Enna hadn't meant to make this a regular thing. When she had first stumbled into the Night-Slip, she had only been planning on telling Theo who'd been picking off their customers. The Ulysses thing had honestly been an afterthought. It was hard to even say what her motivations for that had been. She'd been pissed as hell, and when she got angry she had a tendency to get self-destructive. Maybe she thought the best way to be self-destructive in that moment was to get blackout drunk in front of a guy who she was pretty sure wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he thought it was in his best interests.
Then Lyle had walked in, and it was a lot more difficult to be properly self-destructive when you've got a sober sorcerer breathing down your neck (as well as the halfling could breathe down anyone's neck, anyway). Also, now she had an audience, and instead of doing some big maudlin scene like she had maybe halfway been planning on doing she had to act like a person normally would when they got dumped. Plus, Lyle was good for a laugh, and he certainly made things more interesting.
She was pretty sure Lyle hadn't expected it to work either. There was zero reason for Ulysses to make himself vulnerable in front of two people he knew had just been investigating him for a murder. Enna chalked it up to her incredible powers of persuasion, and also the fact that Theo's fortified wine could put hair on an elf's chest. Then, as they tended to do whenever there was the possibility of inebriation, Emiel had showed up and trapped Ulysses in the booth. Enna didn't remember a lot of what had happened after that. The mages had had a magical metaphorical pissing contest which she had been embarrassingly impressed by, and then she and Emiel decided to match each other shot for shot, and after that it was all a blur until she woke up on the floor of one of Theo's back rooms the next morning.
Maybe she had been planning on making it up to Madison. Maybe she would have gone back and asked her for forgiveness, maybe she would have managed to patch things up with her. Maybe she would have apologized. But none of that happened, because instead Madison decided to try and kill the second most important person in Trailsend in the middle of the goddamn street with his bodyguard right beside him. Enna told herself she didn't feel bad for not speaking up in her defense. She told herself that it was a coincidence that Madison had stopped struggling once she saw Enna look away. It didn't matter to her anymore. Madison had broken things off, and she wasn't Enna's responsibility anymore. It was a lot easier to tell herself this when she had a drink in her hand.
And that's probably why it became a regular thing, to be honest. She sure as hell wasn't going to stay in the house. She couldn't fucking stand the looks of pity and concern her teammates kept shooting her. She could deal with annoyance! She could deal with anger! Elleri screaming at her for an hour until her little pixie throat finally gave out was almost soothing in comparison to the goddamn sympathy she was getting from these assholes. She wasn't upset!! She was FINE! And if they weren't going to stop trying to pity her, she was going to stop giving them something to pity. She couldn't stick around for too long after missions, otherwise they'd try to start talking to her about it. And where better to escape your problems than a bar! Enna may have had a shitty WIS score but she knew a good idea when she found one.
The bar idea wasn't perfect. Theo started getting concerned when she'd come in and get a whole bottle for herself. She didn't see what the big deal was. As long as she still got home at the end of the night, she was fine. But Theo seemed to like it better when she shared the bottle, and the only person she could share with who wouldn't possibly pity her was- you guessed it- Ulysses. The guy seemed to spend most of his nights at the bar, which he then proceeded to waste by spending it all reading some dusty musty tome. A near-constant presence that had no desire to interact with her whatsoever. So naturally she started plopping down across from him whenever she saw him in the bar. He probably didn't mind too much. Yeah, he'd huff at her for disturbing his reading, but she sure as hell didn't want to talk to him, and she brought booze, so it worked out.
Unfortunately, since nothing in her life could be simple, this idea didn't work perfectly either. About the fourth time Enna slid into the booth with a full bottle of wine in her hand, he actually closed the book and poured his own cup. She'd downed one full cup by the time he had finished pouring, and impatiently grabbed the bottle out of his hand. She chugged her second cup and smiled as she felt the first one hit her stomach. Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, she clanged the cup on the table and started passing the bottle over to Ulysses only to find that he had barely taken a sip of it and was studying her face intently. This was a little bit unnerving, given that Ulysses was generally allergic to eye contact. She pulled a face at him and he rolled his eyes.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, swirling the wine around in his glass.
"Same thing I've wanted every other time I've done this, asshole," she replied, pouring herself a third cup. "You're here to make sure I get absolutely shitfaced and also to make sure I look social enough that Theo doesn't cut me off."
Ulysses took a sip of his wine, still staring at her like she had some cipher on her forehead he was trying to decode. She glared back, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. "What? I got something between my teeth? You found a new magic riddle and the only way you can solve it is by staring a hole in my skull?"
The mage laughed, and it was probably the first time she'd ever heard him laugh sober. "Believe me, if any riddle had you as the solution, I wouldn't want to solve it." Shit-talking she could understand, and she toasted him before knocking another one back. The alcohol had finally started to kick in, thank the gods. She could feel the edges of her senses dulling and waved her hand in a lazy circle, pleased that her movements were clumsy. Ulysses finally took another sip of his drink and paused a bit before continuing.
"Why don't you hate me?"
Enna set her cup down on the table and started to reach for the bottle before thinking better of it. She looked down at her empty cup, wishing for once in her life that she wasn’t drunk for this conversation. “There isn’t much reason to,” she replied, folding her arms in front of her.
“There’s every reason,” Ulysses said as he drummed his fingers on the table. “You know what I did to her friend. I helped the guard capture her, when she would have had every right to kill Nikolai. I’ve helped him- gods, you must have figured out what I did to those women, you’re not that stupid.”
Enna was a little too drunk to be offended at that, so she just shrugged. “Way I figure, wasn’t much your fault. Little Lord Shithead’s got you over a barrel, yeah? Can’t get out of his service if you wanted to. The way I see it, you’re a tool as much as my axe is.” She reached back to tap her weapon, then remembered that Theo didn’t let her bring her giant flaming ancestral battle-axe into the festhall for some reason. “Nobody I’ve killed ever blamed my axe for it. When a dog attacks someone, you blame the owner, not the dog.” She tipped the wine into her glass but didn’t drink it immediately. “Fuck, I dunno if this makes sense, but like… I’d have a lot more reason to hate you if you did it personal, you know? Like, even if you killed her for a dumb reason, it’d be justified. If you did it cause she stood you up, or she stole your wallet, or fucked you up in a fight, that’d be fine. That’d be a good reason for me to hate you, cause you did it for yourself. Maybe then I’d wanna kill you, or at least fight you. But you got paid to do it, and you didn’t care about it except for how it was a bother. Which hey, I can relate to. I get paid to kill people all the time. And I’d be pretty pissed if one of their friends came after me for it, cause like, who cares!” She took a swig of the wine and belched, making Ulysses grimace. “Who fucking cares, right? Not me.”
“Huh,” Ulysses grunted, finally taking a proper drink of wine. “You’re remarkably philosophical about this.”
“Hey, I’ve been having a lot of time for thinking lately. Mostly drunk thinking, but still.”
“Mm.” The mage drained his cup, then topped off Enna’s. They drank in silence for a moment, both staring off into the middle distance. Enna could hear the sounds of merriment all around them and felt oddly detached from the whole scene. Outside their booth there were people toasting to loves lost and gained, their arms around friends and their lips around bottles. Out there, there was laughter and conversation and life. Here, she was sitting across from a man she knew murdered an innocent woman to save his own skin. Here, she was just as guilty as he was.
“You wanna know why I picked you to drink with?” Enna finally asked, breaking the silence. Ulysses nodded, his gaze starting to dull with the alcohol. “Cause you won’t fuckin… you don’t give a shit about me, and I don’t give a shit about you, and you’re not gonna worry about me and I don’t have to worry about you.” She pulled the bottle toward her, found it empty, and scowled. “You’re not gonna fuckin… pity me. Not like them.” She looked back up at him, found him studying her face again, and stuck out her tongue, making him snort with surprised laughter. She laughed too, tipsy enough to laugh at anything. The moment hung in the air, bright and warm, and then reality crept in around the edges, and the laughter faded. Enna toyed with her glass, running a finger around the rim. “Plus…” She trailed off, thinking better of it.
Ulysses prodded her in the arm. “Plus what?” he asked, voice starting to slur a little.
She rolled her eyes, drunk enough to let him prompt her. “Plus I think we got a lot in common. We’re both just weapons, you and me. We stand in front of other people and make sure they don’t get hit. People point us at targets and we do what we do best.” She put her hand on her chin and nodded towards Ulysses. “You just do it in fancier pants.”
Ulysses laughed again and leaned backward, gathering up his book. “Well, the part of the evening where you start complimenting my pants is the part of the evening where I say goodbye.” Enna flipped him off as he pushed himself out of the booth, weaving a little bit unsteadily through the NIght-Slip’s patrons. She slumped forward, making a pillow out of her forearms, and watched him open the door into the cold night and step outside the warmth of the festhall. She knew she should go home soon too. She figured she could wait a little longer.
Author's Notes:
Written 7/13/17. The first real notes of Enna and Ulysses' friendship! They are NOT talking about their emotions.