Work Text:
Going to bars after work is a bad habit that Frank definitely doesn’t need, but the subdued dark-red neon of the sign and the lack of a crowd outside the entrance seem to be irresistible, especially after a grueling shift at the hospital, after which, at best, all you want to do is hop in the shower and scrub yourself with a stiff washcloth for a long time. He stops at the entrance, glancing around as if someone around the corner were about to condemn him for a simple human weakness, takes one last look at the sign — on a chilly autumn evening, the name “Heatwave” seems either out of place or more than fitting — and pulls the door open, feeling a strange tingling in his fingertips.
The dark, subdued tones of the interior soothe the eyes after a long day in the sterile white — until the first open bleeding — emergency room, and this is yet another reason why Frank needs this moment of weakness so he doesn’t end up in another white room tomorrow. The few tables along the walls are already taken by couples and groups, but the bar is free, except for a blond woman in glasses, intently sorting through papers in the very corner, and a lanky, curly-haired student at the other end of the bar, shamelessly ogling at the dark-skinned bartender with an intricate braid.
Rhythmic female pop music plays from the speakers on either side of the bar; the patrons are surprisingly calm, and Frank decides to give this place a chance, sinking into a barstool not far from the woman with the papers — despite his terrible shift, today he’s kind enough not to interfere with the student’s love life. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a appraising gaze directed at him over the glasses, and quickly buries himself in the menu lying on the counter in front of him. Whatever rating he might have received based on that gaze, Frank hopes it’s low enough that he won’t have to deal with unwanted conversations and innuendo, but the woman apparently isn’t interested in him at all, for a single glance is enough for her to return to her papers.
The thin menu pleasantly surprises with its prices, but is a bit daunting with its variety of drinks; Frank’s expertise in alcohol ends at “picking up a can of beer at the store and hoping it tastes okay.”
“Where shall we start today?” A second bartender leans his elbows on the bar from the other side, causing Frank to flinch in surprise. He looks up: a thin smirk, making no attempt to appear sales-y; a short-trimmed dark goatee and slightly narrowed eyes, which a moment later drop to the menu as if the bartender doesn’t know it inside and out. This posture barely maintains a socially acceptable distance between them, and Frank even feels slightly flustered, looking away. He’d seen draft beer on the menu, so he could just order a glass to play it safe, and...
“Dealer's choice,” he hears himself say, and immediately stops short. The bartender raises one eyebrow with an amused smirk, but stands up straight to take his order. Frank feels so awkward he wants to move further away from the bar.
The track that had been playing ends, and a moment later, the speaker above him begins to play the clicks of the beat over a simple synth and sultry female vocals — something he’d heard coming from every corner about five years ago.
“Jesse, are we changing the record today? Or will I know Ariana’s entire repertoire by heart by the end of the shift?” The woman with the papers says discontentedly, looking up at the bartender, who’s already bobbing his head to the beat. Jesse, Frank repeats to himself for some reason.
“Donnie’s on the music today — nothing I can do about it, ma'am,” the bartender sets down the bottle so he can raise both hands in front of her. The woman looks at him skeptically over the glasses. “Be thankful you’re not on shift with Mateo,” Jesse leans with one hand on the bar in front of her, but for some reason his eyes drift back to Frank. “Otherwise, we’d be listening to old reggaeton all night.”
Frank smiles tentatively at the joke, and Jesse seems pleased by it as he gets back to work.
Meanwhile, a new character enters the scene: a young waitress with two neat braids and charming doe-like eyes sets her empty tray down on the counter next to the papers, letting out a sigh. The woman’s attention shifts to her.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” she asks the girl with motherly concern and smiles warmly when the waitress gives a modest nod. “Is everyone behaving themselves?”
“Of course, Miss Evans,” the girl confirms, while Frank concludes that the woman with glasses is some sort of manager for the two of them. The waitress turns her gaze to Jesse. “I actually like the music,” she says gently, as if he were the one who’d chosen the playlist. He just shrugs without turning around. The waitress, who is short, efficiently climbs onto the barstool next to the woman and stares at the new guest with wide eyes. Frank, embarrassed by this, feels the urge to divert her attention.
“And what kind of music would you put on?” he asks, addressing Jesse with feigned nonchalance in his voice, and it works: the girl perks up and turns her gaze to him, waiting for an answer.
“What do you fancy, pretty boy?” Jesse says with a charming smile as he sets a shot glass filled with a cocktail of three neat layers in front of him and almost leaning in as he looks into his eyes with a mischievous squint. “Shall we set light it up?”
The waitress giggles, and the woman in glasses smiles subtly as well, raising an eyebrow. Frank is taken aback, freezing with his mouth slightly open.
“I’ll pass on the extreme stuff tonight,” he manages to say, and, as if to prove his point, downs the shot in one gulp. The sweet liquors slide thickly down his throat; his head spins slightly, and Frank feels the urge to exhale through his nose as the empty shot glass lands on the bar.
“This is going to be a smashing evening,” Jesse smirks, almost smugly, as he clears the shot glass away.
Frank doesn't feel drunk in the usual sense of the word, but something is happening to him.
As the bar fills up with people, the staff springs into action: Emma, the waitress with doe-like eyes, hurries back and forth between the tables and the kitchen; the manager keeps putting down her paperwork to help her; and the second bartender — Donnie — pops over to their side of the bar every now and then, though most of the time he prefers to entertain his student and new guests on his own side.
Jesse perks up too, beaming at everyone, but his movements still seem surprisingly relaxed and natural — or so it seems to Frank, who time and again catches himself staring at the bartender for too long. He glides among the guests on the other bar stools, carrying glasses, cracking short jokes, and even shaking hands with the regulars, but in between orders, for some reason, he keeps coming back to Frank, entertaining him with “dealer's choice” shots and liqueurs. Frank obediently drinks what’s offered, feeling strangely self-conscious under the Jesse’s intense gaze and smug grins, and can’t figure out whether the bartender is chatting with him to get him drunk or getting him drunk so he can keep chatting.
“A doctor?” Jesse asks during one of these breaks, glancing at his dark scrubs. For some reason, Frank also looks down at it, as if something about it might have changed in the meantime.
“Guilty as charged,” he jokes, and, to avoid making eye contact, stares at the earring in Jesse’s ear instead — a stud with the first letter of his name. What a funny absurdity.
“Doctors should know better than anyone about the dangers of alcohol, shouldn’t they?” Of course. And also about the dangers of awkward flirting and exchanging glances with a flirty bartender instead of getting a good night’s sleep at home.
“Looks like I don’t have a choice here,” Frank says with a wry smile, pointing to the full shot glass in front of him, and Jesse laughs heartily—for the first time tonight. Oh, he’s going crazy, staring at that broad smile longer than he should.
The next second, Jesse leans his elbows on the bar again, lowering himself to Frank’s eye level, and Frank thinks he must be imagining things when he sees a slow, appraising gaze shamelessly sliding down his body from top to bottom. The pause in the conversation demands to be broken by a word or a gesture, but Frank can only manage to stare blankly at the movement of those light eyes and swallow hard.
One of the guests calls over the bartender to place another order, and the spell is broken. Jesse gives him one last smirk and goes back to work. Frank lets his head fall onto the bar, shutting his eyes tight: he needs a break before he does something really stupid.
Frank awkwardly slides off the barstool toward the restroom, feeling his legs remain surprisingly steady considering how much he’s drunk; seems like only his consciousness is failing him. He takes another weak-willed glance at Jesse, who is already busy with another drink, and resolutely heads toward the dark door in the corner of the room, nearly knocking over little Emma with her tray full of dirty dishes along the way.
The restroom turns out to be surprisingly clean, especially for a bar — or so it seems because of the garish purple lighting, in which it’s hard to make out even the color of your own skin; in any case, you can take a step to the side without fear of stepping in some bodily fluid, and that’s enough for Frank right now. He leans his hands on the sink in the far corner and looks up at the mirror in front of him, barely recognizing his own face with its unfocused, darkening gaze in the reflection. Hoping it will help clear the confusion in his head, he turns on the water to freshen up, but in the end he remains just as lost as before — only now he’s wet as well.
Never before in his life had Frank faced any kind of sexuality crisis: he simply liked girls — beautiful, gentle, wearing skirts, with bright lipstick and soft voices. Of course, it had happened before that one of his patients would try to flirt with him right from their hospital bed; there was even a student who spent his entire internship staring at Frank with wide eyes and, on the last day, came to him with a confession — but none of that had ever stirred any particular feelings in him. And all of this just so that he would find himself in the restroom of a small bar near work, his face wet from water and his heart skipping a beat from the casual flirtation of the handsome bartender on the other side of the bar.
As if to top it all off, at that very moment the door swings open, forcing Frank to straighten up abruptly over the sink, and Jesse walks into the restroom, stopping nonchalantly at one of the sinks on the far end. Frank freezes, staring at him in shock.
“Everything okay?” Jesse asks casually, turning on the faucet to rinse his hands and tilting his head slightly toward Frank with a smirk. Frank quickly snaps out of it, realizing he’s been staring at him in silence for too long, as if he were the eighth wonder of the world — and it’s obvious.
“Now, yes,” he exhales, stretching his lips into a smile, and belatedly realizes how that sounded. Well, maybe he is drunk after all — otherwise, what the fuck was that.
Jesse turns off the water with a chuckle and suddenly heads toward him, stopping a step away to pull a couple of paper towels from the dispenser hanging on the wall behind him; Frank is utterly at a loss to make sense of what’s happening — Jesse's hand, in the most casual of gestures, seems to brush against his shoulder twice, as if by accident, while on the opposite wall, much closer to where Jesse had been standing, hangs an identical dispenser.
“Feeling sick?” Jesse asks, almost solicitously, but Frank can think of nothing but their indecent closeness and the way Jesse looms over him—even though he’s never complained about his height.
“No, just taking a breather…” Jesse cuts off his flustered rambling, unceremoniously pushing Frank against the wall and bracing himself against it with one hand so he can use the other to lift his face by the chin in a commanding gesture and lean in to kiss his parted lips.
Frank’s eyes widen; he lets out a stifled, shocked sound, yet he can’t muster even a shred of resistance, especially when he feels a faint smirk on his lips. He leans forward tentatively, resting his palms on the other’s shoulders, and it’s as if Jesse has been waiting for just this: the hand on his chin slides to the back of his head, pulling him even closer, while the other — leaving them both without the support of the wall — slides down to his thigh, as if casually slipping a couple of centimeters beneath the loose hem of his dark scrubs.
The kiss deepens once Jesse meets no resistance, and all Frank can do is try not to fall behind and not moan from how much he’s enjoying it. His whole life, even with the most forward and bold girls, he was always the one in charge; he was always the one to take the initiative, guide things, and nudge them along. Now, finding himself in the opposite role, Frank realizes exactly what he’s been missing — melting under someone else’s touch and trembling slightly with anticipation of what’s to come.
Meanwhile, the hand on his thigh gradually moves higher and higher; cool fingers are now fully resting on his belly, and Frank allows himself to let out a single plaintive sound right into the kiss, for he no longer has the strength to cling to what remains of his dignity. His head is spinning—whether from the alcohol he’s drunk or from lust, he can’t tell: he feels his pants getting tighter, but makes no move to do anything about it; instead, he frantically draws in precious air through his mouth, pulling away a millimeter from the Jesse’s lips, and runs his fingers through his light hair. Frank had noticed those stylish curls — a shade indistinguishable in this light — a few drinks ago, and ever since then he hadn’t stopped wondering what they would feel like to the touch: lovingly styled, with the strands on top slightly stiff from hairspray or wax or something like that, but at the roots and the nape of the neck they seem soft and delicate — if he isn’t already hallucinating. He’ll probably ruin the bartender’s presentable hairstyle, but Frank feels no guilt about it.
It seems like someone is coming in or peeking into the restroom; the door slams shut, briefly letting in the music from the hall, but he doesn’t care anymore — let the entire staff of his ER, with Robby at the helm, come in; let his parents watch, or even God himself, because a tongue with a metal ball piercing is insistently sliding into his mouth, and Frank wants to whimper. Jesse is covered in metal — a gold-plated stud in his ear, a ring on the side of his nose, a ball in his tongue — and it can’t help but stir up a strange thrill: where else?
Frank is gasping for air, unable to tear himself away from the kiss; he clutches strands of hair between his fingers and, shamelessly and without even realizing it, rubs himself against him, for his mind is consumed by lust. Whatever happens next — even if it’s right here in this bar restroom — he’s up for anything, as long as it’s with Jesse. He wants more, he wants it to go on and on, so he’ll be late for his shift in the morning but he'll show up very satisfied.
Instead of continuing, however, Jesse pulls away slightly, breaking the kiss but keeping his hands where they are. Frank, breathing heavily through his slightly parted lips, leans forward in confusion, but never gets another kiss.
“I’m at work, pretty boy,” Jesse says with a broad smile, stepping back completely, as if nothing had just happened. Frank blinks in astonishment as he watches him casually fix his hair in the mirror and, finally, lightly taps his nose with one finger before walking back into the room as if nothing had happened.
knockout.
Left alone, Frank freezes against the same wall: his brain, flooded with alcohol, lust, and unexpected attention, short-circuits. For a moment, he feels cheated, standing in the bright purple restroom with lips wet with saliva, scrubs hiked up on one side, and semi hard-on — even though just a minute — five minutes, half an hour? an hour? — ago, he had absolutely no expectations whatsoever regarding the charming bartender.
Frank slowly straightens his scrubs, still not fully realizing what just happened, and glances at the mirror: he has never seen himself so overcome by passion and so bereft of all common sense. He gives himself a second to reset, closing his eyes and swallowing hard, but it doesn’t help. A thick fog clouds his mind, and even now, when the skin where those hands had unceremoniously slid and pulled has cooled without a touch, Frank feels an aching, unbearable urge to return to the bar for at least one more kiss.
He finally pulls himself away from the wall, swallows hard — it’s not just your saliva in your mouth now — and timidly steps out into the hall, lingering longer than necessary before pushing the door open.
The bar is still bustling, the city’s nightlife in full swing; while he was gone, the bar counter has filled with new patrons, and even the spot where his backpack lies forlornly is now occupied by someone else — a pretty good sign that Frank shouldn’t stay here any longer than he already has. He stop hesitantly just short of the bar and only feels more flustered when Jesse notices him and smiles again before turning away to continue working on an order. It’s probably only through incredible willpower that he forces himself to move and finally grab his bag to go home, tail between his legs in shame, for all his courage and confidence evaporated in an instant under a single flirty glance cast his way in passing.
The manager notices his movements and promptly walks over to the register to ring up the check. Frank pays for the drinks without looking at the total, halt-heartedly answers some standard question, and even with the receipt already in his hands, continues to stand there as if something else is about to happen.
Frank listens for just a moment to yet another song by some other pop diva blaring from the speakers before hesitantly reaching into his scrubs pocket for the pen he’d left there after his shift. Without giving himself time to change his mind, Frank pulls a napkin from the holder on the counter and, hurriedly, trying not to tear the thin paper, scribbles his phone number on it: eleven uneven, small digits and enough empty space left to consider adding his name, but instead he signs the napkin “pretty boy.” He grimaces at the vulgarity of what he’s written, but still moves closer to the counter, just enough to be sure he’s noticed, without getting in other people’s way or drawing unnecessary attention. Jesse stops next to him, raises his eyebrows, clearly amused, and seems to be waiting to hear something; Frank, instead, simply hands him his embarassing note, avoiding eye contact, and hopes he’ll understand without words. A bashful flush spreads across his cheeks.
Jesse grins even wider, but takes the napkin — cool fingers brush against his own, and Frank shivers slightly — and even casually slips it into his jeans pocket.
“Jesse, for God’s sake,” — that gesture didn’t go unnoticed by the strict manager — “if I catch you on shift with a man one more time, I’ll cut off whatever’s getting in the way of your work — take my word for it!”
The second bartender snorts, glancing back at his heartthrob colleague; Emma is intently distracted from her conversation with the Asian girl in glasses. Jesse throws his hands up as if conceding defeat, though not a shred of remorse shows on his sly face, while Frank himself feels a shameful flush spreading all the way down to his neck. It seems as though every single person in this bar now knows what just happened in the restroom — and what yesterday’s staunchly straight man is thinking about it, still clutching the pen with which he wrote his number on a bar napkin like a full-blown flirt. He slings his backpack over one shoulder and hurries to make a retreat before he does something else really stupid.
The manager’s irritated remark echoes in his head again, and Frank can’t help but wonder how many other pretty boys the flirtatious bartender had already picked up before him — and whether this was all part of a plan to get a good tip or a positive review on Yelp.
Fired up by alcohol and shame, Frank immediately shivers the moment he steps outside — it had grown noticeably colder during his time in the bar — but he doesn’t hurry home. Instead, standing a step away from the entrance, he closes his eyes and exhales briefly. He absolutely needs to clear his head. However, in the cold wind that chills him to the bone, instead of a miraculous clarity of mind, he feels only a wave of fatigue pressing him down to the ground. He should have gone home right after his shift.
The phone vibrates briefly in his pocket. Frank opens his eyes in annoyance and reaches for it to see who it is and what they want from him at such an ungodly hour.
One new message from an unknown number.
come back again ;)🍸
Frank stares at the message, dumbfounded. His finger hovers between the lines “Add New Contact” and “Block.”
He's in deep trouble.