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As much solitude as Peyton seemed to crave throughout the whole of her days lately, that want never seemed to include her sister. Astrid was the one person on the island Peyton never tired of seeing, never wanted time away from. Since her return, the older Creedy had taken on rather clingy tendencies, and those had only grown worse with her split from Noah. Astrid was her comfort, her security, the one thing in her life that was pure and right. Something to be sheltered and protected, something to fawn over and mother, something to nurture. Something that would never turn on her.

But Astrid needed her space, and the dainty Life spent the occasional evening in her new room in the basement leaving Peyton alone in her suite with her thoughts and her worries and the weight of the last month and a half pushing down on her.

She didn't like these nights. They were spent restless and agitated. Enough so that staying in one place for more than a few minutes seemed unbearable. Escape was inevitable. Briefly she considered the pills America had given her, but on a whim she turned instead to the half a bottle of whiskey she had tucked away in a cabinet. Nothing fancy, it was what Taym considered 'cheap swill', but it did the job.

Bottle in hand, the dainty Sun left the seclusion of her room and headed for the stairs. Bare foot, dressed in a pair of high slit jogging shorts and a tank top, Peyton made her way towards the kitchen. Not so much hungry as bored, and even if she hadn't been feeling restless her cupboards were a little bare as of late.

A change of scenery, a snack, a drink, then maybe she could get some ******** sleep.

She certainly hadn't expected anyone to be there. Not for any particular reason other than simply not having considered it an option. She Peyton lingered near the door, pale eyes sliding over the sorted mounds of groceries stacked on the nearest tables, then up to the man that had been doing the sorting.

Taller than her, though not tall so far as the island was concerned. He had dark hair, eyes pale enough ti rival any husky's, and the sort of stubble decorating his jaw that seemed a permanent fixture rather than a symptom of laziness. Marks on his neck, ink, though she couldn't tell from here what of. New, she assumed, because she didn't recognize him. She blink up at him as he looked up at her and gestured, and only then did she pay the goods laid out between them any mind.

He sounded at his wits end, and that alone was enough to have a small smile tugging at soft lips. "We do," she answered simply, finally moving closer to set her bottle on edge of the table so she could help herself to one of the eight twix bars. "Or more precisely, hunters do. Anyone that volunteers or gets roped into it." The candy bar was turned between small fingers.

"It means along with the usual inventory of necessary goods, we get that," she gestured rather dismissively at the pile.

A slow smirk at his response, and she tore through the wrapper. "Isn't that usually how it works?" Pale eyes ticked up, watching him tug the bandana off so he could comb through hair with his fingers. Leaning back against the sink, the girl crossed her arms and took a bite of the twix.

She glanced at the bottle at his question. "Whiskey." There was every possibility that Peyton's poison of choice might have been something different if she'd ever bothered to try anything else. This was the first thing she'd drank, it didn't taste good, but it provided a quick buzz and an easy road to intoxication. The Sun had never bothered to try anything else.

Brows arched, she smiled at him. "Want some?"

<You are behaving strangely...>

I'm behaving just fine.

As the glasses were set on the table Peyton let the half a Twix she'd been nibbling on slid back inside the wrapper. "I bought it quite a while ago. It's been sitting in my cabinet almost a year now." She'd bought it before she and Noah had started dating, and had few reasons since to bother pulling it out, until now.

Returning to the table she set the candy bar down and reached for the bottle so she could uncap it, adding a shot to each glass. "There is a bar here. I guess no ones told you yet." Fingertips nudged one of the glasses towards him.

"You're new, right?" It'd been a long month, but Peyton liked to think she still paid decent attention to what was going on around the island, and that included fresh faces.

My, wasn't he a little demanding. She met those startlingly pale blue eyes, and soft lips twitched in amusement. Indulgently she tipped another splash of whiskey into his glass, doubling the contents. When he finished that he could have more, Peyton wasn't stingy.

"Two weeks," she echoed, setting the bottle down and picking up her own drink. "That is new." Her smile got bigger, half hidden behind the rim of her glass as she took quick sip, then a longer one.

"You think you're tired now, just wait." He still had nightmares to look forward to, anomalies, strange occurrences. He ain't seen nothing yet.

She smiled indulgently, but only shrugged before finishing off the shot in her glass. Peyton held her liquor remarkably well for a light weight that wasn't in the habit of drinking. Not as well as someone more practiced, but better than one would think. She poured herself more, a double this time, then slid the bottle between them.

"That's a good thing for this place. Keep you alive longer." Folding her arms on the table she leaned forward onto them, gaze leveled on him. "I'm Peyton."

The smile broadened, and as he finished off his glass she gave the bottle another small nudge, inviting him to help himself. "Nice to meet you Lukas." She'd tip her own glass in lieu of a handshake as well, chin dipping just a touch.

At his question those lovely lavender eyes rolled upwards, thoughtful. She actually had to think about just how long she'd been on the island, because with so much going on all the time time tended to run oddly. "Two years in may." A slight pause, a little mental counting, and she'd nod.

Her glass came up again, a quarter of the contents disappearing, and one bare foot came up to rub against the back of her calf.

Once upon a time Peyton would have taken offence to comment on her apparent age, but in the last almost two years she'd gotten over it. She was youthful, she was short, she lacked obvious curves. That didn't mean she wasn't pretty, it didn't mean she wasn't feminine.

Shaking her head, she chuckled into her glass, taking another sip before answering. "No, when I was eighteen." Her free hand came up and she propped her cheek against her knuckles.

"Go head, make your jokes. I know I look young."