Paralyzer [Gotham]

BONUS - 8.5

I woke up with a groan, instantly moving to clutch my head and curling away from Victor's hold. Once my stomach stopped swimming, I pulled myself out of bed, stubbing my toe as I shuffled blindly to the kitchen. "Asshole," I muttered to whatever furniture it had been that decided to grab at me. If it were possible for a person to get the wind shortly knocked out of them and pee themselves all at once, I almost found out.

Unvoluntarily, I found myself hugging the table, taking a moment to examine where I stood. I was on the right path, but it seemed to no longer be the right path, as it was now obscured by my furniture. "What the hell?" I glared at the kitchen table as chuckles followed me over, taking a slow breath when Victor's hand fell on my back.

"You really shouldn't walk through the house with your eyes closed," he advised, everything in his voice mocking me.

"Bite me," I grumbled, jumping when he squeezed the back of my thigh. I relaxed into the table with a huff, paying attention to the way his fingers crawled from my shoulder blades to my neck. "What's with the switch around? This was not how I left it." Victor chuckled again, tapping a finger against the base of my skull.

"Think, you'll find the answer." I scoffed, did he not understand that the reason I drank was so I wouldn't remember the next morning? But he didn't supply me with any more information, drifting his fingers through my hair with the heavy weight of his stare keeping me down to the table. So, all I was left to do was groan as I painstakingly shuffled through the blocked mental compartments.

[Late the night before]

Twisting the key in the door, Victor kept a hand on my waist, allowing me to push the door open with one flat palm and the knuckles of my other hand, in my fist the last dregs of whiskey splashed around the otherwise empty bottle. "You know, the bird is more fun than I gave him credit for," I giggled, Victor's stare going wide.

"Is that the only bottle you cleared tonight?" he asked, concern written between the clear judgement on his face.

"No," I sighed. "Oswald helped me finish the other one. Teamwork." I rolled my eyes as the disbelief in his expression grew stumbling a few steps out of his grasp before he followed closely behind to stablize me. But when I walked around the couch he moved to sit, hesitating when he realized I was still standing at the coffee table.

"What?" he inquired, tone void of anything.

"I need it to be different," I sighed, turning my head around as I tried to drunkenly put together a mental floorplan. Since my mind felt like it was swirling with any movement, even that of just my eyes, I decided to turn to the skeleton standing a couple feet away. "Can you help me rearrange?" Lifting an invisi-brow as he sat on the couch, Victor surveilled the room, head on a swivel.

"Just the livingroom or the whole house?" he questioned, looking around once more before meeting my eyes, brow still raised.

"However much your willing to help with?" I tried, a slow smile pulling on my lips. Victor took a deep breath as the brow lowered back into place, exhaling it with a sigh as he grabbed the bottle. I reliquished it and felt my smile curve into a grin as he brought the bottle to his own lips and finished it off, standing as he released a tense breath and nodding me to get started.

[]

I groaned and held my hands over my head, Victor's fingers occasionally brushing over mine as he started a trail down my hair. "Why did you let me do that?" I reprimanded, though unsure if it was aimed at him or myself.

"I can only limit you so far before you start lashing out, remember?" he chuckled. "Your words, not mine."

"We gotta put it back," I mumbled, my speech garbling as I relaxed my face too far into the table. When Victor hummed I barely lifted my head to repeat the short phrase before falling back into the same, squished spot. His laughter was tangible now, I felt like the sound was attached to reigns and someone was pulling them rather furiously. When his volume got too loud I cringed, slowly pushing myself off the table and moving into the kitchen. I wasn't there long before a cry of frustration left me, those reigns cracking again as Victor's stare followed me. "I can't even find the coffee."

I felt pathetic as I leaned against the counter, clutching my head as he made the coffee. When the dark liquid had finished brewing, I poured a shot into my mug and then began making my coffee. "Hair of the dog?" he chuckled, his laughter now irritating me.

"It's never failed me before." I tried not to cringe as I drank the coffee black, the bitterness of coffee and the burn of alcohol pairing unwell without additives. All the while I corrected my hangover cure, Victor's chuckles never left me, the weight of his stare being it's only rival in presence.