Es to the rescue~

[Esme Russel]

The past two days had been hellish for Esme. She knew that it must have sucked ten times worse for Dallas but that wasn't any excuse to allow her to be such a nervous wreck. Didn't he realize how much that she truly worried about him? She hadn't stopped worrying about him for one second since she found out that he and Kat had broken up. What if he killed himself? What if he just packed a bag and left in the middle of the night? Or worse, what if he got drunk and then got into a car? He could easily end up dead because of his irresponsibility. How could he possibly think that drinking away the pain was an acceptable method of dealing with things? It wasn't like alcohol had ever made things better for him. Wasn't some heavy boozing involved in the Chelsea affair? Yeah, it was like he never fucking learned from his mistakes and maybe that was partially her fault.

Like now, she was going to his rescue to tend to his emotional wounds, clean him up and send him on his way again to mess up once again. She could only do so much for him though, right? She could bring him food and make sure he didn't drink himself into a state of unconsciousness but she could never truly save him from himself. But that didn't mean that she was willing to give up on him just yet. She'd cooked for the past few days so she had Tupperware containers of various soups, taco meats, any meal that she'd made for her and Jonathan... and a pan of regular lasagna along with some leftover buffalo chicken that was still slightly warm since she and Jon had it for lunch.

It would have been hot still if she hadn't stopped by the nail salon to get a manicure (and fake nails) and a pedicure. She loved being a mother and all of the things that she'd given up to be one seemed silly but she still enjoyed things like getting her nails down. It wasn't that Jonathan didn't try and take Cici off of her hands so she could have a break but she really didn't feel like being away from her most of the time. She'd also made a stop at the little donut shop near Dallas's apartment because all that she wanted right now was a freaking raspberry jelly donut! She got a dozen of those for herself.. Yeah, Dallas wasn't allowed to have any!

She'd brought him enough things that he didn't need to eat her's plus it was her current pregnancy craving so.. most sane people know not to get in between a pregnant woman and her craving food.. It was like getting in the way of a hungry lioness and an antelope. As she neared the apartment, she contemplated just walking in since he didn't usually lock the door but she knew there was a chance that he could have a naked girl in there and she really didn't want to see all of that so she just knocked twice and called out loudly, "Dallas.. Open up! I'm here... and if you don't answer in three minutes then I'm just going to come in."

[Dallas Kennedy]

Two days. It had only been two days since Kat had left him. Two days had worked wonders on the kid, but not in a good way. He was broken, his appetite gone, and he hadn't left his room since she left. He hadn't told Kevin anything and acted completely normal when he had gotten home from work so when Dallas asked him to go buy him alcohol it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. He asked for a bottle of Jack Daniels, one of Wild Turkey and two twenty-four packs of Bud Light. The first day, he had drank one of the cases of beer, given Kevin shared it. When he'd told him what happened, Kev had threatened to confiscate everything he'd bought but Dallas was smarter than that and had it well hidden. The two had gotten into it, which wasn't unusual for two testosterone-driven young men, but it resulted in Kevin storming out and Dallas stranded with his alcohol.

It was mid day, or so he guessed by the sun poking through his blinds. The whole room was spinning from where he laid on the floor, with one leg on the mattress, the other under the bed and something digging into the skin on his back. Dallas wasn't wearing anything except for a pair of blue boxers and some SHS Warrior gym shorts. He hadn't brushed his hair that day and it stuck out here and there from where he'd slept on it wet and it dried from the shower he'd taken after Kat left.

He looked like a pathetic drunk that you would pass on the street on a late night walk. The one you look at and ask if he needed a ride to the hospital or something. Dallas felt like dying, he did. But he figured being plastered was the next best thing and maybe he'd die from alcohol poisoning instead. There was a banging at the door, it made him jump, but didn't make him move from his position on the cold hardwood floor. Who the fuck was here? It sounded like Kat's knocking, and he hoped that it was. It took everything he had to pull himself from the floor, and he had only made it far enough to rest his back against the dresser. It was too hard to sit up, so he went back to his laying down and just yelled back to whoever it was, "Door's open!"

When he heard the door creak, and footsteps starting to walk back to his room, he momentarily thought about how stupid it was to have just let anyone in. What if it was someone Kat had hired to kill him? Or a new boyfriend who was here to kick his ass? They sounded light, unlike a man's, so his first thought was Kat. When they stopped in the doorway, he tried to pull his head up so the bed wasn't in the way and he could see who it was. Dallas laid it back down and closed his eyes, "Kit-Kat?" He asked, his voice hoarse.

[Esme Russel]

If worrying about Dallas was a career then Esme would be a millionaire at this point. Why hadn't he answered the door? Why wouldn't he get up? She let out a small sigh, said a silent pray and slowly stepped inside of the apartment. She didn't want to face the fact that he was a basically grown man who could make his own choices and deal with the consequences of those actions. When he said 'Kit-Kat', she wanted to punch him in the face. How little did he appreciate her? He'd have to be an idiot to think that it was Kat after everything that he had done to her. "No, it's Esme." She snapped it just a little too harshly. She didn't want to be mean to him because she knew that he was going through a very dark time right now but she couldn't help it. She felt like throwing up the second that she walked into the apartment because it smelled like a bar which probably would have just been mildly irritating if not for the fact that she was pregnant and it made her nauseous just walking down the aisle with alcohol.

She was going to go over to him to make sure that he hadn't somehow hurt himself when the wave of nausea got to be too much and she found herself hovering over their toilet. When was the last time that they had cleaned in here? She made a mental note that she was going to tidy this place up once she got Dallas fed and settled into his bed.. Maybe make him take a bubble bath in his swim trunks of some sort to relax him with some calming candles. Yeah, it was sort of coddling him and he was old enough to do all of this for himself but she wanted to do this. Sure it was frustrating that he didn't even seem to be grateful for her assistance but she still wanted to be here for him. She didn't mind coming over after cooking nice meals for him because it was the kind of thing that just made her feel all warm and fuzzy.

She finally made it into Dallas's bedroom and had to bit down on her bottom lip to avoid yelling at him. How could he be so stupid? Didn't he realize that this kind of behavior wasn't going to make anything better? He just seemed so damn pathetic that she didn't know if she wanted to hug him or slap him to just.. get some sense into that thick head of his. Was it all the hair that prevented him from listening? She told him so many times not to be stupid, not to drink too much and yet here they were just like she expected. "You smell like the fucking floor of a goddamn bar, Dallas James Kennedy!" She always called him by his full name when she was angry like he was a young child that needed scolding and not her ex-boyfriend slash current best friend.

"How could you be so..." She took a moment or two to figure out the right word to use in this situation.. "Irresponsible." She didn't normally yell at him but this was way too serious to just let slide. "What if you'd died from alcohol poisoning? Are you so fucking selfish that you would drink yourself to death because Kat left you?" She was going to say more but then it hit her that this probably wasn't going to help so she let out a small sigh and offered him a weak smile. "I made you something to eat well a lot of things and put them in the freezer. There's leftover buffalo chicken lasagna in this container right here and you're going to eat every single bite of it. You might be stupid enough to think it's okay to live on a steady diet of booze but I'm sure as hell not going to let it happen."

[Dallas Kennedy]

"Ohh, Essy, hey." He grunted, his face still on the ground. He hadn't been able to see who it actually was before she announced herself. Dallas sure was happy to be in the company of a familiar face, especially that of Esme who he knew could almost always help. Hearing her cuss and yell at him for having his house smell like a bar floor, as she'd put it, made him let off a single chuckle before pulling himself up to where he was sitting against the dresser again. "That's... that's not a bad thing though. I like bars, sure!" He smiled, even though he felt like death.

"So.. what?" He asked as she continued, her tone changing drastically. Dallas was well aware of just how serious she was now and that this wasn't a game to her like it was for him. He had really taken a chance on this one mixing a large amount of alcohol in with two hydros that he'd bought from a kid he knew.. Kyle? Casey? Kay... Kye? It was one of those and he thought the guy was weird anyway so it didn't matter. He wasn't about to tell Esme about them seeing as she already seemed pissed off enough with him. As she scolded him like a child, he pinched his eyebrows together and frowned in his own self-pity.

Dallas gripped at the edge of the bed, bunching the sheet in his hand to pull himself up and off the cold floor. His knees creaked below him, how long had he been laying there? He faintly remembered crawling out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn but couldn't remember much else. He guessed he'd just not made it any further than that spot. He now sat on the edge, one hand still gripping the sheet, the other an empty glass bottle. He looked at it and was unhappy with the sight of it being done for so he let it fall to the floor and it rolled under the bed just before he leaned back.

The mention of food was just about enough to make him want to vomit but he held it off by rolling onto his side and pulling his legs up. It was the first time he'd actually looked at Esme since she stepping inside the door. Dallas went quiet after a while, and she had probably thought that he'd fallen asleep but his eyes opened when he spoke, "I really appri.. appreciate you coming by Essy, I do." His voice got sad again as he pulled himself back up into a sitting position. He kept his eyes low and picked at his thumb. "I'm sorry the place is such a wreck, and - and that I'm such a wreck." Dallas said. For being as intoxicated as he was, his speech and motor skills were still pretty intact. "Esme?" He asked, placing his hand next to him to signal her to sit. "Am I a terrible person?"

[Esme Russel]

Esme didn't want to be a controlling bitch of a best friend who came in here and screamed at him for the next hour but she was just frustrated. How dare he get himself into this situation.. How dare he do to Kat what he did to all of the other girls and then have the nerve to go and fuck up his life like this? "You think that this is okay, don't you? You think that this is something to joke about? Because it's going to be so funny when you drink yourself to death, yeah.. You'll be laughing all the way to the hospital alone because eventually I won't be stupid enough to come over here and try to fix things for you or clean up. What if Kat walked in right now? Do you want her to see you like this?" She didn't mean to come off so harsh but she wanted him to realize that he needed to shape up if he wanted to be happy... Some people just need to have some sense knocked into them. Besides if she didn't care then she wouldn't be getting this worked up over him doing stupid things because it didn't affect her one way or the other but she really did need to calm the hell down before she ended up affecting her unborn child.

"Look, I love you and I really want nothing more than for you and Kat to work things out and be a little family with your baby but that will never happen unless you shape up and stop going to booze and probably drugs when things don't go your way. Do you realize how selfish that you're being right now? What if you died? Do you want Kat to have to live with that for the rest of her life? You screwed up not her and yet you're the one acting like their life is over... It's not by the way even if you and Kat do stay broken up because you have a little baby on the way. You two are going to go through a lot of challenges during the next few months and then the next eighteen years and statistically speaking, it's not likely that you'll make it and it's going to be hard but you need to think about what you really want." Where was she going with this again? She kind of forgot and now she was just talking from her own experience with Jonathan.

"Being young is about experiencing different things and realizing who you are and who you want to be but that is so much harder when there's someone else to worry about, too because sometimes people grow up in different directions and things don't work out... Sometimes what you want five years from now isn't the same as what you want now and there's a chance that'll happen to you and Kat but if you go into it knowing that it's going to be hard and knowing it's going to be work than the chances of it working is going to be so much better. Do you think I walked into my marriage thinking it was going to be sunshine and rainbows being a married pregnant teenager? No and I bet that Jon didn't either and we're working every single day to make sure we're good and make sure that we spend time talking and being sweet to each other no matter how tired or stressed we are because that's the kind of thing that makes a difference." She let out a small sigh and started picking up empty bottles and putting them in a trash bag.. If Kat did end up coming over then this place needed some serious work. "You need to prove yourself to her because she has no reason right now to believe that you're suddenly going to be faithful."

She took a look around the room to try and figure this out in her head a little bit. "Why don't you set something up over there like a crib? Not a bedding or anything but a simple plain start to a nursery to show you want this baby and... send her flowers every single day even if she sets the first seven on fire because she needs to know that you're thinking about her. She's not a mind reader and she won't know by looking at you. The only thing that she will see right now if she were here is a drunken idiot who can't handle break ups." She cleared her throat because she honestly felt like a giant bitch right now and she didn't know what to do about it. "I'm sorry for yelling at you, okay? I just... I'm frustrated because I don't want you to end up dead or... Just... try, okay?"

[Dallas Kennedy]

Dallas was tired of being yelled at even though he had deserved worse than just that. He subconsciously knew that Esme was right with every word she was saying and knew she wasn't lying when she said that one day even she wouldn't be able to handle his bull shit anymore. Why had he gone and gotten so drunk that he was needing to be babysat? The kid was legally an adult for crying out loud! And Esme was right again when she said that he was the one acting like a child and like his world was ending. He hadn't really even thought about what Kat was going through, especially with all of the pregnancy hormones raging through her body. There was one problem that occurred when Dallas drank..he couldn't hold in his words and had no sense of a filter or stopping point.

Ina second Dallas turned everything around and his tone got serious, firm and much louder than hers. "You know why I drank as much as I wanted, Esme? Because I'm a fuckin' adult and I can do whatever the fuck I wanna. Maybe, I dunno. Maybe I'm takin' this breakup bad because I can't make myself get over the fact that I know I'm a piece of shit! Everything you or Kat had ever said about me was right on the fuckin' dot and I'm seeing that." Dallas made himself stand up and was a bit wobbly at first but was finally able to steady himself without any assistance.

"And another thing, miss I'm married and everything is just a god damn apple pie," he said as he lit a cigarette, "I.... This.. I forgot what I was going to say but y'know what? Fuck Chelsea and fuck my own stupid head. Both of 'em. I know I screwed everything up and right now? I hate myself, I do, I really do." He had made his way into the bathroom by now and had turned on the hot water. "Maybe I should just fuck around some more and maybe it'll make me feel-"

Suddenly light headed, Dallas wobbled back and forth as the room started to spin. The next thing he knew was that he was gripping onto the shower curtain for balance, forgetting the rod was just stuck in there and not securely bolted into the wall.. He felt himself falling and his head hit the faucet, the shower curtain crashing down over him and the water sprayed down over his body. With one leg still hanging out of the tub, he was humiliated and defeated by his own self. He sat there for a while, quiet and trying not to look Esme in the face. "I'm just... Esme, I'm druuunk." He partly laughed and leaned his head back. "I'm sorry I'm so drunk."

[Esme Russel]

Esme hadn't expected Dallas to yell at her! She knew that she sort of deserved it but that didn't make her like it anymore! Why did everyone believe her life was perfect? Did people really believe she had no problems ever? Or was it just that she and Jon loved each other too much to cheat so they weren't relevant? She felt the hot tears building in her eyes and her bottom lip started quivering violently but she was fighting it back. She didn't want to give her former best friend the satisfaction of having hurt her. Wasn't that his goal? Well... Maybe she should just give him what he wanted. So, she stormed into the bathroom after him and all she saw was red. She was in such a rage that she actually wondered if this was a good idea.

"Do you feel better? Do you feel better now that I'm crying? Isn't this what you wanted this whole time?" She sobbed hysterically. "Do you feel good now that you have ruined /everything/? Who is always there for you, Dallas James Kennedy but you treat me the worst of anyone when you're mad and it's not fair. What happened to us being best friends?" Her vision was clearing up now that she was done crying and she caught sight of his strange positioning. What in the world had happened to him? How drunk was he? She actually laughed and not a little bit, either. She laughed so hard that her sides ached and tears once more flowed down her face.

It actually took her a couple of minutes to calm down! But, she reached for his hand when she was less giggly and placed it gently over her expanding stomach. "Feel that?" It wasn't a profound kick but it sort of felt like crickets across her stomach. "You might think that you're horrible but this baby and your baby won't see that." Why was she still even bothering to try and make him feel better? It wasn't like he was going to ever appreciate her doing so. "I'm still mad at you." It was important that he know that wasn't okay.

Didn't he realize how fragile her hormones were?

[Dallas Kennedy]

Dallas ran some soap over his chest and let the water wash it down the drain. It felt nice to be clean.. or at least to have a clean chest and arms because that's all he could manage. He turned off the water but continued to sit there, still trying to get over the fact he was so intoxicated that he couldn't even take a shower. After a while of sitting there, he made himself stand up as Esme started to laugh at him and his stupidity. He wasn't even mad anymore! Him falling was enough to partly sober him up and break the tension that had filled the room. He hoped Esme knew that he didn't mean to yell at her, or even make her cry.

As he stood up and used the wall for balance, she was pulling his hand onto her stomach. "Es, I-" He was cut off when he felt the fluttering inside of her belly. He hadn't gotten to feel that with Kat yet, and wasn't hardly around to feel it when Cici was still in the womb. He felt his chest tighten and a small lump form in his throat. He blamed the water that was trickling down his face from his soaking wet hair to cover the one tear that squeezed out from his eye.

Dallas pulled his hand away and turned from Esme to look for a towel. There was one on the rack that he assumed was Kevin's and he pulled it to dry himself off. His mind was so blurred and scattered at the moment that he wasn't even sure how to take anything in. He let out a deep, shaky sigh and walked back into his bedroom. He was glad that he wasn't nearly as dizzy or blurry anymore.

He made an effort to pull a shirt from his closet and a pair of sweats from his drawer. Before she came back into the room, he changed into the pants. It wasn't like she'd never seen him naked before and he didn't care if she saw now, but she was married and not with him anymore so it could have been a little awkward on her side. When she returned, he pulled the red shirt over his head and looked to her. "I'm sorry, Esme." He sulked, "I'm going to try and fix things.. I am. I'm going to start by picking this place up and apologizing to Kevin. Well, first you.." Dallas stood up and wrapped Esme up in his arms. "I'm sorry I'm such a dick all of the time and I treat your like shit." He hadn't let her out of his embrace yet, and buried his face into the side of her head because her neck was far too short to reach.