Smashed

Her brain was soaking in alcohol and while intoxicated Mali felt like a very different person. Her edges were sharper, her tongue had lost it's gentle way with words. Normally Meg wheeling around on her would have caused her to demure and maybe stutter but tonight she didn't flinch. The blonde looked angry at her words, and Sober Mali would've found that uncomfortable and worked to soothe out the irritated edges but she didn't care. Meg treated her like crap and the alcohol helped her realize that she didn't have to take it. It stoked the fire of her temper 'til her blood was burning hot in her veins.

When Meg sat the glass of water down, Mali knocked it away with one deliberate swipe of her arm. "No! You don't get to treat me like this and then try to boss me around! I don't want water." The glass spilled and the sober personality drowning in alcohol had the decency to at least feel bad about it. Mali grabbed a cocktail napkin left behind by someone who'd been sitting two barstools down and went to sop up the spilled water. "And you can act like your feelings are hurt all you want." The hiccups weren't funny anymore, just frustrating and Mali made a low grumble of discontent when one passed her lips. "But you can't in good confidence tell me that you've not been behaving like a jerk. If the bloody shoe fits, you wear it." Her cocktail napkin quickly became saturated and Mali stood up, wobbling off to find another a few bar stools further down.

She was very determinedly not looking at Meg when she spoke. Something in her had snapped with the glass of water and she wasn't quite sure when she was going to stop. "I don't even get it. I didn't do anything to you. You know what happened to Theo wasn't my fault." Her gaze snapped up suddenly, looking Meg square in the eye. "It happened to me too, you know. All of it. Everything that Theo's gone through, he hasn't gone through it alone." Perhaps the sudden movement wasn't a good idea, Mali looked a bit queasy and flopped down onto the nearest bar stool, cradling her head in her arms. "Drinking was a terrible idea. I'm going to throw up, where's the rubbish bin?"

Intoxication seemed to intensify things for Mali. When she was happy she was really happy and when she was irritated it pushed her to the point of petulance. "Alright, mum." she retorted with an eyeroll as she busily saturated the napkin in an attempt to clean up her mess. The witch moved a hand to her wand pocket with the intention of magicking away the mess but found that the instrument was missing. A misplaced wand would normally be cause for concern, but the alcohol muffled the alarm bells going off in her brain. She simply shrugged her shoulders and continued on with her ineffective napkin, figuring she'd find it later. It was for the better, anyway. Mali would charm her nose off in this condition, try explaining that to Theo.

"At least we agree on something." she quipped with a bob of her head and a snicker, amused by her own commentary. Not so amusing was the implication that she deserved it. "Whatever you have to tell yourself." If Meg wanted to treat her like that, then fine. That wasn't a reflection on her. Meg was the one who had to live with how she treated people. If one thing could be said about Mali it was that she always tried to treat people with kindness and compassion. Some more than others, but she had very few people that didn't like her.. So when one did dislike her, it was very very annoying. What had she done? None of this made any sense.

"I'm not sorry." the tipsy witch said quietly, chancing a single glance up from the mess that she was making almost no progress on. "The hard time was uncomfortable, but Theo was worth it." It was an honest and open admission, something that Meg didn't really deserve but that's how she operated. Mali wore her heart on her sleeve for everyone to see. Her thoughts and feelings were all written down plainly for anyone to read. "I wouldn't care if you liked me or not." That wasn't true, it nagged at her relentlessly. "I didn't come here to be your best friend, I want to help." It was vague, but in her drunken state it was better to err on the side of caution. "Besides, you're wrong." Mali said as the corner of her lips tugged upward in the smallest of grins. "I did do something to you. I  hit you in the face with a ball of snow."

It didn't matter how much she wanted to help, drinking was such an awful idea. Mali's tolerance was low to begin with and she had thrown drink after drink back like a champ. Too much, she had far too much and it was threatening to all come back up. The hand on her back was soothing and Meg's words seemed to have lost their venom. What did they do? Mali had a few moments to ponder the answer as she vomited into the conveniently placed bucket. The taste of bile and liquor mixed together wasn't a very pleasant one but thankfully there was water nearby. Although she would've liked nothing more than to never drink that water, she downed the glass to wash away the sour taste in her mouth. Mali set down the glass, shrugging her shoulders. "He reaches the tall bits for me and I tell him what he's missing way down here. And sometimes, there's snuggling." All the time. There was snuggling all the time because she couldn't get enough of Theo. His scent, the scruffiness of his facial hair under her fingers, the taste of his lips... All of it was much better to get drunk off of.

"Dunno why it bothered you." Mali shrugged as Meg came 'round the bar with a bucket. "I thought ice queens liked snow." Thinking back to that, Mali found the whole thing funny now. She laughed at the image, slapping a hand over her mouth to try and unsuccessfully smother out the sound. "In their face. It was a beautiful throw, really. Your face just got in the way." It never occurred to her that it might be counter productive, laughing at Meg while she was trying to get her on her side enough to agree to help her. "Theo thought it was funny, too. I think you knew that." The troll made no attempt to hide his laughter that day, much to her horror at the time. "I'd been aiming for him. How can someone miss a target that big? I think it was fate, maybe the snowball was drawn to your icy nature." She laughed again, how could she not? Alcohol made everything funnier and everything seemed like a great idea.

Except vomiting. Vomiting wasn't funny or a great idea. The queasy feeling was uncomfortable and she didn't really enjoy the taste of her drinks the first time so back up and mixed with the bitter taste of bile was absolutely wretched. Meg didn't really appreciate Mali's natural sweetness that came out especially when Theo was involved, even threatened to vomit. "Would you rather hear that he's really good in bed?" Loose inhibitions meant a loose, slightly crass tongue, after all. Throwing up would serve Meg right. "We do a lot of that too." Mali nudged the bucket towards Meg. "Buckets free if you need to vomit now." Or maybe not. Another wave of nausea hit her and Mali laid a hand over her stomach but managed to keep it all under control.

They were switching gears a bit, was Meg actually willing to listen to her? She asked why Mali'd come and talking to Meg was exactly that reason. "Maybe more water.." to settle her stomach which was now a knot of nerves as much as it was sick with too much alcohol. This was a chance that she apparently hadn't blown by talking about hitting Meg with snow and she needed it so desperately. Saying the wrong thing now could be devastating. This could be a small bonding moment for them or the thing that shuts Meg off from her forever. "Your werewolves." the bar was empty now so it was alright to say it out in the open. "I want to help them and you want to keep their identities safe. We can do both. You tell me how much wolfsbane you need and I can give it to you and we both achieve our objective. Don't give me any rubbish about not knowing if the wolfsbane is safe or effective, you can talk to people who've taken ours" Or person. "and they can tell you it's effective, maybe better than they've had before because we're trying to improve it. We've made a little progress on the potion itself, but we've got a whole routine to try and make the transformation easier the night of and morning after. You'd be a middle man. It's perfect." The conversation was a bit sobering on her end, allowing her to focus more but there was still alcohol in her system evidenced by her lack of tact, filter or modesty. "Of course it is. I'm brilliant."

Ice Queen Supreme. "That rhymed!" Mali squealed with delight, clapping her hands. "Bravo! You should be a poet!" Ice Queen Supreme, saying that in her head was so much fun that she giggled like a school girl. The witch was easy to entertain as a rule but she was much more simple minded when her brain was floating in a healthy pool of various fruity flavored alcohols. "Not a bamboon... Bamboon? Baboon!" She laughed again at her own tied tongue before she managed to settle down enough to speak. "He looks much more like a troll, doesn't he? Not just his height, but his strong jaw and heavy brow. Very troll-like. Have you seen muggle trolls? Sometimes when I'm mad at him I imagine him with fluffy green hair like a troll doll and it makes it hard to be mad at him anymore."

In the morning, when her head would be pounding and she'd regret all the choices she made that night, Mali would be mortified by her lack of filter and the fact she informed Meg about her brother's love life. Tonight, however (or was it this morning? Gods, what time was it?) she found it hysterical. "You asked!" She laughed, then groaned because laughing didn't help her feel any less nauseated or dizzy. Mali pressed her head against the bar, eyes closed tightly. "People actually do this for fun?" she asked, incredulous that others found what she was pretty sure was going to turn into alcohol poisoning fun.

It made achieving her objective so much harder. It was hard to remain mature, calm and collected when alcohol was whispering little sassy comments in her ear and making her laugh. "Takes someone ridiculous to know one." What... What was she saying? Alcohol said it was cool though, so she went with it. "Bloody Hufflepuffs." she nodded from her barstool. "What are you looking at?" Mali demanded when Meg looked down at the bar. "I already cleaned that for you. Or it dried up, s'only water." Nevermind she was currently fidgeting with a spot on the bar that was nowhere near where she petulantly knocked over the glass of water. "Have you got anymore alcohol?" She didn't feel nauseated while drinking, only when she stopped. The natural solution to that was to drink some more, wasn't it? Focus. She needed to focus on the potion and not pestering Meg... although pestering Meg had been about the potion. Mali managed to muster brief lucid moments that broke through the bubbly alcohol euphoria.

"We aren't really charging a fixed amount. Just what you can muster." That sounded like a good compromise. "The point is to taken the burden off the werewolves and taking all their money is the opposite of that." She paused and looked confused with herself for a moment. "Taken the burden? Taking. Taking the burden. We use the money from my Ministry job strictly for the potion." A smug little grin settled on Mali's face, lighting up her features. "It's like a big 'Sod off' to them, isn't it? Could you imagine the Minister's face if she knew that every knut the Ministry paid me went to making werewolves lives easier?" It would be absolutely hysterical. "Eoin and I knick what we can't afford from the pharmacy and we've developed connections to help us get the 'out of stock' supplies the apothecary claims they don't have." Mali shrugged to try and play it off as no big deal but there was no hiding the smile that pride coaxed onto her face. She was proud of what they'd done, all of them. Her and Eoin, Theo and Remus too. They managed to do some really good work. "And the 'connection' is nothing to worry about. People in Knockturn don't ask questions as long as the money's good."

Silly. Meg thought she was silly and it only made her laugh some more. "Blimey!" the witch exclaimed through the giggles. "That's the nicest thing you've actually ever said to me! The Ice Queen Supreme's heart's melting! Brilliant!" She was cracking herself up and laughing so hard that she had to wipe away mirthful tears. "I do all the time.. Not the green fluffy hair, but the troll bit. You know what you should get him for his birthday? A troll club. So he could play with all the other trolls. He'd be thrilled to bits, he would!" She was so funny tonight, maybe the alcohol thing wasn't so bad.

Except it was. It was terrible and made her regret her life decisions as the ugly side of alcohol reared it's head. Meg was holding out on her, claiming that the whole bar was fresh out of all the alcohol and Mali had the sense to doubt her. "You're lying." the witch challenged, standing up to lean across the bar and peek behind it. "There's plenty here. Why would you lie? You're in a bar. I may date a troll but I'm not thick like one." Instead of reaching for it she only groaned and slid back onto her bar stool. "I don't want to do this again." If only Meg would have talked to her in the start she wouldn't have had to camp out at the bar all night but in a way, this was better. Neither woman would ever admit it to the other, but Mali would swear they were bonding over giggles and bubbles.

Meg even seemed to hear her when she spoke. It was her turn to look at the bar and she did, scratching her finger nail along a groove in the wood. "I suppose it sort of is." And it was likely why she got picked on by others when she went there, although it was better when Theo came along. The first time by herself she had to fend off a grabby drunk man and then Theo got attacked when he went on his own. That's why they needed each other, wasn't it? To face the darkness together and back each other up. "But I've managed it alright so far.." She nodded her head, feeling a little thrill in her chest at the question because it meant that Meg was at least considering her offer. "Mm. You can talk to Remus... You'd know him as Professor Lupin. He can assure you that Eoin and I are not out to poison your wolf friends. And you can trust him because he's a professor and a werewolf. We've been making it for him for a few months." She paused for a moment, the wheels in her head turning and squeaking, lubricated by the alcohol her brain was floating in. "And you could come by and see the potion, we brew it in our kitchen."