He pawed at his mug, trying and failing to grip its wet surface with his movements impaired. And so, he resigned to watch the frothy amber substance bubble, resting his head against the hardwood counter. The chill of the wood cooled his warm and clammy skin of his face, and he relished in the sensation. Then, his eyelids shot ajar as the bulb of a bright idea lit within his head.

"John buddy! Can ya lift this 'ere drink for me and tip it in me gullet? Need some o' this liquid poison 'ere ay? I ain't 'ad not eben one of 'em drinks!" He slurred with every word, speech dragged to almost ineligible levels. Only the fact that John had heard the man speak like this every Friday night was enough to bring it from the brink.

"No can do, mate. You seem just about ready spew your breakfast out across the bar. But..."

Pausing for a moment, John bit his lip in consideration. "All right, how about this: I get off my shift in about... five or so minutes, so I'm sure bossman won't be too mad if the bar is unattended for that long. I'll take you home."

He was appalled, a look of betrayal stretching across the sweaty, peached contours of his face. "Whaaa? Why'd ya do it, ya know? Not good man? I'm as sober as a... a sober man. Yep. Sober, ya know?"

John ended up, just a few minutes later, with the man strung across his shoulder, barely conscious and muttering nothing of any meaning. It took him another thirty minutes the get him home and tucked into the covers of his bed. He was just lucky that the man hadn't drunkenly misplaced the key to his apartment earlier at the bar. It had happened before.

The drunk man smiled contentedly, wriggling deeper into his duvet, and muttered three choice words. "Love you, mommy."

—

Voices trickled into his ears, muddled and unclear. One brusque, he could tell, one dainty and light. No light laid beyond his eyes, the world whole dark. As time trickled on its unceasing flow, the voice grew to clarity. At first, only bits and pieces of words deigned to grace his mind, but that soon changed.

A man and a woman, he now knew, engaged in conversation.

"Correct, the values displayed here do show a certain level of aural cognizance that may prove him a suitable candidate. However, you know as well as I this is not enough to grant such a boon." The man spoke, tone unyielding. His words were easy to grasp but the context lay far beyond him.

"I so do know as you do, but must we truly be sticklers to the rules? We are not truants you know, we are not bound by their oaths." Her tone was in direct contrast to the man, light and airy and seemingly uncaring for any and all consequences. Something stuck to his mind, that he shouldn't be able to tell so much; he had never been this observant.

The man let out a weary sigh. "Fine. The rules will be stricken to the beyond for this one, who you find to be worthy of your focus. He will be granted the boon." The last word echoed with a tone of finality and yet, hesitation, as if the man truly did not want to do this. Though to him the decision had seemed not to take long, he knew that it had taken long and that he had only caught the tail-end of it all.

He could feel his body now, bound by metaphysical chains that toiled with control over his body without truly restricting him. His back lay against cold, damp stone, each and every divot in its surface strengthened in consequence of his absent vision. All thoughts he had ceased now, as the man spoke one last time. "It is done."

—

The world once more came to gradual clarity, first followed by sound, then touch, then sight. He laid against something cold and damp as the stone he had been against moments prior, but it was different. He reached to the ground so he could tell what exactly he lay against; it was soft, brittle, and fell away between his fingers mostly, the damp bits sticking. And then—

He gasped. Finally, clarity of mind had touched down, everything finally progressing past the blockade that had kept him from truly thinking. And he bolted to his feet, frigid air snaking between his limbs to tell him something; his body was bare. Naked. Bare naked. He was, also, no longer beneath his covers.

"Fuck!"