Chocolate Chip Mint 11, Fudge Ripple 27: In Vino Veritas
Title: In Vino Veritas
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Chocolate chip mint 11 (translucent), fudge ripple 27 (euphoria).
Word Count: 2013
Rating: PG.
Summary: Ivy gets drunk and Gina gets answers.
Notes: Here's that Ivy/Gina fluffiness I've been trying to write. Enjoy.
Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall was a lovely person, with many wonderful qualities. Gina knew this. She also knew that she loved being around Ivy, loved dancing and drinking and laughing with her, loved her... loved her period, and that one was going to take some explaining, considering that they'd only been dating for a couple of months. But she could hold off on the explaining, or on the telling at all, for that matter, because just at the moment Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall was very, very drunk and Gina was trying to remember why she loved her at all.
"Lookit the stars," Ivy said, head cranked back as far as it would go. "Pretty stars, all spinning like that."
Gina finished paying the cab-driver and risked a glance upwards; the stars were definitely not spinning. "That's nice, Ivy. Can you make it up the stairs?"
"Stairs?" Ivy considered it, then flopped her head from side to side. "Uh-uh."
Elevator it was. Gina took Ivy's hand and tugged on it gently. "Inside," she ordered. "It's cold out here."
"Could keep you warm," Ivy said, with what she probably thought was a leer, but which came out more like mild insanity. Gina suppressed a sigh.
"Thanks," she said, unlocking the door, "but no thanks. In."
Throughout the process of getting Ivy up into her apartment, she wondered if this had been a good idea. It wasn't like Ivy hadn't spent the night before, but it hadn't been often-- they weren't quite at that stage of their relationship, yet. And the last time she'd hauled home a drunk girlfriend... well, that had been Vanessa, and Gina did not want Ivy and Vanessa anywhere near each other, not even in her thoughts.
Of course, the other options had been letting the band drag Ivy off, or else leaving her to Danny's tender mercies and probably a bed on Aaron's floor. Gina hadn't quite been willing to let that happen-- certainly not the band-- not when she had a perfectly good bed that she was willing to share.
Oh, well. What was done, was done. She prodded Ivy into her apartment, and shut the door.
"Pretty," Ivy said, rather drunkenly. It was unclear what she was referring to, so Gina chose to take it as a generalized compliment.
"Thanks," she said, kicking her heels off. "Bedroom's to your left."
"Okay," Ivy said, and promptly went right. Gina sighed, and steered her the right way.
"Come on, you lush," she said. "Let's get you into bed."
"Bed's nice," Ivy slurred. "You're nice." Then, unexpectedly, "Love you."
Gina's heart lurched, although it shouldn't have-- Ivy had told no less than eight separate people that she loved them that evening, including but not limited to Olivia, Danny, her brother, the bartender, and Russell, of all people. Ivy loved everyone when she was drunk. It didn't mean anything.
So all she said was, "That's nice," and then, "Come on, beddy-bye." She sat Ivy down on the bed and began taking off her shoes.
Ivy managed to sit more or less upright throughout this operation, despite swaying side to side in a rather disconcerting manner. Gina set her girlfriend's shoes aside, then sat back on her heels and pondered how to get Ivy's dress off. It was not normally a problem, but then Ivy didn't usually drink this much.
"Really," Ivy said, as if five minutes hadn't elapsed between this statement and her last. "I mean it. Love you."
"Just like you meant it for everyone else you've said it to," Gina told her, not without affection.
"Really," Ivy said, insistently, then pushed herself off the bed and dropped to her knees in front of Gina with alarming suddenness. Gina put out a hand to steady her, and found that hand captured and held tight. "I mean it."
Gina stared into Ivy's eyes, so earnest and so close and so very, very blue, and swallowed hard. "Ivy," she whispered, "you're drunk."
"Yep," Ivy said, happily. "Still mean it. See." She reached out and, after a couple of tries, hooked her fingers into the front of Gina's dress and pulled it down with a jerk, exposing half her bra and all of her cleavage. Nothing tore, thankfully-- Gina liked this dress-- but it stung her shoulders.
"Ow! What the hell, Ivy!"
Ivy gave her drunkenly apologetic doe eyes. "S'ry," she said. She let go of the dress and reached up to trace a heart over Gina's right breast with her index finger.
Completely nonplussed, Gina could only stare at her. "Ivy, what are you doing?"
"This's your heart," Ivy told her, coloring it in with her finger. Gina had the sneaky feeling that she was coloring outside the lines a bit, but she liked the feeling too much to object. "Right here. Your heart."
"Okay," Gina said, still at a loss.
"And this," Ivy said, drawing another heart in the same place with exaggerated care, "is my heart. Right here."
"Oh," Gina said, and unexpectedly felt tears pricking at her eyes. "Oh, Ivy."
"Love you," Ivy said, emphatically, and lurched forward into Gina's arms, pressing her face against the crook of Gina's shoulder. "Love you," she mumbled, again.
Gina closed her eyes, and kissed Ivy's hair. "Love you, too," she whispered.
The only reply she got was a soft but unmistakable snore.
--
Gina woke the next morning to sunlight streaming through her windows, her cell phone ringing cheerily on the nightstand, and Ivy twined around her like her namesake, face in her breasts and arms wrapped tightly around her ribcage.
Oh, Lord. Gina sighed with exasperated affection, and set about getting out of bed.
Her phone stopped ringing and started up again in the time it took to extricate herself. Gina grabbed it hastily, slid out of bed, and trotted into the kitchen, shutting the door carefully behind herself before she answered. "Hello?"
"Hi, Gina," Aaron said, sounding remarkably awake and sober for someone who'd been smashed to hell and back less than eight hours ago. "I'm looking for Ivy. Have you seen her?"
"Yes," Gina said. "I brought her home with me. She's passed out in my bed. Didn't Danny tell you?"
"Oh, good," Aaron said. "No, Danny didn't tell me anything. She just dropped me in bed, left Lars on the couch and went home. No note or anything."
Which was Danny for you. "You don't sound much the worse for wear."
"Someone's got to be the responsible adult and hold their liquor," he said. "That used to be me. I am glad to see you've been promoted."
Gina narrowed her eyes. "Not a chance in hell I'm hauling you and Lars home," she informed him. "Frankly, I'm surprised Danny was able to do it." And she was not going to be responsible for the band, but that went without saying.
"I wasn't nearly as drunk as I looked," Aaron said, loftily, "and besides, I wasn't suggesting you should. Just take over for Ivy and the rest of us will love you."
Love you.
She heard the words in Ivy's voice and it stole her breath, for just a moment.
"Gina?" Aaron sounded rather quizzical.
"Did I ever thank you?" she asked, almost at random. "For asking me out with you and the others last night, I mean."
"No," he said, still sounding puzzled. "You're welcome?"
Gina shifted the phone to her other ear and went to pour a glass of water. "It was your birthday. You weren't obligated to or anything."
"Sure I was," he said. "You're Ivy's girlfriend, and it was also a Valentine's Day outing. Or Zombie Movie Day, depending on whether you're single or not."
Gina blinked. She'd have to ask Ivy about that one. "Well, yes, but..."
"Besides, you're cute, nice and fun to be around, which is more than I can say for most of Ivy's girlfriends." Aaron said this in the long-suffering tones of an elder brother with much better taste in women. "We like you."
She grinned at empty air. "We?"
"Yeah, you know, me, Lars, Danny, Jake, the family. You still gotta run the parental gauntlet, but as far as we're concerned, Ivy can keep you."
Did Aaron even think about these things before he said them? "I'm pleased to have your approval," Gina said, wryly.
"Glad to hear it," he said, unruffled. "Hey, I gotta go. Lars is shambling around looking for painkillers and if I don't give 'em to him he'll start moaning about brains."
She should probably bring Ivy some painkillers too, come to think of it, so she could have them when she woke up. "Have fun with that," Gina said.
After suitable goodbyes she hung up and dropped her phone on the counter, then popped a couple of asprin from the packet and carried them and a glass of water into her bedroom.
"There is," Ivy announced, without raising her face from the pillow, "an insane midget playing the bongos in my skull, and my mouth tastes like something furry crawled in there and died. I don't suppose you have aspirin."
"Aspirin and water," Gina said. "Although I'm not sure I should let you have them. Hangovers are lessons from God on the evils of drink."
Ivy rolled her head to the side and gave Gina her best big-eyed look of woe. Gina had always been susceptible to looks of woe, and when one came from such lovely eyes as Ivy had... well.
She handed them over and sat down on the bed while Ivy sat up and took her medicine. "So apart from the hangover, how are you feeling?"
Ivy wiped her hands across her face, then pulled a knee up to her chest and leaned back against the headboard. "Okay. Slept pretty well. You have comfy breasts."
Which was without doubt the oddest compliment Gina had ever gotten, at least on that particular portion of her anatomy. Apparently saying whatever the hell you felt like without regard for how it sounded was a Kendall family trait. "Thanks. Any plans for reciprocity?"
"Sure," Ivy said. "Just shout. Though I'm not sure my boobs would make the best pillow. They're not very cushy."
Gina debated several responses, and finally went with the one that would not result in Ivy discoursing on the relative comfortableness of their breasts for an hour. "We can test that out later. How much of last night do you remember?"
"Um." Ivy cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "We went out drinking for Aaron's birthday and Valentine's Day, Jake and Olivia skipped out early, which made Lars start bemoaning his lack of a girlfriend and Danny cast aspirations on his virtue. Then the band showed up and Aaron suggested a drinking game and it all gets kinda fuzzy after that. Why?"
Crap. Maybe it had just been Ivy being Ivy. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. "You said some things last night," Gina said, carefully.
Ivy suddenly found the blankets very fascinating, and her cheeks colored. "Oh, yeah," she mumbled. "Those things."
How exactly to phrase this? Well, it was Ivy-- maybe blunt was best. "Did you mean them?"
"Yeah," Ivy said, still looking determinedly at the blankets. "I mean, I'm a friendly drunk but I'm not that friendly."
Gina couldn't suppress a smile. "You mean you don't normally grope unsuspecting women when you're smashed?"
Ivy finally looked up, and gave her a tentative smile. "No, just you. I'd actually prefer to confine all groping to you in the future. Er, if you're interested. You don't have to be interested."
"If you grope anybody else I'll be really pissed off," Gina said. "Which is to say, I love you too."
Ivy's smile changed into a full-on beam. "Okay," she said, and crooked a finger. "Come here."
Gina obligingly scooted forward to be kissed. Ivy's breath was dreadful, but her mouth was warm and soft.
"In vino veritas," she murmured, after a while, and ran a hand through Ivy's hair just for the feel of it slipping through her fingers.
"It wasn't wine, I was drinking whiskey," Ivy said, then winced and rubbed a temple. "Ow. Talking hurts."
"So stop talking," Gina said, and leaned forward again.
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Chocolate chip mint 11 (translucent), fudge ripple 27 (euphoria).
Word Count: 2013
Rating: PG.
Summary: Ivy gets drunk and Gina gets answers.
Notes: Here's that Ivy/Gina fluffiness I've been trying to write. Enjoy.
Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall was a lovely person, with many wonderful qualities. Gina knew this. She also knew that she loved being around Ivy, loved dancing and drinking and laughing with her, loved her... loved her period, and that one was going to take some explaining, considering that they'd only been dating for a couple of months. But she could hold off on the explaining, or on the telling at all, for that matter, because just at the moment Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall was very, very drunk and Gina was trying to remember why she loved her at all.
"Lookit the stars," Ivy said, head cranked back as far as it would go. "Pretty stars, all spinning like that."
Gina finished paying the cab-driver and risked a glance upwards; the stars were definitely not spinning. "That's nice, Ivy. Can you make it up the stairs?"
"Stairs?" Ivy considered it, then flopped her head from side to side. "Uh-uh."
Elevator it was. Gina took Ivy's hand and tugged on it gently. "Inside," she ordered. "It's cold out here."
"Could keep you warm," Ivy said, with what she probably thought was a leer, but which came out more like mild insanity. Gina suppressed a sigh.
"Thanks," she said, unlocking the door, "but no thanks. In."
Throughout the process of getting Ivy up into her apartment, she wondered if this had been a good idea. It wasn't like Ivy hadn't spent the night before, but it hadn't been often-- they weren't quite at that stage of their relationship, yet. And the last time she'd hauled home a drunk girlfriend... well, that had been Vanessa, and Gina did not want Ivy and Vanessa anywhere near each other, not even in her thoughts.
Of course, the other options had been letting the band drag Ivy off, or else leaving her to Danny's tender mercies and probably a bed on Aaron's floor. Gina hadn't quite been willing to let that happen-- certainly not the band-- not when she had a perfectly good bed that she was willing to share.
Oh, well. What was done, was done. She prodded Ivy into her apartment, and shut the door.
"Pretty," Ivy said, rather drunkenly. It was unclear what she was referring to, so Gina chose to take it as a generalized compliment.
"Thanks," she said, kicking her heels off. "Bedroom's to your left."
"Okay," Ivy said, and promptly went right. Gina sighed, and steered her the right way.
"Come on, you lush," she said. "Let's get you into bed."
"Bed's nice," Ivy slurred. "You're nice." Then, unexpectedly, "Love you."
Gina's heart lurched, although it shouldn't have-- Ivy had told no less than eight separate people that she loved them that evening, including but not limited to Olivia, Danny, her brother, the bartender, and Russell, of all people. Ivy loved everyone when she was drunk. It didn't mean anything.
So all she said was, "That's nice," and then, "Come on, beddy-bye." She sat Ivy down on the bed and began taking off her shoes.
Ivy managed to sit more or less upright throughout this operation, despite swaying side to side in a rather disconcerting manner. Gina set her girlfriend's shoes aside, then sat back on her heels and pondered how to get Ivy's dress off. It was not normally a problem, but then Ivy didn't usually drink this much.
"Really," Ivy said, as if five minutes hadn't elapsed between this statement and her last. "I mean it. Love you."
"Just like you meant it for everyone else you've said it to," Gina told her, not without affection.
"Really," Ivy said, insistently, then pushed herself off the bed and dropped to her knees in front of Gina with alarming suddenness. Gina put out a hand to steady her, and found that hand captured and held tight. "I mean it."
Gina stared into Ivy's eyes, so earnest and so close and so very, very blue, and swallowed hard. "Ivy," she whispered, "you're drunk."
"Yep," Ivy said, happily. "Still mean it. See." She reached out and, after a couple of tries, hooked her fingers into the front of Gina's dress and pulled it down with a jerk, exposing half her bra and all of her cleavage. Nothing tore, thankfully-- Gina liked this dress-- but it stung her shoulders.
"Ow! What the hell, Ivy!"
Ivy gave her drunkenly apologetic doe eyes. "S'ry," she said. She let go of the dress and reached up to trace a heart over Gina's right breast with her index finger.
Completely nonplussed, Gina could only stare at her. "Ivy, what are you doing?"
"This's your heart," Ivy told her, coloring it in with her finger. Gina had the sneaky feeling that she was coloring outside the lines a bit, but she liked the feeling too much to object. "Right here. Your heart."
"Okay," Gina said, still at a loss.
"And this," Ivy said, drawing another heart in the same place with exaggerated care, "is my heart. Right here."
"Oh," Gina said, and unexpectedly felt tears pricking at her eyes. "Oh, Ivy."
"Love you," Ivy said, emphatically, and lurched forward into Gina's arms, pressing her face against the crook of Gina's shoulder. "Love you," she mumbled, again.
Gina closed her eyes, and kissed Ivy's hair. "Love you, too," she whispered.
The only reply she got was a soft but unmistakable snore.
--
Gina woke the next morning to sunlight streaming through her windows, her cell phone ringing cheerily on the nightstand, and Ivy twined around her like her namesake, face in her breasts and arms wrapped tightly around her ribcage.
Oh, Lord. Gina sighed with exasperated affection, and set about getting out of bed.
Her phone stopped ringing and started up again in the time it took to extricate herself. Gina grabbed it hastily, slid out of bed, and trotted into the kitchen, shutting the door carefully behind herself before she answered. "Hello?"
"Hi, Gina," Aaron said, sounding remarkably awake and sober for someone who'd been smashed to hell and back less than eight hours ago. "I'm looking for Ivy. Have you seen her?"
"Yes," Gina said. "I brought her home with me. She's passed out in my bed. Didn't Danny tell you?"
"Oh, good," Aaron said. "No, Danny didn't tell me anything. She just dropped me in bed, left Lars on the couch and went home. No note or anything."
Which was Danny for you. "You don't sound much the worse for wear."
"Someone's got to be the responsible adult and hold their liquor," he said. "That used to be me. I am glad to see you've been promoted."
Gina narrowed her eyes. "Not a chance in hell I'm hauling you and Lars home," she informed him. "Frankly, I'm surprised Danny was able to do it." And she was not going to be responsible for the band, but that went without saying.
"I wasn't nearly as drunk as I looked," Aaron said, loftily, "and besides, I wasn't suggesting you should. Just take over for Ivy and the rest of us will love you."
Love you.
She heard the words in Ivy's voice and it stole her breath, for just a moment.
"Gina?" Aaron sounded rather quizzical.
"Did I ever thank you?" she asked, almost at random. "For asking me out with you and the others last night, I mean."
"No," he said, still sounding puzzled. "You're welcome?"
Gina shifted the phone to her other ear and went to pour a glass of water. "It was your birthday. You weren't obligated to or anything."
"Sure I was," he said. "You're Ivy's girlfriend, and it was also a Valentine's Day outing. Or Zombie Movie Day, depending on whether you're single or not."
Gina blinked. She'd have to ask Ivy about that one. "Well, yes, but..."
"Besides, you're cute, nice and fun to be around, which is more than I can say for most of Ivy's girlfriends." Aaron said this in the long-suffering tones of an elder brother with much better taste in women. "We like you."
She grinned at empty air. "We?"
"Yeah, you know, me, Lars, Danny, Jake, the family. You still gotta run the parental gauntlet, but as far as we're concerned, Ivy can keep you."
Did Aaron even think about these things before he said them? "I'm pleased to have your approval," Gina said, wryly.
"Glad to hear it," he said, unruffled. "Hey, I gotta go. Lars is shambling around looking for painkillers and if I don't give 'em to him he'll start moaning about brains."
She should probably bring Ivy some painkillers too, come to think of it, so she could have them when she woke up. "Have fun with that," Gina said.
After suitable goodbyes she hung up and dropped her phone on the counter, then popped a couple of asprin from the packet and carried them and a glass of water into her bedroom.
"There is," Ivy announced, without raising her face from the pillow, "an insane midget playing the bongos in my skull, and my mouth tastes like something furry crawled in there and died. I don't suppose you have aspirin."
"Aspirin and water," Gina said. "Although I'm not sure I should let you have them. Hangovers are lessons from God on the evils of drink."
Ivy rolled her head to the side and gave Gina her best big-eyed look of woe. Gina had always been susceptible to looks of woe, and when one came from such lovely eyes as Ivy had... well.
She handed them over and sat down on the bed while Ivy sat up and took her medicine. "So apart from the hangover, how are you feeling?"
Ivy wiped her hands across her face, then pulled a knee up to her chest and leaned back against the headboard. "Okay. Slept pretty well. You have comfy breasts."
Which was without doubt the oddest compliment Gina had ever gotten, at least on that particular portion of her anatomy. Apparently saying whatever the hell you felt like without regard for how it sounded was a Kendall family trait. "Thanks. Any plans for reciprocity?"
"Sure," Ivy said. "Just shout. Though I'm not sure my boobs would make the best pillow. They're not very cushy."
Gina debated several responses, and finally went with the one that would not result in Ivy discoursing on the relative comfortableness of their breasts for an hour. "We can test that out later. How much of last night do you remember?"
"Um." Ivy cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "We went out drinking for Aaron's birthday and Valentine's Day, Jake and Olivia skipped out early, which made Lars start bemoaning his lack of a girlfriend and Danny cast aspirations on his virtue. Then the band showed up and Aaron suggested a drinking game and it all gets kinda fuzzy after that. Why?"
Crap. Maybe it had just been Ivy being Ivy. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. "You said some things last night," Gina said, carefully.
Ivy suddenly found the blankets very fascinating, and her cheeks colored. "Oh, yeah," she mumbled. "Those things."
How exactly to phrase this? Well, it was Ivy-- maybe blunt was best. "Did you mean them?"
"Yeah," Ivy said, still looking determinedly at the blankets. "I mean, I'm a friendly drunk but I'm not that friendly."
Gina couldn't suppress a smile. "You mean you don't normally grope unsuspecting women when you're smashed?"
Ivy finally looked up, and gave her a tentative smile. "No, just you. I'd actually prefer to confine all groping to you in the future. Er, if you're interested. You don't have to be interested."
"If you grope anybody else I'll be really pissed off," Gina said. "Which is to say, I love you too."
Ivy's smile changed into a full-on beam. "Okay," she said, and crooked a finger. "Come here."
Gina obligingly scooted forward to be kissed. Ivy's breath was dreadful, but her mouth was warm and soft.
"In vino veritas," she murmured, after a while, and ran a hand through Ivy's hair just for the feel of it slipping through her fingers.
"It wasn't wine, I was drinking whiskey," Ivy said, then winced and rubbed a temple. "Ow. Talking hurts."
"So stop talking," Gina said, and leaned forward again.
