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nat king cole: bradley, incoming
nat king cole: we had to send your drunk ass boyfriend home in an uber
javy crockett: one minute it was all fun and games, playing fuck marry kill with the muppets
mickey: KJASKASKJ then the bartender started playing lol
bob: top 10 moments right before disaster
javy crockett: yea, and then the next he started yelling at the bartender to meet him in the parking lot cuz he said he’d kill beaker but marry fletcher bird
nat king cole: i’m tipping the driver $20 because he’s probably still bitching about it in the backseat 😒
bob: yeah, if he hasn’t already thrown up yet
Sure enough, when the grey Honda Civic pulls up outside their building, Bradley can hear the drunk ramblings of his loser boyfriend in the backseat before he even opens the door.
“---- Kermit , I get it. He’s a little shit who just complains about bein’ green all the time. Like, people have real problems, you know?! It’s like, be so real with me right now, dude. You’re already the star of your own little daytime talk show!” When Bradley opens the door, the car starts making that annoying get out sound, but Jake ignores it, leaning forward to rest his arm on the back of the driver’s seat. “Kermit the Frog is a narcissist who deserves to die. But Beaker ---”
Bradley catches the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror, and he can tell he’s one second away from making his own get out sound.
“Alright -- alright.” Bradley yanks Jake’s arm. “C’mon, Jake, time to go.”
“Well, just hold your horses, I’m in the middle of somethin’ here ---” He tries to shake him off, but this isn’t Bradley’s first rodeo.
“I said let’s go. ”
On the last word, Bradley drags Jake out of the car in a motion that can only be described as a hoist, gripping onto his wrist as he stumbles on the curb. With his other hand, Bradley fishes in the pocket of his sweats for his wallet, and holds out a crumpled $10 bill to the driver.
“Sorry about him. Thanks for everything.”
The driver rolls his eyes but accepts the cash. It must not be his first rodeo, either. He pulls away, leaving Bradley in front of their building with one sloshed Navy pilot.
Jake trips again on the curb (tricky things, those) and tumbles into Bradley’s chest; automatically, Bradley’s arms tighten around his waist, holding him steady. Honestly, it’s kind of adorable --- Jake, who walks around with his chest puffed out like he’s running for the mayor of nothing, wobbling around like a baby deer who’s still learning to walk.
“Fucking asshole,” Jake mumbles, scraping a hand over his face.
Bradley can’t tell if he’s talking about him, the bartender, the driver, or all three. Regardless, Bradley, painfully sober, can only nod his assent. “Alright, cowboy. Let’s get you up to bed.” But Jake has finally looked up at him, and hasn’t stopped looking at him, his green eyes lit with something new.
Bradley stares back at him. God, he hopes he’s not going to throw up. “You good?”
Jake stares at him some more. Then, a woozy sort of smile finally unfurls across his face. “I am… good. So very good.” He jabs a finger into Bradley’s shoulder. “Too good to be true.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jake stares at him for another moment, drowsy and so, so gone, and Bradley can tell that even in this state, there’s at least one hamster in there running on the wheel. Even if that hamster had also drunk half its water weight in tequila. He has that slack-jawed, open-mouthed look on his face that tells Bradley to please hold, a thought is currently forming.
Bradley obliges, and waits.
“God, you’re hot.”
There it is.
The admission tumbles out of his mouth all in one breath, and Bradley doesn’t even flinch at the waft of alcohol that fans across his face. He gives a soft laugh. “That so?”
Jake gives him that big, dumb, Beagle grin of his. “Yeah. You work out? Trainin’ to be Tom Selleck’s stunt double or somethin’?”
Tom Selleck. Jake sure is his mother’s son. Bradley grins. “You hitting on me, Jake Seresin?”
Jake’s mouth opens and closes, and the stars in his eyes grow even brighter. “How do you--- how do you know my name?”
“Maybe it’s fate,” Bradley says in a mystical voice, casting an exaggerated look over in his direction. He makes a quick note of how Jake is pretty much leaning his entire body weight on him, and makes an executive decision. “Let’s go, cowboy.” He slings his boyfriend’s arm around his shoulders. “Don’t make me say it again.”
“Wow. I love a guy who takes charge.” Jake looks around. “Where are we going?”
“To bed.”
“To ---” Jake scrubs a hand across his face for a second time, like he’s hoping it’ll be enough to physically wipe the alcohol out of his system right then and there. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. ”
Bradley frowns, bewildered. “What?”
“What’s -- what’s my boyfriend gonna say ??”
Bradley blinks.
This is interesting.
“Your --”
“Naw. Naw, I can’t do it. I can’t believe I ---” Jake holds his head in his free hand, looking genuinely distraught. “Oh, man. I’m sorry, you’re great, but I’ve got a fella at home so I should probably --”
He’s trying to shake Bradley off again, but he knows that if he lets go, Jake is going to immediately eat asphalt. But there’s something deeply amusing about what Bradley suspects is going on in Jake’s pretty little head --- that Jake thinks he’s going to cheat on Bradley … with Bradley.
“It’s okay!” Bradley hears himself blurt. “It’s fine. I know your boyfriend. He said it’s cool.”
Jake gives him a dubious look. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ve known him a long time, actually.”
Jake makes a noise that’s somewhere between a huff and a harrumph.
“Let’s go inside, and you can tell me all about him. How’s that sound?”
Jake considers. Please hold, a thought is currently forming.
“I guess that’s okay,” he finally says, slowly.
“Great.” Bradley repositions his arm around Jake’s waist, and lets Jake shuffle along with him. “Let’s go, princess.”
“Princess? I thought I was a cowboy.”
“You’re a princess sometimes, too. At least, when you’re not being an ogre.”
“My boyfriend calls me that sometimes.”
“Ogre?”
“Naw, princess. I like it. It’s cute.” Jake gives a sigh that’s nothing sort of dreamy . “He’s cute.”
Bradley fails to squelch a grin. Jake called him a lot of things, but cute had never really been one of them. No reason, it just wasn’t a word he used very often. “Cute, huh?”
“The cutest. Even with his god-awful pornstache.”
Bradley doesn’t know how long he can keep up this charade, because his heart is going to explode in his chest and it’s going to give it all away.
“He thinks you’re pretty cute, too.”
“He does?” Jake’s eyes go wide again, and Bradley nods.
“Uh-huh. He told me so. Cutest pilot he’s ever seen.”
“Wow,” Jake breathes, and Bradley rolls his eyes in spite of the smile that he can’t seem to wipe from his face.
They stop halfway down the concrete hall, illuminated by an overhead door light. Bradley pulls his keys out the pocket of his sweats, which is no easy feat with Jake practically hanging off of him.
“Hey!” Jake yelps, effectively scaring the shit out of Bradley. “You like the Muppets??”
Bradley looks down. On his keychain, along with the essentials, are the following: a pewter F-18 (courtesy of Mav, from the Air and Space Museum), one of those corny light-up keychains with his name on it (courtesy of Natasha, from the San Diego Zoo), and --- the bulkiest of the three --- a mini Beaker plush.
Courtesy of Jake, from Universal Studios Hollywood.
“Yeah,” Bradley says, turning the key in the lock. “Why?”
“Nothin’, that’s just really funny, is all.”
“Why’s that?”
Bradley pulls him into the dark entryway, shutting the door behind them. He tosses his keys in the bowl before toeing off his shoes out of habit.
“Basically I got into this fight with the bartender,” Jake says, still completely unaware that he’s standing in the apartment he splits with his boyfriend. “Because we were all playing Fuck, Marry, Kill, right? Except with the Muppets, ‘cause why not.”
“Uh-huh.” Bradley steers him to the bedroom, and Jake follows, obedient. “And then what?”
“And then, like? The bartender said he’d fuck Fozzie Bear, which like, okay, understandable… but then he said he’d marry Fletcher Bird and kill Beaker!”
In the light of their bedroom, Jake is giving Bradley an openmouthed can-you-believe-that? look, and Bradley nods in solidarity before dropping Jake on their bed.
“Damn, that’s crazy, babe. Just lay down now, okay?” He kneels down to start working on taking off Jake’s shoes, letting his silly little boyfriend just babble on away to the ceiling.
“Now, I said to him, I said --- you can’t marry Fletcher Bird, pick someone else, and he said well why not, and I said it’s cause I’m gonna marry him, and he said, well how can you be so sure, and I said because I have a picture of us together on my lockscreen, that’s how.”
Jake gives a little moo of satisfaction at recounting the story, but the mention of his lockscreen gives Bradley pause, his fingers hovering above Jake’s shoelaces.
“Then he said he was gonna kill Beaker, which is my baby’s favorite Muppet, so of course I couldn’t have that. Had to defend his honor and all and …. wow, I’m dizzy.”
Being in bed at last, Jake seems to be feeling the alcohol now, letting his head fall back on the pillows as Bradley pulls his shoes off. Sheesh … he’s really going to feel it tomorrow, if how he’s acted all night is anything to go off of.
“Okay,” Bradley finally says, tossing Jake’s shoes over by the dresser. He’ll worry about it tomorrow. “Don’t fall asleep yet, because I’m gonna get you a Tylenol and --”
He looks over, and Jake has already passed out.
Of course.
Jake never listened to him too well.
There’s not much else Bradley can do besides place a water glass on the bedside, along with the forgone Tylenol. He yanks the duvet out from under his idiot boyfriend so he can tuck it securely over his front. Then, the last thing -- he extracts his phone from his pocket so he can plug it in.
It lights up along with a little charging chirp. It’s almost dead, hanging on to 5% battery. Jake’s lockscreen is littered with notifications, all missed texts and calls from their little group, but Bradley swipes them away to look at the photo.
Them. Last year. DC Navy Ball. Jake is pressing a clumsy kiss to his cheek, and Bradley’s smile is overexposed in the flash. They’re both in their dress whites, both holding onto champagne flutes.
Bradley smiles, clicks off his phone. Tomorrow, Bradley will rub Jake’s back while he throws up in their tiny bathroom, and nod sympathetically while Jake promises God that he will never, ever drink again. Then, Jake will try to kiss him, and Bradley will swat him away and force him to gargle with Listerine 3 times because as much as he loves Jake, even he will draw the line at vomit kisses.
But for now, he leans over and presses a kiss to Jake’s forehead.
“Sleep tight, princess.”
