working late
Author: Nathalia
Rating: PG
Challenge:
Flavor of the Day #258 - sojourn (to stay as a temporary resident; to dwell for a time)
Pomegranate #21 - working late: or at least that’s what Wes tells Gladys he’s doing
Extras / Toppings: malt (Summer Challenge #69: You and me, killing time in the present tense - "Danger", by Third Eye Blind), peaches (You may feel living your life is like crossing a desert, but fortunately, Gemini, today brings your oasis), strawberries (common blackbird)
Word Count: 1,078
Story: Misfits
Summary: Wes decides to stay at Outsiders HQ for the night and has a few drinks.
Notes: I love writing Wes and Hobbie during this era before Hobbie’s second heart attack and when Gladys is still very predominantly in the picture.
It amazed Wes how quiet the warehouse was at night. The compound had never been that quiet, there had always been someone up or at least that’s how he remembered it. He missed the compound, mainly because he had had a room there, because he had lived there and nobody yelled at him for coming home late. He hated the idea of having a home now that he thought about it, now that he had one he had to go back to at night and couldn’t just sleep in one of the small backrooms of the warehouse the way Kenneth and Hobbie did.
“What are you doing here?” Hobbie asked, entering the main room just as Wes was thinking about how lucky the other man was.
“Working late?” Wes suggested with a shrug.
“You don’t work. All you do is hang out here and hit on Mandy and everyone else that moves when you aren’t ashamed of the fact that you’re married,” Hobbie said coldly, walking over to the bar and pulling out a bottle of rye whiskey.
“Very funny. Of course I’m not working but I don’t want to go home and that’s the best excuse I could come up with.”
Hobbie nodded, reaching for a glass out of the highest cupboard. “Are you going to drink with me or did you give up on alcohol along with sex?”
“I would have long killed the wife if I wasn’t drunk a lot. It’s the only way I can even have sex with her, really, really drunk. Otherwise, I will remember the next morning and I really don’t want that.”
He wasn’t sure when he had started opening up to Hobbie about how much he hated being married but there was no point in hiding. Hobbie was too busy making fun of the fact that Wes was married to tell anyone about how unhappy his erstwhile partner was in his new living arrangement.
Hobbie came to sit on the couch next to Wes, setting down the glasses and the bottle on the coffee table in front of them, then proceeded to fill their glasses, adding ginger ale to the concoction without even asking Wes if he was okay with it. When they had first met, they had fought about how rye whisky should be drunk and Wes had insisted that diluting it with any other liquids was a mortal sin but once he had tried it, he had had to admit that rye whisky tasted horrible and that the only reason he drank it was because it was cheap. Ginger ale made it taste a lot less bad.
“I didn’t know you still drank,” Wes pointed out after they had both taken a few sips from their glasses. “With your fake heart condition and all.”
“It’s not fake, Wes,” Hobbie said rolling his eyes. “If you can’t at least stop getting on my nerves about it tonight, I’m calling Gladys to tell her that you lied and that you’re drinking instead of working.”
“Please, please don’t do that!” Wes begged before he could refrain himself. “I don’t want to go home to that evil witch. Do you know how a person looks after they’ve injected themselves with way too much botox? Her face doesn’t move when she talks. It’s scary!”
Hobbie shook his head, to rid himself of the mental image, Wes assumed, then pulled a little medication box that Wes only knew far too well from the pocket of his shorts.
“I cut down on my drinking,” Hobbie admitted, unscrewing the pill box and starting to pick out what he needed to take for the night. “I was sober for four and a half months after the heart attack but I worked in insurances and that was driving me so insane that I had to take up drinking again just to not kill everyone at work. Do you know how bad insurances are?”
“Well why did you work there anyway? You’ve always hated insurances.” Wes took another gulp. “Why did you work at all to begin with? We got a pension, remember?”
“I don’t know. I needed to do something or I’d sit at home all day feeling miserable and that wasn’t something I wanted to so, so I got a job I absolutely hated and felt miserable all day at work instead of doing so at home.”
He had picked out his medication -- Wes counted at least six different capsules -- and threw them into his mouth all at the same time, to then wash them down with rye whisky and ginger ale.
“Are you sure that’s healthy? I mean, you usually didn’t drink when you had taken too much medication back then.” Wes knew so well because for the most part, he had known what Hobbie had been taking at any given time. It had been one of his jobs as Hobbie’s partner, to know in case something happened.
“This is mostly anticoagulant,” Hobbie explained. “Blood thinner, so my blood doesn’t clot and kill me. My heart isn’t as good as it used to be.”
Wes was about to make a comment about how that was all nonsense but stopped himself from doing so at the last minute to nod.
“So you’re not going home tonight?”
Wes shook his head. “I can’t. I really can’t put up with Gladys right now. She’s evil and I just want to be left alone and not have to sleep next to her. I said there was a lot of work to be done. I think she’s suspicious anyway ‘cause I have a job all of the sudden.”
“I would be, too, but I’d be glad you were getting out so I wouldn’t have to be with you twenty-four hours a day,” Hobbie teased, refilling his glass. “There’s a room all set up that you can sleep in if you want to. Unless you plan to stay up all night in case Gladys shows up looking for you.”
“She won’t. I never told her where I work.” He yawned. “And I really need some sleep without someone in my bed who might die at any moment. I can’t sleep because I always think that she could die while I’m asleep and I really don’t want to miss that and then have to sleep next to a dead person for the rest of the night.”
“You’re a freak,” Hobbie said but there was amusement in his voice, not judgment.