#interact : thread

[hendrixeros]

open to any and all who dare

There was a football game on the TV in the diner. That it was football and one of the teams was the Saints was the beginning and the end of Adrian’s sports knowledge, despite his childhood infatuation with one specific football player. He sipped a beer at the bar, feeling a little to relieved to be anywhere but the Dive and his own shitty trailer. Neither place felt as comfortable now as they had two weeks ago and in a town like Olympus, the number of escapes was limited. Not that he exactly blended in with the sea of black, white, and gold branded apparel that had filed into the diner, either.

He swiped at the game on his phone, arranging colorful patterned tiles into circles. It was mindless enough to put his brain at ease when everything lately made him jump out of his skin.

Though, the eruption of the diner around him into a raucous series of cheers was enough to do the trick. Someone had done something and now the Saints were up by six points and a bunch tiny men lined up on a painted white line. “Think they’ll riot in the streets if the other team comes back for the win?”

[docdcarter]

“... this gruesome scene outside a popular night club in Olympus, Louisiana just one week ago. Authorities are still searching for information on the case, though no suspects have currently been taken into custody. If you have any--”

Damian’s glass hits the countertop harder than he intends. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself, tapping his palm against the polished surface to get the bartender’s attention. “Hey? Excuse me!” When the man makes it to the far end of the bar he takes Damian’s glass and replaces it without a word. “Thanks man, but, hang on,” he says as the young man turns away.

“Can we not with this shit?” he asks, gesturing up to the television mounted above the bar. “There’s gotta be some college football on somewhere right?” Its’s been about a week since Kane was killed and still, the gruesome murder still made the rounds on the afternoon news every day. And every time he had to listen to them talk about having no leads? It was impossible not to roll his eyes. Who else would have done... all of that?

He rakes his fries through the last bit of ketchup clinging to the bottom of the plastic cup before pushing his nearly empty plate away from him. “How many times do they think people need to see that?” He says to the person sitting next to him. “I mean... hell, they expect someone to just call up and solve it for them?”

[hendrixeros]

Covered in sweat and vomit, Adrian laid splayed out on the floor of his bathroom, his legs hanging out of the doorway and into the hallway, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and socks. He could feel every single bone in his body. Each of them aching in their own special way as he laid his face against the cool linoleum. A spider skittered into a hole underneath the sink cabinet and Adrian tried not to wonder how long it had been since the floors had been cleaned. He almost didn’t care. Almost didn’t care that he’d dragged himself all the way from the bed to the bathroom and still hadn’t managed to make it to the toilet. The puddle of vomit on the floor proof of his body’s active rebellion.

They were at war. Anatomy holding his most basic human functions hostage until it got what it wanted.

His phone rang again. He hadn’t answered it in three days except to tell Kane he was taking off work and to tell Ryder and Izzy that he was sick and contagious, hoping to keep the two of them far away long enough for him to get through the worst of this on his own. Izzy would understand. But Ryder didn’t need to see him like this.

And this wasn’t exactly his first trip down detox lane. He knew the drill. He’d sold off the last of his stash to a buddy for some extra cash, locked himself down with enough bottled water for a month, and bought an ounce of weed and a carton of cigarettes. After a hundred and a half failed attempts to get clean, Adrian knew how to manage it on his own. If he were thinking clearly, he might have done the math and realized that all those attempts didn’t bode well for the success of this one. But, he was nothing if not determined. 

He closed his eyes, letting the throbbing pulse of his headache rock him to sleep. In the next room, he could hear his phone ringing again and he thought distantly that maybe he should get up and answer it. But the ringing turned to knocking and Adrian couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. Maybe he was just dreaming, he thought distantly.

@ryderxaeron

[hendrixeros]

October was hit or miss for Louisiana. It was hard to tell on any given day whether it would feel like November or August. But as the sun started to set, it took most of the heat with it, leaving behind a humid chill that felt to Adrian like being wrapped in a blanket soaked in ice water. His costume, the top half anyway, was nothing more than suspender straps and a bowtie. Not exactly made for braving a chilly night.

His fingers were almost completely numb by the time he finished his cigarette and emerged from his hiding place behind an abandoned booth. He stubbed it out under his boot and made his way back around to the table where they had been waiting for Izzy to hobble her way back on her crutches. The two had barely said two words to each other all night. Walking side by side, they’d let Izzy do most of the talking. Let her tell them where to go and what to do until she found someone else she needed to talk to for a moment, leaving Adrian and Ryder alone in their uncomfortable stalemate.

He stood in front of the other man, trying to remember the pep talk he’d given himself while he smoked. Something along the lines of: You can do this just tell him what you need to tell him and deal with his reaction later. Seemed like sound advice to give himself at the time. But with Ryder’s eyes on him, as though he were waiting for something, Adrian had forgotten what it was that he needed to say. 

“We should talk,” he said, scratching his fingers through his thinning bleached hair before wrapping his arms around himself to suppress a chill that ran down his spine.

@ryderxaeron​

[hendrixeros]

Coming outside for a smoke break was the first breath of fresh air he’d gotten in days. The presence of death in that house is as suffocating as the smell that lingered around the Dive just a few nights ago. But Adrian has no plans to escape any time soon. As soon as he’d heard the news, he’d made up his mind that someone had to be with Izzy at all times. He had no love for Kane but Izzy is one of the most important people in the world to him.

And if he were in Izzy’s place--if Ryder’s head had been left on a sick for him to see--Adrian knows exactly what he’d do the second he found himself alone. And if he lets his thoughts linger on it a bit too long, he has to admit to himself that Iz would be the only person who cared enough to make sure he didn’t do it.

Leaning against the wall beside the front door, Adrian tucks a cigarette in the corner of his lips. Blindly, he fishes in Ryder’s coat pocket only to turn up empty handed. “You got a light?” he asks Ford, as soon as the other man emerges from the house. Adrian can feel the heat escaping from the front door and imagines that Ford is letting out some of the despair trapped inside.

“She asleep yet?” he asks quietly around a lump in his throat.

@foughtdark​

[hendrixeros]

@isobcllarojas​

The presence of death still lingered around the home Izzy and Kane had made together. Adrian could feel it creep under his skin when he stepped inside the front door. 

Kane’s downfall was a double edged sword that stabbed right into the heart of the town. And Adrian cut himself on both. On one, Kane was a terrifying monster who needed to die. His own nose had healed crooked from being slammed against the bathroom counter at the dive only a few months ago. And Iz? There was no way to know how many scars and mended bones he’d left behind with her. But, the other side cut him the deepest. Watching Izzy mourn Kane, alone in her feelings but not in her home, had awakened a new kind of fear in Adrian’s chest that had burned for days after. It scorched his insides until he tasted the blistered blood in his throat.

The fear of mortality was one that Adrian had wrestled with his entire life. He ran away from Chicago to get away from the ghosts only to find them just a breath away in his hometown.

But there was the smell of something else wafting through the house as Adrian tossed Ryder’s jacket on the couch. Something that almost overshadowed the rest of it all. He made his way back to the kitchen, half expecting to see Ryder hanging over the stove. He smiled to himself as he leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded over his chest. “What’s for lunch?” he asked as Izzy moved from the counter to the stove top. It was a relief to see her on her feet again after being in a near-catatonic state on the couch for so long. He slid further into the vaguely familiar kitchen. “Anything I can help with?” Never mind that Adrian was an absolute shit cook.

[hendrixeros]

They’d let him write down a few phone numbers before they took his phone and shoved it in a bag with the rest of his stuff. Adrian only had three numbers actually saved in his phone and only because Ryder had put them in for him. Iz and Ryder of course. And one more. “For emergencies,” Ryder had said about the unfamiliar contact. A friend who could be trusted, despite the distance between them. 

Adrian was laying on his back on the bench in his holding cell when they came for him. The bucket they’d given him to throw up in smelled absolutely foul after another period of withdrawal. And with no pain killers, no weed, nothing, to numb even just a fraction of the pain, his entire body was left so spent and exhausted. He could barely walk when they told him they were finally going to let him make a phone call.

The last few days had been a blur, memories dulled by the pain and the cravings. He’d been questioned, threatened, and interrogated. They didn’t want him, they’d said. They wanted the club and he was just a means to an end. Charges were filed, bail was set. And Adrian had walked through the entire process like a zombie.

The cop who “helped” him up and out of his cell was the same one who’d banged on the bars of his cell every few hours the night before. As though sleep deprivation on top of the pain would loosen the addicts lips. “They’re here for you,” he said ominously. And it took a moment for Adrian to remember what he was talking about. 

The officer grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet as though he were a wet towel someone had left on the bathroom floor. The bag that contained his wallet and his phone was shoved against his chest with enough force to almost knock him over again but the officer was already shoving him out of the cell, out of the station.

The light outside was blinding and Adrian couldn’t remember the last time he’d really seen the sun. The man waiting for him was one that he only vaguely recognized from one conversation months ago. And he played for the other team. “Sorry,” Adrian mumbled as he cautiously moved closer. “Iz’s phone went straight to voicemail and Ryder... I don’t think he’d answer for me right now.” 

@maddoxxhart​

[docdcarter]

If he shuts his eyes, Damian knows he will fall asleep. Right here, laying on his back on a gurney in the hospital hallway, scrubs twisting uncomfortably around his legs. So instead, he stares up at the ceiling, counting the tiles alternate between the stark white newest ones and the ones that have been there for a while, with a slight yellow tint to them. One surgery down, two more to go until the end of the day. One is in just an hour and a half. In his head he can think of a million things that he should be doing right now, but he can’t find the energy to get on his feet. 

How does a hospital function on a skeleton crew? He’s asked himself that half a dozen times since he came home. 

Out of the corner of his eyes he catches someone rounding the corner and, only then, does he heave himself up into a sitting position, legs crossed in front of him as he leans back against the wall. “You look lost,” he observes, looking the woman up and down. He shoves himself off the gurney, stretching as he straightens up. “Took a wrong turn somewhere past the ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ sign hm?”

@harlowmikaels