A Court of Flame and Shadow (Azriel x eris)

Chapter 22: Azriel

Friday, 14th of June, one week until the wedding, one week until Azriels person torture was over, or perhaps one week until it truly started.

Azriel woke to meet the sun glaring in his eye, starting his day with a pounding headache. His next movement was to reach for the bottle of wine that he kept beside his bed, and had been drinking from as a reflex for a week, only to find empty space, and a frowning Elain.

"I am not giving you this back until you promise to pull your head in." She snapped, holding up his bottle.

"What?" Azriel asked, rubbing at his eyes, vision blurry. 

She repeated herself, slightly calmer this time. "I'm worried about you, Az. You don't drink, but these past few weeks... I can't believe what I am seeing!" She shook he head sadly, siting at the foot of his bed. "I'm your friend, and I want to look out for you, but I am also being selfish - I need you. You are my Man of Honor, so if you would please act like it..."

Azriel sighed, pulling himself up to sit. "I'm sorry El, I am. You're right, I don't drink. And I should be better for you! You're getting married in a week." He reached out to her. "Can I please have my bottle back now?"

"No!" Her voice broke, as did whatever wall she had been holding up against her emotions. "Dammit, Az! I'm trying to be gentle with you, I am, and I understand you're going through a hard time now, which is probably none of my business, but that does not change that I need you! I do! So I am not going to give this back to you, at all. I will not let you drink anymore, at least until the wedding, because I hate what it is doing to you, and I need you, so please, please just promise you'll stop!" She had completely broken down into tears, leaning against the bedpost. "Please, please promise me, I'll do anything!" Elain wailed. 

"Oh, Elain, I promise, I'm sorry, I promise I'll stop." Azriel said quietly, crawling across his bed to wrap his arms around her. "I'm sorry." Hers tears landed softly on his shirt, little raindrops of a white desert. She returned his hug, pulling him close to herself.

"What can I do for you, Azriel? Do you need to talk to someone, or travel away, or take a break from work?"

"Stop- stop and think about yourself. Talk to me. You come in here, and you obviously needed to cry, so do, and talk to me, and I'll talk to you!" He pulled her face to meet his.

"Promise?" Her voice was broken, the tears tracking down her face to create a disturbingly sad crying porcelain doll look.

Azriel nodded.

~

A brisk bath later, Azriel sat at the small couch in his room sharing prawn crackers with Elain, while she explained her woe.

"I want to marry Lucien, I do, but I wish he wasn't who he is - no, not like that, I wish his father wasn't Beron, and his brother wasn't Eris, and that he wasn't a High Lord son - it just makes it so much harder. We needed permission from a male who hates him just to marry, and now he's making us marry in this strange, unfamiliar place!"

Azriel frowned. "Have you spoken with Lucien about this?"

She shook her head. "He is so much more stressed then me, about so much stuff, I wouldn't want to put more on his shoulders."

Elain turned to him. "Your turn."

"Its not easy to explain. And I wouldn't want to give you anything else to worry about."

"Can you give me a vague idea? It might help."

Azriel exhaled a long breath. "I am in a very difficult situation- romantically. I can't tell you anything else."

"And your solution was to drink yourself silly?" Elain gave him a bemused look. "I don't see the correlation."

"Coping mechanism. I think if you asked Rhys or Cass they would tell you its been that way for a while." Very true. The past five hundred years had been him on and off compulsive drinking, all depending on the state of his relationship with Eris.