A/N: Yes. It has slash-y subtext. Don't let it get to you.
He's drunk, again—
Julius only got drunk on special occasions: deaths—of friends, relatives, or political figures—, marriages, and his own birthday. The last funeral he'd been to had been his father's, and the marriage and been his sisters: all in all, he would be drunk at least one night out of the year—that year he'd been drunk three times. For his sister's wedding, his father's funeral, and his own birthday.
It was becoming a cliché, he felt; Briar didn't agree with him: 'You should get drunk more often!' he says—drunk, again—'it frees the inhibitions.'
Julius shakes his head and laughs: 'You're drunk, Briar,' he says. And Briar nods.
'Obviously,'—but it comes out more like 'ob—iosh—ly'—and then sways.
Julius catches him by the arm—and then Briar's leaning against his shoulder and Julius falls back against the bar: when he listens carefully, Briar's giggling vibrates his shoulder—'you never were one to hold your liquor,' Julius says, he giggles himself: 'though, I think the height factor has something to do with it…'
At three in the morning—Mog Roth resting in the pit of eternal slumber—the pub was totally deserted. And the bartender was snoozing on his stool: Briar giggles again: 'This is so fun,' he says—he trips, but manages to clutch and Julius' belt before his knees collide with the floor and his head bumps the chair.
'Ow,' he says: and then he giggles again.
'Clumsy oaf,' Julius manages to keep his balance.
Youth is always something to cherish, his mother told him—Join the LEP! Be a man the signs say with the tallest elf in the world glowering at you from high above—Julius giggles. The poster's plastered on every street corner—and the one outside the window's been graffiti'd many times.
'Julius?' Briar asks, sitting on the bench outside the pub. The bartender had finally kicked them out when Briar had tried to get a piggyback ride off Julius and the two had collapsed giggling in the middle of the bar.
—'Uhuh?' Julius was bleary eyed.
'Can you let go of my wrist now, it's numb?'
Julius looks down—'Oh! Sorry!—and lets go.
Later, Briar's fallen asleep with his head in Julius' lap and Julius is dozing on the bench: and when Julius leans down, he kisses his temple and dozes back off. Briar's eyelids flutter and he curls his legs up.
It's cold.
When Julius wakes up he has a headache—and he calls in sick for work. Briar sits at his desk and day dreams, until the Captain walks past and he quickly busies himself with paperwork—but inside his head, he's tired: and that night, he visits Julius in his apartment.
Briar wakes up in another person's bed, tomorrow morning.