Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am in no way affiliated with either J.K. Rowling or Warner Brothers Entertainment. This story is also very much influenced by the song "Need You Now" as performed by Lady Antebellum; I also have no affiliation with the group or Capitol Nashville, their record label.
Author's Note: This idea has literally been plaguing me for a few weeks now. I was attempting to write in Turn Out the Lights, but I felt like I couldn't continue until I wrote this. (I'm sure some of you understand this feeling all too well.) This is a Katie centric one shot, very short, and it will not be updated.
I Need You Now
White noise flowed eerily through the air, and a faint glow from an ignored television cast long shadows over an underused entertainment room. Photos were spread like a prized Persian rug over hardwood flooring, and the stench of a strong bottle of whiskey permeated throughout the entire flat. In the distance an owl hooted, and Katie grimaced. The simple, interrupting noise pulled her from a numb trance, and the weight of despair that she felt returning to her body was nearly crippling in its weighted ferocity.
Deep, gasping breaths filled the room, and Katie felt as if her throat was on fire. Bleary eyed, she inched her hand toward the open bottle of Flannery's Famous Fire-Whiskey. Shaking and unstable hands raised the bottle tacitly toward her dry and parched lips. Slowly, as in the likeness of a man dying of thirst after a long trek through a desert wasteland, Katie took a long pull from the near empty bottle of potent liquor.
A churning stomach and burning throat seared in nausea and pain, causing the woman to unexpectedly drop her precious bottle of sustenance to the littered floor. A loud crash was followed by a much lighter tinkling. The fragile bottle shattered, spilling noxious liquid and shards of broken glass over the memories she had spread over the floor.
A whiff of the whiskey wafted in the direction of her nose, and Katie surged forward violently. Pain screamed through her hands as shards of glass dug into them, adding blood to the strange mixture of items on the hard wood. The pain in her hands, coupled with the nauseating stench of the fire whiskey caused the young woman to gag violently. The urge to vomit was overwhelming but momentarily abated while she forced herself to her feet. As much apathy as she currently felt, she was still aware of how upset she would be if she had to clean vomit up from her floor.
Katie stepped blindly toward her bathroom, momentarily forgetting the shards of oxidized glass spread haphazardly across the floor. A gasp filled her lungs as multiple wounds were opened on the bottoms of her feet—they were soon bathed in a whiskey astringent. Gasping in pain, Katie doubled over and wheezed, soon heaving violently. She collapsed weakly onto the floor, but was no longer able to abate the urge to vomit violently, expelling her toxic stomach contents.
She was only vaguely aware of the whiskey seeping into her clothing as she lay on her floor, close to blacking out from her excessive alcohol intake. Very slowly, Katie urged her tired and heavy body to roll over, stomach down on the floor—the motion, however small, still caused her stomach to churn painfully. Katie vomited again and wished, as her throat tore and bled slightly from the extra exertion, that she had chosen possible asphyxiation over rolling over and causing more vomit.
Katie heaved dryly, her throat on fire and her mouth tasting sour, for what seemed to be an eternity. Black invaded her vision, and she prayed to be taken to the darkness. As her head spun and her body shook with the ferocity of her sickened shivers, Katie quietly mumbled, "I'd rather hurt..."
A loud shriek tore painfully through Katie's subconscious early the next afternoon, jolting her awake suddenly. She was immediately aware of the pain ripping through her body. Multiple lacerations stung on her feet, palms, arms and face, and her head felt as if someone had taken an ax to it the evening before. The stench of whiskey met her nose, and she gagged—painfully aware of the state of her abused throat from the late night she had experienced Sunlight assaulted her retina ferociously, and Katie forced her eyelids to close over her green eyes, no matter how dry and painful they were.
A small and pained groan escaped her lips, and she heard Alicia moan out, "Oh, Katie..."
Katie fought the urge to curl into the fetal position and rock herself back to sleep as Alicia's trepidation-filled footsteps sounded in her ears. Her best friend's shoes crunched over broken glass. Katie grimaced when she felt Alicia's soft fingers gently brush hair out of her face. "Katie, what are you doing to yourself?"
She moaned in response, unable to form words in fear of another bout of intense pain. Alicia's soft voice was already terrorizing her ears, and her head pounded. Her stomach churned in nausea and tears welled up in her eyes. Without preempt or warning, a sob wracked forcefully through her body and sent her into a fit of violent shaking. Katie gagged on her tears and began to dry heave.
Katie felt the tickle of magic running across her body in soft waves. She was momentarily comforted as the pain in her head disappeared and the nausea dissipated. She felt tendrils of new skin knitting over the wounds on her arms, feet, hands and face. The smell of whiskey was lifted from the apartment, and the tinkling of glass filled the flat as the Flannery's Famous Fire-Whiskey bottle was amended and then tossed into recycling.
Katie could almost hear the gag in Alicia's voice as she exclaimed, "Scourgify," surely cleaning the vomit that had been left without ceremony on the hard wood floor the night before. Sobs continued to wrack through Katie's exhausted body, and her throat stung with the effort. She heard Alicia sigh softly and walk through her flat, photos crinkling beneath her heavy feet.
Moments passed silently, and Katie felt herself slipping back slowly into a world where she was numb. Where the despair of her everyday life could not touch her, or even sense her. It was in this place that the heartbreak that had been haunting Katie for days was not present. It was in this particular place that Katie did not want to be.
"Katie, come on, get up," she heard Alicia whisper, her voice silky and distant, as if through a smoke screen.
Katie shook her head slightly, hoping to clear her muddied senses. Slowly, with the support of Alicia, Katie rose to her feet, a distinct ache in her body that even magic could not cure. Her feet slipped over the photos, and she felt grounded with her memories reliving themselves beneath her tired and tried body.
Alicia delivered her to her bathroom and helped her ready herself for the bath that had been created. Alicia flipped the light switch on with trepidation, still weary of the muggle flat her best friend had been inhabiting for months. As Katie dipped herself into the warm bath, a sigh escaped her tired lips. Alicia perched herself on the side of the bath and stared intently at the intricate wallpaper that bedecked the walls of the restroom.
"Katie," she sighed, wearily rubbing her eyes, "I know you're confused, and I know you must be in pain, but why in the name of Merlin's beard would you put yourself through what you did last night?"
In a raspy voice, Katie simply replied, "I... I just... I don't know."
"Katie, he's gone. You have to understand that."
"I do."
"Do you really, Katie? You bathed yourself in whiskey last night, and I come into your flat, thinking you're dead! You slept surrounded by your photos, in a drunken stupor, covered in cuts from a broken bottle of fire-whiskey, and you really want to tell me that you understand that Oliver's gone?" Alicia exclaimed angrily, a tick forming in her eye.
"Alicia, it's not over. It can't be over."
"God dammit, Katie!" Alicia screamed, standing angrily and turning on her friend. "Oliver is gone! He's left the hospital, he's left the country, and he's left you! You told him to start over, that you would be okay!"
"And I will be," Katie replied flippantly slipping lower in her bathtub, allowing bubbles to slip over her neck, the heat of water soothing the aching organ.
"But I'm worried about you, Kate," Alicia sighed, the worry in her voice quite evident in the tired ears of her best friend. "You're hurting yourself."
Katie continued to slip down, the bubbles begin to overtake her mouth. "Alicia, I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all." Katie slipped completely beneath the water, her mass of blond hair floating about her in the water, and she relished the feeling of searing pain in her lungs.