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It's Brittany, Bitch | Ερις (eristic) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2011-06-10 11:25:00

I Only Drink To Be Merry
Who: Sam & Charlie
What: Bar shenanigans
Where: Malarkey’s Irish Pub
When: 6:49 pm
Notes: Placeholder for a Gdoc. Complete!
Warnings: Some swearing and violence, but nothing you haven't seen before.



It was a regular evening for the wannabe biker chick - Charlie had gotten off of work just a little after five thirty, and had immediately proceeded, on her motorcycle, to a nearby bar; she had no standards as to what kind of drinking establishment she’d patronize, and as long as it wasn’t one she’d been thrown out of or banned from, they all welcomed her and her money with open arms.

She was already well into her fourth beer and feeling somewhat tipsy. Charlie had never been one of a large stature, and her slight body mass made it easy to get drunk quickly. When she’d first walked in, most patrons had given her barely a glance due to her naturally off putting aura; now she was cracking jokes and had even challenged one man to a drinking contest, but he’d been a little taken aback by her challenge.

“Seriously? Seriously, a fuckin’ lil girl like me, you can’t take? Wow, that’s...way to be a pussy, man,” Charlie exclaimed loudly, words slurred just a touch, the pitch of her voice rising with every swallow of alcohol. She swayed on her feet a little, using the bar for support, as she deprecated the man who’d turned her down, much to the amusement of the other bar patrons. She turned to look at the crowd of people shoved into the small space offered by the pub, holding her hands out. “Any other takers?”

“I’ll take your bet, ‘li’l girl’.”

Samuel slipped onto the bar stool beside her, a tall hefeweizen dripping condensation on his hands. He cast an appraising glance over her slight form, amused by the vast disparity between her words and her appearance. It was intriguing to say the least. Something in her swagger drew him in, echoing like a memory; her voice was one he thought he knew, though he could not place from where.

“Samuel,” he said, raising his glass in mock toast. “So what’cha drinkin’? Gotta make it as even a contest as we can, after all.” Charlie turned to face the newcomer, her brows raising in approval and a wide grin replaced the mocking smirk on her mouth. The man was almost a head taller than her, but she gave no sign that she was intimidated in the least. Picking up her own beer from the bar, a quick swallow left the bottle empty; she turned to shove it at the bartender, who grabbed it out of reflex. Once he was holding the bottle, he glared at Charlie before tossing the empty glass into a nearby recycling tub.

“Jägerbombs? Loser pays,” she answered, turning back to the bar with her head tilted at him. Without waiting for an answer, her knuckles rapped the bar to confirm the order with the ‘tender and for him to start bringing out the drinks. Then, leaning on her hip against the bar to give her the illusion of sobriety, Charlie gave the newcomer - Samuel - a closer scrutiny. Her desire to needle everyone reared its head.

“So this what you do for fun, or is this an arrogance thing?”

“Can’t it be both?” He took a long pull from his own beer, determined not to let her one-up him even in mere appearance. His nails tapped out a rhythm against the curves of the glass. He liked her study of him, though he would never have admitted it aloud; he felt almost childishly self assured he would surpass whatever standard to which she was comparing him. In his turn he studied her, watching her passing interaction with the bartender, the sharp joy glinting in her eyes with her every quietly commanding gesture. In her he saw some reflection of himself, a sort of fearless mischief that called to him, and his burgeoning curiosity would not let things rest at that alone.

“Gotta warn you,” he said, reaching out for the little cup the bartender slid toward him. He toyed with the makeshift highball, running the pad of his thumb along its narrow rim. “It’s the Red Bull you’ll wish you hadn’t given me. I’m way more tolerable on liquor than this much caffeine.”

He raised his cup to her, his smirk surprisingly pleasant. “How many sheets to the wind’re you already, dare I ask? It’s no fun winning when the deck’s stacked.” She gave a much exaggerated raspberry, slapping at the air with a hand.

“Please, this? This, this is nothing,” she responded almost cheerfully, collecting her own glass from the bartender with her belly pressed against the smooth wood of the bar. “Besides, who cares if you don’t win fair and square, winning’s winning and you still got free drinks outta it. What, you gonna pussy out on me, too, ‘cause’a some moral shit?” The hand holding the glass pointed an accusing finger at him, her body slightly pitching forward with the motion. For a moment a look of concentration passed over her face, as though she were suddenly trying to place him, but it was there and gone so quickly that it was easily missed or explained by the alcohol coursing through her veins.

“And, nobody, and I mean, nobody, is more untolerable than me. And I mean that. Seriously.” Her mouth had become almost completely detached from any kind of filter, but it wasn’t as though she were expecting to ever see this man again. Charlie could say whatever she damned well pleased and not have to worry about it ever again.

Samuel laughed aloud, his eyebrow arched so high it seemed dangerously close to his short hairline. “You are competitive. I know a lot of people - myself included - could probably give you a run for your money, but I only take one bet at a time.” He looked down to her, reassuring himself of her reasonably secure position on the barstool; of all the ways this night could end, to Samuel’s mind one of the most unpleasant would be for her to fall and have inattentive onlookers blame it on him. Though he kept his hands far away from her, should she slip, he would be ready.

“And you’re not lucky enough for me to forfeit, moral grounds or no,” he said. “So put up or shut up.” He tossed his glass back, the jolt of caffeine and booze disappearing down his throat in three deep gulps. He was motioning for the bartender before his glass was back on the bar, an impatient waving of his hand a clear sign to keep the drinks flowing.

Her grin cut her face almost in two, and mimicked his motion in downing her glass without any further comment. The empty glass was handed to the bartender, the arm and appendage extended to accept her next challenge. Her perch on the seat wasn’t entirely stable, and the fact that her feet didn’t quite touch the floor gave her almost a childlike quality even as she sat there downing the alcohol with apparent ease.

“Luck has never factored into anything for me - and besides, if you copped out, who’d be paying for mah drinks?” She gladly accepted the next glass handed to her, feeling tingly and warm and almost friendly, though friendliness with Charlie was never necessarily a good thing. Again the look of concentration passed over her face, this time lingering long enough to be more than noticeable. Passing the drink to her other hand and lifting the previous one, she wagged a finger, as though the motion would jog her memory.

“What’d you say yer name was? Camel?” Another drink was passed to Sam, but her eyes stayed on his face, trying to name a memory that was on the tip of her tongue.

“Samuel,” he said. “And if I remember right, you never did say yours.” His hand wrapped around the glass; he wondered what she was thinking to put that look on her face, though instinct told him he knew what it was. After all, drinking games did not ordinarily inspire such contemplation. More, he had felt the same curiosity mere moments before, that awareness that he was missing something here, something vital and so deeply rooted as to be nigh inaccessible. His brow furrowed as that strange line of thought wormed its way into his brain, impossible to extricate once it had appeared.

“I get the feeling, Jane Doe, that if I ‘copped out’ you’d just find some other sucker. One much less entertaining than me.” He raised his glass, smiling against its cool edge before drinking it down. She gave a bark of a laugh, half at his assumed name for her and half at his assumption of his own company. Though she did have to grant it to him, he was being plenty entertaining thus far. “It ain’t Jane, it’s Charlie.” But he was already continuing on.

“Hey.” He pushed the empty glass toward the bartender, another already on its way. “I know you from somewhere? You aren’t LAPD or Orange County, are you?” She ignored the questions in favor of finishing her own drink, no longer even tasting the alcohol. Her face screwed into an annoyed look as though a distasteful topic had been broached.

“Believe me, I wish. Naw, no, you know what this stupid country does for its vets? Thirteen fuckin hour pay, that’s what. If you can get a job in the end, that is. Fuckin people with their fucking standards, it’s wooooo,” she replied, and since the glass safely ensconced on the bar top, her hands flew into the air with fingers waggling in an expression of BFD. Her eyes were wide with mock surprise, though the entire entertaining display was thrown out at the appearance of another drink.

She curled hand around it in a similar fashion to a child claiming a favored stuffed animal, and turned her head to look at him again. “Now, about knowin’ me from somewhere, ‘less yah grew up in Miss-uri or was in the USMC, I really don’t know. You weren’t, was yah?” The alcohol was loosening her usually bear-trap of a mouth, along with traces of a tangy accent born of growing up in the southern regions of Missouri. He could prove to be someone she’d had drinks with overseas, or the other various bars she’d patronized throughout the years. He definitely hadn’t been in any squad of hers, not that she’d recall, nor did he place as a superior as far as her memory went.

“The Corps?” He blinked, genuinely taken by surprise - though as the revelation began to sink in, Samuel realized it didn’t seem so surprising after all. She certainly had the no holds barred approach he often saw in other jarheads and spec ops men. With the kind of confidence she positively exuded, he imagined she had managed quite well at the end of a rifle. “I’ll be damned.” He shook his head, smiling wolfish and broad as he accepted the next drink. He blinked, feeling the Jäger’s warmth beginning to sink in, loosening his own wagging tongue all the further. “No ma’am,” he said, “I’m lucky enough to’ve been born in Texas and smart enough to have joined the Rangers.”

He threw his drink back, sliding the glass across the bar; it bounced against the edge and fell, clattering to the floor at the tender’s feet with a series of sharp, plasticine snaps. “Anyway, you’re preachin’ to the choir, Charlie. Vets get fucked, no doubt about it. What are you doin’ now that only pays that shit?”

“Fuckin’ security guard. Step back over here, trade in my M16 for a fuckin’ piece of shit stun gun. Are you fuckin’ kidding me? Fuckin’ waste,” she replied, her words growing less and less intelligible as more alcohol saturated her small form. The drink in her hand slopped a bit onto the bar as she raised it to her lips in order to drain the remaining contents; then she pointed another accusing finger at him, hand still wrapped around the glass.

“And yah know what it is? Fuckin’ bunch of pussies don’t wanna put a gun in a woman’s hand overseas, they sure as hell don’t wanna put a weapon in ‘er hand over here.” It was the best excuse she could cling to, the one that excluded her injuries and her lingering mental handicap, both of which she’d deny until she died. Or until she got too drunk to remember that she was supposed to hate them. “Fuckin’ country s’posed to be about equality, you fuckin’ put your life on the line, and it all just goes to shit.” The attempt to put her own cup down didn’t work out as well as planned, since the counter proved to be two inches below where Charlie decided to set it; it bounced and then landed on its side, spinning on the hard wood.

“So yer a cop? Sounds like fun,” she drawled, abruptly changing the subject as though some unconscious voice said that down that path lay regret. The annoyed expression on her face belied a genuine liking of this man, despite the few moments they’d sat talking.

“SWAT,” he corrected. “And it is fun.” For all the ease with which he picked up the conversation, he felt a moment’s fleeting concern for the woman; it was clear her fallen station in life was still an open wound, one for which he had no ready cure. Some part of him felt her anger entirely justified, ignorant of the details though he was. He felt a keen sense of camaraderie with her, recognizing in her plight an end he himself had feared. In a rare turn of events, Samuel realized he wanted to help her, even if for now, helping meant nothing more than providing a listening ear.

“Y’know, I’ve served next to some fine women,” he said. “Fine in a work-related sense, anyway. Rarely in the physical sense.” He tossed his own cup, now empty, toward hers, chuckling as much at its unsteady little bounce as at his crass joke. “I get the feeling you were probably a hellion with that M16.” His laugh turned more overt, almost boyish, as a vibrant, sharp image took shape in his mind. As he reached for his next drink he relished the thought of her standing over some hapless offender, giving him jolt after jolt long after he had ceased to be a threat. “Truth be told, I bet you’re a fright just with the stun gun.”

Her frown faded, replaced with a grudging smile. She might’ve disliked her new weaponry, but she couldn’t say that it didn’t have its perks.

“Two write ups, but only cause’a complaints,” she admitted with some pride. One of the write-ups had resulted in disciplinary action, and even that had only been the loss of a few days of work. Samuel laughed again as Charlie shrugged, wobbling a little on her stool as she adjusted her seat to stop things from spinning around her. An attempt to reach for the next glass was difficult, and then interrupted by the sudden appearance of another lush who had apparently missed Charlie’s earlier insults. The man nearly fell onto the bar, a leering grin animating his face.

“Hey, pay for yer drink?” Charlie’s smile was instantly replaced with a look of heated disgust.

“No, but yah can go fuck yerself instead,” was her cool retort, which unfortunately did nothing to deter this newcomer. He took a seat, moving far too close inside of Charlie’s personal space.

“Aw come on, one drink isn’t gonna hurt anybody,” he tried, the sound of his voice just a hair above a whine.

“Wanna test that theory?” Samuel leaned close against the bar, his barrel chest pressed flush to the scarred wood. From this precarious position he had a bird’s eye view of the interloper; Samuel’s expression made it immediately, abundantly clear he found the man not only no real threat, but also more than a little amusing. After all, the man had to be immensely foolish to intrude upon any private drinking game, let alone theirs. Samuel’s hand curved around his drink as he pushed off from the bar. He circled around Charlie, standing close behind her, ready at her side should her attempted suitor try anything even dumber still. “She said fuck off,” he said. “Pretty sure that was a warning, not a fuckin’ invitation.”

The man blinked, as though realizing that his current target already had someone to occupy her. Even as the cogs slowly began to turn in his mind, Charlie wasn’t about to let anyone - even Samuel - show her up.

Just as the man’s lips moved in protest, before he could utter any sound, Charlie threw the Jägerbomb in her hand into the man’s face, splashing him effectively despite her aim being a bit off and sending about a fourth of the drink onto the bar itself. “How you feelin’, darlin’? That hurt?” Slapping at his face and suddenly struggling to stand, the man gaped like a beached fish.

“You bitch!”

Charlie gave a tut-tut, as though reprimanding a child for using a naughty word. “Come on, you can be more creative than that!” Using the stool for support, she slipped forward and gave the man a hard shove, pushing him backward into a small crowd of drinkers, none of whom were happy to be interrupted in such a way. A series of shouts broke the otherwise quiet demeanor of the bar, quickly turning it ninety degrees towards a more hostile environment. The crowd surged forward, pushing the man in the opposite direction and toward Samuel.

Samuel readily accepted the challenge. Fortuitously having downed his drink moments before he tossed the plastic cup to the ground, letting it disappear beneath the feet of the rising throng. Their unwanted guest followed soon after, hitting Samuel’s chest with a muffled thud. A sneer curled Samuel’s lip as he felt the remnants of Charlie’s drink soaking into his shirt. As much as he had enjoyed seeing Charlie’s display of spirit, he enjoyed significantly less its repercussions for him. His hand drew tight at the nape of the man’s neck, short nails digging hard into pale flesh. In short order he felt a sharp pang in his side; looking down, he placed it as the glancing blow of a hurried rabbit punch, the man’s fist already drawing back for another.

“Oh no you don’t,” Samuel laughed. His arm shot out, shoving the man back into Charlie’s path. A steady stream of curses followed in his wake, ending abruptly as Samuel landed a hard right hook just below his ribs.

Violence was infectious in a drunken crowd, and what happened next was a chain reaction. The entire bar exploded into swinging fists, the sound of shattering glass and the whooping and hollering of those who were entertained by such barbarity. Charlie felt her blood race at the sight, her face split from the grin once more.

The one she’d label as instigator (though most knew the true origin of the fight) came nearly flying toward her, and Charlie neatly sidestepped to allow him to run full tilt into the bar. His gut smashed into a bar stool, knocking the air from his lungs and sending him stumbling toward the floor.

“That drink still don’t hurt, darlin’?” The taunt was answered by coughing and the man trying to crawl closer to the bar, away from the fighting. She had other ideas, however - using the stools as a step ladder, she climbed onto the bar. From her vantage point, she could see the entirety of the pub and how it had dissolved into utter chaos. It was a beautiful sight. Samuel seemed occupied with another drinker, so Charlie decided to console herself by jumping onto the back of the nearest man, latching herself on by wrapping her legs around the man’s waist. A hand in his hair jerked his head back suddenly, leaving him open to the gut-aimed punch of another bar patron.

Samuel looked up as the heavy hit landed, happy to have seen it even if he could not hear over the rising din. Charlie was more than holding her own: She was throwing herself into it with a positively feral abandon, the likes of which Samuel rarely got to see. He could only respond in kind, ignoring the throb of a fresh bruise welling at his cheek as he took one swing after another at his newest unwilling sparring partner. Somewhere a table overturned; a chair fell hard against the floor, one upraised leg striking against Samuel’s shin. He shoved hard at his opponent, watching him fall against the chair’s splintering legs. The dark, wet bloom of blood began to spread beneath the man’s thin shirt, marking out the deep wounds the aging chair had carved into his side.

The moment he hit the ground he fell beneath Samuel’s notice, whatever threat - and therefore whatever challenge - he represented now entirely neutralized. Slowly he picked a path through the crowd, wending his way across a floor rendered increasingly slippery from overturned beer and freshly spilled blood. A pace from his new friend he reached out, the blade of his forearm pressed flush to yet another stranger’s throat.

“Heads up,” he called, tipping his head toward the roiling crowd. “Two o’clock.”

Behind the wall of writhing flesh a small but determined force had gathered: The bar’s limited but brutish security team were at last stirring from their cave of closed circuit TVs. Charlie’s newly acquired ride went down hard; she climbed to her feet as quickly as her alcohol-laden blood would allow. With Samuel’s warning, her head swiveled in the direction of the on-coming bouncers - well, that just ruined all of the fun. They slowly began to make their way through the throng of fighters, pulling fist-exchanging dancing couples apart and quelling the violence. One hand for balance on the downed man’s back, she vaulted over him, nearly going down when her ankle twisted, but managed to head in the opposite direction of the oncoming security.

Of course, she wasn’t moving quite as fast as she believed herself to be, and the security team had the advantage of being sober. A meaty hand caught the flesh of her upper arm, jerking her back and around the man she’d had a part in putting down.

“Hey! Leggo of me, you can’t manhandle me like that, you asshole!” The man made no reply, instead most likely simply rolling his eyes at her words, and started to pull her toward the door of the pub for ejection. A pair of bouncers approached Samuel, ready to either walk him out or drag him out if need be.

They were still a pace away, he noted - plenty of time to get a few more licks in. He threw a barely directed haymaker at the next poor soul to cross his path. The hard clack of the man’s jaws snapping together was satisfying, easing somewhat the annoyance of being forced out just as things were beginning to get interesting. A controlled retreat was in order. Samuel began to move toward the door, following closely in the wake of Charlie and her unwanted entourage. The second set of guards could have reached out and grabbed him now; he bought another second or two by grabbing a nearby patron - still nursing a half-spilled beer - and throwing him in the lumbering bouncers’ path.

“So who won?” he called, breaking into the steady stream of Charlie’s protestations. “Didn’t get to count our drinks.”

Two sets of hands clapped like vises around his arms. His jaw tightened in as much inebriated petulance as earnest annoyance. “Some people might construe this as assaultin’ an officer,” he growled, with perhaps less conviction in his tone than he intended. The men in question seemed to care very little about the possibility; in fact, Samuel suspected them of force-marching him to the back door all the faster after that little revelation.

The alley into which they were bodily shoved was fetid and dark, Samuel’s boots splashing in a puddle of questionable origin as he found his footing.

“Well,” he said, grinning at his cohort, “free drinks and a fight. Not a bad night, huh?”

Carefully picking herself up from the wall she was leaning against - not that the bouncer had thrown her down, simply that she’d lost her footing, though of course she’d claim otherwise - she found Sam in her line of vision and returned his grin. “Naw, not bad at all. As for who won, we’ll call it a draw, if that’s fine by you. Never had one of them before, first time for everything.” Pushing off of the wall, she patted her pockets and pulled out her motorcycle keys.

“Don’t think I’m good to drive, and yer a cop, so it’s probably a bad idea period tryin’ to get on my bike and walk...ride...whatever, away from this, huh?” The grin was fixed in place as she puzzled out just how she was going to get from point a to point b, in this case from the bar back to her apartment. Continuing to pat, she fished out a wallet, opening it to reveal nothing aside from a motorcyclists ID, not even a debit card.

“Shit! Could’a sworn I brought cash this time around... Must’a forgot.” The grin turned a tad sheepish. “Spare $20 for a cab?”

“Why the hell not.” He shrugged, his unsteady steps turning to guide them out of the alley and up to the curb. “I’d risk drivin’ but frankly I like my truck’s paint job as it is.”

Cabs proved harder to come by than Samuel would have thought. Two passed them by, clearly vacant and still on shift; one at least had the decency to be full as it blew heedlessly past them. “Maybe you should show some leg,” he teased, glancing back to her over one shoulder.

“Maybe you should, or have you got something against a gay man giving you a ride?” Her retort was quick, but followed by a grin as Samuel gave a deep and earnest laugh.

At last one battered old car clanked to a stop near them, its back bumper parallel to their stumbling legs. Samuel helped Charlie into the car as best he could, one hand on her head to keep her from cracking herself against the roof. As he pulled his seat belt tight, he quirked a brow, looking over to her. “Alright, Charlie, tell the man where we’re headed.”

“Fuckin’ hell, I can get in just fine; what is this, once a cop, always a cop?” She sidled into the backseat without too much issue - though perhaps it was more of a slide, or a grasping of hands and a pull. Either way, once she was in, she was in, and she leaned on the driver’s seat, her rump rising into the air as she nearly fell forward. Catching herself, she moved backward enough to be eye level with the driver.

“Pax Leaflet. Shit, no, wait. I got this. It’s...” A hand smacked her forehead in a cheap attempt to reorganize her thoughts. “Pix Chiclets....Pax Letale! Yeah, I hope you know where that is, ‘cause I ain’t gonna be no help now,” she finished, falling backward onto the seat and partially into the door. “Your turn, Sammy-boy.”

Samuel, still folding himself into the creaking back seat, suddenly paused in his graceless ministrations. “Are you stalkin’ me?” he asked, his own laughter interrupting him. He slammed shut the door behind him, shaking his head. “Pax Letale.” Hastily he rattled off an address, then glanced back to the person he now knew as a neighbor. Entirely without realizing it, Samuel began assessing her in a new way: not just as a drinking buddy - a test she had passed with flying colors - but as a fellow tenant, someone whose ups and downs were now his business thanks to proximity.

“I knew I knew you from somewhere,” he said. “I guess I’ve seen you around the building or something. How long’ve you lived there?”

Charlie narrowed her eyes in response, for a moment double checking her hearing. “Not too long, a few weeks ah think. And if anyone’s a creeper, it’s you, propositioning young women in bars and then takin’ ‘em home in cabs.” Sliding down in her seat, her head fell back to let her eyes stare at the ceiling before slipping closed for a moment.

First Rylee moving into the same apartment complex, then that weird night of the power outage, and now she was nearly tripping over neighbors the moment she went out. A bit of over exaggeration, surely, but at least she found this particular neighbor to be more likable than others that she’d met. Even that handful had been few, but Sam’s boisterous personality seemed to click with hers.

“But now I know where you sleep,” she continued, waving a hand in his direction - or what she thought was his general direction, but was more the driver’s - her voice a weak attempt to be threatening. “So don’t get no ideas.”

Samuel laughed aloud, more amused by the thought than he had any right to be. “If I decided to fuck with you,” he said, leaning conspiratorially toward her, “I’d have bigger problems than just your wrath.” Somehow Samuel felt quite certain her rage would be a sight to behold; it was an impression, a knowledge that went deeper than the drunken bar fight, deeper than the awareness of her training and service with the Marines. Hers was a temperament, a personality he understood better than he knew, a mind more like his own than seemed rationally possible. But in much the same way, Samuel knew Lia’s anger would be no small thing once roused; a shared cab ride was nothing, particularly given their intoxicated state. But to do more would be to tempt a fate he had no desire to now contemplate.

“Nah, all I’m propositioning tonight is how to keep us both out of the drunk tank.” He chuckled, reaching for his wallet as he glimpsed through the windshield their building coming into view. “Sorry if that disappoints you.”

“At this...this moment, no,” she responded, stretching arms up toward the ceiling and then flopping them down once more onto the seat. Any further shenanigans would probably be disregarded in place of sleep, her alcohol-saturated brain favoring the idea of curling up in her bed despite the knowledge of the incoming hangover the next morning would bring. “Actually, no, no ‘cause findin’ and keepin’ drinkin’ buddies is way harder than you might think.” Her face looked out the window, pressing her nose quite closely and leaving a smear from her breath once pulled back. “Man I hope nobody gets no ideas and steals my bike. That would just be the fuckin’ cherry, yah know?”

The cab ate the distance quickly, pulling up before the double doors of the lobby. Nearly as soon as the cab stopped, she gave a semi-quiet whoop, pushed open the door (after taking a few tries to find the handle, followed by figuring out just how it worked), and promptly fell forward onto the sidewalk.

“Fuck.”

Samuel tossed what bills he had pulled from his wallet at their hapless cabbie, tipping well over what he would have ordinarily done. With some difficulty he maneuvered himself out of the cab, making his intentions loudly known before leaning down over Charlie’s prone form.

“You better not have broken your nose,” he said, clucking his tongue. “I don’t wanna sit out here waitin’ on an ambulance.” He lifted her from the pavement more gingerly than his harsh words might have suggested, guiding her to her feet alongside him only as fast as he thought she could safely manage. “You’re fun as hell to get drunk with, but damn, if you can’t hold your liquor...” He bit his tongue, ending his teasing as he stumbled, himself, misstepping as he directed her into the lobby. “What floor, princess?”

“Don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, I’m fine.” Whether the sentence made sense in her head or in the air was a toss up, but Charlie managed a few steps without too much support. She had probably overdone it this time, not that she’d ever admit such a thing. Despite giving her cranium a good smack against the concrete, she didn’t feel any oozings or broken things, though the alcohol and her pain threshold could have been suppressing any messages her body was trying to scream at her. “I can fuckin’ hold my liquor, don’t you worry your pretty lil’ head. And if you think I’m gonna leave it at a draw, yer fuckin’ wrong.

“First floor, if you wouldn’t mind, Jeeves,” she retorted after she’d finally spoken her piece, continuing to move forward even as he attempted to guide her.

Together they staggered through the lobby as best they could, making no small amount of noise and effectively drawing the ire of the harried concierge. The door slammed wide behind them, hitting the wall as it opened, falling loudly shut as it closed; they paid it no heed. Samuel was grateful they had so little distance to cross. More and more the elevator seemed like the best option of reaching his own faraway quarters, though his pride soon staunched even the consideration of that plan.

“A draw,” he repeated, his reaction somewhat delayed. “I’ll tell you what I think.” He gave up on guiding, following her weaving path to what he hoped would prove to be her apartment. As they left the well lit lobby, he offered up a small and thoroughly amused prayer that Lia would not walk in at that precise, inopportune moment. “I think you instigated that fight to keep from losing to me.”

Charlie stopped dead in her tracks, jaw dropping to the floor as she expressed her shock over his statement. “Now hold on a fuckin’ minute,” she began, shrugging off Samuel’s arm and lurching over to the wall in the middle of the hallway for support. The short brunette turned and raised a hand in protest. “You threw the first punch, buddy. All I did was throw a drink in that guy’s face, and give him a lil’...a lil’ push.” With the wall as her guide and crutch, she turned away from Sam’s muttered denials, and continued on down the hall to apartment one oh three, where upon arriving she began to pat the pockets of her leather jacket for her keys.

“Besides,” she continued, having to pause to speak before looking for her keys again, finding it strangely difficult to multitask at the present moment, “I totally would’ve wiped the floor with you, if you could learn to play nice with others. Maybe get some anger management classes, I dunno. I’m sure you could get access to a shrink through yer department or whatever, aren’t they supposed to have those on staff?” Finally she dug a key-ring out of the depths of her jacket, flipping it around to the one that would open the door in front of her. Now it was just a question of getting the key into the keyhole.

“Anger management?” he asked. “Only if I can borrow your books. I’m sure you’ve been put through that wringer more than once, huh?” He shouldered past her, gripping her hand to steady the keys. With a loud, metallic clank the key thrust into the lock, their joined force nearly serving to snap the key in its place. But pretty or not it got the job done, and in moments the door was swinging wide - or rightly put, slamming open, coming to rest against the doorstop with a dangerous crash - on Charlie’s darkened apartment. To Samuel’s mind this minor moment of slapstick was good for another laugh, and he was laughing still as he half guided, half shoved his new drinking buddy into her home.

“This far enough,” he asked, “or are you gonna insist on me tuckin’ you in?” Before Charlie could reply and broadcast her irritation at Samuel’s manhandling of her, a large German Shepard bounded into the scene, glad to finally have his owner home. Instantly the brunette’s attention was distracted. Surging forward, she put her hands on either side of the dog’s large head, giving him a thorough scratching.

“Ooo who’s a good boy?! If anyone’s tuckin’ me in, it’ll be this lil monster right here,” she retorted at last, crouching down with bent knees to Jack’s level. The dog wasn’t quite as big as Charlie, but he certainly gave her a run for her money. Rising slowly back up to her feet, she put a hand out against the wall the door had bashed into - the thought of checking for damage would never occur to the brunette dare-devil. She met Sam’s eyes, brows hiking onto her forehead.

“Welp, it’s been...somethin’,” she drawled in parting, waving her hand. “I owe you what for the cab ride? Wait, if you do wanna blame the fight on me, then I got the drinks free, so you can pick up the tab on the lift home!” She grinned widely, pleased by her logic though she truly doubted her new friend would agree to such a thing.

Just as predicted, his response was immediate and almost - almost, but not quite - vehement. “Bullshit,” he said. His eyes, however, were still on the dog, a beautiful and potentially dangerous piece of work. The combination was one he had always found markedly pleasing. With a slight pang of something he hated to name, he found himself thinking of his own long-lost Doberman. “Nice animal you got there.” Charlie glanced from Sam to Jack, the German Shepard waiting patiently for instructions, and gave a light shrug in agreement.

Clearing his throat, he moved on to the far brighter topic of booze. “Fuck the cab ride,” he said. “You can get it the next time we trash a bar and get tossed out. Sound fair?” He looked back to Charlie, a bright grin curving his lips. Teasing though he was, in all sincerity he hoped their adventure might happen again; it was rare to find a drinking buddy of such quality, particularly one who could also hold his or her own in a bar-clearing brawl. He hated to think of losing such a rare friend so early as this. “Seriously,” he said, “you ever want a rematch, since it was a draw and all, you shoot me a message on the forum or something. I’ll be there with bells on.”

“That’s a mighty tempting promise,” she replied, again with the slow drawl. But there was a lot she liked about this man, and it wasn’t often she took a shine to people, much less them to her. Though she claimed to need no other company, anyone who knew her well (which was really no one) could easily puzzle out that even ill-tempered malcontents grew lonely every so often. “I just might have to take you up on it sometime. ‘Til then,” she finished, giving the tiniest of salutes that was more in jest than in actual turn of respect. Her fingers curled around the edge of the door, and she closed it much more softly than it’d been opened, the last sight to leave Sam being Jack’s face.