Chapter Text
On the night that would change Fynn’s life forever, he was attempting to get extremely drunk in his office. After a long, dreadful day of doing mindless, meaningless work, he sat back in his office chair, shoved aside the piles of paperwork that made him feel like his mind was being melted, and pulled out a couple of bottles of dandelion wine he kept locked in his desk drawer.
It wasn’t the first time he’d drank, far from it. He had indulged a little with his fellow students back before they had graduated and still went out for a thoughtful glass of wine with people he kept in touch with after everyone had finished school and gone their separate ways. Though, nowadays, he out drank them by leagues; what could he say? If he was gonna do something better, he should do it to the best of his ability. Regardless, he had been hoping to save these for the promotion he was working towards, as celebratory drinks were his favorite. Despite this, today had just been so much that he figured a few sips wouldn’t hurt.
It wasn't like he was getting into the strong stuff he kept hidden in a filing cabinet across the room; though a bit of firewater did sound appealing after everything. He began to drink the glass of the wine he had out at the moment, letting the rich mouthful wash over his tongue, taking in every note and feeling himself relax a little more in his seat as he finished his sip, taking another and another.
As the wine turned his mind and organized thoughts into mushy, fuzzy warmth and a slight throb began to settle in the back of his head, he continued to mull over what his life had become. His time as a student had been some of the happiest in his life. Even before he’d switched to the Amurta Darshan, learning was his passion. Being out in the forest observing how beautiful life and death were, sitting in lectures with Tighnari and some of his other friends, exploring the grounds, or sitting under a large tree while he and Tighnari studied for their finals. Or the few times he would go out exploring the green patches outside of the Akademiya late at night; or basking in the sunlight after graduation with his moms. His mind ran through his memories of his time in school fondly, even in his intoxicated state; a ghost of a smile etched into his older, more worn face. He looked different in those memories, his hair was much shorter and he didn’t appear nearly as tired. Now though he had a permanent five-o’clock shadow that itched like hell that he didn’t have the energy to shave, dark circles under his eyes making his eye sockets look hollow, and paired with his sallow skin he practically looked like a zombie.
The rays of moonlight cast from his window stretched slowly as if awakening from a long slumber, the ticking of the clock on his wall turning into lovely white noise as he made his way through the first bottle, and further onto the second one. Thinking about his school years used to bring pleasant bouts of nostalgia, but as he’d gotten busier these last few months, it only made his chest ache with sorrow of an unknown origin. It posed the question that had been making its home in his subconscious: when had he last felt happy in general? The question his own mind asked made Fynn’s chest clench and his stomach churn as he racked his mind for the last time he had felt true happiness. It was likely when his prized student Fotini had accepted his offer of becoming a lab assistant at their respective Darshan. But hadn’t that been a month or two ago? Surely there was something closer to right now, he thought and tried harder to find when he was last happy. The search was futile.
As he turned to refill his glass, the scientist found that his second bottle of wine was completely empty. With a resentful grumble, he stood and shuffled over to the filing cabinet, reasoning with himself that a few sips of fire water would wrap up the evening in a nice bow and that those wine bottles hadn't been as full as he thought. The tired man took the first swing, which was straight for the bottle cause why not? He wasn't about to measure out a bunch of tiny shots, he wouldn’t drink too much anyway.
As he threw back a more hefty second chug of fire water, the liquid burned like lava in the back of his mouth and made him cough and sputter as he forced it down. It traveled down his throat, leaving his insides warm and cozy. Fynn sighed again, allowing himself to flop down with the bottle in hand. He considered just taking a quick nap in his office; he was perfectly warm and comfortable, and it wasn't like his office was far from his apartment at all. He would just sleep for a few minutes and then stumble home and crash there for the rest of the night, maybe even take tomorrow off cause as much as he enjoyed drinking a little (he definitely hadn’t drunk too much, right?), he got hungover like nothing he's ever seen, and it always made him feel gross to show up to work with a hangover, especially an obvious one.
Just as Fynn was deciding that he would call out tomorrow morning so he could deal with how hungover he was going to be, he heard knocking at the door. No one else should be in the building at the moment, save maybe the cleaning people, but they left his room alone when they saw the light on this late. He shrugged it off in favor of seeing how long he could keep his eyes open as they grew heavier and heavier, letting his consciousness wander between drunken slumber and his miserable disoriented reality. There was no more knocking for what felt like both an eternity and yet no time at all, but soon enough there was another knock. This one less timid, as if the person knocking wasn’t sure of their decision the first time, but now has gained their confidence. He distantly wondered if it was another faculty member, and somewhere deep in his drunken state he hoped that his boss, who oversaw him and his team of researchers, didn't find him drunk in his office at midnight.
The vision of making his team look worse than he’d already made them look made his stomach churn. He’d recently discovered that a huge portion of data that he and his team had used for their research on the diversity of the gene pool of a family of Rishboland Tigers that live in a mountainous region of the rain forest had been recorded incorrectly under his watch, and he had made a fool of himself and his team in the middle of a meeting with the board of research supervisors. He was still bitter that he’d let such a simple mistake slip past him and for so long as well. It was shameful, and he felt his bottom lip quiver at the reminder of what he was drinking to forget in the first place.
Another thing that had begun recently, besides simple things slipping past his usually keen eye was the crying. He hadn’t cried over a simple mistake in over ten years, but recently his tears had come suddenly and uncontrollably. He would be working with a particularly annoying data set or find that an equation he was using to organize results wasn’t producing the results it needed to, and would feel the prickle of hot tears threatening to spill all over his notes or the tightness in his throat choking him up and requiring him to go to his private office to cry and kick himself for his stupidity. The tears had come with being more snappy too; someone would ask him a question or point out a flaw in his logic, and instead of acknowledging his mistake or asking for clarification like he usually would, there would be a threat of the poor researcher losing his or her seat in Fynn’s team or snort of irritation and him storming to his office. The patience and willingness to improve he used to wear on his sleeve was nowhere to be found, and the guilt and disgust he held towards himself made his head spin.
Now that his thoughts were spiraling again, Fynn felt hot tears spilling over his long lashes. The knocking became more insistent, accompanied by a voice that sounded rather familiar asking if he was in the room. He couldn’t quite place who was talking to him in his drunken daze, but all he could do was sob quietly about how much of a failure he was, unable to get up from his chair to answer the door. His sobs seemed to be heard by the person knocking, and the knocking became a rattling of the doorknob as whoever this intruder was attempted to try and get inside, the voice becoming more concerned.
“Fynn? Fynn are you okay? Let me in.” That voice, so familiar yet unable to be placed in his current state. Spoken so sharply, and yet the inflection had an undertone of concern that even Fynn’s intoxicated mind could recognize. As he tried to remember where he’d heard it from, there was the sound of the door being picked open, and panic surged through him. Regardless of who this familiar-voiced stranger was, he couldn’t let anyone see him like this, especially when his promotion was this close; so he lunged out of his chair. Tried to, he had tried to lunge out of his chair, but his body wasn’t fully listening to him, swaying on his feet for a moment before collapsing back into his chair. As soon as he did, the door swung open, flooding the dimly lit room with the bright lights from the hallway.