Navigating the narrow confines of the storage room felt less like an impossible dance of avoidance now that he had a little whiskey in him. It didn't stop his heart from starting up again, or his fingers from tingling, but maybe that was just his body fighting the booze. Yeah. That was it. Don't kid yourself, he thought, and got to work moving the boxes.
The chore was a salve for the many dark and forbidden places his mind seemed to wander to as of late. Movement always did help, whether it took the form of fighting, or labor, or something else. Much as he suspected that this busy work was Theo's own way of coping with his fiancée, he'd take the distraction, and gladly. By the end of it, though, the same dust that had affected the nobleman earlier had now settled into his lungs, manifesting as a particularly persistent and wheezing cough. "Fuck me. Seriously?" he muttered as he stopped to press a hand against the wall and lean over until he could catch his breath. Maybe he needed to slow it down on the smoking, after all.