Title: The Second Glass of Wine
Fandom: Viridian Legacy: Glass
Characters: Arkady, Baron
Rating: T (L2 N0 S0 V1 D1)
Warnings: Drunkenness, drunken stupidity, a punch in the face, lots of swearing.
Notes: Holy christ, I just could not write for the last couple months. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish up some things I started, and then move on to new stuff. Here's Arkady hating on the entertainment industry.
Ebony Arkady was fucking drunk. Not that drunk was at all an unusual state to find him in, but he made a distinction between 'drunk' and 'fucking drunk', in that he wasn't all that likely to remember the night before by the morning after, in the latter case. He was drunk enough that he couldn't quite make out distinct voices in the noise, any more, and really, that was fine by him. As the party roared unceasingly around him, he picked up a glass of pop from a passing tray, plucked a whiskey sour from the hand of some long-winded literary agent, emptied one glass into the other, and headed out to the patio, after handing back the empty. He hated these affairs, but the politics of music required his presence.
As he perched on the rail of what turned out to be a balcony, foot hooked into the wrought-iron below, struggling to come to terms with the idea that he was still on the same floor from which he'd entered from the street, the literary agent whose name he'd never known and hadn't any intention of coming to know blustered after him, no doubt snarling intemperate things. He couldn't make sense of any of it, and even if he could, he really wouldn't have cared.
When the dull roar finally paused, seeming to expect a response, he looked over and drawled, "'s that so?"
Almost immediately, it began again, and he sanguinely sipped his ill-gotten drink, leaning back to look up at the stars, supported only by the ankle caught in the swirls and flowers of the ironwork upon which he sat. In a decisive moment, he chugged the drink he held and dropped the glass to explode across the concrete deck below. Sitting up, he leaned forward and grabbed the agent's crisply-pressed lapels.
"Man up," he suggested, with an amiable slyness. "Stop trying to be a man, and just be one. If I was David Bowie, you would never have batted an eye."
He was fairly sure there was something wrong with that proposition, possibly that Bowie probably wouldn't be caught dead doing anything of the sort, these days, but the breadth of it hadn't quite settled in.
The agent stared, for a moment, at the perfectly-painted face looking down at him. He squared his shoulders and tried to brush the hands off his jacket. Nothing changed. He tried again, to much the same effect. Flustered, he took a swing, and punched Arkady in the face. Inside of a second, it became quickly apparent to the agent that that hadn't been the correct answer, either.
Arkady hauled the man off the ground, by the now-rumpled lapels, and gave him a good shake. "That was my face. You can hit me in whatever you want, as long as it isn't my face," he snarled, furiously.
He was too drunk to remember he'd never been any use in a fight, and that seemed to be serving him well, at the moment. The man flailed, desperately trying to pull away from him.
It was in this moment that Baron came across the scene. "Whoa! Dude, dude! Arkady, man, what the hell?" He hurried over, sloshing his own drink liberally across the patio, as he ran.
"He punched me in the face!" Arkady lamented. "In the fucking face!"
"But, he—" the agent started, but Baron cut him off.
"Dude, nah. It doesn't matter. You punched the drummer. You don't ever punch the drummer. I don't care what band it is, you don't punch the drummer. You see that arm? Dude, he could crush your head with one hand." Baron shook his head and rested a hand on Arkady's arm. "Put him down, man. I got this one. Let the Baron handle it."
Arkady tightened his grip and roared in wordless irritation, before he remembered, at long last, that he couldn't fight worth a damn, and if this got any uglier, that was going to become really apparent. He flippantly thrust out his arms, letting the man drop.
"Get the fuck out," he grumbled. "You're blocking my view of her ass." Leaning to the side, he pointed past the shaken agent, to a slender woman in a slinky green dress.
Steadying the agent as he landed on his feet and staggered, Baron put an arm across the man's shoulders and led him away. "Don't mind him; he's really drunk. I think he just broke up with his girlfriend, again," he lied easily. "Let me buy you a drink. What do you do, anyway? I don't think I've seen you around, before."
"Are you his agent?" the man asked, trying to work through the multitude of subjects.
"Agent? Shit, no, I'm his bassist." Baron laughed. "What are you drinking? You need another one."
Baron's rambling trailed off as he led the literary agent back into the building, and Arkady was once again left alone with no drink. It seemed to be a chronic situation. He found himself wondering if maybe Bowie were there, and if he was, how hard it would be to walk off with his drink. He'd make a name for himself — drink-thief of the stars.
This peculiar delusion kept a smile on his face for a few minutes, before he remembered that he had made a name for himself, and it was the entire reason he was even at this godawful excuse for a party. On the other hand, 'work' was mostly playing the drums and going to godawful parties, so he figured that no matter what he thought of being famous, he had it better now, than when he'd been working graveyard at the 7-11.
Still, though, he definitely needed another drink, he thought, as he slid down from the rail and tested his balance. He could still stand up. He wasn't nearly drunk enough for this party. With that thought, he headed back inside, to see what presented itself.
