Oh no you didn't
Characters Jade, Dist, and Ema
Rating PG-13 for drug addiction and language
Summary Jade has been keeping an eye on Ema while she falls apart, and hasn't missed Dist's activities regarding her. Knowing Dist, he goes to make sure he's not killing her.
Location Dist's home
Date/Time October 29, noon
Status Completed log
Jade supposed it was just as well he'd made a point to keep Ema Skye under careful (if distant) observation since Sephiroth's rampage nearly a month ago. Her downward spiral into Zydrate addiction had been noted and, while it was regrettable, it didn't exactly fall under the category of 'any of Jade's business' except in his professional capacity. And, since it was legally questionable to arrest someone for illegal Zydrate use that had been discovered while spying on them unofficially, he'd for once had a perfectly good excuse not to exercise his authority to its proper extent.
He'd have been reluctant to move on the matter even if he'd had every right and reason to do so, of course; entirely aside from the fact that he had no real wish to get caught up in the woman's drama, there was no denying she had a legitimate need for a painkiller if anyone did. And he was at least partly culpable for that. If he owed her and Sephiroth anything, it was only to see that she was all right without actually interfering.
But then, no one had ever said anything about Dist. And who could blame them?
It couldn't truly be said that Dist had no good intentions; even Jade himself had never believed that. What could be said was that Dist had never had good execution. The only thing that stood between the world as it was and a (more) fabulously distdystopian future under a cackling dictator in a flying chair commanding an army of overcompensating robots was a comforting buffer of utter incompetence. He'd undoubtedly meant well when he'd kidnapped Ema - Jade knew full well what sort of state he must have found her in - but a surreptitious and rather illegal sweep of Ema's apartment had confirmed that Dist had left behind the hyperthyroid medications Ema actually did need, along with the Zydrate that she only thought she did.
Which was why Jade, having gone to such lengths to not get personally involved, was now knocking on Dist's door, probably fulfilling at least a few of the other man's personal fantasy scenarios as he did so.
~~~
After the rude awakening Dist had received the night before, he never actually got to go back to sleep. He'd tried, for a while, but it had been made painfully clear that, if Ema didn't get to sleep, she'd make damn sure that he didn't get to sleep either. It had given Dist the time to get his living room straightened up, but he didn't feel up to opening his shop.
Which made it very weird when someone knocked on his door, since anyone coming up to it would have to go through the closed garage. Dist didn't exactly look his best; he'd gotten dressed, but he was very clearly sleep-deprived, and he didn't consider himself presentable to the general public.
Still, there was the matter of the person at the door. Dist briefly considered grabbing some sort of bludgeon, but eventually decided against it; a burglar wouldn't show up at noon, and probably also wouldn't have knocked.
He wasn't exactly prepared for Jade showing up, though; Jade had never come to his apartment before. Dist just kind of stared dumbly for a couple seconds once he opened the door, his sleep-deprived brain not entirely sure what to say.
And then he remembered that he had a hostage.
"Jade!" The exclamation was slightly too late to be casual. He glanced over his shoulder briefly; thankfully, Ema was slightly down a hall and around a corner, out of view. "What... what are you doing here?"
~~~
"I came to visit," Jade replied easily; Dist was clearly exhausted and doubtless uncomfortable, and how could Jade resist the opportunity to capitalize on that? "I'm sure you must be thrilled."
~~~
Even a sleepy and uncomfortable Dist could tell that something was up. "Well, I mean, of course, but... why?" He made no move to get out of the doorway; there was no way he was letting Jade in that easily. He was doing his best not to look conspicuously nervous, but this being Dist, it didn't exactly work.
~~~
Jade raised an eyebrow. "Why should an old friend need a reason to visit? You're not being very hospitable, Dist."
~~~
Dist shifted his weight a bit. "It's just... bad timing," he said lamely. "The apartment is a real mess and it's in no shape to have guests." ...Yeah, that was plausable.
"Maybe you could come back... I don't know, next week?"
~~~
Jade cocked an eyebrow. Sadly, it looked like he wouldn't get to drag the charade out for very long, with Dist apparently being prepared to turn him away. Ah, well, so much for potential sitcom drama. "Really? I thought you already had someone over..."
~~~
Because what Dist really needed was a GenCop snooping around when he had a tied-up woman on his couch. It sort of pained him to turn this opportunity down, but he really had no choice. "Why would you think that?!" ...Oh dear. That was a bit too vehement.
~~~
After having her hands and legs tied and a makeshift gag stuffed into her mouth, Ema had spent the majority of the morning drowning in misery and pain (both physical and emotional). Her cheeks were still tear-streaked from the various hissy fits she'd thrown over the course of the time she had spent in Dist's care, and her jaw was sore from the intrusion that the rolled-up sock presented. Crying only lead to choking, and screaming was both difficult and ineffective in her current state, so she just contented herself with lying there. Besides, she was feeling lightheaded and vaguely nauseous alongside the excrutiating pain, so she didn't want to push her luck. She was vaguely aware of Dist's movements around her, and shot him hateful looks whenever he got too close.
If this was what Dist meant when he said he'd help her, he was a fucking idiot. How was this any help--she was being left to wither and die without the least bit of assistance. And if she didn't die, she'd surely go insane... a possibility that only induced panic and made all of her symptoms worse.
Dist went to the door at some point, and Ema could hear another voice although she couldn't quite place it; it was too muffled by distance and her current state. She tried screaming for help through the gag but found the endeavor fruitless, so she tried to get the mystery guest's attention the best way she could: by flinging herself off the couch and into Dist's coffee table, making a loud crash as she did so.
Which, unfortunately, left her in a great deal more pain than before, and she had to close her eyes and take deep breaths through her nose to keep from throwing up. With the gag in her mouth, vomiting meant choking and dying. While that would certainly teach Dist, it was too undignified a way to go, even for her.
~~~
Jade arched an eyebrow at the conspicuous crash. Clearly Ema had chosen to join the conversation in her usual understated way. Though for her to not be screaming, and knowing Dist... "Please tell me you haven't actually gagged her," he said to the other, with the faintest touch of a plaintive please-say-you're-not-that-stupid tone in his voice.
~~~
Dist's stomach sank a little bit. "I don't know what you're talking about." He knew the defense was futile; of course Jade knew. He knew everything. Dammit.
~~~
Jade simply sighed and, without waiting for Dist's leave, pushed past him into the apartment, heading for the source of the noise. It had to be Ema; who else could manage to be that disruptive? Save Dist, of course, but Dist usually did it by opening his mouth.
~~~
...Well, that settled it. Dist didn't even bother trying to stop Jade at this point; he just shut the door and followed after him, defeated.
~~~
Ema remained motionless on the floor until she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She looked up to see who this visitor was, hoping that she was about to receive some kind of mercy. After the hell that was the past few hours, Ema figured she deserved at least that much. This person could ungag her and untie her and carry her back to her apartment where she could self-destruct in peace like she had intended to do in the first place.
That hope died as soon as she saw who it was: none other than Jade Curtiss. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Her initial reaction was to simply blink up at him in horrified surprise, since her mental reflexes were sluggish due to pain and lack of sleep and lack of nutrition and ever-increasing withdrawal. The anger that she might have (and probably should have) felt didn't come immediately; it was working its way to the surface, surely, but Ema's kneejerk reaction to his presence was that she was in a great deal of trouble... out of the frying pan and straight down to Hell.
~~~
Jade studied Ema for a long moment; truth be told, she was rather a pathetic sight, although it hadn't been since the very beginning of her and Sephiroth's relationship that he'd truly seen the woman in a good light. She was weak-willed, not at all introspective, and smart while at the same time not actually being that intelligent; certainly not uncommon character flaws, but her particular blend of them had led to her doing stupid things without thinking them through on roughly every occasion Jade had ever encountered her. If there was any comfort to be had in the pitiful sight of her lying on the floor, looking up at him bemusedly with a sock stuffed in her mouth, it was that Jade was fairly certain she had finally reached the nadir; surely she must have no farther to fall than this.
There was also the fact that it was him seeing her like this, and not Sephiroth. Wherever Sephiroth was, whatever he was dealing with, doubtless he had it bad enough without seeing Ema in this state.
He took a long breath that was really more of a sigh before moving to Ema, picking her up off the floor with little effort - his constant claims of age were, of course, deliberately over-inflated - and settled her back on the couch. Then, knowing full well he'd regret it, he pulled the sock out of her mouth, dropping it unheeded to the floor.
~~~
Dist shoved his hands into his pockets. "She wouldn't stop screaming," he said by way of explanation for the sock. "I couldn't sleep." His expression was pointedly guilty, like a puppy who knew it had done something wrong and was hoping to escape punishment.
~~~
Ema didn't resist as Jade picked her up from the floor and placed her back onto the couch. She was more than certain that Dist wasn't going to offer any help, nor would he have been able to pick her up if he'd been so inclined. She similarly didn't resist as he removed the sock from her mouth. Without looking up at him, she slowly moved her jaw around to rid it of any stiffness that had set in since she was gagged.
Dist spoke up then, and Ema's attention was quickly drawn in his direction. And, with striking suddennes, her fog snapped and anger raged in full force. "You kidnapped me and tied me up and just left me to die here! You don't deserve any sleep!!"
Dist wasn't the only present party with whom Ema was infuriated, however. If anything, she was more angry with Jade. Whirling on him, she added, "And you... you promised you would tell him! You said you were going to prevent what happened! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU?!" There was a choked quality to her voice that her rage didn't quite eliminate, and fresh tears began stinging in her eyes. "And now he's... and you're just standing there! Can't you at least look sorry?!"
~~~
Jade had certainly expected some sort of backlash of this sort from Ema. He hadn't forgotten their conversation, or his promise to her; he'd actually lost several nights of sleep over it. Not for her sake, certainly, and only partially for Sephiroth's; his inability to intercept Sephiroth's catastrophic course in time (and, indeed, his complicity in the work done on him and the secrets kept from him) made him indirectly responsible for the massacre at the man's hands - the most responsible party besides Hojo and Lucrecia themselves, who would never actually take responsibility for it, which meant he was carrying the burden for three.
Ema had not been the only one suffering over the past month, whatever she might think, though Jade wasn't simply going to look the role of the guilty party for her satisfaction. If anything, his expression closed off further, his eyes narrowing.
"Whatever I may have said," he replied flatly, "I never said I was going to prevent what happened, because I had no idea it was going to happen. I should have, and I wish I'd been able to, but I had no more warning than you did. And I could never have predicted Hojo's massive lapse in judgment in letting Lucrecia blunder around, beholden to no one."
~~~
"Obviously," Dist muttered, sounding bitter; he wasn't happy to be getting an earful of screaming again. That sock was going back in her mouth, provided Jade didn't take her off his hands. "Jade doesn't know everything."
~~~
"You had no more warning than me?" Ema spat bitterly, ignoring Dist's snide side comment entirely. "You weren't there! You didn't get the call from Hojo telling you to come in with no explanation whatsoever, you weren't sent upstairs in ill-fitting body armor while everyone ignored the fact that you didn't know what was going on, you didn't have a coworker's dead body fall on top of you! I was the one standing in that godforsaken hallway, staring Sephiroth down as he was ready to run me through..." Her voice faltered a bit at the memory, still painfully vivid just behind her eyelids. When she managed to find her voice again, it was much softer and heavier. "And... and I saw his face when he came back.
"I thought I was going to die..." And part of me wishes I had. "So don't talk down to me like you understand what I went through. You don't." The glare on her features never left, although it was currently tempered with an emotion far too raw to fully identify--a mix of pain, regret, guilt, fear.
~~~
"And what do you want me to tell you?" Jade didn't bother modulating his voice to be more gentle; he wasn't a gentle person by nature and suspected that, even if he'd been inclined to try, it would never have worked properly. "That how terrible it was for you somehow changes reality? That what you've been through justifies everything? You know it doesn't. Sephiroth's been through more than you have and that certainly doesn't excuse what he did. Do you believe you deserve more consideration than he does? You aren't simply given permission to shut down or lash out or do whatever you please because you've suffered."
Jade stepped closer to the couch, an entirely unthreatening move that somehow seemed so entirely due to the mood he was in. "I promised to speak to him, and I would have, had Lucrecia not preempted me and made things so much worse than they might have been. But I couldn't have known that she would be given free reign to meet him, and I couldn't have simply approached the conversation with Sephiroth lightly - not considering the things I'd have to say to him. There's no guarantee that my telling him would even have made it any easier for him, and no way of knowing. I'd say that speculating on how things might have played out is impossible, but the fact is that you're not even considering that - you're just looking for someone to blame for how things are. Even if that would do you any good, I hardly need you to tell me what, if anything, I'm responsible for - not someone who can't even be responsible of herself."
~~~
The silence over the next few seconds stretched out for what felt like an hour. Finally, after it had been just long enough to be extremely awkward, Dist spoke up. "...Why are you here?" he asked again; surely it hadn't been simply to scare Ema.
~~~
Without even realizing it, Ema shrank back as Jade approached her. Jade's tone was somehow infuriatingly calm and cutting at the same time, which made the words hurt far worse than they would have if he'd simply screamed back at her. There was a part of Ema that wanted to respond, wanted to defy his words, wanted to prove him wrong... but that part was quickly swallowed by the same failure of a survival instinct that had gotten her into this mess to begin with. She had no energy to stand up against him after that.
Of course she didn't think she deserved special consideration, or more consideration than Sephiroth--assuming he hadn't been taken apart and examined piece by piece. She didn't deserve any--she just wanted to be left alone to fail at life in peace. Was that so much to ask?
Once Jade was finished with his tirade, Ema simply curled away from him. If her hands had been free, she would have covered her head. She tried not to cry for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past several hours, but the stinging worsened to the point that she couldn't help herself. Everything hurt and now it was just hurting worse.
Hopefully, Jade would turn his focus back on Dist now that he'd spoken up.
~~~
Jade sighed. Though he genuinely had very little patience for Ema's dramatics and poor judgment - even now, knowing full well what she'd been through even before she'd made a point of telling him (and, actually, her telling him as though she were angling for his sympathy had made him less sympathetic than he'd felt initially) - the simple fact of the matter was that there could be no satisfaction in telling her off, regardless of her deserving it. She was broken; hurting her further, regardless of justification, seemed excessive and cruel and accomplished very little in any case.
Turning to Dist, he raised an eyebrow slightly. "If you're going to kidnap women," he remarked, "you should be more methodical about it. You are aware she has a pre-existing medical condition?" He said this, of course, knowing full well that Dist knew nothing of the sort. He was fairly certain Dist wasn't trying to kill Ema.
~~~
Dist crossed his arms. "It wasn't a kidnapping. And I don't plan to make a habit of it." Of course he would address the accusation first; it was, after all, completely unjustified. Why would he make a habit of absconding with women? "And she has a real heart now. That shouldn't be causing her any more problems."
~~~
Jade had, as usual, been keeping his hands in his pockets. Now he withdrew one, a pill bottle resting on his palm. "Hyperthyroidism. Somehow I knew that if you brought a pet home, I'd be the one who wound up taking care of it."
~~~
Dist blinked and plucked the pill bottle out of Jade's hand, looking the label over as if he didn't believe him. He huffed a bit. "Well how was I supposed to know? She never told me!"
~~~
"I wasn't allowed to," Ema replied quietly from her place on the couch. At some point during the brief conversation between the two of them about her condition, Ema had turned to face them. Her expression was unabashedly surprised, even as her face was still a mess from the recent screaming and crying; she hadn't expected Jade of all people to deliver her medication. "GeneCo put a gag order on the whole thing because it was a failed R&D experiment. Officially, I'm not even supposed to have those drugs."
~~~
Jade glanced down at Ema. "If I owe Sephiroth anything - and I certainly do - the least I can do is make sure you don't die."
~~~
"I wasn't going to let her die!" Dist insisted. "I'd have taken her to the hospital if it got bad. I'm not stupid."
~~~
Ema blinked up at Jade, unsure as to how she was supposed to react--or whether she was even expected to. Had Jade been keeping tabs on her this whole time? It would explain why he knew she needed the medication, and how he managed to track her to Dist's apartment. And, more importantly, the phrasing of it caught her; everything that had happened really had bothered Jade on some level, or he wouldn't have bothered with her at all.
She nearly replied--a thank you, for Sephiroth's sake more than her own--except that Dist, being Dist, cut in with defensive yapping. Her nerves already tightened to the breaking point, she turned and snapped at him. "You tied me up and gagged me! How the hell would you have realized if I was dying or not?!"
~~~
"There's no real guarantee what would have happened to her from there, however," Jade replied, without acknowledging Ema's outburst. "Whether or not they would have kept her for detox, as you're trying to do, or if GeneCo suddenly took an interest in her and got the idea of trying to silence her about what she's been through upon seeing that she's interacting with the world at large again...or even if GeneCo simply took exception to her hyperthyroidism being revealed to others. They're going to be defending the company image rather aggressively in the days to come, thanks to the blow their former golden boy has dealt it."
~~~
Trying? Hmph. Dist thought he was doing fine, thank you. "If I really wanted her dead, I'd have left her alone. She'll be fine, even if she does refuse to eat the food I make her. Once the withdrawal is gone she'll be thanking me."
~~~
As Jade went on (as if Ema had never even shouted at Dist, which was annoying), Ema's eyes widened as she realized just how truly screwed she was. GeneCo was the kind of company that would silence a person rather than deal with her; she knew that all too well. Gag orders and repossessions and the way they'd been handling the Sephiroth disaster... Ema was lucky she wasn't dead already. Before, she was merely a minor embarrassment to the company's image; now she was a full-blown PR liability.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say, really.
~~~
Jade sighed, glancing at Ema's bonds. "And this is how you're handling it?" he asked, rather rhetorically. Turning to Ema, he asked, in a curiously flat voice, "Do you want to get better, or don't you?"
~~~
"I... I just want the nightmares to stop." The statement wasn't an appeal for pity; it was simply the truth. "I want to be able to sleep without leaving the lights on, and to just erase the image of that day from my mind. I want..." Did she want to get better? Or did she really want to go back to her apartment, where she would remain in a drug induced haze until she either overdosed or starved to death. The latter was certainly easier, but... Jade had made it pretty clear that it wasn't what Sephiroth would have wanted for her, had he the chance to say so. He'd spared her in the end, hadn't he? The least she could do is make that decision mean something.
"I want to get better... but I need help." If Ema had learned nothing else about herself from all of this, it was that she wasn't strong enough to stand on her own. The realization might have stung if Ema had had anything resembling self esteem left by this point.
~~~
"That's what I was trying to do," Dist pointed out. And it was true; he wanted her to get better. If he hadn't, there was no way he'd have put up with her screaming all night and making a nuisance of herself. Dist... couldn't say he had many friends, but somehow Ema had ended up with that dubious honor. He wasn't really sure how it happened.
~~~
"You can't tie her up for it," Jade replied, with what he considered admirable patience. Most people with any sense wouldn't have to be told these things. "You can't force any change on her she isn't willing to make. She wasn't addicted to Zydrate when she began using it; even once you break her of the addiction itself, she'll simply go back to using it as soon as you release her unless she herself wants to stop."
~~~
Dist crossed his arms. "Sure I can. Once the withdrawal passes... she'll go back to normal."
~~~
"Scientifically speaking, that's not true..." Ema interjected before Jade can answer. "Once you become addicted, you're kind of an addict for life. And you can't expect an addict to just stop because you want her to." The words were quiet and heavy; Ema was doing her best to sound clinical and scientific, but it was extremely difficult considering her physical state of withdrawal (made much worse by all the recent hysterics) and the fact that she was the addict in question here. It was a subject she had been avoiding for months, but she really had nothing else to hide behind; she couldn't function without the Z. The fact that she was more sober than she'd been in months and falling apart without it brought that fact into painful clarity.
It was more bearable if she was scientific and detached about it, however, so she stuck with that approach. "It's medical, chemical. A drug addict has to have a reason not to use, to live with the fact that there's that something that she'll always want and should never, ever have. Otherwise... she doesn't stay off it."
~~~
Jade cocked an eyebrow at Dist. "Perhaps you should learn more about rehabilitation than the addict you're trying to help before the next time you launch an undertaking like this."
~~~
"I told you," Dist said, crossing his arms, "I don't plan to make a habit of this. I'm only doing it because I'm her friend and I didn't want her to end up killing herself."
~~~
"If you don't do it properly, you'll simply make it so that you had a hand in her death," Jade replied flatly.
~~~
Dist shrugged. "I also told you, I won't let her die. I'm not stupid."
~~~
"Ignorance can do the job of stupidity in a pinch." Jade sighed. "You really think this would have ended well if I hadn't shown up?"
~~~
"Excuse me," Ema interjected, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice (and largely failing). She was far too miserable to deal with the back-and-forth between the two of them, especially if it was going to lead to Dist shrieking if it escalated. Her head and her nerves could only take so much.
"Dist, if I promise not to break shit, would you please untie me? I want... I need to eat. And a shower. And... a lot of other things."
~~~
Dist frowned. "...As long as you don't trash the room again. You need to eat." He disappeared into the kitchen, in search of scissors.
~~~
Jade sighed again as he watched Dist go, in the manner of a man developing a headache. Turning back to Ema, he inquired, "Do you think you'll be all right?"
~~~
"No," Ema answered simply. "But I'll figure something out."
She paused awkwardly, looking up at him. As always, he was impossible to truly read; outside of his obvious irritation with Dist, Ema had no idea what he could be thinking. "Thanks for bringing my medicine. And... " Despite the overwhelming urge to avert her gaze, Ema forced herself to keep her eyes on him. "And for not pulling punches. I... I need that."
~~~
"I know," Jade replied, entirely without humility - and, of course, further demonstrating his skill in such areas. "I'm no Sephiroth, Miss Skye. I intend to keep you alive for his sake but don't expect me to waste my time saving you from your own mistakes unless I see you're making an effort to stop making them."
~~~
Ema nodded in reply, lying back down. Even if Jade had lit a fire beneath her to want to get well, it didn't change the fact that physically she didn't feel anywhere close. Where was Dist with whatever it was he ran off to get, anyway?
~~~
It wasn't long before Dist returned with the scissors, and he knelt down next to the couch to cut the ties around Ema's wrists and ankles. "Remember, you promised."
~~~
"I know." Ema rubbed her wrists once Dist cut them free; the skin on them was raw from all of the yanking she had done on her bonds. Honestly, once Ema stopped to think it over, she was pretty sure that there wasn't an area on her body that didn't hurt to some capacity. Withdrawal sucked.
She didn't sit up. It was better to lounge while in so much pain.
~~~
Dist sighed a bit and sat back in his chair. His exhaustion seemed to hit him again all at once, although with Jade there he did his best not to let it show. He wasn't sure what to say, really. "...Are you okay?"
~~~
"No." The answer didn't change, even if the person asking and the tense did. "I feel like hell and I can't sleep and I'm about to pass out or throw up or both." There was nothing wrong with a little honesty, was there? Ema really didn't have much left to offer at this point. "Are you sure you shouldn't have a doctor here or something? Make sure I don't randomly drop dead?"
~~~
"And who exactly would you trust? If you know someone, we could always call them in, but otherwise you'd probably simply be exposing yourself to entirely new risks." Jade reached into his pocket and withdrew the second of the medicines he'd retrieved from Ema's house, handing this one to her personally.
~~~
"I know someone." He wasn't sure just how trustworthy Noboru was, and he was a cardiac surgeon rather than someone who dealt with addictions, but it was better than nothing. He didn't really like to admit defeat, but he wasn't up for another sleepless night. He'd put on more than enough concealer to deal with the bags under his eyes, but he couldn't aribrush away how obviously exhausted he was.
~~~
Ema turned to look at Dist when he answered for her. "I do, too. He... he knows what happened, so we wouldn't even have to explain anything to him. He looked me over right.... right after.
"His name's Noboru. Noboru Ijyuuin."
~~~
"...Where did you meet him?" Dist was a little bit too tired to be properly incredulous, but it was still odd. ...Although. Now that he thought about it, of course she knew him. She was the one with the fake heart he was so interested in. Well, had been.
~~~
"The day after you did. I figured I should talk to him about the heart that you told him all about." Ema couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, even if Dist had only been tangentially involved in the whole experiment and was the reason she didn't die when the wiring became loose. "And again at the hospital three weeks ago."
~~~
"Then that's as good as anyone to call." Jade glanced between the two of them. "If, that is, you're both certain he's trustworthy."
~~~
"Well, our other options are keeping her here and letting her go home. Do you have any other ideas?" Stupid Jade.
~~~
"I know what our other options are," Jade said coldly. "Better than you, Dist."
~~~
Ema reached over and whacked Dist's leg as Jade answered. "He already said, idiot. I could go to a hospital and die." It wasn't quite what Jade had said earlier, but it was the message that stuck.
~~~
"Oh, you could go anywhere and die," Jade replied lightly, with his typical lack of concern. "You could even stay here and die, if this doctor isn't trustworthy. That is why I asked."
~~~
Dist kicked back at her, not bothering to suppress a scowl at the both of them. "And if it weren't for me you'd already be dead in your apartment, with graverobbers scrambling over themselves to bleed the Zydrate out of you. Some gratitude."
~~~
"No, she wouldn't," Jade corrected him. "I would have come for her myself before then." Glancing at Ema, he did add, "Though you're better off this way."
~~~
"Here, you mean?" The edge to Ema's tone and the glare she shot Dist indicated that she was somewhat inclined to disagree.
~~~
"Yes," Jade said simply. "I would have taken you to my apartment and kept you completely sedated while the Zydrate, and your physiological need for it, worked their way out of your system. For weeks, if necessary."
"Unlike Dist, I have other responsibilities and don't have time to play nursemaid to any significant degree."
~~~
"And then she'd just be addicted to your sedative," Dist muttered.
~~~
"Not necessarily," Ema answered. "Not biologically, anyway." She pulled a pill out of the bottle that Jade gave her, then held out a hand for the bottle that he gave Dist. Honestly, she would have preferred Jade's method; it sounded less painful than what she was going through at the moment. But it wouldn't have really fixed much, psychologically.
~~~
"Not that I'm not perfectly capable of finding non-addictive substances to use on her, but that would hardly be the main problem with my method," Jade replied. "It would merely be a last-ditch measure to keep her alive. With her reasons for using Zydrate unaltered, she would likely simply go back to it afterwards regardless of her physiological addiction having been negated - to say nothing of the physical and emotional impact of being strapped down and drugged into unconsciousness for as much as a month against her will by someone without much time to care for her. At the very least, she would come out of it malnutritioned, possibly with atrophied muscles, bedsores...there are any number of complications I cannot guarantee I could prevent under the circumstances, or would be qualified to treat. Not all medical professionals can even manage such things properly, and I was a scientist, not a doctor."
Jade glanced at Ema. "The only reason I didn't actually threaten you with such a possibility is that you couldn't be forced into self-improvement with threats to any better effect."
~~~
Ema nodded a little, almost imperceptively. He was absolutely right. She turned her attention back to Dist, who had failed to read her mind about handing her the medication. "Give me the damn bottle already so I can take my medication."
~~~
Being bluntly corrected by both Jade and Ema hadn't improved his mood one ounce; he scowled again and threw the bottle at her, without any thought as to whether it would hit her or not.
~~~
The bottle connected with Ema's face, and she responded with a shriek. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" And, paragon of maturity that Ema was, she flung the bottle already in her hand right back at him before curling up to nurse her stinging cheek.
~~~
Jade raised an eyebrow at this. "Don't forget, Dist, that this was your idea," he reminded him mildly. "Or, Ema, that you are benefitting from his inconvenience."
~~~
"But it hurt," Ema whimpered in response, pressing a hand to her cheek to see how sensitive it is to the touch. "I'm going to bruise."
~~~
"I don't care!" He pitched the other bottle back at her; he'd stood up at one point though he didn't recall doing it. "I go out of my way to help someone and all they do in return is try and make my life miserable!" He whirled on Jade. "And you're no help at all! You couldn't just give me her pills without criticizing me, or just tell me where they were so I could go get them without having to deal with your making fun of me! Well, I don't care anymore! She can just go drown in Zydrate alone in her apartment for all I care! See if I ever help anyone ever again!"
~~~
Jade weathered Dist's outburst impassively. He waited until the man had wound down before saying, quietly, "You're mistaking pointing out the flaws in your methods for making fun of you, Dist."
~~~
"But you always do this! Nothing I do is ever good enough for you! What do you want from me?!" Dist was visibly shaking.
~~~
"A very simple thing - for you to think before you act." Jade studied Dist carefully. "Lack of foresight and common sense are usually the things I object to, with you."
~~~
Ema didn't really hear anything of the argument that followed Dist's outburst. The second bottle connected with her shoulder and smarted, and the words stung worst. "Why the hell did you bother bringing me up here after the last time you said that, then?! If you so much better than me, if you're so fucking sensitive, then fine! I'll go curl up somewhere and die, and it'll be on your head!" She struggled to get to her feet and managed to get about three feet before stumbling. It wasn't quite the dramatic exit she had hoped for, and she didn't attempt another. Her voice was softer and weaker. "It's just... I'm in pain, and I'm scared, and... I'm going to kill myself like this... and you're just yelling at me..."
~~~
Dist had run out of things to scream about very quickly, and his rage bled away into exhaustion again just as suddenly. He sighed a little and mustered the strength to go help Ema back up, somehow. "Don't be stupid. You need to eat something."
~~~
"Feed her, then," Jade remarked, ever practical. "In the meantime, should I call the doctor?"
~~~
Ema didn't have the strength to fight Dist back. She let him help her off the floor and to the couch. "Water first. I really, really need to take this." To Jade, she added, "I don't have his phone number. Dist, do you?"
~~~
Dist fished out his phone and handed it over to Jade. "It's in the contacts list." And he disappeared into the kitchen again.
~~~
Jade watched Dist go, then glanced at Ema. Then, giving her a slight shrug, he began scanning through the menus on Dist's phone, looking for Noboru.
~~~
Ema didn't have anything to say. She removed a pill from the second bottle and waited.
Rating PG-13 for drug addiction and language
Summary Jade has been keeping an eye on Ema while she falls apart, and hasn't missed Dist's activities regarding her. Knowing Dist, he goes to make sure he's not killing her.
Location Dist's home
Date/Time October 29, noon
Status Completed log
Jade supposed it was just as well he'd made a point to keep Ema Skye under careful (if distant) observation since Sephiroth's rampage nearly a month ago. Her downward spiral into Zydrate addiction had been noted and, while it was regrettable, it didn't exactly fall under the category of 'any of Jade's business' except in his professional capacity. And, since it was legally questionable to arrest someone for illegal Zydrate use that had been discovered while spying on them unofficially, he'd for once had a perfectly good excuse not to exercise his authority to its proper extent.
He'd have been reluctant to move on the matter even if he'd had every right and reason to do so, of course; entirely aside from the fact that he had no real wish to get caught up in the woman's drama, there was no denying she had a legitimate need for a painkiller if anyone did. And he was at least partly culpable for that. If he owed her and Sephiroth anything, it was only to see that she was all right without actually interfering.
But then, no one had ever said anything about Dist. And who could blame them?
It couldn't truly be said that Dist had no good intentions; even Jade himself had never believed that. What could be said was that Dist had never had good execution. The only thing that stood between the world as it was and a (more) fabulously distdystopian future under a cackling dictator in a flying chair commanding an army of overcompensating robots was a comforting buffer of utter incompetence. He'd undoubtedly meant well when he'd kidnapped Ema - Jade knew full well what sort of state he must have found her in - but a surreptitious and rather illegal sweep of Ema's apartment had confirmed that Dist had left behind the hyperthyroid medications Ema actually did need, along with the Zydrate that she only thought she did.
Which was why Jade, having gone to such lengths to not get personally involved, was now knocking on Dist's door, probably fulfilling at least a few of the other man's personal fantasy scenarios as he did so.
~~~
After the rude awakening Dist had received the night before, he never actually got to go back to sleep. He'd tried, for a while, but it had been made painfully clear that, if Ema didn't get to sleep, she'd make damn sure that he didn't get to sleep either. It had given Dist the time to get his living room straightened up, but he didn't feel up to opening his shop.
Which made it very weird when someone knocked on his door, since anyone coming up to it would have to go through the closed garage. Dist didn't exactly look his best; he'd gotten dressed, but he was very clearly sleep-deprived, and he didn't consider himself presentable to the general public.
Still, there was the matter of the person at the door. Dist briefly considered grabbing some sort of bludgeon, but eventually decided against it; a burglar wouldn't show up at noon, and probably also wouldn't have knocked.
He wasn't exactly prepared for Jade showing up, though; Jade had never come to his apartment before. Dist just kind of stared dumbly for a couple seconds once he opened the door, his sleep-deprived brain not entirely sure what to say.
And then he remembered that he had a hostage.
"Jade!" The exclamation was slightly too late to be casual. He glanced over his shoulder briefly; thankfully, Ema was slightly down a hall and around a corner, out of view. "What... what are you doing here?"
~~~
"I came to visit," Jade replied easily; Dist was clearly exhausted and doubtless uncomfortable, and how could Jade resist the opportunity to capitalize on that? "I'm sure you must be thrilled."
~~~
Even a sleepy and uncomfortable Dist could tell that something was up. "Well, I mean, of course, but... why?" He made no move to get out of the doorway; there was no way he was letting Jade in that easily. He was doing his best not to look conspicuously nervous, but this being Dist, it didn't exactly work.
~~~
Jade raised an eyebrow. "Why should an old friend need a reason to visit? You're not being very hospitable, Dist."
~~~
Dist shifted his weight a bit. "It's just... bad timing," he said lamely. "The apartment is a real mess and it's in no shape to have guests." ...Yeah, that was plausable.
"Maybe you could come back... I don't know, next week?"
~~~
Jade cocked an eyebrow. Sadly, it looked like he wouldn't get to drag the charade out for very long, with Dist apparently being prepared to turn him away. Ah, well, so much for potential sitcom drama. "Really? I thought you already had someone over..."
~~~
Because what Dist really needed was a GenCop snooping around when he had a tied-up woman on his couch. It sort of pained him to turn this opportunity down, but he really had no choice. "Why would you think that?!" ...Oh dear. That was a bit too vehement.
~~~
After having her hands and legs tied and a makeshift gag stuffed into her mouth, Ema had spent the majority of the morning drowning in misery and pain (both physical and emotional). Her cheeks were still tear-streaked from the various hissy fits she'd thrown over the course of the time she had spent in Dist's care, and her jaw was sore from the intrusion that the rolled-up sock presented. Crying only lead to choking, and screaming was both difficult and ineffective in her current state, so she just contented herself with lying there. Besides, she was feeling lightheaded and vaguely nauseous alongside the excrutiating pain, so she didn't want to push her luck. She was vaguely aware of Dist's movements around her, and shot him hateful looks whenever he got too close.
If this was what Dist meant when he said he'd help her, he was a fucking idiot. How was this any help--she was being left to wither and die without the least bit of assistance. And if she didn't die, she'd surely go insane... a possibility that only induced panic and made all of her symptoms worse.
Dist went to the door at some point, and Ema could hear another voice although she couldn't quite place it; it was too muffled by distance and her current state. She tried screaming for help through the gag but found the endeavor fruitless, so she tried to get the mystery guest's attention the best way she could: by flinging herself off the couch and into Dist's coffee table, making a loud crash as she did so.
Which, unfortunately, left her in a great deal more pain than before, and she had to close her eyes and take deep breaths through her nose to keep from throwing up. With the gag in her mouth, vomiting meant choking and dying. While that would certainly teach Dist, it was too undignified a way to go, even for her.
~~~
Jade arched an eyebrow at the conspicuous crash. Clearly Ema had chosen to join the conversation in her usual understated way. Though for her to not be screaming, and knowing Dist... "Please tell me you haven't actually gagged her," he said to the other, with the faintest touch of a plaintive please-say-you're-not-that-stupid tone in his voice.
~~~
Dist's stomach sank a little bit. "I don't know what you're talking about." He knew the defense was futile; of course Jade knew. He knew everything. Dammit.
~~~
Jade simply sighed and, without waiting for Dist's leave, pushed past him into the apartment, heading for the source of the noise. It had to be Ema; who else could manage to be that disruptive? Save Dist, of course, but Dist usually did it by opening his mouth.
~~~
...Well, that settled it. Dist didn't even bother trying to stop Jade at this point; he just shut the door and followed after him, defeated.
~~~
Ema remained motionless on the floor until she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She looked up to see who this visitor was, hoping that she was about to receive some kind of mercy. After the hell that was the past few hours, Ema figured she deserved at least that much. This person could ungag her and untie her and carry her back to her apartment where she could self-destruct in peace like she had intended to do in the first place.
That hope died as soon as she saw who it was: none other than Jade Curtiss. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Her initial reaction was to simply blink up at him in horrified surprise, since her mental reflexes were sluggish due to pain and lack of sleep and lack of nutrition and ever-increasing withdrawal. The anger that she might have (and probably should have) felt didn't come immediately; it was working its way to the surface, surely, but Ema's kneejerk reaction to his presence was that she was in a great deal of trouble... out of the frying pan and straight down to Hell.
~~~
Jade studied Ema for a long moment; truth be told, she was rather a pathetic sight, although it hadn't been since the very beginning of her and Sephiroth's relationship that he'd truly seen the woman in a good light. She was weak-willed, not at all introspective, and smart while at the same time not actually being that intelligent; certainly not uncommon character flaws, but her particular blend of them had led to her doing stupid things without thinking them through on roughly every occasion Jade had ever encountered her. If there was any comfort to be had in the pitiful sight of her lying on the floor, looking up at him bemusedly with a sock stuffed in her mouth, it was that Jade was fairly certain she had finally reached the nadir; surely she must have no farther to fall than this.
There was also the fact that it was him seeing her like this, and not Sephiroth. Wherever Sephiroth was, whatever he was dealing with, doubtless he had it bad enough without seeing Ema in this state.
He took a long breath that was really more of a sigh before moving to Ema, picking her up off the floor with little effort - his constant claims of age were, of course, deliberately over-inflated - and settled her back on the couch. Then, knowing full well he'd regret it, he pulled the sock out of her mouth, dropping it unheeded to the floor.
~~~
Dist shoved his hands into his pockets. "She wouldn't stop screaming," he said by way of explanation for the sock. "I couldn't sleep." His expression was pointedly guilty, like a puppy who knew it had done something wrong and was hoping to escape punishment.
~~~
Ema didn't resist as Jade picked her up from the floor and placed her back onto the couch. She was more than certain that Dist wasn't going to offer any help, nor would he have been able to pick her up if he'd been so inclined. She similarly didn't resist as he removed the sock from her mouth. Without looking up at him, she slowly moved her jaw around to rid it of any stiffness that had set in since she was gagged.
Dist spoke up then, and Ema's attention was quickly drawn in his direction. And, with striking suddennes, her fog snapped and anger raged in full force. "You kidnapped me and tied me up and just left me to die here! You don't deserve any sleep!!"
Dist wasn't the only present party with whom Ema was infuriated, however. If anything, she was more angry with Jade. Whirling on him, she added, "And you... you promised you would tell him! You said you were going to prevent what happened! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU?!" There was a choked quality to her voice that her rage didn't quite eliminate, and fresh tears began stinging in her eyes. "And now he's... and you're just standing there! Can't you at least look sorry?!"
~~~
Jade had certainly expected some sort of backlash of this sort from Ema. He hadn't forgotten their conversation, or his promise to her; he'd actually lost several nights of sleep over it. Not for her sake, certainly, and only partially for Sephiroth's; his inability to intercept Sephiroth's catastrophic course in time (and, indeed, his complicity in the work done on him and the secrets kept from him) made him indirectly responsible for the massacre at the man's hands - the most responsible party besides Hojo and Lucrecia themselves, who would never actually take responsibility for it, which meant he was carrying the burden for three.
Ema had not been the only one suffering over the past month, whatever she might think, though Jade wasn't simply going to look the role of the guilty party for her satisfaction. If anything, his expression closed off further, his eyes narrowing.
"Whatever I may have said," he replied flatly, "I never said I was going to prevent what happened, because I had no idea it was going to happen. I should have, and I wish I'd been able to, but I had no more warning than you did. And I could never have predicted Hojo's massive lapse in judgment in letting Lucrecia blunder around, beholden to no one."
~~~
"Obviously," Dist muttered, sounding bitter; he wasn't happy to be getting an earful of screaming again. That sock was going back in her mouth, provided Jade didn't take her off his hands. "Jade doesn't know everything."
~~~
"You had no more warning than me?" Ema spat bitterly, ignoring Dist's snide side comment entirely. "You weren't there! You didn't get the call from Hojo telling you to come in with no explanation whatsoever, you weren't sent upstairs in ill-fitting body armor while everyone ignored the fact that you didn't know what was going on, you didn't have a coworker's dead body fall on top of you! I was the one standing in that godforsaken hallway, staring Sephiroth down as he was ready to run me through..." Her voice faltered a bit at the memory, still painfully vivid just behind her eyelids. When she managed to find her voice again, it was much softer and heavier. "And... and I saw his face when he came back.
"I thought I was going to die..." And part of me wishes I had. "So don't talk down to me like you understand what I went through. You don't." The glare on her features never left, although it was currently tempered with an emotion far too raw to fully identify--a mix of pain, regret, guilt, fear.
~~~
"And what do you want me to tell you?" Jade didn't bother modulating his voice to be more gentle; he wasn't a gentle person by nature and suspected that, even if he'd been inclined to try, it would never have worked properly. "That how terrible it was for you somehow changes reality? That what you've been through justifies everything? You know it doesn't. Sephiroth's been through more than you have and that certainly doesn't excuse what he did. Do you believe you deserve more consideration than he does? You aren't simply given permission to shut down or lash out or do whatever you please because you've suffered."
Jade stepped closer to the couch, an entirely unthreatening move that somehow seemed so entirely due to the mood he was in. "I promised to speak to him, and I would have, had Lucrecia not preempted me and made things so much worse than they might have been. But I couldn't have known that she would be given free reign to meet him, and I couldn't have simply approached the conversation with Sephiroth lightly - not considering the things I'd have to say to him. There's no guarantee that my telling him would even have made it any easier for him, and no way of knowing. I'd say that speculating on how things might have played out is impossible, but the fact is that you're not even considering that - you're just looking for someone to blame for how things are. Even if that would do you any good, I hardly need you to tell me what, if anything, I'm responsible for - not someone who can't even be responsible of herself."
~~~
The silence over the next few seconds stretched out for what felt like an hour. Finally, after it had been just long enough to be extremely awkward, Dist spoke up. "...Why are you here?" he asked again; surely it hadn't been simply to scare Ema.
~~~
Without even realizing it, Ema shrank back as Jade approached her. Jade's tone was somehow infuriatingly calm and cutting at the same time, which made the words hurt far worse than they would have if he'd simply screamed back at her. There was a part of Ema that wanted to respond, wanted to defy his words, wanted to prove him wrong... but that part was quickly swallowed by the same failure of a survival instinct that had gotten her into this mess to begin with. She had no energy to stand up against him after that.
Of course she didn't think she deserved special consideration, or more consideration than Sephiroth--assuming he hadn't been taken apart and examined piece by piece. She didn't deserve any--she just wanted to be left alone to fail at life in peace. Was that so much to ask?
Once Jade was finished with his tirade, Ema simply curled away from him. If her hands had been free, she would have covered her head. She tried not to cry for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past several hours, but the stinging worsened to the point that she couldn't help herself. Everything hurt and now it was just hurting worse.
Hopefully, Jade would turn his focus back on Dist now that he'd spoken up.
~~~
Jade sighed. Though he genuinely had very little patience for Ema's dramatics and poor judgment - even now, knowing full well what she'd been through even before she'd made a point of telling him (and, actually, her telling him as though she were angling for his sympathy had made him less sympathetic than he'd felt initially) - the simple fact of the matter was that there could be no satisfaction in telling her off, regardless of her deserving it. She was broken; hurting her further, regardless of justification, seemed excessive and cruel and accomplished very little in any case.
Turning to Dist, he raised an eyebrow slightly. "If you're going to kidnap women," he remarked, "you should be more methodical about it. You are aware she has a pre-existing medical condition?" He said this, of course, knowing full well that Dist knew nothing of the sort. He was fairly certain Dist wasn't trying to kill Ema.
~~~
Dist crossed his arms. "It wasn't a kidnapping. And I don't plan to make a habit of it." Of course he would address the accusation first; it was, after all, completely unjustified. Why would he make a habit of absconding with women? "And she has a real heart now. That shouldn't be causing her any more problems."
~~~
Jade had, as usual, been keeping his hands in his pockets. Now he withdrew one, a pill bottle resting on his palm. "Hyperthyroidism. Somehow I knew that if you brought a pet home, I'd be the one who wound up taking care of it."
~~~
Dist blinked and plucked the pill bottle out of Jade's hand, looking the label over as if he didn't believe him. He huffed a bit. "Well how was I supposed to know? She never told me!"
~~~
"I wasn't allowed to," Ema replied quietly from her place on the couch. At some point during the brief conversation between the two of them about her condition, Ema had turned to face them. Her expression was unabashedly surprised, even as her face was still a mess from the recent screaming and crying; she hadn't expected Jade of all people to deliver her medication. "GeneCo put a gag order on the whole thing because it was a failed R&D experiment. Officially, I'm not even supposed to have those drugs."
~~~
Jade glanced down at Ema. "If I owe Sephiroth anything - and I certainly do - the least I can do is make sure you don't die."
~~~
"I wasn't going to let her die!" Dist insisted. "I'd have taken her to the hospital if it got bad. I'm not stupid."
~~~
Ema blinked up at Jade, unsure as to how she was supposed to react--or whether she was even expected to. Had Jade been keeping tabs on her this whole time? It would explain why he knew she needed the medication, and how he managed to track her to Dist's apartment. And, more importantly, the phrasing of it caught her; everything that had happened really had bothered Jade on some level, or he wouldn't have bothered with her at all.
She nearly replied--a thank you, for Sephiroth's sake more than her own--except that Dist, being Dist, cut in with defensive yapping. Her nerves already tightened to the breaking point, she turned and snapped at him. "You tied me up and gagged me! How the hell would you have realized if I was dying or not?!"
~~~
"There's no real guarantee what would have happened to her from there, however," Jade replied, without acknowledging Ema's outburst. "Whether or not they would have kept her for detox, as you're trying to do, or if GeneCo suddenly took an interest in her and got the idea of trying to silence her about what she's been through upon seeing that she's interacting with the world at large again...or even if GeneCo simply took exception to her hyperthyroidism being revealed to others. They're going to be defending the company image rather aggressively in the days to come, thanks to the blow their former golden boy has dealt it."
~~~
Trying? Hmph. Dist thought he was doing fine, thank you. "If I really wanted her dead, I'd have left her alone. She'll be fine, even if she does refuse to eat the food I make her. Once the withdrawal is gone she'll be thanking me."
~~~
As Jade went on (as if Ema had never even shouted at Dist, which was annoying), Ema's eyes widened as she realized just how truly screwed she was. GeneCo was the kind of company that would silence a person rather than deal with her; she knew that all too well. Gag orders and repossessions and the way they'd been handling the Sephiroth disaster... Ema was lucky she wasn't dead already. Before, she was merely a minor embarrassment to the company's image; now she was a full-blown PR liability.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say, really.
~~~
Jade sighed, glancing at Ema's bonds. "And this is how you're handling it?" he asked, rather rhetorically. Turning to Ema, he asked, in a curiously flat voice, "Do you want to get better, or don't you?"
~~~
"I... I just want the nightmares to stop." The statement wasn't an appeal for pity; it was simply the truth. "I want to be able to sleep without leaving the lights on, and to just erase the image of that day from my mind. I want..." Did she want to get better? Or did she really want to go back to her apartment, where she would remain in a drug induced haze until she either overdosed or starved to death. The latter was certainly easier, but... Jade had made it pretty clear that it wasn't what Sephiroth would have wanted for her, had he the chance to say so. He'd spared her in the end, hadn't he? The least she could do is make that decision mean something.
"I want to get better... but I need help." If Ema had learned nothing else about herself from all of this, it was that she wasn't strong enough to stand on her own. The realization might have stung if Ema had had anything resembling self esteem left by this point.
~~~
"That's what I was trying to do," Dist pointed out. And it was true; he wanted her to get better. If he hadn't, there was no way he'd have put up with her screaming all night and making a nuisance of herself. Dist... couldn't say he had many friends, but somehow Ema had ended up with that dubious honor. He wasn't really sure how it happened.
~~~
"You can't tie her up for it," Jade replied, with what he considered admirable patience. Most people with any sense wouldn't have to be told these things. "You can't force any change on her she isn't willing to make. She wasn't addicted to Zydrate when she began using it; even once you break her of the addiction itself, she'll simply go back to using it as soon as you release her unless she herself wants to stop."
~~~
Dist crossed his arms. "Sure I can. Once the withdrawal passes... she'll go back to normal."
~~~
"Scientifically speaking, that's not true..." Ema interjected before Jade can answer. "Once you become addicted, you're kind of an addict for life. And you can't expect an addict to just stop because you want her to." The words were quiet and heavy; Ema was doing her best to sound clinical and scientific, but it was extremely difficult considering her physical state of withdrawal (made much worse by all the recent hysterics) and the fact that she was the addict in question here. It was a subject she had been avoiding for months, but she really had nothing else to hide behind; she couldn't function without the Z. The fact that she was more sober than she'd been in months and falling apart without it brought that fact into painful clarity.
It was more bearable if she was scientific and detached about it, however, so she stuck with that approach. "It's medical, chemical. A drug addict has to have a reason not to use, to live with the fact that there's that something that she'll always want and should never, ever have. Otherwise... she doesn't stay off it."
~~~
Jade cocked an eyebrow at Dist. "Perhaps you should learn more about rehabilitation than the addict you're trying to help before the next time you launch an undertaking like this."
~~~
"I told you," Dist said, crossing his arms, "I don't plan to make a habit of this. I'm only doing it because I'm her friend and I didn't want her to end up killing herself."
~~~
"If you don't do it properly, you'll simply make it so that you had a hand in her death," Jade replied flatly.
~~~
Dist shrugged. "I also told you, I won't let her die. I'm not stupid."
~~~
"Ignorance can do the job of stupidity in a pinch." Jade sighed. "You really think this would have ended well if I hadn't shown up?"
~~~
"Excuse me," Ema interjected, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice (and largely failing). She was far too miserable to deal with the back-and-forth between the two of them, especially if it was going to lead to Dist shrieking if it escalated. Her head and her nerves could only take so much.
"Dist, if I promise not to break shit, would you please untie me? I want... I need to eat. And a shower. And... a lot of other things."
~~~
Dist frowned. "...As long as you don't trash the room again. You need to eat." He disappeared into the kitchen, in search of scissors.
~~~
Jade sighed again as he watched Dist go, in the manner of a man developing a headache. Turning back to Ema, he inquired, "Do you think you'll be all right?"
~~~
"No," Ema answered simply. "But I'll figure something out."
She paused awkwardly, looking up at him. As always, he was impossible to truly read; outside of his obvious irritation with Dist, Ema had no idea what he could be thinking. "Thanks for bringing my medicine. And... " Despite the overwhelming urge to avert her gaze, Ema forced herself to keep her eyes on him. "And for not pulling punches. I... I need that."
~~~
"I know," Jade replied, entirely without humility - and, of course, further demonstrating his skill in such areas. "I'm no Sephiroth, Miss Skye. I intend to keep you alive for his sake but don't expect me to waste my time saving you from your own mistakes unless I see you're making an effort to stop making them."
~~~
Ema nodded in reply, lying back down. Even if Jade had lit a fire beneath her to want to get well, it didn't change the fact that physically she didn't feel anywhere close. Where was Dist with whatever it was he ran off to get, anyway?
~~~
It wasn't long before Dist returned with the scissors, and he knelt down next to the couch to cut the ties around Ema's wrists and ankles. "Remember, you promised."
~~~
"I know." Ema rubbed her wrists once Dist cut them free; the skin on them was raw from all of the yanking she had done on her bonds. Honestly, once Ema stopped to think it over, she was pretty sure that there wasn't an area on her body that didn't hurt to some capacity. Withdrawal sucked.
She didn't sit up. It was better to lounge while in so much pain.
~~~
Dist sighed a bit and sat back in his chair. His exhaustion seemed to hit him again all at once, although with Jade there he did his best not to let it show. He wasn't sure what to say, really. "...Are you okay?"
~~~
"No." The answer didn't change, even if the person asking and the tense did. "I feel like hell and I can't sleep and I'm about to pass out or throw up or both." There was nothing wrong with a little honesty, was there? Ema really didn't have much left to offer at this point. "Are you sure you shouldn't have a doctor here or something? Make sure I don't randomly drop dead?"
~~~
"And who exactly would you trust? If you know someone, we could always call them in, but otherwise you'd probably simply be exposing yourself to entirely new risks." Jade reached into his pocket and withdrew the second of the medicines he'd retrieved from Ema's house, handing this one to her personally.
~~~
"I know someone." He wasn't sure just how trustworthy Noboru was, and he was a cardiac surgeon rather than someone who dealt with addictions, but it was better than nothing. He didn't really like to admit defeat, but he wasn't up for another sleepless night. He'd put on more than enough concealer to deal with the bags under his eyes, but he couldn't aribrush away how obviously exhausted he was.
~~~
Ema turned to look at Dist when he answered for her. "I do, too. He... he knows what happened, so we wouldn't even have to explain anything to him. He looked me over right.... right after.
"His name's Noboru. Noboru Ijyuuin."
~~~
"...Where did you meet him?" Dist was a little bit too tired to be properly incredulous, but it was still odd. ...Although. Now that he thought about it, of course she knew him. She was the one with the fake heart he was so interested in. Well, had been.
~~~
"The day after you did. I figured I should talk to him about the heart that you told him all about." Ema couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, even if Dist had only been tangentially involved in the whole experiment and was the reason she didn't die when the wiring became loose. "And again at the hospital three weeks ago."
~~~
"Then that's as good as anyone to call." Jade glanced between the two of them. "If, that is, you're both certain he's trustworthy."
~~~
"Well, our other options are keeping her here and letting her go home. Do you have any other ideas?" Stupid Jade.
~~~
"I know what our other options are," Jade said coldly. "Better than you, Dist."
~~~
Ema reached over and whacked Dist's leg as Jade answered. "He already said, idiot. I could go to a hospital and die." It wasn't quite what Jade had said earlier, but it was the message that stuck.
~~~
"Oh, you could go anywhere and die," Jade replied lightly, with his typical lack of concern. "You could even stay here and die, if this doctor isn't trustworthy. That is why I asked."
~~~
Dist kicked back at her, not bothering to suppress a scowl at the both of them. "And if it weren't for me you'd already be dead in your apartment, with graverobbers scrambling over themselves to bleed the Zydrate out of you. Some gratitude."
~~~
"No, she wouldn't," Jade corrected him. "I would have come for her myself before then." Glancing at Ema, he did add, "Though you're better off this way."
~~~
"Here, you mean?" The edge to Ema's tone and the glare she shot Dist indicated that she was somewhat inclined to disagree.
~~~
"Yes," Jade said simply. "I would have taken you to my apartment and kept you completely sedated while the Zydrate, and your physiological need for it, worked their way out of your system. For weeks, if necessary."
"Unlike Dist, I have other responsibilities and don't have time to play nursemaid to any significant degree."
~~~
"And then she'd just be addicted to your sedative," Dist muttered.
~~~
"Not necessarily," Ema answered. "Not biologically, anyway." She pulled a pill out of the bottle that Jade gave her, then held out a hand for the bottle that he gave Dist. Honestly, she would have preferred Jade's method; it sounded less painful than what she was going through at the moment. But it wouldn't have really fixed much, psychologically.
~~~
"Not that I'm not perfectly capable of finding non-addictive substances to use on her, but that would hardly be the main problem with my method," Jade replied. "It would merely be a last-ditch measure to keep her alive. With her reasons for using Zydrate unaltered, she would likely simply go back to it afterwards regardless of her physiological addiction having been negated - to say nothing of the physical and emotional impact of being strapped down and drugged into unconsciousness for as much as a month against her will by someone without much time to care for her. At the very least, she would come out of it malnutritioned, possibly with atrophied muscles, bedsores...there are any number of complications I cannot guarantee I could prevent under the circumstances, or would be qualified to treat. Not all medical professionals can even manage such things properly, and I was a scientist, not a doctor."
Jade glanced at Ema. "The only reason I didn't actually threaten you with such a possibility is that you couldn't be forced into self-improvement with threats to any better effect."
~~~
Ema nodded a little, almost imperceptively. He was absolutely right. She turned her attention back to Dist, who had failed to read her mind about handing her the medication. "Give me the damn bottle already so I can take my medication."
~~~
Being bluntly corrected by both Jade and Ema hadn't improved his mood one ounce; he scowled again and threw the bottle at her, without any thought as to whether it would hit her or not.
~~~
The bottle connected with Ema's face, and she responded with a shriek. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" And, paragon of maturity that Ema was, she flung the bottle already in her hand right back at him before curling up to nurse her stinging cheek.
~~~
Jade raised an eyebrow at this. "Don't forget, Dist, that this was your idea," he reminded him mildly. "Or, Ema, that you are benefitting from his inconvenience."
~~~
"But it hurt," Ema whimpered in response, pressing a hand to her cheek to see how sensitive it is to the touch. "I'm going to bruise."
~~~
"I don't care!" He pitched the other bottle back at her; he'd stood up at one point though he didn't recall doing it. "I go out of my way to help someone and all they do in return is try and make my life miserable!" He whirled on Jade. "And you're no help at all! You couldn't just give me her pills without criticizing me, or just tell me where they were so I could go get them without having to deal with your making fun of me! Well, I don't care anymore! She can just go drown in Zydrate alone in her apartment for all I care! See if I ever help anyone ever again!"
~~~
Jade weathered Dist's outburst impassively. He waited until the man had wound down before saying, quietly, "You're mistaking pointing out the flaws in your methods for making fun of you, Dist."
~~~
"But you always do this! Nothing I do is ever good enough for you! What do you want from me?!" Dist was visibly shaking.
~~~
"A very simple thing - for you to think before you act." Jade studied Dist carefully. "Lack of foresight and common sense are usually the things I object to, with you."
~~~
Ema didn't really hear anything of the argument that followed Dist's outburst. The second bottle connected with her shoulder and smarted, and the words stung worst. "Why the hell did you bother bringing me up here after the last time you said that, then?! If you so much better than me, if you're so fucking sensitive, then fine! I'll go curl up somewhere and die, and it'll be on your head!" She struggled to get to her feet and managed to get about three feet before stumbling. It wasn't quite the dramatic exit she had hoped for, and she didn't attempt another. Her voice was softer and weaker. "It's just... I'm in pain, and I'm scared, and... I'm going to kill myself like this... and you're just yelling at me..."
~~~
Dist had run out of things to scream about very quickly, and his rage bled away into exhaustion again just as suddenly. He sighed a little and mustered the strength to go help Ema back up, somehow. "Don't be stupid. You need to eat something."
~~~
"Feed her, then," Jade remarked, ever practical. "In the meantime, should I call the doctor?"
~~~
Ema didn't have the strength to fight Dist back. She let him help her off the floor and to the couch. "Water first. I really, really need to take this." To Jade, she added, "I don't have his phone number. Dist, do you?"
~~~
Dist fished out his phone and handed it over to Jade. "It's in the contacts list." And he disappeared into the kitchen again.
~~~
Jade watched Dist go, then glanced at Ema. Then, giving her a slight shrug, he began scanning through the menus on Dist's phone, looking for Noboru.
~~~
Ema didn't have anything to say. She removed a pill from the second bottle and waited.