A sudden jolt, and Jack was awake. He blinked in confusion as he took in his surroundings. He was still on Kieran's couch. "What…?"

"Sorry," Kieran mumbled as he moved to sit upright. He dropped his head between his knees as he took a few deep breaths. Looking up, he grimaced at the empty bottle directly in front of him.

"You okay?" Jack asked, keeping his voice low. "You want some aspirin or something? Closed curtains?"

Kieran shook his head. "No, I'll take care of it in a moment. I'll be in the bath for… Well, long enough."

"Uh…" Jack's face scrunched up before he could make the necessary connections on what Kieran was implying. Even Augie had been pretty blasé about his tumble down the stairs and subsequent death. "Oh. Okay. Please don't tell me that's how you always take care of hangovers."

"Only when they're this bad." Kieran broke off with a long exhale. "I would have preferred to have died during the night, but I hadn't planned accordingly."

Jack, for one, was of the opinion that dying in the middle of the night would not have been preferable. He didn't need any corpses on or around him. "If anything like this happens again, and you do 'plan accordingly,' please don't sleep on me."

Kieran nodded as he stood, wincing. "On second thought, you go first. I'm going to be a while," he said as he gingerly sat back on the couch.

It was a considerate offer, and Jack gladly took it. He eyed everything in the bathroom as he went through his morning routine. Was he going to need to avoid anything? Surely Kieran would clean up after himself.

He returned to the living room and watched as Kieran shuffled off. He had no idea how long Kieran would be, nor what sort of reset method he was going to use, and he really didn't want to know. He set about cleaning up the bottles and glasses. Anything to keep his mind off how many dead bodies, no matter how temporary, had been in the building.

And, more frighteningly, how he was coming to accept the idea.

Making breakfast seemed like a decent task to help occupy him, and it served the dual purpose of helping out. In the fridge, he found eggs and bacon. He poked around for another moment, unable to find any mystery containers of bacon grease. He glanced across the clean countertops, but there wasn't even a small dish with an incriminating cat print that he'd come to expect at Sam's. He may as well start one.

He stared at the small, shallow dish he pulled down. A clear memory of his mother instructing him to empty the bacon grease into a silicone pig popped up. He dropped the dish onto the counter and quickly fetched his phone to make a note. He also made a note to hunt down the same pig from his memory.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Half an hour and one burnt batch of eggs later, Kieran emerged from the small hallway. He was dressed for the day in dark grey slacks and a white button down that put Jack's sweatpants and sweatshirt to shame. He came up behind Jack and wrapped his arms around him. "Do you need any help?"

Jack leaned back with a frown. "I don't think so? The bacon's on the crispy side 'cuz I zoned out," he admitted. He could recall making several notes on his phone before and during cooking but the memories were already gone. He turned off the burner and examined his pile of scrambled eggs. "I got the eggs under control?"

"Thank you for breakfast, my sweet." Kieran kissed Jack's temple and continued to trail kisses downward, pulling away with a soft laugh when he was shrugged away.

"Don't thank me yet. You haven't tasted it." Jack rubbed at his neck and swallowed. No numbness, just a normal kiss.

"I'll be grateful for anything you make."

"Yeah, you'll just bounce right back even if I accidently poison you." He cringed and looked over his shoulder at Kieran. All he got in return was a sad smile.

"I didn't mean to ruin your morning," Kieran said as he stepped away.

Jack turned and grabbed Kieran's wrist, pulling him back in. "Not ruined, just weird."

"Here, let's eat, and then I'll…" Kieran sighed and looked away. "I'll see what I can do about Thomas."

Jack wondered if he looked as miserable when his friends made him do things for his own good. He probably looked worse.

By some miracle, there had been no complaints about Jack's cooking. There was, however, an almost dirty look that Kieran threw his way when Jack had kicked him out of the apartment before he could offer to clean up, losing any excuse of procrastination.

As Jack gathered everything into his laptop bag, he was feeling pretty proud of himself. He cooked, cleaned up, got Kieran off his ass, and he had yet to break anything. He had a handful of new notes in his phone and a weird little bacon grease pig on order. His morning was great.

As he entered the murder stairs, his stomach turned. Something was going to ruin it. Thomas was still out there with no idea that Kieran had finally worked out his Augie issues. For the most part.

With a sigh, he pulled out his phone and wrote up a text to Tara. He hoped it didn't come off as weird. He hadn't initiated meeting up since… He couldn't remember a time he asked Tara to properly hang out. She probably had better things to do than entertain him.

Even if he had the excuse of needing to be around people, it was just an excuse. What could she possibly do to help that a crowded café couldn't?

He blinked as he deleted the message. With a frustrated growl, he retyped his message and sent it off.

At the foot of the stairs, Jack was greeted with a hand written sign.

Thomas, we need to talk.

There was another on the backdoor. Apparently, this was Kieran's plan for dealing with the problem. Then again, when there was no real way to contact Thomas, this was probably the only way.

His phone pinged with a reply.

YES!! CU@ BB!

The eager reply was comforting. Maybe he wasn't as annoying as he thought. As he'd been told.