chocolate and flavour of the day with malt
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Bad Influence
Rating: PG
Challenge: Chocolate #17: freedom, Flavour of the Day: caliginous
Toppings/Extras: malt
Wordcount: 563
Summary: Pia Rees and Edward Ashdown are having a night on the town. Again.
Notes: The part of the story I call the “Party Days” is probably my favourite, yet I have posted nothing about it. It’s the time before Newson kidnaps Rosalind and kind of the reason he does. PFAH; Pia : We’re gonna break the rules and party all the time.
Caliginous, adjective: misty; dim; dark.
“I really think you should get down from there,” Edward said, hands pressed against the glass of the barrier as he stared up at Pia Rees through slightly warping vision. They were on one of the walkways in Britannia City centre, deserted and in darkness aside from the lamps punctuating the metal walkway every few feet.
Clambering up the top of the barrier, trainers squeaking against the glass, Pia grinned down at her friend Edward Ashdown before heaving herself further up and finally pulling herself over the barrier, flopping over it at the waist, hands clasping the metal pole at the top tightly. She looked down through hundreds of storeys, straight down to the ominous darkness of the Smog. The skyscrapers all around them twinkled despite the ridiculous hour.
“You’re such a pussy, Ed!” she called over her shoulder at him, the wind whipping her bleached-blonde hair around her shoulders, voice slurring. She closed her eyes. “I had a friend that could climb anything, anywhere. Sim, you know, the one I said about the other day? You ought to feel this! I’m so high up... it’s fuckin’ ace!”
“Yes, until you fall and die!” Edward shambled forwards and grabbed one of her denim-clad legs with both hands. “You’re going to... awk!”
Pia had fallen as Edward had predicted, although instead of forwards she fell backwards and landed on top of him, sending them both sprawling across the metal floor with a loud clang. The entire walkway was reverberating slightly and Pia started giggling explosively, crawling away from him a little and then falling over again.
“Oh, man! We are rat-arsed, Eddie boy!” she said, still stifling fits of giggles. Next to her, Edward lay back on the walkway, rubbing his palms into his eyes. “You’re meant to be gettin’ straight to work for Newson tomorrow morning, ain’t you?”
“Newson can go fuck himself,” Edward muttered from between his hands. Pia started to laugh again.
“My, you are rude when you’re drunk!”
“Mmm,” Edward responded with a dazed smile. “You’re a bad influence on me, Rees.”
“We goin’ back to Hamlet now?” Pia asked.
“What’s the time?”
She glanced at her watch.
“Quarter past two.”
Edward made a pfft sound and let his arms flop out onto the walkway either side of him.
“Too early,” he said.
“All right!” Pia began scrambling to her feet, careening into the barrier for a moment with a glassy ‘bong!’ before turning back to Ashdown. “Where’re goin’ next? Plughole?”
“Whatever...” Edward flailed for a moment. “Help me up, will you?”
Sniggering, Pia grabbed him by the wrists and yanked him to his feet, sending them both stumbling to one side of the walkway.
“Come on, then,” she called, starting to skip down the walkway towards the next skyscraper, weaving this way and that. “We need to find you a hot piece of ass, boy!”
“Pia!” Edward whined, staggering after her. “Will you stop going on about that? I’m married.”
“Yeah, to a whore,” Pia snorted as they reached the end of the walkway and burst into the common centre of the next ‘scraper. “Everyone knows she’s sleepin’ with Newson.”
“Don’t remind me,” Edward groaned. “You are such a bad influence, Pia Rees. I swear to God I’m going to kill you when I’m shh-sober.”
“You’ve said that every night for the last week,” Pia laughed over her shoulder.