Are You Game?

Title: Wendigo Whiskey
Author/Artist: leonhart29
Rating: T
Warnings: Drunkenness.
Word count: 1,903
Prompt: Final Fantasy VIII, Kiros/Laguna/Ward: alcohol - and will you please ignore/that you found me on the floor
Summary: The President of Esthar gets a present that holds one hell of a punch.
A/N: So this is me getting back in the writing saddle, so to speak. Enjoy.
Oh yes! And thank you to my loving husband and Beta, samuraiter.

"Hey, Laguna," Kiros called through the door to the President's personal chambers, "you in there?" There was a slightly worried tone to his voice as he called to the man that had been one of his best friends for years. From what the Palace Guard told him, there had been spooky sounds, moans, and crashes coming from the President of Esthar's rooms all afternoon. It had the cleaning staff all in a lather, and not one of them would dare even come down the hall, much less check to make sure the President was all right.

"Do you think he's even in there? He's usually tripping over himself to get to the door when we show up," he whispered as he turned to the hulking man standing next to him.

Ward just shrugged his shoulders and signed with his hands, "I really have no flippin' idea if Laguna is even in the city, let alone his rooms. You don't think he's been in there since Squall and Seifer left two days ago, do you?" His hands stilled when a rather large crash came from behind the solid oak door and a muffled curse, followed by uncontrollable giggling, drifted out to them. His blue eyes turned back to Kiros, and he had an odd smile on his face. Kiros had no problem grasping the meaning behind that look: their friend was either drunk or had finally decided to get some tail. Either way, the situation was getting out of hand, and someone, presumably Laguna, was going to come out of it the worse for wear.

"Well, that settles that little question, doesn't it?" Kiros said as he produced his card key and let himself in, Ward following him like an unusually genial gargoyle.

The apartment was an even bigger mess than Laguna's file cabinets were on a bad day. If there was a potted plant in the entire suite that hadn't been upended onto the carpet, Kiros would eat his overly starched collar. "Laguna?" he called out softly, not wanting to gather any more attention from the palace staff. As it was, the story of the odd noises coming from behind the door would be all over the palace by midnight ... and on the front page of the morning paper. "Probably with the headline President's personal quarters: haunted or just bad plumbing?" he muttered to himself as he followed the trail of dirty footprints into the kitchen.

"Well, Laguna, what do you have to say for yourself?" Kiros asked with a small chuckle in his voice as he stood at the door surveying the damage. From the looks of it, the crash they heard was Laguna trying to sit at the kitchen table with a bottle of deep amber liquid and missing the chair, his presidential ass hitting the floor hard enough to make the man see stars.

"Don't know whatch'a mean, Kiros," Laguna slurred as he tried and failed to pull himself up onto the upside-down chair. If he sat on it that way, he really would have a stick up his ass like some of the members of his cabinet kept saying.

Ward tapped Kiros on the shoulder and pointed at the counters and sink. There were enough empty bottles perched here and there to open a distillery. From the fumes wafting over from the direction of the table, they could just hook a hose up to Laguna and use him for the still. Kiros now knew why the potted plants were mating with the carpet, as every bottle, including the one Laguna was trying to reach from the floor, had dirt stuck to it where a label had been carefully removed.

"Why dontcha' join me, fellas?" Laguna swayed alarmingly as he spoke. Apparently, trying to stand up at the same time as bending over to pick up the chair was a bit too much for his pickled brain to handle, and he landed on his backside once again, only this time his head decided that the floor would make a damn good pillow. "Ouch!"

"Here, let me help you up," Kiros said as he started forward. "I don't believe it."

Ward came over to take a look and silently shook with unsuppressed mirth.

"Either he knocked himself out, or the booze finally won the battle," Kiros said as he hauled the man up slightly so he could get a better grip. "Shit, he's heavy when he's not talking. Must be all that pent-up hot air."

Ward bent and slung Laguna over his shoulder with the energy a normal man would use to pick the cloth of his boxers out of his ass crack, grinning at a completely unimpressed Kiros.

"Show-off," he snorted as he led the way to Laguna's bathroom. "Let's at least get him a little cleaned up." Kiros heaved a huge sigh as he turned on the shower to full arctic winter. "And here I thought I was done bathing him after the last time he decided that he could do a better job of killing monsters than his son."

Ward and Kiros took turns holding the man upright so they could strip him down to his boxers and then unceremoniously drop him in the bathtub, where he slid down to the floor and started to snore in earnest.

"At least we know he's not knocked out. What the hell was he drinking?" Kiros asked no one in particular as he left Ward to watch over Laguna, going into the living room to try and find some answers. It didn't take long for him to realize that the bottles came that way: no labels, only glue.

He pulled out his cell phone and punched in Squall's number, then tapped his foot in some dirt while he waited.

"Leonhart here," the slightly chilled voice on the other end said in a "you woke me up, this had better be really good or it's your ass" way.

"Hi, Squall, it's Kiros. Your father's a bit drunk on something that I can't identify and I'm hoping you could shed some light on what it might be. Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother you about this one, but it looks like he's been drinking since you left, and there's –" Kiros silently counted the bottles he could see, hoping there weren't more he couldn't. "– approximately eleven empty bottles and one half-full one. Ward and I even plopped him a cold shower, but the man just lays there and snores."

"I honestly don't know, but I have a feeling I'm aquatinted with someone who does," Squall said before hanging up the phone. Kiros just looked at the buzzing phone before flipping it closed and stowing it back in his pocket. He knew the young man on the other end would help him figure this out and call back if it was anything serious. In the meantime, he had a babysitting job to do and what was left of the night in which to do it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A loud banging brought Kiros out of the doze he was in and brought him to his feet with practiced and battle-hardened ease. "Who is it?" he yelled as he stormed over to the front door and opened it.

"Well, I'd tell you, but I think you already know," Squall said with a raised eyebrow as he took in Kiros's disheveled appearance and what looked to be two days worth of stubble on his chin. "Can I come in?"

Kiros just moved out of the way and walked back into the living room, trusting that the young man would close the door. After what he and Ward had been through over the past two days, he was disinclined to waste time on frivolous manners at the moment.

Squall did indeed close the door before following Kiros into one of the biggest messes he had ever seen in his life. Not only was there potting soil all over the carpets, but the draperies had been pulled from their rods, there was a boot-sized hole in the flat-screen TV above the mantle piece (that would be a story in and of itself, he thought), pictures from the walls and shelves thrown everywhere, and what looked like the entire contents of the couch cushions hanging from the ceiling fan.

"Do I dare ask what happened?" he said as he perched on the edge of the coffee table. That, at least, was still in one piece. A loud voice thundered through the closed door to the bedroom, making them both jump.

"I mean it, Ward! I'll personally execute whoever it was that left that damn stuff in my apartment." And then a slightly quieter and more subdued voice added, "And will you please ignore the fact that you found me on the floor?"

Kiros sank back onto the one good cushion left on the couch and sighed as if the longest battle of his career had just come to an end.

"Found him on the floor?" Squall asked.

Kiros just shrugged and gave a weak smile in return.

"I have some information for you, by the way. This isn't just a social visit, although something tells me I missed one hell of a time." Squall graced Kiros with a very rare smile and then handed the other man a gold-and-black label from his jacket pocket. From the stormy look on Kiros's face, he was right in the assumption that the man knew more about what had been in those bottles than Squall did. "I had to beat it out of him, but Seifer finally copped to hiding fifteen bottles of the stuff around the apartment and leaving one on the table with a note. The note held a clue as to where the other bottles could be found, and I take it he found them all?"

"Only eleven of them, so now I'll have to tear the place apart to find the other five. This stuff is illegal in Esthar, you know," Kiros smiled slightly, a very evil little smile. "No one bothered to tell us what this stuff did before we ordered a bunch of it for the annual Staff Christmas party."

"And what does it do, exactly?" Squall asked once it was apparent that Kiros wasn't going to be forthcoming unless it was dragged out of him.

"It not only lowers your inhibitions to a dangerous level, but it makes you crave it. The more you have, the more you want, and you'll do almost anything to get it, too, at least until you sober up, which takes about two days. You see, this shit is distilled Wendigo urine," he said as he held up one of the empty bottles and the label that clearly said Wendigo Whiskey. "Wendigos use their urine for mating purposes, and to attract their prey."

Kiros looked up from the label he was glowering at when a soft "snerk" reached his ears then almost fell off the couch in surprise. The man who almost never smiled, who scared even the gods, was bent over double with almost silent laughter, tears streaming down his red face.

"Okay, maybe I don't have to keep Seifer in lockdown for five years. One will do," he said once he got control of himself and then sedately walked out the door, leaving Kiros and Ward to clean up after Seifer's little joke.