Some people just never learn. Scott baker is one of them. He'd just gone back to work after a week od suspension for drunking while on call and here he was the first day back at it again. Don't think for a minute he stayed sober to reflect on what he'd done wrong while he was suspended either, he'd stayed home with beer and vodka is all.

Now he was out and about again. It wasn't very late, almost eight PM, but Scott was already drunk having been here for a couple hours. Most people paid him no mind. He's been in here before drinking in uniform and he's doingit again. It's also a no no by the way. Even off duty he isn't to be drinking in uniform. He doesn't care.

At least tonight he isn't being a lecherous dirt bag and harrassing the ladies on the scene. He's simply sitting at the bar being verbally abusive to another drunk, who is giving Scott tit for tat on the trash talking.

He sits precariously balanced on his bar stool in his dark blue uniform stroking his mustache. Perhaps he's being a little too loud this evening.

He's just finished his 'show' not to long ago. Ten minutes at most. He lights himself on fire with a lighter, or so the crowd sees. The flame of the lighter never touches him, it's there for appearance. He combusts from waist up at his own will, and now that he's older, he's learned to control it without burning his hair. He's also learned to stop wearing shirts, they burn. His pants are just tight, but not too very tight, light blue denim. He burns for a moment, and then with a turn, the flames go out.

Hard trick made easy when your a pyro.

Criss made his way off stage while one of the bouncers collects the money people hold up and stuffs it into a bank bag that belongs to the club. Criss moves through the crowd easily, behind the bar, into a back room and reappears moments later wearing a black, flesh tight tee-shirt and the same jeans. His hair is in many little braids, his blue eyes lined heavily in eyeliner. He starts taking orders at the bar and works for a few minutes before he notices the noisy one on Katrina's side of the bar, a fellow bar tender. The uniform is what he notes first.

Isn't that against the rules? He moves down that way, to get a fresh carton of orange juice from the fridge, and to get a closer look.

The plain clothes drunk keeps poking Scott in the chest for emphasis. "Look moron, stop touching me." Scott blurts very loudly as the guy does it yet again and this time Scott shoves his arm away. The guy smacks Scotts hand and utters more profanity. At this point they don't recall what they even started off talking about, they're just irritating the hell out of eachother.

The plain clothes drunk picks up Scott's drink and dumps it on Scott's head. Scott has a lot of bad qualities, but he isn't violent. He has only ever been violent once in his life, and the one time he was he completely lost the tenous control he has over his power. So he's not violent, something might be irreversibly turned into a puddle of goo.

Though he isn't passive about this at all, he takes the other guy's drink. He doesn't dump it on him though, he starts drinking it while muttering depreciative cooments about the asshole making his uniform reek of alcohol now. He sits there drinking the pilfered bottled beer, while rum and coke runs down his strawberry blond hair.

Katrina looks angry and looks around for a moment. She's most likely looking for a nearby bouncer to take care of the two idiots before her. Criss intervenes at this point, handing her the orange juice and sending her to his side of the bar. He moves forward and takes the glass that one of the drunks had poured over the man in uniforms head. This must be Scott. He wouldn't be positive but it's a good guess.

"Boys. You'll have to settle down or I'll ask you to leave." He put the glass into one of the two sinks behind the bar and takes out a rag, wrings it, and starts to wipe the counter where the drink was dripping on to. He reaches into a drawer for a dry, clean rag and holds it out to the man in uniform.

Scott takes it and nods. He'll be good really. It's too bad the other fella doesn't feel the same way. Scott's just finishing up drying himself off, when the man next to him grabs the now empty beer bottle and breaks it over the edge of the bar. He gets out of his chair to advance on Scott.

Scott's whole face gets wide. He tries to get out of his own seat to simply move away, but instead goes ass over tea kettle backwards, seat and all onto the floor, while the drunk advances on him still. The bottle gets remarkably close to Scott too, and then suddenly the other drunk seems to be trying to hold liquid the same color of the bottle's glass. Green liquid drips harmlessly onto Scott as he sits up.

"Shit, what the hell's wrong with you?" he blurts at his would be assailant.

"Hey." He started to go around the bar and changed his mind and just went over. Concentrating, with intentions of makeing the bottle just....'fall' out of the drunks hand onto the floor, he reaches out to grab the idiots shoulder. But then the bottle's just....dripping. Criss scowls and reaches out, sliding another bottle off of the bar so that it shatters on the floor. The club may be frequinted by Initiates, but half of it's norms are uninitiate, and they'll see the bottle must have been dropped and broken.

By this time, two bouncers are on their way as well and Criss has put himself between the idiot and the drunk on the floor. "You're going to have to leave now, sir." Oh...and here's your escort, a bouncer's taken the other by the arm, another has grabbed the fireman's arm.

"He's not done anything." Except drinking in his uniform, and that's not grounds for him to be thrown out.

Scott hadn't meant to melt the bottle, but he hadn't meant to get stabbed either. He gets up and brushes himself off watching the other be lead away. "I just wanted him to quit touching me, sorry." he says looking around. It's clear he's drunk enough to be a little bit out of it. He picks up his chair though and sits back down.

Criss shook his head and the other bouncer walked away dejected and bored. Criss moved around the bar this time, since no one was at risk of getting a bottle poked through them. One of the waitresses was there now and he handed her a dustpan and broom over the bar and she started cleaning up the broken mess.

Criss watched the man that must be Nate's friend pick his stool up and seat himself again. He pushed several braids out of his face and picked up the rag, returning to cleaning up the rum and coke, as well as the broken shards from the bottle off of the bar top.

"Maybe you ought to take off before someone notices your in uniform." Just a friendly suggestion.

He nods but asks for another drink. Like I said he doesn't know when to quit. Why in the hell is Nate his friend, I'm sure Criss might wonder just a little.

Blue eyes tinged with red scan the room after a minute. Perhaps he's looking to see if he has been noticed. He gives his face a tired rub, much like a small child would. "I'll go after this one since it bugs you." he says.

Criss does wonder, very hard, why Nate would be friends with this one. Idiot. Not Nate. Scott. Is an Idiot. But he complies and mixes the drink, pouring it into a cup and handing it over. He then moves down the bar two people and takes another order, but he continues to watch the man. Why would he want to drink in uniform anyways? It didn't look particuarily comfortable to Criss.

"You have a ride?" It's a common question he asks the drunks. It wouldn't be good if he just let the waltz out the bar and get into a random car or try to drive home. He can strongly suggeste the cab service that runs for the bar.

Scott nods, even though he's walking. He doesn't live that far away. He'd walked to get here. He does many stupid things drunk, but driving isn't on the list. He drinks his drink and after a few minutes nods off. He lays his head down on the bar ontop of his crossed arms and snores lightly. Piece of work isn't he?

"I thought you'd be leaving now," he comented under his breath to the sleeping man. He collected that glass too and dropped it into the sink as Katrina deposited four more glasses to. He'd have to get to those in a minute. He took several more orderes before leaving the woman at the bar alone and going into the back room. Shutting the door and muffling the music, he pulled out a wallet, because the jeans are looser then the leather and he can actually carry a thin wallet in them, he pulled out the paper menu from the Baked-Bean.

Sitting in the chair at the desk, in a crampped room, he picked up the receiver from the craddle of the phone and dialed in the first number of the two that Nate had given him. He knew, from just one conversation with the man, that Nate didn't enjoy collecting his 'friend' but someone had to do it. Besides, it was an excuse to call Nate.

Of coarse Nate doesn't enjoy collecting Scott. I doubt he will today either. He's just gone to sleep after a shift at the station, a shitt at the hospital, and then three fires he'd been on call for. After a hot shower to get all the soot off, he'd fallen into his bed exhausted. Now the phone was ringing. If he can only remember how to answer it so it will stop that infernal ringing. He is very tired indeed.

"Hello?" he answers very sleepily.

"Nate? Did I wake you?" He frowned and leaned back in the chair, slouched a little bit. "I'm sorry."

He'd not meant to wake the poor guy. It was only eight, but then he recalled how often the man had said he worked and he realized that perhapes it had been a long day in the fire business. He frowned and thought about saying nevermind and just hanging up, let him go back to sleep, and just stick this Scott character into a cab, but he had no address to send him too and Criss is far to nice to send the man, drunk, in uniform, on shift, to the fire department.

"It's GT. I believe I have your....friend down here."

"Oh hey!" he says in an excited voice, it's been a week he was begining to wonder if he'd get a phonecall or not. Then an "Ooohh...." he says it in a very deflated sort of voice. He knows they've got to be talking about Scott, and that's a disappointing thing to poor Nate. "What's he done?" he asks even though he really doesn't want to know. Forwarned is forearmed.

He laughed a little at the excitment. "It's nice to know I'm not forgotten." He shook his head, though no one could actually see him doing it. "He's gone to sleep on my bartop," he replied in a mock-offended tone and leaned forward, putting one arm on the desktop. "Why don't you come sit next to him and babysit while I finish the night off?" Well, it's better then 'come get him and leave.' Criss would like to get togather again, and maybe if he can get off of work half an hour early, maybe they can.

"But if you don't come get him, I'm going to roll him out into the gutter and leave him there."

Well that was better than come get him. Besides Nate knows where Scott lives and can easily send him off in a cab. In fact he'd tired enough that he'll take one down there and probaly send Scott off in it. "Let me get dressed and get down there then, shouldn't be too long." Nate says still sleepy but slightly eager sounding.

"Mm. I'll fix you a coffee." He laughed before he hung up. It wasn't something he commonly fixed up in a bar but they did have a coffee machine and a cappiciono machine. He returned to the bar and started taking orders once again, waiting, more eagerly then he should have been, for Nate to show up.

He spoke to Katrina and she told him that yes, she could cover the last half an hour of his shift until Mark got there, but only half an hour. He thanked her, continued to work.

It took Nate a half an hour, he had to wait for the cab to come get him or it would have been much quicker. He should really have shaved, but he was simply too tired to bother. He pulled on a pair of black straight leg jeans, loafers and a burgundy colored button down. since both looked presentable and he also was not in the mood to iron. He tucked his shirt in and found a belt.

He paused in the living room long enough to pick up, keys, wallet, and phone. He climbed into the cab and straightened his short damp hair out with his fingeres while using the rear view mirror to see what he was doing from the back seat.

It didn't take long for him to arrive at the bar. He told the cab driver to wait and went in after Scott.

After scanning the bar he found his friend's sleeping form and walked over. He shook his head at Scott, but grinned at Criss.

Criss smiled and moved over from where he was leaning back against one of the counters behind the bar with his arms crossed. "Another five minutes and I was going to drop him outside." There were now three behind the bar, himself included. He'd called Mark and asked him to come early so that Katrina didn't have to handle the bar alone.

Criss reached back and picked up a regular white mug and set it on the bar in front of Nate. "Mind it black?" He tapped Scott's shoulder. "How are you going to get the lump home on that modified moped of yours?" He's not being mean. He's just picking on the scooter a little.

"I'm going to stick him in the cab that brought me here, I don't have any business driving on a half an hour of sleep in the last 24 hours." he said. Hegave Scott a shake. "Come on L T." he says. "You drunken sot." (L T being short for leiutenant, I wonder how long that will lst if Scott can't stay out of trouble.)

Scott rouses and looks up, "Great, Nate." he says. He gets up drunkenly and allows Nate to lead him off to the cab.

Nate comes back after having paid and given the driver direction.

He sits down in front of the coffee. "You're stuck with me now till you drop me off he says. He sets his helmet on the bar. Having a helmet to get in a cab had gotten him a very odd look from the driver.

He chuckled, pushed the coffee forward. "He says or you say?" Either way, Criss didn't mind being 'stuck' with Nate. He set the rag down and started to mix up someone elses drink when Mark handed him a ticket. He wasn't drinking anything. Working the bar always left him wide awake and he didn't drink. Not often. And when he did, he didn't drink at the bar he worked at.

"I'll take you home then after my shift. Hadn't meant to get you out of bed."

Most people don't want to get Nate out of bed, one look and they usually decide they'd much rather get him into bed.

"Mmm, I didn't figure, just happened to catch me on one of the rare occaisons when I was sleeping. Did he cause any trouble?" Nate asked about Scott. He sipped at the coffee. It likely wouldn't help much he'd drunk so much at the station already before those fires were all sorted out.

Criss wouldn't mind getting him out of bed either. Who needs a bed. But you knew that's not what he meant.

"Not really." He moved away and delivered the drink, collected money, put it in the register beneath the bar top where coustomers couldn't see it. Then returned in front of Nate. He leaned forward close to Nate so the people on either side of him wouldn't hear, "He melted glass when another drunken idiot tried to stick him with it though."

'In here, he usually doesn't do things like that where just anyone can see, was it close or was he that bombed?" Nate wanted to know.

He was still somewhat flabbergasted that his friend had gone out drinking like this on his first day back from a suspension.

"I'd say that bombed and a little paniced. It was fairly close too though." He took another order, fixed it, set it on the bar in front of the man and put the money in the register. "I don't think anyone noticed. I suggested he leave and he said he would. Then he passed out."

He stuck his hands in the sink and began to wash the glasses. "Give me just ten more minutes and my shift is over for the evening."

"I won't even ask what he did to provoke it. It's good he wasn't hurt though. " Nate said finishing the cup of coffee. He watched Criss lazily while he waited, with apreciative yet sleepy eyes. The combination would likely inspire sweet dreams.

"He didn't provok that. Actually, they were just bickering. I told them to cool it and he obeyed, suprisingly. Not suprisingly, the other one didn't." He smiled at Nate's sleepiness. Maybe his 'get togather' would have to wait. He finished washing the dishes, setting them upside down on the lower counter to dry and then walked away to the back room again. He came back and walked from around the bar, touched Nate's shoulder.

"Lets get you back to bed before you fall asleep on my bar top too."

"Not what I had in mind." the fire fighter said getting up. He means falling asleep on the bartop not the part about getting him to bed. He picked up his helmet and followed Criss with a lopsided grin.

"No. I didn't think so."

Criss lead him across the bar and exited through a side door into an ally that lead into a back parking lot. There was a different bike there, not the black Electraglide but instead a silver Low Rider. One of the two bikes that had been in the parking lot of his appartment building when they'd driven by a week ago.

He smiled at the helmet Nate was carrying. "Come prepared?" He pulled his braids back and put them all into a ponytail. Then put his helmet on/

"You could say that." Nate said with a very large smile.

It wasn't just the bikes he liked, they were sort of like gravy with your roast beef, nice, but the main coarse can still be enjoyed without all the extraneous trappings. Much like Nate enjoys simply watching Criss.

When everything the other needs to deal with is is situated for Nate to climb onto the motor cycle he does. He's still ever so careful about hurting Criss while he holds on, he isn't at all shy about holding on or being pressed against the other man though. He's so tired, he's actually very relaxed, more relaxed than he'd normally allow himself to be.

He chuckled. He'd bet that got him a few weird looks, carrying around a helmet. He got on the bike and started it. This one roared like the other, but it didn't crackle. It sounded smoother. It's older. It wasn't a project bike. It's his favorite. He kept good maitnance on this one.

When Nate was settled, unshyly, behind him, he pulled off and set out to try to remember the way back to Nate's place above the printshop. Now we know why he braided his hair back as the small braids beat on Nate.

It didn't take too long to get to the print shop, at least it didn't seem that way to Nate, who's ability to guage time goes to complete crap when's he tired. Still it seemed he'd just gotten comfortable behind the other man. He was tired, but that wasn't the reason he moved more slowly as he climbed down from behind Criss.

He stopped the bike, shut it off and waited while Nate got off. Slowly.

Eyebrow.

"Are you going to be alright?" He's midly worried, but not very. It isn't as if Nate is falling down drunk, he's just sluggishly tired. He was just mildly worried about Nate climbing the steps if it was taking him so long to get off the motorcycle. He decided he'd sit right here at the curb and watch Nate go in, just to be sure the man made it all the way in the apartment.

Nate pulls off his helmet with a sly grin. His eyes are blood shot from being tired. It's good he doesn't have to be at either job for the next two days. "I don't know, maybe you should tuck me in." he's teasing, he goes on though, since he can tell there is genuine worry in the question. "I'll be fine, I have two days off to rest." He gives Criss's shoulder a squeeze before walking to his scooter to put up his helmet.

"I would like that, really. But it's probably not a good idea. You'd have trouble getting me to leave." He smiled. He was suprised that the other was still flirting, even though he was that tired. He shook his head. "I'll just wait and watch you go upstairs. Should be a nice veiw anyways." He watched him put his helmet on the cursed scooter. And hung one wrist limply over the handles, keeping the other hand on the break.

Nate laughed, "You should call tommorow then or the next day, I have nothing at all to keep me busy." He said.

Then he did go up the stairs, he didn't seem to have any problem with them. He unlocked the door, opened it, and stopped to lean over the rail for a minute, "You sure your don't want to come up?" he called.

"No." No he is not sure, at all. He'd like to go up. But he still didn't know what Nate wanted out of this...friendship? This whatever it was. And Nate was tired anyways, which would put a damper on any conversation, let alone anything else they could do. "But It's not a good idea tonight I'm sure." He smiled. "I'll call tomorrow then, since it seems your on more forced vaccation." He doesn't have to work the bar tomorrow, just the law firm."

Nate shakes his head and goes inside leaning out the door for one last wave.

Criss takes off down the road, smiling to himself. He'd have really liked to go up. Almost had.

Damn. What was Logan going to say.