i'm a vegetarian and i ain't fucking scared of him

Chapter 1

Viktor wondered how long it would be before Jayce froze his credit card. Long enough for at least two more rounds, hopefully.

Under normal circumstances, Viktor didn't enjoy drinking. It left his mind clouded, his joints aching, and sent the unsettling taste of bile crawling up his throat for hours. However, today did not qualify as "normal circumstances."

Today, Viktor had been dumped. Viktor had been dumped by a man closer to a limp noodle than a person. A man with silly string for a backbone. A man who once changed his thesis project because a professor gave him a "weird look" at some fancy student dinner. The absolute audacity of this man, to think he had any say in Viktor's future happiness! The audacity of him to be right!

Viktor was drinking to forget Jayce Talis. It wasn't working.

"Just a warning, I'm supposed to cut you off after the next one," the white-haired bartender said to him. He'd introduced himself as Danny sometime between Viktor's third and fourth rum and coke.

Viktor scowled. "I did not ask you to."

"You didn't," Danny raised an eyebrow and gestured to a familiar woman approaching Viktor's tilted stool, "but she did. And her card hasn't been declined."

Lust, whose couch Viktor had slept on last night, grabbed the drink right out of his hand and knocked the rest back in one gulp. Viktor watched her throat bob with it.

"I'm surprised, Herald," she said. "I didn't take you for one to drown in your sorrows. Especially not for Talis."

"I'm not drowning, I am swimming."

"I don't think you can swim in that much rum," Danny said helpfully.

Viktor laid his forehead on the wooden bar, wet with condensation and sticky with unknown substances. "Can I pay extra to avoid further ridicule?"

"Dude, right now you aren't paying anything. Might want to check your bank account." Danny handed Viktor Jayce's credit card.

"It is not mine."

"Ah, I see he's drunk enough to confess to crimes now," Lust said, snatching the card from Danny's hand. "That's my cue to drag him away. Thank you for making sure he didn't pass out in a puddle of his own vomit, but we'll be leaving now."

Danny nodded with a surprisingly chipper smile and sent Viktor a two-fingered salute. He blinked as the two fingers blurred into quite a few more before coming together again. Perhaps he should not have had the two shots of whiskey. Or the vodka. The two rum and cokes might have been overkill as well.

Supporting his weight with a surprising strength, Lust hauled Viktor to his feet and guided him through Death's Kiss, a dive bar that seemed to cater to those usually too pathetic for Viktor to count himself among them.

Honestly, it was disgraceful what Jayce had turned him into. The urge to order another drink bubbled up his throat. Viktor gagged. Ah, he likely just needed to vomit.

Predicting his thoughts as uncannily as always, Lust pushed Viktor against the brick wall of the building, her arms positioning him closer to a storm drain.

"If you throw up on me, I will end you. This is your only warning."

Viktor did not need to be told twice. He vomited over his shoes like a good friend. Ha, and Jayce told him he was too arrogant to take direction. Take that, Talis.

Did he think about Jayce this much when they were dating? Surely not.

After much trial and error, almost entirely on Viktor's part, Lust's apartment building swam into view—blurry but thankfully not doubled. Thank everything her building had an elevator.

As soon as Lust opened the door, Viktor all but collapsed on the couch. He didn't remember making it to the living room. Did alcohol induce teleportation?

"No, you're just exeedingly wasted," Lust said.

Was he speaking out loud?

"Yes. And I'm tired of hearing about Jayce Talis, so please stop letting him control your every thought." Lust scowled at the pathetic lump of her friend. "Honestly, Herald, he's not worth the dirt on your shoes. I don't understand why you were together for so long and I have no idea why he inspired such a long bar tab."

"He's obnoxious."

"Yes."

"Hard-headed, condescending."

"I fully agree."

"The worst kind of idiot with a martyr complex."

"You're preaching to the choir, darling."

"I think I'm in love with him." Viktor's voice faded to a whisper. "Why do I care?"

"Now that is a question I can't answer," Lust said, just as soft.

The two sat in silence. Without the motion of drinking keeping him occupied, Viktor found that his mind was overrun with treacherous thoughts of what he would miss from his failed relationship. Even after cutting him out completely, Jayce still took up too much room in Viktor's life. Was it always going to be this way? Sad and lonely and too much like the feeling of losing anyone he could rely on?

"Okay, we're not doing this."

Ah, but Viktor did have at least one person he could still rely on.

Lust broke the silence with a determined fist to the coffee table. "I am not letting Jayce Talis do this to you. You are so much better than he could ever be, and his worm-like ending of your relationship only proves my point. Something must be done about his big head and bigger ego."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Lust said, "that the best way to get over a break up is to break them back. We're going to shatter Jayce Talis' heart and stomp on the pieces."

"We are?"

Lust smiled. "Yes. And I know just how to do it." She regarded Viktor like a tailor mentally taking his measurements. "What are your thoughts on psychological warfare by way of heterosexuality."

Viktor blinked. "I do not understand, but I'm listening."