Meanwhile our fever is rising; RP for (for onebehind)

[the_death_card]

CW: Involves mentions of abuse, PTSD, and alcoholism. Will also involve descriptions of withdrawal.


Jack knows Dylan had been drinking heavily the night before when he'd gone to bed. In previous placements, it would have been enough for him to lock himself in his room, shove a chair under the door, and not sleep all night, waiting for the sound of the first breaking bottle, for the yelling to start. The first few times, Jack had felt that dread at seeing Dylan drink, but nothing had ever happened, and old habits had slowly started to recede. He doesn't even close his door much these days, let alone barricading himself behind it.

There's a circle and an M on today's date on the calendar on the refrigerator, and he groans, reaching for a nicer shirt instead of the t-shirt he had been going for and throwing his comb into his backpack. Dylan's still asleep after he has a bowl of cereal and heads back to his room for his backpack, and he goes in to poke at him. It takes a minute before Jack's sure Dylan's actually awake enough to respond, to register it when he reminds him about the meeting with Madeline.

After that, he doesn't think about it until he's actually waiting outside Madeline's office, backpack between his feet. It doesn't occur to him to try and text Dylan until he's very late, just assuming he'll be there at any time. When he does finally call, it's quick and his message is terse while Madeline goes to find his file.

The meeting doesn't go well. It's not the first time he's had to make excuses for a foster, but he's always been scared, before. Today, he's mad. Jack doesn't mention the alcohol because he feels like he owes Dylan for the spots of trouble he's gotten him out of without having to bring her into them, but by the time she lets him go and he heads back to Dylan's apartment, shoulders around his ears and hands in his pockets, all he wants to do is find somebody and pick a fight.

It's the middle of the day, though, and he doesn't really want to get himself arrested. He heads back to the apartment, slamming the door behind him and throwing his backpack onto the couch with a little more force than is probably necessary. He still doesn't have a message on his phone, and he throws that onto the couch too before flopping down next to them.

It's then that the bottle and glass catch his eye, and something inside him stills - and steels. Neither of those get thrown as much as he wants to, but he heaves himself back off the couch and grabs them, taking them both into the kitchen. The glass goes into the sink - and what remains in the bottle goes down the drain. It's followed by the contents of every bottle of alcohol he can find in the apartment, and he leaves the empties piled pointedly in the recycle bin.

It's only once he's done that the fear hits, the red haze of anger clearing in the knowledge of what he's just done - and how Dylan's likely to react to it. "Shit," he whispers as he goes pale - and then he can't get to his room fast enough, grabbing his backpack and phone on the way. Most of the extras come out of his bag and a change of clothes goes in, and there's still the white of panic at the edges of his vision as he climbs out onto the fire escape and makes his way back down to the street.

Comments

[onebehind]

The drinking isn't a problem.

Dylan maintains that as fact. He's never shown up to work drunk, he's never laid a hand on Jack. His magic hasn't become unworkable because of it, and things are coming along, as far as the long game he's building up to goes. If one of those things stops being true, he might revise his opinion, but right now, it's not a problem. If anything, actually, it's a balm --especially now, when he and half the department on top of him are scrambling, working a case, trying to catch a killer who's been targeting kids in the tri-state area and is gaining momentum. Sure, he wakes up feeling like shit, more often than not, now, and sleeps too late, but that's not the drinking, that's the fact that, despite the fact that the former and latter are too young and old, respectively, all he can think of when they find another pre-teen dead in the woods are Fuller's kids and Jack. That's the job getting to him -- and fuck, who wouldn't that get to?

Never mind the fact that, when Jack reminds him of the appointment with his case worker, the morning everything goes to hell, he's too hung over to tell up from down through the throbbing behind his eyes. Never mind the fact that, when he misses that appointment and the calls start coming in, he never even remembers there's something else that needs doing in the first place. That's work, too. That's the fact that his head is elsewhere, drifting to and away from and back to the latest set of autopsy photos that are strung up two offices down the hall from his and Mike's, and his phone is on silent because he's in a meeting, and the nagging sense of something related to time is him not being able to remember if he mentioned to Jack that he'd be late, tonight. It's the job, always the job, and when they finally break for the night and everyone gets to go home, he maintains that even as he checks his phone and swears.

He doesn't bother calling Madeline back -- it's too late for that, tonight. Instead, he just heads home, first to his apartment in Vegas, and then to his actual home in New York. He opens the door, a hundred excuses and apologies on his lips; they all die when Jack isn't waiting for him, the responsible adult to his habits (work), for once. He doesn't notice the empty bottles, right away. What he does notice is that Jack is gone and so are a good handful of his things. His heart swan dives into his stomach and not because it looks like Jack made a break for it. It's more the fact that, despite all logic, his first thought is that it's going to be Jack on the boards at work, tomorrow morning. His heart gets halfway back up to its place in his chest after he realizes how stupid that thought is before it leaps again. The impact is no less staggering, and doubly so, as he loops back into the kitchen in his frenzy and sees the calendar on the refrigerator.

Fuck.

Fuck work. The drinking isn't a problem.

Fumbling for his phone, he dials Jack's number and waits, half-expecting to hear it start ringing in one of the other rooms. When it does, he lets himself breath again, albeit barely, and turns in a slow circle, for something to do with himself as he waits for it to connect.

[the_death_card]

Jack's phone is not on silent - but neither is it in the apartment. Somewhere in the city, he hears it ringing and pulls it free of his pocket, hand hovering over it as it continues to ring - before he swipes left to send it to voicemail.

He doesn't know what it means that it's taken this long for Dylan to call him considering he was expecting him to be home sooner. He's also not angry anymore, but he is still scared of what Dylan might do. He's never raised a hand to him even when Jack deserved it, but that doesn't mean he can stop thinking about the placements that did, where anything he did wrong, no matter how small, was reason for punishment.

This one's definitely not small.

[onebehind]

Dylan doesn't bother leaving a voicemail. He hangs up; he dials again. He'll keep calling until Jack answer the phone -- or until he decides to change tracks and call the cops to bring him home. Either way, he doesn't want Jack out there, alone, tonight. He doesn't want him out there, period, considering it's still New York even if there's no serial killers in this neck of the woods that he's aware of, but the added paranoia definitely is work, this time. He hasn't been without a drink long enough for the anxiety to set it, yet.

[the_death_card]

It starts ringing again so quickly that Jack drops the phone the second time. It's when it starts ringing for a third time that Jack realizes Dylan's not going to give up and actually answers just before it goes to voice mail again.

For a moment he doesn't say anything, which likely gives Dylan enough time to hear - and register - what's in the background. There's music nearby, the phone picking up the sound of a pipe organ. It's too late for many children to still be out, but even without the added noise, it should be immediately obvious - at least to Dylan - where he is.

The moment drags on before Jack finally, tentatively, says, "....lo?"

[onebehind]

Dylan can hazard a guess and it makes him feel better and worse all at once. At least Jack is safe, but. Never mind the fact that, despite that guess, the first thing out of his mouth is still a very sober, "Where the hell are you?"

[the_death_card]

Jack doesn't flinch if only because Dylan's tone isn't as sharp as he was expecting, but the word choice still makes him tense again, free hand tightening around the strap of his backpack. "'m at the park," he admits, because if he doesn't, Dylan's just going to call someone to find him or try and track his phone.

[onebehind]

"Yeah, I got that." Never mind the fact that he was the one that asked in the first place. Blowing out a long, heavy breath that rumbles down the line, relief obvious in the sound, even if he probably should be, will be mad, he closes his eyes for a minute, tightly. When he reopens them, he asks, "You coming home? Or am I gonna need to put in a call to the NYPD?"

Or come and get him. He'll probably come and get him regardless of what the answer to that is, honestly.

[onebehind]

In the end, it turns out Dylan should have had the nightcap, after all.

While sleep should be an easy thing, considering how tired he was when he went to bed, the case he's working and all its emotional ups and downs more than enough to exhaust him, not to mention those same ups and downs with Jack, but he still ends up just laying there, annoyingly awake, for what feels like forever. He checks the clock on his phone multiple times (if he falls asleep now, he'll be able to get X hours of sleep, still), then instantly regrets it every time, as he seems to remember reading, somewhere, that phone screens are just as damaging to sleep as computer screens are. He counts the tiles in the ceiling, just barely visible in the dark thanks to the glow of the streetlights coming in through the window multiple times, in lieu of that. He considers getting up. He thinks better of it because he's never going to sleep if he does, sure that either the notes he brought home or whatever mindless programming he can find on the TV at this hour will capture his attention, however half-hearted, until the sun comes up. He tosses and turns, thinking if he can just get comfortable, he'll manage, no problem. He debates buying a new mattress, because clearly that's the problem. Maybe he'll get one of those Sleep Number things, see how that works. And so on and so forth.

Eventually, mercifully, his racing thoughts finally calm long enough to sleep, but he only manages half an hour, at best, before something wakes him up. He's not sure what it is, ends up torn between the logic that it's probably just the house settling or Jack getting up to use the bathroom and the fear that his work has literally followed him home, somehow, and lays there, listening, until he decides it's nothing. He checks the time on his phone before he rolls over and the process repeats. By the third time and after a whole hour and a half of sleep broken by restlessness, he gives up entirely. The sky outside is starting to lighten, graying cast to the room proof enough of that, and he's bleary enough, now, to be frustrated. This is a waste of time. He has better things to do.

That in mind, he gets out of bed and heads for the kitchen. He spends another half hour trying to focus on the file he brought home while his stomach sours slowly, disagreeing with the coffee he made or the lack of sleep. Either way, it feels like there's a weight in his stomach, leaden and poisonous, that struggles to catch up with the rest of him ever time he moves. He wonders, briefly, if he's hungry, considering, even if he's about as keen on the idea of food as he usually would be, first thing, only this time without the hangover to blame and never mind the fact that his head still hurts like it is. He's not sure, but he figures, like the sleeping thing, he's apparently not going to be making any progress with his notes, so might as well think about breakfast. If nothing else, he at least owes Jack something more substantial than the sandwich and a half from last night.

Fishing a pound of bacon and a half-carton of eggs out of the refrigerator, he goes to work quietly as possible, not wanting to be the one to wake Jack up. The smell of cooking food can do that for him, he figures. It's certainly having an effect on him, if nothing else, the bacon as he sets it to fry, turning his stomach faster than the coffee, earlier, did. He swallows thickly, turns his head away, and wonders if, on top of everything else, he's getting sick. The thought evaporates when the feeling passes, and he turns back to making breakfast.

It's not long before the nausea grips him again, green fingers wrapping themselves around the weight in his stomach and pulling. This time, the only thought that occurs to him is that he needs to get to the bathroom, now, and not even bothering to turn the stove off, he makes a break for it at a sprint. He barely makes it before the taste of acid and bile touch the back of his tongue. The sound of him retching inevitably follows.

[the_death_card]

Jack does wake to the smell of food, though it's not nearly as appetizing as Dylan intended for it to be. He rolls out of bed and gets to his bedroom door before he registers the sound of Dylan throwing up, and he glances toward the kitchen as he heads for the bathroom instead, making a face when the visual confirms the audio. "You sound bad," he mumbles, still half-asleep, but it's better than asking the obvious question of whether Dylan's sick.

[onebehind]

"I feel like shit," he confirms, pulling his head up out of the toilet to glance back at him. He rakes his tongue over his teeth, makes a face at the taste, cursing that particular tick, and substitutes dragging the back of his hand over his mouth for trying it again. He needs to get up, brush his teeth. He's not sure he's not going to be sick again if he tries, however.

[the_death_card]

"You look like it, too," Jack returns, and there's some lightness to it under a thicker layer of concern. "You need some water or something?"

He glances over his shoulder toward the kitchen - he needs to get whatever's on the stove off it, but if he can multitask and get Dylan something while he's there, that'll be even better.

[onebehind]

"Gee, thanks," Dylan shoots back, half-heartedly. A pause follows, a breath out, and then more seriously, he continues, "But yeah, I wouldn't say no to some water." And some aspirin, maybe, when he's more sure he'll be able to keep it down.

[the_death_card]

"I'll be right back," Jack promises as he turns away, padding into the kitchen to get the pan off the heat and turn off the eyes. The bacon's a lost cause, and he wrinkles nose at it before he turns away entirely, going to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator and a glass to pour it into, taking both back to the bathroom.

"Here," he offers, passing it off.

[onebehind]

They keep him in the hospital for five more days. He's aware of this only because, when he comes out, the first things he asks Jack for are his watch and his phone. It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but the stubble on his face, edging into a beard, now, confirms it. It doesn't sit well with him, having lost that much time, but he doesn't dwell on it for long, quickly consumed with making phone calls (one to Jack's school, so they don't try and grab him for truancy, later, another to the outpatient rehab program the hospital showered him in pamphlets for, another to work, to check in) and then trying to decide what, exactly, he's going to say to Jack. He doesn't remember opening the door to Vegas, but he must have, if Jack was stuck here with him, the whole time. He doesn't remember telling him his real name, either, or the how much he might have given away, beyond, but he feels like the magic bombshell wasn't the start of it or wasn't the end, either or.

Either way, he has a couple of the guys from work bring his car to the hospital, so they don't have to catch a cab back to the apartment, and the drive home is spent in silence. He's still tired, too, on top of everything else, but that's -- less pressing, now. He can think beyond it. He can think, period, because if he remembers nothing else, he remembers how fucking fleeting every thought he managed was, at least. He can cope with this, even if he's less sure about the rest of it, and he bounces back and forth between those thoughts, back to what he's going to tell Jack, and back again the entire way there. It's not until the door's closed behind them that he bothers dragging himself out of his head and hunt for his words.

"Before we start with any of this," he begins, leaning back against the door. It's either that or head for the kitchen, where he knows there's still booze, and despite having possibly broken the physical aspect of what he recognizes as addiction, he still itches for it. He wonders briefly if that will ever go away. "Before we start, I think we oughta go home."

[the_death_card]

Jack spent most of the time in the hospital aside from a few nights at the Fullers' (despite his assertions that he would be fine in Dylan's apartment on his own). He'd had to borrow Dylan's credit card to get himself some clothes and other things he needed, considering he had no way of his own back to New York, and the whole thing had just made him feel adrift again, like he was back to living out of his backpack - but with the bonus of feeling like the new roots he had started to put down had been ripped right back out of the soil. He'd tried not to think about it too much, considering he knew that wasn't the case, knew this wasn't something Dylan would have chosen to happen - but he's unsteady again, and he's a little worried about what comes next for either of them.

He's just as quiet on the way back to the apartment here, shouldering his bag and following Dylan up to the other apartment. He nods at the suggestion, potentially a little too eagerly - but he wants to go home so badly he can taste it, wants his room and his stuff there and to maybe finally get some answers as to what the hell he discovered at the beginning of all this.

"Yeah, please," he breathes out, a little despite himself, but, well. He means that.

[onebehind]

"Alright," Dylan answers, flashing Jack a brief, apologetic look. (He never meant for things to get this bad -- he honestly didn't think he had a problem, until now.) It lingers until he pushes away from the door, turns back to it and works his literal magic. It returns all over again when he pulls open the door on New York and glances back at Jack. "We're gonna have to walk a little bit."

Barring a miracle, a crisis, he couldn't get them all the way home if he tried and he's sorry for that, too.

[the_death_card]

There's still a small amount of awe on Jack's face as he watches Dylan open the door, watches New York appear behind it, but there's also a lot of relief - he's been homesick for the entire city as much as he has just the Brownstone - and he shakes his head to dismiss that apology. "No, it's... it's okay," he says quietly. "Kinda glad for it," he admits, because again: he missed the city.

[onebehind]

"Yeah," Dylan answers, at a loss for anything else. He steps through the door, gesturing for Jack to close it after he comes through, too, and once that's done, starts off down the street again, in silence.

He plans on keeping that silence, too, until they get home, but another apology rises out of him, despite all his intentions. "Sorry you got stuck in Vegas for a week, too." Never mind the fact that it was probably better for him and the lie he's been living for years, now.

[the_death_card]

Jack closes the door behind them, falling into step with Dylan, hands in his pockets. "It's okay. It was kinda my fault anyway." He gave too much away to Fuller that they had to get there to cover up for whatever Dylan's been hiding.

[onebehind]

Dylan isn't entirely sure what he's expecting, when he gets back to work after nearly two weeks off, but he's pretty sure what he gets isn't it.

For one thing, while everyone seems to know that he was in the hospital, that much having made its way through the rumor mill, it seems like no one knows why -- or not the real reason, anyway. He keeps waiting for it, for someone to approach him or maybe avoid him, based solely on what he is, was, whatever, or to look up and catch half the office giving him pitying or disgusted looks before the all look away, but it never comes. The worst he has to deal with is Cowan, who goes for the hand sanatizer every time he has to touch something he has, and tells him in so many words that he'd better not cough on anything in remotely in his vicinity, convinced he still might be contagious, convinced he had the flu. All of them, save Evans and Fuller are, and as much as it's a comfort, it's a burden, too. It's just another lie for him to keep track of, even if he's no more inclined to tell the truth, here, than he is likely to announce to the office at large why he really joined the FBI in the first place.

For another, despite all that, it's relief being back. Not that he's bothered by all the time he's gotten to spend with Jack, lately, that much admittedly and very nice, it's more -- well, Jack hasn't been there, twenty-four-seven, and every time he's been alone for too long, every time he's gotten bored, he's started to feel the lack of alcohol. It's not like before, not enough to make him sick, addled, the physical addiction broken, but God, he burns for a drink. By the end of the week, he lost count of the number of times he ended up pacing the apartment while Jack wasn't around, just short of literally climbing the walls. Or maybe dismantling the kitchen, fixing things that didn't really need fixing and cleaning things that didn't really need cleaning. Or going out and running ten miles. Or -- the list goes on, really. Anything to distract from the restlessness, the want. Having to go to work again, having something to focus on beyond trying to find something to do that doesn't involve running down to the liquor store helps. He's grateful for it.

For another-another, the case has progressed more quickly than he might have expected in two weeks, and he has a lot of catching up to do. Which means he can avoid being alone with Fuller. He spends most of his morning in a meeting with Evans, who catches him up on as much as he can, and then he's sent to his office with a folder containing the finer details and told to get up to speed by the end of the day. It also means that Fuller is too busy to corner him while he's hiding out in his office. Or so he thinks, anyway. Unfortunately for him, however, lunch breaks are still a thing, no matter how short they may have been cut under duress, and he loses track of time and place and self, quickly.

He doesn't hear his door open until it's too late.

[king_ofwands]

If the door opening wasn't enough of a cue, Fuller's voice is as he declares, "I swear to God I'm taking a page from you next time and adopting a kid who's more than two years old."

He groans as he helps himself to one of the chairs in front of Dylan's desk, setting his coffee on the edge of Dylan's desk so he doesn't have to juggle it and his sandwich. "Or figure out a way to plug them in and save money on my power bill."

[onebehind]

Dylan glances up at Fuller as he enters, looking not unlike a deer in headlights and for more than just the fact that he didn't hear him coming. He looks away just as sharply, despite how casual this all seems. He wasn't kidding when he told Jack he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to look Fuller in the eyes for a good, long while after all of this shit. He's afraid of what he might see, beyond the attempt normal conversation.

And fuck, his eyes sting just thinking about it. He closes them briefly, tightly, and shakes his head. To his credit, however, he manages to keep his voice steady, if a bit flat, when he answers. "Do I wanna know what they did, this time?"

[king_ofwands]

"You name it," he returns. "Flushed an entire roll of toilet paper, crayons on everything including the walls and, somehow, the ceiling." Fuller pauses a beat. "How does a toddler reach the ceiling?"

[onebehind]

Despite himself, Dylan can't help but snort at that. He's not sure if Fuller is telling the truth or, even if he is, the story isn't meant to make him laugh regardless, but -- well, mission accomplished. It's a funny mental image.

"Depends on where it is. If it was the kitchen, say, it makes more sense." Mostly because there's generally more things to climb in a kitchen.

[king_ofwands]

"Closet," Fuller returns as he unwraps his sandwich. "So, maybe the same principle. But what you're saying is I'm either actually raising a monkey or a future champion mountain climber."