Thirty-six Bottles of Beer on the Floor.

[man_nav_naudas]

WHO: Aussie bloke and Latvian lad
WHEN: June the first
WHERE: Apartment 403, Centralia Complex
WHAT: Ages ago, a promise was made. Hours ago, that promise was broken. It's time for a drink, mates.
RATING: D for drinking, despair and drunken endeavors

Comments

There's more where that came from, Bb.

[man_nav_naudas]

"Evening, Logan."

It had him smiling, laughing already, into the lip of his glass, to see the man collapse with such dramatics, downing his drink as though it were a mere thimble of water rather than an entire serving of hard, brewed beer. A warmth settled about Raivis's chest, stirred by the man's ridiculous smirk and the tepid breeze wafting in from the outside.

He'd missed Logan, he really did, and everything about the fellow that had- for a surprisingly long time- been absent. He'd come back from his ordeal to find his roommate in trouble of his own and though they had both clearly wished to console the other over their loses, life seemed to deem it improper for their schedules to collide longer than a 'morning' and occasionally a weary 'goodnight'.

Until, of course, this moment months later.

It took several seconds of blearily blinking at the figure to his side, another swig from his tankard, before Raivis added a shy, "It's been... alright." to his quiet greeting. "H-hectic. Busy. Probably going to get worse soon enough...but then, that's nothing odd, is it?" He sighed lightly. "Everyone, everything's been so strange... so..."

The boy nudged Logan with his elbow. Smiled. "I'm glad you're here." A pause, a short, purposeful clearing of the throat. "Next time, um, when you're on your way home you could c-call and I could meet you halfway, maybe. I just... feel a bit bad about your car and well, I don't have one of my own or I'd offer to have picked you up..."

I expect much moe moe kyun kyun from the latvian

[brawldownunder]

"Don't worry about me mate! But meeting halfway sounds good..." Logan's smile softened and he brought up a hand to rest on top of Raivis's head, just to feel the boy, but then he dragged him into a tight hug. With their position on the couch, Logan only used one arm to wrap around the boy as the other ruffled the smaller male's hair.

"I missed that innocent mug o'yers!" He stopped harassing the boy to grab another beer then let his arm just lazily rest around Raivis's shoulders. "Yer the one I want to be with when drownin' away my sorrows, mate. Now let's get rotten." He took another long swig of his beer, his whole body relaxing as the liquid toxin filled his stomach.

You betta' believe it~

[man_nav_naudas]

No need for suggestion; as Logan lifted his bottle, so too did Raivis lift his own, downing it with far more relentless enthusiasm than he had mere moments before. His roommate's vivacity was infectious, it always had been, but there was only the dark hours of the night to match Centralia's drunkard beer for beer and brief, half-lidded glances to the clock declared that those distant dawn lit hours were in fact entirely too close. Not enough time. Not enough in all the world for the amount that he wanted to spend mending the fraying nerves he'd all but shot to hell.

"M-missed you too," Was murmured into the foam of another drink- acquired with some artful wriggling out from under Logan's arm long enough for a short venture to the kitchen- preceding Raivis's collapsing against Logan with the soft sound of air knocked from his lungs. "I missed this." He gave a slightly sardonic laugh. Not intoxicated, not yet, not even tipsy, but a certain amount of bitterness leaked through with the equally as powerful lull of Trust. "...Peter's not fond of my drinking. Neither is Toris. I think you're the only one I can be honest with like this and it's- it seems funny somehow."

Another gulp for another burst of emotive anguish. "Not trying to be a lush, you know? It's just nice to be able to... relax." The bottle was tapped lightly against Logan's shoulder. "How have you been? Haven't really had the chance to... well, talk to you in a while..."

BIG BROTHER LOGAN GOT YO BACK BB

[brawldownunder]

Logan was already on his third beer when Raivis returned from the kitchen and had guzzled it down when his room mate was back at his side. He took another beer from the quickly emptying package and knew he too had to make a trip to the kitchen soon if he planned on getting shit-faced rotten. A six pack didn't even get him slightly tipsy.

"It's the grog, mate. It loosens the lips and makes ya trust the funniest of blokes. But s'harmless if ya do it with the right people. Sorta like when ya when to have a naughty, it'd be safer with a someone ya trust." He wasn't surprised Raivis's fiancé and family were against drinking, that category of people were always the most disapproving. He thought for a moment that perhaps he was being a bad influence, he was encouraging a bad habit.

But it felt relaxing and safe drinking with Raivis and it was something they both needed at the moment. Logan wasn't going to give up a good thing.

"So what I'm tellin' ya is thank ya fer trustin' me! And as fer how I've been..." Logan tried to think of a response but he was a man of the moment and at that moment, he was happy.

"I'm grouse. Right now everythin's fine, I'm not gonna even think about that car! Or that mob of black suits followin' me around...I'm gonna drink my arse off and well-" he turned to Raivis and placed his drink down to place his hands on the man's small shoulders and look at him straight in the eye.

"If anythin's ailing ya, I'll be here fer ya. Ya want to scream and rant, then give it to me, mate! I know how the rellies can get and trust me, I won't judge ya. And if anyone's givin' ya trouble just gimme a call and I'll come runnin' to ya rescue!" He grinned then ruffled his room mates hair again, only because he's too damn adorable, and returned to downing his drink, moving on to the next one.

BABY GOT (my) BACK

[man_nav_naudas]

Beer or familiarity, Logan's fevered hale-storm of jabbering made significantly more sense at the moment than it usually did, a change in perspective that had Raivis chuckling into his drink as a heavy palm laid waste to hair that already made birds' nests look tidy. No idea what the man meant by 'black suits' but the prospect disturbed him enough not to pursue. Strange things happened in Liberty, it was a sizable enough city. He'd dealt with enough men and women in the Doctor's office to know that their paranoia wasn't often simply a product of an imagined danger.

"Just be careful." He offered vaguely, setting his glass down, pausing, reconsidering. It was empty when he next set it on the coffee table. "I wish that worked, anyway. H-honestly, it's not really anyone else giving me trouble. It's me that's the problem."

Raivis glanced sideways, reached across his roommate to snag one of his beers with a sheepish grin. "I can throw a punch, but for some reason, Logan, I can't seem to... stop getting into trouble. Stop causing trouble for everyone else. It's... frustrating." The boy bit at the bottle cap, snapped it off and tossed it delicately onto the table by his empty tankard. "And I f-feel like such a... what is it? 'Broken record' lately."

He shook his head vehemently, squeezed his eyes shut and massaged at his temples as he willed the encroaching storm of negativity to go away. "Have you ever felt insecure about something? So much that it keeps haunting you every time you think it's finally gone?"

Sorry my responses are sucking lately orz

[brawldownunder]

Perhaps because Logan was so thickheaded, but he never noticed how troubled his small room mate was. He was never good at reading people and his head automatically filtered less manly feelings into the trash bin in his head so anything to do with pure manly instinct was the first thing that came to his notice.

But his deep care for Raivis's well being broke through that filter and Logan was made aware of the moments in life where not everything was "ace" and it's not a very "g'day".

So he actually thought on his room mate's question seriously and the first thing that came to mind was his family. Then a certain Kiwi's face popped into the picture unexpectedly and Logan had to shake it away.

"Insecure...well o'course I have. Always insecure when it comes to family..." he trailed off, not sure if he wanted to keep talking about it. It's how he could stay in high spirits all the bloody time.

He just never talked about it.

"But what about you? What's eatin' you, mate? Whatever it is, I won't judge ya."

NO MORE THAN MY TIMING, BRO.

[man_nav_naudas]

"Family." Raivis responded aptly, nursing his beer, lifting it to admire its fragrance while he pondered on one of life's many inevitables: Relatives. "Mostly... After all of those strange calls when I first moved here and Andrej's disappearance only a few months before mine... I've been thinking things have gotten worse since I left Latvia."

The flavor of the name was bittersweet, lingering on his tongue with a cloying, unmanageable aftertaste no amount of gulping seemed to erase.

At a kitchen table in the heart of Riga, Rihard would be divulging on a snack of pickled mushroom and Kvass. In the district of Āgenskalns, Andrejs would likely be watching his peers play futbol while he ate stale pîrâgi, dreaming of the day his aspirations for fame and fortune came to pass. Anya would be working, tirelessly, in the Nouveau districts- Alberta iela- that she loved so dearly.

Eduard was lost, indefinitely, to the masses of Europe and Toris- "Here too. I had an argument with Toris again."

A small sigh was heaved out onto Logan's shoulder. "What can I do? It seems like whenever I try to help or try to apologize... nothing works. It turns the situation around, makes it worse. Is it better to just ignore it then-? Or is there just no way to do this right?"

Raivis's hands trembled. His voice wavered between anger and agony. "Should I have even come to America? If not for you, for Toris, for... for Peter, I should just... go home..."