And with each mile
Nov. 29th, 2012 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teamzaylorCHAPTER 23: FLUORESCENT ALCOHOLIC DRINKS
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
Thanks for the great comments the latest two times. This Chapter is a bit longer than some chapters. Enjoy!
We took the light blue line to Sant Marti to the 7th floor of a club called Kapital. I’d never seen a seaside club before that even had seven floors. Of course, it took us an hour and a half to make it to the top floor, despite the fact that that was our plan as soon as we walked into the club. Zac decided he wanted to get a drink on each floor. The first couple floors he was fine- smiling, laughing, buying me interesting looking drinks with light-up ice cubes in them.
By the time he had downed his shot on the 6th floor, he was beginning to swagger a bit. Attempting the stairs didn’t necessarily seem like a good idea, despite Zachary’s insistence, so we took the elevator. Zac grinned as he hit the button for floor seven and watched it light up as if he had never been in an elevator before.
When we stumbled out, he went immediately over to the bar and I helplessly ran after him. I was quickly discovering that nights at clubs with Zachary were actually nights of babysitting. He sensed my annoyance and said, “Taylor, loosen up and have fun.” But I don’t know how he expected me to enjoy myself when I was watching him slowly become so shit-faced that he could hardly walk, hardly talk, hardly think.
Zac not only had a seventh drink on the seventh floor, but he also had an eighth, a ninth, a… I lost count. At one point, when he noticed me sitting in a bar staring angrily off at the smutty crowd, he took me by the hands and dragged me over to the dance floor.
“Taylor, dance with me,” he grinned, moving his hips to the beat. He was staring at me and quite frankly, I felt self-conscious. I had only had three drinks and it evidently wasn’t enough for me to loosen up like he wanted me to.
I rocked back and forth on my feet- trying to play along- but eventually I just shook my head.
“Zac, I can’t dance. I’m gonna go sit back down…”
He grabbed my wrist again and protested. “Tay! No. I want to dance with you.”
He advanced on me, shrinking the space between us as he took a few steps closer to me. He moved his hand that was gripping my wrist to my waist and looked into my eyes as he began to revolve his hips into mine.
Woa. This was not a gay club. This was a strange club in a strange city with strange people we didn’t know. I stepped away quickly.
“Zac, no.”
“Why won’t you dance with me!” he sulked.
“I don’t feel comfortable…”
“You never feel comfortable!” he said and I couldn’t help but think he was referencing the episodes back in our hotel room as well.
“Not around you… when you’re drunk.”
“Not around me… ever.”
I just shrugged at him.
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Taylor. I don’t know why I even try to have a good time with you. It’s impossible.”
I hated him for saying that. So why did he fly out to Europe to see me? Why did he invite me on the stupid little trip? Why did he bother if I was so impossible to have fun with? I looked over at him. His eyes were closed, he was dancing sexually with himself, and he was running his hands down his own body. Well, he certainly seemed to have a good enough time with himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if Zac was Zacharysexual as well- if the only person he was attracted to was himself. Sometimes it seemed like his pleasure, and his happiness, and his way were the only things he was interested in.
Did he care that I was standing there awkwardly in a strange city not knowing how to do the whole club thing? No. He just cared that he was dancing and he was happy.
“Then stop trying…” I said to him, but he didn’t even hear. He just kept dancing- completely oblivious to everyone but himself. So I walked away. And you know what? He didn’t notice.
I wandered into the mens bathroom and found a pair of men exchanging money by the paper towel dispenser. I decided I didn’t want to know, so I locked myself in a stall, peed because I personally have to pee about every half an hour, and then sat on the toilet in my jeans, resting my face in my knees. I could hear the pumping bass coming from in the club and the hushed Spanish of the men on the other side of the bathroom. I sat there for a few minutes, pitying myself, and to be perfectly honest, waiting for Zac to come busting through the doors looking for me. But he didn’t. He didn’t even call my cell phone.
After awhile I decided I felt like a completely pathetic moron expectantly sitting on the toilet and frankly, I got kind of scared because the Spanish mumbling outside my stall turned into Spanish yelling that was escalating by the minute. Not wanting to witness an assault, or even worse, get dragged into one, I quickly left the bathroom and stepped back into the fog of the dance floor.
I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was scanning the floor for Zachary but I was. I didn’t see him. I hoped he was drunkenly running up and down the stairs of the night club searching frantically for me. I began to wander over to the bar to do like Zac and coat my pain in fluorescent alcoholic drinks, but something caught my eye on my walk over.
Standing on one of the tables of the club, right to the left of the front of the stage, was my brother. His long hair was wild and ruffled and he had two girls on the table next to him- bumping into him with each bass beat of the song. He was dancing, grinding, touching and caressing them. Oh… and it would be a shame not to mention this part of it: he was shirtless.
I immediately got that fight or flight feeling. As far as I was concerned, Zachary had picked a fight with me whether he knew it yet or not. By standing on a table dancing with people who didn’t know, GIRLS we didn’t know, he had thrown the first punch. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to go over and say something to him- anything to him- knock him off the table and pound my fists into his face. Or if I wanted to just walk away… and walk back to London where I probably should have stayed in the first place. My first instinct, truthfully, was to disappear from the night club completely and go back to the hotel room where I would take a warm, soothing shower and then lay in bed watching the only English channel I could find. So because that was my gut feeling, and trusting your gut is often too safe, I decided to do otherwise. I ordered two shots of vodka since whiskey makes me want to hurl and I tossed them down my throat.
I felt like a big shot taking the shots like a man too, but the familiar gagging feeling started to surface as soon as I got the second shot down and I gesticulated dramatically for a glass of water. The bar tender smiled and immediately placed a glass of water at my side to which I threw it back and tossed him a Spanish bill. Zac and I had switched our money at the airport that morning but I didn’t understand yet what each bill equaled so I have absolutely no idea how much I tipped the guy. He seemed pleased though. For all I knew, I had tipped him the equivalent of 100 US dollars.
Feeling a little bit more ballsy after my shots, I looked back over to see Zachary still carelessly dancing- as if he was in another universe or something where the only thing that mattered were flashing lights, loud music, and hot bodies. He grinned at the girls next to him and held one of them against his body, grinding his hips into her and undressing her with his eyes. I guess he was bisexual after all…
Before I could change my mind and be a wimp, I stomped over to Zac and climbed up on top of the table he was standing on. The entire thing shook and I grabbed his shoulder to stay steady. That was when he finally noticed me. Before that he was still in his own little club world.
“Taylor!” he yelped, grinning like a fool through blond strands of hair. “You decided to dance!”
“Where the fuck is your shirt, Zac?”
He looked down at his body as if realizing for the first time that he was not wearing one.
“What the fuck…?” he laughed, looking at his naked chest with a perplexed expression. Besides the two girls still attempting to rub against him, despite my presence, everyone in the club was looking at him like he was crazy. Apparently Zachary’s slutty, maniac behaviour, the naked chest and ripped jeans, wasn’t a big hit in Spain.
“What the hell happened to my shirt!”
I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. I had no response for him. He was ridiculous. How was it possible to become so completely trashed in a matter of not even two hours?
He looked accusingly at the girls on the table with us.
They said something to each other in Spanish and then one of them finally giggled, in muddled English, “The shirt? You took it off.” They pointed at the cotton garment lying on the floor next to the legs of the table.
“Sure I did…” he said sarcastically- deviously, even though we all knew damn well, even me who hadn’t seen it happen, that Zachary had stripped down himself. “Next time leave my clothes where you find them, okay? I’m not standing here removing YOUR clothes am I? Ridiculous…”
We all watched curiously as Zachary jumped down from the table, grabbed his shirt from the sticky floor, and stumbled over to the bar. For balance, he grabbed at people on his way, making young, provocatively dressed girls scream in horror but undeniably excited by his touch. When he reached the side of the bar, he clutched it and ordered himself another round of… God only know what he was drinking that had gotten him so plastered.
I turned to the giggling Spanish girls who shrugged and continued dancing on the table without Zac. They took to rubbing their bodies against each other instead.
“God help me…” I muttered, looking around at the masses of people below me and starting to feel quite dizzy as a result of my recent bonding experience with vodka.
The girls turned and smiled at me. “That your friend?” one of them asked.
“My little brother,” I sighed. It’s funny. Even though when I think of Zachary I get the chills and immediately imagine him naked, sexy, and everything I could ever dream of, our brotherhood always comes before our relationship. He’s my brother before my lover.
“Your brother is a funny boy,” she laughed. “Too much alcohol.”
We all watched as Zachary grinned at the bartender, threw a bill down on the bar, and tried to stabilize himself so he could take a swig of his newest drink.
“Tell me about it,” I sighed, beginning to feel completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing on the middle of a table with my confusion and rejection showcased for hundreds of people to see. “Story of my fucking life. I cannot figure out for the life of me why he drinks so much.”
We watched as the song changed over and Zac let his head fall back to the introduction of a new song. He began to stomp his feet like an animal and move to the music with the new beat, as if the DJ had plugged the amplifier into him and it was running through his blood. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand a single word being sang in the song. The beat was enough to cause a smile to stretch across his face and his fingers to rap against his glass.
“Maybe he drinks alcohol because it’s much fun,” the other laughed.
I stood there watching Zachary begin to dance by himself again, half-way naked with his shirt in his spare hand, finishing off the contents of his drink. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was just because it was fun for him. Maybe I didn’t need to look for some deep-rooted psychological issue that Zac wouldn’t fess up to- never mind hint at in the slightest.
“Why does everyone think alcohol is so fun?” I pondered out loud. I certainly never had too much fun when drinking. In fact, it usually induced drama. Granted, I’d never gotten completely wasted in my life, but the buzzed feeling that people often applauded was really not that special as far as I could tell.
“Because it is!” the original girl giggled as he held her friends hand and encouraged her friend to spin. They laughed when she did. “You have to enjoy you-self!”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I never stopped and let myself just… enjoy. Just be. Exist without questioning, wondering, asking a single question. I sighed and hopped down from the table, abandoning my new drunken, Spanish friends and wandering over to Zachary’s side. It was amazing how he cared so much and so little, all at the same time, about the world around him.
When he saw me his smile grew and he reached his arm out for a hug. I sighed and let him envelope me in a large hug. Why the hell not? Just be.
“Tay,” he mumbled into my neck. “I love you.”
Furious at for not following me, for having fun by himself, for drinking as much as he had, for taking his shirt off, for making a complete ass out of himself… I couldn’t seem to do anything but pat his back gently.
“I know you do…” I admitted, despite the fact that he had such a lousy way of showing it.
He kissed my neck gently and stepped back to look at me, putting his hands on the sides of my chin and staring at me for a moment. Then he leaned in and kissed my lips lovingly and simply.
“You know what is really fucked up, Tay..lor?” he slurred.
“What’s really fucked up, Zachary?”
He nodded at the dancing girls on the table. “Those bitches took off my fucking shirt, without me even noticing.”
I stared at his serious expression. Cracked a smile. Laughed. Bent over in hysterics.
“You are such an idiot, Zac,” I chuckled.
“Hey!”
“In a good way,” I smiled and then leaned over to flag down a bartender. When he made eye contact with me I ordered another shot of vodka.
“Zachary…” I said, my voice raspier than usual. The alcohol and the nighttime had a way of making my voice sound like an old record player- dusty and crackling.
Zac’s expression perked and he looked at me with impressed disbelief.
“You dare fucking devil…”
“You only live once,” I shrugged, accepting the shot glass gratefully and throwing it back. By then, no glass of water was needed.
He raised his eye brows at me proudly. “Well, well, well… maybe you will dance with me after all.”
I shrugged and asked for another shot… and then another for good luck. “Maybe I will.”
Not even ten minutes later Zac is dragging his shit-faced older brother to the middle of the dance floor for the second time that night- stumbling and tripping over his hesitant victim- who’s coincidentally falling over his own feet.
“Walk much?” I laugh, even though I’m not much better.
Zachary grinned and let go of me when he found a place that was crowded and sweaty enough to keep his high. He closed his eyes, smiled up at the bright lights, and began to dance to the music. I tried to dance too but stopped when he opened his eyes and laughed.
“Dance much?” he teased.
“Shut up!” I said, turning to walk off the dance floor.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I’m kidding. You look sexy, Taylor. Super sexy. You are ‘I want to steal you and fuck you mercilessly’ sexy,” he said, stumbling over that tongue twister. “Just watching you dance is getting me up.”
“Zac!” I laughed at his crude honesty and glanced around at the people dancing around us.
He grinned and closed the gap between us, resting one arm loosely around my waist and holding me against him as he grinded into me. This time, I let him. And he was right… he um, was… well, you know…
Anyway, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and refused to hesitate. Refusing to care if I looked stupid, I told myself I was in fact as sexy as Zachary claimed and grinded back into him. I hadn’t danced provocatively with anyone since I was fourteen years old at a school dance a friend dragged me along to where I had wrapped my arms around a prepubescent little girl and bounced up and down on my heels as I held her. Fuck, I hadn’t danced period in years.
Dancing with Zac was sort of awkward as our hips kept getting too far away from each other and then when we both advanced, we bumped bodies slightly and had to restore our balance. But we didn’t laugh, and we didn’t blush. We just locked eyes. Oh the beauty of alcohol, I remember thinking while we were dancing, an ironic thought considering my position on it just 15 minutes earlier.
At one point, sometime in between Zachary’s hand resting lazily on the waist of my jeans and me feeling his bare chest rub against my body, he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. If I had been sober, I certainly would have pushed him away, tossed looks of embarrassment to our fellow clubbers, and slipped off the dance floor to hide in the corners of the club where the sexual predators and sexually frustrated population of Barcelona hid. But I wasn’t sober. Far from it. I was inebriated, at least in comparison to any other time in my life. So I stopped dancing, pressed my body against Zac’s, and engulfed his lips in mine.
I don’t know how long we kissed for, but when we were shoved by some dark-eyed guy walking past us and we had to separate in surprise, I felt suddenly really empty and I wanted to be back in his arms. We both looked back at the culprit with confused eyes and racing hearts. Zachary just shrugged and leaned back in towards me, figuring it was an accident, but I knew better. I knew the scent of homophobia well and I knew Zac did too, but unlike him, I wasn’t going to deny the whiff that just passed by. It was too risky.
“Zac…” I protested, moving my head away from him as he leaned into me. “Maybe we shouldn’t…”
He shook his head and used his arm to drag me closer. “Don’t worry about anything,” he said in that deep, hoarse voice. “My mind is a haze. Yours should be too. It’s nice like this, for once.”
I had to admit, I had liked kissing him without caring. I had liked how I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable about making out with my boy friend, my brother, in the middle of a club. It felt adventurous and yet natural, and positively sexy.
“My mind is a haze too,” I giggled. I hate to say that I giggled, but I most certainly did.
He smirked and kissed my lips lightly. “It’s weird how this room is loud… and busy… and there are people everywhere, but it feels like you’re the only person here.”
I understood what he meant- exactly what he meant. It was strange. I let him kiss me again and even pressed my body against him when he stepped closer. I hardly had time to kiss him back when we felt it again- a shove.
We separated just as quickly again but this time Zachary’s expression wasn’t confused; it was vengeful. He looked around quickly and his eyes fell on a group of guys standing next to us, laughing, heckling, scoffing in our direction.
“Do you have a fucking problem?” my younger brother began his nightly rage-fest.
“Zac…” I stroked his arm. And of course, my nightly pleading with him.
Zachary pulled away from me and stepped over to the group of guys laughing at us. They spoke to each other in Spanish and jeered.
Then, to my complete surprise, Zac said something to them in Spanish- a language he had studied some in high school but not a language I thought he knew well enough to speak in. Sometimes it’s weird how well I know him, but there’s also so much I don’t know about him. There’s a whole chapter, maybe even chapters, in his life that I don’t understand in the slightest. I’ve just read small excerpts from those chapters but just the safe stuff.
One of the guys, the one with darker circles under his eyes, stepped forward a bit and spoke to Zachary in an aggressive, threatening way. And Zac, being Zac, spoke back to him in Spanish in the exact same way. It was apparent he was struggling with the language because he paused just long enough to show it didn’t come naturally. And he stumbled over the words, but I couldn’t tell if that was his inexperience or if it was the alcohol.
Zac kept talking, taking his time to pronounce each word and at one point gesticulating at me. As he spoke, he threw variations of “fuck” in between his words as if fuck was part of the Spanish language.
The guy responded, stepped closer to Zac, and Zac stepped closer still.
“Hit me then,” Zachary said, and then I believe he repeated the same phrase in Spanish. I stood there feeling like I was going to collapse, wanting to help but not knowing what to do and even if I could do anything.
The guy looked like he was about to. Honestly, I think he definitely would have if I hadn’t stepped in. I’m not saying I was like the hero or anything, because I certainly wasn’t, but he was my younger brother and I don’t know how the situation would have escalated had we not gotten out of there.
“Zachary, don’t let this escalate…” I said, my mind spinning and my vision swirling and oh… fuuuuck. Was the floor moving? “Let’s go… let’s leave. Just forget it. Please. They’re jackasses and hitting them isn’t going to change that.”
Zac glanced quickly at me and then back at the guy- afraid to look away for a second in case a punch was thrown. You could see his arms at his sides were ready to fly up to protect himself and throw a punch himself. I wasn’t even sure if my brother knew how to fight. I hadn’t seen him hit anyone since… well the time he hit me I was 14 and we got into a huge brawl in the backyard of our house one night- throwing each other down a hill and punching each other as we somersaulted and yelled.
“Zac, please… please just walk away…” I begged. And then the idea came over me to appeal to Zac… in a way I knew he would respond to. To communicate with him on his level. “Drop it and I’ll make it worth your while… I promise.”
I could see his eyes raise inquisitively but he kept them on the Spaniard across from him who was clearly ready to fight Zac if he needed to, but had not yet advanced on my brother.
“Do you understand what I’m saying…?” I asked nervously. “You won’t be sorry… if you understand what I’m saying. Let’s get out of here and go back to the hotel…” I said, trying to make my voice sound as sexy as possible for the sake of my brother’s flawless features that didn’t need to be tainted by a split lip or broken nose.
Zac’s body released some tension immediately and he gave the guy a steady eye as he stepped away as if to demonstrate backing down. The Spanish dude apparently wasn’t going to push the issue anymore either because he took a step back before turning to his posse and mumbling something. Zac kept his eyes and body facing the guy until he and his buddies turned and walked away, muttering to each other angrily. Once they had walked away, Zachary allowed himself to relax a bit and turn to me.
“Don’t start fights like that, Zac…” I sighed and leaned against him, having a hard time standing up. He was more drunk than me but somehow he managed to hold us both up. I rested my face in his shoulder and closed my eyes.
“I didn’t start it…” he mumbled.
“What were they saying? What did they have a problem with? Us? You and me?”
Zac paused and then subtly shook his head. “Nah. I just looked like someone else- someone who’s ass they want to kick. Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to do with us.”
I wasn’t sure if I was to believe it, but I just nodded against his body. I didn’t see him smile because my eyes were buried in his bare skin, but I heard that he was smiling when he spoke again.
“That… offer that you made… still stands?”
We wobbled a bit and then grabbed each other desperately for support, almost taking each other down in the process. We laughed.
“What offer?” I played innocent. Either that or I couldn’t really remember I had just made an offer. I was drunk. I don’t really remember what I was thinking.
“I think you know what offer…” he laughed and began to drag me off the dance floor. He grabbed his shirt off the bar stool and together we stumbled over to the elevator, bumping into people on our way and walking right into the wall twice. We piled into the elevator with the other drunk people and held each other close in the corner.
You want to know the truth? When it got to the bottom, we were so drunk we couldn’t seem to coordinate getting out of the elevator while other people piled into it, and we ended up riding it back to the top all over again… twice more.
By the time we were out of the nauseating elevator, Zachary managed to drunkenly wave down a taxi and get us into it without getting us killed by oncoming traffic. He mumbled a jumble of words that were supposed to produce the name of our hotel, but somehow we ended up at a McDonalds on the wrong side of town. We laughed for a moment just staring at the yellow arch outside our window and then Zachary handed the cab driver the brochure for our hotel that we had in our pocket.
Eventually, we did make it to the hotel after what was equal to a 55 dollar cab ride. We stumbled into our hotel room and I collapsed on the bed while Zac said he was going to pee. He’d be right back and I had a promise to live up to.
I must have fallen asleep while he was peeing, and he must have helped me peel my smoky t-shirt and jeans off and get me tucked in under the covers, because the next thing I knew it was morning and I was laying next to him with one of his arms flung across my body.
Either that, or we had really drunken sex that I had absolutely zero recollection of.
Much love to everyone. I will have another chapter up within the next mmmm let's say, 48 hours. -
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
Thanks for the great comments the latest two times. This Chapter is a bit longer than some chapters. Enjoy!
We took the light blue line to Sant Marti to the 7th floor of a club called Kapital. I’d never seen a seaside club before that even had seven floors. Of course, it took us an hour and a half to make it to the top floor, despite the fact that that was our plan as soon as we walked into the club. Zac decided he wanted to get a drink on each floor. The first couple floors he was fine- smiling, laughing, buying me interesting looking drinks with light-up ice cubes in them.
By the time he had downed his shot on the 6th floor, he was beginning to swagger a bit. Attempting the stairs didn’t necessarily seem like a good idea, despite Zachary’s insistence, so we took the elevator. Zac grinned as he hit the button for floor seven and watched it light up as if he had never been in an elevator before.
When we stumbled out, he went immediately over to the bar and I helplessly ran after him. I was quickly discovering that nights at clubs with Zachary were actually nights of babysitting. He sensed my annoyance and said, “Taylor, loosen up and have fun.” But I don’t know how he expected me to enjoy myself when I was watching him slowly become so shit-faced that he could hardly walk, hardly talk, hardly think.
Zac not only had a seventh drink on the seventh floor, but he also had an eighth, a ninth, a… I lost count. At one point, when he noticed me sitting in a bar staring angrily off at the smutty crowd, he took me by the hands and dragged me over to the dance floor.
“Taylor, dance with me,” he grinned, moving his hips to the beat. He was staring at me and quite frankly, I felt self-conscious. I had only had three drinks and it evidently wasn’t enough for me to loosen up like he wanted me to.
I rocked back and forth on my feet- trying to play along- but eventually I just shook my head.
“Zac, I can’t dance. I’m gonna go sit back down…”
He grabbed my wrist again and protested. “Tay! No. I want to dance with you.”
He advanced on me, shrinking the space between us as he took a few steps closer to me. He moved his hand that was gripping my wrist to my waist and looked into my eyes as he began to revolve his hips into mine.
Woa. This was not a gay club. This was a strange club in a strange city with strange people we didn’t know. I stepped away quickly.
“Zac, no.”
“Why won’t you dance with me!” he sulked.
“I don’t feel comfortable…”
“You never feel comfortable!” he said and I couldn’t help but think he was referencing the episodes back in our hotel room as well.
“Not around you… when you’re drunk.”
“Not around me… ever.”
I just shrugged at him.
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Taylor. I don’t know why I even try to have a good time with you. It’s impossible.”
I hated him for saying that. So why did he fly out to Europe to see me? Why did he invite me on the stupid little trip? Why did he bother if I was so impossible to have fun with? I looked over at him. His eyes were closed, he was dancing sexually with himself, and he was running his hands down his own body. Well, he certainly seemed to have a good enough time with himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if Zac was Zacharysexual as well- if the only person he was attracted to was himself. Sometimes it seemed like his pleasure, and his happiness, and his way were the only things he was interested in.
Did he care that I was standing there awkwardly in a strange city not knowing how to do the whole club thing? No. He just cared that he was dancing and he was happy.
“Then stop trying…” I said to him, but he didn’t even hear. He just kept dancing- completely oblivious to everyone but himself. So I walked away. And you know what? He didn’t notice.
I wandered into the mens bathroom and found a pair of men exchanging money by the paper towel dispenser. I decided I didn’t want to know, so I locked myself in a stall, peed because I personally have to pee about every half an hour, and then sat on the toilet in my jeans, resting my face in my knees. I could hear the pumping bass coming from in the club and the hushed Spanish of the men on the other side of the bathroom. I sat there for a few minutes, pitying myself, and to be perfectly honest, waiting for Zac to come busting through the doors looking for me. But he didn’t. He didn’t even call my cell phone.
After awhile I decided I felt like a completely pathetic moron expectantly sitting on the toilet and frankly, I got kind of scared because the Spanish mumbling outside my stall turned into Spanish yelling that was escalating by the minute. Not wanting to witness an assault, or even worse, get dragged into one, I quickly left the bathroom and stepped back into the fog of the dance floor.
I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was scanning the floor for Zachary but I was. I didn’t see him. I hoped he was drunkenly running up and down the stairs of the night club searching frantically for me. I began to wander over to the bar to do like Zac and coat my pain in fluorescent alcoholic drinks, but something caught my eye on my walk over.
Standing on one of the tables of the club, right to the left of the front of the stage, was my brother. His long hair was wild and ruffled and he had two girls on the table next to him- bumping into him with each bass beat of the song. He was dancing, grinding, touching and caressing them. Oh… and it would be a shame not to mention this part of it: he was shirtless.
I immediately got that fight or flight feeling. As far as I was concerned, Zachary had picked a fight with me whether he knew it yet or not. By standing on a table dancing with people who didn’t know, GIRLS we didn’t know, he had thrown the first punch. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to go over and say something to him- anything to him- knock him off the table and pound my fists into his face. Or if I wanted to just walk away… and walk back to London where I probably should have stayed in the first place. My first instinct, truthfully, was to disappear from the night club completely and go back to the hotel room where I would take a warm, soothing shower and then lay in bed watching the only English channel I could find. So because that was my gut feeling, and trusting your gut is often too safe, I decided to do otherwise. I ordered two shots of vodka since whiskey makes me want to hurl and I tossed them down my throat.
I felt like a big shot taking the shots like a man too, but the familiar gagging feeling started to surface as soon as I got the second shot down and I gesticulated dramatically for a glass of water. The bar tender smiled and immediately placed a glass of water at my side to which I threw it back and tossed him a Spanish bill. Zac and I had switched our money at the airport that morning but I didn’t understand yet what each bill equaled so I have absolutely no idea how much I tipped the guy. He seemed pleased though. For all I knew, I had tipped him the equivalent of 100 US dollars.
Feeling a little bit more ballsy after my shots, I looked back over to see Zachary still carelessly dancing- as if he was in another universe or something where the only thing that mattered were flashing lights, loud music, and hot bodies. He grinned at the girls next to him and held one of them against his body, grinding his hips into her and undressing her with his eyes. I guess he was bisexual after all…
Before I could change my mind and be a wimp, I stomped over to Zac and climbed up on top of the table he was standing on. The entire thing shook and I grabbed his shoulder to stay steady. That was when he finally noticed me. Before that he was still in his own little club world.
“Taylor!” he yelped, grinning like a fool through blond strands of hair. “You decided to dance!”
“Where the fuck is your shirt, Zac?”
He looked down at his body as if realizing for the first time that he was not wearing one.
“What the fuck…?” he laughed, looking at his naked chest with a perplexed expression. Besides the two girls still attempting to rub against him, despite my presence, everyone in the club was looking at him like he was crazy. Apparently Zachary’s slutty, maniac behaviour, the naked chest and ripped jeans, wasn’t a big hit in Spain.
“What the hell happened to my shirt!”
I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. I had no response for him. He was ridiculous. How was it possible to become so completely trashed in a matter of not even two hours?
He looked accusingly at the girls on the table with us.
They said something to each other in Spanish and then one of them finally giggled, in muddled English, “The shirt? You took it off.” They pointed at the cotton garment lying on the floor next to the legs of the table.
“Sure I did…” he said sarcastically- deviously, even though we all knew damn well, even me who hadn’t seen it happen, that Zachary had stripped down himself. “Next time leave my clothes where you find them, okay? I’m not standing here removing YOUR clothes am I? Ridiculous…”
We all watched curiously as Zachary jumped down from the table, grabbed his shirt from the sticky floor, and stumbled over to the bar. For balance, he grabbed at people on his way, making young, provocatively dressed girls scream in horror but undeniably excited by his touch. When he reached the side of the bar, he clutched it and ordered himself another round of… God only know what he was drinking that had gotten him so plastered.
I turned to the giggling Spanish girls who shrugged and continued dancing on the table without Zac. They took to rubbing their bodies against each other instead.
“God help me…” I muttered, looking around at the masses of people below me and starting to feel quite dizzy as a result of my recent bonding experience with vodka.
The girls turned and smiled at me. “That your friend?” one of them asked.
“My little brother,” I sighed. It’s funny. Even though when I think of Zachary I get the chills and immediately imagine him naked, sexy, and everything I could ever dream of, our brotherhood always comes before our relationship. He’s my brother before my lover.
“Your brother is a funny boy,” she laughed. “Too much alcohol.”
We all watched as Zachary grinned at the bartender, threw a bill down on the bar, and tried to stabilize himself so he could take a swig of his newest drink.
“Tell me about it,” I sighed, beginning to feel completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing on the middle of a table with my confusion and rejection showcased for hundreds of people to see. “Story of my fucking life. I cannot figure out for the life of me why he drinks so much.”
We watched as the song changed over and Zac let his head fall back to the introduction of a new song. He began to stomp his feet like an animal and move to the music with the new beat, as if the DJ had plugged the amplifier into him and it was running through his blood. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand a single word being sang in the song. The beat was enough to cause a smile to stretch across his face and his fingers to rap against his glass.
“Maybe he drinks alcohol because it’s much fun,” the other laughed.
I stood there watching Zachary begin to dance by himself again, half-way naked with his shirt in his spare hand, finishing off the contents of his drink. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was just because it was fun for him. Maybe I didn’t need to look for some deep-rooted psychological issue that Zac wouldn’t fess up to- never mind hint at in the slightest.
“Why does everyone think alcohol is so fun?” I pondered out loud. I certainly never had too much fun when drinking. In fact, it usually induced drama. Granted, I’d never gotten completely wasted in my life, but the buzzed feeling that people often applauded was really not that special as far as I could tell.
“Because it is!” the original girl giggled as he held her friends hand and encouraged her friend to spin. They laughed when she did. “You have to enjoy you-self!”
Maybe she was right. Maybe I never stopped and let myself just… enjoy. Just be. Exist without questioning, wondering, asking a single question. I sighed and hopped down from the table, abandoning my new drunken, Spanish friends and wandering over to Zachary’s side. It was amazing how he cared so much and so little, all at the same time, about the world around him.
When he saw me his smile grew and he reached his arm out for a hug. I sighed and let him envelope me in a large hug. Why the hell not? Just be.
“Tay,” he mumbled into my neck. “I love you.”
Furious at for not following me, for having fun by himself, for drinking as much as he had, for taking his shirt off, for making a complete ass out of himself… I couldn’t seem to do anything but pat his back gently.
“I know you do…” I admitted, despite the fact that he had such a lousy way of showing it.
He kissed my neck gently and stepped back to look at me, putting his hands on the sides of my chin and staring at me for a moment. Then he leaned in and kissed my lips lovingly and simply.
“You know what is really fucked up, Tay..lor?” he slurred.
“What’s really fucked up, Zachary?”
He nodded at the dancing girls on the table. “Those bitches took off my fucking shirt, without me even noticing.”
I stared at his serious expression. Cracked a smile. Laughed. Bent over in hysterics.
“You are such an idiot, Zac,” I chuckled.
“Hey!”
“In a good way,” I smiled and then leaned over to flag down a bartender. When he made eye contact with me I ordered another shot of vodka.
“Zachary…” I said, my voice raspier than usual. The alcohol and the nighttime had a way of making my voice sound like an old record player- dusty and crackling.
Zac’s expression perked and he looked at me with impressed disbelief.
“You dare fucking devil…”
“You only live once,” I shrugged, accepting the shot glass gratefully and throwing it back. By then, no glass of water was needed.
He raised his eye brows at me proudly. “Well, well, well… maybe you will dance with me after all.”
I shrugged and asked for another shot… and then another for good luck. “Maybe I will.”
Not even ten minutes later Zac is dragging his shit-faced older brother to the middle of the dance floor for the second time that night- stumbling and tripping over his hesitant victim- who’s coincidentally falling over his own feet.
“Walk much?” I laugh, even though I’m not much better.
Zachary grinned and let go of me when he found a place that was crowded and sweaty enough to keep his high. He closed his eyes, smiled up at the bright lights, and began to dance to the music. I tried to dance too but stopped when he opened his eyes and laughed.
“Dance much?” he teased.
“Shut up!” I said, turning to walk off the dance floor.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I’m kidding. You look sexy, Taylor. Super sexy. You are ‘I want to steal you and fuck you mercilessly’ sexy,” he said, stumbling over that tongue twister. “Just watching you dance is getting me up.”
“Zac!” I laughed at his crude honesty and glanced around at the people dancing around us.
He grinned and closed the gap between us, resting one arm loosely around my waist and holding me against him as he grinded into me. This time, I let him. And he was right… he um, was… well, you know…
Anyway, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and refused to hesitate. Refusing to care if I looked stupid, I told myself I was in fact as sexy as Zachary claimed and grinded back into him. I hadn’t danced provocatively with anyone since I was fourteen years old at a school dance a friend dragged me along to where I had wrapped my arms around a prepubescent little girl and bounced up and down on my heels as I held her. Fuck, I hadn’t danced period in years.
Dancing with Zac was sort of awkward as our hips kept getting too far away from each other and then when we both advanced, we bumped bodies slightly and had to restore our balance. But we didn’t laugh, and we didn’t blush. We just locked eyes. Oh the beauty of alcohol, I remember thinking while we were dancing, an ironic thought considering my position on it just 15 minutes earlier.
At one point, sometime in between Zachary’s hand resting lazily on the waist of my jeans and me feeling his bare chest rub against my body, he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. If I had been sober, I certainly would have pushed him away, tossed looks of embarrassment to our fellow clubbers, and slipped off the dance floor to hide in the corners of the club where the sexual predators and sexually frustrated population of Barcelona hid. But I wasn’t sober. Far from it. I was inebriated, at least in comparison to any other time in my life. So I stopped dancing, pressed my body against Zac’s, and engulfed his lips in mine.
I don’t know how long we kissed for, but when we were shoved by some dark-eyed guy walking past us and we had to separate in surprise, I felt suddenly really empty and I wanted to be back in his arms. We both looked back at the culprit with confused eyes and racing hearts. Zachary just shrugged and leaned back in towards me, figuring it was an accident, but I knew better. I knew the scent of homophobia well and I knew Zac did too, but unlike him, I wasn’t going to deny the whiff that just passed by. It was too risky.
“Zac…” I protested, moving my head away from him as he leaned into me. “Maybe we shouldn’t…”
He shook his head and used his arm to drag me closer. “Don’t worry about anything,” he said in that deep, hoarse voice. “My mind is a haze. Yours should be too. It’s nice like this, for once.”
I had to admit, I had liked kissing him without caring. I had liked how I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable about making out with my boy friend, my brother, in the middle of a club. It felt adventurous and yet natural, and positively sexy.
“My mind is a haze too,” I giggled. I hate to say that I giggled, but I most certainly did.
He smirked and kissed my lips lightly. “It’s weird how this room is loud… and busy… and there are people everywhere, but it feels like you’re the only person here.”
I understood what he meant- exactly what he meant. It was strange. I let him kiss me again and even pressed my body against him when he stepped closer. I hardly had time to kiss him back when we felt it again- a shove.
We separated just as quickly again but this time Zachary’s expression wasn’t confused; it was vengeful. He looked around quickly and his eyes fell on a group of guys standing next to us, laughing, heckling, scoffing in our direction.
“Do you have a fucking problem?” my younger brother began his nightly rage-fest.
“Zac…” I stroked his arm. And of course, my nightly pleading with him.
Zachary pulled away from me and stepped over to the group of guys laughing at us. They spoke to each other in Spanish and jeered.
Then, to my complete surprise, Zac said something to them in Spanish- a language he had studied some in high school but not a language I thought he knew well enough to speak in. Sometimes it’s weird how well I know him, but there’s also so much I don’t know about him. There’s a whole chapter, maybe even chapters, in his life that I don’t understand in the slightest. I’ve just read small excerpts from those chapters but just the safe stuff.
One of the guys, the one with darker circles under his eyes, stepped forward a bit and spoke to Zachary in an aggressive, threatening way. And Zac, being Zac, spoke back to him in Spanish in the exact same way. It was apparent he was struggling with the language because he paused just long enough to show it didn’t come naturally. And he stumbled over the words, but I couldn’t tell if that was his inexperience or if it was the alcohol.
Zac kept talking, taking his time to pronounce each word and at one point gesticulating at me. As he spoke, he threw variations of “fuck” in between his words as if fuck was part of the Spanish language.
The guy responded, stepped closer to Zac, and Zac stepped closer still.
“Hit me then,” Zachary said, and then I believe he repeated the same phrase in Spanish. I stood there feeling like I was going to collapse, wanting to help but not knowing what to do and even if I could do anything.
The guy looked like he was about to. Honestly, I think he definitely would have if I hadn’t stepped in. I’m not saying I was like the hero or anything, because I certainly wasn’t, but he was my younger brother and I don’t know how the situation would have escalated had we not gotten out of there.
“Zachary, don’t let this escalate…” I said, my mind spinning and my vision swirling and oh… fuuuuck. Was the floor moving? “Let’s go… let’s leave. Just forget it. Please. They’re jackasses and hitting them isn’t going to change that.”
Zac glanced quickly at me and then back at the guy- afraid to look away for a second in case a punch was thrown. You could see his arms at his sides were ready to fly up to protect himself and throw a punch himself. I wasn’t even sure if my brother knew how to fight. I hadn’t seen him hit anyone since… well the time he hit me I was 14 and we got into a huge brawl in the backyard of our house one night- throwing each other down a hill and punching each other as we somersaulted and yelled.
“Zac, please… please just walk away…” I begged. And then the idea came over me to appeal to Zac… in a way I knew he would respond to. To communicate with him on his level. “Drop it and I’ll make it worth your while… I promise.”
I could see his eyes raise inquisitively but he kept them on the Spaniard across from him who was clearly ready to fight Zac if he needed to, but had not yet advanced on my brother.
“Do you understand what I’m saying…?” I asked nervously. “You won’t be sorry… if you understand what I’m saying. Let’s get out of here and go back to the hotel…” I said, trying to make my voice sound as sexy as possible for the sake of my brother’s flawless features that didn’t need to be tainted by a split lip or broken nose.
Zac’s body released some tension immediately and he gave the guy a steady eye as he stepped away as if to demonstrate backing down. The Spanish dude apparently wasn’t going to push the issue anymore either because he took a step back before turning to his posse and mumbling something. Zac kept his eyes and body facing the guy until he and his buddies turned and walked away, muttering to each other angrily. Once they had walked away, Zachary allowed himself to relax a bit and turn to me.
“Don’t start fights like that, Zac…” I sighed and leaned against him, having a hard time standing up. He was more drunk than me but somehow he managed to hold us both up. I rested my face in his shoulder and closed my eyes.
“I didn’t start it…” he mumbled.
“What were they saying? What did they have a problem with? Us? You and me?”
Zac paused and then subtly shook his head. “Nah. I just looked like someone else- someone who’s ass they want to kick. Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to do with us.”
I wasn’t sure if I was to believe it, but I just nodded against his body. I didn’t see him smile because my eyes were buried in his bare skin, but I heard that he was smiling when he spoke again.
“That… offer that you made… still stands?”
We wobbled a bit and then grabbed each other desperately for support, almost taking each other down in the process. We laughed.
“What offer?” I played innocent. Either that or I couldn’t really remember I had just made an offer. I was drunk. I don’t really remember what I was thinking.
“I think you know what offer…” he laughed and began to drag me off the dance floor. He grabbed his shirt off the bar stool and together we stumbled over to the elevator, bumping into people on our way and walking right into the wall twice. We piled into the elevator with the other drunk people and held each other close in the corner.
You want to know the truth? When it got to the bottom, we were so drunk we couldn’t seem to coordinate getting out of the elevator while other people piled into it, and we ended up riding it back to the top all over again… twice more.
By the time we were out of the nauseating elevator, Zachary managed to drunkenly wave down a taxi and get us into it without getting us killed by oncoming traffic. He mumbled a jumble of words that were supposed to produce the name of our hotel, but somehow we ended up at a McDonalds on the wrong side of town. We laughed for a moment just staring at the yellow arch outside our window and then Zachary handed the cab driver the brochure for our hotel that we had in our pocket.
Eventually, we did make it to the hotel after what was equal to a 55 dollar cab ride. We stumbled into our hotel room and I collapsed on the bed while Zac said he was going to pee. He’d be right back and I had a promise to live up to.
I must have fallen asleep while he was peeing, and he must have helped me peel my smoky t-shirt and jeans off and get me tucked in under the covers, because the next thing I knew it was morning and I was laying next to him with one of his arms flung across my body.
Either that, or we had really drunken sex that I had absolutely zero recollection of.
Much love to everyone. I will have another chapter up within the next mmmm let's say, 48 hours. -
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Date: 2012-11-30 12:04 am (UTC)