Pizza Stop was an unassuming hole in the wall, the cheerfully enticing travelers to stop by for some pizza. Kesh eyed it warily, talking to Shou from the corner of his mouth. “With the way you went on about this place, I had assumed it to be some grand dining hall, this looks more like an inn for wayfarers, minus the bedrooms… above… it…” Any further concerns he might have voiced were silenced when someone opened the door and a wave of scents rolled into them.

Shou closed her eyes and breathed deep, inhaled the scent of hot melted garlic butter, tomatoes reduced to sauce, succulent meats just greasy enough to fit the junk-food style. She let out a happy sigh just so she could breathe in again. And the bread! Fresh baked, risen in house, it smelled like life itself, like thousands of years of human culture spent improving and perfecting that most basic of foodstuffs. They’d snacked on festival food, sausage on a stick and pretzels, but this was real food, baked with heart and soul.

She opened her eyes enough to see a similar look of rapture on Khaesho’s face. It was enough, for the moment, just to gaze at him and wonder, until he caught he noticed her stare and looked away with a blush. “I-its nothing… I just remember when my mother would bake a fresh loaf, and she’d swat my hands away from it until it was cool enough to tear and eat. That was a long time ago…”

“Well, you look half starved, and there’s no sense waiting around out here. C’mon, I’ll grab us a basket of garlic knots to snack on while our pizza bakes.” She took his hand and led him inside, making a mental note to ask how old he was. He didn’t look a day over 22, certainly he’d be carded at any bar-

That thought all but froze her in her tracks. Right. The Bar. The bar that he’d need an ID for. She guided Kesh to a corner table, mind spinning to try and think of something; she could always buy a handle from a liquor store, but that wouldn’t be as fun as drinking with their pizza, and she’d be hard pressed to convince him to spend yet more time in the city.

As they sat down with their menus, she whispered quietly to Kalokin. “Hey, Kalo… if you can make an illusion for a ten-dollar bill, can you make Khaesho a fake ID? The waiter will only glance at it, it doesn’t need to be foolproof.”

There was a moment of silence as the serpent considered this, then whispered into her ear. “If all he does is look at it, I can… probably. Lay yours face up, and put out another card of the same size, if you have one. I’ll need to study it for a moment.”

She did as she was requested, pulling an old gift card for use as the surrogate, and placed them over near the wall, out of sight of the main restaurant. Pizza Stop wasn’t the best lit establishment, and she couldn’t quite see what was happening, but colors swirled faintly across the surface, approaching the form of a totally normal and not at all falsified driver’s license.

To stall for time, she debated what pizza to share with Khaesho while they both summarily destroyed the basket of garlic bread knots served as appetizers. Her guest was left longingly licking his fingers as he stared into the now-empty basket, but their waitress’s chirpy voice called him back to reality.

“Can I get a drink while ya wait, hun, or something stronger?” She added the last bit with a glance at their ID’s, prepped and ready.

Shou jumped in before Khaesho could get himself confused and hoped that Kalokin was a good enough forger to not get them arrested. “Yes’m, we’re celebrating my recent performance! We’ll each have a World Tour, some water, coke as a chaser, and we’ll split a supreme pizza, if you could go ahead and get that in the kitchen for us.” She grabbed both cards, said a faint prayer, and passed them up to the waitress, who eyed them for a good moment.

She glanced at Khaesho just long enough to make him nervous before nodding and handing them back. “Oh that’s right, Friday was the last showing of Firebird, wasn’t it? I’ll have that right over, hon.”

Khaesho visibly relaxed after she’d walked off, hastily flicking the card back towards Shou, where Kalokin wiped it clean before she could get a good look at it. “Kalo, what’d you put on there anyways? She might have gotten antsy if she didn’t know me as a regular.”

The spirit gave a mental shrug, “I put the lies I thought her most likely to believe. Certainly I wasn’t going to put Khaesho’s real date and place of birth on there.”

Shou seized on that as the perfect segue that it was. “When is your birthday anyways, Khaesho? Is it anytime soon?”

He shook his head. “No… January thirteenth…” He trailed off, glancing anxiously to the side.

“Of what yeeeeear? Come now, usually women are the ones bashful about our age.” He hesitated and opened his mouth just in time for the waitress to come back with their drinks and set a tray of shot glasses in front of them. When she left, Khaesho mumbled a year, causing Shou to almost choke on her water. “No, no way you don’t look a day older than 26, and even that’s overestimating it.”

He shrugged, blushing furiously. “The guardians gift their Vash with longevity. It’ll be at least another twenty years before any age begins to show on me, and the oldest living Vash recorded died at the ripe age of 169 years.” As Shou processed this, he added in “If you consider age by a percentage of life or a measurement of physical maturity or decline, I do think I’d be comparable to… twenty-four years old.”

Both older and younger at the same time, somehow. She took a more cautious sip of water as Khaesho, clearly uncomfortable, gestured to the spread before them with a question. “So, this World Tour. I see we have matching glasses, but what’s in them? Just a sample platter?”

She almost opened her mouth to correct him that each shot was a full drink, but reconsidered. He’d find that out soon enough. “It’s called the World Tour because each shot is a different alcohol, from a different nation. When Kalokin mentioned imported liquor, I thought it’d be fun to give you the grand tour.”

He nodded, picking one at random to give it a cautionary sniff. “Hoooo boy that’s strong alright. Which one’s this?”

Shou grabbed her matching glass and glanced at it. “Russian Vodka. You probably know Russia, it’s the big, scary, cold one north and west of Japan. Cheers!” She clinked glasses with him and threw the shot back, chasing it with soda.

Khaesho watched this proceeding and followed suit, almost coughing on his as he forced it down, grateful now for the chaser. He coughed heartily to clear his throat, voice weak when he spoke. “That was certainly, uh, potent. I wouldn’t want a full glass of that.”

“Yea, few people would. Usually you’d mix it with something, but I figured you’d best benefit from a more… direct taste.” She eyed the long row of shot glasses warily. She knew her limits, and while this wouldn’t get her blackout, it would certainly make the steps to her apartment a daunting venture.

Khaesho was already moving to the next glass though. “And this one?”

“Irish Whiskey. From an island that was once its own nation, but now it’s kind of owned by England. I actually don’t know much about their political situation, but it’s famously popular.” This flavor in particular was a strong cinnamon, and went down much easier than the straight vodka.

“Oohhh… that was much more pleasant. I’d like a flagon of that for a cold winter storm, to be sure. What’s this glass?”

The night wore on in that vein of curiosity and exploration, augmented by the fresh pizza delivered to them four shots in. They had English Gin, American Bourbon, Mexican Tequila, Japanese Sake, Caribbean Rum, French brandy, and a pint of hearty German beer to end the night with.

Of course, Khaesho was in no way about to argue that he should return to his cave while perilously intoxicated. It barely took any effort to convince him to come back to her apartment, and he made for a pleasantly cheerful drunk, if a bit of a goofy one. After catching a ride home, they stared at the steps up to her pad for a good few seconds before Kalokin materialized with a sigh, hoisting them both to carry them up the steps. “You two are hopeless, you know that?” Khaesho gave an unstable thumbs up, and Shou just giggled until he deposited them at her door.

Her apartment was homey. The door opened into a main room with a kitchen adjoining it. One door led to her bedroom, and the other led to what would have been a second bedroom, had she not appropriated it as an art studio. She gave Khaesho the grand tour, only for him to cast an uneasy glance around. “Issa nice place you have, Shou… This couch looks comfy enough…”

“Oh, we don’t have to go to sleep just yet…” She started with a grin, pushing him back onto her bed. “I was actually wondering if you could show me how you did some of those knots.” She turned to rummage in her close bending over perhaps just a little further than necessary, knowing how her tight leggings hugged her curves. She could almost feel his eyes trailing over her form, and it sent a small thrill of excitement through her.

 When she turned around to stand up, Khaesho’s eyes tried to make the journey back up to her face, but fell short on her chest as she sauntered towards him. “Yea, sorry about that… had to make sure you didn’t run off before I got a chance to talk. You looked surprisingly comfortable with being tied up though.”

She pulled her rope out from behind her back and pressed it into his hands with a wicked grin. “Oh, I don’t know, it wasn’t so bad.” She clambered right up into his lap and went in to kiss him, grinding her body against his. His dexterous fingers clasped at her waist, and somehow, despite the heavy meal they’d just had, his breath still smelled minty, but not quite like mint. When he moaned into her lips, she smiled, breaking the kiss just long enough to lean back and stretch, the movement emphasizing her chest. “I’d certainly have been much more comfortable without my clothes in the way… let’s remedy that mistake this time, shall we?”

He glanced between her and the rope, smile widening on her face before he uncoiled it, running it through his fingers. It was softer, suppler, yet still undeniably strong, plenty enough for what he had in mind. “Yeah… We’ll just have to do that.”