Chapter Text
Ouch
For several minutes that was the only thought rattling around in Adaine’s head.
Which was unfortunate as it felt like her skull was being rung like a bell everytime it bounced around.
Opening her eyes she quickly clenched them shut again, the soft light of the morning in the tower was like someone shining a laser into both her eyes simultaneously.
Groaning loudly, she pulled herself up and immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea threatened to overtake her.
“Fuck,” Speaking hurt as well. Good to know.
She went to collapse back down onto her pillow but as soon as she started to move the sickness increased.
Ok, so, everything hurt. Moving made her sick. And she couldn’t speak. Brilliant.
This is why she didn’t get drunk. How could anything be worth this?
Come to think of it, why had she gotten drunk?
Thinking as far back as she could without her brain catching fire, Adaine’s last coherent memory had been making a conscious decision to not drink, she had a distinct memory of getting a glass of water instead of the beer which she had been offered by… someone…
So why the hells had she ended up so wasted that she couldn’t even remember getting home last night?
Then another memory swam to the surface of her traitorously pained brain.
Fig, leaning across the table and playing with her hair, apparently not noticing Adaine’s blush or how it intensified when Fig brushed a loose strand behind her ear with a remark about how pretty her face was and how she shouldn’t keep it covered.
Those words would be engraved in her mind forever, and at the time had burned through her consciousness worse than the shot of whisky she’d taken afterwards had burned her throat.
The shot had been placed in front of all of them and Adaine hadn’t thought before downing it, trying to cover her nervousness. The beer she’d chugged next had been to take the edge off the rough pain.
Adaine really wasn’t sure when the drinks had picked up and had become about building up confidence to…
Oh Gods…
Groaning again, Adaine dug the heels of her palms into her still throbbing eyes and would have laughed at her own drunken stupidity had she not been worried it would make her throw up.
Had that really been her plan? To get drunk and get confident enough to tell Fig that she liked her? Yeah, drunk Adaine, that’s absolutely genius.
She was just glad that she was such a lightweight that she had lost her grasp on that plan before she did something extremely idiotic.
How many beers had she gotten through before she abandoned that idea?
Fuck, even thinking about beer made her want to throw up even more, the taste filling her mouth and making her cringe.
Gods, she needed a glass of water now to get rid of that foul taste.
Opening her eyes, it was as if her prayers had been answered. Adaine saw a glass resting on the bedside table.
Far too nauseous to be bothered with the details of how it had got there, or who had put it there, Adaine gratefully reached over, grabbing the cold glass before the wave of dizziness hit her.
Pulling herself back over onto her bed, Adaine downed a couple of mouthfuls, the cool liquid soothing her throat somewhat.
It took her a few seconds to become aware of the note that had been next to the glass, and another few seconds for her to finish drinking the water, setting the glass down more heavily than she had intended and wincing at the dull thud, before finally picking up the note and leaning back against the headboard of her bed to read it with mild interest.
Mild interest which turned into confusion, into slight amusement, into abject horror as the events of last night flooded back.
The pain was driven from her mind by a deep panic, she was barely even aware of the sickness which was still filling her as she flung the covers of her bed back and sprinted across her room, wrenching the door open and running down the spiral staircase which connected her and Aelwyn’s room to the rest of the house.
The spiral didn’t help her dizziness in the slightest and when she came to the landing at the bottom she had to stop and stand still for a few seconds until the world stopped spinning.
Once she had dealt with a little thing like ‘balance’ and ‘equilibrium’ she could turn her attention to more important matters.
She spared a few seconds of knocking on Fig’s door for the sake of manners, as well as a couple shouts of “Fig,” before she opened the door frantically.
She was about to jump into a rambling explanation of her behaviour, and profuse apologies but stopped herself upon realising that Fig’s room was completely empty.
Which was definitely a good thing given that she had no idea how she could possibly explain anything right now.
But it was also a very bad thing because it allowed Adaine to keep spiralling.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fig hated her, she’s left and is never coming back and it’s all her fault and she’s never touching alcohol again and everyone is going to hate her for driving Fig away and yes that includes her, obviously she was going to hate herself, she already did, how could she not? She’d fucked up so badly. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck-
The same rough chain of thoughts shot through her head over and over as she ran from Fig’s room and down the stairs to the ground floor of the manor, crashing into the kitchen where Jawbone was making coffee.
“Ah, same clothes as yesterday, huh? Yeah, I know that an-” he stopped upon seeing the frantic expression on his adopted daughter’s face, “Hey, kiddo what’s wrong?”
“Oh, um, nothing, well, everything, kinda? I really really messed up,”
“As in summoned a dark lord of the abyss or tried drugs, cause honestly, either way-”
“No, I uh, I think I really messed up… I think I said something to Fig which I really need to unsay, not because I didn’t to say it, because I really really did, but I really shouldn’t’ve cause like, even if I said it right then it would’ve been really bad but then I definitely didn’t say it right and I think she might hate me now, and I need to find her and apologise like, right now, and she isn’t in her room and, have you seen her?”
Jawbone paused for a moment as he poured himself a mug of coffee and took a sip, most likely to buy himself time to process Adaine’s word vomit.
“Fig went out to the bakery in town about twenty minutes ago, but-”
“Awesome, thanks!” Adaine shouted over her shoulder, already sprinting out of the kitchen towards the front door.
Which opened just as she was about to grab the handle, revealing Fig standing in the doorway with a large paper bag.
If Adaine was embarrassed before, she would be mortified looking back on what she did next.
She let out a small scream, then clamped her mouth shut as her face paled.
Fig stared at her in shock for a few seconds before laughing.
“You’re screaming at me ? Have you looked in the mirror this morning? You look like shit, Love,”
Adaine blushed, all the blood rushing too and away from her face couldn’t be healthy.
“Um, right, now, actually, I kinda, I just got your note and then I kind of freaked out and then ran around looking for you and Jawbone said you’d gone out and then I was going to follow you and then you were here and-”
“Adaine, hey, Addy?” Fig cut in, moving forwards and using her free hand to grab Adaine’s upper arm.
“Breathe,”
Following Fig’s instruction, Adaine nodded after a few breaths.
“Ok, so…” Fig stood awkwardly and looked away slightly and for the first time, Adaine realised her friend was also a bit freaked out.
“You remember… what you said last night?”
“...Yeah… do you?”
“I wasn’t the one who was drunk, Addy.”
Adaine cringed.
“I know but… was kinda hoping you’d have a sudden bout of memory loss? Or something?”
“We can pretend that I did if you want?”
“No! I mean, no I just… I didn’t… I wouldn’t have done it like that… if I was going to do it…”
“Right…”
They stood awkwardly for a few seconds before Fig shrugged the paper bag.
“I uhm, I got you a croissant so… Maybe we should have breakfast and talk about… all this later…?”
Adaine’s stomach grumbled loudly.
“That sounds like a great idea right now.”