"Can you untie me now?" Cooper whined, shifting around uncomfortably on the bed. He was really really tired of being tied up like this. His body was stiff, he didn't feel very good and he was just plain restless. "Come on, I'll protect you from Dad."

Randy shook his head. Cooper had been going on and on for awhile now but he couldn't risk it. Even Cooper couldn't provide sufficient protection from the wrath of James. He knew James didn't even like him to begin with so he wasn't about to risk untying Cooper and then having it be a trick all along pulled by Cooper so he could go out and get more drugs. That would lead to his certain death for sure.

Cooper pouted his lips and gave Randy his most pleading look. "Come on, I have to take a piss. What do you want me to do, piss all over the bed?"

Randy wrinkled his nose. That was definitely not what he wanted to happen. "Okay fine. But if this is some sort of trick-"

"It's not. How can you ask me that?"

Randy just gave Cooper an incredulous look. "Do you really want me to answer that?" He waited until Cooper reluctantly shook his head before untying him very very slowly. He knew that this could majorly backfire on him but he took the chance anyway. Thankfully it seemed to pay off because Cooper made no immediate attempts to bolt. He let Randy help him get up and assist him to the bathroom because his legs were so stiff. "You want me to go in there with you?" Randy asked after they had reached the bathroom door.

Cooper shook his head. "Nah man. If I can't take a piss by myself at this point in my life then I should just like roll over and die because shit is much harder than that."

Randy let out a chuckle at that before letting Cooper go into the bathroom alone. There wasn't a window in there so it wasn't like he could make an escape. He felt bad for even thinking that Cooper would do that but he had to be realistic. Just because Cooper seemed to have woken up and realize that the shit he was putting into his system wasn't good for him didn't mean that epiphany had been truly realized. Until he was absolutely, positively one hundred percent sure that Cooper wasn't going to pull something he needed to be realistic and keep his guard up.

A few minutes Cooper emerged from the bathroom looking slightly better than he had before he had gone in there. "You're really not going to tie me back down, are you?" he asked. "I mean come on, do you really think I need it?"

Randy shrugged. "I don't know. What I do know is your dad left you here tied up and if he comes back and sees that you're not it's MY head that's going on the stick."

"It won't go on a stick," Cooper assured him.

"Sure it would. He hates me."

"He does not hate you. He just…violently dislikes you."

Randy chuckled humorlessly at that. "Oh yes, because that is so much better."

Cooper grinned and leaned back against the wall. "You're cute when you're being overdramatic."

"I'm cute all the time," Randy countered.

"Not as cute as me." Cooper was trying to go all in with this banter because it was distracting. He wasn't feeling that well at all; the withdrawal might have been giving him a slight break for a tiny bit but he knew that it was far from over.

Randy snorted. "Oh please. There's no way you're cuter than me."

"You sure about that?" Randy's arrogance never ceased to amaze Cooper.

"Yes," Randy replied without hesitation. He always had prided himself on his looks and that wasn't about to change any time soon. "Come on Cooper, I mean I know you have the whole emo boy tortured boy look going on but me…" he stopped to motion towards himself "I'm what everyone gets themselves off to when they're sleeping in their beds."

Cooper wrinkled his nose. That was a little too over the top for his taste. "You've got issues Orton."

"Not as many as you do Lawson." Randy was right about that and they both knew it. "Now come on. Let me tie you up again until Daddy Dearest gets home."

Cooper shook his head. He had absolutely no intention of being tied up again. He had been in that position for way too long and was in no hurry to go back to it. "You're too eager to get me tied up again," he said, going down the joking path in order to try to distract Randy from tying him up all over again. "And I don't think it's because you're afraid of Dad; you just want me at your mercy."

Randy opened his mouth to deny that but then realized he couldn't. The thought of having Cooper at his complete and total mercy was such a fucking turn-on that he could barely stand it. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and just stared at his ex for a moment before closing the distance between them and pressing his lips against his. Cooper's eyes widened in surprise but he didn't try to push Randy away. In fact he not only kissed him back but deepened it, shoving his tongue so far down Orton's throat that he nearly choked on it.

"COOPY! COOPY COOPY COOPY!"

"Oh you have to be kidding me!" Randy lamented as he and Cooper reluctantly broke apart. "Why is he always such a fucking cock blocker?"

"Because he's Connor," Cooper replied. That pretty much explained everything right there.

"Coopy! Coopy! I made a boom boom Coopy! I did I did I-" Connor stopped in mid-sentence as he skidded to a halt and saw that Cooper was not only not tied to the bed anymore but was also standing really really close to Randy. "What ya doin' Coopy?"

"Nothing," Cooper replied quickly.

"Why are you out of bed?"

"Because I had to go to the bathroom."

"Oh. Did Orton go potty with you?"

"No. Now tell me more about these boom booms."

Connor opened his mouth, seemingly about to start going on and on about his boom booms but then a devilish gleam entered his eyes and he changed course at the last second. "DADDY! RANDY IS TOUCHING COOPER INAPPROPRIATELY IN THE BATHROOM!"

"CONNOR!" Cooper yelled angrily.

"Oh Christ!" Randy exclaimed in horror. He was going to die. He was going to fucking die and there was going to be nothing he could do to stop it.

The sound of James barreling up the stairs soon reached their ears and Cooper shoved Randy into the bathroom and closed the door so he could hide in there. "You are so fucking dead!" Cooper growled at Connor.

Connor cackled and jumped back as Cooper attempted to grab at him. "Missed me missed me now you gotta kiss me!" He blew a raspberry at Cooper before skipping off, passing James as he rounded the corner. "Get him Daddy! Get him good!"

"Don't encourage him!" Mark snapped. He and Tom were following close behind him, intending to stop James from really slaughtering Orton. James had the tendency to overreact when it came to Randy being around Cooper. Randy had left a pretty bad first impression on James by being a moron in general and James held the belief that Randy fed the problems Cooper already had and made them worse. But what he didn't seem to realize was that Cooper was not only an adult, but he was an adult who fed his own problems just fine all by himself.

"Dad…" Cooper winced at the look on James's face. "You're being crazy-"

"Am not!" James denied as he searched around for Randy. "I always knew that fucker was bad news. I'll fucking KILL Tom for bringing him here."

"Hey he was already around stalking your kid!" Tom said defensively. "I just thought he could be useful while he was at it!"

Mark shook his head as James shot Tom a withering glare. "I don't think now is the time for you to speak."

Tom rolled his eyes. "I've never been and will never be scared of James-"

"I think I can change that," James said nastily.

Cooper shook his head. "Dad come on, stop it. You're being ridiculous. Randy let me up so I could go to the bathroom, nothing else happened. Connor just said that shit to get you riled up."

"Oh yeah? And why is Randy hiding then?"

"Because you came up here to kill him for no reason. That's usually a good reason to hide." Cooper could plainly see that James was not pacified so he decided to be really distracting and pretend to almost faint so James could catch him and began hovering over him like the overprotective bear of a man he was. Randy better fucking appreciate this, he thought to himself. Because Dad is going to make me want to strangle him by the time this is all over.

…

After the bodies had been disposed of Trish, Amy and Jeff were all taken to the hospital. Jeff tried to refuse to go but nobody would listen to him. They were too busy trying to figure out the story to tell the hospital. After much debate, it was decided that the story would be that Trish, Amy and Jeff managed to escape while Raven and the others were gone and then got picked up on the side of the road by the others. Trish and Amy both swore that they would be the most convincing actresses ever and Jeff just kind of nodded along, too lost in his own world to really speak.

When they arrived at the hospital things turned into a giant blur for Jeff. He was whisked off and checked over extensively by doctors and nurses and questioned by cops until he was blue in the face. When the last of the questions were asked, Matt and Glenn came into the room to see him.

"Well…this didn't go as planned at all," Glenn said as he gently played with the strands of Jeff's multi-colored hair.

Jeff chuckled weakly at that. "You could say that again." He turned his head to look at Matt, who did not seem like he was going to be letting him go any time soon. "How are Trish and Amy?"

Matt sighed. "As well as they can be I guess. Trish wants to see you after she and Amy have a little alone time. I know that much."

Jeff wanted to see her too. The two of them used to be very close and he had really missed that during their time apart. "And John? Is he still around?"

Glenn and Matt both exchanged looks. "What?" Jeff asked fearfully. "What's the matter?"

"Well he's here," Matt said slowly. "But um…" He hesitated, trying to be as delicate as possible with what he wanted to say.

Glenn shook his head, deciding to say fuck it with the delicate approach and just blurt out the question of the hour. "What the hell are you thinking Jeff? He's a cop! A cop! Have you fucking lost your mind?"

Jeff shrank back from Glenn and shook his head. "I can explain-"

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Glenn had no intention of stopping now that he had gotten started. "He's one of the people who's looking to hunt us down."

"No he don't know," Jeff said quickly. "He'll never know I won't tell him."

"Jeffro I hate to burst your bubble but people can find stuff out without being told," Matt said gently. "And if he figures out who you are and what you do, that could be very bad. He could arrest you-"

"He could arrest ALL of us," Glenn interjected. "You're fucking us all over right now."

Matt gave Glenn a nasty look. "Stop that. We agreed-"

"Matt look at him! He's not absorbing anything we say. It's going in one ear and out the other!"

Glenn wasn't really wrong about that. Deep down, Jeff knew that Matt and Glenn had very well founded concerns but his heart didn't want to hear them. His heart was making him turn a deaf ear to all of it because it felt so unbelievably strongly towards John. It felt…it felt…love? Was he in love with John? Had he fallen in love for the first time ever? That seemed to be the case but he couldn't be sure because he didn't even really get love at all. I gotta talk to John, he decided as Matt and Glenn continued to try to talk to him. He didn't care what anyone else said; he had to talk to him and that was that.