A Toast to Bankruptcy
By Kay
Disclaimer: I don't own Everworld, but Everworld owns my soul.
Author's Notes: OMFG, what? I don't know where this OOC piece came from. Secret desire to have overly drunk Jalil, and I'm ALWAYS writing pieces for Etain's wedding night... this one's... uh... not my favorite, but it's done. So yes. Enjoy. Huzzah for being twisted.
Christopher spends the entire wedding sulking in his room, refusing to come out. He doesn't expect Etain to come to his door and beg through the crack to at least see her off to married life, but it still kind of hurts when she doesn't.
The sun sinks below the horizon and he can hear the distant cheer of the marriage party in the courtyard. The rocks are bathed orange from the open window-- he thinks about closing it, but that would require getting up from the bed, which would require moving his aching muscles and catching a peek of the festivities below. Christopher doesn't feel up to any of it, and so he remains slumped against the wall in that wave of sallow orange, the dressy uniform (dressy for a dwarf's taste, at the very least) rumpled at the collar and rolled up to his elbows. There are bags under his eyes.
He did not stay up all night trying to find ways of getting Etain out of the engagement. It has been far too late for that. He did not even stay up all night imagining elaborate dreams of whisking her away last-minute into the sunset, her hero adorned in sneakers and ragged blonde hair, to a place where they could just be together and in love.
Christopher isn't that stupid. He's a realist.
He'd been up because it had been cold.
He rubs the grit from his eyes. They feel like they've been wired shut. He feels like his entire chest has been wired shut, too, blocked up so that everything comes through at a low roar in his ears, rushing like the surf or growling like a skulking creature, but it drowns out the sounds of the wedding and for that he's thankful.
It's probably too late to do anything to hold his peace. The thought makes him bark out a laugh.
Etain, beautiful Etain, she is the girl everyone wants-- smart, dainty, strong, regal. He had once imagined having her at his side at dinner parties or family cook-outs in the real world, the perfect girlfriend everyone would drool over and admire. She is beautiful and like spun-glass molded into the shape of sublime, curves made for Christopher's fingers, a laughter that tingles in the shell of his ears and makes everything seem giddy and glowing at the same time.
He thinks that maybe it could have worked if it hadn't been for Ka Anor or King Baldwin, or even for David or the queen. He wants to hate them all for that, but really, if Christopher's truthful, the one he's angry at is himself. If he were any kind of man, he would have stopped this.
But Christopher isn't a man. He's still kind of a bratty kid, stretching into his jokes, and he's selfish when it comes down to it. He doesn't have what it takes to save Etain, or even himself, and it's a lot like Ganymede only less blood and no screaming except for the voice in his head that says he's a coward, and the feeling is exactly the same-- he's lost something again, had it ripped away under his fingers, and he's too afraid to being burnt to snatch it back.
If Etain loved him, Christopher thinks dully, she wouldn't have done this.
Except she had, and she did, and Christopher curls up against his knees silently and reminds himself that these are the excuses of cowards. If I were any kind of man, he says harshly, and the sun sinks through the sky to cast shadows on his face.
The knock comes at evening when the voices are a low murmur below his bedroom window, loud and sharp-- too hard to be Etain, and not the soft, understanding presence that April threatens to bear.
Jalil doesn't bother waiting for a confirmation. The lock clicks open and he steps inside, key slipping back into his pocket-- and Christopher wants to know where that came from, goddamn it, but he knows better than to ask-- and looks at him with those dark, knowing eyes, painted blue in the twilight still spilling over the window sill.
"Thought you might want some company," he says.
Christopher isn't sure what he means by that, but he's not in the mood to find out. "Not yours."
Jalil calmly holds up a bottle; it's amber-tinted and it sloshes. "No, not mine."
Alcohol. The relief is so biting, cutting, that Christopher's almost startled by the first large reaction he's had all day. "Hell yes. Yes. Please."
Jalil hovers for a moment as if debating whether taking the next step is worth it, much in the way he considers everything. Christopher almost lunges up to intercept him because he's pissed off with it, but then the dark-eyed scientist moves forward with a jolt, too much gas on the pedal backing up, and slides on the bed next to him.
"I stole it from the party," he says, and Christopher can catch the heady scent of meade on his breath when it hits their shoulders. He's too close like this, swaying into Christopher's body heat, but it doesn't matter because the blonde has the alcohol in his hand and takes a gulp that nearly spills down the sides of his chin. It feels sticky-sweet, like candy, and he almost moans in appreciation.
Jalil is watching him, black eyes hazy and oddly soft. "You're going to choke."
Christopher finishes glaring at him from the corner of his eye, unclasps the bottle top from his lips with a satisfying smack, and sighs at the rush traveling down his throat. It burns, but it's good, and he holds the cool glass to his forehead, trapping blonde strands and his eyelashes and not caring because of how good it feels. "You're drunk."
Jalil nods. "Very drunk, possibly."
"Thanks for the bottle. You can go."
Hot breath washes over his shoulder through the black cloth, and Jalil has never been this close to him, spidery hands fluttering and touching his arm as though it might burn him. "Did you know she's laughing down there?"
The flush of anger trails down Christopher's neck. He wants to shove the boy off the bed. "Fuck off, Jalil, play games somewhere else."
Those hazy eyes peer at him cautiously. "You should drink more."
He opens his mouth to retort, but snaps it shut abruptly. Takes a deep drink. It's good advice, after all. He can hear Jalil hum slightly in approval, still fidgeting next to him, sliding a makeshift tie around his neck and trying to pick at the knot.
"She's laughing, but don't worry... it's all an act," Jalil continues to say, as placid as though reading the weather report. Christopher closes his eyes so he can't see him. "You can tell she's miserable. She keeps looking at your window. Like if she does it enough, you'll look back, and you can... I don't know, have romantic, tragic staring contests or whatever."
He has to breathe. Takes a ragged gulp of air through the wet cavern of his mouth. It tastes like alcohol.
"I think she was waiting for you to come sweep her away. Don't know why. You wouldn't do something that stupid, even if you are a big dumb blonde surfer guy," Jalil mumbles, fingernails ripping at the tie knot. Christopher watches him. "She doesn't know you very well, if that's... well, she doesn't know you very well."
"I loved her," Christopher says, simply because he wants to remind himself. He takes another drink.
Jalil laughs, soft and menacing. "How much? She doesn't know you well if she thinks you love her enough to rescue her."
Christopher thinks he should shove him off the bed for that. Punch him, maybe, if his knuckles weren't occupied with clinging to the bottle. Maybe break a nose or a rib. Except he's too tired, and now the buzz is coming around, and Jalil is awfully warm against his side, slumped there like he belongs in the niche between his shoulder and hipbone.
Really, he thinks, I'm just too sick of this place.
"Christopher."
"What?"
Jalil's breath hits his neck again, a hitch that sounds as much laughter as it is upset. "I know you really well. You wouldn't go after her because you know it'd end up in ruins. 'Cause you're realistic and cruel, because that's life, and you know there's nowhere to run where we couldn't find you."
Christopher takes another swig of drink. It swirls a bit in the bottom.
"You're incapable," Jalil says, taking care to pronounce 'incapable' sharply and correctly, "of taking the drastic steps that are useless in the end. And you don't love her enough to mess yourself up, or the rest of Everworld up."
"Fuck Everworld," he whispers, pressing the bottle to his forehead again.
"Yeah," Jalil agrees. "Because we're fucked enough as it is."
"Jalil?"
"Hmm?" The weight presses against him again, Jalil gently bumping into him and then swaying away again.
"Get the hell out of my room."
Jalil sighs.
"I mean it," Christopher mutters lowly, banging his head against the alcohol a bit and listening to the hollow sound. His forehead stings a bit and he looks up to fix a scowl on Jalil before the boy can swim out of his gaze again, still humming and tilting back or forth. "You're full of shit, you know that?"
"So are you," the scientist protests-- he reaches for the bottle, but Christopher jerks it out of the way.
"I loved her," he repeats, more harshly this time. It's easier to say it and ignore the pain when the drink is starting to fuzz away the corners of his mind, like sandpaper wearing down stone until it's slippery smooth, his brain against the axegrinder. "If she wants to marry him, that's her choice. Her own fuckin' choice. Has nothing to do with me."
"You're so good at lying to yourself." It sounds more like admiration than accusation, so Christopher just grits his teeth.
"You're drunk, Sherman."
"You're an ass, Hitchcock."
He's wanted to hit him and now he does-- waits for Jalil to sway into him again and then pushes back so hard that the young scientist bowls over the side of the bed, hitting stone on his side with a sickening crack. For a second Christopher feels the twinge of guilt, but then the alcohol drowns it out. He takes a deep gulp of the drink while Jalil curses profusely on the floor, cupping an elbow and curling in on himself.
"Bastard." His voice is muffled, face pressed into his arms. "Hitchcock, you fucking--"
"Get out if you don't like the floor," Christopher overrides him, bitterly watching the window as another trail of laughter drifts up from the party. "And shut that goddamed thing on your way out."
"I... think you broke my ribs. Fucker." The slur is finally coming through in his voice, slow and thick.
"Get new ones."
"Fucker."
"For a smart young man," Christopher says, "you have really nasty language issues."
There's a moment of silence. And then Jalil begins to laugh.
From there, Christopher had already lost the battle. He hadn't even protested when Jalil scrambled back up onto the bed, nursing his wounds with a bemusedly childish sulk, and refused to shut the window or think of leaving. They share the bottle well into the night, when the last voices trail away into the dark below them and leave nothing but stars through the shutters and a depthless quiet.
They talk, but Christopher can barely remember the words from five minutes ago, much less of the rest of the night. Their conversations are patched and incoherent, with Jalil making random observations that are daggers of perception unhibited by his drunkeness, and Christopher making outrageous threats that always end up in snorts of laughter.
"I'm going to kill you in the morning," he says, leaning forward as though whispering-- his voice booms in his ears.
"You're not going to kill me in the morning," Jalil denies, nearly inaudible. Christopher makes a vague motion that he should speak up, but is distracted by the wet edge of his sleeve. He squints at it.
"Yeah?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'll kill myself first," Jalil says solemnly, and then breaks into a large grin that is completely uncharacteristic of him. Christopher throws back his head and roars with laughter, bittersweet and startlingly clear. Then he takes off his jacket because the damp fabric is bothering him.
"Do you know," Jalil asks, "what probability says about once in a lifetime opportunities?"
"No. Fuck, I know nothing about math."
"They say..." his eyes are like liquid, always moving and endlessly black, "that your chance of finding a soulmate is 100."
"Is not," Christopher says, scowling. He's thinking about Etain now and that doesn't make him happy.
"But it is." Jalil rolls his eyes, emphatic. "Because you look at it in retrospective, as in, what are my chances? Very few, yes. But look at it... prospective, someone has to find their soulmate, why not yourself? Because it can happen to anyone. 100 chance."
"100 chance they don't stick around."
"You're thinking retrospective again," Jalil murmurs, and now his manic edge is gone, settling into the more familiar and thoughtful expression generally on his face. The scorn has yet to appear, however, so Christopher doesn't feel the loss too keenly. "You're thinking, it was obvious I was going to loose her in the end."
"I didn't have a chance," the blonde says flatly, and takes another drink. It is empty. He throws the bottle across the room-- not enough to shatter it, it only rolls across the floor with a hollow ping-- and slumps back again. "Never have."
"You had every chance. But probability doesn't take in the important things."
"Yeah?"
"Life," Jalil says seriously, "cannot be an equation. There are too many variables."
It is not a Jalil Sherman thing to say, so Christopher listens to it. Then he rolls over with a frown, unbearably meloncholy, and buries his face in his scratchy pillow. The fabric rubs wrong against his cheekbone. "I don't feel well," he says quietly, unexpectedly wishing his mother were here to bend down and brush the flop of his hair away. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly enough to hurt.
Jalil shifts on the bed, mattress dipping, and leans over him. "Christopher?"
"What?"
But Jalil just settles his fingertips against his shoulder, warm and oddly jittery, as though he will disappear.
Morning comes and Christopher's first inhale tastes like bad, stale beer and the grunge settling on his teeth. The sunlight spills over his bed-- Who opened the curtains, goddamn it? I've got a splitting headache-- and everything, the entire world, is warm with it.
He spits out a bit of his pillow and squints at the wall. It doesn't tell him anything, although the ringing pangs behind his ears and the taste lingering in his mouth certainly do-- he tries to remember why he'd drunk so much and then the memory hits him.
"Etain," he says aloud, fuzzily.
His entire body aches. His face is tingling for far different reasons, and Christopher flinches as he sits up and rubs the stretchy, dried salt tracks still itching his cheeks. 'I'm fucking pathetic, crosses his mind, followed by an almost irritatingly normal, I'm really hungry, too.
He hadn't eaten at the party.
Legs over the bed, face in his hands, and then Christopher looks up blearily and Jalil Sherman is sleeping against his headboard on the floor.
He doesn't move. Just stares. Blankly, uncomprehendingly, and the teenager is sprawled out with his legs stretching over the stone, head cradled against an arm and the wooden frame near the head of Christopher's bed, sort of like a doll thrown over the floor. His chest moves up and down slowly, face half-hidden in his shirt sleeve, and for a moment Christopher irrationally wonders if it's not really Jalil Sherman at all, because it looks nothing like him.
He remembers last night. His throat is dry. He's hungry.
He kicks the guy.
"Up," Christopher says, just as Jalil lets out a low groan and curls his hands around his ears.
"... no."
"You're not sleeping all day on my bedroom floor," Christopher insists, forcing his voice to work above the raspiness. "Get the hell up."
Jalil's hand fumbles for leverage and finds the bed blankets, clenching a fistful and dragging himself agonizingly upward. "My head..."
It would figure the genius had never had a hangover. Christopher sighs heavily, scratching his neck and popping a few cricks. "Yeah, yeah, my head, your head, we've all got headaches the size of Minnesota."
Jalil slumps back down to the floor, holding his head in his hands. His dark eyes are not nearly so deep as last night, instead holding the remnants of pain and a red-rimmed edge. "Remind me... never to drink that much again. Ever."
"Why would I do that?"
"Forget it," Jalil sighs, and stands up on more or less steady feet. Christopher watches him.
He wants to ask if Jalil stayed all night like that. Hovering at his side, fingers inches away from Christopher's chest like he could feel the heartbeat from there, reassure with nothing but a few mumbled, drunken words should he awaken.
But Christopher already knows the answer, even if he'll ignore it. It's a dead-end road.
"I'm going to breakfast."
Jalil waves his hand dismissively. "I'm going, give me a minute."
"I'll give you something else if you don't get the hell out of my room soon," Christopher says, but it's not serious. He even smiles a little when saying it. Jalil just gives him a look.
"This is the thanks I get for keeping you company?"
"Used you for the alcohol."
"You mention last night to anyone and I'll make sure you eat through a straw for the rest of your life," Jalil says coolly.
Christopher holds up his hands, smirking, his hair strewn in every direction and Jalil's eyes following each movement. "I should say the same to you."
He should say thank you, but he's not going to. It's okay. Jalil knows him too well, anyway.
He doesn't want to know what the night would have been like alone. But he's not going to think about that, either. It's another dead-end road leading to nowhere fast. Places he doesn't want to step in.
Jalil scoops up the bottle on his way out. It's lying against the opposite wall. He opens the door and looks back, face a smooth plane of efficiency and confidence that Christopher recognizes for the first time in twenty-four hours. "And Christopher?"
"Huh?"
"Don't forget," Jalil tells him quietly, eyes dark, "to say hello to the bride."
End