Don Juan had put himself into this position with the intention of holding Griffith still while he came down, but he'd seized up so quickly and erratically that it had caught him off guard, and they'd gone down together. He felt a surge of panic that he would lose the antidote, which he'd put on the floor, but there wasn't much to be done about it at the moment. Griffith was clinging to him and their bodies were too twisted together for him to extricate himself. This was a proximity he associated with sex and very little else (maybe once or twice he'd brawled with someone and ended up wrestling like this? He didn't remember; he certainly wasn't inclined to get into physical fights while he was sober). At least he'd managed to get his fingers out of Griffith's mouth before the man could accidentally bite him.

"By halves," he said, trying to confirm he had followed the earlier directions well enough. First dose all at once, afterwards by halves. Time in between. He was going to be insensible with need soon, himself — hopefully Griffith didn't need too much time. "Let me go," he said, trying to pry Griffith's hands away and struggling to sit up enough to find the solution on the floor, or the dropper he'd used to administer it; that had gotten lost in the scuffle just now as well.

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MJ made this <3

Bits of the room around him came into his field of view and vanished. For some reason the next dose was not yet there. His body fought in two different directions, pulled up, dragged down, outwards; Every signal was going haywire and he was blind with pain. He needed to make it to baseline quickly and efficiently. “Halves”, he pressed trough his clenched teeth, insensible to what the rest of his body was doing. Up on his high he could at least talk clearly. Now words formed in his mind but had no path to travel towards. It dawned on him that Don Juan might not be able to administer it well enough and that he might get stuck in hell.
With immense effort he pulled his seized hands away from the shirt. He felt the irrational impulse to strangle Don Juan. “All of it. Give me — one and a half. At once”, he tried to tell him, not sure if he would get it across.

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Don Juan thought earlier Griffith had said to give it by half a tick, not half of three, but who was he to argue? He wasn't the alchemist and he didn't know what he was doing. It got him to his goal faster: getting Griffith stable before he lapsed into withdrawal. (Getting him stable so that he'd have steady hands to redose Don Juan? He'd offered more before, but he'd been in no condition to follow through on the offer. Don Juan had been worried about his having too much, and concerned for his safety, but maybe there was a selfish motive too).

He scrambled for the antidote and the dropper. His lower half was still tangled in Griffith's legs. He had to blink twice to get the lines on the dropper distinct enough to be useful. One and a half — one and some amount, anyway, he wasn't sure he was capable of discerning a half very precisely at the moment — all at once, like Griffith had asked. He stooped over him to get the dropper back into his mouth and let it go, then immediately went to draw up the same amount again. No sense in delaying when he was only increasing the risk of error the longer he went.

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MJ made this <3

It was too much and it dropped him too quickly — this was not supposed to be done like this, it was dangerous. He knew that, still nothing could have prepared him. He felt like the floor beneath him and everything he could see of the space around him twisted and bore in on him. In his desperation, he violently clenched around the only thing that felt real, which was Don Juan.

It was maybe a minute of annihilation, of what he could scarcely understand to be himself and his body. His stomach was devoid of anything to get out; there was only a trickle of silvery poison and bile that mixed with the blood that ran copiously out of his nostrils, over his mouth and down his chin, dripping on whatever was beneath him. He did not strangle Don Juan in the end. He did not think so.

Up and down had not yet reestablished itself. His head lay against something warm. He felt cold and everything was wet, like someone had poured out a bucket of water over him. His face was wet too, with sweat or with tears he did not know. Sober, announced a voice in his head, like he had arrived with a train at a station. He did not want to get off here, he thought. He tried to open his eyes.

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Griffith's war with himself seemed more damaging than the last. He was bleeding, Don Juan noted with some alarm. That couldn't have been normal? It hadn't happened to him either time that Griffith had brought him down this way. He was afraid he'd gotten it wrong, either because Griffith had told him incorrectly or because he'd just made a mistake and not realized it. So while Griffith thrashed Don Juan pulled him close, trying to hold him still enough to prevent him from hurting himself, at least. Griffith's head was in his lap when he finally stilled again. Don Juan was poised with more of it, another one and a half like the last one, but paused when Griffith's eyelids fluttered.

"Are you back?" he asked, waiting to get a glimpse of Griffith's eyes. Normal pupils, as far as he could tell. Don Juan's shoulders sagged with visible relief. His hands were shaking. "I'm going to need something. Just — just enough to get me floating again." Just enough to prevent withdrawal. A loop he could never break out of.

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MJ made this <3

The room around him seemed to be swimming. It was dark and the blood on Don Juan's trousers was dark. Samuel's head laid in his lap. It reminded him of something that seemed so far away he was uncertain it ever happened. He laughed, and that made him cough. He coughed.

He did not have it in him anymore to be resentful of Don Juan's question. Of course, that was what he wanted; what he needed. Samuel got on his knees and felt in his pockets for the vial. The lines on the dropper were stark and clear in the shine of the gaslamp. He measured out a full dose and looked to Don Juan. His face was white and frightened. The skull seemed to want to come forward through his skin. Perhaps from hunger or dehydration, or because he had died tonight. Samuel was sure he himself looked like death. His mouth tasted like metal.

He took a hand to steady his chin and dropped the liquid on Don Juan's tongue. Then he measured out another and took it himself. What else was there to do? He had gone too far to turn and come back again.

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Don Juan Dempsey

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