InsaneJournal

Who: Jessica and Peter
What: Peter wants to get his drink on
When: Recently
Where: Jessica's apartment
Ratings/Warnings: Low/none
Status: Complete


It seemed only right that Peter repay Jessica’s generosity with a little something something. He was finding a good niche as handyman, made a few dollar bills and now he wanted to get drunk.

Sure, Yondu was the obvious choice, as was a few pubs/bars/etc that were littered around the city but he didn’t really want that. He had a feeling that the first time he got wasted, he’d probably either say something stupid that he would regret, start a fight and/or hit on a hot chick and get destroyed by her even hotter boyfriend.

So. That really only left one person who could probably kick his ass if he needed it, ignore anything he said, and still potentially like him in the morning. That was exactly why he was standing in front of Jessica’s place, two slurpees in hand, a mickey of whiskey in his back pocket, and a 2-4 happily snuggled in his jacket.

He was like a boy scout -- always prepared.

With his foot, he banged on the door. “Jessicaaaaa. Let me in before I start singing…”

Jessica was staring at her laptop when she heard someone kicking at her door. Her first instinct was to roll her eyes. It wasn’t the first time some drunk spouse had shown up, at her door, demanding she investigate their husband-slash-wife right now because they were convinced that they were cheating and it had to be done now.

Though, before she could even begin to roll her eyes, Peter began speaking and she rolled her eyes for an entirely different reason.

“The door’s unlocked,” Jessica called, though she still got up from behind her desk to open the door, which had a frosted glass window in it that proclaimed this was Alias Investigations in gold block print. For a minute, she stared at Peter and the two slurpees in his hand, and then she stepped aside to let him in.

Her apartment wasn’t the most neatly kempt. Her desk, a lamp on one side and a nearly empty bottle of cheap scotch on the other, sat in front of a pair of windows, with a bookcase that displayed her Private Investigator’s license and more bottles of liquor to the left of the desk. Next to it was an unused fireplace. In front of the desk sat two chairs for her clients, and on the other side of the room was a couch. Next to the couch was a bucket filled with broken charging cables and blocks for her phone. She was sure that there was some sort of recycling program for the wires, but she hadn’t had the time or the inclination to look up exactly how to dispose of them, so they had begun to pile up. Over her couch was a large, crumbling hole from where she’d tripped a couple months ago and accidentally put her fist through the wall.

“You didn’t come all the way here just to bring me a slurpee, did you?” Jessica asked, raising an eyebrow.

“An alcoholic slurpee,” he responded cheerfully before breaking out in song. “ Cuz you like pina coladas..and getting caught in the rain…” His singing voice was surprisingly good. Music was, after all, his thing . He offered one to Jessica before taking a satisfying sip of his own. “And you’re not into yoga ...but you have more than half a brain…” Reaching into his jacket, he took out the 2-4 of vodka and set it on the desk before pulling out the mickey from his jeans.

Peter then threw himself onto the couch and gave a cheeky grin. “But if you like making love after midnight, you’re kinda fucked because I’m not a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy, and you’re fun to have around.” With a wink, he raised his drink. “Now. L’chaim!”

He might have started drinking on his way over.

Jessica stared. Never in her life had someone waltzed into her home/office, singing Rupert Holmes, and pulling all sorts of liquor out of God knew where. For a minute, Jessica was sure that she must be dreaming, but none of her dreams were quiet this unreal. That, and they were generally more nightmares than dreams, and this didn’t seem to be that horrific. Just baffling.

For lack of any other reasonable reaction, Jessica took a long drink through the straw of her slurpee, gave it a frustrated glance, and then took the lid and straw out all together. “You’re drunk,” Jessica said, though as far as she was concerned, that was obvious.

"Well no shit, Sherlock. Although," he said, pointing a finger in her direction,"I guess you don't need to be a private eye to see that. I also prefer the term 'pleasantly blitzed'. The zee sounds cool."

He wasn't actually that drunk yet, although he was definitely half way through his vodka/coke/root beer slush.

"You look like you have a cigarette voice. Sing me a soooooong."

Jessica swallowed a mouthful of the slurpee, wincing a little at the brainfreeze that followed shortly after.

“Not a chance,” she told Peter, pushing the near empty bottle of whiskey to the other side of her desk so that she could sit, cross legged, on the desktop. “If you wanted someone to serenade you, you should have picked a different person to drink with.”

“Yeah….” She had a point. “I wanted someone that could drink me under the table, tuck me in and put a bucket next to me if I needed it, so heeeeey, that seemed to be you.” He lifted his slurpee with glee. “And come on -- you can’t tell me that work is that interesting. Drink with me. I came prepared!”

Peter motioned to the booze on the table and shifted in his seat a bit more. Even though Jessica was sitting on the desk, he almost felt like the naughty student. No thank you. He wasn’t naughty, he was just misunderstood. He dropped his gaze and pouted. “Don’t make me get wasted with Yondu. I spend enough time with that asshole.”

“Out of everything you just said, you only got the first one right,” Jessica grumbled. She wasn’t the tucking in type, but she was pretty sure she could drink nearly anyone in the county under the table since her powers had kicked in.

But Peter was right in that work wasn’t terribly interesting. She was working on a potential insurance fraud case, though so far she had no proof that there was any fraud happening at all. Just some poor bastard who’d been hurt at work, and now his work didn’t want to pay out. Getting wasted on their dime didn’t seem like such a bad idea right now.

“You brought the booze; I’m not going to kick you out,” Jessica finally said. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to wish drinking with Yondu on anyone. He’s a bit of a lightweight,” she added. Compared to her, at least.

“And he doesn’t sing with me either.” Well. Sometimes Yondu did, but Peter didn’t think Yondu would be too happy to have that information shared with Jessica.

Re-focusing his attention on his drink, he closed his eyes and slouched in his seat, one knee bent with the other leg sprawled out in front of him. “Oh man. I am tired . Being a working man is a million times harder than being a criminal. I can totally see why past me was an asshole and looked for the easy way out though -- for the record -- I’m not planning on going back. I just have some perspective and crap.” He extended his hand. There was a Hello Kitty bandaid, slightly grimy at this point, on his knuckles. “Look. I got a booboo and a really sweet brunette put a bandaid on because I fixed her sink.” He brought his hand up to his face and looked at it in wonder.

“Wanna guess how long it’s been since I washed this hand?” A pause. “Wanna touch my hand?”

“This is why I set my own hours,” Jessica said. The PI life wasn’t so bad, really. She could nurse her hangovers on her couch and still technically be at work. It wasn’t like people were generally clamouring for her services, and when they did, she could usually take the work at her own pace.

She glanced back at the hand, and the grimy bandage. “You should really wash that though. And change the bandaid.” He was going to let it get infected otherwise.

Peter waved his hand away and set his now empty cup in front of him. The alcohol was pleasantly buzzing through is mind and he was enjoying this quiet...even if some music would make it better. “I’ll get around to it. I kinda like the bandaid. I forgot bandaids had itty bitty cartoons on them.” He gently stroked the bandaid, lost in thought before suddenly speaking again. “You know, it’s funny the shit you forget about when you’re in the clink. It’s so goddamn loud in there until it’s not ...and even then, it’s still fucking loud. And there’s nothing different, everything is the same, every day. Same clothes, same food, same people, same guards….the sameness is ..it’s just fucked up, you know? If I wanted a bandaid, I got the same peach coloured one as anyone else. No option. Wanda asked if I wanted it. Gave me a choice.”

He lurched forward and grabbed the vodka bottle, opening it up and pouring some into his empty slurpee cup. “And don’t get me started on prison hooch.” He shuddered and gagged. “Nasty.”

Jessica frowned a little as Peter started talking about prison, not exactly knowing what to say. She didn’t do feelings, whether they were her own or someone else’s. She’d never been to prison herself, though she’d heard enough stories about it to know it was a place that she had zero interest in ever being. But she’d never thought about things like the monotony or the uniformity of it all.

Finally, she sighed and got off her desk, going to sit next to Peter on the couch. She took another mouthful of her slurpee. “At least you don’t have to worry about prison hooch anymore,” she said. “Is it really much worse than this cheap vodka?”

“You have nooooo idea. At least you can tell this is supposed to be vodka.” He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his head back on the couch. “I don’t know. It was stupid, the whole prison thing. Could’ve taken a deal if I’d ratted out everyone else but I dunno.” Peter shrugged. “I just took it all, because what else was I going to do? Not like I had much of a life, and at least I had three squares and a bed in there.”

He peeked his eyes open and looked at Jessica through heavy lids. “Did Yondu fill you in at all? About the colossal fuck-up that is Peter Quill and how Yondu single-handedly made sure I didn’t die from some stupid teenage catastrophe?”

“Most people would have sold out their friends,” Jessica stated. She wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that Peter didn’t. Probably that he was stupidly loyal when he should have been watching his own back.

“No, he didn’t,” Jessica said. Yondu had talked more about the Peter in his dreams than he had the Peter in real life, probably because he believed that Peter’s business was Peter’s business. If Peter wanted to tell Jessica though, well, she wasn’t going to make him shut up about it. “Yondu’s pretty good at at least trying to keep people’s heads on straight, at least.”

Well, except that one time when they’d been turned into teenagers and he’d somehow convinced her to steal a car of all things.

“I shouldn't've,” he mumbled to himself, looking at his drink. To this day, he didn’t really know why he hadn’t ratted everyone out. Maybe because he felt it was his own damn fault for getting caught (even if he suspected someone had actually ratted him out) but whatever. “Yondu is a nice guy. Don’t EVER tell him I said that though”

In fact, Peter suddenly felt so scared for what he said, he sat up quickly. “For real. If he knew I actually appreciated him or some crap, he’d destroy me. We don’t DO feelings. Or emotions. Or anything that isn’t some weird smack each other round thing. Honestly, if we were a couple, it’d be an intimate partner violence situation.” He said the words like he was quoting them, which he was. There was a lot of boring downtime in prison, so he signed up for every class he could take, just for something to do. He was a pro at not beating women now ...not that he ever had in the first place. Still. He learned the terminology.

“I don’t think Yondu’s as bad as all that,” Jessica said in a rare show of actually defending someone. She definitely couldn’t see Yondu as the type of guy who’d instigate a ‘intimate partner violence situation,’ as Peter so eloquently put it. At least, she hoped he wouldn’t be. Jessica could hardly claim to have great taste in men. “But your secret’s safe with me. I don’t make a habit of telling people other people’s business,” and then as an afterthought added “Private investigator, remember?”

“I bet you investigate lots of privates,” Peter said flippanty. The booze was really getting to his head and before he could stop himself, he grinned with a huge smirk. “And maybe even Yondu’s. Can you be my step-Jessica? That would be amazing. The old man needs some love. Maybe then he’ll stop being an a-hole.”

No, Peter did not notice that he was basically insinuating that Yondu was his father figure. He’d been trying to determine exactly what to call him, and old man kept coming up in his mind. He refused to acknowledge the many possibilities it could mean though. He raised his brows and sloppily raised his hand. “I legit would love it if you came by the house more often. It’s so weird, being with Yondu and no buffer person. Weird because I like it? Oh god, why are we talking about Yondu? God, Jessica, I think you have an obsession. Get yourself together.”

“I’m not going to be anyone’s step-anything,” Jessica scolded, though she’d be lying if she said that she’d never thought of Yondu like that. But there was no way that would ever happen. For one, Jessica was too fucked up, too broken for any sort of real relationship, and the current dreams she was having about Kilgrave weren’t making the situation any better. Besides, she doubted Yondu saw her that way, their fooling around when they’d both been teenagers aside. That had probably been nothing more than teenage hormones.

“Alright, I promise to drop the Yondu subject,” Jessica said, not pointing out that it was Peter who had brought him up. Honestly, talking about Yondu and whether or not she and Yondu would ever get together was a subject she was perfectly happy to drop. And then, more to change the subject than any other reason, she asked “What about you? Interested in anyone?”

“Pffffttttttttttttttt.” And for good measure, Peter stuck his tongue out and made more noises. “Interested in their bodies, sure.” He was not going to bring up how his few friends with benefits were barely friends, but definitely benefits and that Yondu caught him with Evie...and Katherine..and damnit, there’s Yondu, creeping into the conversation again. Or how he had a strange little crush on Wanda which could never come to light because she was this innocent, naive, young, gorgeous on the inside person who definitely deserved way better than an ex-con who was barely keeping it together, and probably wasn’t actually seeing as he was getting drunk on a slurpee and were his eyes closing? Wasn’t he supposed to control those?

Oh shit. Did he say all that outloud? From the look on Jessica’s face, yes, yes he did.

“Well. Yeah. So Wanda, perfect. Katherine and Evie, terrifying. My junk is equally happy and horrified and I probably should go get tested or something.”

Oh, Jessica was way too sober for this. Especially for whatever noises Peter was currently trying to make. She down the rest of her slurpee, brain freeze be damned, poured the rest of the whiskey into her slurpee cup. “If you’re sleeping with all three of them, you probably should,” Jessica said. Not that she had any room to judge on that front, nor would she. She had a pretty extensive list of bad sexual decisions herself. At least Peter actually had all these girls’ names.

“Who’s this Wanda girl?” Jessica asked after a moment. She didn’t know Katherine or Evie either, but from what Peter said, Wanda was the one who stood out in his mind.

Peter got a dreamy expression on his face. “She’s this college student whose sink I fixed. Literally. Not like in a porno way, but in a ‘her sink was really leaking’ kind of way. Anyways, we talk randomly. Thinking of asking her for dinner or something but I probably shouldn’t because again, me?” He pointed to himself. “Pretty fucked up. Her life is just starting, and there’s all this potential for amazingness so why would I step into that?”

Jessica frowned to herself. She knew exactly how Peter felt, though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with him. Sure, he’d spent five years in prison, but from what she could tell, Peter was genuinely a nice guy who cared about other people.

“You ask me, she could do a lot worse,” she said after a moment. “In this line of work, you see a lot of screwed up people, and I don’t think you’re one of them. Not in the kind of way where you’d try to screw up your partner’s life.”

Partner. Strange word. “Yeah, well, give me another one of these slushes, and we’ll see.” His eyes were already starting to droop. Once upon a time, he could drink anyone under the table but this had been an unplanned drinking outing that had devolved into sharing time and yuck.

He groaned and lolled his head back. “Let’s just agree to disagree and drink more. You have a corner I can curl up in and a bucket I can puke in right?” He opened one eye lazily and grinned. “Let’s get this party going.”

“I don’t have anymore slushies,” Jessica said, which should have been obvious to anyone who wasn’t as blitzed as Peter clearly was. “If you want more alcohol, you’re going to have to drink it straight like the rest of us.” Which Jessica demonstrated by taking another swig of her liquor. A small voice in the back of her head wondered if Peter should be drinking anymore, but who was she to judge?

She sighed. She didn’t particularly enjoy sleepovers, especially ones that didn’t involve her getting laid, but it wasn’t like she could kick Peter out on the street at this point. If she wanted him gone, she’d have to call Yondu to come pick her up, and she suspected Peter wouldn’t appreciate that. “You can take the couch, though don’t blame me when you wake up hurting.” Both from the uncomfortable old couch and from the inevitable hangover. “I think the party’s already come and gone.”

The couch sounded like a wonderful idea. Slowly, as if he was a peter liquid, he stretched out, until only his feet were on the floor. It wasn’t until a few moments later that he realized he could kick his boots off and put his feet up too. And that his jacket was huggable. “Tell me a bedtime story, Jess,” he murmured, closing his eyes. She was right -- the party had come and gone and he was still there. In the morning, he’d be embarrassed and/or own up to it, but that was the morning. Right now, he was comfy where he was.

Jessica finished off the rest of the alcohol in her slurpee cup, and then went to get one of the extra blankets from her linen closet. She came back with the garbage pail from her bathroom, put it near his head, and haphazardly threw the blanket over him.

“Once upon a time,” Jessica started flately, “there was a drunk little boy who passed out at the mean old witch's house. He threw up on her carpet, instead of the garbage can she so kindly put next to him, and he never woke up again.” She patted Peter gently on the head. “Good night, Quill.”