Take a Shot

Up All Night

If I had to stand outside this bar for even three more seconds, I was going to shoot up the place. I regulated my breathing, trying to calm down. I could handle this. I was practically a god, I could handle anything.

Except my partner, drunk, in a bar, hitting on some girl I didn't know.

Geechis had given Matt a week off for all the work he'd been doing on the new "personality project." I had very little idea what it entailed because it didn't require my services until a later stage, but Matt had apparently been running point on it for nearly a month now, and since they were past the part where he would be useful, Geechis had decided to give him some time off.

The night before and day of his first day off, we spent together, pulling a "sleepover", which was just us eating, talking, drinking, and training together, with a quick 2-hour floor nap around midday when we were too exhausted to stop laughing. The following day, with a hangover so intense I could barely focus my eyes, Geechis sent me on a small mission, basically grocery shopping. Nothing went awry, nobody died, the mission was done quickly, and I swung by one of my old haunts on the way back to the castle, since it was on the way to the closest rendezvous. It was a small village with an obsession with hospitality, so I stayed there overnight and finished the trek to rendezvous the next day.

When I got back to the castle and couldn't find him, I sought out some of his friends. One of them told me he was at a local bar, "missing you, probably", so I headed there to surprise him. I had expected him to be having a good time, which was, of course, his right and probably easier without me attached to his hip. I had expected him to be so drunk he wouldn't recognize himself in a mirror, probably making a fool of himself. I had hoped, despite myself, that his friend had been right, that he was here to get out of the castle because I wasn't there - he told me frequently that he didn't like it when I went off on missions by myself because it worried him for my safety. I laughed in his face - but I hadn't honestly expected it. He was too much a court jester, too easy-going, to be worrying about me when he was essentially on vacation, which was why he was my perfect partner. He was always laughing it up, always enjoying life, the only person in the whole castle who could make me laugh so hard I fell out of my chair. He was my friend, my best friend. And sometimes that made me upset and nervous, and sometimes I thanked the gods for sending him my way, and sometimes it felt like a sinkhole in my innards because I couldn't have him, I wasn't allowed.

This was one of those times.

This woman he'd picked was beautiful. He'd had a girlfriend when I'd first come to Harmony, and she'd been pretty too. Matt didn't have a type, per se, but he did have a weakness for beautiful women. I was glad it hadn't been an issue in any of our work together before, because I hadn't been sure I would be able to sit back and deal with him being interested in someone else. Sitting here was proving me right. I was about two inches of space between them from bursting in there in a horrifyingly bellicose fashion.

I looked away, back towards the outside. It was starting to get dark. I needed to get back to the castle before any local gang decided I looked like fresh meat, or the cops caught me. If Matt wanted to spend his vacation here, it wasn't my business. I had been looking forward to seeing him and spending the rest of the week together, as much as I could, but it made sense that he'd not want to be in the castle. I was surprised he was even still in the city; if I ever got a vacation, I'd be on another continent, living it up.

I would've brought him with me...but still.

"Say, do you belong to Harmony?" I rolled my head to the side. A man in little more than a loincloth with a hand on the hilt of the coolest cinquedea I'd ever seen was staring down at me. I squinted one eye, baring my teeth.

"Who wants to know?" I barked. The man recoiled, holding his hands up in defense. He motioned in towards my partner.

"I'll take that as a yes. I'm the proprietor here." He squinted down at me, and I snarled further. "You look exactly how Matt describes you. Emerald, right? The girlfriend?"