The Chief glowered. "S'that all you got to say for yourself?"

"Yes sir." Drake mumbled.

"Coming in forty-five Goddamn minutes late with a fucking hangover and all you can say is you lost track of the time?" Chief slammed his fist down on his desk. "Dammit Parker!"

Drake didn't say anything.

"I dunno what's going on but it better end. I can't have a drunken detective on the streets. You got me?"

"Yes sir."

"You're on patrol. Change into uniform, you're not fit to do anything but write traffic tickets. Give the case you were working on to Dee and Ryo."

"Yes sir." Drake left the office to tell J.J. what they were doing.

Dee and Ryo were in their office having a good make out session when J.J. and Drake walked in.

"Hey my sexy god of lustiness….OH MY GOD! Ryo you man-whore!"

Dee grinned. "He is too. He's really quite flexible in bed…"

"Yeah." Drake cut him off. "Yeah that's nice. Chief wanted us to give you this case." He held out the manilla folder.

Ryo took it and looked him up and down. "Uh, Drake? Why are you guys in uniform?"

"We're on patrol." Drake said shortly.

"Why's that?" Dee asked bluntly.

J.J. twitched. "Somebody decided to come in forty-five minutes late with a hangover."

There was a rather embarrassing silence before Dee spoke up. "Wow. J.J. I didn't even smell the alcohol on your breath."

Cue spazz out. "Not me, you evil minded Greek god!" Dee held up his hands to fend off his angry love interest wannabe and Ryo turned to Drake.

"You were hung over and late? That's not good."

"Thanks for the warning." Drake muttered. "J.J.'ll fill you on the dynamics of the case. J.J., I'm going to go get a patrol car from the garage." The other three men watched him leave.

"Um…." Dee scratched his head. "Call me crazy but that just seemed kind of weird." He pushed J.J. off him.

"He's always weird now. He's always late, always drunk or hung over. It's sickening." J.J. made a face. "He doesn't talk to me any more either."

Ryo rested his chin in his hands. "It's not only that….usually he at least rolls his eyes when he sees us making out."

"Ryo, I roll my eyes when I see you making out. But that's because I know that Dee should be making out with me…"

"In your dreams, Spazz." Dee grumbled. "But yeah, Drake's no homophobe, but he's not big on PDA in the workplace. I always figured it was because he was jealous 'cuz his girlfriends were always dumping him." He propped his feet up on the desk, ignoring Ryo's glare. "Now he's like 'You could be having butt-sex on the desk and I wouldn't care.' It's weird."

Ryo sighed. "Well, let's give him some room. Being late and getting drunk is irresponsible, but it doesn't mean he's gone off the deep end."

J.J. shook his head. "Wish I could believe that. Anyway, I'll let you guys read up on the case. I gotta go write parking tickets."

The small detective arrived in the garage to find his partner leaning against the car, numerous cigarette buts littering the ground around him. "That didn't take long."

"Yeah, well it's not a tremendously difficult case. One we should be working on." J.J grumbled. "Let's go. I'm driving."

"I can drive." Drake said. "Seriously, lemme drive."

"…."

"C'mon!"

"Drake….you just got over a hang over…" J.J. started slowly.

"So what?" Drake yelled, attracting the attention of several other patrol officers. "J.J…"

"You're not fit to drive! Hell, you're not even fit to be on duty!" J.J. yelled back. There was a minute of stony silence before Drake yanked the car door open.

"Let's go."

J.J. instantly calmed down. "Drake…"

"Let's go."

It was a long and quiet shift.

Rose arched an eyebrow. "Parker, haven't you had enough?"

"No."

Rose reached over and not-so-gently guided Drake's wine glass back to the table. "You've had enough. More than actually."

Drake shrugged him off. "Fug off…I'mma take care a' myseff. I'mma God damned gownurp." A waiter glared at them and several of the restaurant's patrons whispered and stared. Rose ignored all of them.

"You're behavior is intolerable."

"Well, I'm soooo damn shorry you gotta…" Rose held up a hand to silence him.

"Shut up. Like I said, your behavior is intolerable. I have no intention of dealing with you." He stood up and beckoned the waiter. Pressing a few dollar bills in the man's hand he whispered something about a taxi. Then he left.

Drake leaned against the apartment door and slide down to the cracked tiled floor. He was reminded of the old saying 'life sucks and then you die'. He didn't believe it. Life sucked and you didn't die so it kept on sucking. Damn life.

Damn Candy. Pretty, pretty Candy.

She had been pretty too. Short, dark blond hair that was spiked more often than not. Brown eyes decorating each side of her short, button nose. She was oh so very cute.

Then she broke up with him. Something about wanting to 'find herself'. Drake had stormed out of her apartment and ended up in a little bar on the other side of Manhattan.

And who else should be frequenting that little bar but Commissioner Berkley Rose. Who, it soon was discovered, was also on the rebound.

Of all the people in the world….

Still, the two cops had ended up in Berkley's apartment, waking up naked and next to each other. Nuthin' like finding yourself a sex toy to get over a bad break up.

They had been drunk that night. Gloriously drunk. The kind of drunk where nothing matters, where you could step out in the middle of a traffic lane and get hit by a semi-automatic and everything would peachy keen the next morning. That kind of drunk.

Not the drunk that Drake was now. Now was a dirty kind of 'gonna puke my guts out in a couple of hours' drunk.

Yeah, Drake was filthy drunk. That was the one thought going through his mind as he buried his head in his knees and sobbed.

Author's note- So….that was a dark little ray of bitter sunshine. I'm sorry this took so long to post, please be forgiving. Many thanks for the reviews.

About the Chief putting Drake on duty- chances are a hung over cop would be forced to take the day off, but for the sake of the story we'll say the Chief trusted J.J. enough to keep his partner from doing anything too stupid.

About Drake's orientation- Well, we are told he has a girlfriend in the manga but he does make some comments about it being hard to pick up girls. Given that just about every other cop in the series is gay, we'll assume the lure of the slash side just got too strong. He's probably straight, but he's exploring his bi side in the wake of one break up too many.