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Todd looked at the bottle, weighing up what had to be done today versus the rapidly dwindling supply of medication.
Farah was out of the country, visiting Lydia and discussing arrangements for if Lydia would be coming back to America. She was probably following the news, but he doubted that it had made international news. And Dirk didn't really do news. Or any other organised form of information gathering.
He put the bottle back on the shelf and closed the cabinet. He didn't meet his own gaze in the mirror, it wasn't that good a day.
Heading downstairs to the office, Todd headed straight past Dirk and Rapunzel and over to the office kitchen to get some coffee.
He had never, ever thought he'd be glad for Dirk's weird tea habits, but Dirk's weird tea meant Dirk's weird electric kettle and that had resulted in Farah bringing in surprisingly good freeze dried coffee that she ordered from overseas and Todd's enjoyment of coffee had gone from a grudging necessity to enjoyed necessity.
"Can you boil enough for a cuppa as well?"
Todd turned off the kettle and added more water before returning it to the stand to boil. He got down two mugs, coffee in one, tea bag in the other and sat down on one of their mismatched chairs to bury his face in his hands.
A loud 'prrp' was followed by a surprisingly hard little head ramming into his calf; when ignored despite this, Jaws leapt up into his lap, shoving her face up to smooch his chin.
"I know you're there," he murmured. "Go and play with Rapunzel. Or Dirk." He relented anyway, scratching behind one ear. "Or find Mona."
Unsurprisingly, Jaws just squeaked at him and tried to shift her head so he would stick his finger in her ear.
"No, weirdo. Kettle's boiled, hop down." He scooped her up with one hand and set her on the floor, she was on the table before he made it to the bench, but he really didn't care that much.
He poured the water mechanically, stirring carefully to avoid any splashes that might set off an attack. Two sugars into Dirk's tea, because five was not reasonable by anyone's standards, and he brought both cups out, setting the tea on Dirk's desk.
"Thank you, my best assis-friend."
"I thought I was officially junior partner?"
"But I like the word assis-friend better," Dirk protested. "It has a certain... je ne se quoi."
"Right. Do we have any cases?"
"No. Nothing pressing. There's some emails, but they look boring."
Todd decided to check them anyway, while Dirk explained the difference between promising-boring and boring-boring based on usernames of the sent emails.
Reminder from Farah to fill the expenses form. Reminder from Farah to check the phone messages. Reminder from Farah that he needed a new script next month. Reminder from- He just skipped all of the Farah reminders, because they were almost certainly the ones she sent the day before as well.
Someone who thought they were drug dealers. Shipping notification on office supplies that Todd knew he hadn't ordered and hoped Dirk hadn't.
He sipped his coffee, noting it tasted slightly sour. Must have been the mug they were mixing the soul cocktails in when Dirk declared that sour cocktails were clearly the best choice for Todd, because Dirk was bubbly and loved sugar so Todd would enjoy the sour sweet.
His tongue tingled. Started to blister, he could feel the skin tightening and swelling before it burst, flooding his mouth with plasma and acid.
It's not real, he told himself. Not real, his tongue was still there, he wasn't swallowing down battery acid and blood. He kept his eyes open, staring at the screen and trying to convince himself that that was real, nothing else was.
It was agony. He wanted to scream, but he didn't, he just kept on swallowing while the acid bubbled outward, eating through his stomach and sending fiery, stabbing pain through his gut.
"Todd?"
He couldn't move, he'd throw up, all that revolting mess he was working hard to keep down, that wasn't there at all but he was struggling to swallow regardless.
"Oh God, are you having an attack? Todd?!" Dirk was suddenly there; Rapunzel was barking sharply, in alarm and his eyes were watering from keeping them open, staring at the screen and telling himself, the screen was real, just look at the screen.
"Medication, medication, Todd, open your mouth." Dirk's hand came to rest on his head, trying to coax him to lean back enough to open his mouth.
He shook his head, a tiny, fast motion.
"I promise, you can open your mouth safely, you can swallow them and it will all be better," Dirk soothed. "Please, Todd, just trust me and open your mouth."
Todd shook his head again. He could survive without it. It was bad, but he could deal with it, he would deal with it-
"Please."
Dirk sounded near tears. And Todd had promised he wouldn't fucking hurt Dirk...
He opened his mouth slightly. The blood bubbled over his lower lip, but Dirk's fingers were there anyway, pushing the tablets past the gore and on the next swallow he felt them slide down, despite the fact that the acid should have eaten away his throat ages ago.
The medication took long minutes to work. Dirk hovered the whole time, frightened and fretting until Todd could feel his mouth properly and the fiery pain in his abdomen faded away.
The pain left and so did Todd's strength. He sagged in his seat, into Dirk who eased him down to the floors, cradling Todd's head and shoulders on his lap.
"Mona, can we have a blanket, please?"
A thick, grey minky blanket spread itself over his body but he was too tired to be even mildly weirded out by Mona.
"Your medication isn't working properly, Todd. It shouldn't have taken so long to work, we'll need to make an appointment for a different prescription, something that will work faster to alleviate it, you were doing so well on the levetiracetam, but maybe the-"
"It worked." Todd closed his eyes. "I need a sleep, Dirk, please."
"Right. Of course. After you've rested." Dirk's hand hovered uncertainly and then came to softly pet Todd's head. "Can you move to the couch?"
Maybe. "Yeah." Dirk helped him get sitting up; it must have been bad because Mona was there a moment later, helping to get him to his feet and shuffled over to the couch.
"Thanks." He sank down, eyes falling shut. A blanket was draped over him, Mona or otherwise, he didn't really know or care. He just wanted to sleep it off.
"- filled, which means these are still from last month! Why on Earth would you do this, Todd?!"
He must have slept, because he was waking up to Dirk yelling at him. He stared up blearily, not sure what Dirk was saying. "What?"
"You haven't been taking your maintenance doses. I know, because I found your prescription, and you didn't fill it last month, which means the bottle in your cabinet is the month before and to have managed that? You can't be taking your medication and I want to know why, because watching you go through attacks is awful and you know how awful it is and I want to know why you'd do that to all of us, but mostly yourself." Dirk huffed and folded down on the floor, his indignation spluttering out. "Why would you do this to yourself, Todd? Please tell me you don't think you deserve to have attacks, or don't deserve medication or-"
"It's skyrocketed," Todd cut in. "Two months back, the company was bought out and the new one raised the price. Insurance say they won't cover it anymore, because there's 'other viable anti-seizure medication', even though I don't take it for epilepsy."
Dirk tilted his head. "I- don't understand."
"My insurance? Medical insurance? Won't pay for it anymore. A dollar a tablet they'll cough up for, fifty a tablet is outside what they'll cover." And maintenance was eight tablets a day. Eight dollars a day to four hundred a day.
"Todd, Farah's a millionaire, we can just buy it, or move to a different insurance company, or whatever silly thing you Americans do to-"
"No. Dirk, no. It's my sickness. My cost. I'm not going to live off Farah. Or you, before you try to suggest it, you never have any money."
"How about you let Farah decide that she doesn't want to help?"
"It's not about her not wanting to. I know she'd want to. But I don't to have to rely on someone else's charity to get by. It's part of taking responsibility, Dirk. And medical costs are part of that." He reached out, patting Dirk's hand and then just resting there, because why not? "I'm an adult. These are just, adult things."
"Well, I think that's a load of bullshit," Dirk said softly and firmly. "Family look after each other. You looked after Amanda. And we'll look after you. And if Farah doesn't know someone who smuggles medication from Canada, then I'm sure we can make a case out of it." He clutched onto Todd's hand. "And if you're ever silly enough to try and handle major life difficulties without telling anyone again, I'll... I'll tell Amanda what you did and that you made me cry!"
"You wouldn't." He stared. "You would. You bastard. She'd kill me. She'd make me wish I was dead."
"Exactly." Dirk pressed Todd's hand to his chest. "Feel that? It's racing and stressed. That's your fault. You did that to me. I need recompense, Todd. Recompense."
Dirk promptly crawled onto the couch with Todd, under the blanket and shoving to pin Todd between the back of the couch and his own weight.
It was crowded and uncomfortable and too close and-
Dirk's arm shoved around his waist and his head tucked down onto Todd's chest.
And it felt a lot like not being alone.