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It was loud enough to wake the dead.

And perhaps that was why Maebe had taken an interest in it. Whatever was going on in Otto's room had to be loud enough to wake the dead, as she was as good as dead inside, and it took a lot to make her care enough to move. But move she had, all the way to his room. She tried knocking, but she knew the sound of it wouldn't reach the occupants inside, so instead she pulled a hairpin out from underneath her left ponytail, and bent down to pick the lock.

It didn't take long. The door creaked open, and Maebe slid inside, closing the door behind her. The room was a wreck, and the music obnoxiously loud, plus it smelled like alcohol and depression, and that alone almost made her walk right back out.

She chose to look in further, and found the mess of a man lying on the couch, looking half dead himself. It was the ugliest she'd ever seen Otto. It changed her perception of him, from the innocent fresh face to someone already scarred by the trials of Deus.

Someone had died. She knew the signs.

"Morning, cowboy." Maebe called out, trying to get his attention. "Are you really drinking without me? I feel left out."

Help herself? "Mm, how generous." She dropped down to the ground in front of the couch, and reached for the bottle. "But you know, I never figured you for a Southern Comfort kind of boy. I confess myself a little impressed."

She opened the top, and checked the inside for signs of bugs, before throwing back a long, painful chug.

When she came back down, her throat burned delightfully, and she sighed with content.

"God, yes." She put the bottle down, and capped it again. Her head leaned back, resting on the couch by his knees, and she sat there in silence, letting the alcohol slowly work its way through her system.

She didn't need to talk to him. He probably needed to talk to someone, but she wasn't it. It was, however, better to drink with someone else than to drink alone. She turned her head slowly, and settled her eyes on his wrecked face, quietly wondering to herself who he'd just lost, and whether or not she actually cared enough to ask.

Her lips parted on instinct, to tell him that it was he that she smelled, but he really didn't have an awful odor despite the way his room looked, and she was feeling just a little lenient for once, so her mouth shut before she said a word and she shook her head.

"Heard one, actually. You never visit me anymore. Maybe I missed you." She pushed herself up so she could sit on the edge of the couch, leaning back against his legs while holding her hand out for the bottle when he was done. "It seems to me, dear, that you've learned a valuable lesson recently concerning the fact that life is a big pile of s**t. If that's true, then I guess this is a celebratory party. Congratulations, life is a big pile of s**t."

Otto's liquor supply would be in terrible jeopardy if Maebe knew he had Peach Vodka on hand.

"Gross. Why would you want a s**t trophy?" She took the bottle and took a long, hard drink from it. "Would it be made of s**t? Or, would it just be a regular trophy, filled with s**t? Or is it a trophy for s**t, like, engraved on the bottom - " She held her hands out, as she imagined it. "WINNER, Otto the Magnificent, Best in s**t."

Another long swig of the bottle left it dangerously low. She turned around, and rested her head on his knees.

"I could be your prize, you know." She offered with a smile. "But you don't look like you're up for that, right now. So instead, your prize is that I'll stick with you until you drown in liquor, and make sure you don't die in your sleep. Because I'm sweet like that."

It was a little too early for him to be getting a hangover, but she lowered her voice just in case. The bottle was in his motioning hand, and her cheshire grin stretched lazily on her face. "You told me to help myself. I'm helping myself. It's what I do best." She circled his knee playfully with one finger. "Well. The second thing I do best. I think you can guess the first."

He claimed that he wasn't going to sleep, but with this much alcohol in him, that didn't seem likely to hold for long. So she settled in, preparing to wait it out until he proved himself wrong.

"Your room is really nice." Why didn't she get a room like this? If she wasn't so comfortable flopped against his legs, she would have considered exploring. "Who'd you have to sleep with to get it?"

"If I succeeded in getting your pants off instead of working on something productive, I would get to stay here and achieve the same result. Why would I choose the hard way? "

She bit her lip. "Well. Technically you'd be the hard way. Let's say the difficult way instead. "

Maebe liked her liquor like she liked her men; hard, and down the hatch.

"See, you are a sharing kind of guy." She took his insult as nothing more than an offer to drink more, and waited patiently for him to take the first swig before bothering for it. "Okay, fair enough. I can't stay here if you give in to me. But if you drink hard enough, you'll pass out and then I can stay here."

Was her intent to mooch off his fancy room for a night? Was that why she was there? The answer was probably not, but there was no real way to tell what Maebe wanted when every word out of her mouth was a lie.