Standing at the drink table was not where he expected people to run into him. The door, or the dance floor, yes. Here? Oh no. And worst yet, when he turned to give his attacker a wide-eyed sort of look, he was greeted with a drunk girl giggling.
And swaying.
His mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario, his hands coming up as if he could ward it off with a single gesture. "Don't vomit," he said, though it was more of a meek command.
"Are you bagging me?" She giggled again and pushed feebly at his shoulder. "I wasn't planning on it."
Ordinarily she'd notice when someone was being stand-offish, but she was a little too sauced to recognize such social nuance. "You don't look like you're having fun," she commented as if she were telling him about the weather.
"N-no I'm not bagging you." He answered, shaking his head. Why would he be bagging her? That made no sense. "Vomiting isn't planned, either." Usually, at least.
But then she went on, oblivious to all but one thing in this conversation- His lack of fun. "I need cups," he answered, making a slight face.
She want to punch his arm, but she decided at the last minute that would be a bad idea with teacher's watching. "I'd know if I was going to puke," she assured him with what she hoped was a winning grin.
"There are cups right there?" she offered unhelpfully. "You want me to pour one for you? I was going to get one for myself."
"Okay." But he didn't believe her. He'd seen people really drunk before that had insisted they wouldn't puke in one moment, and vomited in the next. It was just a matter of time before Abernathy followed that same road.
"No! No," he shook his head, "Those are dirty. Other, other people have touched them, and might have coughed or sneezed, and...and I can't use those. I need, I need fresh cups. I can't, I can't have cider without a clean cup."
She listened. She frowned. And then she popped up like a piece of toast out of the toaster. "No big. I bet there are clean cups still in the plastic under the table."
Being silly and drunk and not caring what anyone else thought of her at this very moment she crawled under the table in her beautiful gown and retrieved a sleeve of clean cups for Brian, handing the whole bag to him. "I promise I washed my hands minutes ago in the ladies room."
Did she just....she did. And now her gown was dirty and she was grinning stupidly. There was a moment when he felt as if he was in a rather surreal world, before he gingerly pulled the package toward him and carefully pulled out a cup.
"Thank you," he said, staring at her before slowly holding out his arm with a cup in hand. "Can you pour me come cider, please?"
"Sure!" She grabbed one of the pitchers and woozily managed to bring it to his cup and poured without spilling any. She beamed, ecstatic that she'd managed the task without spilling over either of them.
But then of course she went to pour her own cup and slopped cider down the front of her dress. "Oh shitty wok," she said and then giggled at how ridiculous that sounded. She didn't have her wand on her so she turned to him hopefully. "Do you know a clean spell to fix me up? I didn't bring my wand."
He did, and with the cups careful held under his arm, he even pulled out his wand and cast the spell to dry the front of Abernathy's dress before he put the wand away again. It was one of the most important spells he'd ever learned.
"What does shitty wok mean?" He asked, after sipping his cider carefully.
"Thank you!" she beamed at him happily for the help with her dress.
Then she cocked her head to the side to think. "Oh. I dunno. I heard it somewhere. Thought it was goofy enough to say when something goes wrong."
She realized she didn't know his name, however weird he was, he was tolerating her well while she was drunk and she liked that. "I'm Abernathy," she introduced herself brightly with a little curtsy, figuring he wouldn't want to shake her hand if he didn't even want to pour his own cider.
"Brian." He watched her curtsy with a strange look on his face, before adding. "Redd. I'm Brian Redd." She was awfully strange but rather nice.
"I like your name." It was a good name, with nine letters. His first name was only five, but the last name made up for it. It was just annoying. Why couldn't he have a nine letter name?
"Aw thanks." She didn't often get compliments on her name. It was an unusual moniker, gifted to her by her mother. "Almost everyone calls me AB or Abby."
"Brian," she repeated. "I like it. Can I call you Bri?"
"I like Abernathy. Abernathy is a good name, nine letters." It was a weird thing to obsess about, so tried not to focus on it. If he didn't focus on it too long he wouldn't make it an obsession, right?
"Yeah, you can." He said with a nod for her question. "I like being called Bri."
"Never counted." She counted out on her fingers for a minute. "My name altogether is 20 letters. Abernathy Lillian Ford. Can't put my initials on my luggage. Spells ALF. Looks silly." She giggled, thinking of the 80's television show she'd seen only a handful of times. "Well, I bet only muggles would laugh at my luggage. Lots of wizards wouldn't get it."
"I am completely pleased to meet you Bri! I think you're awesome. You cleaned my dress."
"It was a weird show in the 80's about an alien who ate cats. And his name was ALF." She giggled a bit. "It was probably the weirdest thing I'd ever seen when I was kid."
She sipped her cider without pouring any booze in it. She could add some later when her new friend wasn't watching. She didn't want to be an entirely drunken mess in front of him.
"I do! You're cool. You're very nice. I'm being totally weird."
"Oh, I don't think eating cats is very sanitary." He couldn't imagine it being so, anyway. But then, he was an alien, so maybe they didn't mind dirt. Which probably meant it was a dirty alien.
Ew.
"You aren't being weird. You didn't need a never before touched cup."
It was getting easier to talk to her. That was a nice change of pace.
"Believe it or not, cats' mouths are cleaner than the human mouth." She couldn't remember where she'd picked up that odd tidbit. Maybe watching the Discovery Channel at a friends house when she still went to muggle school and had muggle friends.
"That's not so weird," she replied with a shrug. "It's good to want clean things. You never know if the guy who picked up a cup next to you washed his hands or not. I mean, I'm not a hygiene nut or anything, but I get why you'd want a fresh cup."
She grinned at him cheerfully. "I bet you know all kinds of clean spells. Me, I have troubles with the Latin, so my spells are not so good. Did you teach yourself?"
That was weird, and Brian wasn't sure if he was willing to believe that very much. Even if she seemed pretty sure of it for a drunk person. Cats did like to lick themselves too much.
"Yeah, I did." He said with a nod, "I need to clean a lot, and...people don't like the smell of bleach. Spells don't smell though, and they mean I don't have to touch them. But when I'm at home I can't use magic, so I have to use bleach."
"I had a friend back when I was in muggle school. She was allergic to everything. Couldn't hang anything on her walls because she had to scrub them down with bleach all the time." Abernathy shrugged. It was such a long time ago; she couldn't even remember the girl's name.
"Don't they make nice smelling bleach now? Or like... Pretty smelling cleaning products. Like pine-sol?"
"That's not good bleach. You need good bleach to clean with, or it doesn't kill everything." He twitched a little, before glancing around. "Do, do you think anyone here is sick? Because it isn't good if they are. You have to make sure to wash your hands twice as much."
She nodded. She wasn't a connoisseur of bleach and it seemed that he was. She'd trust him so far as that went. "It's not flu season yet. I wouldn't worry about it," she offered gently. She didn't want to ruin his night by having him bolt off in the worry that someone would sneeze on him. "Have you danced yet? Do you dance?" she added with a little giggle.
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