It was to Billy's great surprise that he found himself drunk.

And quite to his consternation that he was... enjoying it.

He frowned at his glass, mostly empty as it was, maybe half an inch of rich amber liquid swirling at the bottom. He could not, at that precise moment, remember what it was that he thought must have been so distasteful about being drunk.

The first tentative sip had been strong, of course, scalding his tongue and searing its way down his throat. But it was a shivery sort of warmth, and before long he was looking at his fingertips as though they were ten small personal miracles, hung on the ends of his hands like stars. Marvelous thing, a sense of wonder.

He frowned, trying to concentrate. The chair beneath him was comfortably warm, the lights in the gunroom subdued. It must have been the middle of the night; Maison was not there. Timing, he thought. Timing surely had something to do with the evils of alcohol. It was bad to be drunk when there were children about, clamoring for you. Bad to be drunk with a gun in your hand, bad to be drunk in the confessional...

But how could he feel bad, when his arms were pleasantly heavy and for the first time he could remember, he wasn't worried about-- well, anything? He couldn't even remember what there was to worry about.

The orphans were safe, and fed, and looked after. The house was standing, even most of Aquvy was still above the surface. His sister was speaking, and laughing, and she'd grown an inch and three quarters since the last mark on their bedroom doorjamb. There had been some business about God, and a battle, and the ending of the world, but it was sort of fuzzy in the back of his mind, a dormant monster that he was content not to provoke.

Nothing, then, to disturb his budding sense of satisfaction with the world; nothing with which he needed to concern himself.

A tiny corner of his brain whispered, "Bart."

Billy blinked, and waited for the lump in his throat, waited for the tightness at the base of his spine. Nothing happened, his stomach remained butterfly-free. He laughed, for no reason, an incongruous lightness in his chest.

Bart was asleep, quite close; his emptied glass still clutched in his hand, his braid snaking across the table between them. Billy remembered something, vaguely-- and laughed again, when he realized he'd just out-drunk the King of Aveh. Without actively trying to.

Should teach him for trying to best a Black, Billy thought, fuzzily, proud without knowing it. Maybe it was something his father had taught him. No, that couldn't be right. Maybe it was in his genes. Or in his nano-whatsits.

Billy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Serves him right, he thought again, without remembering why. He lifted his glass in a clumsy toast, downed the rest of its contents in one gulp. How many glasses did that make? And what'd Bart want to drink with him for, anyway? He was-- had been-- a priest, and not very good company. Bart must've been awfully hard up for drinking partners if he--

It had been pretty strange, going to Solaris, the gravity adjustments in their gears not quite right. Too, it had been a stretch of the imagination when their party had invaded Mahanon and taken potshots at God.

But it was the headiest of upside-down sorts of moments, when Billy thought: Bart is lonely, too.

Must have been the alcohol, the careless slide of heat through his veins. Must have been the lateness of the hour. Billy found himself touching an unsteady hand to the side of Bart's face, tracing an invisible line from his eyebrow to his mouth. His skin was desert-warm, and gold from the sun, and Billy forgot to be intrigued by his own fingers, lost in the wonderment of Bart's jawline.

He didn't know when their faces had gotten so close.

He wondered if Bart would taste like sunshine.

Without warning Bart's good eye opened wide, something in his gaze urgent as the blueness of the sky. Billy tried, but he couldn't find the words to ask if he was still drunk, or if he'd remember this in the morning; consciousness was slipping from him like the receding tide on some long-ago Aquvy dawn.

When Billy woke he was in his own bunk in the Ygg's sleeping quarters, headache behind his eyes and heaviness on his heart. He shrugged on his cape and vowed not to forget, now, just what was so bad about drinking.