Yuri nodded then regretted that decision. “I'm gonna be sick.”
“Shit. Where’s the gents?” Angelo asked the bartender. He must've gotten some sort of answer because Yuri found himself being tugged along rapidly behind him. “Toilet or bin. Don't vomit in the sink or urinal. It's rude.”
Yuri wanted to make a smart remark but was afraid that if he opened his mouth prematurely, the things getting vomited on would be his shoes. He stumbled into the stall and knelt down. He'd had fantasies about blowing some rando—who coincidentally looked just like Angelo—while kneeling on the floor of a pub toilet, but this was not how he expected things to go. Feeling miserable, he vomited into a mercifully clean toilet.
Cool hands swept his hair away from his face. “It's okay,” Angelo crooned, his voice low. “I've got you.”
That made Yuri want to cry. His breath hitched and then he got rid of the last of his stomach contents. “I think I want to die.”
“Shut up. Come on. Let's get you cleaned up. There you go. You want to wait outside for our ride to come or stay in the pub?”
Yuri yearned for fresh air. “Outside. Please.”
“What a polite little pain in the bum you're being. You feel any better now?” Angelo held the door open for Yuri.
“A little. Where are we going? It's a bloody long drive to Oxford.”
“To my flat.”
“Oh.” Yuri was presented with several conflicting feelings: relief, anxiety, embarrassment, and overarching everything, contentment. Angelo was taking him home.
The car ride was a blur, but somehow Angelo pulled the story out of Yuri. It was Jacki's birthday and she'd wanted to go to London to celebrate. They hadn't meant to lose the bodyguards, but somehow it had happened. Possibly because they'd gotten on the wrong train, gotten off, then ended up on another that was wrong, and took the third until it stopped somewhere promising.
They'd gone into a club and ordered sticky drinks. A lot of sticky drinks. Then it got a bit fuzzy, but he definitely remembered Jacki and Melanie taking off in a snit, telling him he needed to grow the hell up, so whatever he'd said was bad and he'd have to make it up to them. And then Yuri had wandered around. He'd ended up in the pub Angelo had found him in.
“The rest,” he said grandly, “is history.”
“What am I going to do with you?”
Yuri laid his head on Angelo's shoulder. He breathed in the other man's scent. He was using some new kind of soap, and a different cologne, but underneath he was just Angelo. He smelled like home. “I missed you,” Yuri said.
“God, prin—Yuri. You can't say shit like that.”
Yuri pulled back and looked at Angelo's face, but in the dark, it was mostly all shadows. “Why not?”
Angelo ran a hand through his hair. “Because you just can't.”
Too tired to say anything more, Yuri leaned back against Angelo's arm and drifted off.
The next thing he knew, Yuri was in a lift. “How'd I get here?”
Angelo snorted. “How do you think? If you remember any of this tomorrow, it'll be a miracle.”
“I've been a bad, bad boy.” Yuri looked up at Angelo owlishly. “You should punish me. It's your duty.”
“My duty. Right.” The lift doors opened and Angelo tugged Yuri out of it by his elbow. “This way. That's my door. Don't vomit on the floor while I'm unlocking it.”
“'Kay. Yuri had reached the state in his drunkenness when things were supremely difficult to do. Even easy things, like standing. Still, he did his level best. Luckily, he had a wall generously helping him to remain vertical.
“Come on.” Angelo propelled Yuri through the now-open doorway.
He steered Yuri into his small, but modern and sleek, kitchen and sat him down in a stool set by the countertop. It was black stone with swirls of white and gray and even pink drawn through it. Marble? Maybe? Yuri laid his cheek down on it and loved the coolness he felt.
“This is lovely. Good countertop. I approve.”
Angelo snorted a laugh. “I'm not sure I could've lived with myself if you didn't.”
“Well I do, so bullet dodged. This is way nicer than a castle,” he said wistfully. “Probably less drafty, too.”
“Probably.” Angel brought a glass of iced water over to Yuri and put a few pills down on the counter. “Drink this. Not too fast, or you'll probably hurl again, and take the pills. I'll make you a sandwich.”
“Don't wanna sandwich,” Yuri said sulkily, but he took the pills obediently. After he swallowed, he frowned. Those pills could've been anything and yet he'd still shoved them in his mouth. It was a dumb thing to do, but this was Angelo. “You might hate me but you'd never poison me.”
Angelo put a plate of sandwiches on the counter and grabbed one. “Eat,” he demanded. “And why do you think I'd poison you?”
“But I don't.” Yuri blinked at Angelo. Hadn't he made that clear already? “Said so. You wouldn't poison me. Probably more likely to push me off a mountain.”
“The next time we're home and you piss me off, I'll keep that in mind.”
Both men fell silent then, thinking of their parents' ultimatum.
“Eat your sandwich,” Angelo eventually said. “It’s your favorite.”
And of course it was. Ham, Emmental cheese, dijon mustard, and a very thin layer of raspberry jam. Angelo had always maintained it was utterly disgusting, but he still had picked up a sandwich and now took a huge bite out of it.
“No raspberry on yours?” Yuri asked just to have something to say. Being with Angelo was strange. It had been a while since they’d been like this, sitting in a kitchen and eating sandwiches and not sniping or fighting… or doing other things. It was nice, but also unsettling.
Angelo’s cheeks and ears darkened slightly. He was blushing.
“Wait,” Yuri said. “Just wait one damn…” He floundered about, his inebriated brain having discarded all useful words, then it came to him. “Second. Right. That’s it. Or minute? Is it
