bigapplesauce | Brunch Gone Wild(e) [closed]

Johnny's still not totally sure what's about to happen here. He stands outside, waiting to be let in, tugging nervously on the collar of his jacket and, even more nervously, the actual fucking collar. Relatively discreet, an unadorned strip of black leather buckled rather snugly around the base of his neck, looking enough like some kind of faux-punk affectation that he's just barely comfortable wearing it in public.

This seems like a weird time (and a really weird pretense) for a hookup. But maybe it's less of a hookup and more of a date. Hard to say. Since the first time he's only seen Eliot in dreams, and there's no real-life analogue for any of that. He has no idea what the state of their relationship is now. Fuckbuddies, friends... boyfriends? He hasn't known what to say to Gabe, enough that he spent his own money (usually reserved for necessities) on the collar. It seems like a bit presumptuous, wearing it here, but he and Eliot had learned enough about each other that first time that he's reasonably sure it'd get some use. And it feels kind of exciting. Just walking into it, not sure what's going to happen. God damn, Eliot is so hot.

The buzzer startles him so hard he jumps, and casts a quick look over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him before he pushes the door open and heads up.

He reaches the door of the apartment and knocks. When Eliot opens it he can't help but grin, a little stupidly but whatever, it's nice to see him again. He steps in and reaches up for a quick, weird kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Hey," he says, thumbing at the collar. "I, uh, this could be for either of us, I just thought it might - oh, hey, Sunshine."

That is definitely Sunshine, standing in the entryway to what he guesses is the kitchen, staring at them.

Oh. Oh. Oh, shit.

This is actually brunch.

Who the fuck gets brunch?!

Johnny feels his face heating, his hand going automatically to his throat in a half-assed attempt to cover the stupid fucking collar, oh shit why did he think this was a good idea, fuuuuck, and he can hear himself still babbling like an idiot.

"Oh, this - I, uh, I didn't know it was gonna be, uh, I guess I misunderstood the-"

He notices that Eliot has been holding a cocktail, ostensibly offering it to him.

"Thank you," he says very quietly, taking it and drinking it all down.

Edited 2014-10-10 03:34 (UTC)

Sunshine isn't sure whether she's more startled by the fact that Eliot's friend (or maybe ~friend~ would be more accurate) Johnny is none other than rabbit man, or the fact that he's wearing a frigging collar (which she clocks almost immediately due to his clumsy, belated attempt to hide it). Damn, this guy is just a walking collection of pet store accoutrements, isn't he?

She glances between Johnny's frantic self-medication and Eliot - she can't see his face, but his posture suggests that he might be in need of a hard reboot - and, okay, she probably shouldn't laugh but it is so tempting. It's takes a hell of a lot of willpower for her to restrain herself.

... To an extent. "You didn't tell me this was gonna be a kinky brunch," she says, her reproachful tone no match at all for the ridiculous grin on her face. "I would've brought a bigger spatula."

All wit leaves him as he sees Johnny, sees Johnny wearing that thing and Eliot slowly loses all ability to reason or respond as Johnny keeps talking, oh my god shut up shut up, this is not what he intended, not at all. Is it possible to literally actually die from embarrassment? Because Eliot feels so blue screen of death his vital life processes might be coming to a halt.

Eliot stares, dumbfounded, as Johnny takes his drink and downs it in one go. Holy shit he has to say something. And/or get another drink or three. But mainly say something. He tries to, he really tries to reply to Johnny's ridiculous babbling, but he can only make a vague bleating sound like a deflated balloon getting stepped on, and then, jesus, Sunshine--

He makes an abortive choking noise as he attempt to explain that it's a brunch, not a munch, and he definitely didn't say munch in the original text, did he? Brunch is a totally normal thing and we are all totally normal people here and he would have said bring a date if this were something else oh god there is not enough liquor in Manhattan for him to begin to deal with this.

Johnny feels like he might actually faint for a minute. This has backfired so fucking spectacularly he wouldn't really blame Eliot if he never wanted to see him again. This was such a bad idea. He should have asked, should have confirmed at least what this was, and should have discussed the collar idea first, god, you're such an idiot. Maybe he should just leave. Sunshine seems to be having a good time, at least, though her commentary is making him blush even harder, oh god, what is she drunk already, he thought this thing started at eleven, how long has she been here, have they been talking about him?? Jesus fucking christ.

Poor Eliot seems to have completely frozen up over this. Johnny feels like such a shit.

Okay. Calm down. You can salvage this. Somehow. Probably with lots and lots of liquor, which Eliot obviously has.

"S-sorry," he mumbles to Eliot, and slips the collar off as fast as he can, stuffing it into his pocket. He looks over at Sunshine and gives her the world's awkwardest wave. "Hey again, uh. Sunshine. Nice to... see you."

Oh, these poor sweet cherubs.

She's not blind to the massive carthaginian disparity between her reaction to all this and theirs, but that somehow makes it all even more hilarious, like, how can they even be that embarrassed? No. Embarrassment doesn't even cover it; these two are appalled. And she's not exactly clutching her pearls over here, or laughing (which is a goddamn miracle; you're welcome, gents), so she's not entirely sure what the problem is. Come on, guys. The world isn't ending. There are omelets!

"Heeey, Johnny," she says as casually as she can, though there's nothing she can do about the grin. She could wave back with the hand that isn't currently wielding a spatula, but what fun would that be? "It's just me, so you don't have to worry about being punched." See, she's reassuring him and everything.

To both of them - to the tension-filled room at large - she adds, "It's fine. I'm gonna take care of the omelets, and you two take care of…" she gives the spatula a squiggly, illustrative wave, "drinking more." Yeah, that'll probably help. Back into the kitchen she goes. Once she's out of sight, though, she can't contain it anymore: she starts giggling quietly to herself.

Laugh away, Sunshine, because if Eliot were not smack dab in the middle of the trainwreck he'd be doubled over and howling.

It is strange and refreshing, though, how her reaction is just...zero drama, and it helps Eliot to begin to act like a human being again. Which is not to say he's not going to drown his embarrassment in alcohol and fruit juice; old habits die hard.

He clears his throat with a cough. "Yes," Eliot says, maybe a little too loud, "drinking more! Johnny, you stole mine, let's get you set up with your own..." He aspires to calm host-zen as he leads Johnny over to the makeshift bar in the living room, which is set up with chilled peach nectar and orange juice and sparkling wine. "I didn't know if you're a bloody mary sort of guy but I figured it's brunch, it's housewarming, might as well be decadent, right?"

In a lower tone, he adds, "Because it's brunch, man, I admit the text was maybe not the most clear but how the hell do you get hookup from brunch?"

Johnny is similarly relieved that Sunshine doesn't seem to care, or at least is too drunk to care, which, whatever, he'll take it. He trails after Eliot into the living room, distantly appreciating what seriously nice digs these are, damn. "Yeah, no, this is good," he says in regards to the cocktail, and then lowers his tone to match Eliot's.

"Because who the fuck gets brunch?!" he hisses. "I'm not a forty-five year old woman so I don't know, I thought it was a weird euphemism or something. I'm sorry, all right?"

It's not like he's annoyed, he's in no position to be annoyed, more in hysterics, feeding off of Eliot's equally hysterical energy. He draws a breath, accepts a second drink, and takes a fortifying sip. Shit, this really is good. And he didn't actually have breakfast. This is gonna start to heal him up soon. Thank fuck for that.

"I shouldn't have - I mean, I should have asked first anyway, I just... I thought maybe-" Now is not that moment, kiddo. He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "We'll talk about it later, yeah? I mean, I really, really want to talk about it. I'm sorry I made everything so fucking massively awkward." He can still hear Sunshine giggling to herself, god damn her, or maybe thank god she's so chill, he can't decide.

"So, yeah," he concludes, and gives Eliot a severe raised eyebrow. "Brunch, huh."

The various sounds of the kitchen - and her own quiet but incessant tittering - do a decent job of masking most of the conversation going on outside. But even without trying to eavesdrop, she catches some of it. Or enough to get that 'brunch' is apparently a novel concept to Johnny. How very frigging quaint, she thinks, not unkindly, but with the particular brand of world-weariness endemic to those in the restaurant business.

"Brunch," she echoes emphatically from her post. "And it's going to be goddamn delicious. I brought muffins!"

Eliot is flabbergasted at Johnny's ignorance, and more than a little affronted at the accusation that this is something that old people do. Truly Sunshine is a goddess, or at least a saint, to take over food prep while he educates this poor neglected creature.

"How have you not had brunch before!" Eliot demands in an hysterical whisper. "This is a thing people do, Johnny, it's brunch, it's an excuse to drink in the morning and eat decadent food, like, where have you been the past ten years?"

He has to take a deep cleansing breath. It's not Johnny's fault, really, and it's clear he feels bad enough about the misunderstanding already.

"Listen," he continues, changing tacks, "it's okay, you didn't ruin anything, and on the awkward scale this is like a drop in the bucket compared to some parties I've been at. she's totally chill," he nods his head in Sunshine's direction. "And muffins! Nothing can go wrong with muffins involved."

Eliot punctuates the reassurance with a brief kiss, reaching around to knead the back of Johnny's neck. "You're welcome to stay after, you know...if you wanted to talk."

"Goddamn I miss one decade and fuckin brunch happens," says Johnny, lapsing back into his normal speaking volume as he eases up gradually. Sunshine's continued irreverence is actually really helpful. As is this liquor.

"I'm from LA in 1999," he says. "Nobody got brunch. At least nobody I hung out with." Which really was nobody, by the end of it.

The kiss is a surprise, but a pleasant one. He smiles into it and stands up on his toes to return it, chaste but warm. And just like that, everything is immediately better. Eliot must be magic.

"Deal," he murmurs.

Sunshine has moved onto tuneless humming - and if anyone was looking for a sure sign that she is heading past tipsy and into drunk, it is that - so it's just as well that the omelets are done. Food will help. Feeding people always helps.

She slides them onto a serving plate, only a little less dexterous than usual thanks to muscle memory, then wanders out of the kitchen to update the boys… and aww, look at these two adorable assholes. Sunshine grins and takes in the view for a second before announcing, "Omelets are up!" She hoists the plate for emphasis, then walks it over to the table and sets it down amongst the plates, cutlery, and prearranged plate of muffins.

Nothing like a ton of social lubricant, and a ton of breakfast food to go along with it to bolster their livers. Eliot would actually clap his hands in glee when Sunshine returns with food, only he's holding a glass, so.

He plops down at the table and waves Johnny over, looking back and forth between him and Sunshine.

"Okay so," he says, taking a sip of the bellini with a scrutinizing look at his partners in brunch. "How the hell do you two know each other, follow up question, is it a crazy story? Because I think we've got an 'awkward and hilarious' theme going here and let's keep the ball rolling. Also, oh my god, Sunshine, you are amazing, look at this shit, let's dig in."

And now Eliot's babbling exuberantly, so he's slipping into drunk territory as well.

"Uh..." Johnny is sort of alarmed by this sudden moodswing, but it's a good kind of swing, so he figures he can just roll with it. And the food does look really good.

He reaches out and takes a muffin. "You made these?" he says to Sunshine. "Didn't you give me a cookie the first time we met? That was a good fuckin cookie." He takes a bite of the muffin and chews it appreciatively. "Good fuckin muffin."

To Eliot, he says, "She was the first person I met here, actually, but I had no fucking idea what was going on and I never called her. Sorry. About that." He looks back at Sunshine. "And, uh. Sorry that I... hit on you. The other night."

Because THAT happened.

Sunshine lifts her glass in acknowledgment of their respective compliments. Johnny's all right, she decides, watching him eat her food with an approving grin. To Eliot, she adds, "It was a good cookie," as if that is the most relevant detail - and as if Eliot hasn't had her cookies before.

And in deference to Johnny being in her good books, Sunshine waves him off in a gesture that comes perilously close to taking out her beverage. Yikes. Better make sure that doesn't happen. She gives her untoppled glass a reassuring little stroke with her fingertip, as if it's a tiny, spooked animal (poor glass, shhh, it's okay, mommy won't hurt you), then returns her attention to Johnny.

"It's fine," she says, magnanimous in the face of these unsolicited apologies. Spike could take some pointers. "I'm glad you're doing okay." Not that she's been losing sleep over it, but she had felt kind of bad that he'd just wandered off into the proverbial sunset with nothing more than a few reference numbers and no place to stay. "And that dream was weird. Everyone was acting off." Turning to Eliot, and with something very like triumph, she adds, "We set a jacket on fire!"

Edited 2014-10-15 00:31 (UTC)

"She gave me cookies too," Eliot adds, in between bites of muffin. He grins to himself. Heh, is Sunshine some sort of wandering cookie maven, distributing welcome goodies to new arrivals? Is that an actual job that people have? That would be awesome. Only Eliot would probably do it with wine but that is entirely beside the point.

He's a bit distracted from the conversation by the food, but he raises an eyebrow at the mention of Johnny hitting on her. That dream was a jumble, to be sure, and his memories of Johnny coming to his aid are all tangled up with disastrous magic hilarity.

"Ye gods that was a terrible jacket," Eliot agrees, raising his own glass to toast its demise. "It deserved what it got." he frown a little at Johnny, trying to put the pieces of the dream together. "Hey, did you get into a fight for me?"

"Ye-es," says Johnny, marginally embarrassed about it now. "I guess that would have happened... simultaneously? I dunno, dream shit is so weird. It wasn't on fire when I got to it."

He sips more of his drink and starts going after his omelet. "I, um, sorry about that," he says. "That's twice I've punched someone on a date with you. Not a habit. I promise." He laughs nervously. "Anyway, Peter, he's an asshole, he deserved it. And he punched me first. A while ago." Let's not go into that, shall we!! "Met him on my first day too, tried to be nice but he woudln't give me the time of day. Can't even be fucked to learn my name. He still calls me 'Rabbit Man'." He rolls his eyes. Ugh, Peter. Seriously.

Sunshine's first thought is something like: holy goddamn, Johnny is scrappy as hell. Does he just punch - or invite punches from - frigging everyone? WOW. It's always the little ones.

Her second thought is: good thing she refrained from calling him 'rabbit man' aloud. It's an understandable nickname - you don't meet many people just casually strolling around with an enormously fluffy rabbit tucked beneath their arm like an outlandish novelty clutch - but apparently Johnny is not a fan. Noted.

"That was the fluffiest rabbit," Sunshine reminisces before turning to Eliot in sudden excitement. "Oh, damn, you missed the rabbit thing, Eliot!" She ~~leans~~ slumps over and lays a hand on Eliot's arm, lest he fail to grasp the gravity of that long-past situation. "Carthagininan rabbits. Everywhere. And they were so fluffy." Like, you don't even know.

Good gravy, when you put it like that, Johnny sounds like some kind of scrappy little guard dog. Which, given the collar...

Eliot laughs to himself. He hopes it seems like he's laughing about the rabbit thing, because what the hell is that all about?

"Whhhhat's with the rabbits? Some sort of Rift thing?" he asks slowly, not quite understanding both the nickname and Sunshine's statement. "And how could you tell they were from...Carthage?" Does Carthage still exist in Sunshine's universe? Do they have rabbits in Africa? There are so many things for Eliot to be confused about right now, and the only solution is to stuff his face with omelette.

"Wait, what was up with the rabbit?" says Johnny, perking up slightly. "It just appeared and I didn't know what to do with it so I carried it around. And now I'm Rabbit Man. And then later it disappeared." Cool story, bro. He squints slightly at Eliot's follow-up question. "Were they Carthaginian? Is that... is that even a place anymore?" He doesn't know shit about that kind of thing.

"Rift thing," Sunshine confirms with a little nod. "It just made these floofy rabbits appear all over the place. I was bringing them to the base in a laundry basket. Then they all just poofed away," she says, make an illustrative gesture at 'poofed.'

Her brow furrows at the sudden weird geography bee that's happening, here, and she peers at first Eliot, then Johnny over the rim of her glass as she takes a fortifying sip of this delicious boozy concoction. "What?" she asks after swallowing. "How would I know where they were from?" She reclaims her fork and gives it a wave. "Probably some friggin… bunny universe. Or a rabbit farm. Planet of the rabbits."

"No, I mean like you said, you said..." Eliot trails off, trying to even imagine the type of Rift shenanigans Sunshine's describing, and getting thoroughly distracted. He certainly can't imagine Johnny going around with a bunny tucked under his arm, although that would be fucking adorable.

"...You said they were Carthaginian rabbits, and like how could you tell they were from Carthage?" He turns to Johnny, looking bewildered and feeling a little like he's not making any sense. "Right?"

Johnny snorts at 'Planet of the Rabbits.' This whole conversation is entertainingly bizarre, but Eliot is also looking at him for help, which he's obliged to give.

"No, yeah, I'm with you," says Johnny, gesturing vaguely at Eliot with his fork. "I don't get it either. These are really great, by the way. The eggs. And the muffins, and the cocktails. Good job everyone."

He has more cocktail now, then drops his chin onto his hand. "I have a new rabbit now," he adds. "Pet rabbit. He's the fucking cutest."

Oh. Ohhhhh. Sunshine shakes her head, then cracks up. Their confusion is adorable. "Nonono. No, no." She points at each of them in turn with her fork. "Noooo. Look, 'carthaginian' is just, just a word. Like 'goddamn' or 'frigging' or something. Not like," she huffs out another laugh, "not like, 'made in Carthage, microwave safe, tumble dry low.'" Shiva wept. And, okay, maybe she should be surprised this brand of confusion hasn't happened before, but no one else has had difficulty picking up on what Sunshine considers to be pretty obvious context clues.

Gosh, these two. They need to drink less. Or more. One of those options.

"Wait, you have a bunny for real?" she asks Johnny. This from the guy who doesn't like being called Rabbit Man. It also seems arguably irresponsible when the rift might relocate you at any given time, but she's gone and obtained a frigging boyfriend, so who is she to judge?

Eliot guzzles the rest of his cocktail to cover his internal embarrassment. Obviously Sunshine uses some slang terms he's not going to be familiar with, he should have picked up on that. Thankfully, this is a problem that alcohol is perfectly suited to solving. Also thankfully, Sunshine is hilarious.

Johnny is hilarious too, but he's not trying to be. Eliot can't even deal with him having an actual rabbit, following on the heels of that mental image.
"Wait, though," he says after getting the last drop of bubbly nectar goodness. "Do you still have that dog? How many pets do you have, anyway?"

"What?" Johnny blinks at him for a moment before realizing. "Oh, Scout. Uh, no. He's not mine, I was... I was taking care of him for a friend."

He feels a nervous twist in his gut at that. At one point should he tell Eliot about Gabriel? Before it hadn't really been relevant, it had been a one-night stand and Gabe had been gone, but now - with everything happening between him and Gabe, and his thing with Eliot developing fast and loose, it's suddenly potentially very fucking awkward.

He buries his nervousness in his food.

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