We had a string of pretty awful scenes we needed to turn out for Asylum, and most of the unpleasantness was in Caitlin's court. I attempted to write her some light-hearted candy type scenes, but Zig's been in a funk lately, so when I said, "Show us something from your past- how about you and Chris at the bar!", he gave me this.
Zig took another pull of his beer, heart not really in it. Jon was more or less leaving him alone, but Chris hadn't gotten the hint yet.
“Dance with me! You know it'll make you feel better.”
Zig continued to stare straight ahead, tired of insisting to the jackal that he just wasn't in the mood tonight. He shouldn't have even come out, but he'd hoped that the atmosphere and his friends would lift his spirits. So far it had not.
He didn't even really have any reason to be so glum. Yeah, he'd called it off with Clair, the girl he'd been semi-hooking up with cause she was trying to get to serious, and he'd burnt his first batch of naan today – it wasn't meant to be cooked in a regular oven anyways, and he'd hardly expected to get it exactly right on his first try. Having the shop shut down for luau was usually a pretty chill time for him, but he just hadn't been feeling it today. With the feast still two days off and not much left to really do since last new moon, he'd just sort of been floundering all day. No, it didn't have anything to do with Clair telling him his life was going nowhere -he was damned happy to be going nowhere. Nowhere was a right improvement over heading for obvious self-destruction.
But he was still down anyways, and when he'd tried to tell Chris he just wasn't up for the bar tonight, he'd been gearing up for a night at home with a book.
He really should have expected Chris to come knocking at his door and drag him out, but somehow, it had surprised him. Surprised him into saying yes. So now, here he was, nursing a beer and wondering how long he had to sit here before Chris got bored and he could go home.
“Well if you won't dance with me, will you dance with someone else?”
Zig gave him a raised eyebrow and sideways glance at this, then decided to give this whole “explain to Chris I'm not in the mood” thing another shot.
“Chris, if I don't want to dance with you, why on earth would I want to dance with someone else?”
Chris beamed at him, snuggling in close. “Awww, Zig, that's so sweet, but you know as well as I do sometime you feel like some nuts, sometimes you don't.” Reaching down to pat his lap was a little obvious, but the joke made Zig smile nonetheless.
“You wanna just go have meaningless sex? You know I'm always up for it, if that's what you're getting at.”
“No damnit!” Chris said, giving Zig a little swat. “If I wanted that, I'd have had it by know, you know that. What I want,” he said, sliding away from Zig and trying to pull him by the arm, “is for you to come have a good time.”
Zig sighed and let his arm go limp, slipping out of Chris's grasp. Chris gave him an exasperated sound and plopped down onto the bar stool beside him.
“Jooooon,” he called, flagging the bartender down. “Pour Zig here something that'll cheer him up, and make him stop being such a grump.”
Jon sauntered down to where they were sitting, but made no move to pour anything.
“Chris, you know as well as anyone that drinking only makes you more of what you are.” He gave the bar before them a few passes as he continued talking. “Loveboy here is gonna stay grim til he gets over whatever funk his lady friend has him in- or can you not smell the change on him?”
Chris gave him a good, long sniff while Zig shot Jon the most betrayed look. Jon shrugged at him as if in apology, but wandered off again without another word.
“Damn, Zig! You haven't been laid in over a week? What the hell happened to you? I thought you were hitting it off with that one Clair girl?”
Zig physically recoiled from the rapid word stream – exactly why he hadn't told Chris in the first place. He wasn't worked up about it – he'd kinda figured from the start that Clair would get too clingy, but she did this one thing with lightening affinity... He tried to keep to the rule of never go home with anyone more than twice, but every time he'd started to tell her no, she'd run a finger down his ear, giving him a little shock, and he'd melt. He'd even given her his number, damned fool that he was. He'd avoided the bar for almost a month and she'd kept calling and calling and he'd come over and – god, it had just gotten to be such a mess. This was why he had rules in the first place.
Without warning, Chris climbed up on his stool and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hey ladies! Or Gents, doesn't matter! This is my friend Zig – he fairly cute and has a reasonably large peni-”
Zig leapt up and clapped a hand over his mouth, dragging him back down off his stool. “What the hells the matter with you!” he hissed, though a grin was breaking out on his face. He was cute, and did have a reasonably large penis, and all in all his life was pretty good. Yeah, he'd been feeling kinda funky, but that happened sometimes. He had good friends that cared about him, and no real worries.
Chris was giggling furiously under Zig's hands, making the occasional happy sound as Zig squeezed. “Alright you, I'm smiling now, are you happy?” He nodded Chris's head for him, which made him giggle more. Then the first group of girls wandered over, a pack of four in varying shades of cocoa brown. Amber eyes, wolves probably. They were hunting enough like a pack.
“Your friend serious here? You finally ditch that one buzz kill?”
One of the other girls snerked at the clever joke at the lightening fae's expense, and the other two smiled, flashing fangs. Yup, they were ready to eat him alive, if he was in the mood.
“You know me, ladies. I never go home with the same person twice – except for this little loud mouth here.”
He gave Chris another squeeze, and he sighed happily, sagging in Zig's hands.
“He can come too, if he wants. There's enough to go around – and you've never taken either of us home.”
The girl at her right stepped forward slightly, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing into her. A couple, most likely. Made him wonder how the other two fit in, and if he should remember them. By the way the leader was talking, that seemed like a yes. Oh well.
“I never take anyone home – your friends here should have told you that.”
Sure enough, the other two fell back slightly, dropping into more submissive postures – damn, had he played with them on dungeon night? Is that what was going on here? He was soooo not in the mood for those kinda games tonight.
The second one took another step forward, twining her fingers in Chris's hair. She pushed his head down so she could see Zig more clearly, bringing her face uncomfortably close to his.
“You can come play with our toys then – we'll still let you bring your own.” She jerked Chris's hair, making him cry out under Zig's hand. Damn. Now the jackal was gonna be all riled up. He'd have to hand him off to Rook, if he didn't feel like playing tonight. He couldn't send this hot mess home to Lena.
“Not tonight, ladies. I have to take this bad boy here home and punish him, for speaking out of turn.” He gave the second a very pointed look, then flicked his eyes to the obvious leader. How she handled this would say a lot about their group dynamic.
Sure enough, realizing her dominance was being called into question, she jerked the other girl back and kept a strong hand on her arm. Nope, not a game Zig wanted to play tonight. She probably wanted to top him, prove to herself she was top bitch or some such nonsense. How besting someone outside the hierarchy did anything to improve rank, he would never know. He was sure certain outsiders were worth a certain number of points or something, but he wanted no part in it. He kinda felt like curling up and watching a movie, actually.
He stood, dropping Chris to his feet but keeping his hand wrapped around his face. “If you'll excuse us.” He pushed his way past the leader, taking care to pass on her on the left so as not to challenge her hold on the other girl, and drug Chris out the door. He cuffed the little man good, earning him a happy sigh and sappy smile.
“Snap out of it, dingbat. You know I'm not gonna dress you down in public.”
“I know, I know,” he said happily, trotting after him. Zig was making quick strides to his bike. “But you know I like it when you get all manly with me.”
“C'mon, you,” he said, tossing Chris his helmet. “I wanna go home and watch a Hugh Grant movie.
Chris sighed dramatically. “Of course you do.”
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