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Wally woke up on the couch to a headache and the smell of something cooking in the other room.
Blearily he stood up, motivated primarily by the delicious scent wafting towards him. Further investigation revealed Shawn, still wearing his ink-stained work clothes from last night, standing at his stove and stirring something in a frying pan. The other man looked over as he stumbled in, adjusting a dial on the stove face. “i was wonderin’ when you’d wake up. Almost was wonderin’ if you were dyin’ of alcohol poisonin’, given how much you were drinkin’ last night.“
Wally stared blankly at the clock on the wall, his half-asleep brain trying to decipher the time. He settled on it being about 11 in the morning. “Not that I’m gonna complain if you’re making breakfast, but why are you here?“
“Because you passed out in the alleyway last night and I had to drag your sorry ass back here.“ He dropped his voice slightly, noticing Wally wincing at the volume. “And I didn’t want to be leavin’ you alone during the night, so I camped out in your spare room.“
“Wait, you stayed here the entire night just for that?” Wally asked, pulling out a chair at what was passing for a dining room table and rubbing his eyes. “Well gee, thanks. Hey, I’ll do something in return as a favor. Seriously, just name it.“
“Put on some clean clothes,“ Shawn said bluntly, setting a plate full of eggs and sausage in front of him. “You smell like cheap alcohol and bodily… fluids“.
“No offense, but you don’t exactly smell like a spring daisy either,“ Wally pointed out, biting into a large forkful of eggs.
“And where do you be expectin’ me to be getting fresh clothes from?” Shawn asked, taking a sip from a cup of coffee he must have made earlier. “All of my clean clothes are back at my place.“
‘‘You can always borrow some of mine! I mean, you know, if you need to,” Wally added, realizing his tone might be a bit too excited. “They might be a bit on the big side, but you can always roll up the sleeves if you need to.“
“You sure you don’t mind?“
“Nah, not a problem! Anyone who makes food this good is a friend’a mine.“ He swallowed his lack forkful and waved the utensil in Shawn’s direction, grinning.”You plannin’ to go anywhere later tonight?“
“No offense or anythin’,“ Wally said, taking off his cap to rub some sweat off his forehead as he observed the floor in front of him, “but are you trying to make my job harder?“
“Your job’s a walk in the park compared to mine,” Shawn replied bluntly, setting down his brush. “We’ve got more stock than we know what to do with right now. We need to be focusin’ on selling what we got, not making more dolls no one wants, but Mr. Drew won’t be haivn’ any of that..” Shawn waved his hand towards the pounding assembly line behind him and the massive inventory of toys.
“Oh! But speakin’ of things no one is wanting…“ Shawn ducked down to rummage under the workbench, and Wally leaned into to try to catch a glimpse of what he was doing.
“Sounds promising.“
“Here we are!“ Shawn sat back up, holding a Boris plushie in his hand that wasn’t covered in ink. “The… what’s the English word for the súile-?” He motioned towards the head of the plushie.
“The… face?“
“No, the other whatchamacallit.“
“The snout?“
“That one! The snout’s a bit off on this one, but I still be thinking it looks nice. So here.“ He held out of the plushie and Wally took it eagerly, squeaking the middle.
“Well hey, thanks a bunch! Look at this guy!“ He held it up to the light, giving it another squeak. “Joey really wouldn’t like it?“
“Mr. Drew once redid an entire cartoon just because the animators weren’t drawin’ Bendy’s eyes quite to his likin’.”
“…I guess I can’t argue with that.“ He gave the plushie a final squeak and tucked it under his arm. “But I mean, his loss, right?“
“His loss, my gain. You’re owing me now, by the way.“
“C’mon, that’s not fair!“ Wally objected, but he was smiling. “Fine, fine. Whadda you want?“
‘I was thinkin’ we go to a bar and ‘hang out’”. Shawn pushed his foot against the desk, leaning back in his chair to survey the others in the toy shop, making sure no one found their thinly-veiled date as suspicious. “Friday after work soundin’ good?“
“Sounds swell! Now if you don’t mind, some sap spilled a bunch of ink on the floor that I gotta clean up,“ he teased, grabbing his mop.
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.“
Shawn made sure to spill more buckets of ink after that.
“So how’d you play poker, anyway?“
“Use your cards to score points.“
“Thanks Shawny, really helps me out.“
“Not’a problem.“
“You have two cards in the middle, see,“ Grant extrapolated. “You want to take those cards and make a good hand out of them using the community group of cards. Whoever has the best hand gets the winnings.“
“Isn’t gambling like this kinda’, you know, illegal?“ Wally asked, picking up his hand and frowning at it.
“Don’t worry your little head about it. It’s allowed as long as we’re just using chips instead of actual scratch,“ Shawn pointed out.
“If you want to see actual gambling, you can always drop in on one of Grant’s casino games,“ Thomas said gruffly, lighting a cigar.
“Hey, hey, hold on. Now it’s not gambling as long as you know you’re going to win.“
“That’s because you’re countin’ the cards, you cheating bastard.“
“You can’t prove that, now can you?“
Shawn muttered something presumably explicit under his breath in Irish and grabbed another card. A few rounds passed in relative silence. Eventually Wally leaned over, flashing his deck at him. “Is this a good hand? I’m confused,“ he whispered.
“So are you two seeing each other or something?“ Thomas interrupted abruptly. Wally pulled away from Shawn and sputtered a few startled objections.
“Who wants to know?“ Shawn challenged, eyeing him. Thomas only shrugged, not looking up from his hand.
“I couldn’t care less. Just something I heard through the grapevine is all.“
“You should be careful now,” Grant offered, not taking his eyes off his cards. “You know how Mr. Drew will react if he catches wind of this.“
“He won’t be finding out,“ Shawn objected, looking over his own cards, then throwing them down on the table triumphantly. “Full house! Pot’s mine!”
“Nice try, but no.“ Grant swatted his hand away and tossed his own cards on the table, revealing a straight flush. Shawn swore again under his breath and threw down ten dollars, Wally looking on in confusion.
“I thought you said this wasn’t gambling?“
“I lied,” Shawn replied bluntly.
Wally opened the door, stumbled to his couch, and dropped Shawn onto it with considerable lack of grace.
“Hold on, lemme get you some ice or something.“ Shawn uttered a thank you as Wally disappeared into the tiny kitchen, returning with a bag of frozen carrots. “Okay, so I don’t exactly have any ice, but hey, they say carrots are good for your eyesight, right?“
“That was terrible.“ Shawn laughed, grabbing the bag and slapping it onto his left eye none too gently.
“Seriously, are you gonna be okay? That’s a nasty shiner.“
“Eh, it’s just a black eye, not’a big deal. The other fellow was in worse shape.”
“Yeah, but… look, I’m not normally the one tellin’ people to hold hands and sing kumbaya or anything, but you really gotta be more careful.“
“Aww, I’m touched. But you have’ta teach people like that not to be messing with you, or they won’t stop. Something I learned a while ago.” Shawn sat up a bit, flinching in pain. “If you’re that concerned, you could go an’ get me some more carrots for my back. The big bastard really did a number there.“
“On it! Take your shirt off, I’ll be back in a jiffy.“
Shawn obliged, throwing the slightly bloody button-down onto the back of the couch. Wally returned a moment later, eyes immediately focusing on Shawn’s exposed chest. “Uh, we didn’t have any- sorry, fresh outta carrots. Peas good?“
“I never cared for ‘em, but I suppose they’ll do,“ he teased, turning so Wally could slap the bag on the dark purple spot between his shoulder blades. He winced as the bag touched his skin. “Fuck a bastard, that’s cold.”
‘‘You want it be warm instead?”
“What I be wanting is my back to stop hurtin’, but I guess I we can’t have everything.” Silence filled the air for a moment. “I really do appreciate ‘ya helpin’ me out like this,“ he added.
“What, you think I was just gonna leave you to hobble back here on your own?” Wally flipped the now somewhat thawed bag over, pressing it over the bruise again. “I’d do that to Sammy, maybe, but not you.”
“Aww, ain’t you sweet? C’mere, you.” Shawn turned around and pulled Wally downward, firmly planting a kiss on his lips. Wally stumbled back immediately, nearly crashing into a nearby lamp. “I- I- What’s the big idea!?“
“…I’m kissing you? What’s the problem here?“ Shawn asked in bewilderment, wincing as he tried to sit upright.
“I- you can’t just run around kissing fellows on the lips!“
“We’ve been datin’ each other for six damn months!“
“Yeah, but you’ve never-! Look, what if someone saw us?“
“Saw us-? We’re alone in your apartment! Who do you think’s gonna be seeing us, the pigeons?“
“No! I just think that we shouldn’t be doin’ this sort of thing yet!“
“And there, look! You’re doing it again!“
“Whatd’ya mean, “doing it again?”“
“That thing you do! You’re always perfectly happy to be together, but the second I so much as touch you you’re running away like a small frightened animal!“
“I am not!“
“Then kiss me!“
“No!“
Shawn let out an exasperated noise, rolling over onto his stomach. A few moments passed in silence, neither making eye contact.
“Listen,” Shawn finally spoke up. “If you don’t want to be together, you should just say so instead of draggin’ this out.“
“What? Hey hey, I never said that! I mean… look, I’ve been with a lot of girls.“
“Don’t I feel special.“
“But none of ‘em ever worked out, you know? I even hit it off with a few of ‘em, but it never really felt right. I even ended up in bed with this real cute dish, but I ended up gettin’ outta there just because it felt so weird. You’re the first person I actually feel somethin’ for, as sappy as that sounds.“
Shawn reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, popping one into his mouth and offering the rest of the box to Wally. He shook his head and Shawn switched the pack for a lighter. “I was just thinkin’ that you were havin’ second thoughts about this whole thing.“
“No, it’s more like… I guess I’m not comfortably messin’ around with a guy yet instead of a dame, and you surprised me.“
“I didn’t mean to. I was figurin’ you’d like a surprise. Guess not.“ Shawn took out the cigarette, blowing out a puff of smoke as he sat back up. “Maybe we should be startin’ smaller. You wanna lie on this couch for a while with me, seein’ as I’m in no shape to be moving?“
“….Yeah, okay. I can do that.“ Shawn scooched over and Wally sat down beside him, leaning against his torso.
“Ow, ow! Éirigh as! Back!“
“Right, right, sorry!“