A foot catching the door as it tries to slam shut.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Shit, shit, okay," Maxine said, holding onto Gabby's forearm in a rush of giddy excitement, "They close in ten. Where the fuck do they keep the Schnapps?"

The liquor store was bright, despite the later hour, and their breathless entrance was met in equal measure by bland stares of the assembled staff, barely avoiding rolling their eyes.

"Just so you know," a matronly woman called to them as they raced by, "we close in ten minutes."

"We'll be so quick," Maxine promised, turning towards Gabby with pursed lips. "Should we grab a basket?"

[Catche Jagger]

How the hell did Gabriela get roped into this again? She really wasn’t sure at this point. Kinda dumb, like, conceptually, but momentarily exciting, even if the staff seemed none too pleased.

“I don’t know? Wouldn’t it be faster to just, like, grab some shit and get out? Might be better to lay low on this one?” She offered in hushed tones.

Sure, Gabriela wasn’t the most concerned about decorum most of time, but she did want to get out of this with something at the end of it. Max? Gabriela didn’t really know about her, though. Maybe she just wanted the chaos.

[The Honeless Beard]

"No yeah, makes sense. What kind of mix did you bring?"

With the buzzing eye of someone who desperately wanted to be seen as knowing what she was doing, Maxine grabbed a clear bottle of Bacardi off the rack and held it in both hands. Her sister's ID was weighing a hole in her handbag but she didn't want to get it ready yet for fear of like, looking too eager.

Or... whatever.

"Is a Schnapps a liquer? Or is it a Spirit, or...?"

[Catche Jagger]

“I, uh…” Shit, Gabriela had no idea what she was doing really. She didn’t go out here, or do this shit. It was stupid, right? She was certain one of the staff was staring a pair of holes in the back of her head right now. Gabriela was terrible at being inconspicuous.

“Hmmm, not sure about that.” She replied to the bottle in Max’s hand, trying to look thoughtful.

Gabriela grabbed another bottle from a nearby shelf, not even checking the label and she put on a bit of a display.

“Maybe this one would, uh, be a bit better for our needs?” Her eyes darted over to the lady by the counter, who didn’t look back at her.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Oh yeah, no definitely," Max said, frowning quickly at the label and barely reading it herself. There was nothing cool about second guessing and she was pretty sure that Gabby knew what she was doing. At least, that's what the partygoers had insisted.

Or had they? Who had elected to send them out on this journey again?

"Yeah, I hear uh, Mall-ort is good with sprite," Max said, putting her own bottle back. Gabby knew what she was doing, so she'd trust it. She squinted at the Liquers section, reaching out and grabbing a peach-coloured bottle.

"So, uh, I didn't know you like, went to parties," Max continued, wincing as her knee made a faint click. "How do you know the Jaggers?"

[Catche Jagger]

Wait.

Why was Max trusting the random bottle she’d picked up? Had Gabriela just happened to pick up something worthwhile by accident, or was she the butt of some bizarre joke? Regardless, she didn’t know what to do besides continue to roll with this, right?

“Oh uh, you know, from… around.” She tried to think of something, fiddling with the bottle in her hands. Who the fuck were the Jaggers?

“They weren’t really-” Gabriela tried to explain, before bumping into a standee of some barmaid girl holding a pair of mugs and nearly knocking it over along with a few drinks on display with it.

“Um, yeah,” She continued with a nervous laugh, “I came through other people.”

This was going to end up being fucking humiliating, wasn’t it?

[The Honeless Beard]

Max helped stabalize the standee menace, shooting Gabby a quick smile in reassurance. Gabby wasn't looking at the schnapps. She had a schnapps, right? Fuck, Mark would never let her live this down if the one thing he wanted she couldn't manage to get.

"Oh yeah, same. I don't know them all that well but their house is- uh, big. Beachfront."

Attention shoppers, the time is 7:55 and the store will be closing in-

"Wait, fuck. Okay, so we got booze, right? Should we uh,"

She made head jerk motions to the cash.

[Catche Jagger]

“Yeah, yeah, real big.” Gabriela replied with a slow nod, almost relieved when the announcement came up to move things along.

She glanced over at the counter. This time the woman looked back. Jesus fuck.

“Yeah, you got the cash right?” She asked in a hushed tone, starting to make her way forward as casually as she could manage.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Uh," came Max's reply, because of course she fucking didn't. Fuck.

Okay, okay. This was salvageable. She reached into her handbag to buy her time, producing a frayed and battered wallet, her sister's ID, and her own debit card that emphatically did not have her sister's name on it. Nobody checked the signatures though, really. Did they?

Fuck.

"Hey, just the two," Maxine said with a winning smile, handing over the ID unprompted as well as the debit card. The woman took both, gave her a bland look, and handed the debit card back.

As she pulled the card closer to study it, Max looked at Gabby, eyes wide.

[Catche Jagger]

Gabriela placed the drink on the counter uneasily as Max fiddled with her wallet, and produced… no cash, but a debit card. Well, that was cool, Max probably planned for that or something, right?

But then the lady kept just… looking at the ID. Like, it looked like her eyes were about to fly right out of her head and stick to the thing.

And Max just kept looking at her and…

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit

Gabriela was not handling this well at all.

Almost reflexively she reached forward to grab the bottle back off of the counter, as if to just go put it back and call this whole thing a bust already, but her grip wasn’t quite firm enough, and the bottle slipped from her fingers.

And it crashed onto the ground.

[The Honeless Beard]

The resounding crash of the glass smacking against the linoleum floor was the least of their worries.

Dark liquid flung upwards, splatteirng the standee with those two mugs that Gabby had assaulted earlier, sending amber liquid splattering across a row of beer boxes, glass spinning and spiralling across the floor. As the cashier turned to stare in horror as the mess grew, Max could feel the cold dread of the employees in the store, their dreams of an early, easy close dashed by two high schoolers with a false ID.

There was a moment of silence as the liquid pooled, the glass spun around, Max's hands locked against her mouth in shock.

Attention, shoppers, the cheery, automated voice said, the time is now 8 o'clock, and we are now closed. Please bring all final purchases to the front and a cashier will be more than happy to help you. Thanks for shopping at Grated Liquor, and have a pleasant rest of your evening.

"Um," was Max's only offer.

[Catche Jagger]

Well…

Uh…

Gabriela just stood there for a moment, staring in horror at her handiwork. Thanks to her, the two of them hadn’t just quietly fucked up, getting sent home empty handed, but instead had been transformed into a grand and disastrous display.

“I could help clean it up.” She offered quietly, looking up at the cashier, who looked back silently, seemingly at a loss for words at the sheer stupidity on display, eyes wide, mouth agape.

Gabriela wanted to die. She wanted for a black hole to open up at the core of her being and just suck all of her in so that she wouldn’t have to be here.

Fucking awful idea, doing this.

"I think it might be best if you both just left." Came the words of the cashier, slow and frustrated, filled with a barely restrained disdain.

[The Honeless Beard]

Max was nodding, taking her sister's ID back and stepping back. Her eyes met Gabby's, jerking her head towards the exit.

They mostly walked in silence for a minute, until they were around the corner, out of sight of the Grated Liquor - dumb name anyways.

"Well," Max said, "I think you earned a treat."

From her handbag, she produced the second bottle of booze - Fireball whiskey.

[Catche Jagger]

Gabriela’s body felt slack as she trudged out the door after Max. She wasn’t thinking. She just wanted to go. Get out of here. She couldn't tell if it was cold outside or not.

Max said something. What?

Gabriela turned toward her, only to see another drink in her hand. Huh.

“Oh, um, thanks. Yeah.” She spoke up, surprised at the gesture following her glorious fuckup. Wait, fireball. Uh, fuck. Could she actually handle that shit?

“You want to, um, split that?” She offered slowly.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Sure," Max said, and took a deep swig. Gabby didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that this little morsel had a five finger discount applied.

Max tried not to cough, and managed to hand the mickey over before letting out a hairball-esque hack. Her eyes filled with tears as she let the hacking continue.

"Feels great," she croaked.