When he drinks, he dreams.
It is a nicer word than hallucinates; hallucinates is cold. Hallucinates is clinical.
He was prepared for this--he knows about vice, and side-effects; he knows about being an alcoholic. (It is a nicer word than drunk; drunk is personal. Drunk is familiar.) He is a doctor, after all (he clings to this). He knew what he was getting into. Dead people walking and talking, living people bleeding out and crying, people yet to be born burning for his sins, all before his eyes or behind his lids. That is all manageable; welcome, almost. Pain feels good. Right. It's only fair. Demons swim at the bottom of his bottle and when he swallows them down they sing out like angels (Satan was once at the right hand of God! Maybe he still is. He feels like laughing at that. Good one, Jack.).
The dreams stay with him even when he has given up the drink, and this, he thinks, will be true for the rest of his life. This is his father's legacy. When Sawyer offers him a beer he almost takes it--in the old days dreamers were prophets; maybe if he's lucky and a little buzzed up he'll be able to see the future--but thinks better of it. Kate always leans away from him when he smells of beer.
They all come to him, ghostly, real, pilgrims all, if hell is a tourist destination--all but one, and that is no surprise, either. This is how it is during the day, too. Kate never comes to him except when she is not Kate, and he knows that this is because she is separate, a separate dream in and of herself. She is too real for the confines of his aching, aching heart. He knows this, as much as he doesn't believe in wishing on stars and can't stand Disneyland (she said she'd never been and it sounded not a little rehearsed.).
He only sees her when his eyes are closed.
Kate is always a separate entity, and he loves her for it, if not for it only--the rules don't apply when it comes to her, never have. (Just ask the California State court system, he would say if he were mean. Maybe he is. Psychology was always too fuzzy for him.)
Her hands curl up behind his collar, behind his neck, and run over his head, through what there is of his hair, and they are so very warm. They burn through his skull and into his mind; he has missed it, this, her, and her taste is stronger than a dream because it is less familiar. He didn't drink tonight, and his hands are shaking, but he thinks that now he might be okay. This is real. It is, it is, and her hands move lower, searing his skin, and he cannot think anymore.
This is real. (Isn't it?)
She falls asleep before he does, and that is stranger than anything else about this strange, strange night, and when her head falls back, heavy, it comes to rest on his sweat-slick shoulder. He's scared to move. When her breath flutters high, almost a snore, he smiles and shudders and closes his eyes, feeling the space where they join flicker and waver and disappear with the sour fear in his stomach. The blankets are tangled on the floor, and he shivers. He feels himself shrink into her, feels the dream taking hold. He feels himself going home.
And he wonders how long it will be before he wants to go back.