her honesty has always hit like the stench of gunpowder. like hard lead. like a bullet. and speaking of—
“they call this guncotton, ‘sena.” the moonshine swirls in the bottle as davi tilts it. beyond the glass, the whiskey’s a shade of amber he’s seen in the necklaces of inner citadel folk. maybe it’s brighter. “word is some disgraced ex-major distils it away on the outskirts.”
confiscated contraband. but here’s the important part:
“it's meant to be 96% proof.”
they say it hits like a bullet too.
one of the military comm rooms is their drinking spot tonight. or is it morning by now? sitting on a desk, davi’s far enough from the equipment that any animated gesture with a soon-to-be-full tumbler won’t fry the circuitry. he’s off-duty and still in unkempt fatigues—jacket missing, it’s on the back of a chair he’s using as a footrest—but his combat boots still have that near new shine. only one or two scuffs to them.
“tell me you got glasses, sweetheart.” or whatever passes for a glass after a decade in the military. tins from ration kits—“or are we gonna be drinking from the bottle again?”
a slow draw of his lips. the flash of teeth. when davi grins, he makes it look easy.
“so, what's good?” davi starts. when he rolls his shoulders, the muscles protest. it’s the cost of twelve hours of work but he wants to know hers. “how is it?”
What was it about him that brought out this calmness in her? Maybe it was the fact that he was as big of a bitch as her, maybe it was because he always managed to get his hands on some great liquor, she wasn't sure but she adored Davi with every fiber of her being. " We are going to be disgraced if we drink too much of this shit.", she laughed, her laughter only growing when she heard the proof percentage already knowing she was totally fucked. She had no restraint when it came to drinking but thankfully she had managed to keep herself out of trouble so far.
" Well if the job doesn't take us out this stuff just might. My god, 96%? Let's do it.", she was all for it, if it was her time to go it was her time to go. She let her bag slide from her shoulder before rummaging through it and pulling two glasses from it. " Of course! Only the best the military has to offer! And for the first time ever no chips in the glass.", she sat them down and plopped herself back in a seat. She wasn't above drinking out of the bottle but Jesus with a proof like that she wasn't about to risk-taking herself out and dropping what was left. He was one of the very few people that got away with calling her sweetheart, anyone else would have been chewed out at the very least.
" WHERE DO I START?!", she sighed letting her head fall back with a groan. " This job is pretty much just babysitting people incapable of defending themselves., the amount of shit she had to put up with was ridiculous. " Today I had to open a jar of pickles for the idiot because he didn't want to risk hurting his hands. Seriously. Just take me out now before I have to do another shift on idiot watch."
" You have a rough day today? You seem a little tensed up."
“we ain’t disgraced already?” no, they ain’t. davi has got his accolades and asena got honours on her graduation. another ten years could pass and flag rank officers would still single out, officer noir proved herself a cut above the rest from the start.
but another ten years could pass and either one of them could be dead.
“i can cut you off before you retch up on my floor.” if the guncotton doesn’t knock him out first. unscrewing the bottle cap hits with a smell that ain’t far flung from the military’s loading bays. thick, old motor fuel, but crossed with something fiery. burnt.
“oil and smoke.” that’s what it’s like. “a disaster waiting to happen, huh?”
but they know that already.
“you sure you didn’t steal these?” the clear glasses clink on the desk and davi tips the bottle to their lips one by one. a fingerbreadth each. neat by necessity. sliding the glass within her reach, davi picks up his. looks at the amber-colour behind his finger.
“ladies first.” he nudges where she sits with his foot. laughs as she tips her head back. “the whiskey could take you out for me. didn’t you sign up for daycare? or are you just following orders like a good soldier?” and there’s a curl to good soldier. he looks from the glass to her. “tell me you’re not growing soft.”
“do i?” he’s gotta get better at hiding that strain. asena knows him. she’d see it and she says it as she does, but davi shrugs it off with, “nothing back-breaking like your work.” that’s hard to say with a straight face. “twelve hours of comm lines and math. jealous?”
" Is that why they keep you locked up in front of a computer because you're disgraced? I knew there was something shady about you and all this technical stuff.", she retorted with a scoff. They were both too good to ever be disgraced, severely reprimanded from time to time but never totally disgraced. " What would they possibly do without us? We are the glue holding this place together!" She was joking, of course, if they were the glue holding anything together it would just fall apart, Asena was equivalent to off-brand glue that couldn't hold a cotton ball to the ground.
" You can, but will you?" She cut her eyes at him knowing good and well she would be making zero attempts to try and stop him before they both got sloppy. " I'd say it'll get to you way before it gets to me.", a challenge for sure.
A disaster waiting to happen...that was always a good thing. " The best fun always is."
" Now how the hell else was I supposed to get unchipped glasses? I swiped them from someone's desk and trotted right on out with em. Maybe they can get some fucking work done now that they don't have a reason to sit around on their ass and drink all day." They were just sitting there for the taking what was she supposed to do?! Once the drink was poured she took the glass in her hand and brought it up to her nose taking in a deep smell, her eyes going wide. " Jesus, you weren't joking." It was potent for sure.
" Yeah sacrifice me first.", she laughed before downing the drink, the face she made after was horrible to say the least burning all the way down and settling in her stomach with a burning sensation. She slammed her glass on the table, eyes fixed on him now. It was his turn. She doubled over for only a moment as her body adjusted to whatever the hell this stuff thought it was. It wasn't whiskey, it couldn't be...this was something brewed by the devil himself but she wanted more. " Listen here you shit, I may have signed up for it but I had dreams of fancy food and plenty of drink, instead I get assigned to the most incompetent people alive. I would have been better off just robbing them and calling it a day!", she huffed rolling her eyes. " I wouldn't be talking about soft when all you have to do is stay locked away pushing buttons all day~ Come work with me for a day we can team up and get disgraced together. "
" You should slack off a little, no sense in working yourself in the ground for what they give us. I wouldn't have your job if it meant doing that or being tossed outside of the walls with the infected.", she hated math, she hated computers, and she was fairly convinced that Davi was probably a cyborg or something.
Posted 04-30-2021, 08:32 PM
This post was last modified: 05-02-2021, 08:52 AM by DAVI DE CARVALHO
tipsy
