He was hurting. The withdrawals were agonizing as hell, but this was one of those times where Christian had deluded himself into thinking he was going to get clean. He knew he couldn’t keep living his life like this, and that his vices only lead him down one path. In spite of how depressed her was, how much he loved to remind himself that it was pointless to try and that he should end his own suffering and overdose, there was a bigger part of him that wanted to live. A part that wanted to see tomorrow; to get clean and save up money working an honest job and bounce back from all this to make his parents proud of their only child.
But he was hurting. The need for the high – for any high, was so great that he couldn’t sleep, wasn’t hungry, felt paranoid, felt hot, then cold, then hot again… But I have to get clean this time. I have to mean it. He reminded himself. Maybe if he walked around enough he would exhaust his mind and body enough to pass out long enough for the craving to pass. Maybe if he had a taste of a lesser vice he could sustain himself and take some of the edge off. Yeah… Maybe… He’d always heard the a cold turkey flush of the system wasn’t easy, so maybe baby steps…. Just a taste….
It was in that moment that he smelled it. The gentle lure of nicotine that made most people cough and gag, but to Christian it was calming and inviting. He followed his nose and didn’t have to go far before he saw a man smoking, just simply looking at the cigarette making Christian shake with desire. Braving the pains of social interaction, Christian wandered over to the man as non-threatening looking at he could. “ Hey … Think I can bum one of those off you?” He asked, trying to keep his voice as steady as he could.
Disease ate at innards like a blackening plague, a guise under which society was brought to believe all was well, that all could be cured and reassured that everyone would get better.
A sickening sort of hum that trembled on peoples’ lips, producing minimal words and fewer syllables under acrid tasting saliva that trickled down their lips.
Like rabid dogs, white at the mouth. Hazy, foaming.
His nose wrinkled at just the thought of it, although those that moved and paced around him like a stream around stone likely thought it to be caused by the cancerous fumes that seeped from the end of the cigarette, hanging idly between thick fingers that raised the device back to thin lips.
The only cancer he worried about was the societal one, the manner in which man had turned on one another, sucking marrow out of bones like psychotic beasts of no nation, no semblance under a flag, no allegiance except to their own bodies, their own lives.
One for one and one for... me.
That wasn’t how it went now, was it?
The man ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the coating of nicotine and rat poison. It didn’t matter how many times he got his teeth whitened or realigned or properly twisted back into place, no, they would also be slightly disfigured, discolored, just like the ribs in his chest, mismatched puzzle pieces that hadn’t been bothered to be put back together.
Broken, shattered, pinching his side with each breath, as if his organs were trying to tear through his skin, to taste the fresh air they very much desired, but instead were fed the black smog.
The worst of torture, they said, came from within a man’s own head, and while other’s believed those outside of themselves were the “bad ones”, well, there was no fooling the Hungarian, the crippled warlord of wars past and often forgotten or kept hush-hush. Sure, he had only raised a pen in battle and not a sword, but he had been a crusader nonetheless.
A knight without a shield, he had sustained enough blows around the globe to dent his already ruptured skull, splintering gray matter that threatened to poison his own form, as if that were to solve anything.
“There was never any solving anything.”
That’s what his psychiatrist ━ or at least one of them ━ told him during a meeting, after the Hungarian had spewed some rather unpleasant words, observations made about the medical professional that perhaps should have been kept behind the former war correspondent’s sneering lips, curled back like a cat hissing.
Pissing. Pissing on himself.
He was constantly pushing himself towards edges unseen, into situations that should have been avoided, but when you smell Death and hear His lovely song ━ Oh, but can a mortal man truly be blamed?
Like maternal lovers calling it quits, the Hungarian had departed from War, by force, may it be noted, and in turn he was torn from Death, their strange step-child that truly belonged to neither of them but followed each nevertheless.
He grit his teeth at the thought of it, mind in torrential downpour as words from the external world bubbled forth, like blisters against the inside of his skull the more he attempted to ignore them, but as a man who constantly felt pain, it would be almost rude of him to ignore the communication sore, as if he were kicking his aunt out of his own after welcoming her in but moments before.
Smoke billowed from his nostrils like a dragon disturbed, small eyes scraping slowly along the rims of their sockets in order to get a good look at the... boy.
That’s all he was. A boy.
Regardless of how many years he had or how many places he had stuck his dick, this was a boy, plain and simple. He’d seen many like him, addict eyes shaking in their skull like marbles in a jar.
Except no señora was there to stop them.
A look of malcontent painted the man’s face as he took another drag, cigarette hanging lazily from thin lips. His tongue poked out the side of his mouth, licking the corner that cracked under dry skin.
“You should be hooked up to an IV,” the foreigner murmured, eyes narrowing as the dying cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke, words seeping past the butt of the cancerous device. “Not inhaling batteries and pesticides.”
The Hungarian shook his head.
“Clean yourself out. No one likes a strung out snowbird.”
In all honesty, he wasn’t too focused on what the kid had taken, even though he would have been able to tell if he studied his face long enough, but... it didn’t matter.
A junkie was a junkie was a junkie.
Sure, he had been a Pharmy, not a cocaine sniffing, eightball busting crank, but he’d been there. Seen those eyes in his own head. Felt those chills...
Another shake of his head.
“I’ll get you breakfast, but that’s it.”
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
