drink a curse [charles]

[NELL DOE DALE]

i'm a heathen and evil like you

Going out with her co-workers that night might not have been the best idea. Looking back, she'd probably come to regret, because she knew one thing very well -- a drunk Nell was a bad Nell. Generally speaking, everyone did dumb stuff when they were completely wasted, and that may have been the only thing that kept her from feeling completely bad about herself when she got up the next morning and only half-remembered events of the previous night. So far, it was going considerably well for all the amaretto and cokes she'd had. Her co-workers knew her pretty well by now, which meant they knew her weaknesses -- vodka and peer pressure. They wouldn't let her get away with drinking a bud or two, no, she needed the hard liquor.

While she believed it was going along well, no one thought to take her phone away. She usually didn't spend most of her time texting, but when she was wasted she felt the keen desire to take out her phone and find everyone in her contacts list to send them poorly written text messages. Josh possibly got the worst of it with dirty texts with multiple smilies and spelling errors and autocorrect fixes. She had a grand old time with her phone as she laughed and talked to her co-workers as they sat around a table at the bar. Since she'd been working at the casino for so long, she considered them to be pretty good friends, and yet she hadn't told them things she should have by then. She was very much like a Gremlin, and an important instruction would be not to let her drink vodka. One shot would be enough. Anyone could tell from her size that she was a lightweight. And another good instruction would be to take away her phone when the drinking began. So they couldn't have been the best friends for her, but she supposed they would learn.

At the end of their evening together, they got their designated to drive them home and she told them no, drop her off at the store near the hiking trails. For a moment they wouldn't let her, but she told them don't worry, she was meeting a friend there, and showed them a text that read: "Fooxxxxx cme meat me at the traills. 9 pm. =oD"

Seeing that she had included a nose on the emoticon, they believed she was serious and dropped her off. She'd texted Fox a little while earlier, so if he was going to meet her, she didn't think it would take too long. Not that she necessarily cared at the moment. The night may have been cold, but alcohol and the long overcoat she had over her uniform kept her very warm. And she found a way to entertain herself when she discovered that there was a coin operated pony ride outside of the dingy-looking store. It didn't take her long to decide to pop two quarters into it and wait for her friend while riding the mechanical pony quite gleefully.

[CHARLES FRANCIS DENBRIGHT]

c'est le perfect crime,

When Fox received a text from Nell that included - get ready - a nose on her emoticon, he knew it was serious business. Maybe even 'SRS BSNS,' though he didn't want to get ahead of himself. He didn't even take a moment to stop and notice the suspiciously poor spelling; he knew tons of people who thought it was cool to misspell things in texts. Maybe Nell was getting into that scene now too. He wasn't one to judge.

Of course he had intended to spend the evening virtually assassinating noteable Civil War-era army captains, but he was more than happy to drop that plan for the potential of a real adventure. I mean, why else would Nell have told him to meet at the general store near the trails? Certainly not for shopping; he'd watched enough after school specials to know that wouldn't be the case. You could only ever buy stuff like bug spray and power bars there anyways, (even in the middle of winter,) so it was used more often as a meeting landmark than an actual convenience store. However, being the adventurous tree-climbing type he was, Fox had actually been to the tiny general store enough times to know the small old proprietor by name, though he preferred to call him The Old Man.

The trails weren't even a mile from Fox's house, so he figured he'd walk it. 20 minutes after he got the text he was rounding the corner that the small general store stood on, now dark and empty inside since The Old Man had closed up for the night. What he saw next was a surprise, even to someone as impervious to things being out of the ordinary as Fox was.

Nell was there, which he had anticipated, but he did not expect to see her riding one of the small plastic toy horses intended for overly energetic children waiting for their parents to finish shopping.
"Oh. Nell..." He started, but trailed off on account of being too far to hold a proper conversation. Once he was only a few feet away he finished it with a, "Hi," deciding to overlook the whole toy pony situation. He noticed they seemed to have a habit of meeting unconventionally in or around the woods.

[NELL DOE DALE]

i'm a heathen and evil like you

So amused by the toy she was, Nell could have stayed there forever. If her change allowed it, of course. She usually had enough quarters to last her a long while, as long as she hadn't put them into the jar she kept in the kitchen for loose change. Something she had inherited from her father, as a matter of fact. The memories couldn't even permeate her drunken haze as she giggled, imagining that she was riding an actual pony instead of this mechanical one. At the point, she could almost believe it true.

That is, until a voice broke through her misty musings and called her name. She grinned when she saw who it was, exactly the person she wanted to see! "Foxxyy," she said. In her attempt to dismount the ride, she stumbled over a bit, catching herself just in time before she fell over face first as she moved her foot to the ground. She steadied herself, grinning in her triumph before she hurried over to the boy and wrapped her arms around his neck in a very uncoordinated hug. "Oh, Foxy, how are you, how you doing?" she said, drawing back but still keeping an arm around his shoulder. As if she weren't already affectionate enough sober, this increased tenfold when completely smashed.

She turned him around so that they faced the woods beyond the small store. "There be moose beyond these trees," she said gravely, spreading her arm in a wide arc. "We need to find moose. In the forest. Will you got find moose with me?" She laughed, thinking about the amount of time she said moose when she was ninety-eight percent sure that it should have been meese. By now, she leaned against Fox for stability instead of a friendly gesture. Without his support, she would most like fall flat on her face. Looking at him, she poked her bottom lip out and said, "Please?" Of course, at this point in time, she was forgetting how dark the trails would be. Dangerous. That they shouldn't have been going into the mountains. But there was a plan formulating in her head. Even this far gone, she had a plan.

[CHARLES FRANCIS DENBRIGHT]

c'est le perfect crime,

Nell's friendly hug turning into her leaning on Fox for support lead to several things; first was his noticing that she was quite smashed. Second, his appreciation of her being almost as short as he himself was, because otherwise her leaning on him might have been a problem. And third, his realisation that drunk Nell reminded him quite a lot of an aunt he only saw on major holidays and family events. Nell's intoxication didn't bother him, though it did make him question aunt Eliza's sobriety.

"I'm great!"He responded cheerfully, "And you look smashing." He knew the joke would probably go right over her head in her current state, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate his own puns without an audience to share them with. If there was anyone in Maple Hollow who could have just as much fun at a party staying sober and watching the night unfold as drinking themselves, it was Fox. Drunk people were just naturally funny, and he knew it. Personally, Fox's favourite drunks to watch were the dancers, and he was bound to be the kid who always ended up lost down the street at two in the morning. Wandering into unknown territory was always his thing, reguardless of mental state or blood alcohol level.

"Ah," Fox nodded in equal solemnity as Nell conveyed to him the importance of finding a moose in the dark abyss they had now turned to face. "I see." Sure it was dark, but if they got into any sort of trouble he was sure he could just whip out his Pokémon sticker covered smart phone and pull up the flashlight app. It'd be fiiine. "This mission to find a moose," - go alliteration - "seems quite important. We haven't a moment to waste!" He kept up the serious act until Nell dropped it and started pouting.

"Vamanos!" He laughed, guiding Nell towards the dark trails in front of them.

[NELL DOE DALE]

i'm a heathen and evil like you

Hearing Fox call her smashing made Nell's day. Smashing. Like Nigel Thornberry, she was freaking smashing. Damn right she was as she giggled and pet the top of his head like he were a cat. "So niceee," she cooed in a happy little voice before leaning back a little again, stumbling again while she laughed to herself. Though she didn't realize it herself, she was lucky she would be in Fox's hands. He was a good kid. Annabel is in a good crowd, she thought, thinking of her younger sister. She was still painfully innocent to the mouth the young girl had on her, but a life in oblivion suited Nell very well, no matter how much she disliked it. If she ever discovered the truth, she very well may just faint.

Her eyes lit up when Fox agreed to go with her, knowing that she had chosen right. This boy had the heart of an adventurer, he was meant to go moose hunting. Though they would not actually hunt, for Nell did not have the capacity to kill anything. Even spiders got a nice ride in a cup out of her house when she found them. However, she had little concern for just how immense a moose would be as she steered her friend in the direction they were meant to go, still leaning against him for support as if she had a bum leg and he needed to assist her. "Arriba!" the Earth graduate cried into night air, sound reverberating back to her ears. The only sounds came from passing cars, and they soon vanished as she directed them up the short gravel path that would lead them into a small, narrow path in the woods. Or rather, that's what she was thinking it led to. It may not, considering that her directional senses were shot even sober, but at least she wasn't completely unprepared.

Taking her phone out, she said, "Technology is the bee's knees, lemetellyou." Her words mutated together to form newer, bigger ones as she unlocked her phone after several attempts and flicked her thumb across the screen to find an app she wanted. She had to pause after stumbling a little, looking down at her feet as she felt uncertain of her gait. Fox was there, and he was slightly taller than her, but she felt like she could bring him down with her if she used enough of her weight. "Lookit!" she turned the screen of her phone outwards, light shining from it. "Tis a flashlight, ese. I wish...I wish I could be a flashlight, yanno? Then I could always see. Or! Or!" she stopped speaking for a second to gather her thoughts. They were at the mouth of the forest now, trees gaping open to swallow them up. "Tapetum lucidum. 'At helps animals see at night. Can a moose see at night?" she asked him, before laughing a little once more, her voice loud in the silent cloak of night.

[CHARLES FRANCIS DENBRIGHT]

c'est le perfect crime,

As far as Fox could tell, drunk Nell was essentially just regular Nell times about ten, with a severe balancing disability thrown in somewhere. It sort of complimented her lack of sense of direction. At least as much as two unfortunate disadvantages in life could compliment each other. Fox found this idea quite amusing, and so he stored it away in a corner of his mind to pull out again later and share with Annabel. He wa quite sure shed appreciate the thought, knowing Nell sober. Anyone who knew just how tactilely affectionate Nell was would find it simultaneously difficult and amusing to picture her at ten times her normal loving self. Of course the inability to stand up straight would likely add another degree of humour.

Last time Fox had met Nell in the forest, slightly more spontaneously of course, she had given him a proper show of just how directionally challenged she was - so much so that she had to lose and rediscover self-made landmarks just in a effort to improve her skills. This meant that the water student was quite surprised when his adventure companion suddenly started steering them in a particular direction, as though she knew exactly where she wanted to go and just what path they had to take to get there. He has no explanation for this other than possibly, and somewhat likely, that Nell didn't actually know where she was going, but that the alcohol had tricked her into believing that she did, and that it didn't actually matter all that much either way because Fox was relatively certain that there was no real precise place that one could go to for ensured successful moose hunting. In fact, he was relatively certain that moose hunting - with the intended following purpose of riding said moose - was not something that had existed prior to their invention of it.

Fox wouldv'e easily believed that Nell was on some sort of halucenagenic when she started talking about being a flashlight, if it weren't for the fact that it was Nell, and so of course she wasn't on drugs. "Oh, like night vision!" He nodded in agreement, who wouldn't want the ability to see in the dark? "I think only owls and bats and stuff can see in the dark... Nell, what are we gonna name our Moose?"

[NELL DOE DALE]

i'm a heathen and evil like you

The next day, Nell knew she would be apologizing to Fox. Over and over. She hated getting drunk, and though one would not be able to tell from her behavior now, she had always been relatively straight edge. She was the designated driver, the responsible one advising friends not to climb barbed fences. However, she was incredibly susceptible to peer pressure. If anyone encouraged her to drink, she'd want to please them by doing so. She'd never had the teachers in elementary school to preach to her "just say no." Nowadays she was incapable of saying the words, of turning down a drink. Luckily no one as of yet had offered her any hard drugs.

Right now, however, there were only thoughts of moose. Looking for moose. Discovering moose. Or meese. Meese sounded so much better, she didn't know why that wasn't actually the right one. "Is Bullwinkle terribly uncreative?" she asked him, still leaning on him for support. Poor kid. He was really too nice for his own good. She hoped that he had a good life. Got good grades. All best wishes to him. Nell needed to get him a present of some sort, maybe food. Food was just her general, every day gift to people. "Maybe Coco. I always wanted to name an animal Coco." All the animals she and Josh had, none of them had the name Coco. It was a real shame.

The search, in her mind, was going well. Even though it was dark and she couldn't see and her phone battery was close to dying. Eventually, she even let Fox go to wander away a little bit. Or a lot of bit, actually, considering she didn't have it in mind that she should stick around where it's safe. No, she was too determined to look for moose. And when she was just about to call out, see if she could get one to come near her, the light of her phone shone on something big and intimidating. Nell didn't get a good enough look at it before her fight or flight instincts kicked in and chose flight. Ripping herself away from the spot, she ran as fast as she could, not realizing how steep the slop she was running down turned out to be.

She stumbled as her foot got caught on a root, and she fell as she tried to get it out. Dizzy and on her back, she took deep breaths. With no clue of whether or not the danger had gone, she decided that she might as well give up. If a moose was gonna eat her, it was gonna eat her. But then she remembered Fox, who she had left on his own. "Help!" she called. "I've fallen and I can't get up." She laughed until a shooting pain made her gasp and she squeezed her eyes shut. Ouch. She pulled herself up and searched around her for her phone. Finding it near her, she saw that it had died. Well crud.

[CHARLES FRANCIS DENBRIGHT]

c'est le perfect crime,

Nell's inability to stand up straight got Fox thinking - what had gotten her so drunk in the first place? A party? Or some unfortunate event she'd wanted to wipe from her memory for a while? He doubted the second; even someone as cheerful as Nell wasn't likely to be quite so rambunctious and excited when they were 'sad drunk.' Despite this fact, he also couldn't be sure of the first possibility either. Fox wasn't really the type to be in the know about any parties or gatherings. Sure he was invited to some and wandered into others, but he was not the kid to ask if you wanted to find some way to spend your Saturday night. Maybe it was a work thing. It was a lot easier for the Water to picture Nell drinking a few too many beers with work buddies than to try and imagine her taking shots at some house party.

"Bullwinkle? Really?" apparently alcohol didn't expand imagination in the same way that drugs could. "How about something a little more unique? Maybe-" he stopped as Nell came up with a new idea, "Sure, Coco." He shrugged. It wast especially moose-y, but then again what was, other than Bullwinkle? He supposed something that started with an M, so you a least had that in common. Maybe Marcus. But he was sure the moose wouldn't mind being called Coco, seeing as moose don't generally use they names they're given in the first place, what with them not being able to speak and all.

Nell's initial wandering away didn't worry Fox much; he was, understandably, somewhat skeptical of them ever actually finding a moose. If anything, he was worried she might just decide to sit right down somewhere and fall asleep - as drunk people could be known to do - and then he'd have to find her, which could prove to be a challenge in the dark. He never expected her to go tumbling down a small hill, much less because she'd just nearly come face to face with what very well may have been a moose after all.

The unmistakable sound of someone falling and rolling down the hill is never something you want to hear in a forest at night. That being said, Fox's reaction to the sound of Nell's fall was about as lighthearted as could be in that situation. First came, "Are you alive?" Which, when answered with, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" set them both laughing. Neither of them had acted even remotely close to what would be expected in this situation, but it was so them. "You're not broken, right?" it turned out they were only a few feet away by the time Nell ended her fall down the hill, so it was easy for him to find her. "Did you see a moose? Was it Coco?"