xp_logs | Gabriel & Clint | Wee Hours of Monday Morning

It's the tail end of Clint's birthday. He and Gabriel are both drunk. Last bar, close enough to last call... and Clint's just enough like 'someone Gabriel once knew' to temporarily blur the lines.

The lights... were very, very bright. So bright. Clint blinked at them slowly, listening to the people around him as they talked and went back and forth on things. It was late — it was so late. Angel had had to go home, he vaguely... very vaguely... remembered her telling him something about her father and entrusting his safety to... someone.

Holding a pint glass full of water in his hand, Clint picked up a peanut, and surreptitiously threw it toward... someone. Someone he knew. He was not randomly throwing peanuts at people he didn't know... because what if they had a peanut allergy?

"Ow." Gabriel looked up from his phone, frowning at Clint. The peanut hadn't hurt, but like, that's what you said. "Rude." He picked it up and threw it back, then reached for the beer in front of him.

Clint caught the peanut, and ate it. Then he grinned. "It's my birthday. Rule of the universe. Nothing I do today is rude. It's endearing."

"Dude," Gabriel snorted mid-sip, splashing beer onto his chin. He lifted up out of his stool, reaching over the bar for a napkin. "Dude, your birthday ended, like, I dunno. Two hours ago. Four hours ago. Hours and hours ago."

"It doesn't end," Clint said, expression very serious, "Until I pass out. Or drop into a totally normal, dreamless sleep. You only turn thirty-one once, after all. And this isn't as big a thing as my Dirty Thirty was, but I definitely know the rule. 's. Rules."

"Fiiiiine." Gabriel crumpled the napkin into a wad, then turned on his stool so he could lean against the bar. "God. Thirty-one. You're, just, like..." His phone made the audible brrrup of the Grindr alert. He reached behind him somewhat blindly, trying to grab at it.

"Tooooooooo the left," Clint said, eyes on the phone where it was buzzing behind Gabriel. "My left. Not yours. Your... other left?"

"Dude, I fucking — " His hand hit the napkin wad, and he whacked it toward the floor. "Ugh." Defeated, he turned around and grabbed the phone, swiping to unlock it. He tapped out the passcode. Then he tapped it out again. And again. "This fucking thing is fucking — whatever." He put it back down on the bar. "I'll do it later." He swiveled back around, his eyebrow raising as he looked at Clint. "Shut up, judgy judgerson."

Resting his temple on his forearm, which Clint then laid flat on the bar in front of him, he cracked up. He couldn't help it. "Judgy judgerson," he said, laughing helplessly. "Oh man. No. Like." He waved his free hand. "No, seriously."

"Stop," Gabriel emitted something that managed to be both a whine and a laugh. He reached out and poked Clint in the side a few times. "I'm here and, like, everyone else, is like... not. Gone. Be nice or I'll like fucking leave you passed out on the floor of bar thirty-one or whatever number this is." He poked Clint again.

"You can't abandon me," Clint said, aghast. "Not on my birthday. Also... also... somewhere, I'm not alone." He straightened, keeping hold of his glass of water, and looked around the bar as he half-heartedly attempted to bath Gabriel's poking finger away from his side. "Somewhere..."

"Nope." Gabriel shook his head. "You're not alone. Never alone. Just me. Alone, alone, alone above a..." He blinked a few times. "I can't remember." He swiveled away from Clint, grabbing what was left of his beer.

"But," Clint said, imminently reasonable. "But you're not alone. See? Cause I'm not alone, so neither are you. Unless we're alone together, but we're not, right?"

The rest of the beer disappeared, down Gabriel's throat and toward his liver. He wiped the back of the mouth with his hand. His phone made another signature pirrap. With surprising speed, he spun back around and planted his hand on Clint's chest so he didn't fall off. And then he left it there, while the room sort of spun back around.

"We're not," Gabriel said after a few seconds, staring at his hand. He looked up at Clint, meeting his eyes. "But we could be."

It took Clint a moment. He had to let his brain catch up to everything his eyes had just seen. And then his ears informed the rest of his brain that they'd heard what they heard, and he blinked again, slowly this time. "Oh," he said, voice soft. "Oh, hey." Then he tipped his head to the side and let the fingers of his free hand circle Gabriel's wrist. He left the other man's palm where it was, though. "If this was... if it was before. Like. Like five months ago... but it's not."

Gabriel left his hand on Clint's shirt for a second, staring at the place where Clint was touching him. His face grew hot, and he quickly withdrew it. Behind the bar, a blonde woman was watching them curiously. Gabriel caught her eye, saying nothing, and she turned to grab a bottle of tequila. "I'm sorry," he said hurriedly, his words not quite slurring, just coming out as rapidly as they could. "I — you're..." He ran a hand through his hair, grabbing a bit of it before letting it rest.

"God, ugh, I'm fucking... I'm just drunk and you're here and I'm so fucking stupid, and now I've ruined your fucking birthday because I'm, like whatever..."

"You didn't ruin my birthday," Clint said, letting his hand fall. He blinked slowly again, then said, "You shouldn't — you're not stupid." He tried to string words together, to make them make sense the way they needed to make sense. His brain was failing him, though.

"God, I'm so fucking dumb, are you kidding me?" The bartender floated up, dropping two shots, two lime slices and a beer at the bar near Gabriel. He turned to face them and handed her his empty beer glass, which she took with a wordless smile.

Gabriel tapped one of the shotglasses against the bar and threw it back, then reached for a lime and his beer. "Five months ago. Why — I mean, five months ago?" He looked up at Clint, a cryptic expression on his face. His stomach was turning a little, and he took a sip of beer to try to push back the uncomfortable feeling. "Like what does that even mean?"

Clint watched the shot go down and shook his head. "I wasn't with anybody five months ago," he answered.

"Don't — that's not, fucking, like..." Gabriel dropped his head to his chest. "I mean, Jesus, why is everything so fucking..."

Reaching over, Clint patted Gabriel on the shoulder. He didn't know what else he could do or say that wouldn't make things more awkward.

Gabriel almost forgot himself. He almost started leaning into Clint. And then he stopped himself, because everything was different and everything had changed and he was drunk and Clint was thirty-one and this was just a disaster now.

So he scooted away from Clint's touch, staring instead at his beer. "God, you don't even — you're just... Everything would be so much fucking easier if you found me repulsive."

Squinting, Clint shook his head as he dropped his hand to his side. "I don't... why? Why would that be easier?"

"Because," he looked up, looking at Clint somewhat blankly. "Because you're fucking..." He used his free hand to gesture from Clint's face to his feet. The movement was a little sharp, in the way it often was when someone was doing his best not to seem as drunk as he felt. "You just — you're like, so much like..." He was quiet, and he stared down at his glass. "M-Day."

"Oh," Clint said, understanding finally dawning. It was like a spotlight creeping up on him, that understanding. "Oh. You... on M-Day. Someone? I'm sorry." He raised a hand, pushing his fingertips against his cheek while eerily managing not to poke himself in the eye. "I'm sorry for my face."

"No, no, no," Gabriel protested rather loudly. He reached out to swat Clint's hand away, spilling some of the beer on the floor and on his shoes. "Oops. Shit." He looked back up. "It's a nice face."

"Aw, beer, no," Clint said, eyes moving from the beer on Gabriel's shoes back up to the man himself. Shifting his hand back to his face, he said, "Aw, face..."

"Dude." Gabriel snorted. "You're fucking drunk." Something about that made him feel better about spilling his feelings and ruining Clint's birthday. "Like, really drunk."

"Yeah," Clint said, quirking a smile. "We're on... thirty-one. The thirty-first bar. See, lots of 'em. Not as drunk as I could be." He held up his glass of water. Then, coordinated despite the amount of alcohol he'd imbibed, Clint leaned over and gave Gabriel a one-armed hug. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Without really thinking about it, Gabriel leaned into the hug, because he was drunk, and even though he'd made this situation weirder than it could possibly be, he really wanted a hug right now. "Thanks." He pulled away. "But, whatever, man. It's still your birthday." He pushed Clint's shoulder in the way that he'd often seen bros do. "And there's still another fucking shot of tequila here. So."

"Aw, tequila," Clint mutters, reaching for the shot despite himself. He knocks it back, then downs the rest of his water. "Tomorrow's head for me is gonna be the worst."

"Yeah," Gabriel grinned. He lifted his beer to Clint, then threw the rest of it back. "But you're, like, passed the point of no return. So, like, whatever."