If Don Juan had an ounce of common sense and self-preservation, Samuel thought, he would run away. Get back on opium and forget this ever happened. Instead he leaned into Samuel's hands and his eyelids fell half-closed, like he was a cat. Trusting. Samuel moved his head even closer, not sure what he was intending to do. He did not know anymore what he wanted. Maybe he wanted him. It would only be the logical consequence. He had taken so much from him tonight, had taken his life. Why not take the rest? He would manage to kill him yet. Doomed to repeat.

Better him than her, said a voice. "His name was Kazimir. He is long gone. You have his hair and face and his laugh and general," he lazily moved one of his hands to describe something he lacked the words for, before it settled against Don Juan’s face, against his jaw. "ephemera."

It was silent for a few seconds. Don Juan had finally closed the tap. The moment felt like it lacked any frame of reference. The shape of the room warped. What Samuel thought to be his life this morning was drowned in the bathwater. This morning, he had thought about the future. In his future was a tower. He went up the steps, the winding steps upwards—he cut off the image. He could not think about Themis; he would lose his mind. What was left of it. The concept of having a future eluded him, right now. His sense of time was destroyed. The past had found him, hidden in a new body, and pulled him under. The way forward was backwards. Or was it downwards? He was starting to confuse his metaphors. His body started to grow heavy and he thought about the vial in the pocket of his trousers. The downswing was coming. With the stream of hot water gone, Don Juan would cool out in his soaked clothes. There were two options left to them. "Either you get in," and we take more to stay awake, he omitted, "or I get out."

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   Themis Lyra

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Kazimir. Don Juan thought he'd had a reason for asking. Now he couldn't recall what it was, but he had the sense that this name might be important for something, at some point. He ought to hang on to it, not let it slip away like so many things did in this state of mind.

He liked that Griffith included his laugh on the list. He may have had few enough occasions to hear it but Don Juan was oddly bolstered by the idea that he'd been paying enough attention to listen. He liked the word ephemera, too. The temporary diversions, the things of a moment, precious for a day and then relegated to the category of useless clutter later. A bloom which was novel only for an afternoon before it began to wilt. Griffith may have been seeing someone else when he looked at him, but he'd still managed to figure Don Juan out pretty well. He had his hand in Don Juan's hair, his other on Don Juan's face.

Either you get in or I get out, he said. Don Juan didn't understand the urgency. He was already partially in the bath, with his arm drifting in the water, and his clothes were soaked. Getting in felt like a needless formality. And it wasn't as though he and Griffith were doing much, either of them. Why not just stay as they were here? Griffith could keep playing with his hair. Don Juan could close his eyes. Maybe eventually he would remember why it was he'd wanted to know Kazimir's name.

"There's no room for me," he protested, voice sounding very distant even to himself. In spite of this lazy protest he moved one hand to the top of his suspender strap and tugged it over. He made it nearly but not quite to the edge of his shoulder before the strap slipped through his fingers and fell back into his damp shirt.

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   Samuel Griffith

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MJ made this <3

The steam slowly cleared. His body was half submerged in the water. On his arms and chest and back settled a myriad of condensation droplets, splitting and diverting the light. It distracted him; he stared at the dew and contemplated if Don Juan was right and he had no space for him. Samuel came to no conclusion and he slipped his fingers under Don Juan's suspender on his right shoulder and pulled it over and down his arm. Then he did the same on the left side. Everything seemed to take a very long time. When both sides were out of the way, he turned back towards Don Juan and saw himself confronted with more buttons—holding together his shirt all the way down, in an endless column. He undid the first and felt exhausted. His head sunk downwards and he rested it on Don Juan's arm, that still lay on the rim of the bath. Everything got soft and dark.

Suddenly, water bit into his nostrils and Samuel startled awake. He had slipped face first into the water. In one sudden motion, he propped himself up on the rim and got up. The room spun. He got out of the bath anyway, half-closing his eyes, trusting his body to know what to do.

His body found its footing on the wet floor and he stood still for a moment. In the mirror, his own outline looked back at him. Someone had painted it in there with harsh brushstrokes and sharp angles. He reached into the pockets of the trousers hung up on the wall and took out the vial, to measure out half a dose. It was still night outside the windows—he feared the morning, and he could not fall asleep in the water. It was time. It was the only thing that made sense.

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Griffith was quiet long enough that Don Juan did close his eyes. The room smelled nice, between the clean steam and the oil that had spilled when the bottle shattered. Everything was warm. He lost track of what was happening, at least as any piece of it connected to a larger narrative arc. Griffith slipped one of his suspenders off, which required no reaction whatsoever from Don Juan. He did the other and Don Juan was obliged to lift his arm out of the bath long enough to get it free. Hands at his shirt buttons. He ought to do those himself, he thought, because Griffith had the wrong angle to reach the lower ones unless he was planning to get out of the bath... but he didn't translate the thought into action, just drifted back into the pervasive feeling of vague pleasant relaxation. He couldn't hold on to any thought more complex than this is nice for very long.

Griffith stood up abruptly. The sudden movement in a room whose timeline had seemed to be steadily lengthening was terribly disruptive. Don Juan sat back with a start and opened his eyes. Griffith was on his feet in front of him, a naked tower of flesh. Don Juan stared at his scars again. The fog in the room had dissipated. Had he been thinking logically he would have realized it was because the water was off and they'd left the door open the entire time, but in his current state he thought it was Griffith's scars that had chased it away. They had been on a cloud previously, and these things did not belong to clouds.

He didn't know what Griffith was doing when he walked away, until he moved enough for Don Juan to see what he was holding. He could see it clearly, he noted as a point of distant interest; his eyes weren't having trouble focusing now. Was he starting to come through? Was that why Griffith had that out? Don Juan couldn't remember how long ago they'd taken it last. It had just been the one dose since they'd both been forced sober, hadn't it? Or had they had already done this? Had he lost days here, in the anonymous Whitechapel address, pretending he was dozing on a cloud?

He shouldn't have more. He should stop. If Griffith returned with it already prepared in the dropper he thought he would probably open his mouth for it as muscle memory.

"What are you doing?" he asked, though he knew. He didn't know why this was the question that had come to him. If he wasn't going to take it he was going to have to leave, but the idea of getting himself out of here at the moment felt insurmountable. He rolled through his knees to a slightly different position, still sitting on the floor but closer to being able to stand. His trousers slipped off his waist and caught low on one hip. He'd forgotten he had his suspenders off. Most of his clothes, really. Had he been planning to stay? Had he planned anything?

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MJ made this <3

Samuel's brow formed an expression that suggested that the question made no sense to him. "I'm taking more," he answered. "It's that, or I pass out soon."

The increase in alertness with this drug preceded a pendulum swing into drowsiness; it was inherent to the things he had bound together in its creation—mechanisms that did not belong together. He was up for way too long already. His body would not withstand the suppression and stay awake without aid. It was devious, of course -- a substance that always put up an ultimatum. Take more, or drop. Take more too early or too much, and pay the price. Either way, trapped. He held the vial to the light and shook it. "I'm taking half. Not much left anyway. Perhaps two doses total."

Slowly and measuredly he took the dropper in his hands. They got steady immediately. His stomach sent out a wave of nausea in anticipation, but that would not deter him for a second. From looking at it, his exhaustion already lessened. He was well trained. The years of abstaining had not changed that, it seemed. Samuel dropped the liquid into his mouth and twisted up his face in displeasure at the taste. He shook his head. Water drops fell from his hair.

Looking at Don Juan, sitting on the floor and gazing up to him, he said: "It's fine if you don't want to," he told him. "I'll put you in my bed until you sleep it off enough to go home." While he spoke, he drew half a dose up into the dropper and held it over him; Don Juan knelt already. Samuels eyes surveilled the face below him with idle curiosity. He had a hunch what would happen, was almost certain. Perhaps he was willing to be surprised.

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Griffith had already taken it, just like that. It was funny how quick it was when it happened to someone else, when it ended with the drop hitting the tongue. Every time Don Juan had taken it the action had been wrapped up in emotion, which made it seem to stretch both before and after the act itself. There wasn't much left, Griffith said. That should have been a data point Don Juan could use to determine something, how long they'd been here or how much he'd had since the last time he was sober or something, but the truth was he had no idea how much it had taken to push him to the brink of death, and only the vaguest sense of how much Griffith had started the evening with. Part of the information diet that left Griffith in control and Don Juan dependent on him. It could have been any time, any day. He wouldn't know it was time to leave until Griffith told him it was, and that would only happen after Griffith had stopped supplying him, slowly cut him off and managed his transition back towards something that wasn't sobriety but passed for it.

Griffith wasn't weaning him off it now. The dropper was already filled, poised just above his nose. He said Don Juan had a choice, said he would put him in his bed if he didn't want it. Don Juan looked at the liquid in the dropper and let the rest of his vision unfocus for a second. He shouldn't want it. He should have had some feeling about the other side of Griffith's offer, the phrasing of it — put you in my bed. The pronouns. He should have felt something about that. He could not grasp what; he noticed the absence of the reaction but couldn't conceptualize what was meant to be in the space it left. If Griffith was going to take advantage of him, he could have done it already. Sometimes when Griffith looked at him, he saw someone named Kazimir. His ephemera.

The liquid in the dropper warped the light. Don Juan was sitting in a puddle of cooling blood-tinged water wearing only half his clothes. It had never really been a question, had it? He wasn't going home like this. He wasn't going to Griffith's bed like this, either. He took the dose and sat back on his heels, looking up at Griffith and waiting for it to hit.

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   Samuel Griffith

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MJ made this <3

The drops fell on Don Juan's tongue. His eyes were dark with something; they were dark with surrender, Samuel recognized. The release of tension one held to fight, when the truth became evident that all choices lead to the same outcome. Wasn't that peaceful?

Samuel held Don Juan's head steady by placing his left thumb on his forehead and his fingers in his hair. He touched him gently this time; there was no need anymore to demonstrate anything by force. They were grooved in with this and in a perverse way Sam was thankful that he wasn't left to go through this round alone while watching over Don Juan's unconscious body—again. "I did not do anything to you in Montparnasse. Nothing happened between us," he said to him and let go of his head, feeling more sure of this memory than before. "I just sat around and listened to your delirious talking, until you came to." They had a few minutes until first signs, and he felt tired and weak still, but the knowledge of what was to come created a buzzing feeling in his stomach. It would not be as strong of course, it was a half dose—it would be pleasurable enough.

He was struck again, from the corner of his eye, by the mirror image of them. His own nude body and Don Juan's kneeling figure painted a scene no one would dare to represent on canvas and stand by. They seemed to be residing in a future, the two of them, that Samuel was still fighting with; or fighting himself from manifesting into reality. There was one more betrayal, one more desecration of himself and his convictions left for him. His heartbeat quickened. Was it from the substance? Perhaps it was caused by the different impulses that fought for dominance under his surface. He shifted his weight slightly and looked back down to Don Juan. They could go somewhere drier, to buy time. Samuel wished that somehow the arrival of the next wave would take the responsibility of this decision out of his hands.

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Nothing had happened in Montparnasse. If he was sober maybe this news would have come as a relief but now it was more of a curiosity. Griffith could have told him that from the outset, but had withheld it. It was pointless to ask why; Griffith wouldn't know, or wouldn't admit if he did. The uncertainty had caused Don Juan no small amount of anxiety before. Had that been Griffith's intention in leaving the allusion to Montparnasse vague and ominous? Was it his intention now to offer this breadcrumb in order to put him at ease, to disarm him? Don Juan did feel at ease, but that had more to do with Griffith's hand on his head and the slow pulse of poison in his veins than it did with anything that had happened years ago between them.

"If you got into my head like this, do you think that I would feel it?" he asked idly. His thoughts had tripped from Montparnasse to the occasion over dinner where Griffith had forced his way in to Don Juan's thoughts — iterations on a theme, perhaps, past invasions. He wasn't sure he would notice if he had company in his thoughts at the moment... but he also doubted Griffith was in much of a position to attempt it. "Not," he said with a lazy flippancy, "That I've any more secrets."

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MJ made this <3

The muscles in his back tensed. The steam dissipated and revealed the ruin of this room. Water covered the floor, interspersed with broken glass. Water condensed on the ceiling and dropped down on them. It ran down the walls. Samuel felt awake again. The fight he fought with himself got pushed back and deeper into him, and he felt the buzzing settling under his skin. Don Juan knelt on the floor. His suspenders hung in the water, and his trousers were soaked, and his cut feet were streaked with red. Where his arms hung into the bath, they were white and clean, and the rest of him was sticky and dirty from rolling on the floor, from the violence of this night. It was strangely appealing. He thought that it suited him better than the evening wear he wore at the dinner.

Despite Don Juan being less exposed, Samuel felt that his own bare and cleansed body lorded over him a dignity Don Juan had not recovered. "You look a mess," he said to him, not without appreciation.

"There are always more secrets. The trouble with a secret life is that it is very frequently a secret from the person who lives it," he said. It was a quote, whose author eluded him. With a sudden movement, he bent down to Don Juan and grasped his face with both of his hands, coming closer and pulling him upwards to him. It could become a kiss, this sudden burst of energy and motion; maybe that was the source of the impulse, but it got redirected to something else; they locked eyes and Samuel sharpened his mind to a knifepoint and pierced the veil. Images flooded by, unsorted. He was not looking for anything specific this time, just took in whatever came up. He pushed forcefully and drew back quickly—he was messing with Don Juan. Toying with him, perhaps cruelly. "And," he asked, inches from his face, "did you feel that?"

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   Don Juan Dempsey, Themis Lyra

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Don Juan did look a mess. Wouldn't stop you, he thought. Maybe it was something in Griffith's tone as he said it, or maybe it was that they'd lingered in this position too long for Don Juan's thoughts not to turn that direction. If he looked down he would have been eye-level with Griffith's naked cock, after all. There was something oddly gratifying in the idea that for all his messiness Griffith would be undeterred — that Don Juan could sully him by association.

He didn't pay any mind to the remark about secret lives. The most recent dose was starting to hit him, and riding that up felt far more important. He started to close his eyes to focus on just that sensation, but then suddenly Griffith had his hands on his face, pulling him to his feet. He his eyes went wide with surprise and then — well, he ought to have expected that. His fault, really, for having asked the question. He ought to have remembered that Griffith always gave him what he asked for.

Flickers of memory and thought bubbled up in his brain, detached from any context. Trying to hold his hands steady while he wrote a letter to Hudson, pretending he was busy that night so he wouldn't have to admit he was going through withdrawal. The moment on the first night with Griffith where he'd hesitated before opening his mouth. The not-memory of the things he'd been prepared to do when he found Griffith again and begged for more. Taking his shoes off at the edge of Lough Corrib in December and thinking maybe I'll get frostbite. Were these things Griffith had gone looking for, searched around in his brain to find? They shared a theme, but maybe that meant nothing. Maybe if someone knocked over a container of thoughts in Don Juan's mind, desperation would always be what spilled out across the floor. Whether Griffith had done it purposefully or done it thoughtlessly or whether it had just been a twist of circumstances, with the next dose hitting his body the impact was the same: he felt just as he had in all those disparate moments. He was desperate, full of it; he could feel it choking his lungs and oozing through his pores. He wanted, and wanted, and wanted — anything that could shift him out of this, anything that could shake him loose.

He gasped and half-choked on the air and thought for a mortifying split-second he might cry, or at least that when he next spoke his voice would be raw with the threat of it. The drug caught him; he was still climbing on the latest dose and it wasn't going to let him collapse, though it did nothing to help the mania that had gripped him, the itch below his skin. It would help to be touched, but he needed more than just Griffith's hands on his face. He needed to be submersed in something, to drown himself. He needed to lose himself for a second and hope that someone else emerged on the other side, someone who didn't have this ache.

He shifted his weight and tilted his hips differently, which was enough to shake his trousers down to his ankles. He stepped out of them and closer to Griffith, and didn't look away. He didn't say anything but he didn't think he needed to. Griffith had just been in his head; he knew what Don Juan was thinking, feeling. Even if he didn't, the hunger was in his eyes. The invitation was clear.

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   Samuel Griffith, Themis Lyra

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MJ made this <3

There was no answer to his question and it was not needed. Diving into Don Juan's despair was familiar. Samuel smelt it on him and had seen it in his eyes from the second he sat next to him at the dinner table; no legilimency needed; no matter how much Don Juan fought him on this and how embittered he defended the mask he retreated behind whenever someone got close to him. Now he watched him be pulled under and saw his eyes fill with anguish. He had tried to shut Samuel out every step of the way—this was different. This last invasion he requested himself.

Samuel came the last two steps closer, crowding him back until Don Juan stood with the back of his legs against the hard edge of the bath, swaying and poised to fall. Sam held him upright and the both of them came to a standstill. He stood and felt the substance hit him. He shivered. He was already responding to the want that Don Juan addressed towards him—that was how this pathway worked.

His warm skin brushed against his own and the aliveness of this body assaulted his senses. For the first time, despite all the replacement-acts already done between them, his own body reacted. It was the substance, he could tell himself later, to make amends, that multiplied all sensations and was at fault. The dissonant and forceful feeling that acted in him and hardened him for what seemed inevitable had nothing to do with the storm of affection he felt so many nights and worlds away in the tower. Around them the room seemed to contract and expand. He put his hands on Don Juan's neck and did not know if he needed to kiss him or bite him, or if he wanted to push his head under the water and make the world go quiet and simple, reduced to one single question. Something seemed to go wrong with the impulses rising up in his body; tenderness and desire warped, love was misattributed and even hate and contempt could not survive. "You'll get what you want from me," he told him. "You know that." In Don Juan's mind he had sensed what he wanted, and sampled the pain that drove this desire forward. It all seemed terribly simple, all of the sudden.

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   Themis Lyra

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