“I- I mean, um. Yeah, sure. You can take the couch.” Finn awkwardly shifted up and stood, fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve. This was by far the worst moment so far. “…I’ll just, um.” He gestured towards the bed awkwardly, kicking himself internally. He could already tell this would be one of those embarrassing moments his brain forced him to relive constantly.
Waylen let out a faint laugh. "Sounds like a good plan." He said, getting onto the couch and setting his phone on the table. It would be low in the morning, he'd have to charge it tomorrow in order to keep it from dying on him. He pulled the blankets up over his body, sighing faintly and closing his eyes.
Flicking off the lights first, he climbed into bed easily and buried himself in the blankets. As mediocre as they were, it was still nice. Finn knew he would fall asleep quickly, the atmosphere the storm provided surely sticking in the air for a good few hours afterword. Unsure whether he should say anything before falling asleep, he gave an unsure call to the couch. “Goodnight, I guess.”
"Good night." he replied after a moment, rolling onto his side and curling into himself just a little bit, his blankets pulled up over his body. He would rather be in a bed, and he knew he would be tomorrow night. Hopefully. He didn't want to have to spend another night with Finn.
Finn laid in bed for maybe thirty minutes before his eyelids finally grew heavy. Ironic given that he could barely keep them open earlier. He was unsure whether it was the huge changes or the strange, angry man in his couch. Whatever the cause was, though, he eventually fell asleep.
His first thought once he woke up was to make sure that Waylen hadn’t stolen his things and left. Assuming the man was still passed out on his couch, he jerked up in bed and scanned the room shamelessly.
Waylen was indeed still asleep, one hand hanging off the couch and brushing lightly against the floor. He was still in Finn's shirt, which was far too big for him. At some point in the night, he had taken off the borrowed jeans, and so beneath the blankets he wore only a pair of boxers. He hadn't slept well, since the thunder had returned and jerked him awake with each rolling boom. He had woken up gasping for breath, at one point, trembling and shaky and it had taken him nearly an hour to get back to sleep. Once the thunder had tapered off, he had slept better, and was still asleep, relaxed and loose.
Glad to see all of his things still in place and the other man asleep on the couch, Finn relaxed. He felt like a creep whenever he looked at Waylen on the couch, so he only glanced over to see if he was still asleep before dropping back into the bed. He didn’t want to leave the room to get breakfast, so he reached for his phone just like most other mornings. No notifications. Not surprising, really, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. After pointlessly scrolling through walls of random images thrown onto his home page, he set his phone back on the table and reluctantly peeled himself from the bed to fetch clean clothes for the day.
Waylen eventually stirred, waking up and sitting up, rubbing his eyes with a sigh followed by a quiet yawn. He adjusted the shirt to keep it from shifting around too much on his body. "Good morning." he said, voice soft and husky from sleep. He was only half-awake, too sleepy to be cranky or crabby in any way.
Grabbing his bag off floor and setting it on the foot of the bed for ease of access, Finn glanced over his shoulder for a split second before giving a soft grunt of acknowledgment. He continued rummaging around in his bag, setting out a bundle of clean clothes a moment later. “The rain’s stopped,” he observed. “You wanna go check with the office about your room?”
He grunted faintly. "Yeah. Gimme a minute." He got off the couch, grabbing his now dry clothes and heading into the bathroom to change. Once he had changed, he came out of the bathroom and set Finn's clothes on the counter. "I'll be out of your hair in a few minutes, I gotta get my stuff put together." He still sounded vaguely groggy, and only half awake.
He didn’t look as Waylen stumbled into the bathroom with his clothes, only rolling his eyes a bit and gathering his clothes into a more orderly pile while the man changed. “Yeah, take your time. I’m gonna change too, try and resist the urge to peek,” he chuckled once Waylen had returned. With that, he shut himself into the bathroom to change clothes as well.
Waylen snorted faintly, gathering up his money and cards from where he'd put them to dry, putting them back into his wallet and tucking it into his back pocket. He ran his hands through his hair with a soft, barely suppressed yawn, shaking his head faintly.
Finn emerged barely a minute later, dressed in clean clothes and feeling considerably less sluggish than he expected. He tousled his hair to get it to sit the way he liked, dumping his clothes back into his bag. He made a mental note that he’d have to swing by a laundromat or something at some point. “So is this where we part ways, or what?”
"Yes." he replied, tugging absently on a lock of hair and wishing for a moment that he had a cigarette with him. But, alas, his pack had gotten soaked and was not redeemable, and his other pack was locked in his bedroom. "I'll be getting out of your hair, then." he headed towards the door, slipping his shoes on and grimacing when they squelched wetly beneath his feet, still damp from the drenching the day before.
(oooh so i was thinking, and? I had an idea for later, either once they're a couple or at least when they're on better terms? maybe they're out for a walk and someone tries to mug them, or kidnap Waylen since they want ransom from his family. anyway they have a gun and you can probably already tell where this is going. but at some point they like, grab Waylen and press it against his temple, threatening, blah blah. i'm thinking Finn saves him somehow ? idk. maybe the person just chickens out. anyways, afterwards Waylen is just an absolute mess bc guns and really bad memories, y'know? and then we get a soft scene where Waylen is just,,, smol broken man who needs comfort or somethin. idk. we don't have to, just if you want to)
Finn grimaced at the noise, though his expression of mild disgust quickly turned, raising an eyebrow in clear amusement as he looked from Waylen to his shoes. “Your shoes are wet,” he stated dumbly, a stupid grin growing across his lips. “You better not have gotten my carpet wet.”
(oooh that sounds awesome omg- yeah i’d def be down for a scene like that whenever we could work it in! :D )
Waylen glared at him. "And so what if I did? What are you gonna do about it?" he demanded, squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes faintly, looking up at Finn with a grimace. "Get me on my knees cleanin' it up?" sure, a little bit of an accidental double entendre, which he only noticed after he spoke. Didn't matter, though. He didn't know if Finn would call him out for it or not.
(ooh great!)
Finn chuckled and made a point of straightening his stance, still amused at just how far he had to look down to make eye contact with the shorter man. He bit his tongue lightly- as much as he wanted to turn Waylen’s words against him, he didn’t feel this was the best time. “Are you trying to start a fight or are you really just that easy to rile up?” The amusement was clear in his tone, seemingly not the least bit intimidated.
He grumbled faintly. "Fuck off." he said, with only a marginal amount of ire in it. "I'm leaving now. Thank you for letting me stay the night." he said his thanks only slightly grudgingly; he'd been raised wealthy and god knew he still had those stiff, impeccable manners, ready to deploy if it was necessary.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Just fix your door.” He grumbled back, walking over to the front door with Waylen. “Ah, one more thing. Try not to freeze to death next time it rains.” He clicked his tongue twice, a small, mischievous glint in his eye. He enjoyed the arguments, what could he say. It took his mind off everything, at least, though he was sure it would be amusing regardless.
He narrowed his eyes again. "I didn't freeze to death. Bastard." he retorted, before going out the door and heading down towards the management to see if they could open his door. It took about fifteen minutes before the manager came with him to the door, and then another ten before they managed to force it open, with the manager saying he'd have someone in to get the lock adjusted.
Finn just shrugged, closing the door behind him as soon as he was far enough outside. Now that he was finally alone, ironically, he had no idea what to do. He supposed he could head out downtown again and look for shops that were hiring, but it was too early to truly leave the room just yet. So he settled for a happy medium, slumping on the couch to do more research on nearby places and probably get distracted by cheap clickbait on the way.
He thanked the manager, changing into a clean pair of clothes and taking his laundry to the local laundromat, sititng down to wait as his clothes cycled through the washing machine, humming to himself and scribbling notes in his notebook, planning out yet more music.
Over the course of the next half hour, Finn cycled through at least twenty different positions on the couch; at multiple points in time just about falling onto the floor. No matter how he sat, however, it did not magically make a career option appear. Shocking. With a reluctant exhale, he returned to the ‘list’ of viable options he’d written in his notes. Said list- if it could even be called that- was a location of a nearby Gamestop, a pizza parlor, and some music-sort of shop. Time to whip up a pro-con list, he supposed.
Once his clothes finished, he bagged them up and took them back to the hotel room, putting them away and raking a hand through his hair, pulling out his laptop and doing some more research, trying to find a gig he could do. He was keeping his social media handles updated as necessary, but without gigs, there was no new traffic on the pages.
Upon the construction of a pro-con list, Finn worked out the pizza parlor. He would keep the address just in case, of course, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. It was almost a complete tie between the music shop and the Gamestop. He figured that he would check out both and see which he preferred- if either were still hiring. And accepted him. God, even the notion of going out of his way to make a good impression made him nervous. With nothing better to do, he decided that he would lounge around his room for another few minutes to rest a bit more, and then head to the addresses and check the places out.