Washington didn't know how he ended up being here at this horrible party.

No, scratch that. He knew exactly why he was here and just whose fault this was. Which didn't mean that he had to understand it.

Sighing, he took a sip of the beer that had been pushed into his hands the moment that he had entered Donut and Doc's house and that he had been nursing since then.

Wandering towards the back of the house to leave through the yard, he thought on how it came to be that he had ended up here at this party.

Living together with North and York to get through college without going bankrupt was mostly a mutual benefits thing. Wash was even allowed to bring his cats with him.

However, the thing was that it mostly was a mutual benefits thing. When he came home from his work on Thursday around ten, he could easily say that he was in trouble when he entered the apartment and found York hovering over him with a smile that wasn't foreboding something good.

"We're invited to a party this Saturday." York announced, Wash not really reacting to the grin and slipping out of his jacket.

"Then have fun, greet Carolina for me." Wash replied, slipping out of his shoes and putting them on the rack besides North's much bigger ones.

"Yeah, and you're coming with us this time, Mr. Crazy-Cat-Lady." York replied, slinging an arm around Wash's shoulders and dragging him over to their couch where North was sitting at his laptop and typing up some of his homework for his class on social working. He was studying this field to help people who had not had such a good start in life as they had.

York was studying mechanics and wanted to become a locksmith, albeit his depth perception was shot since he'd had a car accident and lost his left eye.

Wash was studying to become a veterinarian. His work today had been in an animal shelter where they were teaching him the practical stuff through him helping clearing the animals for adoption, besides the theory that he learned in school.

When Wash was seated between North and York, the former set his laptop down and looked at Wash.

"York's right, Wash. You really need to socialize more."

"I am socializing!" Wash replied with his voice going up an octave, which was something he had never been able to get rid of.

"Spending every free evening off with your cats and a book isn't socializing, Wash." North replied and Wash shut his mouth with an audible click.

Every retort died on his tongue when the eldest of the group put him on the spot. Fucking North and his fucking sixth sense when it came to reading people.

York clapped his hand with a broad grin, "Well then, it's decided. We're going to this party and you are going to join us, Washy."

Wash only sent him a glare at the nickname, but didn't reply vocally. It would be futile anyways since North and York were teaming up against him to get him to join them to go to their party.

Well, it was better that he should join them this time to be off the hook for another few months which he could then spend learning and being with his cats.

Wash sighed. At least it apparently was close to where they lived, so he could go home whenever he wanted, he guessed.

Sitting down on one of the swings outside, Washington took another swig of his beer. Well, he thought that they were close to their home. In the end, they were driving for one and half an hour to reach the house of the couple.

It turned out that Donut and Doc were celebrating their move-in into this house especially since they had always wanted to rent this particular house, perhaps even buying it later on when Doc finished with his medical school and was a full-fledged doctor with a much higher salary.

Donut was a childminder-in-training, often looking after kids during the weekends and the days when he wasn't at school here in their house. It was a nice way to train too.

Obviously, he had organized that none of the kids were around tonight since it was a tad too loud to be comfortable inside and there were more people drunk than sober.

Wash highly suspected that neither York nor North would be driving home tonight. Both were too drunk to drive and obviously too busy flirting with a girl. York with Carolina – what a surprise there –

and North with an unknown black-haired girl that he hadn't seen before. Obviously, she was one of his schoolmates he had some classes with.

And Wash had no license to bring them home, so he obviously was stuck here – fucking peachy.

Well, another night out. He hoped that neither Delta, Theta, nor Epsilon would mind him not being around for an extended amount of time since he had been picked up by his friends at his work just when he was allowed to leave and hadn't been able to go home to check on them since he had left in the morning.

Gently rocking back and forth on the swing, he watched the backyard.

Sometime into the night, he thought he could hear a fox barking. It would be the time of the year again where the animals were making sure their kind wasn't dying out – Spring time. The time he would have the most work outside of Fall.

Tons of kittens and whelps would be getting turned in because the owner hadn't made sure their animals were spayed or neutered and didn't want to deal with the consequences. It always took all of Wash's willpower to not take them all home and nurse them.

… He really was becoming a crazy old cat lady, it seemed.

"Hey cutie-pie, what'cha doing out here alone?" Wash jumped a little bit, turning his head as far as he could without falling off the swing.

He could see a guy around his age, probably a bit younger, walking up to him.

His gait was already a bit insecure and showed that he was far more intoxicated than the blond male was.

The young male came to a stop in front of him and regarded him attentively.

Wash raised an eyebrow at the open staring of the man.

"Dude, you're even hotter up front, although your backside is just as hot. Bow-chicka-bow-wow!" The young male replied with a broad grin, showing off his perfectly white teeth and taking a swig from his bottle.

He swayed dangerously when he tilted his head back a bit to take a bigger gulp of beer. Wash felt like he would have to get up to steady the man so that he wouldn't fall over on his back and possibly break his spine.

"So… You're the quiet one?" The young male said after he finished his bottle and found his footing again. "I don't care," there was another grin splitting his face and Wash knew that there was another joke coming up. "I don't mind you being quiet when you're going to scream down the walls when I'm screwing you over! Bow-chicka-bow-wow!"

Washington didn't know why or how this man managed it, but aside from the annoyance of this man hitting on him so shamelessly – which definitely was because of him being totally drunk – he felt amused and flattered, and was even blushing.

Thanks to it being a New Moon and that there were no lights in his direct vicinity, Wash hoped that the other guy wouldn't see that.

"Usually you're introducing yourself first before you're hitting on them. You know, so people know who they can tell off later." The older male replied dryly, looking at the other male swaying a bit.

"Oh, my bad," the guy replied, although he did not sound sorry at all, "My name is Tucker, Lavernius Tucker. You can call me Tucker, little sweetie."

Although Wash raised an eyebrow at the nicknames that the other man was coming up with, he couldn't help but chuckle when Tucker tried to bow down as some kind of polite action but stumbled forward several steps when he lost his footing.

It was just Wash's luck that the other man stumbled right into him, both of them falling off the swing backwards in a heap of tangled limbs and curses. He felt a sharp pain shooting through the back of his skull — enough to bruise and maybe give a little headache, but not enough for a serious injury.

"Shit!" Tucker cursed against Wash's chest where he found himself after the fall, "You okay, dude?" He asked then, lifting his head to look at the man underneath him, checking to see if the guy really was okay.

"Yeah, it just would be easier to breathe without you crushing me." Wash wheezed out, struggling to get air into his lungs which had been knocked out by Tucker previously.

"Yeah, I know, I am breathtakingly amazing!" Tucker replied with another grin, but started to get up.

Wash only rolled his eyes at that.

Tucker rose to his feet, although he needed to make sure to not fall flat on his nose.

Which was, in the end, why Wash had to hastily get up to his feet to catch Tucker before he could topple over again.

Wash managed to grab Tucker and stop him from falling on his face, but all he could do was grab the dark-skinned man around his midsection.

The unexpected jolt through his stomach caused Tucker to blanch, before his face took up a sickly greenish hue. He almost frantically freed himself from Wash's grip and dashed off to the house.

"Tucker, what is up?! Are you okay?" The blond male was running after the man, entering the house and ignoring the knowing glances and the catcalls of York, North, and the other people currently at the party and still halfway sober enough to realize what had happened.

Following the sounds of someone currently retching his guts out, he soon found the bathroom where Tucker was bent over the toilet bowl and puking.

Kneeling down beside the younger male, he gently gathered Tucker's dreads on the back of his head and kept them there.

"Had a bit too much?" He asked when Tucker's stomach seemed to settle for a bit so he could form a halfway coherent answer.

"Fuck you!" Tucker muttered into the toilet bowl, weakly lifting a hand to show him the finger before again retching into the bowl.

"Yeah, I don't think so right now." Wash replied dryly, keeping Tucker's dreads behind his head with one hand and rubbing soothing circles into Tucker's back while the other man again started retching into the bowl.

The next morning came around and Wash woke up in unfamiliar surroundings with a slight headache pounding behind his eyes. Probably a blend of hitting his head and having had a little bit too much alcohol.

When he tried to sit up he felt a weight pressing down on his chest and a discontented grumble following his action which made him lie down again and keep still.

Opening his eyes, he could see a bunch of black dreads filling his vision, those dreads belonging to the dark-skinned man that he had met last night.

Said man was just about to wake up with a low groan.

"Fuck…" He muttered. "I'm never going to drink again." He grumbled into Wash's shirt.

"Do you say that every time you wake up with a hangover?" He asked with an amused lilt to his voice.

Tucker shot up from his position where he was halfway lying on top of Wash, before he started swaying a bit and pressed a hand against his forehead with a groan.

It took some moments before Tucker seemed to realize what had happened and he looked at Wash with large and round eyes.

"Fuck, dude!" he looked at the blond male now slowly starting to sit up too.

"Nope, that certainly didn't happen." Wash replied dryly, combing a hand through his blond hair.

"You sure?" Although looking horribly hungover and having bloodshot eyes, Tucker waggled with his eyebrows. "I had a pretty big blackout, you know?"

"I assumed that much since you were retching into the toilet for at least one hour straight." The blond male replied in a deadpan voice, "But no, unlike you I remember, and that certainly didn't happen. You just got clingy and fell asleep on the toilet. Since I couldn't get rid of you, I brought you here."

It was silent for a while before Tucker groaned, "Well, that first meeting could have gone better."

"That's for sure." Wash replied with an amused smile, watching the dark-skinned man looking at Wash with a somewhat embarrassed smile playing around his lips.

"Uh, would you mind if I make up for it?" Tucker asked suddenly, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"Meaning?" Wash sat up and stretched his sore limbs.

"Me and you. Dinner. Tonight. How's that sound?"

"Like a good idea. You want me to pick you up?" Wash asked, although he knew that he had neither a car nor a license.

"Nah, I'll get you. My car is no limousine, but it's passable enough. And since I invited you, I am going to pick you up." The dreadlocked man replied with a grin before getting up with a groan and a grumbling about never drinking that much again.

The night, when they ended up at Tucker's after the dinner, Wash asked himself if it really was that bad to get dragged to parties by his friends every now and then.

Just that the next time it happened, it would be his boyfriend doing exactly that instead and probably not his friends.