Summary: Thrawn is getting familiar with more human habits.

…

Notes: The name of the city is made up by me, but the planet actually exists in the Star Wars universe.

…

(on Thunder Wasp)

"The base of this smuggler ring is in a city called Al'chol." Eli said and paused to search more information in his datapad.

"Oh.. I am familiar with Al'chol." Thrawn replied. "It is on Gacerian, it has 300 000 inhabitants and it lies next to a huge mountain range where the main source of the city's income lives – the Mears."

Eli looked up in awe. "How did you know that?"

Thrawn sighed and thought back. "That is a long story."

…

(flashback, at the Academy)

Thrawn was sitting at his table and studying. He was alone, which he appreciated and was determined to use all the quiet time he had for studying. His roommate was usually with him and both of them spend evenings together – either studying or talking.

This evening was a bit different. Eli's friends from Lysatra happened to have a trip to Coruscant, so they invited Eli to spend some time with them to catch up.

Thrawn looked at his comlink absent-mindedly to check the time. Eli was gone for only three hours and Thrawn expected him to be there much longer so he immersed himself to his new textbook about the structure of the Imperial army.

…

After few more hours, when the natural sunlight was long gone, Thrawn heard some noise from the hallway. It seemed as somewhat uncoordinated walk. At first he thought nothing of it, but sat up when the person stopped in front of his room.

Then he heard shuffling and a short giggle.

Perhaps someone mistook the room. Go away, I'm trying to read.

But the person leaned against the wall and slapped a card near the scanner. At first nothing happened because the person missed it, but after few tries the door opened with the typical hiss.

Thrawn turned around to face the visitor and was surprised to see Eli. His roommate was still leaning against the wall and grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey there."

"Cadet Vanto," Thrawn greeted him with a nod while thinking why his roommate was being so different. The man was walking differently and his obviously great mood seemed unusual but Thrawn couldn't understand how a meeting with friends would have such an influence on normally quite silent and shy person.

Eli laughed and finally decided to walk into their room.

"Cadet Vanto." He mimicked Thrawn's voice and facial expression and then laughed again. "Why so official?"

Thrawn stared at Eli with confusion. Not that he wouldn't wish for his aide to be happy, but something was not completely right and Thrawn hated not knowing what.

Eli walked to him and Thrawn silently watched his unsteady steps. To say he was taken by surprise was an understatement.

Perhaps something was wrong with Eli's muscles, but if that was the case, he would probably complain about it already and not grin at Thrawn.

The Chiss wanted to get up, but Eli stopped in front of him and then supported himself against the table. Thrawn pushed his chair back automatically to get his personal space back, but at the same time Eli turned and sat on the table.

Then he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, staring closely at Thrawn. The alien frowned at the weird behaviour, but didn't say anything.

"So blue." Eli said with a sigh.

"Cadet…" Thrawn stopped and then started again. "Eli?"

The man laughed. "Yeah, that's better." He said with approval.

Then he fell back so he was basically lying on the table.

"How was your evening?" Thrawn asked.

"Perfect, we had lots of fun." Eli swung his arms to the sides.

Thrawn watched his closely. The problem was not only in muscles, it seemed that his mind was affected as well. Was it an illness? Should he call for a medical droid?

Thrawn got up and leaned over Eli, who smiled at him in return. Then he raised his arm and pointed at Thrawn's face.

"Your eyes are so weird… They're like glowing. But it's cool, I can always find you when it's dark."

"Eli." Thrawn tried to get his attention.

"But… how do you see things? Do you see differently than humans? But how would you know if you did?"

"What I can see is that you are not entirely… fine." Thrawn couldn't settle for any right word, so he used the ordinary 'fine'. He wanted to say 'in control', but didn't in case the human found such accusations insulting. It certainly was very insulting to Chiss when someone pointed out that they weren't controlling themselves properly.

"What are you talking about? I've never felt better." Eli gave in another of his wide grins.

Thrawn looked for any sigh that would show his roommate was being sarcastic, but started worrying when he couldn't find any.

To the Chiss it suddenly occurred that it seemed very probable that Eli was drugged, but couldn't decide whether he took the drugs voluntarily to enjoy the evening more or someone forced him to take them.

Thrawn looked at him anxiously and asked carefully. "Did you take any drugs, Eli? Or do you remember anyone giving you some?"

To Thrawn's surprise, Eli laughed again.

Perhaps the situation was even more serious than the Chiss thought.

"Define drugs." The man giggled.

The shock Thrawn felt must have been clearly visible, because Eli added. "Relax. It's just alcohol. It tech-… tech…, I mean tech-ni-cally isn't even considered a drug."

Thrawn repeated the new word in his mind. Then he nodded with pretended understanding, stepped aside and casually reached for his datapad.

Eli didn't seem to notice that he was suddenly staring at the ceiling instead of the alien.

Thrawn sat down and went on holonet while keeping an eye on Eli.

A-L- then he typed C, because usually the phoneme k was represented by letter c in Basic –H-O-L.

Alchol.

The results of his research showed him Al'chol, a city on Gacerian. Perhaps this drug originated in this place and Eli and his friends knew about it because it was close to their homeplanet.

Thrawn read about the city attentively, but couldn't find any mention a drug, so he changed his search for any drugs that were being used on that planet.

Few minutes later he still didn't find an satisfying answer.

"Thrawn?" Eli asked. "What are you doing?"

"I am studying." Thrawn replied in a flat voice, deliberately trying not to look at him.

"Okay. Come on." Eli prompted and held out his hand.

Thrawn looked at him in confusion. What did he expect to be handed? Thrawn looked around, but the only thing on the table, except for Eli, was Thrawn's datapad. Did he want the datapad?

Eli must have noticed because he whined impatiently. "Your hand, Thrawn."

"Oh." His acknowledgement didn't include understatement, but he still raised his hand and held Eli's, trying to continue with his search.

"Thrawn?" Eli asked again. "What are you doing?"

The man stared in front of him in confusion.

"I am studying." Thrawn replied and added 'loss of short-term memory' to his mental list of symptoms.

Eli tugged at Thrawn's hand a little.

"But you are supposed to help me up."

"Oh." Thrawn got up to gain more leverage. "I suppose that makes more sense."

He helped Eli to a sitting position, because the man didn't look like he wanted to stand or even go anywhere.

"Do you have a favourite one?" Eli asked.

"Favourite what?" Thrawn pretended ignorance, so he could make his roommate repeat the name of the drug.

"Maybe you would enjoy corellian whiskey, people say it is the masterpiece and the rest is just a mud."

"Which one do you like?"

"That depends." Eli shrugged.

"And which one did you have today?"

"Just a bit of vodka." Eli giggled shortly.

Vodka. Let's try that. Thrawn sat down again and quickly typed it into the datapad. He immediately noticed his previous mistake in spelling which lead him to completely useless information.

The information he found now captivated him so much he didn't notice Eli lying back on the table.

According to the holonet it was quite normal and perfectly legal in most systems to consume this liquid, which set Thrawn at ease.

In few minutes he went through the most common types of alcohol, how it was produced and which cultures preferred which.

"You know what, let's go." Eli suddenly declared and got up with mysteriously acquired energy.

Thrawn put down the datapad and his first through was to follow Eli in case his muscles forgot how to work, but then he realized that he completely forgot to look up how the alcohol affected humans and what to do with someone, who could be defined, according to holonet, as 'drunk'.

"Where are we going?" Thrawn asked.

"To a bar."

Thrawn decided to stall to get a chance to read the rest of what he needed.

"I'll just… finish the chapter and then we can go." The Chiss quickly searched at his datapad and hoped to get all information fast.

"Nah. You can read it tomorrow. Come on." Eli stopped and took few credits from his drawer.

Meanwhile Thrawn came across a piece of information that surprised him. "Cadet Vanto, did you know that drinking alcohol will make you sick?"

"Nah. Relax." Eli state confidently.

"It's a chemical reaction which happens in your body, you cannot influence it." Thrawn quickly approached Eli and blocked his way.

"Tell me, how do you deal with a drunk person?"

"You get drunk with them and have fun." Eli replied.

"That is not what I thought." Thrawn shook his head. "I wanted to know, how you can heal a person from this condition."

Eli frowned. "You don't heal them."

Then he fell silent, his thoughts stuck and his mind too clouded to continue.

"So how do you get out of this state? We have lectures tomorrow." Thrawn pressed for more information.

"I'll be fine tomorrow. I'll sleep it off."

Thrawn realized now he had the objective of his mission – to get Eli to bed.

"Is that all? Isn't there perhaps a medicine which would react with the chemicals and stop the reaction?"

"I don't really think there is any." Eli looked around. "So, where are we going?"

"You wanted to go to sleep." Thrawn tried.

"Did I?" Eli said sarcastically.

"Not right now, you also said you wanted to take a shower, as you always do in the evening." Thrawn gently lead him to the refresher.

"I don't think so." Eli said, but didn't protest, not even when Thrawn closed the door behind him.

The Chiss waited outside and listened. At first Eli just stood where Thrawn left him, probably thinking what to do, but then decided to take a shower after all.

Thrawn went back to the table and continued with his research.

…

Not so useless after all.

"Sir?" Ensign Vanto asked when his superior was silent for few minutes, staring into space.

"Yes, a very long story indeed."