Hold Onto Me

Bottles breaking. Lots of yelling. The door slamming. Jack's memories of the previous night were hazy at best, but as he staggered into the kitchen, hearing the unmistakeable crunch of broken glass beneath his feet a second before he felt the tiny stabs of pain, he knew that something had gone horribly wrong.

Broken bottles. That was a big factor of last night. He looked down and saw that what appeared to be most of his supply of alcohol on the floor beneath him, shattered glass and liquor covering most of the tiles. Stepping carefully to avoid the worst of it, he grabbed the broom from the opposite side of the tiny kitchen and started to sweep up the fragments that weren't stuck to the floor and tried to mentally piece together what happened.

He'd been drinking—no surprise there. Jack was something of an alcohol enthusiast, as he liked to call it. He'd had his first drink his freshman year of college, and he hadn't stopped since. To save having to wash another glass, he'd opted to just drink whiskey straight from the bottle. It tasted better that way. Or something. He'd almost downed the whole bottle by the time eight thirty rolled around and Alex showed up, grin quickly sliding when he saw Jack.

Alex was here last night. How had Jack forgotten that?

Alex had gone from elated to disappointed in no time at all, and when Jack saw the label of his poison of choice—Jack Daniels—amongst the wreckage, a sinking feeling accompanied the jolt of memory. Alex had been disappointed because of how much Jack was drinking. They'd had a lengthy conversation about it earlier in the month, about how Jack need to cut back to a couple drinks a night unless it was a special occasion. A random Thursday was not a special occasion like it had been when they were undergrads, according to Alex, and it was time to grow up and sober up.

Jack wasn't doing such a great job at sobering up and had strayed a long way from a "couple drinks" last night. But that wasn't all of the memory jolt. Alex had stormed up to him, a bottle of his own in his hand: sparkling cranberry juice. He liked having it for what he called mini-celebrations. Whatever the hell that meant. He'd tried to set it on the counter but missed and it hit the floor. That explained the dark red stain on the pale green tiles. He'd said something angry, words Jack struggled to remember through the fog.

The rest of the pieces of glass were stuck to the various liquors (or cranberry juice) spilled on the floor, so Jack put the broom aside and picked up a rag with one hand and the phone with the other. He called Alex while he started scrubbing at the stickiest spots.

Unsurprisingly but disappointingly all the same, Alex didn't answer, so Jack left a short message: "I know I've got my problems and it starts with me." That way, he accepted the blame so that Alex could forgive him and everything would be okay again.

He was on his knees on the floor, so the already-strong scent of alcohol was much stronger with his face closer to it. The scent brought back the next chunk of memory. In his anger, Alex had shoved the bottle of Jack out of Jack's hand, where it joined the sparkling juice on the floor. He'd started on about responsibility and how there was no way Jack was possibly taking grad school seriously if he was drunk all the time. Jack had said that being a physics grad student would make anyone want to drink! And then he tried to get a drink of Johnnie Walker, the first bottle that caught his eye, which Alex had promptly shoved out of his hands.

Jack's eyes traveled to the cabinet where he stored all of his alcohol. The only thing left was a couple handles of vodka, which Jack only liked in screwdrivers. Had Alex smashed everything? Judging by the assortment of labels that accompanied the mess of glass, it looked like he had.

Well, might as well get to the last one… Abandoning his cleaning endeavor, Jack leapt to his feet and poked around in the fridge until he found the orange juice, which he'd drawn a screwdriver on like always, and grabbed one of the handles of vodka. Admittedly, the drink he poured for himself had a bit higher of a vodka-to-orange juice ratio than it should have, but nobody had to know.

Three screwdrivers of similar proportions later and he was calling Alex. Who didn't answer. Again. This time, the voicemail he left said, "There's no place like home. Hold onto me, hold onto meeee." He didn't know what made him say it or what drove him to dragging out the me for several extra syllables, but he had arrived at the hopelessly clingy phase of drunkenness and there was no sense in stopping there. He had a boyfriend who wouldn't answer the phone because he was mad at him, three hundred dollars worth of liquor smashed on the kitchen floor, a mess he didn't want to clean up, and plenty of vodka and orange juice. What reason did he have not to drink?

As he got more alcohol into his system, he remembered a little more of the previous night. Not anything specific, just a long fight that he was fairly certain had gone in circles for hours without the pair accomplishing anything. Halfway through the argument, Jack had made his way back to the kitchen and had actually managed to sneak a swig of something before Alex caught him and proceeded to start dropping the bottles one by one. In his state of intoxication, Jack had started throwing a fit and they'd gotten into round two of the argument. He couldn't for the life of him remember what they discussed, but he remembered now that it ended with Alex storming out and slamming the door.

They hadn't had an argument of that caliber since the week after they moved into the apartment, almost three years ago.

Jack picked up the phone again what he thought was a few minutes later, though several hours had actually passed. "I know we've got our problems and it's probably me," he said softly before ending the voicemail. Surely Alex wouldn't ignore him forever. He'd have to either answer or come back home some time, right?

Right.

That's what Jack told himself, anyway, as he realized he'd downed the rest of the handle in his last screwdriver and on top of that, he was out of orange juice. It didn't matter, though; he was past the point of caring and drank straight from the next bottle, wondering in the back of his mind how much was too much. He hadn't gotten to the point of too much yet, but he had a feeling he was approaching it. This prompted his next phone call and subsequent voicemail: "I've got a nervous habit and I drink too much."

By ten p.m., Alex still hadn't returned any of his calls and Jack was nearing the bottom of the second handle. He knew he'd had too much, but that didn't stop him from taking another long sip and calling again. When Alex didn't answer, he burst into tears and left a message that was probably impossible to understand: "I hate my life and want to change my ways…" He was about to hang up when he added, "I know we've got our problems and you'll probably leave." Then he set his phone down and, forgetting about the vodka entirely, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't curled up on the couch. He was in an uncomfortable bed in a too-bright room and Alex was next to him, white-faced and anxious.

"Where am I?" Jack mumbled.

"Emergency room," Alex said tensely. "The doctor will be back in just a second."

Jack pulled himself to a sitting position and took a good look around. He was, indeed, in the ER. How did that happen? "Why?"

"Because he needs to check on you. Obviously." Before Jack could interrupt, a small smirk played at Alex's lips and he said, "I know you meant why are you in the ER. Just messing with you. You're here because you drank way too fucking much, Jack. Holy shit." The smirk was gone, but it wasn't replaced with anger. Alex looked more scared than Jack had ever seen him. "I thought you were dead. They had to pump your stomach."

"Why?" Jack asked again.

"Alcohol poisoning, you idiot." He still didn't sound mad. "I don't know how much you drank, and I don't think I'll ever want to know, but if you ever do that again, I'm not dragging your ass to the ER."

Before Jack could respond, a doctor came in. He barely participated in the conversation because he was so relieved: Alex was here and didn't seem to hate him and maybe things worked out just fine after all. Once he was released and breathing fresh air and not the air tainted with antiseptic, he asked, "What happened?"

Alex sighed. "Are we really going to have this conversation right outside the fucking hospital?"

"Yes," Jack said earnestly. He had to know now.

"Well, I had meetings all day at work, which you apparently forgot even though I told you yesterday, and then kept my phone on silent when I went to the library for a few hours because believe it or not, being an English grad student isn't a walk in the god damn park, no matter what you physics kids might think. When I finally checked my phone, I had about a dozen voicemails from you, and the last one worried me, so I may have gotten a speeding ticket hurrying home. Your fault. I found you passed out and couldn't get you to respond, so I brought you to the emergency room."

"So," Jack said slowly, trying to comprehend everything. "You weren't ignoring me?"

"Don't get me wrong, I was really mad about last night. But I just spent the night at the library so I could study while I calmed down. But Jack, we need to talk."

Jack's eyes widened in fear. "That is the worst combination of words in the English language," he groaned.

"It's about your drinking."

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Jack, you're an alcoholic, and I wish we were talking about this in private, but since you insisted… Look, I told the doctors that this was a rare occurrence and that you usually don't drink so excessively. I'm not sure if they believed me, but they cleared you."

"You covered for me?" Alex was constantly pestering him about limiting his alcohol consumption, so this was something of a surprise.

"Only because I didn't want them sending you off to rehab. I'm sorry I broke all of your bottles last night; that was immature and I was just angry. But I think that's a good jumping off point. You need to quit drinking. None of my couple drinks a night bullshit. No alcohol at all. No Jack, no Jim, no Johnnie. You're going to stay sober or we're going to have to get professionals involved and I don't want that and neither do you."

Jack nodded. "Just to be clear… You're not leaving, right?"

Alex laughed and pulled Jack into a hug. "I could never leave," he whispered, kissing him gently. "I will never leave."