Mike immediately scanned the room for anything that he could use to gag Jeremy, but he didn't see anything. He felt himself slipping into panic, and he clenched his fists. This caused his nails to dig into the palm of his free hand. He used the sensation as a weight to keep him from going into complete state of unhelpfulness. He wouldn't be able to do anything if he was losing his head.
"Kid," he looked Jeremy in the eyes. "Did you take these?"
An expression of conflict and pure horror settled into Jeremy's face. The tears had stopped for a moment, but he didn't say anything.
"Kid- Jeremy-, I need to know. Did you take these pills?"
Jeremy looked away, and wiped his face. He hiccuped and sniffled before he said, "Yes…"
It was a quiet, almost inaudible confession, but it was all Mike needed to hear before he felt his breakfast trying to come back up. He forced it to stay down. He grabbed Jeremy's arm and started to drag him to the kitchen.
"M-Mike, wh-hat ar-e you d-doin-g!?" Jeremy stuttered. He weakly tried to tug his arm out of Mike's grasp, but he kept dragging him.
They went through the bedroom, and when they entered the kitchen, Mike abruptly dropped Jeremy's arm. Mike didn't bother to look back to see if Jeremy was still there. He was certain that he was standing there, watching, trying to calculate what he was going to do next.
Mike grabbed the pitcher of salt that was lying on the counter, and an empty glass that had been sitting beside it as he turned the sink on. Holding the cup unter the running water, he felt that he couldn't get it to run fast enough. Once the glass was half full, Mike switched off the water, and poured streams of salt into it.
By the time he had gotten this done, his hands were quivering. He clenched the side of the counter with his empty hand, and he shook his head. Jeremy had taken every single pill in that bottle. He could die. Mike's throat tightened, and his sight became blurry.
He was just a kid.
Mike abruptly turned around. His eyes met Jeremy's, and Jeremy forced his to focus on the ground. The kid stood in the same way a guilting dog would after a scolding. Mike gripped the glass tighter in his hand, and approached him.
"Drink this," He couldn't even recognize his own voice. It was somewhere between angry and shaken. It was broken and firm… He couldn't remember the last time he had head it like that.
Jeremy didn't look up. He kept his gaze locked on the floor, and started crying again.
"I'm s-sorry," he stammered as he covered his eyes. He coughed a couple of times and shook his head, "I'm s-s-o sorry, M-Mike."
"We can be sorry later!" He bursted, his voice cracking at the end, "but now, you need to drink this!"
Jeremy still didn't answer him, and Mike thought he might throw up again.
"Look- please! Just drink it, okay?" Mike lightly pressed the glass into Jeremy's chest.
He looked up at him, and took the glass into his hand. His face was a mix of several emotions, but the newest one being confusion.
"Wh-what is this going t-to do?" He asked waterily, then hiccuped.
"Just chug it, i-t'll help," Mike insisted.
The kid hesitated for a second before he dumped the whole thing down his throat. It didn't even take milliseconds before his face contorted. He up hunched over, spilling his stomach contents out onto the floor.
"Jesus Christ," he managed through coughs. "What the hell… I guess I should have expected that-"
"How many pills did you take?"
"Wh-what?"
Mike looked down at the result of Jeremy's vomit, and counted thirteen white pills sitting in a shallow pool of liquid. He blinked a couple of times, and recounted the pills in disbelieving confusion. Hadn't there been more than thirteen pills in that bottle?
"How many," he looked into the shaking glass cup, "How many pills did you take?"