A/N: Hey, how's it going peoples? So, Ch. 10 of the big fic I've been writing,(Shameless plug) Times Like These (Shameless Plug), has been giving me some issues. If those following couldn't tell. But this little drabble idea kept popping into my skull at work every time Paralyzer by Finger Eleven played on my phone, so I typed this all out and edited it yesterday, to get it out of the way so I could focus back on (Shameless Plug) Times Like These (Shameless plug). Hope y'all like it.

Note: I do not, nor ever have, owned the characters within this story. There. I said it.


Struck By You

"Yup. This was a really stupid idea, Gar." He muttered to himself. The green haired, lightly tanned lank of man leaned his back on the bar, nursing an overpriced beer as a gazed around the club. He had only been there about five, maybe ten minutes and the music was already giving him a headache. The dull thump of the bass reverberated through everything and everyone in the club, even if they didn't want it too, like in Gar's case.

Every ounce of awkward that he possessed seemed to pop up in him here. Usually, Gar didn't mind people. Hell, he loved people. They laughed at his jokes. Sometimes. Occasionally. Okay, no one laughed at his jokes, but hey, they listened. The point is, crowds and people where normally Gar's element. But this? This mass of alcohol/god-knows-what-else fueled batch of some way too pretty people with some way not so pretty people in clothes that they shouldn't wear all dancing or what have you to really, really loud music in a dimly lit underground area of Jump City? Caught him off guard as how much this was not his thing.

So here he was, sitting with his drink, staring mindlessly in the crowd and around the club, doing his best to plot out as many escape routes he could before he felt his gaze met. Gar's breath hitched, timed slowed and he memorized details. Purple eyes, short hair with bangs that hung in her face of near same color, round, slightly pointed face, pale and gorgeous. The moment lingered before he realized he was staring and in a blur, Gar turned around to face the bar and gulp part of his beer down, coughing a little. 'Wrong pipe, genius' He thought.

Gar stabilized his breathing for a second before daring a look back, hoping it wouldn't take long to find her again. It didn't as it seems she hadn't moved, leaning on a wall, but looking off to the side in an incredibly bored manner. He noticed she was wearing a small goth set up; black tank top, mini-skirt, black legging with ass kicking thigh highs. Boots made to trample on idiots who talk to her, at least her body language gave off that vibe. He noticed her head and violet eyes beginning to turn back in his direction, so he abruptly turned back to the bar, guzzling and choking on his beer again. The bartender gave him a disgruntled look before grabbing a rag to clean up the blotches of beer on the counter.

'Okay. Well, now what?' Gar tapped at the bar in thought, rolling his fingers. He looked back over his shoulder, and noticed she was staring right at him. 'Shit, no use trying to cover it.' He grinned and gave her a small wave. The girl tilted her head slightly, and raised an eyebrow, bored expression not leaving her face as she continued to lean on the wall, arms crossed.

Gar put the beer down, sucked up as much courage as he could, and ordered a shot.
He was going to need it.

After he he put down his third glass, and kept checking to see if she had moved (she hadn't), Gar finally decided to weave his way through the crowd. 'Fuck it.' Was the mentality he had. The plan had two hitches; navigating a crowd of people was apparently really hard when they were...dancing the way they were and he forgot that he was a relative lightweight for alcohol. That or he ordered the strong stuff again by accident. Vic warned him not to do that. Ah well, too late now. Gar did his best to weave around people, and was modestly successful, only knocking over two peoples drinks. They didn't seem to be paying attention to him, so it worked out pretty well. As he cleared the crowd a third problem seemed to have materialized.

The guy was leaning on the wall, looming over the now annoyed looking girl. His hair was spiked up, collar popped and he was sporting both a mildly impressive build and a spray tan. "Great, a bro." Gar growled to himself. He could smell really bad cologne from where he was standing, about five feet away. The bro was obviously not looking at her eyes as he talked at her, straight down at her chest. While impressive, Gar had honestly felt her eyes had been her best feature. Though her chest was nice. 'Focus.' He shook his head for a moment, before walking over to the other side of the girl, deciding to lean on the wall to both look as smooth as he can and also to hide the fact that he was having trouble standing.

She looked at him, initially blandly as he walked over, than raised her eyebrow again as he leaned on the wall next to her.

"Think you're botherin' her, dude." Gar said in as confident a voice he could muster. Did he slur the words? He didn't think he did.

"What's it to you, seaweed?" The bro looked down at his competition. "Me and the lady were having a nice chat before you got here."

"No we weren't." She retorted blandly, looking ahead, doing her best to ignore both of them.

"See?" Gar said, grinning.

"Listen, buddy, I was here first so why don't you wait your turn, be a good little kid and scram." The now annoyed bro glared down at Gar.

Gar looked up at him, raising an eyebrow grinning. "Didn't realize that firsties applied to people."

The girl flickered a look in Gar's direction before continuing to look ahead.

"Bro, just back off, I'm warnin' ya." The bro had seemed to not be prepared for Gar to not be threatened.

"Or what, you'll punch me, show yourself off as a jackass and get thrown out of the club? Dude, the girl said you were buggin' her, I'm not the one who should be backin' off, 'bro'." Gar looked the bro in the eye, not a hint of anything beyond playfulness. Certainly not fear.

The bro's face scrunched as he processed everything Gar said before waving his hand dismissively and wandering back into the crowd with some muttered curse or threat, Gar didn't care.

"You didn't need to do that." She said, head not turning but her eyes looking at Gar.

"I know." He replied with a grin.

"You could have just ended it with, 'Stop hitting on my girlfriend.'" She added wryly

"Not as fun, Rae-chel." Gar grinned still.

"You're drunk." She stated simply.

"And you're hot, your point being?" Gar slumped a little further on the wall.

"We should probably go ahead and get you out of here." Rachel looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, face tinged red.

"What? But we just met up, we haven't spent any time-" Gar slipped a little and slumped lower on the wall. Rachel stared at him, waiting. "You're right, we should go." He corrected himself.

He slung an arm over her shoulder as she sighed, helping him up off the wall and guiding his wobbling form through the crowd.

"This wasn't your best date plan, Gar." She half yelled at him over the music.

"Admittedly, I've had better." Gar replied as he bounced off a person.

After what felt like hours of maneuvering, weaving and countless apologies for bumping into people, they made it out of the club unscathed and wandered their way to an alley nearby.

"Seriously didn't think this one through." Gar muttered as he stumbled next to Rachel.

"Which part? The whole 'Let's meet up in a loud, annoying club separately so one of us'-me-'can get hit on by idiots' or 'I'm going to drink myself stupid so I can make it through the crowd without freaking out'?" Rachel asked in a sarcastic tone.

Gar stopped stumbling for a second to lean on a wall, both to think and hopefully ground himself so the world would stop spinning. "More the second than the first, cause the first was worth it to see you in a mini-skirt." he grinned.

"Hrmph." Rachel kept walking, but had a small smirk on her face. "If you don't catch up, you'll miss your ride."

"Hang on, woman, I can barely stand as is." Gar began frantically stumbling after her.

"Not my fault." She said as playfully as her flat tone could manage. She gasped as she felt him wrap his arms around her from behind and lean his green haired head on her shoulder.

"Gotcha." He said with a grin.

"That you have." She smiled softly, before kissing him on the cheek.

Thomas saw them enter the alley, so he decided he was going to give that little punk a piece of his fist. Maybe is was the booze, maybe it was the fact that the twerp had made him look stupid, but he wasn't going to let that green haired punk get off without a black eye or the girl. She'd see how tough he was compared to that little stick and-the bro's thoughts were cut off as he saw the two of them in the alley, hugging close as a black sphere popped up around them and faded into the ground. He blinked, then decided to call a cab. Probably a good time to consider not drinking anymore.

The Tower:

Rose was flipping channels, as usual, when Raven and Gar appeared in there usual black bubble near the elevator door. Raven was helping stand him up before she set him down on the couch, going to kitchen as Gar held his head.

"Fun night?" Rose asked, hint of a grin on her face.

"Merrg" Gar groaned out before Raven helped him up, handing him a glass of water.

"Nice skirt!" Rose called before the doors to the main hall closed. "They have the weirdest dates." She muttered to herself.


A/N: And there ya go, short, sweet and hopefully y'all found it as amusing as I did. And yes, it does exist in the same little...fannon I guess is the proper term as Times Like These. Just a little snippet that didn't really fit in anywhere in the story. Well, that's all for now folks, a full update of the big story is probably another week off, so keep tuned for that if you'd be so kind.

As always, thanks for reading, please review and continue to be awesome.