Wine into Water [Linna]

[Sarge Potteiger]

Numb.

Linna,

That's what he felt.

I find myself alone with more than a fair bit of alcohol.

Nothing about this world was static. Everything was swimming, moving. Narrowing his eyes wasn't helping, neither was widening them. The lights hurt. His heart was thudding louder than normal. He stumbled to the bathroom.

I can't say it's a feeling I relish, if I'm honest.​

Fumbling with the buttons on his urban pattern fatigue pants, he manages to not miss the toilet as he starts taking a leak. Despite the knowledge that there should be noise, he didn't hear anything. There was a warm pressure on his chest, and his head felt nice and fuzzy. A hand was pressed to the wall to keep him from tipping over.

That being said... I'd appreciate it if you stopped by when you've got some free time. Stars know leaving me alone isn't such a good idea.​

Thus finished, the sink was the next destination. Cold water sluiced through his fingers and over his hands as they rubbed together, and he cupped his hands enough to make a shallow puddle and threw it up onto his face. The heat he felt abated minimally. Lifting his head, he made eye contact with glassy eyes and red cheeks.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't tell anyone. This message is so encrypted not even Ayden or Cira will know I sent it.​

Picking an empty bottle off the counter, he smashes it against the mirror and saunters out into the living room. Behind him, the broken image of a broken man lay scattered upon the floor. "Leave me alonshe.", he slurs.

I'm not even sure why I'm messaging you of all people, really. Who knows.​

Unsteady steps lead him into the kitchen, across the living area from the bathroom. On a table in the middle of the room sat enough empty bottles of alcohol to have killed a normal human being hours ago. It wasn't a thought that even crossed Sarge's mind.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. Apartment 649, Habitation Sphere Aurek.

The fridge. That's where more booze was. He stopped by the sink, a blinking light telling him that... a message had been read? Sensing his presence, the backlight on the pad brightened considerably. The sudden onslaught to his senses sent him reeling... then retching.

Hopefully, I'll see you soon, yeah?​

There wasn't even time to register that his bile was black before he was teetering, balance gone. He wasn't breathing normally, he felt cold. Like a cut tree plummeting to the forest floor, he falls to the side, head cracking off the counter.

Just let yourself in.​

That's where he lay; in the kitchen, a pile of bile near his feet and blood pooling around his head. That's what he felt.

Door's unlocked.

Numb.

-B

 

[Linna Beorht]

Some people are well equipped to deal with the problems of others. Such people can find solutions, offer shoulders upon which to cry, extend genuine and heartfelt empathy, and select the most supportive and effective options.

Other people work in academia.

The message blinked at the corner of Linna's screen for about forty minutes, as near as she could guess, while she balanced a class-based analysis of Naboo federalism with a foreign policy prognosis on the Mandalorian Death Watch. When she finally let herself acknowledge the incoming message, it fell in between a handful of status reports from field offices, pollsters and pundit-watchers.

As a result, it took a goodly amount of time for one slightly tipsy, foreign-policy-overdosed Communications Director to show up at Sarge's door and smell the vomit.

"I'm coming in. Don't be naked." The levity was a knee-jerk reaction, nothing more. She shoved the door and slipped into Apartment 649, an unlucky number by all accounts. It made her think of lotteries and sad, tired welfare junkies scratching tickets for a moment of watered-down adrenaline. And that made her think of alcohol.

She paused just inside the door. The smells were unmistakable -- drink, blood, puke. The crumpled figure on the kitchenette floor might even have crapped himself.

He wouldn't want a medical team. Especially if he didn't need it. And she'd done enough medical school to know what she was doing -- perfect memory, the usual genius schtick. Bad reasoning, but sufficient. All these onboard apartments had a first aid kit above the refrigerator; she got it and went down on one knee beside him.

"Potteiger...wake up." SHe tested his pulse.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The man wasn't stirring, not by a long shot. His rosy cheeks had managed to turn a shade of pink as the skin paled, and to say it was clammy to the touch was putting it mildly. Other than that, her biggest indication of a potential problem - other than the alcohol - was the minuscule amount of breaths per minute he was taking. Roughly six.

Thankfully, his fatigues did not have crap in them. She was smelling the putrid black bile that lay nearby.

Regardless, she was smart. She'd figure out it was acute alcohol poisoning damn quick. Thankfully, that really only meant that, other than fluid replenishment, all she need to do was make sure he kept breathing and that he didn't choke on his own vomit.

Whether she did decide he need be taken to an infirmary or not was up to her expert opinion. Would he want it? Not in the slightest. Did he need it? Maybe.

But, despite all this, his pulse wasn't overly weak. In fact, it was quite strong. Stronger than it had any right to be.

 

[Linna Beorht]

That's way too strong a pulse for that many bottles.

Black puke.

Force-null.

There's more going on here than just the alcohol poisoning. Not a second problem, but a reaction to the problem. A pre-existing condition.

She rolled him onto his side, legs slightly bent, arms out in front of him, to keep him from choking. Getting fluids into him in that position wouldn't work orally, so she pulled out a datalink and made a very precisely worded request to a very discreet friend in this particular habitation sphere. The request had all the right private code words. Ten minutes later, a taped shipping box arrived at the door with a knock and no depositor. She ripped open the box and hooked the IV bag to the refrigerator handle.

The needle slipped into his arm. Fluids, plus a medical-grade alcohol metabolizer. Very expensive.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

It wasn't long (perhaps five minutes or so) after the fluids began to weave through his system that his breathing began to return to normal. As his body returned from it's near comatose state, he awoke with something approaching a start; but not quite. The only reason it was more of a start was his head was throbbing from more than just booze.

That, and he woke up in the strangest position he'd yet woken up in.

Screwing his eyes closed, he groaned and moved to roll onto his back, not realizing there was an IV in his arm. Suppressing a groan, he opened his left eye just a slit. A rolling reddish skinned woman was above him.

At least he thought her skin was red.

"That you, Doc?", he asks, sounding like hammered shit.

 

[Linna Beorht]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

She didn't answer, merely compensated for the problems of the IV line. The bag was three-quarters empty, and that would have to do. Right now, alcohol metabolizers should-

But 'should' implied probabilities, and probabilities could only be accurately estimated -- could only be themselves probable -- if proportional to the available knowledge relative to the patient.

That was how the thought spooled through her head. "Hope I know what you are, or I won't know how well you're fixed," she said, translating. The direction of the translation, of course, might not be from intrinsic superiority to inferiority. Clarity had value. Spin.

Every relationship was spin.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He gave a coughing snort of an unsurprised laugh. "Yup... that's you." Truly, genuinely, her words amused him. But something about them nagged at his mind. 'What you are'. Well, so far as he knew, he was pretty obviously human.

He breathed oxygen. He bled red. Human, no? He didn't fall into any near-Human species, since generally they had reasons to stand out. So far as he knew, he was just an exceptionally gifted assassin.

"I'm human so far as I know Linna, and I'm sure you've seen enough to know I am too."

The irony of that statement was completely lost on him. But right now, he was still hazy, with a bit of a buzz and a bit of a hangover and a Zeltron woman hovering above him basically talking to herself. It wasn't the best situation for understanding or noticing ones surroundings.

Still, his acute sense of smell picked up the vomit, and he cleared his throat a little. "Sorry for the uh, mess." He didn't look to see what he knew was there.

 

[Linna Beorht]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

"I'm not cleaning that up," she said without contempt or rancor. The Communications Director picked a seat across the room, crossed her ankles, uncrossed them. "And yes, you're human enough on the outside, but if there's one thing I know, it's alcohol-fuelled vomit in all its glorious variety. There's something wrong with yours. I daresay you might not have noticed it. Familiarity breeds a sense of normalcy. Normalcy and acclimatization.

"But how normal? How often is this a thing, and how badly do you need a vacation?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Linna Beorht"]

His head lay on the floor, the tile surprisingly comfortable now that he had no desire to move. Not a single fiber of his being wished for movement, and so there he stayed. At least for a few more moments.

"Need a vacation bad... I'm bored. I've nothing to do."

Just about anyone worth their snot in anything could figure that out. When sneaking into the Prex's office was something you did on a regular basis, and the toughest job you're given is 'blow up a bridge', 'bored' was the right word to think of.

Slowly, cautiously, mindful of the blood pounding in his ears and the way the lights seemed a bit brighter than normal, he sat himself up and turned to look at the vomit.

"Ya know. I've never seen my own vomit. Because I don't normally drink. That don't look normal."

There was so many warning signs to those statements that it was funny on the merit that it lacked any humorous value. Standing, letting the IV go, he shakily made his way to a nearby pantry and activated a cleaning droid.

It cleaned the vomit up in no time, and was about to return to its charging station before it noticed the shattered mirror in the bathroom... and the bottles. Flailing about, verbally and physically, and set about its other tasks.

"How long have I been out?", he asks, taking a long couple moments to blink as slow as possible. Placing a hand to his head, he found it came away slightly sticky with blood. It didn't seem to perturb him.

 

[Linna Beorht]

"Out cold, or out of your mind with boredom? Mentally absent while physically present?" She steepled her hands and rested her lips against the tips of her fingers. "Judging by the timestamp on your message, I'm betting around an hour. Most of which I spent balancing Mandalorian foreign policy with Naboo noblesse oblige. The Prex needs the reports by first thing tomorrow morning, and I left my gear and my resources back in my apartment. You have any sort of a datalink?"

She poked around the fringes of the apartment, pondering the possible locations for enough computer equipment to do her job.

"So, here's my question for you, Sarge. Would you rather be pushed to, and past, your limits, or would you rather be underused and bored? Would you rather be used or ignored? From where do you gain your purpose?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He makes a vague motion to a desk. It was a deceptively simple datalink, but would prove more than adequate and then some for what she needed it for. "That sounds like a migraine waiting to happen." Walking into the living room to take a seat on the couch, he has to actively avoid - several times - the cleaning droid scuttling about.

The thing nearly ran him over at least once.

Funny that safety wasn't their biggest concern. Then again it wasn't a safety droid for a reason.

Almost out of knee jerk reaction, he told her to stop looking around, but he managed to bite his tongue; not literally.

"I'd rather be tested. Not tested in that perverted 'you've a 19% chance of success' way, either. But frankly, being ignored is my job - but in the instance of what you're asking, I'd like to be used. But purpose is something I've always struggled with."

Sighing, he shook his head a little, letting it rest back on the spine of the couch, arms stretched the length of it. "My purpose has always been objectives, I guess. Go here. Do that. I measure my life in things like that. I've nothing else to live for, really."

 

[Linna Beorht]

She logged in to a handful of databases and personal data storage services. The pieces of her reports came together, and she typed furiously as she spoke. Two entirely separate trains of thought.

"I'd like to be able to find that for you, I really would. My whole job is about giving people purpose. I could spin you a line, I could make you believe. I really think I could do it. Do you want me to? I can take this whole organization, all the best themes and ideals and elements of Omega Pyre, and I can spoon-feed it to you until life is good again.

"The alternative is that I will find a new thing that makes you tick. I could probably find you a purpose. Wouldn't want you to hate me for it if I messed it up."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

There was, curiously, something arousing about watching her work while her mind worked, surprisingly well, along another train of thought. He guessed it had something to do with an attraction to professional women or something. He'd never bothered to sit down and think about 'his type' or even features he really thought were attractive. It just wasn't something he put the time into.

"Do me a favor and don't feed me propaganda." He loathed propaganda. With a passion. No matter how hard someone tried to flavor it he could still smell the BS a mile away. He much preferred a straight story.

Scoffing, he gives a curt shake of his head to her. "I'm hardly going to hate you for trying to help me. Unless of course your idea of help involves throwing me into a BDSM dungeon or something." Yeah, he genuinely didn't understand the appeal of that, and ultimately even bringing the subject up to him was grounds to make him angry.

Some people just really didn't like certain subjects and generally it showed; like, for example, how much scorn he put into merely vocalizing the term 'BDSM'.

 

[Linna Beorht]

"Don't get defensive, Sarge -- I told you I'd only feed you propaganda if you wanted it." She sniffed the air. Usually, whether through her nascent and ignored Force connection or through pheromonal sensitivity, she could detect...heightened interest. And she detected it now.

So, not a Force thing, then. She relaxed, because that meant her thoroughly hated Force connection had one less bit of influence on her live. Honestly, that had worried her -- the idea that she could only tell when someone was into her because of the Force.

"Sarge, there's a certain value in learning to see things from other perspectives. Force knows I'm no BDSM enthusiast, but I've had friends who were. As near as I can figure, a lot of it is about trust -- about learning to trust other people, and get close to them that way. Can you imagine how much you would need to trust someone to let them, well, do whatever they wanted? I'm not saying that's what it's always about. It's a spectrum. But I'd imagine your dislike for BDSM has a great deal to do with your absolute inability to trust. I'm flattered you've opened up to me as much as you have."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Why would I want to trust someone...?", he asks quietly. To be fair, he wanted to trust people. He used to trust people. Then it was abused until he simply stopped being able to trust anyone but himself.

Working with soldiers had helped... a little. He was now able to trust people not to kill him when he wasn't looking; that was about it.

Hardly made for good relationships.

Blinking, he raised a brow at her, leaning forward slowly. "Opened up to you...? All I did was mention something I don't like. You then made assumptions off of it. Hardly what most would consider 'opening up'."

 

[Linna Beorht]

Linna's eyebrows rose.

She pulled up Sarge's message on the datalink and spun it around so he could see.

"QED."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

Right.

Chit.

 

[Linna Beorht]

She held his gaze as she turned it back around. Then she glanced down at the bottom of the document in question. "And I'm willing to bet my considerable paycheck that not many people associate 'Sarge' with the letter 'B.'"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

There was the sort of long, drawn out sigh that she had likely long come to associate with someone who had been a bit more drunk than anticipated, and done something that perhaps they felt they shouldn't have. Nothing deadly, or necessarily stupid, but just something they wouldn't have done otherwise.

This was that sigh and then some.

"Yeah, yeah you're right. I must have already had a good number in my system by then."

 

[Linna Beorht]

A long silence followed; it could have been days. Linna scrutinized the datalink busily, unwilling to meet his eyes -- he needed some space, some lack of attention. Her first words could come across as a tiny violation of his silence, his comfort as the momentary centre of inattention. Unfortunately, picking the right words wasn't working.

"There was this one time on Zeltros -- I wasn't born there, but I have honorary citizenship and the key to the city, for moderately obvious reasons -- when I told my research assistant my whole life story after three bottles. Never saw him again. I hear he went to Point Nadir to avoid me. Hurrah for alcohol-fuelled disclosure.

"But let's talk thought process here. Cause and effect." She still avoided his eyes. "You told me you don't drink much. Did all those bottles just materialize? Or did you deliberately walk down to a store and say I will now, non-drinker that I am, buy precisely enough liquor for alcohol poisoning?"