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John Dory had really cut back on drinking when he found out he was a dad. He used to drink really heavily. As in, it was probably one of the reasons the five years between finding the Tree empty and getting that postcard from Bruce were a blur. As in, someone was got upset and told him "Quit joking! Alcoholism isn't a joke!" when he said he'd really cut back, and then gave him this look when he said he wasn't joking. As in, he was really lucky he hadn't died from alcohol poisoning in those five years.
But he didn't drink that much anymore. So it was fine. He wanted to set a good example for his kid. Show him that when something bad happened, he couldn't get all bummed out and drink himself to oblivion. And he didn't want his kid to see him like that. Ever. That wasn't a sight for an innocent kid to see. And it was hard at times. Like, really hard at times. But John Dory got through it pretty well.
But then Pete was grown up, and John Dory wasn't all too sure what to do with himself. Rhiannon, his son's little sister, seemed attached to him. John Dory would never dream of replacing that girl's real father. Who could ever replace Doc. But John Dory would do what he could to help out if it was needed. So, more reason for him not to drink to the point of risking alcohol poisoning.
But his son just... vanished.
Pete disappeared on them. He'd written a letter about maybe visiting soon, and he'd never shown up. They'd set a letter to him by critter, and the critter came back still carrying the letter. He'd vanished. They'd tried to go out and find him, of course. They'd searched the area they'd thought he'd be. The only real sign of him they could find was that old guitar John Dory had given him.
That old guitar. John Dory had it in his times hiking the trails alone. He'd played literally whatever sort of melody on that thing in those years he vaguely remembered. One of the things he tried to do to get himself to keep going on. He thought giving it to his son would be some sort of good luck. All good that did for him.
Pete was gone. John Dory had lost his family again. He lost his mother when he was younger. His brothers and grandma disappeared by the time he wanted to go home to them. And now his son had disappeared. And— shit, he couldn't count Doc in that list if he was just talking about family, but he'd lost him too. He was really sick of losing people.
There was a point in intense searching for a missing person where people, regrettably, begrudgingly, had to give up on searching. There were other things in their lives they had to. They couldn't keep up a fruitless search so far away from home. Well, John Dory probably could. He lived on the trails anyway. He had Rhonda, with her Hustle Button that'd get he just about anywhere in less than an hour. He could stay out here searching.
But John Dory didn't really know how to track him down.
He'd exhausted his own limited knowledge of how to track a person down and find them. Those two experts on finding people had searched long past the point where he'd have run out of leads. John Dory didn't have anything that'd keep him from being out there, but didn't have anything he could do out there.
Not being able to do anything about his son being missing, John Dory didn't feel like he had anything he could do with himself. And the idea of even touching that guitar....
John Dory stopped by Lonesome Flats for some of the whiskey there. The kind of strong stuff that you weren't usually supposed to drink more than a shot or a short, half-filled glass at a time. The same kind he used to have a lot of during those years he barely remembered. He didn't have any shot glasses or ice then. He didn't have any now.
Straight from the bottle was just as good as anything else, really. As long as he managed to drink it, it didn't matter how. And it wasn't like he had anyone to share the bottle with. John Dory had no one. That was why he was drinking this in the first place. He probably would even be having whiskey if he had someone to drink with.
Rhonda did a soft below as he sat himself on a nearby stick. "Don't worry, girl. I won't be wandering off anywhere. And I'm not gonna chug it all down at once like last time." Last time being the time he meet Doc. Facedown in dirt. Nauseas. Not caring if he puked while he was like that and suffocated or drowned. No, as hopeless as things felt, John Dory still believed that Pete was alive out there. They'd figure out a way to get him home.
But John Dory just didn't know how to do that right now.
He drank from the bottle sip by sip. Swig by swig. Try to take some time to finish the bottle. "See?" He said. Not to Rhonda. More to anyone who had the wrong impression that he was an alcoholic of some sort. "Could an alcoholic pace themself like this? No, they'd probably chug the whole thing in one go. Probably." John Dory had never really met an alcoholic himself. He just knew that he wasn't one.
It took a while for him to actually feel the alcohol, but that was fine. He began to feel tipsy in a bit. And that would get him by until he actually felt drunk. It'd been a while since he actually got drunk drunk. If he thought about it, the only times he'd drank the past decade or so was with someone else. Like there was that time he shared a few drinks with Angie however many years ago. Sharing drinks and sorrows. And then they'd...
He was going to go ahead and not think about that right now.
They were kinda tipsy and all sad. It was fine. It was nice, even. Just helping each other out.
John Dory took a bigger swig from the bottle of whiskey. It burned a bit, on the way down. He and Angie wouldn't be doing that again, but the talking part was nice. And maybe this, Pete being missing, was another thing they could talk about. Something that just the two of them could understand. Who else would understand the feelings around missing their son than the other parent? Maybe something better than trying to down a whole bottle of whiskey in one evening.
But that was different. That last time, they'd been talking about Doc. And it'd been a few years since he'd died. Pete had only been missing a few months. And he wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. Pete would come back, alive and well. And the reasons he was missing for some long was gonna turn out to be a whole bunch of coincidences that no one could have controlled. And they'd all hug and cry and laugh about it.
John Dory reminded himself that he was supposed to pace himself in drinking this whiskey. If he drank too fast, he'd get sick. Or he'd end up too drunk to stumble his way into Rhonda for the night. He already didn't expect to make it up the ladder and to his loft bed. A couch or the floor would be just as good to pass out on. A bucket near enough to puke into.
He sighed. What a mess he was, huh? Getting close to being that messy, washed-up pop idol he used to hear about some artists turning into. Some having a mental breakdown or a public blowup or something. Some getting so drunk they cause all sorts of problems. Passing out drunk in weird places. The difference here was John Dory wasn't exactly in public. He was camping, and ready to retire right into Rhonda for the night once he had enough.
John Dory wondered what all the old fans and the paparazzi from Back in the Day would think if they knew this was how The Leader of Brozone had ended up like this. Would they have expected this? Would they be shocked? Would they think he was bad for this? Would they suddenly hate all of Brozone and their music because of it?
God, what would his brothers think of him being like this?
That was another thing he'd drink to try to stop feeling about it. So he took another drink from the bottle of whiskey and stared up as stars began to appear in the sky. His brothers probably didn't want anything to do with him right now, anyway. Probably a reason Spruce didn't write anything on that postcard. But he'd still be glad to see any of them. He missed his brothers. He missed them a lot.
A bright light suddenly shined in his eyes from the side. John Dory shut his eyes and tried to block the light with his hand. He blinked and tried to get his vision cleared up and working again. A growling voice that was saying something, but he couldn't figure out if he was asking "What's going on over here?" or "What are you doing out here?" Well, those were both essentially the same kind of question, right?
"Ev...evening." John Dory was slurring a little bit. So maybe he was a bit drunk by now. How much of the bottle was still left? There was still some in there. "Whaaaaaat's up?"
They stopped shining the light right in his eyes. Good. How's a guy supposed to see like that? And now he could tell that it was one of those lawmen dudes from Lonesome Flats. The Country troll said something else, once again in a growly sort of voice that John Dory could not understand.
"I'm jus' havin' a bit of a drink before bed." It wasn't anything illegal, so he didn't have to hide anything from the guy. Though John Dory totally could hide it if he really had to. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd lied to and hid things from the cops. "Ya want some? Wait, can you have some?" Officers weren't allowed to drink on the job, right?
The guy— Oh! John Dory recognized him a bit now! He usually guarded the jail! His name was.... Growly something. He grumbled again. Again, John Dory couldn't make out what exactly he was saying. Heh. That was why he was called Growly, wasn't it?
"Sorry, dude. I can't really understand what you're saying." He looked at his bottle of whiskey. For just a moment, he thought about taking another drink. Probably not a good idea in front of a... a sheriff or deputy or whatever he was called. Especially when he didn't really understand what the guy wanted with him. And he already felt pretty drunk at this point.
"I think I'm gonna head in for the night. You didn't need anything, right?"
Mr. Growly grumbled something, but it didn't sound like he was trying to argue or make him stay for anything. He made a noise that almost sounded concerned when John Dory stood up and swayed. "M fiiiiine." He waved the Country Troll off. He shuffled himself to Rhonda's door. "And 'm not drivin' anywhere, so don't worry about that! Ya only make that mistake once."
He didn't wait for a response as the door closed behind him. If there was a problem with any of this, there'd be pounding on the door in a bit. John Dory wasn't worried. He put the whiskey bottle down on something, then face planted right on the couch. He passed out just minutes later.
The hangover he woke up with in the morning was bad enough for him to consider dumping out the rest of that whiskey bottle. There was less then half of it left. But that didn't feel worth what he'd traded for it. He figured out a way to close that bottle up well again, and prepared to suffer through the day. It took him a while to notice a note stuck to the door.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS MEETING
Wednesdays Dusk
Community Center Room B
John Dory shoved the note down deep somewhere inside Rhonda. He'd forget about it. He wasn't an alcoholic. He didn't need to go to any meetings.