I felt like a dick and once again was hungover. I wasn’t sure how or when I got home, but I woke up with my upper body hanging off of the bed with my hand in the drawer of my nightstand.

After all the blood and most of the alcohol I consumed last night rushed to my head, I leaned it against the drawer and groaned, looking inside to see what I had been going after before I passed out…upside down.

Drunkenly, I scribbled, “I’m sorry. ~ Drex” onto a napkin. I had no clue where it came from. I didn’t have to remember anything from last night to know who the note was intended for. Eris. I stared at the ceiling, aggravated at myself for not only blacking out, but also for being a drunken idiot who couldn’t handle his booze.

No one, until her, was able to keep my mind from wandering to my old life. I had been alone for years. Determination had thickened in my blood; I wasn’t getting close to anyone ever again. Not that I would consider the two of us to be close or friends, for that matter.

Cheddar, one of my pet rats, stood up and peered at me from across the room while sniffing the air. Out of all three of my guys in there, he seemed to be the most judgmental. He was always watching me, when Carl and Mike couldn't give a shit as long as they had food. My sister, Lexie, thought his life was set on a course when he got a shitty name.

She was right. Normally, I did give animals respectable names, but he escaped their cage when I brought them home. My cat had eaten him, or so I thought. He hated rats more than water, so Cheddar was as good as dead. He’d been at large in my house for forty-eight hours. Lexie and I were playing cards and having pizza and beer with a few friends. We thought we were losing our minds when the chip bag started scooting away from the couch. Henry picked up a baseball bat and was in mid-swing when Lexie yelled, “No! It's Cheddar!" as pizza flew outward from her full mouth. She and Roscoe were having a pizza-cramming contest. She was in the lead, but now would lose at the hands of a rat’s insatiable hunger.

Henry, being the smartass he is, laughed and without missing a beat said, "No, they're sour cream, Crow." He always called Lexie by the nickname he’d given her when we were kids.

He swung and Lexie tackled him to the floor, both of them barely missing the chip bag still moving.

Cheddar popped his head out, looked around, and then went back into the bag to further stuff his cheeks.

Henry rolled on top of Lexie and licked her forehead, leading her to punch him in the gut. "Why didn't you say his rat was in there?" He coughed, rubbing his stomach and grinning at her.

"I did, you idiot! I said Shredder! I was speaking in guy terms you'd understand!" she huffed and pushed him off her.

We all laughed at her. "It's Splinter, Crow. The rat was Splinter." He picked up a few chips that fell out when Cheddar poked his head out of the bag and chucked them in her direction.

"Oh," she faintly replied and lifted Cheddar from the chip bag.

She knew she was the reason he got his name, and I think it embarrassed her because of her lack in TMNT knowledge that he was almost killed. I always joked and reminded her she also saved his life by jumping Henry.

Every few months my sister got it into her head I’d been alone too long and she planned a night of “fun”. I usually tried my best to get out of it, but that night she wouldn’t take no for an answer. That was the last time someone other than she was in my house. The guys had their second birthday coming up, so it’d been two years since anyone other than my sister had been here. I didn’t mind that at all. I was surprised she had let me go that long without some “intervention”.

Cheddar used his hind foot to scratch behind his ear and then cleaned his white toes. Mike raised his head, eyed him suspiciously from their hammock, and then went back to sleep.

"Morning, guys," I grumbled as I passed their cage and tapped it on the way to go shower.

* * *

I felt like shit, so I went back to bed after showering. The clock said midnight, and I grunted, knowing I was going to be up for a few hours and wished I hadn’t fallen back to sleep earlier. I flipped on the lamp sitting on top of the nightstand and looked at the napkin again. After picking it up, it slipped from my fingers and landed with my note against the floor. There was her name on the other side, and I remembered what I had done and where I had been the night before.

I knew I shouldn’t have drunk that much or at least shouldn’t have drunk that much being that close to her. Bringing in a puff of air into my lungs and then blowing it out, I fell back onto the bed.

“Fuck,” was the only thing to be said, so I said it. I then said it again a few times or twenty. Now wasn’t the time to admit to having feelings or to admit to caring, but despite how much I wanted to deny them they were there. The bastards were screaming at me, but I refused to give in to them.

She was heaven, and I brought hell. Death surrounded me, and I knew I couldn’t let either of us fall down that rabbit hole. She’d only get hurt.

I used to save lives. Now, I couldn’t control my own, much less help someone else.