[open] My Glass Of Whiskey

[Alex Valentine]

Alex downed the shot in one, wincing slightly at its sharp taste.
The barman and Alex's friend, Gareth, looked at him. "What's up with you?"
"Me? Nothing," Alex grinned. "Am I not allowed to drink?"
"You're drinking on your own," Gareth remarked, drying a glass.
Alex glanced deliberately around him at the women in the bar.
Gareth shook his head. "Can't you pick someone decent up at the hospital?"
"All taken, or complete bitches," Alex said. "And before you say it, I wouldn't do anything with another guy's girlfriend."
He knew what it felt like.
"Good!" Gareth exclaimed. "You should really get a stable relationship, you know."
Alex frowned. Since when was Gareth qualified to give him advice on his life?
Alex knew perfectly well that there was a reason holding him back from a "stable relationship" - he had trust issues. Could he trust a girl enough to know that she wouldn't cheat? And could he trust a friend not to sleep with his girlfriend?
Alex's life had been one of backstabbers and liars. From the playground.
In New York you had to look out for yourself, and that was what everybody did. You looked after yourself, no one else. You didn't trust anyone.
After all, Alex thought darkly. Look what happened to me. Look what happened to Jackson...
He shook his head, erasing that thought from his head.
"Alex, were you even listening?" Gareth said.
"Yeah...no... what were you saying?"
"No one in your intern set?"
Alex shook his head. "In my set, there's only one girl - she's French and taken. Two reasons."
"Anyone caught your eye at all?"
Alex groaned. "There's hot ones, but do I like them enough to settle down and shackle myself to them? No."
Gareth rolled his eyes. "There are good sides to being in a relationship, you know."
Alex didn't doubt it. Having someone to have sex with every night must be awesome.
Aw, he wasn't that cynical. Not really. He was just anti-relationship at the minute.
The somethingth stage of learning to accept things.
"I could set you up with someone if you want," Gareth offered.
Alex shook his head. "No point. Women... they look for love. I can't give that. Don't want to! Just leave it."
"Fine," Gareth said. "I'll leave you and your whiskey."
"Please do," Alex said, then looked around to see if anyone he knew was there.
Then, the door opened.

[Callie Black]

((i don't care who you might've wanted to reply to this- i am!))

Callie pushed the door open, brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking around her. Aah... the bar. That dingy, dark place where people went to drown in their miseries. Or- as the case may be for those guys over there and the snooker table- have the time of their lives.
Bars were funny in that way. You could do almost anything... well, mostly.
Callie had been having a bad day. The autistic boy, Sam Dean, had come back again for a follow-up, and the mother had cornered her in the corridor, firing all sorts of questions at her. She knew she was meant to be helping, but Mrs Dean had really been getting on her nerves.
Callie hated beyond reason talking about her brother to absolute strangers. Actually, that rule counted for her friends as well- she sometimes even found it difficult talking to Harry about it!
Anyway, the whole experience had left a sour taste in her mouth, and she'd decided to try and forget about it for now. And there was only one way to do that-
Drink.
She spotted a familiar face at the bar and headed his way. She recognised him from somewhere... wasn't he Amelie's friend? She shrugged. He looked down, at any rate.
They should be able to keep each other company.
She pulled up a seat beside him, staring across at Gareth re-filling drinks for a few seconds. Then, sighing, she turned to look at him.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Callie- you work with my friend, Amelie, right?"

[Alex Valentine]

((no, you're fine lmao))

Alex swivelled around, surprised that the woman with the curly black hair that he vaguely recognised from work was talking to him. "Er, yeah. I'm Alex. And you're Dr. Black's wife, right?"
Okay, never mind the fact that she technically was Dr. Black, he meant the Dr. Black. The cardiologist.
That Dr. Black.
Then it struck Alex as how sad it was that his social life was made up of his colleagues, a barman and a vet. That was really sad.
He really needed more friends.
He smiled at Callie as he waited for an answer.

[Callie Black]

Callie winced. "Is that how I'm known? Dr Black's wife?"
She'd always wondered whenever she first got engaged if that by marrying him, he would become her identity- she'd be like an extra. Her mother then decided to spout some crap about how the world wasn't as is used to be and women were now their husband's equals.
Not until her internship was over, as far as she was concerned. Until then, she'd be the cardiologist's wife. That sucked.
She smiled back. "Yeah, that's me... Sorry to sort of barge over here like this, but you looked down and I am- shall we drink to it?"
She cast her eyes down the bar at Gareth.
"Once I get one, that is..."

[Alex Valentine]

Alex smiled and as Callie gave Gareth her order, handed Gareth the money for it. "It's on me," he said. "So... to shit then?"

[Callie Black]

Cassie smiled weakly, raising her glass.
"To shit!"
Their glasses chinked and she downed hers in half a gulp. Setting it down, she sighed, pushing it across the bar. It felt odd, drinking with a stranger... But hell, this was a bar, and this was what bars were like.
"Hope you don't mind me asking," she said suddenly. "But what shit have you got?"

[Alex Valentine]

Alex smiled. "Women," he said cryptically. "Or just the women I've been with."
Ellie...
He wondered what she was doing now. Her and Chris. It made him sick to even think of them.
And then there was that girl Ana...
He shuddered involuntarily, then smiled ruefully at Callie. "In other words, I don't pick very well. At all. What about you, if you don't mind me asking?"

[Callie Black]

"Reliving the past," she couldn't help but smile at the look on his face when he'd said the word 'women'.
That was it, wasn't it? Everybody's problems seemed to come from each other. Alex was upset because of women- most likely a bad relationship that he was still sore about- and her family life was cropping up and forcing her to relive some not-so-nice memories.
She couldn't be bothered with it all.
So she drank.
"People suck," she decided, drumming her fingers on the bar's smooth surface.

[Alex Valentine]

Alex grinned. "People do suck. And so does the past. Have you ever noticed that when you end up drowning your sorrows its generally because of relationships or the past?" he mused. "When we made that toast, we should have made it to shit and shits, of both sexes."

[Callie Black]

"Another one then," she grinned. "To that and whatever other shit crops up in our minds."
She sighed, putting her drink down and twisting one of her curls around her tiny finger. It was a strange habit, one of her little ways. She supposed it was better than picking her nose and biting her nails though. As it was, her nails were perfectly rounded, nice, neat and pointy. Great for pinching people- not that she'd ever do that of course.
"The problem is," she said, "if we think too much about the past, relationships, and all that jazz, then we end of losing ourselves in it, and wishing we could redo things that can never be undone. It's so stupid to look back, and be miserable about stuff, when we could look forward and hope for the best instead."
She smiled at him. "But how boring our lives would be then. We create drama... Back at school, there was this girl who took that to the extreme. She lied to us- she told us she'd done awful things, just to get attention... Oh, but look I'm rambling." Callie nodded at him. "Your go."

[Alex Valentine]

Alex grinned. "I know what you mean."
How did he put his problem across without seeming sexist? He stared into the depths of his whiskey, hoping it would tell him how to phrase his words. An old man's drink, but whatever. It tasted good. And then there was the thought - was it originally Irish or Scottish? This one was Irish. It tasted so good that it made up for how bad Guinness tasted.
"Women," he mused. "I know they're probably not all bitches, but... God. We can't do with them, but we can't be without them. It's the eyes... Jesus Christ," he cursed. "I caught my ex sleeping with my best friend. I was going to propose to her on her birthday, which was the next day... Does that make her a bitch, him a bastard, or me stupid?"

[Callie Black]

Callie's hand impulsively went out and rested on his shoulder, in some means of comforting him. She didn't know what to say to that. She hated cliches like that- all the more when they came true. They were expected, and yet unexpected, so that made them worse, or... whatever.
"You shouldn't think like that," she said softly. "It's left you bitter- and it's nothing to do with you. You're not stupid. But she... she shouldn't have done that. But not all girls are bitches." She smiled weakly. "Promise."
She didn't know if this was making any difference. Probably not. She barely knew him, or the details. But it was the best she could do.
Hope was a valuable thing.

[Alex Valentine]

Alex smiled weakly. "Thanks. But I should really give over, it was like, eight months ago."
That was the root of his philandering and romanticising and bastardishness. He was pretty much normal before... ah, who was he kidding? He was always weird.
"What about your past? It's your turn for a rant, and maybe I can shed some light on it."

[Callie Black]

"Oh... it's nothing really..." she muttered, shaking her head. "Something stupid I let get to me. I can be over-sensitive... my husband tells me so all the time..."
She sighed. She couldn't avoid the question. Besides, Alex had just told her something very personal about himself. It wasn't fair to just leave him hanging like that.
"My brother has ASD," she said solemnly. "You... you know what that is right? A developmental disorder which affects the child's social skills, or whatever. My brother's an adult now, and he's improved a lot, even though he's Lower Functioning. It's just... I was helping out in the Psychiatric Ward, and this woman with an autistic son sort of cornered me and started asking me all these questions," she shuddered, taking a gulp of her drink. "Just dragged up bad memories, I guess..."

[Alex Valentine]

"Aw, shit," Alex cursed. "That's crap. And there's me moaning about women. Sheesh. You should have made me shut up."
He didn't want to alienate Callie, but it put things into perspective for him. Relationship-wise, his life was pretty much alright. The other things in his past weren't, but Ellie wasn't that much of a thing to complain about.
He tried to remember if that guy in that programme Ellie used to watch moaned about finding his wife in bed with his best friend... McYummy? Something like that?
McDreamy, that was it. Grey's Anatomy or something like that.
He couldn't remember.
"That put a lot into perspective there," he said, smiling briefly.