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Jakub is drunk.
It’s not like Christian is sober - Christian can’t remember being sober, except he can, buried in the dizzy thrill he feels every time he remembers they won the Stanley Cup. Every time he remembers that he lifted the Stanley Cup.
Jakub has his phone out, filming something again. Christian makes sure to keep himself behind Jakub so he doesn’t end up on camera. He’s talking, drunk, his body draped over Kempny’s. Kempny makes eye contact with Christian and gives him a “help me” face, and Christian just smiles at him, floating drunk and not worried about rescuing any of his teammates.
Ten minutes later, Jakub is plopping basically into his lap, wearing his best pout.
“Tom told me to stop filming,” Jakub says, his words slurred. Are his eyes open? Christian’s not sure Jakub has the ability to open his eyes.
“Then you better stop filming,” Christian says. He doesn’t think his words are slurred.
“Then how am I gonna remember all this?” Jakub asks.
Christian can’t help but laugh at him. “Babe, you’re not,” Christian says. “You aren’t gonna remember shit.”
“Noooo,” Jakub whines at him. For a split second, he sounds like he’s going to cry, but that fades away as quickly as it came and he’s off of Christian like a rocket, bouncing to someone else. Christian just shakes his head.
At an indeterminate hour of the very early morning, Christian is standing near a table, talking to Nisky when Kempny weaves his way through the crowd to him.
“Your V just disappear into the bathroom,” Kempny tells him, raising his voice over the music. Christian takes a deep breath and looks to the ceiling for strength.
“He’s your teammate,” Christian says, very logical. He doesn’t want to deal with this.
“He’s your boyfriend,” Nisky says helpfully.
“I hate everything,” Christian says, feeling suddenly very sober. Kempny and Nisky both laugh at him.
Jakub is in fact in the bathroom, and just as Christian feared, he is definitely throwing up. It’s all incredibly sexy, except for the part where it’s not. Christian leans up against the bathroom stall. At least the bathroom is nice. Thank God they’re not in some fucking dive bar.
“Babe,” he says. “Let me in.”
There’s scuffling and shuffling and a retching noise that makes Christian cringe, but finally they manage to get the door from between them. Christian leans in the doorway and looks at Jakub, who is sat on the tile.
“Not your best look,” Christian tells him.
“I’ve been poisoned,” Jakub tells him earnestly. “I know how to hold my liquor.”
Christian rolls his eyes. “Nobody knows how to hold this much liquor,” he says, then reaches down to pull Jakub to his feet. Jakub stumbles against him, dizzy, and Christian walks him over to the sink.
Fortunately, there are actual paper towels in the bathroom and not just the stupid wall dryers, so Christian is able to wet a handful of them. “Hold still,” he tells Jakub, and wipes down his face. Jakub’s skin is hot under his hands and the water is cold. Jakub just closes his eyes and lets Christian do whatever he wants, and he sighs when Christian kisses him on the forehead.
“I think you should stop drinking,” he says. “And that you should wash your mouth out.”
“Yeah,” Jakub agrees, cupping his hands under the flow of water from the sink to rinse and spit. The bathroom is relatively quiet after being out in the club and around everyone else, and it makes Christian’s head start to pound from the sheer absence of noise. Maybe the headache was always coming.
“Why do I put up with you?” Christian asks, reaching out to push back a stray flop of hair that’s falling down over Jakub’s forehead.
Jakub looks at him for a second, his eyes slightly unfocused. “Because you love me,” Jakub finally says, and then he smiles, and Christian realizes that it’s true. He does love Jakub.
Did he know that before? He’s not sure he knew that before.
“Come on,” Christian says. “Let’s go get some water.”
They’re holding hands when they walk out of the bathroom, but it’s so dark that no one notices. Christian leads Jakub over to the bar and orders water for both of them, and then on a second thought, orders Coke for both of them, just so Jakub will have something else in his mouth, and maybe it will wash away the taste of vomit.
Jakub drapes himself around Christian from behind while they wait nuzzling his nose against the back of Christian’s neck. Christian drops one hand down to rest on Jakub’s wrist, where Jakub’s arm is looped around his waist. Christian leans against the bar, lets Jakub’s weight rest against him warm and heavy. It’s too hot and he’s still drunk, but it’s nice.
When the bartender comes back, he puts four glasses on the bar in front of Christian. Christian grabs one of the sodas and hands it to Jakub. “Here,” he says. “So you don’t just taste vomit.”
Jakub makes a face at him, but then he takes the soda from Christian’s hand and swishes it around in his mouth before swallowing. Christian chugs the water and leaves that glass on the bar and takes his soda with him as he maneuvers Jakub away. Christian vaguely has started to wonder when they’re going home, or if they’re really going to party here until the sun comes up.
He’s just glad when he sees that other players are starting to disappear. Once he sees Nicke trying to escape, he feels like that’s his cue.
“V,” he says. “Let’s go home.”
“But we’re still having fun,” Jakub says. Christian is pretty sure that Jakub isn’t going to sober up any time in the next week, whether he stops drinking now or not. “We’re celebrating!”
“We can celebrate more tomorrow,” Christian says. “I want to lay down, I want to go to sleep. When you were leaning up against me at the bar it was so nice, and you were so warm, and -”
“It was nice?” Jakub asks, and shit, that’s not what Christian meant. Well, he did mean it that way, but now Jakub is wrapping around him again, which would be great, except Jakub is so drunk.
“Let’s go home,” Christian repeats, and he lets Jakub kiss him on the mouth then, even though it gets them wolf whistled and cat called and he tastes vomit faintly under the cola in Jakub’s mouth.
It’s fine that Jakub falls asleep in the car on the way home - well, passes out is probably a more accurate term for what happens, but he’s eyes-closed and drooling on Christian’s shoulder nonetheless. When the car stops, the real struggle is getting Jakub awake and aware enough to get him out of the car and into the building. Christian manages, but barely, and probably only by virtue of Jakub being down so much weight from the playoff run.
He maneuvers Jakub down the hallway and into the bedroom, dumping him on the bed. He’s got to figure out a way to get Jakub out of his clothes, but he’s not sure that Jakub is going to help him with that.
“Babe,” he says, sitting down. “Come on, strip down. Don’t sleep in this.”
“You just wanna get me naked,” Jakub tells him. Christian has to take a deep breath, but then he starts tugging Jakub’s t-shirt up.
“Off,” he says. “I’m going to get water.”
He tosses his own t-shirt onto the floor as he leaves the bedroom, hoping that Jakub will actually take his clothes off while Christian’s getting them bottles of water to mitigate the hangovers he knows they’re both going to have no matter what he does.
When he comes back, Jakub is asleep, sprawled on his stomach on the bed, stripped down to his underwear. Christian leaves one of the bottles of water on the nightstand on Jakub’s side, then puts the other on his own as he strips down to his own underwear. He climbs into bed with Jakub, only to find out that Jakub is not as asleep as he thinks.
“You take such good care of me,” Jakub murmurs as he wraps himself around Christian, throwing a leg across Christian’s hips and trapping him on the bed.
“Someone has to,” Christian says. He brings one hand up and strokes it over Jakub’s hair.
“But no one loves me the way you do,” Jakub says.
“I wish you were going to remember this in the morning,” Christian says. “Because maybe no one does.”
“You love me?” Jakub asks, raising his head slightly, trying to force his eyes to focus on Christian’s.
“Yeah,” Christian says.
Jakub smiles, and it’s like the sun coming up, which it’s going to do in a few minutes, Christian’s pretty sure. When Jakub kisses him this time, it’s very soft, very sweet. He rests his head back on Christian’s chest and closes his eyes.
Christian doesn’t know what time it is when he finally wakes up. He knows that Jakub is still asleep next to him, heavy and half on top of him, their skin a little sweaty where it’s making contact. He doesn’t even open his eyes before reaching out for the bottle of water he left on the nightstand, managing to get his hand on it, open it, and chug it all without opening his eyes or making too much of a mess.
He must move too much, because Jakub groans.
“I’m going to die,” he informs Christian with no preamble.
“Babe, I’m surprised you’re not still drunk,” Christian says.
“Let’s just start drinking,” Jakub says.
“I left you a bottle of water on the nightstand,” Christian says.
“You really do love me,” Jakub says, and doesn’t make any motion to move or reach for the water bottle.
“Do you remember me saying that to you last night?” Christian asks, cracking one eye open. It’s not so bad, opening his eyes to the sunlight.
“No one loves me the way you do,” Jakub says, and he opens his eyes, squinting up at Christian.
“That’s right,” Christian says, and laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of Jakub’s head.