Merry Christmas Darling (Mile x Apo) [Mile x Apo]

Part 1: Wrong Move, Perfect Time

The buzzing of patrons around the bar wasn't enough to drown out the music that played over the speakers in an effort to create a festive ambiance. Ringing in the yuletide season with joy, playful decorations of mistletoe scattered in hidden alcoves, and promises of a merry one is what his boss told him.

"You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear..." Brenda Lee's Rocking Around the Christmas Tree started to play its bouncy, youthful song.

Apo truly couldn't relate even if Christmas was his favorite holiday. The irony wasn't lost on him.

This year would be different than the ones prior as it was his first away from home. Thailand. It was familiar and foreign all at once.

Living in the 'City of Dreams' aka New York City for the past six months, attending the academy for acting in the hopes of improving his skill set; Apo hadn't really found his niche. It was frustrating to believe he wasted time only bartending, attending his classes and workshops, and shuffled back to his tiny studio apartment a bus ride downtown. His coworkers called him a Grinch for being sour faced, yet they didn't understand. They weren't looking forward to a week-long winter break in solitude.

Tonight was the day before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day; all of it would blur instantaneously. Why should he weigh it more than any other day he'd been on his own?

His head shook as he poured a peppermint martini into a glass, slid it down to one side of the bar to the one who ordered it, completely on autopilot, and went back to drying a freshly rinsed glass. It was also his first without someone to spend it with. No family, no friends, no partner. That prospect alone made him less inclined to join in the rowdy laughter of drunken fools kissing mindlessly under the found pieces of hung cranberries, the slurred orders for shots of spiked eggnog, or decked out as elves with scantily clad Mrs. Clauses in their laps.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes or snort out loud.

Nothing came from meeting strangers in a bar. It was a cliché. A poorly written Hallmark movie with an ending that was predicted before the first commercial dropped at its airing. Small town meets big town, one escaping the chaos and another just being a local tour guide, fall in love, the end. His eyebrow raised at one couple sucking face and shook his head.

"Eh..." He couldn't even stop the comment and drifted down to the other side of the bar before he attracted unwanted aggression. As much as bartending was an easy gig, it came with its downside too as Apo quickly learned when he had to duck a glass tossed at him once, he shuddered. "They should go to a hotel if they're going to just inhale each other at my bar. I have to clean up when they leave, and I'd rather not have unmentionables mixed in there..."

"Maybe they can't afford it..."

Apo's eyebrow raised when someone replied to him. It was a guy whose head was flat against the bar countertop, muttering, and not even looking at Apo. That was weird. How could Apo have heard that within the bar space and looked around for a minute. Cleared his throat, "Uh. Sorry about that. What can I get you?" He brushed off his comment.

"Jack Daniels with Coke. A lime too please."

"That's it? No peppermint martini? No spiked eggnog? Gingerbread martini? Cranberry margarita?"

The fellow let out a laugh yet still didn't move to acknowledge the bartender much less stare face to face. He only spoke clearer, "I'm not really in a holiday mood. Kind of down on my luck at the moment. I need something that packs a punch."

'Isn't that funny?' Apo thought to himself as he went to grab the ingredients to make the requested Jack and Coke combination; it really was one of the simplest and almost a relief to make something that didn't smell like a sugar cookie. He loved sweets and being surrounded by the cinnamon cloud at the bar just burned his nostrils. Now this stranger was asking for a drink because he was down on his luck.