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"L'Chaim!" Rose shouted with uncharacteristic excitement, tinking a glass full of Sprite against the side of the pool chair lacking a pool to dive in. "Here's to never having to deal with high school ever again."
"Is that a wine glass full of Sprite." Dave stated breathlessly, sitting criss-cross applesauce on the wooden floor of Rose's deck, across from John, while Jade was busy packing a bowl because of course she was. Growing new and interesting kinds of plants was her bread and butter, so why would drugs be out of the question there? Rose raised the most curious eyebrow back at Dave.
"So what if it is? Can't a girl celebrate her freedom from the dark shackles of academia with some lovely carbonated beverage but in a tastefully fancy manner?" Rose challenged, taking another sip. Everybody else had red solo cups, although there was a bottle of sparkling cider her mom had gotten her because, understandably, Mom Lalonde wasn't up to babysitting four drunk high school ex-seniors. Rose thought that was very sensible of her.
"Just steal some booze from your mom's gigantic Library of Babel liquor cabinet. Who gives a shit? We're done school and I doubt your mom would care." Dave suggested blithely while Jade ambled over, sitting herself onto the chair next to Rose, curling her legs up underneath her and grinning at the cool summer breeze and the roar of the falls. It was almost like being back home! "Hey, pass that here?"
"You two are going to have to sit like normal people in a chair if you wanna smoke." Jade chastised, a sing-song tone tainting her voice, clearly mocking.
Dave let out a frustrated grunt, getting up from his two-person game of poker and pulling over one of the deck chairs. "I'm sorry for making fun of the way you sit like a dog and not like a human being, Jade, can I please have some mari jiuana now?"
Jade beamed politely back at him with no ill-intent. "Sure!" And passed him the bowl. An antique, rusted, busted looking zippo was flash-stepped from Dave's pocket and quickly applied, while John, lagging behind, got their own chair to pull up.
"Hey, Rose, doesn't your Mom care if you smoke? She cares if you drink, so why is smoking any different?" John asked, wrapping their arms around their knees and huddling up under a little blanket they were carrying with them. The sun had begun her intrepid descent below the horizon, and in New York, that meant it was starting to get a little cold, even in the approaching end-of-spring.
Rose looked at John, blinked a couple of times, and took another sip of her Sprite, very quietly, very cool and collected. "Iunno." She loudly mumbled, while Dave coughed his lungs up, meeting burning sensations with a small mountain of bottled water.
"Jesus Christ, love that Cali shit." Dave whisper-shouted into the wilderness, disturbing at least two pigeons, passing the bowl to John. Rose sat her drink down, retrieved a small purple plastic lighter from her purse, and ambled over to John, who was busy holding the bowl like it was a wild animal. "They really don't make it like they used to anymore, do they? Imagine the sort of weed the hippies were ripping, genetically engineered Little Shop Of Horrors monster weed, "Feed me Seymour"-ass bong water growing little carnivorous stems in the glass. That's why you always clean your bongs, kids."
"Are you okay, Dave?" Jade asked, staring at him while Rose lit a bowl for John. It wasn't their first time, but they lacked a certain finesse (and also had a certain fear of fire) that made other people lighting it for them a generally better proposition. They took a hit, and then Rose pulled it out of their hands and took one of her own, leaning back and blowing it in a steady stream out of her mouth. John didn't cough once, although Rose didn't fare quite as well, passing it off to Jade as her attempt to look cool and mature ended up making her start gagging a little bit on spit. Emergency Sprite! Emergency Sprite!
"Yeah, he's always like this." John cackled while Jade partook of her homegrown hellmurder island bud. "Wait, "dark shack-- Rose, don't you want to become a researcher? Isn't that--"
Rose put a finger to her mouth and blew. "Shhh." She said, kicking her feet back and up and over the leg of her chair. "John, I love you so dearly. Please don't crush my dreams by pointing out that I am merely exchanging one set of chains for another. That would be unsportspersonlike."
Now it was Dave's turn to cackle. In the light, he somehow seemed eerily reminiscent of Dale Gribble, at least, to John. "Nobody point out any philosophical contradictions to Rose Lalonde or she will break down and ugly cry until you accept that she is perfectly consistent in all forms of moral and ethical compunctions."
"Correct. Do you really want to make me cry, John? That doesn't seem very nice." Rose followed up. Jade laughed, passing the bowl to Rose, who passed it to Dave, who took another hit and coughed it away. "That would be awfully rude. Or maybe you think girls with runny makeup are attractive?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that." John responded with arms folded and buck teeth grinning.
"Which, wanting to make me cry or liking girls with runny makeup?" Jade asked.
"Yes." John answered, answering nothing. Dave let out a loud, war-cry like yelp, disturbing several more crows and causing Rose to jump slightly, nearly knocking over her Sprite. Then, he passed to John.
"Alright, so it's agreed we're watching The Room after we all get stoned off our gourd, right?" Dave asked, prompting a chorus of groans.