WHO:Clint Barton & Stefan Salvatore WHEN: early May WHERE: A Bar WHAT: Two men, avoiding responsibilities, drinking. RATING/WARNINGS: Low STATUS: Complete
Stefan was fighting the hunger. He’d gone “what does it matter?” and started drinking from blood bags instead of killing animals, but that only seemed to make him more hungry. He wasn’t satiated, and was struggling with the idea that nothing was going to satisfy him. Nothing but the real thing--and that meant bad things. So he was in the bar trying to drown his sorrows and his hunger. There was so much anger in his life, so much frustration. He hated the way Orange County had fucked with him, and put his loved ones through so much.
But Bubbles had forgiven him. That was a start, wasn’t it? And they’d decided that she was his girlfriend, and he was her boyfriend… because it would be strange if it was one without the other.
He motioned to the bartender--who had already been compelled to give him as many drinks as he wanted, without charge--for another round.
Clint had approached, hit and finally slid down into the ‘fuck this shit’ phase of things. It was passing, and hopefully wouldn’t last long, but it was there. Since his dreams had decided to literally fuck him up, he’d been sleeping less. Between the dreams and some lingering and resurfacing nightmares that he could do without, it was just easier to push until he didn’t sleep, or when he passed out exhausted and couldn’t remember if he dreamed or not.
In a bid to at least regulate some things, Clint had fallen towards some self medicating. Drinking himself comatose seemed like a good way to start that particular mission. Maybe then he wouldn’t wake up with a busted face or the taste of burning rubber in his mouth. He didn’t want to worry Kate almost as much as he didn’t want to constantly wake her up, so he’d made up an excuse about being out with Tony, hoped Tony wouldn’t rat him out and ended up here.
As the bartender approached someone just down the bar, Clint gave his hand a small wave and point to his near empty glass, holding up two fingers, because he was more than ready for another double.
Stefan was all for the self-medicating. That was his MO lately. The more alcohol he drank, the more it took the edge off his hunger. Hopefully neither of his roommates would mind all the empty liquor bottles in the recycling. (Or the missing blood bags from Lexi’s supply.)
The movement of the other man’s hand caught Stefan’s eye, and he could tell from just a glance that the man was former military. Tonight was not a night for drinking alone, so it seemed, so the vampire got the bartender’s attention, looked him in the eye, and compelled him with the words, “put his drinks on my tab.”
Clint didn’t make a habit of the drinking in bars thing, it happened every once in a while, and it seemed to be related to dreams more than not now. This time it was a little bit different, not dream related but definitely sleep-deprivation causing. So, when the guy down the bar offered to pay for his drinks, Clint felt the need to point out that this was not going to be a one-two drink sort of thing.
“Thanks man, but that’s not necessary.” Clint intended on doing plenty of damage to his liver tonight.
“It’s all right,” Stefan replied. He was planning on finishing off his own bottle, so what would a second be to him? Especially since he wasn’t planning on paying for them, anyway. Besides, he could tell from just a quick glance that this guy was former military. Brothers in arms gotta watch out for one another, right?
“Marines?” Stefan asked, moving a couple stools closer. “I was with the Navy. Spent five years overseas.”
Likeness knew likeness, didn’t it. Clint supposed they all ended up with that look about them, or at least they had it sometimes. “Army,” Clint just nodded, “ended up in the Rangers.” And Clint could honestly say he’d probably have still been there if he hadn’t been blown up almost two years ago now. “I enlisted out of high school.”
It’d seemed like the best choice at the time, considering his other options.
“As did I.” Stefan agreed, lifting his glass in a silent toast. He gulped down some of the liquid from it and then set the thing back down on its coaster. “Sometimes I wonder if it would have been a smarter idea to wait a couple of years.” He mused aloud. Stefan often wondered what his life would have been like if he’d had a little more time to be a normal person before … well, before the shit hit the fan. In any case, he was going to make the best of it now.
“Talk yourself out of it?” Clint couldn’t talk for everyone, and he knew that not everyone had the same life in the services, it didn’t suit people the same way all the time. He’d been suited to it, it had suited him too, so he hadn’t really questioned what else he could’ve done.
Other people might not have felt the same way, and coming out of any service was difficult after you saw some of those things, especially serving overseas. “Pick another path.” It was one of those ‘okay, what else can you do’ sort of things.
“No no,” Stefan responded, his brow furrowing. He shook his head a little, leaning back on his stool and folding his arms across his chest. “I just wonder if there’s some living out there I should have done before I went and…” grew up. The words were unspoken, but suddenly Stefan felt the weight of them.
He’d grown up too fast. First combat missions with his Marines, then coming home and becoming a blood sucking vampire. And he hadn’t had a chance to… be young and free. Wasn’t that something that people did?
“My roommate’s young. In college. And I see her and her friends and wonder if I should have done something like that first.” Stefan wasn’t explaining this right, he could tell.
Clint could definitely understand it, could see where the appeal in it might be. He hadn’t really had the opportunity to go out and be a kid -sure, he’d been a total jackass all the way through school, but those years afterwards when you’re really meant to have those experiences and shape yourself, he could understand looking back and missing out on that. “I guess, yeah.” But then, Clint’s other experience of that was the circus and screwing up royally to the point of becoming an assassin. And yeah, there were overlaps in what he did now, but he wasn’t too sure what this life might’ve held for him in a nowhere town in Iowa either.
“And it’s not like you can really just go and do it now,” not when you’d been through that, it took away a certain naivety that people had. Showed you too much of human nature. “Doesn’t mean you can’t still find it elsewhere.” Direction; maybe not the youthful freedom of innocence during college, but still. It could be something else.
“God, no.” Stefan laughed at that idea. He couldn’t imagine going out and trying to have those experiences now. Just the thought of going through all those steps that the younger kids--Anna and her friends--were going through was exhausting. Sometimes he worried that Bubbles was going to struggle with the same stuff--finding herself as a person, figuring out what she wanted. He just hoped she would still want him in the end.
“I’m sure there’s something for me out there. Something more than just making my way paycheck to paycheck.” Stefan mused. He lifted his glass for another sip.
“Think that’s the point. You’re meant to figure out what to do now.” Now that you weren’t on the front lines, now that your life wasn’t in danger every day. Now that you weren’t the one out there prepared to die for a war that really shouldn’t have started in the first place, but someone had to protect the way of life. It was hardly an ideal outcome, but so many others didn’t even get the chance to figure out what next.
“What’d’ya do now?” The plus side was that at least they came out of it with a full education, qualifications that were harder to teach and more likely to just be experienced.
“I’m a mechanic,” Stefan replied. He didn’t go into all the details about how it was easier to work with machines than it was to work with people he wanted to eat. Someone with the training Stefan had in the military could have easily gone into the medical field. He was a veteran and there were services out there that he could have jumped into--he could have gone through more schooling, could have gone into a job working with people, but… he didn’t need the temptation.
“It’s pretty good, actually. I’m working with a good friend at his garage.” He added.
At least it was something different. The forces had a good record of offering training in skills that could translate into skills outside of the forces. It was difficult to integrate to a life that wasn’t constant battle, but there were ways to do it. Between Clint’s previous work as a sniper and his dreams, he didn’t think a ‘normal’ job was on the cards for him.
“It’s good working with friends.” Keeps you from falling entirely into this nutjob place. “It’s something to work with at least.” There were still options, right. “Doesn’t mean you can’t do some of that stuff, travel or whatever, see places rather than just fly in, do your job and leave.” That was part of growing up, right?
Being around friends was what was keeping Stefan from completely falling off the deep end. He couldn’t let down Dean and Wash, couldn’t hurt Bubbles again, couldn’t turn his back on everything that he’d built in this world and the Dream world, too, with Lexi and Caroline. Making friends with other vets in the area was helping, too. Stefan knew he had a support group, and he was thankful for it.
“It’s probably time to suss out what I want to do, and then figure out how to go about doing it.”
“I hear that helps.” Clint had gone through that when he’d been in the VA, dealing with the damage and the hearing loss, there was the whole rigmarole of getting back on his feet, finding something new to do, something he wanted to do. That was the difficult matter.
“Usually it’s the hardest part too. What do you think you would’a done if you hadn’t enlisted?”
“Honestly? I’d probably still be working with cars. Would have probably ended up dating one of the girls I went with in school.” Who knew? He could have been married with kids on the way, or even here by now. It’d been six years since he graduated from high school, and a lot can happen in six years.
“So I guess it’s not that different.” Stefan lifted the glass to gulp from it. He was just antsy and distracted, angry with the whole world and the energy was coming out in other ways.
Wasn’t really. They got educated and had a decent life, most of the time. Was Clint happy with how it ended? No. But then, had that IED not taken out his convoy he’d probably have carried on and signed another tour. It wasn’t like he had anything else at the time. So, moderate deafness and shrapnel damage aside, he was still able to live an active life. Not everyone could claim the same.
“Just everyone else making you feel like you missed something?”
Stefan thought about that for a moment. What was it that made him feel like he was missing something? Perhaps the idea that there were things he couldn’t do now that he was a vampire? He lifted his glass to sip from it, then drained it and set it back down again. “There are still things I will never… you know?” He said. The damn Dreams.
And he was so hungry.
“I should probably… go.” Stefan added, cryptically, then climbed up from his stool. “It was nice to meet you.”
Clint just gave a steady nod. You could never really tell if it was the service or this place that made people weird, but hey, it happened. “Sure, sure. You too.” Clint just gave a salute with the glass he had right then, figuring he’d probably have a couple more before going home himself.