gotta be a man (iascaire) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-03-31 23:26:00 |
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[ soundtrack ] The music was a living thing as it throbbed out of the speakers of the club. Too loud to think, almost too loud for his heart to maintain a steady rhythm in his chest, four measure beat out of sync with the muscle in his chest. So much of this was wrong. Wrong city. Wrong club, too many men, the only woman in the entire place might have been the bartender - but no, there was another, scattered in the throngs of men, elbow linked with a man that was pulling her out into the masses. Hal headed for the bar instead, knowing he'd need a drink for this, maybe two, maybe two bottles of whatever they had that wasn't watered down with sticky sweet soda or fruit juice. This was - all wrong. He shouldn't be here. A hand - much too big- grabbed his denim clad ass as he walked by. Which was - okay, he liked having his body appreciated, liked it a lot, wasn't afraid to show it off- but that was a guy's hand and he ground his teeth to keep from responding with a flying fist. This was why he was here. To see if it was some latent shit or something that only happened when he was drunk. Maybe he should have stayed home instead. Or on Oa. It was sure as hell going to beat being introspective. Or trying to figure out if his dick had turned traitor. Or why he always seemed to be the one getting fucked up the ass when he was with a guy. It was high time that if he was going to have sex with some dude while being very drunk that he got a shot on top. Yeah! He slid up to the bar and held out two fingers to get the bartender's attention. "Vodka shots." She looked him up and down - he totally grinned at her, not a leer, definitely not, she was kinda cute though - and got an eyeroll for his trouble. "Fucking straight boys," she muttered under her breath as she went to get the shot glasses. How many tequilas was too many tequilas? It was an abstract sort of thought when it flitted through Aubrey’s head, riding along with the electric impulses of alcohol and the swallowed juice from bitten limes, but it was an important one. Maybe. Should be an important one. Yeah, that was it: he knew on some level that he was supposed to give a shit, but the hot flush of a diluted bloodstream made his cheeks feel all warm and his head full of fuzz, and there were more important things to be considered as he wound his way through the writhing crowd and sidled back up to the bar. Important things like his unacceptable sobriety. Because it was fucking hot in the club, even with his suit jacket long since discarded somewhere in a forgotten corner. Aubrey wasn’t a fan of wiping beaded sweat off his forehead when he was thoroughly engrossed in trying to get wasted, ya dig? Even with the frequent trips out a side door to the alley where he could suck down cigarette smoke and cold, winter-sharp air into his lungs until his head was rendered temporarily clear - even then, it was still hot as balls. Christ, hot enough that he’d actually made the trip back outside to the club’s VIP valet parking where his reward from the boss-man had been sequestered for the evening: his ‘66 Aston Martin DB5, heather gray and way, far-out beyond absurd in its’ evident luxury. It seemed almost indecent that Aubrey had used the passenger seat as a changing room when he swapped his black button-down for a dark green Henley that brought out his eyes - like even thinking about such a thing was too gay for a vehicle that should have been driven around by James Bond, when he wasn’t busy saving the world and slaying pussy. Whatever. Point was, being just shy of the tequila tipping point made his position at the bar a prime one when it came to people-watching. Sipping on an iced glass of Tromba, he had just enough time to register another man’s approach to the bar and the curled-lip displeasure that was making itself obvious on his face, before the guy was standing a few bodies away and trying to charm that one cunty bartender while he ordered his drinks. For a minute, Aubrey just grinned and chomped on a few more ice cubes with the rocks glass tilted back against his teeth. When he spoke (shouted, if he was going to be heard over the pounding bass of the music’s assault), it was with a craned neck that aimed his voice in the other guy’s direction, over the heads of the patrons between them. One of the many privileges of being over six feet, right? “You think she could at least act a little grateful about not having to make another round of appletinis?” The words came out accompanied by a smirk, as Aubrey leaned back against the bar with one elbow propping him up. The Tromba was fucking hitting the spot, and he punctuated his little inquiry by tossing the last dregs down his throat. There was a guy. Talking to him. A presumably gay guy. Hal looked, not yet worked up to the point to be standoffish, but there was no flicker of - ooh, he's hot - like he got with ladies. Score one for the straight boy. It was enough to make him smile, a little frisson of tension slipping out of his shoulders, visible in the way they settled beneath his white t-shirt. Clean, even recently clean, not one of his shirts that he left bunched on the floor of whatever apartment he was crashing in. "Hell yes." And if the drink hadn't been spelled out right there in the name, Hal wouldn't have known what the hell it was. An appletini didn't even sound like the name of a drink that Gotham should have. They probably had shit like Black Bat and Cat Scratch Fever and Whip Crack Love. Which maybe should have been a hint that he shouldn't be looking for anything here, in this town, but no one knew him here and he'd seen enough aliens to know he'd be the one Lantern to end up in an orgy with aliens whose tentacles doubled as sexual organs - female and male if he tried this somewhere other than Earth. And okay, there had been that one time that he was never going to think about again - but moving on. Delivery of clear liquid in a clean shot glass that he slung back with ease. Memory forgotten. He took a second shot just to chase the first, and gestured to the girl for two more. Another eye roll, but he grinned big and stupid at her. "You'd think they'd have come up with a better name," he shouted back, attention returning to the guy. Tall guy. Without the anvil of Bruce's jaw or Clark's penchant for primary colors or Ollie's beard. All good points. Guy didn't look like anyone he knew. “On me,” Aubrey added as an aside, catching the bartender’s gaze while he gestured first at the empty shot glasses in front of the other man, and then his own. The fact that he’d been tipping well all night meant that he was subject only to a slight amount of disdain in the form of her sideways slash of a sneer, before the poured drinks had been laid out. But because it was Aubrey, he couldn’t help but supply some extra information to the sitch: “My new super-legit-hetero friend needs to save his money if he’s gonna successfully put himself in the hospital while achieving his admirable goals of total fucking oblivion by way of alcohol poisoning.” While he was framing his words within a sloppy sort of grin, the crush of male bodies shoved up against the bar between them had evidently received their drinks and slowly started to retreat, leaving enough room that Aubrey could sidle to the left and lean with his forearms against the bar and his chest angled over the sticky-wet linoleum surface. With most of the space between them now closed, he didn’t even spare a sideways slide of his gaze until he’d brought the new glass up to his lips and swallowed down another two ounces of premium tequila. Then a quick, sharp gesture (way more subtle and suave than Desperate Straight Boi’s jerky requests for more vodka, just fyi) had his glass refilled again, and then he was swirling the booze around like it was the teacup ride at Disneyland. “Oh, please.” He waved his hand in a manner that managed to be dismissive even though he was going for nonchalant-charming (it was a fine line, okay?), then reached up to absently rub the pads of his fingers against the couple of days’ worth of soft, curled stubble that shaded his jawline. “It’s more efficient if they just take your money and don’t waste time bothering with creativity. ‘Appletini’ sounds cute and gay and vaguely reminiscent of a real drink, so obviously it’s gonna sell. Just like any shooter piled with whipped cream can be called a blowjob and marked up to ten bucks each. Because dudes are horny fucking morons.” Another swallow, and the sharp heat of booze buzzing in his bloodstream had him flushing all warm like an absurd cliché: the charming, talkative drunk who’d seen it all, and with it came the usual boldness. Chin angled just-so, he spared the other man a sideways slide of his gaze. “What’s your name?” The extra information was mostly on point, except that Hal had no intentions of ending up in the hospital, only getting damn close. Maybe the emergency room door. Yeah, no closer than that though. Hospitals smelled funny and the nurses always wanted to take off his ring, but the sponge baths weren't bad. As long as it was a hot nurse. He smiled to himself, momentarily lost in visions of nurses clad in low cut white scrubs and missed the way more subtle gesture the other man made for a refill. The glug of the bottle returned him to the sausage-fest he was currently inhabiting. He drank. Fast. And tilted his chin at the woman behind the bar for a refill. Maybe he should have tried this without drinking, but one look around was enough to snap him out of that fairy tale. Bodies - male bodies, and more male bodies, and even more male bodies, some partially unclothed, shining with sweat and possibly glitter, others wrapped up in clothing so tight that they might as well have been naked. Which, yeah, the suit didn't hide much - none of their suits did - but he was fairly sure some of these guys had to be stuffing socks in their pants. Not that he was looking, but it was hard to miss on some of them. It was enough to make a guy feel (slightly) intimidated. His gaze returned to the guy - slightly bearded, still not Ollie - and nodded. "I'm not drinking anything called a blowjob." Not for ten bucks, not for a hundred, maybe for a thousand if no one was watching. Or heard him order it. For a hundred large he might let someone watch. Maybe. He peered at Fuzzy Jaw, a man who was (presumably) gay. Maybe not even for a hundred large. Better hold out for an even mil. And the guy was asking his name. He should lie, tell him something else, anything else but the truth, and he gave the first name that came to mind. "Bruce." Yeah, yeah that was good. He smiled. So maybe all bets were off when the dude decided to paint a lime-sour smile onto that mouth, that island of pink lips in an ocean of blonde stubble. Because, alright - he was hot like fire. Call the police and the fireman, Bruno Mars dancing up a storm hot damn hot, if Aubrey was going to be entirely honest about it. Which he was, because Aubrey always hopped on the honest train when tequila was the conductor. And here was this smoke show who was making no art of tossing back the vodka shots like he wanted to be anywhere but sober, and yeah, he could definitely get behind that. Had been there more than once or twice himself, although he didn’t usually make a habit out of getting wasted at gay bars. That was an activity better suited for dives with no name and old bartenders named Pete, while the clubs with Ed Sheeran dance remixes were generally relegated to looking for quick hookups. Not that he was one to judge. If this guy - Bruce, like he was supposed to do something other than smirk when the guy presented that as a name - wanted to get his drink on and his rocks off in the land of glitter and hotpants, more power to him. And for all his vodka-oriented bravado, Aubrey didn’t miss the way that the guy’s gaze flickered between the half-naked, writhing bodies that surrounded them. He wasn’t fooled for a second. Then the guy was returning his gaze, and Aubrey just grinned a deliberate, knowing grin in return. Of course you’re not, were the words that he wanted to say, that were playing around the corners of his tequila-wet lips, but he didn’t let them surface. Better to not scare the dude off. “You and half of Gotham, sweetheart. Not -” he held up a hand, preemptively placating, before gesturing to the bartender that they could both benefit from refilled beverages. “That you can’t pull off ‘Bruce’. I’m totally supportive. It’s just a little homo-fanboy, don’t you think?” The words spilled out with a teasing lilt to them, and Aubrey was leaning into the space between them with a casual been-there-done-that complacency. No touch of hand to low back, or brush of knuckles - but there was a presumptive sort of air to his movements, and a knowing angle of his eyebrows when he turned to narrow his gaze in the other man’s direction. “And we both know that’s not why you’re here.” And once he said him and half of Gotham - yeah, Hal's mind went there. What if the real Bruce was in one of these crowds? Oh God no. His thoughts backpedaled so hard he almost fell out of his stool and quickly reached for the nearest refilled shot to down it like it was brain bleach. Ugh. Never. Thinking. About. That. Again. Nevermind that he was totally blowing his cool points with that reach and guzzle, but something had to be done. A shudder ran down the length of his spine. Never. Again. "I'm not a fanboy," he croaked out, eyes slightly watering. "And I look better in a suit than he does." Bruce was, y'know, maybe okay, if you liked guys that never smiled and had a permanent scowl like he'd never gotten laid in his life - yeah, then Bruce was okay. He could kick ass, not like Hal could, but he could hold his own in a fight. The level of dick measuring going on in his own head was starting to make him a little uncomfortable. He shifted in the seat, gaze going back to Fuzzy Face. The dude. The guy who, if he'd been a girl, Hal would probably be hitting on in the hopes of getting her to go home with him so they could have sex until they ran out of condoms or fell into an exhausted heap, whichever came first. The guy who, based on Hal's presence in this club, probably thought that was going to happen anyway. And for half a second, he considered it. Thought about what it would be like to have Fuzz under him, ass turned up into his hips, tight, tight hole around his cock and he'd reach under to stroke his - Dick. There were one too many dicks in this scenario. Really, really one too many, and he gazed at the empty shot glass in front of him. Maybe if he'd had more to drink. Another shot of vodka. More tequila. Maybe the whole bottle. Maybe, maybe, maybe, and maybe he wasn't ready to find out if it went any deeper than some really weird shit that happened between him and Ollie and at a hotel party. Hotel parties were known for their weird shit. They couldn't be trusted. Yeah. He coughed, cleared his throat and looked back at The Dude, who was looking at him all presumptive like. Like he knew and his mouth suddenly felt like the the barren-ass moonscape. The first thing that came out, the one phrase his traumatized brain could come up with was: "I gotta go." And he was hauling ass. Don't look back, don't surrender, just run like the Star Sapphire's were coming to make him fall in love again, outright bolt for the goddamn door. |