Author's Note: Woohoo! I'm three for three this weekend ^_^ Will be on my way home tonight so I'll have time to write on the train again. Oh, and my experience with alcohol withdrawal symptoms and treatment is limited to wikipedia, so if I get anything wrong, I'm sorry. Enjoy and please review!
Pepper loved sleeping in on the weekends. It was something she looked forward to all week, and even Socrates knew not to bother her then. Unfortunately her house guest had never been informed of this particular sacred rule. She was forced awake abruptly by a continuous high pitched beep and loud crash from the living room, followed by startled and frightened barking. Without thinking she bolted out of bed, grabbed a robe, and swung open her bedroom door. As soon as it was even slightly ajar, Socrates scrambled through and dove under her bed.
She ran into the living room to find Tony sitting cross-legged on the floor with various mechanical parts and plastic casings scattered all around him that looked eerily familiar. There was a screwdriver in his hand, and she briefly wondered where he had managed to find it since she had not seen the thing since she had moved in.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, then her eyes widened as they circled the mess of parts. "Is that my laptop?"
"It was your laptop," Tony corrected, and when she gave him a horrified look, quickly added. "And will be again soon, I promise. I'm just upgrading it. Couldn't sleep. Kinda twitchy."
"Yeah, I can see that," she did not sound any more pleased. "Why are you so..."
"Neurotic?" he supplied. "Ahh... well, thanks to you and your brilliant ideas... No, sorry, that's coming out wrong. They are brilliant, I'm just not appreciating it right now. Anyway, thanks to your brilliant ideas, I'm looking forward to at least a solid week or two of seriously shitty withdrawal symptoms."
"Oh," was all she could manage.
"That was part of the package, right?" he clarified. "Sobriety. That's what I got out of our little heart to heart last night, but feel free to tell me I'm wrong. Please tell me I'm wrong."
"No, you're right," Pepper's smile was almost serene. "You can thank me later."
"Yeah, don't hold your breath," Tony muttered unhappily, then his face brightened. "On the other hand, you get to suffer with me... I mean, enjoy the worst of it – the first seventy two hours – all throughout this weekend. Hope you didn't have any plans."
Pepper gave him an incredulous look.
"Right," he continued. "You're freaking out. Don't freak out. I'll fix it, I promise. And it'll be better. Much better... where are you going?"
"Coffee," Pepper muttered. She had tuned him out a full minute prior as she padded into the kitchen and reached for the can, "then feel free to babble."
"Oh, so you're allowed your drug, but I'm not?" he called after her, but scrambled to his feet and followed, hopping onto the tall bar stool at the counter.
Pepper put the coffee maker to work, pulled a yogurt out of the refrigerator for herself, and sat a cup of warm milk and grilled cheese sandwich in front of him. She climbed onto the stool on the other side of the counter and spooned the yogurt as they waited for the coffee to finish.
"How long does it usually last?" she asked seriously. "Withdrawal."
"A while," Tony shrugged. "I went for about five days once without a drink just because I didn't have any cash. Worst five days of that year. Don't think I've been sober for longer than that since... for a while. You've never had to deal with an alcoholic before, have you?"
Pepper shook her head, and he smirked without a trace of humor. "Lucky you."
She had been lucky, Pepper realized. What had started yesterday with the shaking of his hands and insomnia was quickly escalating into nearly every symptom she read about in the short span of time that her computer was put back together to when she had to clean up the bathroom again. She discovered that the anxiety and restlessness made him talkative and watched from the couch as Tony paced her living room and chatted about anything and everything. Everything but details about his past she really wanted to know, anyway.
"Spring break, 1987," he went on, compulsively drumming his fingers any surface within reach. "That was fun. Rhodey guessed wrong. Did he ever tell you that? Of course not. No, he wouldn't."
It was already three, and within the first few hours that he had started, Pepper learned that he was mostly talking to himself and neither expected or heard her answers, so she stopped trying to. He was sweating a lot as well, to the point where she was ushering him to the shower every few hours which helped a little, not just with the smell but with the tension headaches. She wondered if maybe next time she could slip out long enough to go to the pharmacy.
"Is there anything that'll help with the symptoms?" she tried to make it through the fog of his mind. Tony looked at her and blinked, as if surprised there was someone else there.
"Ahh... humm," he smacked then licked his lips. "Benzodiazepines, Librium, Atavan, Heloperidol... that helps with psychosis, so I don't need that one..."
"That'd be first on my list," Pepper muttered, but he obviously did not hear her. She raised her voice slightly to get his attention. "What about the others?"
He blinked rapidly and took a few fast shallow breath to regain some focus. "Benzodiazepines are most common but they also increase the cravings, so that's definitely out. Moot point, 'cause I don't think any of that's sold over the counter."
"Then maybe we should go to a hospital," she offered, though knew he would never agree. "I'm not sure you should be going through this level of detox without professional supervision."
"You know what would make everything better? A glass of scotch. That'd help with all the symptoms," he grinned at her, but retreated when he saw that she was not amused. "No hospitals. They'll take one look at me and this flashlight in my chest, and you'll have the whole of S.I. knocking down your front door."
"You could have a heart attack or seizure..."
"Unlikely," this time his fingers drummed against the glowing circle. Pepper could not tell how much of the statement was from ego and how much actually had to do with the device. "None of this is going to matter if they find out."
"It's also not going to matter if you're dead," she pointed out, refrained from asking again why he was so afraid of anyone knowing that he was alive. Tony just gave her a wistful smile.
"I've been through..." he looked like he wanted to say 'worse' but did not know if that was actually true. "Just trust me on this one, okay?"
Pepper gave him a hard, uncertain look. She did want to trust him but at the same time had no desire to play Russian roulette with his life and had a feeling that it was going to get worse before it got better. She got up, guided him to the couch and made him sit while she brought a glass of cold water from the kitchen.
"Will you be alright if I run to the drugstore for about a half hour? I want to see if they have anything over the counter that would help."
He squinted at her, trying to wrap his addled brain around the question, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'll... I'll be fine. I promise I won't burn the house down or anything like that."
"Good," she went for her purse and coat, "and don't terrorize Soc either."
"Tell him not to terrorize me," he called after her.
When the front door closed, Tony turned his head in the direction of her bedroom where the bulldog had just emerged and was now sitting in the doorway and staring at him angrily. The man gave him a dirty look.