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Beach Bear stretches out on his comfortable, if not ugly, worn couch, a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass on the table beside him. He had no plan to use it, of course-- he was looking forward to lazing around and watching sh*tty romance movies, pleasantly drunk. It had been awhile since he was able to properly relax, but tonight he felt great (the hits he’d taken earlier probably helped). There's a bowl of popcorn next to him, too, for when he inevitably gets the munchies. He gets comfortable as he can be, legs hanging off the arm rest, and reaches for the remote when his phone starts ringing.
Dammit.
He groans, rolling into a sitting position and grabbing the landline. He doesn’t really want to pick up-- because who would call him at 10 pm on a saturday, seriously?-- but he presses it to his ear anyways. “Hello?”
He half expects their manager whining about the first thing they set their eyes on, or even Fatz getting bored and deciding to bother him. His annoyance seeps into his tone, especially when the other line says nothing. He huffs. “Helloo?”
He doesn’t expect the voice on the other line. “Beach Bear?”
What the fuck.
Isn’t it past her bedtime?
Beach blinks a couple of times. “Wh-- Mitzi?”
“Hi…” She answers, in a miserable tone that makes him worry.
“It’s-- it’s 10 o’clock,” he stutters a little. “Are you okay?”
He can hear noises from the other side of the phone, loud music, maybe shouting. His mind goes to the worst scenario, and he repeats her name again. “Um… I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t feel very good.” She says. “Can you come get me?”
“I-- yeah, I mean-- where’s Mini?” His knee jumps up and down as he grips the sofa’s armrest a little too tightly. His claws shred the fabric into a lump of fluff. He bites his lip and smooths it over. Hell, who cares? It's far from his number one concern. “Are you safe, kiddo?”
“She’s at home,” Mitzi answers vaguely. “Can you come get me or not?”
He’s a little appalled. “I mean… yeah, yeah, I can come get you. You have the address?”
He used to sneak out to bars as a teenager, with a crude fake ID that the bouncers chose to ignore if he flirted enough with them, and get shitfaced, just to see what it was like. He wonders if he’s been a bad influence on her. She’d never done this before.
She repeats the address a few times, and he scrawls it onto a piece of paper to take with him.
His mind goes wild with all the possibilities as he grabs his keys and quickly exits his apartment. He’s never been in such a hurry before, but he finds himself grateful that he didn’t start drinking just yet. With the speed he was going, a cop would arrest him in a second.
Thankfully, there aren’t any cops around, and he twists and turns the steering wheel down main roads and neighborhoods until he gets to the right street. The mass of cars in front of the large, fancy house Mitzi had pointed him to was easy to spot. It didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. A classmate's house, maybe?
He pulls up, and she’s in the driveway, hugging herself and shivering. Beach goes to get out of the car, but Mitzi is faster, almost running towards it and hopping in.
His eyes soften at the state of her. “Hey.”
Her lip wobbles. “Can I sleep at your place?”
“Did you and Mini have a fight?” he places his paw on her knee with a worried look as he starts the car. She just shakes her head and waits for an answer. So he sighs a little. “Yeah, you can sleep at my place. But I’m gonna call your mom when we get there.”
Mitzi squeaks in shock, maybe anger, clearly upset. “No, you can’t!”
His eyebrows raise, but he doesn’t want to risk upsetting her anymore when there could be something wrong. “Okay,” he relents. Gaze falling onto the road ahead as they drive away from the party. “I can call her tomorrow, how bout that?”
“You can’t call her ever,” She curls up into the seat, eyes watering. “She’s gonna hate me forever.”
“For underaged drinking? I wouldn’t worry about it, hon, your mom isn’t as goody two-shoes as she claims--”
“For being a freak.” Mitzi spits out, like acid.
Beach opens his mouth, but no words come out. She breathes hard, not meeting his eyes, staring out the window at the passing houses. “Mitzi…”
“I’m an embarrassment to the entire family. They're gonna fire me, 'n take me off the cheer squad, and--”
“What happened?” He asks quietly. It’s not his fault if he speeds up a little subconsciously. “Did--” his mind jumps to the worst, “did someone do something? To you?”
It’s hard not to think about his high school and college years, flashbacks he’d drunk himself out of, but he steels himself. This is about her, not things he’d gotten over by now (or at least should’ve).
“No. Nothing like that.” She still won’t meet his eyes. His heart aches at the sight. “I messed it up myself.”
"Oh, Mitzi." He feels a little speechless. He can't imagine what could've happened to make her freak out like this. "I don't think it was your fault."
"You don't even know what happened." Her voice is still bitter, and it stings, but he reminds himself that the tone is all at herself.
"But I know you." He pauses. His next sentence comes out uncertain. "Did you take anything?”
Her eyes widen a little at that, and she turns to him incredulously at the sound of it. “Of course not!”
Beach puts his paws up defensively. “Hey, I got up to crazy stuff.” He glances at her eyes. They're a little red, but not anymore than they usually are when she cries. “You don’t look high on anything.”
She shakes her head. “I tried to drink the punch,” she admits. “It was laced. But it tasted so horrible.”
He chuckles. “Alcohol is an acquired taste.”
"A little," she agrees. “But my friend brought a couple bottles of wine…”
He hums, a little saddened by her admission. But at least it wasn't hard liquor, and she trusted him enough to say it. Though, he'd be hard pressed to not notice it eventually. “So that’s why you’re a little tipsy?”
“Could you tell?” She sounds a little shy, mouth almost smiling.
“I can always tell.” He flashes a grin at her, grateful for the lighter tone their conversation had taken to (though he knows he has to get to the bottom of it all eventually). “On everybody. Great sense of smell, ‘n all.”
He finally parks the car in the lot infront of his apartment building, and they sit outside together for a few beats. When she tries to open her door, though, he locks it.
Her head whips back towards him. “Wha--”
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this so easily. I’m not letting you out until you promise you’ll tell me everything.” He tries to put on a look of authority, but with his long greasy hair and half-dressed state, he reckons he looks more like a mocking parody of an authority figure. But he must keep up the stern look pretty good, because she relents.
But something in her eyes looks almost scared. “Can I say it inside?”
“As long as you promise,” he agrees. Hesitantly, she nods her head. “Promise?” He holds out his pinky. They’d been making pinky promises together since she was just a toddler.
“Promise.” Her voice warbles.
He unlocks the car and takes the keys out of the ignition, clicking his tongue. “Alright, let’s go.”
They hop out, and she shivers a little in the cold. He notices she’s only wearing a tank top and a skirt. Definitely not warm enough for this weather. He wraps an arm around her as they walk up the steps, into the building.
He seats her on the couch, grabbing a blanket and thoroughly wrapping her into it. She looks at him incredulously. “What? You’re cold.” He steps into the kitchen, looking around. He has soup, but it's 10 pm and she’d drunken alcohol. He had coffee (who didn’t?) but he knew for a fact she hated even the smell. He lights up when he spots hot chocolate mix.
He sticks a cup of milk in the microwave and rummages through his cabinets for marshmallows. She looks at him from her spot on the couch, snuggling into the blanket despite previously protesting. She doesn't touch the probably-slightly-stale popcorn, and he can't blame her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m making you hot cocoa.” he looks back at the glass. “I guess I should’ve used water instead, you’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow if you don’t drink a ton of it.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” She says quietly.
“You’re a guest.” he says simply. The ‘and you’re my little sister’ goes unsaid.
Soon enough, he brings it to her, throwing a large handful of marshmallows in, and taking the bag with him for good measure. She thanks him with her voice barely above a whisper, and he sits down beside her, claws digging into the bag. He pops three marshmallows into his mouth at once. She laughs a little.
“So?” He lets her sit for a moment before he asks.
Her expression quickly grows somber, eyes scanning the room fearfully. “Promise you won’t be mad.”
Seeing her so upset almost breaks him a little. “I promise.” He answers gently. He means every word of it. She could’ve killed someone and he’d still have her back. He almost says as much before thinking better of it, and waits patiently for her to talk.
“I…I kissed the flyer.”
“...Huh?” Beach bear tilts his head.
“My flyer. My-- she’s at the top of the pyramid. In cheer?” He nods slowly. It’s like everything starts to pour out, and she talks quicker and quicker. “She’s really talented, and-- and we’re friends, so she invited me to the party, and she kept pouring us glasses of wine,”
“Yeah?” He gently nods her on.
Her voice breaks, “a-and we got a little tipsy, and she just looked so pretty-- and she kept leaning closer, and I--”
“Mitzi. Hey, it’s okay, breathe.” He catches her paws in hers as she starts hyperventilating, picking up on it quicker than she could. She near-launches herself into his arms, floodgates opening as she cries.
“I messed it all up!” She bunches his fur into her paws. “I kissed her!”
“Mitzi, no, It’s okay, shh,” he takes big, steady breaths and urges her to follow. “It’s okay, I promise, just breathe. Don’t worry about her.” He’s sure it’s hard not to, but he holds her snuggly, proud as she tries her best to follow his breathing.
“I can’t believe I did it,” Mitzi hiccups. He lets her cry, petting her hair and wiping the tears from her face.
“It’s okay.” He repeats. He doesn’t know what else to say, mind blanking on reassuring phrases. He tries to remember how his mom soothed him, but comes up blank (she never did). Mitzi tenses suddenly, seemingly scared by whatever's running through her brain.
“My mom’s gonna hate me!” She pulls back to look up at him.
“She’s not going to hate you.” He says firmly, enveloping her paws in his. “She’s not. I know her.”
“She’s going to be disappointed,” Mitzi’s voice cracks. “That I snuck out and drank and… kissed…”
"She'll be proud of you for calling me." He retorts. "You did good. You left the situation when you didn't feel comfortable."
"I ran away like a coward," her lip wobbles a little. He wipes a fresh tear from her cheek, encouraging her to continue. "I promised Momma I wouldn't get into trouble."
"Everyone gets into trouble."
"Not me." She whimpers. "I'm top of my class, captain of the cheer team, an all A student… I can't believe I kissed her."
Beach realizes that part of it, maybe subconsciously, is about her reputation. He pats her on the back. "She won't tell. It'll ruin her, too."
"It's not about that!" She looks upset at him, for less than a second, before she tries to school her expression again. "I'm supposed to be the perfect kid…"
"It's okay," he repeats for what feels like the thousandth time. "Nobody's perfect. You're a great kid, Mini's lucky to have ya."
"I thought I had grown out of it," she whispers. Embarrassed.
"Grown out of what?" He pries gently.
"Liking other girls…" her breath hitches. He holds her closer. "I thought it was just me being a stupid kid, but it didn't stop when I hit puberty…"
"It's okay if you're a lesbian." He reassures her.
"But I like guys." Mitzi sniffles, scooting back to her spot.
"You can like both."
"I guess so." She relents, drinking her lukewarm hot cocoa. It'd been abandoned in the spiral of emotions.
He chuckles. "You want me to heat it back up? Looks cold."
She shakes her head quietly.
Beach lets her sit in silence for a while and process everything. She gives him a thankful look, unsure of what to say. He just smiles back. "It'll all be okay."
For the moment, she forgets about her mom and the consequences of sneaking out and drinking, and feels, more than anything, grateful to have such an understanding brother; even if they weren't blood related, they had a bond that ran deeper than the one Beach Bear ever had with the rest of his family.