The Altercation

Short story.

The blood flowed from my nose like a silent, trickling fountain. I reached up to wipe it with the sleeve of my light blue dress shirt; my blazer had long been discarded at that point, and I never would find it again. My right eye was stinging and I could feel it beginning to swell almost immediately after the punch. Tomorrow it'd be a real ringer.

My head was spinning, not from the blows to my head, but from the alcohol. Vodka tonics, five tumblers too many. Usually alcohol put me in a playful mood, giddy and goofy, but tonight was different. Tempted into an argument, coerced into a fist fight that went too far. Now both of us, stand swaying under the street lights outside the bar, eyeing each other hatefully.

Our little sister stood at a distance from us, she'd given up on screaming for us to stop. Mascara-laced tears streaked down her plump, red cheeks, I knew she was flushed more from the shots of whiskey than from the fear though. Still, as flustered and dizzy as I was, I felt ashamed for behaving this way in front of her. The baby of our family, a sidekick to both him and I, and this is how we act in front of her? I felt like a rabid dog, I felt like the guilty drunk I was.

Stupid mother-f*****g a******s, s**t-faced b******s, that's what we were. It didn't matter that he initiated the argument, that he threw the first punch, because I fought back. I hit my own brother because I let his drunken idiocy get to me, and therefore I was just as guilty as him. We'd always prided ourselves on how well we'd grown into men, yes, foolish, selfish, drunks. It was humorous, until it wasn't.

Liddy knew we were rowdy drinkers, but this side of us she'd never seen. F**k, I'd never seen this side of us. We'd always been close, James and I. All the corny duos you can think of, Robin to his Batman, Sawyer to his Finn, Pinky to his Brain, that was us. Him always the leader, since he was the oldest of us three, and me right there by his side since day one. Thick as thieves, partners in crime, the two of us against the world.

Except now, tonight, it was us against each other.

Author's Note

Please leave reviews and let me know if this is any good or not? I have more ideas, plots and such, for these characters, but they are like separate stories.