#im fine being the lifeline here. i’ll stay up it’s not a big deal

[plumberrypudding]

sometimes it feels like it’s just the same everywhere. at home and at school, my friends are always busy and i’m always supportive and at home and everyone else is Doing Things and i’m in bed waiting up in case they need to call me for safety in their uber ride home.

[mrsbhandari]

wish you were sober

a/n: hey its a random ajay fic no one asked for fjkdlkjf;lskdj;f ANYWAYS im still working on that athlete au cuz its a BITCH but thats fine. i hope you like this one, it turned out way longer than i wanted it to oop--

words: 4k

warnings: underage drinking, swearing, light sexual harassment (brian crandall aka asshole of the year), like kinda suggestive if you squint

summary: ajay getting roped into the bullshit(tm)

tagging: @rulesofthebeneath, @theeccentricbibliophile

#

It was near midnight when she called, voice loud over the speaker of his phone and face lighting up the screen. He blinked blearily, unsure of what was really happening and what he should specifically do about this girl who called him and expected him to...what? Drop everything for her? Race over to Brian’s house and bring her home? 

I hate my fucking life, he thought as he pulled on some jeans and grabbed his keys. She looked crazy over the phone, speech slurring and loud laughs directed at something off screen that he wasn’t sure he really wanted to see. She yelled that he needed to get over there and hung the phone up abruptly, not allowing him to get any words in before she left, making his heart beat at the possibilities of what might happen if he didn’t pick her up. 

When he pulled up to the large mansion overrun with rowdy high schoolers, he couldn’t hold in his sigh. He was really traipsing into the lion’s den, looking for a fellow mouse that liked to wear a predator’s pelt, ignoring the looks of hunger pointed his way by the big dogs of both Hearst and Berry. He figured Skye would be upstairs in her room or sleeping over at someone else’s house, so being saved by her was out. Erin was on a trip with her family and Rory was practicing lines at their house, so he was sure that if Ajay was going to get Bailey, it was going to be by himself. 

He didn’t even know why she was here, and why the hell is he supposed to come get her? She probably tagged along with Casey, so why shouldn’t her own brother get control of her? She doesn’t even like me, he thought, grimacing and ignoring the odd stares at his behavior. He seemed to be doing well at hiding his crush on her in favor of the play, but no one told him how hard it was going to be with her! She smiled so easily, and he was just supposed to act like it didn’t make his hands shake and his heart beat faster and his mind race with thoughts of her lips on his and and and…

I hate my fucking life, he repeated to himself, making his way out to the backyard and the pool, keeping his head down to avoid any unwanted contact with people who could most definitely snap his spine in half if they wanted to. His eyes ran over the different sections of the backyard, focusing on the beer pong table that a certain blonde ponytail was near, making his heart skip a beat. He walked over, silently waiting for her to finish her turn and standing awkwardly until she did. What’s the etiquette for this kind of thing? He didn’t have to worry about it long because she sunk her shot and raised her arms up in a high V, shouting and laughing her elation at almost winning the entire game. He let out a small oomph! when she turned to him and wrapped long arms around his neck, seemingly noticing him for the first time. 

“Oh! Ajay!” Her breath stank of cheap beer, but she was so close to him and her body was so warm that he couldn’t find it within himself to care. “I’m winning!” She drew out the word, yet he hung onto every syllable like it was his lifeline, finding it to be the only thing keeping him from pressing his lips to hers, party be damned. A curse from her beer pong opponent brought him back to reality, making him pull back from her but keep a hand on his waist to ensure she didn’t fall drunkenly. 

“I’m here to take you home, Bailey. You called me?” He had to contain himself when she pouted, finding it to be the cutest expression ever, but she quickly turned away and slammed back the shots in the cups on the table. “Bailey, what the fu--” he began, but she let out a loud, giddy laugh. 

“I haven’t even gone for a swim yet?” She took a few uncertain steps, stripping her shirt off and then shimmying her skirt to the grass. Ajay shot glares at a few Hearst football players who whistled and catcalled her before following her protectively, hiding her body from the group of boys. “Ajay, join me!” She was painfully drunk, stumbling and moving far too loosely to be considered sober or dignified. 

“No, we can swim when you aren’t wasted, c’mon…” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a few girls filming them, so he turned his body towards their camera to hide her again. She had been dressed for it, a cute black bikini accentuating her curves, but there was something inherently sweet yet dirty about how exposed she was. He knew it would sound selfish if he ever said it out loud, but it didn’t sit right with him, the fact that she wasn’t only doing this for him. She was drunk, and she barely even noticed him there, and even if she wasn’t drunk, she would never look at him the way he wanted her to. “Bailey, seriously, let me take you home.” 

“I’ve got laps first!” She walked over to the diving board and carefully stepped onto it, almost losing her balance at its wobble. 

“Hey, this chick is gonna jump drunk!” Brian yelled, laughing cruelly at the crowd of other high schoolers who meandered over to the side of the pool to watch. Ajay wanted to yell at how they should be focused on helping her instead of going viral, but he knew it would fall on deaf ears, the predators too preoccupied with the smell of fresh blood. He turned his attention back to Bailey, who was posing for a dive, which she didn’t quite follow through on as she made her leap from the board. Before he could catch her, she was in the water with a splash, providing lovely entertainment for the top of the food chain guffawing at her jump. 

“Bailey!” he yelled, leaning forward as much as he could without falling in after her. She rose to the surface, but was struggling, splashing the water and taking gulping breaths that never seemed to be enough as she kept slipping under. Shit shit shit! He thought, quickly ripping off his shirt and jacket and dropping his pants, disregarding the suggestive sounds falling out of his classmates’ mouths. Right now, he needed to help Bailey; he would deal with his pending payout from the possibility of a Buzzfeed article later. He threw his glasses on the small pile of his clothes as he jumped.

The sudden feeling of the water enveloping him was a shock, but he ran entirely on adrenaline to get over it quickly and swim over to Bailey, wrapping an arm around her waist and hugging her close in the water. She was still struggling against him, unable to stop the panic that was taking over her heart, but he found the edge of the pool and the ladder next to the diving board, quickly pushing her to sit on one of the metal steps. When her fingers wrapped around the rail, she calmed down quicker than expected, allowing him a moment of relief to catch his breath. 

“Aw, damn, I was hoping I would have to administer some CPR!” Brian whistled, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at the pair in the pool. Suddenly, Ajay was hit with the realization that he was here...with Bailey...at a party...with a shit ton of high schoolers...in his underwear...sopping wet. 

I hate my fucking life. No matter how many times it ran through his head, a gorgeous face would pop up in his mind shortly after, making his features soften and his breathing slow. With a jolt, he felt her moving in front of him and opened his eyes just in time to watch her ass pass directly in front of his face, making him blush and look away. He climbed out after her, the reality of just what he did hitting him as he looked around at the other teenagers, all staring at him and Bailey like they were the only food available for miles. He found a towel on a table and handed it to her, but she offered it back to him with a flirty smile. 

“I think you need this more than me,” she whispered, eyes glancing downward for a split second before meeting his once more. He let out a cough and wrapped the towel around his waist, secretly happy he wore black, not-embarrassing boxers today. Collecting his pile of clothes from the side of the pool, he sneers at Brian when the boy stopped in front of them. 

“You think you can just make a mess at my party and leave without paying an exit fee?” He turned to Bailey, a sickly smile showing too many teeth and only making Ajay hurry to reach for his jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. “A kiss from the party girl?” 

“I think the fuck not,” Ajay said, tone low and threatening as he zipped up the thin layer over Bailey’s half-naked body. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him and willing her to stop shaking at his side. She was suspiciously quiet, but he didn’t have time to worry about her; he needed to get her out of this party. 

“Oh, c’mon--”

“You lay a hand on her and I report you for sexual harassment, which will go down even worse when the cops look at the evidence of underage drinking. I’ll say it one time, and one time only: Fuck. Off.” He hid his satisfaction at the way Brian gaped at him and stepped out of the way. They silently walked off, Ajay’s hands full with his clothes in one hand and a drunk girl that he was secretly pining after in the other. He looked down at her briefly, eyeing her through her thick lashes that nearly closed over a sleepy gaze. Before he stepped back into the house, he looked over his shoulder to see Brian glaring after them. “Take that ‘exit fee’ and shove it up your ass!” With a resolute nod, he made his way through the house and to his car, surrounded by teenagers that he shooed away. 

“‘Jay…” she drawled, the first word she said in the past 5 minutes making him flush. “Where are we going?”

“Well, my house is closer, so I’ll text your brother and call your mom to say you’re staying over at my place.”

“Hm…” was all she hummed, allowing herself to be strapped in by him. He stayed outside the driver’s side to pull his pants on, but stopped with his shirt in his hands when she reached over and rolled the window down. “Leave it off!” She sounded like a child and he wanted to laugh, so bad, to just laugh with her and not worry about what the hell this party was and what the hell was going to happen in the morning and what the hell he was going to do when she was spending the night in his bed. 

But he couldn’t. 

“Sorry, Bailey,” he said, slipping the shirt down and smiling at her pained whines. 

“Such a Debby Downer,” she slurred. She looked back out of her window, pouting and ignoring him when he offered his phone, opened to Spotify for her. 

“I’ll make it up to you. Pick some music.” That seemed to distract her enough for him to get going, flinching at the volume she played WAP at and screamed the lyrics to. There was something intimate about this as well, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of how sweet it felt, wafting over his senses like being down the street from the bakery. You knew that the closer you got, the stronger the smell, and the more at home you felt amidst the warm pastries that lined the window. The closer he drove to his house, the more inevitable being close to her was, and he couldn’t get it out of his head as he switched his attention from the road to her hand movements as she rapped the lewd lyrics, fueled entirely by the alcohol. 

She whined more when he turned down the volume as he turned into his neighborhood, but he managed to convince her to be quiet with a single finger to his lips, something she seemed to focus on for far too long to even be attributed to the alcohol. She luckily kept this behavior up when he ushered her inside and to his room as quickly as possible while still keeping her from falling into several of Mohit’s loud toys and the large furniture that seemed to be ten times as dangerous at night. 

“I felt like I was on Wipeout,” Bailey gasped when he closed the door, voice entirely too loud for the quiet stillness of the room. He was about to scold her, but then she collapsed on the bed, making it creak and add to the genuine noise she brought everywhere she went. His heart decided that he liked the noises that were associated with her before his mind ever caught up, something that was happening a lot more nowadays when he saw her walk into the auditorium, ponytail swinging and smile wide. 

“Uh, here,” he said, offering a large t-shirt and some old pajama pants that were too small for him to her before turning around and covering his eyes. He heard the unzipping of his jacket and the ruffling of clothes, keeping his eyes shut under his hands as he waited for her with bated breath. He hated how his mind wandered to her even when he didn’t want it to, his eyelids seemingly tattooed with her bright eyes and curious gaze, always finding his glances with pinpoint accuracy that left him stuttering and looking away. She was here, in his room, drunk. Just a few feet away and he could reach out his hands to touch her, feel her skin under his palm, run the pads of fingers over her collarbone, the scar on her shoulder, the freckles on her cheek. His touch could linger for as long as he wanted it to, because she’d be looking forward to it as much as he was, and she would pull his face down for a kiss that knocked the breath out of his lungs. 

“You can look now,” was what a tentative voice behind him said, jolting him out of his fantasy and making him turn around. No matter how much mental preparation he could put his mind through, he never could fully be ready for the sight of the sight of his large shirt slipping off her shoulder, revealing the collarbone he had just been thinking about a few seconds before. She sat cross legged on the sheets, making her seem smaller than she really was. 

“You must be tired.”

“I’m not.”

“You looked ready to pass out at Brian’s, don’t bullshit.” He sounded unnecessarily harsh which made him feel even worse than he already did for her as she cast a glance down at her hands. He sighed. “Sorry, I was just worried.”

“About me?” 

“Well, you almost drowned, so yeah. I was worried.” Her gaze was still on her hands and she hummed, too full of thoughts for someone who probably couldn’t keep them straight. 

“Was that the only reason?”

“You talk too much. Aren’t you supposed to be passed out by now? I’ve never dealt with a drunk person before.” He saw her cheeks grow bigger and figured she was smiling; it made him smile, too, an indicator that he was too far gone to ever deny feelings for her that flitted around his mind like cobwebs. He shook them away to force himself to listen to her speak once more.

“I just…” She trailed off but stopped herself from releasing anything else, lips tight and silence awkward. 

“It’s fine.” His voice was too hurried, he sounded too panicked, and he cringed to himself when he got the simple words out. Damage control. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.” She just hummed again, and he hated the way he analyzed it, searching for the hidden meaning as if the vibrations would unlock some new achievement, leaving a letter in his pocket that would lay out all the things felt between the two. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized he would be afraid to read it. “You take the bed.”

“What? Why?” Her voice raised unexpectedly, enough so that even she seemed surprised by the sudden raise in volume that was met with another finger to his lips. 

“It’s polite, I’m not making you sleep on the floor drunk.”

“Just sleep with me.” The alcohol was clouding her mind, letting more pass through her filter without a second thought. 

“I can’t do--”

“Why not?”

The challenging tone made him pause, unsure if she really meant anything by the insistent way she clenched her fists and stared up at him, nose scrunched in an adorable pout that made his heart melt. He could feel his resolve crumbling, which is surprising since he was always seen as one of the most stubborn students in the theatre department. Someone shouldn’t be able to wear him down this much unless they were holding a gun to his head. 

Or maybe they were just looking at him with such a determination in their eyes that it made him stop and consider the options for once. 

“If I do this, you’ll sleep?” 

“Yes,” she sighed more than spoke, scooting backwards on the bed and edging over to leave room for him. He wondered if she could already hear the beating of his heart, loudly rushing into his ears as he tried to calmly walk over to the side of the bed. It all felt domestic, like they were husband and wife, but he felt too loud to be considered casual. His feet pounded the wood below him and his large hands scraped against the sheets. He left a layer under him so as to separate him from Bailey, but it proved unsuccessful as she just climbed (stumbled) back out and then got back in on top of the same layer, getting rid of his barrier and only making him sweatier. He was still in jeans, they noticed at the same time, and she looked up at him expectantly. 

“You can change your pants you know.” She raised an arm to her eyes, closing and covering them. “I won’t look.” 

You can if you want to. 

The sentence was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t find it within himself to say it, opting instead to just silently get up and change, slipping his legs into pants that he only realized matched hers when he climbed back beside her. When he settled with his back against the headboard, he nearly yelped when her hand found his thigh, running her fingers over the soft material. 

“We match.”

“Yeah. Unintentionally, I swear.” He stiffened when she nudged closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. 

“I don’t mind. I think it’s cute.” 

He never expected that “Bailey Called Something I Did Cute” to be written on his tombstone, but here he was: murdered by the shape of her mouth forming a word like that in reference to him. 

“Can I kiss you?” The question was unhurried and whispered in his ear, but it hit him like a bolt of lightning, sending tingles over his entire body as he flinched away from her. 

“What?” Half of his body was off the bed as she leaned closer to him, cupping his right cheek in one hand. She still smelled like shitty beer and chlorine, a combination that should’ve made him gag, but she managed to make seem like the highest priced perfume. It made him want to lean in right back, slot his lips against her plush ones and just accept that it happened, but he also knew that going back on his word to the rest of the theatre department was an awfully shitty move. 

“I want to kiss you.”

“You’re drunk.”

“What’s the saying? ‘Drunk words are sober thoughts’?”

“You want to kiss me when you’re sober, too?”

“All the time.” His breath hitched; Wasn’t expecting that development. “I wish I didn’t have to kiss Rory in the play. I think they like me and I don’t want to lead them on, but it’s so hard when the kiss is so anticipated. It’s especially hard when I have a crush on my director. ” 

Ah, the kiss, Ajay remembered, slightly ashamed at all the times they’d rehearsed the scene but he would always call for them to stop just before the climax of it. He knew it was kind of pervy, but he really only wanted to watch his crush kiss someone else the minimum amount of times he was required to: the four times they were performing the show, nothing less and absolutely nothing more.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Say you’ll kiss me.” 

“What about the play?”

“It’s your rule. You can decide if you want to break it with me.” She didn’t know he had already decided months ago when he saw her at auditions that if the opportunity ever made itself known, he would break a thousand rules just to feel her skin against his one time. And now he seemed to be giving in, leaning in closer and closer until her breath was hot against his, shared between the two like a secret. 

“I’ll kiss you,” he decided, finally closing the gap between them and kissing her. His lungs and chest felt tight, but any concerns about the play, the party, or the bitter taste of beer on his tongue melted away as she kissed him back fervently. He figured he should be impressed with how good she still was at kissing despite being wasted, but his thoughts were cut off as she pulled back. He was suddenly self-conscious, concerned about how good he was and the line of spit that still connected them. “What--”

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she breathed, chest heaving with the excitement and the alcohol still in her system. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Ajay.” 

Ajay loved music, but he decided that if he had to give up every single record he owned just to hear his name fall out of her mouth again, he would hand them over in a heartbeat. Despite the way his heart was beating out of his chest, he forced himself to sound casual as he looked down at her. “Oh, yeah?” 

“Yes, you dork.” A drunken smile that stopped his heart and made his mind click trying to story it in his memory slipped onto her face, and she dropped her head back on his shoulder. “A long time,” she repeated softly, and before he could respond, she was asleep. 

He gently lifted her up and laid her down flat on the bed, making sure to keep close to her and her warmth. Just before he turned the light out, he pressed a kiss to her head, savoring the picture of her sleeping so soundly next to him, clutching his arm and one leg thrown over his waist. 

“Me too, Bailey.”