December 16th, 1894 -- shuttered laboratory, Whitechapel

Samuel sat at the desk in the shuttered laboratory in the darkness of night and his head rested heavily on his hands. It gave him the appearance of a man afflicted by sorrow, but his eyes were dry and his expression empty. No one was coming. He sat up and gave a spin to the vial on the table. It spun. He watched the silvery liquid swirl. Nothing, he thought. You are betraying and destroying yourself for nothing. He uncorked the vial. There was no anger at first, about being abandoned after the ordeal of the night he and Don Juan had been through together. It had taken much out of him. The day after did not feel real. Samuel spent it in bed in the castle, sick as a dog. His guilt awoke that day and let him feel its teeth.

Two nights passed since then and he heard nothing from the other man. He should be relieved about that but he was not.

The anger came after he took half a dose and it started soaring through his veins. He tried to feel into his body and discovered it awash with memories and associations. If only he had not fucked Don Juan, he would not be so tied up in his guts. He would not be condemned to remember him viscerally, on his skin, where there was no escape. There was no tenderness that night. Don Juan needed and wanted to be hurt and debased until all the things he ran away from ceased to matter. That's what he got. In this type of scenario, little sympathy was awarded to the one who took it upon himself to inflict instead of choosing to surrender. Could such a person reserve any right to feel used? Samuel did not know. He knew he had betrayed someone he loved, and he betrayed who he wanted to be to have a future, after this winter. All for the sick tangle of feeling that attached him to Don Juan. Consequently, he was here. Alone with his misery and too far in to pull himself out again. All because of Don Juan, who now apparently decided he was out. Did he really think he could give him the runaround, after everything, without even a word? He better think again. Coward.

Samuel opened a drawer of his desk and took out a locked box. He unlocked it and started rifling through its contents until he found what he was looking for: a small piece of parchment, inscribed with tiny runic script, wrapped around a red crystal roughly the size of a pea. He checked that it was the right one and popped it into his mouth, where he held it under his tongue. In an unpleasant way, it seemed to want to burrow into his flesh, back to where it came from. Its twin was locked away in the skull of a tiny silver bird.

He closed his eyes and he suddenly knew. The orchid. Really? The messenger bird was there, so Don Juan must be there too. Samuel got up. None of his creations really ever got away from him. That was the magic of blood, it was sticky and inescapable. Messy, really. He stepped into the fireplace.

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December 16th, 1894 The Orchid, Limehouse

"If you are trying to get away from me," Samuel said as he slid into the séparée where he knew Don Juan to be hiding, "you might want to try to run a little farther away than to the place where I found you."

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Don Juan Dempsey

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It had worked in the moment. Having Griffith's fingernails digging into his skin, having his face pressed down into the mattress — it was enough physical sensation that it pushed all the rest of it out, and then when they'd finished it had been easy to lapse into thinking nothing at all. Then he'd come out the other side of it — inevitably, he always did — and it was immediately obvious that it hadn't helped anything at all. Don Juan was still the same person the next morning that he'd been the night before... with a few extra pieces of baggage. A sane person would have run away and never gone back. He'd had a close call, closer than he'd ever had before, and it should have been enough to drive him off the stuff for good. In the end, though, it wasn't reason that kept Don Juan from crawling back to the Whitechapel laboratory: it was shame.

Shame didn't stop the effects of what he'd done from catching up with him, though. At first Don Juan had been determined to wait out the sickness, but that had never worked for him. If he had the choice to get more to push it off, he always did. He didn't go back to the laboratory, but there were other things that could take the edge off, and that could make his hands stop shaking... or at least make him not notice whether they were. Which was what had brought him to the Orchid. It was far from the only opium den he frequented, and he could have chosen any of them. He'd steered here thoughtlessly, and it was only after he'd made a purchase at the counter and was considering which of the enclaves to claim that it struck him that this was a phenomenally poor choice if he was trying to avoid Griffith. It was the only place the other man knew he'd been recently — it was the only place he would think to look, if he went looking.

But maybe that was partly what he wanted. The opium he'd bought today wasn't the same as what he'd had before. He couldn't drag himself back to the laboratory of his own volition, but if Griffith were to find him here, with more of the concoction in his pocket, would Don Juan have turned it away? Of course not.

(He made himself sick sometimes. There was nothing to be done about it.)

He sank into one of the cushions in a back corner and loaded the pipe on the table. It was difficult — he'd waited too long and it was obvious he was ill, and his hands were hardly cooperating. He eventually managed it, but he'd barely consumed any before he was interrupted. Griffith — of course Griffith. Don Juan's insides clenched with an emotion that was difficult to untangle. Had he been running away? He wasn't sure what he had been doing, or what he had wanted. Not anymore.

He shivered and dropped the handle of the pipe back on the table. He looked bad, and he knew it. Halfway into withdrawal and halfway to high. "Maybe," he admitted.

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   Samuel Griffith

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Standing in the entryway between the faded paper screens, he observed Don Juan, who appeared more gaunt and worn thin than the last time he saw him. Samuel's eyes lingered on the pipe; looking at it made him vaguely nauseous. Suddenly he was glad to already be high. He was not high enough for the rolling shivers yet but his eyes were black. Cold, artificial confidence pushed him forward and into the booth and onto the bench that Don Juan was already on. There was not much else; it was a cramped space. He looked at Don Juan, who was now right in front of him under the dim light, tense and shaky. It smelled like opium—a bitter and biting scent that he would never in his life forget. This place was revolting, he thought. The Orchid smelled like opium and piss and sweat and sickness; like unwashed bodies and cum-stained, moldy upholstery.

"So," he said. "You want out. Or you're the type who needs someone to run after them."

A part of him wanted to grab Don Juan by the neck and drag him back to where he well knew he now belonged. Another part of him pitied him. He had a hunch about why he was running away from him.

He took out a cigarette and lit it. Then he leaned back against the bench, only his face turned towards Don Juan. Samuel knew that he was crowding the other man in this small space. Their shoulders and knees touched, and he was too aware of it but unwilling to back off. Don Juan dropped the pipe he held on the table. Samuel looked at his shaking hand. “You must be miserable”, he said, mildly.

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Griffith's leg and shoulder brushed against his. Don Juan was caught between two states of mind and his focus was swimming; at one second everything seemed sharp and visceral, the next too numb to notice much at all. Did he mind that Griffith was touching him? He had some feeling about it, he was sure of that. What it was was less certain. When he'd seen Griffith come in through the paper screens his heart had leapt and his stomach had clenched and his breath had caught, all at once. Was he afraid of him, or relieved that he was finally here?

Don Juan must be miserable. It didn't take a genius to have figured that out. "Maybe," he agreed. After he said it he had the feeling that this was an admission of some kind — that using the same word twice had retroactively made the first occasion mean something a little different. It was obvious to anyone that Don Juan was miserable, therefore it followed that the last remark he'd been responding to was equally obvious. If he had been trying to get away, he would have run farther.

He shifted on the bench, turning towards Griffith as though they were about to have a confidential chat. It was hard to manage with Griffith already sitting so close to him. Both of Don Juan's knees pressed against the side of Griffith's leg now. "Are you running after me?" he asked, lightly challenging — then immediately shivered again. He hadn't had enough opium to put the tremors to bed yet.

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He turned his upper body towards him, propping his right elbow onto the backrest of the bench and the other onto the table. Don Juan's sharp knees pressed against the side of his thigh. Maybe—that seemed to be his word of the night, or his mode of being. Neither here nor there.

"I am here," he noted. Perhaps his question was meant as a challenge; the defensive tone did not translate well over the shudder that gripped Don Juan while he spoke. "So yes, I am running after you." He lowered his head towards him while he said it, as if they were exchanging something secretive. The red dot of the cigarette glowed between them.

He sensed that Don Juan wanted to be taken off the edge of his indecision. Perhaps the hope of being found, and then being taken away, was exactly why he came here tonight. He could do that. Would he meet resistance? Only enough to relieve Don Juan's conscience. But after the waiting, the not knowing, he thought that would make it a bit too easy on him. Because he had been miserable, too.

Sam put just a bit of tension in his leg, a bit of pressure against their point of contact. The vial was in his pocket. It would take Don Juan's pain away in an instant. Sometimes he hated this substance—not now; now it felt like a smooth layer on his skin that protected him against Don Juan's shivering suffering.

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   Don Juan Dempsey

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He'd expected Griffith to deny it, and probably to claim Don Juan wasn't worth chasing, which was accurate. It was odd that he didn't even bother with pretense. Griffith was chasing him, but for what? Not sex. Don Juan was a good lover (when he was sober; performance less certain while he was high) but there were countless easier options there. Not fondness, he didn't think. Maybe the same reason he'd pulled him out of the Orchid initially, at the start of this whole terrible mess. Maybe because he still looked like Kazimir, and it was easier to chase after Don Juan than it was to bring the dead back to life. If that was what had brought him here it was self-destructive at best, but who was Don Juan to say so? He wasn't hypocritical enough to lecture Griffith on finding a healthier way to cope with the mistakes of his past. And what did he care if Griffith wanted to use him as an escape from the world? He was being well-compensated, with the concoction. Don Juan got a drug, Griffith got Don Juan.

(A drug that had killed him, he reminded himself. He had repeated this often in the past few days while trying to ensure he didn't let himself go back. The drug had killed him. But after having a high like that the opium he was smoking now felt like smoking soot. Griffith's pupils were blown out, and his proximity as he leaned forward made it impossible not to notice. This stuff had killed him, but Griffith was high and Don Juan was undeniably jealous. It was good that Griffith had a cigarette between them, because otherwise Don Juan might have kissed him just to see if he could still taste it somewhere in his mouth).

A moment passed. Don Juan didn't move away, but he felt that there was something more meant to happen: that Griffith would do something to push them both the direction that he wanted. When he didn't say anything Don Juan felt distantly dizzy. He was being lured today instead of pushed, maybe. Regardless, he was sure that Griffith still had plans for him, and that he'd get his way in the end. Don Juan shivered again.

"If you're going to stay, you'll have to watch me smoke," he said. "I'd offer to share, but you clearly don't need it."

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   Samuel Griffith

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Samuel raised his eyebrows slightly, still without backing off. He'd seen Don Juan's gaze flicker to his own eyes and then down to his mouth, and the impulse of kissing him traveled through him, rising like air through dark water, with no particular hurry. That was something they had not done. It would have been out of place. Now Sam was uncertain if it was his own impulse, or if it somehow jumped from Don Juan to him, like a static charge.

"Do you want me to go?" he asked. "We already talked about my unhealthy attachment to you. You'll have to tell me to leave." After all, he would get him what he wanted. It was simple, really. He just had to ask. Perhaps sometimes, he would have to beg a little.
"I can hold that for you," he offered with a wry smile, nodding towards the pipe then looking down towards Don Juan's shaking hands.

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   Don Juan Dempsey

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You'll have to tell me to leave. Griffith might have been taunting him, Don Juan supposed. They both knew he wasn't going to muster up the wherewithal to do that... but by saying it out loud Griffith made it Don Juan's failing if he stayed. He could, after all, have told Griffith to leave — just as he could have stayed at home and let the sickness pass, just like he could have stopped taking the substances at any point along the way. So many things Don Juan could have done, but Griffith wasn't naive enough to think he ever would. He'd seen the inside of Don Juan's head, and he knew the same hunger. He knew if there had ever been a moment of true choice for Don Juan, it was far behind him now.

The offer to hold the pipe felt perverse. It wouldn't have been enough; Don Juan's hands weren't the only thing that was shaking. If his goal was to steady him then Griffith would have to hold Don Juan himself, braced against his chest maybe, then brought the pipe to his lips. Cradled like a toddler with a bottle. He had a brief urge to be sick. Griffith wouldn't have expected him to take him up on an offer like that, Don Juan didn't think. He'd probably said it just to get a reaction, same as the line about telling him to leave. Making it abundantly clear that Don Juan was wretched and that they both knew it, and that Griffith was exalted by comparison; making it clear that in spite of the base display of physicality in their last encounter at least this dynamic hadn't changed.

And that thought was what made him realize: Griffith was ashamed of it, too. They had that in common. He wasn't as untouchable as he pretended. Neither of them wanted this, and yet it was inevitable for them both. Don Juan hadn't run far enough to make for plausible deniability, but that didn't erase the fact that Griffith had chased him.

"Go on, then," he said, lightly goading.

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   Samuel Griffith

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The cigarette was burning down. Its glow weakened. Samuel's body waited still in the dark, gathering to it the tension that preceded a lurch forwards. He looked towards the pipe, then he took it in his hand. The corners of his mouth hinted at his disgust at handling the thing. So this was the game to be played; it would be a competition to see who was more willing to torment themselves. Don Juan competed by denying himself what he really wanted, and Samuel by doing much the same. Because he wanted Don Juan to give in and come crawling back to him, he understood that now. He wanted him to ask for it and to eagerly fall to his knees and to stare at his wretchedness, reflected back to him in the eyes of the other. Samuel was no better, of course; he was the keeper of keys, but that did not make him more justified, only more powerful.

Samuel looked at Don Juan's stubborn face and something in his chest and throat tightened. "Alright," he said. He had not taken nearly enough for this, he thought, because he wanted not to care about doing this, but he did.

He held up the pipe but Don Juan shook too much to get it into his mouth. Samuel hated the look of it in his hand. It dredged up memories and images and it made him feel sick to breathe in the scent of it. He lowered it again and switched hands. He leaned forward in the cramped space, got really close to Don Juan. He put an arm around him and pulled him against his chest and held him in place tightly, to stop him from shaking so damn much. Now he felt his hair brush against his cheeks, could smell him even through the stink of this place. This was too close, this pulled at all the fraying seams inside of him; it pulled up a yearning he wanted to be dead. "If you make us go through with this, you will be the one to suffer more," he said, his mouth close to his ear.

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The problem with opium was that it was inconsistent in quality, at least compared to what Griffith had been giving him to replace it. When the high hit him it would relax his muscles, getting rid of the painful seizing that had currently taken over his shoulder and quieting the tremors, though sometimes the tradeoff was that he lacked the strength or dexterity to do anything useful with him limbs anyway. But how much did he need to smoke to get there, and how long would it take to hit him? There was no way of knowing whether the stuff the Orchid had sold him today was any good, so no way of knowing how distant relief was. He held the smoke in his lungs for a long minute, trying to ensure that he wrung every bit of intoxicant out that he could, then eventually exhaled it against Griffith's shirt. He'd asked for the pipe today because it usually hit faster than anything one ate, but there were still no guarantees. He closed his eyes and tried to will his body to feel it.

"Will I?" he asked. "Seems to me we're going down together."

If Don Juan made them go through with this, Griffith said. He didn't know what the other man meant by this, since they had already been in this perversion of Madonna and Child when he'd growled it into Don Juan's ear. Griffith was thinking of something beyond; he had planned the trajectory of their evening and was objecting to the inevitable. Don Juan couldn't conceive of what it was. His mind couldn't move beyond the opium and his need for it, for anything that would keep him from slipping further into withdrawal. He leaned towards the pipe again and took another long drag and held it in his lungs. Midway through his shoulder unclenched — the opium he'd smoked before doing it's work, perhaps, or just an unpredictable foible of the sickness — and he sagged a bit farther against Griffith's chest.

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Samuel was losing the competition. Don Juan was committed to being his most wretched and he took a heavy drag from the opium pipe. Samuel's grip around him tightened for a second. He did not interfere. Fine. He wanted it to be like that, it would be like that. He sighed. He looked up to the tattered drapes above them. Then he leaned his face against the back of Don Juan's head and neck. He felt tired. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Go on. Take another one. This won't be enough. And I don't want to hold this thing forever."

With the other arm, that held the man to his chest, he reached for his breast pocket and nestled the vial free, waiting to be absolved of administering the pipe to Don Juan. Half a dose was not enough for this.

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Wouldn't be enough — when was it ever? The relaxation was starting to unfurl through his muscles but Don Juan knew Griffith was right; to truly hold off the sickness he was going to need more than this. And more again when he came down, and more again a few days later. It was a cycle he was incapable of breaking; he'd only managed to keep himself alive this long because in the windows of lucidity between coming down and starting withdrawal he managed enough to keep himself afloat. And the only reason alive now was because Griffith had decided he ought to be.

Don Juan exhaled, letting the smoke out through his nose this time. Griffith shifted and reached for his pocket. The pocket was very close to Don Juan's face — everything was when he was couched up against the other man like this, held so tight beneath his arm — and he recognized what was in his hand immediately.

He scrambled into a sitting position, suddenly urgent. He would have crawled closer to Griffith if he hadn't already been practically sitting in the other man's lap. "You brought it." For Don Juan, it had to be. Griffith was already high, what did he need it for? He'd come to find Don Juan here and he'd brought him a treat to entice him back to where he belonged; bait for the snare he was setting.

It shouldn't have worked; Don Juan shouldn't have wanted it. It had killed him before and could again. He already had the means to stave off withdrawal in his grasp with the opium. There was no telling what he might end up doing before the night was through it he took it. But cravings were not logical, and none of this prevented him from wanting it.

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The vial slipped out of his pocket and danced on the silver string. "Of course," said Samuel. He set down the pipe and measured out one dose. Don Juan, leaning with his back against his chest, could do little else than watch it. It happened right in front of his face. The measured out dose hung there in the dropper for a second, glistening. Then Samuel shifted forwards. He put his face next to Don Juan's face, the edge of his jaw and cheekbone and Don Juan's cheek touched. He raised the dropper and for a few moments it seemed unclear towards which mouth it was directed. Then he felt the bitter substance on his tongue and he swallowed. His stomach cramped in anticipation. "All you had to do was ask," he said, almost with sadness. He turned his head. Don Juan's face filled out his field of view. He saw and knew every shape, every hollow in the landscape of this face. "You sure showed me," he told him and looked into his eyes. "You got away, I came after you. You decided you would rather be back on opium and you did that. You showed me—you're the better man between us."

Finish it then, he thought. Send me away and go on with your life. It will be for the better. "You should send me away," he said gently to him. "Go back to that man you love. Surely he is waiting for you."

He had a good and solid face, that one. He was enduring and full of comfort. There was nothing comforting about the man that had his arms around Don Juan in this moment. That man was made from a sharper material. He made people suffer for his love and he couldn't stop.

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Don Juan couldn't look away while Griffith drew it out. This killed me, he thought, repeating like a heartbeat. This had killed him; he shouldn't want it. He had stayed away from Griffith so that he wouldn't take it; he'd bought the opium so that he wouldn't need it. This had killed him — but when the dropper turned towards him he opened his mouth automatically, expectantly, hungrily, and felt a rush of shame and disappointment mixed together when Griffith took it for himself instead. Taunting him. The words that followed might not have sounded gleeful but they were a taunt, too — the better man. Ha.

The reference to the man he loved was so jarring that Don Juan was momentarily displaced. Allusions to Hudson didn't belong on Griffith's lips; didn't belong in a scene like this; didn't belong in a place like the Orchid. For a moment he thought he must have been dreaming, twisting contexts together nonsensically. Griffith shouldn't have even known about him. There was no world in which they should have been having this conversation. But if he were dreaming, would his hands be shaking this way? Would he have put himself in withdrawal if this was all a play-act in his subconscious?

No. This was real. Griffith knew about Hudson because he'd pulled it out of his thoughts when he'd been rummaging around indiscriminately through his mind. It should have felt violating, Griffith saying this, but Don Juan blamed himself for that more than he blamed Griffith. He'd done this to himself; he'd invited it.

"No," he said stiffly. "He isn't." If Hudson was waiting for him, Don Juan could never have found himself here. "Not anymore," he continued, tone turning listless. "Not for a long while."

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"I see," he said. Perhaps Don Juan had gone too far with this man—so far he could never come back again. "Stuck with me then," he added and felt grim satisfaction. So that was why his attempt at running was a farce. He had no place to arrive at. No one was coming, no one was waiting. "I was waiting for you tonight," he said matter-of-factly. A shiver ran under his skin and he drew in a breath, sharply. Why did he feel abandoned when alone in Whitechapel? He had no right to that feeling. But Don Juan was the catalyst; in a way, he really needed him. With him, their dynamic pulled him under and that was much easier. Perhaps that was what he wanted, or what he was doomed to fulfill. Surely there was no end to this path that did not include the destruction of the life he was trying to hold on to.

He leaned his chin on Don Juan's shoulder and looked at the vial in his hand. "I can give you that, but you already smoked. It will be different."
Samuel had done this once or twice towards the end of his time in Paris. His memories of those nights were spotty and dark.

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Different could mean anything. It might have meant dangerous. This stuff had killed him once before, and mixing it with whatever the Orchid had sold him tonight might have unpredictable results. Different could have meant less satisfying of a high, which was dangerous in a different way; dangerous because he'd know it wasn't working and might keep chasing it past the point where it would have been wise to stop. But Griffith had something back in his workshop that could sober him up, so what was the point of offering to let him mix vices? The question wasn't whether Don Juan wanted it; of course he did. The question, really, was what are we doing here? Griffith had waited for him tonight. Don Juan had picked the Orchid. Hudson wasn't waiting for him any more.

He licked his lips, eyes on the vial, then flicked his gaze back to Griffith, still terribly close. "An hour at your place and it'd be out of my system again," he pointed out, about the opium. He'd only barely started smoking, and Griffith could have expedited the process if he'd wanted to. There was an offer in his words, buried in the tone, but Don Juan wasn't sure he'd even decided exactly what it was yet.

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