SquidgeWorld Archive

Low Point
By Perpetual Motion

Peter sat on the couch in Garrett's office with an empty pill bottle in his hand and hoped no one would walk in and find him before Garrett did. His luck so far that day had been minimal at best, so he wasn't overly surprised when Lily walked in and started at the sight of him. She immediately zeroed in on the bottle in his hand. Peter waited for the accusations to start flying.

Lily sat next to Peter on the couch and tilted her head towards the little bottle. "That looks like it's been through a lot."

"Yeah."

"Did you use it when you were addicted?" Her voice was soft and peaceful, like she wasn't at all worried about finding a recovering addict in her boss's office holding onto an empty prescription bottle.

"I've had this thing for six years. I never used to go anywhere without it. I couldn't imagine being away from the pills for any length of time. I used to take it to the bathroom." Peter rolled the bottle between his hands. "When I finally got help, I kept it around. I wanted to prove to myself that I could carry the bottle and not fill it." He gave Lily a worn-out smile. "It's kind of like the alcoholics that keep a bottle hidden somewhere in the house just to prove that they won't empty it." He sighed and looked back down at his hands. "I didn't take those pills."

"I know that." Lily could see that it obviously didn't make a difference if she knew or not. If Peter was worried about what she thought of him, he would have been camped out in her office. "Garrett knows it, too."

"Am I that obvious?"

"Only to someone else who's had a thing for him."

Peter's head snapped up. "I-" He closed his mouth, and his shoulders slumped. "Never mind. Quick denial just proves you right."

Lily smiled. "Only a little." She touched Peter's arm carefully, not sure if he would welcome it or not. "It's okay. We'll consider this a counseling session and label it confidential."

"Thank you."

"You going to stay in here?"

Peter gave a half-hearted shrug. "No one's going to look for me here."

Lily put the files she had carried in on Garrett's desk and touched Peter's arm again. "I'll be around."

"Yeah. Thanks."

Lily left the office and made sure the door was latched before she went back down the hall. She nearly ran into Garrett as she rounded a corner. "Oh!"

Garrett reached out a hand to steady her. "Sorry. You okay?" He was obviously distracted, looking around Lily and scanning the rest of the hallway.

"He's in your office." Lily waited for Garrett to look at her again. "He's sitting on the couch in your office. He feels terrible."

"He didn't do anything wrong."

"But everyone thinks he did." Lily stepped out of Garrett's path. "Find me if you need to talk."

Garrett smiled faintly at her. "Of course. Thanks, Lily." He stepped around her and hurried to his office. He could see the top of Peter's head through his window, and he took a moment to put on his professional face before he opened the door. "There you are."

Peter didn't look up from staring at his hands. "Lily must have found you pretty quickly."

"We collided in the hall." Garrett watched the muscles in Peter's jaw tighten. "I know you didn't do it."

"Are you sure?"

Garrett rested on the edge of his desk. "Should I doubt you?"

"I'm an addict."

"You're a recovering addict."

"Some people don't note the distinction."

"I do."

Peter finally looked up from his hands. "Some don't. When a full bottle of Valium goes missing from a dead guy, it's easy to suspect the obvious guy."

"I think we both know that that doesn't always work." Garrett moved from his desk to sit on the couch next to Peter. "You've proven yourself here. Maybe not to everybody, but to everybody that matters."

"Sure. As long as the medicine cabinet is locked tight, and someone can always watch me." Peter rolled his pill bottle between his hands. "I'm not perfect, Garrett; I've proven that plenty, and I won't hold it against you if you want to question me or have me take a drug test or something."

"I'm not drug testing you. I. Trust. You. And if no one else trusts you, then we'll just prove them wrong."

"We?"

"You work for me. I've put my trust in you. I prove that by backing you up and helping you in situations where I know you need a little support."

Peter looked over at Garrett. "You're not going to hug me, are you?"

Garrett managed a smile. "As tempting as that is, I don't think so." He could tell with the way that Peter's eyes widened, that he hadn't been nearly as nonchalant with that comment as he had hoped. He didn't attempt to say anything to cover himself. He knew from experience that stuttering out an apology or an excuse just made things worse.

"Do you..." Peter trailed off, not sure what he wanted to say. ~Want to kiss me?~ "Do you mind if I hang out here for awhile? I've got some reports to go over. I can be quiet." He was staring at his hands again.

"That's fine. If you want, I can have Lily get the paperwork you need."

"No, I'll get it." He stood up rather suddenly and seemed to sway for a minute. "I don't want it to be obvious I'm hiding."

Garrett nodded. "Understood." He watched Peter leave and then moved to sit at his own desk, partly to do his own paperwork, and partly to make sure there was space in the room that he could really, visibly see. It had felt like there was no space at all on the couch, and he wasn't quite comfortable with that feeling. He looked up when Peter came back into the room with a stack of reports and a pen clamped between his teeth. He sat on the couch and laid the reports on the floor by his feet. Garrett took the silent cue and kept quiet as they both started to work.

For a half hour, all was quiet, and then quite inexplicably, Peter keeled over towards the floor. Garrett jumped up from his desk and hurried around to try and catch him before he hit his head. Luckily for both of them, Peter still seemed aware of some of his facilities and got a death grip on the couch before he made close friends with the floor. Garrett was at his side a moment later, helping him to a recling positon before standing up to get into his desk for his stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. "When was the last time you ate?"

Peter blinked a few times, eyes half-glazed. "Um...yesterday, sometime."

"When yesterday?"

"I don't know."

Garrett kneeled next to the couch and put the stethoscope in his ears. "Think hard." He listened to Peter's heart then took the buds out of his ears to set up the blood pressure cuff.

"Yesterday afternoon. I had a sandwich between cutting into Mrs. Longham and getting the call down by the grocery store."

That had been around one the day before. Garrett glanced at the clock; it was a quarter to three. "You haven't eaten in 26 hours." He pulled off the blood pressue cuff without taking pressure. "You need food. Stay put."

"Like I could go anywhere. There are two of you right now." Peter leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Garrett stood up and put his tools away. He left his office and made a quick trip to the cafeteria for a sandwich, a bottle of water, an apple, and a candy bar. Peter was in the same position he'd left him in, and Garrett tapped on his knee to get him to shift over. He held out the sandwich. "Here. Eat."

Peter took the sandwich and unwrapped the shrink wrap with shaky hands. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Garrett opened the bottle of water and handed it over when Peter took his first bite. "You can't forget to eat."

"Basic fact of life #4. Right behind sleeping, peeing, and falling in love." Peter saw Garrett twitch a little and gave him a look. "You okay?"

"Fine." Garrett cleared his throat and fought the urge to stand up and move away. He needed to distance himself from Peter before he did or said something stupid, but he knew getting up would make it much too obvious that he was nervous. He shifted a little so that he wasn't quite as near to Peter's legs and decided that that was about as good as it was going to get. "Why didn't you eat?"

"I don't eat when I get stressed. Bad habit. One of many."

"Stop it." Garrett gave Peter a hard look. "Don't run yourself down. Plenty of other people will be ready to do it for you. Don't give them extra ammunition." Peter murmured something under his breath, and Garrett tipped his head. "What was that?"

Peter repeated it. He wasn't speaking English. "My mother used to say it when people gave her looks when she spoke Czech. Loosely translated, it means, "You're a jackass if you assume I'm a bad person because I choose not to speak your language."

"I didn't know you were Czech."

"Yeah." Peter finished off his sandwich and made a face when Garrett held out the apple.

"Eat it." Garrett stared Peter down until he finally bit into the apple. He did everything he could to distract himself from watching Peter lick juice from the corner of his mouth. "And finish your water."

"Yes, Mom."

Garrett gave him a look. "Don't even try it." He stood up and looked at Peter from the end of the couch. It was an enticing picture, with Peter's ankles crossed and one hand behind his head, he looked more like he should be on the cover of a magazine than in Garrett's office nearly passing out from low blood sugar. Garrett turned away and walked back to his desk. "If you don't eat, you'll get sick, and if you get sick, people will wonder why."

"People wonder if sneezing means I've snorted a bagful of coke. Apparently, for all the doctors in the building, no one understands the basic principles of being an addict. Rule number one, unless you're really far gone, you don't mix downers with uppers."

"Rule number two, you can be trusted again."

Peter turned his head and gave Garrett a half-smile that looked almost geniune. "Thanks."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're trusting me."

"I told you already, you're one of my people. I trust all of my people." Garrett gestured towards the apple. "Finish that, eat your candy bar, and get back to work. I know you're behind on your paperwork."

"Not as much as usual." Peter finished his apple and opened the candy bar. He slid it partway out of the wrapper and broke off half. "Here." He handed it to Garrett. "I never eat a whole candy bar."

Garrett took his half and bit into it while he stood up. "Thanks." He sat back down at his desk and pretended like he wasn't thinking about the way Peter licked chocolate off his thumb. ~Paperwork. Pay attention to the paperwork.~

"Garrett?"

"Yeah?" ~Just keep signing your name to the forms. Don't look up.~

"Why don't we ever talk about it?"

"Why don't we talk about what?"

Peter finished off the candy bar and crumpled the wrapper in his hands. "When I was in recovery, we talked all the time about being honest and telling our whole story. There's a step in the process where you learn how to look someone in the eyes and say, 'Yes, I did take lots of pills illegeally, and yes, it was bad, but I'm working through it and hopefully past it', and I feel like I'm there again."

Garrett had to look up from his paperwork at that. Peter had looked him in the eyes and admitted to being an addict before, but it had never sounded quite like it just had. "What are you trying to say?"

"It's just, I have some relationships in my past that I'm not proud of. My relationship with pills, with my father, with certain people I dated for the wrong reasons, and I just want you to know that I'm working through them and past them and that you're not on any list in my head that reads as 'uncomfortable' or 'regrettable'." Peter looked down at the floor for a minute to build up a little courage. When he looked up again, he looked Garrett right in the eye. "And I don't ever want to look back and say that I'm sorry I never stepped up to the challenge of you and accepted it." He sucked in a breath and let out a sigh. "That's all."

Dumbstruck wasn't even close to what Garrett was feeling. He considered going with poleaxed. "I...I'm not even sure how to respond to that."

"You don't have to respond at all. I just wanted you to know that I think we're on similar thought patterns in regards to..." Peter paused and blushed just a little, "well...us."

"I..." Garrett trailed off, not sure what to say. He decided after a few seconds of silence that sometimes actions were much better than words. He stood up from his desk, walked over to Peter, and pulled him up off the couch. He didn't bother speaking as he kissed him very softly on the mouth.

Peter gasped a little at the contact, then his face settled into a pleased smile. "Well, okay."

There was a knock on the door, and they stepped apart quickly. Garrett had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Come in."

Lily poked her head in the door; she was smiling. "We found the Valium. Whoever tucked it away with personal effects put the wrong case number on the bag. They counted the pills," she sounded disgusted that it had been done, "and they're all there."

Peter felt like he'd lost a hundred pound weight off his chest. "Thank fuck."

Garrett touched Peter on the arm. "I told you it would work out."

Lily just smiled to herself and shut the door behind her.

end