#renaux

The mysterious booze, known only to the world as Shroud Serum, was a swirling mix of greens that seemed to twist and shimmer iridescently in the warm light of the dive bar, as if of its own volition. It stood, a living testament to the evening’s reverie, half-drained by this point— the rest of its contents was currently burning through the guts and sobriety both of the six figures gathered around it in a loose circle, on mismatched wooden stools. As the turn order progressed, every eye settled at once on Addifore, looking ever so slightly ruffled off of his proper poise by the churn of the liquor. (Well, except for the eyes of Pim and Remeraux, whose swimming visions were currently focused on ‘discerning how exactly Pim’s long, dextrous tail got wound so tightly around their stool’ and ‘focusing in drunken panic on their floor based vantage point’, respectively.)

With one fluid movement, the Duskwight man swiped a card from the haphazard pile strewn chaotically around the pitcher, and laid it flat on top of the table with a slap. Martin’s Shroud-green eyes lit up as the two of spades stared up at the party. Addifore just winced. “Oh.” “Mystery tonic, eh…?” A lazy, devilish smirk stretched across Remeraux’s face. With Pim rescued from their stool prison, she stumbled back to her own seat and let gravity drop her into it with a thump. Tilting her head, she set her sights on the particularly pink Miqo’te perched cozily in Renaux’s lap, with a conspiratorial wink. “Righ’, Martin. Whatcha got on tap?”

Their small brown hands excitedly sign out [I’ve been working on fizzy whiskey! Now you have to try it,] before giddily clapping, while the color drained from Addifore’s face.

Renaux chuckled, shooting his partner a look while he blanches. (Remeraux Melret, Renaux Mercier. That was a fun duo of names to have around the card table as more and more alcohol was imbibed.) “Didn’t he say whiskey makes him an arse, though…?”

His reward, for that comment, was a withering look from a man who looked quite accustomed to giving them.

[He’d be an arse regardless,] Martin signs, his expression making it read as if it was a rote statement of fact instead of a dig at their two-drawing friend, [but this is bubbling! It’s meant to make you giggly ‘cause it tickles.] They hop to their feet from Renaux’s lap and mosey across the room to go rummaging behind the unfathomably well-stocked bar of the Still and Strings. They retrieve from it a bottle of amber liquid, unlabeled except for a marker scrawl that says Fizzy Whiskey 2.5. They uncap it with a pop! sound that reverberates through the room, and a haze of vapor begins to swirl from the bottle’s mouth along with a veritable surge of carbonation. Everyone regarded it, from their respective perches around the table, as it was placed down into the center, right by the veritable tombstone that was the Shroud Serum pitcher. Into its mysterious confines were poured looks of confusion. Suspicion. Anticipation. Four of those eyes, however, lit up with devious interest— two violets, two citrines.

“Oh… I wan’ t’ try tha’.” Sif drawled in that road-warmed tone of hers, looking at the bottle fuming like a volcanic spring as one would regard a plunge from the high rocks down into a swimming hole. Well, the way one would if they weren’t chicken, anyways.

“Aye, come on! I’ll take one wif ya too, Addi.” Remeraux chimed in after, Brume accent thickening from syrup to quicksand under the weight of all that liquor. She was never one to be outdone. If there was a mystery drink anywhere, she had to pound it down. That was just the kind of gal she was. No matter how many shots of the foul punch were already squirming around her insides, or how vision swam like she was still out at sea. Martin, despite the card's demands that only the card drawer suffer the penalty, ended up pouring everyone a round of the ominously fizzing whiskey. Every one of those hands went to examine its contents, as the liquid even still managed to gurgle and churn, sending the rock of ice in the center of each squat glass dancing and clinking to and fro.

Addifore regarded it as one would a venomous snake. More specifically, as a venomous snake you’ve been ordered to kiss on the lips. “Really don’t want to…” He muttered, his words muffled and reverberated into the glass as it sat reluctantly against his lips. Relenting, finally, Addifore let the tiniest trickle of it through that sullen gateway. He turned green the second it touched his tongue. “Righ’ then, bottoms up!” Remeraux’s voice is the next to cut in, as she gripped the glass in one gloved hand and slugged the whole thing down in one go. Just as quickly, she started coughing and wheezing, as the carbonated alcohol bubbled and burned when a little of it diverted down into her lungs instead of sliding down her throat.

Martin looks dismayed at the reactions beginning to percolate from around the table. [Is it okay…?] they sign with fingers unsure, hesitant.

“It’s… S’good, Martin! Jus’... Jus’ went down the wrong pipe.”

The pure, high pitched squeak of Remeraux's voice as it left her throat left everyone at the table dumbfounded.

Sif blinked. Once. Twice. And then she howled with laughter. “Yer VOICE. It’s⁠— Oh, Twelve.” Sif, too, sounded like she was trying to imitate a squirrel.

There was a moment where both of them just stared blankly at each other, silent as the grave. Then, Remeraux’s lips wiggled, and before she knew it she erupted into laughter, high pitched and giggling and absolutely punctuated with a snort or two. “ Your v-voice, Sif!!” She started slapping her knee, as the two travelers descended completely into a horrible giggling echo chamber. Addifore looked on at the two of them in terror.

“I gotta try this!” Pim knocked back their own drink, their voluminous pink hair bouncing back from the gesture, and immediately went for the highest note they could muster. It was one positively soared right through the stratosphere. It was a refrain that Renaux was all too eager to join in as he chugged his own fizzy whiskey down, and let his gravelly bass fly on wings of whiskey up to an operatic soprano.

Martin sipped. Addifore sipped. A high pitched eep! escaped mouths that were quickly clamped down, and that reaction alone sent the two women at the table, who were finally beginning to push through the end of their giggling fits, right back down into an inescapable hell of laughter.

Remeraux’s head was spinning, swimming, swirling from the laughter, the liquor, the lack of oxygen. But the helium in their drinks was not the only thing that night making her feel lighter than a feather. And when Sif said she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed that hard, Remeraux regarded the friendly faces around the table, and wiping tears of laughter from the corners of her eye, couldn’t help but agree.

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