02-- Things might yet turn around.

[stillshinigami]

So he's taken to spending quite a bit at time in the common area of the residential chamber. Usually? Chilling out at the table or finding a nice little niche to settle in. Right then? He'd found a stone bench near a window that looked out onto the courtyard. On the opposite bench, a green-gray crate with numbers on it and a packing label. Someone got a package today. How? Probably a good question.

He'd gotten it the night before at the fountain while he was still restlessly awake. Didn't really take him long to figure out what had happen once he decided to throw a coin in and make a wish but he didn't think for a second that it would work. About two hours later? He asked again. Past midnight.

Now. It was late afternoon and he'd held off from indulging long enough. He settled onto the window seat, propped a leg up on the opposite stone ledge and plucked an apple from the crate of perfectly ripe fruit. Strawberries, mangoes, apricots, grapes, apples and pears. Perfect. He took a bite out of the apple, sighing contently.

So he'd lost his nerve for a spell. So those damn Shadows sapped a bit of his courage away. Didn't bother him so much right now. He'd just have this and enjoy his little birthday eating, drinking and being merry. Like you're supposed to do.

"Bottoms up." He said, drinking the last out of his flask before looking to the bottle to fill it back up.

[OOC: A window seat are common structures in castles. They look like this. Feel free to join Duo and have a drink, eat some good food, he's happy to share and plenty to go around. Also I may prefer prose but you can also respond in comment spam. I really don't care either way.]

Comments

[stillshinigami]

"Rank is an illusion." Duo said pointedly.

"It doesn't matter what your progress is, just so long as you're not harming anyone else, right?"

[last_lombax]

"That I can agree with. Which puts the Cragmites at the bottom of the barrel then." Ratchet laughed happily at his joke and he was sure Duo wouldn't get it.

[stillshinigami]

"Or the Bartons." Duo added, taking another strawberry and chewing into it.

[last_lombax]

"Oh? And how bad are these Bartons?"

[stillshinigami]

There's a long pause there after that question, and he takes a drink.

"We live in space colonies. Around our planet's orbit. They dropped one of the colonies onto Earth-- and... I guess you can guess what happened."

[last_lombax]

"Damn...that's messed up. That probably devastated the planet, didn't it?"

[stillshinigami]

"Yeah. It did. So all we have is the colonies now until we start working in bringing back Earth's eco system." He replied, hunkering down in his seat.

Weeeell, there were other details, but this guy didn't need to know about em.

[last_lombax]

"The Cragmites were kind of the same. They'd fly from planet to planet, deplete all it's resources, enslave it's people and then more on when they were done. They had one of the biggest empires the universe had ever seen before the Lombax's lead the resistance movement against them."

[stillshinigami]

...

"Hmmn. The Bartons woulda done the same, I bet. If they had the technology." Duo replied with a shrug, taking down a sip of his drink then offering the flask to Ratchet again.

"We were part of the Colony liberation organization."

[last_lombax]

"Best to stop them in the beginning so good going." Ratchet nodded to the pilot and took the flask and had his own swig as well.

[stillshinigami]

"We didn't stop them from dropping the colony. And we could haa-" Damn. Getting too comfortable. Too tipsy.

Like he didn't want to say anything potentially incriminating. He sighed. Fuck this, man. He just downed the rest of his flask and sighed, his cheeks flushing red.

[last_lombax]

Ratchet fell silent and just watched Duo for a moment. He looked away and kicked at the part of the stone he sat on.

"...Sometimes you think you could have stopped something but you really couldn't. Sometimes bad things just happen and there is nothing we can do about it..."

[stillshinigami]

Duo looked down, then looked back at his furry friend.

"That's a cop out, Ratchet. You talk about acts of nature? Or after the fact? But I was there in the thick of it, dammit. We coulda all done something..." Or maybe nothing at all. He grunted, sniffing slightly. Maaan.

[last_lombax]

"It isn't a cop out. Sometimes there just isn't anything you can do. What happened happened. That's all there is to it." Ratchet just shook his head. Well this was a wonderful downer to what was just a happy little occasion between friends.

[stillshinigami]

Duo sighed, looking Ratchet over and frowning. "Sorry man." He said slowly.

He offered him another strawberry.

"I didn't wanna unload that on you anyway."

[last_lombax]

Ratchet took the strawberry but didn't eat it yet.

"It's fine. We all need to vent sometimes. And it helps when you can talk to someone who understands."

[stillshinigami]

And Ratchet did understand, which was pretty nice. It wasn't like talking to his friends, to Duo or Heero about it.

"Heh heh. Yeah. You're right. And maybe I'll tell ya more some day." He grabbed a cup and poured the lombax a few sips of his alcohol.

"Here."

[last_lombax]

Ratchet took the cup and nodded.

"Whenever you want. I ain't telling you everything either so I get it." He shot the alcohol and shivered afterwards, feeling the alcohol warm his body.

[stillshinigami]

"It must suck. I'm not gonna ask. Kinda made it a habit not to." He said, reaching over to pat Ratchet on the shoulder.

"Have another?" He offered the bottle.

[last_lombax]

"Yeah, another sounds good." Ratchet held out his cup. He wasn't going to press the issue anymore. Sometime people wanted to talk, sometimes they didn't. Right now neither of them wanted to talk about their pasts so they needed another topic.

"What kind of alcohol is this anyway?"