dig your hole, dig it fast | travis+lydia

[crownless]

[Travis doesn't know why he still comes here. The drinks all suck; the ambiance (if you could call it that) is null; everyone else here is crouched over their drinks as miserably as he is, sulking over his own half-empty beer.

Maybe he just feels sorry for himself. And, well, a shitty night calls for a shitty bar and even shittier beer.]

Jesus fucking Christ.

[Screw it. He drains the rest of the glass and sets it back onto the table with a thunk. Maybe if he has some more it'll start tasting good, or something.]

Comments

[homemademolotov]

[ She laughs bitterly and wonders where her drink went. Did she finish it? Is it on the bar in front of her? Did the bartender take it away? Maybe Travis drank it. She doesn't know. She wants about twelve more. ]

[ Turning her head, she wipes her eyes fiercely and frowns at him. ]

Why are you doing this? What are you getting out of it?

[ Retreating back to defensiveness and suspicion, because that's what's kept her safe before, or at least close enough to safe that she's survived. ]

[crownless]

[He honestly doesn't know. Travis pauses and shrugs a shoulder.]

Hell if I know. [He shrugs a single shoulder. The bartender's polishing a glass on the other side of the bar. He'd taken their drinks--or whatever was left of them--and cleaned them up. Or so he assumes, anyway.]

Maybe I'm being selfish. Kind of a "giving you what I never got" deal.

[homemademolotov]

[ There's a brief moment of blank confusion - is he being honest? Outright saying he's being selfish? But nothing he's said has sounded like a lie before. He's not suave, he's not cool, he's not charming - he's grating and annoying, but he's trying to comfort her. He's not trying to get her to do anything, or get anything out of her. ]

[ In some ways honesty is more suspicious than ulterior motives. Experience makes her wary. But she also feels bad, honestly and deeply, about the fact that he never had anyone, not even a stranger, to sit next to in a bar and flush his sorrows away with. ]

[ She forces herself to relax slightly, not let her guard down but at least stop looking at him like he's about to steal her purse, and shrugs, too, clearing her throat. ]

I can think of more selfish things.

[crownless]

[Oh. Shit. His hand's still there. Travis awkwardly pulls away, his hand shifting to rub the muscles at the back of his neck.]

Me too. [He chuckles dryly.] Does that mean I get a pass this time?

[It's been a long, long time since he's been this open with somebody else. Maybe it's because she's a stranger, but when Bishop was alive, he never truly told him everything that weighed on him, like lead weights in the bottom of his ribcage.

Travis casts her what might just be the ghost of an uncertain, but genuine smile.]

[homemademolotov]

This time.

[ Her voice is dry, in part because her throat is dry, in that gross, post-crying sticky kind of way, and in part because she was drinking, and in part because - not because he touched her, but because he was such an ass and had tried anyway. That was why her throat hurt. ]

[ She catches his eye and ducks her head a little, instinctively. ]

You're practically a good Samaritan.

[crownless]

Heh.

[Travis chuckles. Him, a good Samaritan. Of all the things. It's hard to believe it, but God, it sure sounds nice.]

Yeah, all right, I'll take it. That's my good deed for the next year or something, then, I guess--m'free to be an ass for the next three hundred and sixty four days.

[homemademolotov]

If that's what you want.

[She looks at him unreadably for a second, then instinctively, drunkenly, unhappily leans over and hugs him tightly.]

You can go for longer now, [she whispers hoarsely, because she's not doing this for herself, she's doing it for him. She doesn't need it. Not at all.]

[crownless]

[His first reaction is to freeze. He may be a sentimental man, but life, his own rotten nature, some bad turn of fate, whatever you'd choose to call it-- it shoved people in the opposite direction. This contact... it's something he very rarely gets. He doesn't quite know what to do.

But slowly, he moves his arms to wrap around Lydia and hug her back. Not because he needs it; or because hugging a strange girl, pouring his heart out to her, has made him feel the most okay he's felt in months.

She needs it, really.]

Thank you.

[homemademolotov]

[She laughs, and it's not a cute happy popular Lydia laugh, it's choked with tears, although she is pulling herself together against his shoulder. She takes a second, deliberately slowing her breathing, and pulls away, feeling his discomfort.]

Why are you thanking me?

[crownless]

[Uh.

He hadn't really thought of a coherent reason to be thanking her: it's more that he feels like it's something he needed to say. Being asked for it just forces him to stumble for a meaning and oh no he has no idea what to say.]

I-- uh, I don't know. I didn't know what else to say.

[He chuckles awkwardly, to fill the space of the silence.]

[homemademolotov]

[She quirks her eyebrows at him, a little pityingly. He's such a mess. But she's a mess, too. It's no big deal, at least not for tonight.]

Well, thanks for thanking me.

Sorry I got your shoulder wet.

[crownless]

Eh. [He manages a little smile.] It's water. It'll dry.

Sorry you ended up listening to some ranting drunk guy. Fun night, huh.

[homemademolotov]

It was - [She hesitates, then nods.] Better than it could've been.