Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fir stumbles a little as he stands up from the couch, almost spilling his beer. He looks blearily down at the red Solo cup in his hand, and takes an automatic sip. This is only his second beer of the night, just a simple wheat beer because he can’t stand the taste of anything stronger, so it’s ridiculous that it has already gone to his head so badly.

Then again he almost never drinks, so maybe that’s got something to do with it.

He’s kind of bored so he blinks and gazes around, searching for a familiar face, and spies the back of Tanner’s head through the kitchen door. He smiles to himself and makes a beeline in that direction; Tanner is always fun to tease and banter with, and Fir only really came to this party at all because he’d heard Tanner would be here. Tanner had been with Fir earlier too, while Fir was still drinking his first beer, until someone had called him away.

The kitchen lights are far brighter than the ones in the living room, and Fir squints a little and takes another automatic sip of his beer. Tanner is right there by the door, so Fir steps up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, big and firm under his fingers.

“Oh, hey Fir,” Tanner says, turning his head and quirking a smile in Fir’s direction, but then instead of engaging further he turns right back to the chick he’d been talking to.

Fir frowns. Who is this woman? She’s pretty, petite and blonde and well made-up, in a soft blue dress that shows off her assets well. Fir instantly dislikes her. Tanner says something dumb and she titters, putting a well-manicured hand coyly over her mouth and angling her body towards him.

She’s flirting. She’s definitely flirting, and Tanner is encouraging her.

Fir doesn’t even know why—or yes he does, why is he lying to himself?—but that bothers him. He pushes closer, shoves partially in between them, and says, “Hey Tanner, how’s it going?”

It comes out a little slurred, and Tanner says, “Are you drunk?”

“Nooooo,” says Fir. His hand is still on Tanner’s shoulder, and he can feel Tanner’s muscles flex under his palm as Tanner uncrosses his arms.

“Sorry Amber, I’ll talk to you later,” Tanner says, and then, “Come on dude, let’s get you some water.”

“Why?” says Fir and shoots Amber a smug look. She pouts in Tanner’s direction and doesn’t seem to notice.

Tanner has one big, warm hand on Fir’s elbow now, and he’s guiding Fir around to the other side of the kitchen. He fishes around in one of the upper cabinets for a glass—he barely has to even reach up, he’s so freaking tall—and starts filling it with water from the tap. Fir looks down at the beer in his hand, and tips it up to his lips. He drains the entire rest of the cup as quickly as possible, trying to taste it as little as he can, and then drops the Solo cup onto the counter.

The cup falls onto its side and rolls a little before coming to a stop. Fir watches it, his head swimming concerningly.

Now that he’s thinking about it, that might have actually been his third beer. Or...?

“Oh jeez,” Tanner says, righting the cup. “Did you just chug that whole thing?”

Fir shrugs.

“Okay, well I’m cutting you off here. Drink this.” Tanner hands him the glass of water, and Fir takes it. He feels sort of like he’s underwater, or like everything is filtering into his brain through a fuzzy cotton membrane. He drinks some of the water but after all that beer his stomach feels uncomfortably full, and he hands it back to Tanner without finishing it.

“We’ll work on that,” Tanner says. “Come on, let’s sit you down.”

He folds his hand around Fir’s wrist and leads him back out of the kitchen and into the living room, where the couch is somehow still unoccupied. Fir stares at Tanner’s hand on his wrist, unable to process much else. Tanner’s hand is huge, and it wraps all the way around Fir’s wrist and more without any trouble. It makes his wrist look tiny and delicate. He swallows.

Tanner sits on the couch and tugs at Fir’s arm, and he probably intends for Fir to sit next to him but instead Fir overbalances, trips over Tanner’s foot, and tumbles into his lap.

“Oops,” Fir says. His head is spinning and he has a faceful of Tanner’s chest, and he can feel the rapid vibrations as Tanner laughs under him. It’s kind of hot in the room and his hair is sticking to his forehead a little, and suddenly, somehow, that’s what he’s most self-conscious about.

Tanner tugs on his arms, and Fir clumsily tries to right himself, to climb up onto the couch, and somehow he winds up even more in Tanner’s lap, straddling Tanner’s thighs, knees pressed into the back of the couch. He blinks slowly at Tanner, confused.

“How did I get here?” he wonders.

Tanner looks deeply amused and doesn’t try to push him off. “You tell me,” he says.

“I, um.” That last beer is hitting Fir pretty hard now. “I can’t remember?”

“Jeez, you’re sloshed,” Tanner says. “Why the heck did you get so drunk? I thought you weren’t planning on drinking tonight.”

Fir thinks back and yeah, that’s right, he wasn’t. He had said as much when he first arrived and Tanner had come up to say an enthusiastic hello. Tanner had pulled him into a hug right off the bat, and Fir had been foolishly thrilled to have immediately earned his attention.

It hadn’t lasted, though. Someone had drawn Tanner away pretty quickly—always popular, ugh—and Fir had wandered off in search of someone else he knew. Pretty quickly he’d found CJ, who was already several shots in. CJ had tried to cajole him into a drink, but Fir had declined.

Why had he started drinking again?

Oh. Right.

After a while with CJ, Fir had wandered off to find a soda or something, and he’d caught sight of Tanner again. Tanner had been in the corner with a girl—not the same girl Fir had found him with just a few minutes ago, a different one—and they had looked awfully cozy. She had been very close, with open body language and sultry eyeshadow, and Tanner had given her an amused smile when she batted her eyelashes at him.

So Fir had turned around and found a beer instead of a soda. What an idiot he is.

Tanner had found him again not too long after that, and had been with him for a while before he’d been drawn away again. Fir doesn’t know what had happened to that first girl and he doesn’t care.

So Fir had one beer and then... kept going, he guesses. He doesn’t really remember putting a lot of thought into it.

Tanner is looking at him like he still expects an answer, so Fir shrugs. Even just that small movement makes him dizzy, and he slumps forward until his forehead lands on Tanner’s shoulder.

Tanner runs a soothing hand up and down his back, and Fir is still sitting on his lap but he doesn’t trust his balance enough to try getting off. He kind of wants to fall asleep here, against Tanner’s broad, warm chest, with Tanner’s hand heavy on his back. He’s surprised Tanner hasn’t made him move yet.

He doesn’t know why he says it. He’s just thinking about the way women are always approaching Tanner, the way they flirt and Tanner flirts back, and it just sort of slips out. “I don’t like it when you talk to girls,” he mumbles.

Tanner’s hand pauses in its path on his back, and Fir immediately misses the soothing motion.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Tanner says, and at least he sounds amused instead of disgusted.

Fir doesn’t know how to answer that question. Distantly he feels like he shouldn’t answer it at all. Isn’t there some reason why he’s been trying to keep this secret from Tanner?

His mouth doesn’t get the memo from his brain, apparently, because he hears himself saying, “Because I want you to talk to me instead.”

“I see,” says Tanner, and his hand starts moving over Fir’s back again. It feels really nice, and Fir shivers under his touch. They’re both quiet for what feels like a while, though Fir has no way of gauging how long. Then Tanner says, “You know I don’t care about any of them, right?”

Fir shrugs one shoulder, and even that feels like a colossal effort. He’s so tired, so damned tired. Sleepily he turns his head, and presses a long, lingering kiss onto the side of Tanner’s neck, because somehow it just feels like the right thing to do. He’ll probably regret having done that in the morning, he thinks fuzzily, but he doesn’t have the energy to care right then.

“We’re gonna have to discuss this more when you’re sober,” Tanner says, and Fir can feel the low rumble of his voice. “But for now you can nap a little. I’ll make sure no one bothers us.”

And that sounds really, really good to Fir, so he finally lets himself relax fully against Tanner and drift off into a comfortable sleep.