Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

happy and you know it," Alan sang from under the blanket, "share your meds!"
    "They knew you were on potentially life-saving medication and they took it away? Your parents ?" That club in my truck was looking better by the minute.
    "It's cute how you're so shocked," Alan growled. " If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. " He chuckled. "Matthew 5:29. I can quote verses all night. I know every single way I'm evil and—"
    "Stop it," I snapped. "They're wrong . Fuck them. Let's take care of you."
    "How you gonna do that, Batman?"
    "Get up and put shoes on."
    He sat up, threw the comforter off his head and stared at me. "What?"
    "You heard me." I bounced off the couch. "Do you have a raincoat?"
    "No, but I absconded with your trench," he said, rooting in the mess on the floor. "Mallory gave it to me to give back and I kind of forgot only not really."
    "Wear it."
    "May I ask where we're going?"
    "Campus health center. You pay for insurance with your tuition, Alan. Do you still have the empty bottles?"
    "Does it look like I've taken the trash out? Bathroom floor. I think."
    I'd found the bottles when I cleaned the bathroom, stacked them on the sink without looking at them. Now I looked. The first two I knew as a common antidepressant combination. The third was a sleep aid. I walked back to Alan and grabbed a handful of his hair. I didn't pull, but he yelped anyway.
    "Ow! What the fuck?"
    "You will never," I held up the sleep aid, "drink while taking this again."
    "I didn't! It's as needed. What the hell, how stupid do you think I am?"
    "You shouldn't drink with the antidepressant either," I growled, letting him go.
    "Yeah, tell me about it." He opened the closet. My trench coat hung there, neatly on a hanger. Next to it was a pirate costume with scarves and an eye patch clipped to it. "Mix that with tequila and you'll be—" He stopped talking to look at me, cocked his head. "You know a lot about psych meds, Lukas Blake."
    "Of course I do. I'm Batman."
    Alan snorted. "If ever a man needed some medication…" he said.
    He was slow and unsteady and he couldn't find his student ID until he looked in his silverware drawer, but eventually I got Alan out the door. Wind smacked us as we stepped out of the building, with spatters of rain that pelted when we walked from under the roof. Alan staggered into me; I put my arm around him and guided him to my truck. Inside he huddled against the door as I put on my seat belt and started the truck.
    "I'm sorry," he said through chattering teeth. "I'm sorry—"
    "I'm not." I checked my mirrors and backed up. "I could be at work, trying to scrub the lot in this."
    "Oh," he said. "Ew."
    "Yeah." I turned on the heater and set all the vents to blow on him. Like a computer virus, the first thing depression did was to disable a person's defenses, make him stop taking care of himself. The last thing Alan needed was a nasty cold.
    At the health center we waited together again. Alan sat huddled in my coat, damp and cold and withdrawn and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Finally a doctor saw him and gave him exactly two of each of his medications, with orders not to take them until morning because he'd been drinking. She also gave Alan his insurance information so he could finally get his refills at his usual pharmacy. While the doctor talked about the importance of taking his medication every day, even when he felt fine, I went to the restroom and texted Mallory that everything was okay. Then I called Ebony and asked her to take the rest of my shift.
    "Is the world ending?" she asked. "Lukas missing work means the Four Horsemen are on Main Street, right?"
    "Ebony—"
    "Yeah, I got it. You explain my overtime to Jamal, though."
    "Thank you," I told her, and went back to Alan.
    As we walked out of the clinic Alan broke open one of the bubble-packs of pills.
    "The doctor said—"
    "Fuck that," Alan growled. "I haven't slept in three days."
    I checked my watch. At least four hours since his last drink, and he'd vomited so I knew he hadn't been absorbing alcohol into his bloodstream since then… Alan bent over a water fountain and I didn't stop him.
    "Fine," I said when he straightened. "But you're staying the night at my house."
    He glared at me sideways. "You bastard. You did that on purpose. You know in ten minutes I won't be able to