A Gatorade Morning
May. 19th, 2011 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
manicdakTitle: A Gatorade Morning
Prompt: Time
Rating: PG-13 (for F-bombs!)
Series: This Thing That Happened This One Time
Content Summary/Notes/Warnings: Amos wakes up from a hangover and finds his Ex waiting with breakfast.
It was the raging headache that woke him up. Amos was sure of it as he was roused from unconsciousness in the early hours of a Saturday morning. Getting sloppy drunk was the only thing he wanted to remember about the night before, but it wasn’t. He remembered evrything vividly in full colour detail, detail as colourful as his drink that Jared’s friends had seen fit to mock him for ordering.
It had been the last straw in their dead-end relationship, if Amos could even call it that. That drink had ended the night, not down Amos’s throat as he’d intended, but on top of Jared’s head in front a bar full of students and the “friends” he had tried so desperately to impress.
Thankfully, Righty Tyler had followed him outside and taken him home in a cab before he could attempt to do anything stupid in his upset. Upon arrival was a different story, as Amos’s pounding head could attest to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been made fun of and bullied before, it was just that he always thought he was so far past it. It always surprised him when reality arrived to smack him in the face when he least expected it, and he hadn’t expected it. Not on a night out that Jared had invited him on. If Jared's so called friends, upper classmen on the team that Jared was desperate to impress, hadn’t shown up, Amos was sure they would still have been on speaking terms.
They would have sat in their booth, Jared with his beer and Amos with his pinkish frozen cocktail heavily laden with fruit garnish, and watched the game on the giant wall of televisions while eating wings without any incident.
That wasn’t to say things between them would have improved. They had already been getting steadily worse since that fateful night at the frat party where the affair had started. They had been friends for an entire school year with hardly a problem. Sex had turned everything around and not for the better. Instead of bringing them closer, it had pulled them apart, with Jared becoming more and more withdrawn and Amos becoming more and more frustrated with the closeted situation he felt forced into.
Amos sighed to himself, and squinted his eyes against the light filtering in from his curtains. He was contemplating removing himself from the warm bed covers to attempt to adjust the vertical blinds when a knock at his bedroom door startled him.
“Uh, Come in,” he croaked out in a haze of confusion, dreading what would be revealed.
His dread did not resolve itself when Mark Briar peeked his head through the door.
“Hey, Amos,” he said, mindful to keep his voice soft. “How you doing in here?”
“Shit,” Amos replied. He shifted in his place and patted the spot next to him. “What are you doing here?”
Mark walked over and sat in the bed next to Amos atop the covers.
Amos plied his memory banks, but could come up with no reasonable excuse for Mark to even be there. He frowned at the thought that, in a fit of pique, he may have very well drunk dialed his ex. He never thought he’d be that guy.
“We didn’t...” Amos gestured uncertainly down at the bed as Mark sat up against the headboard and gave him a bemused look.
“No!” He laughed and pulled Amos in close to him.
Amos shifted so that he could rest his heavy head upon Mark’s shoulder.
“Good,” he murmured. “Why are you even here then? Not that I’m complaining. I’m glad you’re here.”
He was very thankful to have not woken up to an empty apartment. He wasn’t sure what he would have done, but it was a relief not to have to think about it. As he lay there against Mark, he was reminded of his freshman year and a winter term spent cuddling beneath the covers of the bed they had shared in their dorm room.
Mark was his oldest and closest friend, which didn’t speak much to the friendless and miserable existence of his years as a youth. They had only met at the university tour their senior year of high school after all.
“Righty called me,” he said. “He was worried about you. Didn’t want to leave you all alone with that liquor cabinet of yours. He didn’t really know what to do with you. You were so damn determined to get shitfaced, he almost called his dads.”
“So embarrassing.” Amos buried his head in Mark’s shoulder, and Mark held him close.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “By the time I got here, Righty had already managed to hide all the drinks. You just cried a lot and then passed out. You’re a really weepy drunk.”
“That’s not embarrassing?” Amos glanced up at him.
“Nah,” Mark said with a shrug. “What are friends for, if not to be a shoulder to cry on?”
“Laughing at me along with a bunch of douchebag seniors and wondering out loud to my face why I can’t be more normal, like ‘one of the guys.’...as I learned last night apparently.”
Amos took a deep breath that ended in a long sigh.
“He really said that?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, he really did,” Amos replied. “I don’t know why I got so upset. I just thought... I thought there was something more. He was really sweet to me...when we were alone, but he was always hesitant.”
“Sometimes friends disappoint,” Mark said. “Maybe he just...”
“It’s not just friends,” Amos muttered.
“Wait.” Mark sat up in his spot and pulled Amos up with him so that they could look eachother in the eye.
“You and Jared were dating? This is news,” Mark said.
“Dating is probably a huge overstatement.” Amos hung his head and glared down at the comforter, willing himself to keep from bursting out into tears. He could feel the lump in his throat beginning to form again, and it had nothing to do with sadness or disappointment. He was just beyond angry at the situation he’d let himself fall into.
“So?...”
Mark proceeded with caution and tried not to assume anything further, and Amos found that he couldn’t keep himself still with the rage coursing through his veins.
“Fucking, okay,” he growled then jumped from the bed and began stalking back and forth across his room.
“We were fucking, and that’s it,” he spat out. “Here I am, almost ready to graduate and I’m jumping into a closet I was never able to stay in in the first place. It’s like all year I’ve been hanging out here waiting for him to call me up so I can take whatever scraps he’s willing to give out. Which isn’t much. I don’t know what the fuck I was expecting, but if he doesn’t even want to be my friend in public anymore, well... fuck him.”
Amos pressed his palm to a spot above his eye as his shouting resounded in his head.
“You okay?” Mark asked.
“Aside from my pride being stomped all over and feeling like my brain is stabbing the back of my eyeball from the inside, then...yeah,” Amos said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. What are you making me for breakfast?”
Mark hopped out of the bed to join him.
“I’ve got just the thing to put you right, C’mon.”
He led Amos into the small dining area and sat him down at the table. In front of him was an large omelet with a side bacon, a glass of orange juice and a twelve pack of Gatorade.
“Figured you might need this.” Mark patted the case as he remained standing. “I wasn’t sure what color you liked so I got you the ROY G. BIV variety pack here.”
Despite still feeling terrible, Amos couldn’t help but smile.
“How very arty and gay of you,” he said.
“I learned from the best!” Mark winked at him then disappeared with instructions for Amos to eat his eggs.
He returned shortly with a manila folder which he dropped on the table next to Amos and then dropped himself into the accompanying chair.
“What’s that?” Amos asked.
“Look.”
Mark nodded towards the folder and Amos lifted up a corner to spy the papers inside. He blanched as soon as he realized it was the internship application that he hadn't bothered to complete.
“Fill it out,” Mark said. “You know you want to. I think this is just the thing you need right now, to get away for a while.”
“I don’t want to get away, I just...” He frowned and tried to organize his thoughts.
“Are you going to sit here and wait for Jared to get his shit together, or are you going to live your life?” Mark asked.
“I’m not waiting for anything. Screw him!” Amos scowled and shoved the folder at Mark.
“Look,” Mark said. “I don’t want to stick up for him being a jerk ass and leading you on, but I wasn’t very much younger than him and I was pulling the same shit except ten times worse. I actually hit the guy I liked.”
“That’s what I get for getting involved with a kid,” Amos muttered.
“Right,” Mark said. He pushed the folder gently back towards his friend.
“I think time and space will do you both good. He has friends to help him, so why don't you worry about yourself for a change? Fill that out and maybe he’ll be ready to talk when you get back in the fall.”
“I can’t.” Amos pushed the folder back. “It’s due on Monday. It’s too late.”
“That’s why you’re going to fill it out, replenish those electrolytes, put on a suit, throw your shit in a portfolio, maybe grab some of those teeny tiny chairs...”
“My maquettes?”
“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “And we are going to road trip it down to San Francisco and drop off that application in person. What’s the worst that could happen? They don’t call you back. It’s a great opportunity, okay?”
“You’re right,” Amos admitted. He pushed his eggs away and replaced them with a folder. “Get me a pen.”
Prompt: Time
Rating: PG-13 (for F-bombs!)
Series: This Thing That Happened This One Time
Content Summary/Notes/Warnings: Amos wakes up from a hangover and finds his Ex waiting with breakfast.
It was the raging headache that woke him up. Amos was sure of it as he was roused from unconsciousness in the early hours of a Saturday morning. Getting sloppy drunk was the only thing he wanted to remember about the night before, but it wasn’t. He remembered evrything vividly in full colour detail, detail as colourful as his drink that Jared’s friends had seen fit to mock him for ordering.
It had been the last straw in their dead-end relationship, if Amos could even call it that. That drink had ended the night, not down Amos’s throat as he’d intended, but on top of Jared’s head in front a bar full of students and the “friends” he had tried so desperately to impress.
Thankfully, Righty Tyler had followed him outside and taken him home in a cab before he could attempt to do anything stupid in his upset. Upon arrival was a different story, as Amos’s pounding head could attest to. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been made fun of and bullied before, it was just that he always thought he was so far past it. It always surprised him when reality arrived to smack him in the face when he least expected it, and he hadn’t expected it. Not on a night out that Jared had invited him on. If Jared's so called friends, upper classmen on the team that Jared was desperate to impress, hadn’t shown up, Amos was sure they would still have been on speaking terms.
They would have sat in their booth, Jared with his beer and Amos with his pinkish frozen cocktail heavily laden with fruit garnish, and watched the game on the giant wall of televisions while eating wings without any incident.
That wasn’t to say things between them would have improved. They had already been getting steadily worse since that fateful night at the frat party where the affair had started. They had been friends for an entire school year with hardly a problem. Sex had turned everything around and not for the better. Instead of bringing them closer, it had pulled them apart, with Jared becoming more and more withdrawn and Amos becoming more and more frustrated with the closeted situation he felt forced into.
Amos sighed to himself, and squinted his eyes against the light filtering in from his curtains. He was contemplating removing himself from the warm bed covers to attempt to adjust the vertical blinds when a knock at his bedroom door startled him.
“Uh, Come in,” he croaked out in a haze of confusion, dreading what would be revealed.
His dread did not resolve itself when Mark Briar peeked his head through the door.
“Hey, Amos,” he said, mindful to keep his voice soft. “How you doing in here?”
“Shit,” Amos replied. He shifted in his place and patted the spot next to him. “What are you doing here?”
Mark walked over and sat in the bed next to Amos atop the covers.
Amos plied his memory banks, but could come up with no reasonable excuse for Mark to even be there. He frowned at the thought that, in a fit of pique, he may have very well drunk dialed his ex. He never thought he’d be that guy.
“We didn’t...” Amos gestured uncertainly down at the bed as Mark sat up against the headboard and gave him a bemused look.
“No!” He laughed and pulled Amos in close to him.
Amos shifted so that he could rest his heavy head upon Mark’s shoulder.
“Good,” he murmured. “Why are you even here then? Not that I’m complaining. I’m glad you’re here.”
He was very thankful to have not woken up to an empty apartment. He wasn’t sure what he would have done, but it was a relief not to have to think about it. As he lay there against Mark, he was reminded of his freshman year and a winter term spent cuddling beneath the covers of the bed they had shared in their dorm room.
Mark was his oldest and closest friend, which didn’t speak much to the friendless and miserable existence of his years as a youth. They had only met at the university tour their senior year of high school after all.
“Righty called me,” he said. “He was worried about you. Didn’t want to leave you all alone with that liquor cabinet of yours. He didn’t really know what to do with you. You were so damn determined to get shitfaced, he almost called his dads.”
“So embarrassing.” Amos buried his head in Mark’s shoulder, and Mark held him close.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “By the time I got here, Righty had already managed to hide all the drinks. You just cried a lot and then passed out. You’re a really weepy drunk.”
“That’s not embarrassing?” Amos glanced up at him.
“Nah,” Mark said with a shrug. “What are friends for, if not to be a shoulder to cry on?”
“Laughing at me along with a bunch of douchebag seniors and wondering out loud to my face why I can’t be more normal, like ‘one of the guys.’...as I learned last night apparently.”
Amos took a deep breath that ended in a long sigh.
“He really said that?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, he really did,” Amos replied. “I don’t know why I got so upset. I just thought... I thought there was something more. He was really sweet to me...when we were alone, but he was always hesitant.”
“Sometimes friends disappoint,” Mark said. “Maybe he just...”
“It’s not just friends,” Amos muttered.
“Wait.” Mark sat up in his spot and pulled Amos up with him so that they could look eachother in the eye.
“You and Jared were dating? This is news,” Mark said.
“Dating is probably a huge overstatement.” Amos hung his head and glared down at the comforter, willing himself to keep from bursting out into tears. He could feel the lump in his throat beginning to form again, and it had nothing to do with sadness or disappointment. He was just beyond angry at the situation he’d let himself fall into.
“So?...”
Mark proceeded with caution and tried not to assume anything further, and Amos found that he couldn’t keep himself still with the rage coursing through his veins.
“Fucking, okay,” he growled then jumped from the bed and began stalking back and forth across his room.
“We were fucking, and that’s it,” he spat out. “Here I am, almost ready to graduate and I’m jumping into a closet I was never able to stay in in the first place. It’s like all year I’ve been hanging out here waiting for him to call me up so I can take whatever scraps he’s willing to give out. Which isn’t much. I don’t know what the fuck I was expecting, but if he doesn’t even want to be my friend in public anymore, well... fuck him.”
Amos pressed his palm to a spot above his eye as his shouting resounded in his head.
“You okay?” Mark asked.
“Aside from my pride being stomped all over and feeling like my brain is stabbing the back of my eyeball from the inside, then...yeah,” Amos said. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. What are you making me for breakfast?”
Mark hopped out of the bed to join him.
“I’ve got just the thing to put you right, C’mon.”
He led Amos into the small dining area and sat him down at the table. In front of him was an large omelet with a side bacon, a glass of orange juice and a twelve pack of Gatorade.
“Figured you might need this.” Mark patted the case as he remained standing. “I wasn’t sure what color you liked so I got you the ROY G. BIV variety pack here.”
Despite still feeling terrible, Amos couldn’t help but smile.
“How very arty and gay of you,” he said.
“I learned from the best!” Mark winked at him then disappeared with instructions for Amos to eat his eggs.
He returned shortly with a manila folder which he dropped on the table next to Amos and then dropped himself into the accompanying chair.
“What’s that?” Amos asked.
“Look.”
Mark nodded towards the folder and Amos lifted up a corner to spy the papers inside. He blanched as soon as he realized it was the internship application that he hadn't bothered to complete.
“Fill it out,” Mark said. “You know you want to. I think this is just the thing you need right now, to get away for a while.”
“I don’t want to get away, I just...” He frowned and tried to organize his thoughts.
“Are you going to sit here and wait for Jared to get his shit together, or are you going to live your life?” Mark asked.
“I’m not waiting for anything. Screw him!” Amos scowled and shoved the folder at Mark.
“Look,” Mark said. “I don’t want to stick up for him being a jerk ass and leading you on, but I wasn’t very much younger than him and I was pulling the same shit except ten times worse. I actually hit the guy I liked.”
“That’s what I get for getting involved with a kid,” Amos muttered.
“Right,” Mark said. He pushed the folder gently back towards his friend.
“I think time and space will do you both good. He has friends to help him, so why don't you worry about yourself for a change? Fill that out and maybe he’ll be ready to talk when you get back in the fall.”
“I can’t.” Amos pushed the folder back. “It’s due on Monday. It’s too late.”
“That’s why you’re going to fill it out, replenish those electrolytes, put on a suit, throw your shit in a portfolio, maybe grab some of those teeny tiny chairs...”
“My maquettes?”
“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “And we are going to road trip it down to San Francisco and drop off that application in person. What’s the worst that could happen? They don’t call you back. It’s a great opportunity, okay?”
“You’re right,” Amos admitted. He pushed his eggs away and replaced them with a folder. “Get me a pen.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 09:24 am (UTC)I like how, since I haven't read the main story, I'm kind of getting little puzzle pieces of this story. Poking them together in different ways is amusing me.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 11:43 am (UTC)Amos needs hugs and a kick to the arse, and friends are good for that kind of thing. *nodnod*