It was twenty minutes from the Petersons' to the club alone, but Douglas took the roads as fast as he dared. Outside the shabby door, a figure huddled in the least-drifted corner. TJ looked awful, weather notwithstanding. Douglas knew that look.
"Are you insane?! Seriously, did you just lose your mind as soon as Dad was no longer in office?" he couldn't help but exclaim as his brother stumbled into the car.
"I started feeling not too great, so I told the others I was calling you to pick me up. None of them wanted to leave yet. Then I couldn't get a good enough signal, so I came out here, and then the weather thing came up, and they shut everything down. I couldn't find 'em. I'm sorry…"
"We're never going to get back to the Peterson's in time, or even Nana's at this point. That's where I told the Peterson's we were going, but I lied about having a spare key while you somehow didn't. Might as well head for the farm, since it's out of town this direction, and they usually start early with the highways." Douglas put the car in gear, though he didn't like how the back slid around a bit to get going. Only when they had some decent momentum did he let his anxiety get the better of him. "So what all did you take, TJ?"
"What? What does that have to—"
"Don't jerk me around, you look like hell, and it's not just from being outside."
"I don't see what difference it would make—"
"Aside from the codeine from earlier, what did you take at the club—"
"I don't know! I don't, okay? There were pills passed around! And other stuff, but you know I don't go that far. I can tell you I didn't drink any alcohol this time. I only used a fake ID to get in the door. We were having fun. It just became a blur…"
Speaking of blur, Douglas nearly fishtailed into a median obscured by the snow as he turned left toward the interstate. Maybe they should have included these kinds of conditions in driver's ed. The highway itself was marginally better, but still unnervingly slick. "I should have thought of the nearest hospital, and headed for that…"
"No! It's not that bad, Dougie, I just need to warm up, get some sleep, and I'll be fine in the morning."
"You do realize how stupid that sounds right now, right?"
"Oh, just because you're Captain Perfect in Mom and Dad's eyes—"
"That's not fair, TJ—"
"Ever since that fight that got me suspended, or getting caught with the little airplane bottles of vodka—which you were in on too, by the way—or getting outed on national television, I just can't do anything right."
"You being outed had nothing to do with it, never did, and that was definitely not your fault," Douglas retorted.
"Mom and Dad sent me to a boarding school, as if that was going to magically straighten me out!"
"Okay, did you really just say that?"
"You know what I mean!"
"You're running around sneaking off to clubs with a fake ID, and popping codeine like it's candy, and all sorts of other crap. Don't think I don't notice when you cologne the hell out of a sweatshirt sometimes because it smells like pot. Or when we go with Mom and Dad on foreign trips, and you try to pass a hangover off as jet lag. And you got kicked out of that boarding school by Thanksgiving break, for the record."
"I didn't know you kept a running tally—look out!"
A curve turned sharper than it looked, owing to a rest stop exit lane not far past the state line, which put the cap of the guardrail straight ahead. Tired but on edge, Douglas overcompensated, and their whole back end went sliding sideways. He kept expecting them to crash into something solid, but all they hit was a snowdrift that splashed a little ways up to the driver's side roof.
"Dammit!" he bellowed, pounding a fist on the steering wheel.
"We couldn't have just left the dissection of my issues for after we made it to the farm? This whole idea was crazy!" TJ berated him.
"Well you were the one who couldn't just suck it up and stay at the Petersons' in the first place. We wouldn't have even been in this mess. But no, no one else matters except for TJ—"
"Come on, it can't be that hard for one of us to get out and push. We can be back out there in a few minutes."
"Well, that would be you, genius, since I'm already in the driver's seat, and my door is blocked by snow."
"At least gimme your gloves. Mine are in my bag in the trunk, since they don't fit in these coat pockets."
Douglas rolled his eyes, and reluctantly handed them over. He shut off the radio so he would be able to hear outside over the engine.
"Okay, on the count of three…"
He felt the car rock a couple times, but the snow underneath quickly wore down to a slight backward incline. Of course they would find a ditch to land in, in a Mustang of all cars. TJ reappeared, his front covered in kicked-up slush.
"I can't push it enough by myself."
"We can't just stay in here all night with where it is now, either." Angrily, Douglas shut off the engine. "Guess Mom was right to insist on those blankets and things in the trunk. That rest stop is 24-bour access. I have to charge my phone anyway; there should be an outlet where I can do that. Come on."
They cleared the snow as much as possible to get their bags without burying them as soon as the trunk opened. Anything else useful would require a second trip. It was only maybe a 200-foot walk to the little out building, but it felt like a mile with the harsh weather. Halfway there, TJ was definitely having trouble with the deepening snow. Maybe it was just from having been out in the cold longer…Douglas suspected, however, that whatever drugs his brother had taken were playing a part as well.
"Just—gotta—get—this—far enough," he grunted, using the door to pack the snow out of the way. "Gimme your bag, I'll slide those in, and then we can get inside."
TJ nodded without saying anything. Despite any exposed skin starting to turn red with cold, Douglas noticed that sweat clung to the fringe of hair around TJ's ear. After the bags, he ushered TJ in first. His twin nearly wiped out on the tile floor beyond the doormat, thanks to the amount of melting snow on his lower extremities. Douglas barely caught him while avoiding getting stuck halfway in the door. He had always been a little bigger than TJ.
"Let go, I'm fine. I just stepped wrong, is all."
"Again, I call bull. You've got 'drug high' written all over you, even if I didn't know about earlier. And how could you just take stuff without keeping track? What if something interacted, or was tainted? What if someone did try to knock you out and do something?"
"Dude, now you're worse than Mom. I wasn't just taking anything and everything from whoever walked by, but it is about living in the moment. Letting yourself get swept away a bit. You could use a little of that from time to time, you know…"
"Do you at least remember a ball park of how many?"
"Mostly I stuck to my own stuff. Might have been some Ex going around. I don't know, I just didn't wanna think anymore."
Douglas picked up and tossed their bags toward the middle of the space. "Start getting out of those wet clothes. I don't need you getting sick on top of all this. I'll go out and get as much as I can carry. How much change do you have in your wallet, by the way?"
"Just go, I'll let you know once you get back."
Once more Douglas bundled up as best he could to venture out. Of all things, they had to pick a white Mustang. The car was almost invisible in the blowing snow, their tracks already rapidly disappearing. Just get there, get back. He almost dropped his keys fumbling for the trunk lock. The blankets they needed for sure, first aid kit probably a good idea; he looped the emergency lamp and radio onto his arms just in case. The rest stop had indoor water fountains, so he wasn't going to bother with the case of water bottles. If he tried to carry anything else, he might sink entirely into the snow, the way things were going. Now he just had to make the trek one more time.
Immediately he knew TJ would be no help. His brother was only halfway out of the clothes he had been wearing, sitting slumped against one wall, shivering. At least his eyes were open, that much Douglas could tell. But he wasn't doing well at all no matter what he tried to say. Douglas did his best to squeeze everything through without dropping stuff in the snow or slipping and falling.
"TJ? Hey, can you hear me?"
TJ only rocked his head in the direction of the question. Douglas would have to go with that.
"Can you tell me what's going on?"
"Got…real shaky all of a sudden. Wasn' sure I could stay standing. Feeling kinda sick…"
"Well, that can happen when you get carried away in the moment," sighed Douglas. He found a dry spot to put the stuff down, wrestled out of his own soaked shoes, socks, and coat, and started checking TJ over.