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disappearingcheshiredrabble/2015
characters: dorian, grier, noah, sascha
warnings: none
rating: t
words: 1082
(Sascha belongs to Lizzy)
He's drunk on cheap vodka and bad company.
Mournfully, Dorian glances around at the other occupants of the table, wondering how his night could have gone so downhill. He's pretty sure there's a party somewhere he's suppose to be at, and a trust-fund brat with killer legs he should be plying with booze.
Instead, he's sitting in a cramped kitchen, the air hazy with smoke, staring at his sister, the wrong brat, and a sleazy Ukrainian.
Beer bottles are scattered among the shot glasses, and a pair of ashtrays are already collecting cigarette butts. In the center of the table, a deck of colorful playing cards is waiting to be split.
Glowering at them, Dorian snatches the diminishing bottle of vodka, taking a pull directly from the spout, before slamming it back down.
He resigns himself to a night from domestic hell, and sends a mental 'fuck you' to the universe for not making him an only child.
The rules of the game are simple – match color to color or number to number, unless you can't do either, in which case draw from the card pile until you get something that plays.
They go through a couple of practice rounds, taking a shot every time a wild card gets tossed down, and try to give each other as many crappy trumps as they can.
They're in the tail end of another hand when Noah's eyes narrow onto the single card in Sascha's grasp.
His grin is sudden and devious, like a toothy kid in a candy store, and filled with the kind of glee that only comes at someone's else expense.
Dorian quirks a brow.
“Sascha...” Noah begins, his tone deceptively pleasant. Warily, the merchant glances over, his own brows lifting as the other leans in, “Did you say Uno??”
Blinking out of the haze being a turn away from winning, Sascha stares at the younger boy, then at the large discard pile at the center of the table, “Wh-”
“Hah! I knew it! Pick up the pile, mother fucker-”
“What!”
“That's the rule!”
“Since when??”
“Since forever -”
“Bullshit!”
“ - it's the whole point of the game -”
“- where – show me where it says this-”
“- that's why it's called Uno, you twit – you know, U n o. One. один - ”
“Fine, fine -”
“-your own fault -”
“Uno -”
“- the fuck! It's too late now!”
“Says who!”
“Just take the damn pile!”
Two hours later and they're all more than a little wasted. Noah is nearly tipping from his seat, his face flushed and his hair even messier than usual. Beside him, Grier is just as rumpled, her grin large around a cigarette. She punches Noah each time something makes her laugh, her amusement turned to friendly violence.
The beer count is nearly doubled, their empty bottles littered across the table, and somewhere between the first bottle of vodka and the second, they stop using glasses.
A loud cackle makes Dorian's eyebrow twitch, even as the man responsible for it slaps down a 'draw-four' card at Noah's expense. He turns a look on the gun-merchant, who's in the middle of whacking the younger boy on the shoulder, and retracts his earlier assessment.
He was wrong.
He was so fucking wrong.
This isn't hell – it's worse.
It takes all of twenty minutes for Sascha to realize that if others can catch him, then by the very same logic, he can catch others.
For half the night, they sit through his campaign of terror, stuck on the receiving end of trump card after trump card ('draw six, yes?'), wild cards that never match their hands ('Oh? You cannot play something? What a shame') and the sort of policing rarely seen outside of martial law.
('Ah, ah, ah – what's the magic word?'
'Are you perhaps forgetting something??'
'домовой ~ I believe these belong to you-!')
Beneath all the jewelry, hair, and ink, Sascha is a one-man Uno patrol.
He's still laughing, this time at some joke he's made, his palm a loud slap on the tabletop. Even in the dim light, the print on his shirt is garish and bright, an offensive contrast to the thick gold chain hanging around his neck.
It inexplicably pisses Dorian off.
So does the constant cackling, the smug triumph, and the fact it's a Saturday night and he's sitting in a dingy kitchen, playing cards with a maniac instead of getting blown in the back of a club.
Sascha takes down another shot, his Adam's apple bobbing, before letting the bottle thunk to the table. He grins, sly and taunting, begins to run his mouth again, making some jab or another, and Dorian-
Dorian snaps.
He fists the ugly shirt, his only regret that he isn't sober enough to really damage it, and uses the leverage to yank the startled gun-dealer over and smash their mouths together to shut him up.
It works, he goes stock-still, probably in shock, and blessedly quiet. Both of their mouths are saturated in cigarettes and vodka, are numb even, but Sascha is warm and Dorian is already kissing him.
He makes it vulgar just to be an ass, wet messy friction, his tongue pressing and teeth biting.
Alarmed by the stirring in his groin, he pulls off just as quickly, shoving Sascha back into his seat and righting into his own.
The silence is thunderous.
He can almost feel the way Noah's brows have climbed to the ceiling, and the way Grier's lighter is still unlit beneath her cigarette. Ignoring them, Dorian grabs the vodka bottle, taking a quick swallow as he tries to even his breath.
Sascha is staring at him in frozen horror, his expression a comedic array of disgust, shock, and drunken stupor.
Pleased by it, and by the fact he's still alive to even savor the victory, Dorian waits a second more before dropping one of his cards onto the discard pile.
Almost casually, he breaks the silence, “You didn't say Uno.”
It takes a second, a heart beat of processing and looking at the single card in Sascha's hand, before everything clicks. Outrage finally overcomes shock, and even as Noah's laughter howls throughout the kitchen, so too does the clatter of Sascha's chair and the loud string of angry Ukrainian.
Dorian decides the evening isn't so bad after all.
