I Swear To Drunk, I'm Not God (Open)

[Stefan Spencer]

Stefan was not ready to let go of the holiday season.

At least that was the excuse he gave himself after he had pour his twelfth? glass of scotch that night. As if he hadn't had enough to drink over Christmas' and New Year's. But now that all the parties were over and things were going back to normal, he found that the sudden loneliness was too much for him to handle. So he'd spent the evening in the bar. And when the bartender had stopped serving him, he had gone home to drink some more.

He had been sitting on his lazy-boy staring into space when Sebastian suddenly jumped onto his lap and meowed loudly. "What do you want?" Stefan asked. "I already gave you your shot. In fact you got two."

Still the cat continued to stare at him and let out another loud meow. "Ya hungry?" Stefan asked, getting himself slowly to his feet. It was a difficult task but somehow he managed to make it into the kitchen to look around for a can of cat food.

When he discovered that he was out at the moment, he looked down at Sebastian, who in turn was looking at his empty food bowl. "Fine," he mumbled, grabbing his coat.

He stumbled down the street, half-full glass still in his hand, wondering where the best place to find cat food would be. He had no idea what time it was, so decided to walk to the closest gas station.

Halfway there, he saw someone else walking along. "Nice night for a stroll," he yelled out, slurring a bit. He noticed that the other person had an odd expression on. It was also around this time that he noticed that although he had his coat, he wasn't wearing any pants.

Well at least that explained where the cold draft was coming from.

[Erin Kaminski]

Erin was bored. No, more than bored. She was positively at the end of her tether. So, armed with nothing more than a bottle or two of proper european red wine, she had ventured out into Pilot Ridge on this...interesting night.

Like most of the times that she had chosen to take a sojourn out into the welcoming darkness, she had decided to wear a warm, yet functional garb of a knee-length dress and large, bobbled hat, completed by her ever-present pair of Doc. Marten boots.

Venturing into the consuming darkness, she turned this way and that, happy to feel the familiar, comforting touch of shadow and near-invisibility on her skin. Indeed, she was happy to simply walk and absorb the intricacies of the night, until she heard a movement up ahead.

Clutching her bottle of illegitimately-obtained wine, she attempted to slink stealthily into an alcove in the wall, yet achieved only a stuttering stumble into said wall, bouncing ever so slightly from it's cold surface. It was at this point that she heard a voice, older than hers, yet strangely comforting to her in her addled state.

"Nice night for a stroll."

Erin was a connoisseur of experiences, and this seemed like a completely new one to her. Steeling herself slightly in order to effect her reveal, she spoke, for some reason (and a bit embarrassingly, she fancied) in her native middle-English.

"Indeed, it is a fair night, yet one wonders what another is doing on this not particularly clement eve."

She cringed at her formality, wondering that the other person did not simply strike her down as some diabolical vision of Shakespearean indulgence. Such was the English curse, she supposed, to be challenging and yet frightfully polite, formal even.

[Stefan Spencer]

Stefan stared blankly at the young girl. Then at his wrist hoping to find the time, but it too was naked. Still he was sure that it was late. "Aren't you a little....young to be out this late?" he asked. He hadn't meant for it to sound harsh or like he was accusing her of something. In truth, he was worried about her. Much more worried that a pretty young girl was walking around a night than the fact that he was currently standing in front of said girl in his boxers.

He thought she spoke a tad odd, but then again when he was this intoxicated it seemed like everyone spoke a tad odd. It took him a minute to process her sentence, but he managed it.

"It's my cat," Stefan explained, shaking his head and laughing at the same time. "I swear the little fluff-ball won't let me drink in peace until he gets some tuna."

He took a few stumbling steps towards her, almost spilling his drink. "Care to join me for a stroll?" It might have sounded like a come-on. Indeed, Stefan had used that more than once before to get the company of a pretty lady. But now he just wanted some company, and to make sure the girl got to where ever she was headed safely.

[Erin Kaminski]

"Aren't you a little....young to be out this late?"

Erin hesitated at the inquisition. Indeed, over here it probably was a little late for her to be out wandering the streets alone. Silently cursing her lack of attentiveness for being 'caught' in solitude on the streets of Pilot Ridge, she tried to reply in the assured tones of an older, more assured woman.

"I'm sure it's quite late, sir, but I was just making my way home from the pub-I mean, bar, after a hard night's serving, erm, bourbon and - yes! - moonshine."

Erin winced at her terrible grasp of the culture over here, even though, in truth, she knew that if any trouble had happened upon her, she could deal with it to a lesser - or, if needs absolutely must, greater - degree. Thus it was that, despite her terrible attempt at blending into to trans-Atlantic culture, she still bore herself in an assured, almost cocky manner.

"Care to join me for a stroll?"

Even if Erin had not been a self-confessed lover of new experiences, she may well have accepted the stranger's request. He didn't seem bad, as it were, and it would certainly be more fun to escape reality with somebody else than to dodge it herself on this increasingly auspicious eve.

[Stefan Spencer]

Erin needed not have worried about Stefan looking down on her from being young or having sneaked out. His rules for what was acceptable tended to differ greatly. He tended to be more lax about things like drinking ages and curfew.

"You work at the bar?" Stefan asked. The question wasn't about her age, more about the fact that he didn't recall ever see her serving him a drink before. And he knew most of the bartenders in town, most of them pretty well too. "Serving moonshine?" He could be wrong, but he didn't think that was a popular drink in Pilot Ridge.

Still he was fairly drunk, so he decided not to question it. After all she wasn't questioning his clothing, or lack thereof.

He caught the wince and although usually he would have probably understood the feeling behind it. However in his current state, his power wasn't functioning as it should. So he was concerned. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Drawing his coat a little tighter around him, Stefan grinned down at the young girl. "Great," he said. "I'm Stefan, by the way." He was going to make some sort of 'knight in shinning armor' joke, but the idea wouldn't come together for him right now.

"So where you headed? Out to get cat food as well?"

[Erin Kaminski]

"You work at the bar?"

Erin's mind had been so busy racing with a clever story to cook up for this stranger that she had barely taken in any of the details of her opposite in the darkness. It was as she opened her mouth to answer the stranger's interrogative that all at once she noticed he wasn't wearing any trousers.

"Serving moonshine?"

Her head was slightly fuzzy from the amount of wine that she had been drinking; she shook it, almost as if to clear the alcoholic fog from her vision. Squinting slightly, and trying to avoid looking straight on at his possible exposure, she snuck another glance as he spoke again.

"Are you alright?"

Nope, he was definitely bereft of his bottom half, underwear excepted. That was some small blessing, she supposed, trying desperately not to linger on the phrase 'small blessing' as she turned this information over in her mind.

"Yeah, I, er, I'm fine thanks, just...strolling."

The man's appearance had fazed her for a second, until she had realised that this was definitely something that had never happened to her before. Taking another swig of wine from the bottle, hating her cretinous self for having resorted to doing so, she stepped a little closer. Well, she could get out of the situation very easily if she needed to, though in her semi-intoxicated state she primarily wasn't really bothered by the appearance of this strange man, and secondarily would have had fun trying to control her power to the point that she could ensure she wouldn't kill the guy. Alcohol pushed secondary to the back of her mind, and she gave a sly smile as the man introduced himself.

"Erin."

She made a move as if to offer her hand, but then thought better of it. Blasé she was, and rapidly growing with enthusiasm for this conversation, but it was still a bit of a step to shake the hand of a trouserless man she had just drunkenly met.

"Cat food? I was just out to have a bit of fun away from the Insti-" starting slightly, she remembered her cover story. Away from what? It took her probably half a second more to recover than it should have, but she ploughed on regardless, "boyfriend at home (she knew she wasn't unattractive, why wouldn't a bar maid have a burly boyfriend at home built like Vin Diesel, who made her feel safe and loved, but had anger issues which meant she would seek to leave the house now and then?) for a bit. We try to avoid each other when we've both been working all day, he, well we, can get ratty."

...and if the guy bought that then he was definitely drunker than she was.

[Stefan Spencer]

Between the wincing and the head shaking, Stefan was becoming concerned about this young girl. The fact that he was pant-less had left his mind once again. It was then that he noticed the bottle of wine the girl had tried to hide. His eyes lit up at once as he recognized her for what she was…a fellow drinker.

“To strolling,” he said, raising his own glass, which still had a surprising amount of scotch in it. “Cheers.”

“A pleasure to meet you my dear,” he said, attempting a bow, but almost loosing his balance in the process and chuckling at himself.

Although Stefan gave the girl a questioning look at her half-finished sentence, he didn’t feel the need to question her about it. He was having trouble discerning truth from fiction in his current condition and decided to err on the side of caution. If she really was avoiding a “ratty” boyfriend, than he would be more than pleased to accompany her. Underage drinking didn’t register on his radar, even when he was sober. But men mistreating women always got his blood boiling.

“Well sweetheart,” he said giving her a warm smile. “You’re safe with me. And more than welcome to join me on my stroll.” And with that he started heading once again towards his goal of obtaining cat food, assuming that she would of course walk with him.

[Erin Kaminski]

"To strolling, cheers!"

With a somewhat clumsy movement, Erin clinked her bottle of wine against the man's glass. He seemed decent, if not altogether in the land of the lucid, and so, in her current state, she trusted him.

Slipping into step - well, kind of; she took one and a half to two for each stride he made - beside Stefan, she followed him into the night. Remembering - somehow! - her night-time companion's allusion to his cat, she felt somewhat empowered, and questioned:

"So, do you often come out absent of your bottom half to find cat food?"

She wasn't as direct as this very often, ergo to be so was an extremely refreshing change; Erin would even go so far as to say, in her somewhat intoxicated state, that it was a titillating experience. Besides, she was anxious to see whether she could inspire this interesting man to embarrassment or, perhaps, defensiveness.