one day at a time (Terriers, 1x11 AU, post-breakup, consoling Hank, sick!Britt)
*SPOILERS for Terriers post 1x06, even though it aired in 2010 - some of you might just be getting into this show!
1x11, between flashbacks. Britt’s gone in a bottle and sick as a dog. Hank’s seen it all before. Lived it.
Hank sat on the edge of Britt’s (and Katie’s) bed, gingerly, like his ass would disturb the sanctity of the relationship those two used to have and share together on this sleeping platform.
Damn shame.
Britt was still in the bathroom. He’d gone to pee, he’d said, before staggering past Hank and bumping into the doorframe and haphazardly shoving the door shut. The lid had thunked heavily against the tank, piss commenced, the toilet flushed, and Hank waited. “I don’t hear any water running,” he hollered, just for the sake of noise. “I hope you washed your hands.”
Nothing. Then, a rough cough echoed off the porcelain, and, abruptly, most of a fifth of rotgut whiskey surged up in an unmistakable, graphic heave, splashing audibly into the toilet with what sounded like enough force to splatter the surrounding porcelain. Hank cringed, grimaced, turned his head as if to hide from the sounds. He knew all too well the demons Britt wrestled, and how it felt to cling to the rails of that shame-and-vertigo-fueled Hell Express.
“Shit, kid,” he muttered, sighing in absolute resignation and more than a little sympathy. Hands clapped on denim knees, aching joints popped in ferocious disagreement of motion, and Hank stood up to make his way across the hall and into the bathroom, accepting his roles as sponsor, priest, and hair-holder.
It was just as bad as he’d imagined. Britt, way past fucked up and absolutely miserable, lifted his head to look at Hank with shattered red eyes, tears streaming, nose running. “I can’t,” is all he could choke out. His face crumpled with fresh tears, and he abruptly doubled over with one last wrenching heave before slumping limply into the bowl with a pitiful little sob of defeat.
It wasn’t the grossest he’d seen Britt, but it was by far the saddest. It shattered Hank's heart to see the kid like this, and the knife in his gut twisted its familiar pattern of shame at the memory of Katie sobbing into his shoulder at Carter's diner, burdening the both of them with her forbidden liaison – a secret never to tell, a cursed vow of silence for the good of their favorite person. Hank knew he could (probably) stay mum, but Katie never could. The guilt was too much to bear.
“I know,” Hank murmured, kneeling down to rub his back. “Just breathe. It’ll be all right.”
He kept up the litany of trite reassurances as Britt gasped and coughed and spat, eventually regaining his composure enough to sit up and blink away tears, catch his breath in ragged little pants, and finally turn around to bury his face into Hank's day-old shirt and sob quietly like a little boy, fingers clinging desperately. Hank embraced him, puke and drool and snot and all, and held him tight, offering all he could to the man who had become not only his partner, but his best friend, his ride or die.
"I got you," he told Britt, murmuring into his greasy hair. "It's gonna be okay, kid. I promise." He glanced upwards to ward off the threat of his own overflowing tears, and inhaled resolutely. “One day at a time.”
