I Will Be Your Fool @djosfool - Tumblr Blog

Right in the Red

summary: a bad night at the bar leaves you with a bloody nose, steve pissed off yet worried, and you’re too stubborn for your own good.

wc: 2.4k

tags: 90s bouncer!steve au, annoying/creepy man, hints at drug use, drinking (obvi), physical fighting, mentions of blood + injuries, bar fight time!!!! we get a hint of angry steve

Saturday nights are loud, hectic, and rowdy. Especially during the summer.

The weekend nights of working in a bar during the summer in Indianapolis will never be dull nights. Even if you pray for them to be at least the tiniest bit docile. They never are.

Such as right now, with Dave from New York.

For the past hour and a half, Dave has been in a drunken pattern of going back and forth from the dance floor to the counter to get more drinks and for you to slip him your phone number.

He’s back at the counter again, sitting on the stool and leaning in against the wood, trying to tell you about how gorgeous the view of the city is from his hotel window, and how he just wishes you could see it.

He’s got a fresh tan from his trip in Monaco he just got back from, looking at real estate, or working in real estate. Something of that sort, you don’t know, you stopped listening a while ago.

You’ve run out of fake laughs and one word responses, you’re not even looking at him, you’re barely giving him full nods.

The bar closes at 3AM, you’ve got four hours left.

God give you strength.

And maybe he’s listening, because Dave’s buddy slips by to whisper something in his ear, which gets Dave to slide off his stool and follow the guy to the bathroom.

You feel like you can finally breathe, you take a minute to drop your head and let it hang as you keep your hands gripped around the bar counter.

You bring your head back up to look out the open doors, you can see Steve. He’s got his back turned and his body at an angle so you can’t really see his face, more of his side profile, the slope of his straight nose.

This is one of the only good things about being stuck behind the bar all night, you get a perfect view of the doors and of the outside of the town. You get a perfect view of Steve. You could stare at his back for hours, you probably already have.

The line to get in is being held up by some guy trying to argue with Steve, you wonder if it’ll escalate. You hope it doesn’t of course, the bar is currently on a 3 day streak of no bouncers being swung at by drunk kids with fake IDs. This might be a new record.

And of course your little moment of freedom has been shut down. Of fucking course it has, of fucking course the moment you consider slipping outside for a smoke break, Dave is stumbling back up to the bar again.

God give you the fucking strength. Please.

He trips over something, a napkin, spilled liquid, his feet. You can’t really see from where you’re standing.

He nearly slams his jaw into the counter before he’s able to stop himself with his hand smacking against the wood.

You’ve run out of energy to deal with him and you’re preparing to close off his tab.

When he straightens himself up, you notice how his pupils have grown 2x their size and he’s got a bit of white powder under his nose. Just fucking great.

“Alright, I’m gonna have to cut you off man.” You say through a sigh, interrupting him before he’s able to speak.

And of course, like always, of course he starts protesting. Making the same excuses every other person has: because, like, he’s not even that drunk, he hasn’t had that many, he can pay to keep it open, he just got here.

And you really don’t have the energy for this. You print his tab, slide it towards him, and attempt to take the drink he brought back away from him.

You wish you realized letting any part of getting close to him is a bad idea. His hand wraps around your wrist so tight his knuckles are turning white and you can feel his fingers press against the bone.

His drink knocks over in the process and spills across the bar and a good amount of it splashes onto your lower half. At least you’ve got your apron on.

But the bigger issue is the asshole gripping onto your wrist and not planning on letting go anytime soon.

“Are you fucking serious? You’re not gonna let me finish my drink, you bitch?” He’s yanking at your arm so hard you’re getting pulled into the bar, the counter is pressing into your stomach. His sudden aggression has you caught off balance.

You look around the room, fuck, Andrew, the inside security for the night told you he needed to take a leak and that he would be back in a minute.

It’s been five.

But lucky for you, a drunk patron comes to your rescue, tries to.

“C’mon buddy, get your hand offa’ her, she’s just doin’ her job.” The other guy tries to put his hand down over Dave’s forearm, pushing it down. And this makes you realize maybe tonight is the night for everyone to make bad decisions.

Dave turns his attention to the other guy but his hand is still wrapped around your wrist in an iron grip, it’s really starting to fucking hurt, he uses his free hand to shove at the attempted drunk knight in shining armor. Which makes him stumble backwards into the stool he was sitting in and a few other people.

It takes a moment for him to grasp what happened as you're trying to wiggle out of Dave's hold on you.

Then the guy retaliates, knocking Dave straight in the cheek with his fist and getting him to let go of you.

Clean streak broken. 0 days without a fight.

Your arm gets pulled a bit before he fully loses his grip and you’re terrified you might hear something pop.

But great. There’s a crowd forming, there’s other guys trying to stop them but end up joining in.

It’s been awhile since you’ve had an actual fight inside the club, so it seems like now anyone will take the chance to get their anger out with a few punches in.

You slip out from behind the bar to yell for Steve and the other bouncer outside. It takes few shouts before they can actually fucking hear you over tonights live music.

Once they do hear you and look over, they come sprinting in, so does Andrew from wherever he ran off to.

It doesn’t take that long for Steve and the others to rip the two who originally started this mess off of each other, they’re bigger than the two guys.

Somewhere in this mess of Dave being torn off the other guy by Steve, he’s failing around like a ragdoll trying to wriggle out of Steve’s arms locked around his torso, his elbow rears back and hits you right in the face. Right in the fucking nose.

You curse out loudly and your hands are immediately going to cover the sight of the impact, it feels like less than within seconds you can feel your face getting warm, when you touch underneath your nose it’s warm as well.

Warm and wet.

You pull your hand back and look. Of fucking course, your fingertips are covered in blood.

You try to press your fingers back against your nostrils to somehow, somewhat, keep the bleeding from going past your chin, but the pressure of it stings like hell and you curse out again.

Steve somehow hears it over all the yelling and looks behind him, Dave is still jolting around while Steve looks like he could kill somebody with the way his brows unpinch and his face drops.

He tosses Dave to the ground, then proceeds to grab him by the nape of his neck, more of the back of his hair like he’s a baby kitten, he drags him out the room and Dave is stumbling as he’s trying to keep up.

He gets thrown on the sidewalk so hard by Steve you wouldn’t be surprised if he got roadrash.

Meanwhile Stella, one of the gogo dancers is hustling you off to the bathroom with her. She’s forcing you to sit on the dirty sink and when you do finally, you’re making a mental note to wash your jeans as soon as you get home. Whenever that’s gonna be.

Maybe burn them. You’re not sure how often the sinks get cleaned here.

“Jesus fucking christ, what happened out there?” She’s already pulling out handfuls of brown paper towels from the dispenser.

“Alcohol and cocaine.” Your voice is a bit muffled due to your hand being placed right on top of it, trying to use it as some sort of barrier for underneath your nose.

Stella just scoffs. “Hold these.” She brings up the rough paper towels under your nose. Your eyes are watering and the pressure of the crumpled towels are making it worse.

“Fuck, it really hurts.” Your voice is a bit squeaky and you cringe, Stella is too busy grabbing more towels and wetting them. “Do you think it’s broken?” You try to sniffle and it makes you taste metal in the back of your throat.

“No. It doesn’t look that bad. I think.”

“You think?”

“I’m not a doctor!”

No matter how many paper towels you use to wipe away the blood, more leaks out, you’ve gone through enough blood soaked ones to fill up the pathetically small bathroom trashcan.

“Goddamn, you are pouring like a fountain.” Stella’s grimacing as she pulls your hands away to see if it’s done.

It isn’t.

“Well, he hit me pretty hard.” You wince again as you bring your hand back and press a little bit too much.

“Oh! Hold on! I have an idea!” She beams as she whips around and shuffles over to the tampon dispenser built into the wall. It’s already dented to the point you can open it and get them without having to search for a quarter.

“No, I’m not putting tampons in my nose.” You protest.

“It’ll help! Plug it! You can keep them there until a doctor looks at it!” Stella's already back over with a handful of them.

“No, no! I’m not going to a hospital, I don’t need to!” Stella is not listening to you, she’s pushing a tampon out of the applicator. “I just need to clean this up.” You gesture to your face down to your neck and chest where they’re both covered in small streaks and drips of blood.

“Oh my god, just plug it.” She’s slapping your hands away and pushing your head back, shoving one into your left nostril.

“Ow! Ow! Motherfucker!” You rasp out, you’ve got the ugliest scrunched up expression on your face as you twist your head away, half of a damn tampon up your nose.

And just to add onto your luck for the night, there’s a knock on the door and Steve peeks in. His eyes are on the ground first, just in case. But once he knows there’s no one else in the bathroom he looks up to where you’re sitting.

He can see you. He’s looking at you.

While you have a tampon shoved up your nose.

“Oh thank god!” Stella cries out, “Can you please help me convince her to go to the hospital or call 911 or something?”

“I don’t need 911.” You mutter out, seething almost.

Stella and Steve both ignore you, Steve’s already marching over to bend down a bit to get to eye level with you, he’s staring intensely. You still have the tampon in your nose.

“Yeah, yeah. I can drive her.” He agrees without another second of hesitation, his hand wrapping around your upper arm.

It’s a complete contrast to how you got grabbed a few minutes ago. You could faint from the gentleness, or maybe it’s the injury.

You’re protesting all the way from the bathroom to the car. He helps you in, even buckles you in. He’s such a gentleman even when you look like an idiot.

“Steve, seriously, I don’t need a doctor. It’ll stop soon.” You pull the stupid tampon out your nostril, it stings and you wince, the blood is still going.

“It takes ten to twenty minutes for a broken nose to stop bleeding. It’s been what? Eleven minutes?” Steve is reaching over to his glovebox and pulling out napkins for you.

How does he even know that?

“If they give me a bill, I won’t be able to pay for it.” You slouch down in the seat while he pulls out and onto the road.

“Sit up straight and lean your head forward, it’ll help.” Literally how does he have this knowledge on hand. “I’ll cover it for you.”

“What? No, Steve. You shouldn’t waste your money on me.” You follow his instructions and lean forward, but you're looking straight at him in awe. “It’s not wasting it if it’s for you. Besides, I got the funds to cover it, trust me.” He scoffs, you’re about three minutes away from the urgent care.

You’re a bit speechless at his words.

Not wasting it if it’s for you.

It takes a minute for your brain to catch back up and send in more defenses for why you totally don’t need medical attention.

“My nose isn’t broken. That douchebag just got me in a bad spot, it’s starting to lighten up anyways.” You’re not entirely wrong on that last part, the blood has begun to stop spilling and it’s drying up in most parts now.

“Listen, I know what a broken nose looks like, and yours looks pretty close to one. I’m not gonna argue with you about this.”

You huff and you’re preparing to slouch back down grumpily in your seat, before you remember what Steve said. You stay in your weird tilted position even though it’s making your neck ache.

Steve pulls into the entrance of the ER, his car is parked crooked, one wheel a bit too much on the white line of the space.

The dried blood all over your face and neck is making you feel so disgusting. You need a wet rag or something. God, you need a shower. Badly.

“You ready to go in?” Steve sighs, looking over to you.

“I should’ve taken a beer with me on the way out.”