In Hoxie We Trust
Disclaimer: I own my sense of reality; actual reality is out of my hands.
Summary: DL, FlackOFC, slightly Smacked, light HawkesOFC. Friends, gotta love 'em, can't kill 'em.
AN: Dedicated to girlfriends every where. Dowd University is not real, it's sort of a cross of Iowa State traditions, the stories from my family, and privet liberal arts colleges. Special thanks to my beta Katherine.
Prologue
Apartment 201, Hoxie Floor, Helser House, Dowd University
1994
Lindsay Monroe was bone tired; waitressing really took it out of her during happy hour... all those happy people, some of them with happy hands. God, those pricks were treating her ass like wonder bread. Carlin was such a jerk, he only put girls on the floor during happy hour at the university bar so he could watch them fight off the horny men and the occasional woman. Lindsay sighed and adjusted her bag on her shoulder and shoved her key in the dorm lock with great force. Unlocking the door and pushing it open with her hip she reached for the lights. But they were already on. The room was bright, not only was the lights on but so was the chili pepper lights, and a few glow sticks. Her friends and roommates were strung out all over, lounging in all sorts of positions all with alcohol.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed. From the coach the voice Gwen Palen answered.
"Farmer finally broke up with shithead! We're celebrating." Gwen said sitting up, she was wearing a party hat and had a bottle of wine in hand. Lindsay sat her bag down and rubbed her face.
"Well thank God for that."
"Hey Tractor!" The woman herself, Elizabeth – Iris Olsen, Farmer, just noticed that she had arrived. She and their other roommate Karenina 'Wookiee' Woteki were drinking straight from a bottle of white wine. Lindsay picked her way over to where they were seated, stepping over their sprawled body parts.
"Okay you broke up with Noah, what opened you're eyes?" Lindsay asked she knew she wasn't going to bed any time soon so she might as well hear the story.
"Oh, I know your little nickname for him, you were so apt. God he was a shithead. And a whore." Farmer said finishing off the bottle of liquor. "I caught him screwing Becky Hicks when I was early to his place. I have to pick his sorry ass up in the first place, every goddamn date I was giving a mile in the relationship. All I ever got was a fucking inch. No, wait the fucking inch was his penis. The sex wasn't even that great or good or satisfying. Total waist of my virginity. God why didn't you guys tell me sooner that he was shit?" Not even the drunk loose lipped girlfriends had a reason.
"From now on ya gotta tell me what you think. Ya'll are semi intelligent, I guess. You have to tell me things." Elizabeth - Iris said looking around the room. Karenina was balancing a shot glass on her pouted lips, Gwen was wearing three party hats one on her head, and two in a Madonna titty cone bra, and Lindsay who was still in her bar uniform of way too tight tee shirt and high hem skirt looking like a Hooter's knock off, Lindsay resisted the impulse to laugh.
"Oh all right. We promise to always tell you exactly what we think about what you do." Lindsay said.
"We need to make a very, very deep pact..." Gwen said.
"And a toast." Karenina said catching the glass off her lip. Elizabeth - Iris sprang up.
"I solemnly swear," She said raising her right hand and placing her other hand where she thought her heart was she of course was too drunk to get to know it was her boob.
"I solemnly swear," The other girls said mimicking their friend.
"To tell the truth,"
"To tell the truth,"
"No matter what, no matter how ugly, no matter what the situation,"
"No matter what, no matter how ugly, no matter what the situation,"
"So help me Hoxie."
"So help me Hoxie." The girls swore.
"Let's have a drink!" Karenina exclaimed. The girls laughed but everyone took a drink of the bottle and passed it on. And with cheap wine the pact was sealed.
141 W. 72th St. Apartment 5P, New York City's Upper West Side1
2006
Lindsay Monroe was bone tired; she had worked ten days in a row often pulling double or triple shifts. Today was her long awaited day off and she was ready for quality laziness, of course her brain didn't comprehend the request of her body and she was wide awake and functional at five am. By ten am her entire apartment was cleaned, she had bought groceries and was folding a basket of laundry. She sighed heavily at her sad state but was saved from more reflection at her inability to be a slug by the ring of her phone. Lindsay didn't even get a chance to say hello into the receiver when a very familiar voice asked,
"Are you happy with where you are right now?" Elizabeth – Iris Olsen asked, Lindsay looked at her phone like it was sprouting Klingon.
"My current position or my situation in life or what?" Lindsay asked sarcastically.
"Your life hoser! I'm trying to be philosophical here."
"What brought this on?" Lindsay asked chucking. It was something like nine am in Minnesota, knowing what kind of person Farmer was in the morning something big must've triggered this sudden deep urge.
"Gwen called me – Gregory was having an affair." Gwen had married Gregory Willis five years ago. Lindsay hadn't liked him then and her opinion hadn't changed.
"We'll I can't say I'm surprised or sorry – well maybe sorry about how she got her eyes opened but it was about time." She said, heartless, but honest.
"I know, that's what I said when she called me."
"Are you handling the divorce?"
"Not in my job description but I gave her the name of a real shark, I want to see this asshole hung out to dry."
"Amen sister." There was a pause.
"So Lindsay, are you where you planned to be? This divorce got me thinking how much things have changed." Elizabeth – Iris sounded truly pensive. Lindsay sighed, she had never truly thought about it, if Farmer had asked her the meaning of life or the existence of God Lindsay could give her an answer, she had thought about those aspects of the unknown, but she had never thought of where she would be at ate 32 and a half.
"I guess I never thought about it." It was the truth. The changes weren't really changes in her mind. She had lived through every up and down. She wasn't a spectator viewing history to analyze and find patterns, she was a participant, looking back wasn't done. She had gone to college; it had even been one of her top choices, Criminology had always been the plan as well. So up until the first day of college her life had been on track. Then she met Elizabeth – Iris that was the first of the forks in the road. She was the first step outside the little world that had been built in eighteen years of life in the rather mundane and homogeneous life that was suburban Montana. From there on out what ever plans she had had were out the window. There was no more safe and quiet Friday nights, on the social aspect Elizabeth – Iris and eventually the rest of the Hoxies had taken her from drab to fab in no time. Yet they hadn't treated her as an experiment but as a person that they loved and with them she had truly found herself. Her true self, not the identity that small scale searching in high school had yielded but a full fledged personality. Her eighteen year old idealistic ways never pictured what happened. On the other hand, those same years she was gaining character development she was losing just as much. Her father's lost battle with cancer, her sisters battles with her now ex husband and the mentally crippling results of the sparing.
And now here she was living in New York, a CSI and independent woman… had this been her true goal in life? She couldn't remember any more. Farmer was still waiting for a real response.
"Elizabeth – Iris I don't remember what I wanted to begin with so I don't know if I've met my goals. I'm content, I'm neither excessively happy or excessively sad, my job is typically satisfying so I suppose I'm happy as I can be."
"You're not listlessly pining away for a man and a picket fence are you?" Farmer asked. A flash of a dinner table with Danny at the head her at the opposite and kids between them danced in her mind, she shook it out forcefully.
"The thought has crossed my mind but I'm not some idiot who lives her life so she can get married and be a wife. If I get married, I get married."
"I see… you realize that you can't hide your lying eyes, babe." Elizabeth – Iris said, Lindsay knew she was implying something about Danny, it was the general topic of conversation of late but she decided to ignore the fact she knew what was going on.
"Who are you Carnac the Magnificent?" Lindsay inquired sarcastically.
"Okay, I know for a fact that you've used him as a fill in when you're fingers have done some walking, I also have probable cause to assert that you've looked at monogrammed towels, although Lindsay Messer only changes the second letter down not as noticeable, now if your last name was Hamilton…"
"How did we get from Gwen's divorce to discussing my friend and co worker like he was a plot line on Sex and the City?" Lindsay asked, she was now flustered, with one hand she held the phone, with the other she tossed the bridal magazine she had bought at the grocery store in a drawer in her coffee table, she couldn't look at the cover which was graffiti - ed with the subconscious doodling of Lindsay Messer.
"Because sweetie Gregory is old hat, there is nothing to say that hasn't been said before, but you and Danny, we have a plethora of subjects to discuss…"
"You're delusional." Lindsay said defensively.
"No I'm right. There's a slight difference." Someone calling Elizabeth – Iris's office phone made the friends cut their conversation short on a note Lindsay tried to avoid hitting. As she hung up she rolled her head back to rest it on the arm/ back joint of her couch. Friends… gotta love 'em, can't shoot 'em.
1 I know nothing about the address I made up, so um it's a work of fiction so read a fiction disclaimer and apply it here.