It’s a lot like the drinking itself. Drinking wine, that is.
No, wait. Something about that doesn’t sound right. It’s… the drinking. And the wine. The way it tastes, they’re the same. Fuck. Wait.
Faie doesn’t like the taste of wine. It’s too bitter. But red wine, this bottle he got planetside from a thankful store owner, it has an aftertaste like cranberry juice, and Faie keeps grimacing through sips just for the aftertaste. Licking it off his lips.
Like the sinking nausea of realizing he’s going to drink himself unconscious again. He hates that, but he loves being drunk. He hates waking up in the morning, but he loves passing out.
He.
He should probably go to bed now.
Apparently, he never made it to bed last night. He wakes up right beside it, though, sprawled out on the floor with a pounding headache and a painfully full bladder, so he guesses he got close enough. Penchant isn’t in the room, and the lights are still on, so maybe it’s not morning after all? Or not night?
He sits up and is abruptly faced with the knowledge that, hungover as he may be, he’s still drunk. From this angle, he can see the clock. 04:34.
Four in the morning and Penchant’s not in the room. Penchant hadn’t come in last night, because the wine bottle’s still on the floor next to him, and Penchant would have picked that up and hidden it. He probably would have poured Faie into bed, too.
He shoves down a stinging lance of self-hate. Burden.
Penchant didn’t come in last night because… Penchant is on shift. Penchant had the night shift. He’ll be back before 0600.
Faie has a shift at 0600.
He looks at the clock, then at the half-full wine bottle. He licks his lips and tastes sweet cranberry.
He’s not going to be able to work with this kind of headache.
He unscrews the cap and cringes through another drink.
It’s not like Mini says. Faie cares. He really cares, and he knows that what he’s doing is shitty and he’s hurting Penchant and everyone else he cares about, but he’s been awake and sober for all of about forty minutes and he’s already on the edge of a panic attack.
Quinlan steps tentatively into the room. Penchant’s out, staying in the barracks proper until Faie calms down a little, so Faie’s alone save for Misty, who’s curled up on the bed with him. Faie’s sheets are a wreck, more a nest than anything, heaped on top of him. The light is on, for all that it appears he’s trying to sleep, so Quinlan can see the mostly-empty bottle of moonshine on the floor beside the bed, right next to some sort of packaging and the orange of a prescription bottle.
Faie doesn’t so much as twitch at first, and Quinlan thinks he’s asleep until he kneels at his bedside and Faie draws the covers over his head with a deep, displeased grumble.
“Hey,” Quinlan tries. No reaction. “Are you drunk, or high?”
“Yes,” Faie says into the pillow, and Quinlan sighs. Fair enough. That was a stupid question.
“Are you safe? Did you take too much of anything?”
There’s a long pause. Quinlan tries to ignore the shivering beat of his own heart.
“...Don’t think so?” It’s more of a question than Quinlan would like it to be. “I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe I should go get Zipper—”
A hand shoots out from the blanket nest and makes a clumsy grab for Quinlan’s wrist. “No! No, I’m fine, no medics.”
“Sweetheart, we need to talk about this.”
Faie burrows further into his arms, rubbing his face against Quinlan’s sweater. “No, we don’t.”
Quinlan takes a deep, measured breath. “Okay, then you need to sober up.”
“Not until I stop having panic attacks.”
“You’ve been having panic attacks?”
Faie laughs. “Every time I’m sober for the past three days, and basically nonstop for twelve hours before that.”
Quinlan sweeps a hand up and down Faie’s back, then slides it into his tangled hair to start massaging his scalp. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say something triggered you,” he starts. “Do you know what?”
Faie laughs again, on the edge of hysterical. “No, but that would make sense, wouldn’t it? I’m so—so stupid.” More laughter, and then, yup, that’s definitely a sob.
True to his word, Faie does indeed have a panic attack that night. He’s still drunk, and high on Force only knows what, but that doesn’t stop him from working himself into the sort of state that has Quinlan knelt on the bathroom floor, holding Faie’s hair back while he pukes and sobs.
“Breathe, Faie,” he murmurs, rubbing his back in the firm, small circles Faie likes. “Just let it all out, then breathe.”
Faie doesn’t respond. Can’t, most likely, between the puking and the tears, but Quinlan can hear his desperate attempts to draw in a full breath. He’s trying. He’s been trying, Quinlan knows, even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside.
The episode leaves Faie pale and sweaty and trembling against the toilet, wiping his mouth and spitting before rasping, “Sorry. Gods, I’m disgusting right now.”
“It’s alright,” Quinlan soothes.
“Sorry. Know this isn’t exactly attr-attractive.”
Oh, Faie. Quinlan lets his hair down and runs a hand through the back of it. “It’s alright, sweetheart, I promise you.” Then, because Faie must actually be feeling disgusting, “Want to hop in the shower?”
At that, Faie sobs harder, and Quinlan is completely at a loss as to what he did wrong until Faie manages to get out, “Can’t. Hips aren’t—aren’t. I can’t.”
Someday, Quinlan will get it through his head that being disabled isn’t a personal failing. In the meantime, he presses a kiss to the top of Faie’s sweaty head and says, “Okay. It’s okay, Faie. You can sit on the floor. I can help you if you need it.”
And that’s how Quinlan ends up sitting cross-legged on the floor of Faie’s shower, washing his hair while Faie brushes his teeth under the lukewarm spray. It’s not the most romantic thing they’ve done in this shower, and Faie’s still shaking head-to-toe, and they’re nowhere near out of the woods, but it’s something. Quinlan is helping.
It has to be something.