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"Just go home Ever."

Ty sounded tired; not the brief kind of tired that Ever was used to, done in by a day at work or because it was 3 am again, but truly exhausted. It was deeper than that, worn out, the man's eyes sunken as he stood on the front stoop in a pair of boxers festooned with raccoons and blinked down at his wayward boyfriend.

"Not here. I don't mean here. I mean home..."

Breakups. It wasn't the first time Ever had fallen into one, and it certainly wasn't the first time he'd deserved one, either. He just couldn't stay devoted enough to get his hooks in, to keep people from wandering away. He liked Ty, he really did. Three years older, currently tutoring exam prep and living largely off of his parents' largess, he had more or less been perfect for this time and this place. A fling. A pass in the night. No strings attached. And his little brownstone had been nice.

"...because I can't do this anymore. It's exhausting."

Two and a half months. Neither of them had been in love. They'd never explicitly said they were exclusive, though Ever had his suspicions that Ty just rolled that way. If he'd brought it up, he'd have had to play along as well. There were a lot of things he hadn't mentioned, just because he didn't want to deal with them. Perhaps that was why it was so easy for things to crumble apart.

"Forty bucks can get you cab fare and maybe tide you over some, too."

He'd certainly never talked about his family. At the best of times, Ever didn't mention his family. In his eyes, they simply didn't exist; nothing personal hey but if you don't want me I don't want you either. Ty must have picked up on some of it from the way his eyes went shadowed when the caller ID said 'mom', or from the fact that he had never called them up. But he hadn't figured out the worst of it: Ever couldn't go home.

Silence.

Ever blinked back into focus, cleared his throat, sober enough now that he could at least hold himself together. Ty was staring at him, still in those adorable boxers, hair appealingly tousled and curly around his face, with forty bucks in his hand. Run out of words, it seemed. This had been a lot, for Ty. Usually Ever ran away with the arguments, any attempt at change or promise fizzling out in the face of sarcasm.

Tonight, though, he just offered a lopsided grin and reached out to snag the money from Ty's grasp, playing drunker than he really was. "No worries man."

There were more words there. God help him, Ty wobbled and shifted, scratching at the back of his neck, started to say something else, and Ever played oblivious well, swinging the bag up onto his shoulder and speaking before he got the chance. "I'll figure it out.

Two steps back. Three. And he'd probably never see Ty again.

▇ Chloe catches Ever shoplifting from the Salvation Army.

▇ God bless the dollar menu, and Paul for paying.

▇ A drunken Ever gets caught up in a battle between youma and Sailor Gianfar.

▇ Nate is a vandal and a thug. Ever just looks like one.

▇ Ever checks out some books and chats with Tony.

▇ No, it's probably not a date, Zac just needs to get out more.

Ever didn't remember getting home. He didn't remember the man in the front of the cab growling and cursing until he finally got a mumbled address out of him, didn't remember being dropped off in front of Breu and Dee's place, didn't remember passing out on the stairs or being poked and prodded up by the landlady. He didn't remember tumbling onto the couch next to Dee, too out of it to even respond.

He got in, dead on his feet to a a disturbing degree, and he slept.

He slept deep.

But he did dream.

On Monday, when he came to, he wouldn't remember the blur of imagery in his dream, but in the moment it was vivid and strong. It wasn't a dream of Zac but of someone else, not a fantasy nor a memory come to life but somewhere in between.

Ever was sleeping on a couch, truth in fiction, but here he was in a house that smelled like books, the fabric beneath his cheek nicer, rough in a way that was familiar and made him sigh. His eyes slitted, he watched someone move through the place through a fringe of messy hair: tall and dark-haired, the man wore only boxers, looked rumpled and soft around the edges, his hands big and his movements not graceful but self-possessed.

"...Amory." It came out blurry, and as he spoke Ever felt the restriction of the tie around his neck. Here, in the dream, it was more than just ornament: this part of his uniform was strangling him, slowly but surely, a noose not quite tight enough to leave him kicking and struggling. Long fingers came up to fight with it, the last of his breath hissing out and for a long moment he was dizzy, watching the man turn through narrowing vision.

He half-woke. It was early in the morning. The couch was wrong, but he still ached: not just his body but some deeper part of him that he hadn't ever really noticed before. For a moment, Ever wondered if he should start going back to church. Then he fell back asleep.

This time, it wasn't a familiar couch but the blaring too-white of a classroom, polished to painful shine by his imagination, sterile and cold. A voice droned at the front of the class, "1942, 1942, 1942, 1942..." The student next to him was loudly chewing gum. Instead of stimulated by the idea of learning, here, Ever felt scorched through and through, had to close his eyes against the place. The second he did, though, a book snapped down onto the desk in front of him and jerked his head up.

Woke closer to noon, to the sound of someone -- Breu, maybe? -- shuffling around in the kitchen. He'd dropped something. Ever watched him pick it up and rolled over back into sleep.

Now he was more fitful, perhaps his body recovered just enough to know he couldn't sleep forever, and the dreams came in bits and pieces of faded ideas.

His sister, throwing something at him and crying, her hair dark and loose down her back.

Being swung through a circle dance of some sort, wearing his best fancy clothes, his hair freshly shorn short.

A row of beds in a room, somewhere, and he was trying to win some privacy surrounded by other people.

Each time he woke up with a pounding between his eyes. Each time he shuddered and collapsed back into sleep, but it was worse. When he finally came to fully he wished he'd stayed down.

He'd never had a hangover like this, before, and he hoped he never would agian.