Hold My Liquor
By S. Faith, © 2012
Words: 2,014
Rating: M / R
Summary: Just how much liquor can Bridget actually hold?
Disclaimer: Aren't my characters.
Notes: Heh, this was silly. And it was fun writing Mark this way.
She awoke to a relentless pounding, the sort that felt like someone would break through the flat wall at any moment; when she put her hands over her ears, she realised that the sound did not abate. A groan issued from her mouth and she pulled the duvet up and over her head. "Never. Drinking. Again."
To her surprise, the duvet retracted seemingly of its own accord. She opened her eyes; the light was like nails being pounded into her skull. She needn't have bothered incurring the pain. It was the only person it could have been, given the circumstances, and she hardly needed to see him looking so bloody smug.
"Good morning, merry sunshine," he said; rather, his voice drove like a jackhammer into her ear.
"Shh," she whispered, throwing her arm over her eyes before yanking the duvet up again.
"I'm hardly shouting, darling." She wanted to throttle the self-satisfied tone out of his voice. "Would you prefer not to take some Nurofen?"
Despite the inevitable pain it was going to cause, she threw the duvet back again, opened her eyes, and pushed herself upright, holding her hands out for the pills and the glass of water.
"Ask nicely?" he commanded.
"Please, Mark, please," she said, thinking, Please stop being a bastard prick. He handed her the proffered pills and a tall glass of water, which she gulped down so quickly it felt like ice was filling the empty spaces in her head. Once they were down the hatch, she fell back to her pillow and pulled the duvet up again, sighing. It was a matter of waiting now for blessed relief.
"Do you have any idea how much you drank last night?" he asked in his typical superior, snooty manner. He's lucky he's a killer shag, she thought. "Well? Have you?"
"I wasn't exactly counting," she muttered. "Go away and let me sleep."
He chuckled. "Oh, no, darling. I can't let you do that. After all, two glasses of wine can't possibly warrant this amount of complaint, given how well you say you can hold your liquor." He pulled down the duvet again and began stroking her forehead with his fingertips.
"I must have had more than that."
"I counted, darling." The touch on her skin felt heavenly. "So one of two things is true: you are either a lightweight, or you are greatly exaggerating your hangover for whichever purpose you feel necessary."
"I'm not a lightweight," she muttered petulantly.
He shifted as if he were about to scoot off of the bed. "So you won't mind a bit, then, if I throw wide the curtains and—"
"No!" she cried, reaching out wildly with eyes still closed and digging her fingers into his leg. "Bastard."
He laughed low in his throat, then leaned over to place his lips on hers for a kiss. She decided at once to refuse to participate, but he was very, very persistent and she could not resist reciprocating.
He drew back. She decided to risk opening her eyes. "You're so mean," she said with a pout.
"I'm a blight upon the human rights barrister profession," he said.
Though she did her best to suppress it, she smiled a little. "Yes," she said. "Pinochet aspires to be you."
This made him laugh out loud in a sexy little burst. "Except that he's dead."
"An even better reason to aspire to be you," she said.
Still chuckling a little, he stretched out to lie beside her. "Two-Glass Bridget," he said, bracing himself up on an elbow to gaze down upon her.
"Shurrup," she mumbled, turning to embrace her pillow and bury her face into it.
He leaned over her, ran his hand over her upper arm, and planted a kiss on the back of her head. "Poor darling," he said. "It's not so bad, after all. Think of how much less wine you need to drink to get the same effect as most other people."
"If I didn't feel like my brain was made of shattered glass," she said, "I'd kick you out of my room."
"We're in my room, darling."
"Shut. Up."
He brushed her hair aside and placed a kiss on the back of her exposed neck. "No."
She had no idea if the painkillers had kicked in or if it was this gentle touch, but she realised the pain had subsided substantially; certainly the kiss helped her be less annoyed at his teasing. She turned just far enough to look at him with one eye. He was smiling, and this time it was a smile of tenderness.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Not if you're going to tease me about not drinking as much as you think I should."
"Oh, come now, darling," he said. "I'm not the only one who's observed your drinking prowess isn't as hearty as you believe it to be."
She turned over quickly, risking sloshing the delicate broken splinters in her head. "What? What are you saying?" she demanded. "Who told you I couldn't hold my drink?"
"Oh, Bridget." She prickled at the condescending tone, even if it was only meant in jest. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your friends were the ones who mentioned to me your propensity to brag about holding your drink… but not to worry as it was not as legendary as you made it out to be, and to just…"
"'Just' what?"
He grinned. "Just humour you."
Her mouth fell open. "You bloody bastard traitor," she said. "I am five seconds away from—" She stopped short as his hand migrated across her thigh in a gentle caress. "What are you doing? Are you trying to distract me?"
"Mm-hm," he said in a manner that was far too throatily seductive for her liking.
"Well, stop it," she said, her righteous indignation fizzling as he brushed his fingers over her hip and inner thigh. "It's not working."
"No?" he asked, bending closer, brushing his lips across hers.
She gathered up every ounce of her will and scuttled back and away from him. "No!" she said. "You're not going to seduce your way out of this one."
He was still smiling in a manner that, oddly enough, reminded her of Daniel Cleaver: insouciant and almost a bit arrogant. "Darling, I find it endearing," he said.
"Now you're patronising me," she said.
He pursed his lips; a hint of contrition began to seep into his tone. "Maybe I should just shut up," he said.
"Best idea so far."
She flopped back down to the bed, turned away from him, pulled the duvet over her head, and squeezed her eyes shut.
She stayed like that for many moments. The room around her was silent; so silent, in fact, she began to believe he had left because she couldn't fathom that he would let her have the last word. When she could take it no more, she turned around and found that she was in fact alone. A frustrated sound escaped her. She thought it was their little game; she expected him to stay and try to worm his way back into her good books, like he always did with minor transgressions.
She never expected he'd actually leave the room.
She burrowed her way into the duvet again; when he came back into the room and sat on the bed beside her, she didn't acknowledge him. After a few minutes, she heard distinct sounds of drinking and chewing. Stealthily, she peeked out from under the blankets. He sat there reading the paper with a cup of coffee and a plate upon which sat a chocolate croissant.
"Hey!" she said, pushing herself up. "Where's mine?"
"Oh, you're up," he said coolly. "Last one." He then picked up the chocolate croissant and took an obscenely large bite.
"Mark!" she cried, sounding pathetic to her own ears. "Why are you being like this?"
He chewed, then swallowed, then washed it down with coffee. "Like what, exactly?" he asked, still reading his paper. "You told me to shut up and to stop patronising you, so I did. You'll recall I did offer to bring you coffee, and you only accused that I'd criticise you for it, not that you wanted any." He set the paper down and met her gaze. "I was only doing as you asked, Bridget," he said in a maddeningly level and logical tone. "Perhaps you should say what you mean, and ask for what you want."
She could not think of what to say in response. He was right; she had asked him to be quiet. Still, when had she ever truly wanted him to be quiet and go away?
She kicked aside the duvet. "I think I want to go home."
He did not say anything. In fact, he had resumed reading his paper.
She rose from the bed and put her hands on her hips. "Mark?"
"Hmm?" he asked, looking up at her; only then she realised her silk nightie probably did not exactly have an air of authority about it. He folded the paper and set it aside. "Do you need a ride?"
"Mark!" she shrieked, stamping her foot upon the floor, which was a huge mistake as the shockwave from that action reverberated up through her body and rang her head like a bell.
He only chuckled to himself.
"I'm leaving," she said, "and I'm not coming back!"
"You can't possibly leave without—"
"I mean," she railed on, "suddenly you don't love me anymore because… I'm not really a lush?"
He stared at her as if she were mad, and in that moment she wondered if she were. Then he leaned over towards the nightstand, and when he sat up again he was holding a plate with a pristine chocolate croissant in one hand and another cup of coffee in the other; where he'd had those squirreled away was anyone's guess. "Bridget," he said, "I was going to say you can't leave without eating your breakfast."
She narrowed her eyes. He began to chuckle. He set down the food on the nightstand then rose to go over to her, and held out his arms for a hug, which she did not accept.
"I should kick you where it counts," she said. "Being so mean to me."
"That wasn't my intention," he said. "I was just trying to have a little fun, but you were extra surly this morning. I'm sorry I got carried away."
She regarded him with scrutiny. "I had a headache."
"You had a hangover."
She pulled her lips into a tight line. "You are still treading on dangerous ground, mister," she said. "I am well aware of my acidic state when I woke."
He seemed to think it over. "I'm going to pay for this for some time to come, aren't I?" he asked sheepishly.
She nodded. Then she went over and accepted the hug at last. It did feel good to be in his arms, the warmth of his embrace, made even better when he kissed the top of her head delicately.
"Or, you know," he said quietly, "I could just try to get you drunk to forget it. It'd hardly put a dent in a bottle—"
She pushed him away and onto the bed; however, she was beginning to see the humour in his teasing, possibly because she knew there was a chocolate croissant waiting for her. "Stay right there," she said, "because when I've finished my breakfast I'm going to smother you with a pillow." She reached for her breakfast—by this point, she reasoned, the coffee likely had cooled down to a temperature that humans could tolerate—then went around to her own side of the bed.
Mark turned his head to look at her. "If I stay right here, will you promise to smother me with something else beside a pillow?"
She smirked and bit into her chocolate croissant. After having a sip of her coffee, she said, "Well, I don't know. After all, I have a headache."
The end.