A/N this happens to be my longest one shot ever clocking in at six pages, but it wouldn't end. I love drunken characters because they're so brutally honest, even if they usually hide that honesty behind tact, all filters between brain and mouth seem to disappear in the presence of alcohol, which is why it's so much fun. And Garret very much strikes me as the "insightful drunk" type. Don't own them, but if I did, you can bet Woody would be better written and paired with Devan...
If you truly love someone let them go, if they return, it was meant to be, if they don't their love was never really yours at all. Unkown.
The sound of the ringing phone startled her out of her sound sleep. She needed it too, after the week she'd been having. First Garret going and getting himself replaced after a case that happened years go, and Woody getting shot, and Slokum making her life miserable with all of his rules and regulations, sleep was a nice little thing for her, she needed her rest. "Jordan Cavanaugh." She mumbled into the phone, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes enough to read her alarm clock. 2 am.
"Miss Cavanaugh?" A gruff male voice was on the other line. "You don't know a" There was a pause as if the man was reading something. "Garret Macy, do you?" Fear washed through her. What had happened? Phone calls at two in the morning were never a good thing, especially not when they involved people she knew and cared for.
"I do." She said, hoping that the man would happen would get an explanation for the call soon.
"Do you know if there's anyone at his house right now?" She shook her head.
"No, why?"
"Not that I know if, if there is, they're not supposed to be there,. Who are you?"
The man laughed. "Sorry, it's late, completely forgot my manners. Mick O'Malley, I own O'Malley's pub And it seems that Mr. Macy here has had more than a few too many, he's currently passed out in my bar, and I wasn't going to send him in a cab to an empty house where he'll most likely remain passed out in front of the place. Don't mean to bother you, but it's closing time and I want to go home, and can't do that until I get him out of here. Your number was in his wallet, thought you might know someone to come pick him up." She groaned.
"I'll be there in ten minutes." She rolled out of bed and She grabbed her car keys and drove off, not caring that she was still in her pajamas, and. She was going to kill him. Couldn't he get drunk and pass about at home, where she wouldn't have to go driving off at two am because there was no one else to pick him up? Why couldn't he have had Lilly's number, or Nigel, or Bug, right on the top of his wallet, why did it have to be hers?
She pulled to a stop in front of the bar and walked in, to find the man who had called her finishing closing the bar. "You Jordan?" He asked, and she nodded. The man grinned, he was a big burly man who looked like he could have been as much bouncer as bartender. "He's over there. Held his liquor really well, musta had a good ten scotches before he showed even the trace of being drunk. After drink number twelve he just fell right over. Shoulda known better than to give him twelve in the first place, but he was showing no signs of being drunk."
"Give me a hand?" She asked him as she lifted her friend to his feet. The bartender came over and and all but swept the drunken man off of his feet and pretty much shoved him into the backseat of Jordan's car.
"Sorry about calling you, but I don't want to have the guilt on me if he drowns in his own puke or something later on tonight, and if no one's home, I don't send them in a cab when they're that gone, go through and see if they got a number of a girlfriend or relative or something around, he said you, so that's who I called." she rolled her eyes.
"Oh, believe me, when I'm done he'll have wished he drowned in his own puke." The bartender grinned.
"Good of you to come out. " He gave her a wink and made sure that she had pulled away before heading back into the bar.
She drove carefully, trying not to disturb him, the last thing she wanted was for one very drunken Garret to puke all over her car. She pulled up in front of his house and slapped him gently on his face trying to wake him up. She succeeded, somewhat. He gave her a sleepy smile. "You are going to pay for this." She told him, and all but dragged him out of her car. "Keys." She said, and he handed them to her, following her into his house, swaying slightly.
"You, lay down, and go back to being passed out." she pointed to his bedroom and grinned to herself, she sounded like a mother punishing a five year old for tracking mud into the house. She came in to find him sprawled out in his bed at least with the good sense to lie on his side. "Why the hell did you have to get drunk at two in the morning? Couldn't you do it when I would be awake?"
"You're cute when you're angry." He told her, and she shook her head. There was no point with trying to scold a drunken man, she'd had enough experience with them to know better, although she had never seen her boss and best friend this smashed. Nigel she had seen completely trashed, a few of her ex boyfriends, but never Garret, she didn't want to leave him alone for fear of what kind of drunk he was. If he was a poor pitiful me drunk she couldn't trust him not to do something stupid, if he was a puke his guts up all over the floor drunk she couldn't risk him passing out face up, she was going to stay, sleep on the couch, make sure he was OK.
"Go to sleep you drunken fool." She told him, pulling his shoes off for him, and covering him with a blanket.
"I was asleep you went and woke me up." He argued and she fought back a laugh.
"I woke you up cause I can't drag you into your house. Now sleep."
"No bedtime story?" He teased, and she shook her head.
"There once was a drunken man who annoyed everyone he met by doing stupid things. One of those things was calling up his best friend at two in the morning to pick him up from a pub because he passed out. So his friend swore to him that if he ever did that again she would ensure that he would not live happily ever after. The end." She started heading out to the couch and got as far as the door before he stopped her.
"Don't go." he told her, and she shook her head. She walked back to the bed and sat down on the other side of it.
"What do you want now.?" She asked, and he shrugged.
"Someone to talk to."
"And what I want is to go back to bed. I got dragged out of bed to come pick you up and now you want to talk. Here's the phone, call someone up and talk to them." She handed him the phone that sat on the charger and he shook his head.
"But I talk and it'll keep you awake." He had a point. He lapsed into silence and she fell back against the pillows. He was drunk, he was in no state of doing anything, he was busy getting lost in his own mind. "Jordan?" He asked after a long pause just as she had started to drift back into sleep.
"Hmm?" She grunted trying to go back to sleep."
"Do you love Woody?" She rolled over to find him staring at her, She didn't know what to say, if she should tell him the truth or what. He was her best friend, but he was also completely sloshed. She shrugged. "Do you? Or do you think that you should and therefore you do?" It took her a minute to decipher what he had asked.
It was something that made her think. She cared for Woody, she really did. He was a good friend of hers, she loved him, but it always felt more platonic. The way that she loved, well, Garret. Where Garret felt like the uncle everyone loved, Woody felt like the brother she never knew, she couldn't see them taking the next step in their relationship. They had danced around it for so long she thought him to be someone she didn't want to hurt, that she didn't want to risk the relationship going sour and never seeing him again, or worse, the relationship going sour and still having to work with him.
"I do." She told him, and he laughed. A rich, slightly slurred laugh, something she had never heard from him before, he rarely laughed, he was more the smile and snort type.
"Love him the way he wants you to?" He had her there, and she felt herself flush under his glare. "Thought so." He said smugly and rolled back over.
"What was that?" She asked him, pulling on his shoulder to force him to roll back over. He grinned at her.
"I thought so. You think that you have to love him, don't you?" She shook her head. She didn't think that she had to love him. She felt as if she should care for him, she felt as if they should be together that she should get over whatever stupid thing it was in her mind that was stopping them from being together but she didn't think she had to love him. She did love him, just in her own way.
"I don't think I have to love him, but I do anyway." He shook his head, still smiling slightly.
"Then why do you keep running away from him whenever he starts getting close?" She didn't want to be having this conversation with Garret. He was drunk. Drunk men should not have the psychological capability to psychoanalyze others.
"I do not." She said, knowing she was lying through her teeth.
"Yes you do. He gave you a friendship ring and you turned it down, gave it right back, without a second thought. All because it had a few diamonds in it." More than a few, but they were all small. "And diamond's your birthstone." She shook her head.
"It was nice, but I couldn't." She said simply.
"Why not?" She thought about it.
"Because it-" She couldn't come up with a reason to turn it down. She just had.
"Because it would mean that you have a relationship." She frowned. Why the hell did he have to be such an insightful drunk? He would never say this if he was sober. And right about now she was wishing he was sober so that she wouldn't have to talk about it. "What are you afraid of?"
Afraid of? A lot of things. She thought about it. What was she afraid of with a relationship. "Of things going badly and loosing him." She admitted. He was drunk, he was never going to remember this the next day. It's not like he could hold any of this against her. If he could, she would never be telling him.
He may have been her best friend, her closest confidant, but admitting that she had fears, that she wasn't flawless or fearless was something that she wouldn't do to anyone, not to Garret, not to Woody, hardly even to herself. She kept thinking that if the world thought her to be so than she would be so, and so far it had worked, so far she was fearless, she was an amazing person. Garret had seen her at her worst and her best, and she had to admit that this was one of her worst.
"How do you know things are going to go badly?"
"How do you know they won't?"
"I don't. But aren't you supposed to be the fearless one?" She laughed, and hit him with a pillow. "And don't start a pillow fight, I'm afraid to move." He said, and she thought he looked an awful shade of green.
"You're surprisingly coherent. How the hell do you do it?" He grinned.
"Practice." She shook her head.
"What possessed you to practice this wonderful skill at what is now three oclock in the morning?" He shrugged.
"Why not? Not like I have to get up tomorrow."
So he was a little bit of the woe-is-me drunk, despite his trying to hide it. "But I do." She complained and he shrugged.
"I'm not the one who called you."
"According to the bartender you suggested me." He grinned sheepishly.
"You came out though, didn't you?" He looked so innocent staring up at her with his big brown eyes, he looked pathetic really, and she had an urge to mother him.
"I did. But if this happens again, you bet your ass I won't. Now let a girl sleep, will ya?" she rolled over and curled up, trying to get comfortable without sprawling out in the middle of the bed. After spending more time than she cared to think about in bed alone she had gotten used to being able to take up as much of it as possible, and now she didn't have that luxury.
"Sweet dreams." He told her, and he too rolled over and off the bed. She stifled a laugh as he climbed unsteadily back on.
"I take back what I said, if you're going to be a comical drunk this might be worth it. Just not at two AM." He faked looking angry.
"So I'm only good for your personal amusement?"
"And apparently relationship counseling." He grinned again.
"Just want you to be happy." The words were very plain, but somehow they struck a chord in her. "Don't do something you might regret because you feel compelled to, do it because you want it, because you love him. If you don't love him, don't think that you have to be with him, if he really loves you he'll understand." She smiled at him, amazed at just how insightful the man before her had become.
"You know, you get drunk enough you could give Dr. Phil a run for his money." He laughed.
"Too much scotch and too much time left in my own thoughts." He confessed, humbling himself. It was something that she respected about him. He knew his strengths and had no qualms about being praised for his skill at his job, but he downplayed his other talents. She knew he wouldn't be caught dead on stage playing drums anymore even though she knew he had to be good.
They were silent for a long time and she found herself trying to will herself to sleep, but sleep just wouldn't come. "Garret?" She asked and he rolled back over to face her.
"Hmm?"
"Do you think he loves me?" The question had been plaguing her for the night, ever since he had broached the subject.
"He should." She was slightly puzzled by his response. "You're everything most men would dream of, if he doesn't love you he's not worth it." The words like what he had said before were simple, plain, spoken nonchalantly, but they touched her.
"You think so?" He nodded.
"And if he really loves you, he'd understand that sometimes the only thing to do is endure the one you love thinking of you and caring for you in a different way than you want, just being grateful that they care at all." This time as she listened they seemed to have a forced nonchalance.
She smiled as she thought of the old quote that so many had in email signatures and whatever have you, the whole "If you truly love someone let them go." quote. She never loved Woody in the way he wanted her to. She cared too much about him for her to love him that way, the passionate love of a couple was so volatile, but the love that one had for a family member was something that was unbreakable, no matter what those she considered to be her family did to her, she wouldn't stop loving them.
Her father, Nigel, Bug, Garret, Lilly, they all were her family, and no matter what they did she wouldn't stop loving them because they were all she had. And Woody was part of that, but in the same way. She would always love him and care for him, but she felt like she could never be intimate with him, the same way she could never picture herself being intimate with Bug, or Nigel, or anyone else she considered her family.
"You really should consider writing a book. Drunken Introspection by Garret Macy. It'd be a bestseller for those of us who seem to suck at the whole love thing. You certainly have deep thoughts on the whole love-someone-let-them-go thing." He shrugged.
"Practice, first hand experience. Living through it every day. It's enough to know that they care enough to go driving around at all hours of the night for you. If he doesn't love you he's an idiot." She lay there for a while, digesting what he had said, shocked by it. She opened up her mouth to say something, but he had already fallen back to sleep. She rolled over and fell asleep praying he wouldn't remember what happened when he woke up, she didn't need another complication in her life.