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It probably shouldn't have been any sort of familiarity, even less any sort of comfort, but here it was.
A kind of fucked up unwelcome sort of comfort, but one all the same.
The red numbers on the table at her bedside a solid 3 and a 29 turned 30 when she blinked, a nightmare still sitting behind now open eyelids, and the distinct lack of alcohol taste on her tongue.
Liz swiped the greying bangs from her face with one hand, and used the fist of the other to wipe away lack of sleep.
The kitchen and living room were connected when she stepped out of the bedroom, an open layout it was called, a desk with folders open and strewn to her right, a counter with a half full bottle of whiskey to her left.
She decided to forgo the glass- not like she went for one most times anyway, she wasn't exactly having any company over that cared, or god forbid anyone she actually consider sharing the bottle with- and brought it over to the couch.
A space as small as this should not have the ability to be this silent, the kind of silence that almost makes your ears ring, and yet.
"You should probably stop to take a breath at some point, my dear."
Liz did not startle at the statement in her otherwise empty apartment, but she did pause to consider the words, if only briefly.
"Perhaps cut back, give a longer window of time to buy between this bottle and the next?"
She made a hum that wasn't agreement but it wasn't disagreement either, slightly unruly brunette hair in her peripherals on the opposite couch cushion.
"Funny, I remember you being told similar about cigarettes, not just from myself."
"It was mostly from yourself."
"And did you listen?"
"Fair point."
Liz tilted the bottleneck and took a second swig of the whiskey, she could tell Thiago had a question or statement on his tongue without seeing his expression, they just knew each other too well.
"What are you doing awake, quierda?"
She could laugh, she almost did, she might've just a little even, tears pricking her waterlines but not yet falling.
"You *know* why."
She set the alcohol on the coffee table and looked just below his eyes.
"Because I'm still here."
"You are."
Thiago rested a hand on top of hers, his palm sitting on the back of it.
"I'm here, and you're not."
"I know."
Liz couldn't feel the hand on top of hers, she turned her wrist to wrap the fingers around it anyway.
"Do you think they did it as a joke."
It wasn't phrased as a question as much as it probably should've been, but Thiago answered with a hum like it was one all the same.
"Which part?"
"Any of it, truthfully, but mostly the whole keeping me alive even after everything thing."
Liz's eyes shifted between her best friends' face and the whiskey bottle, focus on neither staying very long, and then she grinned, trying her damndest to blink away tears.
"Twenty two years, Thiagão. He didn't give me the chance to experience twenty two years of the life I didn't always like, but I should've had the chance to experience even still. The end of my twenties and all of my thirties and forties, you guys blinked, and they were gone."
She decided to pick back up the bottle after all, taking a third swig, followed by a sad chuckle.
"But you're still here."
"And that's the whole fucking problem. I'm here and you're not. I missed twenty two years of experience, but you didn't get to experience *anything* after, and he decided to keep me here as some kind of punishment I guess? Some kind of fucking joke maybe? Guess what, I'm not laughing."
She was crying now, openly, and of course he let her.
She took a fourth swig of the alcohol, coughing slightly, partially because of the taste, partially because she was mid sob and didn't pause to get enough air in her lungs before she drank.
"Hold on, darling, take a breath for me."
The hand that wasn't holding hers pat her back gently and she pretended to feel it as her coughs finally sputtered out.
"You first."
"I hate it. All of it. None of it's fair."
Liz said after enough time for her to catch her breath properly and for Thiago to swirl a finger on the back of her hand and for her to pretend to appreciate it.
"Of course it's not. When has the Order ever made anything easy or fair?"
"I hate you. And I hate that I hate you. And you know it's not true. And I'm so mad at you. I'm so mad at you because for some goddamn reason they still let me be here and you're not."
"Then be mad, quierdinha, you have every right to be angry."
"I hate you, Thiago, I hate you for not being here, why did you have to be a self sacrificing asshole?"
She asked between sobs.
"You're one to talk, my dear."
He accepted each time her fist connected with his chest in more anguish than true intent at hurting him.
"You're not here to feel this and you're not here to say 'last cigarette for the night, promise' and you're not fucking here!"
She punched him hard enough to get emotions out but gentle enough to not hurt his chest- she did not sit in the just on the verge of uncomfortable hospital chairs by his bedside while machines beeped every other tick of the clock for four days straight for nothing- even though he could not feel it.
"You're an asshole and you smell like smoke and I don't judge you for it and you don't stop me from wanting to drink and I hate you and you're not here and you're my best friend. You're my best friend, Thiago, you're one of the best goddamn things that's ever happened to me. And I miss you, I fucking miss you, I miss you so much."
He brushed Liz's greying hair back from her face, swiping a thumb on her cheekbone, and then her crocodile tears were falling on the pillow at the end of the couch.
With one last punch to the cushion and scarlet rimmed eyes, she grabbed the whiskey bottle set on the floor beside her when she was trying not to choke, taking a hefty fifth swig that burned just enough.
Good.
It's what she deserved.