14: Normally Suho was a first date god, so he couldn't help wondering if his wasted state was somehow responsible for his and Lay's initial attraction. Why? Because they'd been nursing margaritas for the last twenty minutes and so far things were going horribly. Pairing!Sulay

Things hadn't started out completely terribly; they just somehow ended up that way.

Once Suho had made it out of bed sometime around 1 In the afternoon—he had a meddling sister to thank for that—he'd brushed his teeth to give him confidence and promptly called Lay before he could talk himself out of it. They'd flirted for a good 15 minutes before Suho had remembered to whine cutely for the promised margarita and Lay, chuckling, had asked if 9:30 that night was okay.

When he'd hung up from their call an additional 15 minutes after that, Suho had been giddy, blushing like a freshman in high school before their first dance. He'd immediately texted both Kyungsoo, who wasn't just his sister but had also been there and as such was personally invested, and Baekhyun, who was Suho's best friend when the diva could be bothered and also happened to be the reason behind Suho's penchant for girly drinks.

With his sister's lewd encouragements and his best friend's peppering of interested questions—also mostly lewd—Suho had been positive that their evening would go great—he was an ace at first dates, after all.

But then it was 9:40 and he'd been waiting at the bar for 10 minutes already, and he was alone. Suho tried calling the number Lay had left him, but it turned out to be a landline, so the most Suho could have done was leave a message. He didn't, though, because he was annoyed and wondering why he'd bothered to go out with someone who didn't even own a cell phone.

Lay had gotten there eventually and at 13:52 minutes late he was still technically under what Kyungsoo called the "fifteen minutes of waiting to leave" mark, so Suho gave him a pass after he'd received an apology and his drink. Lay also looked amazing with his pitch black hair styled and his white button up crisply fitting to his skin in a way that was sensual, but still appropriate for public consumption—so that helped. Additionally, when Suho had pouted and complained that he'd tried to call but Lay had written down his home number, Lay had apologized sheepishly once more because he'd accidentally showered with his phone in his hand and had yet to get it fixed; since he had a cell phone after all, Suho ended up being much more forgiving.

But then the bartender was serving someone else and to do so, she opened a bottle of Grey Goose, which, for some reason, always made Suho sneeze. Kyungsoo liked to say it was because her brother had low-class taste and couldn't appreciate good vodka when the scent hit him in the nose; the only reason she got away with saying that was because she was Suho's noona—that and she'd bartended her way through college so she knew what she was talking about. Regardless of whether or not Suho possessed highly discerning alcohol preferences, though, Grey Goose still made him sneeze and he did it twice in quick succession.

The sound startled Lay but he hid it well and Suho was pleased because he was aware that his sneezes could be a bit jarring. He hadn't needed to gaze at his date expectantly either because Lay opened his mouth to say "Bless you," almost as soon as Suho had finished. Except the words that came out of Lay's loving lips weren't at all what Suho had been expecting.

"Did you just curse me out?" Suho was appalled and pulled away sharply as if he'd been slapped.

"No, no!" Lay was appalled too. When his date had sneezed, he'd done the polite thing and blessed him for it; Lay just happened to be Chinese so his blessing was actually "Yi bai sui," and very clearly not in Korean. "I wished you an added one hundred years to your life!" He defended himself with his hands held up to show he'd meant no offense and left them there until Suho's shoulders lost their stiffness.

"Sorry," Suho was embarrassed that he'd made such a cultural gaffe in front of his date and tried to make up for it by being overly interested in Lay's background from that point forward. "So you're Chinese then? How do you like Korea? How long have you lived here? I can't even hear an accent. Wow."

Internally he kept urging himself to please shut up because his rambling was making things awkward, but externally Suho just smiled in a way that looked a lot like a grimace and took a number of sips from his margarita. At the very least, he figured the situation wasn't totally awful because Lay was late and Suho was an uncultured idiot so now they were even.

He didn't voice that thought aloud, of course, and once they'd gotten past Suho's barrage of questions about Lay's homeland, conversation flowed pretty smoothly from there. At least, it did until the person who'd been served the Grey Goose decided to get completely drunk way too early on a weeknight—it was still only about 10 at this point—and bump into the back of Lay's chair on the way to the bathroom. The vodka drinker got away unscathed, but Suho's pants were not so lucky.

"Oh my god," Lay's face blanched and he looked about to die, "I'm so sorry." He was apologizing on behalf of the person who was really at fault, so Suho wasn't too upset about the cold and wet patch above his crotch, but then Lay didn't stopped talking and just ended up making things worse. "We should do something about those pants," he murmured thoughtfully once he noticed Suho's look of vague discomfort. "They'd probably dry better if they weren't on you."

Suho just kind of stared at Lay for a minute in disbelief as the meaning of the other man's own words caught up to him. "Oh my god," he repeated, sounding absolutely horrified, "I didn't mean it like that. Well, I mean, I did but not right now. I mean—ugh. Sorry."

As the Chinese man spoke, Suho had been preparing an awesome takedown in which he dramatically tossed his drink in Lay's face, called him out for making their date horrible, and then strutted out of the bar looking fabulous with his head held high—probably Baekhyun's diva had rubbed off onto Suho a little more than either one of them realized. There ended up being two problems with that, though. The first was the matter of his pants, which were still wet and probably would have greatly affected Suho's ability to retain his dignity while walking out. The second conflict with that scenario was a much more practical issue: Lay's truthful confession as he tried to take back his statement made Suho blush in shy embarrassment and ended up doing a lot to improve the mood.

Lay had finished talking once he realized that opening his mouth was probably a bad idea. He'd even assumed that the red of Suho's face was a flush of anger and not a flattered blush, so Lay was pretty surprised when Suho started laughing.

"I'm sorry," Suho chortled as he gave up trying to dry his pant and leaned close to Lay again, "I promise I'm not laughing at you." Lay's raised eyebrow suggested he was somewhat dubious of that truth, so Suho continued. "It's just that I've never been on such a bad first date in my life!"

Rather than looking offended, Lay began to laugh, too, as he placed his hand on Suho's knee and nodded enthusiastically. "I thought it was just me!"

"Oh no," Suho disagreed, focusing on their conversation in order to suppress the squeal of glee he nearly emitted when Lay's other hand crept across the bar to cover Suho's own. "I've been feeling it too. I mean, you were late but then I was insensitive. And then my pants get spilled on and you basically say you want to sleep with me."

Lay coughed awkwardly and blushed at the reminder of his earlier statement, but didn't remove his hand or retract his words. "In my defense, though," his words weren't particularly playful, but his tone was, "the girl who bartends after me was late coming in and my boss wouldn't let me go until she got there."

"Speaking of which," Suho was suddenly reminded of something about which he'd been curious, "why didn't we just get drinks where you work? That way I could have watched you making drinks while we waited." Bartender Lay was y," he confessed.

His comment seemed to make Lay thoughtful, because the other man removed his hand from Suho's knee to take a long drink and didn't put it back until the glass was empty. When he finally did speak, his voice was quiet and a little subdued, and Suho wondered if maybe he'd said the wrong thing—again. "Does that mean you don't think I'm y right now?" This time is was his words which sounded y, while his tone conveyed to Suho how truly serious Lay was about his question.

Though they'd had a rough night so far, nothing had been dour enough for Lay to lose his dimples until that moment, and Suho had seen enough of them so far to know he wanted to bring them back. "I think you're probably the type to be y no matter what," Suho complimented honestly as he drank in the small opening of Lay's shirt at his collarbone, reveled in the weight of Lay's hand drawing circles on his knee, and studiously ignored the heat of bashfulness as it rushed from Suho's cheeks to the tips of his ears.

"That's a pretty powerful description of me," Lay sounded pleased, "especially given the setting because I'd argue that after a first date like this one, nothing involved could possibly be attractive at all, let alone y."

Suho's blush crept down his neck this time, and he didn't think he'd be able to communicate anything coherently, so he just shrugged his shoulders as if he agreed with the description of their date but couldn't help his attraction to Lay even if he'd wanted to.

"Maybe it's because I like you so much that the date's turned out to be a bad one," Suho mused aloud while Lay looked intrigued. "I mean, if I didn't think you were attractive in general I wouldn't have stuck around this long. Hell," he admitted, "I probably wouldn't have gone out with you in the first place; even drunk and then hungover I have standards. But I did though because I like you and I guess I've been trying so hard to express that fact that I've kind of over done things."

"Suho," Lay said his name as he leaned forward even closer and took Suho's other hand to clasp both pairs together. "I gave you my number when you were drunk, okay? It was cute and all but I was really banking on you being awesome while sober; you turned out to be exactly that," Lay complimented Suho smoothly before continuing like it was nothing, "but if we're comparing who likes who more as if we're still teenagers or something, I'm pretty sure I'd win."

"Oh really?" Suho raised an eyebrow, unable to back away from a challenge. "I called you first though, after all."

"Technically, yes, but I asked you out first," Lay countered smugly, dimples flashing pleasantly as he subconsciously played with Suho's fingers.

Suho let Lay's hands caress his fingers, but that didn't mean he was impressed. "Only because I reminded you that you'd promised me another margarita."

"Fine then," the movements of Lay's hands stilled and Suho prepared himself for whatever the man would say next. "In that case, let me solidify my position by asking you out again. For the record," he looked at Suho and winked cheekily, "this was not prompted, not based on a pipe dream that a drunk customer could be an attractive date, and comes directly from the source without the necessity of a phone call. Suho," Lay declared solemnly as his dimples emerged in a hint of a hidden smile, "I like you, okay? You're attractive and funny and patient enough to put up with everything that's happened between us tonight. So please," Lay requested as he brought Suho's hand to his lips to kiss the knuckles charmingly, "would you consider going out with me again sometime? Preferably somewhere without drinks that end up on your lap and also make you sneeze."

Suho chuckled at that requirement before he nodded and leaned forward in his chair to cup Lay's cheek with one hand and kiss it lightly. His lips lingered there for a second before they moved to Lay's ear and whispered, "I think I'd like that. A lot actually."

Lay looked surprised, almost as if he couldn't believe his luck. "Even if that turns out to be as bad as this one? There won't be margaritas to soften the blow, you know."

Suho chuckled again as he sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee before reaching out to grab Lay's hands and relace their fingers. He nodded once and squeezed Lay's hand, then said softly, "Even then."

(Disclaimer: What is this? A sequel, technically, but I don't even know.)