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“Would you rescue me if some big, horrible villain kidnapped me?” Joel is very aware he’s had one too many drinks, very definitely should not have ordered the same one he was currently trying to take sips from without lifting his head from the sticky table. Across from him, Kumail expertly raises an eyebrow, continues to absent-mindedly fiddle with his beer mat. He looks like there’s a list of questions in his head and he’s attempting to sort through which one he wants to ask the most.
“What are you talking about?” He seems to settle on that one and even with the noise surrounding them, Joel can hear the amusement.
“If some… some terrible bad guy took me away… would you come get me?” The same question just phrased in a completely different way. Surely that made more sense somehow. Kumail puts the beer mat down, folds his hands together, leaning forward slightly as if he’s realizing this is a conversation that wasn’t going to end quickly.
“Why would someone take you?”
“Dunno.” Joel picks up his head just enough to be able to snag the tiny straw in his glass between his teeth, bending it so he could use it without sitting up. “I’m kidnap-able. Look at me.” He hasn’t been this drunk in a long time. It makes him feel floaty and warm. He wishes he had the strength to take his jacket off because he’s pretty sure he’s started sweating at some point and it’s not a pretty look. “Do you not think I’m kidnap-able?” Joel frowns, a dribble of his beverage escaping when he lets go of the straw.
“Right now? Yes, I do. I think a very determined worm could carry you away if it wanted to.” Kumail is teasing him, he doesn’t need to be sober to see that.
“Would you fight it? If a worm tried to steal me.” The others had left slowly, one-by-one. Amy was the last one to call it a night, told them not to get into any trouble but said it with a wink that could have meant literally anything. Joel isn’t sure why Kumail was still there to be perfectly honest—he seems like the type to go to bed early, who probably doesn’t like hanging around places like this longer than he needed to but here he was. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something in particular but then shuts it, lets out a heavy sigh instead.
“Yes, Joel. I would fight the worm.” He holds his fingers out, splaying them slightly. “I would take down anyone who tried to kidnap you.” He’s just saying what he thinks Joel wants to hear, that’s incredibly obvious. In any other circumstance Joel would acknowledge that internally and just enjoy being humored, pathetically eating it up, playing along, but he’s too wasted, can’t keep the inside thoughts where they belonged. His filter has a gaping hole in it and all the words are escaping like a dam that’s been unplugged.
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I said I would.” Exasperated? Annoyed? Either or both were true. Joel continues to drink from his seemingly bottomless glass.
“I like that you said it.” Nausea roils in his stomach and he clears his throat, fights against it. He could never show his face around Kumail again if he threw up in front of him. “But I’m so annoying.” The thread connecting the two statements, what he means to say is: It makes me happy to hear you say you’d come find me but also I’m very aware that I’m incredibly annoying and maybe you’d be relieved to not have to deal with me anymore. Joel expects laughter or an eye roll or literally anything else then what he does get which is an instantly softening expression.
“You’re not.” Kumail hesitates, thinks a moment, changes course. “Everybody is sometimes. But if you asked me to list the most annoying people I know you wouldn’t even crack the top fifty. And even if you were at the top I’d still fight a million worms to get you back.”
Joel considers that, allows images of Kumail going absolute ham on a room full of garden worms, their fleshy pink bodies squirming, flying around while Kumail’s meaty fists and powerful legs decimate them. It almost makes him start to laugh but then it all tumbles into a montage of him leaning down to carefully pick Joel up, quietly telling him he was safe, it was all okay and that nearly makes him want to cry. Kumail must notice the shift in Joel’s demeanor because he starts to get nervous, a hint of panic in his voice.
“What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
I feel like everyone hates me sometimes.
“I don’t know,” Joel lies. “I don’t feel good.” That was more truthful. Somewhere across the room a group of women who seemed to be celebrating something let out a hearty cheer, yelling and clapping, one of them blowing on what sounded like an honest-to-god kazoo and Joel flinches despite himself. Everything is very suddenly becoming Too Much. I should stop drinking. “I need another drink,” he says. That’s the opposite of what he was thinking. That’s not right.
“No,” Kumail says as he starts to stand up. He’s leaving. He’s going away and he’s going to leave Joel here all alone to be taken away by worms or perhaps a villainous man. He really doesn’t want to but what could he do to prevent it? “No, I don’t think you do.” Instead of turning away and wandering off though, Kumail is coming over to Joel’s side of the table and holding out a hand. It’s so big. Thoughts flutter through Joel’s head, the types of things that make him flush right to his ears, the feeling of sick being replaced temporarily with something else. “Come on.”
“I don’t… huh?” It’s the best he can do.
“I’m getting you back to my room.” Joel blinks slowly because there’s no possible way he heard that correctly, it must have been his imagination or the ambient clattering noise around them that made him mishear that one tiny word.
“You… what?” He’s losing vocabulary. Probably not a good sign but he’s too dizzy to care which also maybe wasn’t good.
“Just… come with me.” Arm extended further—more insistent—and Joel reaches up, rests his hand in Kumail’s. It feels like he has a joy buzzer on his palm, an electric jolt twitching through his system. He allows Kumail to do most of the heavy lifting to bring Joel to his feet and he immediately and without asking settles his whole body up against Kumail, wrapping himself around him as best he can because he’s fairly certain if he tried to walk on his own he’d just wind up on the floor. Kumail smells like old cologne and soap and he’s leaking body heat into Joel. It takes every ounce of willpower to not give into his baser instincts. Instead he leans his head on Kumail’s shoulder with a slow exhale. “You’re alright.”
No, I’m not.
“You’re so strong.” They start walking, making their way to the door which feels about a million miles away.
“I know.”
“You could manhandle me so easily.” Joel trips over his own feet but Kumail catches him, rights him like he’s a ragdoll that’s being dragged around, toes trailing along the floor. Case in point.
“Please stop talking.” It’s not said with malice or irritation, not a command with any sort of meat to it. This close Joel swears he can feel Kumail’s heart rate increase like Joel had suggested something even worse. He knows he’s not too far gone to be blacking out whole chunks of conversation though so it must have been the word ‘manhandle’. “You need sleep.” He’s not wrong.
The air outside is cool and it’s just enough to wake Joel up to a point where he can keep himself steady on his own two feet without support but he’s hyper-aware of Kumail refusing to leave more than an inch or two between them. He doesn’t smoke but this whole ordeal makes him wish he had a cigarette. Kumail takes out his phone, focuses on the screen that’s too bright for this time of night, brow furrowing while he concentrates.
“I’m getting us a car,” he explains even though Joel hadn’t asked. “Should be here in five minutes. I sprang for priority.”
“You make me feel like royalty,” Joel says, does a curtsy that’s probably the worst that anyone has ever done it but it makes Kumail laugh so it was worth it.
“Only the best for my princess.” Kumail looks absolutely aghast when he says that like he didn’t know where it had come from, like he’d been temporarily taken over by something else. As soon as he hears it Joel almost passes out, all the blood rushing quickly away from his head to elsewhere entirely. He’d swoon if he didn’t think it’d wind up with him on the ground.
“My worm-fighting-knight in shining t-shirt.”
“I don’t get armor in this scenario?”
“You don’t need it.” He’s smiling, they both are, but then that badness hits him again like a truck. “Thank you.” He chokes it out because he blinked and someone had shoved a rock down his throat.
“For what?”
“For putting up with me. For taking me back to your room.” He pauses. “You could have left me there.”
“Have people done that before?” It’s a sincere, genuine question. Joel doesn’t answer which he supposes is answer enough. Things are getting uncomfortably real, too serious, so Joel plasters on a grin again.
“What if a bear gets me?”
“Why’s it always animals?”
“Because it’s less frightening to think about. What about a bear?”
“You’re on your own,” Kumail says, checking his phone. “It’s one minute away.”
“The bear?”
“The car.”
“I could kiss you.” Joel just blurts it out, doesn’t mean to and he sees Kumail visibly swallow.
“I—” Whatever Kumail was going to say doesn’t get resolved, a large shining black vehicle pulling up to the curb, the hazards blinking. “Our ride’s here.” As if that wasn’t apparent.
Kumail gets in first and then leans over to help Joel inside (my princess). The door slams too loudly and the driver doesn’t seem to understand volume control both for his own voice and the radio, the heady thrum of electronica pounding through the speakers. It’s far too much for one in the morning but Kumail is too polite to say anything and Joel is too lightheaded to care.
“I’m sorry,” Joel says as the vehicle starts to move and he thinks he says it quietly enough that only he could hear it but Kumail surprises him by asking once more:
“For what?” There’s about a thousand statements that Joel could give him, ranging from comical to absolutely wretched. I’m sorry I said you didn’t need armor. I’m sorry I keep making you fight so many worms. I’m sorry I ruined your evening. I’m sorry you have to take care of me. I’m sorry I’m so annoying.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“I still want to kiss you.”
“Joel?”
“Yes?” It’s muggy in here even with the windows rolled down. A drop of sweat trails down Kumail’s temple into the scruff of his jaw. He won’t look at Joel and Joel can’t make himself look anywhere else.
“Shut up.” Oh.
By the time they make it to Kumail’s room, Joel is already half-asleep before he even hits the mattress. He’s vaguely aware of his shoes being yanked off, of his jacket being peeled away and tossed somewhere. He feels claggy and woozy and he wants to put Kumail’s fingers in his mouth but mostly he just wants to sleep so it’s a conversation they’ll have to revisit in the morning as long as he (hopefully) remembers to.
He hears the sounds of Kumail going through the process of making tea, tries to stir because maybe he could use a cup but instead a big hand is cupping the back of his head and pushing it down against the pillow. If Joel lets out a sound akin to a moan at that, neither of them react to it.
“Go to sleep,” Kumail says, speaks it with a tone of voice that means business in the nicest way possible. “I’ll make sure no critters come in to steal you.”
“My hero,” Joel mumbles and then eventually, slowly, everything melts away.