It Wasn't Meant To Turn Out Like This

Mayza stuck close to Brian as they stepped through the entrance into a small yet crowded local bar. After taking a glance around to find everyone much taller than her and stupendously drunk off their asses, Mayza stepped even closer to Brian, so that their arms pressed together. Brian continued to peer around the room for an empty table, but Mayza caught his grin anyway as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her gently against his side. Mayza tucked herself in against his body, feeling suddenly much, much safer. She’d never been in a human bar before, and this one looked rowdier, louder, and more chaotic than most.

The entire group managed to become much nicer people to each other since Mayza’s speech. Everyone acted calmer, and the mood in the van on the road had become remotely pleasant. All it took was some effort on everyone’s part to learn to redirect their anger towards other things rather than at each other. Over the past several weeks, Mayza hadn’t had to stop one fist fight.

Now, however, they’d finally gotten a short break from playing gigs and had decided to go relax in a local bar. The group finally found the bar through the shifting, overstuffed crowd of people and everyone began to order drinks.

“A water, please,” Mayza said when the bartender turned his attention to her.

“No,” Brian retorted, frowning down at Mayza. “No! You’re drinking alcohol. You deserve to relax a little bit.”

“I haven’t got the faintest clue how fairies react to alcohol,” Mayza answered worriedly.

Brian rolled his eyes and turned to the bartender, ordering a beer and a shot for Mayza. He ordered a drink for himself before wrapping his arm back around Mayza’s shoulders and pulling her towards the table the group finally found. He grinned at Mayza’s look of uncertainty.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, allowing her to slide into the booth next to Jimmy before he sat down on the end. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

!!!!!

“Okay, I admit that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Brian said, looking uneasily at the fairy seated beside him. She sat slumped against the table, her cheek resting against an abandoned and desolate coaster. Her pink eyes focused and unfocused every few minutes, and her skin continued to pale minute by minute.

Mayza’s half-full shot glass lay next to her head, practically taunting her. The fairy hadn’t even had a full shot—she’d only been able to drink half a shot glass, and that alone had sent her into a five minute long coughing, eye-watering fit—and she was beyond wasted. She wasn’t crazy, dance-on-the-table, kiss-random-guy wasted, but quite the opposite: she was exhausted and looked ready to throw up at any moment.

“I’m taking her out to the van,” Brian announced once he decided Mayza was getting nothing from this experience in her first bar except for a major headache and some serious stomach churning. Everyone instantly agreed that it was for the best. Brian slid out of the booth and leaned over, grabbing Mayza’s arm and sliding her across the seat towards him. She raised her top half off of the table cooperatively and even attempted to shove herself to her feet. One of her knees instantly gave out beneath her, but she didn’t even have time to drop to the floor before Brian picked her up like a bride on her wedding day.

She groaned at the sudden swinging motion brought with the position and pressed her face into Brian’s chest, willing herself not to throw up. The last thing she wanted was puking all over Brian and embarrassing the both of them. Brian tried his hardest not to swing his arms too much as he stepped outside and began walking towards the van.

“Put me down for a second,” Mayza mumbled, pulling her head away from Brian’s chest. Assuming that she needed to throw up, Brian gently set her upright, moving slowly so he wouldn’t upset her further. He released her arm once she seemed steady enough to stand, but was shocked when the fairy began to attempt to fly across the parking lot.

Like a goose shot with a rifle, she tumbled quickly back towards the ground, even though her feet only got about a foot off the pavement. Brian caught her and continued to carry her towards the van.

“Flying isn’t such a good idea either,” Brian suggested. Mayza nodded and rested her head against Brian’s chest, closing her eyes and attempting to relax her body.

The two finally reached the parked van. Brian pulled the side door open and sat Mayza on the floor of the van so that her legs dangled outside the van. He left the door open and stood across from her, keeping a close eye on her just in case she started to fall. She leaned her shoulder against the edge of the door, gradually turning paler and paler by the minute.

“In my dimension, we have something a bit like alcohol. It burns going down your throat, and it makes a person stumble a bit, but it sure as hell isn’t this bad. We make it by fermenting a certain type of tree bark with spices and whatnot. How can you stand to drink that poison?” Mayza explained.

“It’s a human thing. We like to put ourselves in bad situations with even worse outcomes. Alcohol is one way to do it,” Brian answered with a grin.

Mayza weakly laughed but quickly stopped, grimacing and resting her palm against her temple. “I remember when I didn’t want to go to sleep, my father would give me a tablespoon of Bark Juice—that’s what we called it; fairies can be uncreative creatures sometimes—to get me to fall asleep.”

“Did your father end up on Earth too?” Brian asked curiously.

“No, he’s still back in the fairy dimension, along with my mother. It seems that the portals to this dimension only opened in a few random spots in my land. I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mayza answered calmly.

“Do you think your father is working hard to try to reopen the portals so you can return home?”

“No doubt. I have no doubt. But even if he doesn’t, that’s alright. It’s not too bad here,” Mayza answered. She smiled weakly up at Brian and he grinned back.

Heaving a sigh, Mayza let her eyes slip closed and leaned her head against the edge of the doorframe. After a couple of minutes, she began to slump further forward, dangerously close to falling forward out of the van. Brian smiled, knowing her body had finally submitted and passed out, and gently lifted her and set her body further back into the band’s van. He climbed in behind her, placing her body in a more comfortable position before hunting down a blanket. He pulled the blanket across her small body, tucking the edges in around her, and gently brushed her hair out of her face.

“Don’t go,” Mayza mumbled as Brian turned around to slide the van door shut. He figured it would be a good idea to keep an eye on her and make sure nothing extremely wrong happened to her. He decided it was the one good idea he’d had all evening.

“I never planned to,” Brian answered and pulled the van door shut.