Chapter Text
I need this job.
I need this job.
I need this fucking job.
Axl was doing his best to remind himself of this as he bobbed and weaved his way through the rowdy crowd, trying desperately not to drop anymore drinks.
Michelle would be understanding and all, but he hated the look of pity in her eyes, so no, that just wouldn't do.
"You sure took your time." The man leered at him, nudging his friends who burst into laughter at Axl's tight expression. "We should get a bonus for the wait..."
The redhead bit back the scathing reply trying to force itself from him and gently lowered the drinks."I'm sorry for the delay."
To be fair, he had brought their drinks earlier, but they kept changing their minds just to make his job that much harder and giggle like a bunch of fucking retards.
"Is there anything else you'd like?" Axl's eyes watered as one of the men blew the cigarette smoke in his face. He very carefully resisted the urge to slam the guy's face unto the table.
He needed this job.
“Yeah, can we have you on the side?" One crowed, bringing a heavy hand down unto the redhead's ass. His friends laughed uproariously. "You look like the type, what's yer price?"
Axl swallowed his rising anger and pulled away, stomping back to the bar, all the while spitting vile curses.
"Woah, what happened to you Red?" Aiden, the bartender, asked him. It was a busy night, but he still did his best to keep an eye on Axl. "The douches at it again?"
Axl ran a shaking hand through his hair, "I swear to god, if I didn't need this job..." Really, he could take them. Each and every one, maybe all at once.
Aiden frowned, grey eyes sombre. "You don't have to take their shit, Axl."
Axl smiled weakly at the man, thanking the gods he had found this place and made a few friends. Sometimes he regretted having left Indiana for L.A, surviving in the big city with no family nearby was the hardest thing he'd ever done.
And he'd done lots of hard shit.
"Yeah, I know."
"Tell you what, I've got just the thing to cheer you up." Aiden peered over his head, eyes sparkling mischievously. "Your guy is here. Serve him."
Axl flushed. "He's not my guy." He said this even as he glanced around the crowded room for those startling green eyes.
"Whatever you say, man. You totally want him to be." Aiden winked. "Just go."
Axl ran his fingers through his hair a few more times, ignoring the bartender's laugh, before sauntering off towards the back of the room.
The man always sat there for some reason, in the quietest corner of the bar. Sometimes alone, sometimes with company.
Sure enough, he was there, with a friend he frequently came with (Axl could never make out his face, not with the afro obscuring it). Blondie's hair was pulled back in a ponytail tonight; he wasn't in a suit this time (so he wasn’t coming straight from work), just a t-shirt and jeans from what he could see.
He stumbled a little and was almost certain that Aiden had seen him from across the room. Blondie chose that exact moment to glance behind him and spot Axl.
"Hi." The man said, lips curling in that smile that messed with Axl's senses.
"Hello." He managed to make it to the table without falling flat on his face. "What can I get you?"
"The usual." Axl had no clue why the man seemed to be in love with vodka, but it wasn't his place to ask.
"Okay. Uhm. Sure thing." He was smiling like an idiot, preparing to move away when Blondie’s friend spoke up.
The dark haired man cleared his throat pointedly. "I'd like to order too."
The redhead blushed, hoping the room was too dark for anyone to notice. Apparently not, since Blondie was staring right at him. "Sorry, yeah, what can I get you?"
The brunette laughed, but not unkindly. "Relax, I'll have whatever he's having actually. I was just teasing."
That didn't make Axl blush less, he muttered something about being a minute and headed back to the bar. If Aiden smirked any harder, his face would freeze that way.
"Shut up."
"Look at you, blushing like a teenager with a crush."
Well he was only 20, but he didn't dare mention that. There was no way in hell Michelle would have hired him in a goddamn bar/nightclub if he had.
A lie a day, right? "Yeah well, just shut up and gimmie the usual."
A few minutes later (and serving yet another asshole in between) he returned with their drinks.
"Is that all?" Axl asked, trying not to stare in Blondie's lap, cause fuck those tight pants were doing things for him.
"For now. We're having a bit of a competition."
This was probably the worse time to notice Blondie's voice was pretty fucking sexy to top it all off. Luckily, his friend replied, because Axl was perfectly content to stand there staring at the line of his jaw, and admiring his piercings.
"I don't know why you bother trying, Duff." The brunette snorted, tilting his chair. "I can out drink you any day."
Duff? That was an... odd name.
"We'll see..."
Axl realised he was just standing there like an idiot gaping, and gave them their privacy.
The night dragged on in its regular fashion, customers came and went, the crowd thinned out and still Duff and his friend kept at it.
It was kind of amusing now, and half the bar was watching them, casting bets and rooting for a winner.
"I don't even gotta ask whose side you're on." Aiden murdered at one point. "But that other guy's putting up a hell of a fight."
And saying"Duff looks fine." really wasn't any type of reply, but it came out anyway. He was distracted with soaking up his sound of his laughter and the glow of his smile. It's not like he had a crush or anything. The guy was just... interesting.
The bartender quirked a brow, struggling to keep his voice neutral. "Duff?"
The redhead flinched, caught. "Yeah, that's his name I guess." He tried his best to sound nonchalant, but if Aiden's grin was anything to go by, he had failed.
"More." The brunette yelled, waving wildly. He might've been a little tipsy, but that was still pretty impressive considering the amount of alcohol they had consumed.
"Be polite, Slash." Duff was whispering, or he was trying to, it was pretty loud.
Laughing for the first time that night (morning?), Axl headed over with more shots. "Here you go."
"Thank you, beautiful." Duff slurred a bit, but he didn't look completely out of it. Try as he might, Axl's brain could come up with nothing but a hurried retreat, so he scurried away from the table without a word like the idiot he was.
Slash snorted softly, "Just ask him out already, you've been coming here for weeks."
The blonde spluttered, flushing faintly. "Shut up and drink, you talk too loudly. I can smell the hundred already."
And, okay, maybe Axl was lingering close to their tabling and eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help it—they were loud. The redhead snorted when he realized they had bet a hundred on their little game, though they spent way more than that on the liquor alone.
Idiots.
It went on like that for a while until last call. Neither of them had won. Miraculously, neither of them had passed out either. Aiden called someone to pick them up (Duff wasn't too drunk to remember the number) and watched them till they got in the car safely.
"Bye bye, Red." Slash yelled, he had adopted the nickname from Aiden somewhere along the way.
"Goodbye." Axl chuckled, returning Slash’s enthusiastic wave.
Duff poked his head out the window with a sly grin. "Night, beautiful."
The redhead rolled his eyes, ignoring just how pleased the words made him. "Well, it's morning now, Blondie."
Duff looked so comically dismayed at his slip up as the car pulled away that Axl couldn't stop his sharp bark of laughter.
"Beautiful, huh?" Aiden wiggled his brows as they walked back towards the bar.
"I couldn't stop him." He shrugged. "You're OK to lock up, right?" He secretly hoped he wasn't, he would then have an excuse to linger in the warmth of the building for a while longer.
Aiden shook his head, "I'm good here. Have a nice night, beautiful."
Axl shot him a cocky smile, all swagger and false bravado. "You know I will."
Truth is, he wasn't so sure. He was short on cash, homeless (unless one considered his shitty car a home) and fucking cold. He walked to where his car was parked, slipped inside and started the engine. It coughed and spluttered before finally coming to life. Sighing, he turned on the heater and glanced in the back seat at his makeshift bed. It really was just a few pillows and a comforter.
It was cramped and uncomfortable, but better than the alternative. And really, he had slept in places way worse.
"All there is to blame is your stupid pride, Billy." He said to no one, grinning faintly. "If you hadn't been such a fucking queer you could be home right now."
That didn't sound right. That wasn't the truth at all. Even this, his current shitty situation, was way better than the previous one. This wasn't only for him anyway; this was for Amy and Stuart. His siblings back home who were probably suffering under Stephen's ‘parenting’ as he sat here bitching.
He was saving, just so he could make a home, for all of them. A real home where they weren't treated like shit or beaten half to death on the regular, or forced to be things they were not. He had only been here two months (eight fucking weeks without a proper bed, but also eight fucking weeks without the reverend trying to break his ribs) doing odd jobs and whatever he could get his hands on to make the money he needed. He'd stay in a motel on nights when the pay was good (this was, unfortunately, not one of those nights) and spend whatever he earned sparingly on things such as food and what not.
"It's just for now," he mumbled, pulling away from the curb. "After I get an apartment and get them here, I'll—" what exactly?
Go back to school, with money he didn't have?
Continue working like a slave to pay the rent?
How would he even feed Amy and Stu? Maybe they could work too?
Axl's grip tightened on the wheel, lips pressed in a thin line. "One thing at a time, Princess. One thing at a time."
What he needed right now was a safe place to sleep, maybe a motel parking lot was best?
The last thing on his mind was the blonde with the wicked emerald eyes and the sunny smile.
-------------------
Slash was in his bed.
He was hungover and Slash was in his bed looking like the cat that got the cream.
This was not how Duff planned to start his morning— a glance at the clock told him it was after twelve, but this still wasn't how he planned to start anything!
"I said what?" He asked, for perhaps the hundredth time, because Slash clearly wasn't making sense.
"You called him beautiful, if you tried flirting any harder you'd probably start doing a striptease."
The blonde scrubbed a hand over his face, struggling to make sense of Slash's blabbing. "And you didn't fucking stop me?"
"Why would I? You like him don't you? You've been blabbing about him for weeks." The brunette stretched languidly and reclined on the bed, looking way too happy to be hungover. And maybe, a lot like some model, not someone who just threw up ten times in the bathroom.
Duff envied him.
Groaning, he pulled the sheets over his eyes, hoping to block out the pesky sunlight. "That's not the point Slash. You allowed me to talk while I was drunk." He winced at the bright light forcing its way through the barrier of his sheets. Who had had the audacity to open his curtains? Slash probably. "I am not allowed to talk while drinking. Especially not to the ones I like."
Slash struggled to keep the laughter from his voice, Duff would probably try to strangle him if he suddenly lost his shit. "You weren't drunk exactly—"
"What else did I say?" He interjected, cursing the blanks in his memory.
"You offered to send him nudes." Slash must have noticed the look of utter mortification on the blonde's face, because he burst into laughter, waving a hand dismissively. "Christ, I'm only kidding. You didn't say anything else, we just drank while you stared at his ass ever so often."
"Did he notice?" This was all a bad idea, getting uproariously drunk in front of your crush. That was what the kid was right? His crush? He was too fucking old for this. "Please tell me he didn't look at me like I'm some sort of pervert."
"You are." Slash snorted, "That kid looked at you like he wanted you to bend him over the nearest available surface." The brunette grinned slyly. "Or he wants to bend you over it."
Duff threw the sheets off him, looking Slash dead in the eye. "Please, get out of my house."
Slash just burrowed deeper beneath the sheets and smiled. "Rest up, we’re going back this weekend to get you a date. This is pathetic."
"Slash..." He was a grown man, he could ask someone out if he wanted. He wasn't fucking shy or anything, and no, he totally didn't practice talking to the guy in the mirror before heading out.
That would be pathetic.
Fuck, I am totally pathetic.
"Dude, if you don't ask him out this weekend, I'm showing up and calling you both out." Slash wasn't bluffing either; they both knew he would actually attempt it. "We both know what happens when I get involved in shit."
"Don't remind me." Maybe he'd have to come up with something sooner than he planned. Because the last time Slash tried to help him out with his love life had led to a series of unfortunate events and a little erm... ‘self-discovery’ among friends (so really it wasn’t so bad, but he wasn’t about to tell the fucker that).
"He does have the strangest eyes." Slash mused, pulling the duvet up to his chin. "Blue-grey?"
Duff's mouth moved without his permission. "Nah, they're more blue-green than anything. But that depends on the lighting and his mood—"
Slash's raucous laughter did fucking wonders for his pounding head.