food in the woodsen

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

"Mine did!" Koa counters vehemently, giving Zavien a rattling shake to drive his point home. Even if he hadn't actually known until after the fact, the knowledge of his buddy's death had devastated the boy. "Hate t'break it t'you, sayin' you'd rather die and leave the rest of us t'mourn than go through a breakup is shellfish as fuck." There's no real judgment or animosity in it, and any insult is tempered by the verbal mixup of the crux, but beneath the drunken incoherent is a vein of iron truth. Zavien can't die, not again. Koa doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with that shit.

To his credit, Koa only sags a little as Zavien becomes an almost deadweight, still patting an irregular but reassuring beat on his friend's back. "Me too, man," he agrees dolefully. "Me too." And then, because his natural state is hype man, he pushes Zavien back a bit - holding onto his friends shoulders and grinning pushing a grin across his flushed face. "But at least we've got each other, and we are fucking great."

With a final emphatic shake he lets Zavien go, signaling as he does for a waitress to bring them water. Or more alcohol, dealer's choice. Whatever they're delivered, he'll push a glass over to Zavien and raise his own in cheers. "To bros," he declares, clinking their cups. "Girls might be wonderful and impossible and soft and crazy and complicated, but bros will always have your back." Gripping Zavien's shoulder once again, Koa peers earnestly into the Dragoon's handsome face. "I'll always be your bro, bro," he promises.

And that's the last thing he remembers super clearly, the rest of the night fading into a pleasant, booze-fueled blur.

[fin]

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat