trans_9 | Alcohol, the alternative to feeling like myself

Entry tags:

Alcohol, the alternative to feeling like myself

The world was busy, and so fast. Always moving faster then Orc could move, or think. It seemed like life was passing in the slow solid blinks of his beady little eyes.

Ever since Howard's death he didn't feel as compelled to be useful. To take care of himself. What was the point really? They were all going to die sooner or later. And it's not like he deserved that second chance Howard was always going on about.

Howard...how long had it been? Between the drinking and Stacy's own peculiar grasp of time he had lost track.

But it didn't matter. All that mattered was forgetting. Forgetting where he was, forgetting what he was. Forgetting about Howard, Betty, home.

And so he kept drinking. And he kept moving. To stay in one place for too long risked trouble. People finding him, feeling bad for him. They were just being nice. But he didn't deserve nice. Not after what he'd done.

The city was perfect for this because there was so much of it. He didn't move fast, and he got tired easily. But he had plucked the beertree clean and drug a cooler with him. One of Howard's last gifts. Maybe Howard had more beer in the warehouse...he would have to stop there and see.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He might have been hard to reach but Kaya was an exceptional waterbender and even better at manipulating pressure points thanks to Sheeana. By the time she was done, he'd be feeling much better.

"I gathered that much," she said dryly. "But collapsed here, in a bathroom? You can do better than this."

As the pressures and illness was drawn from his body his head began to clear, unpleasantly so. Suddenly all the things he was trying to forget and not feel were rushing back into his awareness and it was making him hurt in a different way.

"I usually throw up wherever I'm walking." He pointed out distracted by his thoughts.

Kaya did her best to help him up. One would think she wouldn't be up to the task considering what Orc looked like, but of course most people tended to underestimate exactly how strong Kaya was. She had him up momentarily.

"Maybe you ought to cut out a little bit of that drinking," Kaya said, "at least enough so you can get cleaned up a little bit. You never know who's watching, after all."

As strong as she was, he still had to co-operate. After all he was incredibly dense and thick, and unwilling. The minute she mentioned not drinking he sat down again but the second part of what she said confused him.

"Who?"

Kaya had pretty much expected Orc not to react happily to the not drinking scenario: Howard has plainly said it was a stupid idea and wanted no part in it, and Kaya had to concede to that at the time. It was however, concern to her that beer was essentially Orc's carrot on a stick.

"Anyone, but specifically? Someone who's use it to get you to do things for them. It's not only good guys on the ship, you know."

Orc looked at the floor and mumbled "Yeah, I know."

But what he meant was more that he was one of those bad guys on the ship.

"I'll be fine." He muttered "Don't worry about it." An automatic response, and a lie. He knew he wouldn't be fine. He couldn't be fine. Because if he was fine that made it alright and nothing that had happened in Orc's life since FAYZ was alright.

Kaya would have never gone so far as to call Orc a goodguy. Granted, she knew nothing about his dark past, but from what she could tell, he honestly did the best he could just to get by on the ship. There was no denying how much this worried her.

"Of course I'm worried. When you lose someone that was your friend that long, who looks out for you all the time, it does something to you. It does it to me every single time."

That caught his attention. Orc lifted his gaze for a minute to examine her. It was hard for his eyes to focus in the dark but clearing up his hangover made it easier.

"How many times has it happened?"

"Too many times to remember," was Kaya's reply, and really, it was true. "And a lot of them were friends I made on the ship too. It's never easy when they go, but that doesn't mean you have to go through it alone."

And they could start by getting out of the creepy bathroom.

Orc didn't seem to agree on the second part. He was content to sit and ponder her words. But pondering anything for Orc took some time.

"Did you know Howard?"

Kaya avoided these bathrooms as much as she could. It was one of the reasons that she was glad there was a bathroom in the hotel. The less Stacy could spy on her, particularly when it came to something private like using the bathroom.

"Yes. We've talked a few times, he and I both worked in med bay, and we were forced to go on a date during GLADOS's stupid experiment. We had fun though. When I found out he died, it hurt pretty bad."

Orc made a sound like a weak raspy laugh when Kaya mentioned being forced on a date with Howard but sighed miserably when she went back to how bad it hurt knowing he was gone.

"He deserved better. He wasn't a good person...but he wasn't as bad as he seemed."

"I know." Kaya looked down at her hands. "For someone who cared about himself and didn't want to fight, he still did the best that he could to survive. And that date was actually really fun."

She wiped her eyes though, already feeling them mist.

"I wish I'd been able see him before he went."

Orc looked like he was thinking hard, instinctively he wanted to sooth her. But he didn't know how.

"But he woulda been all sick and beat up..."

"I wouldn't have cared about that," Kaya told him. "I told you that I work in med bay. I deal with people like that and worse all of the time. If it meant talking to him one last time, I don't care."

She sighed. "And then I was concerned about you too."

Orc was about to comment that Howard probably wouldn't have liked being seen in such a state. Then she startled him with that comment.

"Me?" It puzzled him to imagine anyone worrying about him.

"Of course you! Howard was your best friend, and he looked after you all the time. Of all the people that were going to be affected by him dying, you're on the top of the list. So of course I'm worried about you."

She was as worried about him as she would be for Howard, after all.

Her explanation did not clear things up for him. If anything it just made things more difficult to process. "But you don't know me." As if that was the only reason anyone would help anyone.

"Howard told me a little bit about you, but I'll admit it: I don't know as much as I'd like to. I'll admit something else too: the last time we spoke about you, it was an argument. I was asking Howard if there was a way to wean you from beer. It may have been a fight, but if there was anything I understood from it, it was how much Howard cared about you."

She sighed. "And because of that, I want to know more about you, look after you if you'll let me."

That was alot to take in. Somehow it seemed strange to Orc that Howard would be talking about him with other people. But that's what people did right? Talk about their friends? Still was weird.

And why would she want him off the beer if she'd never met him? Why should she care? What had Howard told her for that matter? Was she just one of those busybodies like the ladies at church who were always in one anothers business?

"Whatever." He answered noncommittal because he simply did not understand why she would care one way or the other. Maybe she was like the social worker that had come by their house when he was little. Yeah that's who she reminded him of. His parents hated the Social worker.

"Sounds stupid out loud, doesn't it?" Kaya said. "Me, someone you never met, being able to stop you from doing something you were doing back in your world. If anything, being friends with Howard demonstrated something important: if I forget that our worlds make us what we are and have a way of staying there, I'll not know who I am."

She sighed. "I forgot you both lived through the FAYZ. I forgot that sometimes, situations get so bad that the luck you have is what you force out of nowhere, and you can only hope its in your favor. I was lucky to have a group of friends in my world who made it a mission to make things right. But sometimes, life is much worse than even I could conceive it to be."

Her shoulders slumped. "I...I try to save everyone, or at least help them if I can. And the dumb thing is, even if I do, somehow these people are taken away, by podding or by death. So as you can see, who am I to tell someone how they should live their life?"

Orc listened silently while she confessed her intentions and finally after she'd been finished for a moment responded, "You talk alot."

He rose to his feet finally with what seemed like a great force of effort. Whatever he had taken away from her explanation was kept to himself.

Kaya laughed. "Yes, I do, don't I? Sorry about that!"

She got up too, dusting herself off, bending some water from the faucet to wash her face.

While she did that he shuffled for the door having to turn his body so he could fit through the door frame. Hangover free now was the time to indulge once more till he couldn't be bothered by all the thoughts swirling about in his head.

Kaya followed him, and then made a gesture for him to let her pass.

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom

Re: The Public Bathroom