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It had been a while since Rick had been in this part of town. Hell, it had been a while since he had been in this country. He'd just gotten through a full tour in the Middle-East, and he was going to take the opportunity of being back to go to every bar he remembered from his old life, good or bad. Tonight, it was a place called “San Diego's Dunce.” He didn't remember it, but it looked like it had been around for a while, and it was on the same street as June's apartment complex. June was an old friend. The two had met in basic, and at first Rick thought that they were going to become more than friends, but June was very quick to shoot down that idea, insisting that she was married to her work. So Rick let it go. Now, Rick was crashing at June's place, temporarily, while he was in town. He was still waiting for someone to buy his old townhouse so that he could move in downtown. It was a long, tedious process, but as long as June was there for him, which she always was, he'd be fine. Just fucking fine. Promise. Which was the reason he was sitting at this bar, three glasses of tequila into the night. Out of the night, more like. It was two thirty-one in the morning, according to the fancy clock that hung on the wall behind the bar. This place was pretty, with antique-looking tables and crates of old bourbon sitting in the back. The bar was a deep, rich mahogany, with a thick sheet of glass sitting on top of it. The surface was riddled with age-old iron nails, the perfect thing to hit your hand on to order another drink. Rick was halfway between sober and drunk and contemplating whether or not to go home now. He looked wistfully at the olive in the bottom of his glass, imagining that it was an eyeball, an angel watching over him and blinking in morse code, telling him that it this was his only chance to give it up. He sighed, throwing a twenty onto the bar and standing up. As he shrugged his jacket on, the bartender—a young man with a beard and an Australian accent—nodded to him, a small goodnight. The bar was empty by now, although it was never really full, being a quiet place to hunker down and be lonely, or have a long talk with a good friend. There were two people left in the bar apart from Rick—the bartender, and a man in dark black clothes, sitting at the end of the bar nursing a tall glass of vodka. He didn't look at Rick, but he had been there all night, and as Rick turned to leave, he downed the glass in front of him in one go, setting his own money onto the counter. The bartender winked at him as he stood to chase after the attractive military man, whispering “Go get 'em,” and accepting the glare that was thrown his way. Rick had stopped in front of the door, checking his phone for a message from June. Nothing. All of a sudden, a heavy arm was thrown around his shoulders, and a strong, slurring voice said, “You look like a tall glass of water, and man, have I had a lot to drink.” Rick looked sharply at the man attached to his shoulder. He had deep, dark skin, and the best smile. He looked over Rick's body with bright eyes, seeming more and more animated by the second. He was captivating, but he was drunk. And frankly, Rick was unimpressed. He would have loved to take this man home, but he just wasn’t the best with pick-up lines, and that was something that Rick looked for in a man. “Sorry, bud,” Rick said. “I think that you need some actual water before we have that talk.” After a long, one-sided discussion about the origins of vodka, then Soviets, and eventually communism-- with a K, because it's Russian-- Rick managed to gently drag the drunken flirt back to the safe and shared apartment of one June Moone. She opened the door in an attractive nightdress, with white sleeves and a translucent skirt. He averted his eyes as he held the man up a bit straighter. “Oooh,” June crooned, “Who's this?” Rick shrugged. He'd never been given a name. He took June's bewilderment as an opportunity to shovel the mass into her arms. It went willingly. Rick walked past the two newfound besties by mere force of personal space invasion and into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. “So?” June asked. Rick pulled a glass down from the cabinets and filled it with ice. “So what?” He responded. “So what do we do with him? This is the first time you've brought me a man to take care of who you didn't fuck silly first.” Rick filled the glass with water. “Set the poor fella down on the couch. I doubt that you shouting into his ear will aid him in any important way.” “I don't see how it would help him in any unimportant way,” she said, but she lowered her tone and laid him down--none to gently--on the couch. Rick grabbed a lemon and a knife and walked back into the living room, water glass in hand. He set the glass down on the table in front of the couch and coerced the nearly-unconscious man into a sitting position, being sure not to stab him anywhere. “Hey. Hey. Drink that.” Rick ordered him around gently but firmly, ignoring his small side notes and attempts at eye contact while pushing the water into his palm. It didn't take long for him to get the entire thing down. He looked at the glass for a long moment before Rick took it from him. He cut the lemon in half and used his incredibly focused finger strength to squeeze all of the juice out and into the glass. It dripped down onto the ice and through to the bottom of the glass. He couldn't stop all of the seeds from slipping in as well, but he managed to get all of the juice from both halves. Even though Rick was mostly used to ceaseless babbling--thanks to Harley--he can't help but notice the fact that in his drunken state, the man that he stills has no name to the face of absolutely cannot stop spitting words and seemed to be an endless source of intelligence. Rick hands him the glass of lemon juice. It's only a small bit, but it’ll do the trick. “Drink this too,” he says, softly. He knows that it will be a very different taste from both the alcohol and the water, and he hopes it'll clear his head a bit. The man's face pulls into a sour expression, his lips pursing and eyes screwing shut. “Fuck--" the man sputters. “Trying to poison me already?” Rick simply takes the glass away. He decides to stand, putting the lemon halves and the knife in the glass on top of the ice. He shakes the man's shoulder in order to get him to look at him. “What's your name, man?” The response is slurred and slightly cut off, but Rick gets the idea. “Alright Loyd,” he says, hoping it's right, “You're welcome to stay the night, but don't quote me on that, because sometimes June gets mad if I let them stay the night. You can sleep on the couch, and you can leave if you want to, but know that June will willingly shoot you if she finds you doing wrong and we'll feed you in the morning.” Rick smiled at the confused expression and pushed him back on the couch, encouraging him to pass out. He coughs once, and then he's gone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Floyd wakes up to a shrill beeping. It's difficult to place, at first, because he has no idea where he is and that is most definitely not his alarm clock. The thing he's laying on isn't familiar, either. Its material is scratchy and has rubbed his cheek overnight. He strokes it consolingly as he sits up.
He feels the headache before he even opens his eyes. The throbbing is violent, and he can feel his stomach roiling. It makes him want to lay back down and die. But he has to know where he is.
His jacket is thrown over the coffee table that he doesn't recognize. His mouth tastes like lemons and vodka. His shirt is ridden up around his waist, and is coated in sweat. He's only got one shoe on.
He has a feeling that this isn't going to be his most impressive morning.
The room is small and quaint. There's a door, probably the exit, on his right, and a hall to his left. In front of him, an old-looking coffee table. There's a relatively small flatscreen on the wall, and a radio on a table beside a chair that has a shoulder-high lamp sitting behind it.
The walls are faint pink with blue poppies on them. The doorways are framed in white. The very couch he sits on is a deep rose colour, sitting on four lion's paws. Floyd wipes the drool from his chin, feeling out of place and alone.
The constant beeping comes back to him, drawing him into reality again. He stands slowly, and finds his other shoe on the ground next to the couch. He slips it on. Following the noise into the room behind him, Floyd finds the kitchen.
The kitchen is much different from the living room, laid in tile and pristinely white, down to every crevice.
Floyd takes a moment to locate the unattractive noise resonating in his hangover-ridden head. It turns out to be the microwave, beeping incessantly for the plate of waffles that sits in it, sufficiently re-heated.
Floyd turns it off, and then truly starts to contemplate whether to leave. There's no one in the kitchen, and he can't hear anyone in the back of the apartment.
He can't remember a single detail of last night past his seventh shot. His friend had been with him up until that point, keeping him in check and entertained. Then his friend's wife had called, something about the police and their thirteen-year-old child and insurance plans. He'd left Floyd behind, in that bar, lending him some drinking cash and telling him to get lucky, on his way out.
Now that Floyd thought of it, there had been a guy, who'd walked in just as his buddy had walked out, and then he'd ordered vodka, drink of the devil--
Oh, shit.
Floyd scrubbed his hands up and down his face, wallowing in regret and sudden anxiety. Had he screwed that guy? Where was he? Was this his place?
Floyd leaned against the counter, one hand over his eyes while the other locked onto the counter behind him.
The door opened.
Floyd immediately let go of the counter, feeling unrealistically self-conscious about what he touched or messed up. Would the guy be mad since he'd turned off the microwave? What if--
“Oh, hey, sleeping beauty.”
Floyd felt blood rush his cheeks. It was a girl. Last he checked, they hadn't been in the equation for a
long
time.
“Those waffles are for you, by the way.” She gestured to the microwave with two arms full of groceries. They were old-fashioned paper bags. Had he somehow travelled back in time?
Floyd stuttered to make a response. “I-I, um--"
“It's okay, eat up. From the looks of you, I'd say you need something.”
Floyd swallowed, trying to form a way to tell her that he needed to go, or to know what
happened
last night. “Listen--"
“I really need you to eat before you start speaking,” she said, setting the bags on the table on the opposite side of the room. “I know from experience that you'll be better off that way.”
Floyd started to object when she sent him an eyeful of daggers. He cautiously opened the microwave--it was old, too--and removed the plate.
It was stacked high with fluffy, delicious-smelling waffles. As magnificent as they looked, the overwhelm on his senses was another headache, and the thought of eating--just looking at them, honestly--made him nauseous.
He set them down on the counter, gently.
“Listen,” he repeated, trying to find a polite way to let himself out.
The woman kept speaking. “The lug who brought you home is in the back room, on the left, across from the bathroom door, sleeping. Once you finish eating, go say hi. Maybe thank him for not leaving you in a ditch. Don't worry if he tries to maul you at first--it's his fault he disobeyed his bedtime, and now he has to get up.”
The itching worry that had been building was sunk into his gut at the phrase “brought you home.” Perhaps he really had slept with this guy. But if so, then why was he on the he couch instead of in the bed? With his clothes on?
“I'm going to shower. I have to be at work in around forty minutes. Good meeting you, though!”
She disappeared around the corner and into the hallway, and Floyd heard, as if in slow motion, a door close and lock. He was alone once again.
Floyd stepped back into the living room, and looked wistfully at the door to the world. He wanted desperately to simply leave, but he knew that that would be extremely rude and after sleeping with a stranger drunk, he also knew he had to take the moral high ground and at least
apologize
for it.
He took a deep breath and walked down the small hallway, approaching the last door on the left, as instructed. He swallowed as his hand came into contact with the door handle.
Get yourself together, dammit.
Floyd opened the door in a rush, and was met with a sense of disappointment as the climactic reveal of a ruggedly handsome man with a nice smile was not presented to him. Instead, he was met with a room full of light (which brought him another wave of pain), and a small bed with a large concentration of bundled white sheets atop it.
Floyd walked slowly into the room, sneaking around the mass of linen as if it were a sleeping tiger, dangerous if disturbed.
He rounded the bed, lightly tapping what he assumed to be a shoulder. It didn't wake. Floyd tried again, this time placing his palm down firmly and shaking.
He could see the sheets breathing a bit more now that he was closer. It almost felt like the mass was waking until--
A hand pulled down the sheets in a rush, causing Floyd to jump back and clutch at his quickly beating heart.
“Hello?”
The voice seemed to belong to the hand that was pushing out of the sheets.
“Um, h-hi,” Floyd said, still disturbed from the sudden outbreak. “I think that I-”
“What time is it?”
Floyd looked around wildly for a clock, before remembering that he had a phone in his pocket. He retrieved it to check. “1:12 pm,” he said.
He had two missed calls from Zoe. Suddenly, his anxiety took a whole new turn. “Look,” he started, more frantically this time, “I'm sorry about last night, I shouldn't have come onto you-” assuming that he did “-and I would love it if you weren't mad, and thank you for all of the hospitality, but I really, really need to go-”
“Woah, take it slow, I'm almost as hungover as you.”
At this point, a face emerged from the mass of white to accompany the lone hand. It was a good face.
Floyd decided to be blunt. “Did we fuck?”
The face scrunched up in question and the man responded in a dubious voice: “What? No. You were drunk. I decided to bring you home because I’d’ve felt bad if you'd’ve gotten run over.”
Thank fuck,
Floyd thought. “Thank you, I guess. Now I really do need to get home, I have a child to console.”
The man groaned and sat up, pushing away the sheets to reveal a
very
fuckable body.
“But,” Floyd added, “Could I get your number?”
The man laughed as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and stood up, forcing Floyd to back out of his personal space.
The man held out his hand. “Rick.”
Floyd shook it. “Floyd.”
The man made an odd face, but quickly moved on to pull a shirt over his head and pad out of the room.
Floyd trailed behind him, dialing Zoe. It didn't take long for her to pick up.
“Daddy?”
Floyd rubbed his eyes. “Hey, baby,” he said. (He distinctly noticed that Rick tensed slightly at the statement, which was a subject of immense interest.) “Where are you?”
“With mom.” She said.
Floyd let out a sigh of utter relief. “Good. Stay there.” He waited for a moment, simply to keep Rick on edge, since he was having an obvious listen in, and then added, in a voice that was deliberately low enough that it could've been said to keep him from hearing it but not low enough that he couldn't hear it, “I might be home late.”
Rick tossed a knowing look over his shoulder, intentions as obvious as the smirk on his face.