Prompt: Daisy is drunk and decides to serenade her rather attractive neighbor
Daisy threw her head back as she took another shot. She felt the alcohol burning down her throat, felt it come back up a little, too. Only for a second, though. It was quickly washed down by a second shot.
"Slow down, you'll puke or something!" said Jemma, giggling. Daisy knew that if this were during the more serious hours of the day, Jemma might be speaking sternly, with a hand on Daisy's arm and a touch of worry to her voice. But this was the night, the wild hours in which everyone seemed to relax their control a bit.
And their sobriety, Daisy thought amusingly as she took note of Jemma's flushed cheeks and empty glass.
She was starting to feel the effects as well, her mind becoming muddled and words slightly slurred. At least she could still say the alphabet backwards.
"Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T –"
"What're you doing?" Jemma asked offhandedly.
"Alphabet. I wanna practice so that later if we get checked out while we're driving I can prove that I'm not drunk."
"Two things," Jemma said, hiccuping. "First, we are drunk and I think they'll use that breathing thingy anyways to find that out, so the alphabet will hardly help much. Second, we didn't drive here and we're not planning to get in a car at any point tonight."
"Right," Daisy said firmly. Maybe the alcohol was effecting her a little more than she'd like to admit.
A smile twitched on Jemma's lips.
"You wanna hit another bar? This one's kinda boring." Daisy asked.
"Okay," her friend answered, downing her drink. Daisy hopped off the bar stool and immediately fell forwards into someone else. The person caught her and pulled her up straight again. Daisy blinked hard and then looked up at the stranger.
"Whoa. You're pretty," she said to the slightly amused man in front of her, as she swayed just a tad.
Jemma slung an arm around her shoulder.
"Daisy, we need to go before you fall into another handsome stranger's arms."
"Why is that a bad thing again? And wait, I wanna talk to the pretty man –" Daisy turned around and he was gone. Jemma raised her eyebrows.
"He's gone, problem solved. And you know, there are other pretty men out there."
"I know," Daisy said, halfheartedly gesturing towards the rest of the bar. "Out there, I know there are more." She went quiet for a minute as Jemma steered her out the door.
Then, once they were walking on the sidewalk again, quite loudly and abruptly she started, "You know who's nice-looking? The guy in my apartment building."
"Which guy?" Jemma asked with a confused look on her face. "The one with the dark hair and broad shoulders?"
"Exactly. I think his name's Grayson, or something." Daisy racked her brain hard, but for some reason right now her brain wasn't responding as quick as she would have liked. "Grayson, Graham. Something like – Grant!"
"There we go!" Jemma said while Daisy beamed. "But you should talk to him or something. Ask him out."
"No way. Terrible idea."
"Whatever suits you, but the worst thing he could say is no."
"He could always say 'I just killed your entire family last night and now you're next'." Jemma thoughtfully nodded.
"He could, but that's a tad unlikely to happen and anyways, he won't want to kill you if you're charming enough."
"Which I am."
"Which you could be."
"I'm sorry, do you not think I could woo hot guy Grant with my own feminine wiles?"
"Not if you use phrases like 'woo' or 'feminine wiles'."
Daisy sighed.
"Okay, fine. But I'd need to do something super crazy cool to get him to like me immediately and not murder me or my family."
"Maybe sit on the problem for a while, you're bound to come up with something good."
"Yeah, I guess."
At approximately 6 bars and a whole lot of drinks later, Daisy slammed a shot down on the counter for maybe the millionth time, and burst out a somewhat slurred version of, "I've got it!"
"Got what?" asked a very loud Jemma. Daisy winced.
"Why are you yelling."
"I don't know, you seemed excited and I've always felt that excited is something of the loud sort." Jemma shouted the last two words.
Daisy shrugged and continued.
"I know how to woo Graham," she said excitedly, throwing her hands out to the side and knocking a glass off the bar counter top. She turned and said a quick, incoherent apology to the bartender and then turned back to Jemma, who looked confused.
"Wasn't it Grayson?"
"Whatever," Daisy made a nonchalant hand wave, "I know what to do."
"What?" Jemma asked, accepting a refill from the slightly peeved-off bartender.
"Have you ever seen Say Anything?"
Jemma frowned.
"You're going to hold a boombox outside his window?"
"Well, yeah. Except I don't have a boombox so I'll just sing, probably. It totally works," she added, seeing Jemma's skeptical expression. "Diane totally fell in love with John Cusack after in the movie, anyways." Jemma rolled her eyes.
"Okay, go for it. I'm gonna stay here and wait for you to call me in tears when Graham doesn't immediately beg you to elope with him."
"You stay here and wait for that phone call, cause it's not coming."
Jemma fumbled quickly in her purse for her phone, then held it up and waved it in front of Daisy's face, then dropped her phone on the floor. When she had finally picked it back up and resurfaced (it seemed that once or twice she had forgotten what she was doing down there on the floor), her friend was gone. As she turned towards the door, she spotted Daisy, who caught her eye, smiled, and waved.
"I won't be calling! See you tomorrow!"
"I'll make sure to keep the ringer on so I make sure I pick up! Wouldn't want you to be without a friend to talk to after you've been rejected!" Jemma yelled across the bar as the door bounced to a shut behind Daisy.
"Rejected," snorted Daisy. "As if."
She threw a hand out over the street, and a cab pulled over to the curb. As she hopped in the back, Daisy yelled her address at the cab driver (who seemed a little disgruntled to say the least). As he took off, she considered that perhaps this neighbor's drunk, singing first impression of herself would not be the best to start off with, but as the cabbie turned the corner wildly, Daisy was forced to wrench open the door to throw up a little on the curb, and the hesitation was wiped from her mind.
Lincoln pressed the button on his remote so hard that he was surprised when nothing cracked. The channel abruptly switched to the Food Network. Guy Fieri's giant, grinning face loomed out at him. Lincoln sighed and went back to the guide.
He was procrastinating. He really shouldn't have been, considering the mountain of work he had to do. And yet, he continued to scroll through channels, picking ones at random to see if he was interested in what was on. He never was, but that didn't stop him looking.
"Work," he reminded himself aloud. "You need to work now, Lincoln."
He didn't listen.
"Work, damn it! You need to get shit done!" Lincoln continued to yell at himself. He also continued to ignore himself.
"Work!"
The two sides of himself that were battling finally seemed to meet in the middle, causing him to halfway get up off the couch (that was the no-procastination-side) then press the button to select a channel so hard and fast that the remote slipped out of his hands and fell onto the floor (that was the pro-procastination-side), hitting the coffee table on the way so that the power button was hit and the TV turned off. He sighed and slumped back onto the couch upside down (with his head near the floor) and stared at the blank TV.
So this is what it's come to, he thought. Literally staring at a blank screen in the early hours of the morning rather than actually doing what you need to.
Lincoln closed his eyes. He could almost feel himself drifting off. It really was very late. Or early, depending on how you look at it.
A thump came from outside.
Lincoln's eyes flew open. He cursed and got up off the couch, walking over to the window. It was completely dark outside, and he couldn't see anything moving. Weird, since he'd definitely heard something that sounded like another living thing out here.
Just as he turned away, he heard another muffled thump and someone swearing loudly. He darted back to the window just in time to see a figure pick themselves up off the ground in front of his apartment building and turn towards his window.
"Gra'm!" It yelled.
Lincoln squinted and leaned further out.
"Graham, I love you!" came from the figure, this time louder than before. "Here, listen!"
Lincoln raised an eyebrow and waited. Whatever was about to happen next, he felt like he half really wanted to see it and half really didn't. The person cleared their throat.
"Hooga-chaka," they began, chanting, "Hooga, hooga, hooga-chaka." Lincoln felt his face twisting into a grin. He decided this was something he wanted to witness.
The person had quit singing for a moment. They were looking at the ground and seemed to be concentrating furiously. After a minute, they looked up again.
"Can't remember the verse, so I'll just cut t' the chorus, is that alright?"
Lincoln gave a thumbs up.
"I – I – I'm – hooked on a feeling – ba bana baaaaaaaam – I'm high on believing – ba bana baaaaaaam – that you are in love with meeeeeeeeeee!"
Lincoln had bit down on his lip to stop from laughing. It appeared whoever was serenading this 'Graham' was attempting to sing the background music as well as the lyrics.
They now bursted out with an "I'm hooked on a feeling! And I'm high on believing! That you are in love with meeeeeeeeeeee!" holding that last note much longer than necessary. Longer than, admittedly, Lincoln thought humanly possible. They began to trail off slowly, becoming quieter and quieter.
"Sorry to interrupt," Lincoln yelled down, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, "but my name isn't Graham."
The person stopped singing and put their hands on their hips.
"S'it Grayson, then?"
"No, it's Lincoln."
The person gave a giggle.
"Kinda like th' president? Is your – um – first name Abraham?" They laughed again. From the way this person was slurring their words and the obvious gaps in their common sense, Lincoln assumed they were pretty drunk.
"No, my first name is Lincoln."
"Oh." They hiccuped. "Then if you aren't Graham or Grayson, why'd you let me waste a whole minute of m'good singing voice? I need it for other important things tonight, you know."
"Sorry, I thought it might be rude to interrupt you while you were – er – on a roll."
"Fair enough," they called back, waving their hand in a 'whatever' kind of way.
Suddenly, they coughed heavily and doubled over. Lincoln's eyebrows creased as he watched carefully. They coughed some more, and then slipped and fell to the ground. They didn't move or seem even alive anymore, really.
"Hey!" Lincoln called down. "Hey, are you okay?"
They didn't respond.
"Shit," said Lincoln, squinting again to try and see if they were showing signs of life. They still didn't move. In a split-second decision, he decided to go downstairs and poke them to see if they were still breathing.
When he exited the building and crossed the lawn in front, he was moving rather quickly and unfortunately tripped in his haste to near the unconscious serenader. He landed right beside them, but they didn't wake up. It was while he was down here, on the ground, that he noticed it wasn't a 'they' but in particular, a 'she'. A pretty one, at that.
He shook his head and pulled himself up, leaning towards the girl's head. Her eyes were closed, but her eyes were shifting underneath the lids and he could see her body shift with each breath. She wasn't waking up anytime soon, however. Whenever he nudged her or shook her or even lightly tapped her face, her eyelids fluttered a bit, but that was the extent of her reaction.
I can't exactly leave her out here, can I, he thought. Maybe she has a phone, I can call a friend or something.
He rolled her over and checked all her pockets, but there was no phone. He sat there and thought for a minute.
Then after again making a split-second decision (much like before), he slipped one arm under her shoulders and one arm under her knees, and lifted her into the air. Lincoln staggered for a minute; carrying a whole other human being was not as easy as action heroes in movies made it look. Then he gathered his strength and began slowly making his way back towards his apartment.
Getting back in was a problem; several times he was forced to let go of her knees and just let her slump against him as he used his free hand to unlock the door or press the elevator button (no way was he going up stairs in this situation).
Once he was back in his apartment, he dropped her on the couch somewhat unceremoniously – his arms were aching.
Lincoln shifted her until he thought she was as comfortable as she could be on a couch in this situation, then pulled a blanket from the closet and draped her in it. He then turned to the pile of papers and books and binders on the table.
Perhaps it was time he got to work, now that the couch was otherwise occupied.
The second Daisy woke up, she could feel the light burning directly through her eyelids and into her brain. She cracked an eye open to see what was so bright and immediately shut it again, because apparently the answer was everything. Daisy threw an arm over her face and groaned.
It was then that she realized she was on a couch.
Not her own couch. Her couch was much less comfortable then this. However, regardless of how comfortable it was, it wasn't hers, and that meant she wasn't at her apartment.
Daisy sat up, ignoring the protest her head and eyes made against this. She rubbed her eyes as she glanced around the apartment she was in.
It was very wide open, with tall windows. There were papers cluttering many different surfaces. Nobody else was here, that she could see. She turned a different direction and leaned over the back of the couch to peer in the bathroom, but the door was closed. No sound was coming from it, anyways.
Daisy's gaze shifted down a few degrees to a glass of water and an Alka-Seltzer on the side table behind her. She left them on the side table and stood up, looking around for her jacket.
She found it strewn across the floor a few feet away. Her phone wasn't in any of the pockets. There wasn't any other phone in the apartment that she could see.
Shit, she thought, beginning to panic. She was in the apartment of someone she didn't know without knowledge of how she got there, and there was no way to contact her friends. Daisy considered all her options.
She could wait for whoever owned this place to show up and try to figure out what happened last night (not a great idea, considering the risks that posed). She could try and go to one of the neighboring apartments and use someone else's phone (again, there's no guarantee that anyone would let her or be home, and in the time it took to find someone, the apartment owner may well have returned).
I could just take my jacket and leave, she thought. Although that brought the added downside of losing her phone, there was no way to know whether it was actually here, or whether she'd just dropped it on the street somewhere at another point in her wild night anyways. After pondering for a few more minutes, she grabbed her jacket off the floor and headed for the door, having conclusively decided to get out of there as soon as possible.
Right as she reached for the door handle, however, it turned by itself and the door began to open. Daisy took a quick step back and fell into a slightly tensed, defensive pose, trying frantically to remember anything the two lone Krav Maga classes she had taken had taught her.
When the door swung all the way open, it revealed a handsome-looking blond man, all smiles, balancing a large brown paper bag and a coffee in his two hands. Daisy relaxed slightly, but kept her distance.
Blondy caught sight of Daisy and smiled.
"You're up! That's good, I thought you'd never wake up, honestly. You slept like a brick, considering how many times I accidentally dropped something during the night," he told her, sliding around her towards the table.
"Who are you? How did I get here?" Daisy demanded.
He raised an eyebrow, placing the bag and the coffee on the table.
"You don't remember anything?"
"For the purposes of this conversation, let's say no."
"That makes sense. You were pretty blackout drunk."
Some of it was returning to Daisy now. She had been out drinking, with Jemma.
"Shit. Jemma," she muttered. It occurred to her that Jemma would definitely be very worried.
"Who's Jemma?" he asked curiously.
"None of your business. Why am I here?"
Blondy grinned.
"Do you happen to know anyone named Graham, by the way? Or Grayson, maybe?"
"Graham? No. Grayson? Still no."
"Well, that confuses things a bit. You know, considering you were trying to serenade him last night." Blondy's grin got bigger. "And you can calm down, I'm not going to hurt you. You just passed out on my lawn and I couldn't find a phone on you to call anyone, so I just thought I'd lend you my couch until you woke up. Figured you could call a friend or something once you woke up."
Well, that rules out the idea that he took my phone. It was gone when I – wait, her thoughts cut off as she turned to him again.
"I serenaded you?" she asked, desperately trying to remember while sinking onto his couch.
"Yup."
"Was I any good?" she questioned thoughtfully.
"Well, most of your words were slurred, but I thought it was certainly innovative how you somehow tried to sing the words and the music simultaneously."
Daisy pressed a hand to her forehead. Her headache seemed to have rushed back in full force now that she knew she wasn't about to be murdered. She turned to the Alka-Seltzer on the side table and dunked it in the glass of water.
"I'm incredibly sorry."
"Don't be, it made for an interesting night."
"You asked if I knew someone named Graham?"
"Yeah, that's who you thought I was, apparently. Or Grayson. You didn't quite have the name down."
"I don't know a Graham or a Grayson, I – oh. Grant, probably."
"Who's Grant?"
Daisy picked up the glass that had now dissolved the tablet and took a huge gulp.
"My neighbor."
"Just your neighbor?" he asked, with an edge to his voice.
"Yeah. I'm not sure why I thought serenading him would be the best possible method of seduction. Actually," she wondered, "I'm not sure why I thought seduction was a good idea in the first place. He's kind of rude to people, and he cuts his hair funny."
"Well then, perhaps it's for the best that you came to my window instead." the blond said, slightly more cheerful after she'd answered the last question.
"Yeah – listen, can I call my friend? She's the worrisome type."
"Sure," he answered, tossing her his phone.
When Jemma picked up, it was with an apprehensive tone.
"Hello?"
"Hi, it's me."
"Daisy! Oh my god, are you okay?You haven't picked up your phone all night –"
"Yeah, I lost it."
"– I haven't heard from you since you left from the bar last night, and you weren't at your apartment this morning –"
"I'm somewhere else, I'm fine."
"Where are you calling from? I'll come pick you up. Is it a payphone? Oh god, Daisy, did you sleep in a bathroom or something?"
'No, I slept in someone's house, on their couch, it's fine –"
"Whose house?"
"Uh – I think –" Daisy glanced up at the guy, who pulled a bagel out of the brown paper bag and offered it to her, his eyebrows raised.
Her memories of the night before were beginning to drift back into her head, slowly.
"I think his name's Lincoln," she said with finality as she accepted the bagel from him.
"You think? You don't even know for sure?"
"Well, you could say that it's instinct. A feeling, maybe."
Lincoln paused at the table, listening.
"A feeling?"
"Yeah, I'd say I'm hooked on a feeling." She grinned at him.
He grinned back.