trans_9 | 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.

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Orc's eyes narrowed, and when he rose dripping from the water he stood solid despite his inebriation at over six feet tall.

That stopped when he took his first step. It was heavy and made the water surge away from where his solid stone foot landed. It washed up onto the shore and splashed about.

The second step was harder and less steady, and on the third the ground shifted and he fell causing a gush of water to fly into the air raining down all around them.

Ian stood his ground - even though Orc was bigger than him, Ian was not going to appear to feel threatened by him. And he wasn't feeling threatened anyway - he didn't believe Orc would really hurt him. That and his drunkeness making him unsteady.

"Orc!" Wet now anyway, Ian waded back into the river when Orc fell and reached down to offer him a hand up. "Are you all right?"

Other then feeling embarrassed Orc supposed so. At least he wasn't physically hurt. He was still depressed and couldn't put into words exactly how sick he felt just knowing what he was. A murderer. A monster. A freak.

He declined the hand forcing himself back up and trudging out of the water sitting with a heavy thud on the bank and sinking into the soft ground. This wasn't much better then laying in the river but it was a start.

At least Orc was out of the river. Even though they weren't outside Ian was still chilly as he stood beside Orc on the bank. "Are you cold?" He was trying not to shiver, but he didn't want to leave Orc like this.

"No." Orc muttered looking at the river and not Ian. He was cold, but he never shiver. He wasn't even sure he could. But his body absorbed temperature changes as well as stone could.

"Mm' fine." He lied again.

"No, you're not." Ian breathed on his hands to dry them and warm them and decided to try a different tactic. "I know you just lost your friend, but there's no need to beat yourself up about it."

Orc glanced at him puzzled. He hadn't thought about it like that, mostly because he'd been beating himself up for other things.

"You don't know." He grumbled looking back into the unobstructed flow of the river.

"He was my friend too," Ian said softly, sitting down next to Orc.

Another one of the people who's lives Howard had touched. Something nagged at Orc though, perhaps now was as good a time as any to find out.

"Why?"

That was a difficult question. "I suppose because we had some interests in common and he was a likeable lad."

Orc snorted a little derisively. "No he wasn't." he denied gruffly.

Ian raised his eyebrows. "He wasn't?" He hoped Orc would say more.

Orc's craggy eyebrow raised "No one liked Howard back home. Not even Howard." A surprising bit of insight fulness from the under aged alcoholic.

"Perhaps he's changed here." Howard certainly hadn't seemed like he didn't like himself. "He did say that he didn't like home."

Orc made a non-committal noise of acknowledgment, "He was a weasel, and scared. But he took care of me." Which was the distillation of their entire relationship to it's base components.

Ian might have put Orc's drinking down to Howard not being around any more, if it wasn't for the fact that he'd been drinking before that. "That was good of him. I suppose you looked out for him too."

Orc's gaze darkened and he looked away reaching for his cooler again. "Not very well." He muttered gloomily.

"It wasn't your fault." He put a hand on Orc's shoulder. "And drinking isn't going to bring him back."

"How would that work?" Orc grumbled holding what he thought was a half full bottle of beer over his mouth. It turned out to be river water and he choked on it spitting it into the river once more.

Everyone must think he's dumber then he is to keep saying that. "The drinking isn't for him." He rasped wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Then what it is for?" Ian asked, hoping he'd get something useful out of Orc - something Ian would be able to help him with.

Beginning to grow irritated with all the questions Orc crushed the empty bottle in his hand and let the glass bits fall to the grass. "I'm a murderer." He growled as if that was enough of an excuse. He found it hard to put into words exactly why he drank without sounding even more like the child he knew he wasn't anymore.

Ian shrugged and said, "So what? So am I." It was an effort to keep his voice calm, but he was sure that Orc wouldn't notice that, given the amount he'd had to drink.

Well that gave him a pause. "Oh yeah?" Orc grumbled half disbelieving. Then again Stacy had saved him so why wouldn't Stacy save other murderers?

"Yes," he replied, not particularly wanting to tell Orc the details. "It's not an easy thing to live with, but you have to live with it. You can't keep drinking to block it out."

"Why not?" It seemed to work for him this far. And it doubled as a way of slowly killing himself in guilt. It was two birds with one Keystone. ~~rimshot~~

Re: The River

splendid_roman - 2012-06-17 08:48 (UTC) - Expand

paidinbeer - 2012-06-17 18:01 (UTC) - Expand

splendid_roman - 2012-06-18 13:06 (UTC) - Expand

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splendid_roman - 2012-06-18 19:26 (UTC) - Expand