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Jeremy is shirtless and sandwiched between Kevin and Jean when he starts hyperventilating.
They both notice inhumanly fast. Kevin stops nuzzling him from behind, tightening his hold on Jeremy’s waist to steady the shaking. Jean pulls away from the encompassing hug they were in, hand cupping the side of Jeremy’s neck Kevin wasn’t attached to. His gray eyes search furiously for trouble.
“Jeremy—“ they say at once, eerily in the exact same tone.
But Jeremy is too busy trying to breathe. His lungs feel so small, air suddenly thin. Desperation fuels his inhales and exhales as he attempts to feel the oxygen keeping him alive.
“Panic attack,” Kevin says.
“Yes,” Jean instantly agrees, “back up.”
The two retreat to opposite ends of the bed, Jean at the head and Kevin at the foot.
Even with them gone, ghosts of their hands lay over Jeremy’s body. Burning, itching touches move to his ribs, and Jeremy scratches to get them out. It doesn’t work but he tries harder anyway. Four palms and twenty fingers—it feels like so much more than that—caress and grip every inch of him. Jeremy tries to rub them away, but finds no arms around him.
Shit, Jeremy thinks. Shit shit shit, what did I take? When? Who gave it to me and why don’t I remember? Do Kevin and Jean know?
He tries to piece together the symptoms but comes up empty. He holds his hands up—four palms and twenty fingers—but they’re shaking too hard.
There is a crushing, unavoidable feeling that Jeremy is going to die.
He is going to overdose in this room. This room he doesn’t recognize, with petting hands he doesn’t recognize, killed by pills he can’t recall taking.
Jeremy rises from the bed and throws himself towards the door, crashing out into the hallway and slamming into a wall. Any noise in his ears is muffled, underwater. What did I take? Why don’t I remember?
Itching his flaming skin, Jeremy somehow finds a bathroom; he bursts in so dazed he doesn’t bother closing the door behind him. A blink, and suddenly he’s on the floor of the shower, freezing water streaming over his head. It’s a good shock to the system but it doesn’t sober him completely. The shower is too new and too clean—when did I check into a hotel?
He closes his eyes and tries so hard to focus on reality. He doesn’t want to be lost and alone when he dies. Thinking of Laila and Cat and the others, how sweet they were despite knowing what he did. What he is. They’d be so disappointed, knowing this is how he’s dying; half naked in a hotel shower he can’t remember checking into, heart racing, blood boiling from poison he put in his own veins. Jeremy curls his knees up to his chest, soaking wet sweatpants weighing him down, and tries harder to rip out the phantom hands.
An accented voice calls out somewhere. Two sets of footsteps enter the room, quick and heavy. The spray above Jeremy shifts as a hand passes through it, the owner wincing in retreat. “Stupid fucking water.”
Another body hops in with him—not now, not like this—feet slapping on the puddled floor. They reach over, presence so close Jeremy feels it against his skin, and shut the shower off.
With his grounding agent gone, Jeremy becomes aware of the hot tears on his cheeks. They burn so badly, just like his goddamn body. Dead skin collects under Jeremy’s nails.
“Open your eyes,” the man in front of him demands. No. They always ask that. I don’t want to see, don’t make me look. Jeremy squeezes them shut so hard the pressure hurts. Suddenly, the voice is nearer, lower and level. Soft. “Jeremy, it’s Kevin. Let me look at you.”
Kevin. Kevin Day. Kevin. He can get help, he can get me sober.
Jeremy’s eyes blow wide open, vision blacking out for several seconds. He snatches Kevin by the shirt collar and desperately pulls him closer.
“Kevin, my pupils. What did I take? What did you see me take? I—my nose, check my nose—“
Kevin scans him, gray-green eyes narrowed under dark brows. “I need you to take a deep breath. If you can’t breathe, your pupils will dilate and I won’t be able to tell. Breathe, okay?”
The muscles around Jeremy’s eyelids spasm. Jeremy nods and grasps for things his therapist taught him. He tries to inhale and exhale on time, but his mind is too frazzled to keep track.
“I can’t. Something is wrong. Was it pills? I don’t remember,” Jeremy says frantically. He scratches up his neck to his face, scraping the skin off his cheeks and forehead, wiping his nose to see if any powder was left behind. Track marks would be impossible to catch with his sight this blurred.
“Jeremy. Move from my collar to my chest. Feel my ribs rise and fall. Inhale and exhale at the same time as me.”
Thinking of touching Kevin like this is repulsive. Feeling his warmth, his body, his heart. Kevin is his friend, and he won’t do that, not while he’s out of his mind. Was it coke or something stronger?
“No skin,” Jeremy begs, “please, don’t let me touch you like this. Don’t let me do that to you.”
“No skin,” Kevin nods. Kevin’s shirt is too thin to block any heat, but his eyes dart around the shower before snatching a washcloth. “Fist over this on my chest.”
Jeremy follows his order, placing the cloth as a barrier between his knuckles and Kevin’s body.
Finally with a reference, Jeremy breathes in time with Kevin even when his lungs try to reject it. He stutters violently through the first few inhales. Eventually it evens out and his chest rises and falls in sync with Kevin’s.
“I don’t—“ Jeremy swallows a lump in his throat, surprised he doesn’t taste liquor. “I’m sorry. I can’t think. It might be—“
“You are sober,” Kevin stresses. His voice is hard as stone. Confident and sure. “I know, Jean knows. This is not drugs. This is panic.”
Jean. Jeremy whips his head to the side, finally seeing his partner past the tunnel vision. Jean’s expression is frozen in a worried scowl. Standing far away from the shower, he twitches like he wants to come closer. Oh.
Oh. That’s where I am.
“I’m in the Lofts,” Jeremy realizes. The entire world focuses at once. Kevin nods. “We…we were…dammit. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t do it.”
Jean walks over and wraps a towel over Jeremy’s head, careful to avoid contact. Jeremy grabs it and ignores the scrapes on his right side, skin caked under his left hand’s nails. His ribs burn, and he consistently has to tell himself that it’s from self-injury and not other people’s touch. He scrubs the towel over his face to hide.
“What happened?” Kevin asks, more demanding than any normal person. It’s calming, because at least Kevin hasn’t changed.
Warmth. Groping hands. Powdered noses and empty prescription bottles and handcuffs and cops. A dick in my hands, and mouth. Fingers inside me and around me and digging into my scalp.
Jeremy’s chest rattles. He shakes his head.
“I can’t…not the both of you. I’m sorry. I can’t do both at the same time. It’s…I can’t.”
Jean grunts in the back of his throat, acknowledging the information. Kevin doesn’t know the story, so he’s lost but hums like he isn’t, expression holding a mountain of grief he fails to hide. “You’re right. I didn’t ask how you felt. I won’t get between you two again.”
“No!” Jeremy and Jean snap at once.
Kevin flinches away, eyes wide and confused. Embarrassed, Jean presses a hand over his face and avoids looking at him.
Jeremy clears his throat. “I have issues with groups. Being between you two…it set something off in my head. It’s not you, Kevin.”
“Oh.”
“This conversation needs coffee,” Jean sighs. Jeremy nods violently. “I will grab you two a change of clothes. Kevin?”
Kevin carefully reaches out and scrunches the towel into Jeremy’s soaked hair. It’s still strange seeing him out of his element, awkward showing affection to anyone. He had kissed Jeremy like he didn’t know how. Jean had mouthed at Kevin’s jaw, and he started shaking like a lamb. Jeremy doesn’t know the details, but he’s sure there aren’t many details at all.
“I’ll start the pot,” Kevin whispers.