Private So if I win, you buy me dinner right? (Duel)

[Darth Strosius]

The only reply that she got from the masked man was a roll of his eye. He was a bit wary about being out so late, he was always told that nighttime in a city meant nothing but trouble. He didn't voice his complaints however. A small sigh left him as he spotted the line outside of the building that they were going into, about to head to the back of it until he felt Alina Tremiru grab his arm. He was confused just about the entire time that she hauled him inside with her, his free hand pointing at the line in a silent question.

Oh well, all the better to not wait he supposed. "You may be able to put me on the ground, but putting a drink in my stomach is an entirely different challenge Alina."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

The right kind of glance and the right kind of credits made it easy for Alina to get her drinks, even if she wasn't exactly of legal age in some places. She was in other places, and she certainly didn't care enough about the rule if she wasn't. Shots of various kinds of drink, almost like a sampler, were lined up on the bar. Her gaze shifted to Darth Strosius as basically tugged him to the bar before finally letting his arm go. "Oh come on. Just one drink with me? We can celebrate our friendship." She went so far as to even bat her eyelashes and give him a sweet, innocent smile. Alina was in a far more relaxed mood in this club where music and conversation drowned out the thoughts in her head.

"Please?"

 

[Darth Strosius]

Were it in any other situation, Alisteri probably would've been a little bit impressed by his friend's ability to get what she wanted so easily. Then again, he supposed that Alina Tremiru had some experience in these matters. His gaze wandered over the selection of shots as he was dragged towards them, idly trying to identify them. The only reference he had for any sort of hard drink was his owner's old favorite back in the day.

His eye narrowed slightly at her attempts to get him to drink. Putting on the whole innocent act was certainly a new one. He glanced back at the row of shots and sighed. "Fine. You get one sip from me. Pick the poison."

He felt as if he was going to regret this.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina's eyes glinted dangerously as Darth Strosius finally gave in. She picked up the strongest drink she ordered and held it out for him to take. "Mask off. And you don't sip. You throw shots back." As if to prove a point, once he took the shot she'd lift her own of the same kind of drink and clink it off his shot glass. "To friends!" Then she downed it. One quick gulp had the burning liquid straight into her stomach. She hissed a breath out afterwards, laughing happily.

"Ah yeah! That's the good stuff."

 

[Darth Strosius]

Oh he was definitely going to regret this.

Alisteri reluctantly took the shot in one hand, using his other to get his mask off and slip it into his pocket. Well, slip it into there as best as it would fit anyway. He raised the glass to his lips and recoiled slightly as he took a sniff of it. Whatever it was, even he could tell it was strong. He watched Alina Tremiru in horror as she somehow downed the whole shot in one. "...Oh what have I gotten myself into..." A small sigh left him as he reluctantly took a sip from his shot. Only to immediately regret it.

"Oh dear Force that burns." He covered his mouth as he coughed, looking back at his friend with incredulity. "How do you drink this?!?"

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"In one gulp. Sipping it just makes it burn more. C'mon, throw it all back." The amusement was pretty clear on Alina's face, but she wasn't going to try and rub it in Darth Strosius 's face. She'd already gotten him to at least take a sip, which was surprisingly more than she expected him to give in. There was no backtracking now. She wanted to get him drunk, and she certainly would. "Then we can go dance. I definitely wanna see you dance." That was something she figured she'd be able to get out of him far easier than this. Everything was going far better than what she had in her head.

 

[Darth Strosius]

Alisteri merely winced in response, still feeling a burn in the back of his throat from just that little sip. He gave Alina Tremiru a sideways glare and frowned. "You owe me one after this." With that he closed his eyes and tipped his head back, downing the shot in a couple of very reluctant gulps. The glass that the shot was in slammed onto the counter as the usually-masked acolyte gagged and tried to breath out of his mouth to soothe the burning sensation in his throat.

"I hate you Alina!" He hissed under his breath as he tried to swallow without tasting anymore of that accursed beverage.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"I most certainly do." Now she couldn't hold back her laughter as Darth Strosius struggled with the burn. She'd of said something like 'you get used to it', but that'd been a lie. Last thing she wanted to do was lie to her friend. At least her laugh wasn't anything too cruel. A lighthearted giggle at his admission of hate. "Technically that's all we're supposed to do, right? Hate everything." It was almost a somber tone that she spoke in, but the booze was already giving her that wonderfully tipsy feeling that'd distract her soon enough.

She reached out to snatch his arm, dragging him along without warning out to the floor. "Now come on! Dance with me!"

 

[Darth Strosius]

Alisteri simply wallowed in his own self-pity and burning throat for a moment, idly noticing that he felt a bit woozy and light headed. Whether that was from the drink or his own doing he wasn't sure though. He blinked in response to her somber remark but said nothing, too focused on trying to figure out why he couldn't blink his other eye. Then he remembered why, because it was cybernetic. Oh yeah...I forgot about that...

He blinked in surprise as he was pulled away by Alina Tremiru without offering much resistance. "Dancing? I don't know how to do that...I think..." He muttered as he was dragged to the dance floor.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

The buzz was already hitting her. Enough for her to completely forget about any troubles she might of had. A bright, warm smile stayed on her lips as she looked back to Darth Strosius . She had absolutely no plan once they actually made it to the dance floor. All she wanted to do was let go and have fun. So she did just that. Alina didn't care if she dance well or not, only that she was having fun. Minutes, hours. Didn't matter to her. Hell, the rest of the night would go by as a blur for her. When she got tired, she drank. When she drank, she danced until she got tired again.

All while dragging her friend along as much as she possibly could.

 

[Darth Strosius]

Getting swept up amidst the festivities was all too easy for Alisteri, even more so given the fact that he was apparently enough of a light-weight to be heavily buzzed and tipsy from a single strong drink. The more you know, eh? He didn't even bother trying his best to dance whenever he found himself on the dance floor, far too preoccupied with following the music and trying to keep up with Alina Tremiru at the same time. Not to mention the ever-present struggle of keeping himself standing.

He never had another drink, well not a proper one anyway, but he did wound up having a couple more burning sips at his friend's discretion. Time melded together as he danced, stumbled, and occasionally hopped alongside his friend.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

​

When they ended up outside Alina wasn't too sure. The night had been a haze of drinking and dancing. Nothing new to her. But at some point she had been kicked from the club with Darth Strosius in tow. Likely for being too rowdy. Having a friend around had her doing far more than she normally would have. There was a taxi called, and a ride back to the Academy. The young woman did remember ending up back in her room to pass out, at least. Though she didn't make it to her bed before just falling on the floor to sleep the rest of the night away.

Morning came far too quickly for her. The throbbing of her hangover flooded her senses as she groaned and pushed herself up to a sitting position. Yeah, everything hurt. Again, nothing new, but it wasn't something she'd gotten used to. Especially with how much she did end up drinking. Lazily she looked around until her gaze fell to a rather familiar mask. Right.

No wait that's not right.

Panic replaced pain as she glanced around the room quickly. Where was Alisteri? The bits and pieces she did remember had him basically dragged along with her the whole night, but she didn't remember anything more after the ride back. Just that she was in her room. Did she leave him behind? Or was it a worse reality and she brought him into her room?

 

[Darth Strosius]

Even in the state of inebriation that Alisteri found himself in, he was thankfully able to keep...well most of his faculties in check. Not enough to keep Alina Tremiru from getting them, quite literally, thrown out of the club though. Regardless he was just glad to not have to walk all the way back to the Academy. Thank the Force for taxis.

Of course he did have to threated the taxi driver just a little bit when the issue of payment came up, but other than that the ride was quite pleasant.

Getting back into and through the academy had been its own little adventure of course, but one that the pair of them conquered in the tired states nonetheless. He would've kept his mask on him as he slept, were it not for his friend being very adamant that she won their duel and therefore she got to keep it for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately, Alisteri had apparently lost the knowledge of how to open a locked door from the inside.

Being unable to escape the room without trying to fit out of a window that was far too small for him to crawl through, he opted to stay for the night. So he was found the next morning, having stolen a spare pillow from somewhere, sleeping in the shower of his friend's room in the academy. Surprisingly he seemed to be a heavy sleeper.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

She really had no idea where Darth Strosius went. He wasn't in her room that she could see, so that probably meant he went to his room. Yeah. They made it back together. Alina took a breath to calm her thoughts before looking to herself in her mirror. She looked miserably hungover. Good, that's exactly how she felt. She needed to go find her friend and make sure he was alright, but she could afford a shower, right? The young woman started slipping out of her clothing as she made her way to the bathroom attached, haphazardly tossing it on the floor.

She wasn't a messy person, and likely would immediately pick it up after the shower, but right now she didn't care.

Unaware that Alisteri was in her shower she walked into the bathroom and went over to the sink. "Shower on." Voice activation was pretty handy. She leaned on the sink, looking herself over in the mirror. The bruises from her fight were already healing. Good.

 

[Darth Strosius]

It took nearly a full minute until Alisteri realized that he had gotten suspiciously wet. Once he had finally realized that fact however, blinking awake as he felt water run down his face, he was quick to react. "AGH! CHIT! COLD! Coldcoldcoldcold-" Doing the only thing that made sense in that moment, his cybernetic eye still booting up mind you, the acolyte crawled out of the shower and moved across the floor of the bathroom as if he had forgotten that his legs could still work. The whole time chanting his 'cold' mantra.

If he noticed that he wasn't alone in said bathroom, the other occupant being Alina Tremiru of course, then he made no effort in paying her any attention. He was far too preoccupied with getting away from the shower to notice her anyhow.

Finally he stopped right in front of the door, huffing and lying nearly face down as he tried to catch his breath from his mad crawl to safety.

That also happened to be the moment that he realized that there were several things wrong. Chief among them being of course, "Where is my mask?"

 

[Alina Tremiru]

There was quite a bit of surprise for Alina as a panicked voice came from her shower of all places. For a moment she prepared to beat down whatever fool had decided to invade her room. But the voice was familiar. Enough so that she recognized it to be Darth Strosius as he scrambled his way out of the shower. So she paused, just watching him until he settled down from that mad crawl.

When he did finally say something other than 'cold' she laughed. He really didn't like having his face on display. She snatched up a towel and crouched beside him, uncaring of how little clothing she had on herself as she handed it to him. "I left it on my dresser. Dry off before you walk into my room though, don't want my floor getting soaked anymore than it already has."

 

[Darth Strosius]

At first, he noticeably tensed up whenever he heard someone laughing at him. He hadn't noticed that someone else was in the room. Thankfully he realized that it was just Alina Tremiru and he relaxed, but then his brow furrowed in confusion as he idly wondered where he was. Other than the floor of a bathroom. A rather nice floor, if he did say so himself.

He took the towel with a sigh, drying his face first as he sat up. "Of course of course, is this your room? It looks nicer than Saket-" It was at that moment that he finally noticed his friend's state of undress, promptly turning away and drying his hair quickly before scrambling to his feet to try and dry off whatever parts of his clothing had gotten wet.

"I'll just uh, ahem, I mean I'll....I'm gonna go get my mask..." With that he quickly ran out of the bathroom and tried to figure out where the bedroom was. "Oh this place is much nicer than Saket's..."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

​

The fact he cut off midsentence almost had Alina in a laughing fit. She tried her best to keep that down, though the occasional snicker did end up slipping into her voice as she spoke. "I'll take that as a compliment." Whether it was the silence or what he was trying to say at first she didn't specify. "Don't go too far. Won't take me long to shower." Only because she wanted to make sure Darth Strosius didn't end up hurt or anything while they were drinking. She'd pushed her friend to drink, so it'd be her responsibility to make sure he was okay.

Sure enough the shower didn't take too long. The water heated up by the time she hopped in. She walked back in her room in just a towel, idly racking her fingers through her hair to make sure it didn't get tangled. Her 'room' was more of a small apartment all to herself. Living area, kitchen, bedroom. All well furnished. As much as her mother wanted her head, her want to make sure the Tremiru reputation wasn't tarnished was far greater.

"Who's Saket by the way?"

 

[Darth Strosius]

There was no real response to her remarks other than some grumbling under his breath as Alisteri ensured that he wouldn't drip on the floor. The top of his clothing was still a bit damp, but thankfully he had managed to get out of the shower before it got soaked all the way through. Combined with the towel and he was about as dry as he was going to get.

Now, where did she say my mask was again?

By the time Alina Tremiru got out of the shower, the acolyte had found a seat in the living area and was fiddling with his mechanical hand. Of course, he had his mask on as well. He didn't look up at her as she entered and spoke however, too busy trying to pry something from underneath the palm of his hand. "You haven't met Saket yet?" He asked in surprise, a small grunt escaping him as he tried to get his finger under the plate of the palm. "He's a friend of mine. He lets me sleep in his room at the academy whenever I'm here."

Finally he pulled something out of his hand, allowing his fingers to move freely once more. Evidently he had a Sith-Imperial Autarch lodged in his hand for whatever reason, which served to confuse the young man but also allowed him a distraction when he realized that Alina was in just a towel.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

​

It was a shame he put his mask back on. She couldn't exactly tease Darth Strosius more if she couldn't see his face. Well, she still could, just wouldn't be able to enjoy his reactions. She stepped over to her dresser to at least get some clothing on. As funny as it was, her goal wasn't to make him too uncomfortable. Her gaze shifted to him after a moment, shrugging. "Unfortunately, no. I haven't. But if he's a friend of yours I'll have to check him out a some point. He trustworthy?"

Finding more allies would certainly be a worthwhile thing for Alina at least.