Fall Again (a Michael Jackson fanfiction)

29. Drunk

Michaels POV 🥀

The youngest patient, Elias, was a master at smuggling things in. He got his stepbrother Ben to pass things over the fence in the courtyard, standing on a log from the nearby woods .

He managed to get in a few bottles of tequila - and would stumble into my room drunk and giggling like a child.
He offered me a bottle, and I couldn't help feeling extremely extremely tempted.

Eventually I agreed, and downed it in about 10 minutes, grimacing at the strong taste and smell.

"Aren't we supposed to drink this in shot glasses?" I asked, licking my lips.

"You can drink annnyyyything in shot glasses." Replied Elias, drunk out of his mind. "Technically you could drink a shot of ...." He burped. "Apple squash ... or chocolate milk."

I rolled my eyes, but he hadn't stopped there. "Or ... a shot of ...." He thought for a minute .. "Tylenol!"

"Perhaps not." Hope appeared at the door of the lounge, that we were in. "Eli, have you been sneaking alcohol in again?"

"Nooooo. I'm just ....." Elias paused, his eyes half open half closed. "High on life."

Hope rolled her eyes and shook her finger at him. "Well if either of you vomit on the sofa you're cleaning it."

"What if we vomit OFF the sofa?" I asked, beginning to feel the effects of nearly a whole bottle of tequila.

"Michael, dearest." Hope said sarcastically. "Don't let Elias here lead you astray."

I burped, and tasted alcohol in my mouth. I burped again and Elias snorted with laughter.

"Lovely." Hope ruffled my hair, poked Elias' nose and headed back to the nurses office.

James came out to join us. All the old men were asleep, and the other patients were out on leave.
It was just us three on the ward.

Elias had blonde scruffy hair and looked a lot younger than his age of 18. He had a pixie-like, cheeky face, dark brown eyes and uneven teeth.

He must be at least 7 or 8 years younger than Hope, around 10 years younger than James, and over 20 years younger than me.

James no longer drank, so me and Elias finished off the bottle.
By the end of the bottle I was half lying on the sofa, my head against the side of the sofa and one of my legs dangling off, brushing against the floor.

Elias was telling jokes, not really funny ones but in my drunken state I would laugh hysterically at them, all the pain and stress in my life fading, fading from my mind until it was barely there.
A smoke screen.

All I cared about was the here and now, and oh how comfy the sofa was. I wanted to curl up and sleeeeeep forever.

Hope came through the lounge, and I tried to stand up, failed and landed in a heap on the floor.

Hope rolled her eyes as I went off in peals of laughter, lying on my side, all my hair in my face. She helped, practically lifted, me up, and I fell into her arms.

"Hopeyyyyy!!! You're so prettyyyyy!" I leant against her chest, then pulled myself up - looking at her with big sad eyes. "Do you think I'M pretty? Am I pretty, Hope?"

"Come on, let's get you to bed." She started to lead me down the corridor to my room but I wasn't done yet.

"You have a nice boooooty.." I slurred. "And boobies I like your big boobies! You are ... a GODDESS!" I declared dramatically.

"You're going to get a hell of a hangover in the morning." Hope warned, but I didn't care. I don't really remember how I got back into my bed, I guess Hope helped or carried me.

I laid down, about to go to sleep, giggling softly, and then leant over the bed and vomited violently, coughing and groaning.

I guess she heard the noise, because thr door squeaked open, and Hope was there again. "Oh, Mikey." She put her arms around me and gently lifted me out of my wet bed.

"I threw up." I stated.

"Yes, I'd noticed." She sighed. "You shouldn't be drinking while you're on all these meds, Michael."

Michael. She'd called me Michael instead of Mikey or Mike. Was she mad at me?

"You .. are you.. you called me mad instead of Michael so are you Mike at me?"

"Eh?" She pressed the call bell for someone to come clean up my bed and the floor while she took me to the bathroom, took off my pyjamas and hosed me down with the shower.

"Are you mad at me?" I managed to get it out properly this time, in the right order.

"Oh Mike, I'd never be mad at you. It's not your fault being sick, just try not to get carried away with Elias and all his tequila - YES, I know about that!"

"You said I'd have to clean it up ..." I murmured sleepily.

"I was joking, darling." She washed my hair, the tips were wet with regurgitated alcohol. I felt embarrassment as she washed my naked body, but she assured me she'd seen many patients without clothes before.

She had a plastic gown over her clothes to stop her getting soaked, I stood there under the shower and my pyjamas, which had splashes of sick on, were on the floor in a heap.

I covered my skinny body with my arms, humiliated. Hope seemed to sense that I was embarrassed, and she pushed my wet hair back to see my face. "Mike? Are you okay?"

"I don't like being seen naked." Then the alcohol made me burst into tears like a baby, which embarrassed me even more.

"Oh honey." She wrapped a big towel around me and helped me into clean pyjamas, and blowdried my hair for me, as I settled comfortably with my head in her lap and her soft, small hands stroking my cheek as she dried my hair root to tip.

Then she took me back to my room, and I heard her mutter to a passing nurse "Michaels pyjamas are in the bathroom, he's thrown up and they need washing."

My room was clean, smelt fresh, and my bed had been made with new sheets and blankets.  It was early, 6.30pm.

I'd usually need to have sedatives at 8 to help me sleep, but the alcohol had taken all of the energy out of me, so I fell asleep within minutes.