“Alright, Professor.” I grinned at him. “I’m game. Put on your jammies, grab your teddy bear, a bottle of whiskey, and a shot glass. Meet me back here in five.”
“I don’t have a teddy bear.” He grimaced with feigned offense.
“Whatever—get moving.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and disappeared from my screen.
I picked up my laptop and grabbed a blanket from the foot of my bed, then headed to the living room, stopping by my mother’s liquor cabinet on the way, for a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a shot glass. The Professor popped back up on my screen as I was setting the laptop up on the coffee table.
“Alright, what’s the whiskey for?” he asked.
“Downton Abbey drinking game. No proper sleepover is complete without a drinking game.”
“Oh no,” he said, clutching a bottle of Jameson to his chest. “You’re not going to make me go through that trauma again, are you?”
“Of course I am! You cheated; you fast forwarded to the end. You didn’t go through the same agonizing emotional build-up that the rest of us did. As broken as you are, it’s nothing compared to how devastated you will be after we watch the full Christmas episode, in all its glory, combined with the depressing effects of far too much alcohol. Now man-up and get out your shot glass.”
He loped off screen and returned with a shot glass, a bag of chips and a blue blanket draped over his shoulders. The edge of the blanket bore some writing and I knelt next to the coffee table, leaning into the laptop screen, trying to make it out.
“P..O…L…Oh my God. Is that a Doctor Who blanket?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes at me and huffed in offense. “It’s a TARDIS blanket, thank you very much.”
“You know what I meant!” I protested. “So you don’t have a teddy bear, but you do have a TARDIS blanket.”
“Guilty.’
“That is seriously adorable.”
“Adorable enough that we’ll be swapping a replay of Cousin Matthew’s demise, for a few hours, with The Doctor?”
“Nope, not tonight.”
“You are heartless.”
“Definitely”
“Which is your favorite Doctor?” he asked, opening the bag of chips. “I bet you’re strictly NewWho. Am I right? Ten’s your favorite, I bet, or Eleven?”
“Now that is just insulting. I had PBS growing up; I’ve seen classic Who.”
“Aha!” he yelled, pointing at me through the screen, “but you didn’t say you watched it, or that you like it, just that you’ve seen it.’
“Alright, I admit, I didn’t really get into the show for real until they started casting a little eye candy.”
“Eye candy? Oh that seals it, you’re a Ten fan. I knew it!”
I laughed and picked the TV remote up from the coffee table. “Guilty as charged. Yes, I’m a devoted fan of the tenth Doctor. He’s my first love.”
“Well, you know what they say?” he said, waggling his eyebrows at me, and popping a chip into his mouth.
“What’s that?”
“You never forget your first Doctor.” He grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Har, har, har,” I said, groaning at his joke even as I felt my cheeks flush hot and pink.
“Alright, enough stalling, we’ve got some serious drinking ahead of us.” I stood in front of the television and fired up the Blu-ray. “Cue up the episode on your TV and wait for my mark to start it so that we are synced up properly.”
“Right, got it. Cue, sync, etcetera.”
“Now, the rules of the game,” I began and then stopped when the Professor raised his hand. “Yes?” I asked.
“I’d just like to go on record again as a fan of your jim-jams.”
“Noted, moving on,” I said, throwing him a smirk. “Drink, one shot, every time the following happens…” I ticked off the list on my fingers. “When the Dowager calls Tom ‘Branson’, instead of Tom.”
“Oh yeah, she does that a lot.”
“When Robert is ridiculously out of touch about something and makes that fuddy-duddy face.”
“Right, Robert being dense—got it.”
“When Mrs. Hughes and Carson eye-fuck each other.”
“Eye-fuck?”
“You know that whole unrequited, prim and proper, Remains of the Day, love affair thing they’ve got going on.”
“Oh yes, yes, I see what you mean.”
“Drink every time O’Brien looks like she’s about to do something evil.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then again when she does it.”
“Good Lord, we’ll be drunk in the first ten minutes of the show.”
“Drink when,” I said, ignoring him, “Edith looks sad.”
“Well that’s always.”
“And lastly, drink every time Mary is mean.”
“So the first person to expire from alcohol poisoning wins?”
“Exactly. Ready?”
“Allons-y!”
***