Eliot groaned as he stirred, sprawled on a rough wooden floor using his crumpled shirt as a makeshift pillow. His head was pounding, each throb sending a spike of agony through his skull. Streaks of harsh sunlight pierced through gaps in worn and rotting planks of a boarded-up window. Eliot twisted this way and that as the rays stabbed at him, dragging the young man out of blissful oblivion and back into painful consciousness.

He tried to sit up, but the room spun around him. Nausea surged in his gut, bile rising in the back of his throat. Eliot swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit. He ran his tongue over his teeth, the texture rough and unpleasant. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the room to stop spinning. Saliva flooded his mouth, the coppery taste making his stomach churn even more violently.

In a panic Eliot lurched to his feet, unsteady and bleary eyed, the sudden movement sending a fresh wave of vertigo crashing over him. His stomach roiled and he knew he couldn’t stop what was about to happen, as the sour taste of last night's excesses rose in the back of his throat. He stumbled forward, one hand clutching his abdomen, the other groping blindly for support. He had moments, maybe less than. The room swam before him, a blur of dull colors and indistinct shapes. He spotted a bucket in the corner, a sad, rusted thing without even a handle. It was perfect.

Eliot lunged for the bucket, his feet tangling beneath him. He crashed to his knees beside his rusted savior, barely getting his head over the rim before the first wave of nausea crested. Like the generations of young men who made poor decisions before him, Eliot heaved violently into the bucket, his stomach clenching, whole body ridged as a soppy torrent of chunks of food he didn’t remember eating slopped out of him with a glutaral groan.

Strings of saliva hung from his lips, mixing with the putrid mess in the bucket. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the sheen of sweat that coated his skin. There was a moment where he thought, hoped, that would be the end of it. He fought against the reflexive twitching of his abdomen. He took in a slow, measured breath, and the stink of it was just too much for him.

For the next few minutes the young man's abdomen clenched and unclenched, muscles contracting forcefully as they worked to purge the toxic contents of his stomach. Eliot gasped for air between bouts of retching, his lungs burning as he struggled to breathe. Everything that could come out had, but even that wasn’t the end as the young man painfully dry retched, his body straining to squeeze any last dregs from his body.

Eliot collapsed bonelessly next to the bucket, his body spent. He lay there for a long moment, cheek pressed against the rough wooden floorboards, breathing heavily as the world slowly stopped spinning around him.

Completely drained and unable to muster even a glance, Eliot fumbled blindly for his shirt, eventually grasping the familiar fabric and using it to scrub away the filth as best he could given the circumstances.

Eliot grimaced at the acrid taste that lingered on his tongue and the sour stench that clung to him. He decided in that moment to never drink again.

***

The door to the room creaked open, rusty hinges announcing a visitor. The sharp-faced woman from the bar stepped inside, her angular features cast shadows in sharp angles by the harsh light. She wrinkled her nose at the sour stench that greeted her, gaze falling on Eliot's prone form and the bucket beside him.

The young man lay motionless, his face pale and clammy, hair disheveled and stuck to his forehead with sweat. His eyes were closed, dark circles etched beneath them. His shirt, now streaked with stains from his sickness, was balled up in the corner of the room. His wadded up pants his new pillow. The woman allowed herself a small, self-satisfied smirk. She had made the right call, bringing the kid here instead of to her own place next door. She never liked her neighbors that much anyways.

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She moved closer, her boots thudding softly on the floorboards, and nudged Eliot with the toe of her boot, but the young man didn't stir. She nudged him a little more insistently. Still nothing. A sharp kick to the shit had Eliot stirring awake, his eyes fluttering open, bloodshot and unfocused, and a curse on his lips. He blinked slowly, trying to make sense of his surroundings, his mind still foggy with the remnants of alcohol and the aftermath of his purge.

"Well, well," the woman said, her voice sharp and mocking. "Looks like we had a little too much fun last night."

“How did I get here?” Eliot said, looking around. “Where even am I?” Panic clear in his voice. He looked down, “ and why aren’t I wearing any pants?!”

***

Minutes later the sharp-faced woman's laughter still echoed off the bare walls in giggling fits, harsh and grating to Eliot's ears. She clutched at her sides, gasping to catch her breath between chuckles.

Eliot scowled, his cheeks burning with a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. He struggled to sit up, his head throbbing with every movement. Memories of the previous night came rushing back, and Eliot cringed, burying his face in his hands. The heated arguments, the drunken confessions, the embarrassing displays of emotions - it all played out in his mind like a mortifying highlight reel.

"It couldn’t have been that funny," he grumbled, his voice rough and scratchy.

“You said,” she wheezed between giggles and trying to breath, then did her best to strike a serious pose, “‘And why aren’t I wearing any pants?!’” she fell into another fit of giggles.

“I feel like that was a very valid question given the circumstances.” Eliot said and tried to fight off another memory from last night. A conversation he had with a grizzled old man, tears in his eyes as he spoke of his son who had joined the rebellion. "I just want him to come home," he had slurred, his voice breaking. "I don't care about the damn marines or the rebellion. I just want my boy back."

Eliot had nodded, his own emotions rising to the surface. "I know," he had whispered, his words thick with understanding. "I know what it's like to lose someone you love."

The memory made him wince, the raw vulnerability of the moment too much to bear in the harsh light of day.

The woman wiped at her eyes, finally getting ahold of herself. "Ah, don't be like that, lad. We've all been there. Well, maybe not quite there," she amended, casting a pointed glance at the bucket and its foul contents.

Bits and pieces of other conversations floated through his mind - the fiery young woman who had railed against the marines, the weary shopkeeper who just wanted a return to law and order, the scarred bounty hunter who had seen too much. Each one had left an impression on Eliot, their stories and emotions etched into his memory.

“So,” she asked, mirth draining, “ cold light of day, do you still want to know?”

“Wha-?” Eliot's brow furrowed as he tried to sift through the hazy memories of the previous night and figure out what she was talking about. Snippets of a conversation drifted back to him. She had leaned in close, her breath hot against his ear, and whispered something. The memory crystallized, cutting through the fog. "If you've still got the guts in the morning, lad, I'll tell you how to get to Mad Dog Maddox. But only if you're serious about collecting that bounty."

At the time, Eliot had nodded eagerly, his alcohol-fueled bravado overriding any sense of caution. As it was now, Eliot sat up straighter, doing his level best to ignore the pounding in his head. He fixed the woman with the determined stare he could mutter in the state he was in. "I'm still interested."

The woman's eyes narrowed, appraising him. She seemed to be searching for something in his gaze - a flicker of doubt, perhaps, or a hint of fear. But Eliot met her scrutiny unflinchingly, his jaw set and his eyes clear despite the hangover.

After a long moment, the woman nodded, apparently satisfied with what she saw. "Alright then, listen close. I'm only gonna say this once."

Eliot leaned forward, his attention fully focused on the woman's words.

"Deep in the jungle," she began, her voice low and intense, "there's a hidden cove. That's where Maddox has his base. It's well-guarded, traps everywhere. But there's a way in, if you know where to look."

“Wait, you told me that last night!” Eliot said, indignant.

“I told you a lot of stuff last night,” and she had. That Max Dog was actually a dog that ate a man-man devil fruit, that his ship sailed in the clouds, and a dozen other stories, “Impossible to know which rumor is true when there’s that many of them out there.”

Eliot wanted to disagree on principle, but she cut him off, “Now, are you going to listen to me tell you were a man is so you can go kill him, or are you going to keep talking?”

The young man held his tongue and listened.