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It’s a little funny to Dave how John’s such a lovey-dovey drunk. Not like he’s fawning over everybody, nor that he’s not affectionate sober—he is, after all, the king of the platonic I-love-you, of bear-hugs and noogies and throwing an arm around someone casually. It’s just that when he gets drunk enough it ups the ante. He will kiss literally anyone, on a whim. He even kissed Molly once when Dave dared him, gave her a smooch right on her wet doggy nose and she sneezed in his face immediately after.
This has of course caused problems for John—beyond getting sneezed-on by a very annoyed dog—and he’s been trying very very hard to learn a little self-control as of late. He’s put forth a good effort, to be clear, but… he is not always successful.
Dave’s never really been much of a party person, but it’s a lot better with Amy beside him. His psychiatrist told him to cut down on drinking now that he’s on Lexapro—something about his liver or whatever, Dave couldn’t remember, but he has noticed that the next-day hangover now includes some of the worst depression he’s ever felt, so he’s pretty sure that’s part of it. It’s been tough. If he has to be around a lot of other people for a long time he’d really rather be drunk than sober, but Amy’s been a great help keeping him on-track. After his third beer if he goes for another she gives him a powerful, withering glare that usually turns him off the idea, and beyond that, it helps to have another sober person to talk to. He always hated being the lone sober Designated Driver at a party.
They’re in something of a quieter corner of the party, discussing potential plans to leave sometime within the next two hours; Amy has work tomorrow and Dave can feel himself getting overstimulated and burnt-out. The lights in this apartment are the blue-white ones, the cheap landlord-standard shit that always gives him headaches. There’s other warmer lights on, too, but they haven’t been enough. And he can hear the fridge humming from the next room over and he hates it (Amy, too, can hear that). While Lexapro has made his life easier it certainly hasn’t transformed him into a social butterfly.
Right as they’re approaching a concrete time to leave, Dave trying to haggle down to 8'o'clock but Amy budging no earlier than 8:30, John half-stumbles and half-swaggers his way right into the middle of their conversation. “You guys havin’ fun over here?” He gives them a lopsided grin, his crooked canines bending his upper lip, body leaning drunkenly on the wall. He brings with him the smell of weed and vodka. Eau de John, a very normal smell combination for him.
“Yeah, sure,” Dave intones, and Amy frowns at him.
Fortunately John is too drunk to notice his tone, only hearing the words. He also doesn’t really care, either. “Y’know what I wanna do? I wanna watch that Stargate spinoff again. What was it, Atlanta? Stargate Atlanta Georgia. Can that be our next weekly-watch series?”
“God, no,” Dave cringes, “Why the hell do you wanna do that?”
“C’mon, it wasn’t that bad.” Amy nudges him. “I’d be willing to see it again. It’s been a while, maybe you’ll like it more now.”
“I will not.”
John ignores Dave, straightening up, focusing on Amy. “Waaaaaiiiiit, really? You’re down to watch it with me?” He beams.
Amy is sure he won’t remember this in the morning, but she is being genuine, though she's sure David doesn't want her to be. She ignores Dave’s frowning and says, “Sure, I’d love to. It’s been forever since I’ve seen it.”
Neither of them could’ve predicted how excited that makes John but it’s evident the moment she’s done speaking. He lets out a frankly inordinately-excited cheer and then he scoops Amy up and plants one right on her, a big old smooch half on her mouth and half on her cheek, wet and clumsy. No tongue thank god, she probably would’ve barfed—she hates the taste of nicotine—but still, it’s yucky enough that she twists her head to break contact immediately. “Bleh, John, cut it out!” She laughs, lifting her hand to push his face away, wriggling out of his arms.
“Aw, sorry,” and John looks and sounds truly regretful, “You okay? I hurt you at all?”
“No, I’m fine,” she wipes her mouth off, snickering. “You’re just so slobbery, that’s gross.”
He giggles. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Excuse me,” Dave butts in, lightly, “shouldn’t I be kicking your ass for kissing my girlfriend right now?” He does gently push John away from Amy, mostly because he knows she doesn’t like being picked up by John when he’s drunk. And when drunk, John loves picking people up—Dave’s not sure when that started but as of late anyone below 5’7” is at risk. Sober it can be fun, they’ve played around like that before, but drunk John has the balance of a sinking ship. Amy would rather not take the risk.
“What? It’s not like I like her,” John slurs, then seems to realize his wording error, going all wide-eyed: “I mean—not like that, you guys are my best friends. Amy’s like, one of the guys. And I’m not gay.” Dave snorts but then John nabs him by the back of the head. “Look, I’ll prove it—”
And then, before Dave can tell him it's a bad idea, John’s pulling him in. He smacks his lips right onto Dave’s same as he did to Amy. The only thing Dave thinks is wow I forgot how bad a smoker’s mouth tastes before he shoves John away, laughing. “Ew, dude, what the fuck?”
“See,” John waves a hand around in a gestural way that probably means something to him but is utterly incomprehensible to everyone else, “now I kissed both of you. Can't be mad at me now.”
Dave wipes his mouth. Amy was right—John’s slobbery tonight. She’s still beside him, laughing so hard she’s bent double, wheezing a little; it’s taking everything in Dave not to join her but he can’t help chuckling. “You, uh, you sure did, buddy. I think maybe you’ve had enough vodka tonics for one night.”
-
John of course does not agree about the whole vodka tonics thing and has a couple more before the party winds down, at which point, Dave and Amy lure him to their car like luring a stray cat in for capture: with the promise of treats and a safe home. He doesn’t seem to recall how to sit up straight but he does recall all of the chorus of Country Roads and can be at any second prompted into singing it by Amy. She is of course doing this just to annoy Dave. And she is succeeding with flying colours.
By the time they reach John’s driveway though he is knocked the fuck out, snoring against Dave’s rear passenger window. Fortunately even when fully unconscious he only weighs maybe 120 pounds soaking wet and Dave only has a little trouble slinging one of John’s arms over his shoulders and hauling him up the driveway. The front door is a little bit of a struggle given its width compared to Dave’s and compared to the joint width of John and Dave, but Amy holds it open for him and they manage it just barely. They hesitate in the living room.
“Goddamnit, his couch is full of shit again,” Dave whispers.
“I don’t think we should leave him down here anyway, it gets cold.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re not carrying the bastard.”
“I’ll help you get him up the stairs.”
She takes his feet, while Dave holds him awkwardly by the armpits, and they haul him up the stairs together, taking great pains to try and be quiet—Joy is asleep already in her room and if they wake her she will not hesitate to berate David for it. Technically speaking Dave could have slung John over his shoulder potato-sack style but having had John vomit down his back more than once doing so, he’s a little leery of it.
Plopping John’s limp body onto his bed is the easiest part of the whole affair, the two of them pulling a one-two-three-yeet to chuck him up onto the mattress. They both then spend a moment rubbing their backs and grumbling; once recovered, Dave shoves John onto his side and wedges his pillows and a couple jackets around him such that he can’t roll over easily. Amy plucks John’s car keys from his pocket while Dave’s adjusting pillow placement. Lastly, Dave throws a blanket over John, knowing he tends to wake up cold when he’s hungover. His body is shit at holding a steady temperature.
“Good thinking,” Dave whispers to Amy once they’re in the hall, gesturing to John’s keys. “Last thing we need is to get a call in an hour to come fuckin’ fetch him again ’cause he drove back to the party.”
“I don’t want him driving when he’s like this,” Amy whispers back, tiptoeing carefully down the stairs (which creak despite their efforts). “I hate that he does, sometimes.”
“Yeah, I know.” He doesn’t say anything else; they both know what John’s like, there’s no use lamenting.
A few minutes after getting back on the road, Amy starts giggling. Dave glances at her, trying not to take his gaze from the road for too long. “What?”
“I still can’t believe he kissed you,” she says between laughs, and that brings a little grin to his face, too.
“I can’t believe he kissed you,” Dave counters. “He’s been so good about not accidentally cheating with people lately. Guess we’ll have to reset the counter.”
Amy barks out a laugh. “Oh, my god. You know what would be so funny?”
“What?”
“If one of us texts him something like, ‘hope you got home safe last night babe.’”
Dave cackles and thumps a hand on the gearshift. “Oh, man. We should put that in the group chat.”
That gets Amy going even harder and she pulls out her phone. “I’m doing it. Right now.”
-
Shortly before noon, John wakes to a horrendous hangover and several texts from the night prior. The topmost notification, the first he reads, is from his group conversation with Dave and Amy—a message saying Dave left a heart-emoji reaction to a message from Amy. Her message reads Hope you got home safe last night, baby ♡ Text us when you wake up. This is only a little confusing to John. They do tend to check up on him after he’s gotten blackout drunk, and Amy is a very affectionate person—Dave, not so much, and certainly the heart emojis from both are a little… off.
It’s the notification below that one that brings him the most dread, though: A video with no caption, from Head, in the band group chat, sent to him sometime during the party itself. Everyone in the group has laughed at it. He takes a moment to try and remember, to run through the usual repertoire of video-worthy embarrassing things he does when partying—Was he nude? Did he fall over real bad? Throw up on somebody? All three at once? Those are among the most-tame options, he doesn’t want to entertain anything else, like thinking of them will transform the video into one of that act.
Full of trepidation, he unlocks his phone and opens that conversation.
He is of course not prepared for the contents of the video being him grabbing David by the head and dragging him in for a kiss. Right in from of Amy. And everyone else at the party. Head was clearly across the goddamned room watching this happen so he has to assume other people were watching too.
“Oh my god,” John groans, dropping his phone to rub his forehead with that hand, eyes squeezed shut. Does he even want to know the context? And furthermore does that explain Amy’s text? Is he going to have to do damage control and convince Amy (and everyone else) he doesn’t want to steal her fiancé? What on Earth would have possessed him to kiss Dave when he knows damn well that man doesn't brush his fucking teeth?
Eventually he gathers the courage to pick up his phone and open his conversation with Dave and Amy. What the hell did I do last night?
It’s Dave who answers a few minutes later: You decided to tongue-fuck both of us back-to-back. It was hot.
This is followed by Amy tagging a laughter reaction onto the message and John drops his phone on the bed again, rubbing his face in shame, covering his eyes. His phone dings quietly again and he gathers his courage once more to pick it back up.
Another message from Dave: You also did a bunch of other stupid shit, but the kissing was weird. Even for you.
They are not going to let him live this down anytime soon, he’s sure.