tw: excessive drinking
A lot of things that happened in life could be chalked up to "people are stupid", but Maribelle tried her best to forget about everything that involved endangered children, or parents who were clueless enough to lose custody of their children (oftentimes at her hands). She liked to focus on the positives whenever possible, whether it was the adoption cases she worked that had happy endings, or her free time spent with friends and family, or even just walking down the street on a nice summer's day and seeing all the flowers and wildlife that the neighborhood had to offer. Looking on the bright side was a skill that she'd had to get good at using to survive her job, but she never knew how much she'd begun to rely on doing it until she felt forced into trying something else.
It was late that summer when all of the planning and stressing over a wedding that wasn't her own, and wasn't going to top her own, became totally worth it, but up until the morning of the ceremony the fear that something was going to go wrong was prevalent in her mind, although not in the minds of anyone else involved. There was worrying about the weather being nasty, about the rental of the outdoor pavilion at the park falling through, about accidents harming the guests on their way to the ceremony, all things that Maribelle jumped to considering that no one else had bothered with.
"You're only worrying because your luck's so bad that if you were in my shoes, all of that would happen and then some," Lissa teased, which made Maribelle sputter out rebuttals that relied less on the concept of luck and more on other, real things. Despite having every reason to believe that luck was real and that hers was the worst, she still insisted that it was just a construct people justified everything with and that it wasn't real at all. Even still, she knew deep down that Lissa was right about it, that if their roles had been switched right then there would have been a freak storm to ruin the ceremony right from the start.
But it didn't happen and everything went exactly as planned, no issues or concerns to speak of, and with the wedding being completely successful it meant that it was time for Maribelle to get a bit of payback on her best friend for something she'd done to her immediately after her own wedding. "So, should we start placing bets now on how long after your honeymoon you announce that you're with child?" she asked Lissa, as they were standing off to the side together after the reception had ended and there was nearly no one left at the park. "I'll give it exactly a month, just for some wiggle room."
"Oh gods, you're really going to get on me about that now, aren't you? I mean, I deserve it after all the pestering I gave you, but seriously? I have two nieces I can watch if I want time with a baby, I don't need to force myself into that quite yet." Laughing, because she recognized that the tables had been turned on her, Lissa ran a hand through her hair as it fell onto her shoulder. "Whatever happens is gonna happen though, and I'm not going to fight for or against it. You know, maybe you could do the same, and we could raise kids at the same time!"
"Whoa there, I'm not—you know that we're not going to be trying to have a child at any point anytime soon, why would you suggest that now? Maybe when it comes time for your second one we'll start considering it." Now it was Maribelle laughing while Lissa shushed herself and stared in shock at her friend, unsure of how to take that suggestion. "But I'm proud of you, letting things happen naturally, it makes life more exciting to know that every day might be the one."
"Every day, minus these next couple of weeks because I am not letting you be right on this."
True to her word, by the time it was a month post-wedding Lissa still hadn't said a thing to anyone, and she was adamant in her position that nothing had happened at all. Rather than force the issue and make the situation more messy than it needed to be, Maribelle took a hands-off approach to the whole thing, accepting that when something needed to be said, she would be told, and asking about it would just bring up more memories of when the situation had been her being pestered; those memories were just like thinking about bad work cases, they were to be avoided at all costs unless absolutely necessary.
And so things went on, life continued without much in the way of conversation between the two due to the idea that if they talked, that was what they'd talk about and Maribelle wasn't quite sure she wanted to spend all her time talking about something she'd already tried to do for herself. Even though there had been a renaissance in their friendship in the months leading up to the wedding, it seemed that she and Lissa were starting to drift apart once more, and although there was a clear blame for it, she knew that if Lissa were to give a reason she'd have exactly one name to throw into the mix: Panne. It was true, Maribelle had gone back to being buddy-buddy with Panne after playing the role of matron of honor was no longer necessary, but it wasn't because she wanted to avoid Lissa. Now that she was newly married she was focusing on things that stood on ground Maribelle had tread on years before, they were currently at two different points in their lives and needed to handle things as such.
Besides, it was a lot easier to keep a friendship with Panne afloat when they saw each other frequently, running into each other whenever Maribelle was required to check on clients who were seeking care. If she wanted to see Lissa, she'd have to venture into the main part of the hospital, and after having spent enough time in there for personal reasons she typically tried to stay away as much as possible. "You know, if you get caught talking with me by your other friend, she may have both our heads," Panne reminded Maribelle one day when they were sitting in her office, taking a moment to catch up before finding specific rooms where children in need waited for them. "It is a fear I have every time you spend more time than necessary with me."
"Lissa's not the kind of person to actually start picking fights over me being close with someone else, we've known each other far too long for that to be a thing." Maribelle's immediate thoughts contrasted with what she'd just said, knowing that Lissa would start a huge argument over the situation if she wanted to. "I think it would work best if you and her got to know each other, though, she's really not all that bad."
"If she is cut from the same cloth her brother is, I think I can do without knowing her personally, as I already know him." Her words were sincere, said in such a tone that Maribelle knew if she questioned it she would be put through the wringer for not accepting someone's opinion. "However, if you enjoy her so much there must be some redeeming qualities to her, hm?"
"Y-yeah, there sure must be." It was in that moment that Maribelle found herself struggling to understand how she'd justify being friends with someone who was as difficult to be around as Lissa was, someone who was constantly being annoying and overdramatic and a pain in everyone's side. She hoped it wouldn't come to having to give reasons, and that Panne would accept her opinion exactly as she had just done for her. "But no worries, I won't force you two to get to know each other, she can deal with it that we're friends."
The phone in the office started ringing and rather than continue the conversation Panne chose to answer it, taking a few seconds to hear the request on the other end before slamming the phone on her desk and jumping to her feet. "We must leave, right now," she said, sounding stern with her words. "Not an emergency on a hospital-wide scale, but there's an altercation on one of the floors involving who you're here for. We must put a stop to it before it escalates."
That was one of the dangers of being a lawyer involved in cases about children, the threat of parents acting out, and Maribelle could do nothing but follow along in agreement with Panne's direction. She couldn't get personally involved if these were her clients acting out, but having the scene noted for use on the courtroom floor was always useful. It turned out to be a mostly verbal argument involving feuding parents over the care of their child, caught in the middle of their nasty custody battle while fighting an illness, but it came close enough to blows that Maribelle knew that she'd be able to give decisive evidence for which parent deserved to have primary custody afterwards.
These kinds of interruptions were common whenever the ladies were meeting in the office there at the hospital, but finding the time for both of them to be free and away from work was harder and harder with every passing month. It wasn't that either of their personal lives had changed, but rather the conditions of their jobs; more often than not Maribelle's "days off" ended up with her going into work to handle cases her coworkers didn't want to deal with. This was enough of a strain on her marriage, as she was getting to spend only the latest of nights and earliest of mornings with Vaike on the regular, but it would have been a death knell for her friendships if it wasn't for everyone either accepting that she wasn't always free or having wild jobs of their own.
Still though, the itch was there to have another friendly get-together outside of work, like they'd been working on having before, but Maribelle didn't want to bring up the suggestion and have things fall apart like the last one she had suggested herself had. Every time she and Panne were talking, and Panne was not wearing her official coat or she had her sleeves rolled up, she couldn't help but look at the freckle-like marks that dotted her arm, and when she'd see them she'd remember her helplessness that night and how this woman had bared her soul in order to support her through that hell. There had to be time for them to make positive memories together, and it needed to be sooner rather than later.
A period of relief seemed to be on the horizon, forced-vacation time that Maribelle had no interest in using but had to unless she wanted to cause a headache for the people owning the law firm. While everyone else was intending on taking the holidays off, she agreed to get an earlier set of days off, if only because she had to do it. When she brought this up with Panne, it was clear an idea had formed immediately in her mind. "While I only wish you had gotten time off earlier than that, we could use a day of your time off to have a late birthday celebration for myself if you wouldn't mind. Lon'qu and I try to celebrate our birthdays right in-between them, as they are about a month apart, but I could suggest that we do something for his on his, then hold off on my own until you and your husband can join us for it."
"You're basically inviting me to your birthday party?" Maribelle asked, wanting to make sure she was understanding the suggestion properly. "That's kind of a big deal, don't you think? But it has been a long while since we last had the time to do something together, I would be down for it if you are."
"Wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't serious about the idea. I do believe that if we all pitched in and brought a meal to our place for that evening, complete with dessert and light refreshments, together we would make my birthday a lovely time. As long as we aren't referring to it as a 'birthday party', I despise the term." Once again, the genuine tone to Panne's voice made questioning it impossible, but in this instance Maribelle had no desire to ask her anything to make her reconsider what she'd said. The idea was lovely and was absolutely something they needed to do again, and why would she have wanted anything but to get to help her friend celebrate?
It wasn't set in stone that day, or in the days following it, but there came a point where it was decided that they were going to go through with this plan, and from there the actual planning began. Roles were assigned, the two women decided which one of them would provide what, and for a moment at the start Maribelle was getting flashbacks to planning a wedding in terms of how much allocation there was for who needed to do what. But this wasn't nearly as serious as a wedding, even if it would be much more fun, and it made her think for a second about how she would have had enjoyed Lissa's wedding so much more if there had been less organization and more sitting around having a nice meal.
What was in the past needed to stay there, yet the nagging voice in Maribelle's head kept telling her that something was going to go wrong with their plans, no matter how much effort they both put into it. The week leading up to it was spent finalizing the menu and coming up with what kind of treats she'd bring over to go alongside the meal that Panne was going to make, and when they'd decided on simple finger foods and a nice, homemade cake Maribelle figured she had the easy side of the cooking to handle. All she needed was to buckle down, chop some veggies and bake a cake that everyone would be envious of, and then she'd be set.
The whole time she was cooking, feeling pride in her preparations, something felt wrong about what she was doing but she couldn't quite place a finger on it. This was being done alongside making her own dinner for that night, but it wasn't until what she was intending to eat then was finished that she realized what was wrong was that she'd done all of that prep work without a single peep coming from her husband. While her work had been draining on her in terms of extra hours at the office, Vaike never had seemed to have the same problem when it came to late nights, and so him not being home was as far from typical as it could get.
That was assuming that he hadn't gotten wrapped up in finishing some project for someone, and Maribelle at least tried to give him the benefit of the doubt when she could. She knew with absolute certainty that he wasn't out cheating on her, and he was a grown man who could handle himself if he'd gotten lost or invited out somewhere, so she wasn't going to play the role of his mother and try to sleuth out where he was. If he didn't get back for dinner, he wasn't going to get to eat what she'd cooked, easy as that.
It was a shame that, in her attempt to remind herself that she didn't need to worry about him, she'd left the cake in the oven just a bit too long, burning it only slightly on one side yet still filling the house with the lingering smell of burnt cake. The damage didn't seem to be too bad, and she didn't want to make another cake completely from scratch, so she frosted it and made one side look much more appealing to eat than the other, hoping that everyone else would see it the same way she did and enjoy it regardless.
Even still, after the cake was finished and dinner had long since been eaten, there was still no sign of Vaike being home for the night, and Maribelle was beginning to grow suspicious of what he was possibly doing. There had been times where he'd mention to her that he would be out late and she would forget to remember that he'd said a word, but she was positive he hadn't once mentioned anything about being gone for an extended period of time. Although they did have their understanding that they could do what they wanted without the other hounding them for details, she was starting to wonder if she should break that level of trust and call him anyway.
Or, since she had everything done for the night, she could just kick back and accept that she was having a night home alone, and not worry too much about where he was. He was rather horrible at keeping secrets from her anyway, so if he did happen to be out doing something he shouldn't have been, she would have been made aware of it immediately after he got back, if he got back. But by the time she started to think about the possibility that he wasn't ever returning, she had already decided to crack into a bottle of wine that she had been keeping for a nice night to herself, and once she'd had a glass there was no doing anything beyond the walls of the house.
One thing led to another and Maribelle ended up sleeping on the couch that night, having laid down there at some point to try and read a book and ultimately passing out with it on her face, a half-empty glass of wine sitting on the floor next to her. It was nearly noon when she woke up, the living room bright with the day's sunshine as she sat up and tried to recall what had happened to put her in the position she was now in. When she knocked the glass of wine over everything came flooding back to her, as she scrambled to clean up the mess before the wine could cause too much of a stain.
It was when she entered the kitchen and saw her attempt at making a cake sitting on the counter still, alongside all of the food she'd made the night before, uncovered and primed to being spoiled, that she realized her whole night had been wasted because she'd decided to start drinking. "I…I have to fix this, I cannot take any of this to the dinner tonight, there's too much of a health risk I'd be making," she said to herself, before pushing those thoughts out of her mind so that she could go back to cleaning the other mess she'd made. Why she'd decided to drink on her own, she knew, but why she hadn't made sure to have everything taken care of before hand she wasn't positive. Now she had a bunch of things she needed to fix, and quickly, unless she wanted to make a fool of herself in front of a friend.
As it turned out, taking spoiled food to the dinner party would probably still have been overshadowed by the other thing that was going to be accompanying her. It was after she'd tossed everything (including the cake, because it felt rock-hard due to not being covered overnight) and was while she was formulating her plan of attack for restocking and recreating what she needed to take with her that she'd decided she should freshen herself up before going out to the store. When entering the bedroom to grab a change of clothes and use her nice shower in the master bathroom, she saw that there was definitely someone in the bed, and as she'd last known herself to be home alone that was reason for concern. The solution to that was to throw the first thing she could think of at whoever was in the bed, which ended up being a shoe that was sitting near the door.
The impact was enough to bring the person in the bed to sitting, and Maribelle gasped when she saw that it was her husband after all, despite him never having come home the night before. "C'mon, was that necessary?" he asked, voice slow and forced, almost as if he was miserable just opening his mouth to talk. "I need t'sleep, now."
"Where were you last night? I was worried sick about you, you didn't come home and I know you didn't tell me where you were going, so do it right this minute before I—before I throw something else at you!" Already Maribelle was bending down to grab a second shoe, but she stopped when she saw a wildly-shaking arm get extended in her direction, wordlessly begging her to not throw anything. "That's not explaining yourself, Vaike, you could have died and I wouldn't have ever known where you were!"
"Me and some friends were out last night, celebratin' a birthday. Last minute kind 'a thing, wasn't anythin' you'd have been interested in." Sounding even more miserable than he had been before, Vaike turned his arm so that he could gesture for Maribelle to join him in the bed, which she did after a moment's hesitation. As she got closer to him, she could smell the overwhelming scents that reminded her of bar scenes, of places that she'd go to sit and watch people drink until they couldn't drink anymore and blow smoke in each other's faces. Her nose must have turned up at the scent, because he gave a rough chuckle at her. "Ya get it now, don't ya?"
She nodded, bringing her hand to her face to at least mask the scent. "Yes, I sure do, and now I'm going to have to ask you to wash the sheets in the bed, I doubt I'll be able to sleep in it as it currently is due to…how you decided to lay in it."
"Trust me, I'll wash it all once I get some sleep or somethin'. We ain't plannin' on doin' anythin' today, are we?" Her initial reaction was to say no, because she could tell he really needed to sleep, but she knew that she had to break it to him that they had plans for that night that were rather important. "You're gonna say we are, I gotcha. I'll just take a short nap then, thankfully we had a car t'sleep in last night outside the place but that ain't much of a comfortable place when there's three 'a ya there and two of 'em are cops."
"You can sleep as long as it takes for me to get back from the store and get the food for tonight set up a second time, but after that you have some serious cleaning to do." Backing away to try and rescue herself from the smells that were still assaulting her face, Maribelle nearly ran to the closet to pick out her clothes, then crossed the room as fast as she could to get into the bathroom. Her shower was long, as she took the time to fully come up with her plan of attack for the day, but she hadn't expected to be joined in the bathroom at any point while she was in there; when she heard the door open she jumped and would have slipped had she not grabbed onto the wall for support the moment she hear the knob turn, and so when the shower curtain was pulled open on her she was less shocked but initially wondered if she was about to get killed until she saw Vaike's face staring at her.
"Would ya mind if I jumped in there with ya, I think it'd do me more good t'take a shower right now than try to sleep, if we're bein' honest. Can't sleep if I keep smellin' like the bar we were at, y'know?" Maribelle didn't want to let him in, she was already starting to smell what was lingering on his skin and clothes once more, but she wasn't going to force him to wait for her to finish, and since he was already there it made no sense to tell him to go use the guest shower. Her silence was taken as a positive response and he had soon stripped down and climbed in with her, sitting on the floor of the tub with his eyes closed and head tilted forward, almost as if he'd fallen asleep in there immediately after entering.
She found herself looking down at him for a while, now lost in wondering how to handle how he was feeling, but she remembered that she had a lot of other things to take care of before they went to Panne's house for dinner, and she couldn't spend all afternoon in the shower with him. "Make sure you turn the water off when you get out, and don't stay in too long, you need to get that bed cleaned before too much longer," she told him as she stepped out of the shower, narrowly avoiding stepping on his dirty clothes as she exited.
The whole time she was drying off and getting dressed, she didn't hear a word from him in there, although to keep from suspecting that he really had fallen asleep she could hear him shifting around. It was when she was just about to leave the bathroom, doing a last-minute check of her hair that she'd pinned back despite being wet, that she heard anything other than rustling of curtains and splashing of water—and what she heard made her whole body cringe in fear of what it meant. That fear only grew worse when she opened the door and found the bed to already be completely stripped of all its sheets, leaving a bare mattress and pillows in its place.
She hadn't even left the bathroom yet, and already she was wondering if she needed to make the call to cancel the night's plans. "I hear ya out there, just get t'doin' whatever ya were gonna do, I'll be fine here," Vaike said, trying to sound forceful as he spoke, but when his last words were quickly followed by what she knew was him throwing up again.
"I don't exactly believe you with that happening, but if you insist." When she'd had the feeling that something would go wrong when the plans were made, Maribelle had anticipated an incident more along the lines of her mistake from the night before, burning cakes and leaving all the food out to become inedible. She hadn't expected there to be more to go wrong than that, but there they were, now having to deal with one thing that was fixable and one that most likely wasn't with anything but time. Calling Panne to cancel was something she was ready to do, but every time she told herself to go through with calling her, she hesitated because she didn't want to seem like a flaky friend.
What was there that she could do, though? There was going to be enough food and place setting for four people, and there were only going to be three that would be in any state of being able to eat at this rate. Could she just go on her own, and explain to Panne and Lon'qu that something had happened to Vaike that rendered him unable to attend? But that would lead to her having to explain what had happened, and the moment that they learned that he'd picked different friends over them they would not be pleased with him in the slightest. So what then, was there a different course of action that could be taken? Maribelle knew that she could always invite someone else as her plus-one, but the choices of who that could be were slim at best, with Lissa being the top candidate but also being someone who hated the friendship she'd be witnessing.
"I need to just call her and tell her that we won't be attending," she decided, grabbing her phone as she sat in her car outside of the grocery store, looking at the front doors after debating if she should even go in or not. "We can reschedule for a different time, but today doesn't work because he's not feeling well and I'm not dragging him to their house to make a fool of us both."
But as she stared at her phone screen, looking at Panne's number as it was dialed and the call was started, she regretted making that choice. "Is something the matter?" Panne's voice asked immediately after the call was answered. "Or is this a question about what to bring?"
That was the exact opening that Maribelle needed in order to rectify the issue of calling without fully being committed to cancelling the dinner. "Yeah, I might have messed up on my food preparations last night and need to quickly make something new," she replied, not fully telling a lie about what happened but definitely lying about why she was calling. "Do you have any suggestions about what I should bring that I can properly make between now and when we should be at your place?"
"Not a one, I'm afraid, but do remember to avoid any potatoes in whatever it is you make, unless you expect to make two versions of something." That was something they'd discussed back when the dinner was in its planning stage, Panne having a rather severe allergy to potatoes that made her violently sick just by tasting them. "If you cannot provide anything that's fine, as long as you still bring dessert to share. Between myself and Lon'qu we have made quite a few interesting things for you and Vaike to enjoy with us."
Hearing her husband's name be mentioned made Maribelle tense up, but she wasn't going to break it to Panne right then that he wasn't exactly feeling the greatest. "That sound wonderful, I'll try to think of something to make in what time I have left, but if all else fails I have a lovely cake to provide."
It wasn't until she hung up that she realized that there was nowhere near enough time to bake, cool, and frost a new cake before she was supposed to be there, and the one cake she'd made was not anything anyone needed to be eating. Glancing at the door to the grocery store once more, Maribelle sighed, knowing that what she needed to do in order to fix what she'd done wrong by getting a bit drunk on wine was shady at best, but if she didn't do it then she risked sickening her friends with a stale cake.
Two hours later and Maribelle had done the best she could to recreate what she'd made the night before, although her second try at everything seemed to be a lot sadder than the first time around. This was partially because the store had been crowded and she hadn't been able to get a lot of what she wanted because they were out of stock, and partially because while she was in the middle of her chopping and preparing she'd been joined in the kitchen by her half-dressed and still visibly unwell husband, who'd drawn himself a chair and tried to act like he was feeling much better than he was.
"I don't get why ya keep lookin' back at me, I'm fine," he'd insisted almost every time Maribelle had turned from her cooking to check on him, earning a shake of the head and some reminder that he wasn't. "Y'know what, I could prove it to ya if ya wanted me to, I really could. Tell me t'do somethin' and I'll do it, no problems."
"The last thing I need right now is for me to take you up on that offer and ask you to do something, only for you to make everything worse by getting sick again. Just…go take a nap or get out of my hair, I don't need you spreading your germs in what I'm making." Her denials were met with him laughing, correcting her that there was nothing contagious about what was wrong with him—it was just that he'd drank way too much and then some, and was paying for it. "Yes, I am fully aware you are experiencing the worst hangover of your life today, and on the day of our dinner with Panne and her husband at that."
"Don't blame me, it wasn't my idea t'keep gettin' drinks, I just went along with it. When someone else is payin' for your night out ya don't tell 'em no for anythin'." The more she heard about his night out, the more Maribelle realized that she was married to an absolute moron, but it was so perfectly Vaike to do what he'd done that she couldn't criticize him for it. Besides, he'd made it home in one piece and hadn't gotten into any trouble outside of drinking far more than he could handle, so there wasn't much she could get upset with him about outside of things that were more under her control than his.
But it wasn't in her character to let him get away with something without any kind of consequences of her doing, and it was while she was finishing up meal prep that she came to the conclusion of what she was going to do. "You don't think you're going to get out of having to come with me to Panne's house just because you're hungover, do you?"
"Uh, yeah, pretty sure I ain't gonna be eatin' whatever it is you've made, and it'd be rude if I went and didn't eat what she made, so I was plannin' on kinda kickin' back here and hopin' this passes soon enough." He gave her a big smile, and while his attempt was cute and she thought his logic was sound, she wasn't going to let him escape justice when she was already doing so much to salvage her night. "C'mon Maribelle, you're gonna make me go? Even with me feelin' like I am?"
"You've said it yourself many times, you're fine, and if you're fine you can come to dinner with me." She didn't want him to go and make her look bad, but she wasn't going to let him get out of this easily; either way something was going to go wrong and she was trying to choose the way that made her look more sympathetic. Having to bring a sick husband to dinner just to keep up appearances, after he'd done so much to insist he wasn't sick at all? That was his fault if anything went wrong, not hers. "Anyway, you and Lon'qu can catch up and spend all night talking, it'll be good for you to spend time with someone you know won't ask you to go to the bar afterwards."
Once again she looked at Vaike, this time to see his reaction to what she'd said, and he was staring at her with a blank expression, almost as if he didn't get what she meant. This became obvious when he said, "Okay, usually I getcha when ya say somethin' like that, but what d'ya mean he won't ask me t'the bar? I've heard stories 'bout him wantin' t'go out when there's sports or somethin' he wants t'watch."
"He doesn't drink, Vaike, neither he nor Panne do. I'm just saying that you won't have to worry about him trying to rope you into a round two of last night, so you don't have to think about getting any sicker than this." While she was speaking she could see him starting to look more uncomfortable than he had been, and it was immediately after her mentioning him being sick that he got to his feet and left the room, leaving her behind shaking her head at what she'd just seen. "Of course you're still throwing up, it's just our luck that…"
Her voice trailed off as she realized she'd said that l-word that kept coming to her mind whenever something bad happened to either one of them. While she still firmly believed that luck wasn't an actual thing beyond a person's own choices, and this was no exception to that, she still ended up buying into the idea just because it was so easy to blame everything on an abstract concept like that. Shaking her head to show that she was not finishing the thought, she went back to chopping the last of the vegetables she'd cleaned up for a nice starter to snack on at the dinner.
None of her slices were as pretty as the ones she'd done the night before, but that was fine because it wasn't like she was providing for some fancy soiree, she was just making food for her and friends to enjoy together. As for the cake issue, she looked over at the clearly store-bought cake that she'd moved into her own baking pan to make it at least look like she'd done her absolute best with it and gave it a halfhearted smile. Even if everything else was falling apart, at least they'd be able to enjoy the slow burn of it all with the taste of delicious bakery-made cake.
At the end of the two hours of preparation time she had, it was time to pack everything up and get it over to where they were going, which would have been a lot easier had she been able to rely on someone else helping her out. But she knew that she couldn't trust Vaike to hold anything while they rode over to Panne's house, just in case he decided he was going to get sick again on the way; after the second attempt at making things she didn't want to lose all progress again because of him. That led to her having all the food carefully placed in the backseat of her car, him in the passenger's seat after quite a bit of arguing about if he really had to go with or not, and her responsible for driving them there.
Getting there took much longer than it had any business taking, and that was entirely due to how many times she had to pull over out of lane so that she could stop for her husband's sake. By the time they were outside the place that Panne and Lon'qu called home, they were twenty minutes late, Maribelle was certain she'd missed several calls from the person expecting her arrival, and Vaike really wanted to be anywhere but there, just because he was not feeling as good as he'd pretended to be.
When she did fish her phone from her purse, she was correct in the fact that she had missed calls, but not a single one of them was from Panne—instead, they were all from Lissa, almost as if she knew that Maribelle was spending time with her other close friend that night. "Of all the times to try getting me to talk, you had to pick tonight?" she asked under her breath, ignoring that the calls had been made without a single voicemail left for explanation. "I'll get to you when I get to you, I suppose, because right now I have other things to take care of. Let's get this food inside where it belongs before we end up too much later, shall we?"
Her question was asked while tucking her phone away and looking straight towards Vaike, who didn't seem to be listening to a word she said anyway. This led to her having to carry as much as she could without destroying anything to the front door, while he lagged completely behind and stayed sitting in the car. When the front door opened and Panne was standing there, amused at something or other, she offered to help Maribelle with what she was carrying and ended up taking the cake out of her arms. "Thank you for being so willing to supply these things for us, it makes the meal feel more like a group effort than one person providing for everyone," she said, seemingly not noticing that the cake was clearly not homemade like had been promised. "You'll see what I've done once we're inside."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be better than what I've brought." Maribelle shifted how she was holding what was in her arms, hoping that she wasn't about to drop it right there. "It has been a day, let me tell you."
"If you are going to tell me, let's get into it once these things have been set down, I would hate for either of us to drop something because we got distracted in conversation." There was a pause, as Panne let Maribelle inside, only to look around and not see anyone there with her. "Is your husband with you tonight? Lon'qu had been looking forward to talking to him about a couple of things."
That was the question Maribelle had been dreading since the second or third time she'd had to stop on the drive over. "He'll be in with us shortly, I'm sure. He hasn't been feeling the best today and—"
"I am aware of why that is," Panne interrupted, shuffling her feet before heading into the house, Maribelle gasping before following her. "A pair of officers were speaking of their exploits last night at length with Lon'qu earlier and happened to mention him by name. According to their story, it's a miracle he isn't dead at this point."
"—I'm sorry, what?" Usually Maribelle hated when she was interrupted, and had there not been so much of a revelation there at the end of the statement she would have chided Panne for doing something like that to her. This was different, though, and she was thankful that it had happened but also bothered by what it contained. "No one informed me that he should be dead, no one even told me that he was going to be out with friends last night until he was home this afternoon. But it's just gossip fodder there at the jail, huh?"
Entering the conversation by chiming in from where he sat on the floor, some kind of puzzle in front of him that he was working on, Lon'qu corrected, "It wasn't 'gossip fodder', it was two officers informing me of why they were both unwell enough to not feel comfortable being on patrol, therefore being stuck doing busywork for me. They just happened to bring up their third man by name and talk about how he'd drank them both under the table and then some, a disgusting habit that should have killed him."
"Why are you talking at me like he's an alcoholic? He went out with friends and got a bunch of drinks bought for him, it's whoever was paying's fault that he drank too much." Setting the containers of food down on the kitchen table, right next to everything Panne had set up, Maribelle looked over at Lon'qu as he stood and stretched, walking right towards her once he was situated. The anger in his expression from her talking back to him was almost tangible, and she was starting to fear for her life, having just argued with someone so good at his jail job that he was known all over the area for his manner of dealing with problematic people.
She was sputtering, trying to spit out words to explain herself, and he silenced her with a single hand motion. "Enough of that, it seems that I heard more of the story from them than you have from him and that's a tragedy. He was buying himself drinks, they each set up a tab to start the night. All of what he drank was on his own dime."
"Lon'qu, is it appropriate to be sharing someone's actions with their wife for them? If you gave him time I am certain he would come clean about what he did." Panne could see that Maribelle was conflicted about what she'd just heard, her hands starting to curl into fists from the anger she was now feeling. "With one revelation you may have just jeopardized our meal, I hope you understand."
"Whatever, if the meal's ruined then it's on him for not being honest." Lon'qu gave Maribelle a once-over and shrugged, not fazed by her angered stance but recognizing that he should do something to calm her slightly. "Now that his dirty laundry has been aired for everyone to know, we can decide how to handle it as a group."
Voice cracking as she was trying her hardest not to cry in anger, Maribelle replied, "He's out in my car, I brought him with me because I…because he never told me how bad it was and I thought he would get over it. Drank his friends under the table, I can't believe that! That's not something a responsible adult does!"
"Out in the car, you say? I'll go check on him, his untimely drinking has thrown a wrench in what I had intended for him to do for me tonight so I have nothing better to do." Heading towards the front door, Lon'qu only looked back once, to see Panne giving Maribelle a comforting shoulder clasp but saying nothing to her as she stood there on the verge of tears. "Perhaps their explanation was a bit over-the-top, I highly doubt a man could live most of a day after drinking to that much excess," he said, before opening the front door and exiting the house, leaving the women there to themselves.
"That would be Lon'qu for you, always the mood-killer. I'm positive that there'll be nothing wrong after today, if Vaike handles his hangovers just like some others I know. It is an inconvenience in terms of timing but what matters is that he's alive, correct?" The shoulder clasp was turning into a rather awkward hug, but in that moment Maribelle didn't mind that she was being pushed into her friend at a weird angle, she just appreciated the contact. "Now let's get things set up for once they come in, or at least for when Lon'qu returns."
Moving past what had been said was difficult, but after a couple more moments of being hugged and a few sniffles to clear her mind, Maribelle was ready to start plating everything she'd brought with her that wasn't the cake. When she opened the first container, that should have been filled with freshly-cut vegetables, she found it to be mostly correct, but the smell of something a lot less clean was present in it. Blinking as she tried placing what the scent was, she felt herself almost throw up when she realized that she'd somehow managed to put the new food in a container she'd used for something the night before, without having washed out the remnants of what had spoiled. Panne too noticed that there was something amiss but she didn't call attention to it, merely placing a couple serving trays on the table for Maribelle's use.
She had to pick around anything that looked like it even remotely touched the sides and bottom of the container, but she managed to salvage what she could of what she'd brought with her, and thankfully that was the only container that seemed to have that issue. "Why are you only putting half of your vegetable platter out?" Panne asked after seeing what was still sitting in the container. "I'm certain that I could make a meal out of that alone, are you saving it for in case we need to replenish what you've already put out?"
"Oh, uh, yeah, that's exactly it!" Laughing to cover the fact that she wasn't going to tell the truth about why she was keeping the rest of the food in its original container, Maribelle sealed it back up and stacked all of the other containers on top of it to make sure that no one got into it without making a lot of noise before they made a huge mistake. "Besides, if it's just going to be two or three of us eating, we don't need all of everything that we've made for tonight, don't you think?"
"There's always room for leftovers, they make for good work lunches, but I see your point." Her eyes flickering to how suspiciously Maribelle had stacked everything, Panne pushed past any questions she might have had about it and instead looked at the relatively small buffet they'd created for themselves. "We shall dine like queens tonight, a lovely way to celebrate my birthday several weeks late. And with one of my closest friends, no less."
Maribelle smiled, enjoying being addressed in such a manner. "I'm happy to be part of the festivities, even if it ends up being just me here with you. Makes it that much more meaningful, our time spent together. Why—"
She was cut off by the front door flying open, the unmistakable sound of her phone ringing in her purse filling the air, the source of the sound coming in the hand of the person who'd opened the door. "Whoever is calling you, they have been calling and refuse to stop, you need to do something about them," Lon'qu said, swinging the purse back and forth almost as if he was going to throw it across the house to get it to its owner. "Vaike insisted on answering it himself but I told him he would not want to get involved in your affairs, especially if he doesn't want you in his, and that got him to stop."
There wasn't any reason for Maribelle not to go across the floor as fast as she could to get her purse out of Lon'qu's hands, but she chose not to even check her phone to see who was calling. "It's probably Lissa still, I don't know what she wants from me but I know if I try talking to her now she'll get upset that I'm here and not somewhere with her."
"Does she get territorial about us being together if she finds out it's happening while it's still going on?" Watching as Maribelle came back to the tableside, tossing her purse into a chair to get it out of her own hands, while the sound of the front door closing came in time with the end of the ringtone's duration, Panne started to fidget her hands, becoming uncomfortable about something. "If it is the case, I would prefer you not tell her that you're here with me, I would rather not meet my untimely end because of her being jealous."
"What are you talking about? Lissa might get jealous that I spend time with people that aren't her, but she wouldn't ever dare try to kill someone over it." Just mentioning that made Maribelle feel strange, unsure of how that leap of logic had been made but not liking it one bit. "Why are you insisting that one of my longtime best friends would kill you because you're also my best friend?"
Panne pulled one of the chairs out from the table and gestured for Maribelle to sit in it, taking her own seat once she had done so. "It isn't that I think she would kill me, I have simply known far too many people to die at the hands of someone jealous of them being with someone else. To lose your family that way does things to your mind."
"To lose…your family?" Maribelle repeated, a sinking feeling coming to her as the words passed her lips and she saw Panne's wistful expression. "Panne, you've had a tragic life, haven't you?"
The expression only grew to become more melancholic, Panne not saying anything but rather bringing her hand to rest on the inside of her arm, covering the tattooed-on dots that meant so much to her. "It happened when I was young, a small child raised by a family that loved her more than anything else. A relative decided to get involved with the wrong people, who grew jealous of them spending time with the family as a whole, and it resulted in a gunfight that left everyone gravely injured or dead, minus the children who had hidden themselves in case things turned dark. Then we were separated by the foster system, losing contact with each other over the years. None of them still live, none of the siblings or cousins I once had, all taking their own lives or having their lives taken from them."
"That's why you despise the foster system, because you survived it yourself." Maribelle's voice was soft, as she let the power of Panne's story hit her deep in her soul. This was a woman who'd faced all sorts of horrible situations and made it through them somehow, someone who had a tragic tale to attach to anything she did. "And that's why you're so invested in helping children, because you care for them and want to see them live happy lives, but you, well, can't have your own."
"We've been friends for how long now? Besides, I've bared my heart about child loss before when you needed the comfort, and now I am giving you a look into my past without you needing to have your own heartbreak to connect to it." They stared at each other in silence for a while, unsure of where to go next without making things feel forced, but when Maribelle's phone started ringing again, Panne waved a hand towards it. "You answer that call, I will step outside and check on the men."
Nodding as the plan started to make sense to her, Maribelle waited until Panne was standing up to follow her lead, even though they went in two different directions once they were to their feet. Whereas Panne was going to the door, she was stepping around the table to find her purse half-spilled on a chair, the phone one of the things still remaining inside of it. Just as she'd figured, it was Lissa calling her once more, a notification of the call being the thirty-eighth call from her number that day prominent on the screen. She pressed to answer it and initially put it on speakerphone, but the shrill shriek that came from the other side was enough to get Panne, still inside the house, to turn to look for the source of the noise. That meant muting the speaker long enough to get her to leave, before unmuting it and allowing for Lissa's voice to ring out.
"Isn't that exciting?" she asked, her actual statement being missed due to the speaker being muted for the entirety of it. "Come on Maribelle, you've got to give me credit for this, it's kind of impressive really."
"I'm sorry, whatever it is you're telling me I didn't hear it, could you repeat what you said?" Her request was met with a loud groan, which she expected given who she was talking to. "I said I'm sorry, I was dealing with something and couldn't hear you when you said whatever it is you're so desperately wanting to tell me."
"Okay fine, I'll say it again, but you've got to promise me that you'll be excited when you hear it, deal?"
Excitement was the emotion furthest from Maribelle's mind right at the moment, but she figured she could humor Lissa after so many tries to get through to her. "Sure thing, I'll be more excited than you about whatever it is. So…new position at work? Did Chrom tell you that you're being promoted to on the figurehead board with him? What's the deal?"
"I guess you could kinda call it a promotion," Lissa laughed, her words getting progressively louder. "It's one you were begging me for since, like, this summer though."
"I was begging you for a promotion?" Maribelle blinked in confusion, her mind making jumps she wasn't sure were right but her heart telling her that she needed to stay on the track she was on. "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about, I've only been asking you to—oh gods Lissa, are you moving over to pediatrics? Are you going to be working under Panne now?"
The laughing had subsided, although when Lissa spoke again she was still louder than she had been before. "No, I didn't say it was an actual promotion, and besides, I don't want to work with the sick kids, even if it means getting to see you more. Even though it doesn't matter, I'm probably not going to be working there much longer anyway."
"Why wouldn't you be? You went through all that schooling to get to where you are, doesn't that matter to you?" Maribelle was growing more confused by the second, all the worst-case scenarios coming to her mind. "Lissa, dearest, please tell me you're not dying, I couldn't stand to lose one of my best friends, and to find out by her playing it off as a fun thing!"
"Maribelle, jeez! Lighten up real quick, will you?" In the background, someone was telling Lissa something, a garbled mess of words that Maribelle couldn't understand a single one of, even if whatever it was made Lissa laugh again to hear it. "Nothing bad is happening, not even close to it! You're going about this all wrong! What I said at the start of the call was that I totally proved you wrong by a few months, that's all!"
"I still don't know what you're getting at," Maribelle admitted, before her eyes went wide, thinking back to the conversation they'd had after the wedding that summer: should we start placing bets now on how long after your honeymoon you announce that you're with child? She remembered Lissa's insistence on there being no need for such a thing, despite her guess that it would be a month or so until the announcement, but if she was thinking along the right lines, she really had been proven wrong by a few months. "Oh, I think I might understand now."
"I knew I needed to tell you as soon as I wanted anyone else to know, it's been really hard keeping it secret from you!" Lissa's voice was nearly a squeal, her excitement about her news something that would be contagious if Maribelle wasn't in such a bad mood at the moment. "Yeah, I know how you feel about kids and all that, but I just thought, maybe you'd be super thrilled to know about your best friend having a baby! So, um, are you thrilled?"
It took a moment for Maribelle to will herself to answer, but she swallowed down any reservations she had about the situation and gave a positive response. "Yes, of course I'm thrilled about this! You'll make for an excellent mother when the time comes, I'm so happy for you, I really am!"
"We'll have to see each other real soon so we can talk more about this! And next time, when I call you a bunch you better answer, I was not going to give up on you until you got to hear this from me!" Giving a loving farewell with a giggle, Lissa hung up, leaving Maribelle staring at her phone in absolute disbelief at what had just happened. That was her best friend, someone that she'd known since they were both young, calling her to announce that she was with child, and she was able to do it without a hint of fear or worry that something was going to go wrong.
As if a faucet had turned on inside her, Maribelle was soon consumed by tears, crying in the house where she was still the only person. If all fared well, the only other soul who would see her so distraught would be Panne, who would most likely understand the heartache she had suddenly fallen into without any explanation needed. Because of this, she was not shy about letting her tears fall, knowing that the person who'd see her next wouldn't judge her for being so upset; however, when the door opened with her back turned to it and she didn't bother checking to see who it was, it left her vulnerable for a surprise when a dark-haired man was the one who walked up to her, eyebrows raised at her current state.
"Did you start crying over your husband not-actually-dying?" Lon'qu asked, voice flat and uncaring as he stared at Maribelle, watching as she stiffened up and frantically started wiping her eyes and face. "He's fine, we discussed what he did and what stories people are now telling about him, and then we talked about what I had wanted him to do tonight. There's no reason for any concern about him."
"That's not…I'm not…that's good that he's fine, but I'm not crying over him." While Lon'qu was someone who would definitely know a thing or two about a woman feeling the way she did, thanks to his proximity to Panne, Maribelle had no interest in telling him what had just happened to her. "If he's so good though, why were you outside for so long?"
"We were about to come inside, but Panne came out to tell us to give you some space as you answered that phone of yours. I'm only in here because he was complaining about needing something to drink and I was not going to treat him as an animal and force him to drink from the hose." Already Lon'qu was stepping towards the kitchen, Maribelle still trying to make herself look presentable, but it was while he was in there that she moved from where she'd ended up sitting and started to make her way out. "Where do you think you're going? It better be to tell them all to come inside."
She froze, not expecting to be heard but then she remembered this man worked in the jail, he must have been experienced with listening for people trying to sneak away. "I am going to get them, yes," she replied, lying through her teeth but knowing that she had to do exactly that now. "We'll all be right in, and then we can eat."
"Good, I assisted Panne with cooking today and I must say that it's nice to know that there's at least one other person present tonight that will eat what I made, not just what she did." It was an odd thing to mention, but Maribelle let it roll off her shoulders as she knew Lon'qu wasn't exactly the most pleasant person to be speaking with.
When she poked her head out the front door after opening it, she saw Panne leaning against the front of the house and Vaike half-laying down on the sidewalk, his arms supporting his upper body as he took in some sunshine. "You aren't Lon'qu coming back with water," Panne remarked, a concerned expression on her face as she took note of Maribelle's reddened eyes and tear-covered cheeks. "That call must have been something rough to hear, I am so sorry that it took place while we're supposed to be having a friendly meal. Will you be able to stay with us tonight, or do you need to leave?"
"It wasn't a bad call, don't worry, it was just something I wasn't exactly emotionally ready to hear." Biting her lip to refrain from saying more, Maribelle watched as Panne pushed herself off the siding and came to the door, bustling past her without anything to say. "I heard that you should be fine to come inside or whatever, you drunk idiot. Care to join us in here, or are you going to keep doing whatever it is you're doing?"
"Don't talk t'me like that, Maribelle, I didn't do anythin' wrong." While there was a whole list of things she could rebuke him with, she chose to take the higher road and go back inside without waiting for him to give a yes or no answer to what she'd asked. Whatever he chose to do after that, it was entirely on him and she knew he was aware of it.
Already the couple of the house were sitting at the table, chairs rearranged to accommodate two people on each side of the table, place settings set out and drinks at every chair. "I might have gotten a bit carried away with setting up so we could get right to the meal," Lon'qu explained, not making eye contact with Maribelle at all as she took the seat directly across from Panne, therefore sitting diagonally from him. "From the looks of it, your husband has chosen not to join us even after everything we talked about, which is typical of men like him, I suppose."
"Now Lon'qu, there is no reason to continuously badmouth one of your few friends around here, even if he is a tad difficult to handle at times." Panne scolded, shaking a finger at him before gesturing to everything that had been set out for them food-wise. "We can start eating right now if we'd like, and if he comes in at some point he is welcome to join us."
Even with that offer out there, no one made a move to start eating. Maribelle's mind was other places, somewhere that she hated it being on a day where already so much had gone wrong for her, and Lon'qu was eyeing the door, waiting for the man outside to finally come in, so Panne took it upon herself to grab a serving spoon and stir up some of what she'd made. After scooping some onto her own plate and taking a bite of it, she seemed like she was going to say something, but when she opened her mouth Lon'qu gave her the gesture to silence herself. "I can tell without even looking over at you that you grabbed the wrong thing to eat," he said, pinching his fingers together to get her to close her mouth, but only after taking and swallowing a second bite, which made him visibly cringe. "Why did you do that a second time? You're going to regret it."
"I could have sworn that I placed the correct dish out on the table," she told him, going for a third bite, "which was done without your assistance. If you switched what was out here for any reason, I am going to strangle you."
"It wasn't ever switched, your food was in the smaller bowl and mine was in the bigger one." She dropped her fork at what he said, eyes falling onto what she'd provided for herself, and it wasn't until she had grabbed the fork again and was poking at what was on her plate that Lon'qu let out a harsh chuckle. "That was a joke, Panne, I made sure that what was in reach of you was what you could eat."
To retaliate against the mini heart attack he'd just given her, she punched him in the leg, which made him laugh again, until she'd punched him a second time. As Maribelle watched this, she wished that she could have such a playful and fun interaction with her husband, but he wasn't anywhere to be found and she wasn't going to even want to play like that if he even came inside. The news she'd been told was something happy, yet there she was, feeling sad to know it, and there was not a single person that she could talk to about those emotions because of the scene that was unfolding before her. This was twice now that she'd ended up needing Panne's emotional support when they were having a dinner together (although the other time had been completely by accident), and she couldn't expect to get it.
"What's goin' on in here?" a voice unmistakably belonging to Vaike asked, and everyone's attention shot towards where it was coming from, him standing on shaky legs as he approached the table. "Are ya havin' a slap fight or somethin' without me? That's not cool, ya should know that I love havin' fights like that."
"Are you stupid, walking in here like that without anyone knowing you were coming in? Lon'qu probably has a gun on him, he could have shot you without hesitation," Maribelle snapped, as Vaike took the seat next to hers. "You just love risking your life sometimes, don't you? What an idiot!"
"Thanks, love ya too." Blowing a kiss in her direction, he smiled at the couple across the table, who'd straightened up and were no longer punching each other for whatever reason. "Say, I saw that y'still got that wall decoration up, when're ya gonna tell me where ya got it so I can get one 'a my own?"
"Wall decoration?" Panne repeated, looking to Lon'qu, who shook his head. "Apologies, but it seems we aren't going to discuss that right now."
Rather than accept that answer, Vaike also looked at Lon'qu and said, "I ain't gonna push the issue any further if ya don't want me to, but I really wanna know where ya got that so I can get one for my place. Me and Maribelle, we could use somethin' like that in our main room."
"Leave it right there, we're not interested in where it came from, we go over this every time we come here for something and my stance on the matter hasn't changed." Maribelle could feel herself already getting frustrated with Vaike, and he'd just walked in, and that was a bad sign for anything that could possibly follow. "Let's just eat and try to make the best of tonight however we can, it's been a rollercoaster of a day already and we don't need to have a fight to make things worse."
He didn't seem happy to be shut down like that, but Lon'qu seemed impressed with how she'd gotten him to back off so easily. "Thank you, I've grown tired of explaining that I don't know where it came from to anyone who asks, it was a gift from my old boss when Panne and I got married. Something about 'equality in position' in the home, that's what he said it was. If you wanted your own, I would have to contact him to see where he got it."
"Yeah, and we don't want to make you feel forced to ask someone where one of your old wedding gifts came from. That would just be awkward for everyone." Laughing, Maribelle glanced at Vaike to see that he looked displeased with the answer, but as long as it meant she wasn't going to have to deal with that issue anymore she was fine with him being a little unhappy, especially after everything he'd already put her through that day. "We're going to try eating now, aren't we, my love?"
"What's the point, eatin' will probably just end up goin' horribly wrong, but if ya insist I should maybe I'll give it a shot." Now that he was there, there was nothing stopping everyone from making the night feel like it had been planned to feel, albeit with a few other disruptions in the name of him leaving the table whenever he started feeling unwell. Those were easy enough to overlook, and with everyone at least attempting to eat there was no time for more discussion or anything of the sort.
After they'd finished up with the starters and what had been made as a main course, they sat at the table, talking about life and how everything was going for all of them at the moment, catching up like friends did. Maribelle held her tongue for most of the conversation, not wanting to reveal what she'd been told in that phone call on accident, but her attempt to stay silent was noticed by everyone else and called out. Rather than spoil someone else's secret, she shrugged off the accusations of hiding something and told them all that she was thinking about something that had happened at work, a case that had struck a deep nerve with her.
"The last time you had a case shake you so badly, it set you on the course of wanting a child for yourself to keep safe from the horrors you deal with daily," Panne reminded her, standing up behind her seat but leaning against it to talk. "Tell me that isn't occurring again."
"It isn't, don't worry. Having a child of my own is furthest from my mind right now, you wouldn't even believe how little I want that anymore." It was true, she couldn't say that she wanted a child even slightly most days, but now that she knew that Lissa was having one, she also couldn't say that she wasn't jealous that her friend was going to be getting something she'd previously tried for and lost.
Panne didn't seem to be convinced that she was telling the truth, but at a table with two men who had no idea what had happened the last time that train of thought had been explored, she wasn't going to press further, something for which Maribelle was thankful. "Very well, I can understand that your line of work is stressful and weighs on the mind if you dwell too much on it. If you need someone to listen to you vent about anything, do not hesitate to call on me at any time."
"Are ya sayin' that she needs t'vent at someone she's not married to?" Vaike asked, almost sounding offended that Panne had made the offer. "'cause lemme tell ya, she's allowed t'do as much ventin' to me as she wants, I'll listen t'her no matter what."
Snapping his fingers to try and get Vaike's attention before he could make a fool out of himself, Lon'qu found that he was being ignored and had to instead loudly bark out a command to be listened to. "You are a different sort of support than what Panne would be, please stop making everything about yourself. I fail to understand why you were invited out last night, given how insufferable you tend to get when you start speaking."
"Hey now, let's not use fighting words when talking to each other," Maribelle cut in, speaking over Vaike's rebuttal that he wasn't insufferable at all. "I thank you for trying to explain what's going on, but that was a rude way to do it, Lon'qu. As for you, Vaike, you barely pay attention to me when I'm telling you about work on a good day, why should I trust you to listen to me when it's a bad one?"
If there was going to be a response to that, it was overridden by both men getting to their feet, almost as if they were about to start a fight there by the kitchen table; instead of arguing words as was expected, one of them headed for the other side of the room while the other quickly went outside, leaving it to be just the two women at the table once more. "I suppose that is a sign tonight's festivities should start coming to a close," Panne said, arching her back to stretch as she stood tall. "I'll slice up the cake you provided and then after we've finished with it you and your husband can take your leave."
"That sounds like the safest plan, even if it's a bit heartbreaking to hear it." This was not how she'd imagined the night would go at all, with fighting and someone being sick and a call in the middle of it that was still weighing on her mind. Maribelle couldn't say much more about how she felt, not when Lon'qu was technically still in the room they were in, just on the other side of it, so she gave Panne a mournful glance and left it at that.
There'd be time to discuss what was so troublesome at a later time anyway, long after they dined on store-bought birthday cake that everyone knew wasn't homemade but didn't want to call attention to. Sometimes, the things most obvious in a situation needed no explanation, and that happened to become one of them.
A/N: this is the chapter where everything starts falling apart, but lemme tell ya that the next one is 10x the ride this one was c: