Title: Cheers, Darlin'
Chapter 1: Cheers, Darlin'
Disclaimer: I gots nothin'.
Summary: She's getting married, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. So he drowns his sorrows in a bucket of whiskey and toasts her from afar.
A/N: Two-shot. Both based on songs from Damien Rice's album "O". This chapter is based on "Cheers, Darlin'." Rating because of one small expletive. The him in italics is the other man. The regular he is the main character.


He sits at the corner of the bar, a whiskey in his hand. He watches as a group of people make a toast to each other, smiling.

Cheers, darlin'
Here's to you and your lover boy

He lifts up his own glass in a mock toast. Here's to her. Her and him.

He throws back his head, swallowing the last of his whiskey, and asks for another.

Cheers, darlin'
I got years to wait around for you

He's been waiting for years already. He's been waiting since the day he left her the first time. He's just kept waiting, all these years. What's a few decades more?

Cheers, darlin'
I got your wedding bells in my ear

He checks the clock and sees that it's that time. Right now, she and her lover boy should be exchanging vows, both dressed in white, although he knows that she shouldn't be.

He can almost hear the bells ringing, even though it's happening more than two hours away.

Cheers, darlin'
You gave me three cigarettes to smoke my tears away

The last time he saw her, he'd been two months nicotine free.

And then she'd dropped that bomb.

"I'm getting married! Two weeks from today. Isn't it exciting!"

That day, he made his way through three packs.

And I
Die
When you mention
His name

The thing that kills him the most is that she neglected to mention the engagement until almost too late. She'd been engaged for eight months when she finally told him. They'd even seen each other at least once every week during those eight months.

He never thought it was that serious. He hated when she talked about him, tried to steer the subject as far away as he could. But he never succeeded enough, and she always talked about him, the latest thing he was doing.

He'd always hated him, if only on principle. He'd never met him, but he was sure if they ever met, they wouldn't make fast friends.

And I
Lied
I shoulda kissed you
When we were running the reins

He has always wished he hadn't left her like he did. Any of the times he left her. He's always felt like things would have been better if he'd stayed on the bus that day, and kissed her instead of leaving. If he'd stuck around after his announcement, letting it sink in, and then kissed her. If he'd kissed her in her dorm room, making her "No!"s fade into silence.

If only he'd been better. Different. Then everything would all be better.

What am I, darlin'?
A whisper in your ear?
A piece of your cake?

He wants to be the voice in her ear. That nagging voice in the back of her brain, telling her that what she is doing is wrong. Telling her that the past is better. Telling her that she needs him.

He knows what he is, though. Part of her cake. The cake she has, and eats too. He's that person she can always run to when no one else was there. That person that is part of her past, but not her future. The person that she can cheat on him with, if the occasion rises. Or just her substitute him.

What am I, darlin'?
The boy you can fear?
Or your biggest mistake?

He wants to be the one person she can't run to. The one person who can ruin everything. The one person who still makes her weak in the knees when he isn't supposed to. The one person she can't trust herself around.

But he knows. He knows that she regrets being with him. Knows that she thinks of him as only a minor distraction, the one person who made her senior year of high school a living hell. He knows that she used him to bide time until she went back to her first boyfriend, her real boyfriend. And he knows that she hated everything she'd done while they were together, hated the person she'd become.

She only came to like him after they'd broken up and hadn't seen each other for years.

Cheers, darlin'
Here's to you and your lover man

He remembers when she met him. She told him, excited at this new man in her life. She spent hours in his small New York apartment, telling him every detail of their time together.

He'd become her girlfriend, when all he ever wanted to be was her boyfriend. Her one and only.

Cheers, darlin'
I just hang around and eat from a can

Since she'd met him, he'd lost all appetite. He has stopped cooking. He's stopped going out. He has become the epitome of bachelorhood, eating uncooked food from cold cans.

He disgusts even himself.

Cheers, darlin'
I got a ribbon of green on my guitar

She bought him a guitar. He'd mentioned how he felt like a fraud for critiquing music and never having played a chord.

So she bought him a guitar.

It sits in his apartment, standing alone in a corner. He passes it every once in a while, and feels bad for not playing it.

She left a ribbon in his apartment once. It fell from her hair while they were talking one night, and she never asked for it back. He tied it around the strings of the guitar he never played. It was green.

He always thought that was hilarious. She left a green ribbon in her jealous ex-boyfriend's apartment.

While engaged to her new boyfriend, he realized later.

He still can't play a note.

Cheers, darlin'
I got a beauty queen
To sit not very far
From here

He made up girlfriends. He went on blind dates, he had one night stands. But he made up girlfriends. Found old pictures and showed them to her, hoping to incite the jealously he felt in her.

She always smiled at him and congratulated him.

She always had been stupid, even for being so smart.

I
Die
When he comes around
To take you home

He almost met him once. She was at his apartment earlier than usual, and he came to pick her up. She tried to buzz him up, but he wouldn't let her.

He chain smoked five and a half cigarettes as he watched him lead her away.

I'm
Too shy
I should have kissed you
When we were alone

He'd never thought of himself as shy until he let her go.

Ever since then, he's secretly called himself a coward.

Even now, as he sips his seventh whiskey of the evening, he wishes that he'd kissed her. Last night, when they were alone together in his apartment, they were close. Closer than they've been in years.

He mentally kicks himself.

What am I, darlin'?

He wants to ask her, to come right out and demand that their relationship be defined.

A whisper in your ear?

He remembers the night they met again, the night they met as soon-to-be step-cousins. Halfway through the party, he'd made his way to her side and started whispering a running commentary in her ear, causing her to laugh.

He'd always liked that sound.

A piece of your cake?

For her twenty-fifth birthday, she'd had another picture cake, this time a collage. He'd been part of a picture in the top right corner, next to old friends from high school and college.

He's been delegated to a tiny spot in her collage. To him, it signifies the tiny role he's taken in her life. He's no longer her boyfriend. He's hardly even her ex-boyfriend anymore. He seems to be that one friend, that other friend you've got. Not a best friend, but little more than an acquaintance.

What am I, darlin'?

What is he? Her latest acquaintance?

He didn't even register an invitation to the wedding. One hundred and eighty spots, and Kirk gets to go instead.

He is fuckin' family, even.

He waves his empty glass around, ready for his tenth whiskey.

The boy you can fear?

This is the first time he's ever felt non-threatening to a woman.

He's used to being the other man, the rebound guy, that boyfriend who can ruin your reputation and morals like that.

This is the first time he's non-threatening.

And he hates it.

Or your biggest mistake?

Sometimes he wonders if it's a mistake that they got involved at all. After all, she was perfectly happy. He was just there to cause trouble.

But she ended up causing him more trouble than he caused her.

After all, who else could turn him into a sentimental fool, drinking twelve glasses of whiskey just to drown out her voice?

Oh, what am I?
What am I, darlin'?
I got years to wait...

It's true. He does have years to wait. And he's going to wait, waiting until she finally comes to her senses.

He orders another whiskey, and lifts it in another mock-toast.

Cheers, darlin'.