#this is where my asshole brain goes when we don't specify pairings

[notbang]

43. undone

Congratulations, you’ve won this cracktastic AU to 3.09.

Rebecca Bunch has unhinged him.

Poked, prodded, reshaped, redefined and then ultimately unraveled and undone him—it’s the only explanation for his idiotic, unprofessional and decidedly dangerously-skirting-the-lines-of-illegal behaviour. Rebecca Bunch dumped him and he’s losing his goddamn mind.

It’s the only explanation Nathaniel can come up with for how he finds himself in the back of an Uber in the early hours of Saturday morning, drunkenly making out with the office administrative assistant on their way back to her apartment.

*

He’s well on his way to seeing double by the time he bumps into her at the bar, so it takes him a second. There’s something naggingly familiar about the mousy girl that slides into the seat next to him, struggling to get a leg up on the slightly too-high stool, her phone gripped tightly in one hand.

Nathaniel does a double-take, then groans.

“Ugh, what are you doing here? And don’t you wear glasses?”

He gestures with a splayed palm at her face, and Maya’s hand goes instinctively up to her nose then stops when she realises there’s nothing there. She has to comically raise her minuscule voice for him to hear her above the music.

“I’m trying out contacts. And binge drinking. My self-esteem is currently at an uncharacteristic low and I caved to peer pressure and crushing societal expectations regarding beauty standards and how girls should just wanna have fun. Do you eat comfort carbs now?”

He looks down at the bowl of fries in front of him and then back up at her face. If he squints a little it’s definitely the same girl that leaves her weird arm-shaped backscratcher lying around the office in a questionable show of hygiene but if he doesn’t then she doesn’t and that almost, concerningly, works for him.

Maya looks down at her phone for a moment then huffs, shoving it aggressively into her purse.

In an unexpected twist she kisses him first, taking him by surprise so that all he can do is stare at her for a moment, her eyes impossibly close as she presses her mouth firmly against his. She makes to pull back when she realises he isn’t reciprocating but then he shuts off his brain and stumbles into her, hands grabbing blindly at whatever they can find.

He’s just a guy who’s been dumped, after all. He can’t be held responsible for his actions.

*

Maya is as impossibly tiny as he is tall, and the absurdity of the height difference doesn’t make it easy on either of them. He guesses she knows what he’s thinking as he trails his eyes over the surfaces of her apartment, calculating.

“My housemate has a swing,” she offers helpfully. “Clips right over the door.”

He’d be lying if he said his curiosity wasn’t piqued but he’s not sure either of them is currently coordinated enough to pull that off, and the bed is still looking like the easiest option. He steers them in what he hopes is the appropriate direction, helping her shed his shirt along the way. She’s less efficient in dealing with her dress and the confusing arrangement of undergarments beneath it, so he sits down on the end of her comforter and waits. She disappears into her walk-in robe.

“So even though this is just a one-night stand, I want you to know this bedroom is a safe space, and I don’t kink shame.”

She re-emerges wearing a pair of black Minnie Mouse ears, the pink sequinned bow fastened between them flopping down over her flushed forehead. She pushes it up in lieu of her glasses.

“It’s the best I could do on short notice. So anyway, what’s your fursona?”

He opens his mouth but no words come out because has no idea what the hell she’s talking about but he doesn’t get a chance to answer anyway because she’s on him again, launching herself into his lap with more energy than he thinks he’s ever seen her exhibit. He lets himself lean back into the mattress—she seems surprisingly happy to drive whatever the hell it is they’re doing and he figures her on top is probably the best way for them to go about this, anyway—and pats absently at his side pockets for his wallet, trying to remember if he still has a condom on hand.

Maya draws back suddenly, breathless.

“What are your feelings on three-ways? Would you participate in an MMF or no? As a loud and proud bisexual woman I definitely enjoy the MFF dynamic and feel like the alternative could be a bit much to deal with but I try to keep an open mind.”

He scrunches his face up and twists his head back on the pillows, heaving a heavy sigh.

“I don’t…” He shakes his head. “Do you always talk this much?”

“My friends tell me I’m a rambling drunk, which is why I normally stick to Shirley Temples. Sorry. Sometimes I lack boundaries and alcohol destroys the very delicate filter that holds back some of my more progressive thoughts. It’s okay, though—like I said, my apartment is a judgement free zone, so feel free to unload about whatever.”

“You need to take those off,” he says, jerking his chin up at the ears. “You barely look twelve on a good day so this is hard enough for me as it is. How old are you, anyway? You know what—never mind. As long as you’re above the age of consent, I don’t want to know.”

She slides off him, knees curling into her side.

“We ran into each other in a bar, remember?” she says, wringing the mouse ears in her hands. Then, “I think I’m having a quarter-life crisis.”

Something about the despondent look on her face reminds him briefly but agonisingly of Rebecca and he groans, scrubbing his hand over his eyes. He can’t deal with this right now.

There’s a chirrup from the nightstand and she reaches across him, narrowly avoiding elbowing him in the nose. After a minute Maya looks up from where her fist is clenching around her phone, jaw set defiantly.

“Have you ever tried cocaine?”

*

Nathaniel can’t get through to his guy so they settle for her bottle of peach schnapps instead, drinking out of coffee mugs, cross-legged on her living room carpet.

“You’re not missing out on much,” he assures her. “It was probably a bad idea anyway. We can not and say we did. Just tell your friends it was underwhelming. First times usually are.”

Maya downs the rest of her drink and rises to her feet. She’s pulled on his chambray shirt and she’s swimming in it, the soft blue-grey swamping her insignificant frame.

“So,” she says with renewed confidence. “Enough talking. Enough drinking. Let’s Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone this thing. Hashtag Crazy Stupid Love. Hashtag you raise me up. Hashtag the lion and the mouse. Hashtag… I’m all out of hashtags but let’s do it. Let’s go.”

“I don’t know if you know this,” Nathaniel says wryly, gazing up at her from the floor, “but you’re literally speaking another language right now.”

“You’ve never seen Crazy Stupid Love?” When he continues to stare at her blankly she tries again. “How about its seminal precursor, Dirty Dancing?”

“Ohh,” he says, pointing at her as understanding dawns on him. He pulls himself to his feet. “You want me to do the whole lift thing, right? Chicks dig that for some reason. Yeah, okay. What do you weigh, like ninety pounds? I could bench press you in my sleep. Let’s do it.”

She gauges the appropriate run-up and he catches her by the waist and hoists her over his head, surprising himself with the smoothness with which he manages to carry off the manoeuvre despite his inebriated state.

Maya lets out a tiny squeak, her small frame tensing in his hands.

He tries to peer up at her and stumbles backwards slightly, earning himself another yelp. Her eyes are scrunched tightly shut.

“Okay up there?”

“Perfect,” she insists, the high-pitch of her voice suggesting otherwise.

She doesn’t seem sure what to do with her legs and he readjusts his grip as she squirms, shifting the delicate illusion of balance he’s barely able to maintain. He realises she’s veering dangerously close to the overhead lamp and sidesteps out of its path.

“So now what?”

“Now you put me down. Only sexy.” The words come out garbled, in a tense and nervous rush. “It’s a tried and true romcom staple.”

He’s not sure he nails the brief but he manages to fumble her back to her feet without dropping her, setting her in front of him, only slightly unsteady.

“Was that seductive? Are you feeling seduced?” she asks, tugging on the hem of his shirt where it’s ridden up over her thighs.

“Sure,” he says, noncommittal. “Consider me seduced.”

When she shoves him back on the bed and crawls over him and he can’t get it up it’s absolutely only because Maya talks too much and he’s drunk too much and nothing to do with the fact that once he started earlier he now can’t stop thinking about Rebecca and the stubborn sting of her rejection, the fog of the alcohol no longer doing any good at keeping that particular hollow ache at bay. 

He grits his teeth and ignores the pricking sensation in his already bloodshot eyes. This has already been an embarrassing enough hit to his ego. He’s not going to cry as well.

*

Maya falls asleep halfway through administering the world’s most ineffectual hand-job and Nathaniel slips quietly from the bed, oddly relieved.

He passes out on her couch and when he wakes in the morning it’s to Maya looming over him in a fluffy robe—impressive, given her stature—her arms crossed haughtily over her chest.

She’s wearing her glasses again, and it’s oddly comforting despite the circumstances.

“There’s a bunch of rolled up bills on my coffee table. Did we do cocaine in my living room last night?”

“No,” Nathaniel says, waving his hand dismissively and trying to ignore the pounding in his temples as he sits up. “I mean, we thought about it. You wanted to practice rolling twenties just in case. But that’s as far as we got. Drank a lot of schnapps, though.”

She tugs her robe tighter around her with one hand, holding up his dress shirt in the other.

“Did we…?”

“Also no,” he supplies flatly. “Not for lack of trying, but it was probably for the best.”

She gingerly hands him back his shirt and he takes it, avoiding her eyes as he slides it over his shoulders and diffidently does up the buttons.

He realises he never asked her what exactly she had going on that had sent her off on her own personal spiral in the first place. He’s satisfied he didn’t, and still doesn’t want to.

He clears his throat.

“So if we could just never talk about this whole thing ever—and I do mean ever—again, that would be great.”

*

He pats her awkwardly on the head as he leaves.