Kieran was all wide-eyed surprise, through Jude coming closer and his hands on his belt loops, and he couldn’t hide the expression when Jude stepped back. He frowned up at the other man, sighed heavily, and shrugged at him. ”Sure,” Kieran said. Maybe he’d be better at getting out of this conversation when he was sober.

They made it the last few steps to Kieran’s building, and he managed to make it up the stairs without collapsing — although once he was in bed, he did only get his pants half off before hitting the mattress.

—

The pounding started at the top of his neck before hitting the back of his head, and by the time it hit the front Kieran had crawled to the wash bowl in the strange closet they used as a bathroom — although they had to go to a public privy for a real toilet or bath — and thrown up in it several times. Yellow bile hit the metal and splashed, which made him throw up again. When he was sure he emptied his stomach, he went to the sink to fill the pitcher with water drawn up from the well, and then drank it straight from the pitcher. From there, to the couch.

When the pounding started to fade, Kieran was starting to consider whiskey, or cannabis, or something else that would sap the feelings from his head and neck and stomach. He didn’t have any cannabis here, but they probably had whiskey. But he was still dehydrated. He sighed and padded over to the kitchen, where he nibbled at a roll Eileen had left.

He had a genius idea, then — one he’d tried a few times, but it made him feel like a degenerate and he didn’t want to do it much. He pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured some of the water from the pitcher into it. Now, to add a dash of whiskey —

When Kieran looked up from pulling the whiskey bottle out from one of the lower cabinets, he found Jude standing in front of the couch, which was unfortunate because Kieran’s wayward washbasin of sick was in front of it.