Something I found in an old notebook and thought was worth to spend some time on - it's not fancy, and I don't think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever written, but I'm satisfied with the voice of it.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the placenames that appear in this fic; they belong to Square-Enix and I am taking no financial gain from this piece of fiction.

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I have been cursed with a good memory.

The smile on my wife's face, the tears in my little boy's eyes, the smiles of people I knew, things I can remember even when I'm so drunk I couldn't have another and still I keep drinking: partying so hard that even the parties have a hard time keeping up. I see my wife in the next whore, my boy in the miserable children in the corner, and I down another drink to wash away the memory and that stinging in my eyes I don't want to acknowledge.

I can still remember the look on your face, Auron, when you realised I'd claimed your predestined place. The position you had known was yours since you met Braska, the task you had trained for since you were young enough to believe in heroes, and then I come along; I, the foul-mouthed drunk steals your place, and then suddenly your purpose in life is gone.

I'm sorry, but you would have made a shitty Sin, my friend: you follow a corrupt religion that preaches peace and turns around to wage war even on its own, but you haven't sinned a day of your life. You're so pure of sin and wrongs that you'd make a nun cry in happiness.

No, now I'm lying again – you did sin once. When you fought to keep up with me among the drinks and the blaring sounds and the glittering lights of Luca's night-life. That was the most foolish thing you'd ever done; there's no man, no woman alive who can outdo me in that game. I partied as hard as I could but when the alcohol ran out, when my new-won friends left for greener pastures and I was still sober enough to stand, you tried to talk sense to me. It didn't work. I was too far gone to listen to you, even if your words were the sanest I'd heard since I left Zanarkand. Something in your voice, even though it dripped with exasperation, was blessedly real.

The booze ran through my veins like poison, and I didn't listen to you even if I should have. Overcome by my drunken blues and perhaps gone a little mad I climbed up on the railing of that bridge and threatened to jump. I can remember it so clearly that the night winds still bite through my body, in this place where there's no wind to blow – I was weaving from side to side like a crazy spinning-top and you were shouting at me to get down, that this was foolish, but I just laughed at you like I always did.

Then it happened. Out of the blue, out of the booze and the black depression that only comes at five in the morning after too many glasses of whiskey, it happened.

You spent the next day in the temple, punishing yourself for your sin. I competed in the local Blitz tournament.

That's why I'm Sin and you're not.

You honestly regretted what you had done, beating yourself over the head with your hypocritical religion's rigid rules. The only thing I regretted was that you'd stopped.

It's been ten years, and you know what? Things are getting too dreary for me – there's nothing to drink here, nothing to eat, no one to party with and no one to talk to when the heartaches get too much, and the bitter taste in my mouth tastes like hangovers and cigarettes.

There's nothing to do in this forsaken place but to remember.

When this is all over I'll buy us a drink and then, Auron, then we'll party until we can't remember our names.