Pigma, finally remembering to zip up his fly, stole a glance across the smoke-filled dive bar, at his oldest friend. James McCloud was starting to show his age in the grey streaks of his fur, but was still every bit the brash young hotshot pilot he had grown to love back at the academy. Wearing shades indoors again (which Pigma loved to tease him about). James said it was to improve his night vision, but they both knew that as the bald-faced lie it was - he just liked to look cool. Or rather, look how "cool" had looked in his youth - and he refused to give up the outdated notion.
The pig sidled up to the bar, and clumsily snatched up the lukewarm beer, spilling most of it on himself and his surroundings in the process. A furry eyebrow lifted from behind those ridiculous shades. "It will never cease to shock me how the finesse and reflexes you show as a pilot are reflected in none of the things you do outside of the cockpit", James prodded. He loved to tease in those offhandedly belittling ways. It was ok. It was the rapport they had. But Pigma couldn't help that it always got under his skin, just a little bit. "Well, I wouldn't say none of the things", he retorted, snorting between gulps. He could have sworn he caught a blush underneath that clean-cut orange (and grey) fur. James had a family now, one that didn't know about the pair's.. complicated past. It hung over their heads, making it hard to reminisce on the connection they had shared over the years.
But James didn't take the bait. "We meet that new kid tomorrow. Flying some exercises with him. Get him acclimated to the team. I'm excited to see what he's got. Pippy? Poppy. Something like that." Pigma merely grunted. A moment passed. That bunny hadn't come anywhere close to his and James' scores at the academy. He didn't see why they needed the kid. They had done fine without him for years. But he said nothing. They had had this conversation before. Pigma had never voiced his strongest opposition to the new recruit. But how could he? "James, I like it when it's just us. When we're out there, in our arwings, free to move as we please, just the two of us, I feel so close. Like there's nothing we can't take on together. The way it used to be". Yeah right. Not in a million years. Besides, at the end of the day, James was the boss. He called the shots. No matter how wrong he was. How unfair he was.
So he grunted into his beer, as James took a slow sip of herbal tea from his thermos. He was never as much fun after he stopped drinking. Pigma never said this, but he didn't have to. James was painfully aware. Just another splinter in the wedge driving them apart.