-- JUST SPIN THE BOTTLE && [skye]

It had been weird at first, working for the woman she'd met first and foremost as Joshua's mother, but Patricia had turned out to be nice, friendly, professional all at once. It was something Skye liked about her -- she wasn't exactly a stranger to the game of politics and she had to say that politicians, Members of Parliament like Patricia, weren't always quite as likeable. It was sort of irritating, honestly, but luckily for Skye, this was way easier to deal with. She had gotten to know the woman on some kind of professional level since she'd started working at the constituency office, and it was a job that she liked, for sure -- or well, she couldn't imagine anyone really loved their part-time job or anything, but she didn't dread going, and it was definitely better than flipping burgers or waiting tables, things Skye was really not equipped to deal with.

Really, at the office, she'd just had the title of 'Assistant' tacked onto her. Mainly so far this had just meant she had her own desk without much on or in it, she went on occasional coffee runs, she directed people who came upstairs looking for Patricia, she was the go-between for the downstairs receptionist and anyone upstairs, she sorted things, and perhaps the most actually politics-oriented, she looked over and discussed the things that needed to be sent out -- fliers and ads and the like. It was nice of Patricia to actually consider her opinion in these things -- Skye knew that she probably had better, more experienced people to deal with these things too. By the time Joshua had gotten there, she was actually done work for the day -- her hours and all the fancy stuff had of course been figured out when she'd started working -- but she was wrapping up what she was doing, storing files back away in a cabinet as she chatted idly with her employer about... well, nothing related to politics, just random things going on around Maple Hollow.

Chatting was what it boiled down to sometimes on slow days at the office, and Skye was pretty much done here, but she'd take her time as she waited for Josh to get there. They didn't have many friends both of them kept in touch with anymore, so this was definitely some kind of special, driving a good few hours to see one of them across the border. She smiled a little and nodded when he knocked and came in. "Hey Josh." She turned away just briefly to file away the last couple of folders -- all alphabetical and organized -- before shutting the cabinet and turning back around. "Nah, right on time. I wouldn't call this intense political discussion," she said, amused as she looked over at Patricia before her attention back to her friend. "Nah, I think I'm good here."

She had shoved her things, luckily all fitting in a bag rather than a whole bulky suitcase or anything, under her desk just outside of Patricia's actual office, but she didn't go over there just yet, hesitated a bit and asked, "Do you need anything else here?" This was, of course, for Trish and not Josh, but when the answer was a no, she nodded. "Alright. I'll see you on Monday!" Skye headed for her desk then, grabbing her actual luggage bag as well as her purse -- her Christmas present from Josh, actually, which was always nice to remember. She stretched her arms a little bit over her head. "Looking forward to driving all the way there?" she asked, smirking a little. She wasn't excited for the actual travelling part at all, but her friends meant more to her than many people would have guessed.

She rolled her eyes a little at the kind of lame joke. "If you count gossiping about other politicians, then sure," she said, smiling. It wasn't like this was actually any kind of common occurrence, not unless there was something that was going on. Skye was a fairly opinionated person, though, so it was the way things went -- and obviously Patricia was as well, being a politician. It was sort of her job as a Member of Parliament to have opinions and make decisions based off of them... which was simplifying the process severely, but Skye though tthings were too stupidly complicated anyway. This was supposed to be for everyday people to follow -- her Political Science major self could barely stomach it sometimes.

It was definitely nice to work for someone who was so easygoing. The fact that it was a friend's relative was also helpful -- the fact that she kind of sort of knew who the woman was outside of her work environment. That said, it was something that she would have known at least a little anyway due to the fact that Patricia was after all their MP, but if she knew anything from her dad -- a speechwriter -- it was that a person's public persona could be a far cry from what they were like on any more intimate a level. "Thanks, Patricia," she said, smiling. "Don't worry, if he gets out of hand I think I can take him." She smirked back. She probably wouldn't really do anything super drastic or anything, but she didn't expect that this would be a concern for Josh. She wouldn't agree to riding with him all the way across the border if she didn't trust him to drive, at least. Then again, Skye could drive too, even though she didn't have a car -- but jeez, she'd just feel awful in case something did happen if she were driving his car. Nah, they'd figure something out so long as they didn't actually end up speeding and dying on the way.

Skye caught his smile and returned it, whether or not she was right about the fact that it was regarding the purse. "Oh, I'm sure. You've looked forward to this moment your whole life. Prepared a speech and everything, I'd bet." She shot him a look at his joke, though. "I'd really like to live past twenty-one if I could, thanks." Hey, twenty-one was still pretty young, all things considered. Then again, it kind of felt like they were getting really old, too. She knew that Josh's birthday had been ridiculously recently. "Alright. Well, we should at least probably go see Charles before we die some kind of untimely deaths." She headed for the elevator. "Did you need anything in town or anything first?"

Skye raised her eyebrows right back. Could she take Joshua? Uh, no, actually, she probably couldn't. They had to be relatively decently matched on an elemental level, though fire was perhaps more obviously destructive... but electricity could do some pretty serious damage too. When it came down to it, though, Josh was just bigger, stronger. Skye wouldn't be able to do a thing if they were in any kind of close proximity. "Bring it on." The smirk on her face gave her away, though -- but at least Skye wasn't full of any kind of pointless arrogance. They left Patricia to her own work (despite being there herself Skye didn't actually know about what all of it was) as they left. Ah, jeez. Skye couldn't say that she was a big fan of road trips, but this wouldn't be so bad she didn't think.

"Should I write you one, then? I'll make sure to put lots of sappy sentiment in it." Josh was such an expressive person, after all. It'd be such a shame not to let him show all of that raw emotion. No... no, Josh was possibly even worse than Skye when it came to that kind of thing. It was lucky they were able to figure each other out about this, or else their friendship would be in for some extremely awkward moments. "I'm sure you will -- old and senile but still very fit I'm betting," she said, smiling a little. It was always way too long between the times the two of them actually got to hang out -- luckily neither were very clingy or needy people. Skye really wouldn't be able to tolerate friendships like that. "You're still getting up there in years, though. How was your birthday, anyway?" She felt kind of bad that she hadn't asked about it before now but literally, it had been too recently for her to have really talked to him before then. Phones and the like were convenient but it was never, ever the same.

Well, she certainly hoped that Charlie would be happy to see them, because it was a really long drive and it'd be kind of a waste if they made it for no reason. Of course... the trip would hopefully be good and fine and all that either way but it would be a pretty huge disappointment if their friend actually didn't want to spend any of the weekend with them. She and Josh didn't have very many mutual friends left at this point, all things considered. It was kind of a big deal. "Please, he loves Canadians. We should bring him a gift, maple syrup or something. Whatever he gets down there probably sucks." Back at home, Skye lived a few mere minutes' drive from Quebec. Maple syrup was important... Alright, there was much more to Canada than that, but they were nothing without humility and a few good-natured jokes about themselves. "Hitting up a bar sounds good, actually. It's been way too long." What with having to live an actual life and shit, Skye didn't actually have time to go off drinking whenever she felt like -- even though that wasn't often anyway. She'd probably last been drinking over break when she'd gone back home for Christmas break. "And that just sucks for him, living over there. If he'd stuck with us he'd have been drinking for... what, a year now?" Skye wasn't as bitter as she might have sounded, but Josh probably knew that. She definitely understood the desire to head back home after all that. "Though it probably doesn't stop him, knowing Charlie."

Skye smirked. "Great, we'll grow old and senile and call each other up in a couple decades to complain about... uh, whatever old people are going to complain about by that time." She figured that much of it would be the same usual nonsense about the kids never calling and dentures and wrinkles and don't you remember that time when we were young, but there were plenty of things that could change in these decades. Skye wasn't looking forward to getting old, though. It was weird to think about when they were still, actually, pretty young. "Good! Always nice to hear that nobody's burnt their house down recently," she said wryly. Admittedly it would have been easier for Josh, too, than it would have been for most others. Having the power to actually create Fire from nothing and out of nowhere probably did make it easy to set things on fire. "But seriously, that's good, I'm glad."

Being from the country's capitol, Skye was no stranger to Canada's stereotypes. It was funniest trying to convince people (Americans mostly, due to proximity) that they were true, because sometimes she'd be amazed at people's sheer stupidity. "What, you mean he didn't buy his own polar bear before he left to move back home? Shame, Charlie." She looked almost actually wistful. "I guess maple syrup's the way to go. It'll be a shame if we ruin that nice house of his with all the pancakes, though." Actually, the idea was pretty hilarious, but she deadpanned it all just the same. Anyone passing by would have probably thought the two of them were having a completely serious conversation, but that was probably the part that she'd find the most amusing later if she ever looked back on this. Her lips twitched into a brief smile at the Marianas Trench song on the radio BECAUSE ALL CANADIANS = MT FANS, THAT'S WHY and then just relaxed, leaning back against the seat. "Uh huh. Charlie better make this trip worth it, I'm just saying." She was sure he would, despite how long the drive really was -- seeing old friends was usually pretty rewarding.

As it turned out, after a drive that was far longer than Skye would have liked, Charlie's hometown was a pretty dreary, kind of boring place. It was a city, but not much of one like Toronto or anything -- it reminded Skye of Maple Hollow a little in that. It was raining when they got there and it kept raining throughout the day -- Charlie assured them that this was normal. Their friend's house was nice and not wet at least, and after they handed over their gift (actual maple syrup that they'd picked up at duty-free crossing the border) they went out for dinner. Unfortunately it was after dinner that Charlie mentioned he'd have to go thanks to some kind of (apparently godawful) night shift that he was forced to work, and it was so that Josh and Skye were left there. It was still pretty early, honestly, too early for her to retire for the day when she'd just gotten to a city she'd never yet been to before. Skye wasn't quite that old yet, okay. "You know what we should do?" she asked suddenly as they clambered back into his car -- avoiding the rain. At this point a car was the last place she really wanted to be, but it wasn't like they knew the city well enough to walk to the nearest place of interest. Plus... again, they were avoiding the rain. Fucking rain. It wasn't even a thunderstorm either, just a drizzle, which just took all the fun out of it for her considering Skye was a Thunder. "We should go get drunk," she continued. "Like the dumb, irresponsible college kids we could be." But aren't, she added in her head, but hey, they were on a vacation of sorts. They could do what they pleased.

Skye actually laughed a little at the image she got of Josh, in some scary old haunted house, staring at the neighbourhood kids from his creepy, cobwebbed window as they broke through the gate of the house for fun. It was like some kind of Halloween movie where the old man turned out to be some kind of badass who saved them from whatever was really out to get them. "Not even any candy on Halloween? You are going to be the worst kind of old man to live near," she said, shaking her head. "What kind of guy has the money for a huge, scary house and yet still doesn't give out the huge chocolate bars? We are not friends." She gave him a look that would have been something like undisguised shame, if it were serious at all. It wasn't, of course.

"Like a guard dog." She tried to imagine what she'd do if she saw a sign that said "warning -- bear on guard" on a house somewhere. It would definitely discourage her from trespassing... not that she made a habit of trespassing on anyone's property in the first place. "Bears are huge, though. Doubt anyone would mess with him if he had one of those guys in the backyard just waiting to attack." Their friend was American, but had (obviously) spent a good number of years in Canada, so she figured that he'd probably be able to make Canadian jokes right along wtih them if he were there or if they started spouting them later when they met up. No one can like Canadians though. It was a weird fact about the people from their country. "Yeah, but he was like... what, seventeen. We were all so young." They were far from old, as their earlier conversation had demonstrated, but it was weird how much had changed in the span of a few years. "Probably still sucks at driving, now that I think about it. Didn't he hit that fire hydrant the one time?" Charlie had always been a pretty amusing dude... though probably not on purpose.

Watching the rain outside rather than looking at her friend, Skye did smirk a little. "I know, eh?" Unlike Josh, she said it on purpose. She exhaled slowly out of her nose as she turned away from the window, but smiled a little when she saw him roll his eyes. "Might as well pin signs on our foreheads labelling us as Canadians." The British Columbia license plate was enough of a dead giveaway anwyay, but they really weren't far from the border -- she wondered if this kind of thing was common for the townspeople, for random Canadians to pop up and visit them. If the weather was always like this, she couldn't imagine that many people would want to, but then again, she didn't know anything about what there was to do around here. Hanging out with Charlie, at least, was nice and familiar -- all three of them had grown in the past few years, she figured, but there were a few things that never changed. "Don't be a jerk, Josh," she chided, but she was just amused. "Even though we did drive all the way here... and now you're blowing us off for work... but really, it's fine." It was stupidly passive-aggressive, but she was kidding, and it was only after assuring him of this and making sure he'd call them later that they left. She didn't envy Charlie at all, having to work such awful hours.

He seemed pretty keen on the idea -- which she was glad for but not really surprised by. Josh definitely drank more than she did... and he had pitched the idea, after all. It kind of sucked that they were going with Charlie but, she reminded herself, he wouldn't make it through the door anyway. "Sucks that their drinking age is so high down here, though. But lucky for us..." Lucky for them, they were both officially twenty-one now. "No, guess there's probably no Blackjack around here," she acknowledged with a nod. She wouldn't even really be able to afford most anything there anyway -- like Northern Lights, it was definitely one of those too upscale places. Josh probably barely dipped into his wallet for that kind of thing, but she had long, long ago stopped envying her friend for his family's wealth. "Yeah, you're adorable, Toto." Then she made a face briefly. "Do I really have to be Dorothy though?" She had never really liked Dorothy much, but then again she probably wasn't like any single one of the characters. At least she didn't have to be Glinda -- Skye would probably throw herself down a flight of stairs before then. She hummed a little as she slid into a stool at the bar. "The same," she said simply, rather than bothering to think about it. "Anything as long as I don't have to drink that godawful beer Corrosion serves," she added to Josh, remembering their chance encounter that one time.

Were there kids who walked all the way out there? She imagined that by the time they got there, Halloween would pretty much be over and done with, so hopefully all the old rich dudes like Josh would be able to make it well worth the trip -- five pound chocolate bars and the like. "Did you go out trick-or-treating in mansion country as a kid?" she asked, kind of curious now that it was brought up. It had been years since she'd gone trick-or-treating -- she was pretty sure she'd basically stopped the year she'd started attending the Academy. Before that it'd always been pretty fun to go out with friends, though -- even though, getting older, it was mostly about having fun wandering around in the dark. "Even when you're old? Partying it up like it's still 2012?" she asked, smiling a little. She couldn't even picture Josh being much older, though she had thought the same of him when they were young teenagers, and... well, plenty had changed since then. Skye was mostly amused when he pulled over to the side of the road and opened the door, and she made as if to unbuckle her seatbelt and leave the car pitching a fit. "Fine, I'll walk all the way there, then." Josh wasn't that awful though, and soon enough they were driving off again, both of them still definitely in the car -- which was good. Skye was very unprepared for walking all the way across the province to get to the border.

"Almost everyone's an idiot at seventeen," she pointed out, smiling a little. She wouldn't say that she'd done anything quite as brave and reckless was Josh had as a teenager, but she'd definitely done a hell of a lot more than she did now. None of it was really appealing anymore, though. Skye was in no particular rush to start having to be a responsible adult out of school and with a proper job and everything, but she wasn't a kid anymore, either. Twenty-one was a strange age to be at. Every age was a strange one to be at. "And then the police showed up. I thought he was going to have a heart attack," she said, actually giggling a tiny bit at the memory. Things like that were hopefully what she'd remember in the future, rather than all the kind of awful shit that had happened at times too. Attending the Academy wasn't always a walk in the park. At least there had been things like that, though -- hanging out with Josh and Charlie and a mesh of other friends at the time. Many of them were no longer around, having taken off to various other places after graduating. "Where were we even going that day...?" She wasn't even sure why Charlie had been driving in the first place.

Being from Canada and thus used to the Canadian accent, she didn't think that it was a big deal in the slightest, but obviously other people would think otherwise. She wondered how used to it people would be this close to the border, but it was hard to say -- American accents were just too common on TV and the like for her to notice very easily. She often noticed Canadian accents more. "Yeah, you know, I don't think we could be any more obvious even if we tried," she said, smirking. Maybe people would notice more if they came wielding hockey sticks or something, but Skye didn't really care. It wasn't her fault if hockey was better than all their nonsense American sports -- baseball, what the hell? "Damn right you shouldn't," she griped right back, but she almost laughed and broke character when Charlie looked genuinely concerned. "I don't know how you're not used to it at this point," she said, eyebrows raised in amusement. To be fair, though, it had been years since they'd seen him, and had she and Josh always joked around like this? It was hard to remember random details like that.

Skye rolled her eyes and mimed thwacking him on the side of the head, but didn't actually make contact. Hitting friends was generally a bad way to go about life, and it wasn't such a big deal -- she was used to Josh. Always keeping it classy, Josh. She smirked, though. "He's made of tin anyway, don't imagine it'd make that much of a difference." She didn't know what the fuck this conversation was except for all kinds of ridiculous, but Skye was in a good mood. It was one of those days. The thought of Corrosion was still kind of awful, though. Things like that did make her wish she had enough money to get into Blackjack and the like instead. "Not worth the couple of dollars for it, definitely," she agreed after thanking the bartender, shaking hair from her face and laughing easily. It was nice being comfortable and not on edge all the time for once -- she never realized how tense things could be at the Academy sometimes until she got away from it... each and every time. "To best friends forever." It was half sarcastic and half... not (neither of them were overly sentimental people, after all), but she didn't figure it would matter much anyway once they'd both gotten enough alcohol in the system.

As someone with a pretty huge sweet tooth of her own, there was no way Skye wasn't able to agree with that. Getting older had also meant that she was able to walk way further than she had been able to at like, five also, so the best few years of her life trick-or-treating had probably been in middle school. She'd also been kind of short, and that made it easy to get away with it. At this point she was way too old for that, though. "I can imagine. Now you have to buy your own candy, that's ridiculous." She said it like this was a serious problem adults had -- but hey, far too much of her paycheque went towards sweets at this point. "Did you decorate on the inside too and give haunted house tours?" she asked, smiling a bit, not expecting a yes but she would have been impressed if that were the case. Still, the nicely decorated houses were always great. "You're going to feel awfully bad if that actually happens on the way, aren't you," she said, but it didn't come out as a question and she just raised her eyebrows nastily at him. This wasn't serious at all, no.

At seventeen, she'd been very convinced that fourteen-year-olds were just very incredibly stupid, and so Skye was sure that at twenty-five or so she'd be looking back and thinking about how dumb she'd been at twenty-one. Actually, she was positive there were things that seemed important now and would no longer be by that time, so that was how it was. It would be far worse to go through life without learning and changing her mind about certain things. Everyone changed on a yearly, monthly, maybe daily basis. "Bet she could be heard all through his city, she went totally crazy," Skye agreed with a laugh. Charlie's parents had visited a couple of times, and they'd always been awfully nice, but she was glad that his mother hadn't deemed it worth a visit when he'd crashed the car that one time. Skye wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere in the city when that went down. "Ugh, so the police show up and his mother's screaming at him and we're... dying of laughter," she said, piecing the memory back together in her mind and laughing again now. "We've always been such supportive friends." No, if she had thought it was something more serious -- if they'd hit a pedestrian or even someone's pet cat or something -- this would have probably been way less funny, but it hadn't been, and watching him freak out had been hilarious.

There was something about being in a good mood, and in good company, that just made everything funnier than usual, and Skye smiled in actual amusement. She wasn't as awful and humourless as strangers or random classmates at the Academy would have thought. "I don't think the Wizard of Oz cared that much about science, though, considering the rest of that movie," she pointed out, frowning a little. "Green and melting and all that." The Wicked Witch was kind of creepy, though, she'd admit. As a child watching that she'd been very confused and mildly disturbed at this frightening green lady. Now... the movie mostly made Skye laugh, but it had been ages since she'd seen it. "Haven't been in Blackjack, but it has to be on a whole other level compared to Corrosion," she said, shaking her head a little. She had been in nicer places than Corrosion, that was for sure -- but Blackjack was not one of them. "And at least it doesn't taste like shit. I'm guessing." Josh could probably attest to that more properly, seeing as he had the actual money to head in there... probably whenever he wanted.

A few (or many...) drinks later, though, this conversation was more or less forgotten as she had dissolved into a fit of giggles over something Josh had said. Something. Skye couldn't actually remember what anymore, but it was pretty fucking hilarious. "Oh my god, fuck responsibility," she said, waving a hand in a random direction as if Charlie was actually standing there doing something responsible as they spoke -- filing his taxes or something random like that. Of course he wasn't, seeing as he was at work, but that wasn't going to stop the two of them, apparently. "Being old and shit sucks anyway. I miss high school," she whined, before laughing again. "I mean like -- the only good thing about being twenty-one is drinking aaaanywhere we want." Damn straight that was an upside, though.