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The Drunk Meme

1. Drinking Games. You're at that special level of drunkenness where previously unimagined things start to sound like a good idea, like another drink. It's cool, I know this great game that will inevitably end with everyone involved being totally wasted. You play until... shit, what were the rules again?

2. Unsolicited Advice. Oh man, you suddenly know the solutions to all of life's mysteries. All it took to figure it all out was half a pint of whiskey! It's time to tell all your friends how to fix the problems with their personal lives, whether they want you to or not.

3. Drunk Texting. Frankly, you can't IMAGINE why anyone wouldn't want to hear about how drunk you are right now. If only you could remember where the vowels are on this tiny keyboard. Drawing inspiration from TFLN is encouraged.

4. Tell them How You Really Feel. You lost some of your less important inhibitions three or four drinks ago, and it's time to tell it how it is! Time to hunt down the person you love, or possibly the person you hate, or even just the person you don't ACTUALLY despise, and bare your heart to them in a way that you'll almost definitely regret tomorrow morning.

5. Karaoke. Shot through the heart, and you're to blame! You give love... a bad... something...

6. Terrible Ideas. This is going to be so awesome, guys. I've got the skateboard, and I'm handcuffed to Steve... is the camera rolling? And who's lighting the fireworks?

7. Flirting. While all that booze may not have enhanced your charm, it certainly did wonders for your ego! Time to find all the hottest dudes and/or chicks in this place and make them swoon before your gin-powered charisma.

8. On the Streets. What better way to follow up a good bar run than by drunkenly wandering the streets in the middle of the night? There may be loud, embarrassing singing. There may be puking in the gutter. You may be completely lost, and not sure why that police officer is speaking Italian.

9. Take Me Home Tonight. Yeah, it's time to go home but you're not going alone, time to drag someone home for a hook up. Let's just hope you can get your body to agree or don't fall asleep first

10. The Next Day. All that you took with you from last night's adventures was a blur of jumbled, confusing memories, a lampshade with googly eyes drawn on it taped to your head, and a brutal hangover. What exactly happened here? And who's that sleeping next to you?

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Between her own nightmare and the adrenaline -though fading- from her brother's, the realization of how easily she could have lost him, Gretel didn't so much as nod off again, despite trying. She relaxed though, mostly, eyes closed. She didn't plan on moving from where she was, where she could feel Hansel's heartbeat, low and steady once more.

Once dawn began to lighten the room, changing dark shadows to furniture and walls again she asked: "You awake?"

For the rest of the night Hansel drifted in and out of sleep, not catching any more than a few minutes at a time. The one time he went under any deeper he woke with a gasp, dreaming that his heart had stopped beating, but it still beat on with Gretel’s hand pressed warmly over it.

He squeezed his eyes closed tighter when the light started to filter into the room, wishing he was under the bed again where it was dark. “Yeah,” he answered the word little more than a grumble. “You?” Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite mentally awake yet.

He'd never been a morning person, and even less of one once he'd gotten sick, but it wasn't as if they had much to do, they were already packed up and ready to move on as soon as they'd had breakfast. Or they could eat on the road, that was nothing new to them, but usually only happened in the few times they'd been run out of town.

"Yeah." She said, thumping his chest once with the flat of her hand, not a smack, really, but a solid thump, "Breakfast?" They still had another hour or so before he'd need another dose, and it would go easier if he'd eaten something.

Grunting when she hit him, Hansel half-heartedly pushed at her before throwing one arm over his eyes to block out the light. “Sleep first, food later,” he grumbled, but his stomach had other ideas and growled loudly in protest. “Shut up, nobody asked you.”

Asked or not he should probably listen. After what he'd put his body through last night, first with the excessive alcohol then with the scare of his condition, ignoring what his body needed now probably wasn't the best idea.

She smiled at that, though hid it as she rooted through their bags, finding a pair of pants for herself and pulling them on while waiting for her brother to be upright at least, which was when she tossed an apple at him with a cheerful: "Breakfast."

She wasn't necessarily trying to clock him in the head with it, but if she did it was because he'd failed her imprompteau reflex test. Clearly she was just being a good sister. And probably getting him back for something from weeks, even months before. It wasn't that she was vindictive, really, it was just that they both kept each other on their toes, sometimes.

His side felt cold after Gretel vacated the bed, and while it was tempting to just roll over and bury his face between the mattress and the wall he still didn’t feel quite right and knew he would have to listen to his sister for once.

Struggling to sit up, he still hadn’t quite managed to get his eyes open, so he missed the flying apple completely until it collided with the side of his head. He cursed loudly, rubbing his head and opening one eye to glare at Gretel. “What the fuck was that for?” He was sure she would come up with something he had supposedly done, or just lie and say she had thought he would catch it. He would have whipped the apple back at her if he knew where it had landed.

"And I'm letting you watch my back with reflexes like that." She grumped, mostly joking, "I must be crazy."

His clothes followed a similar trajectory to the apple, not intent on actually hitting him this time as much as just getting them to where he could reach them, "C'mon. Sooner we get on the road sooner we can get to our next job."

“Yeah, well you’re usually not the one launching the attack on me,” Hansel replied. If there had been any real threat he would have snapped to full attention a lot quicker. As it was he wished he had; the apple to the head had done nothing to improve his growing headache.

Catching the clothes she tossed to him he dressed quick enough, shifting over to sit on the edge of the cot to pull on his boots. The combined effects of the excessive alcohol and his condition left him pretty shaky this morning but he searched the bed until he found the apple and took a big bite. “Where to first?”

"Sheriff's office." She replied, "Get the rest of our pay and then..." She shook her head, finishing lacing up her bodice, tying it off with a practiced movement, "North? How's north sound? Haven't been northways in a while." And it wasn't as if they had another job lined up yet, it was a case of keeping an eye out and paying attention to news as best they could.

She eyed him for a moment once more, retrieving an apple for herself, talking around a bite of it, "You going to be okay?" The question was flip, just a little, but the concern was genuine.

Holding the apple in his mouth as he pulled on his gloves, Hansel nodded then winced as the motion made his head pound a little. “Yeah, north sounds good. Bit cooler up there. It’s too fucking hot in this place.”

Pushing himself up off the bed he moved over to the window and opened it, peering out into the early morning light. Finishing off the apple he tossed the core outside, glancing back over at Gretel at her question. She didn’t put a lot of expression into her words but he knew she was concerned and his expression softened. Despite everything, despite how he was acting, he knew he was only alive right now because of her. A million times over that was true, for both of them, but last night had been close; if not for her he wouldn’t have made it. “I’ll be fine,” he replied, the ‘thanks to you’ going unspoken.

"Good, because we've got a lot of fuckin' walking ahead of us if we can't get someone to give us a pony or something."

The donkey they'd had last had been eaten and Gretel wasn't sure she wanted to know if it had been eaten by the witch or one of her pets, the end result was the same, they needed a new pack animal, or go without like they usually did.

Just like that their moment passed, just like it always did. What they had went unspoken, they didn’t have to admit how important they were to each other because they both knew there was nobody in the world more important and there never would be. For most of their lives they had only had each other to rely on and the bond that had built between them was unbreakable.

“Great,” he said, sounding none too happy about all the walking. “You wanna go get what’s owed us and I’ll go get us some supplies?” If they were walking they wouldn’t want to carry much, but they had to have enough food to get them to the next town.

She nodded, "Sounds good, cover more ground in less time." She didn't particularly like splitting up, but figured they'd be safe enough in town, and especially this early, "Don't go buying any horses without me, Okay?"

She didn't figure he would, she figured he probably wouldn't even be done stocking up on necessary supplies before she was done getting the remainder of their payment.

She was most likely right; when it came to shopping Hansel easily got distracted and ended up taking much longer than necessary at the markets. Gretel usually had to finish up in the end anyhow. “Yeah, yeah,” he chuckled. “Any horse we could afford before we get paid wouldn’t even be worth eating.”

Grabbing his coat and bag he headed for the door.

She actually smiled at that, just a little, "Pretty much." She would have butted her head against his shoulder, but he was already on his way, so she didn't, just made sure she'd collected all her things before heading off.

Collecting the second half of their pay didn't take long, and she didn't even have to threaten anyone, which was always a mixed feeling, because the lack of threatening made things go more smoothly, but she always felt a little off when she didn't have to, like something was out of place.

Hansel made a quick sweep of the market to start, scoping out the various goods and wares before deciding what they needed most. Obviously food would forever top the list, but he didn’t want to weigh them down too much either, especially if they couldn’t manage to get a pack animal to carry all their weapons.

“You serious? I’m pretty sure bread isn’t supposed to be that colour,” he pointed at one end of a loaf that contained a spot of mould. He was still haggling with the vendor when Gretel caught up with him.

It was haggling that Gretel put an end to fairly quickly, and while she didn't necessarily have to threaten the baker, putting the fear of wrath in someone made her feel better. She tucked the traveling loaves away into the bottom of her bag, nudging her brother with an elbow and nodding towards the fruit, "Apples, ones that are supposed to be green this time."

Not that the not-quite-ripe yellow ones they'd gotten last time were bad, they just weren't right. She was keeping an eye out for livestock aside from the crated chickens, the only thing chickens were good for was dinner and sometimes an early warning system, except that they thought anything and everything was worthy of a panicked warning.

It was always fun to watch Gretel make a man quake in his boots. They always underestimated her because she was a woman, and it never took long for them to realise their mistake, though quite often the realisation was a painful one.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hansel rolled his eyes at her comment before heading over to the fruit stand. Picking through the apples he found some that were actually ripe this time and paid for them before stowing them away in his satchel. A bit of hard cheese and that would probably do them until they got to the next town. “What do you think? Should we look for a horse or are we footing it this time?”

"Might as well just walk it." She said, shrugging as she adjusted the strap of her bag so that she could still get at the crossbow slung across her back if she had to, "Not really that far to the next town, day and a half, maybe."

Sure, it would be less than that with a horse, probably, but it wasn't exactly the best terrain for a horse, which was part of how they'd lost their last one, "Besides, rover might still be out there, waiting for seconds." Considering that they hadn't killed the witch's familiar that had eaten their donkey.

Hansel nodded at Gretel’s assessment. While a horse to carry their gear might be nice, they would probably be better off saving their money. There were rumours from the next town but nothing concrete. If they couldn’t find a job there they might need to keep some extra coins on them.

“That little fucker was fast,” Hansel grumbled. “I hope it is still out there, I’d love to get another crack at it.”

She grimaced at that, nodding, "Yeah." There was a reason she'd left the crossbow easily accessible, she wasn't going to let the creature get away this time, since her being caught off-guard and too slow was what had allowed it to get away in the first place.

Not that she'd challenge her brother for taking it down if he was faster on the draw than she was, which happened now and again. It was one of those not-quite serious competitions between them.

They slipped so easily from competitive to cooperative and back, and never once did they let it interfere with getting the job done. Sometimes it was fun to challenge each other, but in the end the most important part was watching each others back.

Checking his pack one last time, Hansel nodded to himself before looking back to Gretel. "Ready to go?"

She nodded, checking the angle of the sun against the road out of town before shrugging and heading off, "Going to be hot later, but we should be able to make it to the river before midday. Give us somewhere cool to rest, wait out the heat."

It probably wouldn't be too bad to keep walking through the heat of the day, but it wasn't as if they had a timetable to keep, not really, so resting up wasn't out of the question.

Hansel imitated Gretel’s motions before nodding. He definitely liked the idea of resting by the river, as the heat was far from his favourite thing, and the idea of a bath sounded really good right about then. He was actually really looking forward to heading north in general to escape the heat for a while.

Making sure they had all their gear and supplies they headed out of town.

It was easy enough to fall into a companionable silence as they walked, it was how they usually did things, really, unless they were working out plans for the next job, which did happen from time to time.

Mostly though was the silence, not needing to stop to consult maps, since the roads were well-marked on this side of the mountain.

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We'll just ignore the fact that I used two different animals in that last tag

Apparently I didn't even notice, so yes, easily ignored. :D

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