#some drinking

--

A hand softly shaking your shoulder and someone saying your name is what brings you to consciousness. Your body moves languidly, stretching into a toe-curling yawn before you open your eyes. Levi is standing over you, holding your favorite mug.

“Sorry to wake you, but I know you have an 11 o’clock and your alarm was going off in the other room.”

You nod through another, smaller yawn (nose-scrunching, this time), then sit up. 

You remember the nightmare and going to Levi and falling asleep in his arms and then… nothing. A dreamless, deep sleep. You smile with the satisfaction of it as you shift to sit cross-legged. The scent of coffee tickles at your nose.

“Is that-- did you make coffee?” Your morning voice is somehow both gravelly and squeaky, making Levi’s mouth twitch in amusement as he offers you the mug.

You take it from him and take a slow, savoring sip. It’s good, and you look at him again in surprise.

“I didn’t know you could make coffee.” It’s playfully accusatory, accompanied by a teasing grin on your upturned face.

“I googled it,” he says simply. “Wasn’t too difficult.”

You hum thoughtfully and take another sip as Levi turns towards the door.

“Levi.” Your voice stops him halfway and he turns back to look at you. “Thank you.”

He can tell it’s meant for more than just the coffee, so he nods with a soft smile and an, “Any time.”

He leaves the room and closes the door behind him, leaving you to wake up in peace. You sit there, basking in the sun and sipping coffee, which you realize has exactly the right amount of cream to make it perfect.

Now how did he figure that one out? Definitely not from google.

The caffeine finally jumpstarts your brain and the room shoulders its way into your awareness. Everything seems to have a place: bookshelf organized by color, fountain pen set carefully in its holder on the desk, painter’s easel angled perfectly in front of a wheelie desk chair. Your eyes linger there, on the easel, and on the portrait of a beautiful woman set there to dry. She looks like Levi, you realize. It’s in the color of her eyes and the point of her chin and the curve of her nose. It’s in the black hair and the amused quirk of her lips, and it dawns on you: This must be his mother.

The pair of you have never talked in depth about your families, but you recall how yesterday morning he said, “I get nightmares, too. About my mom and the foster homes.” You had always been relieved to avoid the topic of family -- it’s not exactly small talk to bring up your dead mother and absent father -- and now it occurs to you that maybe Levi was just as relieved.

You carefully detangle your legs from the sheets and stand up, setting your nearly empty mug on the nightstand. Taking a closer look at the portrait, you can see it’s not yet done, hair not quite defined, face missing some highlights and shadows. But it’s nearly there and you almost feel like you could reach out and be touching warm skin. You catch your left hand on the way to test that theory, trembling midair halfway towards her. You use your right hand to physically push it down back to your side and suddenly you can’t look at the painting anymore, eyes darting sharply away. It feels like an invasion of privacy to even look at something so personal, something Levi’s clearly put so much care into. You remember how tense he looked when you poked your head in last night, and suddenly his terseness makes sense; you wouldn’t like to be interrupted while painting your dead mother, either.

You turn sharply on your heel, snatch up your mug, and down the rest of the coffee in one gulp. Now driven by some mysterious sense of purpose, you set about making Levi’s bed. Tugging sheets straight, tucking perfect hospital corners, fluffing pillows, and finally spreading the comforter with a practiced throw is oddly centering, and you find yourself feeling infinitely better by the time you’re done.

A satisfied nod later, you exit the room, mug in hand, and stop short in the doorway.

There’s a man in your living room. There’s a handsome man in your living room. There’s a handsome man sitting in your favorite armchair, twiddling his thumbs patiently, in your living room.

He has neatly combed blonde hair and piercing blue eyes which are looking at you inquisitively from under thick eyebrows.

A beat of silence, then he offers a deep, “Hello.”

You know the polite thing would be to greet him back, but what squeaks out instead is, “Who- who are you?” Screw polite, there’s a stranger in your apartment.

He chuckles, openly and (somehow) comfortingly and stands up from the chair. “Erwin Smith. And you must be the roommate.”

Oh. You visibly relax, leaning up against the doorframe. You’ve heard of Erwin -- both from Hange and Levi, though you’ve never met the man. Levi speaks highly of him, and you know he’s a political science major and captain of the polo team. And he’s a senior -- a year ahead of you and most of your friends.

“Ah,” you breathe in understanding. “Yeah, I’m the roommate.” You give a friendly smile along with your name, then cross to the kitchen to rinse out your mug. “Are you waiting for Levi?”

Erwin sits back down, relaxing back into the plush armchair, and answers, “I am. He’s just showering, and then we have a meeting.”

You hum thoughtfully in response, putting the mug on the drying rack, then glance at the clock. 10:30. Food will have to wait until after class.

“I have somewhere to be, too, actually.” You hesitate. “You sure you’re good out here waiting all on your lonesome?”

He gives a thumbs up and an easy smile. God, he’s nice to look at.

“I’m all set, don’t let me keep you.”

You smile back and nod, then, “Well, it was nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.”

A broader, cheek-scrunching smile, and you slip into the safety of your own room. The chaos of it is comforting compared to the compulsive cleanliness of the rest of the apartment. In your own space you can leave dirty socks halfway to the hamper and makeup brushes scattered across the top of the dresser and your bed unmade and not worry about any of it.

In a practiced routine, you throw open curtains and sift through your closet for a presentable outfit. You settle on your favorite pair of jeans and a button-up blouse with sensible winter boots and a casual blazer, then check the time on your phone (10:41) before tucking it into your back pocket and scooping up your school bag. With a ten minute walk to campus, you should still be able to arrive in time to get a good seat for your lecture. You spend about thirty seconds wrestling with your hair in the mirror before grabbing a scrunchie to go.

Your re-entrance into the living room gains the attention of both Erwin and Levi, who are looking at the latter’s phone. They watch as you cross the living room in quick strides You grab your jacket from the coat rack and shoulder it on before glancing back at them.

“See ya, boys.” A cheeky grin and a wave later, and you’ve slipped out the door.

Erwin manages to raise a hand in goodbye before you’re completely gone, then glances down at Levi when the door clicks shut wearing a curious lopsided grin.

“So, how long have you been sleeping with your hot room-- ow!” He’s cut off by Levi’s swat to the back of his head.

“Shut the fuck up, eyebrows. We’re not sleeping together.”

“Then why was she in your room, in her pajamas, in the morning?”

“None of your business.”

“Fine. If you’re not sleeping with her, do you mind if I-- ow, seriously?”

“Tch. You’re fine. No you may not fuck my roommate, dickass.”

--

When you knock on Levi’s door again that night, it’s just past 1 am. Your father had made a rare appearance in your dream, his grip heavy on your shoulders, face stoic and melancholy as he mouthed words that didn’t reach your ears. You can guess the meaning all too easily, though, and your head jerks to the side as though dislodging a fly as you think back on it now.

Levi opens his door just as you’re shaking off the echo of your father’s words. He takes one look at you, sniffling and twitchy in the near-dark, before motioning you in and closing the door. 

This time, you settle on your side, facing Levi, and pull the comforter up over your shoulder and right up to your nose. He mirrors you, laying on his side so he can look you in the eye.

After a moment, he offers, “You wanna talk about it?” It’s a neutral, low murmur across the short space between you, but it makes your heart grow fuzzy and warm.

You shake your head no, but untangle one hand from its grip on the comforter and haltingly reach out to take one of his. His hands are so dainty, so precise, so perfect it makes your breath skip. You meet his eyes again as he lets you tangle your fingers in his, finding them hooded and stormy and gentle.

No more dreams, that night, your subconscious decides.

--

“Thank you, drive safe!” You smile at the delivery guy, handing him a tip in cash in exchange for two heavy plastic bags of takeout.

His eyes crinkle at the corner as he backs down the hall with a wave and a, “Have a good night, sweetheart.”

“You too!” You hear a sarcastic scoff from Levi behind you, but ignore him in favor of one last wave before closing and locking the door. 

It’s the Friday before exam week, and somehow you managed to pry Levi away from his final paper for a much needed evening of Chinese food, wine, and a movie. He joins you in the kitchen, reaching down plates as you unpack the bags. 

“Why do you flirt with fuckin’ Dirk every time he’s our delivery guy?” Levi’s been testy today, terse in his interactions with you and reluctant to leave his studies. “Crusty old sleazeball.” 

You know he doesn’t mean to be as abrasive as he comes off, so you attempt to joke.

“Don’t be silly, I don’t just flirt with Dirk, I flirt with all the delivery guys,” you glance over at him while portioning out noodles and rice, “It ensures our hot ‘n sour soup isn’t spilled going around sharp corners.”

“Well, it’s irritating.” So much for breaking the tension. His jaw is set and he doesn’t meet your gaze, even when you lean sideways against the counter to fully face him.

You stare at him for a moment, incredulous, then decide to stoke the flame a bit. Don’t dish it if you can’t take it.

“What is your damage tonight?”

He only snorts through his nose and reaches for a pair of chopsticks to transfer an egg roll to his plate. The truth is, it’s been five days in a row of you coming to sleep  in his bed, and Levi’s starting to break at the seams. He knows he has no right, no claim to you or your attention, but he’s finding it increasingly difficult to quell the jealousy he feels over you. He hates that he has to let you go every morning and he hates that sometimes his arms around you aren’t enough to soothe your panicked whimpers late at night. It’s all too much and not enough - too much for friends and not enough for lovers. What’s his damage? You’ve got him wrapped around your pinky finger and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

You let the question hang in the air for a full minute, all the while fixing him with a glare while he continues assembling a neat plate of food, then throw your hands up in defeat.

“I give up. You have been impossible today. You barely acknowledge my existence, then you try to skip out on movie night, and now suddenly you have some type of issue with how I interact with other people. I’m not dealing with this.” Egg rolls and orange chicken are piled haphazardly onto your rice and noodles, then you’re grabbing chopsticks and stalking across the living room to your door.

“Wait--” the word leaves him in a short grumble, but it makes you stop and turn back to him, frustration apparent in your downturned lips and impassioned eyes. He stops and takes an intentional breath before continuing, “I’m sorry. It’s just-- It’s a personal thing and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Please don’t go.”

Your expression softens perceptibly, and you shift on your feet before saying, “You know you can talk to me, right? We’re friends, Levi. You’ve been so good to me about the whole nightmare thing, the least I can do is be a sounding board for you.”

Friends.

“Yeah, I… Thanks. I can’t,” a deep inhale, “can’t talk about this particular thing right now, but I appreciate it.”

“You got it.” Finally, finally, your lips turn up into a soft smile and the weight on his chest lifts, then you change your trajectory back towards the kitchen. You grab his plate and chopsticks off the counter and bring them over to the coffee table. “Would you get the wine, please?”

He nods and retrieves it from the fridge, then reaches down two blue wine glasses from the cabinet. They’re nicer than anything he could afford, both the wine (expensive small batch blueberry) and the glassware (hand-blown), but that’s because they’re yours. It had struck him when you first moved in; most of your belongings are nicer than what the average college student would have. He had raised his eyebrows at these glasses in particular as you unpacked the kitchen together. No explanation was expected, but you’d laughed awkwardly and scratched the back of your neck.

“It’s my dad, he likes to buy me things. Must be the guilt,” you said, only half-joking, then seemed to panic and practically ran out of the room to bring up more boxes. Levi had only organized them carefully on a shelf and not mentioned it again.

Now, he joins you on the couch and pours you both a healthy amount of the blueberry wine while you flip through Netflix on the TV. Another gift from your dad, it had arrived a couple weeks after you moved in, large flat box taking up most of the entryway for half a day before you got home. You’d taken one look at it, sighed heavily, and pulled out your phone before disappearing into your room.

“Dad? We talked about this, you can’t just--” A couple minutes of muffled arguing, during which Levi washed paint brushes in the sink, and you emerged with a strained smile on your face. “Surprise?”

“What do you think about…” you eyes squint at the flatscreen as you scroll past movies, “Ooh! How about Stardust?”

Levi makes a face, which you catch out of the corner of your eye.

“Okay....Lady Bird?”

“Worse.”

“Into the Wild?”

“Seen it.”

“Paul Blart: Mall Cop?”

“You gotta be shitting me.” He turns to find you grinning at him wickedly.

“That’s what it’s gonna be if you don’t make up your mind soon.”

“Gimme that,” he grumbles, and deftly snatches the remote from your hand.

Eventually, after more bickering through bites of food and sips of wine, you settle on some indie period drama that promises gore and romance alike. The night passes in snide quips about plotholes and historical inaccuracies, and Levi finds his shoulders finally relaxing into the familiarity of your company. Maybe this is enough to sate him.

The movie ends and you’re curled up at the opposite end of the couch, socked feet tucked under your butt and head resting on the armrest. Levi switches off the TV and collects dishes off the coffee table, then turns to see if you’re asleep. 

Your breathing is slow and steady, but your lidded eyes meet his and you mumble a tired, “I’m up.” 

You push up to sitting, yawn, then follow him to the kitchen and fall into your quiet post movie night routine. He washes while you pack up leftovers, then you both dry and put away the dishes. Brushed teeth, washed faces, door locked and bolted. Kettle filled with water for the morning. The domesticity of it catches him slightly off balance, and Levi has to stop himself from squeezing your waist affectionately as he passes behind you in the small bathroom.

Before, this is as far as it’s gone, and you’d murmur a quiet goodnight before shutting your bedroom door. But now, he catches your hand before you get too far and tugs gently.

“Just come in here in the first place,” he offers.

You study him for a moment, and his heart beats faster as your lazy gaze trails across his face, then you hum through a, “mmmalright,” and follow him into his familiar, peaceful bedroom.

--

They think their visual processing firmware’s sprung a bug the first time they see her: the white skag.

She’s pale as the moonlight, rangy as a bandit child.  She crests the sand dune with the sort of silence they’d expect from a feline or a selachimorph.  She can’t be full-grown-- her hips are too thin and her tongue, as it swirls into the varkid body Mr. Chew opted not to finish, so short.  Pale too.  A pink ribbon.

They’ve heard stories about creatures like her, old hunter tales told around campfires and bottles of whiskey.  She isn’t the sort of thing that gets written down in macroecological surveys.  Besides that, she should, if her mother didn’t gobble her up as a weakling, be wearing enough dust that she looks like any other skag.

But no.  She’s there.  She’s so pale she seems luminous blue against the night.  Her spines (she’s a spitter; that’s unusual in and of itself) have a gloss like nacre to them.  The only dark part of her would be the grayish pits of her eyes.  Her irises flash with Rayleigh scatters in the Outrunner headlights.  

They think too at first that she must be starving, nibbling on a kill from another skag who’s not from her pack.

Perhaps she doesn’t have a pack.  Then, how has she survived to adolescence? 

Perhaps she isn’t eating because she needs to.  She seems to be tasting, ripping off small, tender bits and taking her time to swallow.  How refined, they want to say, but the clicking of their optics seems too much sound.  Even Mr. Chew has gone quiet, sitting back on his haunches and observing despite the trail of curious drool that runs from his jaws.

So she belongs to someone.  She might even have been engineered for that person.

A sauroraptor whistles in the distance; that or a person who’s versed at impersonating one.

The white skag lifts her head.  She takes one more rip off of the body and disappears over the dune.

FL4K does their best to triangulate her footsteps, and that noise she might be answering.  The night though sings on, full of bandits and more ordinary creatures, all masking any trace of her.

*

They meet with the other hunters in a bar at the edge of the Droughts.  They hesitate to call them Vault hunters, since hunting Vaults is one thing they’ve done very little of since arriving on Pandora.  Hunting Bandits on the other hand…

Anyway, they buy a bottle of moonshine and they light a candle, playing at this being a campfire story even though the evening’s too shot full of tension and battle for anybody with an inn at their disposal to risk sleeping under the stars.  Humans are so fragile and they like their stories told just so.  Whiskey for white skags, beer for comedy, blood everywhere for happy childhood memories.

They transload all of the pictures they took onto their ECHO and they pass it around.  Most of the images make her look dim, but in one they snagged a lens flare and that almost replicates her glorious nature.

“Now that’s some Where The Red Fern grows shite,” Zane remarks once they’ve finished explaining the encounter.  

“What in the who now?” mutters Moze.  She has a mouthful of chilli from her second bowl.

“Old book.  Just about his boy and his dogs.  Got this bit about a magic fern in the middle and then the dogs die.”

“That sounds like a terrible book,” says FL4K.  “What is the point of having a story about dogs if the dogs don’t live to see victory?”

“Well, they do, erm, that.  They just also kinda die.  The one goes out with a bang!”

“Anyway,” Amara changes the subject and also her shot glass.  She’s chasing the moonshine with some floral cordial from offworld.  She also leans across the table, batting the remains of her eyeshadow at FL4K.  “I’m glad you got to see your albino skag.”

“Not albino.  Leucistic.  Albino skags are blind and not uncommon in inbred packs, although they rarely live long.”

Moze chews on her spoon.  “I didn’t know that.  Actually, I didn’t know what leucistic meant either and I’m not sure I’ll ever need to know that ever again and… Meat Thief, these are my beans.” She shoos the jabber off of her lap.

Before it can take the space beside Zane on the bench, Zane activates his DigiClone, occupying the area. 

“I do not think she was mine,” FL4K says, thoughtfully now.  She could be, though.  They never failed to realize that.  All they have to do is wait for her in the particular way that will earn her trust.  First though, they must find her.  And there’s a lot of smoking craters in town for that to be feasible for the moment.

Amara though lifts both of her glasses, “Well, if you want her, go get her! At least try.”

FL4K nods.  “I will need meat.  Do you think any of the survivors will mind if I appropriate some from the mass grave?”

“Just, ah, try to stick with the cultists and don’t let anybody see you,” says Moze.

*

They take a tattooed leg from the grave and carry it out into the dunes.  Elpis crests at midnight.  The desert still sings, or did it, they wonder, ever really stop?

The precise place where they saw the white skag no longer exists.  Winds and other beasts have changed it, though the GPS coordinates remain.  The varkid is long gone.  FL4K slices open the leg and leaves it in a similar spot.  They hold with their pack in the Outrunner, waiting and listening.  They’ve brought water and silicone chew toys and half a dozen biofluids to rub on their fingers if that might tempt her.

A thrill sparks somewhere deep inside their wires.  No, the archives were never like this, not even when ancient copies of Audubon turned up to be scanned, not even when an anonymous scientist brought over an Eridian epic she insisted described a real planet, but a dead one.  The Grand Archivist didn’t even want to take that one.  The day they convinced him rings awfully clear now in their circuits.  They wonder, not for the first time, if things changed more in those hours than any of the ones before.

In the present, Mr. Chew raises his head.  He turns over his shoulder.

FL4K follows.  They think if it’s her back there, she must be awfully wily.  It makes sense the way she’d stand out in full sun.

The white skag is not alone.  She trots around the feet of her master.  Mistress, rather.

“You.  I was not expecting.”

Tyreen shoulders her rifle.  She smiles.  She shrugs.  Aside from the careless omission of the left sleeve of her jacket, her hunting gear seems practical, especially compared to her costumes.  Her rifle has been used, and not that long ago.  Without makeup, her lips are a pale tan color and she’s got oxide in the pits of her eyes.

The white skag circles her, once and then again.

It knows not to touch her or come too close, but it also knows her gravity.  So, they have been together, she and her.  They have been together for a long while.

They shoulder their rifle as well.  It’s not like this “God Queen” can hurt them, or that they’d let her hurt their pack.  Besides, she is very much alone, save for the white skag.

She’s also snickering at them.  So she knows.  She seems like she knows.

“Is she yours?” they ask.

“I dunno.  Is she?”

“I am uncertain what need you would have for a hunting dog, considering your siren powers.”

Tyreen takes a handful of steps closer and the white skag trots ahead of her, coming close enough that Broodless puts her head up.  Mr. Chew sniffs.  Oh, the bodies and the strange blood he must smell on her.

“Serious question there.  Is she mine?” says Tyreen.

“You are not trying to play mind games with an ex-archivist.”

“I’m not playing anything.  Do you want her? Like you said, I don’t need a dog.”

And the white skag, she lays belly down in the sand.  She looks to them and to the pack.  Her eyes flash, but she stays so calm.

FL4K thinks.  If they had a tongue, they think they would lick their lips.  As things are, the white skag does just that, her pink ribbon tongue flickering out above the ground.

“Yes,” they say.  “I want her very much.”

“Good, good,” croons Tyreen.  She upends her rifle, dumping the bullets out.  “I can help you with that.  Walk with me.”

Nodding, they do likewise.  They motion for their pack to follow.