"-I never thought I'd ever see you drink, though! Heh... You know... I liked this." He chuckled as he opened the door for her. "We should do it again... All of it! Even the part with the wrecking ball. I wouldn't even mind that!" His arm rested on her shoulder as they left the restaurant/pub. "An' I told you, right? I told you if you just tried it, you'd like it!" A smug grin formed on his face as he popped a breath mint into his mouth to mask the smell of alcohol on his breath.

He was drunk. She'd made him finish that last drink for her... Still, he'd driven this drunk plenty of times! It wasn't like this time would be any different. He reached out to her. "Ey, my keys are in your purse, right? I got this." He smiled a bit, and then leaned in to give her a kiss... Not for any specific reason, just because he felt like it.

"Don't want you freezing anyone when you check your blindspot again!" He laughed about it because no one got hurt, but it was a serious issue. He was already thinking of ways to fix it, though... Maybe windows tinted in the right way would help... He paused as he stopped right behind his old, beat up car. "Awww... We forgot to get dessert! I can't believe it, after all that talk!" He placed a hand on his car, and the back bumper fell on the ground. He lifted it and stuck it on again, pressing hard on the duct tape so it would stay. "Heh... oops... Well, back home? You... eh... You wanna sleep in my room tonight?" The X-Man waggled his eyebrows, and looked to the obviously plastered snakes on her head. If you ever had a chance to see a drunk snake, it was best not to pass it up; it really was hilarious.

She had not just snorted. Nope. No one had heard it, therefore it had never happened! She snorted again in between giggles on her way out the door. "I.. I nevur thought to try it, yhu know? We should def- defenutly do thees again."

She was drunk, if you couldn't tell from the slurring accent, or the wobble in her step. Not a hard feat for her to pull off, really. Saph had steadily been giving her sips of things all night long, and man, had that last one been a doozy! "Heh.. Doozy! What a.. a funny word."

"Ey, my keys are in your purse, right? I got this."

He was close, leaning over into her, and his lips pressed to hers. Giggling, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him right back, while her serpents clumsily flopped to and fro. A funny thing she'd noticed since the first time she'd tasted alcohol, was that it affected unruly head of snakes as well. The smaller ones always seemed to pass straight out, while the seven larger ones wiggled and flopped about in a drunken manner. Sloth in particular was even more lazy than usual, and almost always took to winding himself around something for a nap, while the others couldn't sit still for a second.

Lust had been having a great time all night, trying to worm his way onto strangers shoulders, or into the back of Saph's shirt.

"Don't want you freezing anyone when you check your blindspot again!"

Huffing at the fact that he pulled away when she very clearly was not done kissing him, the Greek wobbled unsteadily after him with her heels in her hands. "Yhu told me I din't do anytheen wrong!" And she huffed again, leaning against his car partially for support, and partially so she could attempt to get her shoes back on her feet. When had they come off, anyway?? "I dun't theen we need awny dessurt, ya? I mean... Uhm... I forgoht what I was gohing to say."

The last question angled her way would have normally gotten at least a flustered blush out of her, and when coupled with the eyebrow waggling, there would have been a rambling reply right back. Intoxicated Andrea, however, didn't even bother trying to look into his question before nodding and starting a fight with her door handle. "Ya, that migh be for the best. I dunno if i-- open, door!"

Yanking on it didn't work, nor did shaking.

"Heh.. Doozy! What a.. a funny word."Saph looked at her with a half confused smirk "You're talkin crazy, babe. What's this about Doozy? ... Doozy... Heh... S'kinda a funny word... Dooooozy. You're drunk, aren't you? Heh... Lightweight!" He cooed stumbling about in place a few steps before grabbing his keys from her.

With keys in hand, he navigated around his car to the driver side, pausing as he saw the white line of the parking space before him... He walked down it like it was a police exam, ignoring the one or two stumbles on the way... Hah! See? He was fine! He turned to see her struggling with the door, and smiled warmly as he leaned forward, and placed his elbows against the top of the car to watch her for a moment... "You know... I really love you..." He then leaned back from his position when he realized the roof of the car was a little damp, and he was now wet, too...

Dangit!

The inebriated mutant ducked into his car, and reached over to unlock the door that Andrea was struggling with, giving him a moment to giggle at her.

"heh heh heh... C'mon, beautiful! We got a warm bet to get to!"

Without much more thought, he buckled up, and turned the ignition.

"You're drunk, aren't you? Heh... Lightweight!"

Lightweight? What did that mean? Was he calling her skinny?... Wasn't that supposed to be a compliment, or something? Wait.. he knew very well that she'd been putting on weight, he'd even commented on it once or twice during the night, among other things! She still couldn't figure out what 'junk in the truck meant', or why he'd punched that guy who'd said it to her. Man... that guy had been awfully big, too.

The comment was enough to give her pause from struggling with her door. She angled a head-tilt and confused expression his way across the roof of the car, and battled Lust away from her face as he tried to wiggle under her sunglasses. "Eh?...Oh.. ah.. I love you too!"

She returned to struggling with her door when he slipped inside, but stopped when he casually reached over and unlocked it for her... Blinking as a deep brows flush washed over her from shoulder to eyebrows, Andrea suddenly felt very, very silly. It was just like when he'd walked into that women's restroom, and she'd had to rescue him from a mod of angry females. If only she'd gotten there before they'd managed to get the makeup on him, or rip his shirt up. She'd really liked that one, too!

"Yhu look really good in dark grey..." Or, rather, he looked good in whatever color the shirt he was now wearing, was. Slipping into the passengers seat, she clumsily buckled herself in, and giggled. Her eyes traveled to the view outside the windshield.

"...Do yhu ever think the noodles will come off?" She'd put a lot of work into that heart, what with it's elaborate arrow and both their names spelled out in macaroni noodles on the hood of his car. She briefly wondered if his phone would be alright, too... seeing as she'd decorated that as well.

He blushed a little bit when she complimented him; good for him he was pretty sure she couldn't tell when he was blushing. Still, his little smile toward her might give away his drunken bashfulness. "I hope it stays on a while... But did you hafta use super glue?"

Pulling out of the parking spot they were in, he started to feel a little... wrong... Maybe... No... It was nothing, he could get them home. A glance over to the woman next to him made him wonder if maybe they should get a taxi... Unfortunately, when he looked back at the road, he was already half way home... the hell? "Babe... babe I think I drank too much... I'm... gonna pull ov-"

...

There was no sound... Maybe there was, but he couldn't remember... All the remembered was seeing a red light pass above his head, and feeling powerless to do anything about it. And then everything went blank.

When he woke up, he was surrounded by softness... Everything was blurry, almost pleasant... He felt a dull, faint ache in his arm, which he couldn't really seem to move... It took a moment for reality to set in; Saphirus was in the hospital. His arm was in a cast. He'd... gotten in a car accident.

Andrea wasn't here. He sat up suddenly, wincing as an IV was tugged. A passing nurse caught sight of him, and walked in. "Sir? Sir, lay back. You were in a car accident; you're in no condition to move around."

"Andrea... Where is she?"

"The girl? She's fine... She rode with you in before they brought her in."

"Brought her in?" The nurse gave him a sympathetic look for a moment.

"Yes... She was a drunk driver, and she wasn't harmed in the accident... They took her to the precinct." His eyes widened as he heard the news... What the hell? What was going on.

"No... no, look, there's been a mix up... They got it wrong... I- I was driving. I drove drunk." The nurse gave him a sour look.

"Yeah, I'm sure you had a fun time of it from the passenger seat. Get some rest." Before he knew it, she was gone, and the meds were kicking in again, and the world was getting further away...

"Babe... babe I think I drank too much... I'm... gonna pull ov-"

Were those headlights...?

Andrea was in an unfortunate position... She was forced to watch as the car approached, but given only enough time to purse her lips in surprise. The resulting impact hit them hard enough to jostle her in her seat, and she lost sense of what was going on when her head bounced off the passenger side window. A rain of broken glass hit a moment later, and the airbag on her side of the car triggered. For a few pleasant moments she didn't know what had just happened... but when everything started to come back to her, it felt like she'd some too in the middle of a nightmare.

The loud blaring of a car horn came to her first, followed swiftly by the feeling of glass rolling out of her hair and off her shoulders. What had just happened?

"Saph...?" Her voice was shaky, barely a whisper. She felt like she was shaking as she fumbled with her seat-belt and raised her head to glance around. They were on the wrong side of the street, backwards too... A lone car with a smashed in hood sitting in the middle of the road ended up being the source of the horn's noise. ".... Sa--" Her eyes finally landed on him, where he was hunched over in his seat, nearly halfway into hers... and the rest of her words froze solid on her tongue.

It was a sobering sight to see. The only you loved unconscious, pushed away from a crushed in door. The image of him that she'd clung to for so long shattered, leaving behind a man who was just as mortal as everyone else. The shaking that had a grip on her grew stronger as panic washed over her, and she couldn't control the sob, nor tears, that tore out of her. What was she supposed to do in this situation? She wasn't strong.. she wasn't all that smart... she didn't have any medical knowledge to cling to. A billion horrible things flew through her mind in a second, and not one of them helped her any. She reached out to touch him gently, almost afraid of what she'd feel.. or that she'd hurt him further somehow, before she remembered her phone.

She had to call 911... she needed to get paramedics to him as fast as possible! Her gaze flew back out the shattered windshield, finding the other car through a spiderweb of disorienting cracks. First though... she needed to get Saph out of the drivers seat somehow. While she didn't know a lot about the American law system, she knew that the driver involved in accidents was to blame in most cases. Saph was an X-man... he was an honorable, brave, good man. He couldn't afford a mark like this on his record. In a way that she couldn't fully understand at the moment, due to her current blood alcohol level, she knew that.

Thirty minutes later, an ambulance had arrived. The other driver had taken off, for some reason she couldn't fathom. She watched as they settled Saph delicately onto a gurney, then loaded him into the ambulance. Then she climbed in after, waiting a long tense ride to the hospital at his side, and never once took her hands from her eyes. After he had been taken to an emergency room, she wasn't allowed to follow. After it had been established that she was fine other than a few cuts and bruises, she was taken away in a police car to get the whole mess sorted out.

(Continued in... The Long Road Home.)