Who would know the real name? No one. No one except her and her mind. She never really called FB his actual name. He was always FB.
“JG?” Dorian repeated, trying to think of what that could possibly stand for. All he knew was that Marina had a penchant (and talent) for picking the ugliest cats - no offense to FB, but he was not a very distinguished sort of feline. He looked scraggly, like he was an abandoned houseplant, and always had a perpetual frown on his mug. This cat with the split face was certainly something, but Dorian wasn’t really in any place to judge - it was Marina’s penthouse and she didn’t make him toss Blackwall out (or worse, give him back to Atreus - not happening) so whatever other animal she wished to add to this menagerie was fine with him.
He hid a smile, stroking his impeccably-groomed mustache in an attempt to shield the expression. “What does it stand for now? And please tell me you’re going to eat something, my dear. Not to be your father - “ Because that was revolting, especially after they just talked about how Dorian would eagerly bang male Marino, “...but you ought to try actual food. I can make something, or we can order in.” Not to worry, he’d gotten quite good at cooking - after being baffled by the inner workings of the microwave and how you could not put a potato in there without poking holes in it first.
She was not revealing the real name cause she didn’t care, but now she had to think of something. “Yes. JG. Don’t question her name like that.” She didn’t really like dogs that much, but it wasn’t like she was going to tell Dorian to give anything back to Atreus. She had a low opinion of Atreus, but that was because she liked Dorian and he seemed dumb like Anna and her dumb face.
“It...stands for...Jelly...Grass.” What sense did that make? Absolutely none. But what sense did anything make right now? But now that he mentioned food, she was hungry. “Nothing that takes effort to eat,” she said after a moment. “I need to hold it.” She wasn’t sure what that was but there was probably something.
Oh dear. “You are completely trashed, Marina my love,” Dorian snorted a laugh, but he sort of he got the point about what she could or could not consume - when you were drunk, there were likely better options over others. Healthy choices such as bananas, whole-wheat foods, something chock-full of vitamins. Greasy pizza wasn’t advisable, but - perhaps if he ordered something with vegetables and they could blot the oil off the top?
Or they could just stuff greasy pizza into their faces - honestly, it was one of his favorite parts about the city. About this time period. Food in Thedas wasn’t as delicious, nor as unhealthy (depending) - but he enjoyed broadening his horizons.
“Pizza it is,” he decided, whipping out his phone to place an order - he had the spots bookmarked, how convenient was that? “Nothing that will disturb the wards, of course. I can go downstairs and bring your carbohydrate, holdable feast up so we can eat it with little effort.”
A poor delivery person knocking on the door would be met with a few bad surprises, unfortunately.
“Well…” She started. “It was important to drink and it may have been more than a few of the small bottles.” She probably didn’t really need to drink more even if she wanted to. She just wanted to go to sleep and think about nothing and stay that way. Except when she had to wake up. And she had to get the cats to not hate each other.
“Mmm. Pizza.” She leaned back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling before closing her eyes. “We can’t kill the pizza people cause people will be mad, so that makes sense.” She also didn’t need another life on her hands right now. Thinking of people as dead wasn’t really as good for her as she pretended it was because too many dead or “dead” people affected her more than she was willing to admit. She’d find Eleanor later. Probably when she was not drunk. “Who will memorize my breakfast burrito order now,” she said without meaning to say it outloud.
Order placed, Dorian settled near Marina on the couch and - well, he didn’t try to hug her. He knew she wasn’t one for hugs, really. Instead he rested a hand on her shoulder, a warm show of affection without being too smothering. “I will certainly memorize your order,” he promised. “I know it’s not the same thing though, and I wouldn’t ever try to replace Julia. But I’m sure she’d be pleased to know that you still have stalwart companions who will be there for you.”
He could handle memorizing her breakfast burrito order. As for the cats not hating each other? That seemed like a loftier sort of goal, but they had this impulse split face adoption cat in the penthouse now, and there was no taking it back. Therefore, they’d make it work. Blackwall wouldn’t even mind at all.
The large Mastiff came to investigate, in fact, face plopped onto Marina’s lap and lifting those doggy brows as if to say hiiiiiiiii. Such a comforting beast.
“What?” There was a pause as she realized she’d spoken out loud and probably not that he’d read her mind. “Oh. Oops.”
For as much as she complained about physical touch and people being weird, Marina was admittedly a little touch starved. Part of it was her own fault. Part of it probably left over from a childhood of having to fend for herself and having no one to rely on and thus no one to teach her how to be a normal person. So she generally understood touch as something that people used to gain things. Which was probably her projecting onto people because that was how she did things.
But that’s what the cats were for. And this weird dog. Marina looked down at the head in her lap. “What?” She didn’t understand why dogs wanted to be around so much. This one was just always there and so big. Weirdo.
She sighed all the same giving in to whatever machinations the dog clearly was in on and pet him. “Julia is dead and so it doesn’t matter. Maybe she won’t even know me if she comes back. She could be from a weird timeline where everyone dies again.”
“It’s impossible to say, really,” Dorian sighed and scooted closer - and since Marina hadn’t cursed him or bit his fingers off, he moved to put an arm around her and make this adventure sort of a half hug. Ease into it slowly perhaps, because to be quite honest? He wasn’t always for the idea of hugging either - it just depended. So he supposed they had that in common. But either way, he wanted to be supportive and attempted to do so within the parameters Marina was comfortable with.
Blackwall was just going to provide comfort in the way he knew how - by using his bulky body and, likely, drool. Maker knew Dorian had quietly shed plenty of tears into the dogs fur after Atreus kicked him out - animals were good at knowing what someone needed, he thought.
“And overthinking it, especially the gloom and doom parts, won’t help matters either. No matter what though, I do believe she’d want you to live your life - since we are on borrowed time here.”
Marina very nearly commented about Dorian’s closeness, but she mostly just looked at him sideways while making a face at the drool on her hand. Cats were not this...wet. She didn’t understand dogs. They were always excited to see people and be around people and cats at least mostly just came when they wanted. She and Eleanor were definitely a cat and dog friendship. It was weird to think of it in that way. Even having seen Eleanor before her death. And she was more of a cat person then. A very angry cat.
Dragging herself out of that line of thought, Marina checked back into the conversation, having missed part of what Dorian said by now. “I know that. But she’s also not here, so she can’t tell me what to do.” Which was a very petulant child way to deal with it, but there she was. “I need to find out a painting to get her so I can give it to her and make her not talk to me if she shows up again.”
That didn’t make any sense, but - Dorian supposed he wouldn’t point out such things. Or draw attention to the fact that Marina was too intoxicated to make sense regardless. “Yes, dear,” he replied instead, resisting the urge to pat her head - she’d probably bite his hand off. “I think that’s a good idea. Blackwall - “
But he would save her from the Mastiff drool - what else were friends for, right? “Come, Blackwall - let’s leave Mother to her drunkenness,” he added, shifting to stand from the sofa. He’d have to go and fetch the pizza anyway, so no hapless person came up here and met their Death. All in a day’s work, he supposed.
And Marina would be alright. She’d wallow for a little, hopefully not adopt another cat, and all would be well. Probably.