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Part 11 of Alexander's Accounts, continuing from a high-speed ride cut short by police

His eyes were kind of brown. It contrasted with the blue shirt. Clean, no creases.

Had we done something wrong, leaving the car, expressing our intent? “We're open for negotiations, me and my boyfriend”, i said.

And the policeman walked to us. We'd distracted him from the others. I wasn't going to be passive, though. It was a risk to have us standing here so close to the city, the police might've thought.

He put some little beeping thing up to the sticker and read the screen. “Hmm, a former member of the true vigilantes… which one of you?”

I glanced at my peers. They remained quiet and quite still.

The policeman looked at us. “Ok, so it's not going to be the human. Eh, the driver's a registered human-protector, so that leaves the passenger.”

I looked to Artemis. He was going to be my "boyfriend" for this interview, i decided. I still wonder if we really were boyfriends from time to time.

“Well, he did save me from a HF acid attack when the True Vigilantes struck against me”, i said. Anything to justify his travel north.

“Let's see the scar, then”, said the policeman. “I need to have it proven, after all.”

The driver scowled. “That's illegal in the north. The potential victim in a place where he may escape his abuser is treated as being honest, no evidence needed. Plain law, basic rights.”

A place he may escape. Could i escape? Probably. Would i escape? No. Gay people were already hard enough to find. Gay human-loving werewolves, much harder. Gay human-loving ancient-human-history-accuracy-seeking supportive willing-to-cause-a-housing-crisis-for-altruistic-goals werewolves one in a million. And there werew only one million werewolves.

The policeman shrugged. “Oh, is it? Well, if you pay me ¤50, i'd be happy to follow the law during our procedures.”

A short, awkward silence.

The policeman had a flash of inspiration shine from his head. “Hell, if you give me another ¤50, to allow me to make the interview easier, you'll get a 50% discount!”

“You can't be serious”, i said.

“Doubting authority, ¤20 fee. If you pay all three, i'll give you a 100% discount!”

The driver brought his hand to his forehead in a slapping motion.

The policeman didn't seem to want to waste time. “Well, we'd better take you for an interview, ‘former’ gang member.”

“And what about his boyfriend?”, i asked. “He'd love to join him:”

And the policeman scanned me over. My clothes weren't very dirt-free, i realised. “So… you mean you…?”

He looked back at Artemis. “Fine, i guess, with the reasonable defenses", said the policeman.

And then i saw it, looking down to his arm. A pistol in his hand. Not cocked, not ready to shoot. But it sat there, pointing at the ground, a point on an imaginary line between the policeman's foot and Artemis.

And we walked, slowly, to the service station.

It looked ok. The walls were dirty, low class. A sign with its plastic cracked letting out harsh white light. La chibusaria.

And i looked back at the policeman. His blue shirt, ironed and clean. The sign, slightly brown with dust. The policeman, proudly wearing a shining badge. The inside, covered in late-60s interior design.

And we found a room. A booth in a restaurant, a curtain. And we sat. The policeman kept Artemis close to him. I couldn't see the gun anymore.

The policeman took out a smartphone. Something i hadn't seen in a long time.

And he began recording. “Present, the subject, a ‘former’ member of the true vigilantes and his human ‘boyfriend’. Explain the purpose of your visit”, he said.

Artemis shifted in his seat. Maybe there was a gun pointed at his thigh. “Honeymoon to escape the risk of the true vigilantes.”

“And the ‘boyfriend’, the human one, is aware that should he feel at risk that he may leave the stall and contact the staff?”, asked the Policeman.

“Very much aware”, i lied. I'd rather stay here with my guy. “Just one request.”

Maybe it was a bad idea. Too bad, it was already formed and thought of itself as the best one. “What?", asked the policeman.

“If you kill him, kill me second”, i said. “Because he's the only one i want with me.”

It was truly dedication. The policeman scowled.

“And if you don't kill me, i'll do it myself, after you", my mouth formed. Fuck. Only in retrospect did i realise how it sounded.

So, maybe i fix it. “But if you do want, you can detain him and i'll be happy to wait.”

But no, my mouth had other ideas. “And i'll sit outside the prison until the day he comes out, even if i starve.”

“Well, that's your problem”, said the policeman. “My concern is only in keeping innocent humans safe, not misguided martyrs.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let me just tell you that my boyfriend Artemis has been a golden star in human rights and is basically the only reason i'm alive today. Go chase that speciesist doctor that refused me treatment for being human, forcing Artemis to steal the calcium gluconate for me."

“You've just admitted his crimes”; said the policeman. “You do realise that that's dumb?”

“It happened in the south. You have no power there. Aren't you supposed to protect innocent humans? Just like Artemis has?”

“I see”, said the policeman. “Well, let him speak for himself.”

The room fell silent. And the thought of Cubit and Biblia suddenly invaded my mind, the two people he'd abandoned. Was he as innocent as i made him to be?

And the gun found its way onto the table, the barrel pointing to the wall. “Speak.”, said the policeman. A falling tone, an imperative verb.

“Well, er, yeah, i did protect my good friend here, my boyfriend, i'm pretty sure", said Artemis.

The stress was affecting him again.

“I am guilty of some things, i guess… well, i did end up causing an exodus from the True Vigilantes when i began leaving, and then there's us in a conspiracy to cause a housing crisis, so i'm kind of criminal.”

Dangerous strategy, admitting your faults. “Tell me more”, said the blue-shirt.

“And so far we've got a handful houses. We'll have rent discounts for specific voting patterns and that'll allow us to strong-arm the government.”

The policeman leaned in closer. “Wait, so you're trying to take over the South?!”

Artemis leant back. "Basically. It's simple, really, if they're paying to destroy my boyfriend's species, i destroy them.”

Artemis shrugged in a bit of defiance. He's winning.

The policeman blinked several times. “So, you're singlehandedly been doing what the North's been trying since forever?!”

Artemis chuckled and shrugged. “Of course. Anything for my human.”

The policeman shot back into a recline, pointing out a finger. “I'll offer you a deal. Promise to destroy the south's anti-human and we'll fund you!”

Sounds shady. I'm in! I nodded and gave a thumbs. “I'll accept”, said Artemis, seeing my gesture.

“Perfect”, said the policeman.

The policeman smiled. “So, go enjoy your little honeymoon. At new moon, go back and help destroy the economy. The North backs you!”

The recording was stopped. The booth was opened.

We were guided out of the service station, entered the car. We all began moving. Picking up speed on the slipway, into the north.

“So… any timetabling-incurred charge?”, i asked.

“No additional charge”, said the driver. "These things happen, so the ¤250 remains the same.”

Artemis, why did you get such an expensive taxi?

“Thanks”, said the Artemis. A shaky tone. I guess having had had a gun pointed at you'd do that.

Onto the motorway, merging, 300 km/h. Some few kilometres left until we reached the city.

And the driver was curious. “So, what did you do?”

“Admit our crimes against the south, get support”, said Artemis.

A little humor entered the room with his shrug. “Just the regular Tuesday doings.”

And we went north, into the city, through the thickening urban landscape.

The taxi driver stopped on some street, and Artemis gave him the ¤100.

I opened the door from my side and set my first step into the city. No Google Maps or fancy modern magicery,

What we had was a shop down the end of the street.

What we had a was a wallet and a vague guess of what they might sell.

So, we walked off, towards the building. Not very pretty, paint peeling.

And we walked inside. Cracked floor tiles and a broken light.

And we looked at the shelves. Artemis saw something which piqued his interest. “Oh look, tartfruit liquor!”

Tartfruit. A common fruit in the werewolf world, with a similar origin story to the mentofruit; the lemon combined with the granny smith to produce an extra-tart apple.

It was incredibly strange. Past the citrus-skin, yellow-orange, was a fleshy citrus. It didn't have the juicy sacs of a lemon nor the crunchy flesh of a granny smith. It was a mix, the sacs themselves being of this crunchy flesh.

I'd seen people open it and reveal all the little sacs, which bounced about on the table like mushy rice. And i'd eaten them. They were sour but not intolerable.

“Let's buy it”, i said. "Liquor's my favorite alcohol and i'll need it to de-stress.”

Artemis paused for a second. He gripped the bottle. It wasn't as ornate as ethanol bottles, but still shared some of the general themes. “Yeah, 40%, seems ok.”

I smiled in response. “Let's go to a hotel and get drunk.”

Artemis nodded wryly.

I found a travel guide. It had a map of North City included. “Let's get this, too.”

And we went to the checkout. ¤10, the guide bearing most of the cost. I asked for the location of the nearest hotel.

Turns out it was down the street. The street of cracked tiles, a few turns.

A place for the two of us.

And we entered the hotel. We ordered a room, for a few days, and went off. ¤100.

And we entered, took out shot glasses. Just like how most UK hotels would have tea-making paraphernalia, hotels here had alcohol-consumption paraphernalia. A harsher sin, i guess, an intoxicant rather than a remainder of colonisation.

There was, of course, the complimentary ethanol bottle. “Fancy a stronger brew?”, i asked.

“Ethanol makes it too easy”, said Artemis. “I prefer to work for my alcohol".

So, i opened the liquor bottle. These caps were so difficult. I figured it out though, push down and turn to open.

The smell was the first to hit. A strong alcoholic one, quickly complimented by the more sour, fresher notes. There was the freshness of the aroma of a warm apple mixed with the sour kick of a lemon. Agent brown was such a powerful chemical, after all. And the distillers here were experienced.

The shot glasses found the yellowish liquid. it looked a little like a weak heating oil, probably just as spicy. The shot glasses here were not human-sized. They felt more like whiskey glasses, but bulkier. Wider, harder for me to hold.

I toasted with Artemis. “To our last sober thought” was what my mouth produced as the glasses clinked, his full, mine quarter-full.

The liquid entered my mouth. It felt slightly slimy yet perfectly smooth. The alcohol teased the tongue, masking a more mainstream-apple flavour tainted with a sour twang of lemon. My throat burned a little as the alcohol went down.

And within just a few moments, i found peace. All the stress i realised i was holding suddenly evaporated. True Vigilantes? Can't possibly hurt us here. Police corruption? Eh, that'll likely become our main winning factor. Stressed Artemis? No more!

A squirt of panicked adrenaline as i remembered just where this could lead. Euphoria, happy feelings. If you keep them and achieve them too long they diminish in effect as you come to rely on them. And at one point, you realise that without the intoxication, life is fucking shit. And then, after a while, only the problems remain, caught in a catch-22 between trying to be sober and feeling life like has become normal despite all the problems.

The highs and the lows, i guess. I'd keep looking for a higher high as the lows got lower. Fuck that.

Eh, fuck this, i can't be bothered to care. “Another shot”, i asked Artemis.

I had to be careful, of course. 500 ml of alcohol in the bottle. I only wanted 0.05% in my blood at the most. I had 6 liters to dilute the content, so i ran a quick mental calculation; 0.0005* 6000… too many zeros… that's difficult, eh, that'd be maybe 6/2, or 3 ml of alcohol. And that was a 40% bottle, so i multiplied the 50 by 4 to get 200 ml. That was how much i could take.

“Two for me”, he said, pouring away most of the bottle into the cups. It was only a small bottle, after all. I made sure of that. Going back to alcoholism was not an option, especially in a world that would like to see me dead. And, after all, it's so much easier to resist temptation when the choice is between a walk to the shop and to simply stay in the room.

So, we finished the bottle that night. I made sure Artemis took more then me. He had inbuilt alcohol tolerance, being a werewolf.

And i looked at him. Mouth, slightly agape, smiling wider in a weird way. His eyes having fallen, in a way, drooped down. “That was crazy”, he said. “We totally owned the police.”

“Maybe”, i said. “How much blood is there in a werewolf…?”

“What?!”, he asked. His words were slurring now. “That's entirely wrong. Are you planning, like, violence?”

“No, just figuring your Blood Alcohol Content”, i said. My words were finding themselves slurring. Maybe it'd be a bad idea to do more maths under this state. “Like, 200 ml gives me 0.05% and that makes me, like, super drunk.”

“Fuck…”, he said after more intoxicant made its way down the throat. “I forgot what they said in the biology class.”

Biology. Wasn't Samuel Prachet-Irving a biologist? A mad one, at that. “What did you think of his «crazy garden»?”

Artemis stumbled as he found a seat on bed. The glass contacted the bedside table at a velocity which caused a loud noise. “Who's? The zoophile's?”

“Yeah, Samuel's… he had so many crazy animals, all dead… well, at least the «orchard» wasn't burnt down..! Tartfrut for live!”

Artemis sat and thought for a second. “Oh, that's divficult. Meh, furit ok, but not the animals. Save for us wereolf, of coure!”

Maybe 0.05% BAC wasn't quite correct anymore. Was Artemis as resistant as i made him out to be?

Eh, IDRC anymre. “Oh and also, how did you feel when i caled you my «boifriend»?”

He shrugged. “Meh, gues it's true. Don't realy mind, i kind of like yu..”

I giggled. “Me too.. eh, i'm obsesed with werewolfes, so i don't realli knouw”

"I want to feel yur anus", he said. “With my member.”

I nodded. "Let's go!"

But wait- was it still consent? I didn't actually give a fuck.

“Yeah”, i said, sitting onto the bed.

A sudden darkness washed into my brain. Tiredness. “Let's sleep, first, a little nap.”

Artemis too, flashed a little. “Yeah…!”

And he reached out his arm to hold me. I slipped a little. He did too, and we fell back onto the bed. And we fell asleep.

---

The sun was out. The electric lights were still on. It was probably about 06:00.

So, i got out. I turned off the lights and tucked Artemis under a few blankets. He wouldn't need it with the clothes and hair he had but i still wanted to make him feel appreciated.

And i snuck in, under the blankets, next to him. The room was dark, blackout curtains and all.

So, i nestled in, next to him.

And i noticed. I had a headache. Some slight dizziness. I panicked as i realised the harbringer was kicking in. I felt Artemis's warm body breathing. I decided to ignore the panic.

I nestled in near him, pulled myself towards the hair. He was lovely.

Fuck the oncoming hangover.

Stay tuned for part 12, in which we get a letter-overdose too

---

Some notes:

• I like the idea of bribes being so normalised among northern police that you pay fees for not paying them :p.

• Fiction immersion

• Fuckkk now i feel like i'm drunk. I get too easily into the minds of the characters, i think. It's a problem that plauges me all the time, from my increased violence as i read elan.school and Worm (which i've currently given up because i'm stuck in a fight scene and i've gotten bored) and then my tipsy demeanor as i write about my drunken lovers.

• I think one can imagine then, how i feel when i write sex scenes.

• Style

• Yes, chevrons («») will be used now on for a few select quotes showing a not-quite-sane state. I like how they look too.

• And woah, Alexander can't spell when drunk! What fun!

• Gosh, it feels so freeing to be able to make intentional spelling mistakes for once rather then misspelling such fun words as “tyre” and “colour” and “grey-coloured lorry carrying coloured trousers ” (i hate my US-English spellchecker… i set it to en-GB and it still thinks i'm wrong. I guess it's yet to realise that i'm correct :p)

• Oh and ofc my phonetic representation of “dosen't” and my “then-than” misplacement. These are genuine mistakes rather then my very intentional lower-case “i”.

• And what's fun about English spelling in particular is that spelling errors can still be “correct”; remove a l from a double-l and it still reads fine, change a vouel spelling and yu'll be mostly-fine. It's a sin to use such a phonologically inconsistent spelling system and not play with it at least once, i think :p.

• Eh, i guess i did the same for Spanish with how Northern Spanish can turn a “q” into a “k” and “c” into an “f” (which is “s” because of the s-f and z-v mergers) or “k”. Spanish is very consistent and logical in spelling but there's always ways to still play with it.