It occurs to him after he's been staring at the bottle for several minutes that he can no longer focus well enough to read the label.
Everything's gone a bit blurry, and his eyesight's never been 20/20, but he's never needed glasses either, so he figures the blame lies with the bottle itself. It doesn't really matter, though, because whatever's inside is nearly gone now, and if it's going to kill him he can't do anything about it anymore. So what good's a label anyway?
He lifts it to his lips and takes another gulp. It doesn't really take away the fear or the pain at all (and he's trying hard to remember who told him it would), but it does push them back a little, turns them into fuzzy memories, and that's good enough for now. It also makes his whole body unpleasantly warm, which isn't helped any by the other body leaning against him.
Claire reaches along his arm and curls her fingers around the neck of the bottle to tug it neatly out of his hand. She finishes what's left of the alcohol and lets the bottle drop to the floor with a loud clang that makes both of them flinch. Then she loops her arms around Topher's neck and swings a leg over so she's sitting on his lap. He gives her a blank look in response, but his hands unconsciously settle at her hips.
She likes him better when he's drunk (for a certain scale of liking that starts down at 'pure loathing' and heads up towards 'tolerance and sick satisfaction'). He talks less, for one, and for another he's much more compliant. Not that he ever really fights her, just plays the glutton for her punishment and lets her do whatever she goddamn pleases to him. But when the inhibitions go, he gets more reactive, more willing to go along with her games and give as good as he gets. Sometimes he even gets angry, and isn't that just a thrill and a half? Watching that hint of fury pass by his eyes when some part of him decides he's suffered enough for his sins and all this madness really ought to stop, feeling him push back. Until that guilt comes back up and he remembers what a twisted human being he is.
She likes herself better drunk, too, because she can forget all the circumstances and focus on the hate-and-blame game. It lets her put the physical before the sensible and ignore that sense of righteousness programmed into her.
So now's really a joyous time for Claire, because they're both drunk past caring for anything outside this room, and she can fuck Topher until he cries while Rome burns to the ground all around them, consequences be damned.
(It only matters in the morning, when she wakes up with a hangover and his unbearable scent all over her, and she has to scrub her skin raw in the Active showers before she can go back to work tending injuries and fixing people.
Topher just holds his head and fights back a nausea that can't entirely be blamed on the drink and hates himself a little more for being lured into her trap again.)