There was nothing, and then there was violence. It arrived the only way violence did: rudely, somehow an interruption even though nothing had come before it. A careless and invasive disruption. His body, still a moment ago, was at war with itself now. His insides seized, his stomach twisted. He should have thrown up, but it was as though nothing in his body was connected any more. His stomach couldn't get the message across to his throat and as a result all the bile in him leaked out to the empty spaces between his ribs. He coughed — uselessly, because if air had made it to his lung yet his lungs didn't know it; they had nothing to expel. The first thing he became aware of external to himself was that someone was holding him. That was good — if there hadn't been someone to hold him together, his body might have torn itself apart. He felt as though he were already in pieces, if the pieces were were angry and forced into a container too small to hold them.

There was a voice. Don Juan was in too much pain to make sense of words. There was a hand on his cheek. He opened his eyes to search out the face of the person it belonged to but his vision wasn't cooperating yet. His eyes rolled uselessly. He felt dizzy. Somehow his hand had risen to rest against the outside of the man's hand. (Man — that was right. He knew where he was, he knew who this was. It was just that the world hadn't resolved enough yet for him to find that information in his head). His body was convulsing — at least his insides were. He didn't know if it carried through to the rest of him or if it was contained inside his skin. He was impossibly grateful for the fact of being held.

Mouth open. He knew that was what he was meant to do now. Possibly that was what the voice had told him. His mouth barely felt like a mouth at all; too dry, like every drop of moisture had already been wrung out of his body. He managed to part his lips slightly, but then ruined it by coughing again. Dying, he thought — the verb, tenseless, enveloped him. He was dying, had been dying, would be dying, is at this very moment dying. One or all of the above.

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   Samuel Griffith

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Don Juan's convulsing body in his arms became the pinpoint center of Samuel's existence. He still did not feel himself. Every sense he had of his being seemed tied up in wrangling this body out of the clutches of death; it might as well have been his own. Every twitch and movement against him caused a tangle of considerations. He angled him more on his side against his chest in case he vomited because he saw him half-retch ineffectually; it wouldn't matter to him, as long as he did not breathe it in. Don Juan tried but did not succeed in opening his mouth, as if he heard it when he told him that he needed to take two more. It was a struggle to get him there. His jaw kept flinching shut until Sam forcibly held it in place.

With great diligence he placed the next drop under his tongue. One minute until the next. He tried to count the seconds but time sluggishly crawled, then lurched forwards. He kept checking for the beat of his heart, holding his palm against Don Juan's ribs under his shirt. He kept running his fingers over his hair and face. Something strange seemed to be happening with his own heart; he could not decipher it. It was entirely out of reach.

Finally one minute was sure to have passed them by and he gave him the last drop, procuring a cup of water that stood in his reach on the desk after he set the vial to the ground. "Drink," he urged him and held it against his lips. He had lost so much fluid. Don Juan was drenched and Samuel was too, down his front where they were in contact. The acidic substance needled against his skin. Somewhere, the shut out experience of himself pressed against the barrier.

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Pieces of information about his current situation occurred to him in flashes, briefly surfacing between continued bouts of internal violence. Eventually he could knit them together into something like coherency. Griffith's abandoned flat in Whitechapel. He'd been here a lot, recently. He knew the taste on his tongue — the concoction from the first night that had forced him to sobriety. (Withdrawal to follow. It made you sober; it didn't stop the sickness. For that he needed —)

Griffith was holding him like someone would hold a child; like he was fragile. If he were fragile his insides would have already torn their way to his outsides. He might need to throw up. When was the last time he'd eaten anything —? Griffith was handing him a cup of water. The world was regaining focus. His mouth felt as though it had never had a drop of moisture in it. If he drank this too fast, he was going to throw up. The glass was at his lips. His skin was slick with sweat, by the smell mixed with —

His head felt heavy, compared to how light it had been when he was high. Reality was darker, sharper, more menacing. Dread was forming in the pit of his stomach already, for being in such a dreadful place, for the sickness he knew to expect, for everything that had just happened. It had killed him. He knew that. And still, if he had a chance to exchange the dread in his stomach for the haze of positivity that came with a high... if Griffith asked him again he was sure he would still choose —

Don Juan coughed. He'd drank all of the water and managed to weakly push the glass away, then turned his head and vomited on Griffith's rug.

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It got on his shirtsleeves. He did not care. Samuel held Don Juan and waited until he was done throwing up until he vanished it. Vanishing a man's vomit while he was still busy puking seemed, somehow, rude. He was not able to let go of him; it was impossible.
By the buzzing of his body Samuel became aware that he was emerging from the greatest thrill of all. Every cell was alight, every nerve fraying. He was shaking. Outwardly it was barely perceptible, but if he paid attention he felt the tremor deep inside of him. One sequence repeated behind his lids every time he blinked. Dark eyes, extinguishing their light and coming alive again. Time had reversed. The dead returned. He had done it. Made it right. Had he not? Done what?

Sam was still terrifically high. He looked at Don Juan and struggled to parse who he was. For a moment he could not connect that it was not Kaz, that he was not 26 years old, in a lightless room just like this one. The room where a part of him was locked away forever, to which he must always return.

It's not him. But you also killed this one — just for the sensation of bringing him back. This is the most depraved thing you have ever done.

The last dose, the one he knew was too far — had that been one or a double? He was not sure; he did not trust himself at all anymore. Had he wanted for this to happen? His shoulders shook. He laughed. "What a mess," he said. "What a mess."

He went to wipe over his eyes and was reminded he could not because he still held Don Juan. His body felt entirely spent, like he was on the tail-end of strenuous carnal activity. He wanted to collapse, but was held upright by the fact that he needed to take care of this beating heart underneath his palms. It only beat because of him. It might as well be his.

"What do you need?" he asked Don Juan. It was hard to tell for Sam, but the man's pupils looked small. Was he entirely sober and going into withdrawals? "More?"

It could have meant more water, or more of the drug. Perhaps Don Juan needed food, or a bath. Perhaps he would want to flee home. Had it been enough?

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   Don Juan Dempsey, Themis Lyra

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His body was spent. His stomach was empty and his muscles were weak, though they still occasionally spasmed with the aftershocks of having come down so forcefully. The only thing that had prevented him from collapsing onto the floor even before he'd finished soiling it with his vomit was the fact that Griffith still held him. It felt perverse, this position, but he lacked the willpower to crawl away. Griffith asked what he needed. Don Juan didn't know, could never have conceptualized an answer to that question if given a hundred hours to consider it — but then Griffith volunteered more and he thought immediately yes. That was the wrong answer. He knew it was. He shouldn't consider having another drop of this stuff ever again, after what had just happened. Griffith wouldn't give him any, anyway; he'd probably offered just to try and get Don Juan to beg for it, so that he could have the satisfaction of denying him. I could lick it off my skin, he thought shamelessly. Griffith had said that the first night, hadn't he? When he'd used this to get Don Juan sober after pulling him out of the Orchid he'd said the opium was dripping off his skin, mixed with his sweat. Some of it had soaked into his clothes and hair already but he could see beads of it standing still on his exposed forearms.

Griffith could kill him again. That ought to have been deterrent enough. He was sober now, and if he took more of it he wouldn't be, and once he was high Griffith could give him anything and he'd probably take it without even the slightest alarm. Would Griffith bring him back again? Would he even be able to? He was high himself now. Don Juan could see it in his eyes. He didn't know if that was enough to keep him from submitting to it again, though, if it came down to it.

"Let me go," he muttered, fighting weakly to sit up. If he was going to leave, he had to do it before the withdrawal set in. If he was here when the sickness started — no chance.

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   Samuel Griffith, Themis Lyra

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MJ made this <3

Let him go? Samuel tried to make sense of it. He tentatively set his intentions towards releasing him from his arms. They did not respond to his request. "I don't know if I can," he said, mildly surprised by the fact of the matter. This all seemed not quite serious to him, and at the same time of the utmost importance. He did not want to release him. Don Juan's body seemed to tether him to reality. Its warmth kept him feeling alive, even though it was unpleasantly wet and smelled of chemicals and bile. It was his now. If he let go, his own dissolution would begin.

Well, he thought, maybe that was alright. Dissolving didn't sound so bad.

Finally, he managed to relax his arms far enough for Don Juan to be able to slip out of them, if he tried. "Best I can do," he said matter-of-factly. And he sunk backwards and felt the hard edge of an armchair at his shoulder.

Where was Don Juan even going? He would come crawling back, Samuel thought. He saw it in his face, was completely certain about it. There was nowhere he could go to get away from himself. He closed his eyes and waited, very still in the dark.

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   Don Juan Dempsey, Themis Lyra

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The words should have been alarming, except it was so abundantly clear from Griffith's tone when he said them that there was no malicious intent in his holding on to Don Juan. No intent at all — he was past that point, maybe. Life was happening to him instead of his having agency in it. Don Juan knew what that was like; he'd been there. Tonight and so many nights before this. Griffith's head lolled back and his arms relaxed just slightly. Taking more tonight would be an act of suicide, he realized. Griffith was going to be in no condition to save him again, and in no condition to stop him from taking too much in the first place. He might be in need to saving himself — and that was a sobering thought, even more than the antidote that had forced the drugs out through his pores.

"Hey," Don Juan said with sudden urgency. He sat up and twisted around, still essentially in Griffith's lap and still loosely enveloped by his arms but able to look him in the face. He had his eyes closed. Don Juan cupped his hand beneath his cheek to lift it off the edge of the chair. "How much did you take?"

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   Samuel Griffith

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MJ made this <3

Samuel was drifting out into the dark. It was good. He was tired. It was peaceful. The hard edge of the chair ceased to matter to him, until it was superseded by the feel of a warm and clammy hand on his face.

Very slowly he opened his eyes, to see a familiar face. Dark curls and a wide brow, now furrowed with worry. Why worry? "You're back," he said, glad, even though he was not sure if he was seeing ghosts. It took a second to remember the question.

"Two," he said, then: "No. Two and a half." He tried to remember how long ago, but could not. "I will take another half, if I need to be more awake again. Soon, maybe" he continued, more to himself. It seemed he was in the downswing phase of his first two doses. Two and a half. Measuring them out would need to be done with care, but he would manage. He always did. His eyes had closed again and he opened them to see if the face was still there. It was. Why? This was Don Juan, who had wanted to leave him. He contemplated him with mild curiosity.

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Don Juan didn't know why he'd asked, because the answer was meaningless to him. Two and a half, but what amount was too much? He didn't know what was usual; Griffith had always controlled the dosage. He didn't even let Don Juan take it himself, and honestly Don Juan had never taken a particular interest in the process before it was time to take it. How much had he had tonight, before he'd needed the intervention? He didn't know.

"No more," he said. His tone was gentle. He told himself maybe it was because he didn't want to startle Griffith or alarm him, but maybe it had something to do with the way Griffith was looking at him, too. It was difficult to be firm when someone was regarding you with such unabashed sincerity. It was unnerving. It's the drug. "We need to wake you up the other way."

He was hoping Griffith was still coherent enough to know what he meant, and to give some indication of where it was. Don Juan certainly hadn't been cognizant enough to have seen where he'd gotten the last dose of the antidote from, and he wasn't going to help Griffith by guessing at the alchemy table.

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MJ made this <3

Now his own face furrowed into something like worry. The other way? The antidote. Samuel sighed. He was not keen on this. "It's on the floor," he told Don Juan. "Somewhere close to us."

It was indeed noteworthy that he was at the point that he for a second considered taking anything Don Juan would measure out. Maybe he only did because his hands did not obey him when he tried to feel for the vial himself. They just lightly twitched. He tried to focus his eyes but couldn't. "Don't give me too much at once. I'm fine. Just tired," he told him, unsettled. He was not overdosing, yet. Granted he was not far away, but this antidote was tricky. It packed a punch. "I can try getting to the bath instead," he offered, stalling. "Cold water might get me awake enough to measure myself." Why was he bartering with Don Juan? This had all gone wrong. Being so out of it while Don Juan was sober and in control had never been part of his plan. He felt a slight edge of panic through the numbness.

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   Don Juan Dempsey, Themis Lyra

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Don Juan glanced down at the floor to scan for the antidote, but Griffith's continued muttering did give him pause. A bath was a terrible idea and he knew it. In the state that Griffith was in he could easily slip below the water and drown himself. Don Juan would have to hold him. That might have been manageable if he was firmly sober, but he wasn't just sober — he was sober and edging towards withdrawal, and he knew it. He couldn't be responsible for someone else's life if he was shaking. Or — worse. He'd had too much tonight, and he'd come down too fast. He didn't know what the sickness would be like, but he could imagine. He had to do something about Griffith during the small window he had between now and when the symptoms started — but even so it was tempting to cave. He had never been an alchemist. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know how much to give him, or how to administer it. He could end up killing him, probably, if he made a mistake. The bath was a terrible idea, but it was Griffith's idea and Don Juan would have only minimal agency in it. If he died in the bath, it was a terrible accident. If he died taking the antidote, Don Juan had killed him.

Indecision wasn't an option either. If he died here, overdosing on the floor, would Don Juan be culpable for that?

"No," he decided. "Tell me how to do it." This was madness. He didn't know if Griffith was capable of remembering whatever it was he needed to know to give the instructions. He continued scanning the floor, hoping it would catch the light. He could have called it with a spell, if he'd had his wand — he had no idea where that was. Probably left an hour ago when he'd taken off his jacket. A thought occurred to him as he looked and he glanced at Griffith's face briefly, wondering whether to ask. Time was of the essence now, so he didn't have any to waste — but he also recognized he was more likely to get an honest answer than he ever would be again.

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   Samuel Griffith

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MJ made this <3

No? Samuel felt a twinge of anger, a violent jab that made him awake enough to slightly move his right hand. Don Juan needed to put him on the floor and leave him alone. He was not dying. He was not that out of control.

But he knew that Don Juan would not do that. Begrudgingly he needed to concede to him that he was not the type to leave him alone to get on with it—or not.

Samuel felt cool glass at his fingertips. He remained silent. Being at Don Juan's mercy during the painful way towards a more sober state did not sit well with him. But if he did not go through it, he remained even more vulnerable. A double bind. Damned either way. "It's at my right hand," he said finally. "You need to look at the demarcation and you draw up to three lines. That is the initial dose. Then you go by half lines. Half. No more. You need to give me time in between. No more than six halves after the initial," he listed the instructions. Those he knew in his sleep. He swallowed hard. His heart rate picked up in his chest, unsteadily and fluttering. He was not ready for this ride. But it seemed he had no choice.

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For a moment they were both staring at each other. Was Griffith considering him the same way, trying to decide something? It was difficult to tell what calculations, if any, were occurring behind his drooping lids. Don Juan could only see slivers of his eyes, and those were all blown-out pupil. After a moment he announced the vial was at his hand. Don Juan didn't believe it, until he looked down and saw that it was in fact there by his fingertips. Was it rational for Don Juan's first supposition to be that Griffith was lying about it? Maybe, maybe not; they had moved past the point where reason mattered much. He scooped it up and ran his fingers over the edge, trying to follow Griffith's instructions as he spoke and mentally map them out over the object itself. Three lines, by halves. Time in between.

He'd had it at his fingertips already. The delay in saying so could have easily been the drugs; sensations drifted in and out and sometimes it was seconds between making a conclusion in your brain and being able to force your mouth to speak it. It was logical that he'd already had it out, because he'd just been using it for Don Juan, and it wasn't necessarily suspect that he'd drawn up more than what he would need for one person. Better to be overprepared than unprepared. Still — still.

Don Juan's hands were shaking. He suspected it was from nerves, but it could have been continuing weakness from the ordeal he'd just undergone, or it could have been the first telltale signs of withdrawal setting in. He was still looking at the vial as he settled further into Griffith's lap, getting into a better position in case he needed the leverage to hold him down. Don Juan remembered this feeling violent, and Griffith was bigger than him. He took a breath and tried to focus on keeping his hands steady as he drew out to three lines. He capped the antidote again and set it down — close, in case they needed it again in a hurry. Then he turned his eyes back to Griffith.

He took Griffith's face between both hands, holding the antidote he'd drawn up between two fingers while he cupped the man's cheek. "Did you plan this?" he asked, eyes meeting Griffith's. He didn't specify this — the overdose, bringing him back, leaving him culpable for Griffith's life.

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MJ made this <3

"You overestimate how well I understand myself," he said to the blurred face, very close to his, floating in the dark. It was not the first time someone accused Samuel of scheming and sinister planning — granted, sometimes he did come up with clandestine maneuvers. But less frequently than people assumed. "I mostly make things up as I go," he confessed. If he would have ever consciously planned to pick up Don Juan in the Orchid to chain him to himself with the substance to overdose him to recreate the most painful experience of his life, to then be at his mercy--he would have recognized himself to be insane and volunteered to be locked away somewhere.

This did not mean that all of what he had done was entirely unintentional. There was a part of him that acted on some undercurrent of unconscious desire. It seized opportunities at a moment's notice, before there was any time to rationalize. Sam was always playing catch-up, surveilling himself with suspicion. That part of himself was not his friend lately. Being the passenger of a body that moved through life with such acceleration at times, without knowing where it was headed or what it wanted, was terrifying. How could he justify wielding power when he could not hold on to his own reins? If he could, he would have stayed sober tonight and not ended up so vulnerable. Of course that did not stop him from exercising power regardless — this conundrum was a truth he successfully avoided confronting most of the time. Perhaps he only stared it in the face right now because the events of the evening tore down his defenses.

"Don't forget," he said to Don Juan, "I gave you what you wanted, tonight. What you asked for. You could have stopped it any time. I would have listened."

One thing Don Juan was right about, of course — Sam enjoyed controlling him. How he looked at him with hateful eyes and then scurried to heel at his word was a simple, effective form of entertainment. The humiliation was intended. And now, that the positions were reversed, he was not sure if he would receive retribution from Don Juan. He felt his hands cradle his face and his weight on his thighs and groin. They were positioned to be a strange caricature of lovers, gazing into each other's eyes. Just, it was not a tender kiss he would receive. Don Juan was gearing up to cause him pain. Would that please him? Sam caused him plenty of pain, he was sure. "Get on with it," he said quietly to him.

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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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MJ made this <3

He felt how Don Juan balked at the callousness of his reminder. Yes, Don Juan in the throes of withdrawal could not be expected to control himself. But when he asked for that last dose, he was already flying on more than double the usual, bedded on pleasure. He was taken care of. That last request had been casually and intentionally self-destructive, with no need to drive it — perhaps it even was a provocation towards Samuel, to demonstrate he would stay true to his words even if it meant destroying Don Juan — or go back on his promise and do the right thing and say no. Either way, Don Juan did not care about either of them and shirked all responsibility onto Samuel. Sam knew that and he recognized it from elsewhere and it had made him viciously angry. Now he thought, looking at his face, that he did care about him. He felt a twisted sense of belonging and ownership. And he thought that he was no more cruel to him than he would be to himself.

"Fuck you," the man muttered as he dropped the first dose of the antidote under his tongue. Samuel smiled at that, and then his world split into pain.

"Don't — I can't —" he heard his voice like from far away, overwhelmed by anguish. His hands clung to Don Juan's drenched shirt and his arms contracted, every muscle in his body contracted and drew him into himself, pulling the other man downwards as he fell to his side and his head hit the floor where he curled and twitched. His stomach burned up all the way through his throat to his nostrils like fire. Sweat pearled down his back and neck and bit into his scars. His heart slowed and accelerated in unsteady increments and his vision started greying.

"You have to give me more. Three," he managed to get out.

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