[Master Post – Glass]
Title: The Third Glass
Fandom: Viridian Legacy: Glass
Characters: Severen, Arkady
Rating: M (L3 N0 S0 V1 D3)
Warnings: Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and Arkady talking about hospitals.
Notes: I'm still trying to get all my shit reloaded, properly. I'm missing like nine not-particularly-essential morphs for M4, and for some cocked up reason, none of the damn sliders work on V4 saves, which is making me extraordinarily cranky. So, instead of art, you get fic. This is one of two in a set I'm quietly referring to as Suicide Kings, and Arkady's at it again. But, sort of by accident, this time.
It was a completely unspeakable hour, but that was fine. Sebastian was good at unspeakable hours. What wasn't nearly as okay was that he answered the door just in time to watch Arkady hit the ground.
"Aw, shit. How drunk—" he started, but Arkady cut him off.
"'M not drunk. Promise. Hospital," he muttered. "Just got out."
"And you… what, caught a cab here instead of home?" Sebastian stepped out of the doorway and helped Arkady back up and inside, where he promptly re-introduced himself to the floor.
"No cab. No money. I don't have my wallet." Arkady was speaking strangely slowly, a bit disconnected from his usual whiny wiseassing post-hospital self. He seemed to need to think about the words, and that, Sebastian thought, was probably a bad sign.
"You walked. You walked here like this?" Sebastian put one hand over his face, waiting for the crazy to stop, or at least to slow down a little. "Evan, what the fuck were you thinking? Why didn't you call Betty? Why didn't you call me?"
"You don't drive. I'd fall off the bike, and you know it." Arkady grinned up from the floor. "'Sides, I didn't have change for the phone. You know what else I don't have? I don't have any Tylenol."
"Is that a request?" Sebastian asked, distractedly, still trying to get all the pieces to fit together.
"No. God no." Arkady buried his face between his knees. "My stomach will declare a coup."
"I should mention that I'm impressed. You can barely string three words together without staring blankly, but you can engage in political discourse about the state of your stomach," Sebastian remarked tartly, leaning against the wall. "Want to tell me what the fuck you were doing in the hospital, since I'm not seeing any bandages?"
"I didn't cut anything, this time. I swear, I don't even…" Shaking his head, Arkady looked up. "I swear, Sev, I just wanted some mushrooms. I know this girl, we had a few drinks, we had some shrooms, and then it was horrible. I don't even know what happened."
"I have sincere doubts you took enough shrooms to end up in the hospital. That takes a lot more effort than I think I've seen out of you, this decade. Besides, you smell unwashed, but you're not covered in vomit. That would seem to rule out alcohol poisoning, as well." The speculations Sebastian voiced barely scratched the surface of his curiosity, but he was relatively certain that calling the cat a bastard was not going to help this situation in the least.
"Pills," Arkady started. "I don't remember why. It was just a good idea. And everything was horrible, but if I took enough, it would stop being bad. You know I'm on downs, right? It's so I can sleep at night. At afternoon. Whatever. And so I'm not crawling the walls all day waiting for things to go bad. And things went bad. And I just didn't stop. And it just kept coming, so I just kept going…"
As Arkady trailed off, Sebastian just stared for a long few moments. "That … " he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying very hard not to say what eventually came out of his mouth. "You fucking moron. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, they let me out. I didn't just sneak out or anything." With a heavy sigh, Arkady tried to struggle to his feet again. "I just need to call Betty."
Sebastian hauled Arkady to his feet and staggered as fas as the couch with him. "You need more than that. Sit down and I'll get you some leftovers from last night. What's the last thing you ate? You look like hell."
"Ah, pfft. I think I had a sandwich on Friday, before I went to the club. It's what, Sunday? Monday? I might have had something, but if I did, I don't remember it. Tried to eat the hospital food, when they finally let me have some, this morning, but that wasn't food. I don't know what it was. Plastic and dryer lint, like everything in hospitals." The words were getting quicker, but the sense was still a bit dispersed. "I don't know how long I was there. I just know they moved me out of the ER at two. And then I heard someone say it was six. And then someone came in at eight, and they finally let me out about two hours ago. I spent six hours awake and strapped down in solitary*."
"Wait, what?" Sebastian leaned around the kitchen wall. "No, no. Your sense of time… Six hours? I'm going to have a talk with Sin, when he gets up. Six fucking hours… Who the fuck puts a suicide alone for six hours, even tied down? Possibly especially tied down! And more than that, do these people not know who the fuck you are? What the f—"
"No, Sev. They don't. Remember? We're home. Nobody knows who we are, and you like it that way. So do I. The fame washes off in the shower, with your face." Arkady sprawled across the couch, looking like re-heated death. "Besides, we've done this before. That's a reason they would keep me alone."
"Fuck this. You're getting my phone number tattooed on the bottom of your foot. Next time you're in for anything, someone's calling," Sebastian muttered, bringing back a plate of sweet-fried bean crepes — dessert burritos, Sin called them. "And it'll be mine and not Betty's because I like you."
There was a moment's silence, in which the two men stared at each other, and then Arkady burst out laughing. "If I die, she'll kill me. No, I mean it. She'll bring me back from the dead just to kill me again." He gagged a bit as his stomach decided to disagree with the laughter. "But, she's murder against the doctors."
"So is Sin, and he won't feel the need to kick your ass as soon as it passes the exit door," Sebastian pointed out.
"Still not sure I need another tattoo. Doubly not sure it'll do any good. Besides, do you want my exes waking you up in the middle of the night? No. Nobody wants that, least of all me, because they're my exes." Picking up the fork from the coffee table, Arkady started trying to eat. "Water?"
"Oh, shit. Don't tell me… How are you not dead?" Sebastian shook his head and went back to the kitchen for a glass of water.
"IV drip," Arkady mumbled between bites. "They took everything when I got there. Didn't cut my pants off, this time, though. I'd have been pissed. I'm not walking across downtown without pants. Pants are fine. Boots are fine. Pill bottle in my pocket still has my downs, but none of the Tylenol."
Sebastian froze, halfway back to the couch. "I don't… That doesn't…" His face twisted as he tried to make sense of the last sentence. "They left you with the pills you overdosed on, but no painkillers. I retract my earlier statement. You are less of a moron than whoever made that idiot decision. Not that I think you shouldn't have your pills; I know how crazy you get. But, in terms of policy, that's just fucking ludicrous."
"Probably a mistake," Arkady pointed out, with his mouth full. "Poured them out to count them and put the wrong ones back in. You sure Sin didn't already know about this?"
"Entirely certain. Beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt." A hint of colour crept up Sebastian's face, as he put down the glass.
"Oh my god. Jesus Christ, I'm sorry." What little colour there was drained out of Arkady's face. "You're just the only person I know this close to that hospital… I didn't think— Yeah. I didn't think. Jesus, man. Aw, hell…"
"Yes, but I live with him. There will be more of that later. And some more, after that. And then I will have to distract him with melon gummies, so I can cook supper." Sebastian rubbed his face. "You know how it is, around here. He's limitedly distractable, and I think he's finally finished his next article."
"Sometimes I think you don't know how lucky you are. I mean, not that I'm into Sin at all, but, you know… He's there. He's always yours. He's been there forever, and he's not going anywhere."
"Unlike your girl with the mushrooms, or any of the preceding dozen attempts you've made." Sebastian smiled wretchedly. "No, I know I'm lucky. 'The most fortunate fucker ever to fuck', in the words of a particular chemistry grad. I wish I knew what to tell you, but the only advice I can come up with is 'be an obnoxious prick to someone for three or four years'. It worked for me, and I've been just so, ever since."
"Jesus, we're hopeless. The difference is that you don't need hope, 'cause you've got a sure thing."
"Regretfully, I still need it. I can just get away with borrowing his."
Arkady sighed. "I'm so fucked. Give me the phone? I should get out of here, and let you get back to …" he cleared his throat and made finger quotes, "'borrowing his hope'."
"You know, if you come on to her within the first five sentences, I'm pretty sure she'll skip directly to punching you in the balls, and you can skip the shouting," Sebastian joked, getting the phone from the wall and tossing it to Arkady.
"It looks better and better, let me tell you…"
*Don't tell me this doesn't happen. I know the guy this happened to, just the other week.
