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smackenzieHe kept it together until the cab arrived at Stella and Aidan’s building, which wasn’t easy with the way the cab jerked to a halt and then forward at all the stoplights, and made it up to their apartment without falling off the stairs, puking, or passing out. Watching his feet on the stairs made him dizzy, and by the time he was at their door, all he wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. He couldn’t even remember why it was so important he come over here right now, why he couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
Aidan opened the door in the middle of Val’s half-hearted knock, and the first thing he said was “Dude, you look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” Val mumbled, and let Aidan pull him inside the apartment and sit him on the couch. “I’m sorry. I don’t normally... I’m not, I don’t. Drink like this.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Aidan sat down next to him. He was wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a pink t-shirt with writing on it that Val couldn’t focus well enough to read. The combination made Val’s head hurt. Well, made it hurt more. “Are you ok? Do you need to puke?”
“No, no. Not yet. Maybe. I can’t do this. I can’t.” He grabbed a fistful of Aidan’s shirt. Aidan had to understand this part, had to understand that Val was out of his depth and drowning. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “It’s not ok. I shouldn’t’ve, couldn’t ask.”
“Sure it is,” Aidan gently pried Val’s fist out of his shirt. “You’re here with me and Stella - she’s asleep or she’d be sitting on the other side of you - I’ll take care of you tonight and she’ll help me take care of you tomorrow. You’re going to have a bitch of a hangover.”
“On our date, fuck. Aidan, I’m sorry, I’m so... Kirk kept buying me drinks. I couldn’t say no. I don’t, I mean, how... he wanted to.”
“Val. Shut up.” Aidan laid his hand against Val’s cheek. “It’s ok. Don’t worry about it. We’ll go out another time. The zoo’s not going anywhere. You might even be ok to go in the afternoon, who knows. Everyone gets hangovers differently.”
“I’ll be sick. I know. I will.” He leaned into Aidan’s hand, full of love and need and now he thought maybe he remembered why he’d come here and not just gone home. Aidan loved him, didn’t he? Aidan and Stella both. They’d love him and look after him and if he was already here tomorrow morning, it would be easier for him and Aidan to go out.
“We’ll see.” Aidan brushed across Val’s lip with his thumb. “You really do look terrible. Drunk isn’t a good look for you. I should just get you some water and aspirin and put you to bed.”
“Ok. Put yourself with me.”
“What are boyfriends for?” Aidan chuckled, leaned in, and dropped a kiss on Val’s lips. Val’s mouth opened for his tongue, and he returned the kiss in a drunken, increasingly desperate kind of way. But Aidan kept control of it until he had to pull away to catch his breath. “Jesus, Val, what were you drinking? You taste like the whole back of the bar.”
“Everything,” Val mumbled. “Beer. Tequila. Don’t know.”
“Well, at least I know you don’t smoke when you drink. I dated a girl in college who was a social smoker. She only smoked when she drank, but she could suck down half a pack on a big night. She was hot, but man, kissing her after a night out was like licking an ashtray.”
And that sense memory did what the cab ride could not, and Val practically fell off the couch and stumbled into the bathroom just in time to lose everything he’d put into his stomach since he woke up that morning. He felt rather than heard Aidan follow him in, kneel on the floor next to him, and hold his hair while he retched and heaved. Aidan rubbed his back between his shoulders and murmured soothingly until Val was puking spit and bile, long sour strings of it because there was nothing else left in his stomach.
“Sorry about that,” Aidan said. Val spit into the toilet. He felt even worse now, sick and exhausted and embarrassed. He hadn’t done that since he was in college. Aidan rested his hand on the back of Val’s neck, and stayed there until Val had rolled to the side, so instead of kneeling, he was sitting on his ass with his head resting against the cool porcelain side of the toilet bowl. Aidan reached up and flushed the toilet. Val closed his eyes.
“Don’t pass out on me now,” he heard Aidan say, and then he heard water running and felt Aidan take his wrist and push a glass into his hand. “Come on, Val, wake up.” Val opened his eyes and stared at the water glass Aidan had given him. “Rinse and spit, ok? I know your mouth tastes like crap, and I’m not kissing you again until you rinse.” He grinned.
Val swallowed some water, then took another mouthful, tried to swirl it around to wash out the taste of vomit, and turned his head to spit it in the toilet bowl.
The door into the bedroom opened, and Val knew without looking around that he’d woken Stella up. Shit. He was just failing at everything today, wasn’t he.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sounding worried and tired at the same time. “Val? Are you ok?”
“He just had too much to drink,” Aidan said. “We got it under control. Go back to sleep, baby.”
“Are you sure?”
Val sat back and leaned against the toilet tank. Stella was standing over him, wearing boyshorts and a tank top. She had bedhead. She was adorable and he felt terrible for waking her up. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound like everything was fine now. “I’m ok. I am.”
“You don’t look ok,” she said dubiously. Aidan stood up and went over to her. “He doesn’t,” she told him.
“He just puked up probably his body weight in alcohol,” Aidan said, “You wouldn’t look too great either. Go back to bed. We’re about to join you.”
Val closed his eyes again, so he didn’t see Stella leave, but then Aidan was lightly slapping his cheek and telling him to get up, they were going to bed. Val opened his eyes again and let Aidan haul him to his feet and half carry him into the bedroom. Stella had gotten under the covers on the far side of the bed and to all appearances had gone back to sleep. Val fell onto the mattress, trying to stay conscious as Aidan pulled off his shoes and climbed into bed between him and Stella.
“You get the end in case you have to puke again,” Aidan said, pulling the covers up over them. He rested his hand comfortingly on Val’s hip. “Don’t worry about waking me up. I sleep like the dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Val said, his words slurring together. “’M a sucky boyfriend.”
“You’re just having a bad week. It’s ok.” He gave Val a quick kiss, just pressing their lips together. “Now you can pass out.”
So Val did.
* * *
He came to the next morning feeling miserable and sick and about as hungover as expected. His head throbbed, his eyes were scratchy, and his mouth and tongue felt like he’d been sucking on someone’s fur coat. Aidan was still asleep next to him, but Val didn’t want to sit up enough to see if Stella had gotten up or not. She probably had – she was a morning person.
He just wanted to go back to sleep and sleep through the next couple of days, and wake up on Monday or Tuesday and have this whole thing over with. He wanted to sleep for two days and wake up with a job, or at the very least, an idea of what kind of job he wanted. He wanted to wake up with a career plan.
He went back to sleep.
The next time he woke up, it was to Aidan calling his name and telling him Stella was making coffee and did he feel up to having some.
“Fuck off,” he mumbled.
“I guess you’re awake, at least,” Aidan said almost cheerfully. “Morning. How do you feel?”
“Hungover. Said I would.”
“Yeah, you did. Do you want me to leave you alone? You should take some aspirin, at least.”
“I should get up. Shouldn’t I? We have a date.”
“We do.” Val opened his eyes all the way and Aidan was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him, still wearing his plaid pajama bottoms and the sunglasses-worthy pink shirt. At least it wasn’t too bright in the room.
“You’re really... awake. I thought you weren’t a morning person.”
“I’m not. It’s past ten, Val. Stella usually drags my ass out of bed by now.”
“Oh. Shit. Pancakes.” The thought made his stomach turn over.
“Have some orange juice first. You want a shower? We have clean towels. And before you get all weird about showering in someone else’s house and using their soap or whatever, let me remind you I held your hair last night while you puked in my toilet, and borrowing someone’s shampoo isn’t anywhere near as intimate as sucking them off, or fucking them in the ass,” He grinned brightly. Val kind of hated him and his un-hungover sunshiney morning cheer.
“It’s not that stage yet,” he said. “I’m not leaving my stuff in your closet or anything.”
“Not yet. A shower might make you feel better. Come on.” He bounced off the bed, went around to the side, and held out his hand. “I have orders to get you out of bed. Stella says you can be hungover on the couch, but she doesn’t want you getting it all over the sheets.” He shrugged.
“Ok, ok.” Val sat up slowly so as not to give himself a headrush, and was momentarily confused as to why he was wearing all his clothes. “Why am I dressed?”
“You threw up in our bathroom and then tried to pass out twice. I figured it would be easier than trying to get you undressed while you were comatose.”
“Oh. I drank a lot, didn’t I.”
“Yes you did. How much do you remember?”
Val slowly stood up - no headrush, although he swayed a little bit until he got his balance back - and thought about it. He remembered everything, he was pretty sure. He’d come over here because he’d started to panic at the bar, and he thought Aidan could tell him everything would be ok in such a way that he’d believe it. Aidan kissed him, and he puked in their bathroom, and he woke Stella up, and he was pretty sure that was everything.
“Everything,” he said. “I think.”
“Do you remember professing your undying love and promising me your fortune if you died in your sleep?”
“What? I don’t have a fortune.”
“That’s what I thought.” Aidan sighed. “I was kidding. Let me get you a clean towel.” He pulled a green towel out of the narrow closet outside the bathroom and handed it to Val. “A shower might help.”
He left Val alone in the bathroom, and Val peeled off his clothes and spun the taps in the shower and waited until the water was nice and hot. He stepped under the spray and leaned forward, his hands flat against the wall, letting the water massage the back of his neck and the space between his shoulderblades and all down his spine. His head dropped forward, his hair hanging in long wet curtains on either side of his face, He didn’t feel a lot better, in fact all he felt was more awake. His head still hurt and his mouth tasted like something had died on his tongue and his brain had kicked in enough that he was not only pissed at himself for ruining his and Aidan’s first date, but he was thinking about why Kirk had taken him out last night in the first place, and he remembered his sudden realization in the bar about how the train of his career had run off the rails and left him stranded, and he stood under the shower spray and just let himself be tired and sick and scared.
He really was a bad boyfriend. He couldn’t keep his shit together.
He didn’t hear the door open and couldn’t tell Aidan had come into the bathroom until he felt hands on his hips and a mouth on the back of his neck. Aidan’s hands moved to his shoulders, pulling him up straight and turning him around.
“Hey,” Aidan said softly, blinking as the spray hit him in the face. “Better?”
“No,” Val said. “Just wet.”
“Let me fix that.” Aidan reached up and around a little to bend the showerhead down so the water wasn’t getting in his eyes, and then one of his hands cupped the back of Val’s head while the other dropped between them to wrap around Val’s cock. “I said it would be ok,” Aidan murmured against Val’s mouth. He licked at Val’s lips. “Trust me.”
His tongue pushed into Val’s mouth, claiming it, as his hand started to move. His grip was firm, his strokes slow and steady, and Val swayed with the motion of Aidan’s hand and tried not to think how bad his mouth must taste. It was a stupid thing to think about while your newly-minted boyfriend was jerking you off, but Val had recently discovered that sometimes his thought processes were a little weird, and Aidan must really want him if he’d put up with Val’s morning-after breath.
Val’s hands grabbed at Aidan’s hips as Aidan jerked him faster and faster and he fucked into Aidan’s hand. The shower spray beat against the back of his head and ran down his back and his ass and he couldn’t breathe, trapped between the water and Aidan’s mouth, Aidan’s hand, and he pulled his mouth away and gasped for air - almost getting a mouthful of hair instead - as he shot hard between Aidan’s fingers.
“Good morning,” Aidan said, grinning. “Now do you feel better?’
“A little.” Val actually thought about that. His head did feel a little clearer. “Yeah. I do.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. You can return the favor later. Are you ready for something to drink?”
“Don’t say that.”
Aidan chuckled. “Juice or coffee. I’m not a beer-for-breakfast kind of guy. Turn around and I’ll do your back.”
“Well, you did just do my front....” Obviously Val was feeling better and less hungover, if he could joke about Aidan’s hand job.
Aidan laughed this time, loud enough to echo around the bathroom, and kissed Val soundly on the mouth. “You’ll be ok.”
Val hoped so. He couldn’t take all the credit for it, though.
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total words: 47,664
Aidan opened the door in the middle of Val’s half-hearted knock, and the first thing he said was “Dude, you look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” Val mumbled, and let Aidan pull him inside the apartment and sit him on the couch. “I’m sorry. I don’t normally... I’m not, I don’t. Drink like this.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me.” Aidan sat down next to him. He was wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a pink t-shirt with writing on it that Val couldn’t focus well enough to read. The combination made Val’s head hurt. Well, made it hurt more. “Are you ok? Do you need to puke?”
“No, no. Not yet. Maybe. I can’t do this. I can’t.” He grabbed a fistful of Aidan’s shirt. Aidan had to understand this part, had to understand that Val was out of his depth and drowning. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “It’s not ok. I shouldn’t’ve, couldn’t ask.”
“Sure it is,” Aidan gently pried Val’s fist out of his shirt. “You’re here with me and Stella - she’s asleep or she’d be sitting on the other side of you - I’ll take care of you tonight and she’ll help me take care of you tomorrow. You’re going to have a bitch of a hangover.”
“On our date, fuck. Aidan, I’m sorry, I’m so... Kirk kept buying me drinks. I couldn’t say no. I don’t, I mean, how... he wanted to.”
“Val. Shut up.” Aidan laid his hand against Val’s cheek. “It’s ok. Don’t worry about it. We’ll go out another time. The zoo’s not going anywhere. You might even be ok to go in the afternoon, who knows. Everyone gets hangovers differently.”
“I’ll be sick. I know. I will.” He leaned into Aidan’s hand, full of love and need and now he thought maybe he remembered why he’d come here and not just gone home. Aidan loved him, didn’t he? Aidan and Stella both. They’d love him and look after him and if he was already here tomorrow morning, it would be easier for him and Aidan to go out.
“We’ll see.” Aidan brushed across Val’s lip with his thumb. “You really do look terrible. Drunk isn’t a good look for you. I should just get you some water and aspirin and put you to bed.”
“Ok. Put yourself with me.”
“What are boyfriends for?” Aidan chuckled, leaned in, and dropped a kiss on Val’s lips. Val’s mouth opened for his tongue, and he returned the kiss in a drunken, increasingly desperate kind of way. But Aidan kept control of it until he had to pull away to catch his breath. “Jesus, Val, what were you drinking? You taste like the whole back of the bar.”
“Everything,” Val mumbled. “Beer. Tequila. Don’t know.”
“Well, at least I know you don’t smoke when you drink. I dated a girl in college who was a social smoker. She only smoked when she drank, but she could suck down half a pack on a big night. She was hot, but man, kissing her after a night out was like licking an ashtray.”
And that sense memory did what the cab ride could not, and Val practically fell off the couch and stumbled into the bathroom just in time to lose everything he’d put into his stomach since he woke up that morning. He felt rather than heard Aidan follow him in, kneel on the floor next to him, and hold his hair while he retched and heaved. Aidan rubbed his back between his shoulders and murmured soothingly until Val was puking spit and bile, long sour strings of it because there was nothing else left in his stomach.
“Sorry about that,” Aidan said. Val spit into the toilet. He felt even worse now, sick and exhausted and embarrassed. He hadn’t done that since he was in college. Aidan rested his hand on the back of Val’s neck, and stayed there until Val had rolled to the side, so instead of kneeling, he was sitting on his ass with his head resting against the cool porcelain side of the toilet bowl. Aidan reached up and flushed the toilet. Val closed his eyes.
“Don’t pass out on me now,” he heard Aidan say, and then he heard water running and felt Aidan take his wrist and push a glass into his hand. “Come on, Val, wake up.” Val opened his eyes and stared at the water glass Aidan had given him. “Rinse and spit, ok? I know your mouth tastes like crap, and I’m not kissing you again until you rinse.” He grinned.
Val swallowed some water, then took another mouthful, tried to swirl it around to wash out the taste of vomit, and turned his head to spit it in the toilet bowl.
The door into the bedroom opened, and Val knew without looking around that he’d woken Stella up. Shit. He was just failing at everything today, wasn’t he.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sounding worried and tired at the same time. “Val? Are you ok?”
“He just had too much to drink,” Aidan said. “We got it under control. Go back to sleep, baby.”
“Are you sure?”
Val sat back and leaned against the toilet tank. Stella was standing over him, wearing boyshorts and a tank top. She had bedhead. She was adorable and he felt terrible for waking her up. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound like everything was fine now. “I’m ok. I am.”
“You don’t look ok,” she said dubiously. Aidan stood up and went over to her. “He doesn’t,” she told him.
“He just puked up probably his body weight in alcohol,” Aidan said, “You wouldn’t look too great either. Go back to bed. We’re about to join you.”
Val closed his eyes again, so he didn’t see Stella leave, but then Aidan was lightly slapping his cheek and telling him to get up, they were going to bed. Val opened his eyes again and let Aidan haul him to his feet and half carry him into the bedroom. Stella had gotten under the covers on the far side of the bed and to all appearances had gone back to sleep. Val fell onto the mattress, trying to stay conscious as Aidan pulled off his shoes and climbed into bed between him and Stella.
“You get the end in case you have to puke again,” Aidan said, pulling the covers up over them. He rested his hand comfortingly on Val’s hip. “Don’t worry about waking me up. I sleep like the dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Val said, his words slurring together. “’M a sucky boyfriend.”
“You’re just having a bad week. It’s ok.” He gave Val a quick kiss, just pressing their lips together. “Now you can pass out.”
So Val did.
* * *
He came to the next morning feeling miserable and sick and about as hungover as expected. His head throbbed, his eyes were scratchy, and his mouth and tongue felt like he’d been sucking on someone’s fur coat. Aidan was still asleep next to him, but Val didn’t want to sit up enough to see if Stella had gotten up or not. She probably had – she was a morning person.
He just wanted to go back to sleep and sleep through the next couple of days, and wake up on Monday or Tuesday and have this whole thing over with. He wanted to sleep for two days and wake up with a job, or at the very least, an idea of what kind of job he wanted. He wanted to wake up with a career plan.
He went back to sleep.
The next time he woke up, it was to Aidan calling his name and telling him Stella was making coffee and did he feel up to having some.
“Fuck off,” he mumbled.
“I guess you’re awake, at least,” Aidan said almost cheerfully. “Morning. How do you feel?”
“Hungover. Said I would.”
“Yeah, you did. Do you want me to leave you alone? You should take some aspirin, at least.”
“I should get up. Shouldn’t I? We have a date.”
“We do.” Val opened his eyes all the way and Aidan was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him, still wearing his plaid pajama bottoms and the sunglasses-worthy pink shirt. At least it wasn’t too bright in the room.
“You’re really... awake. I thought you weren’t a morning person.”
“I’m not. It’s past ten, Val. Stella usually drags my ass out of bed by now.”
“Oh. Shit. Pancakes.” The thought made his stomach turn over.
“Have some orange juice first. You want a shower? We have clean towels. And before you get all weird about showering in someone else’s house and using their soap or whatever, let me remind you I held your hair last night while you puked in my toilet, and borrowing someone’s shampoo isn’t anywhere near as intimate as sucking them off, or fucking them in the ass,” He grinned brightly. Val kind of hated him and his un-hungover sunshiney morning cheer.
“It’s not that stage yet,” he said. “I’m not leaving my stuff in your closet or anything.”
“Not yet. A shower might make you feel better. Come on.” He bounced off the bed, went around to the side, and held out his hand. “I have orders to get you out of bed. Stella says you can be hungover on the couch, but she doesn’t want you getting it all over the sheets.” He shrugged.
“Ok, ok.” Val sat up slowly so as not to give himself a headrush, and was momentarily confused as to why he was wearing all his clothes. “Why am I dressed?”
“You threw up in our bathroom and then tried to pass out twice. I figured it would be easier than trying to get you undressed while you were comatose.”
“Oh. I drank a lot, didn’t I.”
“Yes you did. How much do you remember?”
Val slowly stood up - no headrush, although he swayed a little bit until he got his balance back - and thought about it. He remembered everything, he was pretty sure. He’d come over here because he’d started to panic at the bar, and he thought Aidan could tell him everything would be ok in such a way that he’d believe it. Aidan kissed him, and he puked in their bathroom, and he woke Stella up, and he was pretty sure that was everything.
“Everything,” he said. “I think.”
“Do you remember professing your undying love and promising me your fortune if you died in your sleep?”
“What? I don’t have a fortune.”
“That’s what I thought.” Aidan sighed. “I was kidding. Let me get you a clean towel.” He pulled a green towel out of the narrow closet outside the bathroom and handed it to Val. “A shower might help.”
He left Val alone in the bathroom, and Val peeled off his clothes and spun the taps in the shower and waited until the water was nice and hot. He stepped under the spray and leaned forward, his hands flat against the wall, letting the water massage the back of his neck and the space between his shoulderblades and all down his spine. His head dropped forward, his hair hanging in long wet curtains on either side of his face, He didn’t feel a lot better, in fact all he felt was more awake. His head still hurt and his mouth tasted like something had died on his tongue and his brain had kicked in enough that he was not only pissed at himself for ruining his and Aidan’s first date, but he was thinking about why Kirk had taken him out last night in the first place, and he remembered his sudden realization in the bar about how the train of his career had run off the rails and left him stranded, and he stood under the shower spray and just let himself be tired and sick and scared.
He really was a bad boyfriend. He couldn’t keep his shit together.
He didn’t hear the door open and couldn’t tell Aidan had come into the bathroom until he felt hands on his hips and a mouth on the back of his neck. Aidan’s hands moved to his shoulders, pulling him up straight and turning him around.
“Hey,” Aidan said softly, blinking as the spray hit him in the face. “Better?”
“No,” Val said. “Just wet.”
“Let me fix that.” Aidan reached up and around a little to bend the showerhead down so the water wasn’t getting in his eyes, and then one of his hands cupped the back of Val’s head while the other dropped between them to wrap around Val’s cock. “I said it would be ok,” Aidan murmured against Val’s mouth. He licked at Val’s lips. “Trust me.”
His tongue pushed into Val’s mouth, claiming it, as his hand started to move. His grip was firm, his strokes slow and steady, and Val swayed with the motion of Aidan’s hand and tried not to think how bad his mouth must taste. It was a stupid thing to think about while your newly-minted boyfriend was jerking you off, but Val had recently discovered that sometimes his thought processes were a little weird, and Aidan must really want him if he’d put up with Val’s morning-after breath.
Val’s hands grabbed at Aidan’s hips as Aidan jerked him faster and faster and he fucked into Aidan’s hand. The shower spray beat against the back of his head and ran down his back and his ass and he couldn’t breathe, trapped between the water and Aidan’s mouth, Aidan’s hand, and he pulled his mouth away and gasped for air - almost getting a mouthful of hair instead - as he shot hard between Aidan’s fingers.
“Good morning,” Aidan said, grinning. “Now do you feel better?’
“A little.” Val actually thought about that. His head did feel a little clearer. “Yeah. I do.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. You can return the favor later. Are you ready for something to drink?”
“Don’t say that.”
Aidan chuckled. “Juice or coffee. I’m not a beer-for-breakfast kind of guy. Turn around and I’ll do your back.”
“Well, you did just do my front....” Obviously Val was feeling better and less hungover, if he could joke about Aidan’s hand job.
Aidan laughed this time, loud enough to echo around the bathroom, and kissed Val soundly on the mouth. “You’ll be ok.”
Val hoped so. He couldn’t take all the credit for it, though.
words: 2531
total words: 47,664
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Date: 2008-11-29 09:07 pm (UTC)