Disorder Ch. 10

Blinking, the water fell away, if it could even have been called water, leaving him dry and gasping, sweating profusely, in the middle of John's living room. A tall lamp had been tilted askew and he stepped back from it warily as if something about its very change in being struck him as strange, unnerving.

Maybe it was so. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was a warning.

He should heed it.

John gritted his teeth before him, pupils only a little dilated, although his shirt was torn on the sleeve, blood trickling down his forearm. Donnie quirked an eyebrow, although a laugh did not rise to his lips that time. Just what was John doing to get all roughed up like that? That was going to be a laugh and a half surely...

Cautiously touching his brother's face as if he was not sure that they were making eye-contact, John's lips pressed together in concern that Donnie could not understand. What was his brother so worried about?

"Donnie, this hasn't gone right, I really think you need to get something else in you..."

"What, you're asking for that again?"

It was meant to be a snarky comment but, well, the prospect of 'that' didn't seem so bad anymore as he grinned and hung off John like a coat, arms around his neck and draped up against the slightly taller man. John tried to pick him off, pry him away, but Donnie was relentless, pressing up against him even as John swayed, off-balance and fighting for control himself.

"No, no... Not what I meant."

No, he couldn't be turning it down. That wasn't John. That wasn't like John at all. No... No, not at all!

Stepping back, Donnie gasped and stood there with his mouth open, arms limp at his sides as if they were weighed down too heavily to call back any measure of control to them.

"It's...not you?"

John, or the image that claimed to be John, blinked at him.

"What? What are you talking about now?"

And then Donnie was gone again, the voices screaming, nerves roaring, skin tingling and throbbing as if he was under attack from every side. He may have shouted in turn but the room turned dark and foreign, a scene from a video game where he had to get out -- out, out, out, any way to get out. The doors and windows slammed shut as he clawed at them, the kitchen whipping into view through the wide, open archway and, desperation searing through his heart, he lunged for the knives.

"No!"

That voice was not his but it was not theirs either as the wooden block holding the knives, such slick and silvery instruments of destruction that could pierce and slice and rip away everything that he knew. Maybe that was what he needed, something, anything, gaze slithering away, kitchen counters rising above him in a looming tower of a maze wall as if he had suddenly become a tiny mouse feeding on the crumbs that humanity left behind.

On the floor? Bearings, bearings... His thoughts slithered through his grasp, those silverfish with laughing faces, fins carrying them away through the water as if they needed to expend no effort at all, one scene after the other flashing through his head. Charles. The dark of the old apartment. Walking on the streets with the city lights illuminating the sky as if day. Screaming, shouting, so loud... Playing poker. The park. John holding him. The radio he'd once thrown...

An old memory. Not a good one. He sucked in a breath but something held him so tight that he could barely breathe, thrashing perhaps a little reduced, wracked in the heaving of sobs that only another could seal away for him. He thought he was crawling but he could merely have been flailing in place, fear controlling his body, paranoia screaming, howling, in his ear that it was all too late, that everything had come to be just as he'd thought it would. And it was all for the worse.

Do it...

But do what? His feet skittered and he was hauled back and off them, his route of exit (wherever he thought that may have been) receding from him as he howled and twisted, face red and tears streaming, wetting his face. If he'd been at all with his senses, he would have, of course, been embarrassed to cry so but there was no logic in a bad trip and no way to come back except in the arms of the only one who had always been there for him without fail -- even though he pretended to not be there when he was needed.

"It's okay, it's really okay... I've got you, I've got you."

He always came through.

"Shush... Quiet now. It's okay. Breathe. Breathe with me."

Subduing anyone at all who found themselves under the influence was a task enough but Donnie's thin arms and legs struck out randomly, sometimes hitting home and other times missing their mark, thankfully so. Still, John would find the bruises on his body the next day and make no comment on them as he pulled Donnie back into his chest, arms tight in a cocoon that would hold him safe and warm until the storm had blown itself out. A high, even a bad one, could not possibly last forever, after all.

It was slow, very slow, in fact. And John could not have said that he had a particularly high level of experience in dealing with people on bad trips, beyond restraining them. Sure, he'd had a few buddies that tended to go too far and react badly from time to time -- especially when they'd mixed drugs like intoxicants -- but nothing came close to the wailing mess of a man in his arms, mentality shattered in the chemical burst and reaction that had only been supposed to bring good things.

As Donnie heaved for breath, eyes wide and shockingly staring, he murmured to him over and over again, tucked into the corner of the kitchen near the floor-length windows, the dark of the night shining through at them. Or, more accurately, it was the reflection of them that he saw as the air conditioning whirred a little more loudly in the dead of the night, an ill-fitting backdrop to a time that should have been filled with softness and light -- pretty much all of the things that John shunned and scorned under normal circumstances. But, as Donnie's breathing finally evened out and cane back to something resembling normal, his pupils looked normal again, eyes pried open with a cautious, wary thumb and forefinger of John's.

"Do you know where you are, Donnie?" He asked, hating the waver in his own voice, although it could not be helped or even remembered in the aftermath. "How... How many fingers am I holding up?"

Of course, that one was an old joke and Donnie blinked slowly at him as if the mere act of blinking took far too much energy from him, the effort it required beyond his capabilities at that moment in time. And yet he was still floating on a sluggish high, needing time to come back around, but John had been there himself time after time again and there were certainly things that he could do for the only one that he wouldn't just leave in a dark, quiet room to sleep it all off.

"Alright, come on now, up you get. You can do this, just one step at a time."

No one would have believed that it was him speaking in such a gentle tone, guiding his brother and leading him through the house, which could have been ransacked for how it appeared in that moment. Most of the bottles behind the bar had been smashed and it had only been John's quick-acting even while high himself -- he, however, had not mixed that strain of crack with the tabs -- that had gotten Donnie out of harm's way in time, the bottles shattering down in a crystalline deluge of aromatic, occasionally sharp, liquid. If his concern for his brother had not been so steep, he would have lamented their loss far more than he did.

The stairs were more difficult but, somehow, John got Donnie up them, an arm slung over his shoulders as he half-dragged and half-lifted him up each and every step. A shower would help. Maybe the drugs didn't have so much of an effect on him anymore but he came around more swiftly than Donnie and made full use of that as he stripped him down -- nothing sexual this time, not when he had to take care of his brother -- and got him, loose-limbed and groaning, under the rainfall showerhead.

"There you go... Alright now? Better?"

But maybe he was just saying that to make himself feel like things were better for Donnie was in no sense or state of mind to reply. It was all he could do to help Donnie feel something that may have been approaching normal, sitting under the hot, pelting stream of water, the pressure turned up a little too high in an effort to bring him back to sordid reality. It wasn't much of a reality, unfortunately, but there was only so much that he could do and there was only one reality that the both of them, so far, could exist in, something that John was overly committed to maintaining.

There were clothes left there of Donnie's that John awkwardly helped him dress in, somewhat conscious of himself and aware of his surroundings, although John's throat ached with thirst, ringing raw and dry. He needed to drink, to look after himself too, but that was not something that he would have been bearing in mind at the best of times. No... It was much easier to look after Donnie, when it came right down to it, his brother the only thing, truly, that mattered to him. Not that he would let anyone else know that, of course, one more little broken, fragmented secret that he held close to his heart where no one would be able to snatch it away from him.

No one would take his Donnie away.

Back downstairs came more easily but, with sobriety, then came the tiredness and Donnie yawned and slumped against him, staggering and barely able to keep himself upright in the swamp of exhaustion. Belatedly as they paced into the living room, the majority of which was not dangerously wrecked at least, John realised that the awkward bandage he'd wound around his arm had soaked through with blood in the dampening of the shower.

Damn it...

"John?"

"Yeah, Donnie?"

"Can you sit with me for a while?"

It seemed to be more of a request in line with Donnie not being able to take another step, slithering down to the floor as his knees connected with a resounding and unbearably solid 'thump'. John went with him in an attempt to ease his fall but it did not do too much good as they came down close to the sofa, a long sigh rasping from both of them in turn. All in all, it had been an awfully long night.

"Sure thing, Donnie, don't worry about it."

But Donnie had already slipped away, his head against his chest as John drew his slightly damp body in against him, long hair retaining the most moisture from the sobering and refreshing shower that he'd managed to get him into. There was nothing more to do than to recover from the trip that had been supposed to be good and had turned out to be so very much worse, chewing up Donnie and spitting him out, the very beast that he sought to tame in the course of every demonic high that he summoned for himself running amok over Donnie.

John pressed his lips together, although there would be no blame even in his mind. It was what it was. And it was clear that what 'worked' for him didn't work for Donnie. Interesting... That meant that it was not the drugs that forced the change through in him, that shift in mentality and so much more, but something in him, something else. And he couldn't say quite what that was without further experimentation, although that was becoming increasingly difficult to do while he was on his own without anyone else there to record just what happened for him.

No matter... It would have to wait. Possibly for a long time. Donnie was the only one that mattered then, his chest rising and falling in fitful sleep. He doubted it would be dreamless for a long while, after how much he had inhaled and ingested respectfully. Maybe things wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't gotten his hands on the colourful tabs after he was already far gone, his fits and otherworldly hallucinations ramping up after that point. Still, John could not help but wonder just what it was that his brother had seen and where he had gone. Maybe he would remember when he was awake. Or maybe not.

Sighing, John leaned back against the sofa and dimmed the lights using his phone, not even daring to speak as Donnie slipped into a more blessed kind of unconsciousness in his arms, bundled up in the old blanket that held too many memories. Donnie had been the only reason that he'd kept the damn thing but something new and pristine, stiff with starch, may not have been suited to the moment. And there were so many of those moments between them too, reminiscent of so very many times gone by that weren't always due remembering in any form. There was only so much that two brothers could go through and those memories had the capacity to either make or break them... As a couple too, if one wanted to go down that route.

"Don't worry, Donnie," John said, although his words fell softly on sleeping ears. "I won't let anything happen to you."

He'd have someone else test the new batches first. Donnie could join him for the fun bit when they knew what they were putting into their systems, whether it was the good stuff or something more...feral. It would be a shame to miss out on the fun that he had in the unknown, the risk and the edge, but it would be worth it to know that Donnie would no longer be at risk from it. Not that he had been all that persuaded or convinced to do it on that particular day, but even John was aware that there was a kind of expectation that went along with it. If he was doing it, it went without saying that Donnie would do it, at some point, too. He might grumble and roll his eyes but he would go along, just because it was him. In a sense, it was his one biggest failing in wanting to please him.

He knew that. He knew that in the surprisingly fragile jut of his shoulders against his chest, his brother seeming bonier and more fragmented than before, like all of his parts didn't go together. John shuddered. What was his head doing, giving him thoughts like that? Maybe it was a bad batch of crack too, something that didn't agree with either of them? He'd have to have someone look into that, although no harm had been done in the end, for which he was quietly thankful for.

It took a lot for him to be thankful. Quite a lot, in fact, but it was a sort of thankful that day that no one else would ever be privy to and he was quite alright with that. Better than alright, in fact. It was best that no one besides Donnie saw this side of him. Who knew what would happen if his weakness was revealed to be the exact same as Donnie's?

The night wore on and, still, John sat up with Donnie in his arms, holding him close and tight. The air conditioning hummed lightly in the background with such quiet in the room but he did not dare turn on anything else for fear of waking his brother, chests rising and falling in unison as their rate of breathing matched. It would have been so easy too to slip into sleep himself as his eyelids grew heavy, weighing him down and sinking back and back into the too comfortable sofa as if he was going to give in to it entirely. But, no, he had to stay awake in case something happened to Donnie, in case he needed him. At the very least, after everything that had gone down, he owed his brother that much.

In his arms, Donnie shifted, clad in the draping of sleep. And John would not wish himself there too, leaning down to press his forehead, very lightly, to that of Donnie's.

One moment shared and not a moment lost.

"I'll always watch over you."