Monster

28

Much too early in the morning, Jackson's phone rings, the theme song to "One Punch Man" jolting him awake. He swipes it from the nightstand, answering it as he attempts to wrap an arm around Jinyoung, only to find him gone.

"Hello?" He mumbles into the phone, sitting up to keep himself awake as his bosses voice greets him. If he wasn't so tired, he might have gasped, might've even cried a little, but because he is exhausted he sits and listens like his boss is asking him if he finished his assignment yesterday instead of telling him that Dean was found dead last night.

Dean had called in sick yesterday, it would seem his landlady found him, after the next door neighbors complained of a strange smell. He was lying face down in a too big pool of his own bloody vomit.

Jackson is trying not to think of that last detail too much as his boss rambles on, asking Jackson to come to work in just a few hours to let the police onto the lot.

That could've been Jinyoung.

He agrees to go in before hanging up, cutting off whatever else his boss might've said. He lays down for only a second, but hes fully awake so its pointless. Tea sounds nice at any rate. He imagines this is the point where Mark or Jaebum would start drinking, where Yugyeom would go for a run, where Jinyoung would be in tears at the table. He's more of a tea drinker, letting himself calm down before anything else.

He climbs out of bed, considering a shirt before shrugging and heading out in his sweats. He pokes his head into Jinyoung's room, to find him fast asleep wrapped in his blankets, his face pressed against his pillow, lips parted cutely. He looks peaceful.

Jackson closes the door as quietly as he can, shuffling down to the kitchen.

Of course no one else is awake, it's quiet and dark; moonlight spills in through the kitchen window, casting shadows on their counter tops. He gets out a mug and puts on a kettle to boil some water.

These last two days he's been racking his brain trying to figure out why Dean would want to poison him. He can't think of a reason and can't tell if he's disappointed or relieved.

Jackson had put the bottle in the cabinet without even thinking about it. He basically poisoned Jinyoung. And instead of Jinyoung being angry at him, he just tried to help him figure out why Dean would do that. Instead of Mark and Jaebum being mad at him they were just upset that Jinyoung threw all their wine away.

Things are unfair in that way. Jinyoung always takes the worst of it. Jackson's been realizing that lately. He is realizing that it's always been that way, but he never noticed before. Mark is especially hard on Jinyoung.

His water finishes boiling and he pours it in his mug, setting a packet of tea in there with it.

"Why are you up?"

Jackson nearly jumps through the ceiling when he hears Jaebum's voice, it scares him so bad. He tries to even out his breathing before answering. In the meantime Jaebum wraps him in a back hug, resting his chin on his bare shoulder.

"My boss called me, Dean is dead" Jackson takes a sip of his tea. It's weak. "They found him in a pool of bloody vomit. My boss said alcohol poisoning is likely"

"You think he drank nightshade?"

"Yeah, that would make more sense"

"He must have had a lot"

"He's a heavy drinker, since his wife"

Jaebum nods, he's heard stories of Dean and his wife from Jackson. But only a few, just the ones about Dean falling into depression after every doctors visit and chemo treatment. Not happy stories, but the ones Jackson told him after he came home that day with a black eye and a loose tooth.