The man sat quietly on the bed, silently hating the woman's voice. Why did she have to be so loud? Why were they talking about him like some kind of dog? Not that he wasn't used to it by now. When she asked if he had anywhere to go, people to see, he merely shook his head. He couldn't muster up the strength to talk, and if he could, he figured it would be incoherent anyway. When the woman walked out, his shoulders relaxed a bit. For the first time in a long time, he found himself preferring the company of other males rather than a female. He never fought girls; they had a lot of tough talk that could break a man's spirit, but they couldn't beat him the way other guys could. Usually when he was stuck somewhere with strange men, he was expected to beat them into unconsciousness. Strangely, that didn't seem to be the case here. They were...helping him. He was almost completely sure at this point that he didn't know any of these people, but they somehow found reason to look out for him. 

He shook his head when asked if he wanted to puke. He just wanted to sleep some more. Maybe when he woke up, he would feel all better, and live happily ever after. Or at least a guy could hope. Before they could help, he flopped his own self down on the mattress, face first. 

~~

Spence watched the guy fall over with a bemused expression that Garin found almost laughable other than it was obvious the man needed more rest. When they were both certain he was just sleeping, Spence looked up at Garin and gave a shrug. 

“I'll take first watch.” 

Garin went to lay down in his bed, curled under the nest of thick down blankets and pillows, all of which pronounced him So Flaming Gay, as Allie had said, but which were also the one place in the world he could be safe and be himself. Even with people in his small brownstone, he could curl under the pile and disappear, far away from anything that might have grabbed him. 

Though, a hand snaking under the blankets could, he discovered, grab him quite well. He mumbled and drew away from the small, warm hand then glowered over the tops of the pile to where Allie had taken off her pants and her bra. She crawled across his bed, then flopped down beside him, slowly burrowing herself into the warm hidey hole he'd created. 

“Spence is gonna think we're an item,” Garin murmured at her in the dim light of the cavern she'd created by pulling the blankets over their heads. 

“We are,” she bit his shoulder then snuggled in close, his arms around her. In moments, the pair were fast asleep. 

Spence, however, had the unenviable position of having to waken their patient every twenty minutes or so, to get the next cup down. The older man sighed and watched the clock. 

~~

The guy left in the room with him kept waking him up to make him drink, a fact that was making the man increasingly agitated. He wasn't even thirsty anymore. He'd told the guy so at least twice, but he didn't seem to listen. Finally, the man began to refuse cooperation. It was something of a childish tantrum. When the stranger tried to sit him up, he turned himself into dead weight. 

This continued into the wee hours of the morning, until the sick man crawled out of bed to barf again. The initial symptoms of overdose seemed to have passed, leading to the fun part: withdrawal. The large man grabbed onto a dresser to slowly pull himself up onto his own feet. He was shaky, but he managed to stay up. He looked like some kind of mess: still wearing his boxers and a ridiculously small jacket, dreadlocks falling where ever they pleased. And he was beginning to smell as though he needed a nice, hot shower. 

The man looked over at the other guy in the room; it was either Garin or Spence, he hadn't particularly been paying attention to which names belonged to which. The three of them had been taking shifts to make sure he didn't choke on his own puke or something all night. The man didn't bother saying anything to his company; he wasn't much of a talker. He could smell some kind of breakfast being cooked off in the kitchen, which made his stomach turn. It's been hours, possibly days, since he'd last had decent nutrition, but his stomach was threatening to evacuate itself again if he tried. 

~~

Garin sat up and watched their patient stand. The man hadn't said a word. He'd been recalcitrant, difficult, and frustrating, and over it all, he'd not asked for drugs, asked to be returned to friends, or even shown more than a rudimentary knowledge of what they were saying. 

They had, in the wee hours, and over a cup of coffee for Garin, cups of tea and cocoa for Allie and Spence respectively, come to the conclusion that the man was some kind of human trafficking victim. He probably didn't know much English and he obviously had been used for pit fighting or something equally horrific. 

That, or he was a spy from another country. Garin liked to think of him as a Bourne's Supremacy sort of character, it added some mystique to it all. Still, despite their guesses, it was also somewhat obvious the man was taking full advantage of the opportunity to dry out. Even Allie had accepted that and the change in her behavior toward him was quick and about-face. She no longer looked at him in disgust, but rather had an infinite well of patience she seemed more than capable of giving to him. 

As the man stood, Garin gave him a small smile. The guy looked ridiculous, but he was upright. “Okay,” Garin nodded and stood as well. “You're up. Let's get you cleaned up and see about moving you out to the living room, where you can feel more human. Allie was supposed to go and get you some sweats and stuff. Clothes?” he mimicked putting on pants and pointed to the man's legs. “At least to keep you warm. Come.” He gestured toward the hallway. “There's a bathroom through here. We'll get you a bath drawn and get you some warm clothes and maybe some tea for your stomach.” 

~~

The man watched the other guy as he was spoken to like some kind of foreigner. Did this guy think he was a dumbass or something? Then again, he supposed he hadn't given them any reason to believe that he could even speak English. Had he even said anything to them yet? And here they were going through all this trouble to help him. He began to feel a bit bad.

As he followed the man, he attempted to speak his first sentence since his arrival. "Thanks," He grunted as he was shown to the bathroom. "Um...Isaiah...my name's Isaiah." His voice was surprisingly soft for his size, a bit deep, but holding an almost gentle tone. His social skills could use some work, but considering his position, it was fairly understandable. After introducing himself, he quickly fumbled his way into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He may have been sick as hell, but he wasn't completely helpless; he figured he could handle a bath on his own. He looked back at the lock and tried to decide if he should lock it or not, but finally decided against it. 

Isaiah pulled off the too-small jacket and his grass stained boxers. Both were dumped on the floor as he got into the tub. He turned the shower on, was immediately sprayed with ice cold water, and fumbled to turn the nod to hot. Steam filled the air quickly as he sat in the tub and just let the water run over him, too weak to bother with standing. He let himself relax under the hot rain, until he leaned his head against the shower wall and slowly began to drift off. Before he knew it, he was asleep once more. 

~~

Garin's mouth was open slightly as the door was closed firmly in his face. With the plywood a few inches from his nose, he blinked a few times before he added, “Nice to meet you,” in a soft voice and far more to himself than to the tall man who had just spoken. 

Allie looked up from the pan of eggs she was frying when he walked into the kitchen. She gave him a grim nod, her patience with the patient... with Isaiah, was not passed on as easily to her friends. Allie wasn't the type of woman to give anything up easily, partially why she and Garin had become friends in the first place was due to this stubbornness on her part. 

“Kay,” he said as he slid into the stool, “his name is Isaiah and he can talk. He just.. doesn't, I guess?” 

“Makes sense,” Allie nodded then at the look of confusion and frustration on his face, added, “he's in a place filled with three strangers and he's going through withdrawals. That can't be a good place for anyone to be. I wouldn't want to talk either.” 

“I would,” Garin protested furiously. 

“Yeah,” Allie smiled at him in fondness, “but that's because you're Garin and Garin is the type of boy who can't shut up when he needs to. Eggs?” she waved the pan toward him, describing a half circle in the air. 

“Sure,” he leaned on his hand and watched her spoon food out. “He's in the bathroom.” 

“So long as he isn't casing your medicine cabinet for something besides all of the freakin' vitamins you've got in there, he'll probably be okay. I was looking it up. Meth's a killer to kick, but it doesn't put him into the same kind of danger that alcohol or heroin would. He's gotten through the dangerous shit. Now he's onto the tough stuff.” 

Garin hadn't read much on anything, he wasn't a big reader like she was, but because of that, he was more than willing to let her knowledge guide him. Besides. Breakfast. 

“He down all that Gatorade?” she asked when his mouth was finally full. 

“He did one liter, got another bottle that he managed to get through half of before Spence says he went into full refusal. Spence was calling it a temper tantrum.” 

“He'll have more of those,” Allie said as if she was in the know. She probably was, though. Garin figured things were bound to get worse before they got any better, really. 

~~

It was a good twenty minutes later when Isaiah awoke to cold water pelting his skin. He leaned forward and turned the shower off, then rubbed his eyes and sat there a moment as he tried to figure out how long he'd been asleep. Finally, he pulled himself out of the tub, his muscles still hurting as if he'd gone through an intense workout. He made it over to the sink, where he grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around his waist. He pulled another one off to wring his hair our. The thin ropes would remain wet for several hours. 

When he was done drying himself off, he looked in the mirror. There was a very shitty looking, tired, and soaked Isaiah looking back at him. He stared at his own reflection for a moment, scolding himself once again for being the drug addicted loser that he was. Then he noticed that the mirror had a medicine cabinet behind it. Out of curiosity, he opened it and began to nose around inside. Most of the bottles had weird little vitamins in them, but others popped out at him. Robitussin? A few swallows of that would have him feeling better in no time... Isaiah stared at the bottle, part of him telling him to do it, the other part telling him to have a shred of common sense. Finally, common sense won and he closed the cabinet. He finally had a chance to escape; he couldn't just fuck it up now. 

He kept the towel around his waist as he left the bathroom, slowly shuffling his way to the kitchen. Maybe the girl, Allie he thought her name was, had come back with clothes for him. Isaiah made his way in, not saying a word as he pulled out a chair at the table and plopped himself down. He promptly laid his head down and stared out the window. His began to bounce his leg under the table, probably unaware that he was doing so. 

~~