Chapter one: Robots and Hangovers.
Robert Epps had always had something of a quick tongue, Lennox mused. Like many men he knew, Epps had an unwavering pride and a deep feeling honor and obligation. In many ways the Sergeant was like a beloved pit bull; unconditionally loyal and loving, but would not hesitate to strike out whenever he felt that he or his fellows were threatened. Whether that be figuratively or literally speaking. And sometimes, just sometime…he was a bit of a smartass. And much like a pit bull, he did not like to share. Having the grace of character such as that of Sgt. Robert Epps was often a blessing on the minds of his fellow soldiers, especially when out in the field. In Captain Lennox's mind, there was no team if Epps was not there for him to play off of. But as NEST agents, some jobs required that the two friends go separate paths for the good of the mission, but they would always return and have a beer when it was done.
And as luck would have it, Lennox and Epps were enjoying a cold generic beer in the mess hall, allowing the world around them to move at its own pace, content to spend the next hour relaxing in the sudsy foam of alcohol. They were free for a time and saw no reason not to continue their ritual. However, for whatever reason, Epps was indulging their ritual a bit too enthusiastically.
That is, he was a little drunk.
Setting down his sixth beer, Epps quietly stifled a belch and leaned forward on one arm, peering down at the metal surface of the table top. Lennox eyed his friend carefully, taking careful measures sips of his own beverage.
"Rough day?" Lennox inquired casually.
"A bit," said the partially inebriated man. "Been missin' my girls a lot lately."
Lennox nodded, feeling his heart ache at the thought of his own family. He wanted to scoop his baby girl up and swing her around like Fathers did, he wanted back those precious months, hours, and minutes of her life he hadn't been around too see. He wanted to sweep his wife up in his arms and break the record for longest continuous kiss. But then again, there were a lot of things he wanted that at that moment he simply couldn't have.
"I know the feeling," he said with a nod. "I never stop missing mine."
"I hear that," Epps replied quietly, lifting the beer bottle to his lips. "I hear that…"
Draining the last of their drinks and setting their bottle down with a clack, the two men sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Met the new guy yet?" Epps asked. It did not take too far a leap in logic for Lennox to figure out to whom the Sergeant was referring.
"The little white one? Yeah," he said. "Nice guy. A little weird. Doesn't seem too informed about the personal space issue though."
Swaying just a little, Epps laugh, a flash of white teeth. "Oooh yeah. But one thing I've noticed about these guys…" Epps trailed off for a moment as if his thought had escaped him, but was able to recapture it a moment later. "Seems to me the geekier the bot, the less social skills they have."
Lennox smiled and decided this might be worth hearing and nudged the sergeant on. "Yeah? Like how?"
"Like Ratchet!" Epps positively yelled and several curious onlookers glanced their way. "Sure that guy is really smart. Fuck! He's a medic, I'm sure in their perspective he's a god damn genius, but for all that intellect he has all the social grace and etiquette of a PMSing cobra tied to a weed eater!"
Lennox snorted into fist. However he had come up with that comparison, the Captain was sure he would never know. But he made a note to remember it.
"And the new guy! Wheelerjay or whatever his name is…"
"Wheeljack." Lennox supplied.
"Wheeljack, yeah. I introduced myself to him y'know…they way ya just do. I was with Efferson and Bradley…and you know what he does?"
"What's that?"
"Hugs me! The guy freakin' hugs me!" Epps replied far too loud for Lennox's comfort. Oh yeah. He was definitely hammered. "And then we had to explain to him the difference between hugging and shaking hands!" a pause. "…I can't even remember the last time I was hugged, man."
Feeling a little playful, Lennox grinned over at his friend. "Aw. Did you hug him back?"
Epps glowered at the Captain. "Fuck you, sir."
They carried on in such a fashion for a few minutes before being joined by two of their fellow NEST agents who were also off duty and were seeking some unwinding time. Apparently Lennox and Epps looked as though they were having fun, so they joined them. Deciding that they too would like a beer, they went and fetched themselves a bottle. And replacements for Lennox and Epps'. The Sergeant accepted his without question while Lennox mulled in a pool of indecisiveness. As Captain, he felt obligated to refrain from intoxicating himself, but that wasn't to say it was an easy choice. He could play designated driver for the evening. No matter how tempted he was to loose himself in the brew…
Three more NEST agents joined them and the group took the moment to restock everyone with a new bottle. Lennox sat there, very much sober, and watched his fellows drink till they were merry and pink eared. They laughed at jokes that only a five year old would find amusing and heartily delved into the pool of carelessness and ease and a lot of cursing. The faint tugging of longing to be apart of such a party nudged the Captain more and more until at last he decided firmly that could not stay sober this night. He doubted there was much of any harm that could befall them considering where they were. Throwing caution to the wind, Captain William Lennox drank with his men and was merry.
The alcohol flowed plentifully.
Beer bottles collected in front of the agents like bugs to a porch light and it wasn't any time at all in which the group found themselves ingloriously intoxicated and quite proud of it. Later on, Lennox admitted not really recalling much of what happened, but at one point someone started to sing a song – in retrospect, Lennox mused that it must have been Grahm. Because only a Brit would strike up a song when he was plastered. It was such a song that is was more at home inside a dark sooty bar then the mess hall of a secret base. And oddly enough, even in their state of inebriation, not only did a few of them know the words to said song, but managed to actually stay together while chanting it's lyrics with their slurred speech, swaying to a nonexistent beat. Lennox did not know the words so he trudged along as best he could and swayed along with them. Beer sloshes from their bottles as they swayed unevenly to the words…
" I bang on the door but you won't let me in,
'cause you're sick and tired of me reeking of gin.
Locked all the doors from the front to the back,
And left me a note telling me I should pack
I walk in the bar and the fella's all cheer,
They order me up a whiskey and beer.
You ask me why I'm writing this poem,
Some call it a tavern but I call it home."
Had any of them possessed the moment's wit, they'd had realized not only were people staring and laughing openly, but were crowding around the group to listen to the drunken chorus.
"Fuck you, I'm drunk
Fuck you, I'm drunk
Pour my beer down the sink I've got more in the trunk.
Fuck you, I'm drunk
Fuck you, I'm drunk
And I'm going to be drunk till the next time I'm drunk!"
People who were walking outside the mess hall glanced inside to take a peek at what the commotion was all about and upon finding the group of NEST agents clambering around a table laden with beer bottles, either went about their business, came inside to watch, or rush off to tell someone about the odd and hilarious scene unfolding there.
"You've given me an option, you say I must choose,
'tween you and the liquor, then I'll take the booze!
Jumpin' on Western down to the south side,
Where I'll sit down and exercise my Irish pride.
Fuck you, I'm drunk
Fuck you, I'm drunk
Pour my beer down the sink I've got more in the trunk.
Fuck you, I'm drunk
Fuck you, I'm drunk
And I'm going to be drunk till the next time I'm drunk!"
It wasn't another ten seconds before another song was struck up and everyone joined in once more, much to the delight of the growing audience.
The rest of the night was a blur.
It wasn't until the next morning when Lennox awoke in the middle of a hallway, disheveled and feeling all the world as if he'd been steam pressed by a giant roller and all his blood replaced with sand, that he came to the realization of just how severe a lapse in logic he had experience the night before. At least he thought it had been the night before. For all he knew it could have been three hours or three days ago. Though he was sure someone would have come to sober him up if had been that long a time. His left boot was missing too…
And damn he needed to piss.
He staggered to his feet and expected his person for anything else missing or possibly any new conspicuous stains. Nothing else was missing and thankfully he seemed to have refrained from vomiting upon himself, though the possibility he vomited upon someone else was still there.
Regardless, first thing first; bathroom.
Upon finding the nearest restroom and entering it, Lennox spotted a pair of boots sticking out from an open stall. Mind slow and throbbing from a hangover, he waddled over to peer inside. Sergeant Robert Epps was passed out on the floor, hugging the porcine throne, his face pressed against its side. The toilet bowel was full of the night's purged indulgence and Lennox carefully reached out to flush it down. If he looked at it too long he was libel vomit.
The sound of rushing water seemed to bring Epps back to consciousness and the man groaned and turned over. He let out a pitiful whimper as his eyes were assaulted by the restroom light just above his head. "Ughhhhh…humph…ugh…shit," was his eloquent morning hello.
Lennox walked back to the other end of the room where the urinals stood and carefully unzipped his pants to relieve himself, using one hand pressed against the wall to steady himself. Slowly and with severely hindered motor skills, Epps pushed himself into a sitting position and stared blearily at Lennox's back.
The slow moving cogs of his mind began to turn and he placed a lethargic hand to his temple. "What the fuck did we do last night? Ugh, my head."
"Drank ourselves stupid," Lennox offered inanely. He finished and zipped himself up, but kept one hand firmly planted on the wall. He still felt a little tipsy.
"Shit…what time is it?"
Lennox raised his free hand to his face and starred at his wrist for a few seconds before realizing his watch was missing too…until he remembered to check his other wrist. "It's 4:45…"
"…in the morning?"
"No."
"Fucking shit…" Uttering some more obscenities, Epps hauled himself to his feet and made his way over to the sink.
It was another twenty minutes before both men felt sober and well enough to venture out of the restroom. Their first course of action was to go raid the nurses station for vitamins and then onto the mess hall to scrounge up some food stuffs to concoct their own hangover remedies.
"Pickle juice," Epps said as they left the Nurses station.
"What?" Lennox asked.
"Pickle juice cures hangovers," he said. "That's what they do in Poland. Drink pickle juice."
"I hate pickles," Lennox commented. "Besides, my Uncle taught me a fool proof recipe to cure a hangover."
"I ain't drinking no pureed sardines and soy milks shit," said the Sergeant. "And I'm drop kickin; ya if you even say the words 'Prairie Oyster'."
"Dismiss it all you want, Bobby," said the Captain as they entered the mess hall corridor. "Prairie Oysters cure everything."
"If you can stomach it maybe…"
As they entered the mess hall, they found it largely vacant save for a table in the far corner that appeared to be dominated by lethargic NEST agents. As they neared, it was to Robert Epp's chagrin that he spotted an assortment of food stuffs upon the table; a carton of eggs, a bottle of Tabasco and one of Worcestershire sauce, and several salt and pepper shakers.
As Lennox moved to join his fellow stricken men, Epps muttered a quick 'fuck that' and wandered towards the kitchen, disappearing inside for several minutes before emerging with an open pickle jar. The group muddled in their collective misery as they waited for their remedies to kick in, several simply trying to keep it all down. Epps sipped lazily from the pickle jar, staring out into space.
"Wild night, huh?" Lennox turned around to see Cindy Forthwit, a technician from upstairs. Dressed smartly in her suit, Cindy surveyed the incapacitated soldiers with a smirk. Lennox groaned in response and put his head on the table, thankful for the blessedly cool metal. He stifled a belch and moaned at the throb of pain between his temples.
"Well," Cindy said, "It was certainly a show. Although I think the welcome you gave him was well received enough."
Unsure if it was his state of being that made Cindy's words hard to interpret or there was some sort of omission between her words, Lennox asked from the table top – his words slurred and muffled. "…whossat?"
Cindy smiled at the Captain, bright teeth flashing. "Wheeljack, of course."
Epps looked up from his jar of cucumber brine and grimaced against the all too bright lights of the room. "…what about him?"
"I guess it's only to be expected that you wouldn't remember – having recreated your old college frat parties and all," Cindy readjusted the files in her arms, smile widening and looking amused."Well, James told me he and Wheeljack were making their way down to the labs when they overheard you all in here singing."
"Ah, fuck…" one of the inebriated agents groaned. "We were singing?"
"Yes," said Cindy. "Loudly. It was quite the sight."
A round of feeble moans drifted through the assembled men. It was one thing to let loose and make idiots of themselves in the company of other humans who were – for lack of better wording – accustomed and somewhat tolerant of soldiers getting shit faced. It was an entire different thing to do so in the company of aliens who had no such experience for such things, as far as they knew. Who knows what kind of faux pas or misinformation might have transpired when Wheeljack observed the group of supposedly highly trained professionals acting in all the world like college freshman who had just been set free from over bearing parents. What did the alien – one of their brightest minds if his file was to be believed – think of them? A bunch of inebriated footmen who were supposed to be ready at a moment's notice to back them up against any threats…
"Wheeljack was curious so he stopped by to watch and observe."
Lennox felt as though his previous assertion that he had made a colossal mistake by drinking himself stupid had morphed itself into a baseball bat which was now unapologetically smacking him over the head again and again.
"He even joined in at some point!" Cindy's cheery exclamation was met with silence.
"What?" Epps finally asked.
Someone snorted into their cup of coffee.
"Why don't I remember this?" Someone else said.
Lennox glanced up at the technician with a bleary look, feeling as if maybe there was a chance to salvage his career after all. "He…joined in?"
"Yep. Security got it on video. It's been making rounds through the server for the last six hours."
Joy. Before anyone could make a sound of protest however, the devil himself walked into the mess hall. That is, if the Devil was an nine foot tall pristine white automation named Wheeljack. "Good morning, gentlemen!" He said cheerfully. "And ladies," he amended with a glance towards Cindy. He was met with noncommittal groans and halfhearted mutterings of 'Hello', 'Good morning', and 'oh hell…' Seeming no worse for wear at the previous night's escapades, Wheeljack stepped forward towards the group. It was as he drew near that Lennox belatedly realized Wheeljack's arms were laden with appeared to be plastic bags of clear fluid.
"Captain William Lennox!" Again with the cheerfulness. Lennox wasn't sure if he could handle that level of cheer so early in the- well, late in the afternoon. As Wheeljack approached the Captain's side of the table, he deposited one of the plastic bags in front of each soldier and agent. As he laid the last bag in front of Lennox, the alien bent down so the two were face to face. "I would like to thank you for including me in your ceremony last night."
Lennox stumbled over his words, "Er, yeah. You're welcome."
"And James informed me that your massive consumption of alcohol would likely leave you all quite…" he trailed off as he swept his gaze over the felled agents. "…tender headed once you had regained a more sober state of mind."
"More like someone took a bat to your head," Epps muttered as he poked at the plastic bag in front of him. With a groan, he added "…or a chainsaw…"
"Party hard, crash hard…" supplied Lennox.
"Indeed!" Wheeljack agreed, though it was not certain whether or not he actually knew what a hangover felt like. Could robots get drunk? And off of what? Lennox let the stray thought fade away as he tried to concentrate on what Wheeljack was saying. "In any case, I thought it might be beneficial to look into a remedy for your 'condition'!"
"Thanks, man," Epps said, raising his pickle jar. "But we've got our remedies."
For a moment, Wheeljack appeared stymied and feeling a little sorry for him and a little more than intrigued, Lennox picked up the plastic bag which he now realized had an IV attached. "Is this it?"
Wheeljck's attention turned back to the Captain and the panels aside his head flashed, much to the protest of Lennox's head. "Oh yes! It's a concentrated serum of D-5 half normal Saline with 20 KCL and at 100 CC's an hour, your tender headedness shall be remedied promptly and without the aid of such archaic brews such as those you have employed."
The soldiers and agents all looked down at the peculiar bags with a new air of astonishment and even a little hope. Epps continued to sip at his pickle juice, eyeing his bag suspiciously.
"If it means I don't have to choke down another prairie oyster," hooted one of the Soldiers. "Hook me up, 'Jack!"
After taking a few minutes to hook everyone up to the bags – and in the process discovering who had a fear of needles – the soldiers and agents all seemed to sit a little taller, feeling the effects of the serum almost immediately.
"Wheeljack, you just jumped to the number one spot of my favorite alien's list!" said Graham as he examined the IV line stuck into him. "You can come sing with us anytime!"
"Not that we really make a habit of gathering for an impromptu drunken choir…" added Epps who had finally put his pickle jar away. "But you're welcome any time we do!"
"Your invitation is greatly appreciated!" replied the Mech. "I shall make sure to have a ready supply of D-5 Saline any time any of you feel the urge to gather for such a celebration and require a cure, thereafter!"
Lennox felt a smile tug at the edges of his mouth. Maybe this won't be such a cluster fuck after all…
Author's Notes: This is something I had on the back burner for a while, just because I didn't seem to be able to find time to write any of it! Inspired by Steelfeather's side story NEST Files: Alien Encounters to her main story Instability - which is one of the BEST Post-ROTF fan-fiction series I have read. I got permission MONTHS ago about writing a silly one shot of her universe after she posted NEST:AE but it's been so long I wouldn't be surprised if she remembers...In any case, none of these stories will be cannon to her story. It's just me being silly.