Are You Having A Good Time, Sweetheart?

Chapter Twenty Six: Damaged Goods

It was a few days before Jack was let out of the hospital.
His surgery had gone well, and he was all bandaged up. Both of his eyes were black and his nose was still swollen.
Alex had been there every single day, his jaw still bandaged so he wouldn't open his mouth too wide, and his eye less swollen, but still black underneath.
Jack had been quiet a lot of the time. He was in a lot of pain.
When he did speak, it was asking Alex to stop crying and to stop freaking out.
Alex couldn't do that.

He was disassociating again. He'd spoken to his therapist.
Regression usually happened when something traumatic occurred.
He'd slightly upped Alex's dose of his medication.

By the time Jack was home, Alex was there with him, helping him with his ice packs, and changing out bandages whenever it was needed, but he wasn't there mentally.
All he could do was think about what he'd done. How he caused this.
Jack thought the opposite.
Jack thought that someone messed with them, and they'd both defended each other. They both acted on what they felt was right to do.
Jack didn't blame Alex one bit.

That sent Alex spiraling even more.
He wasn't to the point of hurting himself, and he wasn't to the point of trying to end his life.
He was however at the point of wanting total isolation.
He wanted to be stuck in a room where he'd never hurt anyone, especially not Jack.

"Alex, you have to talk to me" Jack said, looking up from where he sat in his bed. His voice sounded a bit nasally because of the surgery and the bandages.

Alex shook his head and continued what he was currently doing, which was organizing everything in Jack's room. He started with scrubbing the bathroom, even the floor tiles with a small toothbrush. Then his video games. Then his desk. Then his dresser. Then his closet. 

"Alex! Stop!" Jack damn near yelled at him, looking angry now. It had been like this since he'd gotten home. He was grateful that Alex was there, but Alex wasn't there.
Alex turned to look at Jack, wordless, eyes dead again. He'd done this. Each time he looked at Jack, it was a painful reminder of the fact that he couldn't just shut the fuck up and hope that the guy left them alone. He antagonized him. He escalated it.

Jack glared at Alex, "Seriously knock it off. So I got my nose fucked up. Why does it matter Alex? When are you going to stop blaming yourself? You didn't do anything wrong!" His voice was loud, his words were angry. Not at Alex specifically, but the fact that Alex just was not the Alex he'd been with all summer. The Alex who was perfectly fine at the bench with him the day this all happened.

Alex just shook his head again. He turned back around.
Jack had enough.
He stood up from his bed, grabbed Alex by the shoulders and spun him around so that they were face to face.
"This is enough, Alex. This is seriously fucking enough. I don't know what the fuck it's going to take to get you to realize that you didn't do this shit, but I can't live like this right now. You have hardly spoken to me about anything other than changing out my stupid fucking bandages, how bad I hurt, and if I want something to eat. I can't fucking do it anymore."

Of course, Alex took that all wrong.
"I'll leave then," He whispered, "I get if you don't want me around."
Jack rolled his eyes, "Come on Alex, that's not what I'm saying." 
Alex looked down at him, "It's what you want to say. I'm fucking up all over again. In a matter of days, or weeks, I'll probably be back up in the psych ward after threatening to jump off a building for what I did." His voice was quiet. The way it was when he was spiraling.

Jack shook Alex a little bit, "God damn it Alex!" He was yelling now. It was a good thing that his parents weren't here. "Will you stop?! You didn't do this! You didn't punch me! You didn't punch yourself! I know that you think you're all kinds of fucked up, but where the fuck did MY  Alex go?! I want him back! This Alex is who I thought was healing and clearly isn't! This Alex isn't the one who spent the best summer of my life with. This Alex is turning into a fucking corpse again and I can't do it god damn it!"
Alex stared at the ground. 
Jack just groaned and sat back down, "You know what? Maybe you should go. I don't know what the fuck to do anymore. You wanna go downhill and throw away all of the progress you made? Fine. Do it." 

That was all it took. Alex grabbed his bag that he'd kept going home to re-pack and left, taking off in his car, back to isolate himself in his room. Jack didn't want him anymore.

Jack regretted what he'd said the second that he said it, but it wasn't enough. He'd been calling Alex, texting Alex, calling Isobel, calling Peter, and Isobel and Peter of course told Alex, but Alex didn't buy it. He wasn't even mad at Jack, or offended. Jack was right. 
He turned his phone off completely. He hadn't touched it since he left Jack's house. That was two days after he'd left. It was Tuesday now. Jack had been let out on Sunday. They'd missed Monday and Tuesday of school. Alex did not do well. Jack was home dwelling on everything he'd said and hoping like hell that Alex wouldn't do anything stupid.

He sat on his bedroom floor for hours. He stopped eating. He stopped sleeping, even when his body was begging him to, and each time he nodded off there on the floor, he forced himself awake again.

'You did it again' 

There was the demon. Welcome back.

"Yeah. I did." He spoke out loud to the voice that was in his head.

'Congratulations.'