Chapter Text
I told my roommate, James, that I would be home around midnight.
But now it was almost 2 in the morning and I had done two shifts due to us being short staffed.
There wasn’t anyone here, except for one guy
I didn’t know how long he had been there for. Since before my shifts, I know, and my shift is
over in 10 minutes.
The guy is still crying into his beer, his dark brown curls covering his face almost entirely.
He’s had at least eight beers, and I was starting to get a little worried. At first, I didn’t think much
of it. He was probably just having a bad week, but I couldn’t ignore the occasional sob that
erupted from his mouth.
I’ll admit, for such a scrawny guy, he sure could hold his alcohol. But for Christ's sake, how bad
of a day can someone be having? I watched as he chugged the rest of it and sat the glass
down. He lifted his head up. His eyes were glazed and red from crying.
“Can I get another one of those…?” He asked me, pointing to the beer he had just finished.
I let out a long sigh and gave him a pitiful look.
“Look dude, you’ve had a lot of drinks. I’m not s’posed to give ya too many.
” I replied. His head fell down onto the table in disappointment.
He muttered something to me, but the sound was muffled.
“What was that?” I asked him.
“Wh…where's the bathroom? Gotta piss… real bad,” He slurred. Man, this guy was drunk.
I pointed down the hall.
“It’s just down the hall to the right…” He nodded and slowly stood up.
I watched as he attempted to make his way over there. He made it about three steps before
stumbling and falling against one of the tables.
“Uh… hey, man, you need—” I was starting to ask if he needed help.
“Mmm…no! I’m…‘m fine. Don’t need help.”
He leaned against the table for support and then made another attempt to walk farther.
It almost made me sad to watch as he stumbled around again and found out the hard way that the wall doesn’t have any places to hold onto.
At one point, he just gave up and let his body fall to the floor with a sound akin to a sob. Th at’s
when I noticed the dark stain emerging in the crotch of his pants, and spreading down his legs.
Jesus Christ, the guy was pissing himself.
I let out a long sigh. It would just be cruel of me not to help him or offer him a ride home at this
point.
I walked over to his place on the floor and stared down at the man for a second, not sure
what to do in this situation. His sobs were only growing louder.
“Hey, hey— stop that.” I crouched down. In between sobs, I heard him sputter out something
that resembled an apology for pissing all over the floor.
“I’m sorryyy…” he sniffled,
“I didn’t mean to do thaat…”
“Hey, uh… don’t worry about it,
‘kay?” I extended my hand to help him up. He gladly took it and let me pull him up to sit in a chair at the nearest table.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“It’s… Kirk…”
“Well, It’s nice to meet you. I’m (y/n)” I told him. There was an awkward silence after, with the
only sound being his sniffles.
“What do you need? Uh… I can call you a cab home… if you want.”
“Nooo! I can’t…”
I was confused on what that meant. Was the guy homeless or something?
“What do you mean? ‘You can’t’?”
“I can’t go in a cab!” He gestured to his piss-soaked jeans.
I sighed. That was fair.
“Alright, I’ll give ya a ride home.”
He looked up at me, sad eyes still very prominent, but there was a glint of gratefulness in them.
“R-really?”
I nodded.
“Yeah.”
To my surprise, shortly after, he pulled me into a massive hug, burying his face into my shoulder,
getting my shirt wet with tears and snot. I heard a muffled ‘thank you.’ I patted his back and tried
to break free of the embrace after a moment, but his surprisingly strong arms wouldn't let me
budge.
“You’re so nice…”
This was just… too weird. I’ve hardly even had a conversation with this guy and he was hugging
me like he’s known me for years. I did my best to comfort him, rubbing his back, but my neck
was tilted at an awkward angle. I finally managed to pull away after what felt like five whole
minutes.
“Okay, uh… I gotta close up first. Be right back.”
He nodded and slumped against the table as I went over to lock up the doors and close up
everything. I came back to where he was sitting a few minutes later. His head was resting on his
arm, face hidden.
I tapped on his shoulder. Nothing.
Fuck.
I nudged him again. This time, he let out a groan.
Thank god. He’s alive, just sleepy.
“Hey, can you walk?”
He groaned again.
“I’ll take that as a no…” I said.
I awkwardly reached under his knees and waist slowly and lifted him up bridal style, wincing at the piss-soakedness of his jeans. He was pretty light, I thought.
He didn’t resist me picking him up at all, in fact, he nuzzled his face into my chest. I would have
found that really sweet and adorable if it wasn’t for the absurdity of this whole situation.
I carried him outside, and only realized too late that I had no way to lock the door of the bar
while holding him. How should I do this?
My arms were growing tired, so I went over to my car, awkwardly fumbled with the handle, but
opened it and set the guy, Kirk, down in the passenger seat. After locking the door of the bar,
however, I came back to find him sobbing again.
“Jesus, what’s wrong now?” I asked, climbing into the driver’s seat of my car.
“Wh-why did you leave me…?” he asked, wiping the snot from his nose. That confused me for a
second, then I realized what he was talking about.
“Dude- I- I left for 30 seconds to lock the door. What’s the fuckin’ big deal?” I started up my car,
letting the engine heat up for a second.
“...Everyone leaves mee…” I heard him quietly mutter. I felt really fuckin’ bad for him, honestly,
but my goal was to get this guy home and I still had to do that.
“Where do you live?”
He begrudgingly told me his address, clearly frustrated with the topic change.
—-
The drive to his apartment was pretty quiet, except for the occasional sniffle coming from Kirk. I didn’t say anything. Sure as hell didn’t know what to say to a drunk guy who’s clearly having
some existential crisis.
Yet… I found myself strangely wanting to know more about this guy.
All I knew was his first name.
And that he’s an emotional drunk, I guess.
“Dude, what the hell even happened to you? What would make you come into the bar I work at
and drink to the point where you can’t even make it to the bathroom to piss?” I ended up asking.
He sniffled again.
“My girlfriend dumped me…”
I nodded in solidarity. We’ve all been there before, haven’t we? I could understand him and what
he was feeling.
“Been there, done that. Fuckin’ sucks, man. I’m sorry.”
He let out a pathetic whimper-sounding noise. Poor guy.
I pulled up outside of his apartment building a moment later.
“We’re here.”
He didn’t respond at first. I got out of the car and went over to the passenger side and opened
the door. I slung Kirk’s arm around my shoulders so he’d have some support as I dragged him
up.
“What floor?”
“5th floor…”
—
With much struggle, I did eventually get Kirk up to his apartment. I had dumped him on the
couch and was kneeling next to him.
“Anything I can grab for you? Water? A change of clothes?”
He nodded.
“Both, please. My room is over there… just- grab something,”
he lazily pointed to one of the doors down the hall.
I ended up finding a pair of decent looking sweatpants in his closet and some oversized faded
band shirt. I brought them back to him and sat them down next to him.
“Oh, right. Water, too.” I went into his kitchen, and with some searching, found a glass and filled
it up with tap water.
I almost dropped the glass in surprise at the sight I saw when I turned around.
Kirk was butt-ass naked.
He was changing into the different clothes I had gotten for him. He was turned away from me,
so his ass was on full display for me to see.
The fuck?
How drunk do you have to be…
He slid the pants on, but nothing else, before he flopped back down onto the couch again. Was
that idiot not gonna go to his bed? It didn’t seem like it.
Without mentioning what had just happened, I set the glass of water down on the table next to
his already half asleep form. I grabbed some random sheet of paper I hoped wasn’t important
and scribbled down my phone number and the words ‘TEXT ME!!’ on it.
“I want you to text me in the morning and tell me you’re alright,‘kay?” I told him before taking the blanket on the couch and pulling it over him.
“...Mmkay” He replied sleepily.
I examined his sleeping form for a moment, and almost,
*almost* reached out and brushed
some stray curls away from his face, but I resisted the urge. That would have been weird.
“Goodnight, now” I said to him, but Kirk had already dozed off.
What a damn night, eh?