Summary: Bruised and bloodied, you end up with the last person you thought you'd turn to, and you're due for a night out.
Word Count: 1.1k
Warnings: Drinking, one-night stand
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You left the shop with a tin of tattoo balm and a pamphlet on tattoo care, feeling a little safer.
With some time to kill before you had arranged to meet Faery Barista, you decided to give in to your body’s cries for sleep. You parked your car in the back corner of the parking lot of the first supermarket you saw, leaned your seat back, and curled up. Even in that cramped and uncomfortable position, you were unconscious within a few minutes.
The Lakeside Tavern was further out than you had expected, but it was still only about twenty minutes from where you were.
The interior of the bar was on the nicer side of bog standard, and a man on the small stage in the corner strummed his guitar and crooned an old Hank Williams ballad into the microphone. He wasn’t half bad, you thought idly.
Faery Barista was waiting for you at the bar, drinking what looked like a vodka cranberry. She smiled when she saw you and waved you over.
“Hey, darlin’,” you hummed, placing a hand between her shoulder blades as you took a seat on the red vinyl barstool beside her.
She grinned at you, coyly stirring her drink with her straw. In the neon light of the Coors sign on the wall, her freckles stood out starkly against her skin, and you could see the sign reflected in her pupils. She really was beautiful.
“Hi.” She looked up at you through long lashes.
“What are we drinking?”
She offered you her glass, and you made a show of taking a sip and swishing it around in your mouth, swallowing, and looking up at the ceiling as though deep in thought. “Vodka soda with…something…”
She giggled. “Vodka soda with cranberry juice.”
“Very nice, good balance of trashy and cool,” you teased.
She giggled again and put a soft hand on your arm, leaning in, “Are you having anything?”
You waved over the bartender, a lanky twenty-something with an undercut and a lip ring, and gave them your most winning smile. “Another vodka soda with cran for the lady, and for myself…Lemme get a pint of that draft lager,” you pointed to the tap in question, “and a shot of Jamo.”
Your date looked up at you in surprise. “Jameson, huh? Wouldn’t have pegged you as the type. Although I never peg anyone as the whiskey type. Awful stuff, tastes like wood and ass.” She gave a delicate shudder, and you snorted.
The bartender set your drinks in front of you, and you toasted her with your shot before downing it without flinching. The whiskey burned as it hit the back of your throat and a vague taste of spice and vanilla spread over your tongue. It made your eyes burn and your heart twinge.
You ordered another shot and slammed that one too.
She trailed a finger up your arm. “That was kind of hot.” Her voice was low and rough with desire.
You didn’t really want to be here with her.
The haze of drink danced at the edges of your mind. You grabbed your date’s hand and turned it over, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Starting strong then,” you murmured.
Even in the dim light of the bar, you could see her blush.
The rest of the night passed in a whiskey blur. You taught her how to play darts and shoot pool, even though you were pretty certain she knew what she was doing when she asked you to come behind her and show her how to hold the cue. But who were you to complain?
Finally, when you had reached the tipping point between pleasantly tipsy and the kind of drunk that ended with vomit down your shirtfront, she looked at you with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Come home with me,” she breathed in your ear, her hand finding the waistband of your jeans. You could smell the vodka and cranberry juice on her breath, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “I don’t live too far, walk with me.”
You slid your hand up her shirt, feeling the soft skin of her back beneath your palms as you ran your fingers over the divot of her spine. “Lead the way, sweetheart.”
She laced her fingers through yours and led you out onto the street. “Down this way,” she directed you towards the end of the block.
“Hol’ on, hol’ on,” you mumbled. “Wait, c’mere.”
She looked back at you, confused, but you tugged her against your chest and kissed her. It was a sloppy kiss, teeth clashing and tongues drunkenly swiping across lips, and, like everything else that night, it was pleasant, but it wasn’t anything special. You couldn’t deny that this was scratching the itch, at least a little, but it wasn’t enough. It felt hollow.
She took you back to her apartment, where the rest of the night disappeared into crisp sheets, soft skin and moans that were less so.
You almost felt bad as you snuck out while she slept. She was sweet, she really was. She was just a little too sweet for you.
You walked back to your car and slung yourself behind the wheel, letting your head rest against the cool leather of the steering wheel. You hadn’t even gotten her name, and you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You were too strung out to give a shit.
You felt dirty. What the fuck were you doing? It wasn’t as if you had all the time in the world, and you knew you needed to get back on the road, so why did the idea of going make you dizzy?
Maybe it wasn’t the idea of going, maybe it was the idea of going alone.
You ground your teeth and looked at the road atlas you kept in your glovebox. Two hours to D.C. The protection sigils that dangled from your rearview mirror glinted in the sanguine light that was slowly crawling its way to its place in the sky, and you ran your thumb over the etched metal.
“Meili, please,” you whispered. “Just…please.”
The air around you crackled with energy, and you hoped he’d heard you and understood.
