Strawberry Banana #20, Chocolate #2, Cinnamon Swirl #30
Author: winebabe
Title: I Was Right and You Were Wrong
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG-13 (for general inappropriate language and mild violence)
Flavor(s): Strawberry Banana #20: a lecture; Chocolate #2: rivalry/jealousy; Cinnamon Swirl #30: in the blink of an eye
Word Count: 1643
Summary: 2016; Devyn is insufferable.
Notes: Devyn Lively, Macklin McDaniel, Erin Simon. Pre-canon. (Camp NaNoWriMo starts in a few days and I've decided I'm holding off on writing the bulk of my story until the month of July, so have some pointless pre-canon Dev + Mack! Also, if anyone is curious about the bad techno Devyn is being subjected to, it's Better Off Alone by Alice Deejay.)
Devyn is manic when he stumbles into the bar that Thursday night, holding onto his notebook for dear life as he spills papers onto the floor. It's not his most graceful entrance, but luckily he's been a regular at the bar long enough now that no one pays him any mind. He's trying his damnedest to wrap his brain around his Ph.D. thesis, but his topics are always either too narrow or too broad. There's so much he wants to research and it feels like his mind is moving too quickly to keep up. There are stark concerns on the part of his advisor that he won't successfully complete the program because he can't focus. Devyn can't even argue that; he's had the same concerns.
From somewhere, an unfamiliar voice yells, "Hey, Lively!" and Devyn ignores it. He has too much work to do, and there's a part of him that deeply distrusts anyone who goes out of their way to say hi to him.
Devyn plops down on a stool and spreads his materials across the bar, taking up enough space for three people. He's too engrossed in scribbling down illegible notes to notice the bartender roll his eyes and mouth 'Lively' to his coworker. The other bartender just sighs and shoves his one shoulder; she grabs a beer and heads over to where Devyn is seated.
"Where am I supposed to put this, Lively?" she asks, and Devyn's head snaps up.
"Erin, hey," he says, and reaches out so she can hand the beer to him. "Thanks, I--I'm swamped."
"Why don't you get a table?" Erin asks, motioning to her left. "There's, like, no one there."
"I'm fine here," he replies, and she sighs.
"Devyn. You're taking up precious space where customers could be sitting, do you realize that?"
Devyn pauses, one hand deep in his mussed hair, and scans the top of the bar. "I need to be here, for like, getting a lot of beers." He looks up at Erin, who is scowling at him, and smiles sheepishly. "Sorry--brain not working so good. Listen, Erin, I just need to drink and calm my brain down and work on this paper, alright?"
"You're really getting on my nerves, Lively," Erin replies, but she walks away without another word.
Devyn dives right back into his work, sitting with a perpetual look of irritated confusion on his face as he flips through notebook pages. Trying to read his chicken scratch is bad enough, but so many of the pages are littered with half-formed thoughts like "the connection between winter weather and mental illness???" and "studies on mental health and the lunar cycle" which give him little insight into just what he'd been on the path to figuring out at the time.
Over the course of the next hour, Devyn downs beer after beer, frantically trying to make sense of the thoughts that pop into his head. He knows he should have brought his laptop with him but considering his level of drunkenness is swiftly approaching "the danger zone," he figures spilling beer on paper is better than breaking a $1200 piece of technology. It isn't like he's getting any work done, anyway. So much for being a child prodigy, fast-tracked all his life. He can barely string two sentences together, and Erin thinks he's a selfish moron.
"Gifted, my ass," he grumbles to himself, finishing off the rest of his beer and setting it down on the bar with a little too much force. Erin looks over her shoulder at him from across the bar, and Devyn shrinks under her gaze.
"Do you need another, Lively?" she calls over the drone of conversation permeating the bar's atmosphere, and her dark eyes are almost vicious in the dim lighting. "I'm about ready to cut you off."
"I'm not even drunk, Erin," he whines as she walks over to take his empty bottle from the bar. "I'm sorry, I'll take it easy."
Erin stares him down for a moment, before shattering the intensity with an eye roll. "I don't care what you do, Lively, as long as you control yourself. Alright? This'll be your last one for a while though because my boyfriend's here, and I'm going on break."
"And Tom won't serve me, I know," he finishes for her, and Erin winks at him as she hands over another beer. He chooses not to ask which boyfriend it is this time, because Erin's humoring him for once and Devyn doesn't want to sour that.
"Take it easy," Erin says before she turns away. Devyn watches as she pats Tom on the shoulder and then ducks under the counter. He doesn't pay attention when she throws her arms around a man waiting just outside for her, instead dropping his gaze back down to the notes in front of him.
The radio's playing some minimalist techno song from the early 2000s that Devyn vaguely remembers hearing when he was a kid, and it's not bad, but it's not the music he'd choose to listen to. He tries to tune it out and focus on his notes, but for some reason, it just pierces his consciousness.
He drinks his beer quickly, hoping that the drunker he gets, the more scatterbrained he'll be. If he can't focus on anything, maybe he'll be unable to focus on the music, Devyn reasons, but soon enough his beer is gone, the song has changed, and he's just as irritated as ever. There's a line of beer running down his chin and dripping onto his gray hoodie, and he reaches up to wipe it off with the back of his hand.
A girl sitting a few stools down from him side-eyes him, hard, and Devyn pulls his hood up and over his head.
"Insane," Devyn mutters under his breath, and isn't sure what exactly he's talking about. In the margin of his page, he draws an angry face with jagged teeth, and beside it, a speech bubble that says "You idiot."
Tom comes over to take away his beer bottle and doesn't engage with him; Devyn drops his head down onto his notebook and groans.
Maybe Devyn drifts off, or maybe he doesn't--all he knows is that when he finally lifts his head, the people seated around him have changed, and there's a wet spot on his paper that can only be drool laced with cheap beer. Erin is hovering in front of him, scowling, and he briefly wonders if he awoke on his own or if she was trying to wake him up. "What?"
"You can't sleep at my bar, Lively," she growls, drumming her fingers on top of one of his piles of papers.
"Wasn't sleeping," he protests, but she's already gathering up his things. "Hey!" Devyn shoves her hands away, shielding his papers from her. "I'm working!"
"Not here, you're not," Erin says, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're, what, six beers deep? In an hour and a half? You're slurring your words and fell asleep inside of a noisy bar. I'm asking you to leave, Devyn."
Devyn looks her straight in the eye and responds the best way he can think to. "I don't have to listen to you. You have no morals; you sleep with any guy who looks at you!"
For a moment, Erin just looks disgusted, but Devyn realizes his grave mistake when her eyes abruptly widen in shock.
"What the fuck, man?" someone says, and Devyn turns to face the speaker just in time to feel a fist collide with the right side of his face.
Devyn comes to with his head tilted back against the cold brick of the bar's exterior, his notebook and papers piled in his lap and spattered with blood. "Shit," he mutters, feeling thick, sticky blood seep its way into his mouth, and he gags on the metallic taste.
"Hey, buddy." There's a man sitting to his right, looking just about as miserable as Devyn feels. "Sorry about that."
"Did you punch me?" Devyn slurs, gingerly dragging the coagulating blood away from his mouth with his fingertips.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"Shit, dude," he mutters. "Why?"
The stranger sighs heavily and shakes his head. "You called my girlfriend a whore, man. I mean, you were right, but not cool."
"Oh." Devyn gives up on trying to wipe the blood with his fingers and instead wipes it away with his sleeve. At that point, he doesn't care if it stains. His head is pounding and the sensation of blood leaking out of him is beyond uncomfortable. There's a brief moment where he's terrified he's about to sneeze, and jams a knuckle underneath his nostrils to keep that from happening. He's already in a world of hurt.
When the sensation passes, Devyn sniffs tentatively and turns to face the man beside him. "I thought it was like, common knowledge," he says by way of apology.
"Common knowledge to everyone except me, I guess," he grumbles. After an awkward silence, broken only by the sound of Devyn's sniffling, the man gets to his feet and then offers Devyn a hand. "I'm Macklin, by the way," he says as he pulls him to his feet. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," Devyn says and sighs. "This isn't the first fight I've lost." He drags his one clean hand through his hair. "I'm Devyn."
"I know," Macklin says and smiles. "Erin always used to complain about you."
"Shit," Devyn says, but he has to laugh.
"Listen, I am sorry I hit you," Macklin says again. "Can I give you a ride home or something?"
"Yeah," Devyn replies. "If we can make a stop at the liquor store on the way. I need to be drunk to survive the rest of the night, I think."
"Deal," Macklin laughs and pats Devyn on the back.
Title: I Was Right and You Were Wrong
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG-13 (for general inappropriate language and mild violence)
Flavor(s): Strawberry Banana #20: a lecture; Chocolate #2: rivalry/jealousy; Cinnamon Swirl #30: in the blink of an eye
Word Count: 1643
Summary: 2016; Devyn is insufferable.
Notes: Devyn Lively, Macklin McDaniel, Erin Simon. Pre-canon. (Camp NaNoWriMo starts in a few days and I've decided I'm holding off on writing the bulk of my story until the month of July, so have some pointless pre-canon Dev + Mack! Also, if anyone is curious about the bad techno Devyn is being subjected to, it's Better Off Alone by Alice Deejay.)
Devyn is manic when he stumbles into the bar that Thursday night, holding onto his notebook for dear life as he spills papers onto the floor. It's not his most graceful entrance, but luckily he's been a regular at the bar long enough now that no one pays him any mind. He's trying his damnedest to wrap his brain around his Ph.D. thesis, but his topics are always either too narrow or too broad. There's so much he wants to research and it feels like his mind is moving too quickly to keep up. There are stark concerns on the part of his advisor that he won't successfully complete the program because he can't focus. Devyn can't even argue that; he's had the same concerns.
From somewhere, an unfamiliar voice yells, "Hey, Lively!" and Devyn ignores it. He has too much work to do, and there's a part of him that deeply distrusts anyone who goes out of their way to say hi to him.
Devyn plops down on a stool and spreads his materials across the bar, taking up enough space for three people. He's too engrossed in scribbling down illegible notes to notice the bartender roll his eyes and mouth 'Lively' to his coworker. The other bartender just sighs and shoves his one shoulder; she grabs a beer and heads over to where Devyn is seated.
"Where am I supposed to put this, Lively?" she asks, and Devyn's head snaps up.
"Erin, hey," he says, and reaches out so she can hand the beer to him. "Thanks, I--I'm swamped."
"Why don't you get a table?" Erin asks, motioning to her left. "There's, like, no one there."
"I'm fine here," he replies, and she sighs.
"Devyn. You're taking up precious space where customers could be sitting, do you realize that?"
Devyn pauses, one hand deep in his mussed hair, and scans the top of the bar. "I need to be here, for like, getting a lot of beers." He looks up at Erin, who is scowling at him, and smiles sheepishly. "Sorry--brain not working so good. Listen, Erin, I just need to drink and calm my brain down and work on this paper, alright?"
"You're really getting on my nerves, Lively," Erin replies, but she walks away without another word.
Devyn dives right back into his work, sitting with a perpetual look of irritated confusion on his face as he flips through notebook pages. Trying to read his chicken scratch is bad enough, but so many of the pages are littered with half-formed thoughts like "the connection between winter weather and mental illness???" and "studies on mental health and the lunar cycle" which give him little insight into just what he'd been on the path to figuring out at the time.
Over the course of the next hour, Devyn downs beer after beer, frantically trying to make sense of the thoughts that pop into his head. He knows he should have brought his laptop with him but considering his level of drunkenness is swiftly approaching "the danger zone," he figures spilling beer on paper is better than breaking a $1200 piece of technology. It isn't like he's getting any work done, anyway. So much for being a child prodigy, fast-tracked all his life. He can barely string two sentences together, and Erin thinks he's a selfish moron.
"Gifted, my ass," he grumbles to himself, finishing off the rest of his beer and setting it down on the bar with a little too much force. Erin looks over her shoulder at him from across the bar, and Devyn shrinks under her gaze.
"Do you need another, Lively?" she calls over the drone of conversation permeating the bar's atmosphere, and her dark eyes are almost vicious in the dim lighting. "I'm about ready to cut you off."
"I'm not even drunk, Erin," he whines as she walks over to take his empty bottle from the bar. "I'm sorry, I'll take it easy."
Erin stares him down for a moment, before shattering the intensity with an eye roll. "I don't care what you do, Lively, as long as you control yourself. Alright? This'll be your last one for a while though because my boyfriend's here, and I'm going on break."
"And Tom won't serve me, I know," he finishes for her, and Erin winks at him as she hands over another beer. He chooses not to ask which boyfriend it is this time, because Erin's humoring him for once and Devyn doesn't want to sour that.
"Take it easy," Erin says before she turns away. Devyn watches as she pats Tom on the shoulder and then ducks under the counter. He doesn't pay attention when she throws her arms around a man waiting just outside for her, instead dropping his gaze back down to the notes in front of him.
The radio's playing some minimalist techno song from the early 2000s that Devyn vaguely remembers hearing when he was a kid, and it's not bad, but it's not the music he'd choose to listen to. He tries to tune it out and focus on his notes, but for some reason, it just pierces his consciousness.
He drinks his beer quickly, hoping that the drunker he gets, the more scatterbrained he'll be. If he can't focus on anything, maybe he'll be unable to focus on the music, Devyn reasons, but soon enough his beer is gone, the song has changed, and he's just as irritated as ever. There's a line of beer running down his chin and dripping onto his gray hoodie, and he reaches up to wipe it off with the back of his hand.
A girl sitting a few stools down from him side-eyes him, hard, and Devyn pulls his hood up and over his head.
"Insane," Devyn mutters under his breath, and isn't sure what exactly he's talking about. In the margin of his page, he draws an angry face with jagged teeth, and beside it, a speech bubble that says "You idiot."
Tom comes over to take away his beer bottle and doesn't engage with him; Devyn drops his head down onto his notebook and groans.
Maybe Devyn drifts off, or maybe he doesn't--all he knows is that when he finally lifts his head, the people seated around him have changed, and there's a wet spot on his paper that can only be drool laced with cheap beer. Erin is hovering in front of him, scowling, and he briefly wonders if he awoke on his own or if she was trying to wake him up. "What?"
"You can't sleep at my bar, Lively," she growls, drumming her fingers on top of one of his piles of papers.
"Wasn't sleeping," he protests, but she's already gathering up his things. "Hey!" Devyn shoves her hands away, shielding his papers from her. "I'm working!"
"Not here, you're not," Erin says, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're, what, six beers deep? In an hour and a half? You're slurring your words and fell asleep inside of a noisy bar. I'm asking you to leave, Devyn."
Devyn looks her straight in the eye and responds the best way he can think to. "I don't have to listen to you. You have no morals; you sleep with any guy who looks at you!"
For a moment, Erin just looks disgusted, but Devyn realizes his grave mistake when her eyes abruptly widen in shock.
"What the fuck, man?" someone says, and Devyn turns to face the speaker just in time to feel a fist collide with the right side of his face.
Devyn comes to with his head tilted back against the cold brick of the bar's exterior, his notebook and papers piled in his lap and spattered with blood. "Shit," he mutters, feeling thick, sticky blood seep its way into his mouth, and he gags on the metallic taste.
"Hey, buddy." There's a man sitting to his right, looking just about as miserable as Devyn feels. "Sorry about that."
"Did you punch me?" Devyn slurs, gingerly dragging the coagulating blood away from his mouth with his fingertips.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"Shit, dude," he mutters. "Why?"
The stranger sighs heavily and shakes his head. "You called my girlfriend a whore, man. I mean, you were right, but not cool."
"Oh." Devyn gives up on trying to wipe the blood with his fingers and instead wipes it away with his sleeve. At that point, he doesn't care if it stains. His head is pounding and the sensation of blood leaking out of him is beyond uncomfortable. There's a brief moment where he's terrified he's about to sneeze, and jams a knuckle underneath his nostrils to keep that from happening. He's already in a world of hurt.
When the sensation passes, Devyn sniffs tentatively and turns to face the man beside him. "I thought it was like, common knowledge," he says by way of apology.
"Common knowledge to everyone except me, I guess," he grumbles. After an awkward silence, broken only by the sound of Devyn's sniffling, the man gets to his feet and then offers Devyn a hand. "I'm Macklin, by the way," he says as he pulls him to his feet. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," Devyn says and sighs. "This isn't the first fight I've lost." He drags his one clean hand through his hair. "I'm Devyn."
"I know," Macklin says and smiles. "Erin always used to complain about you."
"Shit," Devyn says, but he has to laugh.
"Listen, I am sorry I hit you," Macklin says again. "Can I give you a ride home or something?"
"Yeah," Devyn replies. "If we can make a stop at the liquor store on the way. I need to be drunk to survive the rest of the night, I think."
"Deal," Macklin laughs and pats Devyn on the back.