They'll hurt you, and desert you...

On finishing the song, the bearded gent slapped the arm of his chair.
“Nice, this. Isn’t it?”
The room was a bit unfocused through my squint (I was pretty loaded), but I certainly appreciated the plush chairs, wood panelling, and realistic faux-fireplace, of the remarkably well preserved Officer’s Lounge. We could have been back on Earth.
“What is?” I asked, drawing on my third cigar of the evening.
“Two friends having a smoke and a drink.” He smiled. “Easy company.”
I nodded and raised my glass, till what he’d said sunk in and I choked on the exhale.
Friends?

When I’d recovered some, I stared at him. His mature, normally-hard face, glowed softly in genuine good humour, his eyes a-crinkle with amiable mirth.
He was a good guy and I didn’t know how to reply, without sounding like the drunken a**hole I was.
“I don’t…” I began, stopping myself to consider my reply more carefully - which was no mean feat in the state I was in, I might add. He gently inclined his head, as if he somehow knew what I was about to say. “M’yes?”
I couldn’t focus. My armour was gone and I was off guard.
“I don’t really do… uh, ‘friends’.”
The older man regarded me with a momentary air of unsettling wisdom. His smile widened but he said nothing.
I realised I was likely being a dick.
I don’t remember telling it to, but my mouth kept on moving.
“Gomez was the nearest thing I had to a friend in recent times” I heard myself say “but Bedge killed ‘im. An’ THEN, Bedge was the nearest thing I had to a mate… Messed up. I know.” I sighed. “But he did help me when I was bleeding to death.” I added, with a shrug.
Plisken nodded over the top of his mega-posh cut crystal tumbler, encouraging me to say something more.
“I don’t get close to people, an’ thassa way I like it” I explained.

Plisken’s response was to chuckle softly, like an old horse giving a gentle whinny, and shake his head in apparent amusement. “Ahhh, lad. To be so young and foolish.”
I took no offence – it wasn’t like Seymour condescendingly calling me “that boy”, I knew Plisken meant no harm by it.
I laughed too. Young and foolish was the last thing I’d felt lately and it was refreshing to be reminded that I wasn’t in fact ancient, or bearing eternity across my shoulders like some kind of yoke-hefting multiversal milkmaid. And in my inebriation, I even almost believed it.

“You must be, what…” he waved his hand around, squinting my way - noticeably drunk himself, now.
“... Hm, it’s hard to tell, exactly.” He leaned towards me. “’Cause you see, you’ve got a slightly weathered ‘thing’s’ve been tough’ kind of look…” I raised my eyebrows – he could talk. “… mixed with a sort of boyish thing, going on there.”
I was getting a bit lost - his babbling wasn’t the easiest to keep up with. What with my head-start I was surprised we could understand each other at all. Some things were lost on me, but I was enjoying his company, nonetheless.
“Thing is,” he continued, with an amusingly-unnecessary overly serious tone to his voice “are you a boyish man, or a mannish boy?”
I frowned and considered this. “There a difference?”
“Oh yes” he muttered, “oh yes. Lots.”

He sat back, taking another sip of something expensive. “You must be…” he jutted his bottom lip over his beard “let me see… thirty… seven, thirty eight? I don’t know,” he waved another hand “I find age so confusing, these days. You young folk all look the same.”
I chuckled and, somewhat bizarrely, found myself winking. “Som’n’ like that, I ‘spect.”
“Ach well, a mere pup, then!” He grinned, and put his feet up on a thickly padded footstool, a glint illuminating his eye.

“I remember what it was like to be in my thirties” he announced, just as my mind had begun to wander again.
The sentence hung in the air for a moment before we looked at each other and began to laugh. For some reason it was ridiculous to imagine Plisken in his thirties.
“It wasn’t that long ago, believe it or not” he informed me, stroking his long beard in a wizard-like way.
I didn’t know - or couldn’t remember, if I should - what he meant exactly, but he must have been referring to something to do with his aging… issues.
“You… You know… You’re all right, Pliss- Pisskin.”
Despite myself, I was starting to feel quite fond of the old duffer – pr’aps we’d bonded a bit during our time as gladiators, down on Fernandos.
The thought scared me.
“I don’t do friends” I quickly reminded the both of us, a little more quietly than I’d intended.
“All right, laddy.”

I changed the subject.
“Eh… How’dyou know so much ‘bout the Off’sers Club?”
He gave me a look. “I’ve been known to frequent a few…”
“Hm.” Again, I didn’t really know what he meant, but I liked the sound of it.
I sat back and closed my eyes, pretending I was in some swanky establishment back home, and wondered if Plisken was doing the same.

There was several minutes’ easy silence, broken only by the sound of my irritable scratching.

“Plisken?”
“Yeah?”
“You itching, from the Haruk?”
“Yep.”
“Glad it’s not just me.”
I scratched at my belly and chest where bits of stubbly fur were re-emerging, replacing that which had been removed by the pervy demons.
It wasn’t just the hair which itched, but also the thick, ugly flaw striping up my lower abdomen. While I’d gotten used to them, and had got into the habit of bouncing the backs of my fingernails over them, I was extremely relieved the staples were finally out. Thanks doc.
I ran my finger over the scar, taking it in semi-properly for the first time. This one I could touch with no problems.

With shock and irritation I noticed Plisken looking at the others and pulled my gaping smoking jacket angrily closed.
He gestured at my general person.
“Saw your tattoo earlier. Military?”
I was peeved at the privacy-prodding. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“You’re a funny fellow. All right, something else. You got family?”
I opened my mouth to reply but before I could, he said “let me guess, you ‘don’t wanna talk about it’?”
I nodded.
“Well what do you talk about?”
I shrugged. “Not much. Whyn’t you tell me a story?”
“What’ve you got to hide?”
I glared, not sure if he was serious. “Nuthin’.”
“Well let’s talk, then.”
“You a psychiatrist? You gonna tell me I’m ‘not all there, mentally’?”
“Being reserved doesn’t mean you’re ‘not all there’” he reassured.
“Din’ talk f’two years, once” I found myself admitting.
“What!? Two years?”
“Yeh.”
He raised both bushy eyebrows.
“I wus five. Jacob, my brother, was only two. Our mum left. He can’t-“ I stopped, and corrected myself. “He couldn’t… really remember her.” I frowned again. “Think that’s why he was so stroppy half the time.”
“Hmm.” He exhaled a rich plume of smoke and squinted at me again. Did he want me to go on?
“When my voice came back, I stammered for a while.”
Shit.
I immediately felt stupid and vulnerable, and regretted saying anything. A reminder that opening up – drunken or otherwise - was a bad, bad thing. My insides squirmed in shame. “Gods.”
More drink’d sort it out…
After a while Plisken spoke up again - yet another question.
“Gods? You a religious man, Solvay?”
I assume I raised an eyebrow, although by this stage I wasn’t entirely sure what my face was up to.
“Don’t…”
“… Wanna talk about it. All right.”

He sighed and stood up, stretching his arms out, and purposely cracking his back.
“Know what I could do with?”
“What?”
“A kebab from the promenade.”
“Yeah!”

Then, maybe, if I didn’t pass out or puke on his shoes, he’d stop asking me questions and tell me something instead.
I’m always happier listening than talking.

“Pissken?”
“Yes?”
“Do gerbils even know how to make kebabs?”

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<Jaxx the end of your post is missing. I've noticed a few people do that sometimes! Not sure how it happens.>