Welcome to Gaia! ::

Imnolu was trying not to think about how much he wished that he could kiss Isidor. Every time they hung out, he felt a little more like he was moving on. Not that he was forgetting Taran, he could never, nor could he forget Seiche, but... They were gone. They had been for a long time. And Imnolu yearned to find love again. He'd always been sort of a hopeless romantic, ever since he was born, practically. He'd probably annoyed Rylafein to death half-a-dozen times at least when they were teenagers with his constant vocal desires for romantic love. Then Taran had come along, doing research on education across planets for his own education graduation paper, and... Imnolu had been informed of this visit, supplied with a picture, and immediately insisted on escorting the older man around the planet to explain the system to him and hang out. Then... they'd hung out more and more, until it developed into a romance, and three years later, they were married with a baby on the way.

He wondered if he'd be able to bring himself to have another kid. He wasn't sure. He was slowly coming around to the idea of loving a new person, even if he was still kind of avoiding the topic with himself. Isidor probably wasn't ready for something like that yet, either, so...

So much for not thinking too much about it.

"One of my new favorite animals are snow leopards," he said in the next conversation lull, trying to divert his brain. "They're so pretty. What about—hey, hold on, sorry, I think I see one of my friends from, ah... before I met you, Isidor."

Hopefully that was put well enough that Isidor would understand what he meant. Imnolu waved Heibing down.

"Heibing! Whatcha doing out here all alone, huh?" His eyes slid to the bottle and he frowned a little, trying to figure out what it was. Alcohol, maybe? "Ooh. That looks good."

Hearing someone call his name, Heibing perked right up in a way that deeply offended him. He shouldn’t have been able to do that right now. Moving so quickly should’ve been beyond Heibing’s grasp. He should’ve felt all kinds of woozy and unsteady on his feet, slow reaction times, and more importantly, nothing like the aching void that had filled his chest for………weeks, now. Ever since that battle with the Herald of the Dark Star.

Ever since Heibing had gotten struck by its black lightning and found himself staring into the heart of the black, into the immensity of dread and horror that lurked just beyond their collective awareness, waiting to strike—

Being fair, even if numbness would’ve been preferable, Heibing did feel something new as he whipped around, searching for whoever had called his name. Even in his odd little human disguise, Imnolu wasn’t difficult to spot—nor was the person who walked beside him. Gamboling toward his friend, Heibing tried not to think about the other one too much. Sure, he’d heard Imnolu rabbiting on about some human or other who was, like, special or something, the one whom Heibing had mentally taken to calling New Taran.

“Imnolu,” he groaned, joining the two of them. Flopping toward someone, Heibing found Imnolu’s Human to have the most convenient shoulders. Taller than Imnolu thus easier to reach, and maybe not anything particularly impressive on a physical level? But solid enough that Heibing didn’t feel like an imposition in slouching on the man and throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Imnolu and……uh.…… You. ******** had said this idiot’s name before.

Heibing knew that Imnolu had said this idiot’s name before.

If Heibing called this idiot “New Taran,” then Imnolu was going to get upset about it and that was going to start a fight, and Heibing wasn’t nearly drunk enough to tolerate that right now. Something something something, he could remember the name he’d heard, uhhhh.

“Isi………Isildur?” Heibing scrunched up his nose, peering at Imnolu’s beau for a moment as if asking Did I get that right? But Heibing didn’t linger long before shaking his head and looking back to Imnolu. Leaning in closer—and trying to drag Isildur-Or-Whatever with him—Heibing hissed, “Imnolu, this planet is a <******** nightmare. Look at this absolute bullshit!”

He held out the still-uncapped, oversized bottle of orange, bubbling contentedly in the same way the (fairly considerable) amount of it now did in Heibing’s stomach. Kicking back at him, the pressure tried to escape up his throat, but Heibing kept his mouth firmly closed. Choked down the physical reaction with a muffled, slightly distressed little noise.

Heibing did allow a groany, pathetic-sounding sort of whine to escape his throat, though. “What kind of planet sells you liquor that tastes as good as this, in stupidly huge bottles like this one, and then it doesn’t get you drunk. Is this one of those war crime things that New Airan and Liánlí talk about? Or an atrocity? Because it feels like an atrocity!”

An atrocity against Heibing personally, which was without question the second-worst kind of atrocity that anyone could ever commit.

Isidor shrugged. "There are worse Tolkein characters ot be mistaken for than Ilsildur, but Isidor it is, yes." Imnolu's friend seemed...affectionate. In a very particular sort of way. He reminded Isidor a bit of a cat, perhaps; one who only wanted affection on its terms exactly.

The mention of alcohol made him frown, as did Heibing's puzzlement about it. He narrowed his eyes at the bottle, and then sighed.

"There could be a difference in physiology," he said, "but the reaosn that isn't getting you drunk is because it's what we call soda--carbonated water with flavorings--and not alcohol. You can combine the two, but that's not the part that does what you're looking for."

He reached into his pocket, casually producing a small, stainless steel flask. Perhaps that was telling of him, given the circumstances, but maybe a pair of aliens wouldn't understand how....well, alcoholic it was.

"I do have actual Earth alcohol, if you'd like."

Imnolu gave an embarrassed chuckle when he realized just how wrong Heibing had been about the drink he'd purchased. Imnolu knew what soda was; but to know there was such variety? In such large bottles? It blew him out of the water.

"Heibing. We could go and buy some real stuff without mooching off my friend, you know," he admonished lightly, teasingly. "Or if you are going to drink that, we ought to replace it."

He was reluctant to quash Heibing's sudden interest in socializing, though. He had missed hearing the voice of his oldest friend. He gave Isidor an apologetic smile.

Listening to Isidor got easier, the more Heibing let him talk. Something about the rhythm of it felt, like……very correct? Somehow? Maybe Heibing was just hard up for any kind of conversation after spending the past month hardly talking at all, or being around people, or eating, or existing outside either his room or the downstairs bathtub. But this? Even with Isidor telling Heibing he was wrong about something, the rhythm of it felt almost familiar: Isidor proposing something silly, and Heibing exhaling through his lips, making a dismissive sound.

“Of course we had accents back then. I used to be pretty good at a lot of them. Liked using them to drive Ryla and Imnolu’s rancid a*****e cousin mad. Her name was Greyna, she was terrible, and she haaaaated it when anybody failed to pay her the proper deference that she literally was not owed.”

Heibing huffed, considering whether or not to make the move he had in mind. Ultimately, he decided in favor of it, pulling his arm off of Isidor’s shoulders and up into a big stretch. “We just didn’t have a place called Australia, so we couldn’t very well have any accents from there. And the way it sounded, it kept making me think about Liánlí’s movies like the one where the feckless loser gets dumped by his girlfriend, fights through hordes of undead monsters, and gets her back? Or like the Frenchman in the movie about the man and woman trying to get out of the desert, but the woman’s in love with some other man, and I guess she can’t have both of them, even though they get along, because gods forbid women have anything nice around here? But then the accents with the talking dogs didn’t always sound right.

“You’ll have to tell me more about the ‘teaching by example’ thing, though,” Heibing said. “We had a similar concept when I was growing up? But much more openness to letting children make their own mistakes. And teaching them how to use knives. Honestly, things have gone so downhill since they stopped teaching children like us—” Disentangled from Isidor, he more easily gestured between himself and Imnolu, quickly pointing to one of them then the other, “—how to defend themselves with knives.”

More importantly, though, Isidor had offered alcohol. And that meant Heibing didn’t need to apologize when he darted in to grab the flask. Once he’d gotten it unscrewed, he threw it back. Not all of it, though he was sorely tempted. Still, a good, long drink.

Then, he grinned at Isidor, more mischievous than sincere but still, more earnest and eager than Heibing would admit to.

“Also, yes. Please. Show me to this ‘liquor store.’ You know, Isidor……” He bumped his shoulder into Isidor’s, looking around as if this could help him predict which way Isidor would lead them. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”