The Same--2

"Fuuuuck."  I moaned as soon as I awoke the next morning.  The sun beamed offensively in on me from the kitchen window of someone's flat.  Which meant I could have only been in one person's home, Till's.  Making another less than polite noise, I rolled off the couch and hit the wood floor below, cursing once more.  Scrambling quickly with my belly parallel to the floor, I crawled across a rug underneath Till's coffee table and into the nearest bathroom.
My hands roughly grabbed the sides of the bowl and pulled me up right as my stomach chose to empty itself and worsen my headache.  Another expletive was spoken and I spent a copious amount of time dry heaving thereafter.
"Want some coffee?" I heard Flake behind me, why did it surprise me that he was there if I was in Till's flat?
"Yeah." I grunted, my stomach heaving again.
"Bread, butter and some sausage?" he continued, sipping something I could only just now smell and recognize as very strong (probably black) coffee.
"Ugh, camembert instead of butter, please."
"Okay."  I heard him walk away and I clung ever the fiercer to the porcelain throne before me.  With this new position, I was able to make out some light bruising on my right shoulder from the corner of my eye, must've been from falling off the couch or something.  One last dry heave and my stomach magically calmed down.
"Fuck." I sighed, resting my face against my hand that was still on the toilet seat.  This was quite disgusting, but I really didn't care.  I was just thankful that my stomach had stopped its shenanigans.  Taking a deep breath to muster up some energy, I forced myself to stand and washed my hands, throwing some water up onto my face and rubbing.  With a tired groan I dug my fingernails into my cheeks and pulled downward, stretching the bottoms of my eyelids away from my eyes.  Another sigh escaped my lips and I let go of my skin, letting it all snap back into place.  Swallowing the taste of bile in my mouth I examined myself in the mirror and found a most peculiar thing.  "Is that a hickey?"  It was a mottled, green, yellow and brown and damn was it big.  At first I tried to turn my head to look at it, but this was quite a preposterous thing as it was on my neck and therefore would be physically impossible for me to see.  So, I did the smart thing after this failed attempt and leaned in to examine it in the mirror.  "What?"  I screwed my face up in confusion.  "Flake!"
"What?" I heard my friend call from in Till's kitchen as I turned and left the bathroom.
"What is on my neck?" I quickly asked, power-walking into the kitchen (a bit too quickly I could easily assess as I felt sick again upon arrival at Flake's side).
"What does it look like?"  Flake took a bite of a dark bread with what smelled like goat cheese smeared on it.
"A hickey…"
"Yeah.  Want to explain more?  I heard you and Richard really had fun last night." The worst part about this?  Flake wasn't being smug or sarcastic, he was serious if that look of curiosity meant anything.
"What?" I said for what must've been the hundredth time that morning.  His brow furrowed in confusion at me, taking another bite of bread and noxious cheese.
"You don't remember?"
"No!  What happened?"  My heart was racing in my chest, I wasn't sore and the only sign that anything had happened was the bruise across my neck, but I was still nervous.
"I don't know everything…  I only know what I got from Till."
"Where were you then?"
"Uh…  We were out of condoms, I had to go pick some up." Flake explained, sipping his coffee before putting it down on the counter.
"Well, what do you know?" I hissed, eager for more information.  It was just my luck that the one time something happened I was too wasted to remember it.  On top of that, only one person actually saw it.
"I know you two made out on that couch for about thirty minutes, Richard bit you and gave you that, during, obviously."
"Where's Till?"  Better yet, where was Richard?  He clearly was at the flat last night…
"He left with Richard twenty minutes ago."
"Did they say where they were going?"  Flake shrugged, he didn't care.  "What kind of mood was Richard in?" He shrugged again.
"Hungover?"  Maybe he didn't remember either then…
"Irritated hungover, or hungry hungover?"
"The last and a little bit of the first.  It was all bitchy."  Well, that was nothing new.  "Here, just eat and you can talk to him about it later."  Flake pushed a plate with two pieces of bread on it towards me on the counter, along with a cup of coffee with some cream in it.  Amazingly, he remembered I didn't like the rind (or "mold") of the cheese on my bread, he probably dug the softness out for me and ate the rind himself.
"Thanks." I picked up the bread and bit into it while Flake walked off to prepare some sausages for me.  Sipping at my coffee I tried my hardest to remember anything about the night prior.  "Was making out all we did?"
"Stop worrying about it." Flake grumbled, "You both were so wasted getting it up would have been impossible anyway."  Flake finished his coffee and slid the mug he used all the way down the counter until it popped at the lip of the sink and crashed in with the rest of the dishes.  Vaguely, I wondered if he did that with all of Till's dishes.  Or if he did it when Till was around…  It also should be mentioned that all the high crashing noises sent little spikes into my brain and made me feel nauseous again.
I stuffed the rest of the bread down my greedy gullet and finished my coffee before Flake had cooked the sausages all the way through.  It didn't matter though, I just didn't want to be around when Richard returned with Till.
"I have to go." I said abruptly, turning from my empty plate and mug to head back into the sitting room for my shirt, shoes and socks.
"But you haven't eaten your sausage yet!" Flake called, chasing after me to the doorframe of the kitchen.
"Feed it to Till, you know he'll eat it." I heard him start to say something, but his voice was soon drowned out by the ringing of Till's home phone.
"Hello?" he answered the phone in Till's kitchen.  "Oh really?" Flake sounded half amused through his bored tone.  "Well, good luck with that."  While he was distracted I threw my bag over my shoulder and pulled my shoes on.  "Okay, I'll write it down, then."  I opened the door as quietly as I could and clicked the lock shut before Flake even noticed.  Letting him convince me to stay would have been a bad idea.  As much as I wanted to talk to Richard about last night, there was the possibility that he didn't remember as well.  Or maybe there was the worse option that he did remember and was just laughing about it.  Once again I reassured myself mentally that he wasn't like that…  Though, there were a few groupies along the way that he did flirt back with when they flirted with him and then laughed with us about it later.  Saying things like "She was a nice girl, but I don't do fat chicks." or "Oh my god, did you see her teeth?  As if I would ever fuck that." and then there was, "Girl looked like a dude, who did she think she was coming on to me?" and my personal favorite, "You know, oh my god, hahaha, she leaned in to whisper in my ear, thinking I was really into her!" after that he had become overwhelmed with laughter and followed up with "Damn I'm good!".  He never said anything to their faces, he didn't like making others feel bad, so he kept his thoughts to himself until he could laugh about them later.  If he really wasn't interested in me, I would never know…  He would laugh about my advances with Till or Schneider later…  It made me not want to try anymore.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket then, I grumbled and answered it, "Hello?"
"Don't think you can get away from me." It was Flake and he was mad.
"You told me to talk to him about it later and how much later is tomorrow, eh?"
"You're just running away."
"So what if I am?"
"Didn't you say on the bus that you wanted to bed him?"
"I'm still going to…"  Or maybe I should think better of this venture…
"Because your running off with your tail between you legs after some making out you don't remember is so conducive to you making progress."
"You're the one that told me to give up."
"Well maybe I don't really want you to?  Maybe I'm just your asshole friend that tells you everything you do is wrong?"
"How are you my friend again?"
"Because I'm secretly rooting for you and I make you breakfast."
"Weirdo."
"So?"
"Faggot."
"Look who's talking." I loved our light-hearted exchanges, they always reminded me of the old days when we were still roommates.
"Who was on the phone?"
"It was Richard.  He claims someone stole his cell phone last night a the bar."
"When did that happen?"  I raised an eyebrow, punching the subway ticket I had in hand in a machine before walking down into the platform.
"It could have happened any number of times I think…  I mean…  Since you don't seem to remember anything, I suppose I should mention what happened the rest of the time we were out to drink.  Richard sang a few more times and these girls kept going up to him and putting Euros in his pockets.  One of them actually slipped a five bill into the waistband of his pants."  I wasn't sure if I should have been as surprised as I was, I was more upset that I didn't remember it, however.  "Oh and they groped his ass a few times."  Richard usually kept his phone in his back pocket.
"You know creepy fangirls." I reminded Flake and he seemed to make a noise of acknowledgement.
"He bought a new phone this morning and he's trying to replace all the contacts in it."
"Oh," I laughed, knowing Richard remembered less than half of the numbers of women he kept in his phone, "Good luck replacing all of those."
"That's what I told him.  Want me to give you the number now?"
"Nah, I won't remember it long enough to actually put it into my phone."  My train came in then and I stepped onto it, picking a spot to sit, it was oddly empty inside…  He began to snigger on the other side of the phone, "What?  It'll give me a reason to talk to him later anyway."
"Yeah, yeah, see you at the arena tonight."
"See you there." I ended the call and rode the train to my stop.
***

Seeing Richard at the arena made my stomach flutter and my hands grow sweaty.  He wasn't even doing anything, just talking with Schneider.  I walked into the dressing room right as he whispered something into Schneider's ear and they both laughed.  Upon seeing me, however…  They stopped.
Oh, shit.  I swallowed thickly, "Hey guys." I smiled at them merrily.
"Hey, Paul." Schneider greeted.
"Yo." Richard waved two fingers at me with a smirk on his lips.  His face screwed up in bewilderment, however upon seeing the state of my neck.  "Damn, what happened to you?" I tweaked my eyebrow at him, did he not remember anything?
"It's just a hickey." I laughed nervously and he shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat.
"I uh…" He started, his eyes flicking to Schneider for a moment, he wasn't even paying attention anymore.  If anything he looked like he was trying to consider the great choice of soup or salad staring down the doorknob.  "Do I need to apologize?" Richard whispered, leaning towards me, his face the slightest bit red.
"Uh…  No?" What was with his attitude?
"Oh!" He sighed and leaned out, chuckling, "Good!" He slapped his knee, "I knew you took some girl back to the bathroom with you.  Only explanation for you being gone so long, last night." Oh…  So he didn't even remember shit.  Well, at least that left us on even ground.  On the other hand, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
"I don't remember anything about last night, what are you talking about?" He laughed.
"You ran off to the bathroom and stayed there for like…  Forty minutes at the karaoke bar."  Oh…  I shrugged, it was more likely that whatever I had been doing in the bathroom was something far more innocent.  Like falling asleep on the toilet, or throwing up and falling asleep against the toilet with my head in the bowl.  Though the bulk of my purging happened the morning after, I very rarely threw up when I drank a lot.
"Who knows?" I chuckled, rubbing my neck.
"Clearly whoever gave you that."
Or not…
"You three."  Oliver poked his head into the dressing room, all of us looking to him.  "You up for just going to a pool hall tonight instead of an after party?"  The three of us in the room shared a look.
"Who all's going?" Richard inquired, folding his arms.
"Just the six of us." Oliver answered and Richard licked his lips in thought, making them shine.
"Yeah, I'm up for it." My friend looked to me and Schneider then, "What about you two?"
"Sounds good to me." I said and Schneider said, "Sure."
"Good, I'll tell Till." And Oliver left, leaving us all to get ready.  Speaking of which, I moved over to where my costume items were put so I could start.
"Richard?" It suddenly occurred to me that I had something to ask him.
"Yep?" He was busy applying his makeup.
"I heard you have a new phone.  What's the number?"  Since I had my back turned to him now I could only guess that he made a face, but since he didn't respond for a few seconds that was the only logical explanation I could come up with.  Either that or sharing a look with Schneider.  Neither of those things really boded well for me.  "Did you hear me?"
"Oh, yeah, I did, y'know."
"So…  You going to give it to me?"  I belted my stiff pants and turned back to look at him.
"I think you're going to have to try a little harder than that, Landers."  He tipped his head back away from the mirror to cheekily grin at me.  My heart jumped in my chest again and my breathing hitched.
"Richard, I'm being serious!" Though his joke did seem to say he didn't have a problem with our game advancing…
"So am I."
"What if something happens and I need to call you?"
"We're rarely alone and you know that." He sat up straighter and turned his body back to look at me since we were now discussing more important topics.
"Can't blame me for being cautious…"
"Oh come ooooon." Richard fluttered his dark eyelashes at me and I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Just play with him." Schneider ordered in a serious tone, applying his own makeup.  Richard glared at him and Schneider paid him not an ounce of attention, focused completely on his own looks.  "And now that I've made things awkward, please get ready."  Who died and made him Till?
***

"Stop scratching!" Flake yelled at Till, whacking his ass with a cue stick.  He made a yelping noise and rubbed his butt with what I recognized as his aroused "hit me again" expression on his face.  "Do it one more time and I'm ramming this stick up your ass, Lindemann." My friend further threatened and the blood drained from Till's face.  It was all fun and games until someone threatened to publicly sodomize someone with a long, wooden object with Rammstein.
"Jawohl mein Herr." Till winked at Flake and got a frustrated noise with blushing cheeks from him.  Till had been awkwardly bold recently…  Not that any of us cared.  If anything we were grateful he didn't feel bad every time he and Flake PDA'd around us anymore.  We used to have to deal with his profuse apologizing as if he thought that we found it disgusting or something…
"Stop that." Flake grunted to him, watching Ollie whilst he lined up his stick to knock one of the balls into a corner pocket.  Currently it was Flake and Till against Ollie and Schneider.  Richard and I were to play the winners.  However, as we were all drinking, the next game was going to be decidedly more interesting.
"What's it going to take for me to get your number?" I elbowed Richard's arm next to me, taking a sip of beer.
"Get creative." he suggested, finishing his cup of beer and leaving to go get another one.  Upon his return, I had more to ask.
"Are you really supposing that I should?"
"Well, I don't know, Landers, am I?" He flashed his beautiful smile and me and I was forced to look away before I did something.  "We're best friends, go from there."
That can go either way, you doofus… I thought, but then again, it was probably intended.  Sighing, we watched as Till's turn came again and he lined up the cue ball perfectly to hit one of his and Flake's monotone balls.  Good news, he knocked the ball in, bad news, he hit it so hard the cue ball glanced around the table until it slowly and surely rolled into a corner pocket…  Everyone's eyes immediately flicked to Flake as his cue stick smacked hard into Till's butt as he was still bent over, staring in utter disbelief at his luck.
"Fuck!" Till yelped, standing up straight and taking a swing at the limber man.  Flake easily ducked underneath the fist that came for him and caned Till's right thigh in retaliation.
"Can you two not play your sick games in front of us?" Schneider asked, removing the ball Till pocketed as well as the cue ball, setting up Ollie's shot.  "We don't want to see Till's boner."  We all chuckled, Till taking a step closer to Flake as if it made him feel better.
"You're gross." Till asserted.
"Like you have the right to say that?" Doom reminded with a smile.
"There's a time and a place for everything and now is neither." Till continued to defend even though our drummer had tried to make it clear that he didn't mean anything by his words.
"Then your time and place is later at my flat." Flake hissed, surprising everyone and not a lick of a flush was to be seen.
"I…" Till was speechless, the lot of us looked away to give the two privacy the moment we realized the lusty looks the two were giving each other.
"Flake, it's your turn." Ollie coughed into his hand having already taken his shot and pocketing the second to last before the eight ball of his and Schneider's balls.  Flake and Till broke eye contact and were silent (none of us really counted on that it was the last time they spoke directly to each other that night with us all around).
"Talk about tension." Richard commented, finishing yet another beer.  He was flying through those things…  I was still on my second as he left to get his forth.  "Scary, aren't they?" Richard whispered too close to my ear to be innocent, his hot breath running down my neck making me shiver.  Only three drinks and he was already acting like this?
"Yeah, I worry for Till sometimes."
"Worry for Flake." Richard chuckled, "He's the one that gets nailed every night."
"Till brags?"
"Oh, yeah.  Well…  Not brags, but he talks…  Not that I really want to hear about the kinky games they like to play.  Or even just stories of them fucking." He shivered as if disgusted.  "Doesn't Flake talk to you?"
"He used to…  But since things got serious he doesn't want to talk to me about it anymore.  I know I shouldn't feel like he's shutting me out, but it doesn't change that I do."
"Mmph, Till didn't want to talk about it until it became serious."
"Can we trade best friends?"
"I wish." Richard chugged his drink.
"You're going a bit fast…"
"Am not."
"Is something wrong?"
"Nope."
"You sure?"
"When am I not?"
"God damn it… How is someone this bad at pool?!" Schneider waved his arms dramatically, catching our attentions, it appeared that Till somehow popped a ball off the table.
"Wasn't this your idea, Till?" Oliver mentioned and the singer shrugged.
"I think it's fun, even if I suck at it." Till explained himself.
"Yeah because you're getting a beating from Flake later." Schneider kept teasing, getting a warning glare from Till.  This suggested that he would actually beat Doom later with his fists if he kept it up.  They kept their back and forth going and the two of us leaning against the wall out of their way sighed.
"Hey, Paulie?"
"Hey, Reeshy?"
"Look here." I turned to him to find him in my face, his lips tantalizingly close to mine.  I knew he was just trying to fluster me, but damn was it working.
"Want to give me some space?"  Wordlessly, he closed the remaining centimeters between us and pressed our lips briefly together.  After that brief time, however, he pulled away and left to get yet another drink.  "Did any of you just see that!?" I waved my hand in Richard's general direction and the four around the pool table looked to me in confusion.
"Did we see what?" Flake asked.
"Richard just kissed me." The four looked to each other and half of them laughed, the other half looked disbelieving at most favorable.
"Yeah, uh-huh and Ollie wants to give me a blowjob." Flake deadpanned at me and I was forced to wonder yet again just what it was that he was smoking that made him flip-flop on his support of me pursuing Richard.
"I'm serious!"
"Richard!" Flake called, getting the man's attention right as he downed half his fifth beer.
"Wuh?" he replied dumbly.
"Did you just kiss, Paul?"
"Wuh?" he said again as if he didn't understand the question.  Flake looked back to me then with an expression of "see?".
"Wait, why would I lie?" I asked.
"Because if you lie maybe it will make you feel better?" Flake supposed with a shrug before taking his shot.
"Why are you being an ass?"
"He's not being an ass, he's being sexually frustrated." Ollie clarified and got a look from Flake that told him to shut up.  However, Oliver was not inclined to listen and grinned at him.  In fact, he made a sucking sound at Flake across the table and made a rude hand motion around his mouth.
"Touché, Riedel." Flake grumbled.  Ignoring me again and getting back to the game, Richard came to stand by me once more and nurse a beer.
"You're not gonna do that again, are you?" I folded my arms over my chest, considering getting down a cue stick to play with it.
"Do what?" Richard asked, genuinely clueless.
"Are you really that drunk?"
"How many have I had?"
"Five now…"
"Mmmmn, nope."
"Then…  What?"  He didn't answer me and kept watching, finishing his beer before going to get another one.  Just…  What the fuck?  "Can I have your number yet?" I asked when he returned.
"Nu-uh."
"Why not?"
"I told you to be creative."
"Such selective memory."
"Uh-huh."
"Can I kiss you again?"
"What's with the 'again'?"
"Can I kiss you at all?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Not a homo."
"Then why are you teasing me with this number business?"
"'Cause it's fun!" he cheerfully informed me with the cutest smile I had seen on him all night.  He swayed his hips from side to side, continuing to be the most adorable and distracting thing in the room.  I was fucking hopeless…  What was I supposed to do, but try?  No other course of action made sense to me.
"If I have no hope of that then, just give me your number."  He made a show of thinking for a little bit…
"Okay!" He said swaying away from the wall and walking over to the bar where he had been buying all of his drinks.  Someone made a very angry noise behind us as there was a muted thunk on the floor.
"Welp, nice job, Till.  Penalty for popping the eight ball is--"
"Yeah, I fucking know!" Till stopped Ollie short.  I drowned out the new fight going on behind us, finding myself very much like a teenager at how excited I was to be getting Richard's phone number.  Following his every last minute move with my eyes, I watched Richard as he picked up a napkin and got a pen from the bartender.  Carefully, he leaned over the napkin and slowly traced out the numbers, I read them as each was meticulously written.
"Eeeeight." I started and got a chuckle from him.  "Six…………….  Seeeeeveeeeeen………"  Ugh, the suspense was killing me!  "Five……..  Threeeeee…..  Oooooh….."  Wait….  "Niiiiii-eeee-iiiiine!  You jerk!"  Richard laughed at my aggravation and crumpled the napkin up, stuffing it down my shirt before finishing his beer to stand and hurry back over to the table.
"I'm breaking!"  He declared, pounding both fists down on the felt of the table.  Ough, the whole night was just a bloody headache.