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“Alright! One semester down!” Joel shouted as he cracked open his beer and took a big swig of it.
The three of them, Joel, Grian, and Jimmy, were currently in their dorm room celebrating the fact that Joel and Grian had survived their first semester of college. They were all currently sitting on Joel’s bed, legs hanging off the side as Joel and Grian enjoyed some cans of beer they picked up from the convenience store down the street.
“Man, that tastes awful.” Joel said, but he was still grinning. Grian nodded in agreement as he sipped on his own can.
Jimmy looked up from between the two of them. “Wait, it tastes bad?”
“Absolutely terrible. No wonder it was on sale.” Joel said as he took another drink.
Jimmy was even more confused. “Then why are you guys still drinking it?”
“Oh sweet and naive Jim, the taste isn’t really the point.” Joel grinned. “It’s the effect it has on you. That’s why people like to drink it.”
“Oh.” Jimmy knew what kind of effect alcohol had on humans. It made them act different and weird and sometimes even pass out. Jimmy had seen many from his time watching from within the walls. He hadn’t known that it tasted bad though. He didn’t think that was worth it at all. “I mean, I’m not a stranger to having to drink or eat things that tasted bad but why would you choose to? I don’t really think the effects are worth it to be honest.”
The tone shifted a little at Jimmy’s mention from something in his past. Grian and Joel always hated to hear how Jimmy had to survive. Whether that was Jimmy talking about living in the dust covered walls, or now, talking about the kinds of food he had to eat in order to just survive and live another day.
The two humans looked at each other. Grian shook his head and Joel sighed. So they would not be bringing it up today then. That was fine though. Today was supposed to be a day of celebration anyway.
Grian cleared his throat, trying to move past the awkward shift without having Jimmy notice. “Not all alcohol tastes bad and there are even people out there that would like the taste of this beer.” He took another sip. “But there are also people out there, like us, that don’t like the taste but still like how it affects us.”
“Yeah, a little buzz is nice.” Joel said with a shrug.
“A little buzz?” Jimmy questioned.
“Yeah, it kind of…fogs up your mind a bit. Let’s you let go and relax. At least, it does for the two of us. Alcohol can affect people in different ways though.” Joel tried his best to explain. It was weird having to explain this kind of thing to someone but honestly, he was used to explaining things like this to Jimmy. He was a borrower after all, he didn’t have the same experiences or knowledge that a human did.
Jimmy thought for a moment. “So… you guys aren’t going to like…trip over yourselves or get touchy with everyone or suddenly pass out? You’re just gonna be like…a bit more relaxed?” Jimmy said, trying to piece together what Joel just said meant. If that was the case, Jimmy was a bit relieved. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t been nervous when Grian and Joel announced they were celebrating with alcohol.
Once again, the tone shifted and Grian and Joel looked at each other and then back at Jimmy with wide eyes. “Um…yeah, no that’s, I mean…” Joel started and then looked to Grian for help.
“Yeah, just relaxed. All that other stuff really only happens if you get drunk. Which is a word that means when you drink too much. We’re not planning on going that far though.” Grian paused for a moment, wondering if he should even bring this up. “How…how do you know all that though?”
“I’ve seen my fair share of college parties, you know.” Jimmy revealed with a slight huff. “It was some of the best borrowings of my life once the party ended. I usually watched until then so I would be sure it was safe to go out there and grab some stuff.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Joel said, his voice a slightly higher pitch for reasons unknown to Jimmy.
“I mean, it can be. But I was pretty careful.” Jimmy said with a proud smile.
Grian, despite everything, snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Hey! I was! I only almost got caught once and…um, I mean, wait-” Jimmy tried to backtrack. He knew how weird Grian and Joel got about things like this. He hadn’t meant to reveal that but when he was riled up he sometimes just let things get blurted out by accident.
“You what!?” Both Grian and Joel exclaimed at the same time and Jimmy couldn’t help but wince at the volume.
“H-Hey, obviously nothing happened so let’s just pretend I never said that…” Jimmy tried, waving his hands to try and calm them both down. It didn’t work.
“Jimmy, you can’t just say something like that and expect us to just forget about it. That’s not good!” Joel said and Jimmy could tell he was gripping his beer can a little tighter than normal. Better the can and not him, the instinctual part of his brain said.
“Yeah Tim, being around drunks like that already isn’t good to begin with. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if you had actually gotten caught.” Grian reprimanded him. Jimmy looked away from the both of them, feeling ganged up on.
“Why are you two making such a big deal out of this? It was ages ago and I already told you, nothing even happened.” Jimmy said, still not looking at either of them. “I just made a stupid mistake and got seen when I was going for some chips. The human was so, uh, ‘drunk’ that he doesn’t even remember seeing me.” Jimmy tried his best to relay the story without going into too much detail. While it was fine now, Jimmy had to admit it was very scary at the time. Especially since he had waited until well into the next day watching and waiting to see if the human would try to come after him.
Thankfully, as he had said, the human hadn’t even remembered seeing him.
“Still! That’s-huh-” Joel stopped as Grian put an arm in front of him and shook his head. Joel searched his eyes before dropping his hands and sighing, looking away.
“Alright, Tim. We’ll drop it.” Grian said and Jimmy finally looked up at him. Grian’s face was carefully neutral, while Joel was now the one trying not to look at Jimmy.
“Oh, uh…thanks.” Honestly, he hadn’t been expecting that. But he was thankful all the same.
Grian then stood up, handed his drink to Joel and went over to grab his laptop from on his desk. “How about we relax and watch a movie together?”
“Okay.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jimmy and Joel said in that order.
As Grian was setting the movie up, Joel stood up and not so subtly dumped his and Grian’s beers down the sink. He felt a bit sick to his stomach after hearing what Jimmy said and he knew Grian felt the same.
It would be a long time before either of them felt comfortable drinking again.