Somehow Cait's understanding answer just made Raine feel that much worse about choosing someone she didn't like over someone she did.

But an actress, a real one, should be able to marshal how she really felt and show only the face that needed to be seen.

Resolved and with a appropriate 'happy birthday' expression in place, Raine turned back to Matt and let Cait go play sleuth. She felt more secure in being alone and letting Cait be alone now that they were pretty sure it wasn't something in the drinks. If it was just a person, that was far more manageable. Whoever it was, Cait would find them. She was an excellent stalker.

"Here!" Matt was pressing a new cup into Raine's hands. "Whatever you got last time tasted horrible! Try this!"

A smile to placate him and a small sip. She'd already had enough to make things interesting. Her aim was to get him sh*tfaced, not let herself go wildly out of control.

"It's sweet."

"Just like you."

She sipped again and told him with her eyes how much she really loved what he'd just said. Except. Did those lines ever work? Raine let him think it did. "Dance with me!"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Dancing was a much safer, expected activity. Matt seemed a smidge disappointed that he wasn't getting his birthday double home run so he sent Raine out to scope for a potential other third, which really just meant that Raine went and drank and danced with a few girls, leaned in to whisper whatever came to mind and then left without actually asking. Matt was doing a far better job of keeping her drink topped up than she was of keeping him off of her. Taking a sip was an easy way to put some space between them and there were always more sips to take.

Oh. Wait. She'd said... she'd told Cait something about an hour. Raine craned her neck around, but either there was no clock or the party had knocked it off the wall. "Can we go upstairs?" It was hard to think. She'd said to meet upstairs right?
Or out front? Either way, Raine needed Matt to go upstairs and leave without him.

There was a sloppy drunk couple on the stairs and rather than edge around, Matt scooped Raine off her feet and stepped over them.

"Are you having a good birthday?" Raine scoped out the upstairs for any loners. "Lemmie see... one last try for your birthday, hmm?"

She found one, maybe not her first pick or Matt's, but at this point he probably only wanted bragging rights. There were no shy hellos after they made it past the bedroom door. Raine made sure the other two were quite engaged before she slipped out. They wouldn't miss her.

It was probably good that she had elected to go without lipstick tonight.

Raine did her best with her dress zipper and trotted down the stairs missing a step on the way down and landing hard on her butt, not once but twice. She hoped that Cait's time had been more productice. Productice? ProducTIVE. Yeah. That was the one.

Outside, the music was less. She hadn't realized how hot it was in that house until she was free of it. Rain took a second to lean against the wall and smooth back her hair before she went looking for Cait. Her dress, once white, had a few spills and lipstick around the neck line. Had the other girl been wearing lipstick? She couldn't even remember.

If someone was doing this, well she couldn't find them at all. She'd combed every ounce of the house, top to bottom, left to right and she just turned up nothing. If this was a mutant, they weren't just scary strong, they were a ninja with their power. Frankly it made no sense. There was no way this was something natural right? It was just so, unnatural.

An hour searching, an hour with nothing to show for it. She didn't know what was scarier right now, the idea there was some super sneaky uber mutant doing this. or that the world was falling apart. Ugh, she just wanted to go home and crawl into bed, but she wasn't leaving without her friend. It was basically an unwritten rule in the girl code that you didn't leave anyone behind at a party. Sure the people there seemed nice enough but she didn't mess around when it came to her and her friends safety.

Wait, they'd set a time limit, in a place where time was going all wacky. Either Raine hadn't had a full hour yet, or something was much worse. Cait didn't even need a second to think about what to do. She was already dashing back towards the house when she spotted a small, white form she'd missed before and boy did she look to be in a state.

"Hey sweetie, you OK there. Had a little bit too much?" Didn't take much to see how drunk her friend was, Cait was usually the one carting a very merry friend home after a night out. Didn't seem fair that she was always the designated sober but no one she knew could generally keep up with how much she could knock back and keep on going. Didn't seem fair that she never got to experience the 'fun' of a blackout night and waking up not knowing how you'd gotten home. Clearly today wasn't going to be that day.

Now the only thing was, her place and have to get a taxi across town and drag her up a flight of stairs or get Raine back to her student place. The prospect of cleaning up sick in her own home wasn't pleasant but frankly her bed was soft and big enough for them both. That trumped sleeping on the floor to her.

"Come on, lets get you home. No way we're finding anything else tonight." Plus if here friend was in this much of a state, she really didn't want to run into Matt. 

Raine just about jumped out of her dress. She didn't do any embarrassing ninja defense moves and she didn't punch Cait, but only because Raine somehow attempted both and accomplished neither. She ended up leaning against the house and feeling the thump and bump of the music from inside. How in the world was the party still going? At some point, surely it would stop or slow down.

"Naww. I'mn— I am just fine. Thankyouverymuch."

She had hair to smooth and a dress to straighten before she could prove her point, but Raine certainly felt fine. It was the world that was spinning too fast.

That was about when Raine realized that in her quest to put herself back together, she'd missed what Cait had said.

"You did the— Wait. What?" Cait was collecting Raine and for some reason Raine did not want to be collected. "Are we going to get pancakes?"

Yep, her friend was definitely on the drunk side. It'd be funny if she wasn't still in minor freak out mode about what was going on with time. That or she was seriously considering joining Raine in that happy giggly state and drowning her fears in cheap rum. So much cheap rum. But no, she should probably make sure the smaller girl was okay and get her home safe and sound.

God being the heavy weight drinker in a friend group meant she was always saddled with post night caretaking. Like now,

Smiling and gently leading Raine away from the party she was already ordering a cab to take her back home. "Sure, I can russle up some pancakes back at mine. Syrup, chocolate chips the works. Just try not to be sick in the cab on the way over and there should be extra in it for you." Telling a drunk person to not throw up was like telling a cat to not be a little agent of chaos but hey, it was worth a shot. Kind of.

 "Come on, our cabs nearly here." She was really hoping this worked, herding drunks was like herding cats. Which were on her mind apparently, that was the second thought of them in as many minutes. Clearly she was suffering from Bijou deprivation, the next time she was at the base that she was getting all the snuggles.

OK girl, stay on topic, get the tipsy one home and in bed, then you can plan kitten cuddles. "The pancakes are waiting dear, you know you want some."

"Mmmhhhh. Chocolate ship pancakes. It's absurdly easy to love someone who offers chocolate." And you know. It was good that Cait was here because everybody was so terribly taller, but there were only so many people in the world that Raine could snuggle up to and not be like so up in their space. Cait's space was like shared space. Because they were teammates. And teammates were soft supportive.

"I'm not drunk." And she couldn't allllmost believe that even if Cait didn't.

She couldn't help but giggle when Cait said the carbs were almost here. "I mean. Pancakes, yeah." But it was like now that she'd broken the seal on giggling it was impossible to stop. It was all pretty funny. The bumping and the grinding and the futility of the human struggle. TOtally funny.

"I'm not drunk..." Raine bonked her forehead on the way into the cab and that, too, was funny. "... enough to puke." She eventually conceded the point and found that Cait's shoulder was too high up for her to rest against so Raine settled for putting her spinning head up against the plexiglass that separated the cabbie from them. leaning forward exposed the zipper of her almost entirely still unzipped dress.

She did have to get rid of the guy somehow...

Stifling a giggle, Raine was such a cute little drunk. All funny sayings and snugly. Once she was a little more alive, and they both had the free time, she was taking the girl out for a night on the town. It was an opportunity she wasn't going to let slip away, plus the idea of letting her friend see the stupid, bubbly, hug monster she became was funny to her. More than once a friend had complained about frequent sneak hugs at parties she couldn't remember. Much of.

The both of them firmly settled in the vehicle and the cabbie told where to take them, she let out a little sigh of relief. The hardest bit was done, now she just had to find a way to lug the totally not drunk Raine up the stairs to her apartment. That, well that was to look forward too.

Now was the time to relax. Take a deep breath and......oh god no. How the hell had she not lost her dress! Someone had clearly gotten very hands on and it was a miracle the Scot hadn't had a much bigger issue to deal with. "Sweetie, you dress's zippers slipped a little. Want me to help you with it?" It was more a rhetorical question really, she wasn't letting a wardrobe malfunction happen on the journey up the stairs but still. It was polite to ask.

Still, even with all their mishaps along the way, they had gotten some information. A little bit. Just enough that the boss would probably not question it at least. Or the clearly hungover team member. She was clever like that.

And frankly, any punishment Impact could dream up would have nothing on what that much rum did to a person the next day. Cait did not envy her companion that.

Raine flapped her hand over her shoulder at Caitrionannalannadingdong. "It's jammed. Jus' leave it."

Confidentially, so the cabbie wouldn't hear her, she whispered at a far too loud level to actually be quiet. "I still have my underwear on. So it's not like it's a big deal." Though, why she thought she still had her underwear on when she very clearly didn't was a whole other matter for a more sober Raine to worry about.

The blonde leaned herself back against the seat and her head kept going until the back of her skull rested on top of the seatback. She wouldn't have been able to reach it if she'd been in front. The back was a fair bit smaller. But the roof of the car was kind of gross with a saggy cloth that had separated from the car ceiling. She rolled her head Cait-ward. She was being a little too silly while Cait was being a little too serious.

"Hey." She did her best sober impression and touched her friend's shoulder. "Thanks for being here and letting me take you on this dumb bomb of a mission." Her eyes were feeling dry and waaaay too open. She rubbed at them and realized that the cab had stopped.

Whose house were they at?

Flashing an apologetic smile at the cabbie who kept a rather blank expression. Someone clearly had to deal with drunk party girls way to often to even bother pretending to care at that point. Fair enough, she wasn't exactly fond of taking care of them either and she was one!

Still, there was no way Raine could get home on her own and of all the people to be dragging up a flight of stairs Cait was glad it was one of her smaller friends. If push came to shove she'd be easier to carry after all and after the night they'd had she be happy to do it to just get them both in the comfort of her place. Preferably with as little sick as possible.

"Hey, it was a good call. And we learned something. Kind of." It might have been perfect but something was better than nothing especially when it concerned the fabric of time falling apart. Always helped to know just how screwed up stuff really was. "Plus I now have the best nickname ever for you out of it. I call that a win don't you, Raine-bow?"

Grinning down at the sunken girl, "Come on. Only a couple of flights of stairs and we can get some rest." Handing over a few bills with a generous tip for how quick the driver had been, she opened the door and rounded the cab, moving to let Raine out. In her state Cait would be impressed if she could operate a button let alone a door handle and really she just wanted to hurry things along so she could collapse in bed.

"Just imagine that pancakey glory and those stairs will melt away."