Chapter Text
The Man Now Called Drifter by most sits (nearly alone) in the Derelict. It's never been his "home" per se, even though he's tried. It was more akin to the various pubs, bars, inns and the like he's set up over the centuries. A little more violence than usual involved in his guest list, he mused. Was that a change to him or a change with the times?
He brushed that thought to the side. He was here to get drunk, he told himself as he plucked himself a bottle of something or other out of his vast collection. He would try to pick something she’d like, but hell, she wasn’t here now to be picky, was she?
He looks in the glass. Cabal wine? Rum? Whatever it was, it was coal black and still as the grave. He didn't really care at this point if it killed him. He had a little Light for that.
Speaking of which, the little bastard was hovering over his shoulder. If he didn't know better, he'd thought the damn thing was anxious, bobbing up and down closer than it had ever done before. He remembered what it was like when it had a voice. Did it care? Maybe. Did it act? No. And that's what matters in the end.
Turning that thought to himself as he pours what feels like fire down his throat, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, for certain he's a bad person. He's always running from responsibility. Hates careless violence and deals it out when he's in situations he could have avoided. Warns about caution but when he's got something important he'll gladly throw himself into hell... Cares, claims he doesn't. A rat, scurrying into a burrow at the sign of trouble.
A second glass, down the hatch.
A lump attempts to rise in his throat, and he glances over his shoulders to make certain he's alone. He knew that the likelihood anyone was here was slim, but old habits certainly die hard. Much like a certain ray of moonlight.
He's not a fighter, he's said this repeatedly, even to her, he shouldn't have been there, someone better, someone could and should have come instead. But he's too slow, too stupid, too stubborn to get good with the gifts he awoke with. He'd tried his best, and pushed himself to the brink, but it wasn't enough. This is why he doesn't fight, this is why he runs.
A third cup, fit for a king.
The urge to scream, the urge to punch something rises from his gut to his arms and he slams a fist onto the table, barely managing to quell the howl that threatens to rise. He knows she wouldn't want him to talk that way.
She's never going to say that to him again. She's never going to talk to him in the casual manner she doesn't use with anyone else. Never going to glance at him wryly over her shoulder as she pours over her various tomes and trinkets.
The fourth glass empties, and he gazes blearily at the cup betraying him.
She didn't do that for anyone else, he's noticed. She doesn't turn her back to anyone- save him. Unconsciously, he'd done the same thing- only for her to scare the bejeezus out of him when she stepped out of the shadows and laid a hand on his shoulder while he was working.
He grins at the memory.
She'd claimed she was there to talk over the potential of portable dark mote banks to install on them on the Moon's killing fields. He chuckled to himself. They sure didn't end up talking about that, or much of anything else at all. He was working on a deep sea mining rig for Titan, and she ended up silently joining him, piecing old relics and circuits together with a beautiful efficiency.
A beautiful everything.
He'd grown too comfortable with the Lightless. They had felt like his people. People scorned by the Traveler, or so he'd felt. He'd lived just fine without the damn thing, and was sure that they could too. But– a Ghost was an important thing to them. People viewed them as friends– as family, as their other halves– When they die, they feel like they're half the person they were.
He wonders what twice the Eris was like, and chuckles at the absurd thought.
Wow. This stuff was strong. His fingers haven't gone numb yet- so he pours himself glass number four. It goes—down.
He's thinking through molasses at this point–not even trying to stop the tears that have been dripping down his cheeks since he started, without even noticing. He tries to force it down like the wine, but the grief overtakes him, as his shoulders raise and his arms shiver and his nose drips into his drink. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything except the three eyed hole that's been ripped into his life.
Woohoo–glass number five, he’s really going now.
Darkness creeps into the corner of his vision as exhaustion overtakes his body- He tries to reach for another glass but his fingers can't quite move where he wants– and he ends up knocking over the glass spilling the grand nothing inside. He’d clean up later…or not.
God, he hasn't been this wasted for a while. When was--- nah, that's another time that's been gone for a while.
Hell– he 's lo st control. Control—like the ice she helped hi m wield.
That co ld–oh so cold feeling of mastery–o f a power pr ied fr om conver sation.
He feels his vision start to f a de for the day–and he's glad to slip i n to t he black.
H e hopes t o see her t here.
Moonlight doesn't die in dreams.