Dress for Success
The hotel was fancy. Chris knew this because the bathroom he'd just been shoved into had directional lighting, the paper towels sat in a neatly arranged basket on the marble sink, and each stall was a completely enclosed room of its own, with a door that hid the occupant entirely from view. Chris was grateful for the softer lighting. It made the room spin less. Nevertheless, the tiger had to hold onto the sink to stay on his feet. He wiped a hand over his striped forehead, clearing away some of the cold sweat that had formed.
"Fox preserve us," said an irritated-sounding voice from the doorway. Chris turned his head too quickly to see who it was and nearly fell off his feet. His stomach lurched, but he giggled uncontrollably anyway and fell flat onto his behind, tail sticking out between his legs, twitching uncontrollably.
He stared up at the source of the voice, an arctic fox of slight build, dressed in sleek, tailor-fit tuxedo, staring down at him with a very annoyed expression.
"Hey, Evan, they got fancy towels in here," the tiger slurred, trying unsuccessfully to point at the basket on the sink.
"Yes, I'm sure that they do," the fox gruffed, shaking his head. "Why couldn't you have just done what I told you and stayed away from the bar? Look at yourself, Chris. You've ruined your jacket and your shirt." Evan was pointing, and Chris dropped his head to look at his shirt, and felt his stomach do another backflip. His jacket pocket had been torn clean down the front, and bore claw marks which looked suspiciously like they fit the claws of a tiger. The shirt was covered in red, which Chris jumped at the sight of, until his nostrils detected the scent of cocktail sauce. Well, they couldn't blame him for that. After all, shrimp was basically catnip in seafood form. So what if he'd been a little overzealous. He'd tried to fix it, after all, but his pocket hadn't been large enough for his hand to reach in and pull out the handkerchief.
"Chris, I'm not going to stand here and do this, " Evan said with a sigh. His tail drooped and he leaned his weight against the door frame. "Every time we go to an event that's important to me, you do this. You get drunk and something goes horribly wrong. I've had enough, Chris, do you hear me?" The fox's eyes locked with Chris's, who suddenly realized he was in serious trouble. He stopped giggling. Mostly.
"I'm sorry, Evan," Chris started to say. Evan cut him off sharply.
"Sorry doesn't cut it. I want you with me. I want you in my life. But I can't deal with this kind of thing anymore. It's forty five minutes until the writers guild president hands me that award. You've got that long to sober up and get yourself looking like a civilized being, or just go home and start packing." The arctic fox turned on his heel and stormed out of the bathroom, leaving the disheveled tiger sitting on the tiled floor. Tears came unbidden to the big cat's eyes. The drunkenness was being pushed back now by the wave of guilt that washed over him. It was true. He had screwed up every event that he'd attended with Evan.
Chris set his jaw and forced himself to his feet, bracing himself against the cool white marble of the fancy bathroom sink while the room spun to adjust to his new orientation. Forty five minutes. He looked at his watch. It was 7:16 now,. So really, forty four minutes was all that he had. He fumbled for his car keys and lumbered towards the door. As he reached for the handle, a pain seized him and he turned and ran into the nearest stall, not bothering to close the full size door.
After a few minutes (his watch told him six) of reviewing most of the alcohol and shrimp he'd consumed, he felt must more stable on his feet, and started once again for the door. The tiger reached a hand into his pocket again to pull out his car keys. This time, his hand grasped nothing but air and some rather grainy pocket lint. Where were they? He felt in his other pockets, looked around his feet, and again at where he'd been sitting beside the sink, but there was no sign of the keys to his Mercedes. He pulled out his wallet, feeling to see if maybe it was just obstructing his keys, but nothing. He even checked inside the wallet, still woozy enough to think that perhaps space-time had distorted enough to allow a key chain to sit comfortably in a space designed to hold only thin strips of green paper. Looking inside, that was indeed all that his wallet held. There were several bills, each one marked with the number '100', but no car keys.
A creeping realization washed over Chris. He felt the blood drain away from his cheeks and his ears as his eyes slowly rotated to look at the open stall he'd just vacated. No. It couldn't have happened. He couldn't have dropped them...in there?
A quick survey of the situation confirmed that if indeed he had dropped the keys, they had now gone to the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no goldfish returns. He groaned and buried his face in his paws, his ears firmly pinned back and his tail down. The tiger knew there wasn't much he could do now. He was going to let Evan down, and quite possibly lose him in the process. He leaned his head against the wall and heaved sobs of frustration into the textured wallpaper and his own hand.
The bathroom door creaked open outside. Chris rotated one ear unconsciously towards it, and heard the sound of a single pair of footsteps. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cougar, of medium build, dressed in a fine tuxedo much as Evan and the other guests were. Unlike Evan, or any of the other people Chris had seen, however, this cougar was wearing a small gold nameplate on his jacket pocket. He was straightening the towels in the basket and wiping down the counter.
Chris's sobs abruptly ceased as the cougar turned and made eye contact. The tiger smiled a warm, predatory smile.
"Is there anything I could help sir with," asked the cougar, formally. He was eyeing Chris up and down and seemed to be attempting to resolve in his mind whether or not the tiger actually belonged there.
"Yes, actually, there is. If you'll just look in here, I think there's a problem with the handle on the toilet."
"Oh dear, sir," said the cougar apologetically, "I am most truly sorry. Perhaps I can be of some assistance..."
"I think you'll do just fine," Chris said, again smiling broadly.
--
Evan finished giving his acceptance speech and looked down, again, to where his tiger was sitting in the front row. He was clean, and groomed, and looked every bit as good as he had when they'd arrived here. Chris, for his part, was enjoying having proven to Evan that he could avoid screwing up when necessary. He was still very, very drunk, but despite that he'd carried out all the rules of proper decorum for the entire award ceremony. He hoped Evan being proud of him would seem as worth the hangover in the morning as it did now.
The arctic fox made his way down to the row of seats, staring wide-eyed at his tiger. "You...you did it."
"I had to. You didn't give me a choice," Chris replied, his speech a bit slow and a bit too-proper, but much less drunk-seeming. "I...uh...might have lost the keys to the mercedes."
A grin spread across Evan's muzzle, in spite of his earlier anger. "It's okay. I've got my key, and you shouldn't be driving anyway."
"Yeah, you're probably right. Hey, do they have any more of those shrimp? Those were so good..."
"I think you had enough shrimp for tonight," Evan said, again smiling. He took the tiger's hand in his own and bent down and kissed it. That was what Chris liked about Evan. He was romantic, in his own way. "Let's go, I'm really tired and we've both got work in the morning."
Chris heaved himself out of the cushy auditorium chair and put his arm around Evan, as much out of affection as to steady himself, and the pair made their way out into the main reception hall once more.
"So where did you manage to get a replacement jacket and shirt on zero notice and not being able to drive," Evan finally asked, his ears perked and rotated to listen to Chris's response.
"Uh..."
Chris broke off his answer before he began it, as he looked down the nearby corridor and saw a cougar, dressed in a clawed and torn tuxedo jacket and red stained shirt, staring at him. The cougar was rubbing his head painfully and staring at Chris. Evan was turned to face the tiger and so had not seen the cougar yet.
"Well, that is, I..." Chris broke off again. The cougar was holding a handful of hundred dollar bills, and looking between them and Chris. Finally, he simply nodded, and gave Chris the thumbs-up sign and turned, walking away. "You know, it's not important. What's important is that I managed to not screw up."
Evan cuddled up against him, holding his trophy down by his side in one hand. "I never really doubted you. And look at you, all dressed to the nines and here to support your literary-snob boyfriend."
"Yeah... But I'll tell you," Chris added, "Being fashion conscious can get you into a whole world of trouble. Or just locked in a bathroom."