Overdue Drinks - For nerdherdchuck

[literary_james]

Chuck was a nice guy. No, Chuck was an awesome guy. He and James had connected at their first conversation, and had been talking so long about catching drinks together that for James, it had almost become a running joke. He figured that it was about time they actually do something about it, and so James had sent Chuck a text with the address of his

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[nerdherdchuck]

Chuck found his way to the bar after getting a tiny bit lost. Still, he was only a couple minutes late. He glanced around the room until he saw James at one of the tables and waved just before sitting down.

"Hey there. Sorry to keep you waiting."

[nerdherdchuck]

Chuck followed James' lead and did his shot the same way. He blinked a few times, feeling the booze go down. "Wow that's-" he began before coughing slightly, "Strong stuff."

[literary_james]

James nodded, laughing a little.

"I can never keep a straight face doing it, no matter how hard I try." James filled their shot glasses again. He paused for a second, his fingers gripping the shot glass. "Shit. It hits you right away, too. Whew! Alright." He forgot to put the salt on his hand again, so he licked and sprinkled again. "You ready?"

[nerdherdchuck]

"Yeah...it definitely does," Chuck said, blinking again. He then took a breath. "I'm ready." He licked his hand and dashed it with salt again before picking up the shot glass and the lime.

[literary_james]

"Alright." James clinked his shot glass against Chuck's, licked the salt, tossed back the shot, and bit on the lime. His face contorted into shapes and things it hadn't ever done before, until James' body shuttered. He slammed his glass back down, wiping his mouth with his forearm. "Shit!" he exclaimed, shaking his head. "It's no wonder bad decisions were made the last time I had this shit."

[nerdherdchuck]

Chuck threw back the shot and bit the lime. After doing so, he slowly sank lower in his seat until he was nearly halfway to the floor.

"Yeah...real bad...decisions could be made on this stuff. Wow."

[literary_james]

James attempted to focus his eyes on the slowly descending figure of Chuck in front of him. He started with a low snicker, which steadily grew into a laugh, which finally exploded into hysteria. James couldn't stop laughing, wiping tears from his eyes. He finally managed to bring himself down to a few residual whimpers of laughter, then exhaled a big breath.

"Chuck. You're awesome. I just had to throw it out there."

[nerdherdchuck]

"Thanks man," Chuck replied, still slumped in his seat. "But you wanna know who's really awesome? My future brother-in-law, Captain Awesome." He then laughed. "Have I told you of Awesome and the Awesomes?"

[literary_james]

James' body started to sink down like Chuck's, his head resting against the back of his chair. Picking up what seemed to be a 20-pound mess of confusion, he looked at Chuck, lolling to one side.

"No -- Awesome and the Awesomes?"

[nerdherdchuck]

Chuck gave a goofy grin. "Captain Awesome is the nickname I have for my sister's fiance. His real name is Devon Woodcomb an he's a doctor who like is an exercise addict and stuff. He's a jock who's a doctor, and he uses the word 'awesome' a lot. Thus my nickname for him. And since he is 'Captain Awesome,' his folks are, as I dub them, 'The Awesomes.'"

He then shook his head. "But they weren't so awesome to Ellie, my sister. They basically tried to plan her wedding for her without her say."

[literary_james]

"Captain Awesome!" James laughed, perhaps a bit too hard, and started sputtering and coughing. Once finished, he shook his head with a glazed-over kind of grin on his face. "I wish someone had given me that kind of nickname. I wish I had a family for someone to call The Awesomes, come to think of it." He laughed again, if only for the absurdity of his statement. As Chuck continued, James' face fell into a frown. "Well, that's not right. Isn't it a huge deal for the woman as it is?"

[nerdherdchuck]

Chuck grinned as James laughed. People often did get a kick out his nickname for Devon.

"Know what though? Ellie told me...she never had the big grand wedding plan thing," Chuck rambled a bit, the booze obviously having an effect. "She never had the dress and the place like all picked out and stuff. But she told me she wants our Dad to walk her down the aisle. And it pissed her off when Dr. Awesome...Woody, Devon's dad...yeah, his real name's Woody Woodcomb. His parents were cruel. Anyway! S-so, we haven't seen our Dad in awhile Last we know he was somewhere near Vegas but that was years ago. But i wanna find him again. I want Ellie to at least have Dad walk her down the aisle. It's the only thing that, you know, she wanted forever about her wedding."

[literary_james]

James listened as attentively as he could, in between forcing his glazed eyes to stay open and his body to stop swaying. He frowned once Chuck had finished his story, then slammed his hand down on the table, ignoring the looks he was getting for causing so much noise.

"You know what!? Let's go fucking find this dad of yours. Let's go to fucking Vegas and find him and bring him the fuck home so your sister can have him walk down the aisle!" He slammed his hand down again, for good measure. "I'm -- Dude, Chuck, I'm serious! I'm being serious here, for a minute. I'm -- Serious. Seriously. Dude. C'mon. Let's go do it."

[nerdherdchuck]

"Really?" Chuck asked. "I mean...I dunno if he's even still in Vegas...could be anywhere now. The card I had with his number was from years ago. I mean, maybe it's a start but...the number was disconnected s-so, I dunno." He looked at James. "Any suggestions how we can find him?"

[literary_james]

"Yeah, really!" James was flailing his arms a little at this point, blind to the stares. "It doesn't matter, dude. We can -- We can start in Vegas .." His voice slowly grew as though he discovering a revelation. "We can start in Vegas and then find out where he was last living and then fucking follow the trail! CHUCK! This is AWESOME! We'd be like -- Fuck. Who were those .. SHERLOCK! SHERLOCK AND WATSON!"

[nerdherdchuck]

"I dunno if we have a lot to go on...but hey...maybe with a little detective work, who knows?" Chuck grinned. His voice got a bit louder as he added, "We could be Sherlock and Watson - IT'S ELEMENTARY OF COURSE!" He then laughed.