Hard Luck Hermit

“You ever been asked that many questions about your excretory system before?”

“Nope,” Corey said, before taking another drink. After Thoth’s interrogation, he wanted as much alcohol in his system as possible as fast as possible. Luckily, Kamak had opted to have them stay a few days on Paga For while he figured out their next move, giving Corey plenty of time to get drunk.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tooley said, as an idea struck. “What’s the weirdest question it asked you?”

“Whether my heightened emotional response to questions about my mother meant my society had normalized romantic relationships between family members,” Corey said, trying not to vomit even just thinking about it. Being drunk did not help coping with nauseating thoughts.

“Oh. Is it not?”

“No!”

“Huh. Then why are you so into kissing me?”

“Wait, you know what kissing is?”

“Yeah, Corvash, people up here invented a nanobot that makes you immune to disease, somebody came up with the idea to make lips touch,” Tooley said.

“Then why’d it surprise you?”

“Well, for most cultures, it’s how you greet family,” Tooley said. Corey had another close call with retching. “I just thought that was your thing, you know? I’m not, uh, I’m not judging, it’s totally normal for some cultures-”

“Well not mine,” Corey said, loudly. “Very much not mine. Ugh. Please change the subject. It is too early in the night for me to hurl.”

“Okay okay. On that note, we should think about packing up,” Tooley said. “Buy a bottle for the road maybe and go back to the Hermit. Getting too drunk in public on Paga For is a good way to get dead.”

“Can’t get you stabbed again that soon, can we,” Corey mused.

“Yeah, I like to go at least a few solars between getting stabbed, sliced, or impaled,” Tooley said. “And you got your ass beat by Wagam not too long ago too.”

“I didn’t get my ass beat,” Corey said. “I won that fight.”

“Sure sure sure sure,” Tooley hummed. She slammed down the rest of her drink and then pushed the glass away from herself. “Come on, back to the ship while I can still walk mostly straight.”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Corey grumbled. He wasn’t quite as drunk as Tooley yet, and he was enjoying the bar, but he didn’t want to drink alone. If she was done, so was he.

The dusty streets of Paga For were busier today. Some trading convoy had landed, apparently, and the city was choked with a sudden influx of ill-gotten goods. Most of it had gone into the established stores, but a few people had set up roadside stalls and were hocking various goods for sale at cheap prices. Tooley drifted towards a few stripped out bits of cockpit tech, but ultimately stayed the course and bought nothing. Corey found the market much less tempting, since he still didn’t know what half of this stuff was.

“Absolute mess of a planet,” Tooley said, as they finally escaped the impromptu market.

“Who would’ve thought that an outlaw planet underneath the light of two dying suns would be so gross,” Corey said. He scanned the horizon and found out the hard way that looking at dying stars hurt his eyes even worse when drunk. “Ugh. Do you think there’s an actual practical reason for their to be an outpost here, or did the smuggler guys just think it looked like a cool place to hang out?”

“Probee- Probably the second thingy,” Tooley mumbled. “All these tough guy types, they just do random shit because they think it looks cool. Is half the reason I put up with Kamak, yeah? Because he flies around in a regular fucking ship with a regular fucking name instead of some space hot-rod named Deathbound Repartee or some bullshit.”

“You made that up,” Corey said.

“I didn’t! I did not. Real fucking ship. One of the first jobs I worked,” Tooley said. “Some Velltor asshole. Never learned what his deal was. Got himself shot to death on the third job he worked.”

“Christ.”

“He was a jackass anyway,” Tooley said. “Kamak’s also a jackass, but least he’s good at his job, yeah?”

Corey shrugged. He’d only been on board for a few somewhat messy jobs, but everybody was alive. That was apparently more than could be said of some crews. Tooley stumbled for a moment, caught herself, and stood upright, appraising the array of ships on the Paga For landing field. The Hard Luck Hermit was one of the smaller vessels out there, hidden among massive shipping vessels and long distance freighters.

“So so so...speaking of hanging out with Kamak.”

“What?”

“Do you, like, still want to? At all?” Tooley asked. “Apparently some rich, angry fucker has it out for the Hermit. We can get off this rock easy enough. I got potential gigs all over the place, probably won’t be too hard to find a job for you too.”

Corey was too drunk to think that analytically about anything, but the question seemed simple enough to him.

“I don’t think that’d go well for me,” he said. “You could probably go, not me though. And there’s also, like, what if the guys are right, and it’s your fault or my fault or the whole ship’s fault, and then we’re just out there wandering space and still being hunted. Except there’s no Doprel or Farsus to help us not get killed.”

“That- is a very very very good point,” Tooley mumbled. “I forgot how good at killing dudes those two are.”

“Right?”

“Okay okay okay, that’s that,” Tooley said. “I’m sticking around if you are. And let’s not ever tell anyone else we had this conversation.”

“Agreed,” Corey said. “I think it’s cute you wanted to run away with me, though.”

Anything cute about the conversation got killed with a swift strike to Corey’s ribs. As he staggered backwards, Tooley caught him by the sleeve of his coat and helped him stay upright.

“Sorry, whacked you a little bit harder than I meant to,” she said. She’d been aiming for a light tap and gotten something closer to a haymaker. “I’m drunker than I thought.”

“Now I’m worried about getting you even drunker,” Corey said, as he rubbed a bruised chest.

“Ah, you know me, I get all noodly the drunker I get. Pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to hit you if I tried.”

“Alright, but you’re staying arms length away from me until you sober up.”

“You sure about that?” Tooley mewled, in a way that made it very clear she had something in mind that involved being much closer than arms length.

“Well, maybe not.”