Drunk and Disorderly

Nils had intended to go straight home after the conversation with Chad. That would have been the sensible thing to do, to give himself some time to digest what had been said. To his credit, he stuck to that course until he was at the door to his apartment. It was there that the realization of what had just happened kicked in and he knew he needed to talk to someone, else he drink himself into any more of a stupor. Esperanza was off with Indigo, a thought that made him take another long drink. That left Aimee and Connie.
By that point he was in no state to drive over to them, and so he made the short walk to their home, drinking all the while. By the time he knocked on their door not only was it outrageously late, but he was also odiously drunk.

Aimee's pencil paused over her sheet music as she heard the too loud knocks on the door downstairs. She sighed, shrugging the strap of the acoustic guitar off her shoulder, setting in its stand. This late, those knocks; it had to be Nils, and he must be drunk.

Stepping out into the short hallway, Aimee stopped to look up the stairs, listening to see if Constance had gotten up. She thought she could make out the soft snores of a very tired Connie. She turned and padded down the stairs to the door, an exasperated look on her face.

"Nils, what's going on? Is everything alright?"

Nils had been leaning on the door a bit, as the world had started to spin. As such, he stumbled and nearly fell onto Aimee when she opened the door. She would be able to clearly see that was crying, and by the redness and puffiness of his face it was clear that he'd been crying for a while. In addition, his normally immaculate appearance was decidedly disheveled, and he held a bottle of wine openly in his left hand.
Upon seeing Aimee, he attempted a smile and failed miserably. "Aimee... I talked to Chad." He told her, sobbing. "He said I was convenient!"

"Oh jeez," Aimee exclaimed as Nils almost fell, stepping in to support her much taller friend. Through much wrangling, she managed to lead him over to the couch, dumping him onto the cushions. She wrinkled her nose as the amount of alcohol on his breath.

Sinking into the couch next to him, Aimee fixed Nils with a raised eyebrow. "Ok, maybe not the most tactful thing to say, but it is somewhat true. What, ah, prompted this 'outburst'?" she asked, actually making the air quotes motion.

Nils tried as best he could to support himself on the way to the couch, but it was surprisingly difficult. He felt remarkably like he was aboard a ship, what with the floor jumping around like that.
Once he was safely seated, he sighed. "I... I pulled him aside to talk after everyone left earlier. Things hadn't been right between us since New Orleans, and after the whole Indigo thing, I felt like I ought to clear the air. I... I told him I loved him, and he told me that I was convenient because he didn't have to lie to me about being the child of a god."
Nils managed to shrink in on himself as he spoke, the tears getting thicker and thicker.

Aimee raised her arm, about to pat Nils on the shoulder, but she stopped midway. Looking to the side, concern tightened her face. She drew her hand back, taking a deep breath.

"You...love him. You love him? Are we talking about the same Chad? You spent most of the night fighting Ronnie for Indigo's attentions. This is how you behave in love?"

Nils looked as though Aimee had slapped him. "I know, I'm so stupid. But I thought, maybe if I try his way of doing things, stay casual, do things with others, maybe he'd feel the same way? Maybe I'd be more than just a convenient fuck. Heaven knows I've tried everything else and none of it worked. It's not like it's the first time I've made an ass of myself trying to win someone's affections."
He took a drink from his bottle. "What am I going to do?"

Aimee sighed heavily, leaning into the back of the couch. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose is a habitual sign of frustration.

"Nils...sweetie...that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If you want your boyfriend to not fuck other people, don't you think it would hurt your case to go fuck them yourself?"

Nils sighed and took a long drink before answering. "I don't even care about that so much. I mean, yeah, I care, but that's not what's bothering me so much here. I just want... I want him to show some affection. Some EMOTION, even. I just wanted to know that I matter beyond convenience to him, but it looks like that's never going to happen. Aimee, if it would get him to show that he cared, I wouldn't care what he did with other men. I just... ARGH. I just want to feel like something other than a fucktoy for him."

"Fine then. Be something other than a fucktoy to him. Maybe be a friend. God knows he could use one right now. Nils, you say you don't care what he does, but obviously you do. And, honestly, from his perspective, I can't see any reason for him to act any differently. You bitch and moan about what he does, but you do the same thing. All this, this entire line of argument, is you wanting him to be something for you, something he never offered to be. The most I've seen you do for Chad is offer him permission he shouldn't need in the first place. It seems like you only want Chad around if he'll love you. Does that really make you any different than him?"

Nils cringed and drank some more while he thought about what Aimee had just said. He certainly wouldn't admit it to her, but there was a distinct reason that he hadn't come to Aimee looking for advice, and it wasn't because she didn't know what she was talking about. Let it never be said that she was too soft on the people she loved. He hadn't been ready to deal with the hard truths. Hell, he still wasn't ready to deal with the hard truths of his life as it stood.
But she did have a knack for getting to the point of things. Maybe she was right. They'd been good once, back before that trip. Chad had saved his life, Nils had spoiled him, treated him like a king, and things had been beautiful between them for a while. Maybe they should get back to that. Maybe it would take a lot more affection and respect and patience, and a lot less gimmicks and quick fixes.
He swallowed hard and looked at Aimee for all the world like a little kid about to get put into time out. "I... I'm so stupid."

"Damn right," Aimee said, grabbing for the bottle in Nils' hand. "And this. You have to stop this. Chad acts like a dick; you drink. We run into more weird stuff; you drink. Anything bad happens in our lives ever; you drink. I'm tired of watching you kill yourself, Nils. I know Ronnie's been doing her best to help you, but something tells me you haven't been doing the same thing. Is that anyway to repay her? Or any of us? We're here for you. All of your friends are here to help you, at a time when things aren't easy for us either I might add, and you just crawl into a bottle. It has to stop now."

Aimee had stood up abruptly in the middle of her rant, her knuckles white on the wine bottle. She was seething; her voice, while not loud, was razor-edged. She stared down at Nils, daring him to respond.

Nils knew that tone of voice. That was not a tone that he could safely ignore or even argue with. He slid off the couch and onto his knees when she stood up, fighting the drunken haze to stay upright and properly at her feet. He swallowed hard. "I don't know how, Lady." He told her quietly, "Can you help me?"

Aimee back-stepped quickly, almost dropping the bottle. In the back of her mind, she knew Connie was going to kill her for the drops that hit the carpet, but that didn't consciously register at the moment. Her face was a mix of confusion, worry and anger.

"Nils...Nils, get up. This isn't a scene, this is your life." She paused, her breath ragged and almost panicked. "And this is you doing it again. You're willing to take responsibility for something that wasn't your fault, and, because of that, giving up all responsibility for your actions now."

Aimee took a few steps to put the wine down on the end table near the door, placing herself between Nils and the alcohol. When she turned back, anger was all that was left in her expression.

"You didn't kill Chrys. It is not your fault she died. But the way things are going, you might be responsible for someone's death, very likely your own." Even in her fury, Aimee cringed a bit at being this harsh, but continued. "We're in the middle of something. A battle, a war, something I don't even have a word for. And thanks to Constance, I know a lot of words. This is big. Bigger than we could have conceived, and we need each other more than ever. I need you, Nils. Connie needs you, everyone needs you."

"And you're letting us down. In precisely the way you keep thinking you did to Chrys. You don't think we all took it hard? You don't think Constance cried herself to sleep for a week straight? Or Bea didn't almost injure herself worse running off her feelings? Its natural to want to punish ourselves for our friend's death. But we can't do anything about it, not now, not yet."

"I know you saw her death, felt it even. But how are you going to feel when its one of us. Are you prepared to watch Simon die, because you feel sorry for yourself? To see Ronnie killed, because you can't put down the bottle?" Aimee paused, tears streaming down her face, gulping. "What if Chad died because you weren't able to help? What you're doing to yourself, its killing us too."

Nils turned bright red and fumbled himself back on the sofa. He probably should have known better considering the context, but tonight he was so very frazzled and drunk and she had slipped into the dom voice in her anger.
His embarrassment faded quickly when Aimee started speaking again. He recoiled from the name, pain evident on his face.
He didn't want to listen, didn't want to admit that she was right, but he knew that she was, and it just about killed him. He started crying again as Aimee spoke, and it took every ounce of control that he posessed to stay sitting on the couch instead of going for the bottle or the door.
"Aimee. I don't know how to function without it anymore. That's not an exaggeration, that's just plain fact. I can't remember how I did it before. Maybe that makes me pathetic, or useless. I know I think it does. I don't have anything left to fight it with."

Anger turned to exhaustion in a heartbeat. Aimee paused, fingers pinching her nose again, before wiping tears from her eyes. Her voice was soft and measured when she spoke again.

"Then don't fight it alone. Ronnie trying to be there for you. Constance and I are too, and I imagine so is everyone else. Let us help you. Take a couple of days off. Come stay here for a few days. Between me and Constance, we can be here the entire time. And I'll be damned if I'll let you take another drink in this house. Hell, I'll send the liquor and wine over to Ronnie or Simon's."

She finally sat back down on the couch, her arm on Nils shoulder.

"Maybe we've been failing you too, not forcing the issue. But you're my best friend, roux, and I can't watch you do this to yourself any longer."

The tears finally got the best of Nils at that point and he started bawling like a baby into Aimee's shoulder. It took him a few minutes to get composed enough to properly respond to her. "I..." He sniffed, wiped his eyes, and tried again. "You would do that? I... I can't imagine it will be pretty."

Aimee managed to compose herself, letting Nils cry. She managed to get her breathing back to normal about the time he spoke.

"No, its going to suck, idiot," she said, using the French pronunciation. "It will be excruciatingly difficult. You'll want to drink, to scream, to do anything to make it stop. But we'll be here to help you through it. Whatever it takes."

For a moment, a ghost of a smile played across his face, but then he shook his head. "I couldn't ask it of you. It wouldn't be right. And I can't take time off of work now, with finals going. Not to mention what would have to happen with Watson. He hates everyone but me."

Aimee gave a lopsided grin at Nils' response. "Nice try. You're not asking; I'm telling. You need this. I have nothing better to do, so I can sit through every one of your classes if I have to. And Watson can stay in the studio while you're here. As soon as I remove all of my instruments, that is."

She paused, biting her lip for a moment before going on. "Nils, I want to show you something. Can you wait here for a second?" Aimee stood, looked at the wine bottle, and back at Nils. She gave him a sympathetic look before grabbing the bottle and taking it with her.

She was only gone for a few moments, her bare feet soft on the staircase. She was holding something small in her hand, but it wasn't until she sat back down that Nils could see it was a jewelry box. Silently, Aimee opened it, revealing what was obviously an engagement ring.

"This has been in my desk since the week after Chrys died, when we all found out about our parents. I've known for a long time I was going to spend the rest of my life with Constance, and, with everything that's happened, I want to make it official. It just never seems like the right time."

Aimee's voice shook a little, and Nils could see her blinking back tears again. "Next to Connie, you are the closest friend I have in the world. I want you to be my best man, and, for the last few months, I've been worried whether you'd live to see the wedding at all. I'm telling you now, I'm not going to let you miss it. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, you are going to stand there next to me and watch the love of my life walk down that aisle, you hear me Nils Anthony?"

It was the strangest feeling. He desperately wanted to fight Aimee on this, but the fact that she wasn't going to let him gave him the oddest feeling of relief. He was absolutely terrified, out of his mind with it, but she was taking the reigns and insisting.
He was more than a little confused when Aimee left the room to get something to show him. What could she have that would have relevance at a time like this? He couldn't help but smile when he saw what it was. Even after everything, this was still the happiest news he'd heard in a long time. She shouldn't have to be worrying about him, nothing should get in the way of that happiness.
It was settled then. It would be the epitome of selfishness for him to do anything other than do everything he could to make him not a source of worry. "Alright. I'll do it. What do I need to do?"