Intoxicated

This is the prequel to 'Stone Cold Fever'. Takes place about a week afterward or so. I think. This is my 200th fic on . O.o Wow. Um. GH characters aren't mine. OC is. Enjoy!

It's late, he's tired, and someone is knocking - no, pounding - at the door.

Jason Morgan drags himself out of bed, and blearily makes his way downstairs. Whoever this is better have a damn good reason, and if this is Spinelli forgetting his key or Sonny coming by to bug him, he will not be happy. He throws the door open and finds a sobbing Maxie Jones curled up against the wall just outside, one fist still poised on the door.

"Is Spinelli okay?" Are the first words out of his mouth. He can think of so many things that could have caused this scenario. None of them are good.

Sobs are wracking the blonde's body and she doesn't look like she's going to get any words out anytime soon. Which only spurs Jason's concern into something rather close to pure terror.

"Maxie, what's going on?" He demands, much more seriously, all traces of sleep gone.

A loud sniffle, and she looks up at him with teary eyes and smeared make-up. "Is... is he here? I need to talk to him."

***

But, Spinelli isn't there. Spinelli is slumped over the bar at Jake's, halfway done his third beer. He's more than a little drunk at this point, more than a lot, really, and Coleman is looming in front of him looking far too amused.

"So, kid, why exactly are you here getting smashed out of your mind?" The man asks for what is certainly not the first time.

Spinelli hunches his shoulders and chooses not to answer, solemnly sipping his drink in silence.

Coleman sighs, and watches as the kid drains the last of the beer. "Aw, come on. S'what I'm here for. Bartenders should get paid better than psychiatrists. Nothing you can tell me that I haven't heard before." He prompts, and holds another beer in front of the kid.

Spinelli is still ignoring him, though.

"Morgan kick you out?" He guesses, studying his customer intently. "No, not that. Ugh, family trouble? Mm. Girl trouble." Spinelli lowers his gaze even more on his last guess. "Ahh, that one then. Girl trouble. What's the matter? Can't get the one you want?" Then he remembers that Spinelli has been dating Maxie Jones for a good while. "Or maybe you had a fight."

Spinelli bites his lip. Coleman's getting warmer with his guesses. "Maximista cheated on me." He says. Then he sets his empty bottle down and takes the one Coleman is offering him. He walks away from the bartender, toward the pool table.

It's the first time he's said as much out-loud - he lines up a shot - since he caught Maxie and that crazy Ethan kid that's been hanging around Luke - takes it, misses, lines up another - and he's barely even able to think straight. How could his fair, amazing, Maximista do this to him after all the battles they faced in just getting together? - Another shot, misses, queue ball goes flying, stick slides out of his hands and clatters to the floor - And fuck. He just needs to get her out of his system.

"Kid, come on. I'll call Jason for you." Coleman suggests, steering Spinelli toward one of the booths where he can't get himself into trouble.

"No." Spinelli answers, squirming out of Coleman's grip and out the door.

***

Upon discovering that, no, Spinelli is not safely tucked away in the regrettably pink room as Jason expected him to be, Jason's panic level kicks up a notch. He tries to calm Maxie down, he really does, but it's harder than it looks.

Eventually he resorts to an odd kind of 20 questions.

"Is he hurt?" He asks, getting his main concern out of the way promptly. She shakes her head. "In trouble?" Another negative. "Kidnapped?" No. Running out of ideas now. "Ugh. Was he out with you tonight?"

A sniffle, and he's guessing that's a yes. "Maxie, come on, tell me what's going on. Where's Spinelli?"

"I... I don't know. He was just so mad and... and... and... broken, and... Oh, my god, what did I do? How could I have done something like this to Spinelli? Why do I keep screwing up the best things I get? But, I do, I always do, and he caught me, and he's never, ever going to forgive me again, not after all that stuff with Johnny. Why did I have to be so stupid...?" Now that he's gotten her started Jason can't get her to stop. She's blubbering insanely, and he doesn't know what to do. He's barely just catching on to what she's talking about. And then he doesn't like where it's going at all.

She cheated on Spinelli. Again. That's what's going on here, and most of, not all, but most of his sympathy goes out the window the second he figures it out. Spinelli's been hurt so many times, and Jason knows that as soon as he finds Spinelli, he'll be busy with trying to make this better for him.

"Who?" He can't help but ask. Who in this town is better than Spinelli?

Maxie stares at him in surprise. "Ethan." She answers, and Jason can't decide if he's surprised or not.

"Do you have any idea where Spinelli might be?" Jason asks, diverting away from the reason and focusing more on the resulting chaos. His mind considers possibilities like L.A. and well, damn near anywhere.

She shakes her head. "No..." Sniffle. Sob. "I... the apartment was the last place I saw him." Her eyes search the room, as if Spinelli will somehow magically appear. "I thought he'd come here. God, Jason, he was so upset. I've never seen him like that."

Jason drags a hand down his face. This is going to be a long night. "Come on." He prompts. "I'll take you home. Then I'll go find him."

Reluctantly - she looks like she wants to protest - Maxie nods her head and accepts the hand Jason offers her. He disappears upstairs long enough to change and grab his keys and then they're out the door. She follows him robotically, as if she isn't really there when she steps into the elevator with him when they walk through the lobby and into the garage where a black SUV awaits them.

"Lulu and Johnny's, or Mac's?" He asks, once they're both in the car.

Maxie bites her lips, obviously weighing the pros and cons of each. "Mac's, if that's okay?"

"Yeah."

***

Upon leaving Jake's, Spinelli wanders. He has no set destination, and he ends up shivering a few blocks away, near another bar. Its cold out, he left his jacket at Jake's in his haste to escape Coleman, and he would like to get even more plastered without a nosy bartender pestering him while he does it.

Nebula's, it's called, and if he were less intoxicated he'd probably commend them on such a scientific sounding choice. The bar is pretty empty, only a few people scattered about, and Spinelli walks straight to the bar and orders a simple beer. It's getting easier to drink the stuff, which probably isn't a good thing.

"Thanks," He mumbles, when the bartender gives it to him, and he sulks over to a booth to sit in silence.

Only, his intended silence lasts for about two minutes.

"Wow, you look like someone ran over your cat." Someone says from the next booth over.

"I don't have a cat." He grumbles in reply, and downs nearly half his drink.

The stranger waves his hand and fresh drinks appear in front of both of them a moment later. "Well, obviously you don't anymore. Oh, ugh, hey, I'm Mark." He says, and then slides into Spinelli's booth, sitting across from him.

Spinelli just nods, doesn't offer a name in return, just sips his new drink casually, slower this time. "Thanks." He mumbles out of common courtesy, since the guy did buy him the drink. Silence falls between them, then, and Spinelli can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

***

"Do me a favor?" Maxie asks, when Jason pulls up outside of Mac's house. "Can you please tell Spinelli how sorry I am. And, please, please, just try and get him to talk to me?" She wipes at the tracks her tears have formed with her make-up as she climbs out of his car.

Jason sighs. "I don't know if I can promise that." He replies, honestly. "I'll do my best." Spinelli, though, is his first priority.

She nods quite somberly and steps toward the house. Just as Jason starts to drive away, though, his cell phone rings. It's Coleman.

"Get here, now." The man says, and Jason presses on the gas a little harder.

***

"So, what's up? You wake up in the wrong bed or something? One night stand go bad?"

"Pardon?" Spinelli stares, quite bewildered at Mark. Coleman prodding at such information is one thing - still annoying, but justifiable - this guy he hasn't even known for ten minutes.

Mark shrugs, his blue eyes indifferent yet appraising at the same time. "Just trying to make conversation, is all. And no one comes in here looking like you do without a good reason."

"My girlfriend cheated on me." He says again and it doesn't feel any better the second time around even when he amends the statement with a bitter, "Again."

With a dismissive wave, Mark sips at his own drink. "Eh, girls are over-rated." He smirks, and stares pointedly at Spinelli. "Don't you think?"

Spinelli, quite intoxicated, doesn't quite get the full magnitude of such a statement, though. "Perhaps they are, indeed. I certainly have not had much luck at all in the realm of female companions." He answers, without catching the underlying meaning behind Mark's question. He thinks of the ones he's loved, or tried to anyway. Jolene, Lulu, Maxie. And of Georgie, whom he'd figured out too late. Maybe good and bad blonde ones and angels of death, and just plain angels are not meant for him. He never has been normal, why should it start with that?

"Every tried companions of the male persuasion?" He says, more directly this time, now that subtlety has failed. At Spinelli's even more confused glance in response, he gestures to the bar around them. "You are in an establishment that happens to cater to such things, if you didn't know that."

"I am?" Spinelli inquires, looking around. Posters advertising entertainment - scantily clad men, mostly, evidently - are plastered to the walls, and there are two guys in the corner booth making out pretty heatedly. "Huh. Who knew?" He'd been unaware that Port Charles had such a bar, and he's a little too drunk to care that he is in it.

Mark laughs softly. "Yeah, it's kinda... hard to find, if you don't know it's there." He supplies, which indeed explains how Spinelli did find it. He hadn't been looking, just walking. He could have ended up in the Twilight Zone for all he'd been playing attention. "So..."

Spinelli plays absently with his nearly empty drink, momentarily derailed from his depressing self-deprecation with regards to Maxie. "So, what?"

"Have you ever... you know, done anything with a guy?"

"Negative." He replies. He hasn't, but he's currently more intoxicated than he's ever been in his life - even more so than when he used to do drugs before Jason forbade such things - and really, right now, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Mark grins. "You want to?" He glances over his shoulder to the back door of the bar.

Spinelli nods.

***

"Jason." Coleman's voice catches the mobster's attention as he enters the bar, his eyes in desperate search for Spinelli the second he steps inside. "That was fast."

"Spinelli's been here?" He asks, crossing to the bar.

The man nods, and gestures to the closest stool, where Spinelli's jacket still sits. "Yeah, your boy was here. He was... pretty wasted. I tried to keep him here until I could get in touch with you, but he got out."

Jason frowns. "When?"

"Twenty, thirty, minutes ago maybe?" Coleman answers.

"Damn it." Spinelli could be in so many places right now. He doesn't even know where to start looking from here. Spinelli knows enough people in town that someone could have picked him up and offered him a ride back to the penthouse. Alternatively, he also knows enough people in this town who fall into the 'enemies' section of mob life, so he could just as easily have been kidnapped as he could have been driven home. Hospitals, gutters, everywhere is a possibility.

He turns and exits the bar with Spinelli's forgotten jacket in hand.

***

Somewhere between leaving the bar and ending up pinned against the cold, brick wall in the back alley, Spinelli loses focus. It's either the amount of alcohol he's consumed or else the sheer force of the realization that this is it: he's officially done with Maxie, because he honestly doesn't think he can forgive her again.

Mark is still there, watching him intently. Spinelli has to wonder what he's looking for.

"What?" He finally resorts to asking, when the staring has gone on for long enough. Mark's blue eyes are assessing him as if he's some sort of piece of meat, and it is quite unnerving.

"Nothing." Mark replies, and surges forward unexpectedly. Spinelli's head bumps against the cold wall as a result but Mark doesn't notice. He's too busy kissing and sucking at Spinelli's neck.

And then, inconvenient time as it may be, Spinelli has some sort of epiphany. He catches sight of Mark's blue eyes yet again and realizes that they look quite like a suitably less appealing version of Jason's. He's not sure where that thought came from at all, but it is promptly followed by the fact that there is nothing appealing about this guy at all. At least when Spinelli's brain compares him to Jason.

When he started thinking of Jason as appealing, he isn't quite sure. Obviously, Jason is the epitome of manliness that Spinelli has been striving to become. But... he doesn't remember ever finding the older man attractive.

"You okay?"

Is... is that why he's so upset over this? Because maybe he isn't all that upset about losing Maxie - the girl he thought he really loved? Maybe... it had something to do with Jason. Or not being able to have Jason. Maybe not even knowing that he wanted Jason. God, being drunk was messing his brain up.

"I... I'm not sure about this." Spinelli finally says, with some clarity, finally.

Mark frowns. "Oh, come on. Give it a chance. If you don't like it, you can go running back to your cheating girlfriend having one-upped her at least. She cheated on you, you can cheat on her. Only fair."

Spinelli bites his kiss swollen lip. "It is not that which troubles me. I..."

But Mark is done dealing with his protests, evidently. The guy pitches forward again, smashing his lips soundly into Spinelli's own, and he can taste his own blood in his mouth with the force of it. "Mrngh." He garbles, trying to push Mark away. Tries to bring his hands up, but finds them pinned to the wall on either side of his head. Mark is a lot stronger than Spinelli had thought.

"Hold still, will you?" Mark growls out, clearly getting irritated by his uncooperative, dubiously consenting captive.

Spinelli squirms, but gets virtually nowhere. "Get off of me, Predatory One." He snaps, but that gets him equally nowhere in the way of away from his crazy attacker except turned around toward the wall.

***

Jason has been driving all over town, hoping to see some clue of Spinelli's presence. So far, he's covered within a six block radius of Jake's and he's seen nothing. He's not sure what's he's expecting. It's not like there's a neon sign pointing to Spinelli's location.

He's about to go home and check the penthouse when he hears shouting from down a nearby back alley. Spinelli could certainly have gotten himself into a bad situation. Jason parks the car and heads to check it out.

He is not at all happy with what he sees.

Spinelli's form is easily recognizable, even in the darkness, and Jason races forward. "Get off of him." He growls, hands fisting in the stranger's shirt and heaving him backwards and away, far away from Spinelli. The guy stumbles, but catches himself.

"Hey, this doesn't have anything to do with you." The clearly not very intelligent man snaps back, standing up straighter, looking about ready to fight.

Jason ignores him. "Spinelli, you okay?"

His young roommate nods slightly, though he looks incredibly shaken, and more than a little bit unstable from the alcohol he's undoubtedly regretting ingesting. "I'll be fine, Stone Cold." He reports, and tries to take a staggering step toward his rescuer.

Seeming to realize that his target knows this newcomer, Mark is a little more hesitant when he speaks again. "Look, he wanted to come out here. So get out of here, will you?" He tells Jason, waving a dismissive hand.

Jason raises an eyebrow in Spinelli's direction. First Maxie's cheating on him and now Spinelli's drunk and outside with some strange guy planning to do, well, something to him. Spinelli didn't seem to be enjoying whatever it was supposed to be when Jason approached. "Too bad. I'm taking him home. Guess you'll have to find someone else."

Mark glares but is thankfully not stupid enough to try to challenge him. Jason almost wishes he had, with the way he'd been all over Spinelli like he was. His gun feels like a heavy weight in his pocket, as if it wants to be used, but instead, he just wraps his leather jacket around Spinelli's short-sleeve covered shoulders and directs him down the alley.

"You sure you're okay?" He repeats, as he gets Spinelli settled in the passenger's seat.

Once they're back in the safety of the penthouse - after a ride spent entirely in unusual and uncomfortable silence, Spinelli proceeds into his room. Jason allows him to go with a glass of a water and a dose of aspirin for the hang-over he's sure to have in the morning. Spinelli will talk to him when he's ready.

***

The sun arrives brighter than ever and what feels like sooner than ever to a very sleepy Spinelli. He feels like hasn't gotten any rest at all. As it turns out, that is because it's approximately 4:19 in the morning and he's still quite intoxicated, which not only messes with his internal clock, balancing capabilities, and sense of reason, but also with his sanity, as he stumbles blindly into Jason's room down the hall.

"S-stone Cold?" He garbles out, falling half onto the older man's bed, and half on top of the man himself.

Jason is quite startled back into alertness, and his arms instinctively dart out to catch the boy whose quickly falling off of him. "What the hell are you doing?" He asks, more so demands, as he uprights Spinelli's wobbly frame.

Spinelli's had reaches out to steady himself and he shakes his head in a futile attempt to clear the blurry cobwebs that the alcohol has induced. "The Jackal needs to talk to you concerning something of a most dire nature."

"What's wrong now?" Many things run through his head. Perhaps Spinelli has overdosed on some drug or had even more to drink. Worry is first and foremost in Jason's mind until he hears the words that come out of Spinelli's mouth.

"I... I think I'm in love with you."