I wrote this back on New Year's Eve (can you tell?) but I'm sending it out on Valentine's Day. To commemorate a holiday based on profound caring, deep bonds, undying devotion, warm hugs, tender kisses, and the strongest emotion the planet may ever know, I present to you...
...a short vignette about panic, alcohol, and meaningless, casual sex. ;)The content alludes to possible slashiness (I'll let you decide) but there's no actual sex, or even real subtext. I'd give it a PG-13. Also, it just kind of stops, but it's only a vignette, not a story, so that's okay.
DISCLAIMER: Title is taken from a quote from ElfQuest: Hidden Years #18. Copyright © Warp Graphics, all rights reserved. Characters belong to DC Comics, Batfilms, and MCA/Universal. This story is non-profit. Please don't re-distribute without my consent.
I'm Not Drunk, I'm Wonderful
©1998 JJ Arrows
01.01.93
Two grey eyes slitted open, squinting at a brown spot on the bedroom ceiling. Vision staying put for a moment, the fingers belonging to the eyes brushed a glass bottle- shaped something lying across the covers as they travelled to the forehead, now thudding with a hangover. "Bloody..."
The eyes shot to the body to his left. He shrieked. "AAUGHH!!!"
"AUGH!"
The eyes went huge. "GRAHAM!"
Graham sat bolt upright. "DOCTOR!"
They both faced forward, faces registering horror and confusion. "But... you... and me... and we're..." came the stutterings in unison.
Arcane began to emit a long, low-pitched whimpering. "Graham... your shirt's off."
Graham swallowed, staring. "So's yours."
They both looked at each other, intoning it in unison. "PANTS!"
Arcane peeked under the covers and sighed. "Boxers."
"Briefs," Graham breathed, closing his eyes in relief.
And then Arcane stiffened. "Graham... I don't wear boxers."
Graham peeked under the covers again, his blue eyes expanding. "I, uh, don't wear silk Calvin Kleins." They stared at each other again in horror.
Arcane drew the covers up around himself protectively. "G-Graham...? Exactly how drunk WERE we last night?"
Graham fidgeted, searching his memory. "Er, uh, I, uh, don't know, I mean, it was New Year's..."
"All right, there has to be a PERFECTLY RATIONAL explanation to all this," Arcane reasoned animatedly with hand gestures. "Surely this isn't all as sordid as it appears. Quite innocent, on the contrary. Simply you... and I... totally separate and apart... in a bed..."
"Your bed," Graham pointed out.
"THANK YOU, Graham!" Arcane snapped.
"Yeah," Graham nodded quickly, picking up on the earlier line of thought. "Just two guys... sittin' alone in a bed. Nothing strange."
"Nothing peculiar."
"Nothin' weird."
"Nothing bizarre."
"Just two men in a bed. Yeah."
"Exactly."
"Right." The assistant let his face fall into his hands. "Wearing each other's underwear?!" he wailed.
"SHUT UP!" cried Arcane. "Perhaps," he attempted, eyes wild as he racked his mind for any possible explanation other than the fairly obvious, "we were drunk--"
Graham raised his eyebrows.
"Terribly drunk," Arcane amended quickly, "And, being as inebriated as we were, allowed the alcohol to impair our logic as we both --"
"--tried on the clothes the other was wearing," Graham added, nodding fervently, blue eyes intense.
"But, being so drunk, we collapsed onto the unmade bed and fell asleep in a stupor!" Arcane finished triumphantly.
Graham paused a moment, weighing how much he wanted to live against the one little ousted factlet, and realized that if the hidden security camera in the room was functioning last night, death might well have been preferable. He knew what kind of stuff got put in the VCR during Rusty's post-game Superbowl parties. "In each other's arms?" he ventured, whispering.
"I was not in your bloody arms!"
"You kinda were."
"How many inches designates your arms?! I was clearly at least 3 inches away from any of your appendages!!"
"God, I hope so," Graham muttered a little too loudly.
"UPPER APPENDAGES!!!" Arcane shrieked to the ceiling, smacking his own forehead repeatedly.
"Okay sir, but I was like this," Graham gestured with his hands a little, "and you were kind of right there."
"I was at least three inches away from you when I woke up."
"Maybe we should measure it?" Graham suggested. "I can go get the tape."
"This is bloody obscene," Arcane grumbled, folding his arms crossly. "We did NOT sleep together."
There was a pause as they glanced at each other.
Both men dived in a wild scuffle for the measuring tape in the nearby dresser drawers.
"A-HA!" Arcane cried with a manic crack in his voice, holding out at least 8 inches of tape between him and where Graham climbed back onto the bed. "7.5 inches apart does NOT constitute romantic contact!"
"You moved," Graham accused.
"I did not!" Arcane insisted, all the way on the very edge of the bed. "You moved."
"Okay, I shifted a little," Graham admitted sullenly. "These briefs are really uncomfortable. They're way too tight."
Arcane knitted his eyebrows. "I don't consider them uncomfortable."
Graham decided it was a good time to shut up.--end--