“You’re making a mess on my counter.”

Throwing her paws up in the air dramatically, Viperstream rolled across the bar counter. A tired, but content look was plastered across her face as she stared up drowsily at Lydia, blinking slowly. The pub bustled with life around them, Viperstream's uncharacteristic openness somehow sort of blending in amongst the commotion.

“Come ooooon,” she purred. “It’s a small price to pay for my company. That doesn’t come cheap! And you know you love it!” she righted herself, sliding back onto the bar stool, planting her elbows on the counter and resting her chin on her paws, with a dramatic sigh.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Dunno… just stuff. And things.”

“Like?”

“Eeeeeh,” Viper growled. “Nothing big, just... ugh. Thoughts.”

“Enlighten me.”

Viper huffed, rolling her eyes, as if trying her best to avoid the topic. “It’s not like it’s anything bad, it’s just a difficult… thing for me to elucidate on. Becaauuuuuse,” she said, “You know how it isss… talking, and stuff, about things. Even though we do that a lot.” Viper paused, gathering her nerves before a letting out a confident exhale. The changes in her own demeanor always unnerved her-- putting on the front of a public menace seemed, and typically was, much easier than actually trying to establish any emotional connection, and even with Lydia being even minorly emotionally vulnerable or open was treading new and dangerous ground. She puffed up her chest. “It just feels a lot more… hostile around here, lately. On all sides.”

“Hasn’t seemed that way to me. You checking the company you keep?”

“I don’t keep company, Lydia. I’m a solo player.” she stopped, exaggeratedly looking over at her bartender friend. “Aside from when I come here, obviously, but my point still stands.”


“You’d think I was an asshole if you didn’t know me.”

“That’s what I’m getting at! There are people who are real assholes out there, and then there’s people who are just… flawed, and I feel like it’s unfair to write everybody off as an asshole… although, paradoxically, everyone is an asshole? Like, at some point, you’re an asshole. I'm an asshole, personally. Everyone is at least once, I wouldn’t trust anyone who’s been one-hundred percent pure their entire life ‘cause that’s emblematic of some really fucked up shit, I think. Ugh. I dunno… it just… it frustrates me, you feel? Everybody’s throwing stones in glass houses.” She punctuated that last bit with a hiccup.

“That’s the way the world works, bub.” Lydia propped her head up with an arm on the counter.

“Aaaaanyway,” Viper grinned, forked tongue flickering between her sharp teeth. “You wanna heaaaaar what I learned looking through the records today?”

Lydia laughed. “No! That’s cheating!”

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