The next morning Lisa woke up, stretching her back, pained from all night on yet another hotel room couch, before she got up and shuffled to the bathroom; she could hear Greg and James were already up, and Lisa could hear muffled sex noises, voices in what she imagined was dirty talk, and creaking of the bed through the wall; well at least they're getting along great… Lisa thought to herself slightly bitterly, James hates me, but he's really been showing Greg a whole lot of love and affection since he's been out of hospital! At least they're keeping it down I guess; although I'd much rather that they both still liked me and were loud if only I'd kept my thoughts to myself and reigned my big mouth in!

Lisa then got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, not daring to even knock on the still closed bedroom door after having nearly had her head knocked off by a flying alarm clock last night. When she returned to the room to collect her bags, she saw James walking down the corridor from the hotel room; however when he didn't make any move to talk to her, she didn't back; remembering Greg's suggestion to wait until he came to her, until he initiated conversation.

"Where is James going?" Lisa queried as she walked into the hotel room and then saw Greg standing in the kitchenette, guzzling down the samples of milk and cream in the fridge, he just shrugged and kept going; "scratch that, second question; why are you doing that?" Lisa sighed, massaging her temples, "please tell me that this isn't some dare?"

Greg shook his head as he finished off a sample of milk, "not a dare, in fact please don't tell James that I'm doing this. He already told me no, not to do it,"

"So then again I ask, why?" Lisa sighed, shaking her head, "do you want to vomit up half digested milk and cream in my car on the way back over to the ranch? Because that's what it seems like,"

"James asked the same thing and told me not to do it. But I can't just let this go to waste, it's got to go somewhere. It's better to be drunk and consumed than just thrown away. We did pay for this room after all," Greg shrugged, opening a small bottle of cream and chugging it as Lisa stared at him in horror.

"This is some weird fucking childhood trauma shit that you've got going on here, I'm certain of it; it's like the coco puffs thing- and I'm not going down yet another one of those rabbit holes. You're a grown man, and if you want to do this and give yourself explosive diarrhoea or vomiting by guzzling down six cartons of milk and cream; that's your business. I think that what you're doing is ridiculous and that you need therapy, ideally beginning many years ago, but if this is some twisted coping mechanism, who am I to judge?" Lisa muttered.

Greg broke away from the bottle and shrugged noncommittedly and then added cheekily, "at least if it comes out the back end, then I'll be sure that the pipes are all cleaned out," as he winked at Lisa, putting the cream bottle back to his lips and resuming drinking.

Lisa rolled her eyes, and in that moment; James ended up strolling in; he took one look at what Greg was doing and his face reddened like a tomato and Lisa saw the muscles in his arms, neck, and back tense up before he snatched the bottle from Greg's hand, and then looked furiously in the bin. "Six! You drank SIX of these! What the hell is wrong with you? Why do I even bother with you sometimes, Greg?" James exploded in such an extreme manner that it made Lisa take a hesitant step back.

And then it happened; James, in such a maddened, heightened state of fury, no longer fully aware of himself or his actions, raised his hand and hit Greg across the face, sending him stumbling into the bench. Lisa gasped and went to take a step forward, only to have James stare her down, as though he were daring her to take another step and see what would happen; only this no longer looked like James, this was something else, someone else. His eyes were black with fury, and his body stood so taut and on edge as if he were ready to attack again at any second; "get up!" he barked at Greg, "come with me, we need to have a talk!" James dragged Greg away into the bedroom and slammed the door so hard that the walls shook.

Lisa stood there; absolutely shaken to her core by what she'd just witnessed; sure, what Greg had been doing was annoying and childish, but it didn't elicit or warrant such an extreme reaction. He was just being Greg. The way he always was. Is this what Greg meant yesterday when he said that this James was just the way he'd always been, and she was just getting a tiny glimpse into James' real temper now? Had James hit Greg before? Had he hit him in their relationship? Lisa shook in shock, as the quickly escalating argument from the bedroom sounded more and more terrifying; this is beyond a disproportionate response… why is Greg putting up with this?

James stormed out carrying his bag and striding out the door, and Lisa walked back in to see Greg fixing up his own bag, "are you okay? What the hell happened back there? This is exactly what I meant by him having personality changes. The old James-"

"Would have done exactly that," Greg finished for her; "like I told you last night. James is James. He's the same person he always has been, and always will be. I knew who he was going into this, and it didn't really hurt. I'm tough," Greg smiled.

"He's hit you before?" Lisa asked incredulously.

Greg shrugged, "only when he's really mad, and it's gotten better since the infarction, and as he's gotten older. He's calmed down a lot, and restrains himself more nowadays, whether you choose to believe that is your choice, but I know I am right. Like I said, I love James, and I accept him fully for who he is; warts and all. I love him, and he loves me. I accept him without question, and he accepts me. He's just upset, and he'll calm down in an hour or two and everything will be back to normal,"

"Greg, you don't have to put up with this, you shouldn't put up with this," Lisa continued, lowering her voice.

"I'm not 'putting up with' anything here, and this is really none of your business, Lisa. I'm sorry, but you need to take a step back or ten. This isn't your relationship. And you are absolutely not to say a word of this to anybody, got it? I happen to love James, and I will stand by him no matter what. James is always going to come first in my life. Read into that what you will. I actually happen to like someone who takes control and has a backbone, I'm heading down to the car," Greg grabbed his backpack, swung it over his shoulder, grabbed his cane and strode out of the hotel room, leaving Lisa more confused than ever. Greg likes this? Surely not…

Lisa sighed, and walked out of the hotel room, handed in her keycard at the front desk, and walked out to the truck in the parking lot; where she saw Greg sitting in the front seat, and she assumed that James would be in the back. Honestly, at this point in time, Lisa couldn't care less whether or not James forgave her, she was beyond mad at him for what she had just witnessed in the hotel room, and didn't know if she could forgive James for his behaviour even if he decided he wasn't upset at her anymore. To be completely honest with herself, she was almost equally disappointed in Greg's reaction to it too, how can he possibly think that this is normal or okay? For James to hit him like that?

They drove in silence back to the looming, terrifying mansion that awaited them; everyone seemingly deep in introspective thought; this is probably where he first learned that it was all normal Lisa considered, frowning slightly as she looked over at Greg, whose jaw was clenched, and he looked pale and a little clammy; "are you okay?" Lisa asked, and Greg nodded slightly and quickly.

"I told you that this would happen, Gregory. But you wouldn't listen to me, would you?" James muttered from the backseat; Lisa wasn't sure if this was an invitation to engage in conversation from James' part but decided against saying anything due to her own fury at the events that had unfolded that morning of which James had perpetrated. Lisa turned onto the long, winding, bumpy gravel road of the driveway and Greg leant his head back and squeezed his eyes shut.

As soon as the car stopped, Greg undid his seatbelt, grabbed his cane, and just about jumped from the car before it was even in park, rushing over towards a bush in which he proceeded to vomit uncontrollably into.

"You were wondering why I didn't want him to drink all that cream and milk? Why I was mad at him?" James muttered, "that's why. The idiot is fucking lactose intolerant or something. Dairy makes him puke. Yet, he never fucking listens to me, he's always got to be the one who's right and he can't let anything go to waste; even when it involves making him incredibly ill. That's why I was mad and frustrated, Lisa. I'm only looking out for his best interests and saving him from himself. You need to stop continually making me out as a monster and painting me to be the bad guy that I'm not," James swung the back door of the truck open before walking over to Greg, gently rubbing his back as he threw up the last of the milky creamy vomit from his mouth, spat on the ground, and rinsed his mouth out with a bottle of water that James handed him, "are you okay?" he whispered soothingly, gently rubbing his back.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Greg muttered back, "come on, let's go inside,"