` bottle of red, bottle of spite

[ella beaumont]

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There was something about Sundays; they always gave Ella the feeling of laziness. When she'd moved back to Chicago in the summer, she used to spend nearly every Sunday down by the lake with her sister and nephew. Oh, how she had enjoyed sitting around eating ice cream. However, it was now November and when she wasn't busy marking, the chilly Chicago air meant that she no longer visited the lake as often. Her reasoning for not going the lake? Because it was cold and wet. Well, it hadn't wet or particularly cold today, but heavy rainfall had been fore casted for the afternoon which was why the woman had taken an umbrella out with her. It was just as well, for at 1pm on the dot, the heavens opened over Chicago.

The woman was sat at the bar, her legs crossed, with her eyes gazing out onto the street through the rain streaked windows of the Gale Inn. Men and women in long coats paraded up and down the street, each taking a different length of stride in an attempt to get somewhere dry. The sight of one man running down the street in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt made her laugh, and she gently switched her legs over. Ella's own coat was wrapped over the back of her chair, and she subconsciously rubbed it between her thumb and index finger on her right hand to make sure it was still there. It was, and her fingers proceeded to gently caress the strap of her handbag.

"Miss Beaumont?" The soft sound of Paul's voice broke Ella from her trance, and she turned to face him. "The usual?" The bartender asked as he reached for a beer glass. "No... I'll have the house red today Paul," the woman replied with a small smile as the 'tender's jaw dropped slightly for a second. The man put the beer glass back on the shelf and replaced it with a wine one. He then took a bottle from the fridge under the bar, opened the cork, and poured some of it into the glass. "Leave the bottle." Ella told him, as she took the glass in one hand and took a sip, allowing the cool liquid to run to the back her mouth before she swallowed. The woman was not planning on drinking the entire bottle by herself, well not all today at least, as she had arranged to meet a friend; "had" being the key word as they were meant to meet twenty minutes ago.

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Word Count: 425
Icons: Noelle
Notes: Yeah, it's the first time I've RPed in a long time, so it's sucky. . .
Tag: anyone! Seriously, anyone. I know I said she's waiting for a friend, but anywho.

[huganazn]

You couldn't call him an alcoholic. Because, really, he wasn't. Felix didn't have a fake I.D., nor did he have adults buy him alcohol from the nearest liquor store. He only drank at parties, and he never drank too much and rarely was he at a party. Felix was actually a really good student. He was very dedicated to his photography and always did his homework. He only when to a party when there was simply nothing else to do.

So why, you may ask, is a sixteen year old at a bar. Simple. He liked acting like he was an adult. Felix doubted he would drink when he turned twenty-one, but he had always loved sitting down at a bar and having a bartender ask him what he'd like today. The only bad thing was that the bartenders liked to card him before he even ordered his drink.

Just like today, for instance. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Felix was bored out of his mind. So, he wandered into the Gale Street Inn bar. He figured he might even find a girl. What could he say? He liked them older. But back on topic. Felix sat down at the bar and almost immediately a bartender was in front of him. "You got a card, kid?" he asked.

Felix shook his head. "No, sir. I'm just here to get a Dr Pepper. I just like the feel of sitting at a bar," he told him. The bartender shrugged his shoulders and wandered off. Hopefully to get Felix his Dr Pepper.

When the drink arrived, Felix took a long sip from it. He'd forgotten how tasty the drink was. He heard the words "leave the bottle" and was instantly interested. Who was planning on drink a whole bottle of wine by themselves? The voice even sounded familiar. Felix looked around for the owner of the feminine voice. He was slightly shocked when his eyes landed on his English teacher, Miss Beaumont. In fact, she was sitting right next to him.

To say the least, Felix got worried. But, he didn't know what to say. So, instead, he said the first things that came to mind. "Miss...Beaumont..ma'am. Uh, you, uhm, aren't going to, you know, drink that whole, uhh, bottle of wine alone...right?" Nervous, he was. Felix had never talked to a teacher outside of school. He was scared as to what his teacher would say. Would she just ignore him? Or would she talk to him? Could teachers give detention outside of the classroom...?

[ella beaumont]

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Picking up the finely shaped wine glass in her right hand, Ella gently rotated her wrist causing the drink to swirl around the glass. Her eyes followed it in it's oval path, and in doing so the woman was able to spot the patches of light from the Inn's lights rippling across the surface. She had not noticed Felix walk in and sit next to her, and though she did hear him talk about liking the feeling of just sitting at a bar she still had not looked up. In fact she had not even registered the voice of belonging to somebody that she knew.

"Hmm?" Ella asked, arching her brow and looking up from her glass, expecting to see somebody over the age of twenty one beside her. Much to her surprise, she saw Felix instead. The woman wasn't really sure what to say, as the boy probably thought she was some kind of alcoholic. Why wouldn't he? She had just asked for Paul to leave the bottle of wine, implying to anyone around her that she planned to drink it all herself. Her first thought was what would happen if the school governors found out... would they sack her? Surely they would at most give her a warning?! One thing was for certain: the woman's head was beginning to spin a little and it definitely wasn't from the alcohol. "No...-" Ella replied sheepishly, "-I'm waiting for a friend." She added, before taking a glance at her watch, a light frown pulling at her facial features when she saw just how late that friend now was.

"Tell me Felix, why are you at the bar?" Ella asked, giving off a small smile. Partly the smile was to be friendly, but there was another part of her that was silently laughing at the way he had first spoken to her. He had sounded nervous, the main clue to which had been in the way which his words were punctuated, and she understood as if she were his age she would probably have been a bit nervous to come across her English teacher ordering a whole bottle of wine. "Shouldn't you be doing school work?" She joked badly.

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Word Count: 368
Icons: Noelle
Notes: Wasn't entirely sure where to go with this. =/
Tag: Felix

[huganazn]

Felix watched his teacher's reactions very closely. They reminded him of his mother's reactions when he'd be up at five in the morning to get ready for school and his mom would just then be getting home. They'd both been caught. But, to Felix, only one person's capture hurt him. And his English teacher getting caught drinking alcohol didn't bug him one bit.

"Oh. A friend," Felix repeated, nodding. "I take it this friend is late?" he asked. Not wanting to seem stalker-ish, he added, "I can read body language as well as I can a book." He smiled. Felix knew what it was like to have someone be late to appointments. Well, not exactly appointments, but school events. Winter plays. No, his mother couldn't get to him now. Felix knew better than to have a personal relationship with a teacher.

Why was Felix at a bar? Well, he had nothing to hide, but still, he blushed when Miss Beaumont asked him why he was here. "Well, my mom brought me to a bar when I was younger, and I really liked it. It made me feel grown up, you know? I never get alcohol or anything..it's just the feeling of being up on a bar stool that I love." Felix felt like he was the one who had gotten caught, even though he had only ordered a Dr Pepper and hadn't spiked it.

School work. He hated it, but Felix did it just to have a better life than his mother. "I did it already," he said. "You didn't notice how pale I am? I locked myself in the dorm until I finished." Part of the reason Felix had a single-person dorm was because of the peace it brought. He didn't have some annoying guy always bugging him, always trying to get him to go out for a drink. The other part was just because he was shy. But, surprisingly, Felix was able to be very open and calm with Miss Beaumont after his first awkward questions.

"And in my own defense, ma'am, shouldn't you be off grading our English papers?" he asked playfully.

[ella beaumont]

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When Felix asked if her friend were late, Ella's phone vibrated softly before the teacher's ring tone began to play. The tone filled the air, and to all those accept the woman in the Inn, it would appear to just be a phone going off, but Ella knew that Beat It by MJ was her incoming call tone, and thus she knew that she had an incoming call. Ella's hands quickly reached for her bag, and took a few seconds to scrounge about the bottom of it before finding her phone, the ringing increasing in volume as it left the deep deaths of the bag. Quickly, she pressed the 'answer' button and before saying hello mouth a quick "sorry" to Felix. "Hello?" She asked, her eyes looking out of the window to the street, "yeah I've been waiting here," she replied to the person on the other end. Her friend's reason for not turning up had better be a good one, because she had been waiting a rather long time.

"What's that Steve?" She asked, the corners of her mouth lifting up in a smile, "you're covered in ice cream... from the waist down?" After she spoke Ella broke into a soft giggle, before being silent again to hear Steve on the other end. It turned out that the reason Steve hadn't turned up was because his three year old son, David, had decided it would be a good idea to play darts with an ice cream, using his father's trousers for a dartboard. Steve hadn't been able to get another pair out of the closet because they were all in the washing machine, and had only just thought to call Ella and tell him that he wasn't going to be able to meet her. It was a shame, because she hadn't talked to him since before she left town to teach in Boston, and this would've been the first time they met face to face since their college graduation. "No, I understand." She told him, as she picked up her glass. "I'll see you another time then. Right, bye!" She told him, before hanging up and putting the mobile back in her bag, and taking a sip of her drink.

So Felix just liked the feeling of sitting at the bar. She could partly relate to that as Mark, her twin brother, had been the same. When the family had gone out to eat, he would insist on sitting at the bar for at least a couple of drinks to feel grown up, then their father would let him play on the machines afterwards. Usually he just lost, but there was a time when he had won ten dollars. He'd been so pleased with himself that he bought his mom a pint of coke as a sign of how grown up he was. These habits though did cause trouble when he got older though, and were a major factor in why he was no longer playing professional football. "You know, my brother was the same. Always wanting to sit up at the bar with Dad and be a grown up. Didn't do him a whole lotta good though." Shaking her head at how Mark's life had turned out. Once he had been a star football player, but after getting into debt with the wrong kind of people, he ended up with a broken leg and was no longer able to play at the level he had once excelled at. He had been forced to sell off his big house, and was now living in their parent's house in the suburbs. She doubted Felix would end up in the same position as her brother though, because she didn't see him gambling over at the machines. Nor did she hope to see that.

A small smile pulled at Ella's facial muscles when Felix made his joke about how much school work he had. "Are you sure that's not just because it's so cloudy there's no sun anyway?" She asked, before putting her glass back down on the bar counter. She looked across at her younger companion and wondered why it was that she rarely saw her students outside of the school. Maybe their claims of too much work were just? "Do you have any idea how dull it is marking papers? It's just the same thing over and over and over again..." She said, feigning sleep to illustrate how dull it was. "And don't even get met started on some of your classmates handwriting. Even a dog could do better using its tail to hold the fricking pen!" Ella raised her voice as she finished the last part, which caused a few of the other customers to look her way.

"Are you here on your own Felix, or are you meeting one of your friends?" She asked, raising a brow inquisitively.

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Word Count: 806
Icons: Noelle
Notes: That was a lot longer than I thought it would be. o.O Deffo the longest I've done in awhile.
Tag: Felix.

[huganazn]

Felix had always wondered what kind of lives teachers had outside of the classroom. He wondered if some of his teachers were secretly alcoholics. He knew that was crazy, though. Teachers were probably just like every other adult in the world. But, still, Felix couldn't resist listening in on his English teacher's phone conversation. But once he heard about the whole being covered in ice cream from waist down incident, Felix decided to tune her out. That sounded way too uncomfortable for the privates. Instead, Felix sipped his Dr Pepper and looked at girls entering the bar. Sure, there were pretty girls, but Felix hadn't seen one yet that was prettier than Miss Beaumont. He wasn't about to admit it, though...

Finally, his teacher ended the call and placed her cell phone back into her purse. Felix noticed that her attention was back onto him. Now, though, she was talking about her brother. Of course, Felix didn't know she had a brother, since teachers don't usually talk about their personal life in the classroom. But then again, he doubted that Miss Beaumont knew about his mother and her profession. "I'm not like that," he promised his teacher. "My mom brought me to a drinking party last year-" well that didn't sound good "-and it wasn't really my scene. Photography...it is my life already. I don't want to give up a dream to live a nightmare, you know?"

Felix ducked his head down to look at the dark and dreary day going on outside. Then, he looked at his pale white skin. It brought him back to his days in primary when the Mexican kids would laugh and make fun of him because he was a white Mexican. But he was pale right now, anyway. "You know, you can still get sunburns and tans even when it's cloudy outside. I learned that in junior high. I took an advanced science class. It was pretty interesting." That fear of being handed a detention came back. He didn't want to seem to be a know-it-all. That's why he shut up. You never know what a woman carries in her purse...

Honestly, Felix had never thought about how boring a teacher's job could be. Giving the same lecture three or four times a day and grading essays about the same thing from hundreds of students. Now that he actually thought about it, it did seem pretty..well, dull. "Well, ma'am, if it makes your job any easier, I would totally be willing to grade all of my essays myself," he told her, trying his hardest to keep a straight face. And somehow, he managed to. Miss Beaumont, of course, would know that he had just been playing around. Or, let's hope she could figure that out. When she made the comment about his peers' handwriting, though, he looked down at the notes scribbled down on his hand. He'd always had very neat, girly handwriting. Even so, he shoved his hands in his pockets and turned the shade of a tomato.

"Me?" Felix asked. He was alone, of course. Shy, he was. "I'm..here by myself, ma'am. It's kind of a reward for having a good week with my photography," he said. "I only threw away three rolls of films," he announced proudly.

[ella beaumont]

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When she had been Felix's age, Ella had started to become a bit of a party animal. It had been the norm for the Beaumont kids though, with Jessica starting off the reputation by being so much of a party animal, that in her year book, dozens of people had written that she had always been the life of the parties held throughout sophomore, junior and senior years. Being a year below her sister, Ella had often been compared to her sister and during her first two years of high school she'd been known as the geek of the Beaumont's. Mark had always oozed confidence, and fitted in with his older sisters friends so well that many thought he really was in their year. However in Junior year, after being crowned Homecoming queen, Ella became more confident and gradually became more like her sister. At the time Ella had felt that all the drinking was great, but in hindsight she could see that she only really did it to try and be as popular as Jess had been. "That's good, not thinking it's your scene," she started, mentally rolling her eyes at the next comment she was about to make, "because you shouldn't really be doing that sort of thing during high school, especially while you're a sophomore." She told him, her voice taking on a manner-of-factly tone.

During her classes at school, Felix was always relativly quiet and this was probably the most Ella had hear him speak except from when they had done a speaking and listening task during the first month of school. Even then he hadn't said nearly as much as some of the other students, so it came as surprise to hear him being a smart arse. "Advanced science? You know, some girls like guys with brains.." Ella said giving Felix a flirty wink intended to make him blush. She herself certainly wouldn't have done any sort of advanced science class. It wasn't because she was bad at science, in fact she was quite well rounded academically, she just never really like the subject that much. The same had been true for maths also.

Though not exactly award winning, Felix's proposal of marking his papers himself brought about a small fit of giggles from the twenty-six year old. If she had said such a thing, she wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face but Felix did so. "I'm sure you would be willing to grade your own papers!" She replied, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. There had been one time when she had let one of her pupils grade another student's work, and it had been done surprisingly close to how the mark scheme asked the grading to be. The teacher noticed Felix's eyes look down at his hand, which had some notes scribbled on them in the boy's neat handwriting. The sixteen year olds writing was actually neater than hers, and she thought she would let him know. "You know Felix, you're handwriting is neater than mine." She said, as Felix turned red. Ella's handwriting had deteriorated since she had started teaching because the majority of her lessons were typed up on power point slides which she then went through, meaning that she usually just wrote a spider diagram every two lessons or so to gather the group's ideas and how they had used the language to illustrate those.

"You mean a handsome young man like yourself isn't here to meet anyone special?" She asked. Ella always enjoyed making her pupils feel awkward, and not to be of any offense to him, but she thought Felix was an easy target. Hey, it was all in good fun. "Photography?" Ella had not known that Felix was a photography major, well she assumed that was his major due to his earlier comment about it being his way of life, and was intrigued as to whether or not he had his camera or any of his photos on him. "You wouldn't happen to have your camera or any of your photos on you, would you?"

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Word Count: 681
Icons: Noelle
Notes: Dude, I came up with a plot idea, sorta! xD
Tag: Felix

[huganazn]

A long time ago, while still in primary, Felix learned that everyone has a life story. All adults had a story of how they'd gotten where they were. Whether they were living on the streets or selling themselves on the streets, that was never their original intention in life. Felix was examining his teacher very carefully while she lectured him. Something about not drinking... Of course, his first thought was Dang, she's gorgeous. But after that passed, he began wondering about her past. Had she had an alcoholic parent, or had she been an alcoholic herself? Or was she just being her responsible teacher self and telling a student of hers not to get into the big black hole known as alcoholism? "Yes, ma'am. I'll remember that," he said to her half-heartedly, still curious about her past.

To Felix, having been in an advanced science class wasn't that big of a deal. He'd always found science fascinating. When he was younger, he'd spend hours at a time outside trying to catch bugs on fire with just a magnifying glass. Finally, at about the age of ten, he'd managed to blow up a June bug. He'd had to use science to calculate exactly when was the best time to put a magnifying glass over a bug, where the bug had to be, how hot it would have to be, and many other things. To say the least, it was harder than TV makes it look. But Felix was snapped out of his memories when Miss Beaumont started speaking again. And it sounded like, well, it sounded like she was hitting on him! Careful not to drop his jaw, he said, "Uhm, thank you, ma'am.. I think.." More red, if it was possible, was slowly creeping onto his face.

Felix was almost proud of himself whenever he heard his teacher burst into a fit of giggles. Maybe she was getting wasted, but it did make him happy, whether she was sober or drunk. He had never seen himself as a funny guy, no matter how hard he tried to be. "I really will!" he told her. "It would save you loads of time," he added, noticing the way a smile still lingered on her lips. To him, it was adorable. Oh, he had to stop thinking about his teacher that way! Nothing would ever happen between them. Unless... Again, Miss Beaumont interrupted his thinking. He didn't mind, though. He already knew he loved talking with her. But about..more interesting subjects. His handwriting just wasn't that special, no matter how girly it was. "Thanks," was all he said.

Handsome? He was handsome? Well, if Miss Beaumont thought so, that was good enough for Felix. "No, ma'am," he told her. "But now I'm kind of glad I went out for this celebration alone." Was that too obvious? He hoped not, because now that the words were out, he couldn't take them back. But he was okay with that. Maybe it would be better if she knew about his crush, anyway. Even if the odds of her feeling the same were zero to none...

"Photography," Felix repeated, "yeah, it's my life. I never leave my dorm without my camera." While he was saying that, he was pulling out an expensive digital camera. "Wanna see some pictures?" he asked her. Then, he decided to flirt a bit. "Or would you rather take some?"

[ella beaumont]

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"I hope that you will, Felix." Ella replied, wishing to herself that he actually did and didn't just ignore her words. Felix seemed like the kind of kid who stuck to himself and stayed out of trouble, though she wasn't entirely sure that he did. While she had been at school, there had been one boy who was really quiet and kept himself to himself during lessons, however outside of lessons he was almost a mirror version of what the teachers perceived him to be. Hopefully Felix wasn't a similar case, but if he was Ella wouldn't mind too much. After all, she didn't plan on hanging out with him each and every night. If she were his age, then maybe she would care... but she wasn't, and that was that.

You know how some people hold their breath to make themselves pass out, but before that happens their face turns completely red? Well that was happening to Felix's face, but his was just going that color through embarrassment. Ella didn't really understand why Felix's face was changing so drastically because all she had done was pay him a compliment. She said the same sort of things to quite a few people, and Felix was really the only one that had had this sort of reaction (that she could remember anyway). "Are you okay?..." The twenty-six year old asked him, a look of concern on her face, "do you want a glass of water?" She asked again, however before Ella got an answer she called out to Paul to bring over a glass of water, and the bartender quickly answered, putting some ice and a slice of lemon in the glass also. At any point it did not occur to her that she was fussing over nothing.

It was now Ella's turn to blush a little when Felix said that he was glad that he came out on his own. She assumed that he said it because if he hadn't then he wouldn't be having this conversation with his awesome English teacher, not that he had a crush on her. This was partly to do with the fact that she didn't think that anyone under the age of twenty-three would have one on her, but also due to the fact that Felix was her pupil. Weren't students supposedly meant to moan about their teacher's being bitches rather then fantasizing about them in provocative costumes? If that did ever happen though, Ella hoped that she wasn't a teacher being fantasized over. Especially if she was in one of those maid outfits that her last boyfriend had tried to get her into... the memories still sent a slight chill down her spine. "I guess I am to, in a way..." Ella started, picking her glass up off of the bar and rotating her wrist to make the wine in it spin around the bowl, "because I rarely get to know my students well, and when I was training to be a teacher I always envisioned myself getting on really well with my classes. So well in fact that we could just talk about weekend plans and what not. I had that with my English teacher when I was in school and it was great fun." Once she had finished talking Ella quickly finished her drink and returned the glass to where it had been on the bar.

Ella's eyes lit up slightly when Felix pulled out his camera. "I suppose I could see a few..." She told him, however when he offered to take a few, presumably of her, she quickly replied with an enthusiastic "certainly!" Before standing up, putting on her coat, and slipping her bag over her shoulder. She was being very enthusiastic as Felix hadn't even said okay yet, however she told Paul to get her a bag for the bottle of wine. "Where shall we shoot then?..." She asked eagerly, before adding "I'd like to go home to get some stuff first though."

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Word Count: 678
Icons: Noelle
Notes: whoa, she's overly excited haha.
Tag: Felix

` thread finished.