Entry tags:

tyr, uke mochi

o crap it's going down
Who: Alice and Gus
What: Flirtatious behavior leads to poor decisions
Where: Gus’s apartment
When: June 20, the night before the pool party (so hella backdated)


Alice was done with work, at least for a day, and she was glad of it. Things had been chaotic over the past number of weeks, what with Isobel losing her memory, the death in Rafael’s apartment, and the hecticness of work, but today had been particularly awful. A man had come in requesting an obscene amount of baked goods to be handled immediately--more than Alice had in stock--and had a meltdown when Alice admitted she wouldn’t be able to fulfill the order in such little time. While she was doing a halfway decent job in managing her company, she never was one for conflict and having a stranger flip on her over something so small left Alice upset.

Despite trying all her might, she couldn’t shake the sadness and uncertainty of the day. So when Gus texted her, agreeing they could have their tv-viewing, dinner eating evening at his place so as not to disturb Rafael at hers, she decided to bring a bottle of alcohol along with her. They could have mixed drinks because it was her Friday and, anyway, it was worth celebrating that Gus had received great grades for the semester.

Upon Gus opening his apartment door, Alice forced a smile. “I brought vodka because today was awful at work, but we should toast your good grades.” She held up the bottle, the clear liquid sloshing in it. “What’s for dinner and how can I help?”

There wasn't much to see at Gus’ place, admittedly. His furniture consisted primarily of second hand pieces found on Craigslist, which BB had taken no time at all to point out upon her first visit to his home. That, and a few of his smaller pieces he'd swiped from his ex-roommates, but Gus considered the theft justified. If they were going to adopt a dangerous dog without discussing it with him first, then certainly they wouldn't miss an end table or two.

Still, for all the reasonably threadbare appearance of his apartment, he’d done his best to clean up before Alice's visit. Coming home from work that afternoon, he'd tossed out the trash and quickly scrubbed down the counters, washing any stray dishes he found. He'd also been certain to put away any drug paraphernalia, regardless that Alice already knew he smoked to ease his joint pain. It just didn't seem right, somehow, that it should be laying out on the coffee table when a woman like Alice was visiting.

Still, he didn't refrain from taking a couple of hits once he was out of the shower, disliking the idea of potentially being in pain during her visit. Tossing on an old Steely Dan concert t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, he padded barefoot to his kitchen, digging out cooking supplies from his most recent shopping trip. Instant rise pizza dough and all the fixings were scattered across his counter space, and he was adding the finishing touches when Alice arrived.

Always a sight, Alice nevertheless looked less than stress free. Gus smiled reassuringly at her anyway, ushering her inside his home, slightly nervous. “Vodka sounds great. I can be Russian for one night if you can.” He mentally shoved himself for his bad one liner, walking with Alice to the kitchen. As he pulled down glasses for their drinks and a bottle of Sprite from the fridge, he walked himself through a list of what not to do while Alice was here--namely, not to embarrass himself.

“So uh, what happened at work?” he asked carefully, pouring each of them a drink. “Someone being a douchebag?” The insult escaped before he could check his language, a measure of apprehensive irritation already rising at the thought of some schmuck ruining Alice's day.

“Yeah,” Alice said with a sigh as she opened the bottle of vodka and poured them each a generous amount into the glasses. “He yelled at me and not even for a decent reason. I felt awful. I don’t understand why people think it’s okay to just scream at strangers for not getting their way.” She was the most miserable she had ever been in front of Gus and she found she couldn’t just bounce back from all of this. It wasn’t like her to hang onto something like this for so long and yet here she was, feeling miserable and sorry for herself.

It took her a moment to realize she was still thinking about herself. “But what about you! We have to celebrate that you’re done with school and got great grades. This isn’t just pity vodka but happy vodka.” She held up her glass and smiled at Gus. “Cheers?”

He rarely offered his concern so freely. Not out of spite, but rather out of a severe interest in maintaining boundaries from others, limitations necessary to keep life more simple. Gus liked to think he was a practical man.

But damn him if he didn't want to hold Alice while she vented. Instead, he nodded along in agreement with her rant, scowling at the unnamed assailant of her good day. “Cheers,” he said with a mustered up smile. “And it can be both. Like. I'm not gonna judge you.” He took his own glass in hand, raising it to clink it together with Alice's.

The vodka and Sprite went down relatively smooth, the liquor’s harsh sting calmed by the carbonated beverage. Having taken a hearty swig of his drink, Gus grinned at Alice, and motioned to the waiting pizza. “I’m gonna put this in the oven so we can eat soon, and like. What do you say to playing 20 questions while we wait?”

Alice grinned, “I think that sounds the like perfect plan and an even more perfect distraction.” She picked up the sprite and vodka, hugging both to her body, and moved towards the seating area.

---

Alice was curled up into her chair on Gus’s couch, sitting much closer to him than she ever had in the past, and laughing fully. She lost count of how much she had to drink and the world had taken that distant quality it gained when she was drunk. As if she were watching a show she wasn’t entirely a part of, the more sober part of her pushed aside and kept at a distance while the drunken side just did as it pleased with little regard to everything else.

She and Gus had their twenty questions, along with a lot of booze and pizza, and she was contently drunk. “I think Hannah is couch surfing and trying out a blog specifically about that,” Alice giggled, referring to her youngest sister who had a case of wanderlust and poor planning, but she had been closer in age to Gus and the two had been at school together. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly. She just falls completely off the radar for weeks then pops up in an entirely new state.”

The two had been laughing over the antics of their siblings, but generally keeping away from talks of BB as if they silently agreed she wasn’t to be spoken of. Which was alright, Alice had more than enough sisters to pass around.

“The next thing you know, she’ll probably be hopping trains,” Gus scoffed, although the strain of irritation that typically accompanied his snide remarks was absent from his voice. The vodka made sure of his good mood, and Alice’s presence enforced it. “Not like, I’m surprised or anything.” His buzz had grown considerably stronger the more he and Alice had drank together, and he leaned in closer to his already-close companion. “That’s...not what I meant. Like. No offense, I’m sure she’s having the time of her life.”

What memories he did have of Hannah were certainly not terrible, but her current lifestyle simply explained that she must have perfected her attitude towards any kind of strings holding her down--an actual free bird, out to take on the world. Unfortunately for Gus, he currently lacked the gravitas with which to explain himself. It was a good thing, then, that Alice smelled so good, because his brief feelings of flustered, drunken regret were quickly replaced by more tangible notions.

“Y’know, Alice, this is pretty cool,” he remarked, words slurring together just a touch. “I mean, spending time together like this. I like it. Like a lot.” Fumbling for what remained of his most recent drink, he downed it and left the empty glass on the coffee table. “I, uh. Kinda wish we did this more often,” Gus added, his line of sight trailing downwards from Alice’s bright, friendly eyes to her probably-really-kissable lips, and the cute tilt of her chin. Acting rather than thinking, he breached the remaining distance between the two of them to cup her cheek in his hand, almost timidly despite the alcohol working its magic. “You look really pretty tonight, and I’ve kinda been wanting to tell you for awhile. That you always look pretty, I mean. Not just tonight.”

Alice grew still when Gus touched her cheek but as he spoke, she relaxed and pressed her cheek to his hand. It felt nice, it all felt nice, and her heart was fluttering in her chest. She was a romantic, a dreamer, but had an awful history with men. Every guy she dated ended up breaking her heart. She only had one boyfriend, long ago in college, who seemed semi perfect but he moved away and she didn’t want a long distant relationship or to move directly into marriage right after college, so things ended.

Now after one issue then another, to find her attracted to both Lucas and Gus was conflicting. Lucas was new and not related to anyone she knew. But he was also someone she didn’t know as well as Gus. Gus, who was sweet and kind and a bit fumbling, but Alice knew he was a good guy. If only he wasn’t the brother to her best friend.

But that final thought was far away now, drowned by the alcohol, drowned by the stressors of the apartment complex and work, and pushed aside by the crush she had on him for the past number of weeks. “Thank you,” she managed to say, immediately shy by how tiny her voice sounded. She looked down, bashful suddenly, and bit at her lip. “This is really nice. And you’re sweet, really sweet.” She looked back up at Gus, her eyes large and hesitant. It was that lengthened moment that seemed to happen when two people who have mutual feelings for one another were in close proximity. That moment where the surroundings all seemed to take a collective breath in and hold that breath as the world waited for something to happen.

He didn’t have a plan, not exactly--and how could he properly formulate one right now, anyway? But when Alice didn’t flinch or move away from him, it was all the encouragement Gus needed. Fueled by liquid courage and his on-going infatuation with the modest baker, he threw caution to the wind and planted a kiss on her waiting lips. It was, by far, the most daring and uncalculated risk he’d taken in quite some time.

Not that he’d be ready and willing to admit it, even while slightly inebriated.

With the clumsy yet eager passion oft found only in those who have imbibed several drinks, he attempted to freely admit his feelings for Alice, holding her face in his hands while he kissed her. “You’re sweet, too,” he murmured lowly against her lips, head spinning not with nausea and the like, but with the audacity of his own actions. “Been waiting to do that for a long time.”

Alice’s cheeks were instantly aflame and as red as her hair. Her smile was broad enough that it hurt her cheeks and still she kept doing it. “That was nice,” Alice admitted as she shifted on the seat, not sure what to do with her hands or her legs or anything but certainly not shifting away from Gus. The world spun around her, set into motion by the kiss and the alcohol, but she tried to steady it all by looking at Gus’s face. Somewhere, deep down, a tiny sober voice said maybe you shouldn’t but that was easily ignored. “Maybe you should do it again.”

---

Alice wasn’t certain if the bottle of vodka was done, or it just looked done from across the room but she was certain she drank well past the amount she should have. Everything had a distant quality and she was pretty certain she was floating across the floor rather than walking. “Just a little nap,” Alice repeated as she and Gus moved toward his bed. It was late and Alice should have been getting home but Rafael was so sad and hurting, Alice didn’t want to make him deal with her drunken state. Why not stay with Gus for a little while until she sobered some? Just have a little nap, sober up, and then make her way home. It wasn’t a big deal.

“Yeah, sleep would be good,” Gus mumbled in lackluster agreement, distracted by other thoughts and feelings than the bliss to be found in a solid block of REM sleep. While most of his mind was absolutely marveling that this was happening at all--Alice, about to sleep in his bed--something told him to change routes, and fast.

He ignored the more sensible voice, opting out of acting the responsible sibling for once in his life.

“Probably should rest,” he said with all the conviction of someone long since three sheets to the wind. “It’s late, anyway. But,” Gus added, swallowing hard at his own sense of daring, “first, we should get comfortable.” Had they bothered with flicking the lights on, Alice might have noticed the darkening color on his cheeks. As it stood, the splash of the moon’s glow from a partially opened window did wonders for hiding any signs of nervousness he felt. He stepped back from Alice, his fingers fumbling at the bottom of his shirt, tugging it up and over his head. Gus let his shirt drop to the floor--currently, and thankfully, free of other carelessly tossed clothing--and shoved it aside with his foot.

“Let me help you,” he offered, pulling Alice gently by the hand. Feeling for the mattress behind him, he sat down on it, bringing her closer to him. “Then...then you can lie down. We can sleep.” As he spoke, Gus tugged lightly at Alice’s shirt before slipping warm, however damaged, hands beneath it. Her skin equally warm against his palms, and softer than he’d imagined, sent a chill up his spine. Had he been sober, he would have recognized that it wasn’t just the vodka affecting his actions and his reactions.

Alice’s breath caught in her throat but she didn’t move away, nor did she try to push Gus’s hands away. Instead, her own hands found his, her thin fingers slipping between his own, and she looked at him with a crooked, drunk smile.

She knew what could come next and had been there before, but her self doubt and low confidence still clawed at the back of her head, warning her that maybe she was misreading things. That surely Gus didn’t want her that way. So she didn’t push forward, didn’t try to grab hold of Gus, but she kept his hands passing over the skin of her back and her belly, his fingers moving upward a little by a little towards the bra, pushing her shirt up all the while.

“Sleep will be nice,” Alice murmured although she wasn’t entirely sure that sleep meant sleep when she said it. Her eyes stayed on the blurry, shadowed outline of Gus’s face and she considered kissing him again and smiled shily.

Gus had never dared to do more than brush against Alice when he was walking by her, usually when the two of them were making dinner together. Occasionally, their hands would briefly touch when reaching for the remote, or picking up dirtied dishes for cleaning. Sometimes, he thought about kissing her goodbye on the cheek before he left her apartment. But he never acted; too reserved, too nervous, too determined to not directly hit on his sister’s best friend.

It wasn’t right, probably.

Except sometimes it was okay to step outside of set boundaries. Sometimes, as Gus would later justify to himself, the only thing to do in the moment was to follow it along for the best possible result. And the only result for the two of them--right here, and right now--was to enjoy what was happening, to fully experience it.

He chose to experience it by pulling Alice in closer to him, roaming hands across her smooth back and stomach, leaning in to kiss the exposed, forbidden skin. Gus wanted to press her form close against his, to meld the two of them together in the shadows. But this was practically impossible with an insufferable amount of clothing left to remove.

“Come sit by me,” he murmured, scooting over on the bed. It was as close to making a plan for anything whatsoever that he could get at the moment. Desire and alcohol would allow him little room for skillful maneuvering.

Alice scooched closer to Gus on the bed, the difference between standing and sitting hitting her with a swirl in her head, the alcohol sloshing against her brain made her not see quite straight and hold onto Gus even more. She giggled, a drunk giggle that bubbles up from the throat and curls out of the lips and into the air, and lowered her head to rest against Gus’s shoulder. She wrapped one arm around his waist, her other hand came to rest on his chest, and she giggled again.

“We should sleep,” she pointed out but it could’ve meant more than one thing. “We are very drunk,” she said, as if it needed to be noted, as if Gus wasn’t noticing. She lifted her head, smiling, and pulled away. “Come lay down by me,” she requested as she moved fully onto the bed and scrambled around Gus to lay down on the other side. She flopped down onto her back, her arms and legs outstretched as if she were about to make a snow angel. With one hand, she patted the spot beside her, welcoming him as close as possible.

“Sure,” Gus readily agreed. “You don’t need to ask me twice,” he added with a smile hidden by the shadows, crawling over to where Alice rested. But rather than lay chastely beside her and settle in for a proper nap, the youngest Bernard sibling chose instead to give into temptation, emboldened after their earlier embraces. It took but a mere moment for him to roll over next to Alice, quickly pulling her in for a much more intimate tangle of limbs, the consequences be damned, all of which Alice readily accepted.

---

Perhaps Alice had eaten cotton the night before. It was possible, considering how little Alice remembered when she initially woke the next morning. Her head was pounding, her mouth was dry, and her bedding...didn’t really smell like her bedding. Opening her eyes slowly then all at once, she looked at the room around her, realizing it wasn’t hers then remembering, slowly and with growing regret, whose room it was.

She sat up too quickly and her head spun, a hand reaching to her chest where she found nothing but bare skin. Looking down, she saw her naked form with a blanket barely covering her and remembered even more of what had happened just before bed. “Oh my god,” Alice managed to blurt out like the vomit that would surely come later due to all the damn vodka she had drank. She tugged at the blanket, wrapping it firmly around her chest and looked around for her clothing, artfully avoiding looking at the young man who was just as naked and asleep beside her.

Did he snore when he slept? Only sometimes, and those ‘sometimes’ moments were reserved for when his sleep had been predated by strenuous activity of varying sorts. In this case, a particularly enjoyable activity, but one which had involved far too much alcohol. The motion of Alice tugging at the large comforter interrupted his half awake, half asleep status, and he murmured something intelligible as he sleepily rolled over, a growing headache pushing at his temples.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the now overly familiar form of Alice nearby, looking frantic and especially hungover. Gus felt the same, his headache pulsing. Sitting up seemed to take ages, his movements slow, as if he were underwater. In an effort to not immediately address their current predicament, he swung his legs--slowly, ridiculously slowly--over the edge of the bed. Working at the muscles in his hands to wake them up, he winced at the stiffness, stretching his fingers and clenching them again. He needed to make it to the bathroom and take his medicine, he needed to not think about what they’d done last night, not about how great it’d been, drunk and clumsy and excited.

Worst of all, he needed to not ever let BB know even a whisper of what had occurred. It’d be too awkward.

“Uh,” he said groggily, his broad back to Alice as he stood to shuffle towards the bathroom, grabbing a pair of discarded shorts along the way (and missing at his first attempt to grasp them), “I’ll make us breakfast.”

Alice squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach twisting. “No… no, you don’t have to do that,” she managed, getting to her feet and dragging the blanket with her as she began picking up the odds and ends of her outfit from the day before. “You’re sweet” but the word sounded like it pained her. Likely because he was sweet, but a sweetness that she should never have touched. “but I honestly don’t think I can eat right now. I… I need to just head home, chug some water and try to sleep away this hangover.”

She stood fully, the blanket and her clothing clutched to her chest and looked at Gus with color in her cheeks while the rest of her was sickly pale. “We can’t mention this to...you know.”

Suddenly, his headache came second in pain management, in comparison to the molten lead feeling in the pit of his stomach. And it wasn’t, he knew through his hungover haze, caused by the alcohol. Neither was the hollow pit which settled in his chest. Gus swallowed hard, tugging on his shorts and looking, with some difficulty, at Alice. The redhead looked as disheveled as he felt (and probably looked, too).

“I won’t say anything if you won’t,” he agreed, voice low and tempered with uncertainty--not shame, not regret, not any of the above. “I...I have to take my meds. But uh, I’ll walk you to the door. You should rest--for real this time.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? That was it.