Hello readers, First of all, thanks for reading this. I also really just want to express how wonderful I think summer is, it actually allows me to a lot of stuff. Like A LOT. I'm actually reading a couple of other fanfics while writing my own (don't worry, I'm not stealing ideas). As weird as it sounds, I actually enjoy writing my story, it gives me something to do and keeps me busy for hours.

Also, tell your friends about this piece of art and that it represents the pinnacle of literature, I'm sure they'd be interested in reading my masterpiece, also I NEEDZ MOAR REVIEWSSSS, that way I'll be one step closer to my goal of conquering the world!

That is all, enjoy

casquis

Chapter XIV: Leisure

January 25, 2535 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Inconvenience, Paris IV, Paris System

I woke up to someone shaking my head. My eyes took while to get used to the light in the cryo bay. I could see a silhouette looming over me. I could also feel chunky stuff on my chest and belly. Apparently I had thrown up the anti-freeze without waking up. That's dangerous shit, I could drown with it if I wasn't careful.

I didn't want to move, so I didn't. I was quite comfortable in my sleeping position, which was ironic, since cryo tubes are covered by some sort of hard plastic.

A few seconds later, when I refused to wake up, I was slapped.

"What the hell? Again?" I complained as I jumped up, now fully awake.

I blinked repeatedly and saw Layla's pretty face smiling at me. I calmed down and smiled back.

"Boy, you really do enjoy seeing me naked don't you?" I asked playfully.

Her expression remained the same as she handed me a towel to wipe the vomited fluid from my chest and face. Once I had done so, I put on my fatigues. There was no one left in the room, they had all left by the time I started lacing my boots. Layla, however, stayed there, with a small smile on her face.

"For a while, I thought you were dead when I couldn't find you," she said.

"Don't worry, it'll take more than that to bring me down," I replied, trying to sound cool.

Layla wordlessly stood up and walked towards me. I must've wiped all the vomited anti-freeze clean of my mouth, because as soon as she was close enough, she kissed me.

I was dumbstruck. It was by no means my first kiss, but it was certainly the first that I had received from a girl that was not filled up with alcohol up to her throat. It was weird, and different. It felt nice.

I kissed her back, and for a moment I forgot about everything, I just focused on enjoying the moment. After what seemed like hours, we pulled apart. I smiled at her and she returned the smile, it was what I would consider a perfect moment. Of course, it was ruined. We were interrupted in the form of another navy tech coming into the room. She had an awkward look on her face when we both turned to face her. She shuffled her feet and blushed. I did the same.

"Ummm, I need your help with something Layla," she said. Her voice sounded as uncomfortable as she was probably feeling right now.

"Right," I said, before leaving the cryo bay at a brisk walk. "I'll see you later."

I walked to my room with a huge grin on my face, I probably looked stupid, but I didn't really care at the time. I was feeling the happiest I had in a long while, and for a few minutes, there was nothing in my mind that could take that from me.

"Aaaaaaaand…." said Dom hopefully as I swigged down the glass of liquor. I finished it. "Yeah!"

I was now the drinking champion of the ship, a dozen people were cheering for me along with Dom. My adversary, a large burly marine had a dumb look in his face right before he collapsed. Everyone around laughed and patted my shoulder. I wasn't feeling all that well suddenly. The floor started shifting on me. I held on to the table to ensure that I wouldn't fall down, after all, I didn't want anything to ruin my dramatic victory.

After I was done, the party went on like a regular college party would've, except that there was a whole lot more drinking involved, a lot. I had had enough for the night, so I went straight to my room, Dom helped me out by not letting me slam into the walls or the floor. He helped me sit down on the bed and gave me a container for me to throw up in in case I needed to throw up.

"You're a good friend Dom," I said, my speech slurred.

"Hey, don't worry…" he started saying before he was interrupted by me heaving much of my lunch and dinner into the container.

He started laughing like a maniac until I realized that the container was nothing other than my own helmet. I groaned. "You asshole!" I called at him as I threw my helmet at him. It hit the wall next to the door and splashed the floor with vomit. Dom had already left the room and I could hear his half-drunken laugh in the hallways.

"Oh, God," I said before rushing to the trashcan to empty the rest of my stomach.

I woke up the next day feeling as bad as that time when I got a concussion. My head was hurting and I was still drunk. I got up from my bed and immediately had to hold on to something. I decided to take a warm shower.

When I left the shower I was feeling slightly better. I shaved and managed not to slice my own neck open with the blade, quite a feat considering the state I was in. I headed to the mess hall to get some food in my empty stomach.

As I entered the hall I found the remains of the party. It looked so much like something straight out of a teen comedy that I couldn't help but laughing. There were a couple of passed out persons on the tables and on the floor, the entire room smelled of vomit and alcohol. I was even cheered by a couple of guys that promptly grabbed their heads in pain after calling me champ. There was even a girl marine in her underwear lying on top of a table, there was a pool of vomit by her head, with little chunks still in her mouth and hair. She was lucky I didn't have a camera, otherwise I would've taken a picture and posted it on the ship's blog. I probably would've put on printouts on the news boards that were scattered around the ship.

Again, lucky her.

"I heard you beat our ruling champion," came a voice from behind. I turned to find myself face to face with the Colonel. He was wearing his full armor, it didn't seem like he took it off. Ever.

"That I did, sir," I said with a smile on my face.

"Well, then you're entitled to a double ration today," the colonel said as he patted me in the back. He signaled for a soldier on cook duty, probably one of the only few people on the ship that wasn't drunk or hungover. Poor him.

The cook nodded and brought me a tray with two pieces of lasagna, two bread buns, two apples, two chocolate bars, and two juice boxes.

"Enjoy your breakfast son," said the Colonel as he left, his boots clacking on the metallic floor.

I smiled at my meal and dug in.

A few minutes later I was joined by Dom, for some reason he looked as fresh as ever. There was a big smile on his face.

"Morning man, did you see Vicky?" he asked as he gestured at the girl in her underwear, she was snoring loudly now.

"Yes, I did, poor girl," I said. "What would her parents think?"

Dom simply laughed and tried to steal one of my juice boxes before I slapped him with my plastic spork.

We ate our breakfast while talking about whatever I had missed yesterday, apparently it hadn't been much, the party had turned into some sort of throwing up competition a couple of minutes after I left.

Lucky me, I thought.

Dom told me about how a guy twisted his ankle by tring to do a backflip from one of the tables and how another one landed face-first trying to do the same. I laughed at that right as I finished my second lasagna.

I stood up and left Dom to go to the gym for a while. I hadn't done my regular routine for the past couple of days. With the new meat we had picked at Paris IV we had gotten a large shipment of alcoholic beberages, courtesy of our loving and caring Colonel Zavala. That man really cared about his men's sanity. Had it not been for the large quantities of booze so many of us would've already put a bullet in their temples.

Just as I finished my ten-click run and was about to start doing weight lifting, I was given a paper sheet by Lieutenant Wilkins, he was the lapdog of our ONI liason on board, Commander Albaf. She was a real bitch. I glanced at the sheet of paper to find out it was one of those interviews about the armor and all that crap.

I sighed as Wilkins handed me a pencil and started answering.

The questions asked me how my armor performed, mostly I answered N/A, since I hadn't been hit once. When asked about my equipment I wrote down that it performed as it was supposed to. In the section for additional comments I scrolled down an angry "Why don't you send us on missions that matter?" and I added an angry face for effect.

I handed my questionnaire to the Lieutenant and he simply raised an eyebrow once he read that part, but made no comment. He left as I started excercising again. I was careful not to exercise to much, I didn't want to turn myself into a monster. I was still careful with my appearance.

Once I was done excercising I went to the pelican hangar bay. There wasn't anything interesting going on there, I mostly went there to watch the paint jobs on the pelicans. Pilots here was as undisciplined as the rest of us, and most of them had painted their craft with different colors and given them crazy names. There were some names that sounded intimidating, like: God's Thunder, Flash of Blood, Warhead, and Deathslayer. Despite those very respectable names, my favorite one was a pelican that was painted with red in certain sections of the hull that was named Mary's Little Lamb. I always laughed at that one. Under said ship was just what I was hoping to find by coming down here.

There was a man with a blow torch doing something with a metal sheet and some steel bars. I came up to him and tapped him on the back, only to be greeted by blue fire dangerously close to my face.

"Point that thing away from me!" I cried out.

"Crap, sorry!" yelled the man as he took off his mask, revealing he was indeed a she.

"Jeez, you scared the shit out of me," I said.

"Sorry, anyways, what can I help you with?" she asked, impatient.

"Yeah, could you like melt this little metal pieces into my boot?" I asked as I pulled out my right armored boot and two steel bars that had been folded to look like a half rectangle with flaps. They were supposed to be for my knife to be kept there.

"Like melt? she asked, probably wondering why I hadn't simply said the right word.

"Hey, I forget the proper word," I admitted. "Will you do it?"

"For free?" she sounded incredulous.

I grunted, having expected this, it would take her five freaking seconds and she was asking for cash. This ship was doomed to hell, both literally and metaphorically. Not even doing favors to each other, please.

"I'll give you twenty creds," I said. She simply nodded and got to work. It took her exactly twenty-one seconds.

"There you go," she said as she handed me my new and improved boot. "I would've done it for free if you had insisted."

"I would've given you more creds if you had asked me," I shot back.

She simply shrugged and went back to work with her metal sheet and bars.

I went to my room to see if the new holdings fit my knife's sheath. I was glad to see that the sheath's loops, designed to go through a belt, fit the bars well, and snuggly. I tightened the bars more with the help from a hammer and my walls before I was completely satisfied with the result.

I then had lunch, went to the armory to see if we had gotten anything interesting, and left when I found out I wasn't the only one that had had that idea. I watched a couple of movies before I went back, there were less people there now, so I looked around for interesting stuff. Since nothing caught my attention, I left.

Layla was nowhere to be found. That was probably because the Navy personnel actually had to work during the day. We only had to bore ourselves to death. Luckily, we would be placed in cryo before long, we were on our way back to the frontlines, probably being meteorited down to our deaths.

"Frank!" someone called from behind. I turned to find out it was just the person I had been looking for.

"Let's go someplace quiet," she said, with her everpresent smile.

Feel free to ignore the second paragraph of my author's rant before the story.