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

[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.

[heyeresque]

Without his contacts - or his glasses, sitting in their case in his bedroom out of Drustan's easy reach - Bellamy's eyesight could kindly be called 'poor'. He emerges from her bathroom, therefore, very carefully; he knows his own flat or the house well enough to navigate with his eyes closed, but he hasn't been here more than twice before and both times he was a little preoccupied with things other than the layout. His progress from the half-bath to the sofa and coffee table involves a lot of squinting and feeling his way, put it that way.

He's briefly disappointed he didn't leave them in longer, he thinks, as he rejoins her; it'd be nice if he could see her a bit clearer now, in this quiet hour. "Sorry about calling you so late."

[norea]

"It's no trouble, Bellamy, I'm a night-owl, anyway." She smiles at him briefly and heads for the door to her bedroom.

"I sleep naked," Hasibe tells him, sweetly (because she's terrible and can't resist just before ducking into the master bedroom), "so if you need anything...you may want to knock first."

[heyeresque]

The alcohol can presumably be blamed for why Bellamy pauses, his hands on his shirt buttons, and says, "Maybe," very mildly. ...and then adds, with a skewed grin, "Your virtue is safe with me; I can't see a damn thing a foot in front of me. Goodnight, Hasi- thanks, again."

[norea]

"Oh, Bellamy, I mean this nicely, but I'm not sure you'd know what to do with me even if you had your contacts in," Hasi teases, or...really, 'provokes'; she expects nothing to come of it, but there is certainly a note of prove me wrong in her voice. She's stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to her bedroom, observing him from under her eyelashes, aware he probably can't make out her expression perfectly well.

"But you're very welcome. Good night."

...and now she's going up the stairs.

[heyeresque]

Bellamy doesn't need to be able to make out her expression for her to pick up on his - he has an ego and it can be provoked, just like anyone else - but he ... smiles, rueful, like he's letting it go and playing harmless and useless, and then she's turned away and he sits down to get his shoes off instead of saying anything at all. He judges this the wiser course of action, through his pleasant haze, and finishes the water before he shucks his pants and goes to sleep.

He'll sleep pretty late, left to his own devices.

[norea]

When he does stir, Hasibe is in the kitchen making herself breakfast (and him, too, if he wakes up in time) -- she cooks maybe once a day, as a rule, and generally it's her morning meal, although this is edging closer toward lunch-masquerading-as-breakfast. Like most things she does, it's incredibly over the top- pancakes, tea, a couple of champagne flutes out if she feels like it, red caviar, grapes. Why not, really?

She has her cigarettes, too; she doesn't think Bellamy strikes her as much of a clove man, but presumably he's got his own if he needs 'em. She's dressed in a short white robe, presently untied, loose over the deep-red babydoll she's pretending is appropriate hanging-out lingerie. She leans over her kitchen counter, stealing herself a grape, barefoot and without amke-up (not that it makes much of a difference).

[heyeresque]

The first thing that Bellamy does when he wakes up - after lying there on the sofa and staring pointlessly and hatefully up at the ceiling, regretting at least three of the drinks he had last night - is go and put his contacts back in before meandering naturally in the direction of the kitchen. (More accurately: in the direction of what smells like food.)

His hair looks severely slept-on and he hasn't showered or put a shirt on yet, but he looks less bleary than he would've if he'd had less water and no aspirin. "Good morning."