Niki awoke to something reaching out for her in the darkness. 

     She just about screamed to alert Trevor as she went into full defensive/alert mode. Then she realized that what she thought she saw was merely a remnant of a dream, a nightmare, but not a nightmare because it scared but because it hurt.         It stuck with her, that hurt. 

     She went into the shared room to find Trevor sitting alone staring off into space. He didn't even have the Earth news feed on. 

     For a moment, Niki felt like sitting next to him so that then they'd both be staring off into space.

     No. The pain within her was too great for that.  

     "We need a drink," Niki said. 

     "We need to get drunk," Trevor said. 

     "You ever been drunk before?" Niki asked.

     "Once."

     "Oh yeah, that."

     "Within an hour, I was wanted for murder."

     "Besides that one time, I mean." ​

     "No." 

     "You're going to take it easy, then." 

     "Yes, Mother." 

     "I don't want you getting sick on me. What's your poison?" 

     "Beer." 

     "Sorry. I need to get drunk quicker than that."

     There was a device in the kitchen that looked exactly like a refrigerator, but that was, in fact, designed by the Azure to provide Niki and Trevor with pretty much anything they asked for in terms of food or drink.

     Niki ordered a bottle of vodka that had been distilled fifteen times.

     It had, virtually, no taste or pull.

     "What do you want to mix with it?" she asked Trevor. "What kind of juice?"

     "What are you going to have?"

     "Nothing. I'm going to drink mine straight."  

     "Me too, then. Forget the juice." 

     "You sure?"

     "You bet."

     "Okay then," Niki replied. Her voice came out just the slightest bit tentative.

     They sat next to each other on the sofa in the shared room. Niki set two glasses on the table in front of them. She filled the bottom of the two glasses with vodka. 

     "Down the hatch," she said. 

     They swallowed their drinks. 

      "Woo." Trevor whistled. "The last vodka I drank a couple of years ago was a lot harder to get down than that."

     "This is some very good vodka."

     "I like the way it warms as it goes down."  

     "Another one?" 

     "You bet." 

​     Right down with the second two shots. 

     "Again," Trevor said. 

     "I think we might want to take it easy a little," Niki said. 

     "After this one." 

     "Okay, one more." 

     "Let's go."

     After that third one went down, Trevor said, "Oh yeah, I could get used to that feeling."

     "I think I may have created a monster,"  Niki said. She began to feel the effect of the alcohol too, though. She felt calmer, lighter. She agreed with Trevor. This was a feeling she could very easily get used to.

     "We need to eat something," she said.

     "Another drink first."

     "When we get in the kitchen I'll pour you another one."  

     What looked like a stove in the kitchen dispensed hot meals ready to eat upon command. 

     "Chicken teriyaki?" Niki asked. 

     "Sounds great. Where's that drink?" 

     "Pour your own."
     "Yes!" 

     Niki pulled the teriyaki from the stove and salads from the refrigerator. By the time she had two plates placed at the kitchen table, Trevor had already downed two more shots. Then, 

     "Food!" he bellowed with drunken gusto. 

     Niki nibbled at her salad while she poured herself another drink, but then she realized she was hungry and started to eat.  

     And Trevor really dug in. He swallowed down mouthfuls of sweetened chicken, followed by mouthfuls of salad, followed by more shots of vodka. He grunted like a pig as he filled his mouth again, again, again. By the time he finished, he had salad and teriyaki all down the front of his shirt.

     Then he held back his head and let out a huge, juicy belch.

     "Drink!" he bellowed.

     Niki got to the bottle before he could.

     "Go change your shirt first. Then I'll pour you another drink."

     He shot her a look like maybe he wanted to wrestle her for the bottle, but that quickly passed.

     "I like being drunk!" he bellowed.  

     He stumbled into his bedroom.

     Niki didn't see him for twenty minutes.  

     She finally went into his bedroom to check on him. 

     He was face down on his bed. 

     He hadn't even gotten his T-shirt completely off before he'd passed out. 

​     That looks so good, she thought. I'd love to be able to sleep that hard right now. The memory of the day before the day before still burned white-hot within her, though, so, from one perspective at least, sleep just seemed impossible. She thought she might be able to get some sleep, though, if she... 

     She came up with a plan. 

     She brought her glass and the bottle with her into the bathroom that also had a  jacuzzi. Her strategy was, warm, flowing water made her sleepy. Vodka made her sleepy. Put the two of them together and...  

     She stripped down and climbed into the tub.  

     Her plan didn't work worth a damn. The vodka didn't calm her down but instead only made her feel more frantic. She tried not to think about that day, but, when she did anyway, the vicious animal within her rose up snarling, threatening to take over as it had during her last visit with Egoneg, to turn all of her into an unthinking, murderous beast. Over the previous year, her defense against such attacks was to seek out the area within herself where her love for Fathom dwelled, yet, now, to go there meant revisiting the most overwhelmingly powerful memory she'd ever known, Fathom's brutal death that Niki herself caused because she'd insisted on contacting Fathom the second Niki got back to Earth, even though Niki knew that the only reason she was there on Earth at all was because she was part of a vital, time sensitive and very dangerous mission. A few shots of vodka, and the nightmarish images from that day swirled around her head like wraiths. They infuriated her. She struck at them with her fists. "Leave me alone!" she yelled. "Get the fuck away from me!"  

     She splashed water all over the place.  

     "Hey, you okay?" Trevor asked, coming into the room.    

     "Get in here!" Niki roared. "Get in here with me, Trevor!"    

     "I have to pee first." 

     "Don't use the toilet in here. I don't want to have to watch you." 

     "Hokay." 

     When he came back, he was naked, glass in hand. 

​     He got into the jacuzzi with her.  

     Niki put the bottle between them so that either of them could get to it whenever they wanted to.  

​     "I feel like shit," Trevor said. 

     "Hop in the cleansing chamber, flush out your blood." 

     Trevor grabbed the bottle instead. He didn't bother using his glass. He just upended the bottle and downed a couple of glugs. After that, he opened his eyes and made kind of an "ooo-ooo" sound. 

     "Think you might zuke?" Niki asked. "Get out of the jacuzzi if you are. That's all we need now are chunks of..." 

     "No no, I'm okay. Just give me...my gut got so warm I..." 

     "You're sweating." 

     "Just...woo." 

     "You okay?"

     "Hah!" Trevor waved an arm like that was the silliest question he could possibly have heard.  

     "You know, today was my third mission with the Azure," he said. "All three times, I had to be tended to immediately by the healers or I would have died. I've drawn that close to death three times in my life already, and I'm only eighteen fucking years old!" 

     "But you're better now." 

     "The fuck I am!" Trevor spit that out. "Those people who fell today, who fell to their deaths. That was because of me, a lot of it." 

​     "Trevor, don't." 

     "It's true, and you know it's true. I saw that they were clinging to Egoneg, and I sliced into him anyway. I'd just seen him kill Pomimi, and I..." 

     "No one was in their right minds today, Trevor." 

     "I'm tired of getting my ass kicked, Niki." 

     "Of course you are." 

​     "I mean, I know what you went through was horrible, horrible but..."  

     "Yes it was."  

     "We're criminals now. Did you see that? Anyone who had anything to do with today will be shot on sight." 

     "I don't expect to be back for a while." 

     "I need another drink."

     "Me too." 

​     "Down the hatch." 

     "You know, when I saw first saw this bottle," Trevor said, "I thought, there's no way we'll be able to put a dent in that. That's just too much vodka. Now, look, it's more than half gone." 

     "We'll save what's left for later," Niki said.

     "The hell we will."

     Niki snorted out a laugh.

     "Hah! I can't believe it. You just laughed. I got you to laugh." He sniffed the bottle as a joke. "What's in this stuff, anyway?"

     "Give me a sip. I'll let you know."

     More memories of Fathom occurred to her then, as she sipped, and they were pleasant memories. They made Niki smile.

     "Fathom had a certain look she'd get on her face," she told Trevor. "It reminded me of the kind of look people would get on their faces after they'd just had sex, that look of, you know, contentment, contentment with a glow." 

​     Trevor nodded, although, in fact, he was a virgin, and therefore knew very little about anyone having such a look.  

     "Only Fathom had the look on her face a lot," Niki continued. "It was the look she had on her face almost the entire time we spent that one night together. And then, for the last year, when things would get so lonely around here, I'd think..." 

     "You get lonely? I didn't know that. You never told me that." 

     "Of course I get lonely. Don't you ever get lonely?" 

​     "No." 

     "Seriously?" 

     Trevor shrugged. "I miss breezes. I miss outside." 

     "Me too, but, anyway, during those times over the last year when I just needed someone to hold and to love, that's when I'd think most about Fathom and that look on her face." Niki didn't just sip this time. She poured a good two fingers of vodka into her glass, then swallowed it down. Through clenched teeth, she muttered, "I'd long for her so much sometimes it was like I could reach out and..." For a moment, Niki couldn't get the words past the lump in her throat. 

     "I need to take a shit, okay?" Trevor said. "I'll go use the other bathroom."

     "You'd better."  

     "I need to bring the bottle with me." 

     "No, you don't. Let me see your glass." She poured a bunch of vodka into it. "There. That ought to hold you till you get back." 

     He returned twenty minutes later. His glass was empty. By that time, Niki was out of the jacuzzi and under the shower. 

     "You going to bed?" Trevor asked her. 

     "I think so."  

     "Think you'll be able to sleep?"

     "That's the billion dollar question, isn't it?" 

​     "I know I won't be able to." 

     "The way you're going, you'll pass out."

     "That's what I'm thinking. When you're done in there, let me take a turn. I want to clean up a little."    

     "Sure."

     "How much vodka is left?"

     Niki showed him. "We've been hitting it."  

     "Get back in the jacuzzi. We'll finish it there."    

     Niki figured, why not? The way we're going, it shouldn't take long.

     By the time they were back in the warm, bubbly water, Adam had a hard-on.

     Trevor said, "I'm sorry, I..."

     "No no." Niki dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "It's perfectly nuture...neeture...I'd...You're..." 

     It did change things, though, that erection. It made Niki uncomfortable even though Trevor was the closest straight male friend she'd ever had and even though she'd spent a year training side by side with him until she felt she knew him through and through and knew him to be compassionate, loyal, and tough as gristle when he had to be.  

     And ​he certainly didn't seem to be paying much attention to it. He was all stretched out on his side of the jacuzzi. Arms stretched out. Legs stretched out. He had his head back like he stared at the ceiling, only he had his eyes closed. Niki expected him to start snoring at any second...

     but damned if he didn't keep that hard-on.  

     And he had a huge dick too, all veiny and thick. Neither of them were particularly modest, so they'd seen each other's naked bodies dozens of times over the previous year, and, every once in a while, Niki would think, ooo, he really does have a pretty big member there.

     Especially now, engorged. 

     Even if I did want to fuck him, she thought, I'm not sure I'd enjoy it because that log of his is so...

     Hey!  

     Niki splashed like hell getting out of the jacuzzi. 

     "What?" Trevor yelped. "We haven't even finished the bottle yet!" 

     "You finish it!" 

     "You're going to leave me alone?" 

     Niki didn't even bother drying herself off.

     She just grabbed her towel and stomped off for her bedroom.

     "What are you mad about?" Trevor called after her.

     "I'm gay, Trevor!"

     "Of course you are!"

     But she was already gone.

     "I'm sorry," he said to no one who could listen. 

                                                       CONTINUE