Re: [Evans & Peel: Jack & Holly]
It wasn't Jack who would clean up if Holly had been sick, nor in fact, if Jack had been sick. Jack had been deliberately hovering below the waterline of wasted for some time, a place of high-functioning but still bloody invested in where the next drink was but without vomiting or any other dubious substance making an appearance. 48 hours of obscene emotion was vile, getting drunk was a fairly comprehensive coping measure even if it was temporary, and it was in the nod he glimpsed what looked like perhaps the aftermath of getting punched.
"One way and no way back," Jack repeated, largely because he'd no certainty whatsoever. "Magic or science tend to be the notional reasons for 'why' things happen in this town. How about reserving exploration of options for when you're less soused?"
A grand was probably impressive. It made Jack think faintly of classic fiction, and he'd followed the malformed logical progression of the conversation to think the five, six hundred bucks was cam-work (cam-work he understood reasonably well) and the grand was fucking the boy Holly seemed to be wound up with, which was also rather impressive given the turbulence of being from an entirely different place all together.
"Ah," Jack thought of Newt, and Patrick. "If you won't mind advice from a drunk, it's a lot easier sober to decide whether or not you're on the road to heartbreak or not. Closeted or not. It sounds like," and he sipped his whiskey, given the need, "Given you've managed to get tangled up with him already and you're new to a life that isn't precisely yours, you might already have your feet on the road. My advice? Sobriety for the grand's worth of sex. Is he very rich? That's a lot of money."
No, he rather expected that. The drunk, dead father doubtless didn't gorge himself on Scottish whiskey. "Thank you," Jack said baldly, in the face of determined directness, "I know how it ends up. Matter of fact, my father died in a pub loo, after several decades of addiction, so I'd rather blow my brains out, but there we are." Matter-of-fact, given he'd no emotional weight behind it whatsoever. He didn't expect Holly to give a shit, given he was both young and blindingly drunk but drunk made for brutal honesty.