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Baz hates being drunk. I actually think he hates alcohol in general, based on the way he talks about cider. But that doesn’t stop him from trying, sometimes, to embrace his inner Don Draper. Like the one time he ordered a dry martini:
“The glasses are elegant, Snow,” he’d explained, holding the thin stem between his index finger and thumb. Pinky sticking out as well, just to complete the aethstetic.
I shook my head in warning. “You’re not going to like it.”
He scowled and took a sip; perfect, pouting lips sucking at the rim in a manner I found infinitely distracting.
Until he made a face like the drink was made of lemons: nose scrunched and lips curled and chin puckered.
“Merlin,” he’d cursed. “That tasted worse than merwolves’ blood.”
Now, on the rare occasions he drinks, he sticks to the girly side of the cocktail menu: margaritas, daiquiris, seltzers… not that anything about Baz could ever be considered girly.
…Shit. I can almost hear Penny’s indignant huff at that statement.
Look, Penny, I know there’s nothing wrong with being girly, but can we all agree it’s just not a descriptor that could ever catch Baz? Not the silk pink shirt he’s unbuttoned to his navel (revealing curls of chest hair I yearn to get stuck between my teeth). Not the glossy red lipstick he’s wearing for the party (it covers up the fact he’s been taking nips of blood from my wrist all night).
Not even the crown of penises bobbing on his head while he wiggles his hips on the dance floor of Pippa’s hen party.
Christ, I’m not sure what’s the weirdest part of this evening. The reminder that a girl who crushed on me back at Watford is now marrying my Uncle? That she’s currently grinding her arse into the crotch of her once-enemy and my now-vampire-boyfriend? That said boyfriend is wearing at least a dozen different types of decorative dicks?
Or that, somehow, my boyfriend who doesn’t drink, hasn’t had a sip of alcohol all night, is acting very, very, wasted?
Meanwhile, I’ve been chugging beer all night and I couldn’t feel more sober.
If this were five years ago, I’d be asking Penny to spell up See what I mean to figure out what exactly my magic has done this time.
In the absence of my magic as scapegoat, I hold the bottle up to what serves as overhead lighting in this dim club to check, again, that I haven’t accidentally been served O’Douls.
“Hullo there, shweet schtuff,” Baz drawls, draping his sweaty body over my back and wrapping his arms around my middle. He licks the side of my neck. “Tashty.”
“Have you been taking shots while I wasn’t looking?”
He shudders. “Hate shhhhotsh. You know that.” He gives my skin a little nibble, not deep enough to puncture. “Sssshober as a clam.” He giggles. “Drunk clamsh.”
I chuckle, twisting in his embrace to face him. “Babe, you are wasted. ” I stare into his grey, wobbling pupils. He tries to scowl and seems to forget what he’s doing halfway through the act, giving me a crooked smile that turns fond the longer he stares at me. Ah, his fangs seem to have popped; that explains the lisp.
He places his hands on either side of my face and squeezes. “Yer the cutesht mosht shexshy man I’ve ever sheen.” Though neither of us have moved, he sways against me like we’re on a ship that’s caught a wave. He lays his head on my shoulder and sighs, as if exhausted. “Are you shtill mine, Shimon Schnow?”
I kiss the top of his head. “Yes, babe. I’m still yours.” I bring my wrist up to his mouth; maybe that’ll sober him up? “Here, have a drink.”
“Mmm,” he mmm’s, reopening my wounds to lap at the blood he’s drawn, a tickling sensation that never fails to make me chub up in my pants; I shift my hips back (now’s hardly the time to incite friskiness, especially with his perplexing buzz). He licks over the puncture marks to close them. “You tashte different, you know. Maaaaalty.”
That surprises a laugh out of me. “Malty?” I hum. “Well, I suppose that makes sense, given how much beer I’ve…”
Fuck.
Baz isn’t phased by the unfinished sentence or what it implies, given he’s found my semi-erection and is now devoting what remains of his coordination into humping it into full hardness.
“Baz.”
He humps faster.
“Baz!” I push him off and he stumbles back, jaw dropping with indignance.
“How dare you—”
The pounding beat of a song cuts through Baz’s outcry and suddenly his eyes close.
“Oh my Circe!” He shouts over a girl’s voice singing. “It’s my song!”
“What the—”
He places one finger over my mouth. “Shhh,” he tells me. “But you just met somebody new!” He croons.
Should I say something? Should I warn him that he’s accidentally getting drunk off my blood?
Baz hates being drunk…
Except he’s pumping one fist over his head, backing up onto the dance floor to the beat of a song I’ve never heard before. “And then when she gets upset tell her how you never meant to hurt no one…”
He starts to spin on the dance floor, arms outstretched, clearing the space with the sheer force of his exuberance. “The only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again.”
A line of girls have formed a circle around him, Agatha among them with this weird smirk on her face, like she knows a secret. Niamh’s got her phone out recording and I should stop her, right?
Baz finally opens his eyes and focuses straight on me. “Call your girlfriend,” he sings, pointing at me. “It’s time you had the talk.” He crooks his finger forward, a beckon I’ve never been able to ignore, and I walk as if caught on the invisible line he’s cast. “Give your reasons, say it’s not her fault.”
“But you,” Baz’s hands find my waist, and he grips me tight, “just met somebody new!”
He pulls me into his arms and runs his hands up my back, fisting the tight black shirt he’d picked out for me. “Don't you tell her how I give you something that you never even knew you missed.” These words he sings into my ear, a whisper, a confession. “Don't you even try and explain how it's so different when we kiss.” Then, his lips find mine and it’s all I can do to hold onto him while he devours me with tongue and lips and teeth and—
He pushes me back to once again sing with all the air in his lungs, “The only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again! And it won't make sense right now but you're still her friend.”
“And then you let her down easy,” Baz finishes, wrapping his arms around himself. He’s still got the crown of cocks on his head, and yet, somehow, under the pink glittering disco ball he looks forlorn.
The beat picks up once more and the rest of the hens swarm Baz, bouncing around him until he notices their presence, his sad cloud dissipating instantly. He laughs and grabs Pippa’s hand, spinning her under his arm before releasing her, giggling, into the arms of one of her friends.
Now Agatha shimmies up to him, the smirk from earlier still glued on her face. Baz rolls his eyes and brings her into his arms, swaying slightly together. She whispers something into his ear, he nods, then she pecks his cheek before dancing off the floor toward where Niamh is still recording the events (though at least she’s branched off from Baz’s one-man show and is documenting the maid of honor’s attempts to twerk).
Baz finds me, wallflower that I’ve become, and quirks an eyebrow. It’s all he needs to say.
I’m at his side in an instant. I let him sing his favorite part into my ear, loudly, without flinching. I press my body flush against his and let my hips move side to side; it’s as close to dancing as I can manage, but it seems to be enough for Baz who sinks into my embrace.
As the singer repeats the chorus over, and over, Baz and I sway together on the dance floor. He sings and I listen. He tells me to call my girlfriend. I don’t remind him I haven’t had one in years; that I can hardly remember my Time Before Baz. When Agatha and I used to fumble in dark bedrooms, trying on roles that didn’t fit either of us. When Baz couldn’t walk into a room without my eyes finding him.
When I didn’t know how much life I still had yet to live, how much love I could contain within the broken vessel of me.
“But you just met somebody new,” Baz sings.
In his arms, I am somebody new.
When the song ends, I kiss his cheek. “Bad news, Baz.”
He nuzzles into my neck. “Hmm?”
“I think that, in drinking my blood, you’ve accidentally drunk my buzz.”
He hiccups, then groans. “Merlin, I hate being drunk.”
I chuckle, “I know, love. I know.” I tug him off the dance floor toward the seating area. “Let me get you some water.”
He slumps into the first chair I find. “I love Robyn,” he sighs, kicking his legs out. “Used to listen to that all the time at Watford.”
His lips turn down and I kiss him before he sinks deep into sad memories.
“Want me to take you home, babe?”
He pouts and nods. “Tired.”
“I know,” I pout with him. “You worked very hard on the dance floor tonight.”
He nods again, serious and frowny. “I did. Sang all the songs.”
“That you did.” I hold out my hands. “Come on. Up, up.”
Grabbing on, he lets me pull him out of his chair and into my embrace. “Agatha’s ok, you know.”
“Is she?” I hope he can’t hear the smile in my voice as I guide him toward the exit, waving over my shoulder at Pippa, who blows us both a kiss in thanks. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to know you think she’s just ok.”
“Fine,” Baz sighs, leaning into me, his arm around my waist and mine around his shoulder. “She’s more than just ok. But I’m better, right?”
I squeeze his arm tight. “Not just better. The best.”
He nods in agreement. “That’s right.” He yawns. “The best.”
Wrapped around each other, we stumble along dark sidewalks back to our flat. The crisp night air of an almost-Spring evening sobers him as much as the exercise. Still, Baz is loose and affectionate in a way he doesn’t always allow himself to be, and I can’t help but think…
Baz hates being drunk, but I love every version of him. The Don Draper Baz trying (and failing) to drink a martini, the silk-covered-not-girly-vampire getting accidentally drunk off my blood, the penis crown wearing hen partier…
The secret softie who memorized all the words to “Call Your Girlfriend” back at Watford and what that implies.
Baz hates being drunk, and I love him.
…especially after the gift he’s given me in the form of that video Niamh took; I’m so giving that to Fiona for Christmas.