Despite himself, a matching smile tugged at James’ lips.Cillian was just magic that way.“Don’t say drinks.”
“Drinks!”Cillian thumped him harder, then tossed an arm around James’ shoulders.“Best idea I’ve heard today.Let’s go.”
With a choice between that and listening to bubblegum caroling for another hour -- well, it wasn’t really a choice at all.
All I want for Christmas is you.He tapped Cillian’s fist with his own.“You’re on.Let’s go.”
* * *
“There now, what did I tell you?”Cillian shoved a glass of -- something -- into James’ hand, beaming in approval when he took it.“You feel better already, don’t you?”
James eyed the glass, surprised at its weight, and then mystified by the oil-slick-rainbow of colors shining through.“What the hell is this?”
“Booze, my friend!The pause that refreshes.Glug-glug-sip-sipahhh.”Cillian peered at him.“Alcoholic beverage.Am I getting through to you?”
James laughed.He couldn’t help it.He couldn’t hear himself over the thumping bass in the club they’d ended up at, and if it wasn’t for a decent ability to read lips he’d have had no idea what the hell Cillian was saying, but for all that he did feel better.He leaned closer to Cillian, his lips almost against Cillian’s ear.“I meant, what the hell isinthis?Looks and smells like every flavor of schnapps known to man, mixed with WD-40.”
Cillian’s grin blazed white in the club’s dim lighting, Cheshire Cat style.He bent his head, too, his breath tickling the side of James’ neck in a way that would have made him shiver if he wasn’t made of sterner stuff.“How’d you guess?But then, it wouldn’t be a drink special otherwise.Gives it that extra little kick!”
“You’re not serious.”
Rolling his eyes, still amused as hell, Cillian thwapped James lightly on the side of his head.“Of course I’m not serious.It’s a club, not a murder hole, and that’s a cocktail, for fuck’s sake.One that ought to put a real smile on your face once you get to the bottom of it.Get to drinking, get to smiling, and get on with you.Don’t make me start up the ‘chug, chug, chug’ chant.Because you know I will.”
Jamesdidknow.It’d happened before.“I just like giving you shit, Cillian.You know that.”
“And that would be why I love your scrawny ass!”Cillian dropped a wet, smacking kiss on James’ cheek, making him yelp and swipe at the drool in mock offense.“Drink, and I don’t mean maybe.”
“All right, all right.You don’t have to twist my arm.”
Cillian crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow, quite the feat for someone who’d presumably already downed one of those multicolored monsters on his way back from the bar.“Apparently I do.”He slapped his hands together enthusiastically when James tried a sip.“Keep going past the whole numb, tingling part of the experience.That’d be the cyanide.A few more sips and you won’t be feeling any pain.”
James took a deeper draught of the cocktail and coughed.Okay, potent, but… Cillian wasn’t wrong.Flavors blended in ways they shouldn’t have, and if they didn’t go down smooth, they went down with good solid intent.This was a drink meant to knock all your worries on their ass.Nice.He saluted Cillian, who looked even more pleased, with his glass.
“Stay there, and keep doing that,” Cillian instructed.“I’ll be back in… five, ten, maybe fifteen.Need to work off a little steam.”
“What steam do you have to work off?”James asked, already a little owl-eyed.Damn, that drink was strong.
Cillian tapped the side of his nose as he took a few moonwalk-style steps backward.“That’s for me to know.”
“Isn’t that supposed to end with ‘and for me to find out’?”James called after him.“Seriously, where are you going?”
Too late.Cillian had already pivoted and disappeared into the throng, where the drifting smoke from dry ice, colored as wildly by random LEDs as his drink, reduced all the bodies packed in the club into one big human mass.James snorted quietly, and, like a good boy, did as he’d been told.He drank and wasn’t worried.Not really.Cillian was good for his word, always.If he delivered a threat, he meant it.If he made a promise, he kept it.He’d be back.
Besides, James knew damn well where Cillian was going -- fishing for a little extra entertainment.Not surprising.Cillian didn’t like to be alone, after all.That was why he’d latched onto James when a quirk of fate put them in the same dorm roommumble-mumbleyears ago.Why he’d been so enthusiastically down for having a roommate to split the bills with.Yes, Cillian had shown him the “they were roommates” Vine.So what if it was a cliché?It worked for them both to stick together.
But… all that aside, Cillian didn’t like to get attached.That was the part James had never quite been able to wrap his head around.One-night stands, sure.As far as James knew, no one had ever lasted longer than a week with Cillian.
Except him.Huh.
He sipped his drink idly, letting the bass rattle and buzz through his bones while the mystery alcohol warmed his blood and burned in his belly.It wasn’t a new question.James never had understood why out of everyone on God’s green earth, he was the one Cillian didn’t get tired of.
He didn’t like to think about what life would be like without Cillian.Far less entertaining, for one thing, but for the other…lonelywas the word that fit best.He’d have a hole in his life that’d never be filled quite right again.
And if Cillian figured out the one secret James had managed to keep from him since that dorm room… exactly how very much he wanted Cillian…
No.No way could Cillian ever be allowed to find out.James would chance a lot of things, mostly when Cillian was egging him on, but still.He’d take the secret to his grave before he let Cillian know how much, how deeply, he cared.
But then there’s the opposite side of that coin, a sneaky little voice whispered in James’ mind as he tipped the glass all the way back for the last few delicious drops.What if you told him, and he didn’t mind?What if, just if, he said “fucking finally, took you long enough.”
