urgh hurgh hurgh
Everything that's necessary for the Nagoya uni application is handed in but the express courier I enlisted said it'd be there by Thursday and it's Friday and the uni hasn't received anything yet and my references said that they'd written their references but I know they haven't handed them in yet because it says so on my application account.
And I got the mythical stem cell injection this morning and them bugger must be working really hard because I can't effing straighten my leg without pain so searing it shoots out my eyeballs via tears Happens.
This'll be a nerve-wracking few days before I find out if my idiocy at keeping things to the last minute will bite me in the throat or not.
So I've been easing my way out of panic by writing really crappy fanfiction, but I sense the makings of something quite good here. raburabu_sama's request for a vet!Lavi story that is currently shaping up to be How Lavi met Kanda for the McDonald's and wedding planner AU series. There's another origin story, but to be fair all I write is AU so all stories with non-established 'ships are origin stories. Hah! Incomplete, probably.
~*~
Being a vet isn’t all fun and games; it isn’t even mostly bearable and rewarding. Statistics show that a disproportionately large number of veterinarians are depressed; the reasoning wouldn’t seem obvious at first, until you realized that for every cute kitten rescue story, there’s at least one other adorable, innocent critter that couldn’t be saved. Animals will die, will look like they will survive then die, or will need to be put to death.
Consider that in so many ways, the average puppy/budgerigar/badger/duckling is about half a million times more likeable than the average scumbag of a human being, and suddenly anyone choosing this profession must be crazy, an alcoholic, or both.
Enter Lavi.
It’s at the third ancient, beloved family dog being put down amongst a chorus of tearful eulogies and miserable goodbyes that Lavi draws the line. Clocks out for the day, hangs up his serious-looking coat, bids goodbye to Miranda the receptionist (who’s mental balance is not getting any favours from this soul-sapping job), and hits a pub.
Hits it until he’s at that strange, fuzzy area where he’s drunk drunk drunk, drunk as a shark swimming in a blood-thinning mixture of turpentine and vodka, yet still sober enough to get home, lock the door behind him, fall on his couch and sleep the night away.
Rinse and repeat, five days a week. His brain allows him to live in a quiet haze of automatic reactions, while his liver drowns in sorrow.
-
You know your relationship with someone isn’t entirely normal when you are a multi-award winning composer, Grammys lining bookcases like glorified bookends, have more money than you could possibly need for all your life, yet still find yourself walking someone’s dog, despite disliking most animals, because someone had asked you to.
Damn it, Lenalee. Childhood friends are immensely troubling things. They make you weak with a look, or a tone insinuating that you owe me one, buddy, it was my shorts you borrowed when we were in kindy and you wet yourself (this is denied furiously and vehemently; if an injunction needs to be taken out to shut Lenalee up, then that is what will be done!).
Enter Kanda.
He likes music. Music is soothing and comforting and gentle and wonderful. Best of all, musical instruments can make no fucking noise unless he wants them to. No chatter, no complaints, no whining. Just the air he breathes out, and bits of wood, metal and string singing in response. That’s nice.
Plus a cello’s never suddenly come alive, only to slap him around with its fiddle, demanding he do this teeny, tiny favour for it (her. Lenalee should know Kanda is super-imposing her womanly evil into terms his mind can deal with).
His cello would never ask him to walk her dog on a Saturday morning, when he really, really should be working.
And his cello’s dog would most definitely not be a hyperactive dachshund suffering from trouble with bladder control. His shoes are going to need to be burned after this fucking walk.
Most! Of! All!
His cello’s dog would not somehow worm its way out of its leash, then proceed to run into the fucking. Main. Road. Then get run-over but still lack the courtesy to die a quick death, resulting in Kanda having to shrug off his glorious, glorious jacket, wrap up the lump of bloodied red fur, and bark out for an animal doctor.
Damn it, Lenalee.
-
Maybe it should have been a more fateful day, the day these two met. Maybe there should’ve been double rainbows everywhere, spitting out pots of gold and giving leprechauns a free ride. Should’ve been words of fire written across the sky saying WHOO BOY THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN. Something more than just a blood-smeared Kanda and a hung-over Lavi.
The driver who’d run over the dachshund had been incredibly contrite and apologetic, and Kanda had accepted his apology, but if he was completely honest he didn’t think the dog deserved to be apologized to. A small, short dog wasn’t the most visible thing in a car, especially not when it darts out suddenly. But the man had offered to drive Kanda to the nearest vet, and Kanda had agreed to that, not wanting to be forever stained by the blood of Lenalee’s pet on his hands.
A panicked-looking pale woman with dark hair hurriedly led them to an office, though Kanda wondered how she would deal with a three-legged hyena with a spot of bloodlust problems being brought in by some eccentric billionaire for a check-up, if a man and a dog seemed to get her in such a frenzy she almost passes out.
Kanda is led to a small, brightly-lit room with an operating table laid out to the side. A man with shockingly red hair seemed to be so absorbed in what would appear to be a romance book (half-naked, overly brawny man? Check. Half-naked, overly clingy woman? Check. Spine a lurid colour? Triple check that. Ewww.) that he did not notice the entrance of his own receptionist, Kanda, and a mostly dead dog.
“Lavi!” the woman had squeaked, standing a fair way away from the redhead, like she needs to get his attention but she doesn’t want that attention. “Emergency!”
It is, an emergency. Surely there’s a different vet somewhere in this place who would give this situation the gravitas it deserves!
Lavi looks up, eye mildly unfocused, and Kanda’s frown just grows deeper. An eyepatch? Honestly? A half-blind love-drunk mental patient of a man would be doing the surgery. Well. If the dog’s going to die, he supposes there’s no one else better suited to chuck it to the afterlife. “Oi,” never one for niceties, Kanda’s up and growling, “Dog needs help.”
That does catch Lavi’s attention, the man looking up with a carefully calculated reassuring smile. Miranda is instantly calmed, reeling off information to the redhead regarding the dog and its injuries. Kanda doesn’t know why there’s so much to report. Here, dog. Almost, dead. Carry on yammering and it will be, dead. Give the poor thing some magic beans or something, you know?
He does not voice his complaints just yet, preferring instead to stand there and stare in all his bloody glory.
A minute and a bit later, Lavi pats him on the shoulder. “Get ‘im on th’operating table, mister, and y’can go for a coffee or something, yeah? I’ll try ‘nd save his life.” Every third word was punctuated by a small hiccup, and punctured whatever little faith Kanda had had in the man.
“If it dies, you’re in trouble.”
“Think y’mean th’dude who ran him over is responsible.” With his hands shaking something awesome, Lavi relieved the man of the dog, bringing the little mess to the metal sink and washing off the blood. He needed to see what would need doing, and in times of great stress he could keep surprisingly calm. If there was any connection to his copious alcohol consumption, he couldn’t see it.
Kanda knows what he means, thank you very much. He accepts a pair of scrubs from the terrified receptionist with grave indifference; looking like he had just casually strolled off the set of Carrie III, Abattoir Funland probably didn’t make for a sight for sore eyes. Lord, where had the damned little dog kept all this blood? Between this and the piss, it’s a sodding miracle to discover it had bones and organs at all, really. His underwear isn’t similarly stained, so with dire disregard for chastity he changes out of his (disgustingly expensive) clothes (bought by a personal shopper whose talents are wasted on demands such as ‘mostly cotton’ and ‘black’) and into the lurid pink scrubs.
Of course they’re pink. Of course. The powers that be at Harlequin would expect no less from a devotee.
“I’m staying to watch.” Kanda may as well; he’s got an invested interest. He also needs to be somewhere quiet while he thinks of what to tell Lenalee in order to avoid his untimely death coming to pass, and the inside of an operating theater (no matter how shabby it is) will inevitably be quieter than a café or the street. Now where are the latex gloves? He wants to pull them on with a satisfying snap.
Lavi’s not that bad at being a half-decent doctoring man. He waves his hands in the way, then waves his hands back and forth as he attempts to fan away the flames of interest mister Tall, Dark and Angry. “It’s m’job t’worry about, mister. Off you go, off y’go, have some faith in me!”
The two of them share a long, long look.
Kanda’s stance gets even wider, his booted feet planted more surely in the thinning carpet. “I’m not moving.”
-
It's a good two hours later, and both men looked the worse for wear. A lot of necessary stern focus has resulted in the final dregs of intoxication being burnt off, and while the dog is managing somehow to stay alive even after quite he gruesome surgery, Lavi is a shaking mess as he rids himself of his bloodied apron and gloves and slumps into his office chair. "If th'Pissin' Dachshund survives th'night, he'll be just fine." The same can't be said of him, and he tries somewhat valiantly to hide the tremble in his hands by picking up Forbidden Or For Bedding, easily the best piece of literature of the twentieth century. "Th'lovely Miranda out front will help y'settle y'bill. Now if y'don't mind, mister, I need y'number in case anything happens in th'night."
Kanda isn't convinced that his contact details won't be used for nefarious purposes, but it's still an endlessly better option than letting a Lenalee on holiday know that Kanda's been Reckless and Stupid, giving her time to stew her wrath so that it might have a deep bold flavour when it finally comes at his head in the shape of her mighty boot.
So begrudgingly he writes down his full name and contact details, relieved that the drunkard doesn't know him for the famous musical prodigy that he is.
Lavi dredges up a wholly dishonest smile for his patient's carer. "Let's hope for the best, yeah? Have a good day, mister... Yuu. 'nd would you like t'borow some clothes? Yours were a mess, yeah, and if I know Miranda, they'll be in th'sink, soaking in soap water."
Kanda eyes the man critically. It certainly wasn't his style, but hobo chic could suit anyone so long as they had the right frame of mind. Right now Kanda just wants to be at home already, in a bloody hot shower. So despite heavy reservations he agrees to borrow the redhead's clothes, and he'd return them in the night.
"As long as you're timely, boss. I've got a fairly active nightlife."
If this was being chronicled, it would likely be chronicled as The Making Of The First Date. It might not be strictly accurate, but there would be drinks involved, and copious amounts of groping.
Kids these days.
-
The vet clinic closes at nine, barring emergencies, and Lavi usually leaves an hour after. Final bits of paperwork, bedding down the pets recovering from surgery, the customary fifteen minutes of staring at himself in the mirror and trying not to gag or cry. He should probably get himself checked out, but for now alcoholic self-medicating is keeping him going.
To his favourite bar, that is. The Last of the Mojitos stands in the gloom like a beacon to the needy, gaudy green neon lights humming to themselves. Once he's settled in and had a glass of house red to let him breathe easy, Yuu is contacted and instructed.
Harlequin novel held open, flat against the bar? Check. His usual attempt at seducing the nearest barmaid? Check.
A jug of mint julep, and Lavi's ready to forget the hazy eyes of the cat that died of a bladder infection when he could have been saved if he'd been admitted six hours earlier. Three cheers for vets, haha!
-
By the time Kanda arrives, fashionably late as is his style, Lavi's drunker 'n a skunk, but where he's just honest enough and tired enough to be a better man than when he's stone cold sober.
He regards the redhead with something like disgust, taking a seat on the barstool beside him. It's enough of a commute to get to this tatty bar, and it's been enough of a strenuous day that he's giving himself a drink. And that he has to bear with the drunk incompetent sitting next to him... Well. It made for great ascetic training.
"Not even a hello, huh, boss? 's cold, that is. Even us vets've got hearts, yeah, though mine's well-corroded by now." A sort of tired giggle, and Lavi asks for an extra glass so that he may pour out this unwitting unknowing drinking partner of his a drink.
Kanda realises he's been duped when the glass is pushed in front of him. He doesn't turn it down, though, because any idiot idiotic enough to agree to meet a drunkard at a bar deserved whatever he got. And mint anything is a wonderful thing, okay.
There's a quiet lull, and then they both down their glasses. It's been a long day. Lavi sighs as he chews some mint leaves, nudging the bag by his foot towards Kanda. "Scrubbed it hard 's I could, mister Yuu, but formerly-blood pink, yeah, is th'cleanest I could manage."
So have another drink on me. The jug is emptying faster than planned for, but Lavi's reacting very well indeed to the presence of company.
Kanda, with much more pomp, hands Lavi a paper bag that holds his now beautifully laundered and pressed clothes. It'd been worth the exorbitant cost to see the way the launderer's eye had twitched near hysterically when faced with Lavi's threadbare glowing orange scarf.
Out of the vet clinic, without his inane smile, the man looked a lot more pitiable than pitiful. "Hn. I don't do pink. Keep the damned clothes."
Kanda is well aware of the fact that alcoholically, he's pretty much a bantamweight. He is also aware that the vet-man didn't know that Kanda's a multi-millionaire all the awards-winning composer of the sort of music that made you feel very small indeed, in a way that somehow wasn't too bad.
And Lavi's thus far managing to keep the Pissing Dacshund alive. The man is also much quieter when he's depressive and drunk.
Kanda wonders hazily if Lavi were featured in a romance novel cover, would he be the inevitably bare-chested hero or the heroine draped in clothes of the world's clingiest fabric?
Ooooooh the second glass sure goes down smoother than the first.
Himself, thinks Kanda, he'd be the piece of heavy antique furniture or boulder that’s always there, so that's got indoorsy and outdoorsy novels coming and going. Glowering in the background, ready to stub the hell out of any toe that comes near him.
Lavi is blithering on about how eating meat got easier the longer he was a vet for, and how that can't be normal or particularly sane. Kanda almost points that if Lavi were particularly normal or sane, they wouldn't be here hitting the booze like an aggresive pizza maker making his dough.
At some point, one of them passes out. Kanda assumes it was him, when he wakes up the next morning next to a metal operating table, while a nervous pommy relieves itself in his leather Italian loafer that is inexplicably on the table and not on his foot.
Later, when he's groaning in Lavi's office chair, wearing formerly-blood pink clothes with a damp towel covering his eyes, Lavi gently pats the top of his head. "Y'must be glad, boss, that we've got great drainage here f'th'fuzzy things with a nervous tummy."
Kanda glowers through the towel, and Lavi feels his toe twitch for who knows what reason.
*
So I hope everyone's been having an easier time of it than me. /)A(\ for sure, lavenderscarf should be, since according to LJ it's YOUR HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAY.
And I got the mythical stem cell injection this morning and them bugger must be working really hard because I can't effing straighten my leg without pain so searing it shoots out my eyeballs via tears Happens.
This'll be a nerve-wracking few days before I find out if my idiocy at keeping things to the last minute will bite me in the throat or not.
So I've been easing my way out of panic by writing really crappy fanfiction, but I sense the makings of something quite good here. raburabu_sama's request for a vet!Lavi story that is currently shaping up to be How Lavi met Kanda for the McDonald's and wedding planner AU series. There's another origin story, but to be fair all I write is AU so all stories with non-established 'ships are origin stories. Hah! Incomplete, probably.
~*~
Being a vet isn’t all fun and games; it isn’t even mostly bearable and rewarding. Statistics show that a disproportionately large number of veterinarians are depressed; the reasoning wouldn’t seem obvious at first, until you realized that for every cute kitten rescue story, there’s at least one other adorable, innocent critter that couldn’t be saved. Animals will die, will look like they will survive then die, or will need to be put to death.
Consider that in so many ways, the average puppy/budgerigar/badger/duckling is about half a million times more likeable than the average scumbag of a human being, and suddenly anyone choosing this profession must be crazy, an alcoholic, or both.
Enter Lavi.
It’s at the third ancient, beloved family dog being put down amongst a chorus of tearful eulogies and miserable goodbyes that Lavi draws the line. Clocks out for the day, hangs up his serious-looking coat, bids goodbye to Miranda the receptionist (who’s mental balance is not getting any favours from this soul-sapping job), and hits a pub.
Hits it until he’s at that strange, fuzzy area where he’s drunk drunk drunk, drunk as a shark swimming in a blood-thinning mixture of turpentine and vodka, yet still sober enough to get home, lock the door behind him, fall on his couch and sleep the night away.
Rinse and repeat, five days a week. His brain allows him to live in a quiet haze of automatic reactions, while his liver drowns in sorrow.
-
You know your relationship with someone isn’t entirely normal when you are a multi-award winning composer, Grammys lining bookcases like glorified bookends, have more money than you could possibly need for all your life, yet still find yourself walking someone’s dog, despite disliking most animals, because someone had asked you to.
Damn it, Lenalee. Childhood friends are immensely troubling things. They make you weak with a look, or a tone insinuating that you owe me one, buddy, it was my shorts you borrowed when we were in kindy and you wet yourself (this is denied furiously and vehemently; if an injunction needs to be taken out to shut Lenalee up, then that is what will be done!).
Enter Kanda.
He likes music. Music is soothing and comforting and gentle and wonderful. Best of all, musical instruments can make no fucking noise unless he wants them to. No chatter, no complaints, no whining. Just the air he breathes out, and bits of wood, metal and string singing in response. That’s nice.
Plus a cello’s never suddenly come alive, only to slap him around with its fiddle, demanding he do this teeny, tiny favour for it (her. Lenalee should know Kanda is super-imposing her womanly evil into terms his mind can deal with).
His cello would never ask him to walk her dog on a Saturday morning, when he really, really should be working.
And his cello’s dog would most definitely not be a hyperactive dachshund suffering from trouble with bladder control. His shoes are going to need to be burned after this fucking walk.
Most! Of! All!
His cello’s dog would not somehow worm its way out of its leash, then proceed to run into the fucking. Main. Road. Then get run-over but still lack the courtesy to die a quick death, resulting in Kanda having to shrug off his glorious, glorious jacket, wrap up the lump of bloodied red fur, and bark out for an animal doctor.
Damn it, Lenalee.
-
Maybe it should have been a more fateful day, the day these two met. Maybe there should’ve been double rainbows everywhere, spitting out pots of gold and giving leprechauns a free ride. Should’ve been words of fire written across the sky saying WHOO BOY THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN. Something more than just a blood-smeared Kanda and a hung-over Lavi.
The driver who’d run over the dachshund had been incredibly contrite and apologetic, and Kanda had accepted his apology, but if he was completely honest he didn’t think the dog deserved to be apologized to. A small, short dog wasn’t the most visible thing in a car, especially not when it darts out suddenly. But the man had offered to drive Kanda to the nearest vet, and Kanda had agreed to that, not wanting to be forever stained by the blood of Lenalee’s pet on his hands.
A panicked-looking pale woman with dark hair hurriedly led them to an office, though Kanda wondered how she would deal with a three-legged hyena with a spot of bloodlust problems being brought in by some eccentric billionaire for a check-up, if a man and a dog seemed to get her in such a frenzy she almost passes out.
Kanda is led to a small, brightly-lit room with an operating table laid out to the side. A man with shockingly red hair seemed to be so absorbed in what would appear to be a romance book (half-naked, overly brawny man? Check. Half-naked, overly clingy woman? Check. Spine a lurid colour? Triple check that. Ewww.) that he did not notice the entrance of his own receptionist, Kanda, and a mostly dead dog.
“Lavi!” the woman had squeaked, standing a fair way away from the redhead, like she needs to get his attention but she doesn’t want that attention. “Emergency!”
It is, an emergency. Surely there’s a different vet somewhere in this place who would give this situation the gravitas it deserves!
Lavi looks up, eye mildly unfocused, and Kanda’s frown just grows deeper. An eyepatch? Honestly? A half-blind love-drunk mental patient of a man would be doing the surgery. Well. If the dog’s going to die, he supposes there’s no one else better suited to chuck it to the afterlife. “Oi,” never one for niceties, Kanda’s up and growling, “Dog needs help.”
That does catch Lavi’s attention, the man looking up with a carefully calculated reassuring smile. Miranda is instantly calmed, reeling off information to the redhead regarding the dog and its injuries. Kanda doesn’t know why there’s so much to report. Here, dog. Almost, dead. Carry on yammering and it will be, dead. Give the poor thing some magic beans or something, you know?
He does not voice his complaints just yet, preferring instead to stand there and stare in all his bloody glory.
A minute and a bit later, Lavi pats him on the shoulder. “Get ‘im on th’operating table, mister, and y’can go for a coffee or something, yeah? I’ll try ‘nd save his life.” Every third word was punctuated by a small hiccup, and punctured whatever little faith Kanda had had in the man.
“If it dies, you’re in trouble.”
“Think y’mean th’dude who ran him over is responsible.” With his hands shaking something awesome, Lavi relieved the man of the dog, bringing the little mess to the metal sink and washing off the blood. He needed to see what would need doing, and in times of great stress he could keep surprisingly calm. If there was any connection to his copious alcohol consumption, he couldn’t see it.
Kanda knows what he means, thank you very much. He accepts a pair of scrubs from the terrified receptionist with grave indifference; looking like he had just casually strolled off the set of Carrie III, Abattoir Funland probably didn’t make for a sight for sore eyes. Lord, where had the damned little dog kept all this blood? Between this and the piss, it’s a sodding miracle to discover it had bones and organs at all, really. His underwear isn’t similarly stained, so with dire disregard for chastity he changes out of his (disgustingly expensive) clothes (bought by a personal shopper whose talents are wasted on demands such as ‘mostly cotton’ and ‘black’) and into the lurid pink scrubs.
Of course they’re pink. Of course. The powers that be at Harlequin would expect no less from a devotee.
“I’m staying to watch.” Kanda may as well; he’s got an invested interest. He also needs to be somewhere quiet while he thinks of what to tell Lenalee in order to avoid his untimely death coming to pass, and the inside of an operating theater (no matter how shabby it is) will inevitably be quieter than a café or the street. Now where are the latex gloves? He wants to pull them on with a satisfying snap.
Lavi’s not that bad at being a half-decent doctoring man. He waves his hands in the way, then waves his hands back and forth as he attempts to fan away the flames of interest mister Tall, Dark and Angry. “It’s m’job t’worry about, mister. Off you go, off y’go, have some faith in me!”
The two of them share a long, long look.
Kanda’s stance gets even wider, his booted feet planted more surely in the thinning carpet. “I’m not moving.”
-
It's a good two hours later, and both men looked the worse for wear. A lot of necessary stern focus has resulted in the final dregs of intoxication being burnt off, and while the dog is managing somehow to stay alive even after quite he gruesome surgery, Lavi is a shaking mess as he rids himself of his bloodied apron and gloves and slumps into his office chair. "If th'Pissin' Dachshund survives th'night, he'll be just fine." The same can't be said of him, and he tries somewhat valiantly to hide the tremble in his hands by picking up Forbidden Or For Bedding, easily the best piece of literature of the twentieth century. "Th'lovely Miranda out front will help y'settle y'bill. Now if y'don't mind, mister, I need y'number in case anything happens in th'night."
Kanda isn't convinced that his contact details won't be used for nefarious purposes, but it's still an endlessly better option than letting a Lenalee on holiday know that Kanda's been Reckless and Stupid, giving her time to stew her wrath so that it might have a deep bold flavour when it finally comes at his head in the shape of her mighty boot.
So begrudgingly he writes down his full name and contact details, relieved that the drunkard doesn't know him for the famous musical prodigy that he is.
Lavi dredges up a wholly dishonest smile for his patient's carer. "Let's hope for the best, yeah? Have a good day, mister... Yuu. 'nd would you like t'borow some clothes? Yours were a mess, yeah, and if I know Miranda, they'll be in th'sink, soaking in soap water."
Kanda eyes the man critically. It certainly wasn't his style, but hobo chic could suit anyone so long as they had the right frame of mind. Right now Kanda just wants to be at home already, in a bloody hot shower. So despite heavy reservations he agrees to borrow the redhead's clothes, and he'd return them in the night.
"As long as you're timely, boss. I've got a fairly active nightlife."
If this was being chronicled, it would likely be chronicled as The Making Of The First Date. It might not be strictly accurate, but there would be drinks involved, and copious amounts of groping.
Kids these days.
-
The vet clinic closes at nine, barring emergencies, and Lavi usually leaves an hour after. Final bits of paperwork, bedding down the pets recovering from surgery, the customary fifteen minutes of staring at himself in the mirror and trying not to gag or cry. He should probably get himself checked out, but for now alcoholic self-medicating is keeping him going.
To his favourite bar, that is. The Last of the Mojitos stands in the gloom like a beacon to the needy, gaudy green neon lights humming to themselves. Once he's settled in and had a glass of house red to let him breathe easy, Yuu is contacted and instructed.
Harlequin novel held open, flat against the bar? Check. His usual attempt at seducing the nearest barmaid? Check.
A jug of mint julep, and Lavi's ready to forget the hazy eyes of the cat that died of a bladder infection when he could have been saved if he'd been admitted six hours earlier. Three cheers for vets, haha!
-
By the time Kanda arrives, fashionably late as is his style, Lavi's drunker 'n a skunk, but where he's just honest enough and tired enough to be a better man than when he's stone cold sober.
He regards the redhead with something like disgust, taking a seat on the barstool beside him. It's enough of a commute to get to this tatty bar, and it's been enough of a strenuous day that he's giving himself a drink. And that he has to bear with the drunk incompetent sitting next to him... Well. It made for great ascetic training.
"Not even a hello, huh, boss? 's cold, that is. Even us vets've got hearts, yeah, though mine's well-corroded by now." A sort of tired giggle, and Lavi asks for an extra glass so that he may pour out this unwitting unknowing drinking partner of his a drink.
Kanda realises he's been duped when the glass is pushed in front of him. He doesn't turn it down, though, because any idiot idiotic enough to agree to meet a drunkard at a bar deserved whatever he got. And mint anything is a wonderful thing, okay.
There's a quiet lull, and then they both down their glasses. It's been a long day. Lavi sighs as he chews some mint leaves, nudging the bag by his foot towards Kanda. "Scrubbed it hard 's I could, mister Yuu, but formerly-blood pink, yeah, is th'cleanest I could manage."
So have another drink on me. The jug is emptying faster than planned for, but Lavi's reacting very well indeed to the presence of company.
Kanda, with much more pomp, hands Lavi a paper bag that holds his now beautifully laundered and pressed clothes. It'd been worth the exorbitant cost to see the way the launderer's eye had twitched near hysterically when faced with Lavi's threadbare glowing orange scarf.
Out of the vet clinic, without his inane smile, the man looked a lot more pitiable than pitiful. "Hn. I don't do pink. Keep the damned clothes."
Kanda is well aware of the fact that alcoholically, he's pretty much a bantamweight. He is also aware that the vet-man didn't know that Kanda's a multi-millionaire all the awards-winning composer of the sort of music that made you feel very small indeed, in a way that somehow wasn't too bad.
And Lavi's thus far managing to keep the Pissing Dacshund alive. The man is also much quieter when he's depressive and drunk.
Kanda wonders hazily if Lavi were featured in a romance novel cover, would he be the inevitably bare-chested hero or the heroine draped in clothes of the world's clingiest fabric?
Ooooooh the second glass sure goes down smoother than the first.
Himself, thinks Kanda, he'd be the piece of heavy antique furniture or boulder that’s always there, so that's got indoorsy and outdoorsy novels coming and going. Glowering in the background, ready to stub the hell out of any toe that comes near him.
Lavi is blithering on about how eating meat got easier the longer he was a vet for, and how that can't be normal or particularly sane. Kanda almost points that if Lavi were particularly normal or sane, they wouldn't be here hitting the booze like an aggresive pizza maker making his dough.
At some point, one of them passes out. Kanda assumes it was him, when he wakes up the next morning next to a metal operating table, while a nervous pommy relieves itself in his leather Italian loafer that is inexplicably on the table and not on his foot.
Later, when he's groaning in Lavi's office chair, wearing formerly-blood pink clothes with a damp towel covering his eyes, Lavi gently pats the top of his head. "Y'must be glad, boss, that we've got great drainage here f'th'fuzzy things with a nervous tummy."
Kanda glowers through the towel, and Lavi feels his toe twitch for who knows what reason.
*
So I hope everyone's been having an easier time of it than me. /)A(\ for sure, lavenderscarf should be, since according to LJ it's YOUR HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAY.