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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Smecker/Greenly
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: ‘Michael’ is from goodtwin. Sequel to Hallow.
Summary: Occasionally it’s not so bad.
***
So Paul’s lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and praying very hard that the odd rumbling in his gut is not his digestive system deciding to fuck him over for last night’s excesses. Which weren’t even all that serious, compared to—shit, just St. Patrick’s Day…--his usual binges, but then, he’s spent the last decade or so building up a tolerance to whiskey, not sugar. That’s the real sign of a refined man, all right. When ODs start coming from the ultra-processed product, and not the shitty raw stuff that might, just possibly, still have a few traces of vaguely healthy substances in them.
Incredibly enough, he still manages to wake up with a pounding headache. God knows how, because he only had about two shots before Greenly stole the bottle and proceeded to be goofily idiotic for the next three hours. Normally the man’s only irritably stupid.
The word ‘cute’ is not associating itself with Paul’s slow recall of the night before. He won’t take that, thank you, when he’s got at least three homicide case files on his desk, a gun stashed in his desk drawer next to his box of paper clips, and a few aching bite marks. When drunk, Michael gets careless sometimes, and no amount of whapping seems to penetrate his thick skull. Whacking might have, but Paul hadn’t felt up to the kind of body disposal that that could lead to.
Anyway, it had some highlights, in spite of itself. And Paul will accept something along the lines of ‘fucked sore,’ because that is the bare-assed, unapologetic truth and what are mornings for, if not for staring at the ugly bastard in the mirror?
Michael grunts and grumbles and shifts so he steals even more of the sheets. In return, he tucks his scratching, raspy stubble even further into Paul’s neck and generously flings his leg over Paul so the day’s first erection shoves itself into Paul’s hip. Nice. Puppy’s humping in his sleep.
Paul is still staring at the ceiling. Because it’s a weird feeling—relaxation. For once, he’s got a feeling he’s one-up on the Irish twins, because there’s no way their freaky fanatic father would let a Catholic holiday like the first of November pass by without some kind of celebration. And Paul doubts that Il Duce’s idea of that involves drinking into a stupor. Maybe the psychotic Father Christmas is as Italian as his nickname, because Il Duce certainly doesn’t act like the usual Gaelic sons of bitches Paul runs across.
But hey, Il Duce aside, the twins were men before their father reclaimed them, and they’ve got their share of responsibility for that. So says Paul’s head to his gut, and it adds a reminder that he’s a nasty declared bachelor with no immediate family. What’s he trying to play? Uncle? Godfather? Too damned like Cosa Nostra, sir.
And then what’s Michael, because the man has a key to Paul’s apartment and knows enough to sleep on the right side of the bed, and yes, he’s even driven Paul’s car once. Granted, Paul was somewhat incapacitated with alcohol at the time and couldn’t protest, but still.
There’s those questions and the sword of the McManus’ latest vigilantism just waiting to fall on Paul’s head the moment he gets out of bed and slides on the suit. And there’s a thousand others, all roaring back on the last dregs of sex and sugar and the first traces of waking.
“Goddamn it, go to sleep. It’s a fucking weekend now.” Michael slouches sideways and begins to snore.
Paul snorts, and reaches across him for the cigarettes on the side-table. Fuck the hazards of smoking in bed—he lights up and has a drag and watches the sunlight play over the far wall. When Greenly’s the one coming up with sage advice, then the end of the world beginneth, and if that’s so, Paul might as well have one good morning.
***