the_last_resort | Blackmoon Celebration

A funny thing like that, optimism. I think it's stupid most of the time, but I knew things about home that would have broken Roman. One thing in particular. If I told him, it would have ruined his optimism. But I liked him the way he was so I never told him. It just would have hurt him.

[He takes a drink of his whiskey, squinting at some vague point beside of Boone. He silently wondering if anyone can help him anymore, optimistic or not.]

I guess I did okay without him before. I'll keep doing okay now.

[Boone knows he was more optimistic once, when he was with Carla. He hasn't had much time for the brighter side of things since she died, though. He's gone into everything expecting the worst ever since. He'd told himself he was gonna keep everyone else at arm's length, but he's gotten attached to Elle and all the others anyway. It happened slowly, but it still happened.

He wonders what it'd be like to try looking for the positives again, though. Just while he's drunk, and lounging on a sofa bed in the middle of a spider festival on another planet.]

Guess it's not so bad here. Food isn't two hundred years old, even if it sometimes smells like lakelurk. There's whiskey, I found someone to drink it with, and I still get to shoot things.

[Okay, so the only real difference is the food. He had people back home to drink with, and he was shooting things pretty regularly too. Of course there's the aliens, but he doesn't really count them as a plus. He has another drink, watching Niko. Boone wants him to see the good things about this place too, since he gave up his old life and is intent on living here. He doesn't like to see his friends unhappy, but he's not very good at cheering people up.]

What's your job like? I've never been that far outside of the fence.

[He does chuckle at the food.] Not as bad as fast food, no. I might get spoiled on it again. End up with chemical food, or rations later.

[He squints blearily.] I help stupid people that are also smart not die when they're out in the wilderness. We go in and they teach us what we can eat and what to watch out for. Where should be safe. We have to keep our people safe from spiders in the caves. I guess from whatever else is out there, now.

[He doesn't sound all that worried about that, not because of his deathwish but because if he has a job he's going to do it right.] How to put up emergency shelters. Things like that. It's very quiet, though. Other than when the spiders hiss, is just animals. [He doesn't seem as sad, though, thinking of what it's like out there. He can admit when he is out there and just waiting for an explorer, it's easy to get lost in his thoughts. When he's in the caves he's too paranoid to do that.]

Stupid people that are also smart, huh?

[He has to smile at that. It doesn't sound right at all, and yet he's pretty sure he gets what Niko means.]

Sounds like the kind of job I might've liked. Tagging along and keeping people safe. Sort of like what I was doing back home.

[He's used to long treks with nothing interesting happening, but he's also used to ones with half the wasteland seemingly out to get them that day. Still, there's nothing wrong with the job he has so he doesn't think he'll be changing over anytime soon.]

[He snorts and puts his hand over Boone's face and gives him a light shove, but not hard enough to dislodge his glasses.] Shhhhh Iiii'm not so good at English. And I am not so English when I am drink. Drunk. Good at English. Shhhh.

Hey! Have you met Bertie? I know Bertie. There is so much English that comes out of him.

Am I supposed to understand it?

I can't tell. [He presses his hand to his temple, and takes another sip of whisky, even if Boone's beret is a blur. He should stop now. He'll stop now, because he's pretty sure he's not going to be able to get up.]

[He responds to the shove with a "heh" and bats the hand away, checking his shades even though they're still exactly where they were before Niko put his hand over them.]

Yeah, Bertie. He ran into my room once 'cause he thought it was his. He pissed off some alien and was hiding. I let him stick around 'til he thought it was safe to go out again. He confused me a couple times, too.

[Boone sets his bottle on the table and decides to see how well he can walk. He stands up, sways, and ends up stumbling back against the sofa. He lands ungracefully on his ass, then grunts and scoots back to where he was.]

Might have to wait until I can walk.

[If he wanted to cheer Niko up, watching another drunk man fall down did it, and he's laughing and smiling stupidly as Boone lays back again.]

Good trick. I'd ask you do it again, but you might break something.

[Niko's hound has finally chosen to crawl out from under the bed, and he does the very doggish thing of putting his head on the thin mattress to watch them. Except he has four eyes, so when Niko looks down at him it's... confusing... when he can't focus.]

Take it easy. No hurry for me. Unless metal dog has to go out- does he have to do that?

[To be honest he would have asked that while he was sober, too.]

It'll probably wear off soon.

Better be offering caps if you want me to do it again.

[Or emeralds. Whatever. He watches the dog blinking at them with all four eyes, and reaches down to pet it. Only, his arm isn't long enough. He ends up just sort of wiggling his fingers at it instead.]

No, he doesn't. He still tries sometimes, he'll lift his leg against the fence like he forgets he doesn't have anything to do it with. Then he'll look all pleased with himself.

[He ends up lying back completely and staring at the ceiling.]

Must be nice to be a dog, y'know? Rex can't eat or pee on anything but he pretends to do both of them anyway and he's happy with that.

[The dog stretches out to lick the tips of his fingers and snuffle at them. Niko watches the fingers wiggle which are about as trippy as the eyes blinking are now.]

Yeah. Maybe he's just good about not thinking of where it went. Or that other dogs have parts he doesn't have. Or maybe he is happy with the parts he has now that other dogs don't have.

It is very lucky my dog has not tried to make puppies with him even though it's useless. You feed these dogs enough they want doggy boyfriends. Girlfriends. Whatever. Fuckbuddies.

[The tongue on his fingers tickles. He snorts quietly and moves his hand away, his other arm draping over his head to cover his eyes. His shades end up lopsided, but he doesn't care.]

You give him a name yet?

[He keeps calling the hound a he, just because it's easier that way.]

Least Rex doesn't try that. Never seen him do it, anyway. Pretty sure he wouldn't get much out of it even if he did try.

No. I can't decide. I just wanted something. [He wants to tell himself that he did it so he could be a better guide, and the he would have something that would be able to distract spiders while he had time to shoot them. But he knows in part it's because he had the funny feeling that if he didn't have something that depended on him, things might have been inclined to just stop trying.]

[The dog climbs up on the sofa bed and lays between them. The springs creak a bit but there's no real threat of it breaking. It stretches out, wagging its tail between them so it hits one's knee and then the other.]

I don't know what to name him. So far I just call him "Pas". It means dog. [Not that inventive.]

[He takes to petting the dog when it lays beside him, trying to think of a name. He never was good with them though, and being drunk doesn't help. He moves his arm from his face and turns to look at the hound with unfocused eyes.]

Pas. Huh. Well, he is a dog.

[He's especially perceptive when drunk, apparently.]

[For some reason the blunt observation is a lot funnier when he's drunk, and also because the dog is wagging his tail and hitting them.]

I think you're right about it being good to be a dog, he seems pretty happy that you noticed he is one. [Then he makes a garbled noise as it licks his nose. He loosely puts his arm over his own face so he doesn't have to look and be dizzy.]

Makes me glad Rex's tail isn't metal, too. Otherwise, it'd probably hurt when he was happy.

[Rex is fond of lying next to Boone and often wags his tail when Boone inevitably starts talking to him, usually hitting him in the stomach. Luckily, his tail is fluffy and not metal.]

Sometimes even dogs with fluff tails hurt, but not as much as metal would. [Then suddenly his drunken mind leads to the idea of people having tails.] It's good we don't have them. Sitting would be hard. And you would look pretty funny with a serious face and a wag tail.

Maybe not full wag. Just a little flop flop flop.

[He scrunches his face up at the image.]

Not sure I'd like that much. Wouldn't be able to get my pants over it.

[Unless he cut a hole in them, but that would just ruin them completely.]

That is true. I think pants are better than tails. I am very sorry to you, dog.

[The dog doesn't seem sad about that. He just snuffles Boone's ear and enjoys his position.]

[Boone moves his head away slightly when he feels the cold nose at his ear, holding a hand up over it. He'd move away more, but everything is spinning and now that he's lying down, moving seems like more trouble than it's worth.]

...Gotta wonder why there's a celebration for spiders. They look weird and they try to kill you when it's dark. They should be celebrating dogs or something.

[Dogs have an acceptable amount of legs, and are generally nicer to be around.]

It's a funny way to celebrate the defeat of your enemies. [He says lazily. He doesn't know that he ever had anything like that.]

I think he likes you.

[At this rate he's going to go to sleep like this. But he's definitely drowsed off in worse moods.]

Wouldn't say we've defeated them. We still have to patrol the fence and make sure they don't get past. If they were all gone, sure. They're not, though.

[He reaches out blindly to pet the dog, finds its nose first, and then pats it on the head. He's getting tired too, but his plan was never to stay here all night.

...He's pretty comfortable, though.]

No. You're right. Someone defeating their enemies doesn't get them left alone. This is true. He yawns audibly. [The dog scoots harder up between them, suddenly pleased to be a heat sink. Though one can also imagine that it senses sadness on its way.]

[He hears Niko yawn, and starts to sit up. It's more difficult than he thought it would be, though.]

If you're tired, I can go.

[He's kind of taking up half his bed, after all.]

You don't have to. [He raises a hand loosely, but doesn't look over because there's still a significant hunk of furry obstacle between them.] Maybe with someone around I'll have less bad dreams.

[He glances over when he's sat up enough to see Niko over the dog, both arms keeping him upright.]

You think so?

[He knows it helped Elle, and his own nightmares have always been better when there's someone or something asleep beside him. And, being drunk as he is, he realises that with such a long walk home he's more likely to wake up on the floor outside than in his own bed. If Niko doesn't mind him staying, it would probably be better for him.]

Yes. [He says it before he thinks much about it, though. He hasn't liked the idea of being on his own for so long, beside the fact that he basically sequesters himself. But still there's a sort of shame in admitting that he even has bad dreams; he says it to Boone, though. Maybe he's drunk, or maybe he already seems like a good guy to trust.]

[But that would also be shit, because he wouldn't want anything bad to happen to him.]

[He looks over at Boone. And then, almost as if it wants to make Niko blunder with what he says, the dog gets up to hop off the bed now that Boone's moved. That's what stops Niko from making sure Boone knows that being his friend might mean bad things come to him.] Might be good to have someone watch my back. [Is what he says instead.]

Blackmoon Celebration

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