Note: Title inspired by 'Lost my heart in Republic City'.
Lost my pants in Republic City
The clock read well past midnight when the phone down in the corridor rang, Mako glanced over the top of the tattered book he was reading and contemplated wether he should go answer it. He was already fighting to stay awake as he was waiting up for Bolin to drag his sorry ass home, it wasn't quite closing time at the bars yet so he still had a while before he needed to go into full panic mode. Still, it would probably be rude not to answer.
Putting his book down on the table Mako forced himself to rise from the couch and made his way downstairs with heavy steps. "I'm coming! I'm coming, geeze…" He growled down at the phone the end of the corridor despite not yet answering it. After ringing for what seemed like the hundredth time Mako picked up and answered, "Hel-"
"Maaaaakooooo!" A familiar voice on the other end whined and cracked.
Mako tried to calm the sobbing voice down and asked what was going on. A moment later he hung up the phone, ran upstairs to throw his outerwear on as quickly as possible and left the arena running into the chill of the night and into the streets of Republic City.
The streets were fairly silent that night, the only sounds were distant cars cracking along the main roads and the occasional shouting too far away to understand. Mako's destination wasn't too far off from the arena, but enough that the smell of the ocean was soon overtaken by that of smoke and rot from whatever lay in the gutters. The back alley he took as a short cut quickly went from complete darkness to being lit up by the obnoxious glow of neon signs, with the lights came the murmur of music behind closed tavern doors and people stumbling over their words as they tripped out the front doors in a stupor.
Knowing that he was now in the correct general area, Mako made his way to the nearest phone booth figuring that's where his late night screaming phone call would be. A little ways down from a place called 'Lotus Explosion' sat a figure near a phone booth, shivering under a streetlamp and snivelling to himself. Mako breathed out an exasperated sigh and approached.
Sitting hunched over on the curb with his head down was Bolin, minus his pants and one of his shoes. His normally well kept dark hair was a mess, his jacket was ripped open, all he had left to protect his dignity were his patched up boxers. Mako slowed his walk and lowered himself down to his brothers level, Bolin noticed him and his head snapped up. He had the beginnings of a glorious black eye and some blood dried to his lower lip but he was otherwise intact. Pabu was draped over his shoulders, asleep.
"Oh my- Mako!" Bolin blurted throwing his arms up and hugging his brother, he sobbed heavily into his shoulder much to Mako's disgust. He'd just gotten his coat cleaned (not cheap) and now it was getting smeared in snot, blood and tears. Mako caught a whiff of something over the stench of the alcohol, the district scent of vomit. So there was probably some of that ground into his shoulder now too.
Mako made a disgusted face and gently shoved his dripping brother off his shoulder. "What happened?" It seemed like the obvious thing to ask, and he was expecting some long drawn out story but instead Bolin sniffled and just shrugged. Mako narrowed his eyes disapprovingly, "you're kidding, right?"
Shaking his head, Bolin poked at the swelling tissue around his eye. "No, I blacked out. I blacked out and my pants were gone. But I think a dragon ate my shoe."
Mako looked up and down the sidewalk, there were no stray pants lying around amongst the sidewalk litter. Okay, so maybe he was telling the truth. "Do you remember where you woke up at least?"
"On the sidewalk." Bolin replied, his eye nearly swollen shut by now quickly becoming a deep purplish red.
"…wonderful." Mako could just tell that this was going to be an adventure.
Mako decided that the best place to start looking for Bolin's things would be the closest bar, closing time was fast approaching so he didn't have much time to get to the bottom of this. To keep up his pace Mako made Bolin agree to stay behind on bench next to the phone booth he'd used to call him earlier, at least if he stayed in one spot he couldn't get in anymore trouble or lose anymore clothes.
The flashing neon sign read 'Dragon Breath', the inside of the bar was thick with smoke as the dwindling late night patrons downed their last round of drinks. Mako found a sure sign that Bolin had been there, he found his missing shoe kicked just under an unoccupied table (and not in the belly of a dragon). Grabbing it Mako flung it over his shoulder and approached the female bartender. She wore her dark hair in two tight buns and wore a red apron that matched her lipstick, she was drying off shot glasses when he walked up to her.
"Excuse me, could you help me?"
The bartender raised an eyebrow at him, "last call was 10 minutes ago bud. Sorry."
"Oh, oh not I'm not looking for drinks. But, my brother was in here earlier. I'm trying to figure out what happened to him tonight." Mako held up the shoe, the bartender's face cracked into an amused smirk.
"Heh, yeah that guy." She replied with a snort and put down her dish cloth. "I was right here when he stumbled in, no pants, reeking like the bottom of a moonshine still. Buddy starts yelling asking if anyone has seen his pants. Minute later he just falls over and some little red rat he had with him tried to drag him out by his foot. Probably how his shoe came off? Anyhow, one of my co-workers almost tripped over him so they just put him outside figuring the cops would find him and stick him in the drunk tank or something. I mean, he wasn't hurting anyone or being violent but we couldn't have some random body lying in the middle of our establishment. You know what I mean?" She clicked her tongue a few times, shook her head.
Mako nodded, at least that explained the missing shoe. "You don't happen to know which direction he walked in from, do you?"
The bartender bit her bottom him. "Well, I never saw him come in but I would think he came from The Apple Blossom, the other bar just down the road is doing some renovations so it's probably closed. Plus, he kinda smelled like some of their flaming apple water."
Nodding Mako thanked her, turned quickly and left. Bolin was still on the bench where he had left him, still sitting up but as Mako got closer it looked like he'd fallen asleep. Not wanting to disturb him Mako placed the shoe on the bench next to him and ran off in the direction of The Apple Blossom. When he got there a few minutes later the sign was just being turned off, he didn't want to drag home Bolin pants-less though and rapped on the glass door. The bartenders inside mouthed that they were closed, Mako threw his hands up in frustration and motioned for one of them to come over.
A short male bartender with dark eyes and a blue shirt unlocked the door for a moment and snarled at him, "we're closed kid. Go home."
"No no! Wait! Wait a sec, I just want to ask a question." Mako jammed his knee between the door and frame to keep it from slamming in his face, the bartender didn't look very pleased. "Look, I think my brother may have been here earlier. I found him sitting on the sidewalk a few blocks over with a black eye and no pants, I just want to know what happened to him."
The bartender's face went from a frown to a look of surprise, he opened the door enough for Mako to step in and motioned his head over to the serving station. "Ask Mia, she had to deal with some clown tonight. She did mention something about pants."
Mako thanked the male bartender and briskly walked in towards he girl he assumed was Mia, she was rearranging bottles at the back of the serving area as he approached. "Pardon me? Are you Mia?" He asked hesitantly, she paused when she heard his voice and slowly turned. She was rather young looking with blue eyes and an upturned nose, she gave Mako the once over when her eyes met him.
"Can I help you? Who let you in?" There was some skepticism in her voice, Mia glanced at her co-workers wondering who let him in after lock up.
"Sorry, I don't mean to bother you during closing but I think my brother was in here earlier. Sort of a short, stocky guy with dark hair, probably had a fire ferret with him."
Mia's face lit up, "oh! Oh yeah, that guy was totally here! Bad singer though…"
Mako raised an eyebrow, he didn't see how the singing was relevant. "Well, when I found him his pants were missing-"
"Wait!" Mia shouted holding her hands up, she disappeared under the bar for a moment and reappeared with Bolin's pants. "Sorry, uh well there was puke on them and I didn't want him walking home like that…guess he left before I could give them back though…"
Mako folded the pants and stuck them under his arm, "I'm almost afraid to ask but I probably should…what happened exactly?"
Mia let out a sigh and pointed to a small stage like area at the back of the bar as she launched into her tale,"well we had a really awesome piano player in here tonight. Things were starting to get a little wild, there were some guys getting on the platform that started dancing and singing. I guess your brother decided to join in, but he must have tripped or got knocked off. I didn't really see how it happened, but I think his face hit a table, his eye was kinda puffy and his lip was already split when I saw him. Anyhow, our security guy didn't want some schmuck sitting in here bawling like a baby so he was leading your brother out when he just started power puking on the spot. Like, REALLY puking, loud, everywhere! It was all over his pants and I felt really horrible for him so I convinced the security guy to let him stay." She paused for a moment in the middle of her retelling to catch a breath, Mako followed her hands as she pointed to the front of the bar and continued her story. "Anyhow, your brother was babbling on about how sorry he was when one of my co-workers started cleaning up the vomit. He even attempted to help, but I led him away and took him to the staff washroom. I got him to take his pants off so I could try and clean them and he insisted on waiting outside to get some fresh air. But I guess he must have wandered off when I was cleaning them because he was gone by the time I was done."
Not knowing quite how to respond, Mako blinked hard a few times trying to digest the story he had just been told. "I am so sorry." These were the only words he felt were appropriate to say, this girl and her co-workers had not only dealt with how big of a baby his brother could be but they had also found themselves practically elbow deep in his stomach contents.
A laugh escaped Mia's lips, "don't be! Stuff like that happens here all the time, you kind of expect it when you work in this kind of a place. We get people puking in here all the time, sometimes we even catch some horizontal mambo in the bathroom!"
Mako offered Mia the bartender a few yuans for her troubles but she refused them, he apologized a few more times to Mia and her co-workers before finally leaving The Apple Blossom with the no longer missing pants. Bolin was thankfully still asleep on the bench by the time he made it back, Pabu was now awake and he jumped onto Mako with a squeak as he walked up and threw the slightly damp pants over the back of the bench.
Poking his brother in the face he slowly got him to wake up from his alcohol induced slumber, Bolin mumbled something about being attacked by turtleducks. Mako noted that he smelled even worse now, what he now assumed was flaming apple water stung at his nose.
"Hey, guess what? I found your stuff, you lucky bastard."
"…you did? Oh, okay." Bolin replied with a sloppy grin, his one good eye barely opened and the other one now looking like a plum.
It took some more bothering and a good fifteen minutes of coercing but Mako finally got Bolin back into his pants, yanked his shoe on and started leading him home. Bolin kept complaining about how cold out it was, about his pants being damp and his eye hurting. After a few blocks he said he needed to sit down, so they both took a seat on the sidewalk. Bolin was squinting up at some streetlights when he asked what the heck happened to him, Mako just told him he would tell him in the morning. With the hangover Bolin was sure to have, that would be another adventure.