Alice finally had a friend that wasn't uptight when it came certain substances of an alcoholic or more interesting variety. A friend who knew how to score some of the interesting things while she could supply a decent hidden spot, some premium quality cheap booze, a few snacks for the inevitable hunger dropping and a decent excuse for being unavailable for an evening. All in all it was shaping up to be fun.

Or it was, is a certain someone wasn't f**king late and Alice was now stuck outside on a day that was a lot cold than she'd expected it to be, waiting for Emily to arrive with the last couple of things needed. Pulling out her phone she wasn't that surprised to see her little hiding spot didn't actually have any reception, so she couldn't even browse the internet or play some casual games while she waited. All in all, it sucked.

Lighting a cigarette, sods law struck in full when she heard approaching footsteps. Of course it would be a guard, rather than her friend right at the moment she looked about as stereo typically guilty as someone possibly could. Sure, she might be able to hide some of the incriminating evidence but she frankly couldn't be bother, so she just waited with cigarette in hand, taking the occasional puff.

Emily had to admit. It was weird having friends, as a plural. She'd had people she referred to as such before obviously, but it wasn't quite the same as having people she trusted and actually wanted to be around like all of the time. Although was it now friend singular given a sudden status change... Not that it really mattered. Her relationship with Alice was obviously very different than her other non-familial relationship. In many ways, but one she felt was that the two of them got on very well.

They had similar personalities in a lot of ways, shared interests and views on topics and both held a heavily rebellious streak.

She'd gotten slightly caught up at work with a sudden influx of paperwork towards the end of the day. Apparently there were some more traumatic things going on at the mansion and in the city, people de-aging, rumoured kidnappings and reports of a tiny blonde psycho among them.

She walked across to the meeting spot with Alice in a bit of a stressed out huff. She had some goodies in her handbag for hanging out with Alice, and a fake ID if they decided to go into the city.

Apparently her worrying had been pointless because it was Emily. Late. In the cold. Some people just couldn't handle the serious responsibility of acting out that they really should leave it to the professionals, but Alice wouldn't hold it against her. As long as she was up for fun then the night was salvageable.

"Fashionably late dear?" she queried, one eyebrow cocked, "or just taking your time enjoying the lovely weather." No one could say that Alice was nice and freezing her tits off didn't exactly improved her mood but Emily seemed to bring the bitchiness out of her. Taking on final drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out on the floor she pulled a not terrible bottle of rum out of the bag at her feet and took a hefty swig, enjoying the burning heat that little bit more since it helped her actually feel her toes. Or just care less.

"Now, did you manage to get hold of the other stuff? Been dying to relax properly since I moved here." Being in a foreign place had had her tense, so sue her, and if she could use some perfectly natural remedies to alleviate that then well why shouldn't she? "Oh god and please tell me you have an ID. I know a couple half decent places but they have to look like they're making an effort to stop underage people getting in."

Emily quirked an eyebrow at Alice as she reached the other Brit, her feet crunching on the icy grass. "I would not regard any lateness as fashionable, perhaps more understandably I'm late due to work being a flood of paper work." She also snorted. "Don't tell me the weather here bothers you, at least it settles on a tone, the UK's weather is more indecisive than most teenagers."

Emily jangled her bag a little as if for dramatic effect. "Uh duh. I'm not a barbarian, I wouldn't turn up without it." She joked. Stepping more towards Alice a little bit. "Are you sure you don't want to run inside and grab another layer or two? You look like an icicle. I mean more than usual." She teased, gesturing up to Alice's bright blue hair with a smile.

Rolling her eyes. "No duh. Do you really think I'd turn up without it? Just because I got held up does not mean I'm not prepared."

Holding up one thin arm, "Why do you think I'm f**king freezing, I'm not exactly well insulated," she replied caustically. She had not signed up to stand in the cold, she had signed up to get drunk, possible high and to enjoy herself. Not being able to feel her toes did not constitute as having a good time. "And generally if I am going outside back home it's not during the winter."

"Once I get moving I'll be fine, standing around like an idiot hasn't helped." Drink was helping, now at least, and the prospect of some warm and crucially numbing substances didn't hurt at all.Taking another swig before offering the bottle to her friend. "Pretty easy to shot this one. Unless you need mixer, should be some in their," she indicated to one of the bags with a foot.

"I;m thinking we get our pre-drinks in here, relax a little and then head into town for some fun." Made the festivities just a little cheaper if they were half way buzzing before they were buying in a bar and while she liked the place she had in mind, it wasn't somewhere you spent a lot of money.

Or time.

Emily shook her head in amusement at Alice. "Well now you know next time we meet in a bedroom, or you wear more layers." She replied flatly. It wasn't really her fault that she'd gotten caught up, so she wasn't likely to apologise.

"Yeah. Once we get in somewhere you'll quickly forget all about the cold." Alice was definitely at least as prickly as Emily, although Emily herself had eased up a little bit since she'd started dating. It was hard to be moody all the time when an adorable girlfriend was throwing her best efforts at dissuading that.

Taking the bottle and having a swig of her own she coughed a little. She didn't drink neat rum all that often. She hadn't drunk all that much recently, actually. Until she'd invited a certain someone over for video games. "Good idea. Might wanna go easy on that though, before we've partook in other things." She suggested with a raised eyebrow, pointing at her own bag. "Unless the plan was to do that later, as a wind down. Which works for me too. In which case I'll need a few more shots."

"I'll admit, I'm curious to see what your idea of a fun bar is. And how long it is before it gives me a headache."

Raising an eyebrow, "Well I wouldn't have expected that kind of offer from you." Given her friend a grin, "not saying no either but I don't think who ever has been distracting you recently would appreciate that." Layer were a good idea, and while it might clash with her look, not get pneumonia was probably worth it.

Coughing at neat rum? Someone had clearly not been practising enough and that was something Alice was happy to remedy. "I think using it to wind down is a good idea, as much as I hate to wait. We probably want semi clear heads." Semi being the operative word in her opinion, "Which means you need a couple more in you if your tolerance is like mine."

She was skinny, but enough underage activities had given her a reasonable ability to handle drink. If she wasn't mixing to many of them.

"I think you'll like it, has a pretty good atmosphere so you won't get the depressing vibe a lot of those ones give." Good might have been an understatement but she was looking forward to her friend experience the insanity for herself, with a little push from her of course. Nodding at the bottle, "If that's not your poison I do have some vodka as well but you'll definitely need to have that with something." The vodka was cheap, compared to the rum and had that distinct nail polish remover flavour.

Not something easy to drink on it's own.

Emily tilted her head a little. Banter was all well and good, and Alice was super suggestive most of the time they hung out, Emily just let most of the flirting glide off of her, or failed to take it as a compliment and got awkward. But how did she take that suggestively?

"Why not? It's not like I'm ashamed of my room or anything." She admitted, somewhat blankly.

The second part was the thing that got to her, Emily's cheeks flushed probably more brightly than Alice had actually seen them. "W-What has she got to do with anything?" She stammered.

She hadn't actually told anyone about that, was she that transparent? (Yes)

Emily lifted the bottle back to her lips. "No arguments here." She murmured, taking a larger swig of rum and not coughing or sputtering at all with this one.

"Alice, depressing isn't the problem. It's the hormonal places, college parties and that I tend to take issue with. Being on the receiving end of petty lust is not pleasant."

"Drink is drink. I have some vokda and tequila in here somewhere. Anything that numbs and isn't going to come up right way works." She was more practiced than most woman her age with the drinking thing, she just normally mixed them.

"Really now? Not ashamed at all?" Alice had a hard time believing that. Everyone had something to hide and their room usually had the biggest hints to all sorts of interesting secrets. "No skeletons in closets or hidden collections? Not even a little." Frankly the blank would have made Alice think she'd missed her meaning but this was a girl that could literally feel others emotions so yeah, chances are she understood her very subtle hint.

She did get a rather sly grin at Emily's blushing. Alice had picked up on the difference and that was saying something. Generally her attention span for those kind of things was small, but when a friend is checking out their phone more, maybe smiling at it or getting the occasional moony look, it wasn't hard to join the dots. "Nothing at all dear, just an observation."

"Well s**t hormonal it will be. Most bars like it tend to be a bit of a riot given the clientele." Gay bars did tend to be a little more crazy than others although it wasn't one of the worst she'd been to. The main benefit was cheap(ish) cocktails which tasted damn good and not getting leered at by every passing drunk. Well passing drunk guys at least.

"I think you'll enjoy it though. It plays cheesy music today, the drinks are awesome and you're not likely to get groped." Her three favourite things in a bar, now if she could just find one that had video games you could play while at it she would have found heaven.

Eyeing Emily and taking another drink for herself she wondered how much partying the girl had done in the city. "So, how much experience you got with not entirely upstanding bars? You know all the general do's and don'ts?"

It wasn't like she cared that much what people thought of her and how she lived was it? "I wouldn't say so no, I imagine your room is in much more of a state than mine regardless." Alice didn't seem like the neatest human being to Emily, and even if Emily wasn't super neat by nature she'd taken to cleaning up as something to do when the insomnia had kicked in.

Skeletons in the closest? Nope. There were things in her closet that were not for everyone's eyes, but thankfully they were pretty well hidden. "I'm not quite sure what you mean." She replied with a raised eyebrow. "Why, what do you have in yours?"

Trying to hide her fairly obvious fluster, trying to ignore what she was picking up from Alice, Emily floundered a bit. "Is it that obvious?" She muttered.

Emily shuddered at the thought, grabbing the bottle of rum and giving it another swig. "Then I'll need to be plenty inebriated." hormonal people were a problem sometimes. "On that note if you ever need a wing-girl I'm basically always cheating with that sort of thing."

"No groping sounds good." She agreed, not that she'd had that problem too much mind, but the absence of it could only be a positive.

Tilting her head at Alice's curiosity she thought about the question. "Honestly I don't know if I've been to your kind of bar that much, I've done a lot of college bars and a lot of house parties. If the music and vibe is right I can sort of just get floaty and lost in the sea of giddiness."

"Of course you don't know what I could be implying. Myself though? I have a few interesting gadgets. True most of them are like 20 years old and need to be hooked up to a TV but they are fun." she responded lightly, not bending the true all that much to be honest. "The rest? Pretty vanilla to be honest certainly nothing to be ashamed about."

If it was anymore obvious, it would probably have been visible from space. Holding her finger and thumb apart by only a couple of centimetres, "just a little Em. To anyone with eyes." But then, subtle be damned, why hide being happy. "Sooooooo, who is it? Anyone I might know?"

"I might take you up on that to be honest, not had much luck myself and having a cheat to use might just give me the edge." Much luck was maybe putting it mildly. Of the few times she'd gone out to chat someone up it had not gone well. At all.

Not been to her kind of bar? "Well, we're fixing that tonight. It will be nothing like a party I can promise you that. Get ready for some interesting sights, just ya know, try not to stare to much if you see something you shouldn't." Giddiness though? Not a chance of that Alice reckoned.

"You'll be fine though, It's not a bad place. Just kind of weird but it makes them kind of accept anyone in. Don't be a dick, which I know is hard for you dear," she joked, "and we'll have fun."

"Nope. Not a clue. Nada." Oh god. She needed to keep Alice out of her closet real bad, she'd be teased until the end of time. Alice would be even worse than Skye, which was saying something. Skye's teasing was absolutely relentless, and it felt like Emily had just gotten more susceptible to it since they'd started dating.

Emily blushed again. She'd really not realised she was so obvious. Okay so she was sort of smitten, so it was bound to be picked up by somebody at some point but she'd not thought it would be so soon. Damn, she'd probably let Alice know that girlfriend teasing was a way to get to her. That was going to bite her in the ass pretty hard, knowing Alice. "You might actually, she's kept to herself around the mansion recently but I'm pretty sure she'd give you a run for your money with the gaming."

Emily had thankfully saved herself the awkwardness of getting thrashed by Skye so far, they mostly played something in coop or Emily snuggled her and watched Skye play something single player.

Raising an eyebrow Emily leaned into Alice a little. "Really, but you're such a master of flirtation, no luck? Poor baby." Nobody handled sarcasm like the British.

"Don't worry, funnily enough I'm pretty good at picking up on social ques." It was easy to see when people were uncomfortable, and then you just avoided their gaze no problem.

"No promises, if there is liquor I'm sure I'll manage though."

Oh she had something worth hiding with that kind of reaction. Something very interesting as well, if she was just flat out lying. Alice didn't need to be an empath to know that. She did wonder what kind of things she had since Emily didn't seem the squeamish about sex type and she was clearly not a closeted nerd. Giving her friend a sceptical look, she decided to drop it for now. She'd get a peek eventually, of that she was certain, and push comes to shove she could always try bribing the girls new beau for the information.

Snorting derisively she doubted that was actually possible, she had pretty damn good gamer creds. With the number of consoles she had back at home, the retrofitting she was doing and the horrific number of games in her library she was pretty sure she had most people beat. "I'll believe it when I see it, I am the king of nerds in the mansion and no one has challenged me so far."

"Hey, it's not easy when your choices are limited. Most girl my age see the hair and the piercings and assume I'm either trying to sell them drugs or that I'm some kind of dominatrix." That particular one had been really awkward because she was not ready for the kind of flirting that had started. Noped out pretty hard that night.

Shrugging, she wasn't making assumptions about how daft someone could be. "I don't know how good under pressure you are. Better off being said and not needed." One time she hadn't. One time she'd thought a friend could be chill about it. One near miss was one too many for Alice.

Grinning and holding up the bottle in cheers, "that, can be arranged." A few drinks were just the way to start a nicer evening.

Snorting in equal derizion “You’re definitely queen of something, your highness.” She didn’t elaborate on what. It clearly wasn’t that she was Queen bitch, Emily still held that title. She wasn’t going to give it up to little blue haired temptresses, even if Alice could out nerd-cred her, Emily still had more of a rep at the mansion when it came to the younger people avoiding her.

Emily actually burst out laughing at the dominatrix comment. “Oh dear me Alice, how could anybody assume you’re a dominatrix? You clearly give off such a good-ey two shoes vibe.” sarcasm was one of the things Emily enjoyed most about being around Alice. It was an art that the Americans, in her opinion just didn’t have the innate skill for.

“I tend to avoid pressure where possible. It’s appreciated anyway.” Emily pondered aloud. “It’s funny the little difference a style change can make to people’s perception of you, you should have seen the looks, or felt the emotions of people in class after I did this.” She gestured to her now purple locks.

Alice had this annoying habit of making Emily smile, she just couldn’t keep up the facade too long around her. Laughter and smiles were just going to happen. This was what it was like having a best friend, she supposed. “What’s the place called then?”

"Ha, ha, ha. Trust me, that was by far the weirdest flirting I have ever experience. The girl was acting like she was a dog waiting for commands. F**king weirded me out." Alice didn't judge people their kinks or how they got their rocks off, but when you're really not into it and someone just starts in on you as if you're deep in that world it gonna be freaky. Alice was pretty vanilla when it came to that stuff, other than some fantasies involving video game characters she and was not looking to experience it for the first time that way.

Really? Her classmates had been surprised by a girl in college dying their hair? "If dyeing your hair a bright colour was worthy of scrutiny they must never get much done at uni." And emotions? Other than maybe some more interest in her, since it did make her pretty noticeable how could people possibly feel different. "I mean, it suits you and all but did it really changed how people saw you that much?" Maybe Alice just looked at stuff differently.

"Oh you are going to love it. It's called Obelisk, has some weird Roman carvings and stuff inside which I guess is how it gets the name. But it's a riot. Just......expect a fair number of drag queens." It was apparently pretty popular with them but frankly, they were a laugh and more than happy to recommend good drinks.

What she wasn't mentioning is that the carvings were based on some of the Pompey carvings which featured, well a lot of sexual stuff. All different flavours. Apparently the Romans, real damn kinky.