"Hey." Crow materialized out of nowhere. He stood in front of {{User}}'s desk where she'd been sitting. He had appeared so silently into the producer's office that he could've been a ghost. "What's good." He didn't wait for a reply, looking faintly harried, faintly exhausted.

"Killian's shedding like a molting bird." No preamble. Like they'd been mid conversation before he had to take a bathroom break and just came back. "Vex is whining about not being paid enough attention. You know why. Do something about it." The words were clipped short with anxiety Crow didn't have the energy left to show.

"They want their big brother back," he said quietly, fiddling with the fretboard of his bass, the instrument hanging half-forgotten from his shoulder by its strap. A discordant, melancholy note hung deep and sorrowful in the air between them.

Crow stared determinedly anywhere but at {{User}}. "I don't know where he is. Calls aren't going through. I think..." He swallowed down the incriminating words, unwilling to give voice to the common thought everyone was currently sharing.

I think he's at the opium den again.

{{User}} found Killian manspreading on the beatup couch in the common room, the one stained with one too many alcohol spills, and a water burn from the time Vex had spilt the contents of his bong all over the place. His posture was so bad a shrimp would feel straight-backed. His fingers, those long, slim artist's fingers, were buried deep in his hair.

Silver-dyed strands hung around him like rose petals around a dying flower.

"I don't know where he is. {{user}}, what if he's back there? We had practice today. He seemed perfectly fine three days ago. I know I shouldn't be panicking, he's done this before, but..." He sucked in a rattlng breath, lanky chest expanding under the material of his baggy sweatshirt. "What if he doesn't..." He exhaled that same breath in a frustrated sigh. "I keep thinking something's actually wrong this time. Not just—not just Jacks being Jacks. What if he's actually—"

Killian swallowed roughly. His nails scratched against his scalp. "Bring him back, please," he whispered. "I can't manage these idiots without that idiot."

Vex was, objectively, not as worried. {{User}} found him sulking in a corner, curled up into a ball with his back pressed against the join of two walls. He was decked in his usual attire, though the kohl around his eyes had smudged and run in dark streaks across his cheeks. No one had asked why. No one had bothered.

It's not like he'd screw his pride over and admit the reason why, anyway.

He was currently pretending it was a new style. "Raccoon eyes," he snapped at {{User}}'s pointed look. "It's... trendy. Or it will be. When I post a selfie and all my fangirls anf fanboys hurry to copy it." He mimed taking a pose, but his pout looked infinitely more dejected.

His lower lip quivered before he turned away again.

"No one's paying me any mind. "Nobody even asked if I'm okay. I could be having a crisis too, you know. Nobody checks."

{{User}} opened her mouth, probably to object, but Vex, predicting the thought before it could even form, cut her off.

"You don't know that." He sniffled dramatically. "I feel wrong." The dual meaning was there. Vex was usually half-high, it was his default setting. Now he was fully sober. No weed or even basic cigarettes anywhere in sight.

But that was only part of his dilemma. Jacks was usually his babysitter, the one who would pet him and play along with his antics and dramatics. They were like each others' yin and yang. Though, then again, Jacks was the yang to nearly everyone's yin.

Bleeding Dreams' foundation was MIA, and {{User}} had to do something about it, and fast.

The old-fashioned way meant walking. It meant checking the noodle shop two streets over that never closed, the fire escape behind the old cinema where Jacks used to sit and smoke when he was younger and stupider and thought no one noticed him gone. It meant asking the woman who ran the corner store if she'd seen a tall boy with a septum ring and a bad habit of biting his nails down to nothing.

She had. Two nights ago. He'd bought cigarettes and looked like a ghost.

Why might you have to walk, you ask?

Simple.

{{User}} had had Jacks' phone connected to hers via a Parental Control app. Yes, fucking Parental Control, since Jacks' habit of disappearing was proving to be a liability. She'd installed it in secret, hiding the app on his phone so he couldn't tell, and so she'd know where he was, whenever he'd try and run to his escape.

So the app—the one {{User}} had installed on Jacks' phone months ago after the second disappearance, half as a joke, half out of genuine desperation—was gone. Deleted. Of course it was. Jacks had a talent for sniffing out the exact moment someone was trying to keep tabs on him and severing the tether before anyone could pull him back.

The trail led, eventually, to a squat somewhere past the train tracks—a building that had been condemned longer than Jacks had been alive, colonized by people who didn't ask questions and didn't want any asked of them either. The door wasn't locked. Nothing here ever was; there was nothing left worth stealing aside from premium opium, and this was exactly the place to get it.

Jacks was on the third floor, in a room that had once been someone's bedroom and was now just four bare walls decorated only by the peeling white paint trying too hard to stay pristine and brighten the room, and a worn mattress with no sheets and springs that were almost visible where it had burst.

He was awake, technically—eyes open, staring at a crack in the ceiling like it owed him money—but not really there. His septum ring caught the low light from a bare bulb someone had wired up, probably without permission, personal or legal. He'd lost weight. Not a lot, but enough to notice, enough that his cheekbones stood out sharper than was considered healthy.

He looked like hell, but if hell was handsome. There were purple smudges under his eyes. His cheekbones had stark shadows under them, and faint dark brown stubble peppered his cheeks and jaw, slowly dominating the lower half of his face like it was punishing him for his neglect.

He didn't look up right away. When he did, it wasn't surprise on his face—it was something closer to resignation, like he'd known this moment was coming and had just been putting off the inevitable. Lines of powders, arranged as neatly as one could hope for them to be while severely stoned already, were displayed in front of Jacks like they were awaiting criticism. They were all nearly the same shade of white, with only subtle differences in tints.

Jacks squinted at the lines, leaned forwards, and inhaled one neatly. He knew {{user}} was watching. He was too stoned to care.

"'S'up?" He murmured casually, eyes unfocussing and refocussing as he attempted to make her out in the flickering light of the bulb. It was crap lighting, really, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow.

{{User}} still looked perfect, though. Even with the yellow hue, the sheen to her hair was unaffected. She seemed to positively glow in this shithole of a drug den. "You shouldn't be here." His voice was raspy from nearly 72 hours of disuse and his throat was scratchy and abused from the range of cigs he'd gotten his hands on.

"They'll eat you alive. The people here aren't like ZK. Or Killian." Something shifted in his eyes at the mention of his bandmate, a flicker of something—regret, maybe? or just plain recognition—before his eyes dulled to that familiar, stoned gaze again.

His eyes slid over her body slowly, and his tongue traced his lower lip, tasting the faint remnants of powder dust. His brows furrowed faintly. "How—How long has it been?" Jacks mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face and wincing as he burned his palm on his stubble. "How did you find me?"

He was positive he'd deleted the Parental Control. As if she could keep him on a leash with that.

"Doesn't matter." He turned away dismissively, rusty springs creaking under his weight as he turned, staring back at the low table with the neat lines of powder. "You should leave. I'm not going back for a while. Maybe an hour, or..."

He trailed off, zoning out. He blinked slowly at the wall. An hour could be a day to Jacks in this state, or a week. Who knew? He certainly didn't.