How Many Bottles of Beer?

White Rock Lake

A reservoir, White Rock Lake covers 1,254 acres and was once used for a portion of Dallas' drinking water supply. Now that it's use as a water source has been supplanted, the area has become one of the favored recreational locations in the city. The forested shoreline is dotted with numerous small cabins, fishing piers, and sailboat docks. The lake is surrounded by White Rock Lake Park, which is home to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Running through the park is a 9 mile trail designed for hiking, running or cycling. Though swimming was banned here back in the '50's, it is still a popular location for area teens who generally enjoy the more deserted areas, using the beautiful backdrop as a makeout spot.


The night isn't as young as it used to be. The sun's been down for a while now and the moon is high in the air. Despite the fact that the nighttime is an inopportune time for most, Mischa has found the time to get out of the apartment and go for a walk. A very inebriated walk, from the looks of it. There's a bottle of authentic Russian vodka in one hand, the other hand balanced out in front of him as if he's trying to detect things in front of him with his sense of touch. He sticks to the roadside, staggering about without any balance whatsoever. The bottle in his hand is mostly gone — and judging from his mannerisms, the bottle was taken care of in this sitting alone.

A beat up old silver Ford Taurus pulls up to the curb and a warmly bundled dark haired woman steps out of the driver's seat, turning the lights off as her feet hit the pavement. She tilts her face to the sky for a moment, a small smile turning up the corners of her mouth as she breathes in the cold night air. It's good to get a little variety in drinking locations, and Raven is taking that philosophy to heart tonight by coming somewhere she hasn't been in longer than she can remember. The trunk is popped open and the woman walks around to the back of the car to retrieve a bottle of her favorite whiskey before she closes the trunk and walks back around to the front of the car and crawl up to sit on the warm hood, the engine ticking beneath her as it cools. She lifts a hand to Mischa when she spots him coming toward her, a puzzled look on her face when she recognizes who it is. Judging by the slight wobble in her step, this won't be the first she's drank tonight.

Theodore doesn't drink. At least, he doesn't drink in any way that would likely make him drunk later. He does, however, appreciate water during the evening, really the only time he can appreciate it anyway. The young man is currently bent in half near the edge of the lake, a pale figure cut against the shadowed sapphire blue of the sea as it rises and crests with white beyond him. The moon is an aesthetic advantage for vampires to begin with, but Teddy's nearly white hair and smooth, light skin perfect that, accentuated further by the large, soft white shirt he is wearing, little more than a long sleeve tee shirt that likely does little to keep out the cold. He skitters away from a spot as a hermit crab makes itself known only to pick his way back over so that he might stare at it, leaning down again to heft good sized stones from the banks that have long been rubbed almost flat by the waves and water of the lake. He is so invested in what he's doing that he doesn't even appear to notice the drunk man or the friend that greets him, at least not until he straightens his back and lifts his own hand to push his bangs away from his forehead, a breeze tickling over the lake and causing his shirt to plaster itself to his thin frame. He squints curiously at the pair of them - the man who isn't exactly upright and the woman well on her way to wobbling - and a smile steals over his features, amused and beatific. Careful that he doesn't slip on the rocks and trip himself up, Teddy starts to pick his way over to Mischa and Raven, ever the social butterfly.

It's all blurry. The whole world is a big blur to Mischa right now. Not even his glasses are helping him. He doesn't seem to notice the (nearly) white-haired, violet-eyed vampire who is scampering away from hermit crabs and then examining them. In fact, for a long moment he doesn't seem to notice the fact that a car has pulled up in his vicinity and that a relatively familiar figure is getting out. He practically has to get right in front of her before he realizes it's the waitress. "Raven…" Mischa says breathily, with more than a slight Russian lilt. "We keep *hic* bumping into each other. Did I ever tell you that you have really pretty hair?" He asks, reaching out a shaking hand to touch the woman's hair. Of course, he's nowhere even remotely near it. Mischa only sees Teddy as a blur of pale white light with clothes on. "There's a ghost. Or is it an angel? Maybe a dybbuk." With that, he raises his bottle one more time and takes a few healthy pulls, very nearly emptying it save for a tiny bit in the bottom.

For her part, Raven is too busy starting at the librarian to notice the pale vampire heading their way, "You alright Mischa?" She isn't nearly as drunk as he is, though that may change before the night is over, "Seems like it. Didn't realize there were so many places to run into a body out here." She looks a little surprised at the comment about her hair and unconciously brushes her fingers through it before tucking it back behind her ear, "Uh… Thanks, I guess." The blonde chunks in her hair stand out in the moonlight as she shakes her head, "Hey, man, why don't you join me up here. You look like you're about to fall over." She pats the cooling metal beside her, "It's still warm…" She frowns a little and looks over toward where Mischa is looking, "What's a dybbuk?" Pause, "Looks like young, um… white guy." White hair, white skin, white clothes…

Theodore is a ghost! OooOoooOooo… ooo? No. He nearly slips and falls at one point, but manages to dance a bit out of the stumble and continue on his way towards the pair of them. His pants are, at least, dark jeans, so he's not entirely snowman impersonating. Either way, he sweeps his hair back away from his eyes as he ambles closer, smiling amiably at both of the drinkers. When he speaks, his voice is a light, lilting, clear tone, not unpleasant at all, with a steady warmth beneath it that indicates a general friendliness, "Hi. Are you two okay?" This last seems largely focused on Mischa, the slender youth taking a few steps towards him as if intent on assisting him to something safer than a hard asphault bed.

"I think I had too much to drink." Talk about Captain Obvious. Not to mention the fact that Mischa's breath is sheerly toxic at this point — rife with alcohol content. He tries to put the bottle down on the hood of the car, but ends up dropping it. The glass doesn't break, although the rest of his vodka does trickle out over the ground. Mischa moves towards Teddy and puts his arms out for the 'young' man, stopping just short of his arms. "Ohhhhh!" He cries out as though having just realized something. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone, offering it to Teddy. "Will you call in…*hic*…formation and ask for Super Speedy Cabsh? I think I want to go home." In the mean time, he'll attempt to put his ass down on Raven's car. And fail incredibly miserably. He lets out a laugh as he finally backs up almost comically into the car, scooting his butt onto it. "A dybbuk. It's a Jewish demon. ..Well, more of a spirit really. The soul of a dead…" Is Mischa going to barf? It sounds like it. Sort of. He has to stop talking for a moment to ensure that he's not going to, at the very least, his stomach making a dubious noise, followed by the unmistakable sound of bile rising in his throat.

"Really? I never would have guessed." Yes, that is sarcasm on Raven's part, "And what caused this… pleasant little private party you've been having?" She /tries/ to be polite about her question, but she's had just enough that she isn't exactly the most politic person in town at the moment. She sniggers something about alcohol abuse when the vodka spills and can't resist a giggle at the other drunk's antics, "Oh. So it's just another kind of ghost, then." She makes a face at the sounds coming from the man and puts her hand to her own mouth in sympathy, groaning faintly in an attempt to not join him in worship to the porcelain god when there is no alter in sight.

"A dybbuk possesses people. I saw it in a movie," Teddy says helpfully as he takes the phone held out to him, grinning a bit more at Mischa after that whole bit with the arms. He flicks open the phone and types in a few numbers before holding it up to his ear - but then he stops and says, instead, "Oooh. Hey. I could take you home! My car is near here. I could take you without asking for any money. It's better than a cab." Of course, trusting a vampire with your drunken transportation isn't always the best choice, but he's not so OBVIOUSLY a vampire as all that. He wrinkles his nose slightly at the sounds that Mischa is making, eyeing Raven afterwards and tucking his hands into his pockets, "Both of you, really."

Mischa shakes his head at Raven a little bit — but not too vigorously, as that would probably be counteractive to the 'trying not to barf' thing. "Not a ghost. The spirit of a dead person looking for another body to possess… so I guess somewhere between a ghost and a demon." He lets out an ill-sounding belch before he takes in a deep breath. "Oh god, sorry. That was… so inappropriate. But I feel better now." Mischa reaches up to nervously run his fingers through his hair before tilting his head at Raven's question and answering her. "Women." He says simply, before he looks at Theo and reaches out for the other man's shirt, trying to make out his facial features. "You are an angel. One who doesn't charge… why is your hair so white? Is that natural?" Then he starts to make grabby hands at Theo's hair. "Cotton candy."

"Oh." Raven removes the lid from her bottle of whiskey and takes a long pull; to settle the stomach, of course. She shakes her head a little at the offer of a ride, "Nah. I got my car and I'm not so drunk as all that." Just pleasantly buzzed at the moment. The belch earns a light chuckle and she winks in Mischa's direction, "Long's you feel better, that's all that really matters." And that answer has her grimacing and rolling her eyes, "Ugh. Yeah, some of us can be a real handful, huh?" She manages to say that with a perfectly straight face, though the comment about cotton candy has her losing it in a fit of giggles.

Theodore shakes his head slightly, lifting a hand to scratch his cheek as he murmurs, "Not really inappropriate, considering…" He blinks curiously when he suddenly finds himself being grabbed at, tilting his head when Mischa makes grabbyhands for it, though he doesn't seem concerned about it getting pulled. Quietly, without any hint of real fear or disbelief, he states, "Please don't eat my head." He says it like he's asking Mischa not to scuff his shoes. He peers past the drunken man at Raven, wagging a finger at her lightly, "Drunk driving is one of the leading causes of vehicular manslaughter. You don't want to be responsible for some teenager never making it home from the prom!" Somebody's been watching one too many infomercials.

"Yes, yes you can." Mischa replies, a bit too enthusiastically. His focus on Theo's candy cotton-like hair is momentarily disturbed as he shakes a finger up at the sky angrily. But he doesn't elaborate, simply reaches up to pet at Theo's hair for a moment. "Well, it's not quite THAT soft." He scoffs, sounding disappointed before he leans back against the car and nods to Theodore. "I told her that one time, you know. About the driving." In not so many words, and nowhere near as adamantly though. Mischa looks over to Raven and eyes her, mostly looking at her hair too. "You should let us take you home anyway, if you're going to keep drinking… because then we won't have to worry about you waking up tomorrow morning and finding a kid in the grill of your car. Like that old urban *hic* legend." Slowly, Mischa slides down onto the pavement and hiccups to himself, slumping forward. "Your head wouldn't taste very good, I bet."

Raven just shrugs at the insistance that she shouldn't drive and takes another drink, "Never had a problem yet." And it's that 'yet' that gets her looking thoughtful. After a moment she shrugs, shuddering faintly at the thought of finding someone in her grill, "Uh… Sure. Thanks. I'd appreciate the ride home." She just shakes her head at the man on the ground beside her car, "You're kinda funny when you're drunk, you know?"

Theodore shakes his head at Mischa, sulking for a moment as he pets his hair consolingly, then makes his way over towards him, "Don't fall asleep down there. You could get sick." He bends down and gently grasps Mischa's upper arm, pulling the man to his feet without any apparent strain and attempting to get his arm around Mischa's middle, tucking Mischa's other arm over his shoulder, "You guys can keep drinking at my house, too. Just try not to throw up on anything." He nods his head to Raven to indicate a simple looking Volkswagon off to one side before shuttling Mischa off towards it, "That's not an urban legend, really, though from what I read, all they really found was a few fingers and some hair."

The librarian is pulled up by Theodore, and doesn't complain too much. He instead reaches up to rub at the bridge of my nose. "I don't want to keep drinking. I don't want to ever drink. Again. Period." His words are slurring by now, but they make enough sense. At least sometimes. When he hears Raven's quip about him being funny, he points at her and grins. "You're kind of hot when I'm drunk." Pause. "Not that you're not when I'm not…" Pause, consider. Mischa turns to Theodore with some horror on his face. "What do you mean, fingers and hair? Good god, man!" He cries out, as he stumbles off towards the VW with the vampire's help, hiccuping a little more frequently now.

"Oh, you can shut up any minute now…" Raven is definately looking a little green around the gills now at the description of just what was found in the grill of some poor drunk's car. She slides off the hood of her car, stumbling a few steps before she catches herself against the fender with a small laugh. She grins at Mischa when he tells her she's hot and winks, "Well, you ain't too bad looking yourself, sugar." She manages to walk fairly steadily toward Theo's waiting car, "Nice car, man. Prefer domestic myself, but VW's ain't too bad."

"Is it?" Teddy says curiously, peering at his car before he shrugs slightly and ferrets the keys from his pocket, "It's a good little car." Once he has the door open, he slides Mischa into the passenger seat for appropriate drunk watch - it's easier to keep him from barfing on the floor there. He opens the back door for Raven, next, motioning for her to go ahead and get in and waiting until she is before he closes it. Only when he's sure they're both snug and tucked away does he climb in himself, buckling up his safety belt and starting up the engine, "Sorry. I guess this is a bad time to bring up horror stories, huh? …please don't shag in my living room, though."

Mischa gets into the passenger seat of the car without much of a fight. He even manages to get his seat belt buckled all by himself, like a big boy — after about seven tries. He does however look at his pocket watch and stares at it wide-eyed for a moment. "That late already?" Raven's comment about his being 'not too bad looking' has little effect on him at the moment, though rest assured if he were sober, it'd be an entirely different story. He rolls down the window of Teddy's car (having to locate the button to do so first, which takes him a minute) before putting his head out. "That's nice…" He mumbles, before he hears Teddy's comment and looks towards the vampire with wide eyes. "WHAT?! Shag in the…WHAT?!" He seems genuinely appalled at the very idea — not at Raven, perhaps, but the thought that he'd do something like that in someone else's living room. "Good lord!"

The drunk bartender slides into the backseat with a small smile, sprawling to take up the whole space, since she's back there by herself, "Yeah, I'd prefer not to think about blood and guts at the moment." Raven rolls her eyes at the thought of 'shagging' in his living room, "Nah… I've got myself under better control than that." She looks over the back of the seat at the two men at the comment about the time, "Oh? I ain't checked in a while." And she's obviously not that concerned with the time at the moment. She thoughtfully puts the lid back on her bottle of booze so that Theodore won't get a ticket for having an open container in case they get stopped for some odd reason and just shakes her head at Mischa's reaction to the thought of doing things in another man's living room.

Theodore smiles faintly, glancing aside at Mischa and assuring him, with a small furrow to his brow, "Just making sure…" He drives carefully and in no particular rush, which should help Mischa's poor stomach, heading through the lower end of town and up towards something a bit more middle class. When they've stopped in front of a small, simple looking blue house, he turns off the engine and steps out of the car, calling out, lightly, "Welcome to my house." He'll go around to the other side to both see if Mischa needs help or if the man's even still conscious.

Mischa is in fact still conscious by the time they pull up to Teddy's. Just barely. He unstraps himself from the seat belt and gets out of the car, licking his lips a bit as he looks around. "This isn't my apartment," Captain Obvious says, striking again twice in the same night. He adjusts his sleeves around his forearms and pushes his door closed with his rear, looking towards Raven in the backseat. He starts to say something before he closes his mouth again and reaches up to rub at his eyes. "My apartment isn't too far from here though… after a pot of coffee I could probably walk home."

With the bottle cradled against her chest, Raven is about half asleep herself by the time they arrive. She rouses when the engine shuts off and opens the door behind her head, nearly falling out of the car, but managing some interesting acrobatics and winding up with her feet on the ground while facing the car. She leans back into the backseat to retrieve the bottle she dropped while getting out and turns with a small amused smirk for the drunk librarian, "No, this is his place." She, apparently, isn't the least bit concerned about being at the home of a strange man with another man that she barely knows who is so totally drunk. She turns a smile on Theodore, "Nice place. Lots better than the little hole I live in."

"Oh, I figured you could just sleep it off. It's getting really late - well, near morning, actually - and I can't really drive all over the place just now," Theodore says gently, ruffling his hair and offering them both an apologetic smile, "I have a guest room, or you can sleep in the living room…" He locks up his car, leaving it in the driveway for now and checking his watch absentmindedly. He'll walk around to the side to help Mischa, if the man seems to need it, but otherwise seems intent on simply leading them into the house to get some rest, or at least get them inside and out of the cold night.

"No, really. I can walk. I have somewhere to be in the morning, somewhere important." Somewhere which is going to be hella hampered by the intense hangover he's going to have in a few hours. Mischa reaches up to rub at his temples as he looks over towards Raven. "Wow, you hold your liquor a lot better than I do." His words aren't slurring as badly. The car ride seems to have helped him sober up just the tiniest bit, but it's a good sign. He looks towards the house again as Theodore leads them to the house. "Quite nice, really…" Hic. "I live in an apartment." Random tidbit there, but at least he's no longer accusing Theodore of being a dybbuk. He wipes at his brow with his shirt sleeve before taking in another deep breath. "Sorry, what's your name? Did I get it before…?"

"Well, I've been drinking for most of my adult life." And Raven doesn't seem the least bit ashamed of that fact, "You kind of build up a tolerance after a while, you know." Who knows if it's really true, but she seems pretty convenced of the fact. She follows behind Theo, being careful where she puts her feet so that she won't stumble with the bottle cradled to her chest as though it were a precious treasure, "Long as I get to work on time tomorrow evening, I'll be fine." In other words, she doesn't care where she sleeps and what happens between now and then as long as she isn't late to work.

Theodore blinks at Mischa a couple times, cocking his head to the side curiously only to shrug mildly, "I'm Teddy! And, well, I have some coffee, I think. You can have a cup and head home. I really don't mind if you stay here, though. I pretty much work all night, so I sleep in during the day." He shrugs idly, unlocking the front door and stepping inside - to the sound of a bird chirping, "Ah! Sorry, sorry. I know it's getting early…" He leaves them to wander into the house on their own, trotting off into the front hall and flipping on a switch as he goes. The house is nicely decorated with a mix of modern and the sort of retro that gives things a fairy tale quality. For instance, the bird cage the young man runs off to check on is made of wrought iron shined to a gleam, made with a number of decorative curls and to a rather notable size. It's not expensively furnished, per se, as much as thoughtfully so, with the wallpaper a soft butter yellow and the carpet a deep navy blue that looks black in the shadows. Teddy frets over a pair of large, beautiful white birds inside the cage, currently checking to make sure they have enough food before he draws down a fairly simple, heavy looking cover, "There we go. Get some sleep…"

Mischa nods to Theodore a little bit, smiling at him. "Thanks, I appreciate everything. My name is Mischa." He moves to settle onto Teddy's sofa, reaching for his wristwatch. He sets a timer on it and barely seems to notice Teddy fussing with his birds — it's fairly detrimental that he doesn't, really. "Tolerance is apparently something I don't have. Not that I've been drunk like this…" His train of thought is broken by a loud, alcohol-smelling yawn before he continues. "In about ten years I guess. And I hope not to be until another ten from now. Cheers." He rubs at the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes for just a second.
…Only not. He's out like a light a few seconds later, but his watch will wake him up at around 6am.

"Coffee might be nice… In a little while." After Raven's had a bit more to drink. She looks curious at the sound of the bird, but doesn't bother to find out where the feathered fiend is. She looks around the living room appreciatively before she settles into a chair, "Nice to meet you, Teddy. I'm Raven." She reopens her bottle and takes another pull on it, smirking faintly at Mischa, "Well, if you'd drink more, or more often, anyway, you'd build some up." She grins in amusement when he drops off, shaking her head a little and muttering something about light weights while she settles in with her bottle.

"Nice to meet you, Raven," Teddy says amiably as he goes about locking the door and finding a blanket for Mischa, settling it over the young man and fluffing up a couch pillow for him. Once satisfied, he finds a blanket and pillow for Raven as well, setting them on the footstool in front of the chair and straightening with an easygoing smile, "There we go. Stay as long as you like." He holds up his hands at this last, though, adding, with brows raised, "I only ask that you not wander around the house. The bathroom is the first door on the right in the hallway past the kitchen. If you need anything, knock on the door at the end of the hall, and I'll do what I can, but I really do pass out once the sun comes up. My biological clock is all kinds of crazy." He smiles apologetically once more at this last, resting his hands on his stomach and shrugging helplessly. Moving away from Raven, he steps into the modernized black and silver kitchen, opening a few cabinets and getting down what looks to be coffee makings. Nodding his head once he has them set out in front of the coffee maker, he gets a bottle from the fridge and walks back into the living room, yawning and perching on the edge of the coffee table.

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