Papa Klein

His hands rose for a moment to press into his eyes and hold back the sobs that wanted to break through. He didn’t do this. These were the things they had all a silent but mutual understanding to never bring up. Because it took everything that was in neat nice locked little boxes and set them ablaze while spreading them far and wide. Everything hurt and Harris was so very done. They weren’t going to see eye to eye on this but who was he fucking kidding? What a sad little boy he must be to be sitting here trying to reason out his own mental inadequacies to retain some shred of affection or approval from a guy that was basically a stranger and that his boyfriend still pretty much hated. But Harris had to give him that point. He was purposefully manipulating himself to gain pretty much the same results from sleep deprivation as he had with a bottle of whiskey. He just hadn’t made the connection before now. But the dulling sensations, the ability to grit and get through, he’d drink not to get drunk, but to make his head manageable. Same end, different means. But this was worse. Was this how Luna felt? Giving up alcohol had confused him because he didn’t know what else to turn to, but this? This fucking scared him. This felt like losing something big and he wanted no part of it. If Agent Klein didn’t want to compromise, then, fine. Harris was out. As far as he knew this was a voluntary rehab, and there was really nothing the man could do to Harris besides turn his back and talk shit about him about Justin. And he wasn’t sure that Justin would put more stock in that than keeping his boyfriend. What part of dull, calm, and suppress wasn’t clear? Harris had no desire to be at 100% and fully functioning. He wouldn’t be able to handle it. He’d never been able to handle it and that was before bodies started dropping. Ironic though, that the label he was so quick to slap on Harris, he was pulling right back off again. Kicked out of that bonding moment rather quickly then, was he? Luckily, this part he knew. He knew how to keep his face passive, how to not show just how hurt he was, and how to keep his voice calm when panic and rage were at war for control. Wait, addicted to self-destruction? Harrison had seen a lot in the psychology department, but that was a first. “Shame there’s not a support group for that then, isn’t it?” he shot back, barely managing to refrain from either smirking or laughing. He thought insomnia was a goddamn vice? Why would Harrison chose this? His eyes followed the movement to the shaking bottle but the extra heavy dose of guilt was the last straw. His head shook, but he fumbled to his feet, struggling to get the stupid coin out of his pocket before tossing it back on the desk next to Agent Klein. If he wasn’t an alcoholic anymore, he wouldn’t need that, now would he? “This isn’t about a perfect life. This isn’t about being a good boyfriend, or a good son, or a good friend. I’m not any of those things. But I’m surviving the best I know how and that’s all I can do. Sorry it’s not good enough for you.” He needed out of the room, now. His mind was whirling, faster than he could pick out a single thought or plan, but he just - out. Walk towards the door. The rest would fall into place. He just needed to get out.

Dairen gritted his teeth together at the snapped words. This conversation was coming to an end, and soon because if it didn’t, words that followed would be regretted later. As soon as words turned to sarcastic quips meant just to hurt and give no credible logic, the actual discussion was over. Dairen shook his head, trying to hold onto that, to the logic and reasoning even if his words didn’t quite make it there. “It’s every support group. It’s AA. It’s NA. It’s every support group for every addiction until you run out of self-destruct buttons.” He froze when he saw what Harrison was pulling out of his pocket and tossing onto the desk. Maybe he had pushed too far. He knew he had, really. But he hadn’t expected Harrison to cave. Maybe it was too long trying to be a father to Justin, and seeing that his son was more than willing to do anything possible to prove him wrong. The person that he was used to be a father to, could out stubborn him any day. Harrison couldn’t. And it took hearing the clink of metal against the wooden desk to remind him of that. So his tone was still firm, but quieter when he spoke again. “It’s not about me, Harrison, or what I think is good enough. You’re not surviving. You’re existing, one day to the next and you’re barely managing to do that. And you shouldn’t accept that as being good enough for you.” He stayed where he was, not moving or saying anything else to stop the boy from leaving. If he wanted to leave, hell it was probably for the best. He likely needed time to calm down and think. Maybe after he was gone, Dairen would text Justin, make sure someone knew that Harrison wasn’t alright, in case the argument drove him back to old habits.

Why did he want to get sober? That was taking an abrupt right turn in the middle of a conversation, but he had a feeling what he said next would make or break this conversation so he stayed quiet for a moment to reorient his thoughts. Why did he want to stop drinking? “The easy answer would be to keep my relationships. With Justin, with you, with my friends. When I was drunk, I wasn’t very here. But that was kind of the point, so … I guess, I got to a point that I want to be present more for the people I care about than I want to not be for myself. Most of the time, anyway.” Did that make sense to anyone that wasn’t Harris? “And I don’t wanna become like the guy that raised me. Getting sober would probably be a good step in not going down that road.” But he missed it. He missed how it’d quiet his mind, how it’d give him sleep without too high of a cost, how much of a comfort it could be to the sharpest edges of everything. It’d been an off switch and Harris desperately needed one of those. “Taking those doesn’t guarantee I’d be all that more present than if I was going on day 2 or 4 without sleep. I know how to function the way I am. So maybe - can we compromise? Can I take them every 3 or 4 days instead of every night? And I’ll try and nap on the days I don’t take them? I just, I really don’t like them.” Harris sighed, “I never have managed to take them for more than a couple days in a row. S’why I gave them to you. I thought it might be enough to make me push through it, but it’s not.”

It was the answer that Dairen was expecting, when he asked why Harrison wasted to get sober, so he only nodded and let the boy reason through it. “Then those are your reasons for taking these sleeping pills too. You’re not present when you’re sleep-deprived either. Alcohol, sleep-deprivation, it all messes with your mental abilities to function. It makes you less alert, it impairs your judgement. This isn’t any better.” Dairen could only nod at the additional reasoning. He couldn’t say much. Sans the actual violent nature of Piers, Dairen hadn’t raised Justin much differently than he had raised Harrison. The difference being that the violence had had a significant impact on Harrison’s mental state, and the effects of it were still clear, in the flinch when Dairen moved towards him, or the nervous eyes that followed his hand gestures when he was actually within reach of the boy. “No, we can't compromise. That's like asking if you can be sober just once every few days, and drink beer instead of liquor on the days you're not sober. Knowing how to function, and functioning at one hundred percent are very different things. You can manage without sleep, but it’s no where near what you’re capable of if you would let your body really rest and recover, and take care of yourself.” But then that was it, wasn’t it? Harrison didn’t seem to want to take care of himself, and maybe he was overstepping, but he thought he could see why. “You’re not an alcoholic, Harrison. You never were. I don’t think you're addicted to alcohol, as much as addicted to any and all forms of self-destruction. Alcohol just happened to be the self-destruct button within easiest reach at the time, and now it’s this,” he picked up the bottle of sleeping pills and shook it lightly. “That’s the battle you’re fighting, and every time you turn away from one self-destruct button and find another, you’re hurting Justin, your mother, Luna, everyone that you say you wanted to stop drinking for. Everyone that you don’t want to worry. Those are the people that get hurt, and the sooner you realize that, the better.”

Would Agent K understand that, or would he think it’s an excuse, or worse- that Luna was going to enable him or something and sent him into relapse? Or well send him even further than he sent himself. “I haven’t thrown them away or anything,” Harris added quickly, “Wasn’t wasting them. Just…saving them. For a better time. I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you from that first day. I didn’t - I didn’t come in here and plan it though. I just … realized I couldn’t when I was in the kitchen with a glass of water. I was too afraid. And then I got scared of what you might say or think so it was easier to just play along and I’m sorry. I mentioned that, right? I really am.”

Dairen was shaking his head by the time Harrison apologized again. “Yeah, yeah you mentioned it,” he muttered, his tone colder than he’d intended. “So who did you think you were helping? By just playing along and acting like everything was fine? Do you even realize that that line of thinking hurts more people than it helps?” Sure, he’d had the same line of reasoning before, and knew how much it made sense at the time. But then he’d seen his wife, who thought that he didn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth about how he was struggling in AA. Maybe that was why he hated being lied to so much. Because he had realized that it never accomplished what a person intended it to, and actually pushed them backwards in whatever they were trying to accomplish. Besides that, he had wanted to believe that Harrison wanted to get sober, wanted to heal and come out on the other side of this fight, a better person for it. Now he was wondering if alcohol was the only thing he was fighting, or if that had ever been the fight at all. It felt like Harrison was starting all over with a new addiction, but the more he thought about it, the more Dairen was convinced it was the same addiction, just in a different form. So going back to the beginning it was, then. Dairen set the pill bottle beside him on the desk and looked back at Harrison. “Tell me why you wanted to get sober in the first place. I told you why I did, I told you what to expect and how I would try and help. But you never told me why you wanted to. So come on, let’s hear it.”

The first few nights were easy, wanna grab a water, wanna make some toast, building up to the point, he could just take the pill and walk out without any kind of excuse and not raise any flags. To make up for the dishonesty there, he did try to be honest about something else relating to his recovery, but he figured that would mean very little to Agent K now when he walked in and saw the toast and water already set out for him next to the bottle of pills. Fuck. For the first time in awhile, he felt a growing unease in his stomach as he became uncertain of what he was walking into. Agent Klein was still a mystery to him. He knew Justin had a strong dislike of his father, and he knew what his own had been capable of with a few drinks in, so he could imagine what Justin dealt with, but Justin never said - then had Harris said? - Harris was pretty sure Agent K wasn’t the hitting type. That didn’t stop him from hovering behind his usual chair and trying to judge the distance between Agent K and himself, and the distance to the door. “Hi.” he said finally, “What’s this?” It was obvious what this was, but Harris couldn’t stop the words from leaving his mouth. He desperately wanted it to not be what it looked like, and that his own paranoia was making him feel like things were strained when they weren’t, but nothing about this felt good. And that could only mean one thing. Somehow he knew.

He pushed the glass of water a bit in Harrison’s direction, glancing up at him, half expecting an argument. More than half expecting, really. “You haven’t been sleeping. Haven’t been taking this pills at all, I think. So you can take them in here, with me.” He hated that it had to turn to this. Like a parent trying to get a petulant child to take their vitamins or cold medicine. But Dairen had taken the boy at his word, that he was taking the pills as he was supposed to. He had wanted to trust Harrison, wanted to believe him the way that no one around him had believed a word he’d said he was at that point so early in his own recovery. So that was his mistake, and not one he planned on making again.

The first year was the hardest? An entire 365 days? Automatically his eyes dropped to his wrist, his other hand coming up to trace over the mark there at the mention of birthdays spent alone. That was always going to be hard. And was so relying on reminding himself of what he had. He loved his friends, but they weren’t the same as to what he lost. Most of his day was spent doing things for other people. It kept them happy. Still, he nodded. Wait, a sweet tooth? His eyebrow rose, but him craving any kind of good would pretty much comfort everyone so that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He was more worried about headaches, nausea, and mood swings, to be fair, but he was also trying to hold on to that fact that he wasn’t that bad. They’d see. He mad bad choices, but wasn’t an alcoholic. Not really. “Thank you again, for just - all of it. I’ll come to you with questions about is it coming off alcohol or something else if I need too. Anything else I need to know? Any tricks or tips you have for not picking up a drink? I don’t see you being the journaling or meditating type.” 

Dairen sat back, listening to harrison talk about the memories he wanted to keep, how he wanted those memories to influence his life. He couldn’t keep the amused smile off his lips about halfway through, but he stayed silent until Harrison was done. “You want to run your house like that,” he repeated the boy’s words back to him. “You’re better at thinking long term than you give yourself credit for. But hold onto that. The memories, and how you want those memories to influence your life. That’s what’ll get you through.” He nodded at Harrison, and at least there was that. Harrison trusted him enough to come to him when he was having problems, and Dairen was just glad he could be of any help. He paused at the question, eyes falling to the top desk drawer. He’d been considering it since Harrison started talking like he was actually considering giving up drinking, so he pulled open the drawer and opened a small wooden box that he’d stashed in there. Seventeen coins of various colors lay inside, and he pushed a few aside until he found the silver one. He pulled it out, holding it up for Harrison to see. “Don’t know that it’s a trick, but it helped me. Sobriety coins sound—I don’t know, cliched or useless, but they actually do help, remind you to not pick up a drink. This one, this is the one they give you after twenty-four hours sober. I probably kept this thing clenched in my fist for most waking hours for the first thirty days.” His eyes flicked to the clock briefly before locking back onto Harrison’s. “Come back and see me in twenty-three hours.” He dropped the coin back into the box, where it had remained for five years, but would have a new home and hopefully help someone else the way it had helped him, in less than a day.

No more drinking. No more avoiding. No more hiding. He was twenty one years old and had to actually consciously decide to face himself. How did that even happen? Would this have always happened? Given the way he was raised, the way he maladapted to everything…would some form of addiction and rehab been inevitable? Would it be a comfort if it was? Or just horrible? Wiping under his eyes to hide the few drops that’d slipped out, he took in a long slow breath before watching the older man come in. He was slightly surprised to see it was an entirely new cup now, but that made sense. Mumbling another thank you, he took the mug and curled up much the same as he did the last one. He was exhausted and his head was still spinning, but there was something about just holding a warm cup of coffee that was akin to cocooning in a warm blanket. And it gave him something else to look at as he tried to think of what else he needed to ask before he left his safe space. “How do you do it?” he voiced finally, “How do you — I hate the term ‘accept loss’ because it’s not like I’m convinced they’re still alive somewhere. I know they’re fucking dead. What I don’t know is how to make that okay. I don’t know if there ever really is an okay. Sometimes the hardest thing I do in a day is get out of bed and by the end of the day I’m not really sure why I did, and then it starts all over. Like right now, I know I have to go out there. I know Luna’s avoiding me. Keaton’s pretty icy. Casey’s gone. Jer’ll let me hang around and just try to make me smile and eat cookies, Ryder’ll paint my nails, and Justin’ll pretend like everything’s okay. That’s exhausting already. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love all of them and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I just… do you understand what I’m trying to say?”  

For a minute he wasn’t sure if Harrison was going to agree to him holding onto the medications. He didn’t look entirely thrilled about the idea, but lesser of two evils, he supposed because then Harris agreed that the idea had some merit to it. He nodded at the gratitude. “Anytime, it’s what I’m here for.” When he came back with the coffee, he was half expecting either Harrison to fall into their usual silence, or to decide that he’d had enough of talking and excuse himself from the present company. When Harris did decide to speak, Dairen wasn’t entirely sure how to answer the question. “There isn’t really an okay, ever. They say the first year is the most difficult in grieving. Going through ally he birthdays and holidays for the first time without them. I don’t remember much of the first year after my family was killed. That’s around the time I started drinking. It’s more about— ok, less about dwelling on what you’ve lost, and more about reminding yourself constantly what you still have. You make up with Luna, talk to Keaton, let Ryder paint your nails, unless you don’t want any of it. Don’t close yourself off and hide under the covers, but don’t force yourself into things if its more like you’re doing it for someone else than for you either.” He paused and thought about it a moment, then added, “But eat the cookies. It sounds weird, but I wish someone had clued me in before; when you give up drinking, if you didn’t have a sweet tooth before, you will develop one. Someone explained the chemistry to me once, but I don’t remember. Something about the way your body processes alcohol the same way it processes sugar. Or turns it into sugar, I don’t know. But when you stop drinking, you will develop a sweet tooth, probably between the first one and four weeks. The sooner the better, though. The headaches are the worst when you first stop drinking but, at least for me, they mostly stopped or weren’t as bad once the sugar cravings kicked in.” Though, if he was being honest, he wasn’t sure how much or how bad of a withdrawal Harrison would have to go through. he hadn’t been drinking for nearly as long as Dairen did, but he seemed to drink just as heavily for the amount of time that he did.

Agent Klein was trying again to convince him that the pills would be a better thing to have in case of having to pick up and run. Sure, it’d be easy to pocket what they had. Much easier than smuggling glass bottles around, but he still was so uneasy about the whole thing. He didn’t wanna take something else. It was such a strong restraint that he found himself having to look at it a little deeper. Why was he so against it? He knew they wouldn’t change him, or numb him, or fuck with him in any other way than to keep his body from running on such high alert but still, the talk of pills at all was making him flinch back. Agent Klein leaning forward pulled him from the thoughts as he was forced to admit the sleeping meds had never been fucked with before. They could have though, and that’s what scared him. It’d be so easy. He’d let Blythe have full access to them and if she’d … it’d just take one switch and he’d be dead. The last pharmacy he’d used? “We can’t.” Harrison admitted. “Or I mean, we shouldn’t. Use the same one. It’s possible TC could track that particular drug. It’s not common like Xanax would be. Even if it was filled for a fake name, they’d probably track the address it was sent to. So maybe a new pharmacy, delivered to a fake “normal” house, then manually taken somewhere else before it gets to us and that’s a ridiculous amount of work and time just so I sleep. I don’t wanna bother that many people.” His head tilted, “Actually, what if we skipped the prescription part altogether? There are wholesalers. If you could find one of those you believe is legit and not affiliated with TC - then you could just order bottles straight from the factory. Take the middle man out and limit the amount of people who come into contact with the medicine and cut down on the chances of tampering. They’d be factory sealed still when they got to us. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a fake small local pharmacy facade. We should have antibiotics, epipens, pain relievers,  anti-histamines, inhalers, anything else we might need and be unable to get on the run, just in case.” Trust me. And oh. Reluctantly, Harrison dragged his gaze back up to Agent Klein’s, “I do. Trust you more than just about anyone, but I don’t trust me.” Did he need to put it to more words than that? “I wouldn’t trust myself to take the right amount at the right times. I’m quite likely to either under do it or over do it. Not saying my other concerns aren’t valid because they are, but that’s - that’s probably why I’m so resistant. It scares me. I scare me sometimes.” Which was probably all the more reason to call Liz. “No, I don’t want her to come here again. It’s too dangerous and uncertain and we don’t need another civilian to protect if it comes down to it. Phone calls would be good, but video’s probably better. It’s easier to lie when you can’t see someone’s face and I wouldn’t put it past myself to downplay everything.” Harrison’s hands twitched when he realized Agent Klein was moving but he caught it and clenched them instead. This wasn’t really about the one cup. If he said yes, he was agreeing to get and stay sober and already he was desperately trying to find some way to clamp down and suppress everything this talk had brought up. For a long moment, he just stared at the cup, weighing his options before finally giving a small nod. “Okay.” And if his eyes immediately burned and filled when Agent Klein got up and turned his back to go to the kitchen, well, who would know? 

At Harrison’s reasoning for not using the same pharmacist, he only nodded. He didn’t know exactly which prescriptions Harrison and taken, or how common any of them were, so it was better to jus take his word for it and figure out a different way to get it. Still, pretty much no matter where they got it from, without anyone in the house having explicit knowledge of pharmaceuticals, or access to them, there would be a risk of the medication being tampered with. He stayed silent, sitting back to drain the last of his coffee while Harris talked through different options, apparently having a full-on brainstorming session with himself. He vaguely wondered if, had he not been here and Harrison was alone trying to figure this out, if he would still likely be talking aloud to himself as he figured his way through the issue. A proud, if slightly amused smile crept it way across Dairen’s face at the idea of setting up their own mini-pharmacy to get what they needed, and cut out any persons in between that could tamper with the medications. “That’s the genius that I was waiting for to resurface again. Welcome back,” he commented. “Alright, so between you and Justin, you should be able to figure out everything we’d need. I’ll get Hayes to set up whatever online presence and ordering system is needed, get all the paperwork that’s needed, and he should be able to place whatever orders you and Justin give him. The first order at least, will have to be a fairly large one, to believably be able to supply even a small mom and pop style pharmacy. I’ll set up a post office box in the name of the pseudo-pharmacy, and go pick up the orders from there myself, to keep this place as well hidden as possible.”  He paused, less surprised that harrison trusted him, and more that he said out loud that he didn’t trust himself. Was t only because he would be truing to stop drinking that he didn’t trust himself to correctly dose his own medication, or had he had an issue in the past with his medication, under or over dosing? “Then I’ll keep your medications,” Dairen offered. “You want to come and check in with me anyway, and I want you to, so I’ll just hold onto the pills, and you can come to me whenever you need it.” He didn’t want it to sound like he was treating Harrison like a child that couldn’t be trusted, but if he didn’t trust himself, then at least having to come and ask for the medication would enforce some level of accountability. Harrison’s logic about not wanting Phelps to come back was solid, and Dairen was glad for it honestly. After the shock and horror he remembered seeing on her face when she first saw Harrison, curled up under the couch and terrified for his life, he wasn’t sure she would want to come back, or what she would be afraid of walking into if she did. “Okay. Then I’ll get in touch with her, and find a time to set something up. You can use my computer for the call. No one’ll bother you in here.” It was probably only a few seconds that Dairen was holding the mug, waiting for an answer, but it felt like ternary stretched into that amount of time. Like this one question was asking if Harrison was taking this entire conversation seriously, or had just been humoring him until he could make a run for the door. But he finally nodded. “Okay,” Dairen echoed back as he stood up. He clapped Harris lightly on the shoulder as he walked past, out the door and to the kitchen. He poured out the spiked coffee, rinsing the mug and putting it in the dishwasher before grabbing a clean mug and brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

Don’t try to sleep and get sober - wait, what? It’s not like he had an actual problem with alcohol. He was making a choice and he could stop making it. He didn’t need to attempt sobriety did he? What the fuck was going on? Harris pulled his good knee to his chest and listened as Papa Klein tried to reassure him there were other ways to calm his mind and that once he could move again, he’d probably feel a lot less anxious. Which, was a valid point. Harris had danced out a lot of his stress before, and if not dance, then soccer. He was always doing something physical to counterattack the mental and maybe that’s why he kept trying to initial physical things with Justin. It was the most he could do in his current state. Horrified, his gaze snapped back up when he recommended going back on the sleeping pills and then adding anti-anxiety ones to that. Was he joking? “Liz made it through the earthquake okay?” Which, right. Wasn’t the actual point of that conversation. “I don’t wanna be knocked unconscious for 6-8 hours a night.” He admitted, “It scares me to be that vulnerable for that long when things are so unstable. And if we have to - if we have to pick up and go again, if I get - if the anti-anxiety things help and I have to go off them again cold turkey, and what if they get fucked with? How do we know where we’re getting them from is legit? And not tampered with? There’s so many things I cannot control and that just terrifies me.” But was it better? To be rested and drugged then … what he was now? “If you don’t mind, yeah, I’d appreciate talking to her again, if I can.” Pulling his leg closer, he rested his chin on it and tried to ignore the coffee cup sitting just out of reach. “Can I keep coming here? If um, I feel like I can’t turn my head off? I don’t mean to be a distraction or anything, it just - helps.” 

“If we have to get up and run one day, a bottle of pills is easier to transport than the amount of alcohol that would hold you over for the same amount of time. Medication is also easier to gradually lessen the dosage of what’s left to get you off of it. Alcohol doesn’t work that way. And if you have to quit the pills cold turkey, there’s other ways to deal with anxiety. Besides that, you might only need the medication until your knee is fully healed, and then you can work your stress and anxiety out through dance or training or running instead of relying on something else. And if you’re count on just drinking yourself to sleep until you get to that point, I can promise you it’s gonna be a hell of a lot harder to quit drinking than to try and get yourself off of taking sleeping pills.” In theory he knew that sleeping pills were addictive as well, though he’d never taken them, but he also knew that very few things were more addictive than alcohol, and if he was choosing between the lesser of two evils, he would steer Harrison as far away from the bottle as possible. He leaned forward, raising his eyebrows at the concerns. “Your pills were never tampered with before, and I’m as skeptical as you are when it comes to this, probably moreso. But I also know that there’s more than just the closest and easiest source to get prescriptions filled. I’ll find out the pharmacy, the pharmacist that filled your prescriptions before. Just trust me.” He knew trust was less difficult and more impossible to earn now, more than ever, but as impossible as it was, Dairen didn’t know how he could hope get everyone through without that trust. Before the last few months, he would have told Harrison that agency had kept him safe even before he knew it existed, but it had also kept his sister safe for as long, so he knew the argument would be met with more resentment than understanding. “Yeah, I can call her. Would you like me to see if she can come here in person, or would you rather talk to her on the phone, or over a video call?” His shoulders relaxed at the question, and maybe he wasn’t half bad at this. It hurt, knowing he’d messed up any chance he had to have these conversations with, or in any way emotionally help his own son, but being able to be that for Harrison seemed like it was what they both needed. “Yeah, anytime. Door’s always open. Anything I can do to help.” He paused and picked up the coffee mug that he now definitely knew held more than just coffee. “How about I’ll start with getting you a fresh cup of coffee?”

And that was enough of that. Or not. Agent Klein was right back at it as he walked back in, trying to figure out what their failsafe was on the other side, in case someone would turn coat on them. “They probably aren’t worried about it. Takes a certain kind of person to work for that kind of company. And what could we find? More information on ourselves? They wouldn’t keep files of their own agents like we do. They’re hitman. All they need is who the target is, where they are, and job done.” Sighing, he brought his mug back up to his mouth and somehow managed to not spit it everywhere as he was gently called out. Then promptly back to shoving one of their own into the lion’s den, like he hadn’t said anything at all and fuck that. If he wanted to talk, Harris would talk. Though it said something he was more willing to talk about his own issues than which of their friends was the best to turn over to TC. “It’s a solution that leads to more problems, yes.” Harris agreed, “But it’s untrue to say it doesn’t work. If trying it didn’t lead to results, we wouldn’t repeat it. There wouldn’t be billions of dollars trying to get people to stop repeating it being spent all over the country. You wouldn’t have done it for seventeen years. It’s a shit coping mechanism, but its effective.” Rubbing his eye with his free hand, he used the other to bring his coffee cup closer, like Papa K was literally going to take it away from him or something. “Does my file have my private and confidential health records in it? Did it tell you I was diagnosed with insomnia as a child? It happens to people fairly commonly with so-called gifted intelligence. I guess it’s the yin to the yang. Your brain works better and faster, but it also doesn’t stop. Not even when you should be doing things like sleeping, driving, relaxing, grieving. Normally, it’s bearable. I could wonder and worry and obsess over things that were innocent. Memorizing ballet sequences, or scientific formulas, or complicated theories but here? In this life? I get stuck in loops. Like, fucking movies of things that happened that I couldn’t have changed, but maybe if I’d done just one thing different….maybe. Since Luna told my Mom about Ragan and they both tried to get me to talk about it. It’s her. It’s our history. It’s trying to decide what was real and what was fake and it’s seeing her die in my arms, over and over and over and fucking over. Every time I close my eyes. Drinking is scientifically proven to make the mind slow down. Thoughts get thick, sluggish, and sometimes I can pass out and actually sleep for a couple of hours. That’s why I drink. If you find something else that’d do the same thing, then s’il vous plaît, I’m all ears. It’s not really about trying to hide from it, or block it out, or not feel it. I just need my head to be bearable so I can function.” 

The more he talked, the more Dairen could see the problem. Okay, so it was probably the problem that led to a lot of people drinking too much. Trying to solve a problem with another problem, and facing one meant facing both at the same time, and his body wouldn’t be able to handle that. “Part of the issue is that you’re trying to sleep drunk. If you pass out drunk, or even just go to sleep after a couple drinks, you don’t get as much sleep as you need, and your body isn’t recovering the way it should. So even the sleep that you are getting isn’t doing you a damn bit of good,” he said. What were they teaching kids in school these days? That was the only useful thing he had retained. And he was pretty sure Justin had mentioned something about Harrison being pre-med. Didn’t he know that? Or maybe he’d been trying to ignore that part of the science. “There’s other things that can slow your thoughts, that can let you sleep without those images burned into your eyelids. But trying to conquer your insomnia once and for all at the same time you’re trying to get sober—if you’re actually considering it—isn’t a good idea. That would be the best way to fail at both. Once your knee is back to a hundred percent, you can start training with Justin again, or with Mercer. Dance again, some kind of exercise will help your anxiety and calm your thoughts down. But until then, I know you wanted to give up the sleeping pills, but it wouldn’t be a bad alternative until your body can keep up with your brain. Or anti-anxiety medicine, if that would help.” He sat back in his chair, trying to think, but he wasn’t a doctor. He didn't know medicinally what would or wouldn’t help, or what would counteract what, or even if sleeping pills and anti-anxiety pills were recommended together. “I can get in touch with your old psychiatrist, Dr. Phelps if you want, and see what she recommends.”