"It's A Motherfucker" - Ficlet for jurisimmortalis

[watch_the_nails]

Things just hadn't been the same since Nat had gone.

The place smelled different, for a start; stuffy and musky, covered in his own scent, without the smell of a female to counterbalance his own masculine aroma. It weren't as if he'd actually pissed anywhere but the bathroom, but his coat had a habit of brushing against the furniture and leaving traces of his passing - and that was another thing. He hadn't bothered changing his clothes since Nat had left, either. Hell, she was the only reason he'd taken to bathing on a semi-regular basis, but with his incentive to wash having disappeared, he was more than content to just sit there and wallow in his own sweat and dirt for as long as he wanted, savoring the smell of earth and blood - and whiskey.

It would have been hard not to notice the whiskey.

If there could have been one thing Victor would have changed about his healing factor, it would have been the ability to actually get some kind of a buzz from alcohol. It didn't matter how much he drank, he could never do any more than achieve a vague haziness and sometimes an even fouler temper than usual, and that was on the hardest liquor he could possibly find. For now, he was just knocking back the cheap stuff as if it were water, in the vague hope of gaining some kind of solace; but it wasn't really working. Instead, he just stank of sour whiskey, and his mood was worse than ever. Goddammit.

He snarled as he finished the dregs of another bottle, hurling it away from him and not even caring as it smashed against the edge of the kitchen counter. Why should he care if there was broken glass lying around? It weren't as if it would hurt him, and if Nat was so damned house-proud, she could come back and clean it up. Muttering to himself, he grabbed at another packet of potato chips and tore it open, stuffing them into his face.

It was the curious 'miaow' that attracted his attention. He'd forgotten, briefly, that he wasn't the only inhabitant of the loft; Moose had been poking his head in, here and there, although the feral's foul moods had mostly kept the cat at bay. He glared at the cat as it stared back at him.

"You don't eat potato chips. Yer a goddamn cat."

But Moose edge closer, trying to sniff at the bag.

"I said, y'don't eat... ah, dammit." Shrugging, he offered a chip to the cat - which was refused. Sighing, Victor rose to his feet and headed for the fridge. He'd been saving it for later, even though it was starting to smell a bit funny, but he figured, what the hell. Nat would kill him if the black cat starved. He pulled out a plate with a manky-looking piece of meat on it, and set it down for Moose to start sniffing and licking at. "Enjoy it. 'Cause that was gonna be my damn dinner. Fuckin' cat."