Dave's POV:
It took Dave little to no time to hoist Roxy up the stairs and into the main living room.
He laid her out on the couch, making sure her head rested squarely on a cushion, tilting her jaw just slightly to the side so that if she barfed in her sleep (like she was sometimes known to do – despite being an alcoholic, she could not hold her drink) she wouldn't choke on in.
He brushed a bit of her hair out of her face before quickly rushing over to where Jane stood near the front door, awaiting new guests.
"Jane." Dave said, breaking his normally calm tone. Immediately Jane noticed the difference, launching herself straight to her feet from her previous position of leaning against the wall.
"Is it – Did Roxy . . .?" Jane trailed off.
Dave nodded gravely.
Jane was out of the hallway and into the kitchen before Dave could hardly even blink. When he peeked through the doorway, he found Jane leaning over a slip of paper, scribbling something on it in Sharpie.
"What's that for?" he asked her when she put a piece of tape on the top and rushed to stand on the front step, sticking it to the door.
"So that I don't have to keep letting guests in. It's not as polite as I would have liked, but it'll have to do." She said hurriedly, her words tripping over each other as she rushed back inside the house.
Before she closed the door, Dave got a good look at what the note said; "Let yourself in! Through the kitchen, into the hallway, first door on the left; in the basement"
Dave snickered despite himself; only Jane would leave direct instructions on where to go to get to the basement. He was pretty sure the thumping base was enough to alert any guests as to where the party was going on.
Mercifully, nobody had decided to hang out in the living room yet, so neither of them had to shoo anybody out of their way. Either that or the sight of Dave carrying a rather intoxicated, possibly drugged, girl into the area scared them all away.
Jane knelt beside Roxy and sighed, taking her best friend's hand in hers and squeezing it slightly. Dave sat down next to her, cross-legged and stroked Roxy's hair. He waited for Jane to say something, cry, slap Roxy to wake her up and scream at her or react in some way, but they were left shrouded in silence.
Well, as much silence as there could be when there were about two hundred guests (how did the Egberts even know so many people?) all partying and dancing and swaying together downstairs to a rather interesting song.
An undisclosed amount of time passed in which neither of them spoke at all. Dave felt the atmosphere surrounding them get awkward, but was unsure as to how to fix this problem.
Fortunately, he didn't have to.
"Isn't she so beautiful when she sleeps?" Jane whispered, rubbing her thumb over Roxy's knuckle.
Dave kept silent, feeling like this was the sort of question that didn't require an answer.
"I've always thought so. Especially when we were kids." Jane's voice started to get far away, like she was floating away. She paused for a moment. "Do you remember when she had all of that long, long hair?" Jane glanced up at Dave, a sad smile playing on her lips. Dave nodded silently, still trying to figure out if it was appropriate to speak or if Jane was still being rhetorical.
She turned her head back to face Roxy's. "We would video chat for hours and hours on end. . . Most of the time going late into the night. She'd fall asleep on me and just lay there while I stayed awake." Jane's eyes started to tear up a tiny bit, her voice wavering in that awful, painful way when you're trying to speak around the lump in your throat, trying not to cry. "I would always think to myself that she looked a bit like-like Sleeping Beauty, right?"
Jane started to fully cry now, hiccupping a little bit and squeezing the life out of Roxy's hand. Her body lurched up and down with every shaky breath. Her lips were moving fast and it took Dave an almost embarrassingly long time to realize she was whispering things.
"Why'd she do it?"
"We were so close to a new year, a new start. We were so close to restarting everything."
"Godammit, Roxy, why?"
"Janey. . ." A groggily tired voice suddenly spoke. They both looked at the still intoxicated Lalonde to see her two pretty blue eyes peeping open.
Both she and Rose had blue eyes, but while Rose's were deep and darkly resembled a more indigo color, Roxy's were so bright they were nearly transparent. As a teenager, she'd often wear contacts that turned them an unnatural shade of pink, but she soon dropped the habit after entering college. Dave preferred her to share her natural eye color with the world; they were even more beautiful that way.
"Roxy. . .?" Jane responded, the tears ceasing almost immediately.
"Janey, you can't be falling for me." Roxy's words came out slow and smoothly, her voice seeming to drop a few octaves.
"What?" Jane rose an eyebrow. Dave was right along with her on that boat.
"You're. . . Doncha remember? Ya' gotta get with Dirk-ister so. . . so we can all be one huge 'effen family and you . . ." Roxy kept pausing and then talking slow. "You can have tons of r'lly cuuuute bbieeeeees."
Jane's face reddened to a point where Dave wondered if his vision had suddenly gone awry.
"Whoa, whoa, wait." Dave held up his hands, interrupting Roxy mid-rant about how she'd make the best aunt in the entire world and take them out shopping in Paris once her career as a model took off and such bullshit. "Do you actually like Dirk?"
Dave raised his eyebrows far above his shades when Jane tried (and failed) to stutter an excuse as to why Roxy was talking about she and Dirk getting married.
"Godammit, why's it always him?" Dave asked himself, once again disregarding a female's nervous ranting. Twice in the matter of forty seconds. Must've broken some new record. "I mean, first Jake, then Roxy, then I think John might've had a thing for him, for a while at least, and now Jane?! Man. I have got to step my game up."
"Oo got dat right, Daveh-boy." Roxy giggled beside him. He lightly tapped her forehead.
"Shut it. I'm already mad at you for. . . this." He gestured his hand to the rest of her, indicating the situation they were in. She squished her cheek into the pillow under her head and widened her eyes, her bottom lip quivering out just a tiny little bit. Dave sighed angrily.
"Don't even try that fake puppy dog face and crocodile tears. You ain't poutin' your way out of this one, missy." Dave said, his Southern accent slipping into his voice more and more. It always happened like that in certain situations, like when he was feeling really tired or casual, or in this case, getting madder.
Roxy snapped out of the pitiful face almost immediately, completely dropping the act to glare up at her step brother.
Well, "glare" is an exaggeration; she more squinted really hard at him with the look of a toddler who'd lost an argument on her face.
Jane glanced from Dave to Roxy a couple of times before finally piping up.
"Dave, I uh. . . I think I'll handle this." She said a little calmer than what her voice had been just a few minutes ago.
Dave looked up at her, marginally surprised. "Huh?"
"Yeah, I'll take care of Roxy for right now. You can go and enjoy the party, don't worry." Jane suddenly decided out of nowhere, sounding rather resolute.
Dave glanced from Jane to Roxy to Jane again. "Is there gonna be some sort of secret female bonding conversation when I leave?" he asked them.
"Of sorts." Jane tilted her head to the side.
More silence.
Dave swore if it weren't the middle of the winter, they'd all hear some crickets chirping outside.
"Whelp, shit man." Dave's hands went up into the air again. "I can't go around interruptin' some fine lady bonding. It ain't polite." He hoisted himself up and stuck his hands in his pockets, already striding towards the door. "You two have fun." He said before walking down the hallway and disappearing into the basement again.
He hated how hastily he'd left, but Jane telling him to go "enjoy the party" had reminded him once more of his original mission; finding Jade and stopping her before she could tell the entire household that he had a developing crush on literally the only angry short Bakery Boy in the entire city.
Jane's POV:
Jane was surprised at how easily Dave had retreated, to say the least, but at the moment, that was the least of her problems.
Roxy had started giggling beside her, trying – and failing miserably – to hold back her little chuckles behind her cupped hands. "Shut up!" Jane nearly screeched, slapping Roxy's arm with the back of her hand. "I can't believe you just did that!" She glared accusingly at the still giggly blonde.
"What? Who cares? I for one think yo're little crish on Dirky's the cutest thing since kittens." Roxy said. She seemed to be sobering up well, but still slurred a few of her words and it wasn't as if the alcohol had completely left her body; which meant the hangover of the century would still be hitting her hard the next morning.
"But he could tell him! And not to mention, Dirk is dating Jake! Did that completely slip your mind?!"
"Ooh, yeaaah. . ." Roxy said like she'd just realized it. Jane face palmed.
"Don't worry about it. This is Dave we're talking about; I'm sure he won't tell anyone!" Roxy tried to reassure her friend. Jane face palmed again with the other hand, fully covering her beet red face. "I thiiink. . .? I mean, it's Dave. His cool-kid façade can be pretty hard to predict sometimes. . ."
"Not helping." Jane said, her voice muffled by her hands. She lowered her head and pulled her knees up to her chest as best she could with the little space she was given to sit in between the coffee table and couch.
"I know what will help though." Roxy grinned deviously.
Jane peeked up at the Cheshire-Cat grin she could pull off so well. "Whaat." She groaned, not in the mood for Roxy's insane drunk shenanigans.
"Wow, don't sound so excited." The blonde mumbled sarcastically.
"Roxy, just tell me what it is before I leave you hear so that I may wallow in my own shameful self-pity."
"Hee hee." Roxy giggled again. "Well, I'll just tell ya quickly then; our lil' Davey's got a crush!"