Surfacing...

[Coco]

When Mhairi arrived at Coco's apartment, the door was hanging a jar, and yellow light from table lamps spilled out into the night. Inside, the Wasp's apartment was in disarray. Blankets and pillows sat here and there, and magazines spilled off of the coffee table. A bottle of vodka had overturned, it's contents long ago having emptied onto the carpet, and the TV displayed an idling netflix home page.

More importantly, however, the sound of half-choked sobs echoed from beyond the door to the bedroom, coming from the bathroom, wherein' Coco half lay, slumped against the toilet. There was puke on her shirt, and spilling down the lid and toilet bowl in putrescent mess. Her phone sat on the floor, only a few feet away...

Feel free to fast forward at will, or not, depending on whether you want drunk or sober Coco

[Mhairi Ankaa]

The slice of yellow lamp light streaking out brought to mind a horror movie. How many had started like this? Mhairi wondered as she pushed the door open.

"Oh, no..." a worried whisper escaped the wisp, as she took in the room, and it's contents in complete disarray. The sob brought Mhairi to the reason she was here. Coco. Carefully Mhairi tip-toed around the living room towards the bathroom. Nose crinkling at the smell. Nodding the elemental got to work. She knew from experience that having a puked on shirt wasn't fun. So Mhairi carefully corralled Coco back to her room. Leaving the wasp to sit on her bed, Mhairi tugged off her shirt, wiping the remains of puke off of skin where she could see it before she began searching through Coco's things for a clean shirt. After finding one, she returned to Coco's side. Pulling it over the wasp's head, and tugging at uncoordinated limbs, Mhairi fretting until Coco laid back onto her bed.

Darting to the kitchen for a fresh cup to fill will water, and towards the bathroom for a painkiller, Mhairi brought both back, and wouldn't take no, of a sad-sullen silence as an answer. Once she was satisfied that Coco had taken the pain killer and enough water, she refilled the glass to leave by Coco's bedside.

Once that was done and Coco settled in bed, Mhairi tired her constellation filled hair back rolled up her sleeves and cleaned.

She didn't want Coco to come to, with the probably hangover that awaited her, to find her home a mess and still smelling like puke.

Well, it's safe to assume that some time has passed! But if you want to have Coco come to as still drunk, or hungover or whatever, It's all good. If you want to have Coco wake up sooner, Mhairi would still be cleaning, and if it's later, then She'd either be checking on Coco, or maybe watching Netflix

[Coco]

Coco didn't remember most of what happened once Mhairi had arrived. Which, in some ways must have been good, because she was a terrible patient. Uncooperative, loud, and clingy, turned what should have been a moment of compassion into a trial of patience. Or perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps Mhairi truly was compassionate enough to forgive the annoyances that arose from someone seeping with alcohol and tears.

Yet, hours later, when Coco awoke feeling like death, there was still someone in her home. Or so she thought, after several moments of confused remembrance as she listened to the sound of the TV through her bedroom wall. She remembered a presence next to her last night, caring for her. Too vividly for it to have been some booze soaked hallucination, and yet she couldn't quite remember, and so she dragged herself from the bed and stumbled towards the living room.

The door to the bedroom opened next to the TV, and a zombie wasp shuffled out, squinting against the light.

"You're here?" Coco asked, her voice pitching up in utter confusion. "I mean, why are you here?"

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Sad, drunk Coco wasn't anything Mhairi didn't have experience with. Either old half-remembered friends or herself. So with a patience born of that experience, Mhairi cared for the women. Even if that meant an hour or so glomped by the wasp where only her quick wit and quicker self managed to escape the firm hold and blanket-shackles. The only part of that, that caused a frown was because of her near comical flailing Mhairi needed to clean up the spilled water, and get another one, but honestly the spill was her fault, so it was only a frowny face and not an upset feeling.

When a fell-flame caught the silhouette of the wasp, Mhairi frowned. Tapping on the remote Mhairi clicked the volume down. "Oh? Sorry did-I-did I wake you? Was the-er volume to loud?" she asks pitching her voice softer then normal.

Then it was Mhairi's turn to look at the wasp in confusion. Had Coco forgotten the nearly incoherent SOS she sent Mhairi? "You called." Mhairi says, trying to see how much had been drowned out by the alcoholic wall of forgetfulness. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

[Coco]

"No," Coco mumbled, rubbing at her face as she paced over to plop down on the couch next to Mhairi. She hugged a pillow, and then reached back with her left hand and pulled a freshly folded blanket off the back of the couch and clumsily draped it over herself and the pillow.

"I'm just surprised you stayed," she clarified, all while seeming to sink down even further beneath the blanket.

"I almost wish you hadn't," Coco added glumly. "Then I wouldn't have to wait for you leave. You'd already be gone. You'd have already realized I'm just a stupid bug and decided to forget about me. Then I could drown in vodka and my own insignificance in peace."

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Watching Coco pull the blanket made Mhairi just want to reach over and hug her. Then the next few sentences Coco spoke told Mhairi more about the wasp then the women herself did. Even through the think wall of her elemental-ism.

The volume down turned into show off.

"You are a bug. 'Cause you're-ah skitterskulk. But you're-ah-you're not stupid." Mhairi says first, making the words sound firm and final. "And you're not-ah bug as in bugging me. Nope!" Mhairi says this with a shake of her drippy finger. "I'm not goin' anywhere!" a frown. "Unless I-ah have to-ah tinkle. But I'm here." Mhairi says, patting the couch under her as she moves herself so she's facing Coco and not the TV. "We said we would be if-ah-if the drinking got to bad...right? I mean you'd-ah stay with-with me if I sent out that SOS....right?"

[Coco]

It took Coco some moments to respond, and she buried her face beneath the confines of the blanket while the pulsing ache in her skull synced to the nauseous roil of sitting somewhere in the back of her gut. If her body hadn't already voided itself of everything it physically could the night before then she would have made a dash for the bathroom, but there was nothing left inside her, and so the nausea simply became yet another pain, joining her veins themselves in their throbbing, agonous rebellion against what she'd done to her body.

But she didn't care.

Last night she'd wanted to die, and there was some insidious part of her that took solace in feeling like death.

"Maybe I would," Coco finally replied, peeking out again from under the blanket, "but so what? Nothing lasts. One day you might talk about becoming family with someone, but then the next day you decide to leave with only a few paltry, parting words offered in solace. And why not? Why not just cast people aside and flounce about on your way? We're all selfish pieces of shit, anyways."

The Wasp's sallow face and dull eyes were haunting to behold, so different were they from the usual expressive, tailored vitality that they usually shone with.

"The only reason why we even have a fucking Freehold is because it helps us survive," she half snarled. "We all use people. Even at the most basic level of our relationships. And, when we decide someone can't give us something, we throw them away. Maybe that's really why we have pledges. To at least give us a schedule so we can plan around everyone's eventual betrayal."

[Mhairi Ankaa]

Coco takes her time before speaking. A first, Mhairi thinks. The wasp was a proper wordsmith. As the silence grows, Mhairi's mind wanders. Should she convince the women most known for her verbal barbs to become a pledge smith?

...maybe a thought left for another day.

"No maybe about it. You-ah-you said you'd be there. It wasn't a-a pledge. But...it was meant. I trust that you-ah meant it." the more Coco speaks the more Mhairi realizes that this is more then just horrible memories or dreams, or the millions of other instances where she herself turned to a full bottle of vodka.

"Yes. We...are all selfish." Mhairi doesn't deny it. "After we were Tricked, plain Taken or-or whatever else it was that had us over There...none of-ah-us wants to give up that-ah-that part of us that places us first for-ah-for once in our-ah miserable fucking lives." Mhairi sorta hopes the swearing will make her point, more pointy.

As the starlit wisp takes a moment to gather her thoughts, she tries not to fidget, even if she really wants to. She knows that she twists her fingers when she lies, or when she's uncomfortable, or unsure, or-or-or. But now, Coco needs her to not fidget. "The one thing that would-ah help us survive is if-ah we all-ah went to ground, never spoke to-ah another 'ling again in our lives and never touched that-that magic that made us different. We'd-ah survive if we went through the-ah day-to-day drudge, and never did-ah-anything remarkable, we'd all-ah be named Mary or Sue or Bill or Jim. We form a Freehold because we don't want to-ah be alone. Yes, it means we have-ah-allies, pledged ones. Sure. But it isn't a-ah selfish need to push each other in front of-of some imaginary line and make them cannon fodder as the others turned tail and run."

When Coco's face turns to hers, Mhairi bites her lip. She needed a hug. (Coco. Not Mhairi. Mhairi was a huger, and she wanted to give the wasp one) Moving a hand over to the blanket around the other women, Mhairi slowly scoots over so she could give Coco a one armed hug. If she wanted it. No pressure. No judgment.

"Coco? What's wrong?"

[Coco]

"They left," Coco replied, the simplicity of the statement, and the memory, leaching the bitterness from her words.

"Do you remember that motley I was telling you about? The one with the Queens of two seasons? Well, they left. On the day that we were to make our pledge, they both backed out, and I haven't heard from them since. It's just like Ahawi, like Catherine, like Daisy..."

The Wasp trailed off and just let herself relax into the hug, the top of her head nestling atop Mhairi's shoulder. There was no point in saying more. No point in arguing about the futility of searching for any motivation beyond personal satisfaction, or even in denying herself the comfort of someone that would, one day, leave too. She was too sore, and she was too numb.

[Mhairi Ankaa]

With her verbal spillage, Mhairi was expecting a witty repartee to ensue, and she'd need to to twist her tongue around in a quick defense. Nothing helped her stammer like the Coco school of witty back-and-forth!

She wasn't expecting to have Coco relax into the one-armed hugged offered and just give a few words to her problem, the words Mhairi needed to make sense of this with so little effort. Mhairi didn't know who Ahawi, or Catherine were, but she remembered Daisy, the Artist with the green hair, and the way she and Coco acted around each other, the first giddy stages of something new was happening and I like it.

For Coco to say they all left without a word...Mhairi tugged Coco closer. One hand pulls at one of Cocos, a drippy thumb rubbing hopefully comforting circles there, while the arm that had encircled the wasp squeezed tighter.

"Well...I-I don't know what-ah-what happened to-ah-to Ramona...she didn't tell me where she-ah was going either, but...A-Ava...the last time I saw her....was in the-ah Blue Note, she was drinking, I don't know if it was-ah right after baling on you, but she got a call and left." Mhairi paused to swallow the lump in her throat. "I-ah didn't think anything of it. But then there was-ah-was noise. Sirens. Me and-ah Morgan ran outside to see what-ah happened, if we could-ah help. It was Ava." the shock of it still strong, the flashing red and blue light could still be seen behind fell-flame eyes. "She's...she's alive, and she's-ah in the-ah hospital. But she hasn't woken up yet." and it doesn't look like she ever will. Remains unsaid.