---
title: "A is for Alcohol and IAs"
date: 2022-10-24
tags:
- birds
- unstagnation
---

**Summary:** Bean Bird and Noodle Bird enjoy a chat together on a quiet night slaving away before they leave in the summer. Bean wishes she had a stronger drink.

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---

Quiet keys clack and pencils scribble as the Bird family finds itself working, scrambling to tie up loose ends in their final months together. Their upcoming move to Universe City weighs upon all of their minds. There is no room for frivolous discussion, no time for anything but the epitome of productivity.

"Guys, I hate my AIF. With a *passion*." Bean Bird sets down a half-filled mug and she glares all around, slamming her hands on the table. "AIF sucks *ass*. But, like, not good ass."

Noodle Bird blinks, her attention suddenly lifted from her 50k-word real person fic. "Oh."

Bean continues her tirade, invigorated. "Poopy crusty ass! Like, straight white male unwashed ass." Sighing, she lays her head down on her arm for only a second before she sits upright again, strangling thin air with her bare hands. "I'm fucking *losing my mind* *I hate this IA so much."*

"Why?" For the life of her, Noodle can't imagine what difficulties one could possibly have with the Internal Assessment. The soul-wrenching dread of the IA has avoided her completely.

"I never thought I had to listen to a British guy appealing to the crowds to work with the *USSR*." She peeks at the video between her fingers like it's out to doom her and her alone. "NOOOOOO!"

"Oh, god," Noodle says sadly. There is nothing she can do. Bean must walk her own path down this chosen path, or die trying.

"It's okay," Egg assures her, with the confidence of one who has yet to experience true suffering. "Get a level 5 and get it over with."

"I *can't!"* Bean bemoans. "I did so much research! There are *so many things* in my brain!" She grabs the mug and chugs furiously. "Why won't Wroscell let me get drunk and spew out all the data to him?"

"Bro," Noodle says, patting her, "I was literally procrastinating on researching my IA until, like, yesterday! And here I am!" — she gestures at her computer, now filled with lines upon lines of words no one could possibly know was a 55k-word real person fic.

Bean thumbs through a textbook, gazing at page after page of notes. "The sticky notes in my books are so colourful…" she says wistfully, her eyes lighting up, "…and so *toxic!"*

"Eat it! Maybe it'll taste sweet!" Noodle says, eyeing the textbook stuffed with solid, packed handwriting and the tantalising aroma of adhesive.

Bean leans in beside Noodle. "I'm gonna eat you," she whispers.

"I…don't think I'm very delicious." A chair subtly scooches away.

Returning to her mug, Bean cradles it once again and drinks deeply, leaning back against her chair. She sighs. "Rose-flavoured tea is disgusting."

"I agree."

"I have to pretend I like it because my mother bought it for me. And it's like, three dollars." Bean makes a face as she sips at her cup, staring longingly into it as if hoping it were something else.

Sensing the family crisis to be just about over, Egg chimes in, "Human meat tastes like chicken." He looks as if he's been dying to join the discussion the whole time.

"Wrong," Bean scoffs. "It tastes like pork."

Egg is firmly removed from the conversation from sheer embarrassment. "Yeah, that," he says, slinking away, never to be seen again.

A thought occurs to Bean — she taps her chin thoughtfully. "Human flesh is commonly called 'long pig'. And calamari is often pig anus."

"What."

"Yuh," Bean nods, "I have really weird taste in podcasts."

Noodle seriously considers the topic. "We *are* technically longer than pigs…most of us."

"Nood you're not," Bean frowns. "You're tiny!" She notices the glare sent her way and her expression softens pityingly. "I love you, Noodle, but you're *teeny tiny*."

Bean's sincerity moves Noodle's heart and she deflates. "I know… I love you too."

"I would drink all the rose tea if it meant you didn't have to…" Bean swoons, occasionally stopping to sip out of her mug. "It's okay, you'll grow."

Noodle looks up. She knows.

Evidently, Soup also wanted to jump in earlier but was dissuaded by Egg's shutdown. Now he takes his opportunity. "Any…cannibals in the chat?"

Soup is utterly ignored as Bean continues her musings with Noodle. "I think a lack of gravity in heaven elongates the joints." She laughs. "See what I did there?"

Soup laughs along.

Bean shakes her head. "I swear to god, the day before IAs are due, I'm just delirious." As if to illustrate her point, her face plants into her keyboard.

"…IA is due tomorrow?" Soup ventures.

Bean turns her head to face him, eyes bleary and hair falling in front of her face. "Do you have any idea how many times I stayed up until four in the morning to finish my chem IA?" She pushes herself up. "And it wasn't even the day before the IA was due either! It was like, three days in advance!" She grabs another mug and chugs the whole thing down. "I just stressed myself out and dragged Snac with me to explain hydrogen bonding sites in hydrolysed sugar — that's when I learned that you can physically break bonds with hands."

To demonstrate, Bean mimes a karate chop and smashes the wooden table. Various sheets of paper fly into the air while laptops fly to the ground.

Noodle stares. "Huh. That's cool."

Soup wordlessly picks up his cracked laptop and leaves to cry in a corner.

Bean doesn't notice. "I feel like half the things I say here today can be in an archive." She shrugs. "I dunno, I feel delirious."

Dusting off her screen, Noodle places her laptop on her lap and continues to work away at her 60k word real person fic."Nothing like learning good ol' hydrogen bonding to have a great bonding experience at 4 am."

Bean nods, swaying in her chair. "I got drunk once off peach soju and this was the same experience, except I didn't have a *history IA* to write," she murmurs.

"It's the stress plus adrenaline! But it's fun!"

Bean's eyes droop. "So. Much. Fun." With her last words, Bean Bird falls out of her chair and crashes on the ground, never to be woken again…

…until the next morning, when she realises that her IA is due tomorrow and she still has to write two body paragraphs and a conclusion.