Work Text:
Clink
Two young women sit on a couch together as they clink their glasses. One of them, a tall blonde with styled, neck length hair, raises her glass to begin a toast.
"To 23 years of our favorite idiot staying alive! Anne Boonchuy, the woman who couldn't stay sober enough to stay up at her own birthday after-party!" She exclaimed, jabbing a finger at a third woman with a raccoon's nest for hair on an adjacent couch, sprawled all over it and snoring. The blonde chuckles, before bringing the glass to her lips, and drinking the sweet drink in one swift gulp, before slamming down the empty glass on the coffee table in front of them, littered with glasses, stains, and scattered books and pamphlets, mostly on herpetology. Meanwhile, the other woman, a much shorter and scrawnier one, with dark hair wrapping around her round face, began to awkwardly and rapidly sip at her drink, like a little kitten lapping up milk. The adorably pathetic site makes the blonde one laugh.
"Come on Mars, no need to be so scared. It's tequila, not poison. But I guess with lightweights like you and sleeping beauty over there," she says, gesturing to the sleeping woman on the other couch, "there isn't much of a difference."
The other woman, Marcy, gave a weak but sincere chuckle. "Heh, you know me Sash! When I'm not fatally oblivious, I'm frustratingly cautious!" she replied.
"I'm familiar," Sasha quipped back, a teasing smirk on her lips, tinged with a hint of nostalgia. "But I was kinda hoping you'd loosen up a bit in the time I was gone."
"Welp! Wouldn't be the first time you were incredibly wrong about something! "
The comment makes Sasha wince at certain...uncomfortable memories for a moment, but only for a moment, before her confident smile reappears as she replies. "Really now? I'd have expected someone like you to have a crazy party animal phase," she said with quite obvious sarcasm. Marcy gave a laugh.
"Oh yeah, totally! Second I went to college, you couldn't get me to drink anything that wasn't 70 percent alcohol. Blacked out so many times, I'm pretty sure I only stayed awake enough for a few more shots."
"Oh wow. Shame we missed it," Sasha said as she reclined back, resting her back on the arm of the couch and putting her hands behind her head. "Jokes aside, I'm pretty curious to see how meek old Marcy looks shitfaced. Maybe then you'd let loose a bit," she siad with a lighthearted and only slightly tipsy giggle. Marcy seemed to mull something over a bit in her head, before sighing a bit and reluctantly admitting something.
"Well...you're kinda right." Sasha perked up at that, as Marcy elaborated. "I mean, I was never a "party animal," pretty sure I'd combust before I could try...but I'm not unfamiliar with getting 'shitfaced.' But trust me, you really don't wanna see wasted Marcy! She isn't really all that-"
The blonde, Sasha, gave her a drunken smirk, her eyes half-lidded. She didn't need to say anything for Marcy to realize that she, in fact, did want to see that.
"nOpe. Nu-uh. Not doin' it," Marcy adamantly refused.
"Come ooooon Mar-mar," Sasha whined like a child. "I didn't get to be there for your first time drinking! I missed out on such and important experience! We have to make up for it now!"
"I dunno Sash..." Marcy began to object, but stopped as Sasha dared to strike her with her most devastating weapon yet: puppy dog eyes. Firmly defeated, Marcy sighed.
"Fine..."
"Yes! This is why I always liked you more girl!" Sasha joked with a light punch to the arm for emphasis. It hurt a bit more than intended, though Marcy's weak nerd arms were more at fault than the actual force. Marcy gave a small chuckle while rubbing the sore spot. With just a bit of hesitance, she grabbed the bottle of the coffee table, looked it over, and gulped most of it down in one massive drink. Sasha momentarily looked on in both shock and awe, before immediately grabbing it from Marcy's hands like a mother would grab a knife from a toddler.
"Jesus, Mars! I wanted you to get drunk, not drown yourself in the stuff. Did your liver insult your mom or something?" Marcy gave no immediate reply. Her eyes blinked out of sync as she remained eerily still, before throwing her head back and giving a large woop.
"WOOH! THe only mom I...the only liver, um, mom, insult, I'd...uh...yeah!" Marcy said, her voice woozy and far too loud.
"Ooh. Witty as always Mar-mar..."Sasha replied, a hint of caution in her voice. She took a good look at her drunken friend. She did feel guilty. This seemed a bit. Excessive. But she's already drunk now, and she was pretty sure there was no way of making someone un-drink most of a bottle of tequila. So the only course of action she could see was to sit back and enjoy the show. At that thought, said show lurched forward and steadied herself with a hand on Sasha's shoulder.
"Woah..." Marcy said, "wh-what a way to...to kick off a night. Am- am I right, or am I right?"
"Girl, it's already midnight."
"Pfffft- midnight schmidnight. I'm a grown up adult! I can drinks whenever I want! Watch." Marcy reached for the bottle, but was very quickly intercepted by a much faster Sasha.
"Yeaaaah, that's enough of this," Sasha said, picking it up and standing, causing Marcy to very quietly and defeatedly boo. "I'm putting the rest of it away. Heh. You know. If I just put this up on a cupboard, you probably wouldn't even be able to reach it sober. Since. You knooooow~" Sasha said as she put a hand on her head, before lowering it to her chest. Marcy stared at the display with a blank look for a solid five seconds, before exploding into uncontrollable laughter, and going silent again.
"I don't get it," she said flatly.
"Hmm. I'm getting you a glass of water," Sasha replied, walking into the kitchen and placing the bottle on top of a nearby bookshelf.
"No neeeeed, Sash! I'll go gets i-" Marcy attempts to get up to go get to the kitchen, but forgets to stand, and winds up pushing herself off of the couch and falls face first. Sasha, not knowing whether to help or laugh, decides on both, and walks over to help her drunken friend up onto the couch, unashamedly giggling the whole time.
"Impressive balance Mar-mar. And I thought you were a klutz sober~"
"I am a klutz sober. But also when I'm..." Marcy takes a pause, eyeing the floor with suspicion. "Was...was that carpet always moving?"
"There's no carpet there Mars."
"Oh," Marcy says as she wordlessly lets Sasha drop her back on to the couch like a sack of potatoes. After retrieving the water, Sasha sits back down next to her and reclines before speaking.
"I'm really beginning to wonder how you survived all this time without one of us over your head, " she said. Marcy waved that comment away with a sloppy wave of her hand.
"Pshhh, please, not dying's like my top skill! Been doin' it since I was like a little baby. Heck, got set on fire more times than I can count back in Amphibia, and I lived baby!" Marcy said with a charming yet concerning amount of confidence. Sasha laughed in response.
"Wow, Mar-mar. You're the only person I can think of who'd see that as a good thing. Guess I can always count on your optimism."
Marcy seemed to not pay attention to that comment., instead staring at the ceiling, with a look of nostalgia on her face.
"Man, Amphibia...sometimes, I forget how dangerous that place was."
"Oh yeah," Sasha replied, "the place where I became a general at fifteen, Anne punched a meteor, you got possessed by...the nerd hall of fame. Pretty safe place."
A question began to form in Sasha's mind. One that would normally be in pretty poor taste, but in her nostalgic, mildly tipsy state, seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
"But, you know, that being said, I've always wanted to ask. What was that like?"
"Hmmmm....." Marcy squinted her eyes and scratched her chin, before snapping her fingers in realization. "You ever play one of those VR games? Imagine that, but the floaty hands move on their own."
"Uh-huh..." Sasha said, the response only vaguely making sense to her. "Something tells me that your metaphor wouldn't have been any less nerdy without half of your body weight of alcohol in your system."
"Hey! That's mean!"
"Oh, really? And what are you gonna do about it, Mar-mar~" Sasha playfully teased. She wondered how far she could push a drunk Marcy without things getting serious, and this seemed like a good opportunity.
"I'll-I'll...I'll beatchu up!" Marcy proclaimed, as she barely managed to push herself onto her legs, her knees wobbling. The sheer absurdity of the sight of Sasha's five foot nothing friend standing up to drunkenly fight her made her double over in laughter.
"Okay Mars! Go ahead and try girl! Don't be shy!"
"GHYAAH!" Marcy yelled out like the battle cry of a displeased toddler, throwing her spindly nerd arm at Sasha, and missing wide despite her standing perfectly still, dragging herself with the force of the motion and falling flat on her face for the second time this night. Sasha went from doubling to tripling, no, quadrupling over in laughter, her sides and lungs aching as she almost rolled on to the floor to join her friend.
"Oh my God Mars! How were we ever scared of you as a villain?"
"Uh...the cool helmet helped, I think," Marcy muttered, face still flat on the ground, before she began laughing too, albeit more feral. Once their laughter died down a bit, Marcy peeled herself off the floor, and plopped onto the couch, still chuckling to herself in her drunken state.
"Boy," she said, "I guess that's just another way I fall short of the Sasha Waybright!" Despite her cheery tone, the comment made Sasha's smile falter a bit.
"What do you me-"
"What an over-achiever, am I right?" Marcy interrupted. "Even your villain arc was better than mine!"
"I-"
"Really, if you think about it, Darcy wouldn't have even been a thing without you! No coup woulda meant I wouldn't have gotten skewered by Andrias, and he wouldn'ta given me to the Core! So really, if it wasn't for you, Darcy might've not been a thing, all those people who died in the invasion would be alive, and Grime would still be symmetrica-"
Marcy stopped mid-sentence. In that moment, all warmth in the air was sucked into a cold abyss as a chill enveloped the room, one so dense that even Marcy could feel it in her drunken state. Sasha was deathly silent for a moment. But then, she chuckled. A chuckle so tooth-rottingly sweet that it made Marcy's stomach curl into itself.
"Oh my goood, so true! But hey. You know who got us stuck in Amphibia in the first place?" Sasha said, a fake smile plastered on her face. Marcy began to stutter.
"I-I mean, I guess I-"
"You, silly! And, remind me, why did you do that again?"
"I-I-I"
"Oh, right! Because you were moving away and didn't want to leave us! Really what else could you have done? You just had to hold us hostage in a fantasy land where we all almost died every other day."
"I-"
"And then of course, you made that deal with Andrias. Geez Marmar, that one was a bit snakey, huh? Yeah, I double-crossed you guys too, but I was overthrowing a joke of a king and getting us home. While you gave a doomsday device to that very same tyrant, so we could larp around the multiverse forever."
Marcy stayed silent, her form shrinking and shrinking against Sasha's barrage.
"And hell, when I started a coup, I was only gunning for a kingdom. You? You went for the whole universe. I guess you were always the overachiever of the group, huh?"
Sasha's back straightens on the couch, as she looks down at Marcy, her fake smile dropping, leaving nothing but a judging, accusing glare.
"And as bad as I got, I always just tried to get us home. I never once tried to kill either of you. A lot more ballsy than I expected of you."
Marcy shot up, desperate and flailing, pointing a finger at her menacing friend.
"That's n-not fair! That wasn'-that wasn't me! You know that!"
"Oh yeaaahh, that's what you let the Core do! That's so much better Marmar," Sasha responded with a voice drenched in sarcasm.
"What was I meant to do?!"
"Hm, let's see. Not make a deal with an evil king, not get caught by an evil king, not let yourself get possessed by an evil mass of code, or not trap your friends in a magical world because you were scared of moving."
"I...I'm sorry."
"Oh, doesn't that just solve everything?"
The two sat in silence, the tension like iron shackles around the two women. Sasha's annoyed glare holding up her chains in defiance, while Marcy's cowering pose cracking under the weight. Sasha decided to pull her down further.
"No wonder you needed a magical music box to keep your only friends."
"Shut up," Marcy replied weakly.
"Hm? What wa-"
"I SAID SHUT UP!" Marcy shouted, her face mere inches away from Sasha's now as she threw herself up, her miserable meekness set alight into a burning rage as her friend backed away with a look of shock on her face.
"YOU KEEP GOING ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT ALL THE STUPID, STUPID THINGS I DID! HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN HERE FOR AN ENTIRE DAY, AND YOU'RE ALREADY LORDING DARCY AND THE MUSIC BOX OVER MY HEAD! BUT GUESS WHAT 'SASH?' I WAS POSSESSED FOR THE FIRST, AND AN ANXIOUS, NERDY, WIMPY THIRTEEN YEAR OLD WHO WANTED TO ISEKAI WITH HER FRIENDS LIKE IT'S DIGIMON, BUT GOT SHIELD HERO INSTEAD! AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I NEEDED AN ENTIRE CULT STRAPPED TO MY BRAIN TO ACTUALLY HURT ANYONE, BUT YOU WERE JUST A GOOD OLD NATURAL PIECE OF SHIT!"
As her angry tirade goes on, her deep breathing slowly shifts, from panting into laughter, cruel and humorless.
"GOD, OF COURSE YOU WERE A SCARIER VILLAIN THAN ME! YOU'RE THE QUEEN SASHA AFTER ALL! YOU JUST HAVE TO OUTDO US IN EVERYTHING! BY YOUR STANDARDS, YOU SHOULD HATE YOURSELF A LOT MORE THAN YOU DO ME!"
"I DO!"
"Wh-huh?"
The shock of the statement made the two settle down back into their seats, as Sasha's eyes gazed downward, shame and guilt reflecting in them as she spoke in a much smaller voice. "I do."
Sasha's features melted into a defeated frown as she began to rub her temples.
"God knows I do. Like, from the perspective of a child psychiatrist, I get why I was the way I was, but that doesn't really make me feel any less guilty. I did...so much. And I just... "
Sasha's words are cut off by the sound of her own choked sobs, as ears slowly start to stream down her face.
"God I'm weak. The second I feel bad again, I slip right back into who I used to be. God forbid I take responsibility when I can always use my friends as emotional punching bags!"
The tears slow further, as Sasha's recomposes herself, now more tired than sad.
"I really messed up Mars. You were a little girl acting out in panic. I started a coup with fascists."
She sighs, and her body tilts back as she splays down on the couch.
"I really am the worst."
A beat of silence. Two beats. Three. Before Marcy falls forward, and lands next to her. She turns her head to the right to face Sasha.
"...You're not that bad."
Sasha chuckles, weaker yet certainly more genuine. "Wow, real comforting. You always know what to say, huh?"
Marcy chuckles back, her drunken state leaving it sound more like a hiccup, before she continues.
"I mean, like...yeah, you messed up. Like, really, really messed up, and were a total jerkface about it now...but you feel bad right? And you're apologizing. So like, you get that what you did was shitty. So just...don't start a revolution with fascists, and don't yell at people for their trauma again, and you'll be golden."
"Heh...yeah, it really is that simple. And since I already knew that and still did all...this anyway, guess I'm a double jerkface."
Marcy says nothing. Then, she slowly raises an arm...and boops Sasha's nose.
"You are. But you're trying. It's taking a bit of time, but I really like the Sasha behind all the 'rich white kid control freak' stuff. If you promise to keep trying, I'll stick around you till you're done with your jerky...jerkiness."
Once again, silence, but a decidedly more comfortable one.
"...Thanks Mars."
"I gotcha boo."
"WHAT????"
"Nothing."
"YOU-"
"I said nothing."
Sasha stares at her...and laughs. Not a cruel one, not a defeated on, not a weak one. She just laughs.
"Ah...I can unpack that later," she says as she stretches an arm and yawns. "Right now though, I'm tipsy, I'm tired, and I really need to sleep."
"Yeah, I should probably head to bed too. Pretty sure my body is shutting down."
"That makes sense. Your room is two doors down, to the left."
"Mhm."
Those are the last two things they say to each other. Neither move, as they slowly close their eyes, and fade into a heavenly slumber.