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The first time, it was an honest and unexpected mistake. Phichit won a gold medal, but his friends were too busy with dates to go out with him to celebrate, so Celestino took him out. They both drank, getting drunk enough to be stupid, but not drunk enough to forget.
Celestino was the oldest person at the club by at least ten years, probably closer to fifteen, not counting staff. It didn’t bother him much, they were here for Phichit, not him. At least, it didn’t bother him until a drunk guy came over and poked him in the chest. “What are you doing here, old man?”
He pointed out Phichit. “My friend just won a huge competition, and this is where he wanted to go to celebrate.”
“And you came with him?”
Phichit noticed the situation and came over. He draped himself over Celestino’s shoulder and winked at the guy. “What’s the point of having a sugar daddy if you’re not going to take him with you to pay your bar tab?”
It worked, and the drunk guy left. Phichit didn’t move. Celestino signaled for another round of drinks before raising an eyebrow at Phichit. “I’m your sugar daddy now?”
“Just for the night so people will leave you alone. You gonna play along?”
“Sounds good to me.”
They drank, and they danced, and when Phichit suggested they get back to the hotel while they still remembered how to get there, Celestino was happy to oblige. He wasn’t entirely sure how that ended up with Phichit in his room, let alone in his bed, but once that had happened, well. It was pretty much inevitable that sex would happen.
The morning after was awkward, to say the least. They admitted to being attracted to each other, but agreed that the risks to Celestino’s career if they got caught and their professional relationship if it didn’t work out were too high to make it worth it. They’d had a great night, but that’s all it was. With Phichit in Thailand most of the time anyway, it shouldn’t be a problem to get things back to normal.
The second time was a little less excusable, since they knew about their mutual attraction and lack of sense while drunk. Phichit wasn’t devastated the way Yuuri had been with his sixth-place finish, but even knowing you were in the top six in the world didn’t make it easy to see your name at the bottom of the scoreboard. Thankfully, Phichit was able to maintain a sense of humor about it, needling Celestino about sixth-place Grand Prix Finalists being his new specialty. Celestino took it with good grace. “At least I got you here. First from Southeast Asia, breaking barriers and making everyone love you.”
Phichit accepted the toast and tossed back the glass of wine. “Did you ever do a quad?”
“Toe loop, a couple times, but I wasn’t really interested. Scoring was way different in my day. Quads were what you did if you couldn’t impress people with your artistry, and I never had trouble with that.” Phichit snorted. “Now you can’t win without one, and people are doing four in one free skate. Why do you ask?”
“Just thinking ahead. I’m going to need to learn more if I want to get up to the top.”
This time, Phichit was hesitant about saying they should ignore it and leave it as one more night of fun. This was twice, it wasn’t just a thing that happened. Celestino disagreed, and Phichit let himself be talked around – after all, Celestino had a lot more on the line.
You’d think after the second time, they’d learn from their mistakes and avoid drinking together. Yet for the next three years, any time they were in the same city, they ended up drunk and in one or the other’s bed together. Every once in a while one or the other would float the idea of making this more than they were letting it be, but every time, they talked themselves out of it.
At the Grand Prix Finals in 2019, Celestino finally got himself together and talked to Phichit about putting a stop to it. Hard limit. No more. Phichit agreed – they knew it wasn’t right, that they were wasting their time. They needed to move forward, there couldn’t be any going back.
Four Continents, Worlds, Nationals, the summer offseason – they managed. Then Amy Wang, another of Celestino’s skaters, got badly hurt at the Cup of China. Once he was sure she’d be in good hands, that the doctors had her and would look after her until she could go home, he went back to his hotel room and did what he’d said he wouldn’t ever do again. He called Phichit.
It was the first time either of them had called with the intent of getting drunk enough to forget good sense and throw out their determination. “I know why you won’t, but I wish you’d come over and help me drink this bottle of wine. Things can’t change, we need the space, but… I need you tonight.”
Celestino hung up. Part of him hoped that Phichit just deleted the message without even listening to anything beyond the status update on Amy. Another part of him kept hoping for a knock at the door.
An hour later, Celestino’s phone rang. “If you haven’t already drunk it, bring the wine over here. Come on over and waste my time, Ciao Ciao.”
Phichit didn’t waste any time when Celestino got to his room. The second the door closed, Phichit put the bottle of wine somewhere safe, and then he jumped on Celestino, legs wrapped around his waist and tongue in Celestino’s mouth. Phichit did most of the work, brushing off Celestino’s worry about not reciprocating. “Just let me take care of you tonight. Please.”
When he was done, Phichit curled up against Celestino, head on the bigger man’s shoulder. “I miss you. I know everything we said back at Finals last year, but… I’ve been trying so hard not to call you. It doesn’t work very well, I find the dumbest excuses to call just to hear your voice. I don’t care anymore. I’ll retire, if that’s what it takes.”
“No, you won’t,” Celestino interrupted. “Your dreams are too big. You still need to skate, to keep Thailand in the ISU’s face until Vithoon and Kanut are in seniors. I can’t steal you from the ice before you’re ready to leave it for yourself.”
“Dammit. I know you’re right. I’ll care a lot more about that in the morning when I wake up and you’re gone.” Phichit wiped a tear out of his eye. “Lie to me tonight?”
“You won’t believe them.”
“No, I know.” Phichit flashed a quick smile. “Do it anyway.”
Celestino woke up early and slipped out, leaving Phichit with one more kiss to the forehead. Phichit stirred, but didn’t wake. He had to go check on Amy, or he’d have stayed.
They met up for lunch, where Celestino noticed that Phichit was barely eating. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh-oh.” Phichit set down his chopsticks. “What, program idea for next season?”
“We never did get around to drinking that wine last night.”
Phichit squeezed his eyes shut. “Ciao Ciao… don’t. It’s hard enough as it is.”
“This last year was a lot harder than anything else, for me, anyway. What we had before sucked, but it was better than this.”
“That doesn’t change anything about why we can’t do this. I can’t retire, not yet, not until I’m forced out or I have someone I can leave Thai skating to. You definitely can’t retire.”
“The main problem with what we had those three years was that we were lying to ourselves. Every time we told ourselves it was the drinking and that it wouldn’t happen again.”
“You think it’ll be better if we don’t lie to ourselves about it?”
“I think so. Don’t you?”
Phichit thought it over. “We still have to be careful, but we’ve gotten really good at sneaking around… it’s worth a try. See you tonight?”