lush ✘ and if the man can't dance he gets no second chance

[heyeresque]

Bellamy is not sure at what point the night began to slide sideways out of his control, but he's confident that when he reassesses in the cold, sober light of day it'll absolutely not be his fault.

Case in point, he leans against the front door of his Chelsea flat and pats himself down with one hand for his keys...which aren't there, meaning they're still in the inner pocket of Nic's jacket. Nic, who was meant to be the designated driver this evening and instead is the reason that he had to call Hasi from a hotel in London and request a rescue; Cypra would either be busy or laugh too hard, he explained. Nic, who decided to go ambling off with other friends after Bellamy turned in and will be all the more difficult to get a hold of until probably late tomorrow afternoon.

"Hasi," he says, admirably clearly for his inebriation, "I have a small problem."

Comments

[norea]

When Hasibe said she owed him a favor, she didn't quite have this in mind, but it is a favor and she doesn't mind doing it. She turns to look at Bellamy with eyebrows raised, a little entertained but doing her very best to conceal it (mostly).

"Of course you do. What is it?"

[heyeresque]

"My fucking cousin has my keys...and possibly my phone," he explains, sounding pleasantly rueful and more than a little the worse for drink. "And I don't think Drustan has quite yet mastered the art of unlocking it from the inside."

And thank god for that, right?

"If you'd just- be very patient for a moment, I'm sure I have a solution, but I might need a ride somewhere else."

[norea]

She laughs, hand against the side of her face, rueful, and touches her other hand to his arm, light and brief about it. "Oh, I see. That does complicate things."

She thinks about for a second, and smiles at him.

"Bellamy, you don't have to go through any great lengths - it's three AM, you can just sleep it off at my place for a few hours. It's nearby, as well you know."

[heyeresque]

"Are you sure?" he asks, dutifully- but he's inclined to accept her offer, since the best he can think of as an alternative is going to All Saints, and all things considered 3AM is not the hour that he wants to explain this harmless misadventure to anyone there.

[norea]

"I think I can handle you if you decide to pick any drunken brawls with Zabibe- or she can handle you," Hasi says, very seriously, leading him away from the door, "come on, Drunky McDrunkerson. You're kinda cute like this, you know."

[heyeresque]

"God, am I? My dignity's been dealt a blow." Not that this seems to distress him any; Bellamy submits to being led back to the car with an amiable air, cheerfully fuzzy around his figurative edges. Misadventures aside, it's been a good night and he's in the kind of mood where everything seems like a hilarious good idea.

[norea]

"It could be worse," she says, putting the car into motion, "you could be one of those lech types. Those are pretty funny, I'd never stop teasing you if you got distracted by every skirt that went by when drunk."

[heyeresque]

"Heaven never send you another one of those," he says, his head tipped back against the back of his seat, looking sideways at her with a crooked smile. "I'm the sort that can't go past a bookshop."

Presumably, drunk men who butcher poetry at her usually choose something a little more romantic.

[norea]

"Nerd," she calls him, lightly and just a bit fondly.

[heyeresque]

"Oh, yes." Bellamy laughs quietly, mostly at himself; it lingers after, grinning at nothing.

[norea]

"You don't look like one- you look like the former sporty type, actually, were you out mourning the World Cup loss?" She drives like a maniac even if her passenger is intoxicated; Bellamy is presumably capable of handling as much.

[heyeresque]

'Like a maniac' is Bellamy's preferred style, and he seems right at home even if he is...still, you know, three sheets to the wind. "We lost," he says, mournfully, "to the states." It was a tie, actually, and they've since played Algeria to an even less successful tie, but come on, the USA doesn't even call it by the right name.

After a beat, he laughs again. "No, we were celebrating Italy's fuck up, actually."

One of those 'England...and anyone playing Italy' supporters, then.

[norea]

"The States thing is just funny," Hasi says, amused at his tone, "we don't even really care about soccer, it's considered so very second to baseball and basketball. And hockey. But this year it seems like everyone's gone World Cup crazy."

[heyeresque]

"The rest of us always do, you're just late to the party," he says, tilting his head back further and closing his eyes as he shifts in an attempt to get more comfortable where he's sitting.

[norea]

"That's because we're a very young country and we're busy owning the entire media," she informs him, "and breeding terrible girls like me."

[heyeresque]

"If my uncle were forty or fifty years younger, you'd be just his type," Bellamy drawls, not opening his eyes, "he married a terrible American woman, too." Changing gears with no more effort than it takes for his inebriated mind to wander off on a new tangent, he adds ruminatively, "She's magnificent."

[norea]

"Does the fondness for terrible Americans run in the family?" Hasibe teases; it's without any real pointedness, she's just trolling him while he's drunk, really. Also they are officially at her apartment - it was a short drive owing to their living in the same neighborhood, anyway.

[heyeresque]

"Just terrible things, I rather think-" Bellamy can, thankfully, navigate himself out of the car and up to her apartment on his own without accidents. (He does sway distinctly in the process, though, and he's weaving a little.) "Love is a hideous hereditary disease."

He's said this before, it's nothing new, but usually he remembers to keep his dreadful, cowardly opinions about romance to conversations with Cypra and not women he barely knows who've generously picked up his drunk ass.

[norea]

"You sound either bitter or mildly deterred by the whole thing," Hasi says, not really disagreeing with him but a little archly curious about that, anyway.

"Explain, please."

[heyeresque]

"I think you really have to fall in love once or twice in order to be bitter about it," he says, reflectively, from her doorstep.

[norea]

"Ahh, so just a little scared." She lets them into the apartment and considers Bellamy with her hands on her hips. "Are you okay with the couch? I feel a bit rude for not offering my bed..."

Hasi he is drunk, don't say things like that.

[heyeresque]

Yes, if Bellamy were sober and she'd said something like that, he'd know better than to tilt his head and examine that statement quite so closely. Unfortunately for him, it's not as easy to pretend he's other than exactly what he is when what he is happens to also be 'a little smashed'.

"I'll be fine," he promises, though, being not that far gone. "I just need to take my contacts out."

[norea]

She notices the headtilt (how can she not), and smiles, faintly, innocently, but she doesn't say anything.

"The half-bath is through there--" Hasibe points it out, helpfully. "I'm going to get you water and aspirin to take so you don't wake up with a terrible hangover."

[heyeresque]

"You're very kind," in a good stab at his usual background gentleman sort of way, taking his coat with him to find where he stashed his contact case and mini solution bottle. (Some people remember condoms, some people also remember that they can't wear their contacts all night if they go home with someone. Though this is not quite what he was thinking of when he habitually put it in his pocket.)

[norea]

"Aw, thanks." She meanders out into the huge blue kitchen to acquire a bottle of water and two aspirin (she has painkillers in every color and flavor of the rainbow, but only brings two to Bellamy because presumably he doesn't take seven or eight at a time like her crazy ass), which she'll leave on the coffee table for when he returns.

In the meantime, she kicks off her shoes, shrugs off her coat to hang by the door, and then sets about getting pillows and blankets for her sofa. Hasibe in something other than heels is actually a first for being around Bellamy- the strap of her dress slips over her shoulder, and she leaves her hair down.