Justin eats dinner with his family the night after Max showed up at his hotel room.

They're all pretending everything's okay, but Alex's empty seat is the elephant in the room and Justin desperately wants to never sit at this table ever, ever again. The room is quiet until Teresa begins talking about a new sandwhich idea. She asks him about press for his book and he answers in short sentences, not really paying attention. Jerry nods once or twice, his eyes red and unfocused. Max is a statue.

Everything feels wrong. So, so wrong and Justin knows that there's nothing he can do about it, nothing he can change.

Conversation trails off and Jerry leaves the table, his chair scratching on the tile and his feet making loud noises on the stairs as he heads down to the lair. Max still doesn't move, even when Teresa bursts into tears and stands, her hands shaking as she collects four plates of uneaten lasagna. As she walks away towards the sink, Justin hears her mutter there should be five.

Justin avoids going back to his hotel for a while, trying to prolong what he knows will be another sleepless night. He doesn't want to read the journal.

He watches tv for a few hours, flips through maybe a dozen stupid reality shows that Alex used to love. As two am approaches, and there's still no sign of Max, who escaped the house right after their failed dinner, Justin remembers that his father has yet to emerge from the lair.

The stairs are dark as he descends them, his hand firm on the cold metal railing. The sub shop is empty (it hasn't been open since... well) and eerily quiet, and Justin hurries down the rest of the steps, unwilling to be in the pitch blackness any longer. A small light is on in the kitchen, and he eases the door of the lair open, not wanting to scare his father.

There's no sound in the lair, only the soft glow of lights on the potions table. Jerry is bent over a huge book, his hands in his hair. He looks a mixture of upset and angry, and Justin is unsure of wether to leave, or approach him.

"There's gotta be a way... I know the rules, I know... There are always loopholes, always."

He's muttering fragmented sentences, his voice low and rough against the silent backdrop of the room.

"Dad?" Justin calls, breaking his father's concentration. Jerry's head snaps up, and Justin sees the tears barely contained behind his eyes.

"Justin..." His voice sounds choked, broken.

"Are you... Are you alright?"

Jerry runs his hands over his face, laughs bitterly and the sound hurts Justin's ears.

"What are you doing?"

Jerry slams the book closed and begins extinguishing the lights on the table, one by one. By the time he walks over to Justin, the dark is only illuminated by the small light still on in the kitchen.

"Nothing." He says as he claps Justin lightly on the shoulder.

He turns off the last light and leaves Justin in the dark.

Max finally comes in at three, his head ducked down as he tries to slip past Justin unnoticed. The tv's on low in the background, Justin's been watching informercials since he came back up from his encounter with his dad in the lair.

"Where have you been?" Justin asks. Max meets his eyes quickly, then turns away and dissapears in the shadows of the stairwell. Justin sighs and turns off the tv before he leaves the loft for the night, his hotel room the only place left to go.

Dean broke my heart first.

I wanted to be with him so much that it hurt. I built him up so high, I just knew that we were going to ride off into the sunset after he saved me from my castle of pain and it would be a fairytale. It would be perfection. And then we were together, and it was such a dissapointment because prince charmings don't exsist and Dean let me down. Dean wasn't who I wanted him to be, and then he moved away and we broke up and I was hurt. I was hurt for so long. It seems melodramatic, I know. We weren't even together that long, but it was more than Dean. It was the fact that the world would never give me my storybook ending.

Mason was my second chance.

You remember that, I'm sure. He ran away into the night with your little vampire girlfriend. He was British and beautiful and he loved art, he loved me. Or atleast he said he did. And I believed him. I believed him, even though I knew that relationships weren't what I expected them to be. I believed, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and... he fucked me over.

There were others who lied, cheated, broke me down again and again. Made me believe then pulled the rug right from under my feet. And I kept going back because I needed love, I need love, something real and maybe that's my character flaw, the one thing I was born to battle with. Maybe it'll never end, and I'll keep running in circles until I'm all used up.

I'm all used up.

Sleep never comes to Justin, I'm all used up echoing in his head all night.