1997
Going to the bathroom to throw up is always better with company, someone who can hold your hair back if you need it, and who better than your best friend.
In all honesty, if pressed, Julian could probably not recount the exact sequence of events that led to him bent over the toilet in the bar bathroom this time. Which is half because of how absolutely drunk he is, after beer and beer and beer and a round of inadvisable shots and another few beers, and half because drunkenly vomiting in various bathrooms is not exactly uncommon for him. Spend long enough drinking the way he does and you'll get used to it too.
Except it's different this time, because this is the drunkest he's been in a long while and he's kind of freaking out. And Nikolai's standing over him, also definitely more trashed than sober. And Julian keeps letting out gross little noises from his throat that he can't help, because his stomach feels like it's been flipped upside down and is being slowly crushed by someone's hands and he's so disoriented and Nikolai's saying something he can't make out until his hand lands in his hair to get his attention and the rushing in Julian's ears shuts the fuck up for a second.
"... you drank too much," is the part of Nikolai's speech that Julian catches, and he nods vaguely. "You should throw up."
Julian stares up at Nikolai, because, like, yeah, that's why he's kneeling on the ground in front of the toilet, obviously he knows he should throw up. "No shit," he says, voice slurred and barely intelligible. "I can't. It's not happening."
Nikolai doesn't even hesitate, though Julian wishes he would have, to shove his fingers into his mouth and on top of his tongue. Julian flinches and gags and pulls his head away, tries to clear his throat. Nikolai sighs. "Julian, come on, it'll help. Just let me-"
Julian's far too fucked to properly push back when Nikolai's hand tangles in his hair and pushes him back down onto his fingers. He lets out a garbled, strangled noise and grabs at his wrist, his stomach flipping and clenching again. He tries to pull away, but Nikolai's hand is holding him tightly in place, and he retches and struggles and lets out noises that make him ache with disgust, and then-
And then he throws up in his hand. Nikolai's a bit too slow to pull away before the first wave hits, and Julian would feel worse about it if he weren't busy puking his guts up and if Nikolai weren't still holding his hair back - clearly, he wasn't that disgusted by it. Acrid and sour and containing bits of what Julian had eaten for lunch that day, it hits the bottom of the toilet bowl and the sight's enough to make it easy for Julian to keep going.
Once Julian's done, he slowly lifts his head up from the toilet and coughs, head spinning. He doesn't feel much better at all, but Nikolai pats his head and helps him up towards the sink after they flush the puke away, so. Well, it's not all bad.
1999
Every part of being this hungover is torture, a spike of pain driven into the back of his skull and the disgusting bathroom lights driving him insane.
Julian's stomach is churning when he stumbles out of the bathroom after a good while of nothing but dry-heaving to find and beg Nikolai to help him like he has foggy memories of from a couple years ago, with permission this time, except- well, Nikolai's not here. Julian has a flicker of awareness, and his brain fires off a memory of Nikolai saying he needed to leave early in the morning for whatever reason, work or something; fair enough, except now Julian's stuck on the verge of throwing up and the only person left in here's Fab.
Ah, God. He'll do it, probably, if Julian asks enough. He clears his throat, slumped against the frame of the door that leads from the hall to the living room, to get his attention.
Fab turns his head, a little startled, to look up at Julian from his seat on the couch, his head tipping back and resting against the cushion behind it. "Yeah?"
Julian runs, mentally, through a list of things he could say as an attempt to convince Fab to come help him throw up. None of them are good, for obvious fucking reasons. He resorts to giving Fab one of his most effective looks, one that he suspects is more pathetic than anything else, and saying, simply, "Feel sick. And I can't fuckin'..." he tries. "... can't make myself throw up."
Fab nods his head up and leans back in the couch, pulling a leg up to get comfortable. "Sucks, man. You need a drink? Hair of the dog?"
Julian shakes his head and turns to glare towards the bathroom door. "Pretty sure I'll feel better if I, y'know. Throw up." Fab splays his hands out like he's about to say something about how Julian should go do that, then, and Julian interrupts him before the thought can come out - "Can't do it myself."
Fab's expression goes from bored to incredulous at lightning speed, but honestly it takes a lot less convincing than it probably should to convince him to come into the bathroom to help. He's quick enough on the draw to dodge getting puked on, and he doesn't really seem happy about it, but he even shoves a lightly dampened rag in front of Julian's face once he's done for him to clean himself up with. Julian almost feels bad - or maybe actually does - for making him do this.
2001
In Julian's defense, and to assuage his own guilt about it, this time the puking isn't just because he's hungover. He's also gotta be sick, because he woke up with his head heavy with how congested he felt in addition to the sharp nausea that's dug itself into his stomach once again. And he's trying to take it easy and avoid moving too quick or, in fact, doing anything to make himself sick again, but it seems like sometimes the only thing you can do is puke, regardless of how hard you try not to.
So Julian's got his head buried in the apartment toilet, and he's spitting up mouthfuls of half-digested snot, and then there's a short knock at the door he left hanging half-open because closed doors just aren't part of the daily routine with Albert. "Hey, you alright-?" The noise Julian makes when it hits him again and the vomit hits the water is apparently enough of an answer, because Albert comes in and crouches down next to him. "Oh, man. You need anything?"
Julian shakes his head, and then reconsiders and nods quickly, turning to look up at Albert. He can feel his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, can feel how red and teary his eyes must be, can taste that the air around him smells fucking awful. He shudders and stretches a hand out to loosely pat Albert's knee. "... Just-"
He's about to request that Albert stay nearby, but he's interrupted with another heave that leaves him gripping the toilet seat with both hands and dropping his head onto it when he finishes, and all of a sudden he doesn't actually have anything to say.
Albert ends up getting it. Helpful of him. He stays beside Julian, watches him with his face twisted up in a place hovering near pity. After Julian feels his throat close up, with his stomach still clenching, he chokes out a frustrated, panicked sound; Albert pats him on the back, and the suddenness with which he's jostled forward triggers it again, and the sweat breaks after this one, when he's finally got all the fucking mucus out of his stomach.
Albert gives him a final pat and rub on the back as Julian catches his breath. "I'm not watching you throw up again."
2003
"I don't actually want to watch you throw up," Nick tells Julian, hand resting on the wall above the toilet as he leans over him to stare. "How much did you even drink? You're not a lightweight."
Julian turns his head and wipes his mouth on his shirt sleeve, against his shoulder, and tries to clear his throat to speak. The action of forcing air through his throat makes him gag, makes him shudder and cover his mouth for a second in the hopes that he'll keep it down. He does, this time, turns his eyes up to Nick. "M'not that drunk," he says, voice ragged and rough.
Nick rolls his eyes and moves his free hand down to push at the side of Julian's head. Julian wobbles and takes a moment to right himself. "What's 'that drunk' mean to you?"
Julian groans as he tries to get his equilibrium back; after a good few moments, his stomach clenches, and he retches fruitlessly again, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"You're really having a hard time," Nick notes, his hand coming down to push through Julian's hair. "Just breathe, man, you'll be fine."
Julian coughs up a mouthful of acid and spits into the toilet. The pressure and tension in his stomach is unchanged by this action. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to figure out if he's willing to ask Nick to do what Nikolai and Fab did before. Would Nick even do that? No, right?
He looks up at Nick and tries to gauge where he's at. Nick's tie is hanging down, and it keeps brushing the tank of the toilet; Julian wrinkles his nose at the thought of the diseases it's gotta be collecting like that and gags. Nick lets out a disgusted noise and ungracefully moves Julian's hair out of his face. "Come on, man, just-"
Julian shudders and tips his head forward, dry-heaving towards the bowl, his body trying again and failing again to do anything productive. He can feel his eyes starting to prick with tears, and everything smells foul, and he can feel Nick's eyes boring into him from above and it's really not helping anything. "Go away," he slurs, voice ragged and thick.
Nick doesn't go away, because he's the one who's been apparently been assigned the job of making sure Julian doesn't choke on his own vomit before the show this time. He rolls his eyes and glares at the wall, shakes his head, and then he opens his mouth to say something-
Julian looks up to try and pay attention to whatever it is, and the motion of his head turning is what finally does it, and then, third time's the charm, he's throwing up. Some of it spatters on Nick's shoes, because of the way Julian's head is turned.
There's a short pause as Julian redirects himself towards the toilet, and then Nick says, voice tight and tense, "I'm going to kill you later."
2005
Julian's starting to think he might be dead, slumped against Nikolai's shoulder, head tucked in against him, as he's swarmed and dragged to the bathroom. He can feel sweat rolling down his back, and he's panting, and the room is swimming around him and he kind of thinks he might be dying, he can't do this, he can't do it-
The floor appears below his hands and knees, and there's spit flooding his mouth and coating his teeth. Julian desperately swallows to clear his mouth as someone's hands scoop up under his chest and shoulders to start moving him the rest of the way to the toilet before it goes. A dry heave, and another, and it's not worth it to stop drinking, is it, when it always hurts like this? Everybody's crowded around him and he's retching and his stomach hurts and his hair is in his eyes and finally his stomach moves, and puke comes spilling out of his mouth into the toilet with a rush of spit. Somebody pushes Julian's hair out of his face, clumsy but not rough; after a few moments Julian hears the shower running.
He tries to speak up, to protest that he doesn't need to be washed, but instead of words coming out he just throws up again.
Someone pulls him away from the bowl to push his jacket off. Julian identifies it as Nick after a disorienting couple of moments where he can't see anything because of the brightness of the bathroom lights; he flinches and pulls a hand up to cover his eyes. "God, fuck-"
"Come on," Nick says, peeling Julian's jacket the rest of the way off of his arms. "Stop making it harder."
Julian lets out a miserable groan and squeezes his eyes shut. Someone's pulling his shoes off. Somebody's pushing his shirt up. He gags again, and feels Nick immediately pull away to avoid getting thrown up on again. He doesn't blame him.
And then someone's lifting him, and his jeans are coming off, and he's being hefted into the bathtub and there's tepid water hitting his skin and he's shaking, he's shaking so much he keeps hitting his hands on the side of the tub, an arrhythmic thudding soundtracking the withdrawal. Julian starts to panic. "St- stop, stop, stop-"
The water shuts off, somebody's arm bumping into Julian's leg on the way to the tap. The light is still burning its way into Julian's head through his closed eyes; he pushes himself until he's on his side, panting with his face pressed against the side of the tub. Somebody's hand pets through his hair, and it's soft, and Julian's unsurprised to open his eyes to see Albert through a blurry filter. He mumbles something incoherent and his eyes shut again.
And then, of course, he throws up in the tub, and it all drags on. It's never gonna end. It just keeps-