( yeah, yeah. he always buys. he waves ephemera on with a wag of his hand and dramatic roll of his eyes, shutting the door behind them and checking the knob once before he follows at his shoulder. )

Your mistake is thinking I need anyone to be able to stand me in order to fuck me. It's more fun when they don't like me.

( as outrageously brazen as always, spoken like he's making a passing comment on the weather. it has a bit of a different edge years on, but that aspect of felix has remained as unchanged as the rising and setting of the sun. shameless flirting, sex, liquor, bloody bar fights, throwing fists with anyone outside their unit who looked at him or their people wrong, from officers to fellow marines to soft-bellied civs. how gates communicated. how felix communicates now.

trauma coping, is what a psychiatrist called it during a psych eval years ago, as felix chain-smoked in the corner.

he steers them through the door at the end of the corridor, down the steps and out the building into a backstreet alley. the morning sun assaults him almost immediately. felix flinches, digging his sunglasses from his back pocket and pushing the rim over his nose. fuck this hangover. fuck drunk him's decision to guzzle cheap tequila. )

Let's head to the market, I think. Cafe has shit coffee.

( and there's better options at the food carts. felix normally avoids carbs like the plague, but he's doubting his ability to hold anything else down. )