#chat: zero

“Zero,” he said, waving the young man over. He took a quick shot before he got over. “Kid, listen,” he started. “I’ve had two people in the last fifteen minutes ask about you. Told ‘em I couldn’t really give out that information, and I’ve gotta ask. You’re sure you can’t work here full time?” he asked in a light tone; light enough for him to take it as a compliment and not a genuine request, but hey. If he wanted to, Doug would have no complaints. 

continued from this

“Cuz, this is my territory for a reason,” Zero smirked as he walked back to the table. Jack was the smart one, the responsible one, and that made him better than Zero in most foreseeable ways, yeah. Zero had sorted through those feelings a long, long time ago. What he was invariably better at was being cross faded and making it snow in the middle of his hallucinations, and Jack was off his face right now, and that was victory enough. Being able to be the big cousin for a second when they’d had exactly the same amount to drink throughout the night was everything. “Water, a really decent cheesy pretzel, and we’re going back to my place. Uber’s on its way.” 

Jack shook his head. “ ’m fine, Dev,” he wasn’t fine. Why did he try to keep up with Zero? What the hell was he thinking? “Or, we can stay and I’ll order us another round?” he offered, not really wanting anything to eat or to go anywhere else. “Whaddya say, cuz? Don’t you wanna see me get more shitfaced?” he said, his head falling to lean on Zero’s arm. He didn’t really mean to, it just sort of happened; like he was tired of holding his head up. “Please?”