Archive of Our Own ^beta

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, leaning further against the bar and away from the rowdy crowd behind me. It wasn’t a new experience for me, trying to get drunk in a nightclub full of soldiers– this was a military town after all– but I didn’t think they would be here until at least midnight.

The pilots behind me were numerous, filing in one after another until there was almost no standing room. At least I had a seat at the bar, but the bar was about to get very crowded. Within the hour, I would probably just go home, lest I give the officers the opportunity to get handsy in their stupor.

I could feel eyes scanning me as they walked in, aware that I was seated alone amidst their clicks and squabbles. I ignored it, quickly downing the rest of my beer. Time to speed this up. I turn back to the bar and catch the bartender’s attention.

“Before you get swamped, could I have two shots please? Vodka cream?” I asked, flashing a smile.

“Thank you,” I said as the bartender nodded politely and set to his mixology. I turn in my seat amongst the noise to look around the room again. Most pilots had clustered at standing tables, with a few scattered at the bar around me waiting to ask their table’s drink orders, and a few heading straight to the dance floor. I couldn’t say I enjoyed crowds, especially when I felt so ostracised by merely existing amongst them, but I have learned to enjoy people-watching.

Each click, as I observed, tended to have their jesters: the loud and joking, who filled pauses with absurdity and impulsivity. Usually, they paired with reactors, who always laughed or added callouts in response, in turn feeding the jester grounds to build more of their jesting.

Beyond those roles, it varied per group. I see a lot of daredevils: those who talk and drink and act only to prove their bravado. There’s the shier ones too, but at a bar like this, the pilots don’t let them stay quiet for long, especially with alcohol in the mix.

The pilots here were all battle-experienced, having petty fears like social disgracement and insecurity trained or fought out of them. They seemed to fear bigger things, and knew how to use their fears to fight instead of freezing or fleeing. I envied it sometimes, but never found the courage to join up and give myself the same opportunity to grow.

By the time I turn back, the bartender had set the two shot glasses before me, so I thank him again. I take one and sniff it, cringing from the smell alone despite the sweet cream. I bring it to my lips and buck my head up, swallowing it all in one go, but swallowing twice more to stave off the taste.

“Bleck,” I cringe a little and set the glass next to the other. People watching while drunk was far more entertaining, especially as the buzz dismantled my constant underlying anxiety. I might even have the courage enough to talk to someone, too. But until then, I turn my back to the bar to observe my tables of pilots.

I naturally enjoy observing the people I imagine to be more like me, and by this point I had identified them. There were two quieter, more nervous characters in my vicinity. They both react to the conversation but contribute next to nothing. One drank like he knew it was his lifeline, and the other didn’t drink a thing. I wonder what either of them would be like in a smaller environment.

There were a few mellowed, older pilots collected at a table behind Shy Guy #1, of which the conversation gravitated less on sexual innuendos and more on stories and ideology.

I didn’t watch anyone too closely, as people-watching goes. Staring would get me noticed, and as much as I stood out by being a girl alone at the bar, making eye contact with half the men wouldn’t exactly help my odds of avoiding harassment.

I picked up the second shot, weighing the glass and sniffing it. Yup, it hadn’t changed. I smile to myself, take a breath, and drink the shot in two swallows. I hack again, coughing a little before setting it gently beside the other empty glass.

And thus my count started. Half an hour until I decided whether my liquid courage was fun enough to stay, or if I was ready to retreat to my apartment and be alone with my thoughts.

I had a strategy for my time: I knew what thought avenues to avoid to keep myself from prompting the crappier emotions. I was a little tired of avoiding catching people’s eyes and feeling them look at me when I wasn’t looking at them. Oh, the games we play. I didn’t turn around again.

The bar before me was made of dark varnished wood and there were lots of shiny bottles sitting on mirrored shelves, and I got to watch the bartender work and not worry about him watching me like his patrons would. Arguably as equally interesting as the pilots.

It wasn’t long before I felt the telltale cramp in my stomach as my body realized I had fed it poison. It was never that bad though, and when my bartender had a minute, he made me a mimosa to wash the shots down with. I savored the feeling of my mind loosening, and as always, I began noting just how far my cognitive abilities retreated, and began hyperanalyzing the ebb and flow of my emotions.

It was easier to redirect thoughts when I was tipsy. And the more the alcohol set in, the better the mimosa tasted. The music became more pronounced and the environment started feeling visceral. The tables behind me were no longer masses of individuals, but infinite opportunities.

I’ve always tackled socialization as a skill to be improved upon, and with it I’ve had periods of talking through the anxieties and almost definitely oversharing. When my battery was spent, I would often retreat within myself, and thus have learned how to be comfortable alone with myself, too. But as my affliction for spilling my soul to a stranger morphed into the wisdom to people-watch unabashedly, I came to realize that this path does not– and I could not– end there.

People were lifeblood, and as a person myself, I thrived on connection– whether I wanted to or not. Seeking to self-improve alone only got me so far, and I was learning to take small lessons from other’s experiences as my own. Plus, it was kind of obvious that experiencing new things was the best and easiest way to learn.

I sigh again with an entirely different air than before, and take another sip of my mimosa. Maybe I will talk to someone tonight.

I stand from my seat and enter the crowd without waiting until I thought twice. I scan faces as I weave, looking for anyone that isn't preoccupied with another, or with luck, find someone scanning the crowd with the same intent as I was.

Who was I kidding, no one had the same intent I did. But maybe I would want to talk with them anyway. My steps didn’t falter but the room spun a little as the still-easing tension allowed my conversationalist to resurface.

One man in particular moved in my direction, probably threading his way to the bar, but he moved alone and with his head up, and that was a hook enough for me.

I catch his sleeve as he passes, enough to get his attention amidst the noise. “Hey, you got a few minutes?”

He pauses, crooking an eyebrow but smiling a little. “What for?”

I grin back. “A people experiment. I’m trying to find someone with their head attached to their shoulders.”

He raises his brows and laughs, before turning to face me fully. “You aren’t a pilot, are you?”

“Oh, no,” I answer easily, “I never tried to make that cut. But this was the first third place I visited when I moved, and I tend to settle into my grooves.”

“I get that, I get that,” he says casually. “Hey- I’m supposed to be on a beer run for my guys, but I’m not trying to walk away from you either. Walk with me?”

“Yeah, I’m right behind you,” I smile crookedly and walk in his drag path through the crowd. He was about as tall as me, with strong, broad shoulders covered by a collared military green T-shirt that tucked into trousers. I was surprised by the lack of camo print. Maybe he was an office-type. Either way, he seemed awake. Alive, like me. Like he had his head in the conversation during our brief exchange, despite not knowing me.

I mirrored his demeanor at the bar and leaned on the countertop, bumping elbows. I watched his expression as he ordered for his friends, and smiled easily when he turned to me and asked “you want anything?”

I make a show out of pausing to think, before announcing “I’ll have what you’re having.”

He grins again, and tells the bartender to add one more beer to the cluster and I dip my head in acknowledgement. My vision processing was a bit delayed from my motion, I note.

“So, which table are your friends at?” I ask, still speaking pretty loud above the noise and music.

He turns to scan the room, and gestures to the center edge, where most of the tables in the room are. He raises a hand to them but no one in the area waves back, so he laughs smoothly at himself and says “One of the pilot’s tables over there. You’ll meet them soon enough.”

I marvel at his ease of existing.

Within a few minutes, I was helping carry a half-dozen bottles around the dance crowd, and into the pilots I had been watching from afar not long ago. They were rowdier and louder than when they first arrived, as expected. I followed close behind the guy, using the presence of company as a shield.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he shouts over his shoulder.

“Rei,” I shouted back.

Two steps later, he sets his bottles on a table, and I step beside him to set down all but one that I carried.

“Guys, this is Rei” he says on top of the conversation that was happening upon our arrival. I smirk. Classy.

The table had 5 others at it, all presumably soldiers but only three wore logo-decked apparel. Two of the soldiers were girls, neither of which were small or fragile by any definition, which affirmed my belief that girls didn’t have to be dainty to look good.

I watch as the group notices me, and as conversation dies at varying levels with different but generally non-negative reactions.

I make my move first, as I’ve learned to do in meeting new people, knowing they would all seek to know who I am as much as I, them. “Geez, you girls are buff!”

One laughed genuinely. “Thank you Rei! Gosh, I like her,” she glances at her friends.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” the other added proudly, in the way that girls do when they exude belonging, and revel in space that they claim.

I smile and glance away, saying nothing.

“I’m Makayla,” the first one says, “and that’s Gates.”

“Nice to meet you,” I nod to them.

“So how’d you meet Droz?”

Droz. So that was his name. “Crazy awkward eye contact,” I reply, seamlessly weaving together a practiced joke of a response. “One look that lingered too long, but not in the good way,” I pause and sigh exasperatedly, “and I knew I had to talk to him.” I end with a resigned smile.

They chuckle, and the guy– Droz– breaks out of whatever comment he was addressing with the guys and steps back to me. His hand hovers at my back, not touching though. “What is she saying about me?” He asks teasingly, grinning that smile again.

I don’t move, and I pretend the rising heat in my cheeks is from the mimosa.

“Oh, all good things,” Makayla gives him a look before taking a swig of the beer before her.

Droz looks at me, so I take the chance to prompt, “Droz, huh?”

His grin widens and he mock-bows, tipping an imaginary hat to me. “Yes ma’am, Andreas Witt at your service, but you can call me Droz.”

I respond in like, with a tilt of my head and an attempted western accent. “Nice to meet you, darlin’”

He chuckles, righting himself and extending a hand. “Well Rei, this is a club, and you know what they say about Rome… care to dance?”

I aim for a foxy smile, but could feel that it was more giddy than anything. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing, you know.”

I give him my hand, and his closes around mine. “Good.”

He weaves me through the night’s commotion, calloused fingers tugging on mine in a way that for some stupid insignificant reason makes my unmappable heart swell. It was a thrill, a rush that only bolstered my intoxication, and eddied with the rise in music as we near the dance floor: a flash of light in the vastly complex chest of mine.

It doesn’t fade one bit by the time he finds us a space on the dance floor, and I giggle unabashedly as he spins me into him. I held no reservations towards letting it show. I revel in its rarity.

He, who seems to brighten as much as I do. For a moment I only beheld him: a near-stranger dancing with me, and I let myself imagine the act alone as a promise to take care of me for a little while.

He laughs, spinning me once more before releasing me and we both do what feels right. Right out of a movie scene, I note.

He slides into some footwork/hip-hop moves, stomping on time with every beat of the song. “This is what I'm talkin’ about, baby! Woo!”

“Woo!” I echo, throwing my hands in the air. He is alive, isn’t he!

The song lilts and so do I. It’s not as unrestrained as when I dance alone to my eclectic music, but it felt infinitely more freeing.

It’s like the music calls to me, rattling my dry bones in the way only good music does. I answer it just a little bit more, and I move a little bit wilder.

He notices, keeping his rhythm of step but grinning crookedly at me– like he saw me shining.

The look brings a familiar chronic whisper to flee, a flicker of dark through my bright, shining light. I shove it aside and find no trouble continuing to sway my hips to the beat of his stomps and slides.

He moves closer and we almost circle each other for a moment. Like those romcoms, I note again.

One step later, he draws closer and rests a hand on my waist, joining us in a bounce-sway back and forth. I move closer too, my heart seeking its thrills and my skin soaking up the heat.

“You’ve got moves, baby!” His hand shifts to my hip, and it’s like time slows. My emotions mingle with what I see in him as I watch him watch me. As I watch him feel me… and I realize where this was heading.

One breath, I’m savoring the instrumentals of whatever pop song was playing. The next, that chronic whisper floods into the vast, unmappable heart of mine, and I find myself slowing and standing dead on the dance floor.

He falters when I slow, and comes to a stop when I do. Noted. He leans down a bit too, still smiling but searching my face with concern. Meaning it was my fault– meaning it was a fault, as he asks “Everything alright?”

I knew what I was getting into here– the risks I was taking by dancing like this, and the gamble on my heart I had joined so enthusiastically for. So before I can overthink it, I step an inch closer and press a hand to his chest, fingers splaying onto the fabric of his shirt to soak up the warmth beneath it.

“Droz?” I stare at my hand on his chest, and the music around me starts sounding more obnoxious than before.

He looks worried now as his hand catches my elbow between us. Which was my fault, which was a fault. “What’s up, Rei?”

I meet his eyes and force a chuckle, and start my big question in the same mock accent I did earlier at the table of his friends. “I can see where this is headed. Us, dancing like this. And it’s– this is really good, I like you a lot, pilot…” I emphasize, glancing at his deep hazel eyes.

I take a deeper breath and stare back at my thumb tracing the edge of his pectoral muscle. “...but if you dance with me, if you take me home,” I pause again, my efforts to uphold the lightheartedness dissolving into the swirling sadness I could feel bleeding into my expression, “will we talk in the morning?”

For a moment, he doesn’t react, then I see a shift: a nearly imperceptible lean, and an echo of mirroring sadness clouding his eyes alongside the neon reflections.

“Yeah,” he says surely, with a quietness that I can’t help but interpret as understanding. “Yeah, We’ll talk.”

I only stare into him, as if I could analyze justification or proof out of him. I already knew how I was slow to believe that anyone who wanted me was good, and I already knew that in seeking him out like this, I was going face to face with some highly unstable aspects of self here. But I’d done such things before and they were fights I have learned to overcome. But if I let him into my softness, if I let him hold me through the night, only to disperse with the sun before even a cup of coffee could be shared?

I drop my hand to my side.

“Someone hurt you, didn't they,” Droz asks curiously.

“Someone, yeah.” Me.

He half smiles, finding my hands and swaying our joined arms idly amongst the upbeat music and flashing lights. “Me too, baby… I can handle it though, I swear.”

I hum, smiling even though I didn’t feel like it. “Sure you can, cowboy.”

He huffs a laugh and bids me off the dance floor, back to the table of friends. “Let’s take a break,” he explains.

So we chat, and he buys me another drink, and we even dance some more. And more and more, my fear is soon folded up and buried once more. Eventually, I let him lead me outside.

Our first kiss is slow, but we were both drunk and needy and the fragile carefulness of testing what the other wants is quickly lost to passion. He pulls back only to lean next to my ear, brushing our cheeks against each other just so he could mutter, “let’s catch a cab back to my flat.”

I say something in agreement and he takes me to the front. On the street, I press another kiss to his lips. He was soft, and warm, and considerate, and glowing like the sun breaking through a rainstorm even despite the cloudy overcast blocking the stars above us. I don’t hesitate climbing into the cab once it is hailed.

At his flat, we don't even make it past the couch, tugging on each other and muttering dirty praises. My world becomes his hands on my thigh and back, as he lays me down atop the rough, seamed cushions.

I stare through the darkness of his living room, and while part of me focuses on returning the favor, another part tries to make out his face through the darkness.

We’ll talk, I remind myself. We’ll talk.