Advice and Alcohol

Who: Jules and Olivia
When: Evening
Where: A bar

As of Tuesday it would have been two weeks since Judiel disappeared. Two weeks since Olivia last saw him, or heard him or anything. She was thinking as of Tuesday, she would have to call his mom and explain things. Since she was having no luck finding a gate to the Dreaming, and no one seemed to be able to help her. She felt useless, and hopeless, and knew if she couldn't even help her boyfriend, she wasn't going to be able to protect anyone. She was becoming extremely close to just sinking into a depressive state, so she was grateful when Jules suggested going out for a drink. A drink was definitely something Olivia could handle, since alcohol always made everything better, right? Right.

They went to one of the closer bars to Jules's house and once they were settled at a table, Olivia ordered a gin and tonic and reached into her bag for her cigarettes. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" She had wanted to try and stop for Judiel's sake but... fuck.

Jules ordered straight tequila for herself and glanced up at Olivia when she questioned her. "No, I don't mind." she told the girl, shaking her head. She understood that the girl was stressing, so if drinking and smoking would help, Jules wasn't going to stop her. "Go ahead." she smiled. And even if it did bother her, she could always blow the smoke away, right?

"Thanks." Olivia lit a cigarette quickly and slipped her lighter back in her bag. "How did your thing go with Dorian? Was he able to help you out?" It would be okay if she could just focus on other things. Like her roommate.

"Better than I expected." she smiled. "We got along this time which was a definite improvement. He offered to help me with it." Which Jules still found to be really nice. "I talked to Aiden about it all. About Dorian helping and stuff. That was interesting. Is it possible for a guy to be jealous and not jealous all at the same time?"

"Probably," Olivia said with a small shrug. "Or he can at least be jealous and pretend not to be jealous. Why? Did Aiden have a problem with Dorian wanting to help you with your elemental stuff?"

"Not really a problem I guess... he just acted weird for a second. I mean I think he thinks that Dorian could get back at him for the thing with the other girl if he slept with me. But I doubt Dorian would do that and I know I wouldn't..."

"Which means he either doesn't trust Dorian, or he doesn't trust you," Olivia pointed out, pausing as their drinks were set in front of them. Hallelujah! "But if he was jealous, or even just weird, that must mean he cares, right? A guy doesn't respond that way unless he feels a bit possessive of you."

"I think he doesn't trust that people don't always have to get back at you for something. He fucked Dorian over, but that doesn't mean that Dorian's going to go and do the same thing to him. But yeah..." she agreed, shrugging a little. "He does care. I mean, I'm pretty sure he cares. He admitted he doesn't really want me doing anything with anyone else. That's got to be something, right?"

"Yeah, that's something." She nodded and took a small drag from her cigarette before continuing, "but does that mean he's not going to mess around with anyone else either? Some guys do that stuff... they don't want you with someone else, but they're okay with fucking around." And Aiden seemed like the type, though Olivia kept that to herself.

She shrugged. "I don't know..." she admitted. "I mean I told him that I didn't want him to, but that I couldn't really stop him because we're not together or whatever. But he didn't seem like he was. Or maybe I'm just completely clueless and he is.."

Olivia thought about that and then nodded. "If he's a dick, he'll sleep with whoever he wants. But... if he cares about you, I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. I'm sure it's hard though, right? I mean... you want to be with him, don't you?"

Jules bit her bottom lip. "I do." she nodded. "But he's not the kind of guy that settles down. He doesn't want a girlfriend... we're just having fun and that's usually just fine for me. Completely okay, but with Aiden it's like... I don't know. I'm so jealous for the first time in like... my life. I just don't know how to handle it."

"Why are you jealous?" Olivia asked, arching her eyebrow curiously. "If he's not with anyone else, and you have no plans on being with anyone else... what is there to be jealous about?" It seemed to Olivia like maybe Jules and Aiden were unofficially together, even if neither of them seemed to realize that.

"Because what if he wants to be with someone else and I'm just too oblivious to realize it? What if he is with someone else? Just the thought of him being with someone instead of me drives me crazy..." And boy did it. It even irked her a bit to hear him talk about his previous escapades. Girls he'd not been with in months, weeks, years even but still it had her feeling more than a little twinge of aggravation.

Olivia stared at Jules for a few moments before she lifted her drink to take a sip. After the liquid wet her mouth, she settled back in her chair, trying to keep her smile at bay. "I see... you're in love with him, aren't you?" Because it sure as hell sounded like it to Olivia. Not that she knew what it was like to be in love... maybe she did... but that train of thought was bound to leave her upset and depressed again, so she refocused on Jules.

Jules jaw dropped at that question and she immediately started denying it. "No. No, no, no. Of course not." she said, shaking her head as if that would instill that statement into her own brain and Olivia's in the process. "I don't fall in love with people. It just doesn't work like that. Aiden doesn't love me, I don't love him. He doesn't even do the love thing. That's just not... no way."

"You can't... just not fall in love with people," Olivia said, not believing her for a second. "You can't stop something like that. I'm not saying he loves you but the way you talk about him... it sounds to me like you love him. Maybe you've never fallen in love because those guys were never the right ones?"

She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her drink sitting there before her. She picked up the glass and drank the shot down, shaking her head afterward. "I can't be in love with him." she said again, shaking her head. "That's stupid. Fall in love with a guy that is never going to fall for me? Recipe for a broken heart and I don't want a broken heart."

"I know..." Olivia sympathized, she really did. "You sound like me. Anytime I would start to get close to anyone, I ran away. Or fucked this up, either on purpose or not... I didn't want to end up hurt, or hurting someone." She had fucked things up with Mathias... and had almost ruined things with Judiel. "But I don't think you can help who you love. And you don't know that he'll never fall for you. He's spending time with you, isn't he? He must see something in you he likes, or he wouldn't keep coming back, would he? I know it's scary, and hard... and just thinking about it makes me want to run, but... is it so bad?"

Jules brushed her hair behind her ear and shrugged. "I don't know. I know I care about him... I know he sees... something in me, but I just don't know if the only thing he sees in me is my bed... or whatever. I never minded being just that to people. I've never cared what they thought. Never wanted to be anything else but with him it's like... the one thing I've been for so many people for so long... I don't want to be that for him. I want to be more for him. I don't want to freak him out though or scare him away or make him think that I'm trying to change who he is because I'm not. I knew from the get go that this was just supposed to be fun. Two people, no strings, no feelings... but somewhere along the line I realized that maybe that wasn't possible."

"Feelings are always involved," Olivia said. "Look... I met this guy when I came here. He's sort of like Aiden. The kind that doesn't settle, doesn't do relationships... hell, I didn't care because I was the same way. We had a drink together now and then... talked a lot. It never got physical." Beyond that first time. Yeah. Olivia flushed and took another drink. "Before I knew, I cared about him. A lot. But things were complicated... he refused to be anything with me. It got to the point where he decided to avoid me. Now to me? That told me he was starting to feel things for me, and it scared him. When a guy is faced with something like that? When they're so against it in their mind? They run. Aiden might tell you it's all fun, no strings, but it's not going to stay that way. If you really think he'll never feel about you the way you feel about him? Then you have a choice to make. Do you stay in the kind of relationship you're in now and enjoy it while you have it? Or do you break things off to avoid heart break later?"

She frowned at that decision that she knew she'd have to make. Or maybe it was already made, she wasn't really sure. "I don't want to lose him." she admitted. "I really don't want to lose him. I worry about him constantly. And I know he worries about me and I just wish there was some magic words I could say to make him want to be with me, but there aren't. There's no magic words, nothing I could say to make things different. I know he's itching to leave and I'm just afraid that if I tell him I really... really care about him that it'll be his excuse to haul ass. He tried before to settle down and it backfired on him and I think maybe he's afraid of it happening again but I can't tell him that. He'll just... shut down on me completely."

She nodded, understanding that. Olivia tended to shut down sometimes too, when it came to intimacy. As much as it frustrated her, you couldn't always fix it with the right words. "Maybe just show him that you care," Olivia suggested, still unable to believe she was actually giving her advice on Aiden of all people. "He probably just doesn't know how to handle having someone care about him like you do. I don't know what he'd do, or say, if you told him you want to be with him... I guess you just have to choose your battles. Figure out what's important..."

"I've just never had someone worry about me the way he does." she told Olivia. "I mean he's got to care if he worries so much about my well being. About whether I'm safe or not. And he stayed the night last night. And it wasn't awkward this morning."

Olivia wondered if Aiden's staying overnight meant something. It must have, if she thought it did. "I would say it sounds like he cares," she agreed. Taking another sip of her drink, Olivia gave Jules a mildly apologetic look. "I wish I had better advice for you... I'm not exactly a relationship expert."

Jules shook her head. "Don't worry about it." she said with a smile. "It's just nice to be able to talk about it and not hold it in anymore. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode or something. I guess if things are meant to work out they will." She just hoped that things were meant to work out.

"Guys are complicated," Olivia said with a shrug before slipping the cigarette between her lips. "They think we're bad? They're worse. But somehow the confusion and complications are always our fault, right? But you're right, if things are meant to happen, they will..."

"Yeah, seriously. We're the crazy ones. The ones that don't do what they want or we're the ones that freak out when really, they're the ones that are fucking nuts." Men. Can't live with them and can't live without them.

"I completely agree." Olivia smiled and picked up her glass to salute Jules. "All I can say is to just be yourself, and don't try to change him. I mean... you might change. You might want something more than he does... and if it gets to that, it's best to just let it go, because I think that's just a dead end and waste of time."

"If it gets to that." Jules agreed. "Who knows, maybe I'll be the one to tame Aiden Quinlan. Yeah right. But a girl can dream I suppose." she smiled. And that was all she had left to do, hope and dream.

"Good luck with that," Olivia said with a tiny grin. "If you manage to do it? Let me know and we'll celebrate." Which meant more drinking, which was fine by her. It was the only thing getting her through now anyway.

"I'll do that." she smiled. "So... how're you holding up?" She wondered how she was handling everything with Judiel still missing. Wondered if she'd gotten any closer to figuring out how to get the man back.

"I'm dealing," Olivia replied, though she wasn't sure if she was. "I don't really know what else to do... I need to find a gate to the Dreaming somehow, but I know if I do, then I have to find someone who can go into it... and even then it's a longshot, since the Dreaming apparently isn't just this small area... it's a whole different world, you know? He could be anywhere." Olivia frowned. "I just want him to be back... and I don't know if he's coming back down. I don't think I've really accepted that. He has a family, you know... and I'm too cowardly to call and tell them anything."

Jules wished she had some amazing advice for Olivia, but she didn't know what to say. "Any ideas on how to find someone who can go into it?" she questioned.

"Not a clue," Olivia said with a small shake of her head. "Mathias said he could call some people for me, but I haven't heard anything from him about it since so... I think I'm on my own on this." She thought about asking Eris for help, but she was resisting that for some reason. She wasn't expecting Jules to have any answers, but it still felt good to be able to talk about it.

"Well maybe he'll find someone..." she said with a hopeful tone. "I hope he does. Then you'll be able to figure out the next step whatever that is..."

Olivia was trying to stay optimistic about it, but it was hard. It had been almost two weeks and there was no sign that he was coming back and she hadn't the first clue on how to find him. No one seemed to be able to help. And even if he came back, she wasn't sure what would happen. Now that she knew more about Muses and their traditions than she had before. But god, she missed him. She just wanted him home with her. Every day and night that passed without him felt like eons. Crying hadn't helped anything. "Thanks, Jules," Olivia said with a small smile. She shot back the rest of her drink before lifting her arm to motion for the waitress. "You want another?"

"Oh shit yes. I might be in love with a guy who doesn't do love, my boss is a royal prick and my roomie's boyfriend has... vanished. I'd say we've got a lot of drinking in our future."

Olivia laughed, though it didn't hold any amusement. It was easier to laugh than to cry. "You're right... and that's fine with me. It's the easiest way to handle this stuff, sometimes." And Olivia was perfectly happy with getting flat out drunk, since Jules was driving. "I think things will work out okay, for both of us..."

"I hope so." she smiled. "But until then... we'll just have to keep drinking." she smirked.