theattic | PSL: That's A Real Lemon You Got There

James's eyes itched.

It had been a long and stressful day in the lot, and now it was two in the morning and the stack of papers in front of him didn't seem any smaller than it had when he'd started around eleven. Even Laura had gone to bed-- usually they would retire off to the camper around the same time, but not tonight. She'd gotten sick of waiting.

The buzzing yellow lights in the office didn't exactly help, either.

With a long exhale, he dragged a hand down one side of his face and dragged the next insurance form to be copied towards him.

Meanwhile, Havoc was also feeling especially shitty. He'd sank so far down in his chair that the undersides of his knees were caught against the edge of his desk and his ass wasn't even on the seat. Customer after customer today had looked him in the eye and for all the world he felt like they could see straight through his disguise.

The only thing helping was the square-shaped bottle on his desk and the hilariously tiny glass in his hand.

"Sundaland...Sunundaland...Sunnnndahland. Sunny." That was easier to say. "You want somethin' to drink? I think I just lost four months off mylifespan watchin' you fill out that last form. Take a break, will ya? Glasses 'r in the fridge."

Sunny.

Maybe it was just the booze warping the cadence with which Mr. Dynamite said it, but hearing Mary's old pet name for him coming from the mouth of someone else sent a shudder down James's spine.

But he looked over his shoulder, brows peaked.

The offer was another thing entirely.

He hadn't had a drink in a good few months. More because of the lack of availability than any particular effort on his part, but it was still something. With the opportunity in front of him, though, his mouth was already watering. GOD, a drink sounded good.

"... Are you sure? I... I don't know if it'll exactly make me more productive..."

"Sunny, we aint gettin' anything else done tonight. Today was a bust and we both know it."

He started the unflattering process of wriggling back up into his seat so he could sit like a human. His ugly yellow jacket peeled off of one shoulder and he fought against it in a fit of frustration before throwing it against the nearby cabinet.

"Grab a glass." He pulled the stopper out of the top of his bottle and waited for James to hold his own glass out. One smart thing he did was not hand James the bottle. He poured the taller man a generous ammount before pouring himself some and sagging in his chair again.

"I'm not a bad guy. I dunno why everyone thinks that. I sell good ca's. They roll, that's the important part!"

The urge to deny it was already on his tongue, but he restrained himself and nodded morosely back. It was true. He hadn't particularly been paying attention to Havoc's difficulties-- he'd been more focused on his own failures, of which there had been plenty.

He literally could not remember a time when he'd been good at talking to people, much less selling things to people. And the scathing looks he'd gotten from some of the would-be customers as he tried to talk up the ugliest old Jeeps in existence had been plenty reminders of that.

Getting up with a groan, he made his way gingerly over to the fridge and retrieved a glass. It might be a bad idea, but wellp, Mr. Dynamite was right. Today had been a bust.

He lowered himself back into his own chair and took a sip, his tongue welcoming the burn as much as a dying man in the desert welcomes water. Yikes. Wouldn't do to overdo it-- he'd stick to one glass, and sip slowly. Yep. He was definitely going to do that.

Even the first mouthful was enough to loosen his tongue a little, and he spoke up loyally, earnestly.

"It's not like you lie to anybody... i-if they wanted something brand new, they could always go to an actual dealership..."

"Right?" He swiveled his chair toward James so he could face him, man to man. "Nobody goes to a dog pound expecting a purebred poodle or--what are they. Them little yappy purse dogs that cost nearly as much as that black van we can't get rid of. Every car's here's got stories, everything here's got stories."

The demon pouted.

"You know how I got into this business? I got lucky, real lucky one night playing poker. I won somebody's keys. It was great. I won another set. Soon, I had five sets of wheels I didn't know what to do with and sellin' 'em off was worth all the times I lost my shorts in those matches!"

Bla bla bla bla, Havoc relayed a couple of stories of what he considered 'his youth'. And that James, he listened. He was a good kid. He worked hard. He sucked at talking to people but by God he knew how to file.

"I feel shitty. You feel shitty? You've gotta feel shitty. You been stooped over them papers like a gargoyle for hours."

James was a good listener.

As a matter of fact, most of the time, it was all he ever did.

He'd had a lot of time to get good at it.

Havoc's monologue got nothing but receptive silence from the younger man, punctuated by nothing but the occasional nod, increasingly-fuzzy-sounding "Yeah", or timid presentation of his glass for refilling.

That was another thing James was good at-- completely failing to stick to his guns on personal endeavors. He'd downed three before he even realized what he'd been doing. Which was why he was blinking hazily by the time Storytime with Mr. Dynamite wound down.

"... Uh... I... I'm all right, just a little..." A slight shift, a cracking sound, and a grimace. "... Stiff..."

Havoc saw no reason to stop the drinks from coming because James's fuzzy nodding and yeah-ing was validating. However now it was creeping towards three and with that load off his chest, he was feeling pretty goofy.

"Oof, I heard that. Well, let's get you limbered up. C'mere, I wanna show you somethin' this showgirl taught me in Vegas. Those dancers, they're strong as hell, they can kick a man's head clean off."

He waved for James to come over and thumped the floor with his heel in front of his chair.

"Si'down."

Through the haze of alcohol, the only words in that sentence that really stood out to James were one: "showgirl", and two: "c'mere".

A little clumsily, he stood up and shuffled over, wondering vaguely what Havoc wanted to show him, and if it actually involved showgirls. Maybe he kept centerfolds in his desk or something-- frankly James wouldn't be surprised if he did.

The glass was still in his hand when he sat on the floor.

"Here?"

He sat his own glass down--a little unsteadily, and turned so that he could guide James into the correct spot.

"If you could turn around--a little m--yeah, that's fine. Good 'nuff." His chair creaked loudly as he rocked forward. Feet flat on the floor, he leaned down and tilted his head, fighting off a sleepy blink. This guy was being pretty open about things. Usually he was skittish and just nodded like one of those bobbleheads on the dash of his car. But whatever. It would be good for him.

He clapped both hands down on either side of James's neck and gave a squeeze. "Jeysus, you are tense." Havoc drove the heels of his thumbs hard into James's shoulders in a circular motion and had to really concentrate to keep his claws out of sight. "If this hurts it's because it's working."

Alcohol tended to have that effect on James-- at least in the sense of removing his skittishness a little. It made him sluggish and suggestible, and also usually tended to make him shut off completely if he let it. But it was hard to do that around Havoc. Mr. Dynamite might be corny as hell and a little sleazy, but he had a way of engaging you in conversation.

Booze or not, though, James did straighten up a little and suck in a sharp breath between his teeth when his boss's hands clamped down. The pain was dull, but it was there. And he hadn't really been expecting it.

"--A-ah!"

"Tell me about it." Come Friday, he spent just as much time as poor James did hunkered over a desk, only instead of cheap bic pens he was writing with blood.

But it wasn't Friday and he wasn't going to think about that.

He worked the muscles along the edges of James's shoulders before moving closer to his neck where the real trouble was. His guess was that James probably had the beginnings of a tension headache if he didn't have one already.

"Any better?"

James's reply was a sort of soft, whispery warble that started in his head as a word but had been forgotten by the time it made its way to his throat.

Way back when, before his life had been ravished by despair and disease, Mary would rub his back sometimes when he got home from work, or when they lay in bed together after... well. You know.

But she was always too gentle to do... er, this.

Belatedly, James remembered to put the glass down on the floor before he DROPPED it.

"Nnh...!"

Havoc paused and eyed the glass. Hmm. Sneakily as a drunk man could, he stretched out a leg and scooooooted the glass away with the tip of his shoe. Just in case. But James sounded like it was doing the trick. He scooted forward on his chair so that he could bend over further. God, he was out of shape.

Eventually his fingers grew sore so he elected for just scratching James's back instead. This lasted about twenty seconds before the claws came out. They weren't exactly sharp but they did a hell of a lot better job than his stubby nails would have done. The demon leaned down until his chin was almost on top of Jams's head. He wished somebody would scratch his back. Wasn't that how the old saying went? Maybe one of these days.

"Y'know I heard they were gonna open a new Chinese place a couple blocks from here. That'll be nice."

Aside from the shock of the initial pain, James was kind of amazed to find that it WAS doing the trick. And Havoc would find the overgrown boyscout on the floor in front of him VERY QUICKLY melting into a slouch of relief.

His eyes were half-shut, and his face was flushed-- probably mostly from the alcohol, but not entirely.

"... Y-yeah?" he finally managed, sounding a tad breathless. The back-scratching felt AMAZING, and he was too drunk to stop and consider that there might be anything weird about it. Or about the way he could feel the warmth of the other man's body, leaning in close. "That'll... yeah, that'll be nice..."

Havoc's claws drifted downward to the small of James's back before his arms wouldn't reach any further. They eventually grew tired and sadly, the session had to end. He flung an arm around to James's front to give him a hearty open-handed thwack on the chest.

"There ya go, buddy! That oughtta have you all straightened out!" He ruffled James's hair with the other hand with a tired laugh. "How's about returnin' the favor sometime, huh?"

By the time his boss's secret claws had inched to the fullest length possible down his spine, James's eyes had drifted half-shut. Practically in a trance-- he was more relaxed than he could remember being in years.

Go figure that the only time James Sunderland could manage something remotely resembling relaxation was when someone physically forced his muscles to.

The smack on the chest snapped him back to reality-- or as far into reality as he could get after three or four glasses of scotch, anyway- and he startled on the floor, eyes popping back open.

"--Oh! Uh-- uhm, sure!"

He didn't even ENTIRELY know what he was agreeing to there, but WELLP.

"Great, great. It's a Deal then."

With his hand planted against James's chest, he didn't really feel like leaning back up. He gave it a rub and checked out the state of the guy's ribs. He'd been in pretty sorry shape when he showed up. He could tell from the way his clothes hung off of him--reminded him of his brother.

Aw. Aw no, he hadn't meant to think of him. The corners of his mouth jerked downward and he sagged against James's back.

"I'm not a bad guy, right?"

James still wasn't quite the picture of health-- better than when he'd first arrived, but whatever paunch he'd once had couldn't quite be built back up by a mere couple weeks of eating actual meals. His ribs could be felt when pressed.

Of course, having that pressing hand there is starting to really register in James's sluggish, drunken mind as A Thing. A Thing that he's not sure how to think about. He feels light-headed, and kind of on the verge of overheating.

Swallowing, he tugs at his collar.

But doesn't lean out of the semi-halfassed embrace that they'd found themselves in.

"W... what? No, of... f'course not..."

When his fingers found the spaces between James's ribs, he only felt worse, remembering. Havoc twisted his fingers into the fabric of the taller man's shirt, but whether it was to seek comfort or keep himself from sliding sideways off his chair was unclear.

"Right. Right. I do my best, I take care of business." His voice grew hoarse. "Your best is all you can do, right?"

If he hadn't been drunk himself, he'd have been alarmed at the sudden, clear emotion in Havoc's usually-smarmy voice.

As it is, he's having a hard time getting his mind off of the fingers exploring his ribcage, making him squirm involuntarily against the other man. He just... can't shake that lightheadedness off...

"Y... yeah, of course it is... you uh... you gotta do your best..." Why does he feel out of breath...? "... Mister Dynamite, er... are you okay?"

"Yeah...yeah, that's right. That's right! "

He drew in a loud sniff and suddenly leaned up, drawing his hands away from James's chest only to clap them back on his shoulders with new determination. He wouldn't just do a better job with these two. He'd do the best job.

"I do a damn good job!" He nearly dug his claws in as he started kneeding again as a new emotion cycled its way around.

When the hands withdrew, James let out a shaky breath-- he'd been holding it without even realizing. ... Only to suck it sharply back in again as Havoc went right back to work on his shoulders.

He was finally starting to realize what that lowkey buzzing feeling was from, and it wasn't just from the alcohol.

"Y-yeah, you do!"

Because outside of the slowly-growing feeling of "uh oh" in his head, the only thing James knows how to do is affirm.

"We're gonna finally put this place on the map! We'll do betta than some measly ad in the paper. I'm talkin' radio commercials. TV commercials."

He leaned over top of James so that he could look at him upside down, his body pressed against the back of his head. The chair was in very real danger of flipping over onto both of them at this point. His tie hit him in the face and he puffed it aside with a blustery sound.

"You can work a camera can't you? 'Course you can! Hope you're not camera shy! Folks love a face like yours! Young--but mysterioushh!"

THIS IS GETTING ROWDY FAST.

Trying not to choke on his own spit, James blinked up at the upside-down face of his boss, a distinct flush in his normally-pale (almost sallow, these days) cheeks.

"Camera? Uh..."

He's not NEARLY drunk enough to think that telling Havoc he'd do okay on-camera would be a remotely good idea. For one thing, he and Laura technically are on the run.

For another... James Sunderland has never, ever been photogenic.

PSL: That's A Real Lemon You Got There

JUST SOME FRIENDLY PHYSICAL CONTACT BETWEEN COWORKERS

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