I honestly wasn't expecting to even have this started today, but my phone didn't charge last night so I had to delay my trip into town until my phone charged (it was at 20% XC), so I wrote in the meantime and got about 800 words into this. Then I came back and finished up, so here you go!
On the surface, it seems like filler, but just because it's uneventful doesn't mean it's not important, because it definitely is.
For Mems, who gripped me tight and raised me from Perdition.
There was an extremely unpleasant pounding in Lu's head the next morning. He winced as he slowly regained consciousness, wondering what the Hell had happened. And then, as he looked around the unfamiliar room, he felt a surge of confusion. Where am I? That looked to be his shirt on the floor and there was his bass propped up on its stand and… Oh. It came back in a rush. Getting fired, getting kicked out of Raphael's place, Balthazar offering him a place. That part made sense. What still didn't make sense was why his head was killing him. He was pretty sure he'd only had a few shots of Wild Turkey…
He tumbled off the mattress, trying not to groan. A sudden shift in his perception had done nothing for his headache. In fact, it made it worse. He slowly got to his feet and stumbled toward the bedroom door, but slumped against the wall just before he got there. Damn. Now he was starting to remember. He'd had a lot more than a few shots of bourbon. He vaguely recalled emptying about half of the bottle and falling back in bed. That can't be it. There was something else that he couldn't remember.
He went to the bathroom and flipped on the light. The shock to his eyes wasn't as bad as it could have been, all things considered. He'd woken up with a fair amount of light in his room. But what was a shock was when he went to the sink and almost opened up the medicine cabinet looking for Advil or something to take away this damn headache. He looked down just in time to see a glass of water and two pills on a scrap of paper. There was a note on the paper, too—L, hopefully this is the first place you look. B.
"Asshole," Lu muttered but without any real conviction. Fuck. He didn't like thinking of Balthazar as a good guy and, unfortunately, it was exactly what was happening. He left him something for the inevitable hangover this morning, and he was starting to remember that he'd seen Balthazar the night before and had come off as a prick. He didn't like it. He downed the pills and water in one go, crumpled up the note, and shoved it into his pocket. Then he picked up the glass and brought it into the kitchen.
Balthazar was already up, leaning against the counter with a mug in his hand. Next to him was an empty plate, and the handle on the toaster was down. As Lu walked in, he took a sip from whatever was in the mug and glanced up. If he was surprised to see Lu up this early, he didn't say anything.
"Sorry," Lu said quietly, setting the glass in the sink. "About last night, I mean. I guess I came off as an ass, huh?"
"A little," Balthazar admitted. He set his mug down on the counter. "But you were drunk. It's not like I haven't dealt with drunk people before." He looked like he was about to say something else but then thought better of it and lifted his mug to his lips again. "Toast? Tea?" he asked finally.
Lu shook his head. "No, thanks. Not sure I can keep anything down yet. I'm waiting for the aspirin to kick in."
"You sure? Tea helps. Promise," Balthazar added with a faint smile on his face. "Got a bit of a hangover myself."
Lu studied his feet for a moment. "Yeah, alright. If you think it'll help." He looked up and Balthazar was still smiling a bit, or at least not looking upset.
He'd been worried that Balthazar would try to ask him about the night before. As it turned out, he needn't have worried. They talked idly but Balthazar never even tried to steer the conversation to anything that happened. Mostly, it was just him recounting what he and the rest of the band had done the night before. (The Sinchesters joined them at the bar and Gabriel had unabashedly stayed in Sam's lap all night. Raphael invited Anna, and she showed up about an hour later. They'd actually had a good time, but Lu didn't regret not being there—he'd needed some time to himself.)
"Anyway," Balthazar went on, "we decided to have another rehearsal today around noon since Castiel has to work this evening and Ray and Gabe are working tomorrow. We figured that, since you're now unemployed, you'd be okay with it."
Lu shrugged. "Yeah. I'll probably get a jump on job-hunting tomorrow." He was suddenly hit with a bolt of curiosity. "You have a job?"
"Yeah. Waiter. I hate it, but it pays well." He smirked. "You Americans are suckers for this accent, you know? I say six words and you're completely in love. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Still…" He shrugged and took a sip of his tea.
Lu stared into his tea for a moment. It wasn't bad, but he needed something with a little more caffeine. His headache had subsided to a dull ache, which was a relief, but he didn't know if it was the tea or the aspirin responsible for that. "That why you took out your snakebites? The job?"
"At Armageddon? Nah. I could have them if I wanted. They don't care." He shrugged again. "I lost the studs when I moved here. I've just been too lazy to go out and get more, and then the holes closed up. I might get them again later but right now, it's not terribly important." He stared unblinkingly for a moment at Lu over the rim of his mug. "So Eve breaks up with you and kicks you out, then you get fired and kicked out of your friend's house."
"Yeah, what of it?" Lu did not want to revisit this discussion. It would make him feel like more of a loser than he did already. Considering he was hung over in his singer's kitchen, he felt like a huge loser.
"Just trying to see if I can wrap my head around this." Balthazar grinned. "You've had a tough couple of weeks, haven't you?"
Lu rolled his eyes. "Okay, thanks. Leaving now." He got up and went back to his new room with Balthazar's laughter following him. But Lu didn't have quite as much time as he would have liked to sulk because it was eleven-thirty. They had to leave a few minutes later, leaving him just enough time to put on a shirt, his shoes, and socks, and locate the belt he'd taken off sometime the night before. His jeans were constantly in danger of falling down without it. When Balthazar knocked on his door—actually, it sounded like he was trying to beat it down—and yelled, "Oi! Let's go!" Lu stuck his tongue out and grabbed his bass and amplifier.
Band practice was a sloppy affair. Gabriel seemed to be the only person there functioning anywhere close to a hundred percent. This was probably because of his freakish ability to drink as much as he wanted and not get a hangover. Everyone else kept getting off-beat or messing up chords and Balthazar completely forgot a few lyrics. This, Lu couldn't really blame him before, because he'd only been a band member for a few weeks and hadn't memorized the lyrics yet. Still, whenever he fucked-up onstage, he always recovered without the audience being any wiser. Apparently, in rehearsals, that wasn't the case.
He was just happy that Balthazar either wasn't functioning enough, was too distracted, or wasn't interested enough to mess with him during practice. He still looked almost sinfully delicious, but he kept his shirt on and he stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember words to songs he barely knew. Everyone was more focused on their own playing (which was frankly shitty today) than on anyone else, which was also a relief. It was actually kind of interesting to look around at their group during practice, because none of them really looked like their stage personas. Raphael was wearing sweatpants and an A-line shirt, Castiel had his red Radio Shack polo shirt on, and Balthazar's jeans didn't look like they'd been spray-painted on.
Finally, after running through Social Distortion's "Alone and Forsaken," they called it a day and started packing up. There wasn't much they could do when eighty percent of them looked and felt like crap, and it was almost time for Castiel to go to work. They were all too on-edge or too worn out to function anyway. The anticipation of getting an actual contract had actually rendered Gabriel nearly insensible with excitement.
Dean arrived to pick up Castiel a few minutes later. He hefted Castiel's amp out to the Impala, causing the guitarist to smile warmly. He was halfway out the door before he doubled back. "Hey, Lu, have you started looking for a job yet?"
Lu threw his hands up. "Damn it, I just got fired yesterday. No, I haven't."
He gave Lu a mildly offended look, but his voice was even. "We just lost someone last week. If you're interested, I can probably get you an interview. I'm not saying don't look for other opportunities, but they trust me there."
Oh. That was actually incredibly nice of him. Not that Lu should have expected anything different from Castiel, since he was practically an angel, but he was used to being jerked around and fucked with, even by his friends. He tried to ignore that negative thought. Maybe the universe had decided it was done ruining his life and was actually going to throw him a bone. "Uh, yeah, actually. That sounds great. Thanks."
Castiel nodded in acknowledgement. "You're welcome. I'll speak to my boss today." He glanced at his watch and then at Dean. The slightly-taller man slid his arm around Castiel's waist and they left, but not before Gabriel called after them, "Hey! Where's Sam?" Dean's only answer was a raised middle finger. Gabriel lobbed a Jolly Rancher at the back of Dean's head but missed miserably.
After that, there was pretty much nothing else for them to do with their lead guitarist missing. Lu and Balthazar stuck around until Sam arrived to pick up Gabriel and then they left, too. They knew Raphael planned to go right back to sleep, but Lu hadn't eaten since dinner the night before and now he was hungry. "Calm down," Balthazar groaned. "We'll get food."
As little as Lu wanted to sit across from him and try to make small talk for the second time that day, he wasn't about to pass up free food, since Balthazar said he'd pay for lunch. Still, conversation stayed fairly light again. Balthazar inquired after Lu's bass playing and asked about his old job, both of which Lu was only too happy to explain. Working at Oak Ridge, especially, sent him on a rant. He expected the blonde to start fidgeting or looking around or at least looking bored, but his eyes barely left Lu's face except when he glanced down at his food. Lu wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but he knew Eve had never paid him this much attention and he didn't know if he liked it or not. After all, the idea that someone he barely knew was more interested in what he had to say than someone he used to date while he was dating her was a bit surreal. What he did know was that seeing the nice side of Balthazar was making it that much harder for him to dislike him, all things considered, and that bothered him. He didn't want to encourage his flirting.
The whole situation was one fucked-up mess. A guy like Balthazar wouldn't want anything to do with him, and something like this could only end badly. It would be just like Lu to read too much into whatever he was doing or saying and get attached, only to find out it didn't mean anything. That was pretty close to what happened with him and Gabriel. The only difference was, they'd been drunk and they both acknowledged afterward that it was stupid. They'd been able to move on, but with Balthazar? He had a feeling that would be a lot easier said than done.
I can't think of any closing remarks for this chapter except that the next one will be a little more exciting...and I bought about a pound and a half of chocolate from the Ghirardelli store today.