AH collections

Two weeks on the job

Jeremwood
Word count: 17400
Chapters: 1

"What is it?" Ryan snaps into his phone.

Jeremy has just pressed the answer button on his own phone, but looks up at Ryan instead of saying 'hi' to Jack. Something about Ryan's tone has started to raise red flags.

Ryan's standing silhouetted against his massive windows. Something about the voice and the stance and the irritated sharp hand movements all come together to form a complete picture. Even the fact that he's completely naked doesn't distract from Jeremy's very important realisation.

Ryan is the Vagabond.

Ryan is the fucking Vagabond.

It starts like this.

Jeremy wakes up. This in itself isn't unusual.

The snores from the other side of the bed are. Not to mention the fact that Jeremy knows he has more covers on his bed than what he's got tucked around himself right now.

Slowly — because his head feels like it's going to split, what the hell had he been drinking? — Jeremy turns to squint at the person taking up two-thirds of his bed. What he can make out isn't completely hideous, so that's a positive for beer-goggles not having been too strong last night.

There's a few flashes of memory. Jeremy latches onto them. There's kissing in a car. A blowjob in his hall. More shots than he can count. He'd gone to a bar last night to shake off the nerves that had been building up about the job he's starting tomorrow.

Today. Shit.

Jeremy bolts upright. He'd only meant to have a couple of drinks and maybe have a makeout or two. Judging by his sore, sticky everything, he'd done a hell of a lot more than that. He rushes into the shower and starts lathering up before the water even turns on.

And maybe moving that fast hadn't been such a good idea. Jeremy retches all over his feet, trusting the shower to clean it up. Not a good start to the day.

Jeremy's already out of the shower and brushing his teeth when he finally hears movement in the other room. There's no sounds of throwing up or pained groans, so maybe his bedpartner was a bit more sober than Jeremy last night. Which, hey, is always flattering.

Jeremy spits into the sink then stares at his reflection in the fogged-up mirror. He looks like an addict, which is definitely isn't (at least not for a good while). He hopes his new crew aren't going to take that too badly. The aspirin he's taken so far haven't made a damn bit of difference.

Thankfully, Jeremy had the foresight to plan what he's going to wear in advance. If he'd had to spend time picking through his clothes he'd probably just kill himself right now.

There are sounds coming from the kitchen; Jeremy resigns himself to having to having a morning-after talk with whoever he'd picked up. He'd been vaguely hoping that they'd take the opportunity to sneak out while Jeremy was in the bathroom. Well, it can be practice for talking while pretending not to be hungover.

"Hey."

The guy in the kitchen hums a greeting back, a spoonful of Jeremy's cheerios in his mouth. He's a good head taller than Jeremy and attractive in a dad-ish kinda way. He does a double-take and Jeremy realises it's at the outfit he's put together. Most people don't like putting purple and orange together after all. However, even if Jeremy didn't like the colours, he's planning on making an impression this morning.

"I thought you said you had a job interview today," the guy says.

"First day on the job," Jeremy corrects.