Don Juan felt as though Griffith were taunting him, though there was no mirth in his expression. You could have stopped it any time, Griffith said, like either of them believed it. Don Juan was an addict. He wasn't going to turn down a high, and he wasn't going to exercise a wealth of self-control once he'd started. Griffith could claim he'd had a choice because he was never going to force-feed it to him, but how much was it worth that Don Juan asked for it? It had killed him ten minutes ago and he still wanted it now. Griffith knew that, both because he'd been in this position before himself and because he'd watched Don Juan for the past ten days debasing himself over and again in pursuit of another dose.

But he had his answer, in any case. Griffith hadn't been scheming this since the moment Don Juan had arrived tonight. No elaborate plot. Just a creature of impulse, the same as him. Maybe addicts never really got better, he considered. Maybe Griffith had just managed to swap opium for something else.

"Alright," Don Juan said, and now his voice was shaking too. "Open up." He gave the command verbally but Griffith was sluggish to respond — the usual delay of motion, likely, that came with being this high. Don Juan was eager to get this over with, and anxious that they wouldn't make it through before he started feeling the symptoms of withdrawal, so rather than wait for Griffith to follow direction he used his thumb to pull the man's chin down. Under the tongue, he recalled. Was that an important detail, critical to the success of the antidote, or was that just something Griffith had made him do? Don Juan wasn't about to put himself through this and then have Griffith die anyway — he put one finger in Griffith's mouth to prop his tongue out of the way. Then, with another breath to try and steady his shaking hand, he gave the first dose.

Griffith had said time between but he hadn't said how much. Don Juan didn't have a watch in his pocket and he didn't know where the nearest clock was. He could feel the knot of dread at the back of his skull already that would eventually sprawl out through him and cause the sickness. It was going to be on him before he could leave here, he realized; getting Griffith sober again was going to eat through too much time. Being here in withdrawal was worse than being here high; he'd be squarely back in Griffith's control.

"Fuck you," he mumbled weakly. He didn't know if Griffith could even hear him, but it didn't matter.

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