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His hand slid over Ever's shoulder as he nodded and finally headed out the door to get cleaned up. When he was gone, Zeke bent to pick up the other man's jacket, fishing out his cigarettes, the lighter, and his phone. These were stuffed into his own pockets before the coat, the shirt, the hat, and the top blanket of the bed were all crammed into the pillow case.

When he was finished with that he grabbed a clean t-shirt, a pair of thanksgiving boxers, and a pair of cotton sleeping pants from Ever's rather sparse dresser. As he left the room he made a call, summoning Paige to collect the laundry from him with express orders to hold onto it until Zeke or Ever himself came to retrieve it from her.

There was minimal protest. She still owed him for drawing all over him in the Life course.

He assumed Ever would take longer than usual in the shower, so once in his own room he'd set the clean clothing on the edge of his desk, change himself(similar pants, new t-shirt), and settle on the bed with his back up against the wall, one knee drawn up with a book balanced on it. A pair of glasses rested on his nose. Both phones, the pack of smokes, and the lighter were sitting on the bedside table.

When Ever arrived his gaze lifted from the page he'd been reading, watching him, likely looking for some queue he could act on.

If nothing else, Zeke was honest. "I'm trying to decipher what will or won't be helpful in this situation. This is sort of new for me." One multiple levels.

The corner of the page he'd been reading was folded, and he set the book aside on the night stand by phones and smokes. "You're not your usual self." It wasn't an accusation, just a fact. The sky was blue, ice was cold, and Ever was having a bad reaction to something that had happened on a mission. "Better than you were when I woke you up, but still not..." His lip twitched as he groped for a word, but instead let it go. He would have said normal, but did he know Ever well enough to know if the side he showed was genuine?

Enjoying his company and knowing him were not mutually exclusive. Zeke wasn't so trusting as to assume the people he chose to care about held no secrets.

Normal would have had the Mist looping an arm around Ever's waist to pull him in against his chest. He considered it, but given Ever's mood, he wasn't sure how the other man would react to it. They had a good thing going, he really preferred not ******** it up.

His gaze still tracked him as he moved around the room, not the watchful caution he'd showed up to this point, but his usual observance.

"Alcohol?" It was a start, at least, and something Zeke could provide. He knew where Ever kept his stash, it wouldn't be hard to walk back down the hall to grab a bottle.

He slid to the edge of the bed near the blonde, pausing there briefly to lay a hand on Ever's side so he could draw him down to sit beside him. Fingers touched his chin, turning his head so he could meet dark eyes. "Stay here." Then he was getting up, running fingers through damp hair, and headed for the door.

It took two minutes to get back to Ever's room, another two minutes to get inside and open the iron maiden so he could select a bottle, then her was heading back, large hand wrapped around the neck of some cheap vodka.

He didn't deal with trauma often, it was foreign to him. He didn't know drinking away a problem was counter productive.

Ever did look better as Zeke closed the door behind him again. It loosened the weight of worry that had settled on his shoulders, not gone, but lighter, as he took a seat on the mattress beside the blonde's hip. Close enough to touch.

"Bottle. No point bothering with cups, since I don't have anything to mix it with." The cap came off with a twist, finding a new home on the table beside their phones. He offered the bottle to Ever.

Nagging curiosity wanted to know more about what the other man had seen, about the monster, the place in general. he wanted to know if it was the worst thing he'd encountered, and if not, what was? A lot of questions ran through his mind in that moment, and he didn't ask a damn one. Rare, for him.

Long legs were pulled up and crossed as he watched Ever drink, watched the bubbles rising up to burst against the bottle's bottom before it was offered back to him. He took it, taking a drink of his own, but not quite so long. There was nothing wrong with Zeke, other than the lingering worry that, in itself, was a little foreign.

Normalcy would have been appreciated. If the vodka could help them return to that, then good.

The apology made him blink, head turning to look down at the blonde. "For what?"

The bottle was given up easily, freeing up Zeke's hands. Turning so he was facing the other man, he'd lay a hand on Ever's leg as she lamented his lack of bonus. "Well that's shitty." Having only been on one mission so far, Zeke didn't know how obtainable bonuses were. He'd gotten lucky, probably, in his.

"I didn't hear much about the first mission, Cee's promo. Did that go more smoothly?" It seemed to have, at least he hadn't received any messages from Paige to say otherwise. Only the picture, which didn't need bringing up at the moment.

"Fear candy," he offered, mildly. Apparently all those hours spent pouring through books about Halloween really would come in handy.

His gaze had lowered, watching the bottle a moment before drifting down to where his hand rested against pale skin that wasn't quite as warm as usual. "What happened to him?" Long fingers slid, following the line of his calf and back again to his knee, skirting any bruises. "Do you know what he was?"

"Undead, or maybe ghost." He looked thoughtful, recalling pictures and descriptions. "Or neither. There's a lot of ******** different creepy crawlies." There were book after book of various races and sub races, Zeke had barely scratched the surface.

He made a questioning noise, looking up from fingertips as they spread over Ever's kneecap, slow and soft. "There as in Halloween? No. I've been reading through books I find in the library though." He's head gave a little nod towards the stack resting on the edge of the desk. "Have you been there?"