“Tweny… one,” Tam announces to the only person he has in Canada approaching a friend. “S’old. Well, no’ really. But… s’legal in America. T’buy porn an’ stuff.” He snorts.

If he were back home he’d be given the key to the door. He’d also have presents, but he’s unsure whether or not he’s good enough friends with Kittio to expect one. It’s his birthday today, and he’s tweny… one, and damned if he isn’t going to celebrate. Which is how Kristopher got dragged into this.

Tam’s already slightly drunk, on the basis that you can’t go out expecting a good time unless you’re already having one. Empty beer cans litter poor Kristopher’s kitchen table. He’s going to clear them up in the morning, but now he’s just about to get up and party. He’s already dressed for the occasion.

Thomas Joyce does not possess many smart suits. Wearing suits with cropped hair makes him feel and look like a goon. He’s got a pair of jeans, and Kits has been very nice about letting him use her washing machine, so they’re sparkly clean. His shirt is a light blue pinstripe he took to Canada ‘just in case’. He doesn’t scrub up badly. He’s even wearing proper shoes for the occasion, not his tatty old trainers. As far as he knows tatty old trainers are banned from the Fortuna Casino.

“Shall we get going, then?” he asks brightly, in a ‘the-night-is-still-young’ voice. “Or d’ya reckon it’s too early still?”

Watching Tam drink is basically like watching a Process, and Kristopher's been watching it, slightly mesmerised, since he started. She'd been going to drive, but then she had a beer and decided a taxi sounded like an excellent idea.

She was also at a point in life where anything but jeans, and actually including jeans, made her look kind of like a librarian, and although nobody has told her so yet, she does suspect. It makes it hard for her to remember to own dresses that are anything but black or gray- so she's wearing one of those, the only one that isn't knee-length; soft black teeshirty fabric, skintight, long sleeves tempered by a low neckline and a lower back and also a green zip-up hoodie. Kits drops the butt of a cigarette into an empty can to hear it sizzle, and lets the question register.

"Taxi in half an hour. The hell I'm driving."

Tam nods, holds up his beer, and looks at Kristopher. “Fair enough, fair enough.” Getting a taxi is the sensible thing to do and therefore entirely fitting Kristopher at the moment.

Of course, only she sees the librarian in the mirror. Men like Tam are going to see the low neckline instead (even if it doesn’t, technically, show much off). This counts for double after half a six-pack.

“You ever been to this place before?” he asks Kits, waggling a can at her. Casinos weren’t usually his thing but he’d heard they had free drinks and shows – or at least, that this one did. In Scotland they were depressing and dingy places with drab carpets and drunkards, but hadn’t this one been advertised as Vegas in Bayfield? And Vegas was famous for its strippers, right? So even if it didn’t have free drinks, Tam had decided, there was no way it was going to turn out all bad.

"Went to a sort of impromptu girls' night there after I got out of high school," she says thoughtfully, contemplating the closed tab of a second beer. "It was- okay, it was pretty fun, but basically ridiculous." One of those bizarre bonding situations girls get into, thrown together with people they've never talked to for more than ten minutes, contrarily allowing them to not mind never seeing one another again.

"Didn't gamble, though. Mainly we got plastered and found boys to take us to the park in the middle of the night."

“Yer mam can’t have been too happy ‘bout that,” Tam jokes before remembering cardinal rule number one: Do Not Make Jokes About Kittio’s Parents Unless You’re Prepared To Get Ice-Glared. It was a rule he’d made after last time had left him feeling awkwardly itchy under Kristopher’s gaze.

Stupid beer.

“But ah can’t imagine you ever bein’ in high school,” he adds, pointing with the same hand that’s holding the beer for emphasis. He especially can’t imagine Kits as ever having attended the sort of high school the popular media has led him to believe litter North America; the sort that’s full of cliques, cheerleaders and jocks and hard-working inspirational teachers and people who go to band practise. Maybe the librarian theme has seeped into his subconscious or maybe it’s the big house that means he can only just about imagine Kits at a private school. Really, if he’d been asked to guess, it would have been: governess. French speaking private tutor with flute lessons interspersed.

Or any sort of education more likely to take place at the turn of the last century than this one.

Tam does get the ice-glare, although not as badly as last time. Anyway, of all the things she'd ever been disciplined for, being drunk hadn't been one of them since her mother's brief "do as I say, not as I do" phase in Kristopher's first couple of years of high school.

"Public school is basically nonsense." It had been a better school than some in the city, because of the neighborhood, but it was still school and it was still public, and there were terrible teachers that had tenure, and nice ones who were too new to be useful, and the odd molestation lawsuit, and fucking PE- Kristopher wrinkles her nose. "That wasn't too long ago, anyway."

Although nonsense would perhaps not have been the word Tam would have chosen, he still raises his can and mutters: “ah’ll drink t’that.” And does so, taking peculiarly girlish sips.

“Did ye ever think about what ya wanted to do next? Go t’college or whatever?” He skipped lightly over the fact high school was less than a year ago for Kits, since it was almost five years ago for him. He never really learnt much while there and unlike his little sister saw no reason to stay beyond the legal minimum amount of time he could get away with.

"Yeah. Less in the going to college way and more in the 'what am I going to do with this house eventually' kind of way." She puts her chin in her hand, lights another cigarette. "I was supposed to start school last autumn, didn't get around to it. Then during the year off I forgot what I wanted to go for."

Kristopher sighs smoke, leans back in her chair. "I don't know- I'll get around to it, I'm sure."

“Aye, well, no rush,” Tam agrees amiably and drains the last of his third beer. “But can’ you just go on living in the house?” It’s a very nice house, after all.

He leans forward, frowns and taps out a cigarette. “Yer temptin’ me here, y’know,” he says, spreading his hands out wide in a shrug with a closed-mouth boy-can’t-help-it smile on his face. He was meant to be giving up smoking for the good of his wallet. This is not an easy thing to do when you’re living with a chain smoker who’s so gamine and nonchalant that just by lighting up she proves wrong all those health videos claiming smoking doesn’t make you look cool.

Kristopher grimaces, "Sorry," but doesn't put the cigarette out. She'll just have to start paying attention or something.

"Yeah, I probably will stay here." Only, it's Moira's house, which makes it weird. And not only weird-awkward, but weird-weird, which Kits is vaguely sure Tam is starting to notice. Because, weird. Furthermore, when she does want to move out, what the hell does she do with it?

If Tam has problems imagining her having gone to a public school, probably her owning a cellphone seems weird. It seems weird to me, anyway. At any rate she does, and it rings, and she answers, and glances up at Tam. "Taxi's downstairs," she announces, and drops the phone in her purse.

Taxis don’t allow smoking, which means Tam will either have to smoke the cigarette he’s just got out super-fast on the way downstairs, or he’ll have to go through the whole evening without one now that the stupid new law’s been introduced. The former will be killer on his lungs but the latter will have him biting his nails all night.

He lights up and tries to inhale as much nicotine in one breath as possible. He can always clip the cigarette if he doesn’t finish it in time.

They walk down the hall which always seems to Tam like it’s got more space to it when he’s drunk, like it could be stretching on for miles and his brain has decided to bypass the fact. He clatters a bit down the stairs but it’s a three beer clatter with no real stumbling.

“Ladies first,” he says as he opens the front door. Kittio is looking especially ladylike tonight.

Kristopher shuffles into a pair of flats and puts out the cigarette, leaving it in the ashtray relightable (she's nearly between jobs, feeling a little stingy) and takes the stairs two at a time.

"Thank you sir- hey, happy birthday," she adds, sliding past him out the door.

Tam clips his and replaces it back in the packet which in turn goes in the inside pocket of his blazer. Well, not technically his blazer, but a blazer he found in the cupboard in his room and is hoping Kristopher won’t object to him stealing for the evening.

“Cheers,” he replies cheerily and shuts the door behind him. He rushes ahead of Kits so as to be able to open the door nearest to the pavement. He gets in through the door on the side of the road, narrowly avoiding a mad biker who chooses the same moment to come careering round.