The flat doesn't smell like smoke, it smells like turkey.

This is unusual. It is the first place Jessie has ever lived in that doesn't smell even a bit like cigarettes.

This is hard. The doctors wouldn’t even give her nicotine patches in case they were passed on in utero.

This is the fault of Billy Taz Joyce. Who is sitting in his high chair eating mashed yams with the help of his uncle.

It’s the toddler's first Thanksgiving and the first one Jessie has celebrated. This time last year, she was sleeping on friends' couches and using the word friend very loosely. Thanksgiving? Not really a big event when you’re up the duff, miles from home and desperate for a job. Then she had Billy and the government stepped in and Jessie's brother, Tam, tried his best to help. And even Tatters had agreed that, while not in his life plan, having a secret lovechild wasn’t scary enough to make him leave the country. Or at least not scarier than his mum finding out about aforementioned lovechild.

Jessica is in full-on mom mode. What was previously a foreign concept has become second nature. She stirs, fries, beams and thanks Diane for passing her the cabbage. (Diane is, incidentally, doing most of the real work.) There’s an apron tied round her waist and her long, scraggly hair is done up in a bun with kirby grips. Today is going to be a good day even if she does have to keep one eye on her baby, one on her useless brother and one on the door in case Tats walks through it.

Tam enjoys spending time with his nephew. The kid is well mannered and usually calm. And surprisingly normal, considering his genealogy. Billy is looking up at the strange, green-eyed, yam-offering hippy with a grin. Tam's curly hair is past his chin now and grabbing and pulling it is an excellent way to make him yell out. Billy refrains. He's found that in the past this makes yam-offerer disappear. Something else has caught his attention anyway. It's the door.

"Get tha', wouldja," Jessie yells from the baking hot kitchen. Tam grins to himself, puts the plastic spoon down dangerously close to Billy’s grasp, and goes to answer.

Diane is happy.

It is Thanksgiving, in a nasty, cold, Ontario autumn way, and she is not round the pub getting plastered. She's not even tarting it up in some club, hoping someone will take her home. No, she's at Jessie's place. She's making cranberry sauce, for heaven's sake. Jessie is wearing an apron and playing mum, and Tam is playing with the baby. It's a domestic (albeit somewhat unconventional) scene. Diane almost feels like she has a family. Which makes a change, anyway.

The relative peace of the scene is interrupted (of course) by a knock on the door. Diane, distracted by a timer beeping at her, doesn't go to get it. She just sneaks a shifty, sideways glance at Jessie and then has to dive for a pot that's boiling over.

Getting Tatters to show up was something of a struggle. It's not that he's an unenthusiastic parent. Well. Perhaps he could be a little more elated by the existence of his young son, but for the most part he's being a good sport about it. It can just be a little hard to make him conform to anyone else's schedule. In this case, Diane recruited his drinking buddies (probably through dubious methods) to help... persuade him. And they apparently did a good job, because here he is, knocking on the door.

Tatters smells, inevitably, of cigarettes and alcohol. He is wearing a worn out and patched up jacket that used to be grey corduroy, and he has shaved recently but his hair is still a mess. In one hand he's got a bottle of cheap vodka, and in the other a bouquet of orange carnations.

"Thomas," he says, somewhat cautiously (there is still always that idea that Tam might suddenly do something stupid). "Happy Thanksgiving."

Jessie knows nothing of Diane's morally dubious plans. So when Tatters shows up at the door, she's elated; as far as she knows he's turned up on his own initiative.

"Tats!" yells Tam, and bumps shoulders with him (vodka side, not orange carnation side). "Gid ta see ya, man." Tam doesn't notice the aura of cigarettes and alcohol because Tam stinks of weed, and the stench and effects are overpowering anything else he may feel about his nephew's father.

"Daba!" yells Billy. Jessie's not sure to count it as coincidence or a word but she files it away in mental storage. Billy's coincidence words have been getting more and more frequent.

"Hey," Jessie calls over to her reprobate brother and reprobate babydaddy, "no spirits at the dinner table." She knows the chances of at least one of them fucked at some point in the evening, but would prefer it not be in front of Billy.

Tatters manages to stifle any complaints he has about Jessie's rules and grins across the room at her, and Diane, who is only just visible through the doorway. He passes Tam the maligned bottle and kicks off his shoes (scuffed, mended, falling apart, maybe they used to be Converse, maybe not) at the door.

"Hello William," he says, very seriously, to his child. When he goes over to say hello, he has to hold the flowers out of Billy's reach with one hand. It's too early to start him on the consumption of random plant material. "I hope you ain't giving your mom too much trouble." He gives the yams a dubious look, confiscates the plastic spoon and goes on into the kitchen. Diane is wrestling with a large pot, and he gives her a quick looking over.

"Wait, is that my shirt?"

The shirt in question is white, and Diane is wearing it over a pair of black tights. The hem keeps riding up dangerously.

"Maybe..." She shrugs and busies herself peppering the cranberry sauce. Or at least, seasoning it with some dubious substance she seriously hopes is pepper. There's always the danger that it is in fact something of Tam's, in which case the evening might get a bit more... interesting. "Jessie," she complains, "I think we need to allow alcohol at the table. In, y'know, moderation. Or we might lose these two idiots."

"Yeah, I'm not above sitting in the kitchen," Tatters agrees. He waits until Jessie puts down the cabbage before he passes her the flowers and then pulls her into a smokey embrace, with a kiss for each cheek. "Happy Thanksgiving. What the fuck are you doing the poor cabbage anyway?"

Billy grins gummily up at his dad. His face is covered in yam.

Jessie purses her lips prissily at Diane. "I don't mind about alcohol, but that's what the wine's for. I just don't want the two of them getting," she lowers her voice, even though Billy can't hear them, "fucked out of their skulls on vodka on our Billy's first Thanksgiving."

"I was boiling it," Jessie replies with a slight pout, and flicks a wet spoon at Tatters. This being her first Thanksgiving she's still a bit unsure as to what the protocol is. Cabbage always made an appearance at her childhood Christmasses, and Thanksgiving seems to be fairly similar to Christmas as far as food is concerned.

Tam wanders into the kitchen looking lost. He's got Billy on a hip, vodka in the opposite hand, and looks unsure about what he's meant to do with either. Jessie catches the vodka since her brother's waving in about and looking as though he's already partaken. It smells like paintstripper even through the glass so Jessie wouldn't be particularly disheartened if Tam were to drop it, but the boys would get upset.

"Alright, fine," says Jessie, waving a hand in the air as she starts moving plates about, "you two can sit in the kitchen and do tequila shots for all I care, just don't let the babby see."

"Oh, do we have wine?" Diane asks, brightly. She has sprinkled a bit of maybe-pepper on her finger and is putting it gingerly to her tongue. "That would be good." She gives the boys a look that tries to be stern and fails. She's on their side about alcohol. "You get wine with supper, if I haven't drunk it all by then. And someone put those flowers in some water." She waves the jar of pepper in Tam's direction. "Tam, baby, what exactly is this? Tats, stop being mean to the cabbage, okay? It's Scottish cooking. It's... ethnic."

"He's not gonna take up alcoholism at this age, fuck's sake," Tatters points out. He may or may not being trying to start a fight. He also thinks that if the baby is hanging out with Tam, its already stoned out of its mind and won't notice what's going on around it. "Is there a jar around here somewhere?"

"Here, I'll take the vodka," Diane volunteers. The kitchen is getting way too crowded for anything to be working properly, especially considering that it's not such a big kitchen. "Jessie, you wanna take a break? I'm sure me an' Tam could manage for a bit." She gives the door and Tatters a meaningful look. The look says, 'family bonding time now!' "You guys could... set the table. Teach Billy that the forks go on the left or something."

With so many bodies in the kitchen is getting hot and Jessie is getting flushed. Fortunately this means nobody can tell when Tatters makes the alcoholism remark and Jessie feels her ears turn red. She scoops up her yammish progeny, gives his face a wipe with the teatowel and looks over the Diane gratefully. "C'mon babe." She rubs her nose into Billy's face. "Let's go outside away from your silly uncle. Yes we are. Yes we are going to go set the table."

Tam looks over to Diane and rolls his eyes conspiratorially. If Billy turns out a hippy, it won't be the fault of all the grass his tiny baby lungs have inhaled, it will be Doctor Spock telling his mother that this sort of thing is good for him.

Realising he no longer has a baby on his arm, Tam starts rummaging through the cupboards until he finds a jar which he pulls out clumsily and fills up from the tap. "Here." He takes the flowers and jams them unceremoniously into a large cup they got from Goodwill. After wrinkling his nose and staring for a bit, he gets back to Diane. "It's... pepper, maybe. What does it taste like?"

Tatters can take a hint. He grabs a handful of cutlery off the drying board and heads out of the kitchen after Jessie and Billy. Queue the awkwardness. In no universe are you meant to hang out with your prolonged one night stand and the kid you accidentally had with her. It's just not meant to happen, because no one really knows how to deal with it. Fortunately, Tatters is prepared. He's already had several beers this afternoon. Not so many that he's obviously impaired, but enough that he feels comfortable. Or at least, not acutely uneasy.

"Wait, which side did she say the forks went on?"

This is a genuine question, bred out of genuine ignorance. He honestly has no idea which side of anything the fork is meant to go on. It's just lucky that they only have one sort of fork.


Back in the kitchen, Diane raises her eyebrows at Tam. She dips her finger into the pepper again, sniffs it dubiously and offers it to him. "I'm not sure," she admits, sounding worried. There's already a fair amount of the pepper in the cranberry sauce, so she really hopes it's not poisonous. "But not pepper," she adds, keeping her voice low. What Jessie doesn't know won't get her really high, or kill her, or anything. Hopefully. She raises her voice and calls to the next room, "Jess', you could put these flowers on the table, yeah?"

"Forks go on the left," Jessie announces automatically. She'd know that even if she hadn't been listening. Unlike Tatters, she spends more time eating with cutlery than with chopsticks/her fingers/bits of cardboard. Also unlike Tatters she doesn't have the social lubrication of alcohol but Jessie is fine with that; today, she has bigger things to worry about. Juggling Billy she fetches the flowers from the kitchen and arranges them in the middle of the table, turning them a few times until she's happy. "There."

Tam, who had watched silently as Jessie performed the same baby/gift from Tatters juggle that he himself had been doing a few minutes ago, smiles at Diane in the kitchen. "Mebbe you've been eatin' too much of it? Like when yeh have a curry, an' then you can't taste anything else."

If the pepper tastes funny, it's nothing to do with him. Everything that could get Jessie high, or kill her, or anything is wrapped in tin foil at the bottom of the tea caddy.

"Okay."

He has to set all the utensils down on the table so he can make Ls with his hands, work out which side left is, but then he manages to do the whole setting the table thing okay. Sure, whether the spoons are meant to go across the top is debatable, but it looks fine. The forks are on the left, the knives are straight. It's all okay. Tatters has vague childhood memories of his intimidating mother and her table, which had three different forks and two different spoons and napkins and carefully arranged flowers. Which probably explains how he came to be the unkempt mess that currently stands before Jessie.

"So, how has this little brat been treating you," he asks, by way of making polite conversation. He has no doubt that his son has been making trouble. After all, he's related to both Tatters and Jessie. Basically, the poor kid is screwed one way or another.


Diane wrinkles her nose and decides that Tam is probably right. And if he's not, she can pretend. The chances of anyone dying from it are fairly low. "Okay," she concedes. "Taste the sauce and tell me if it's, oh, shit!" She interrupts herself as the cabbage boils over, majestically, and the water starts fizzing all over the burners, and she sort of jumps to turn off the stove. Tatter's shirt slides up past the point of decency, although there is fortunately nothing much to reveal. Thank gods for opaque tights.

"Ooh, he's been babbling like a champ. I think you've been officially christened 'daba'." As one of the few things they have in common Billy is usually a safeish bet for a conversation starter, though Tatters has been spared Jessie complaining about his nappies. "Sleeping through the nights now, which is good if you want him round at yours some time." Unlikely, but Jessie's prepared to entertain the possibility.

The kid is screwed.

If magic is genetic, he's got it coming at him from both sides. And Tatter's blonde and Jessie's coppery brunette have combined to make him look, in certain lights, ever so slightly redheaded.

Tam has sauce on his fingertip - he shares with Diane a communal sense of what food safety entails - and is about to protest that no, it's not shit, when the pot boils over. Tam is not sure what is going on between Tats and Diane but at the moment he's appreciative of the fact she's wearing his shirt. "You alright?"

Tatters wouldn't object to having Billy around his place, but he rather thinks Jessie would. There are too many druggies, homosexuals and other undesirables perpetually in residence there.

He pulls a chair up and slouches down in it. He already wants a fag, dammit. "He's gonna have one fucked up accent," he points out. Between his transatlantic wandering, Diane's Yank drawl and Jessie and Tam's terrifying Glaswegian slurring, Billy will be confused and incomprehensible. And probably he's going be ridiculed in school. And he'll probably blush easily and freckle spontaneously and G-d knows what else. Yeah, the kid is screwed.


"Eurgh, fuck, yeah," Diane says, transferring the pot of cabbage to the sink and draining off what water hadn't gotten splattered across the room already. "Is there, like, any paper towel or anything around?" Just because there's water all over the range. "Is the sauce all right?" She stops to take stock of the food. Turkey, in the oven. Yams, all over Billy's face. Cranberry sauce, possibly spiked. Pie, in the fridge. Probably not enough alcohol. Potatoes being kept warm in the oven, with the bread and the other, non-cabbage vegetables.

"Shit," says a distracted Jessie with one hand knotted in her hair, "he'll probably just sound Canadian. Most kiddies grow up sounding like their classmates." If they weren't all caucasianish they'd be the perfect little multicultural family instead of international screw-ups.

She gives the high chair a wipe and Billy struggles not to be put into it.

The sauce tastes alright, but Tam's sense of taste is matched only by his sense of apathy towards culinary delights. If it burns his mouth off it goes with beer. If it's full of E numbers it goes with pot. "Uh. What's it meant to taste like?" It's not a very good sign that he doesn't know but at least he's managed to find the paper towels. They're under one of the cabinets where Jessie has hidden them away after Tam's attempt to fold them like napkins. Today, the napkins are cleverly disguised cotton handkerchiefs, not scrumpled paper.

Tatters isn't going to point out that a) most kids aren't all kids, just look at him, and b) does anyone actually want their kid to be like all the others?

Instead he pauses, and then asks, "so, uh, does he... do anything?"

Anything, like, say, randomly disappear. Set his pablum or whatever it is he eats on fire. Turn green, or any other of those little quirks that could make him just that much more special. Tatters isn't sure whether or not he wants his kid to be like that. It might be hard, being a freak. On the other hand, he would be just like the rest of his family.


"Thanks," Diane says, taking the paper towel and mopping up the water. "It's meant to taste... good. I don't know. Like cranberries, but nicer. Or something." She shrugs and sticks her finger in it, tastes it. It's all right. "I guess it doesn't really have anything on the vodka, one way or another. Okay. I think we're just about done, so I guess we could put some of this stuff on the table? You wanna find that wine she was talking about?"

All babies do things, but the things they do are usually only of interest to their mothers. Things like burping and sleeping and crossing their eyes. The things Billy Paz does would be of interest to the physics police as they sometimes seem to disobey the laws of nature.

Jessie doesn't think of it like that. She thinks Tatters is referring to the first set of things and she frowns that Tatters could possibly think that burping, sleeping and collecting eye gunk could not count as doing things. So she frowns and inhales, ready to lecture Billy's father on the growing baby brain. Enter Tam.

"Jess, here's your meat an' fruitpaste an' shite, but we ha'n't found the wine yet." Carrying a saucer of cranberry sauce and a crockery pot of roast potatoes, Tam looks very proud of himself for a man who doesn't know what cranberries taste like. Jessie shoots a 'we'll-talk-later' glance at Tatters and retrieves the moderately priced wine from Billy's toybox, where it has been hiding safely from grubby alcoholic fingers.

Diane follows Tam into what was about to become an awkward silence. She has a large dish of the yams that escaped William, and they are generously studded with mini-marshmallows. Diane is a great believer in marshmallows. "Tam hon', you can bring the turkey," she instructs, setting the dish down on the table and hoping it doesn't burn. She couldn't find any of those useful little squares for putting hot things on.

Tatters, looking profoundly grateful for the interruption, grins at Diane. "Do you need a hand?"

"Nah, Tam is being lovely and helpful. You just relax."

Like he ever does anything else.

Once all the food has been set on the table, it makes a reasonably festive looking spread. Although Tatters (and probably Tam) might argue that it is somewhat lacking in key green vegetables, Diane is pleased with it. She grins over at Jessie. "This looks lovely, Jess'."

"Yeah," Tatters chimes in, helpfully. He doesn't mention the cabbage. "It smells good too. I had no idea you were such a domestic goddess, Jessie."

Jessie tries to keep up her frowny face but fails. Compliments make her red, so she purses her lips again and gives Tatters a tight smile. "Well now, it's our first Thanksgiving here and Billy's first ever." So she's glad if Tatters thinks she's got it right.

Tam disappears back into the kitchen and reemerges, grinning, with his hands full of turkey dish. He sets it down clunkingly in the middle of the table and takes a seat between Billy and Diane, ready to tuck into the disgustingly sweet yams and possibly spiked cranberry sauce.

There's a slight pause. "So," says Jessie, "who's done this before? Diane, what do we do next?" Tam and Jessie both look at the poor woman with open, inquisitive faces. Christmas was never like this in the childhood Joyce household.

Tatters and Diane have to exchange A Look.

It is A Look that is particular to North Americans who are trying to deal with British people and just can't quite comprehend what they have to deal with. Diane opens her mouth and closes it a couple times.

"Well," she says, eventually, "basically how it goes is you take your alcohol..." she nods in the direction of the wine, "make a couple toasts that tend to be heartfelt but inherently cheesy, and then you eat too much."

"Usually there's more extended family," Tatters adds, "and everyone hates each other and fights in a disgusting sugar coated way until everyone is drunk and then they just start yelling. But we'll try to avoid that..." he grins sweetly.

"Ignore him," Diane orders. She will not have anyone fucking this up. "It's a celebration. Of things. That we have. And are thankful for. He's just a cynic. And no one get too drunk until at least after dessert. I made pie. It's good pie, too, I promise. So you have to be sober enough to taste it." Although Tam probably doesn't know what a pumpkin is meant to taste like anyway. She grins across the table at Jessie, trying to be reassuring. "Billy will prolly like it, it's gooey and orange."

If Thanksgiving is as Tatters describes it, Christmas was exactly like this in the Joyce household. Except the fights were never disgustingly sugar-coated. They were usually physical.

Jessie pours herself a generous glass of wine first, then offers it clockwise round the table. Tam, trying to be gentlemanly, pours Diane's for her. It's only wine. Nobody at the table is pansy enough to get drunk off a couple of glasses of it. Jessie had debated getting buckfast for nostalgia's sake, but decided against it as Tam was of the opinion that to drink any less than a brown paper bag's worth of it was unmanly and would have spent the morning after throwing up after trying to prove to everyone how manly he was.

Idiot, she thinks affectionately.

"Don't worry, Diane, Jessie's already hidden the vodka somewhere," Tam says in his singsong voice. "We're all going to be sober enough to taste your pie."

Jessie kicks him under the table.

"Should I carve?" It's not really a question since she's already started.

"Thanks," Diane grins at Tam. He tends to be typically clueless in the male fashion, and is something of a stoner besides, but he does have a sweet streak. "Okay, Tats, you can start us off with the toasts," she commands. "And then we can eat. I wanna try Jess's turkey. We're probably supposed to pray too but I don't think any of us are all that religious, right?"

Tatters looks thoughtful. Whether he's actually thinking or not is debatable. Part of the uselessness of men involves faking like they're actually contemplating something when actually they're thinking about sex, or drugs, or football. "Okay," he says, finally. He raises his glass. "Here's to William Joyce and his mom, the loveliest mom he could have. I wouldn't be without you guys."

Diane raises her glass too. "Me neither. I'm grateful, to no one in particular, for all of you." She knows that this is saccharine, but forgives herself because she's aware that it's also true.

The British collection are surprised. They have seen the thanks part of Thanksgiving on television and assumed that was where it stayed, like the cheerleader clique in every American movie.

Tam lifts his glass first. This is probably not the greatest idea he's ever had and is probably something to do with the half bag he smoked this morning. "Here's to the fact Billy will never have to know his grandfather. An' that he's got a great mam. An' Bayfield in general, an' the fact I almost saw Diane's pants."

Jessie has previously thought people opening their mouths in shock was an exaggeration but finds she has to shut her's and cough before making her toast. "To friends, family and good food."

"Cheers," Tam agrees, and clinks glasses with his nephew.

The British collection, are of course, wrong. Gushy, emotional and exaggerated gratitude is very much a real part of the Thanksgiving tradition, as the North American delegation has just demonstrated. It's all right. Tam and Jessie will learn eventually.

Well. Maybe Tam won't.

Diane almost points out that well, she isn't wearing any pants, but then she realises what he means. Jessie's mouth is hanging open, tempting house flies and passing airplanes. Diane just grins. She leans over to murmur in Tam's ear, "ask me later," and then knocks her glass against his.

"Okay, enough sentimentality, pass the potatoes," Tatters says. He's knocked his glass against Jessie's and is serving himself some of Jessie's controversial cabbage. Diane has added raisins to it, in the vague hope of making it less disgusting or at least less boring. Cabbage is perhaps not her favourite food. "Does William want a potato?" Tatters asks. "We could mash one up for him."

If Tam was capable of learning things he wouldn't be in Bayfield in the first place. If he wasn't in Bayfield he wouldn't be sitting next to the fabulous Diane and so all is right with the world.

"Aye, he'd like that," says Jessie, heaping cabbage onto her plate and picking out the raisins. It's fun to play happy families. It's even more fun when the families are unconventionally happy and constitute knocked up teen sluts, a tiny baby X-man, blurring accents, green card evaders and at least two people who have done naughty things in exchange for drugs.

The fact that they managed to survive the entire dinner with almost no incident was impressive. No one got high of the cranberry sauce - which was, honestly, a little disappointing. The only point of interest was that when Diane went back into the kitchen to get the pie (commanding Tam to assist her) quite a bit of the vodka mysteriously disappeared.

Most of the food having been demolished, Billy is dozing. Diane is giggling like a demented schoolgirl at something that Tam said, which probably wouldn't have been so funny before the vodka, but which is now the most hilarious thing anyone has ever said.

Tatters stretches, arches his back like a kitten.

"I need a smoke," he announces, "and possibly also a walk. It's nice out if a bit on the chill side." He glances over at Jessie. "Fancy a turn?"

Jessie is slightly suspicious of how much of the food Tam managed to demolish. Especially since he promised that he hadn't smoked anything in the morning. Even the weird cabbage-raisins have vanished. The Thanksgiving dinner was a success. Nobody threw a glass at anybody's head and they're all full and happy. Diane and Tam especially so.

"Sure, an' we'll take the babby." It's not that he needs a walk to calm him down - the massive dose of turkey Jessie stuffed him with has already done that. It's that there's no way in hell Jessie is going to trust Tam (or Diane in her current state, bless her slutty little socks) to look after him. She carries hair pins in her mouth as she bundles Billy up in a scarf and hat and gets Tatters to help her with the pram.

The apartment feels empty with the main players in the disfunctional family unit gone.

"...Baws," Tam realises, "have those wankers left us to do the washing up?"

"Nope," Diane says, pushing her chair back and crossing her legs. Diane has a very selective view of reality. "They've left us with the vodka and no adult supervision. The dishes can do themselves for all I care." This isn't so much true. Diane understands that at some point dishes do have to be done (unless you live off take-out, which to be honest she sometimes does, but that's not the point). She's just not particularly interested in doing them right now. She'd probably smash them all anyway. She has had enough to drink that she's clumsy.

"I think I stuck it back under the sink," she adds, standing up uncertainly. "I'll go get it, shall I?"

Tam is far more at home with Diane's world view than with Jessie's. He once spent a month eating off paper plates he'd stolen from work.

"You mind if I smoke?" He only knows Diane peripherally, as the woman who helped Jessie out when she first came to Bayfield, and possibly as a woman Tatters has slept with. Today he can't remember if she smokes or not. Probably. Most of Jessie's friends do. Still, she's hot enough that he can wait off lighting up if she's asthmatic, or something.

"Not if you share," Diane tells him, from in the kitchen. "Jessie will kill us when she gets back, but that's all right." She reappears with the bottle of vodka in one hand and another bottle of wine in the other. "She's not very creative about where she hides the booze, I mean, doesn't everyone look for the wine with the cleaning supplies? Or maybe she thinks it is one."

She shrugs slightly and sets the bottles down in front of Tam, then sits down (somewhat abruptly). Her wine glass is empty, but her water glass is still full of water. She gives it a dirty look and tips some vodka into the wine glass, blithely disregarding Jessie's commands about spirits at the table. She pours the remainder of the bottle into Tam's glass. "There you go."

Tam is not Tatters. He does not have the skill to make things appear from nowhere. Taking this into consideration it is really quite impressive how quickly he gets his stash kit out and rolls up. Vodka and weed; Jessie would be thrilled at this party. But not particularly surprised.

Tam downs the vodka first, coughs, and inhales the smokeable that has magically appeared in his hand. "Cheers," he drones, exhaling smoke like a dragon before he passes the joint over. It hasn't even occurred to him that this is not what everybody means when they ask if they can smoke. "Pet, with me around, Jess doesn't even bother trying to hide things any more. She just wants them out of Billy's reach."

Diane doesn't assume that people mean weed when they say smoking, but she a friend of Tatters so she's not exactly surprised. And she's not complaining, even though she knows she's going to have a bitch of headache sometime tomorrow. She pulls smoke into her lungs, exhales, slams back the vodka. "Be an angel and pass me the corkscrew?"

Wine isn't quite as much fun as vodka, to be honest, but it's what they've got. Anyway, at this point it isn't like either of them needs anything quick acting. Diane is already well on her way to being sloshed. Which could have some... interesting results. She gives Tam a sneaky looking over. Since she met him (well, after she'd yelled at him a bit because she thought he was Jessie's boyfriend, but that's not the point) she's thought he was a bit sweet. And he looks good in a kilt.

In Diane's mind, this evening has already developed a wonky but predictable trajectory.

Tam spends a lot of his time wasted these days. It makes the real world, in which he has to deal with grown up things like Having A Job, seem more fun. And more interesting/bearable. He hasn't got the joint concepts of maturity and responsibility figured out yet and it gets on Jessie's nerves but they're family, and what're you going to do?

Pass the drunk girl a corkscrew, for starters. Tam holds this as a general strategy in life and it's served him well so far (although less so in Canada than in Scotland). Only Kittio, little miss dazed-'n'-confused, didn't need the alcohol. She was a classy bird. One who makes Tam feel maudlin.

"Are yez still stayin' at that place y'let our Jessie crash at?" He's not sure of Diane's job but Jessie's described the place before as swanky. Since his current postal address is Jessie's sofa and his place of residence is 'wherever', he's look for a place with as much swank for as little cash as possible.

"Thanks," Diane says. She takes the corkscrew and hands him the joint. This will be the real test of her sobriety - can she open the bottle? There's a tense moment of fumbling while she tries to work out how the hell the corkscrew's meant to work, but she pulls it off in the end. Her mouth tastes of smoke, and she gulps down some of the wine to get the coated feeling off her tongue. It's white wine, warm and very sweet.

"Uh, no. No, I moved."

She remembers the old flat, which had been her first place when she'd come to Canada. She'd loved it of course, but mostly because it had been all hers, and that had been new and exciting.

"I live over by the water," she adds, "Westmoreland Street."

It's a niceish neighbourhood, in an old, run-down kind of way. "It's a sweet place," she tells Tam, splashing some of the wine into her glass. She's sloppy and a bit splashes on the table, but she doesn't really worry about it. "Kind of drafty I guess, but I like it."

"Oh aye." He stumbles for something smart or interesting to say. "Y'near a beach?" is the best he can muster. He wants to be somewhere he can stretch out. If his hands start to wander over the dining table he's sure he'll knock something over. The ashtray - which on closer inspection is a pie casing - isn't catching everything, meaning if Tam doesn't move it soon Jessie is going to throw a fit when she gets back.

That's probably going to happen anyway. Just in case, Tam picks up the pie case and moves the foot or so to the sofa, where he balances the ashtray precariously on an arm. There. Much safer. He kicks out his feet, scratching each heel with the toe of his newly-cleaned boots, and clicks his knuckles behind his head.

Tam probably shouldn't be worrying so much about being witty. Diane is way past caring. "Mind if I join you?" She asks, and doesn't wait for a response. She comes (bringing the bottle of wine with her but forgetting her glass) and flops gracelessly next to him. The whole action causes her shirt (Tatter's shirt, even) to hitch up and there is a brief glimpse of white skin above her tights before she tugs it down again.

"Yeah, there's a beach across the street. You should come visit sometime. Even though there's a draft, which will be a bitch by the end of the month. We could have rum, and... and cookies. I make really good cookies when I'm not broke."

Diane's train of thought is starting to wander incoherently, and she fidgets with a silver ring on one of her fingers. "Do you want some of this?" She indicates the wine.

Tam takes the wine silently and swigs it down, the flash of white flesh rendering him temporarily dumb. As the wine and smoke intermingle in the back of his throat, he coughs and is forced the balance the joint in the pie casing while he remembers how to breathe. "Y'wa'?" he asks hoarsely, nodding to Diane and the ashtray.

Once he's regained the ability to speak he tries to comment on how it's October and far too cold for the beach. Halfway through his brain interrupts, noticing that she's just invited him to her house and the polite thing to do would be to reply. "...If yu've go'the know-how I can bring the floor, an' butter an' all of tha'." Tam smiles weakly and raises the bottle of wine in a toast.

Diane takes the joint, knowing blearily that she is going to have one hell of a hangover come morning. She is thanking Gd that she's had a lot of practice with drunk Glaswegians, otherwise she would have no idea what the hell Tam is saying.

"If you like," she tells him. She doesn't want him to come over if he doesn't actually want to. Not that it really matters, because the chances of either of them remembering this anytime in the future are pretty slim.

Now she's fiddling, unconsciously, with the hem of her shirt. And she wonders if Tam has a girlfriend, but then she tells herself she's just wondering this because she's really drunk and not all that used to the weed.

"Yez the one offerin' baked goodies," he replies with a dopey grin, watching her take in the last of the weed. Oh well. No biggie. Plenty more where that came from.

"Wee bit big, i'n't it?" That's with reference to the shirt. He speaks with experience; his is also too large. In the sort of way shirts can be too large when you steal them from Goodwill after camping out in the morning to wait for the boxes being dropped off by people on their way to work. It makes him look skinnier than he actually is but sets off his eyes quite nicely.

"Well then," Diane says, setting what's left of the joint down in the pie dish.

She grins back, looking down at the shirt in question. It has a purple dye stain on one of the cuffs, and little white buttons, only some of which have been done up. "I guess it's maybe a little big for a shirt," she admits, wrinkling her nose slightly, "but as dresses go it's reasonably short."

Or even too short, but hey. It's just a night in with practically family, right?

Oh, right. Calling it a wee bit big when she's wearing it as a dress was sleazy. Duly noted.

The white wine is sickly sweet so Tam offers it back over. If he drinks any more of this he's going to throw up, which would be decidedly unsmooth. There's no guarantee he'd make it to the bathroom in time. Right now he's moulded the sofa around himself and only his ribcage is moving.

"Mmm. Ah'm stuffed. Don't think'll be able ta eat until Christmas."

Diane has either not noticed or isn't caring about his being sleazy. People wearing other people's babydaddy's shirts as dresses are really not entitled to call other people sleazy, much in the same way that people who live in glass houses can't throw bricks. Diane could stand Tam being a little more immoral just now anyway. She is drunk, scantily clad, and on his couch. The least he can do is take advantage of it. After all, he must have had enough drinks to make her pretty by now.

"Christmas," she repeats. She has very mixed feelings about Christmas, but it does have its up sides. "Vodka jelly. Yule log. Wedding cakes." She smiles lazily at Tam. "Okay, fine. As long as you're ready for loads of dessert by then."