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Jin shifted in her seat at the kitchen table as she impatiently rifled through the folders of old newspapers that made up the safehouse’s primary entertainment. From Da Shi’s explanation, there hadn’t been time to set her and Auggie up with a lot of amenities, but one would think they’d at least have a TV. Alas, that was not the case, so all that was left to distract her from the past few days’ events (fuck you, Ye Wenjie) was to scour the puzzle sections of the papers while the safehouse walls seemed to close in by the minute.
No such luck. They had all already been filled in. Jin groaned and dropped her forehead onto the table, the bruise on her temple throbbing in protest. “There’s nothing to do in this fucking place. And you finished all the crosswords before I could do them!”
Auggie, who sat across from her with seemingly the only incomplete puzzle, dropped her pen on the table with a clatter and leaned back in her chair. “You snooze, you lose, bitch. Besides, aren’t there books here too?”
“Fucker. And yeah, but I don’t have the bandwidth for novels at the moment. I’d happily stick to physics if only it worked.” After so many years of constant work, learning and researching and getting closer to a real breakthrough, having it all spoiled with no replacement left a black hole inside her that couldn’t be filled. The Three Body game had been engaging, even fun while it lasted, but everything had gone downhill fast and right now she’d kill for some good ol’ particle collider experimental analysis to calm her nerves.
Auggie didn’t reply, merely tapping her feet on the kitchen tile. While she was slightly more capable than Jin of taking time off, it wasn’t as if she’d chosen to take a vacation. After a moment, she said, “The crosswords aren’t great either, so you’re not missing much. This one’s a bit on-the-nose—it decided to hit me with the words quantum, extraterrestrial, and Armageddon one after another.”
“Yikes. That’s…on the nose.”
“You got that right.”
“No more of that, then. Got any better ideas?”
“There’s vodka in the freezer, I saw it while cooking up our lovely microwave dinner.”
Hm. A situation like this would normally call for drinks out on the town. Jin lifted her head to look out the window. The view was the same as it had been for the past few days; overgrown grass waving in the wind, gray sky darkening in the twilight, and poorly disguised undercover cops lurking in unmarked black cars every few meters. “This isn’t exactly our regular bar.”
“The armed guards don’t inspire fun and relaxation?”
“Can’t say they do. Well, at least there’s no heinously bad karaoke.”
“Damn right.” Auggie barked out a laugh. “We could play a game. King’s Cup or Never Have I Ever or something.”
Jin’s nose wrinkled. She hadn’t heard those names in years. “Never Have I Ever? What are we, fourteen? And besides, you already know everything about me. It’s just gonna be us trying to get each other stupid drunk.”
Auggie stared at her as if she was being a bit dense. “That’s the point.”
Jin couldn’t argue with that. “Alright, I’ll bite. Go get the vodka.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Auggie gave her a sarcastic two-fingered salute and disappeared around the corner. A minute later, she came back with a full handle of liquor in one hand and two stacked plastic cups in the other. “Look, Jin,” she said, setting the vodka on the table. “Maybe they wanted us to get really drunk out here.” She unscrewed the bottle cap and promptly began pouring.
“What, no mixers?” Her head ached at the thought of tomorrow’s hangover. “Don’t know how well this is going to interact with the head injury.” Jin brushed her fingers over the scabbed-up knot on her temple where she’d been grazed by a bullet and then fallen at the ETO summit. Her concussion had mostly dissipated by now, but the mark would probably scar.
Auggie paused her pouring. “We don’t actually have to do this,” she said. “It was just an idea.”
And what a quintessentially Auggie idea it was. Jin sighed, but not without affection. “No, it’s fine. Not like I can think of anything else to do.”
“That’s the spirit.” Her friend slid a cup over to Jin and sat back down. “You can start.”
“How generous of you.”
“I try.”
“Never have I ever stood up and shouted at a professor in the middle of a class discussion.”
Auggie promptly took a sip. How she didn’t flinch from swallowing pure liquor, Jin had no idea. “And I don’t regret it, even ten years later,” she proclaimed. “Professor Anderson was an incompetent old bastard who didn’t deserve his PhD.”
“I wish I’d been there to see it. I heard so many interesting stories from your classmates. How the hell didn’t he fail you?”
“Oh, he wanted to, but I didn’t make it easy.” Auggie smiled, a hint of light filtering back into her face, a rare sight as of late. Seeing that, Jin could almost slip back into the familiarity of the pre-crisis era. “My turn. Never have I ever accidentally stood up a date because I got too caught up in reading textbooks for fun.”
“Hey, it wasn’t a textbook, it was a recommendation from Vera.” All of a sudden, the image of her former mentor’s stiff face in her coffin flashed through her mind. Jin quickly took her own sip of vodka before that train of thought could go any further, her lip curling at the pungent taste. “But yeah. I couldn’t look Richard Tanaka in the eye for the rest of the semester, I felt so bad.”
“It was funny, though,” said Auggie. “If you were going to break someone’s heart, of course it would be because of work.” She took another drink despite not having been asked another question.
“I don’t know if I’d say I broke his heart,” Jin snorted. “We’d spoken, what, three times before he asked me out? I don’t think I’m exactly the heartbreaker type.”
Auggie took yet another sip. “Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said vaguely. “Better watch out, or you could do it without trying.”
Now what does that mean? Her words were pointed, although Jin couldn’t think of what she’d be referring to. Her relationship with Raj was…well, she wouldn’t know, given she hadn’t seen him much lately. The last time they’d met up was dinner with his family, which had gone as well as it could’ve given everything else that was on her mind. In the grand scheme of things, though, that had been so long ago. Her stomach sank with dread at the idea of having to explain all of this to him. It had been bad enough when he’d caught her playing Three Body in the wee hours of the morning.
Jin drank again. She’d worry about that later. “Wow, that’s not ominous at all.”
Neither of them had bothered to count points on their hands—there was no need to with a two-player, personal attack-based game. Speaking of personal attacks, a new question popped into her mind. “Never have I ever half-dated, half been friends-with-benefits with one Saul Durand.”
Auggie downed the rest of her cup and immediately poured herself a new one. “Did you have to bring that up?” she groaned. “Not one of my wisest moments.”
“Have you ever been wise?” Jin replied, arching her eyebrows.
“Rude.” Auggie sighed. “Saul and I work great as friends but shit at anything else. We really should’ve just stuck with that.”
“You’re over it, right?”
“Oh my God. Yes.” Auggie said sharply. “I’d hope you knew that!”
“How would I know?” Secretly, though, she could practically feel her blood pressure going down. She’d dutifully sat through enough tipsy rants about Saul’s carelessness or lack of ambition, ignoring flares of annoyance and something else she still couldn’t figure out, to know that this was the best for everyone involved. “Are you sure?”
“Very much so. It wasn’t really that serious anyway. I think I was just compensating for something.” Auggie shook her head. “Why so curious?”
“What, can I not look out for my best friend?” Jin tilted her head and leaned in closer, burning with curiosity. “What do you mean, compensating for something?”
“Ask me again when I have about five more shots’ worth of alcohol in me,” said Auggie, sipping from her now-full cup. “I’m not ready to unpack that. Never have I ever gone on a secret mission to spy on aliens.”
“Bringing out the big guns, aren’t we?” Jin’s cup was only half empty, but she was beginning to understand Auggie’s rapid fire drinking. She took a long swig, once again regretting the lack of mixers. “Literally and metaphorically. Sort of wish I’d had my own weapon, now that I think of it.”
Jin waited for a snarky comment about she’d be a terrible shot, but it never came. Instead, another pained look crossed Auggie’s face. “I still wish I could’ve been there,” she said.
“Wade was right,” Jin told her. “There was no way you could’ve gotten in without an invitation.” She found her fingers anxiously tapping on the table and took another sip of vodka to quiet them.
“I know.” Auggie pressed her lips together into a hard line. “I understand why you had to do it. But I hated seeing you go in blind like that. I don’t trust Wade, especially not with your safety.”
“But it ended up okay.” She reached over the table and squeezed Auggie’s shoulder, trying her best to put on a reassuring smile. “I’m here. I’m alive. We’re safe,” she said, unsure if she was trying to convince herself or Auggie more. The small, heavily guarded safehouse had kept them out of harm’s way so far, but if there was anything she’d learned from her recent experiences it was that armed police could only do so much. Not for the first time today, Jin yearned for her anxiety meds, rueing that she couldn’t take them with alcohol.
“I guess,” Auggie said faintly. She shook her head and leaned in closer. Her mouth was still twisted with uncertainty, but she spoke with a rawness that didn’t help the tightness in Jin’s chest. “You know, when Da Shi told me you were injured in the fight, I screamed at him, and I told him that he had better prove to me that you were alright or he wouldn’t like the consequences. When I got here later that night and saw you bleeding from the head, I wanted to kill someone.” She rubbed her eyes furiously, smudging her makeup into shapeless shadows.
Jin had been on the sofa drifting in and out of consciousness when Auggie had arrived, but must have remained awake enough to retain a few pieces of memory. There had been whisper-shouted obscenities from down the hall, and later the thump of someone collapsing to their knees followed by choked sobs. The recollection reminded her of how she’d felt when she’d learned about Auggie’s countdown, seeing her come back from several doctors’ appointments with no answers and a haunted look in her eyes.
“Jack’s already fucking gone,” Auggie spat down at the table. “I don’t know what I would do if something like that happened to you, too. It would…I don’t want to think about that.”
“I’m sorry,” Jin told her softly. She raised her hand to cup Auggie’s cheek, wiping away a stray teardrop with her thumb. “Not for going,” she added, unable to lie. “I don’t regret it—I can’t regret it, given what we learned about Vera’s mum. But I’m sorry for worrying you so much.”
Auggie pursed her lips, blinking back her tears. “You’re forgiven.” Her voice still betrayed a slight shake. “Should we go back to the game?”
Oh. Jin coughed and pulled her hands back. She’d almost forgotten about the game. “Sure. I think it’s my turn, but I can’t think of anything. You can go again if you want.”
“Thanks for the freebie,” said Auggie, clinking her glass against Jin’s and taking another drink. “Never have I ever…hm.” Her gaze flitted around the room, then lit up. “Never have I ever kissed my college roommate when we were really wasted.”
Jin very nearly knocked her glass over in surprise. Oh, man, what a blast from the past.
If she remembered correctly, they’d been freshly nineteen at one of Jack’s dorm parties and Jin had let it slip that she’d never kissed anyone before. Not for a lack of wanting to: romance simply hadn’t been her highest priority in life. Some of her friends had heckled her for it, but Auggie had simply asked if she wanted to get it over with right now to have the experience. Seeing the wide-eyed seriousness on her friend’s face, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. “Not bad as far as a first kiss could’ve gone,”Jin chuckled. “I didn’t know you remembered that.”
Auggie shrugged. There was a gleam in her eye that Jin couldn’t quite read. “Why wouldn’t I? I wasn’t that much of an alcoholic.”
“Debatable. Uni Auggie makes the current you look practically sober.” And current Auggie was a professional binge drinker even by generous standards, so that was saying a lot.
“It’s not like you did much better.” Auggie deflected in a lighter tone. “But hey, I’m glad it wasn’t horrible for either of us. Shame it couldn’t have been someone you actually wanted to kiss, though.”
“Who said that?” Jin’s cheeks warmed—she had a bad case of Asian flush coming on—and she took a drink, suddenly feeling as though the air was filled with status electricity. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to. You know this.”
Auggie rolled her eyes, the tears from earlier replaced by a tentative smile. “Yeah, but you know what I mean.”
“I’m not quite sure I do.” Jin smiled in return, the sparking feeling in the room remaining. “I said what I said. You know, since we’re on the topic, it’s my turn. Never have I ever told my roommate I might like women right after watching Jennifer’s Body and refused to elaborate.”
“Fuck you!” Auggie took a sip and flipped her off. Her second glass was nearly empty. “At least mine got both of us.”
“Weren’t you the one who wanted to get drunk?” she shot back. “So was that just a one-off thing, or what?”
“Hm?”
“Was Megan Fox an exception or part of the rule?”
Auggie shrugged, throwing her hands up. “I never dated enough to know and by now it doesn’t really matter. Life kept getting in the way. Other than—” she shivered— “that thing with Saul, that was it. I was too busy with work or spending time with you all.”
“Really?” Jin pushed. She wasn’t usually one for gossip, but apparently this was fair game to talk about now, so sue her. “Not even a summer fling, or—”
“Jin, it’s like you said. We know everything about each other. Yeah, I’ve been on a few random dates, but you’d be the first to know if I’d had some sort of romantic revelation.”
“Oh.” Jin relaxed at that, her mind just a little too deep in the vodka to discern why. “You could probably have anyone you want, so I guess it makes sense that you just weren’t looking.”
“Anyone I want, huh? I don’t know about that.” She gave her another unreadable look. “I may look good, but my personality has been described by some as ‘off-putting’ and ‘contentious,’ which is generally a turn off.”
Jin shook her head. “Well, whoever said that is stupid,” she declared. “You’re a catch, and they have shitty hand-eye coordination.”
Her friend didn’t respond, staring at her long enough to make her hands start sweating. “Sorry I’m not in peak joke form,” Jin said after a heavy moment. She began to feel as though this conversation was getting away from her. “I’m right, though. Never have I ever—”
Auggie shook her head, apparently back on Earth. “Hey! it’s not your turn—”
“Never have I ever hated my best friend’s boyfriend.”
Auggie smacked the table with her palm hard enough for liquid to fly out of her cup. “I don’t hate him! He’s just a pretentious little military man with an ego. I hope you’re keeping that in check.”
“His ego is fine!”
Auggie leaned over the table and tapped Jin on the forehead with two fingers. “He needs to remember that he doesn’t deserve you,” she said sternly. “You could stand to remember that too.”
Jin’s skin tingled where it had been touched. “Well, then, who does?”
“No one.” Auggie’s face was flushed rosy pink from the vodka now. “You’re too good for Raj. You’re too good for any man.”
“If you say so,” Jin mused. “I mean, I guess I’ve got the PhD going for me, and if you believe certain sources, I’m a ‘not horrible’ kisser, so—”
“I mean it!” Auggie said, shaking her head for emphasis. She was properly drunk now based on the amount of exaggerated hand gestures punctuating her speech. “If anyone’s a catch, it’s you. You’re a genius, you’re hot, you care about literally every single person on Earth and then some, you—” She fell silent, then leveled Jin with a wry, sideways glance. “But you’d have to ask Raj about the other one. My information’s not up to date.”
“What was that now?” The drinks were definitely catching up to Jin, too. “Not up to date?”
Auggie hit the table again, surely hard enough to hurt. Her cup nearly tipped over and Jin slapped her hand over the top to steady it. “Like I said, you know what I mean!”
Jin had no response to that. She just stared at her friend, considering. Over the course of their game, the light in the room had shifted. The dim twilight gray outside had fallen into a moonless, inky black night, while the incandescent glow from the ceiling lights created a golden halo around Auggie’s head. For a brief moment it was almost like they were in uni again, like passing a cheap wine bottle back and forth on a Sunday night in their dorm. But now, they drank expensive vodka, and instead of finals to worry about, it was an oncoming alien invasion. College Jin couldn’t have dreamed of such a future
“Earth to Jin.” Auggie was tilting her head, sounding unsure all of a sudden. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Huh?” She blinked. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Alright. You were just looking at me like I contained the secrets of the universe or something.” At this, Jin burst into drunken laughter, and Auggie fixed her with a look of bemusement before joining in.
“God, that would be helpful, wouldn’t it?” Jin wiped her eyes, the cosmic absurdity of their situation having well and truly set in. “We’d have nothing to worry about ever again.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have all those secrets,” Auggie said seriously in the way that only drunk women could, her words falling out onto Jin like a warm blanket. “I’d give them all to you if it were possible.”
“It’s okay,” Jin said, patting her on the shoulder. “The thought is lovely anyway. Your turn.”
“Huh?”
“You know. The game. You can do two, since I did two in a row.”
“Didn’t I already do two before?”
“Oh. I don’t really care anymore.”
“See, this is what I was getting at.” Auggie took another sip. “You worry too much, and now you’re not. My scheme worked.” Jin laid her hand on her chest in mock offense, and Auggie snickered at her. She’d been leaning closer and closer to Jin and was now half-laying on the table, which did not look very comfortable “Hmm. Never have I ever…” She searched for an idea. “Never have I ever played a drinking game in a secret safe house while at least ten armed guards watch over us.”
Jin finished her drink and started to pour herself another. “Fuck our fucking lives, I guess. What’s the next one?”
Auggie opened her mouth and looked at her consideringly long enough for Jin’s heart to skip a beat. But then she closed her mouth again, as if having changed her mind. “Never have I ever been below average female height.”
“You know what, fuck off.” Jin stood up and walked around the table. She leaned over Auggie, pointing vigorously at her. “You can do better than cheap and intellectually lazy short jokes. You can do better than that.”
“I’ll show you lazy!” Auggie retorted, standing up rapidly and knocking Jin back a few steps. She made several rude hand gestures in her direction, which Jin shoved away. Unfortunately, that put her arm in just the right range to knock over Auggie’s cup so that vodka spilled all over the table and dripped onto the carpet.
“Aw, shit. Where’s the paper towels, I’ll go clean that up—”
“No it’s fine, I’ll do it.” Auggie began to back up towards the kitchen, but her heel caught on the corner of a rogue box and brought her tumbling down towards the floor. She flailed for a moment, instinctively clinging on to Jin’s shoulders to try and stabilize herself. Her mistake, though, because all she did was pull her down and Jin fell right on top of her with a solid oof! “You okay?” Jin placed her hands on either side of Auggie’s head and pushed some of her weight off.
Auggie blinked a few times but showed no signs of pain. “S’fine,” she murmured, leaning her head back to rest on the carpet, staring at the ceiling.
This close, Jin could see tiny flecks of gold in her friend’s eyes that she swore weren’t there before. Stuck in this place, not even knowing where in England they were, little else felt real except the person in front of her. If she tried hard enough not to think about it, there was no crisis looming, no San-Ti in the depths of space, just Auggie and the incandescent ceiling lights dancing in her eyes. Just the smells of vodka, cigarette smoke and musky perfume clinging to her soft hair and the linen of her shirt, just this small safe harbor in the vast ocean of the night. Maybe it was the alcohol making her maudlin, but Jin hoped that if she stared at her friend for a little longer, she might be able to forget the last few days.
“You’re looking at me like that again,” Auggie said quietly. She hadn’t told Jin to get off her or even complained about her bones being sharp.
“Like you’ve got the secrets of the universe?”
“No. A bit.”
“A bit?”
Auggie’s lips parted. She looked back up at Jin with something heavy in her gaze, the same weight she’d caught flashes of during their game. “Almost. Like you know I have those secrets in me, even if I can’t articulate it. It makes me want to believe in…something.”
Despite the vagueness of what that something was, Jin thought that she might understand what Auggie was talking about. Beneath her, Auggie’s chest was rising and falling in tandem with hers, matching her forceful breathing. The sudden rush of blood in Jin’s ears drowned out most of what Auggie said next, but she caught the very last bit: “…doing here?”
Jin shook her head, tilting her face downward, closer to Auggie’s own. “What did you say?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You know better than that.” She leaned even closer such that their foreheads almost touched. “What was it?”
Auggie’s warm breath fanned out onto Jin’s lips. She spoke in almost a whisper. “I said, what are we really doing here?”
“I…” For a moment, a thought flickered like a firefly in her mind, one so absurd yet paradoxically coherent. The longer she entertained it, the more it made perfect sense to her, memories and conversations slotting into place like variables in an equation. The logic was sound.
But this thought terrified her, rattled her right to her very bone marrow. A secret of the universe, indeed, but not a mathematical puzzle. More like…a map that pointed to a certain path that she’d never gone down more than a few steps before. She wanted to. The want rose in her like a tsunami, and for a second threatened to break free. Her fingers twitched on the carpet. Her breath stuttered in her throat.
But it couldn’t happen, at least not right now. There were only so many days left now before trouble arose and they had to leave, when the enormity of the world came crashing back in. There was no stopping the world for this, only moving forward. Jin’s heart curled back in on itself. “We’re getting really fucking drunk, Auggie.”
As if on cue, the shine in Auggie’s eyes dulled with resignation. “We are.”
The tsunami inside Jin faded, replaced by a dense blanket of exhaustion. She didn’t get all the way up, instead shifting her body down so that her head rested right over Auggie’s chest. Even through the linen of her shirt, she could hear her friend’s heartbeat resonating strong and quick. She closed her eyes, letting the sound ground her. “You know,” Jin murmured, “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
It was a paltry replacement for the immensity of everything she’d just felt, but it would have to do.
Auggie let out an exhale through her nose that sounded like an ocean wave washing over a beach at night. “Be careful what you wish for. It could be awhile before we get out of here—it might be our uni roommate disaster all over again.”
“I’m serious,” Jin insisted. “I don’t know what I would do if I was here alone. Have a nervous breakdown and OD on my anxiety meds, probably.” She’d probably deserve it if she did. She’d let her friend die, after all. But somehow, after learning aliens were real and malicious, and nearly dying herself, she was here and alive with one of the people she loved most. That was enough for her. It had to be.
“Don’t joke about that.” Auggie’s scolding tone reverberated through Jin’s bones. “Besides, it isn’t like there’s much I can do to help, not anymore,” she added with no small amount of bitterness. “But for what it’s worth…” She shifted, and her hand settled on the back of Jin's head, fingers running through her tangled hair and sending soft shivers down her spine. “Thank you. I feel the same way. You’re one of the few things that have stopped me from going completely insane.” They lay there in the quiet together, listening to each other’s silence. Outside, crickets chirped their usual song, interspersed by the occasional rumble of cars starting. It was almost peaceful. Finally, Auggie gestured to Jin to let her up. “It’s getting late. We should go to bed, sleep all this—” she gestured vaguely at the air as to indicate their general state of affairs—“off.” She threw an arm around Jin’s shoulders and stood them both up.
Jin wavered as they rose, nearly collapsing in Auggie’s hold. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep. I might just—”
“Stay up staring at the wall and thinking for hours?”
Jin nodded. “You know me too well.”
“Yeah,” Auggie said with a long-suffering smile. “I do. Come to my room with me?”
After a brief moment, another nod. She couldn’t have everything she wanted, but she could have this. I told you you’d be carrying me home, Jin thought as she let herself be walked down the hallway, a remnant of a conversation from long ago. Her day clothes were comfortable enough to sleep in, and before long she was cradled in the sheets of a slightly different nondescript guest room than the one she’d slept in before, the only differences being the wallpaper color and the company. Auggie settled behind her, arms wrapped around Jin’s middle, her breath a warm breeze on the back of her neck. Jin clutched the duvet and tangled her legs with Auggie’s, fading in and out of coherence. In her mind’s eye, she stood at a precipice, having just taken a step closer to the cliff’s edge.
“Jin,” Auggie whispered over the crown of Jin’s head. Each movement was like a tiny, feathery kiss.
“Hm?”
“I love you.”
Auggie had said that to her plenty of times before, but something about the words felt different, now. Jin treasured each “I love you” like a precious artifact that could be swept away at any moment, and the past few days’ events had only lent this one extra weight. I’m glad I’m here with you, it said. You’re one of the few things that have stopped me from going completely insane. You know what I mean.
Jin closed her eyes. The past few days’ wounds, both literal and spiritual, still stung. With nothing to do, the grief for all she’d lost finally had the chance to sink in. There were a lot of things she regretted, but holding on to the love that remained couldn’t be one of them. “I love you too.”
Auggie held her a little tighter, warm enough to be Jin’s own personal sun. “Goodnight, Jin. See you tomorrow.”