Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jenny was going to kill somebody.

… Granted, she didn’t know who. But somebody. However high up the chain she needed to go until she got to the one responsible for… for this!

No one told her. No one told her he was going to be here… No one even told her he’d been released from Betterment. You would think- since they’re all airing the same fucking broadcast- that someone would have the decency to tell the floor manager about the sudden inclusion of a guest speaker!

But no… It took until Julia said his name- only seconds before he walked through the curtain- for Jenny to know he was back outside. That he was here.

Jeremy Donaldson strode on set as if he wasn’t manhandled off of it all those years ago, with blood dripping from his mouth and nose, hands shaking, voice hoarse.

She doubted she’d ever forget the way he walked towards the couch. It was in stiff, robotic motions that reminded her too much of some of those scenes from The Automated… Except instead of a cheaply edited film on a big screen, Jeremy was eerily, terribly real.

He smiled and waved towards one of the cameras, and perhaps on the audiences’ side of things it would have been marginally less uncanny, what with the canned applause attached… But seeing the way the faux grin stretched at the blanched skin of his face, the only thing that could distract Jenny from the pit in her chest was the gooseflesh that ran down her back.

Megan wouldn’t make eye contact with her. Instead, her gaze trailed their guest with a laser focus, watching as he moved from the curtain to the couch across from her.

It was hard to tell if she was avoiding her on purpose, or whether she was just as astonished as Jenny was... She certainly didn’t look astonished. She had the same smile plastered on that she used for every Tom, Dick and Harry that came traipsing onto the set of the Couch of Chat.

… Did she know? Why would she know? How could she know? Why would Julia let the culture correspondent know about their guest before her? Jeremy wasn’t culture! He’d been penned up in a little box for so long he probably didn’t even know what culture was anymore!

… No… No, Julia didn’t tell either of them, Jenny decided… Why would she, after the stunt they pulled the last time Jeremy was here. It would have been foolish to give them a heads up- even if only by a few hours or minutes. Megan just knew how to put on a good facade. That was all. A good few years of The Nightly Show was enough bloody practice to fool anyone.

The entire broadcast that night felt like some sort of terrible fever dream. The cat football championships was only the start of it. Julia toted the poor man to and fro for the rest of the episode, and all the while, Jeremy danced to her tune as if he’d been born to do it.

Jenny grimaced her way through Tilly Tuna’s ‘interview’, and the true story behind her strenuous goalie position. She dug into the flesh of her leg every time Jeremy spun the Wheel of Truth- every time he answered a ‘retro’ question about his old time in the studio. Every second they put him on screen, she couldn’t help but squirm… It was as if whatever was left of her conscious was tunneling into her stomach and eating her alive.

But she managed to make it through all the fluff… All of the piddling little scenes that Jeremy would have spat at, before Advance got their hands on him.

It was the closing interview that nearly killed her.

This, Jenny decided, must have been some new breed of torture Advance had been testing, with her as their little lab rat. Watching from behind the rolling cameras as Jeremy answered question after question about his stay at Betterment. About how it improved his life. About how his time there made him a better man, a better citizen, a part of the Team.

Her hands dug as far into her pockets as she could stretch them, clinging to the fabric on the inside of her cardigan for dear life, before they could strangle anything else. Julia’s throat, perhaps.

“Do you have anything to say, Jeremy-” the Prime Minister smiled, tilting her head as if encouraging the vision mixer to go for the closest shot possible, “-to any of the unevens who may be watching right now? Any advice to those who may be in the position you were in last time you… slipped on into the studio?”

The prompt- same as any other prompt he’d received that night- made him pause for a little too long… To anyone else, it would have looked like he’d been digesting the question, giving it the proper respect it was due. But Jenny knew him better than that. She knew him well enough to see the utter blankness in his eyes… 

After long enough, he forcefully blinked it away, before glancing off into the distance- almost certainly recalling what was written on the script they must have given him.

“... I think I do, Julia…”

The voice was Jeremy’s. But the words and the tone- even the inflection- was so painfully wrong. It was as if he’d been hollowed out, and some cohesion officer had been puppeting his hollow corpse around. As if he died in Betterment, and dragging his corpse around live on television had been Advance’s sick idea of entertainment.

“... Vertigo… is a symptom of your body being oddly orientated… Makes you nauseous and such. And for the longest time, I think…” (Another pause. A shallow breath. His hands steepled instinctually in his lap), “... I think I thought that Betterment… that getting better would be like having vertigo. I was afraid it would twist my perception around… Make me sick. But then I realized that… being uneven was my vertigo. And by the time I became a Team player, I… was upright again. Evened out. And I wasn’t suffering anymore.” 

“ Beautifully put, Mr. Donaldson… Elegantly put.” Julia praised, nodding thoughtfully as if she wasn’t the one to write every bloody word he said. She hardly gave the audience time to linger on any of the slop he said, tossing aside her thoughtful expression for her ingenuine, award winning grin.

“Well, I hope that’s given everyone something to think about! That’s about all we have time for tonight, but be sure to tune in tomorrow night to see if any other familiar faces show up on the Couch of Chat. Why don’t you say goodbye, Jeremy?”

Another dazed pause.

“... Goodbye, Jeremy.” 

Julia cackled delightfully- presumably alongside the ‘live studio audience’ that must have been mixed in.

“Cheeky thing, isn’t he?” She murmured to no one in particular, just loud enough for the mic to pick up on it. Leaning towards the closest camera, she gave a little wave as she dismissed the broadcast,

“Have a fantastic night, everyone.”

“... We’re off air.” Jenny had missed her usual cue by a good five or so seconds- but considering how weakly the words left her throat, she doubted it mattered much anyways… Everyone had been bustling around from the second the tally lights flipped off.

The regular crew stepped quickly off set, allowing some of the CCOs to advance, hovering in a sort of halo position around a rather stagnant Jeremy. He took his sweet time before he moved from his seat, observing the way everyone else bustled about.

His gaze locked with Jenny’s for a moment, and he held the eye contact in a way she hoped had been purposeful. But all she could do was hope, really… His expression was unreadable, and though she doubted he’d forgotten her, there was hardly a trace of recognition in his eyes. Or anything else, for that matter…

He rose to his feet with that same stiltedness he’d been maintaining all evening… A part of her desperately wanted to believe it’d been some sort of facade for the camera. As stupid an idea as it was.

The cohesion officers didn’t force him off set like she figured they might. If anything, they didn’t seem the faintest bit intimidated by him at all. Were she to guess, they were probably just there for precautions sake. The old him caused quite a scare the last time he reared his mug, didn’t he? But they must have all held enough trust in his ‘betterment’ to drop their guard around the new Jeremy Donaldson…

And the worst part is, he didn’t make them regret it. He didn’t quip, or bare his teeth, or make a break for the studio doors. He seemed perfectly fine letting the officers take the lead, attention drifting to whichever one seemed closest to walking away.

“Jeremy-!”

Jenny hadn’t realized she had been the one to speak until her own voice hit her ears… Both Jeremy and the CCOs paused, turning to eye her with a mix of confusion and incredulity (well, the officers did, at least… Jeremy’s blank expression wasn’t exactly indicative of anything at all).

“... Jeremy …” She echoed- voice suddenly feeling almost painfully dry as she took a few instinctual steps towards him. She ignored the way her voice croaked, or the way her head spun- frustrated with her shallow, uneven breaths. She ignored that irrational voice in the back of her mind questioning whether or not this was even real. If this was a dream. If she would get close enough to him and he would just… disappear, like a trick of the light.

She could practically feel the weight of his gaze as he gave her a once over, flitting across all of her features as if he’d been playing at half speed. The smile that inevitably split his face was… mild. He didn’t even show any teeth.

“Jenny… It’s been a while. Glad to see Channel One decided to keep you on the team after our mindless little stunt… Though, I’m sure they’d be hard pressed to find a better floor manager than you.”

She resisted the urge to scoff… Jenny knew good and well that Channel One had nothing to do with her employment status. The whole damn building were all just puppets on Julia’s strings- and she could probably change them any way she’d like over the course of an afternoon.

The cohesion officers seemed to notice the way her lips quirked downward, if their souring expressions were anything to go by… So she did her best to temper her expression, pressing her tongue between her teeth until the urge to chastise had long since vanished.

“... No one told me you’d been released. I… I wasn’t expecting to see you-” A distant part of her couldn’t help but cringe at the way her breath faltered at the words… It was betraying a lot more emotion than she wanted to in front of the CCO; and who knows how they would choose to blatantly misrepresent emotional breaks, so long as the two of them were involved.

Jeremy didn’t seem to mind, though. He hummed distantly- maybe even humorously, though it felt a little too hollow to qualify- tilting his head to the side as he continued to study her.

“It was a surprise for me, as well… But I have the Prime Minister to thank for that. When she was drafting tonight’s Betterment themed episode, she realized what an opportunity it would be to see its effects live in an interview… Said I might have some pull with my old fans- her, ah… ‘Pre-Territories’ demographic, I believe she said. And so… here I am.”

He punctuated the statement with what was probably meant to be a flourish, but it was so underwhelmingly slow, Jenny hardly realized he’d done anything at all. Granted, it was hard to pay attention to the little things when her mind was clinging desperately to everything he’d said… Now she had been the one pausing before she spoke, struggling to figure out what she even wanted to say, and whether or not she’d even be allowed to say it.

“... I missed you…”

It was an inoffensive enough statement, she decided. If something as innocuous as that raised suspicions with the CCOs, then God help them all, she might as well just turn herself in now.

“... Will… Will you be coming with us for drinks after work? You know, for old times sake?”

‘Us’ was perhaps a bit of deceptive language… Robyn and Patrick normally had their own affairs to tend to, and it was always a tossup whether or not Megan even showed up. But how much do semantics really matter, anyways? And hell, maybe getting some time off set with Jeremy would be enough of an incentive to rope Megan in, too… Lord knew she missed her just as much.

Jeremy’s expression first blanked, then contorted into something that resembled petty sympathy… The sort of expression you would make hearing about your coworker’s ugly dog being taken to the vet, or how no one showed up to your snotty step-nephew’s birthday party.

“As charming as that sounds-” He mused, without the faintest hint of his usual cynicism, “-I’m afraid I can’t… I don’t drink anymore.”

Jenny almost choked- throat a bit too dry to tactically handle the sputter that flew from her mouth.

“... You don’t d-”

“And even if I did-” Jeremy continued, glancing towards a particularly lean cohesion officer who’d been spinning a small ring of keys on a finger, “-I have… quite a busy night lined up. I don’t know if I have the time to spare, even for a work outing…”

“... I see…” The lurching drop of her gut was almost enough to make her sick. By now, she knew full well how much of an open book she was… Not that she cared. Not that she could afford to care. She leaned forward a little more, giving her best effort to at least even out the curve of her lips.

“... Running errands then, are we? If you wouldn’t mind my company, I’d be happy to help you out…” 

Jenny was laying it on pretty thick, now… Thick enough that this strange new Jeremy was beginning to catch on. His lips thinned a little, and one of his eyebrows quirked up in what passed convincingly enough for perplexment.

Jenny shouldn’t have needed to elaborate. The fact that she did made her skin crawl… But it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault. It was Advance’s fault. It was the fault of whatever they decided to do to him when he was fragile and vulnerable- in their care behind closed doors.

So for his sake, elaborate she did.

“... I just think it’s a shame that you show up out of the blue, and no one has a chance to catch up with you. So much has changed… And I’m sure you have a lot to talk about, as well. Besides, it isn’t a crime to want to help out a friend, is it?”

“Of course not-” He agreed, with a sense of lenience that sounded wrong from off of his lips, “-but you’d be hard pressed to find a way to help me where I’m going.”

“Oh? And where is that?”

“Back to Betterment.” He answered evenly, as though the response wasn’t the verbal equivalent of dunking Jenny in a bath of ice water. If anything, the response he pulled out of her almost seemed to humor him… His lips pulled back by the faintest of margins, revealing a sliver of teeth.

“What’s that face for, then?”

“I thought you were released from Betterment-”

“Legally, I am...” He clarified. Or, rather, he said the words as though he’d clarified something, but Jenny sure as hell wasn’t any less confused.

“... But in the time I was away, Advance repossessed my home… Usually, the Betterment staff or the CCOs would get everything sorted out before someone’s release. But, again, this whole thing happened a bit sooner than anyone expected it to… So, until I get assigned a new place to live, I’ll be biding my time back at Betterment.”

Slack-jawed silence was the only response the comment got him. The longer it lasted, the more bemused her reaction seemed to make him. 

“Come now, Jenny… It’s only temporary. You’re looking at me as if I’m off to become a soldier.” 

“And you’re… you’re just fine with that, are you? With going back after being in there for so long?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She was beginning to tempt fate, now… The genuine, no-filter Jenny was rearing her head in front of the exact sort of company she shouldn’t have been.

She caught herself in the middle of a particularly sharp inhale, smoothing her temper back down as she tugged at some of the loose fabric of her cardigan. Clearing her throat perhaps a little too forcefully, Jenny swallowed down the urge to pursue a conversation she knew would get her nowhere… But still… Even if he wanted (‘wanted’) to go back to Betterment, she couldn’t just let him go and do it.

“You have family, don’t you, Jeremy?” She probed, pointedly ignoring the cohesion officers’ attempts to establish eye contact, “-A sister, right? Have you gotten in contact with her since your release…? What’s stopping you from boarding up with her, until… well, until some other option becomes available?”

Jenny couldn’t tell if she had asked the exact wrong question, or the exact right one. Whichever the case, it had quite a prominent effect on Jeremy. His face fell almost instantly- caught in between what looked like surprise and pain, before he wiped the slate clean again. That same look of trifling pity was quick to replace it again.

“... Yes, we’ve… considered that. Betterment got in touch with her, but…” His voice faltered just a touch- though not entirely out of emotion- and his lips thinned out to a thin, displeased line, “... Well, to answer your question, her own desires are what’s stopping me.”

“... She said no?”

“Just because I’ve been bettered doesn’t mean I’ve been forgiven by everyone in the community…” His chest rose with another shallow breath, before he continued- voice a little smaller than before, “... Nor do I deserve to be. I understand her decision.”

There was another stretch of silence that Jenny couldn’t bring herself to fill… Distantly, she could tell her mouth was getting drier by the second- no doubt on account of the fact it was hanging dumbly open. Again, Jeremy flashed her a look of almost pity … As if her concern was misplaced, or overemphasized… As if she was the one acting out of the ordinary, here.

“... It will only be a temporary arrangement… Advance have gotten new homes for thousands of their post-Betterment citizens. I’m sure they can handle one more.”

He was starting to shuffle his feet, now- in that familiar way someone would when they know full well they should have left quite a while ago… No doubt the CCOs weren’t helping, either tapping their feet, or eyeing clocks and watches far too frequently than they needed to.

Soon, they would take him away again… Probably stuff him in a car, or the back of a van, and drive him back to that miserable fucking place. And who knows if they’d even hold up their end of the bargain… Who knows if they would get him a home. If they would let him go.

Who knows if she would ever see him again.

“... And-” Her voice croaked with an emotion she didn’t have the time or the mental headspace to put a name to in that moment, “...if your sister did agree to accommodate you, would you just… What, just move in? Just like that?”

“More or less… She would have to sign some paperwork- various agreements and waivers and things like that first… Another reason I don’t blame her for refusing.” He tacked on the last statement with a cadence that implied some sort of joke had been spoken… But Jenny must have scraped together a half-smile a bit too late for his tastes, and- clearly feeling the need to elaborate- he added,

“What sort of person would give themself extra paperwork just to house an ex-convict?”

Chapter Text

When Jeremy mentioned ‘extra paperwork’, Jenny had been picturing a few handfuls of papers at most- vying for sensitive information she could probably just copy off of her Team Membership Card. In hindsight, perhaps that was a bit of a wishful assumption.

Her hand was still cramping from the strain of what she could only describe as a painfully unnecessary amount of questions answered. She could have sworn half of them were repeated more than once… And the ones that weren’t were the sorts of questions Advance almost certainly knew, so why they were even bothering to ask was beyond her. 

… But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that she probably wasn’t going to feel half her fingers when she woke up in the morning. It didn’t matter that she was going to need to share her less-than-modest living space for the first time since university.

Jeremy Donaldson was sat in the passenger seat beside her, a single little trunk of luggage sat neatly on his lap. And for all Jenny cared, the whole bloody world could have been ending, and none of it would have mattered.

The car ride was rather quiet and uneventful, and though Jenny had been eternally grateful for the latter, it was still difficult to adjust to Jeremy’s newfound silence… Every now and again, she attempted to stir up some form of conversation. But between the haze-like state that’d overtaken him, and her needing to keep her focus on the road, none of it got very far.

(“... You can roll down the window, if you’d like.”

“I’m quite alright; thank you.”

“... Do you want me to turn on the radio?”

“I think I’m fine with silence, for now…”)

Inevitably, she decided it was easiest to let him have his peace… It had only been fifteen minutes or so, but the next time she glanced back at him, his eyes were closed, and a chewed down nail tapped reliably to a beat she couldn’t hear. 

… Hopefully, he had a decent change of clothes in that suitcase of his. It was the least important offense by far, compared to everything else Betterment did to him, but something about it struck a nerve somewhere in the back of Jenny’s mind. 

It wasn’t just that they made his tie the same off-green teal of Advance’s insignia. It wasn’t just that they sheared off his stubble and slicked back his hair- as if the way he normally kept it was ‘beneath’ the presentation value of The fucking Nightly Show. It wasn’t even that they made him wear the fucking pin, on top of all of that. 

Sure, she hated all of that stuff too… But it was more than that. Something less blatant that itched at her subconscious until it hit bone.

The light gray of his suit only made it all the more apparent how pale he was…The rosy color that used to dust his skin was all but eradicated, now. His face and hands, ears and throat, were all the same shade of porcelain white. Every now and again, a streetlamp bathed him in a sharp white light, and it was difficult to tell where clothing ended and skin began… 

… She couldn’t help but notice that even his cheeks- once ruddy and full and almost charming, even at his angriest- were sunken, now… She had no idea what the diet must have been like at Betterment, or how often he ate a day. Whatever the regimen was, she was certain she didn’t envy it.

It was already late by the time they started their commute. When they finally pulled into the driveway, Jenny was surprised she managed to keep her eyes open the whole drive… But against her suspicions, somehow Jeremy had managed to keep himself awake, even with his eyes closed. The second he felt the rumbling of the car stop, they flickered open with sudden alertness.

… If anything, they’d been a little too wide… His normal, half lidded stare was replaced with something overly astute. It reminded her a bit of one of those blinking baby dolls, sat perpetually upright, staring blankly into the horizon.

She tried her best not to think too deeply into it, flicking a strand of hair behind her ear while he scrutinized the little building… His new, legal residence.

“... Quaint.” Was all he chose to say. Coming from him, it didn’t bite nearly as much as it should have.

It hadn’t taken too long to move his things in, considering his total belongings amounted to the contents of a single suitcase (and only half of a suitcase, if you didn’t count his clothes). Most of them were books, the majority all Advance propaganda, no doubt… Those all went on a small little nightstand in the guest room- his room, now. Everything else was shoved into the nearest drawer, quickly forgotten about.

For such loaded circumstances, the transition felt rather… hollow. Or, perhaps hollow wasn’t exactly the right word, but Jeremy wasn’t making it easy to find something that fit any better. This was his first night as a free man, beyond the walls of Betterment, away from Advance’s all seeing eye- if not only for a moment. This was the first day of the rest of his life… and he chose to spend it unpacking five outfits, shoving open the nearest window, and falling asleep in his shirt and slacks.

Jenny could only imagine how drained he must have been… Leaving Betterment, moving into a new place- not to mention all that postering he’d done for the camera… If she had a day as busy as his, she probably would have passed out the second her head hit the mattress, too. It was nothing she could hold against him.

Things would even out with him in a day’s time… Or a week, or a few weeks. However long it would take for some semblance of his former self to start slipping through again.

Or, well… that’s what she kept telling herself, anyways. It was the only thing she could tell herself; the only spoonful of sugar she had to help choke down the severity of Betterment’s reformation practices… But every passing week, the words felt a little more hollow. Every day, she believed it a little less.

… All things considered, there were far worse roommates to have than Jeremy Donaldson. If you were to have asked Jenny nearly ten years ago what it’d be like sharing a home with someone like him, she would have done her best to conjure the world’s most mundane horror story.

She would have imagined a shared living space packed floor to ceiling with books he would claim to get around to, someday. The space would be meticulously messy- a feat she knew only one man could properly pull off- everything in what he considered its ‘proper place’, despite how blatantly incorrect that was. Any available desk space would be populated with model planes, and little origami cranes, and god knows what else.

And, knowing him, crumbs would probably be everywhere. 

Ten years ago, she would have considered it a nightmare... Now, she would have traded anything to live like that. With a constant reminder of Jeremy’s… Jeremy-ness every time she stepped into her own home. Any little sliver of the genuine him that she took for granted all those years ago.

What she wouldn’t give to have him as a nuisance. To be inconvenienced by his peculiarities. To be lovingly ridiculed by a snide little comment right when she least expected it.

Living with the new Jeremy was rather like living with a ghost, in the sense that- on a good day- it felt no different to living alone. He was quiet, unobtrusive, and Jenny found herself losing track of him with a startling frequency, considering what little room they had to work with.

He was almost always awake before she was. Though, granted, she didn’t know whether or not Betterment had anything to do with that. She never clocked him as an early bird, before… But she never clocked him as a suicide risk either, so, really, what the hell did she know.

By the time she would wake up, he was usually already dressed, preened (hair slicked back, stubble trimmed), and nursing a cup of coffee by the television. When asked, he’d always claim to have eaten something already, though Jenny could never figure out the ‘something’ actually was. He didn’t eat all too much anymore, so what little he did raid from her pantry or fridge would often fly under her personal radar.

A lot of changes in his behavior could be easily pinned on some sort of abuse (as much as it sickened her to contemplate what it must have been)... Undoubtedly, some horrible cocktail of physical and mental assault had stripped him down to nothing but a mannequin in Advance branded clothing.

But his understimulated appetite had almost certainly been the meds’ doing.

They were bigger than his fingernail, packaged in a translucent teal pill bottle he kept in one of the kitchen cabinets. He would cough them down every night, grimacing either at the taste, or the sensation of them going down. According to him, they helped ‘even him out’... Kept him calm enough to ‘think through his decisions’ and to ‘act on logic instead of emotion’.

In fairness, that stuff was probably true… Just in addition to the other various ways it fucked him over. Not to mention, what logic he had left was so dangerously warped, it was hard to consider any of it truly logical at all.

… If there was one thing she valued about Jeremy, more than anything else in the world, it was his thirst for knowledge. It was his dedication to discovery- to knowing whatever he could sink his teeth into… That was another one of the things she took for granted, back in the ‘uneven’ past. Hell, it was a rare commodity even back then! And now… Well, it was borderline illegal, now- even if Advance would never admit it.

Nowadays, Jeremy hardly cared about the news, or politics, or just about anything, really… Jenny hardly had a selection of books good enough to sate his prior curiosity, but that didn’t matter much with this new him. His eyes and head hurt too frequently for him to bother with reading. It was much easier for him to lounge on the couch and stare blankly at whatever was running on television.

That was often how Jenny found him, whenever she came back from work… A silhouette of his slicked back hair poking up from behind the couch, passively eating whatever slop Channel One had to offer.

“... I saw you on air tonight…” He commented mildly one July night, hardly bothering to turn his attention from the television screen. The creak of the opening door, the jingling of a set of tossed keys; all of it was enough of a cue to know that Jenny had returned.

“You and Megan both, actually…”

Locking the door behind her, she walked around the width of the couch, perching herself on the opposite end of it.

“... Did you, now?”

His gaze flickered briefly- registering how close she’d gotten to him- and she could see muscles tense beneath loose clothing… But he settled back down soon enough, eyes drifting lazily back to the screen nearly as quickly as they’d left.

“Only for a moment… Whoever they have in broadcasting cut to the wrong camera. Couldn’t have been good for the ratings, but it was a pleasant surprise for me…” His hands folded in his lap- a little fidget of his that even Betterment couldn’t beat out of him, “... Megan hardly shows up anymore, does she? Just for interviews… And even then, it’s only if Patrick isn’t busy.”

“She asks about you, you know. Megan…”

“Does she…?” Jeremy’s head tilted methodically to the side, as though he’d been pondering the credibility of something quite like that. There was recognition in his eyes, at least. But no fleck of anything Jenny would consider emotion… Just the glinting reflection of the television screen. 

“Tell her I’m alright.”

It was all he ever said anymore… Every day, it was getting harder for Jenny to play messenger on the crew’s behalf. It was all the same questions, and always the same answer. Robyn would always be the first to probe about his sisyphean job search (a futile effort- even for a ‘bettered’ citizen- when all you’re known as is the man who nearly offed himself on television). Patrick- who never knew him all too well to begin with- would stick with something a bit less personal, occasionally questioning what he’d been up to since his sentence ended (the answer being a consistent ‘nothing at all’).

Megan… Well, she would ask all sorts of things… How he was holding up. How often he was eating. If he was showing any signs of improvement. If he was gaining back any of his missing weight. If he was sleeping. If he could even sleep at all.

She never brought those questions to Jeremy directly… It wouldn’t do either of them any good. But she would let him know Megan thought about him, at least. And he would give her the same stale, generic reply- almost as if he’d forgotten he’d said it the first time. Or the fourth. Or the fifteenth. 

It wasn’t his fault… He still needed time. Patience.

“I didn’t know you still watched the news…”

That simple word fell from Jenny’s mouth on instinct, with a familiar taste that had her grimacing the second she’d processed it. Jeremy hadn’t been looking at her, but judging by the wisp of breath that fell from parted lips, it was clear he didn’t have to. He caught it just as quickly as she did. 

“Not exactly the news anymore, is it?”

It should have been relieving to hear him say something like that… To hear him point out the elephant in the room. He should have spat it out with such bitterness- such raw contempt- that it cut his tongue on the way out.

Instead, the comment was dull and placid. If Jenny strained her ear, she could have sworn she even caught a trace of humor in his tone… But even if she did (and god help them all if she did), his flat delivery buried it deep within the rest of the monotony.

… It took her longer than it should have for her to recognize that he’d asked a question. Rhetorical or not, he held his breath with an air that implied he’d been expecting some sort of response.

It was rare she had many opportunities to strike up a conversation with Jeremy… And, more often than not, usually she ended up regretting even bothering, when all it made her do was remember the side of him she would never have back.

But it was better than sitting around in silence. And it was leagues better than watching whatever sordid excuse of a broadcast Jeremy had been torturing himself with.

… Her lips pursed as she carefully considered a question she very much knew she shouldn’t ask. Normally, she was better at trusting her instinct- following directions… Jeremy was the one who had an issue with that sort of thing. But, well… she had to pick up his slack, nowadays.

“Do-” hesitation nipped at her almost instantly, but she attempted to swallow it back down, propping up her arms on her knees as she finally turned to meet him properly, “... Do… you ever miss it? Running the news- real news?”

The question hung in the air longer than it needed to… Jenny watched in real time as he processed what she said, practically hearing the cogs in his mind stalling and chafing against each other. His expression first stalled, then twisted into something that resembled confusion, before finally landing at a half-hearted state of emptiness… Either that, or a conscious imitation of expressionlessness. 

When he finally found his answer, his voice was subtle and soft… As if there were someone else in the house he’d been keen on not catching the attention of.

“... What do you mean…?”

She almost laughed, then. Bewildered delirium tugged at the back of her mind- and beyond the initial shock of something so un-Jeremy-esque subsided, comedy was all she had left. Her lips curled into something closer to a grimace than a smile, and while her chest shuddered with what would have appeared to be a chuckle at a distance, no sound had escaped her.

“What do I mean?” She echoed, attempting to keep the inflection of her tone smooth and even (it wasn’t his fault… He was hurt. Broken, even. He wasn’t himself right now), “-Jeremy, what do you mean? You loved the news… The reason you… Well, the reason you were even sent to Betterment in first place was beca-” 

“Don’t-”  

Jeremy straightened up with such a sudden intensity, she could have swore she’d heard a few of his joints pop. He met her gaze with a sudden intensity she hadn’t seen from him in years… There hadn’t been a trace of subtly left in those russet brown eyes.

… He steadied himself with a shallow inhale, already forcing himself to recline back against the couch- though the stiffness of his movements had been impossible to ignore. 

“Please don’t, Jenny… I… I-I don’t want to think about that anymore.”

“... was because you loved it.”

He frowned pointedly, briefly flickering his gaze back to the television. Jenny couldn’t help but wonder what it was he’d been thinking in that brilliant, shattered mind of his… Whether he was remembering how everything used to be. The passion he held for his work. The passion he held for everything he dedicated himself to.

“I was good at what I did…”

When he finally spoke again, his voice was hardly above a murmur. One of his feet bounced nervously against the carpet, though it was debatable whether or not he even noticed.

“-But… I wasn’t fit for it. You remember that day as well as I do- and everything that happened after… I can’t do that anymore. And it’s better if I don’t even try.”

“... You don’t have to. You don’t have to do it ever again. Hell, no one probably ever will, in this country-” she conceded, failing to bite back the first bitter comment that rose from her throat like bile, “-I’m… All I’m asking is do you miss it?”

“This isn’t about me.”

It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t himself right now. She was asking him an unfair question.

The Jeremy she was looking for wasn’t there anymore. She wasn’t going to get any of the answers she was fishing for out of him- this… this facsimile of her friend with the heart and soul torn out. There was no use badgering the poor thing for something she knew he wasn’t going to be able to give. Jenny knew that perfectly well.

“... Isn’t ab- … Of course it’s about you. Jeremy, the National Nightly News would hardly have been anything without you!”

Then again, regardless of how well she knew it, that didn’t mean she’d be willing to act on it.

“You weren’t the country’s most beloved newscaster as a fluke. And it wasn’t because the government made them like you, either. You- … You were honest. You were passionate - you cared about your audience. Does-”

Jenny knew exactly what she wanted to say. But the question was lodged so deeply in her throat, and it tightened on her first attempt to choke it out. Regardless of the answer he gave- the lie she desperately wanted to hear, or the truth she’d been struggling to swallow- she knew she wouldn’t be able to stand it either way…

But, so long as she was already torturing herself, she might as well go all the way.

“… Does any of that even matter to you anymore? Don’t you miss the news? Do you even still like the news?”

She watched the way Jeremy’s chest hitched as his breathing stalled. It was only once she acknowledged it that she realized she’d been holding her’s, too…

“... It’s called The Nightly Show now.” He corrected, mildly. He hadn’t felt the need to comment further.

A chilling emptiness swept over Jenny so suddenly that her stomach would have probably lurched, had numbness not been so quick to follow. She was suddenly aware of the lingering tenseness in her jaw- the ache of her hand as her fingers dug into the armrest of the couch. She could feel the way her teeth ground against each other, locked in a vice so tight she had half a mind to think she might crack one.

“... So that’s it, then?” Words pulled themselves from her mind to her throat before she had the capacity to process what she’d been saying, “... All of those years in broadcasting mean nothing to you anymore? Left it all behind in the ‘uneven’ past, did you? Just let Betterment pry it out of your hands like they did with your house, and your life, and your fucking integrity?”

“Jenny-!”

One second, Jeremy was propped up on the couch, spine a bit too drawn, and lips a bit too pursed, and muscles tensed like a loaded spring.

The next, he was on his feet.

He was on his feet with his back arched, and his hands balled up, and his mouth flying open with such a ferocious intensity that flecks of saliva escaped alongside her name. His brows were furrowed harshly, his forehead creasing alongside them. Somehow, his eyes were still as eerily wide as before.

“What does it matter? What does any of it matter?! The National Nightly News is gone - it’s all fucking gone!” His voice bounced harshly off the wall, only interjected by his own labored panting. Every muscle in his body seemed to shake, with his words trembling right alongside him.

“What makes you think I would ever want to go back to something they got rid of for a reason?! I didn’t spend years in Betterment just for you to tell me that my only mistakes were listening to them! You don’t have any fucking idea what it’s like t-”

… The sound he cut himself off with was strained. The sort of noise you’d expect to hear out of a choking, dying animal, instead of a man who propped his career on his tone and diction.

He’d been looking straight at her… Straight into her, it felt like. As if his eyes were carving the thoughts straight out of her head. Jenny had always been a bit of an open book. Regardless, she imagined it was quite easy for Jeremy to tell exactly how petrified she was in that moment- even at the peak of his sudden outburst.

He was panting again. Quieter now, granted… Shallow little things that rocked his whole body. Beyond that and the trembling, he hadn’t moved an inch. He stood there in the same hunched position, frozen like a deer in headlights, just waiting for the force to strike him.

“... t-to… t…” 

His hands were the first to slacken, followed by his shoulders as he dragged his arm up to paw at his temples. His eyes seemed even wider, now- something Jenny hadn’t figured possible… Though, for all she knew, his widened pupils could have been to blame for that.

He took one small step back, inevitably followed by another, accidentally brushing up against the cold body of the television. He flinched violently, a loud gasp and the sudden movement that forced Jenny to flinch in turn… Her reaction made him cringe, mortification welling in the creases of his face. 

“Sorry.”

The word was barely above a whisper… But the newfound silence of her home, it was more than loud enough.

“I’m sorry, Jenny, I don’t-” he swallowed thickly, quickly tilting his head low enough to break the searing eye contact he’d been making… He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment- as though it would help him brush off whatever it was that came over him.

“… I… didn’t mean to lose my composure… like that, I-”

Jenny kept her movements deliberate and slow, moving from the couch to her feet with a strange mix of determination and uncertainty. Thankfully for her, he didn’t make her regret it, refraining from flying off the handle a second time. He couldn’t stop himself from grimacing again, though, retreating from her extending hand as though her touch was going to burn him.

“I think… I’ll be heading to bed early… tonight.” He forced out the words with a great deal of strain, swaying from left to right as if lightheadedness was beginning to take him over… Wouldn’t have surprised her, with how much yelling he’d just done.

“Goodnight.”

“Jeremy… I’m sorry, I… I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t-”

“Please, Jenny-” The words barely left his throat, pittering out of him in such a strangled fashion it was a miracle she made out what he’d been trying to say at all… And for the first time that entire night, she did as he asked, and left worse enough alone. 

“All I want is… is a peaceful night…”

The words left his mouth so gingerly, he didn’t seem to realize what he’d said until he heard it in his own ears. His lips pulled back briefly in some semblance of discomfort.

“I’m going to bed.”

Jeremy retreated rather quickly after that- perhaps concerned for the possibility of Jenny cutting him off again. But she made no move to stop him. She had no intent to. She’d already pushed him to a breaking point she didn’t even know Betterment let him have… She could be a stubborn thing, at times, but she wasn’t stupid.

It was only after she heard the click of his door fastening shut that she let gravity take her, flopping back down onto her sorry little couch. Whatever was left of the breath she was holding escaped her in a tired sigh. Her gaze fell to the shag carpet, trailing along the path of little footprints Jeremy left behind.

He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t himself. Of course he couldn’t take jabs like that anymore. Closing her eyes, Jenny rubbed a hand across her face, scowling a bit when it picked up beads of sweat along the way… She couldn’t decide what was worse: how badly she pushed him to go flying off the handle… or how much his temper reminded her of the man he used to be.

Chapter Text

Jeremy knew what it felt like to be seconds away from death. If you were to ask him, he would have said he knew it a little too well.

Mind you, he wasn’t talking about the slow fade to oblivion that most people were quick to think of… He didn’t know death in the same way a soldier did, keeled over and bleeding out on the field of war. He didn’t know death like transition patients did, slipping unknowingly from a temporary sleep to one they’d never wake from.

The death he knew was bigger than that. More hostile than that. The death he knew wouldn’t take him slowly- if he allowed it to take him at all.

The death he knew was the wolf that stalked the rabbit. And as long as Jeremy was in its line of sight, all he knew- all he was - was adrenaline. He was the blood pulsing in his veins, the clench of the muscle in his jaw, the flex of the tendons in his legs, and the ear splitting screeching in his mind telling him to drop everything and fucking run.

Jeremy first became acquainted with death during a particular, sweltering night at the tail end of August. It was 6:32 PM when he first stared down the barrel of a loaded gun. But he felt death’s presence from the moment he woke up that morning. He felt its eyes trained on him as he put himself together, had lunch, drove to work, collapsed in his chair… He felt it when he slipped that tape to Alex in the broadcast room.

What he wouldn’t give to grip his past self by the collar. To ask him what the hell he was thinking… But it wouldn’t do anything. Wouldn’t change anything. He would have found some other way to screw up. He would have ended up in the same position either way- ignorant as he was, back then…

He was a threat to the news team, the staff, his friends… The fact that the CCOs didn’t neutralize him the second they saw him should have been a testament to their character. It should have taught him something… Just because his gun wasn’t trained on anyone but himself didn’t mean it couldn’t have been.

He didn’t know when exactly Alex cut to ads… He didn’t know how much of his rambling speech actually made it to the public. He hadn’t had much time to process that it’d even happened, before the studio doors slammed open, and a BANG shook the air. A warning shot bit through the carpet… It only missed his foot by inches.

He remembered the way he shouted. How the muscles in his body coiled up so tightly, he could barely feel them anymore. He remembered the way his commandeered gun fumbled from his shaking hands, how the second shot clipped his ear, and how he yelped as his hands flew up to clutch it.

He especially remembered how reactive the CCOs were… And why shouldn’t they have been? Sudden movements were still sudden movements, regardless of if he still had a weapon or not. They didn’t know if the gun had even been his only weapon.

They were right to pin him down. Though, he couldn’t deny it had hurt. The firm grip they had on his wrists as he pulled his arms back to properly cuff them. The biting ache of knees digging into his back, pinning him to the ground. The humid pant of death prickling at the hairs on his neck, and the shouting, authoritative commands his frantic brain couldn’t register, and the pained look of horror in Jenny’s expression, and the hot trickle of blood that ran down from his ear, past his collarbone, scorching his skin as it went. 

Before then, he always associated guns with a coldness… something befitting the supposed apathy of their wielders. But even now, he could feel the press of it against his temple, his back, his neck. The way the metal burned into the skin of his hand, clutching to it so tightly an imprint was left behind.

It was scalding hot.

From then on, Jeremy had always been acutely aware of death. He felt it again the night Disrupt attacked, abducting him, forcing him into hiding. And again, when he snuck his way on set, determined to break the news to the world about-

… about nothing. Nothing that would promote any sort of good in the world. That’s what The Nightly Show was for… Unity, community, sharing the country as a Team. And he nearly ruined all of it, for what? For a few extra seconds in the spotlight? He lost the rights to that when he first lost control of himself.

Jeremy was comfortable saying that he knew death very well, indeed. On a level that most people didn’t, he would go as far to say. Outside of the contexts of a transition center- or when it was running rampant behind enemy lines- most people considered death a bad thing. He couldn’t say he disagreed with that… Just that he had a more nuanced opinion of it than most.

… People used to like that about him… Nuance… His attention to detail. His devotion to clarity…

To him, death was a driving force. Depending on how it was wielded- and how it was understood - it could be either the carrot, or the stick… and sometimes, both at once. It was one of the earliest lessons he learned at Betterment. Probably the only thing he had enough time to learn before Disrupt first got in the way.

Jeremy Donaldson couldn’t love life until he learned how to value it. No one could, really… He was just more cynical than the average citizen tended to be- which made it all the more valuable a lesson to be learned. It was no fucking wonder he tried to off himself, mind as poisoned as it was. Anyone would, with a dour enough view of the world.

… He made everything so difficult for himself. Picking at the finer details, uncovering what was better left alone. He consistently peeled away the veil, only to bemoan what was behind it- never once considering why the tarp was there in the first place. What kind of fucking life was that…?

It was a miracle that he progressed through Betterment as quickly as he did, with how problematic his worldview had become over the years… Maybe the news had something to do with that. Maybe reporting and investigating so much negative drivel turned a good man into someone contemptuous and disruptive. In that case, perhaps it really was best for everyone that Channel One didn’t cover that sort of thing anymore…

Working with Betterment was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. Changing yourself for the greater good wasn’t a process that came easily to most… A lesser man wouldn’t have done it at all.

… And… And true, he struggled at first. Undoubtedly, he struggled… Everyone at Betterment had their moments; though, Jeremy would be the first to admit that he had far more of them than most. A consequence of his depraved lifestyle, and Disrupt’s influence, and whatever the hell else convinced him to refuse their help for so long…

He would have called their tough love ‘torture’ back then… Funny, how that works. For as smart as he figured he was, he was no better than a temperamental child… Maybe even worse than a child. A sick child wouldn’t deny medicine, and in the same breath, wonder why they’re worse off than before.

If he had been compliant from the start, they wouldn’t have been forced to escalate… If he didn’t thrash around so much, they wouldn’t have had to tie him up so often. If he hadn’t hollered so much Disrupt propaganda, there would have been no need for his Advance exposure therapy. If he never plotted an escape every time he caught a glimpse of a hallway, or an unlocked door, or a precariously guarded window, he wouldn’t have needed to start wearing the hood.

And if he hadn’t disarmed a CCO, spread hostile mistruths on national television, and colluded with terrorists, he wouldn’t have been in Betterment at all. As astute as he was, you’d think he would have caught onto that sooner.

… He could remember the grip of the restraints on his wrists, pulled so tightly it was a miracle his fingers kept circulation… Sometimes they would have him perched on the ground, squatted on his knees until he couldn’t feel the muscles in his legs anymore. Sometimes, different restraints would keep him pinned to the wall- that was marginally better.

If he was lucky (or, perhaps more accurately, if he was good), they’d let him lie down on his cot, bound in a position that would almost remind him of something more promiscuous, if he ever cared about that sort of thing. That was always quite nice… Or, no- it wasn’t nice, obviously. But it gave him an excuse to get a little extra sleep.

If he strained hard enough, he could still feel the tightening straps digging into the meat of his shoulde…

Well, wait… Wait. That wasn’t right, was it? He rarely ever had restraints up there. They were normally at his arms or wrists and such- but they never moved too much further up his body than that. 

… A strange sort of heat started building in his chest, spreading meticulously through his body as though it were following the flow of his veins… Jeremy was suddenly keenly aware of something he perhaps should have realized a good long while ago.

He was hot… He was sweltering hot- upsettingly hot. Somewhere along the line, a thick coat of sweat had adhered his clothing to his skin… He could feel his hair spiking out of place, a single bead of sweat dripping from a strand and spattering on the bridge of his nose.

He wheezed- a quiet, almost painful little noise that failed to convey the wave discomfort so quick to crash over him. He couldn’t breathe in deep enough to make something any louder… It was as if there was a building pressure on his chest- forcing his lungs back against the wall of his ribcage, then further still.

He managed a twitch, but found it did little good to shake off either the restraints, or the newly blossoming heat… If anything, struggling only seemed to make it all worse. His lungs stung, tension building like a rope about to snap. It felt like he’d been hyperventilating- though, if that was the case, he wouldn’t be a hair’s breadth away from suffocating, would he?

It was like being caught in a burning building- smog hanging so thickly in the air that you’d be better off throwing yourself in the fire than standing around choking to death… He doubted that’d do him any good, though. Especially since- for all he knew- he already fucking was on fire. What other explanation was there for the bristling, unbearable heat that’d been swarming him like a hoard of locusts? What else could have been the source of the sweat pooling down his neck and legs and back, soaking him to the skin?

Christ, he- … Jeremy couldn’t think… A sudden wave of nausea nearly swept him off his feet- or- or back, or whatever the hell it was he was propped up on right now. Jeremy couldn’t tell, and honestly he couldn’t care to tell. How was he expected to function when he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even bring himself to swallow? It was impossible to think- he didn’t want to think. All Jeremy wanted was to get out of that fucki-

“Jeremy!”

Granted, Jenny hadn’t made a habit of watching her friend in his sleep, so it wasn’t like she knew what he’d considered ‘regular sleeping habits’. She doubted that panting and whimpering would have made it very high on his list, though.

In the time she’d known him, Jenny had seen Jeremy in all sorts of disarray… From his resigned attempt at martyrdom at the tail end of the heatwave, to his frantic bid at the broadcast room as he was dragged to Betterment a second time- writhing and pleading and whimpering.

Now she had a third to add to her list… Though it was hard to put a name to it. Calling it a ‘night terror’ wouldn’t have done it justice. Whatever it was that’d been disturbing him was clearly tangible in a way a common dream couldn’t replicate.

Something was wrong. It was obvious in the way he writhed, twitching in sharp bursts in a way that reminded Jenny of a dying bug. It was obvious in the way his face contorted, eyebrows furrowing, lips curling back into the smallest of scowls- even in his sleep.

With how animated he was, Jenny hardly realized he’d even been asleep, at first… But there’s only so many times you can call someone’s name until you’re certain they’re not just ignoring you.

At first, all she dared to do was tap him. As children, her sister was prone to sleepwalking fits every now and then… She learned the hard way that waking them too suddenly always did more harm than good. A gentle touch- metaphorical or otherwise- usually proved the best way to defuse an unwanted situation. 

But the little prod did nothing to Jeremy. A slightly harder nudge produced much the same result. And though a part of her knew it was far from her wisest decision, and another part knew she’d already shaken Jeremy far more than she needed to that day (and a distant third part of her wondered if she should just let him sort it out on his own), she reluctantly reached out to plant her hands against his shoulders.

The first thing she noticed was the way his muscles tensed beneath her touch. She knew better than to grip him, of course- if anything, she tried to keep her hold on him purposefully light. But she felt flesh tremble beneath the pads of her fingers, and even with the distance from his throat she swore she could feel the harsh drumming of his pulse.

The second thing she noticed was how clammy he was… And yes, it was July, and yes it was a little hot, a little humid- but not sweating-through-your-shirt humid. Not damp-spots-on-your-mattress humid.

At least, not to her it wasn’t… But whatever was happening to Jeremy hadn’t seemed to care much about that. It was hard to tell if it’d been the temperature, or something else- something more sinister- that’d been forcing him to pant like a heatstroked dog… But whatever it was, it seemed equally responsible for the twitching, and the grimacing, and the whimpering.

… Christ, he was whimpering in his sleep… Ten years ago, if she had caught him doing that, she probably wouldn’t have let him live it down. Nowadays, the only thing she wanted was to forget she ever heard it at all.

She tried to shake him awake as gently as she could… Easier said than done when that big head of his kept lolling alongside the rest of him.  

Jeremy’s sudden shift from limp and unresponsive to high octane awareness was neck breakingly fast. His eyes snapped open, his whole body tensed, and the first thing out of his mouth was a squawk of alarm that startled Jenny just as much as she had him.

A part of her hoped that whatever was wrong with him would end the moment he opened his eyes… But he put every ounce of himself into thrashing her off of him, scrambling backwards on the mattress so frantically that he kicked his blankets onto the floor, and with every second it was increasingly apparent it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“Jeremy-! Calm down, what’s wrong w-”

She choked back the rest of the sentence before it had the chance to escape. Hell or high water, she was not going to fuck this up twice in one night.

“... What’s wrong, Jeremy…? What’s going on?”

By some miracle, she managed to even out her tone to her personal satisfaction. Of course, there was only so much concern she could keep out of her voice in a situation like this. But so long as none of it was anything close to accusatory, she would take what she could get.

She wasn’t exactly sure when Jeremy recognized her for who she was, as opposed to the ambiguous threat he clearly assumed her to be. His breathing kept the same frantic pace, and his muscles remained taut beneath the loose veil of his sweat drenched nightwear… But his eyes locked with hers- wide, tired, a little red around the edges- and where there’d once been a panicked look, it seemed closer to pleading now.

“... Jenny…?” The croak was little more than a whisper beneath his frantic breaths. His head jerked to either side of him in a dazed attempt to reorient himself. By the time he finally turned to face her again, his eyes were somehow even blearier than before.

“Jenny- Christ- my-” he gasped sharply, a palm pressing firmly at his temple, “ … ffucking hell, it’s my head, I can’t-”

His face twisted up as he whimpered again, balling up the sheets as if the act alone would siphon the pain out of him. The effort he was putting into keeping himself sitting upright was commendable in itself. Every few seconds or so, his body would lurch forward, as though intending to press his forehead against the plush of the mattress.

“I haven’t had a hangover in years, but this… this feels- … Christ, it’s hot… Are you hot?”

“Jeremy- try to keep your eyes open, okay?”

Jenny closed the distance between them a little quicker than she meant to, thankful that Jeremy hadn’t reacted in any way she’d rather him not. She grabbed his face as carefully as he could, cupping it in one hand as she studied him… The burning temperature she was met with hadn’t gone unnoticed, she had a bit too much on her plate right now to address it.

She tilted his head, ignoring the beads of sweat that slipped down his chin, spattering onto her fingers.

“Look at me, alright? How about we move you back to the living room… There’s a fan in there. It’s cooler…”

She really would have preferred a verbal reply, but she settled for Jeremy’s delayed little nod. She had a feeling she was going to have to take what she could get…

She pulled her hands away from his face at last, her hands slipping down to hold carefully to his own. Her intention was to gently tug him upwards, but really, it felt closer to coaxing an animal out of its hiding space. He followed her hesitantly, stopping and starting at odd intervals as he struggled to keep himself centered.

It wasn’t exactly a long walk from the guest bedroom back to the couch, but the two of them had already had enough hiccups in one night. Jenny wasn’t inclined to let her oldest friend trip over his feet and crack his head on the way down. He wasn’t that much taller than her, anyway… It wasn’t all that difficult to prop her arm around him, stabilizing him as they made their way back to the couch.

With the flick of a switch, the overhead fan whirred to life, circulating a comfortable breeze in a matter of seconds. Jeremy still seemed worse for wear, but the cooler temperatures did seem to alleviate the heat, if not the pain.

“Is that better?”

Lowering him down onto the couch, she felt him sigh in exertion as he let himself go slack. The second he didn’t have to see, he went back to closing his eyes… Considering the way he’d been swaying, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind how badly his vision must have been swimming.

“... Can’t tell… Maybe-? I- … I… Christ, I feel like death warmed over…” He cracked his eyelids open just enough to peek at her, doing his best to stop himself from slurring over his own words.

“You’re certain you’re not hot?”

She could feel her face twist at his question, as genuine as she knew it’d been… In any other context, she’d have been quick to prescribe the man with a fever. Jenny was certain she had something in some drawer somewhere for common illnesses. But something nagged frustratingly at the back of her head, and the thought of Jeremy’s condition being anything along the spectrum of mild hadn't even occurred to her. This was different.

It was all so… abrupt. That’s what Jenny was struggling to wrap her mind around. Where the hell could he have contracted something so harsh so quickly?

Jeremy hardly even went outside, if it wasn’t to do another half hearted job search (and god knows the last time he did one of those). It couldn’t have been something he ate, otherwise she’d be just as sick as he was. What the hell else could he have done that led to something like this? What else was h-

… No. Not what had he done. That’d been the wrong question. It was what he hadn’t done…

“Jeremy… You didn’t take your medication tonight, did you?”

His eyes snapped open again. He couldn’t give her an answer at first… Not that he needed to, really- his silence had been answer enough. Jeremy stalled for a couple of seconds- as though fully processing the weight of what it was she asked- before the remaining color drained from his face, realization sweeping over him.

“That would be a no, then.”

Jeremy was certainly indisposed, but he hadn’t been completely out of sorts. Before she’d lifted the first foot, he seemed to know where she’d been trying to go. Her trek towards the kitchen cabinet was stopped rather abruptly before it even began. A clammy hand clutched at the back of her shirt- the only thing he could get a hold on without standing up…

“D- no, Jenny… Don’t go… Don’t bother, there’s.. ”

A hesitation he wasn’t usually known for clung thickly to the walls of his throat. Suddenly, he seemed to find it easier to stare at the stray threads of the carpet than to meet Jenny eye to eye.

“...‘s nothing left in the bottle. I ran out…”

She froze. Blinked. Whipped back around to look at him.

“What do you mean ran out-?” It was a hypothetical question, of course. She hadn’t been probing Jeremy for a response as much as she’d been echoing his statement. Irregardless, he didn’t answer nearly as quickly as she needed him to.

“Jeremy. When did you run out? When’s the last time you had that medication?”

“I… I don’t know-” His eyes narrowed in such a harsh squint, they were practically shut. She could only imagine he had meant for his defense to come out differently than the slurred whine that escaped him.

“... I don’t-”

“Jeremy.”

She met his grimace sternly, hoping that the furrow of her brow hadn’t betrayed the mountain of pressure his hesitation was stacking on her. 

“... Maybe a week ago?”

Scratch that. Maybe he’d been right to be nervous about telling her that.

“You’ve been off your meds for a week?!” One of her hands flew up to her head, instinctively combing through her hair as she strained to grasp the severity of his confession, “Jeremy, that’s- … No fucking wonder you’re out of sorts-! You can’t just-”

“I didn’t mean to-! I didn’ mean to, I jus’… The symptoms …!” He fumbled out the word with extra emphasis, as if that alone would help Jenny understand whatever it was he’d been struggling to get at, “Betterment said there’d be symptoms- appetite an’... a-and fatigue, and… memory, and I…”

His sentences were hardly making it out of his mouth before they started falling apart… It hadn’t taken him long to give up on justifying himself completely, resigning to burrowing his head in his hands.

“...It’s so counterintuitive…! I didn’t mean to forget… You think I wanted this?”

A perturbed frown stretched across the width of Jenny’s face as she watched him scrabble for coherency. A single, sweaty hand jutted up, gesturing sloppily towards himself- for emphasis, she could only assume… If she was honest, it was a bit hard to keep up an appropriate level of concern when he’d been reduced to a feverish mess.

She hadn’t recognized she’d been holding her breath until she forced a sigh between her teeth.

“... Well, it could be worse. You’re not vomiting all over my carpet.”

“Don’t speak too soon…” He muttered bitterly, tipping his head as far as it would go, “-And… And don’t even put the thought in my head, or-”

“Alright-! Alright… Sit there. Don’t close your eyes- god forbid you pass out like this…” She took a moment to clutch him by the shoulders, propping him as upright as she could manage, “I’m getting you a drink.”

Jeremy certainly had no qualms with something cold to drink. She made sure the water she got him was decently cold this time around- dropped a couple ice cubes into it and everything… Though, if she knew how feverishly he was going to gulp down half of the large glass, perhaps she would have held off on adding what could have easily been choking hazards.

“That any better…?” The question came out a bit more incredulous than she’d meant it to, but if Jeremy had caught onto it, he hadn’t seemed to mind. 

“Vaguely…”

In his state, it was hard to consider anything Jeremy said very convincing…But the drink had begun to steady his breathing, and his skin wasn’t as nearly as wet as before. Compared to how discomposed he’d been when he first woke up, ‘vaguely’ better would have been underselling his condition.

He wasn’t perfect, of course. By all accounts, he was still upsettingly disheveled. But all progress was good progress. Even when it was nigh imperceptible, or the best of two evils, or still generally a cause for concern.

“... You look like you just crawled out of the bath, you know…” Jenny mused under her breath, tugging at one of his sleeves for a bit of emphasis, “... You’re certain you don’t want me to get you another shirt? One a little less… damp?”

“Don’t bother… With the fan on, it’s… almost nice, really. Cool.”

Though Jenny could feel herself nodding in agreement, she couldn’t help but grimace at the thought of it… Sweat air drying, leaving a tacky residue across the surface of his skin. But, if that’s what he wanted, she wasn’t going to argue with him. If it helped calm him down, and kept his temperature in check, she supposed it didn’t matter how uncomfortable she found it…

She watched the way the fan tousled his unkempt hair- a stray strand sticking to his face every now and again. He didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t made any sort of move to brush it away… Or to do anything else, for that matter. If Jenny had to guess, he was letting everything wash over him. The fresh drink, the cool breeze. Perhaps his accommodating company, even…

… His hair looked better like this. It was impossible for her not to notice. It added some much needed familiarity to his silhouette- something that had been missing for weeks. A shame he didn’t wear it like that intentionally anymore…

“Jenny…? I’m… I’m really tired. Do I still have to keep my eyes open?”

The comment shook her out of her own mind, and she shifted her gaze back to his face again… He sure as hell looked tired. He always had rather pronounced eyebags after Betterment, but something about the ghastly pallor of his face really emphasized it all.

“... How’s your head?”

“Better, I think… The water helped. Fan, too… I just want to sleep…”

“Do you feel like you’re going to pass out?”

The silence that followed stretched a lot longer than it had any right to… If she wasn’t looking right at him, she would have figured he’d fallen asleep before he could even force an answer out. But as it stood, all she could do was watch his gaze flicker from side to side, visible hesitation overpowering the exhaustion for a moment.

When he finally brought himself to speak again, it was in a tentative mutter.

“... ‘f I said yes, would you let me?”  

“No.”

“Oh… No, then.”

… Jenny paused to steal another glance at him. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. A quirk of the eyebrow, maybe. The smallest of little smiles. The telltale glint of mischief in his eyes- hidden behind the mental fog that’d been plaguing him.

She found nothing of the sort. Either he was being 100% serious, or he was too weak to punctuate the comment with any expression beyond haggard neutrality. She was steadily getting better at stopping disappointment from making its way to her face.

“... Alright. Go ahead…”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. Jeremy shifted back and forth, sinking lower until his head was propped up against the armrest. Legs curling up close to his chest, he let his arms succumb to gravity, falling wherever they may.

… He looked so small like this. Vulnerable, even… With his skin all pale and glistening, and his breathing still uneven. Every now and then, he must have felt a new pang of nausea or pain, judging by the way his face briefly twisted up…

It felt wrong to see the once-great Jeremy Donaldson reduced to something… like that. Something weak. Quiet. Something so wretched you couldn’t help but pity him.

But what felt worse was how… captivated she was by it. 

It wasn’t his pain or discomfort that enthralled her. It was what the pain and discomfort did to him. The man it turned him into… Quick tempered, out of sorts, burdensome, graceless, uncaring. It was the way the sweat made his hair jut out at odd angles. It was the way his exhaustion forced his eyes into a familiar, tired squint. It was the way the nausea forced words from his aching brain to his lips without as much of a second thought- without care of how poorly they might be received.

Was it awful to say that she missed it? Would she be a terrible person to confess that seeing the new Jeremy at his lowest had never been more exciting? That- while he lied there, caught in the aftershocks of his withdrawal- she’d been fantasizing of a world where he never recovered.

… Yes, she determined. Yes, she would be a terrible person for thinking that… It shouldn’t have mattered whether or not the symptoms made him act more like the Jeremy she remembered. Wanting your closest friend to suffer makes you a bad person- a bad friend, at the least.

But maybe that’s what she was. A bad friend. A bad friend who was willing to entertain the thought of withdrawals and aftershocks and medicinal sobriety, if it meant there was a chance to coax the old Jeremy out from the back of his own mind. Maybe it did make her a bad person to hate the man Betterment had made him… But Jeremy would hate himself too, if he could see what Advance did to him, so what did morals matter to her?

… Of course, she’d be stupid to think there would be no risks from doing something like that… Even beyond Advance catching wind of anything. Jenny was no doctor, true, but she couldn’t imagine such a sudden withdrawal from any sort of medication could be considered healthy. Especially when the dosage was as large and as potent as Jeremy’s prescriptions had been.

Advance and Disrupt’s little game of cat and mouse had kept Jeremy away from her for years… The last thing she wanted to do was kill him on accident- from a medicinal withdrawal, no less…

It was a terrible crossroads to be on. A path with no discernible end, and no preferable route forwards. Briefly, she wondered what Jeremy would tell her to do- were he in right of mind… But, well… After the heatwave, a part of her doubted the sanctity of his advice when his health had been the stakes.

The couch shifted underneath her, and it took all of Jenny’s resolve not to flinch. She settled for a sharp turn of the head, watching as Jeremy shifted in a futile attempt to get comfortable on a couch that was probably as old as he was.

“... Jenny…?”

His voice was still a bit faint. This time, at least, it seemed more to do with his fatigue than any sort of pain or discomfort.

“Jenny, can… can we go into town tomorrow and pick up the-” … he trailed off for a moment, gesturing nonsensically, eyes still cemented shut, “... the new prescription? Please?”

… Now it was her turn to hesitate. She swallowed thickly, a tug on her scalp letting her know that she’d begun fidgeting with her hair again… She could sleep easy at night without ever seeing another one of those pills again. But Jeremy couldn’t say the same… Literally, he couldn’t say the same-!

It wouldn’t be fair to deny him medication that he clearly desired. But if Betterment hadn’t gotten their hands on him, he wouldn’t have been so inclined to take them to begin with. Jeremy- her Jeremy… He wouldn’t want her to sit idly by while Advanced leeched all the life out of him. 

“... Jenny…?”

“Sure. Of course, Jeremy…”

What he didn’t know wasn’t going to hurt him… Not as much as Betterment already had.