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—
“Woah there, big guy.”
Claude’s arm wraps around Vanta’s waist trying steady him by pulling him in closer. He’s tall and heavy, a deadweight almost dragging Claude down with the way he’s slumped.
“I’m fine.” Even the way Vanta says it shows that he’s anything but fine.
“I think that’s enough drinks for you.”
“But I’m not done… wanna have fun.”
“You can have fun sober.”
“Boring,” Vanta says to him. He’s wiggling out of Claude’s hold and Claude just lets him. “So boring 'n responsible.”
Maybe because Vanta’s young, still excitable but a little shy that he needs the alcohol for the boost of confidence. Not that Claude’s any older than him, but he’s shameless enough to not need the boost of confidence. If anything, he’s more scared of being even more shameless than he is, so he prefers to stay sober.
But now with the boost of confidence, Vanta is drunk enough that even the biggest enabler (read: Zali) stops him from grabbing the bottle. He laughs at a pouty Vanta the moment he pulls it away and pats the empty space next to him to get Vanta to sit back down.
Millie nudges him. “You’re up for babysitting duty.”
Claude rolls his eyes. She was the main reason Vanta even got this shitfaced drunk. Plus, Vanta was the one who wiggled out of his hold. He’s just gonna let Vanta roam around a little then Claude will take him back.
Everyone fusses over him whenever he passes himself to them. The girls call him cute and he’d smile all dopey. Going from hugging Wilson like a pole for support to getting Vox to croon and pat his arm when Vanta somehow gets himself draped halfway over Vox’s lap.
They all dote on him whenever he’s there, but like clockwork, at the end of it Vanta will always end up next to Claude—or was it the other way around. Anyway, once Vanta’s done walking around, he lets Claude pull him down to sit next to him, right at the corner of the room, done tiring himself out.
The guy’s mumbling unintelligibly into his shoulder this time, an arm thrown over Claude’s lap, securing his place for the rest of the night. But he never really falls asleep despite how groggy he looks. Just makes these tiny whining noises every once in a while to show that he’s still alive, mentally floating somewhere in a different plane of universe. It’s endearing.
Claude suspects Vanta’s forcing himself to stay awake. He has this terminal disease called FOMO. Might as well use this time to get him to sober up.
“Look at me,” Claude lightly nudges a drowsy Vanta to get his attention. At a low whine, Claude grabs his shoulder and pulls him away slightly, just until his head picks up. “Hey, c’mon—“
“‘M drunk,” Vanta points out the obvious like it’s an impressive discovery.
“You are drunk.” Once Vanta’s weight is lifted off him Claude moves to grab a bottle of water and pours it into an empty cup. “Okay, let’s get you un-drunk.”
Vanta’s staring off into space when Claude looks back at him and fights back a smile. “You still with me, buddy?”
“Nuh huh.” Questionable answer.
But Vanta is sitting back straight, posture perfect as ever when he’s not draped on top of someone. His dedication to crafting the perfect body is commendable.
Claude is also a bit of a gym freak, so he can appreciate it best. Except he goes to the gym for actual health reasons whereas Vanta’s drive is pure vanity. It’s why he’s nice to look at, body purposely moulded for people’s eyes to linger at him longer.
“Water.” Claude hands Vanta the cup. He doesn’t trust Vanta with it, but he’s giving him the benefit of doubt. Surely Vanta can still drink properly. But sure enough, half of it dribbles at the sides of his mouth.
“Whoops,” Vanta says, laughing to himself while looking at his wet lap, a barely there patch of water that mostly went to his shirt. “Peed myself there.”
“Thought you said you can still aim while drunk.”
“Guns are easier than water cups,” Vanta murmurs, hand falling to his sides again and giving up on water.
Claude takes it from his hand and pours more in. “Maybe don’t drown it like you’re taking a shot.”
That gets Vanta to laugh, some breathless giggles that bubbles out mindlessly. Then he rests his head back and keeps laughing to himself.
“God damn,” Claude huffs in disbelief. “You, my friend, are really gone gone.”
“But I’m,” Vanta squints, and he tries—he tries really hard to make sense of the conversation. “I’m right here.”
“Nah. Mentally, you’ve checked out.”
Ditzy is not a word you’d describe Vanta. Even when drunk he usually has some stream of consciousness—yappering about something nonsensical but well thought out. But now he’s just properly drunk off his mind. Gets turned into this quiet, pleasant little thing.
Claude steadies him by the shoulders, an arm thrown around them as he grabs Vanta by the other opposite shoulder.
“C’mon, now. Little sips.”
It’s just nice to grab a handful of Vanta. He’s just… grab-able. Tight muscles meant for show rather than function. If people preen themselves with accessories and clothing, Vanta does it with his bare physique. It’s meant to be shown off, so really, there’s nothing wrong with Claude taking his time to rake in Vanta’s body, up to his strong jaw, mouth moving along the rim of the glass while Claude controls the pace.
He’s unhappy about it, Claude can tell. He’s craving for the sting in his throat, something that gets him to grimace and hiss but groan out appreciatively. Claude can’t tell if Vanta enjoys drinking for the taste or the feeling, it seems like both give him pleasure like no other.
But now he just stays there, and lets Claude feed him sips of water like a baby bird. Claude’s taken this role to nurse Vanta back to health because Vanta… Vanta’s obedient enough to just let it happen.
He does squirm after a while though. Drinking too much, too quickly could make him more sick, so Claude lets up. Vanta continues to stare off in a distance and his back is still straight from where he leans back, force of habit. Must be tiring, Claude wants to tell him it’s okay to put his weight on Claude again if he wants to.
“M’so drunk.”
“You are drunk,” Claude matches his tone, slow and sweet. It feels like they’ve had this conversation before. Claude entertains him anyway.
“But I… feel good.”
“You feel good?”
“Mm,” Vanta trails off, blinking too heavily to be able to meet Claude’s eyes, and his back slowly caves, curled up like he’s about to fall asleep.
Claude leans in, he doesn’t know why. He just wants to get a proper look at Vanta’s face. See if he’s getting a little more sober.
“Bit more?” Claude asks. Instructs, really. He’s already holding up the cup of water and Vanta’s shaking his head no.
“Too much,” Vanta tries to tell him, borderline to a whine already. Claude hasn’t even started forcing him yet. “Full of soup.”
“You are full of soup,” Claude easily agrees with a light laugh. “But you need to drink and sober up a little.”
Vanta makes a noise, the high pitched one that Claude can only hear whenever he gets like this, drunk and losing all sense of shame. That was his goal in the first place, but it’s still impressive whenever Claude sees act up so childishly.
“C’mon, bottoms up.” Claude pushes his head back, smoothing back his short bangs and gets him to sit back straight. Before he could protest Claude’s already pushing the rim to his lips and he easily parts his lips, obedient as ever.
Claude bites the insides of his cheek. Can’t let anyone see him smile while hand-feeding Vanta water. That’d be weird.
Though even without that, maybe this is still weird—Claude moving his hand down to cup Vanta’s jaw, just to tip his head back further so he won’t spill. And he watches the way Vanta slowly gulps down the water, throat bobbing and eyes closed.
“There you go,” Claude drawls, voice low in a room so loud. They’re close enough that he thinks Vanta could hear him, though. “Atta boy.”
Vanta makes a small noise at that, a breathy and pleased hum. He listens well, drunk or not. Or maybe he listens better like this. Gets happy when Claude praises him about it too. Claude’s own little pet.
That’s a bad thought to have at the moment. It gets his breath to cut short, his thumb digging into Vanta’s cheek a little harder in his interest.
“Hey, Claude,” Vox’s voice booms from the side.
Claude’s heart jumps like he’s just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Frozen and thinking he accidentally said the last part out loud, or someone managed to project his thoughts out in the open.
“Is Vanta awake already?”
“Um.” Hard to say, he was never really asleep. Claude puts the cup down and dabs the little dribble of water on Vanta’s chin with the end of his sleeve. “Yeah, somewhat.”
Claude looks back at him and Vanta doesn’t even acknowledge being the topic of the conversation, just zoned out while Claude speaks for him. Even when Claude lightly shakes him for some response and Vanta just looks gone. He closes his eyes and laughs some more over getting jostled.
“Dunno if you count this as awake.”
“Vanta, get up man. Show us your moves,” Wilson calls for him.
Right. Claude’s been so occupied taking care of a drunk Vanta he didn’t notice the goofy dance battle that’s been going on in the middle of the room.
“I can’t… dance,” Vanta guffaws. His eyelids are so heavy on him Claude is wonders how he can even stay awake. “I dunno how to.”
“Don’t be like that, get up!”
With cheers of his name, Vanta gets hyped enough to push himself up. He’s swaying on his feet and still tries to move along the beat, shoulders to the side while the group cheers on and laughs. At one point he turns around and starts to… throw it back?
Manifesting, was it? Did Claude manifest this? With his gross thoughts and fleeting touches. Whatever it is, the universe has decided to punish him for it. From the proximity Vanta is basically twerking on him, or whatever you call this awful attempt of it.
'Course, the situation is too ridiculous for him to really enjoy it. He thinks he looks like an idiot, panicking and not knowing how to react. His hands are flailing because he talks with his hands, so of course he would also panic with them.
Everyone’s laughter is loud enough that it’s more stupid than awkward, there’s hollers and wolf whistles to encourage Vanta to keep going and by the end of it Claude just has his face buried into his hands. He can at least blame the redness on the alcohol. Always a convenient excuse.
“Ugh,” Vanta groans in that high whining tone once he sits back down. The others have moved on to another person and they at least left Claude alone when he did a little shimmy in response to their request. “Dizzy.”
“Dizzy? You need to lay down?”
“Nooo,” Vanta whines like Claude just doesn’t get it. “I wanna keep playing.”
Cute. Vanta thinks he can still join in their drinking games at this point. That’s not happening. But Vanta makes him feel bad for it. Like he said, he just wants to play. Almost throwing an adult-tantrum when Claude pulls him back with ease.
He turns to look at Claude, eyes so expressive even when glazed over like this. And Claude is just a man. He almost loses the battle.
“If I give you one last drink would you promise to just sleep after this?”
“Nope.”
Hey, he tried.
“Yeah, I think this guy is done for the night. I’m gonna bring him back.”
—
One of managers catches them the moment they enter the building. Claude can’t even lie and say Vanta got shit-faced drunk in the safety of their rooms. Sure, they were aware the group was going out for karaoke, but for that part of the plan they were pointedly told to do it safely. Not until you can barely stand.
Claude manages to get away with it from a little smooth-talking that he rarely uses because it makes him cringe. Claude tells Vanta exactly this the moment they reach the room, how Claude had to act fake as fuck to get Vanta out of trouble.
“All you had to do was stand there all sweet while I covered your ass,” Claude’s nagging now, but he actually would find this funny in like, 4 hours when they have to wake up for their schedules. “But you just had to whine about me kidnapping you from having fun.”
Claude sets Vanta down on the bed, and pulls his jacket off before the guy could plant face-first onto the sheets.
“You’re lucky that guy likes me, would’ve been fucked if it was anyone else.” And even then Claude had to make himself sound so sweet and sorry. Makes him sick.
Vanta laughs, now throwing himself on the bed face first. “But it’s easy for you, ‘cause…. ‘cause you’re… pretty.”
It doesn’t get him as flustered as it should have. Maybe it’s because how offhandedly Vanta says it, like it’s something he noticed but doesn’t care enough to point out on normal days. Or does he? Care enough—Claude means.
Vanta finds Claude pretty, and he’s usually into anything pretty. Claude is not much of a narcissist especially when compared to Vanta but it does get him to wonder if Vanta is hyperaware of Claude’s looks the way he is of Vanta’s. Maybe they’ve been admiring each other in silence all this while.
And maybe Claude is pretty enough for him to be convinced. Vanta never shies away from physical contact, he doesn’t think much of it, unassuming and unthreatened. If anything if he knew Claude was into him in that way it’d only stroke his ego.
And then what?
Maybe Claude can get away with a little more. Maybe he’ll let himself to be pushed down onto his bed, let Claude’s hands roam, grab a handful or two. Maybe the jokes about sharing a kiss could go more than just words.
He wonders if Vanta has any thoughts of him kissing the other guys, or make an attempt to. If he’s a little curious about how casual it could be. It doesn’t have to be serious, maybe they both just wanted a taste. Claude needs to know if Vanta’s willing to try.
When Vanta is finally laid down, he’s presented nicely for Claude’s eyes to roam, sliver of skin showing his lines of abs that he’s so proud of. Vanta is not for his to take, but Claude is just a guy. If he works out to look pretty and feel good under Claude’s hands, the least he can do is take advantage of it during moments like these. Vanta would want to be admired.
Vanta shifts slightly, lets his shirt pull up even further. It’s like he’s trying to persuade Claude to have more. Claude lets out a deep exhale, breath hissing in between his teeth. A test of self restraint.
“God,” Claude murmurs to himself. “You’d let me do anything to you right now.”
“Ff—‘course,” comes an unexpected response. Vanta’s eyes are still closed, the slurring in his voice now mostly from him falling asleep rather than being drunk. “You’re my—my homie… you take care ‘f me.”
Claude can feel his heart in his throat.
“Yeah.” He swallows down whatever was bubbling inside him, stops it from spilling over. “I’ll take care of you, buddy.”
—
Yeah, so Claude wasn’t trying to take advantage of the situation. In fact, Claude’s unsure how it got to this point—and if it’s even allowed.
He just wanted to help Vanta out of his jeans, his final good deed of the night. Vanta can get a bit cranky about this. He likes his comfort, and would probably appreciate not waking up sweaty in his thick jeans.
“Wanna make this easier for me, buddy?”
Claude knows Vanta’s still not completely fallen asleep, so all he needs to do is lift his butt a little for Claude to slide the jeans off. In which he does, only after he squirms from Claude’s hands trying to get a good grip on him and accuses Claude of harassing him.
Sekuhara, his new favourite word. Said in the most American-accented way possible.
“You’re gonna thank me tomorrow for this,” Claude heaves after pulling the jeans off his folded leg. “You’re gonna thank me and apologise for being so difficult.”
Claude throws the jeans onto the floor where his belt and jacket went, then sits on his haunches and—really, he didn’t mean to look. And he kind of saw it coming. It wasn’t obvious enough that Claude can just blame it on the jeans but now with it being pulled off, he can now confirm that, yeah. Yep. Vanta got a little worked up.
And hey, he doesn’t judge. It’s totally normal, he’s seen his good friend’s morning wood before so this means nothing to him. The only thing that could get him a little less normal about it is the fact that this definitely happened due to Claude’s attempt of stripping him.
“Y’know,” Claude says casually. Of course he would point it out. “The fact that you can still get hard while this drunk is impressive actually.”
Because Claude drinks enough to feel good, stopping before his limbs start to feel heavy. Getting horny at that point is still understandable. But Vanta was very nearly blacked out, he wouldn’t even know what to do with a hard on.
Or maybe he did sober up just a little from Claude hand-feeding him water. Could be the case. Now he’s more pleasant-drunk than drunk-drunk. Less cute, and back to the Vanta Claude is more used to.
Vanta only stretches in response, and even that was meant to be showy, purposefully seductive. Menace that he is. He knows Claude is interested, and he’s just baiting him now. Claude was sitting next to his legs but Vanta decides to throw one onto his lap.
When Claude looks up he sees how Vanta has his arm thrown over his face but Claude knows he’s well awake and aware.
“Bit shameless, don’t you think?”
Vanta smiles, eyes still hidden. “Thought you wanted to take care of me?”
“Wow,” Claude drawls. Maybe it’s the challenge in his tone, slurred yet still there. These kind of things get him giddy. The play-flirting that the boys do. Vanta should know better than to play this game with him. Claude likes to take it seriously.
“It’s not enough that I have to babysit you, now I gotta get you off too?”
But Claude’s already situated in between his legs, kneeling in front of the prize and he leans in, palms flat on the bed at the sides of Vanta’s waist. “Poor guy, you must’ve been waiting for sometime, huh?”
Claude’s just trying to see if he can scare him off now. Maybe Vanta would tell Claude to back down because he can’t handle the joke being taken so far, if it was even a joke in the first place.
“Mmh, you really take your time. Fuckin’ old man.”
Guess they’re doing this. Claude’s too excited to even correct Vanta’s jab on his age. They’re barely that far apart. Plus, it’s more for him than for Vanta, really. Claude really likes to play this game.
Claude trails his hands along Vanta’s sides, making him squirm. Finally he can touch all palms on skin and not only hover above it. “Would’ve assumed you were the wine and dine first type of guy.”
“We’ve… wi-wined and dined enough together.”
“Fair.”
Claude pushes his shirt up only to get it out of the splash zone. Kind of. Maybe he just wants more skin, and Vanta’s definitely not complaining.
“They did say the best way to get alcohol out of your system is by ejaculating.”
“Which hentai did you get that line from.”
Claude laughs. “Made it up myself.”
“Such an artist.”
Yeah, Vanta’s conscious for real now. The back and forth is just their version of flirting.
Vanta groans when Claude finally touches him, legs spreading further so he can accommodate Claude in between, letting him in easier. The lines of his body is an artwork when he twists to the side, so fucking sensitive over little feather-like touches. He won’t last a minute.
Claude doesn’t take out Vanta’s length, not really. It’s just a quicky, so he’s fondling him through the thin fabric, watches how it darkens the patch right where the tip is and only decides to take it out halfway before it soils his briefs even further.
Still, he’s mostly putting his hand in there instead, makes it less serious or whatever. More casual, like he’s really just helping Vanta out. When his hand moves further down he feels Vanta’s pubes trimmed short and neat. Rolls his eyes a little with a scoff. God, he’s such a peacock.
It doesn’t take long for Vanta to start whining into the back of his hand, the free one reaching clumsily for Claude’s wrist to get him to grip harder, move faster. Just Vanta being needy as ever.
Claude simply gives him what he wants, even once he spills onto his abdomen Claude continues to mindlessly stroke him to completion, right until Vanta starts to shake a little before letting go.
Claude rests a hand right under Vanta’s bellybutton, thumb swiping a drop of cum that’s about to drip off, then his eyes catches the way the rest of the cum basically pools into the lines of his abs. “Woah, that’s crazy.”
The hand that’s gripping Vanta by the thigh tightens its hold unknowingly, his fingers press harder in his interest, nails lightly digging into the skin. Vanta’s thigh dents so nicely with it too, gets him to spread his thighs a little further from how close Claude is sitting to just observe.
“Trynna fuck me now? S’that it?”
Claude smiles. He doesn’t back away despite the jab. “Really depends if you’re gonna let me in.”
It’s always so easy between them. Even something that could’ve been weird Vanta just makes it uncomplicated, accepting anything and everything.
“I know how to make it good.” Claude throws the offer out. Vanta grins. They’re both so shameless.
“‘Course you do.”
“You wanna call me the f slur so bad.”
Vanta huffs a laugh, raspy after all they’ve done. Properly tired now. “Next time,” Vanta says. “Spare me for now.”
—