Work Text:
It was that time of year again - Merriweather Adam Pleasure’s most favourite day of the year. New Year’s.
But it wasn’t just New Year’s, it was also the time for the Balderdash Cup. The annual competition in which the participants regale audience members with stories of all the adventures they partook in over the course of the year.
As the president of the Adventurers Club, Pamelia Perkins was hurrying around, trying to get everything ready for the Adventurers Club Radio Show and the Balderdash Cup before “the drunks” started to arrive.
Meanwhile, Hathaway Brown poured himself a drink at the bar as he hit on Samantha Sterling. All she could do was roll her eyes, no matter how much she wanted to slap his stupid face.
Fletcher Hodges came in wearing his usual grass skirt, looking flustered.
Both Hathaway and Samantha stopped to look at Fletcher as he rushed around the room and ducked under the bar, looking for something.
Despite Samantha’s questioning whether he was okay, Fletcher insisted he was as he rooted around under the bar.
Hathaway tugged on his bomber jacket and looked down as Fletcher carried on searching.
Samantha said nothing - by now, she was well used to Fletcher’s scattiness.
Hathaway, however, put his hands up and leaned back against the bar.
Fletcher jumped excitedly to his feet and adjusted his glasses - he was holding a fez hat.
Samantha nodded at the anticlimax.
Fletcher brushed the fez hat before putting it on his head and immediately left the bar.
After yet another smart remark from Hathaway, who was examining himself in a nearby reflective surface, Samantha picked up a broom and thrust it towards Hathaway, knocking his shot over. Then, she walked away leaving him alone.
She walked from the salon and bar and into the library to prepare for her own show.
Though they wouldn’t be inviting random people into the club to join like they had last year, it still was going to be a busy night.
Otis T. Wren’s voice called out across the club, asking about the New Year’s Eve fireworks, which prompted a flustered response from Pamelia, who said she’d given the responsibility to Fletcher Hodges.
At which point Merriweather Adam Pleasure walked into the library, commanding everyone’s attention.
It wasn’t often Merriweather Adam Pleasure was sighted at the Adventurer’s Club any more, but here he was. And he’d taken control of the fireworks.
The Balderdash Cup went off… reasonably smoothly.
Hathaway, of course, didn’t like that he didn’t win the award again, for the second year in a row, but he didn’t cause a scene.
Emil Bleehall, on the other hand was delighted that he had won it for the second year in a row.
Madame Zarkov hosted the sing along with Samantha, as everyone else was getting more progressively drunk.
Then came time to leave the club and go outside to count down to 1939.
That got messed up quite a bit as Fletcher lost the count and they had to start the countdown again, missing the actual start of the new year by several seconds.
The fireworks, by and large, went off without a hitch - Merriweather Adam Pleasure made certain of that. And despite the unwise levels of drunkenness, by some miracle, the fireworks didn’t cause any fires.
By the end of the celebration, nobody was quite sure whether it was the alcohol, the drunken drawling of them trying to sing Auld Lang Syne and butchering it, or just the general party atmosphere and merriment, but they were all confident that 1939 would be a pretty good year.