today, i give you tipsy laz being managed by less than sober zlatko (hello @vossprime i'm posting this)
tomorrow... who knows
The party noise has gone soft and underwater by the time Lazarus finds him, which is how Zlatko knows it's bad — Lazarus doesn't usually let himself get found, he does the finding.
"There you are," Lazarus says, like Zlatko was the one who wandered off, and promptly fails to stop walking once he's arrived, momentum carrying him straight into Zlatko's side. An arm loops around his shoulders. For structure more than show.
"Here I am," Zlatko agrees, and only sways a little under the weight, which he counts as a personal victory given the liquor currently doing diplomatic relations with his own bloodstream. "You're cold."
"I'm delightful," Lazarus corrects, nosing somewhere near Zlatko's ear in a way that is absolutely not subtle and absolutely several people saw. "You're warm. It's unfair, really, hoarding all that heat."
"That's vasodilation, not charm." Zlatko gets a hand flat against Lazarus' back anyway, mostly to keep him upright, slightly to keep him close, the line between the two motives long since surrendered for the evening.
"Don't medical-terminology me, I will fall down."
"You're already most of the way down."
"I am reclining. Vertically." Lazarus says this with the dignity of a man who has, in fact, stopped reliably operating his own knees, and is now relying entirely on Zlatko's continued willingness to exist as a load-bearing structure. "You smell like good amasec and bad decisions."
"I had the same amount you did."
"Yes, but you're having considerably worse decisions about it than I am." Lazarus' hand finds the front of Zlatko's coat, fists in the fabric with the particular grip of a man whose sense of balance has filed a complaint and walked out. "Take me somewhere horizontal. Diplomatically."
"There is no diplomatic way to carry the Lord-Captain out of his own party."
"There absolutely is. I am very light." This is a lie of staggering proportions, and they both know it. Zlatko gets an arm under his to prove it, and Lazarus' whole weight comes down onto him like he was just waiting for permission to stop pretending his legs were doing anything useful at all.
The door barely clicks shut before Lazarus is pulling at Zlatko's coat with the single-minded focus of a man who has decided, somewhere between the party and the hallway, that more contact is the only acceptable next step in this evening.
"You're doing that thing," Lazarus informs him, fingers working clumsily at a button he can't quite find the angle for.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you decide my objections are suggestions." Lazarus gets the coat half off one shoulder and gives up, opting instead to simply press closer, forehead dropping to Zlatko's collarbone like the effort of holding his own head up has become optional. "Wicked man."
"You haven't voiced an objection."
"That's because I haven't had one." A pause, muffled against fabric. "Yet."
Zlatko's hands find his waist anyway, partly structural — Lazarus is listing like a ship that's forgotten what ballast is for — and partly because apparently tonight that's all the permission either of them requires. "Still very wicked of you," Lazarus adds, tipping his face up, "taking advantage of a man in my condition."
"Which condition? Drunk, or charmed."
"Both. Either. You're not even denying it." There's no real accusation in it, just delight, the particular smugness of a man who enjoys being scandalized by exactly the person he wants scandalizing him. He's warmer here than he was at the party, finally, pressed close enough to steal heat properly, and it's loosening something in him that usually stays locked down tight — the careful, controlled performance of fine dropping away into something looser, softer, hands sliding up into Zlatko's hair like he's allowed to just want something without negotiating for it first.
"I should put you to bed," Zlatko says, and doesn't move.
"You should," Lazarus agrees, and also doesn't move. "Wickedly."
Zlatko laughs, warm and sticky, and combs Lazarus’ hair from his face, “mm, you won’t let me commit such wickedness in your state.”
“Such a gentleman,” Lazarus purrs, “such a charmer. So dashing even when he’s also so warm and... and...”
“And?”
“I’m far too intoxicated to form proper sentences...” Lazarus murmurs, “at least... help me with my gloves?”
Zlatko huffs something that isn't quite a laugh, fond and exasperated in equal measure, and takes Lazarus' wrist in both hands. "Of course. Sit, before you fall."
"I am sitting." Lazarus is not sitting. Lazarus is draped, against the bedpost, against Zlatko, against gravity in general, in a way that only loosely resembles any posture a furniture catalogue would recognize.
"You're decorative. Sit."
This, miraculously, works, and Lazarus lands on the edge of the bed with the particular grace of a man whose legs have quietly resigned from service. He holds his arm out like an offering, chin tipped, watching Zlatko with the soft, unfocused attention of someone who finds everything currently happening to him extremely interesting.
The first clasp, hidden at the inside of the wrist, takes Zlatko a moment to find by feel alone in the low light — and Lazarus, unhelpfully, chooses that exact moment to trail his fingers along Zlatko's jaw.
"You're very good with your hands."
"I'm aware. Hold still."
"I am holding," Lazarus says, wounded, "very still." He is not. The clasp gives, and the leather loosens from wrist to elbow in one long unwinding motion. Lazarus makes a small, satisfied sound at the give of it, like he's been waiting all night to be let out of something.
Zlatko peels the glove free, slow, more care in it than the hour or the wine strictly require, and underneath the leather Lazarus's arm is cool — too cool, fingers faintly chilled despite the warmth of the room, despite the wine that was supposed to make him warmer and instead just made his judgment worse while his circulation kept right on doing whatever it pleased.
"Cold," Zlatko murmurs, mostly to himself, pressing his thumb briefly to the inside of Lazarus's wrist like he's checking something he already knows the answer to.
"Mm. You'll fix it." Said with absolute, drunken confidence, as if it's simply a fact of the universe. Lazarus holds out the other arm before Zlatko's even finished with the first, in no hurry at all, perfectly content to be slowly, carefully undone.
“You’re frigid,” Zlatko leans into the soft calluses on Lazarus’ hand as he cups Zlatko’s jaw in his free hand.
“I feel positively flushed,” his thumb strokes under the augmetic housing of Zlatko’s eye, “almost as lively as a freshly shot diplomat.”
Zlatko huffs a laugh through his nose, “rapidly assuming room temperature?”
“Mm... holding, actually,” the glove comes free and Lazarus flexes his fingers.
By the time Zlatko's set the second glove aside, Lazarus has taken now to decide boots are his department, leaning back on one hand and kicking the first one off with more enthusiasm than aim. It sails, lands somewhere near the wardrobe with a thud that's going to be someone else's problem in the morning.
"There." Lazarus looks deeply pleased with himself, as though he's accomplished something genuinely impressive.
"Mind the—"
The second boot catches Zlatko square in the shin before he finishes the sentence.
"—boot," Zlatko finishes anyway, mildly, like he expected nothing less.
"My deepest apologies." Lazarus does not sound apologetic. He, in fact, sounds delighted, watching Zlatko rub at his shin with the smug satisfaction of a man who has just discovered a new hobby. "Did I wound you, darling? Shall I kiss it better?"
"You can barely sit upright."
"I am a man of many talents." Lazarus reaches for him anyway, gloveless hands cool and a little uncoordinated finding the front of Zlatko's shirt, tugging without much force behind it, more suggestion than demand. "Come here regardless. You've done enough work for one evening. Let me return the favor."
"By assaulting me with your own footwear?"
"That was a separate gesture." He's listing again, the careful composure from earlier fully abandoned now that the gloves and boots are gone and there's nothing armored left between him and simply wanting what he wants. "Come here, Zlatko."
Zlatko goes, because of course he does. Who would he be to deny such enthusiastic hands? He climbs onto the bed beside him, and Lazarus immediately rearranges them both with the singular determination of a drunk man pursuing comfort above all else — pulling until Zlatko's back meets his chest, until there's no space left between them that heat could escape through.
"There," Lazarus murmurs, satisfied, nose tucked against the hollow of Zlatko's throat. "Much better."
"You're still cold."
"You're very warm. The math works out." His arm settles heavy over Zlatko's waist, fingers curling loose into fabric, no real grip behind it, just contact for contact's sake. "Stay."
"Your vice grip won’t let me leave."
"Good." A pause, soft and unhurried. "Wicked man. Staying in a lady's bed past propriety."
"You started it."
"I am allowed to start things. It's my bed." Already, his breathing's evening out, the words slowing, blurring soft at the edges the way they do right before he goes under entirely. "Mm. Warm. Stay."
"I'm staying, Lazarus." He says it almost against his better judgement.
No answer this time — just the slow, steady weight of him finally settling, the faint, familiar micro-shiver still ghosting through every so often, even now, even warm, even held. Zlatko stays anyway, and doesn't mind the cold feet pressed against his calves one bit.