drabble . 002 -- drink
drabble . 002 -- word of the day: wintery
fandom: star ocean 2
characters: opera vectra and bowman jean
title: drink
---
Giveaway--terrible goddamn city name for a terrible goddamn city.
It was snow, snow, snow, swirling through the streets in whirlwinds, piling up against windowpanes, stressing rooftop support beams and chasing after anyone who was dumb enough to step out into the street. (The number of people dumb enough to step out into the street, she realized, was staggering considering how academic the town was touted as being. Whoever decided to build this failure of sentient intelligence on the Abominable Snowman’s asscrack probably had no business founding a university in the first place.) Boring buildings, boring people, boring town.
Well, of course the buildings were boring. No one wanted to bundle up in seven layers of ugly argyle socks and grandpa’s old flannel shirts and build an ornate, architecturally sound house when it was literally Freeze Your Balls Off on the Celsius scale outside. When the thermometer is giving warnings about the safety of your genitalia, it is time to stay the fuck inside.
This, of course, led to the people being boring. All the fun, exciting people went out to do fun, exciting things that involved alcohol and sledding in garbage cans and wrestling bears and seeing if they could piss their names in the snow before it froze. Natural selection was a beautiful, artistic process, really. Subzero temperatures was Momma Earth’s way of saying the dumbasses who ski drunk and naked are the dumbasses who don’t grow up to have kids. Giveaway’s fun, exciting crowd probably made some fun, exciting skeletal exhibits. And they probably had fun, exciting epitaphs, too. “Here lies Jim. This dude is probably why your mother always said 'that’s a bad idea.'"
So here she was, separating herself from the fun, exciting, dead people and the boring, stupid people, hogging the largest table by the fireplace and drinking watered-down beer. (Most beer was watered-down to her tastes. Tetragene’s beer was like hard liquor to these folks and vodka from her home world probably would’ve made their heads explode. Like literally explode, bits of bone and gore and brains and all.) She drank when she was cold. She drank when she was bored. And she drank when she felt like drinking. Some people might’ve called her an alcoholic; she preferred to think that she just wasn’t fussy about her schedule like most folks. She didn’t set aside a girl’s night out to get trashed and harass male strippers. She just did it when she felt like it.
"Good idea," said a voice over to her side. Her third eye swiveled and peered at one Bowman Jean, the least doctorish of doctors she’d ever met. (He met her gaze where most would shy away; he'd long ago gotten over some of the features that separated her race from silly little hominids. The third eye nestled right in her forehead had been unnerving at first, but it eventually became a sort of novelty. He didn't say it, but he also didn't want to prod at any woman who was regularly breaking glasses on account of forgetting her strength, least of all a woman who could also drink him under the table without so much as a slurred word to show for it.) His shirt was wrinkled and only half-tucked, his hair tousled and parted not by a comb, but whatever forces decided to act on it; his tie was loose and a cigarette was dangling from his mouth, helping to slur his speech, almost priming it for when the alcohol wanted to wreak its damage to his verbal and motor skills. He didn’t scream ‘trust me, I’m a doctor,’ so much as he screamed, ‘I may or may not perform alleyway abortions in return for sexual favors.’ "Town like Giveaway, nothin’ to do but drink and screw."
She grinned. "Tell me about it."
But that was all there was to say, really.
fandom: star ocean 2
characters: opera vectra and bowman jean
title: drink
---
Giveaway--terrible goddamn city name for a terrible goddamn city.
It was snow, snow, snow, swirling through the streets in whirlwinds, piling up against windowpanes, stressing rooftop support beams and chasing after anyone who was dumb enough to step out into the street. (The number of people dumb enough to step out into the street, she realized, was staggering considering how academic the town was touted as being. Whoever decided to build this failure of sentient intelligence on the Abominable Snowman’s asscrack probably had no business founding a university in the first place.) Boring buildings, boring people, boring town.
Well, of course the buildings were boring. No one wanted to bundle up in seven layers of ugly argyle socks and grandpa’s old flannel shirts and build an ornate, architecturally sound house when it was literally Freeze Your Balls Off on the Celsius scale outside. When the thermometer is giving warnings about the safety of your genitalia, it is time to stay the fuck inside.
This, of course, led to the people being boring. All the fun, exciting people went out to do fun, exciting things that involved alcohol and sledding in garbage cans and wrestling bears and seeing if they could piss their names in the snow before it froze. Natural selection was a beautiful, artistic process, really. Subzero temperatures was Momma Earth’s way of saying the dumbasses who ski drunk and naked are the dumbasses who don’t grow up to have kids. Giveaway’s fun, exciting crowd probably made some fun, exciting skeletal exhibits. And they probably had fun, exciting epitaphs, too. “Here lies Jim. This dude is probably why your mother always said 'that’s a bad idea.'"
So here she was, separating herself from the fun, exciting, dead people and the boring, stupid people, hogging the largest table by the fireplace and drinking watered-down beer. (Most beer was watered-down to her tastes. Tetragene’s beer was like hard liquor to these folks and vodka from her home world probably would’ve made their heads explode. Like literally explode, bits of bone and gore and brains and all.) She drank when she was cold. She drank when she was bored. And she drank when she felt like drinking. Some people might’ve called her an alcoholic; she preferred to think that she just wasn’t fussy about her schedule like most folks. She didn’t set aside a girl’s night out to get trashed and harass male strippers. She just did it when she felt like it.
"Good idea," said a voice over to her side. Her third eye swiveled and peered at one Bowman Jean, the least doctorish of doctors she’d ever met. (He met her gaze where most would shy away; he'd long ago gotten over some of the features that separated her race from silly little hominids. The third eye nestled right in her forehead had been unnerving at first, but it eventually became a sort of novelty. He didn't say it, but he also didn't want to prod at any woman who was regularly breaking glasses on account of forgetting her strength, least of all a woman who could also drink him under the table without so much as a slurred word to show for it.) His shirt was wrinkled and only half-tucked, his hair tousled and parted not by a comb, but whatever forces decided to act on it; his tie was loose and a cigarette was dangling from his mouth, helping to slur his speech, almost priming it for when the alcohol wanted to wreak its damage to his verbal and motor skills. He didn’t scream ‘trust me, I’m a doctor,’ so much as he screamed, ‘I may or may not perform alleyway abortions in return for sexual favors.’ "Town like Giveaway, nothin’ to do but drink and screw."
She grinned. "Tell me about it."
But that was all there was to say, really.