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After downing his fifth or sixth or whatever-came-after-sixth drink, Brian threw himself onto the couch next to Lyra and lolled his head onto her shoulder. The music at the club was pounding on his eardrums like a pair of tiny battering rams, so he figured he would have to raise his voice a bit to be heard.
"I need a plan!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Lyra flinched away, but seemed to take pity on him when she turned and noticed him looking like the textbook definition of a hot mess.
She patted him on the head and gamely prompted, "To do what, handsome?"
Brian straightened up just a little, scanned the crowd packed into the club, and jerked his chin down in a sharp nod when he found a certain big and mean and sexy motherfucker standing near the emergency exit, like he was deathly allergic to fun.
"Him," Brian stated flatly.
Lyra followed his line of sight, then tried and utterly failed to stifle a laugh. "Zeno? I thought you were still pretending to hate him."
"I am," Brian said, then frowned. "Wait, no. I'm not pretending. I do hate him. He's the worst."
"But you want to sleep with him."
"Well, yeah. Look at him."
"Oh, I've seen him," Lyra said, shooting Zeno a very appreciative and borderline disrespectful look. "It's too bad my type is more… you-ish."
Brian looked down at himself. "Blonds?"
Lyra quirked her lips. "Bottoms."
"Oh, right."
Brian, taking his own advice, also spent a moment just ogling Zeno from the other side of the club. It was un-fucking-fair, and just as un-fucking-real, how good Zeno looked. The guy hadn't even bothered to dress up. He was wearing exactly what he usually did—pair of slacks that made his thighs look obnoxiously good, button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up just enough to show off his illegally firm forearms, and a tie that made him look like a total strait-laced nerd but, unfortunately, in a hot way.
"Look at him," Brian repeated, muttering to himself now. "He didn't dress up, and he isn't having fun. What is he even doing here? Who invited him?"
"Considering we're here to celebrate your birthday…" Lyra snickered again. "I'm guessing you did?"
Ah.
True.
Brian did vaguely recall doing something like that now. He might have stomped up to Zeno after one of their missions and, rather brusquely, given him a time and place to be.
"Dunno why he even bothered to show up," Brian grumbled.
"Isn't it good for you that he did?" Lyra asked with a suggestive waggle of her prettily sculpted brows. "Must mean he isn't completely indifferent to you and your cute butt."
"I know he isn't indifferent to me," Brian said. "He can't stand me. Our feelings are perfectly mutual. Dunno how he feels about my butt, though. That's why I need a plan!"
Lyra patted his head some more, like he was a semi-belligerently drunk puppy. "Got any ideas you wanna share?"
"Mm… I thought about 'accidentally' bumping into him and spilling a drink on him and offering to, y'know, help him out of his shirt." Brian sighed and paused there, mournfully looking down at his empty hands. "But then I forgot and finished my drink. Plus, it probably wouldn't have gotten me anywhere anyway. He would've just tried to bill me for his dry cleaning."
Lyra hummed in a way which suggested she was trying really hard not to laugh again. "Have you considered using your words?"
"What, just…" Brian frowned across the club again and saw that Bolts had started talking to Zeno, probably about gains or protein or whatever. "Just walk up to him and be all like, 'Hey, what do you think of my ass?'"
Lyra snorted. "I'm sure you could be a bit more creative than that. Ask him… ask him if you can ride him until you lose the 'A' in your name."
Brian threw back his head and furrowed his brow up at the glittering ceiling. "There's no 'A' in his name."
"I said your name."
"Oh." The furrow between his brows grew even deeper. "Why would I want to be Brin?"
"I'm talking about turning Nightraider into Nightrider, dummy! My god, you are drunk."
Brian suddenly sat bolt upright, so fast that his head spun. He was, in fact, drunk. Drunk enough to think that such a stupid pick-up line was actually—
"Brilliant," he whispered, turning and throwing his arms around Lyra, hugging and squeezing her tight. "That's gold, Lyra! I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna use that right now."
He shot to his feet and was halfway across the club in seconds, moving much too quickly for Lyra to stop him.
Not that she would've tried. She didn't really think that was a line that would work.
But it was sure to be hilarious.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Brian's head was completely empty by the time he crossed the club and marched up to Zeno. He remembered having some sort of talk with Lyra, and he remembered leaving that talk with a burst of determination, but he could remember fuck all about the actual words they'd spoken to each other.
And that was probably only half because he was drunk. Zeno was really good at making even a sober Brian lose his train of thought, just by standing around and looking infuriatingly fuckable.
Bolts had wandered off to do shots with Robin by the time Brian planted himself right in front of Zeno.
Zeno looked down at him with a rather cold, impassive expression on his face. It was a look Brian knew all too well, one which always made him want to throw a punch or… or tear off all of Zeno's clothes.
Brian, with a distinctly more pissed-off look, opened his mouth.
But what was it he'd wanted to say again?
He'd had some sort of question, like…
Didn't Zeno think he looked good? He had to, right? Brian was wearing his favorite silk bomber jacket that night, one which had cost him the better part of a paycheck. He'd paired it with his skinniest pair of skinny jeans, which made his legs and ass look phenomenal, and he'd even smudged some eyeliner around his baby blues to perfect the look.
There was just no way he didn't look damn near irresistible.
Except Zeno seemed to be doing a damn good job of resisting him.
Maybe Brian had wanted to ask if Zeno really hated him, because he didn't really hate Zeno. Their personalities had a tendency to clash, but they fought for the same justice, the same cause. Brian had no intentions of ever admitting it out loud, but he could respect Zeno as a man and a detective. Zeno could acknowledge his skills too, couldn't he?
Ah, but that was way more serious and earnest than what he'd been planning to say.
He'd had something clever on the tip of his tongue, hadn't he?
What was it again?
He couldn't even begin to remember, but he did know that his end goal had had something to do with getting Zeno's tongue in his mouth.
So, fuck it.
What did he need words for?
Brian abruptly fisted both hands in the front of Zeno's shirt and dragged—well, tried to drag him down, but the guy was like a solid oak. He didn't move an inch, which meant Brian had to lift himself up on his toes to crush their mouths together.
Even drunk, Brian was fully aware that Zeno could've stopped him if he'd wanted to. He could have pushed Brian back or thrown him halfway across the room with ease. Brian was pretty strong himself, but even he could admit Zeno was in another league entirely.
Zeno didn't, though. He didn't push, and he didn't throw. In fact, for a moment, he didn't do anything at all.
Then, when he most likely got a little fed up with Brian just mashing their lips together in a heated but totally inelegant way, he parted his own lips. Probably to pull back and say something, but like hell Brian was going to give him that chance.
Brian snaked his tongue past Zeno's lips, like he was trying to goad Zeno's tongue into a fight. His hands scrabbled a path up to Zeno's shoulders, finding purchase there as he pressed his body flush to Zeno's distinctly broader form. He heard, or perhaps it was more like he felt, a sharp intake of breath pass Zeno's lips.
And soon enough, he felt Zeno's nice, big hands come up to his hips.
Zeno wasn't exactly kissing him back—maybe he didn't know how, wouldn't that have been cute—but he still wasn't making any attempt to push Brian away, either. His strong hands only seemed to hold Brian in place, stopping him from full-on grinding against the thigh he'd insinuated between his own legs. That was kind of a buzzkill, but whatever. Brian was already having a grand old time mapping the cavern of Zeno's mouth with his tongue.
He could almost, at one point, swear that Zeno was starting to respond.
Brian was the one who broke the kiss off first, to gasp for air. He'd acted so spontaneously, without so little forethought that he hadn't even drawn a proper breath before bruising his lips against Zeno's.
This time, he took a real deep breath before trying to lift himself up to his toes again—only to find himself completely immobilized by Zeno's hands on his hips. Zeno had tightened his grip to a prohibitively tight degree, not allowing Brian to rise an inch.
"What?" Brian breathed, his voice barely audible over the music thrumming all around them and the sound of his own pulse pounding in his ears. "No? You don't want…?"
Zeno didn't answer right away, and his breathing wasn't especially uneven. He still looked so calm and composed that Brian might have thought he'd imagined the whole kiss, if not for the telltale sheen of Zeno's reddened lips.
"Phone number," Zeno said after a moment.
Brian gave a slow blink. "Huh?"
"You should give me your phone number."
Brian blinked again. He couldn't help but think it was a weird request, as they'd been partners for over half a year by now. Zeno obviously had a means of getting in touch with him, through their work comms, so…
He had to be asking for Brian's personal number.
Which could only mean one thing.
Brian grinned from ear to ear and dropped his arms from around Zeno's shoulders to fumble out his phone. There was no way he was reading this wrong.
Zeno was interested in his cute butt.
And maybe even in him.
The next day, Brian discovered he had in fact read it wrong.
So, so wrong.
He'd wound up going home from the club alone after sobering up just enough to realize he was too drunk to get any funny ideas about taking anyone home with him. Then, he'd woken up so late the next morning that he'd had to rush off to work without sparing a single thought for what had happened last night.
It wasn't until he was settled in at his desk, typing away at a case report that he was really meant to have completed last week, that he thought to check his personal cell for messages.
And there was indeed a new message.
From a new number.
Brian straightened up in his chair and cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, to where Zeno was reviewing case files at his own desk. Everyone was in the office that morning, peacefully working away. The only sounds to fill the space were the clacking of keyboards and the gurgling of the coffee machine finishing up a fresh pot.
So it was all quiet when Brian opened the texts on his personal phone and let out a somewhat unholy shriek.
"You—!"
All eyes were on him now as he shot out of his chair and spun to face Zeno's desk with a storm of wrath raging in his eyes.
"This is what you needed my number for?" Brian demanded, marching over to Zeno to wave his phone in the horrible (but horribly attractive) bastard's face. "To send me a bill for dry cleaning?!"
Zeno spared the phone a glance. On the screen, a payment request for fifteen hundred yen and a photo of a dry cleaning receipt were displayed.
"It was a personal matter," Zeno answered calmly. "It's only natural to communicate through personal channels."
"That is not the point!" Brian jerked his phone back and scowled at the screen himself. "What the hell did you have cleaned, anyway? I didn't get anything on you."
"Sent my shirt in to be ironed."
Brian shot him a half-incredulous, half-appalled look. "You had to pay someone to iron your shirt? You do not know how to iron a shirt?"
"Mind your surroundings," Zeno warned.
"No, by all means, continue this riveting discussion," Cyrus droned unenthusiastically from a nearby desk.
"Tonight!" Brian declared. "Eight o'clock. My place. I will teach you to iron, you useless old man."
Zeno sighed through his nose and returned his attention to the files open on his desk. "Fine."
"Fine!"
"Fine."
"It's a date!"
Brian turned on his heel and stomped back to his desk while he still had the last word.
He wouldn't realize until later, when Lyra pointed it out to him over their lunch break, that Zeno hadn't actually refuted the part about it being a date.
So maybe, just maybe, Brian hadn't read things so wrong after all.