Sunday, September 12, 2010

"I can't believe you own a video game system that has a name synonymous with peeing," Mary slurred. Marshall had brought his Nintendo Wii to her house for a game night. The partners had been drinking for the past 2 hours and they were working on their second bottle of tequila. "Who thought the Nintendo Wii was a good thing to call a gaming system?"

"Actually, the original name for the Wii was the Nintendo Revolution," Marshall was just as gone as Mary but you wouldn't have been able to tell due to his superior control over himself, "I challenge you to Rainbow Road on 150cc."

"First, I don't know what kind of bet the creators of the Wii lost because the 'Revolution' is a much cooler name," Mary paused to take another shot of tequila, "Secondly, I don't know what the fuck Rainbow Road is! I feel like it's a GLBT Pride Parade route or something."

"You, my dear, are the perfect level of drunk to make this interesting," Marshall powered up the console and handed her the wheel, "use that button to accelerate and just turn the wheel when necessary. You can flick it to do tricks."

Mary watched impatiently as he explained the controls.

"Ok, ok, I get it; let's get this show on the road!"

"One last thing," Marshall began as the screen came up.

Mary looked at him in exasperation.

"Use the button on the back of the wheel to use items," he finished, "trust me, you'll want to use them." He gave a drunken smile as the character selection came up.

Marshall chose Luigi on the Mach Bike in Manual mode, and Mary chose Peach on the same bike on Automatic.

"Prepare to die, Doofus," she challenged.

"Winner gets to sing the song?"

"As if there were any other prize," she smiled evilly at him as the race signaled the beginning. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Marshall's game face come out as he leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees as he held the Wii remote and nun chuck loosely in his hands.

"What the fuck?" Mary was pissed when her character got a slower start than anyone else. She began to move forward and was plunged into epileptic hell. "Can I make my character flip the others off? You all stole my item boxes!"

Marshall continued the race and Mary loathed to see he was in first place already.

"Who the fuck is littering? Why are there banana peels all over the damn road?" This earned a chuckle from her inebriated partner as he mumbled a 'sorry' in her direction before returning his focus to the game.

Mary was finally able to get an item.

"A bullet? I can shoot people? Nice!" she pressed the appropriate button and began to move her wheel frantically in time with the bullet's path. It dropped her at a sharp curve and she immediately drove off the course, "WHAT THE FUCK?" she yelled as her character burned up in the atmosphere below.

The cloud character dropped Mary's vehicle back on the course. She began to accelerate. From out of no where, Luigi came up behind her and pushed her back off the course.

"Marshall! You JACKASS! What the fuck was that for?"

"I give you full permission to do that to me if you ever lap me," he grinned. This was too amusing.

Finally, Mary got back on the course and was able to snag an item. She noted Marshall's look of horror as he noticed which item it was: the blue shell. Mary realized that this was a particularly useful item in taking out her partner and immediately let it go.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Marshall tried in vain to make it over the figure eight before the shell found him. Mary cackled in glee as the shell hit him and caused him to fall down the middle of the hole.

Marshall, however, was quicker to recover from the setback and was back in first place in no time.

The game was over as quickly as it had begun and before Mary knew it, Marshall was inches from her face.

"I win and you lose,

This is the prize

That I choose!

You suck

And I rule

Great job,

You fool!"

Mary shoved a pillow in his face as he began to tickle her. This went on for a good 30 minutes before they passed out in their respective drunken stupors.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Mary sat up, bleary eyed and feeling hung over. She rubber her eyes and tried to sit up, but there was a dead weight on her stomach making sitting impossible. With much effort and no small amount of pain she lifted her head to see what was pinning her down.

Marshall's legs it seemed. Her tall, lean partner was sprawled on her living room floor, legs flung across Mary's belly, head part way under the coffee table.

Smirking, despite the hangover, Mary ran one finger up the sole of his left foot.

Right on cue Marshall sat up.

Or at least he tried to. His forehead hit the underside of her coffee table with resounding crack and he slumped back to the floor.

Oh Shit. Mary wiggled out from under the weight of his legs and crawled over to check on her partner. "Marshall?"

"Mmmrrrf." He groaned, not moving.

"Marshall?"

"Head… hurts..." Marshall half opened his eyes and glared balefully at her. "When did I end up under the table?"

Mary shrugged.

He took in her tank top and shorts and his own shirtless, boxer clad state. "We didn't…?"

"I think you'd remember that."

He closed his eyes against the bright morning light, "good."

Mary stood, slowly and in time with the spinning of the room, and slip the table back so it was no longer above Marshall's head. Moving like a ninety year old two weeks after a hip replacement, Mary made her way to the kitchen where she found two bottles of water and a bottle of aspirin. She downed two and tipped another pair into her hand for her partner.

He seemed to be sleeping so she left them on the table and headed for the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and dressed Mary felt human again, human with a side of headache, but human at least. She didn't hear Marshall and figured he was still snoozing on her carpet.

Perfect.

Moving as quietly as she could manage she spent the next twenty minutes setting up the house. Poor Marshall wouldn't know what hit him when he woke up.

…

Marshall woke again around ten. He took his time sitting up, downed the aspirin Mary had left on the table and three quarters of the bottle of water. This was why he didn't drink often.

Bits of the night before trickled through his consciousness and he smiled. Mary's face when she lost and the tickling contest that followed were almost worth the cotton mouth and raging headache. He filed away Mary's ticklish places for future reference. One day, soon he hoped, it would be very useful information.

"Good morning sleepyhead," Mary called for the kitchen, "there's coffee in here."

Coffee. The magic word propelled his leaden limbs onwards. "What the hell?" He muttered as he had to dodge a ladder and nearly stepped on a stuffed black cat on the way.

Mary was perched on top of the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in hand. He poured himself a cup from the pot and savoured the first few sips before downing the entire mug and refilling it. "You know in England they consider it bad luck to sit on the table; means you'll never get married."

Mary patted the table beside her, "It's worse luck if two people sit on the table together."

He raised one eyebrow, but sat where she indicated, "tempting fate again? One day that is going to catch up with you."

"Not today." She replied, purposefully reaching over to knock over the salt.

"What is today?" Marshall asked; his brain still sluggish from the night before.

Mary rolled her eyes and slid off the table. "If you haven't figured it out yet…" she let the implications of idiocy linger in the air.

Shaking his head Marshall watched her walk out of the room and disappear down the hall toward her bedroom. Once he was sure she was going to be gone for more than a second he slid off the table and moved as quickly to the calendar hanging on the wall. "Video game day… Defy Superstition Day." He smiled.

"Hey Mare?" He called out nonchalantly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm going home to shower and then I'm picking you up at eight."

Mary was silent for nearly a minute. He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out what he knew, what he was planning. When she finally agreed he practically bounced out the door, hangover forgotten in the joy of plotting.

…

Mary was sitting on her front porch when he arrived at five past eight. She wore comfy jeans, a jacket, and a deeply suspicious facial expression.

They drove in silence for several minutes before Mary finally broke down and asked, "Is this the part where you chop me up with a hatchet and feed me to the coyotes, because I feel I should remind you that the bad guy always gets caught in those movies."

Marshall chuckled. "They do have a yard full of bodies, but I don't plan on adding you to the collection," he cast a sidelong glance at his partner who was still looking deeply suspicious, "not tonight anyway."

"You're taking me to a cemetery?" Mary asked, "In the middle of the night…"

Marshall pulled the SUV onto the gravel drive to the cemetery. "If you are going to defy superstition, this is the place to be." He climbed out, walked around the vehicle and opened her door.

"But…it's creepy." She replied in a small voice, making no move to get out.

"I'll protect you from the zombies. I promise." He took her hand in his and pulled her gently from the seat.

Mary didn't let go of his hand until they were back in the SUV and halfway to her house.