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After a tough game against the Leafs that had ended in Juuse getting a shutout, it was unanimously decided that the team would go out to celebrate.
Granted, after that, it might not have been the best idea to go out drinking in a city that's that big on hockey.
But hey, nobody ever said they were a group of especially bright people.
While Pekka silently mused about that, Roman, who sat next to him in the booth the team had claimed, was fighting Filip on who would have to pay for the next round.
They made for quite the picture, yelling and pointing at either each other or Juuse every now and then - Roman argued that the goalie had to pay since he got the shutout, Filip argued that it was the captain's duty.
Eventually, Matt broke it up by suggesting Roman would pay for this round and Juuse for the next, which they quickly agreed on.
Juuse, who didn't know of his paying duties yet, was nowhere in sight. He had left the table to go and join a few of the others on the dancefloor a while ago.
Suddenly, Matt laughed,
"Looks like our first star is having a good time, eh?", while jerking his head in the direction of the bar.
There, Juuse was talking to a guy that was quite a bit taller than him.
At a glance, he would've agreed - if it wasn't for the tension in the younger man's shoulders, which Pekka had learned early on was not a good sign.
Before he could decide to go out and check on him, however, Filip had already ushered him out of the booth, grinning,
"Go get your boy back, you jealous fuck."
He was about to protest that phrasing but decided to table that for later, and to instead go see if Juuse was okay.
Once he'd arrived at the bar, he lightly touched Juuse's shoulder to let him know he was there.
Then, he smiled,
"There you are! You were supposed to be back ages ago, Roman's complaining already."
So what if that wasn't the exact truth, a little white lie couldn't hurt.
The stranger barely acknowledged him and, while still looking at Juuse, said,
"We were having a nice chat here."
"Is that so?", Pekka asked, challenge clear in his tone.
Quietly, he asked,
"You good, kid?", in Finnish, to which the reply was a panicked look that told him more than a million words ever could.
He needed to get him away from that guy, and as quickly as possible.
So, he put an arm around Juuse's waist and shrugged,
"Too bad that he doesn't seem to think so. We'll go."
The stranger made a grab for Juuse's arm, which Pekka shot down pretty much immediately, adding a death glare for good measure.
Thank god for the good reflexes he'd gained through his job.
Still, the guy put on a sickeningly innocent face and said,
"We were just reminiscing about the good old times, weren't we?"
Despite not receiving an answer, he decided to go on,
"I was just saying how nice it is to see that he's at least getting okay-ish at his job; not quite as bad as his work in the minors."
Pekka started seeing red but reminded himself to stay calm and not cause a scene.
"Honestly, you couldn't be more wrong, he's great. But, since you seem too braindead to know even that, we're leaving. And don't you fucking dare touch him", he almost hissed the last sentence upon seeing the guy lift his hand to reach out again.
The guy called out,
"Could've just told me you had a new boyfriend, slut!"
Pekka decidedly ignored that, not wanting to get the team thrown out of the bar.
Carefully, he moved Juuse to his right side and left, manouvering both his backup and their drinks back to the team.
On the way, Pekka slipped back into their native language while asking,
"Are you okay? Who was that guy?"
"My ex", Juuse mumbled, ducking his head, "Thank you."
"Any time, muru."
Once they were back at the table, Roman grinned,
"There's my favourite goalie!", before turning to Pekka and shrugging, "Sorry bud, but after that night, what can ya say?"
God bless Roman and his wonderful habit of praising his teammates wherever and whenever, Pekka thought and smiled at his captain.
"Honestly, I get it, even if he hadn't shut them out", he grinned in response and pressed a kiss to the top of Juuse's head.
Then, he gently pushed him onto the bench, sliding in next to him, still not taking the arm from his waist.
Since Juuse didn't make any move to remove it either, he settled down.
Any further overthinking of the situation was prevented by Tanner and his troop of dancing-returnees attempting to scoot in next to Pekka.
Since there definitely wasn't enough space for all of them, he made quick work of gently shoving over, lifting up Juuse, and setting him down on his lap.
"That okay?", he checked in low Finnish.
In response, Juuse nodded and flashed his signature grin while leaning back against his chest.
In his usual fidgety way, he couldn't seem to find the calmness to sit down in one spot, causing him to move around in Pekka's lap.
Meanwhile, Pekka was trying very hard to think of puppies and kittens, as to not get hard in the middle of a fucking bar, with his mentee in his lap.
That moving, in turn, resulted in him groaning quietly,
"God, you're killing me over here..."
Suddenly, the younger man stopped moving altogether, only turning around to stare at him for a second.
Thank god he'd had the mental presence - or absence - to say it in Finnish, he thought grimly.
He really didn't need the team to know, too.
They were broken out of their trance by Filip, who asked,
"Hey Juice, who was that guy you were talking to?"
At that, the younger man tensed up and mumbled,
"Not important."
While Filip seemed to get the hint that he didn't want to talk about it, Ryan obviously didn't.
"Did you know him?", he inquired.
Juuse emitted a non-committal hum and stirred his drink with more vigour than strictly necessary.
Roman leaned over and said,
"Either way, he's coming over, so if you wanna have a shot you might want to move off of Pekks' lap."
That only served to make him even more tense and visibly anxious, causing Pekka to tug him closer and holding him more tightly in a somewhat desperate attempt to calm him down.
Scratch the somewhat.
The guy came up to the table - apparently having decided to ignore the boyfriend he believed Pekka to be - and asked,
"Hey dear, why don't you come with me?"
Leaning in closer, he added,
"You know that I can fuck you better than he ever will. You could even just lie there, since you don't seem any good for anything else anyways."
That was enough. That was very decidedly enough, even without having a - by now trembling - Juuse in his arms.
So, Pekka snapped and emitted a sound that would be most accurately be described as a growl, as he pulled the guy in by his collar.
"Listen here you little shit", he said, markedly calm, "You're gonna shut your fucking mouth right now. You have absolutely no right to come prancing back here, running your foul mouth, and to make him feel like the piece of shit you are trying to compensate for being. And now listen real good, will ya?"
By then, he'd attracted the attention of most of their teammates, resulting in Roman and Filip taking care of Juuse and talking to him in low voices.
Unperturbed by that, Pekka went on,
"Now, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna turn around and walk your sorry ass out of this bar. Take a real quick look around, okay? There's roughly 20 guys at this table and at least 10 more strewn about this place, all of whom would be more than happy to beat the shit out of you if they knew even half the amount you've hurt Juuse. So, again, may I kindly suggest you leave this place, before I smash your face in?"
Jarred, who had perked up at the mention of the words 'Juuse' and 'hurt' in the same sentence especially, looked just about ready to kill the guy.
As did the majority of the team, at this point.
Pekka figured that if he hadn't gotten the point across, the rest of them definitely would.
Still huffing and puffing, but visibly intimidated, the guy eventually did turn around and left.
"Good riddance", he grumbled while doing so, and Pekka couldn't agree more - though probably on different accounts than the guy.
Filip whistled, and chuckled,
"Way to protect your boy, Pekks..."
Immediately, Pekka scolded himself for almost forgetting about Juuse, who had kind of been scooted away from his lap during his rant.
Turning to his left, he almost frantically looked him over, finding him frozen still, half sitting on Roman's right leg.
"Everything okay?", he asked quietly.
Juuse broke out of his paralysis and wiggled back over onto Pekka's lap before almost melting back against him and replying,
"Better now", and slipping back into Finnish to mumble, "Thank you."
"Again, anytime", he whispered and pressed another kiss to the top of Juuse's head.
Meanwhile, Matt asked quietly,
"Is it just me or does anyone else feel like they're intruding on something really personal?"
The others nodded in unison.
"Mh, 's fine", Juuse grumbled, "You're nosy as fuck anyways."
From the way he was sitting, he seemed to be content to try to melt and become one with Pekka, who tugged him impossibly closer and buried his face in Juuse's hair.
"You got us there", Roman nodded before pointedly turning back around to Filip to continue their conversation where they left it off ten minutes ago.
Despite the general obliviousness that was so prevalent among hockey players, the others managed to get that hint and got back to their previous conversations.
"Hey", Pekka asked quietly, "Should we go back to the hotel?"
Juuse just hummed in agreement, visibly tired after the adrenaline-crash.
By the time they were back in the hotel, he was pretty much asleep.
Pekka basically carried him to their room and tucked him in after changing him out of his gameday suit.
When he was about to go over to his own bed, he stopped in his tracks when Juuse mumbled,
"Mhh, wanna cuddle", and made grabby hands for him.
After a - very brief - period of weighing his options, cuddling won out, so he shucked off his shoes, suit, and dress shirt before crawling under the covers with Juuse, who immediately scooted up to him and basically bullied him into spooning him.
At that, Pekka just chuckled and murmured,
"Good night, kulta", before drifting off to sleep.