Tag: amazing

aussiebee:

fartgallery:

*at a bar*

bartender: this is from the gentleman over there

girl: this is a plant

me [shouting from across the bar]: just wanted to say aloe

It had been a long day. Derek had spent the morning at work, helped with lunch at the homeless shelter, then went back to work to cover for a no-show that turned into an eight hour shift. He had planned to meet Erica and Boyd at the bar hours ago, but a text from Erica told him they were still there, and he promised, so now there he was.

It was their regular watering hole, the beer frosty and cheap, the floors predictably sticky, and they’d been going for years. Even the pretty guy who’d been playing surprisingly good classic rock covers on a battered guitar for the last couple of weeks was becoming familiar. As he took his seat across from Boyd, Derek wondered if maybe he’d been spending a bit too much time here. Then Marguerite placed his drink in front of him and patted him fondly on the shoulder before she bustled off and he though maybe he was doing okay.

“Sparkles has been watching this table like a hawk since six,” Erica told him with a not-at-all-subtle jerk of her head in the musician’s direction. 

She had dubbed the poor kid ‘Sparkles’ after the first night he had performed at O’Malley’s and Derek had gotten roaringly drunk and opined poetic about how the guy’s eyes sparkled when he played, and how beautiful his hands looked, wrapped around the mic. It had stuck, and ever since then she hadn’t allowed an opportunity slip by to tease Derek about it.

“Gee, what a surprise that you make him nervous enough to want to keep an eye on you,” Derek sighed, ignoring the traitorous flutter in his belly at the idea of the kid keeping an eye out for him.

Because he wasn’t a kid, not really; he was definitely young, but probably not as young as he looked, and the way his eyes flicked constantly between the patrons and the exits made Derek think he’d seen some shit in his time. He also moved with the confidence of a man who knew himself and was confident of his place in the world. That happened to be a character trait Derek found very attractive.

He snuck a glance up at the singer, his attention focused briefly at the bar before his head turned and he met Derek’s eyes, winking at him mid-word and quirking his gorgeous lips upwards when Derek blushed and looked away. Someone kicked his leg under the table, and he would have thought it was Erica if it weren’t for the eyeroll Boyd was directing his way.

It was never busy on Tuesdays, so by one a.m. even the usual crowd had thinned right out. Erica and Boyd left at eleven, both of them working the next day, but neither of them looked surprised when Derek had said he was going to stay.

So now it was one, and apart from a handful of the usual characters, it was just Derek. He had moved to the bar when one of the staff had begun to stack up the chairs, and he was fucking around on his phone for reasons he wasn’t examining too closely when he heard the sound of something solid being placed on the wood before him.

“No thanks, Margie,” he began, “I’m done for n-” He looked up and blinked in surprise as Marguerite beamed at him. “Uh. What.” He stared at the small ceramic pot with a little green plant in it, which wasn’t the tumbler of whiskey he had expected.

“This is from the gentleman over there,” Marguerite told him delightedly, gesturing with a thumb over her shoulder to the end of the bar closest to the Employees Only door.

Derek looked up to find Sparkles smiling at him, lifting a hand in a jaunty little wave.

“This is a plant,” he said, pointlessly, to Marguerite as he stared back down at the little pot. He didn’t get it.

“Just wanted to say aloe,” a husky voice came from over his shoulder, and Derek startled slightly before turning and staring at the singer. “Mind if I join you?”

Derek shook his head wordlessly and watched as the other man slipped lithely onto the stool beside him. They sat in silence for a long moment, the guy finishing his drink and Derek trying to figure out what the fuck the plant meant. He didn’t really get far with that.

“Do you happen to just have pockets full of plants to facilitate your plant-based pun introductions?” he asked eventually.

The guy laughed, his mouth wide, lush lips curling up at the corners, and his eyes sparkling, god damn it, Erica.

“Not usually,” he replied, tapping those obscenely long fingers on the bar top, but I’ve seen you come in here once or twice a week for as long as I’ve been performing here and tonight?” He shrugged. “Tonight I came prepared in the hopes that you’d be here again.”

“And a plant pun is what you’re going with?” Derek asked, his tone judgemental.

The musician laughed again. “I figured I’d have better odds of getting you to talk with me if I led with that rather than ‘hey, I’ve noticed you here and I think you’re beautiful and you make me want to stay in town just so I can get to know you better’.”

Startled by the unabashed declaration Derek met the guy’s eyes, bourbon-rich and framed with gorgeous dark lashes, and felt his stomach flutter again, choosing this time not to ruthlessly stamp it down.

“I guess it worked,” he said after a beat, glancing away and then back again. “I’m Derek.”

“Hi Derek,” the musician said, the look in his eyes growing warmer as his smile faded a little into something sweeter, something more like promise. “I’m Stiles.”

(photo credit: https://tinyurl.com/y9sjhy89)