Dust motes danced about in the beam of warm afternoon sunlight that streamed through the open window, casting the library in a deep orange hue. They ignored the whims of gravity, floating about as they pleased until a small gust of wind crept in and disturbed them for a brief moment, scattering them in a chaotic jumble of activity before they settled back into their lazy waltz.

Camped out on the couch, my feet propped comfortably on the coffee table, I dozed—not quite awake and yet not quite asleep. It was the sweet middle ground where daydreams almost seemed real and the real world was almost a waking dream. It was to the point where I wasn’t even sure if there were foals playing outside or not, the sound of their laughter faint and distant.

I was so lost in the twilight realm of half-sleep that I didn’t notice the sound of approaching hoofsteps until someone slammed something down on the coffee table with enough force to knock my feet off, jarring me from my daze. Blinking, I worked to clear my eyes even as I looked around for the source of the disturbance, only to find Twilight’s unamused face staring back at me. “We need to talk. Now.”

Trying to calm my pounding heart, I smoothed out my wrinkled shirt with a shaky hand before replying. “Talk about what?” A glint caught my eye and I glanced down. A glass jug sat on the table, and from the markings on its side I was able to deduce that it was a jug of whiskey. A full jug of whiskey, as the amber liquid inside was still sloshing around from when Twilight had deposited it upon the table.

I frowned. “Hold on. That’s not one of mine.”

“Yeah, I know. It still has whiskey in it, so it can’t be yours.”

“Haha.” I rolled my eyes at the snarky barb before sitting up straighter. “You know what I meant. That’s not one of mine, so you can’t blame me for it being in here.”

“Oh, I know,” Twilight said. “I’m not blaming you for it. This is one of several that I brought from Applejack earlier today. It’s one of her stronger brews. You and I are finally going to have a talk, whether you like it or not. So get comfortable. We might be here a while.”

“You still haven’t told me what we’re talking about yet.”

“What else? Your drinking problem.” With a ‘thunk’ she pulled the stopper out of the neck of the bottle. A moment later that sweet-yet-pungent aroma of alcohol tickled my nose. Twilight’s muzzle scrunched. “Oh boy. That’s strong alright.”

“I don’t have a problem.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them. Even to my ears, they sounded stupid. Apparently Twilight thought so too, judging by the deadpan look she gave me.

“The dozen or so missing bottles of wine Celestia noted from her own private stash would say otherwise,” she huffed.

I winced. In my hurry to escape Celestia’s retribution for the piercings, I had forgotten to make sure that things were settled in her private apartment. The empty slots in her wine rack had probably stood out like a sore thumb.

“Okay, fine,” I grumbled. “So I might be drinking a little bit more than—” Twilight cleared her throat. “Fine! I’ve been drinking a lot more lately than usual, but what does buying even more alcohol have to do with it?”

“Simple,” Twilight said as she settled down upon a cushion just across the table from me. “You’ve been avoiding the subject whenever I bring it up, so…” Her horn lit up and two small glasses settled down on the aged wood with soft clinks. “We’re going to drink this stuff until you are drunk enough to talk about it.”

“Hold up.” I gave her an incredulous look. “Your plan is to get me drunk to talk about me getting drunk?”

“I didn’t say it was the best plan,” Twilight grumbled, “but you’ve pushed all other options out the window. So…” She poured a measured amount of whiskey into the two cups. “Here we are.”

My eyes narrowed. “Okay, let’s say I go along with this. I’m drinking to get drunk enough to talk about this, but why are you drinking with me? Wouldn’t it be better to be sober?”

“If you flagged your tail to someone you considered almost a second mother, you’d be drinking too.”

“Fair enough.” I studied the glass in front of me for a moment before gingerly picking it up. Swirling the whiskey about inside it for a moment, I glanced at Twilight. When she didn’t move to stop me, I knocked back the glass in one gulp.

Immediately, my throat felt like I swallowed liquid fire.

Gasping, I placed the empty glass on the table only to notice that Twilight’s horn was glowing, as was her stomach. A small swirling pattern appeared around her belly button for a moment before fading into her fur.

“What’s that about?” I asked with a nod of my head.

She froze, a nervous look crossing her face before she answered. “A cautionary spell. To help with my tolerance.” Picking her glass up in a cloud of magic, she raised it to her lips. “I haven’t been downing bottles as you have, so I’m ensuring I can keep up with you.” She paused with the glass to her lips before, with a grimace, she knocked her head back.

I had to catch her glass as it dropped from her magic. Coughing, she pounded a hoof against her chest, her eyes watering. “How… how can you stand that?” she wheezed. “It’s horrible!”

“You get used to it,” I said with a shrug.

“Why would you want to get used to it?” she asked.

I didn’t answer; just poured us both another round.

By the fourth glass, Twilight was able to down her drink without coughing. She’d still grimace and smack her lips, and a red hue was slowly beginning to spread across her face. We took turns filling up the glasses after each drink, and it soon became clear that I was pouring more into the cups than she was during her turns.

It wasn’t long before I began to feel it. A buzz fell over my head, and my movement became sluggish. There was almost a delay between when I wanted to move my arms and when they actually moved, and it took a great deal of concentration to make sure I was still pouring the whiskey into the glasses and not on the table.

Night was falling as we reached the bottom of the jug.

“So, are you ready to talk about it?” Twilight asked, finally breaking the silence around us. Her words were slurred slightly and one of her ears dropped against the side of her face.

Holding up the empty jug, I gave it a shake. “I don’t think you have enough alcohol to get me there.”

She frowned before screwing up her face in concentration. Her horn sparked to life, the usually calm aura of magic chaotic and choppy. She struggled for a moment before a second jug suddenly appeared on the table in a flash of light.

“Tada!” she chirped, a dopey smile on her muzzle.

“Works for me,” I slurred, already pulling the cork out.

Twilight’s smile faded as she watched me pour more whiskey into the glasses. “So, at what, um… at what… at what point do we stop drinking?”

“When we either run out of booze…” I paused to drain my glass. Letting out a belch, I smacked my lips before filling the glass again. “Or we pass out. Most of the time it’s the former, but sometimes you get lucky and get the latter.”

Twilight’s ears splayed back.

“I’m not… I’m not sure I like the ladder… latter… the last one,” she stammered. “That seems a bit ex-excessive. A bit much. Drinking like that can’t be too good for your health.”

“You don’t drink for your health,” I scoffed.

“Then what do you drink for?” Twilight asked.

I paused with the cup halfway to my lips, my unsteady hand causing most of it to slosh down into my lap. Squinting, I stared at the three Twilights swimming before me for a moment before draining what remained in my glass.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled, slamming the glass down and reaching for the jug again.

“Well, I do.” I blinked as the jug was suddenly pulled from my grasp by a rosy aura. Twilight held it close to her chest, hugging it in her forelegs. “This isn’t healthy for you.”

“Give it back,” I said, my eyes narrowing.

“No.” She clutched it tighter to herself, a wing splaying out to block my view.

“I said… give it back.” The words growled out of my throat as I felt a growing anger surge through me. My vision swam and it felt like the room was beginning to tilt, but I glared at the Twilights before me.

“And I said no,” Twilight shouted back.

I surged to my feet, causing the couch I had been sitting on to topple backward. Towering over the mare, I clenched my fists and snarled. “Give. It. Back. Now!”

“N-no!” Although she looked alarmed, Twilight stood her ground. “You don’t need it!”

“Yes, I do! Now hand it over!” We were yelling at this point, and somewhere in the back of my mind, a little part of me that wasn’t drowned in alcohol at the moment hoped that we weren’t going to wake anyone up. “I swear to god, Twilight, if you don’t give me that jug right now…”

“You’ll do what?” Her horn lit up and the half-full jug vanished in a burst of light. She gave me a stubborn look, one of her eyelids lower than the other. “You don’t need it, Max!”

“Yes, I fucking do!”

“No, you don’t! Why on Equestria would you need it!?”

“Because it’s the only fucking thing that keeps the goddamn nightmares away!”

CRASH

A muted pain flared up in my left hand, and I glanced down at it in confusion. At some point, I appeared to have gone to pound my fist on the table, only for the empty whiskey jug to get in my way. Shattered shards of glass lay scattered across the table. The bottom of the jug remained intact, a circle of protruding glass running around the edges, giving it the look of a jagged crown. A pool of crimson liquid rippled in the center of the ring of glass. As I watched, more dripped down from my left hand.

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight gasped. “Your hand! Why did you do that?” Her shot glass fell from her grasp and rolled across the floor as she stood up. Before she could move to help me though, I pointed my hand at her, my fingers crimson and wet.

“You don’t know.” My throat was suddenly tight and it was difficult to swallow. I stared down at the terrified mare before me, my breaths coming in short gasps. The room spun and my head throbbed, even as darkness closed in around the corner of my vision. My body shook, although I felt no chill.

“You don’t know,” I repeated, “what it’s like. Night after night. The ceaseless barrage of crippling nightmares and sleep terrors. Horrors so pure that you don’t want to sleep anymore, yet your body yearns for it. Forcing you to return there; to relive those experiences over and over again. To relive your worst fears countless times, unsure of when they will stop.”

“Max, I-I… I don’t…” Twilight choked out, but I didn’t hear her. Instead, I focused on my left hand, running the tips of the fingers of my right hand over the new gashes marring my flesh.

“Some nights I’m back there,” I muttered as I watched the crimson liquid flow. “Back in that room, behind the bars. Back in those endless halls. Back in that place of the damned. I try to escape—I always try to escape. Try to run. But I… I always end up back in that room.” My eyes narrowed. “Back with them.”

“Them?” Twilight asked, her voice small and timid. “Who’s… who’s ‘them’?”

“Them with their damn lies,” I growled. “Their damn lies and their damn story and their damn pills. They try to make me see. They tell me it’s not real, that it’s all in my head. They tell me I need to come back to reality.” Suddenly, I let out a bark-like laugh that caused Twilight to jump back in shock.

“What is reality?” I asked. “What is real and what is an illusion?” Lowering my bleeding hand, I looked to Twilight. “Are you real?”

She blinked in confusion. “Am I… what?”

“Are you real?” I asked again, louder this time. “Are you real? Is any of this real? Or is this all just a figment of my imagination?” Almost trance-like, I reached out towards her with my injured hand. “Is it all just in my head?”

Twilight didn’t move. She just sat there, her eyes wide and fearful. Even as my hand closed around her neck, she remained stationary.

I could feel her pulse against my fingers. It was quick and sporadic, sending life-giving blood coursing through her veins. Her fur was like velvet against my skin, the soft hairs brushing against my rough, calloused hands. My thumb brushed against her windpipe, and I stared into her eyes as she gazed up with me—silently—pleadingly.

“I need you to be real,” I breathed. “I need you… to be real… because I’m not… I’m not strong enough.”

Almost by reflex, my fingers tightened around her throat.

A cry of pain filled the room and I staggered backward, clutching my hand. The sliver of glass that was still embedded in my palm now dug further into my flesh, drawing a fresh wave of crimson blood. I collapsed against the toppled-over couch, swearing under my breath as my left hand throbbed.

Twilight sat where I had left her, a bloody handprint marring her beautiful coat, the red mark wrapping around her neck like a gruesome necklace.

“I’m sorry.” The sobs came before I could stop them. “I’m so sorry.” Keeping my bleeding hand aloft, I buried my face in my other arm and wept. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I…. I don’t want to be like this anymore. I just want the nightmares to stop.” There was the sound of shuffling nearby and a moment later a pair of lavender wings enveloped me.

“I know,” Twilight murmured, and I could smell the alcohol on her breath. She rubbed her cheek against mine. “I know. We’re trying to help you. But you need to let us.”

Wrapping my good arm around her, I pulled her close and didn’t let her go, even when we both slipped into unconsciousness.

~ ~ ~ ~ > > < < ~ ~ ~ ~

That night, I dreamt I was sitting under a massive tree whose branches moved and swayed even though there wasn’t a breeze. Somewhere, a soft feminine voice was humming a gentle song.

The world was peaceful and calm.

Author's Note

I'm back, baby.

Kinda.

Sorta.

Maybe.