Who: Alistair Theirin, Elaine Mallory and Clint Barton What: Elaine and Alistair find out they're stuck together for awhile When: Backdated: Thursday, October 2nd. Morning Where: Clint's Place Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Mentions of brief nudity and a bit of swearing Status: Complete!
Elaine woke up. It took her a few moments to realize she was not at home. Not in her bed. But comfortable either way you look at it. She smiled a bit and wiggled a touch closer as through the fog of probably a bit too much to drink it all came back to her. She’d come over to Clint’s to drink, eat and generally commiserate over the Dreams. When she finally cracked open her eyes and looked around, she wondered just how drunk they’d been.
While she was pretty sure she was snuggled against Clint, there was someone else in the bed. What did they do last night? She knew she’d slept with Clint, and she’d felt it’d been working towards this for a bit, and it was nice and she’d love to do it again. But she couldn’t remember how this guy was involved? So without waking up stranger-boy she shook Clint awake.
Once she was sure he was up, fingers started going, someone had been taking classes - this is how much she liked you, she had been taking ASL classes between work assignments. She’d showed it off last night before the drink made her forget how to use her fingers for talking. ”Clint, someone else is in your bed and I don’t mean me!”
Clint was pretty much useless before coffee, and awoke feeling especially fuzzy today, for some reason. So while he appreciated that Elaine was using ASL to communicate with him so didn’t have to try to lip read, it also completely escaped his understanding that it might be he for discretion.
It took him a moment to parse what she was saying, but he realized that he was naked, and Elaine was there in his bed, and he remembered why, but--
--that was definitely another person in the bed.
He was suddenly very glad that he had a Queen.
“What?” His volume was louder than perhaps a Hearing person would have chosen to use under the circumstances. “Fuck. What the fuck?”
Unlike his two bedmates, Alistair had not been drinking the night before. In fact, Alistair had been at home. He distinctly remembered going to sleep in his own bed after his nightly workout. He’d gone to sleep in his bed in the house he lived in with Lara and Sam. He had gone to bed alone. However, when he woke up, quite rudely, he was not in his bed alone. There were two other people there and it appeared that they were or might have been naked while he was wearing boxers and a wifebeater.
“Uh….” Who the other people were and how he had gotten there, Alistair had no idea. They seemed just as shocked as he was, so he didn’t think they had kidnapped him or anything. How he would have slept through being kidnapped, he had no idea. “What’s going on?” It was probably a dumb question, but the only one that Alistair could think of at that moment.
Elaine wrapped herself up in a sheet and tried to unpanic herself. She resisted the urge to dive behind Clint and hide. She could handle this. A deep breath. "I'm sure we would love to know too" she'd sign as she talked, it wasn't perfect but at least she didn't have to look at Clint and this guy at the same time.
"Pretty sure you weren't our delivery guy and I'm pretty sure we weren't that drunk any way." At least at that point. "Who are you?" The panic that had bloomed in her chest was fading slowly. He was obviously as dumbfounded as they were.
Clint sat up, feeling oddly protective at Elaine’s obvious distress. He shifted closer, so his shoulder touched hers as he regarded their third bedmate. He was blond, younger than himself although probably not by much. And although the man hadn’t said anything, judging by his body language he was just as confused as they were.
“Please tell me he’s not our kid from the future,” he groused, bleary-eyed as he rubbed his forehead.
Alistair’s brows furrowed at the question from the other man and he shook his head, “Um, no. No, I’m not. I’m really not.” Logically, Alistair knew that he should probably be getting out of their bed and figure out where he was and find a way home, but he was in just his boxers and a tank and while that was probably less embarrassing than being naked like his bed-mates, he didn’t exactly feel comfortable exposing his underwear to these people. This was so incredibly awkward and for once he was glad that Zevran wasn’t around. He could only imagine the teasing he’d receive from the other man. “My name’s Alistair, by the way.” He wasn’t really sure why he introduced himself, but it felt like the thing to do right now.
Elaine looked at Clint and snickered. She couldn’t help it as she signed back at him, talking at the same time. “I don’t think so, no.” she laughed a bit. “Although I couldn’t put it past the OC”. She was plenty embarrassed and was hiding as much as she could. Elaine had scars, and while they weren’t a big deal to the world at large, they were to her. She trusted Clint. She didn’t trust Alistair. “I’m Elaine.” she’d say after a minute. “How’d you get here?”
Clint hadn’t heard the man’s reply, or made out his name, so he was relying pretty heavily on Elaine to communicate what was going on to him. He rubbed his eyes and then squinted at their surprise guest. “I’m Clint, and I can’t hear a word you’re saying, but this is my place, so.” He gestured, expansively, and then trailed off as he caught sight of Lucky, standing in the doorway, and probably growling a little.
“Hey! Attack dog! Down. Obviously we’re not in danger.” He rolled his eyes and made another gesture.
Considering the other man had spoken quite clearly, Alistair hadn’t understood why Elaine was using sign language, but was still too surprised at what was going on to actually ask. So when Clint revealed that he couldn’t actually hear him, he understood; at least part of it. He heard the growling before he saw the dog and he automatically thought of a Mabari, despite the fact that he knew that they weren’t real in this world. Seeing that it was just a dog, Alistair exhaled in relief, “I don’t know how I got here. Last thing I remember is going to sleep at my own house.” This made no sense.
Elaine took a minute to try to figure out how to sign Alistair for Clint. She signed as she spoke, a bit better now that she was awake and not groggy. "Well, however you got here why don't you call a cab home. I'm sure Clint could lend you some pants." She glanced at Lucky and smiled.
Fingerspelling the man’s name was a step in the right direction, at least, for Clint. He didn’t have his phone or tablet in the bed for the man to write with, so he was basically relying on Elaine as an interpreter--which wasn’t a role that he particularly wanted to put on her. While Alistair and Elaine spoke, Clint got up from the bed, not caring about his nudity since, well, military and beyond that, this was his place and his bedroom. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and then headed for the door.
“Coffee,” he announced. If he was going to process this, they were all going to need some coffee. He shooed Lucky from the room as he left.
“Oh. Right. I don’t know why…” Of course before Alistair could get out of the bed, Clint did and while Clint might not have cared about his nudity, Alistair hadn’t been expecting it and unconsciously, his gaze followed the other man’s movement, getting quite the eyeful. He quickly averted his gaze back to Elaine, cheeks flushing slightly as it really hit him that she was probably naked too. Sure, Alistair was in his mid twenties and had watched porn before, but had only ever seen Zevran naked in person. “Yeah….I probably should go.” Finally getting out of the bed, he adjusted his wifebeater, unsure of exactly what he should do next.
Elaine was wrapped tightly in a sheet before she nodded. “That would probably be for the best.” she pushed hair out of her eyes and tried a smile on for good measure. Nope, it was only a half one. “I’m sorry things are weird. I hope this hasn’t disrupted your day too much.” said the ever polite Elaine.
“No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not really, but you know what I mean.” Alistair rubbed the back of his neck as a question occurred to him, “So, where are we? What city, I mean? So that I can figure out how to get home from here.” He was contemplating calling Lara or Sam to come get him. It would probably be the easiest way for him to get home considering his state of partial undress.
Elaine gave him the address and handed him her phone from the nightstand. "Here use this to give anyone you need a call." She got up, still in her sheet, and went to grab her clothes. She moved to duckin the bathroom to change but found herself compelled to walk back. A frown on her face, brows furrowed.
As Elaine had moved towards the bathroom, Alistair had moved towards the window to make his phone call, however, once there was a significant amount of space between them, he suddenly felt like he couldn’t go any further despite the fact that he literally couldn’t unless he wanted to climb out the window. Frowning, he turned back towards where Elaine had gone, “That’s….did you just feel something weird?”
She looked up at him and frowned. “Yes… that was… weird. It was like… I couldn’t go anywhere too far?” she frowned deeper and tried again. She moved towards the bathroom, and tried to see just how far she could go before she felt the urge to turn back.
Alistair watched as she headed towards the bathroom again, his phone call forgotten for the moment. His morning had started off strange and was just getting stranger with each passing moment. “Anything this time?” He asked, waiting to see if he felt the same sort of pull as a moment ago.
Elaine groaned softly. “yeah this is not getting any better. God damn, what did we wander into?” She hopped into her clothes as she wasn't’ going to make it to the bathroom to change. She did so as fast as possible and ran a hand through her hair. “Let’s go have coffee, maybe we can figure it out”