strangetrip | OTA: First, I'm gonna drink this, and then I'm gonna throw up.

CW: severe alcoholism.

Jackson had not, for lack of a more colorful expression, been doing well lately. Not since his stint as an android. At first he'd turned to sex, and Corbie. It was about reconnecting, he had told himself. About feeling again. Being returned to his original self was a goddamn gift, no two ways about it.

But maybe it wasn't all good and rosy, because he kept reaching for knowledge that his mind could no longer hold onto, and his frustration was growing with each passing day. So of course, he'd started drinking even harder than he usually did. Drunken hazes anesthetized his brain, smoothed everything over until nothing mattered but the next swill of liquor down his throat. And there was only one way to get through his increasingly terrible hangovers, and it wasn't Reid's god-awful concoction. Good old hair of the dog, of course.

By the time Jackson found himself suturing his own temple with trembling hands, after passing out and knocking his head against a table corner, he had to admit that he might have taken this too far.

So he'd gone the only stupid way he could: cold turkey. Treated himself through the shakes, and now he was finally on the other side of that. His mind was clearer than it had been in a while, but it still wasn't enough to be half the man he'd been when he had been changed. Perhaps not man, exactly - definitely not man, exactly. Doctor, absolutely. He had managed to retain it all, all the knowledge in all of his books, and it had all made sense. He had been able to apply it. To help. Clarity, precision, efficiency. The speed of his thoughts, the acuteness of his senses.

Now he was left floundering again, caught between what he had learned in his lifetime and what he was trying to make sense of from his books. He refused to think that he was too old or too stupid to learn as much as he needed, now matter how sluggishly he thought, how fuzzy the world seemed. He was too stubborn, by far, and his obstinacy would see him through.

That was how Jackson ended up taking a rather radical route to understanding and memorization. Some markers, the clinic walls, and his books. Drawing anatomical schemes, outlining the steps in one surgery after another, listing drugs and their posology. Laying that information out, actively rephrasing and rearranging it in a way that would hopefully help it all stick with him.

He fully expected the Inn to do its thing and wipe the clinic walls clean during the night, but that wasn't an issue, on the contrary. It meant that he could start over in the morning. But for now, the clinic looked an awful lot like a madman's den, with Jackson ready to play the part, his hair mussed up, his clothes rumpled, and exhaustion darkening circles under his eyes. The smell of tobacco lingered in the air, and the ashtray on Jackson's desk overflowed with cigarette butts, when he was usually so good about stepping outside for a smoke. He hadn't wanted to step away today, and they so rarely got patients anyway.

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Jackson looked over at Mildmay, apparently pained at the notion. "No, thank you. To both. I'm fine. I'm - workin' on things." He paused, and frowned at the other man, now checking him for injury, or any sign of illness. "What are you doin' here?"

"Came by for supplies," he explained as flatly as ever, pulling one of the first aid kit's inserts out of some hidden fold or pocket of his jacket. The only signs of injury were the same indictions' old scars, and nothing to be done about them.

"But now, not believin' you."

That was well and good, but Jackson had about as much to do with Mildmay's skepticism as he would with his faith. "Shout up if you can't locate something," he said, completely bypassing that last remark. "I moved some things around."

Some of the shelves had been in the way.

Corbie tried to keep stuff separate when it came to the guys she was fucking, and Mildmay appreciated that. But he hadn't missed her crying more, or her avoiding Jackson some. And since, from what she'd said, she hadn't avoided Jackson after he went and got himself killed when one of those doors to another world opened, or when he had to run from the Dogs 'cause he stole a bus full of flashie tourists in another of those worlds, whatever was going on this time was serious.

Not that Mildmay'd done or said nothing about it, telling himself she'd ask for his help if she wanted it, and wondering if maybe she was afraid of what he'd do to Jackson if she did.

So when Jackson acted like Mildmay was just gonna go about his business, Mildmay added that to the list of arguments for 'this guy is batfuck'. 'Cause he was, if he thought Mildmay was gonna just drop it.

"You ain't planning her to see you like this." It might have been a question. It might have been a threat. With Mildmay's scar and his Lower City accent, who could tell?

"She is a grown woman," Jackson stated, even as he moved back towards a wall. "She can decide who she sees when." Not, of course, that she'd decided to see him recently - at least, he didn't think she had, but his memories of the past few weeks were goddamn spotty. He hoped she hadn't, all in all.

He set the chair where he needed it to climb on top of it and reach that free patch of wall, and started to draw a heart valve.

Kethe, was he always so stupid?

"Yeah. She can." Mildmay never said, and never would say she couldn't. That didn't mean he was just gonna sit around and let somebody keep hurting her, if he could do something about it.

"That don't mean she won't worry half to death," more than she was already, "with you acting like you oughta be in St. Crellifer's," but wouldn't neither of 'em know what that was supposed to be, so Mildmay added, "the mad house."

"Do you know," Jackson answered, still working on that diagram, "it's a wonder there ain't more of us Bedlam-bound, given the circumstances."

He didn't sound particularly concerned by Mildmay's judgment, or criticism. He sounded like he was making small talk. Easy conversation, that didn't take too much concentration, since he had to keep that on what he was drawing.

Felix'd done that sometimes too. So damned focused on some hocus problem he couldn't see nothing else. Not like when he 'wasn't himself'. Just where didn't nothing else matter, not food or sleep or any one person who couldn't give him the answer he was looking for.

Mildmay ran a hand through the front of his hair that wasn't pulled back in a plait, took a breath, let it out again. Corbie loved the guy. She wouldn't take well to Mildmay... doing anything but helping if he could.

He could make sure Corbie didn't come in here, and see what Jackson'd done and what it showed about him. "When the last time you ate? Slept?"

"You wanna be my nurse, Mildmay?" Jackson asked, pausing in his numbering of the diagram to glance over at the other man. "I prefer them more womanly."

The truth was, he'd moved on to wanting Mildmay to go, so Jackson could focus back on what mattered. Getting all of that knowledge through his thick goddamn skull, or at least as much of it as he could.

"Don't give a fuck about you," Mildmay answered plainly, not rising to bait that was nothing compared to Felix on a halfway decent day.

"But Corbie does, and if it'll keep her from crying her eyes out afuckingain, yeah, I'll tell you to get yourself together."

That was better, by far. Honest truth.

"And now you've told me," Jackson congratulated him, turning back to his work. For all the good it was going to do; Jackson wasn't rightly sure what Mildmay hoped this would accomplish.

Didn't take a genius – or a hocus or a healer – to know he'd have a easier time of it with Corbie than Jackson. And Mildmay was about to turn and find the supplies he'd come for, when he realized there was one more thing needed saying first.

The dark, polished wood of Jashuki swept over the wall by where Jackson was working to make sure he had his attention. "The man who gave me this told me something once, and it's the last I'll say to you about all this, but you need to fucking hear it. He said, 'Remember you're lame,' so, you remember."

Then bringing Jashuki back down to rest lightly against the floor, Mildmay scanned the room and limped over the shelf with the supplies he needed.

Jackson watched the man limp away, a calculating look on his face. "You should let me look at your leg some day. Be a shame if you didn't have to be."

And he turned back to continue writing on the wall.

OTA: First, I'm gonna drink this, and then I'm gonna throw up.

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay

Re: Jackson & Mildmay