A/N: *le gasp* Could it be? Yes it could! I actually got round to writing it at long last, that prequel that people probably gave up on months ago. God, I suck at deadlines. Life would be so much easier if I didn't lack the capacity to write at a normal hour. Apologies in advance for any crapness beyond this point.

WARNING: Moderate Yuri, Minor Tidus Bashing, Alcohol-induced OOCness

The Night Before

Even for someone as introverted and unsociable as Paine, the Celsius was starting to get a little too quiet. Yuna had jumped ship a little over a month ago to live with her new toy boy (he's too effeminate – definitely hiding something), and Shinra had been collared by Rin and Gippal to do some machina research project that she really could not care less about.

As far as Paine was concerned, she was left with next to no intelligent company on the ship; the few vaguely meaningful conversations that had occurred between her and Buddy didn't really count for much, and without Yuna there to balance her out even slightly, Rikku was steadily turning back into the bubbly, bouncing, blood-boiling brat she had been when Paine first joined the Gullwings.

Even sphere waves seemed to have become few and far between, the remaining Gullwings spent most of their time wandering Spira's skies aimlessly and hoping for data about anything; that a massive horde of spheres was there for the taking on Mt Gagazet, that Tidus had admitted his undying love for one of the Besaid Aurochs and Yuna was returning, or that Shinra had inevitably learnt too much and his brain had exploded.

But no, nothing ever happened anymore. Even sparring with Rikku had lost its appeal eventually, although that was long after Paine realised she could just block every hit and watch Rikku go at it with full force, until her tanned skin glistened with sweat and her chest heaved with every breath.

Paine was left with little else to do now but sit at the bar with whatever drink Barkeep served her and think. Yevon forbid that she should actually talk to the Hypello behind the bar, she'd heard of his...unique brand of advice, and most certainly did not want his opinion on her situation.

Feeling slightly fuzzy and staring through the bottom of an empty glass, Paine was so deep in thought that she didn't realise anyone else had entered the cabin – until a slender-fingered and definitely not blue hand dumped an unhealthy number of shot glasses on the bar.

"Finally finished that drink, huh?" Ah. Rikku. The cause of, and solution to, most of Paine's problems. "Do you want a refill?" Or maybe that was alcohol. They both had more or less the same effect on her, anyway.

"No, thanks..." Paine's befuddled mind struggled to process what was going on. "Rikku, why are you- I mean, what are you doing behind the bar? Where's Barkeep?"

Rikku leant back on the counter to gaze at the assortment of bottles on display. "We dropped him off at the Moonflow a couple hours ago for some weird Hypello thing," Paine shuddered. She found the thought of a Hypello gathering oddly disturbing, "and I'm getting drinks." For who? All of Spira?

"What about Buddy?"

"Shopping in Luca, said he'd be back tomorrow."

"'kay. Where's Calli?"

"Taking those chocobos to Clasko. She's been gone for a week, Paine."

"...Brother?"

"Pops wanted to see him. Who knows when he'll be back." Paine groaned and her forehead connected solidly with the bar as Rikku pulled something luminous green from the shelf. "Want one of these?" Rikku gestured to the glasses she was filling.

"Please," She groaned again and held an arm out for a drink. Anything to take her mind off being alone with Rikku. While she was pleasant enough in small doses, she was unable to entertain herself for more than half an hour nowadays before she got bored and bombarded some poor, unfortunate soul with questions about their childhood memories, how many types of machina weapon they could name, or whether or not they thought that cloud looked like a cheese-grater.

With no one else on board to take the brunt of Rikku's onslaught, today was definitely not Paine's lucky day.

Rikku slid a shot glass over to her with a cheery "Happy Al Bhed New Year!", and Paine was left to sit and watch in awe as Rikku knocked back one, two, three, four, five shots in a row, her face contorting more and more with each one. Knocking back her own drink, she found out why: it was sour enough to make a Ronso cringe.

Al Bhed New Year? "'s a new one. Why didn't Gippal say anything about there being an Al Bhed New Year?" Paine asked, her brow furrowed.

Rikku wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, "He probably thought that you boring old Yevonites were against parties, or something,"

Huh. That made sense, kind of. When they were in the Crimson Squad the higher-ups would throw a fit if Gippal even breathed in a slightly Al Bhed way, and there had been much Praise-Be-To-Yevon-ing from Baralai that they hadn't found out about the airship thing. But still, something seemed a little...off with the idea.

Unfortunately, Paine's attempts at mixing alcohol with intelligent thought were failing, so she just left it. It was probably nothing, anyway.

She ran a finger around the edge of her shot glass, trying to slip back into the stream of thoughts that she'd been enjoying before Rikku had decided to pop out of the ground. She lifted her head- and was given a very generous view of Rikku's cleavage, right at eye-level.

Mmm...what she wouldn't give to be able to pin Rikku to the bar, to make her gasp and moan into her mouth while Paine ran her hands- No. Behave. No more alcohol, and no more breasts.

She forced herself to look back up at Rikku's face. For the briefest moment, Paine could see a glimmer of...something in her eyes, most likely anger at being eyed up so blatantly, but then it was gone and she was left with Rikku's usual perma-grin.

"So," Rikku began, "you said before that you wanted to broaden your horizons and stuff, aren't you going to ask me about it?"

Paine squeezed her eyes shut as she tried again to process everything. "You'll tell me regardless."

Rikku seemed unperturbed by her blunt reply. "It's an Al Bhed tradition! Y'see, between Yevon, Sin, fiends and rampaging machina, we Al Bhed have always had it pretty rough, right?" She trundled through her explanation without waiting for a reply, "Well, at the end of every year we're supposed to have a huge party that lasts way into the night, with lots of food and drink and dancing and stuff, to celebrate not being dead yet."

Paine scoffed at the idea, "It just sounds like an excuse to get wasted."

Had she been looking, the warrior would have noticed how panicky Rikku began to look, or the over-dramatic gulp that she took. "W-well, it's kind of a little bit of the tradition to start the new year really drunk," she started to blink rapidly as she went on, swaying slightly, "so that you're more...relaxed and...stuff. Whoa."

Paine smirked as Rikku put a hand to her forehead and gripped the counter to steady herself, clearly feeling those shots already.

"Why isn't anyone else here celebrating this big Al Bhed tradition?"

Rikku slowly sank beneath the bar, still swaying, and showing no signs of answering.

"Rikku?"

She finally let go of the bar and disappeared completely.

"Ugh, forget it." Paine slid off her stool with as much grace as she could muster in her condition and made her way out of the cabin, possibly to dunk her head in a bucket of cold water. It was going to be a long night.

*points at Farplane Legacies by Dark-SideOfThe-Coin* Go read it if you haven't already. It's a bit heavy, but there's a bit near the beginning that inspired The Dangers Of Drinking.

Reviews would be nice, but you don't have to. Constructive criticism is welcome, flames will be used to make toast.