[ She peers down at his hand and ominously brightens even further. ]
Ooh. The forbidden fruit.
[ She's usually the one who has grab his hands... Now he's freely offering one to her, and that is inexplicably delightful to her. He's probably looking for her to grasp his hand handshake-style, but instead she takes his hand in both of hers and starts delicately squeezing it for its meat, like one would squeeze a fruit to test for ripeness. It is a small blessing that her lightning-blessed strength still seems to be under control, but all bets are off if something happens to startle her.
She slouches a little for a closer look at his hand, apparently deeply absorbed in the minutiae of his calluses, little hand muscles, and so on. Your verdict, Eustace. ]
[ He said squeeze his hand, not carefully inspect it?? What is she even analyzing it for anyway, surely she doesn't believe in mystical fortunes contained in the depths of his palm lines...
But her grip strength seems to be passable and her focus so-so, even if her comprehension seems to be rapidly deteriorating. He can work with that.
Carefully he tugs his hand out of her grip - again, please don't break his hand - before turning around to crouch down in front of her. Please also don't fall off the stool in the five seconds it takes him to do this. ]
Get on.
[ Will she actually understand what he's trying to get at or is he going to have to spell it out for her? ]
[ Well, well, well. First he offers his hand and now he's offering a ride. He is being so nice to her. Right now she is a simple Ema; he says get on, she will do her best to get on. If he told her to do a handstand, she'd try her best at that too (before inevitably crumpling into an embarrassing heap). ]
Yyyessir.
[ She slips off the stool and plops directly onto his back, arms linking around his neck. Immediately forgetting that Eustace is trying to evacuate her from the premises ASAP, she follows her inebriated dreams and takes this moment to turn the maneuver into a hug, her cheek smushing warmly against the side of his head. ]
[ Very surprised her inebriated dreams don't involve her crowing over a complete set of Islander fingerprints, tbqh.
He breathes a silent sigh of relief when her weight ends up on his back and not on the floor. Not that there's all that much of it, as per usual, her frame an easy carry as he lifts back up, fully ready to trudge them both out of the bar and back towards home. Except he makes it two steps forward before their faces are suddenly smushed together.
Her face is warm, the air of her breath soft against his cheek, and it's cute for about two seconds before the heavy reek of beer wafts past his nose and he grimaces. ]
[ Why are they still on this topic? Is she still living in her strange little fantasy of them having retroactively been married for ten years?? He has not once in his life imagined himself playing house, not even when his little sister had asked when they were kids, and he certainly has no inclination towards starting now at the ripe old age of almost-30. ]
I'm not going to say you're a [ ugh ] good wife back, if that's what you want. Also, I'm not a dog.
[ Not even the clumsy pat of her hand against his hair is enough to halt the rapid secession of his soul from his body, though it does feel nice and he does momentarily lean into her touch. Maybe he is a little bit of a dog.
The cool breeze outside is a nice change from the cloying air of the bar, and he breathes a small sigh once they're on the road back home. They make it half a block down the street before he speaks up again. ]
I don't think you would be a bad girlfriend. [ Apparently they are still on this topic. ] You should give yourself more credit.
[ Or give any prospective would-be boyfriends more credit, one or the other. ]
[ His crotchety rejection of her very nice compliment blows right past her, as all of his naysaying tends to do by now. She just hums agreeably and settles in for a cozy ride back to the house. As the murmur of the bar fades into the solitary sound of Eustace's steady footfall and the descending evening chill kisses her flushed skin, she closes her eyes and sinks into the peace of the moment.
She doesn't expect him to speak up again, much less with a compliment of his own. She's neck-deep in a warm, undulating haze now, and she has to swim for an impression of his meaning. Is he really saying she'd make a decent girlfriend? She laughs through her nose. ]
Maybe if I were dating a cop... or prosecutor. Too busy otherwise.
[ When she isn't busy trying to prep (again) for her forensics certification, she's babysitting crime scenes or following leads or buried in paperwork. No one wants to date a workaholic.
Her drifting, boozeborne imagination cooks up a buddy cop scenario in which she, the intrepid heroine wielding cutting-edge science, pounds the pavement with her tall, surly, trigger-happy partner. They are loose cannons always on the verge of getting fired, but their efficacy is startling and in fact logic-defying.
... That would be nice. Impossible, but nice. She's officially deeply drunk, but reality and sentimentality ground her for a fleeting moment. Her arms press lightly around Eustace and her head nudges into him, a much more delicate suggestion of a hug than before. In contrast, her pulse feels especially heavy. It drums throughout her entire body. ]
I really like you. Maybe more than I've liked anyone.
[ There are a whole host of reasons he thinks she'd make a not-bad (the word he's looking for is good) girlfriend, enough to fill out a whole laundry list, but he never gets the chance to list off even one of them, her simple pronouncement enough to wipe every last thought from his mind.
He almost drops her, his body straightening in an automatic fight-or-flight response, and it's only at the last second that he leans forward again as the loosening of her arms sends another burst of panic through him.
He wants to sew her mouth shut to stop her from saying anything even more incriminating. He wants to pretend like she's said nothing at all and shift the conversation to something far less dangerous, like the weather (shitty) or which of their too-many dogs ought to be put on a diet (Skull). He wants to turn around and take her face between his hands and kiss her until they're both out of breath, regardless of who might see them out here on the street.
But his hands are still very much occupied with locking the weight of her body in place as they head towards home and she is still very much drunk as hell.
The seconds blur together as he continues along the sidewalk, his silence loud and damning against the quiet backdrop of the city. No matter how much he tries, the words jam in his throat, anchored in place by an old fear that not even the warmth of her sentiment can dislodge.
The house eventually swings into view. It'd be easy enough to carry her all the way inside and drop her off in her room so she can sleep off the booze. Instead, he stops abruptly right before the front porch, giving her a small shake in case she's fallen asleep back there. ]
[ Following her pronouncement, Ema manages to wait for three whole seconds before her mind is already drifting again, a tiny raft carried away on a boozy current. She isn't expecting a reply, and wouldn't even if she were sober. Eustace is silent for so long that her metaphorical raft capsizes and she's dragged into the deep black depths of inebriation, which is to say that she falls asleep.
Her breathing is deep and long with congestion, one step away from a light snore by the time they get to the house. But she's shaken reluctantly awake, and it takes her a grueling few seconds to dig her face out of his shoulder and squint at the front door. If she were at all in her right mind, she would be asking why he's decided to stop short of the actual house. Instead, she faintly taps him to let him know he can let go of her and slides sloppily off his back. Her vertical condition does not survive this maneuver, as she immediately folds into a crawl just long enough to make it to the edge of the porch, whereupon she slowly turns, reclines, and uses the bottom step as a pointy pillow. This is where she is now. ]
[ What the fuck. He really should have seen this coming.
Eustace spends an inordinately long amount of time staring down at her prone form, well-worn irritation warring with the desire to crack a huge smile over the absurdity of the scene in front of him. Was he deeply worried about something before? It's gone now. ]
Tell me why I like you again.
[ As a friend? As something else?? Who fuckin' knows because he sure as hell won't ever be clear about it. It doesn't even matter if he says it now anyway, because she's basically dead to the world and even if she isn't she probably won't remember any of this come tomorrow morning. He's basically in the safe zone.
A couple more seconds tick by, along with the click of his bracelet camera (for posterity, obviously), and then he's crouching back down to drag her back up. Unfortunately the time of maintaining appearances is over now, and Ema gets hoisted over one shoulder like a lab coat-wearing sack of potatoes. Even the possible threat of getting punched in the throat doesn't faze him, because the likelihood of her missing him and punching herself in her current condition is sky-high.
Assuming Ema doesn't protest her rough handling, she'll eventually end up dumped onto her bed as her beleagured housemate tries to pry off her shoes. The dogs have, naturally, followed them upstairs, and are now alternating between cuddling every square inch of her and slowly choking her to death.
If she does...I guess they will both just tumble down the stairs and die. ]
[ What the fuck. She just got herself nice and settled, and here he is, ruiner of naps, dragging her up again. She doesn't fight him though because her body feels like it weighs 1000 pounds, and trying to punch him would be effort. So she lets herself get manhandled like an NPC about to get stuffed into a closet, except she ends up on her bed instead, which is some degree better than putting a divot into her skull via porch step.
A heavy blanket settles over her which is actually made of live dogs, but it's all the same to her right now. She feels Eustace trying to get at one of her shoes, so she sluggishly bends up her other leg, displacing a dog, to tug off her other shoe off herself. Easily done, against all odds, and she carelessly tosses the shoe away. The shoe embeds itself into the ceiling tip-first.
Anyway. She flops her arms up listlessly. ]
Coat.
[ Please. This one article of clothing. It will get wrinkly. ]
He's putting the hole in his ceiling on her tab. Right after he puts away her single shoe and takes some pictoral evidence of his poor house. The collection of photos on his bracelet is beginning to resemble those of a crime scene.
Wisely, he says nothing as Ema holds out her arms, tugging her coat off first one sleeve and then another (after a bit of combined effort) and then, after a moment's thought, carefully folding it and setting it off to one side.
[ She leans over wobble-like and after a couple swings and misses, manages to snag the fingers on his nearer hand. The dogs shift yet again as she lies back comfortably, dragging Eustace with her if necessary. She closes her eyes with an air of satisfaction. ]
Nothing else.
[ It doesn't seem like she cares that she's trapped him in an awkward spot... And despite claiming that there's nothing else she needs, she pipes up again drowsily. ]
... You heard what I said before, right?
[ She doesn't recall him acknowledging that she said anything, but also her memory is fuzzy right now, and also she fell asleep for a while there. She is just double-checking. ]
[ He's a (dubiously) good person (sometimes), he (and his house) don't deserve this constant abuse!! But he follows her lead and sinks onto the bed, a low sigh his only complaint as he swings his legs up.
It's a testament to how often they've done this that his body automatically adjusts to better fit around hers, his own comfort a distant second thought. But it's always like this when he's with her, for better or for worse.
He stares at her, the slow rise and fall of his chest at odds with the conflicting emotions that sprout up once again at her reminder. ]
You said a lot of things.
[ Like her (unsubstantiated!!) claim of being able to recite the alphabet backwards. Four letters barely counts for anything.
One of his hands might be trapped by hers but that still leaves him with one more, and he pokes her in the forehead with his free hand. Pay attention to him with the last of those fading braincells. ]
[ She shifts and turns the bare minimum to be able to accommodate him while still holding his fingers hostage, figuring that he'll figure out the rest. The dogs vault over her to make space for Eustace, then vault back over her to start smothering him too like a furry ocean tide. Her bed has never contained more chaos. But it's a comfortable chaos, and she in her leaden state is utterly at peace.
She intends to specify what exactly she was referring to, except she's functioning at half a mile an hour, so she is easily interrupted by a poke in the forehead. She cracks her eyes open to look at the instigator of the poke. ]
Mmm?
[ She did indeed say a lot of things, including that recitation of the alphabet backwards which was only four letters long and one letter correct, so he could really be referring to anything. ]
[ Goodbye his freedom as he is laid to rest by their furry caretakers. Not that he's even tired but dogs simply don't care about trivial reasons such as those.
He doesn't answer right away, too busy scrutinizing her sleepy expression. Maybe now isn't a good time and he should just let her sleep. Or maybe now is the perfect time, as Ema drifts in and out of sleep and Sorbet threatens to cut off the circulation to his right foot. Time is the one thing they have both too much of and not enough. ]
You could date anyone you wanted. They would have to be an idiot not to want you back, even if you were busy.
[ He is also a colossal idiot, because that is truly the only reason that could possibly explain why he leans forward to kiss her. Chastely, because she is drunk, but still on the lips, because he is an idiot. But also because she could be gone tomorrow, and if the only answer she ends up getting to I really like you is deafening silence then he really will hate himself. ]
[ She is indeed hopelessly sleepy at this point, and she's barely processed the first half of what he says when his face starts getting bigger and there's a soft touch to her lips which ends up being because of his lips.
The gravity of what he's just done is entirely lost on her. Instead, there's a bloom of innocent pleasure, an instinctual lightness that tips her mouth into a smile and colors her eyes by the time he draws back, no deeper thought required. Her motor functions may be out for repair, but her mind still has a touch of wiggle room to clear, and she understands him this time when he confirms that he heard her. ]
Good.
[ Even in her hot mess of a state, all she wants is for him to know that she does actually like him a lot. A fact self-evident on most days, she'd say, but which deserves to be said out loud. Unspoken understandings are all well and good, but there's nothing to lose — or the alcohol has convinced her that there's nothing to lose — by being a little extra honest sometimes. If she values him, then he deserves to know it, regardless of how he feels in return.
He probably feels alright about it, though. Unless she's severely misinterpreting his kiss, which is a fair possibility at this stage. She'll re-evaluate later. For now, she'll take it at face value.
On a whim, she presses Eustace at the shoulder until he's flat on his back and manages to half-roll onto him so that she's lying across his torso. She leans in to kiss him on the mouth but makes a messy landing on a weird bit of his cheek instead. Cool. She calls that good and promptly plants her head on his far shoulder before closing her eyes again with a content sigh. ]
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no subject
Ooh. The forbidden fruit.
[ She's usually the one who has grab his hands... Now he's freely offering one to her, and that is inexplicably delightful to her. He's probably looking for her to grasp his hand handshake-style, but instead she takes his hand in both of hers and starts delicately squeezing it for its meat, like one would squeeze a fruit to test for ripeness. It is a small blessing that her lightning-blessed strength still seems to be under control, but all bets are off if something happens to startle her.
She slouches a little for a closer look at his hand, apparently deeply absorbed in the minutiae of his calluses, little hand muscles, and so on. Your verdict, Eustace. ]
no subject
But her grip strength seems to be passable and her focus so-so, even if her comprehension seems to be rapidly deteriorating. He can work with that.
Carefully he tugs his hand out of her grip - again, please don't break his hand - before turning around to crouch down in front of her. Please also don't fall off the stool in the five seconds it takes him to do this. ]
Get on.
[ Will she actually understand what he's trying to get at or is he going to have to spell it out for her? ]
no subject
Yyyessir.
[ She slips off the stool and plops directly onto his back, arms linking around his neck. Immediately forgetting that Eustace is trying to evacuate her from the premises ASAP, she follows her inebriated dreams and takes this moment to turn the maneuver into a hug, her cheek smushing warmly against the side of his head. ]
no subject
He breathes a silent sigh of relief when her weight ends up on his back and not on the floor. Not that there's all that much of it, as per usual, her frame an easy carry as he lifts back up, fully ready to trudge them both out of the bar and back towards home. Except he makes it two steps forward before their faces are suddenly smushed together.
Her face is warm, the air of her breath soft against his cheek, and it's cute for about two seconds before the heavy reek of beer wafts past his nose and he grimaces. ]
Are you sure you had enough to drink?
[ Don't actually answer that. ]
no subject
She is content to use his head as a vertical pillow, so she snuggles in a bit to make her nest before finally settling down. ]
If you wanna know, I can do the alphabet backwards. Z, x, y... v.
By the way... for the record... you'd be a terrible boyfriend, but you're a good husband. Who's a good husband? You are.
[ She uses one hand to blindly reach up and start petting Eustace's head... ]
no subject
I'm not going to say you're a [ ugh ] good wife back, if that's what you want. Also, I'm not a dog.
[ Not even the clumsy pat of her hand against his hair is enough to halt the rapid secession of his soul from his body, though it does feel nice and he does momentarily lean into her touch. Maybe he is a little bit of a dog.
The cool breeze outside is a nice change from the cloying air of the bar, and he breathes a small sigh once they're on the road back home. They make it half a block down the street before he speaks up again. ]
I don't think you would be a bad girlfriend. [ Apparently they are still on this topic. ] You should give yourself more credit.
[ Or give any prospective would-be boyfriends more credit, one or the other. ]
no subject
She doesn't expect him to speak up again, much less with a compliment of his own. She's neck-deep in a warm, undulating haze now, and she has to swim for an impression of his meaning. Is he really saying she'd make a decent girlfriend? She laughs through her nose. ]
Maybe if I were dating a cop... or prosecutor. Too busy otherwise.
[ When she isn't busy trying to prep (again) for her forensics certification, she's babysitting crime scenes or following leads or buried in paperwork. No one wants to date a workaholic.
Her drifting, boozeborne imagination cooks up a buddy cop scenario in which she, the intrepid heroine wielding cutting-edge science, pounds the pavement with her tall, surly, trigger-happy partner. They are loose cannons always on the verge of getting fired, but their efficacy is startling and in fact logic-defying.
... That would be nice. Impossible, but nice. She's officially deeply drunk, but reality and sentimentality ground her for a fleeting moment. Her arms press lightly around Eustace and her head nudges into him, a much more delicate suggestion of a hug than before. In contrast, her pulse feels especially heavy. It drums throughout her entire body. ]
I really like you. Maybe more than I've liked anyone.
no subject
He almost drops her, his body straightening in an automatic fight-or-flight response, and it's only at the last second that he leans forward again as the loosening of her arms sends another burst of panic through him.
He wants to sew her mouth shut to stop her from saying anything even more incriminating. He wants to pretend like she's said nothing at all and shift the conversation to something far less dangerous, like the weather (shitty) or which of their too-many dogs ought to be put on a diet (Skull). He wants to turn around and take her face between his hands and kiss her until they're both out of breath, regardless of who might see them out here on the street.
But his hands are still very much occupied with locking the weight of her body in place as they head towards home and she is still very much drunk as hell.
The seconds blur together as he continues along the sidewalk, his silence loud and damning against the quiet backdrop of the city. No matter how much he tries, the words jam in his throat, anchored in place by an old fear that not even the warmth of her sentiment can dislodge.
The house eventually swings into view. It'd be easy enough to carry her all the way inside and drop her off in her room so she can sleep off the booze. Instead, he stops abruptly right before the front porch, giving her a small shake in case she's fallen asleep back there. ]
Get off.
no subject
Her breathing is deep and long with congestion, one step away from a light snore by the time they get to the house. But she's shaken reluctantly awake, and it takes her a grueling few seconds to dig her face out of his shoulder and squint at the front door. If she were at all in her right mind, she would be asking why he's decided to stop short of the actual house. Instead, she faintly taps him to let him know he can let go of her and slides sloppily off his back. Her vertical condition does not survive this maneuver, as she immediately folds into a crawl just long enough to make it to the edge of the porch, whereupon she slowly turns, reclines, and uses the bottom step as a pointy pillow. This is where she is now. ]
no subject
Eustace spends an inordinately long amount of time staring down at her prone form, well-worn irritation warring with the desire to crack a huge smile over the absurdity of the scene in front of him. Was he deeply worried about something before? It's gone now. ]
Tell me why I like you again.
[ As a friend? As something else?? Who fuckin' knows because he sure as hell won't ever be clear about it. It doesn't even matter if he says it now anyway, because she's basically dead to the world and even if she isn't she probably won't remember any of this come tomorrow morning. He's basically in the safe zone.
A couple more seconds tick by, along with the click of his bracelet camera (for posterity, obviously), and then he's crouching back down to drag her back up. Unfortunately the time of maintaining appearances is over now, and Ema gets hoisted over one shoulder like a lab coat-wearing sack of potatoes. Even the possible threat of getting punched in the throat doesn't faze him, because the likelihood of her missing him and punching herself in her current condition is sky-high.
Assuming Ema doesn't protest her rough handling, she'll eventually end up dumped onto her bed as her beleagured housemate tries to pry off her shoes. The dogs have, naturally, followed them upstairs, and are now alternating between cuddling every square inch of her and slowly choking her to death.
If she does...I guess they will both just tumble down the stairs and die. ]
no subject
A heavy blanket settles over her which is actually made of live dogs, but it's all the same to her right now. She feels Eustace trying to get at one of her shoes, so she sluggishly bends up her other leg, displacing a dog, to tug off her other shoe off herself. Easily done, against all odds, and she carelessly tosses the shoe away. The shoe embeds itself into the ceiling tip-first.
Anyway. She flops her arms up listlessly. ]
Coat.
[ Please. This one article of clothing. It will get wrinkly. ]
no subject
He's putting the hole in his ceiling on her tab. Right after he puts away her single shoe and takes some pictoral evidence of his poor house. The collection of photos on his bracelet is beginning to resemble those of a crime scene.
Wisely, he says nothing as Ema holds out her arms, tugging her coat off first one sleeve and then another (after a bit of combined effort) and then, after a moment's thought, carefully folding it and setting it off to one side.
The dogs readjust themselves. ]
Anything else?
[ Apparently he is just a butler now. ]
no subject
Nothing else.
[ It doesn't seem like she cares that she's trapped him in an awkward spot... And despite claiming that there's nothing else she needs, she pipes up again drowsily. ]
... You heard what I said before, right?
[ She doesn't recall him acknowledging that she said anything, but also her memory is fuzzy right now, and also she fell asleep for a while there. She is just double-checking. ]
no subject
It's a testament to how often they've done this that his body automatically adjusts to better fit around hers, his own comfort a distant second thought. But it's always like this when he's with her, for better or for worse.
He stares at her, the slow rise and fall of his chest at odds with the conflicting emotions that sprout up once again at her reminder. ]
You said a lot of things.
[ Like her (unsubstantiated!!) claim of being able to recite the alphabet backwards. Four letters barely counts for anything.
One of his hands might be trapped by hers but that still leaves him with one more, and he pokes her in the forehead with his free hand. Pay attention to him with the last of those fading braincells. ]
You're still wrong about something, by the way.
no subject
She intends to specify what exactly she was referring to, except she's functioning at half a mile an hour, so she is easily interrupted by a poke in the forehead. She cracks her eyes open to look at the instigator of the poke. ]
Mmm?
[ She did indeed say a lot of things, including that recitation of the alphabet backwards which was only four letters long and one letter correct, so he could really be referring to anything. ]
no subject
He doesn't answer right away, too busy scrutinizing her sleepy expression. Maybe now isn't a good time and he should just let her sleep. Or maybe now is the perfect time, as Ema drifts in and out of sleep and Sorbet threatens to cut off the circulation to his right foot. Time is the one thing they have both too much of and not enough. ]
You could date anyone you wanted. They would have to be an idiot not to want you back, even if you were busy.
[ He is also a colossal idiot, because that is truly the only reason that could possibly explain why he leans forward to kiss her. Chastely, because she is drunk, but still on the lips, because he is an idiot. But also because she could be gone tomorrow, and if the only answer she ends up getting to I really like you is deafening silence then he really will hate himself. ]
I did hear what you said.
[ For the record. Every single word. ]
no subject
The gravity of what he's just done is entirely lost on her. Instead, there's a bloom of innocent pleasure, an instinctual lightness that tips her mouth into a smile and colors her eyes by the time he draws back, no deeper thought required. Her motor functions may be out for repair, but her mind still has a touch of wiggle room to clear, and she understands him this time when he confirms that he heard her. ]
Good.
[ Even in her hot mess of a state, all she wants is for him to know that she does actually like him a lot. A fact self-evident on most days, she'd say, but which deserves to be said out loud. Unspoken understandings are all well and good, but there's nothing to lose — or the alcohol has convinced her that there's nothing to lose — by being a little extra honest sometimes. If she values him, then he deserves to know it, regardless of how he feels in return.
He probably feels alright about it, though. Unless she's severely misinterpreting his kiss, which is a fair possibility at this stage. She'll re-evaluate later. For now, she'll take it at face value.
On a whim, she presses Eustace at the shoulder until he's flat on his back and manages to half-roll onto him so that she's lying across his torso. She leans in to kiss him on the mouth but makes a messy landing on a weird bit of his cheek instead. Cool. She calls that good and promptly plants her head on his far shoulder before closing her eyes again with a content sigh. ]
See you tomorrow.