This is an exercise in both writing in the present tense (ugh) and writing a highly pissed-off (and plain pissed) Khashoggi. Scara drinking WKD comes from Thessaly's One Flash of Light, ditto Paul "Big Macca" McCartney's drug use and the use of Liberty's as a base. Guitar Hero joke is Elton's.
I don't own We Will Rock You. Obviously.
"Why?" Meat's voice bursts out angrily, drowning out the rest of the radio host's question. "You want to know why? OK then - the reason I'm sleeping with him again is because he's really fucking good at it."
There is silence for a long moment, during which time both Scaramouche and Moxy turn to Khashoggi, Scaramouche in disgust, and Moxy with almost indecent delight.
The Commander opens his mouth, shortly before realising he has absolutely no idea what to say to this. "Can you please leave?"
"Absolutely not a chance," Moxy tells him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
The rest of Andrei Khashoggi's day does not improve from this point onwards. He doesn't tend to leave his office much during the day if he can help it, but today for some reason he's practically besieged with requests for call outs and repairs on broken monitors and "oh can't you just take the tiniest look it was working this morning", and every bloody person he passes grins at him, some wink, lots nudge, and dear god can this day not just fucking end already.
Blessedly, the stream of requests starts to run dry in the late afternoon, and Scaramouche (having spent most of the day shooting ominous glances at him from behind her screen setup) is eventually picked up by Galileo, who blinks sombrely at him (but is hastily rushed back out of the door by Scaramouche, who seems glad of the excuse, before the Dreamer manages to say get any words out), and finally Andrei can exhale.
His communicator flashes with a message from Moxy, letting him know that the program he's been testing over the last few days is looking like it will only need a further hour of testing, and that he, Moxy, will come in later tomorrow to run it. Andrei takes a moment to reply, mentally logging that this means he probably doesn't need to turn up himself until midday, and turns back to his desk.
A noise by the door catches his wandering attention immediately, and he spins, and Meat's hand hasn't even let go of the door handle before he's spotted her, and the frustrations of his day are welling up again, threatening to burst their banks and come seething out at her.
"I'm sorry," she tells him earnestly, slipping round the rest of the door and pushing it closed behind her. "I didn't mean for it to come out like that."
Andrei takes a deep breath,dangerously close to losing his temper, and instead settles for raising an eyebrow. "Oh? Would there have been a better way to put it?"
She laughs a little, stepping closer and dropping her bag on to the floor. "I mean," she shrugs, glancing up at him with gleaming eyes and the hint of a grin on her lips, "I wasn't lying, you are really good at it."
He is struck by the paradoxical desire to both tell her to piss off and ask her to elaborate further, but is saved from making any decision at all when Meat hitches her bag back onto her shoulder, and raises an eyebrow herself. "Whatever. I won't make that mistake again, I guess," and she's turning to walk back out of the door before he has a chance to think what on earth he's supposed to say. Again.
Pop's bar was, when you took it at face value, nothing more than an old shipping container with an impressive shelving system storing an even more impressively wide-ranging collection of alcohol.
Quite how he had managed to arrange for a shipping container to be placed in the middle of Old Carnaby Street had never been suitably explained, but the tables and chairs surrounding it were usually full, with bohemians filling the space with chatter and laughter. The Ex-Commander's acceptance into their midst still bemused him at times, but he had long since learned not to question his place amongst them.
Andrei had learned over the years never to take anything the bohemians showed him at face value, and the barman's bizarre gems of wisdom (not to mention is unwavering patience in the form of Khashoggi in the immediate aftermath of his mind being blown) was proof enough of this.
He taps the security code into the gate, and lets himself in.
The barman's wizened face breaks into a huge smile when Andrei slides into his usual seat, fighting the strong urge to drop his forehead against the bar and groan in misery.
"Rough day?" Pop asks conspiratorially, and roars with laughter when Andrei glares up at him in furious disbelief.
"I refuse to believe that you didn't hear the interview this morning," Andrei tells him. "Usual, please."
Pop raises an eyebrow, and pours far more than the usual double of scotch, sliding the glass across to Andrei, who gives a grateful nod and downs more than half of it in one swallow.
The barman whistles softly. "Really has been rough, then."
If Andrei were a less uptight person, the shrugging sort, this would probably have been the perfect moment for it. Instead he settles for a frown. "I'm not used to - discussion."
"It's not like you kept a very low profile in your old life," says Pop, reasonably. "Surely people talked about you then?"
Andrei scowls, and Pop leans in with a conspiratorial grin. "Oh - so rather than the interview itself, can I take it that it's the personal nature of the discussion that's the problem?"
The scowl on Andrei's face deepens, and Pop chuckles. "I'm only playing you, man." He pours a little more amber liquid into the glass, and settles the bottle back into its place on the shelf, before turning back to plant a hand on Andrei's shoulder and give it an encouraging shake. "I think you need to think yourself lucky she was so complimentary."
Andrei groans, and lets his head fall onto the bar with a thud. The bohemians didn't tend to congregate in the bar until later on in the evening, but his presence already seems to be drawing glances and sniggers from around the courtyard, and he's sure it is busier at this time than it would normally be.
"She's a sweet girl, our Miss Loaf," Pop tells him, "but there's no filter there."
Andrei hmm's noncommittally, swirling the drunk in his glass.
"I mean," Pop continues, now facing the other way and occupying himself in ensuring all the bottles are facing forward, "we never used to hear the end of it with her and Brit. Every argument, every time he'd go off scavenging and leaving her at the Heartbreak she'd be rampaging around the place, letting us all know how disappointing he was in bed, that sort of thing," his voice has become almost fond, and he's gazing distantly across the bar.
"It's odd," says Andrei, conversationally, "I didn't think it was going to be possible to feel worse."
"My point is," says Pop, more matter-of-fact now, "that you need to get over it. It never did them any harm before - "
"She didn't broadcast it to two-thirds of the planet, before," Andrei mutters to his whiskey.
"And it won't do any harm this time." Pop sighed, and put down the tea towel. "Come on, man. What's really eating at you? You know Meat didn't mean any harm, what's really troubling you about this?"
Andrei opens his mouth, and realises that, for the second time that day, he has no idea what to say. The feeling of wrong-footedness is overwhelming, and before he manages to dredge up any words, someone has dropped into a chair next to him, and pulled the glass out of his hand.
Andrei and Pop both watch, one with frustration and the other with significant respect, as the someone takes a long sip of whiskey, and puts the glass back in front of him.
"Ugh. I preferred the champagne." Scaramouche wrinkles her nose, and grins up at Pop. "You got any of my favourites?"
"We finished the Moet after the second concert." Pop reminds her, handing her a bottle of something unnaturally blue, which Andrei surveys with deep distrust. "Lighten up, man."
"I've been telling him that for months," says Scara cheerfully. "But he's been this grumpy all day."
"I am not grumpy," Andrei tells her, voice clipped. "I am merely extremely pissed off that I seem to be unable to maintain any privacy in my life."
Scaramouche shrugs. "I mean, it's not like you accidentally fall on top of her, is it?"
"Don't be crude." says Andrei with distaste, just as Pop chips in, "it's funny, I always imagined
Meat would probably be the one on top."
The glares directed at Pop by Khashoggi and Scaramouche following this statement could have frozen the Atlantic, but the barman merely lifted his hands in surrender, and was handily summoned by a gaggle of new arrivals calling to him.
"Anyway," Scaramouche starts, seemingly finding it better to pretend that Pop's previous insight had not been said aloud, "were you really expecting her to keep quiet when that dickhead kept prodding at her?"
Andrei sighed heavily. "I always carry the hope that she can hold her patience in those things."
"Yeah, well, you know what they say about hope," Scaramouche mutters, pouring the blue drink into a glass.
"Which is what, exactly?"
"Doesn't matter. Look, I don't think she was being show-offy about it, right, it was just that he kept on going, didn't he? There was no way he was going to let her go without an answer." She looks at him, and something in her face softens as she sighs. "She likes you, Khash. You need to chill out and don't mind it when she comes out with some crazy shit every so often."
Andrei rolls his eyes. "Every so often? Chance would be a fine thing."
"You know what I mean." Scaramouche tells him at sternly. "She's not ashamed of you, is she? She's always telling me how fit you are." She's wrinkling her nose at having to admit this, but he finds himself intrigued.
"Oh?" He realises his glass is almost empty again, and is just looking round for Pop, when Scara hops over the bar and grabs the bottle. She shrugs in answer to his raised eyebrows. "I'll buy him another one. He won't mind. But yeah, seriously, mate, she's head over heels." She surveys him, critically. "Has she really not told you that?"
Andrei decides he's fighting a losing battle, and shrugs. "It's just been - sex," he admits, and is almost shocked when she doesn't protest, only tips more whiskey into his glass. He waits till she's done, then takes a sip, and elaborates, "I mean, there are weeks where we don't talk at all. I just, sort of wait to hear from her. Thank you, by the way," he adds, raising the glass to her slightly.
"Seriously?" Scara demands, hands planted flat against the bar. "What, you don't even text her or anything?"
"I see her most days," Andrei points out, and he's surprised to hear himself sounding defensive. "What's the point in texting her? What would I say?"
"Well I don't know!" Scaramouche explodes, "but no bloody wonder she's so wound up, this is like getting blood out of a sodding stone!"
"I beg your- "
"You know what your problem is?" Scara rages at him, hands now gesticulating wildly, "you just need to bloody loosen up! Tell her how you bloody feel about her!"
Andrei is prepared to interject at this point, but it seems Scaramouche is too far into her stride to make interruption possible.
"It's been bloody months since you two sorted all that stuff out after the Rhapsody, and here was me thinking, oh thank god, now I don't have to babysit these two idiots any more!" Scara is ranting, cheeks flushing red. "How have you not noticed?! Are you honestly telling me that even after having your brain drained you're still the same bloody-minded knob that can't see when someone is desperate for you to show them some fucking emotions?!" She's nearly panting now, and she pulls a bottle of water out of her bag to take a long swig from it. The fire seems to have burnt itself out, but Andrei can only stare at her.
How could he not have realised? The clothes she had been gradually dropping off at his "so I'll have something to put on next time I stay over". The coffees left on his desk every so often. The glances every time they left rehearsals, a raised eyebrow and an, "are you coming my way, then?" He feels his jaw dropping.
Scara folds her arms triumphantly. "Fucking finally."
The pair sit in silence for a few minutes, Andrei shellshocked, and Scaramouche with an air of deep satisfaction, until Pop appears once again.
"You know what you need," Pop informs him, having apparently popped up out of nowhere, with an air of one relieved at having reached a much-deliberated decision, "is to mellow out."
"Yes," agrees a suddenly enthusiastic voice from next to them, and Macca is suddenly by his elbow, grinning hugely and nudging him with an elbow. "Hey, dude. Heard Meat's thing this morning. Get in there."
Andrei is saved from trying to conjure up an appropriate response to this, because he's not certain there even is one, when Macca pulls out a small bag from an inside pocket in his jacket. "You could probably use this better than me," he tells Andrei sagely. "Also, the guitar hero gets mad when I'm too mellow to rehearse."
"I get mad when you're too stoned to pick up your fucking guitar," says Scara, flatly, but she nods at Andrei. "Hate to admit it, but I don't know that he's that far wrong on this one."
"I would have taken immense joy in arresting you for this, once upon a time," Andrei tells Paul, and is completely unsurprised when Paul roars with laughter. "Yeah, yeah, man. Look, take it and enjoy it, ok? Share some with the chick." He hands the bag to Andrei with an expression of deep solemnity, before slapping him on the back and ducking back into the throng of bohemians, which seems somehow to have become a crowd without any of them noticing.
Andrei attempts to raise an eyebrow, and promptly realises that the bottle Scaramouche has been liberally topping him up with is now practically empty, and as such (having been the one drinking it) he is now very definitely drunk.
"Share it with- " he starts, but Scaramouche immediately interjects, "Meat, yeah. Not actually a terrible idea, to be honest. Considering Paul came up with it, anyway." She grins at him. "Have a good night, yeah?"
"Well, hang on- " He slides off the stool, and is thankful that he manages it without staggering, "what am I supposed to do? Will she just- "
"Hi, Andrei," says a very familiar voice from behind him, and Scara (damn her) winks lasciviously at him, and disappears after Paul, vanishing suddenly, leaving Meat and Khashoggi alone at the bar.