ArchivedLogs:Relapse of a Different Kind

Relapse of a Different Kind
Dramatis Personae Anette and Akihiro
In Absentia	2016-07-30 "The coke has done wonders for my figure."
Location <BOM> The Spatters - Ascension Island
A comfortable three-bedroom cabin, sturdily built if inelegant. The front door opens up into a cozy sitting room with small bathroom; it is adjoined by a kitchenette with room for small table. The three bedrooms here -- two off the sitting room, one on the other side of the kitchen -- are not uniform in size nor layout, with the considerably smaller kitchen-adjacent room having its own screened-in porch. It's late. Really late. Anette really should be asleep but she's not. Instead, she's sitting at the dining room table, drug paraphernelia scattered everywhere. She's dressed down to a bra and shorts, tightening a shoelace about her arm with her teeth. Once tightened, she flexes her arm, waiting for the veins to pop while she prepares the needle. She's tired, dark circles beneath her eyes, pale skin, and hair that hasn't been brushed in a day or two. Akihiro looks just as bad, he's outside the door, looking anxious about knocking. He's wearing a black dress shirt that he hasn't bothered to button and a pair of jeans, but no shoes. Slung over a shoulder is a brown bag. "Shit, here goes." he sighs quietly, reaching up to rap his knuckles against the door. Anette looks up before he's even knocked. The night is quiet enough that she can pick up on his voice. There's no look of panic. She doesn't try to hide her things, she doesn't react to his voice. Instead, once he knocks, she yells, "Come in," and sends the tip of her needle into her arm. There's no shame. She doesn't care what he sees. Akihiro opens the door and steps in, closing it behind himself. "Hey." he says quietly, if he's shocked by the drugs he doesn't show it. "How are you doing?" is asked as he heads over to take the table where Anette is sitting. The hand she injured has been bandaged, so it's clear he's not back to his peak yet. "Mind if I have a seat?" Anette glances Akihiro over briefly. If she notices his hand, she doesn't react. Instead, she injects the coke into her arm and leans back, closing her eyes while she waits for the drug to take effect. Then she carefully slides the needle out before grabbing a band-aid off the table and sticking it to her arm. "Not great," she admits, finally opening her eyes to watch Akihiro. "Don't suppose you're willing to share a heat pill yet?" "I got rid of that." Akihiro informs her, taking a seat anyway. "Got booze and some weed though. Kinda defeats the purpose of you shooting up though." He flashes a weak smile, fishing out a bottle of fireball and a couple packs of swishers. "That'll do," Anette says, reaching for the bottle of fireball and taking a large swig. "The weed might be pointless right now," she says. She sets the bottle on the table with a content sigh, staring at it mindlessly for a moment for, talons clicking against the glass. "If you wanted to snikt my hand, I wouldn't blame you. Hell, I might let you. In a couple minutes, I probably won't even feel it." "I don't want to." Akihiro says with a shake of his head. "I don't want to hurt you ever again." he lifts his hand up as he finishes. "I'm not trying to start anything by saying that, I promise." His hand lowers to dig back into his bag again, producing another bottle, apparently he planned on drinking until he couldn't function anymore. "And we can smoke whenever you come down, if you care to see my face by that point." "I wish you'd stop saying that," Anette mumbles, taking another large swig from the bottle. She watches Akihiro remove the bottle, a faint smile gracing her face for a moment before she looks back to the bottle she claimed as her own. "You're right. I'm hurting everyone. It's seems like that's all I ever do. Which is why...I ended things with Killian." Akihiro's eyes go wide for a moment, "I'm sorry." He may not have liked the guy, but he knows how it feels. "Guess that explains all this." It's his turn to take a swig from his bottle, setting it and the cap down in front of him. "Feel free to celebrate," Anette mumbles, scratching at the recent puncture wound on her arm. "It's the best fucking news you've heard in months." She gives a quiet sigh and shakes her head. "I just need some time to myself. Without worrying what other lives I'm ruining. Pedro's gonna be thrilled, too. We can go back to meaningless sex and he can pretend there's a chance of something more." She suddenly chuckles, one side of her mouth curling up in a grin. "I should give Dusk a call." "Shit, I really fucked up leaving you, didn't I?" Akihiro says, shaking his head slowly. "I'm sorry. I wish I'd thought about what it would have done to you." His hands curl into fists atop the table, "You should have done more than fuck my hand up. You should have beat my fucking ass the moment I showed my face." "I tried, remember? You kept healing too damn fast and I didn't have a shot gun within reach," Anette says, taking the bottle again taking a few large gulps from it. "This has nothing to do with you leaving me. This is just me fucking everything up. Even if you hadn't left, we would have never lasted." She gives a faint sigh, tilting her head to look at the ceiling. "You coming back complicated everything." "You aren't the one that kept fucking up when we were together though, were you?" Akihiro asks, brows raising slightly. "Sure, we had our rough patches, but you were the greatest thing that happened to me. And to pay you back I left." He takes that bottle, turning it up and drinking for a long moment. "And then I showed up and fucked up the best thing that happened to you." "Well, other than trying to murder people, losing my mind over a dream child, and getting addicted to coke in the first place, yeah, I did nothing wrong," Anette says, finally turning to actually look at Akihiro. "Besides, it wasn't all roses with Killian. He was great but we had our own issues. He was worse at handling emotions than me. Any sign of trouble and his first instinct is to run away. Granted, he spent most of his life as a labrat so I can't blame him." "I can't blame you for that. I still have nightmares from what I went through, and got myself addicted to heat twice." Akihiro sits back, looking at Anette. "None of us are perfect, you can't blame yourself personally for everything." He fidgets for a few moments, letting out a quiet sigh. "Part of me wishes we just stayed fucking casually though. Then we wouldn't have had a child in those dreams, and you wouldn't be in this state." "Except I had the dream while we were still just fuckbuddies. Before I met you possibly," Anette says, leaning back against her chair and watching Akihiro. "And I only blame myself for the things I did." She rubs her eyes gently. "God this stuff is not as strong as it used to be." She takes a deep breath. "Why do you keep coming back? After everything we've gone through, after everything I've done, you keep saying I was the best thing to happen to you. Is your life just that shitty?" "I didn't fall in love with who you pretend to be. I fell in love with the you that slips out every now and again. You're beautiful, and underneath all of that self loathing and doubt is an amazing person. All that stuff you did wasn't just out of revenge for you being wronged, you were mad about Hiro too." Akihiro is quiet now, not making eye contact with Anette anymore. "That's why I keep coming back. I know that we aren't gonna ever be together again, but a life without you at all isn't worth living." Anette is silent while Akihiro speaks. Instead, she picks up the fireball and turns it over in her hands, staring at the label. Even when Akihiro finishes, she's quiet, just staring at the bottle. "That was...I don't know. No one's ever said anything like that before." She slowly sets the bottle back down on the table. "So you'd rather be near for the sake of being near, even if it means being reminded of everything you'll never have?" "Yes." Akihiro says, still not looking over. "It's why I'm here, even after the other day. It's why I tried talking to you all those times." He starts to reach for his bottle, but stops midway, setting his hand onto the table instead. "I can leave though, if you want me to." Anette continues to stare at the bottle on the table but when Akihiro moves to leave, she gently reaches a hand out and gently lays it on his. "No," she says softly, turning her head to look at him. "It...is nice having you back. Even if it does bring up a lot of...problems." Akihiro looks back at Anette when she touches his hand, slowly releasing the breath he was holding. "Thank you.. I still can't get over how good it is to see your face. I missed you so much while I was gone." His lower lip is brought between his teeth and worried lightly, clearly he's anxious about all this. Anette offers Akihiro a faint smile but then quickly clears her throat and retracts her hand. "This doesn't mean anything. I can't...handle anything right now. And I still haven't forgiven you for leaving. And I'm a complete trainwreck who will only destroy your life and I really wish you'd find someone else. But..." She takes a deep breath, yellow eyes flitting over Akihiro a moment before that smile returns. "It's good to see you, too." "I'm not trying to get back with you." Akihiro assures Anette. "You just ended things with Killian. I wouldn't even be trying anything if we were just friends with benefits before, you need your time to sort everything out." He finally comes back to his bottle, taking a much smaller sip. "As usual, you're just too damn understanding for your own good," Anette says, her smile growing larger and more genuine. She picks up her bottle and taps it against Akihiro's in some unspoken toast before knocking it back. "Only for you." Akihiro flashes a grin, loosening up a bit. "Why don't we move over to the couch? I know you just shot up.. But I have some dabs too." his hand vanishes into that bag again for a moment, producing a roll-uh-bowl with a little 'ta-da'. "Or we could just talk. I like that too." Anette chuckles and shakes her head. "You're like a fucking frat boy," she says, rising and making her way to the couch. "Yeah, alright, we can sit and chat." Akihiro rises and lets Anette go first, dropping the bong in his bag. "It's been too long since we've actually been able to." He heads over to take a seat next to her, just not too close, almost like he was worried it was some dream that would fall apart. Anette leans back against the couch, scratching at her arm again. "What, chat? It's all we've ever done since you've come back. I think we've talked more in the last month than we did when we were together. Course, we usually got...distracted." She winks and pulls the bottle she brought with her up to her lips. "But it wasn't really. We talked but it was so.. awful. I'm bad with my words though." Akihiro starts to sigh again, but Anette catches him and he's grinning instead. "Can you blame me? Look at you." And it's clear that he means that, because even with her messy hair and drug induced eye bags, he's still looking at her like she's the most beautiful woman in the world. Anette grins and looks away as she catches Akihiro's compliment. "The months in the artic might have wrecked your eyes, Romeo," she teases. "What happened to not wanting to start anything?" "Telling the truth isn't flirting." Akihiro defends himself lightly. "I can cut that back to half-truths if you want, but it might not be much better." "Nothing out of your mouth is better," Anette says, slowly sinking back onto the couch, tilting her bottle back and chugging quite a bit of it down. "Then again, the coke has done wonders for my figure. No wonder supermodels are always snorting it." "What I've been told." Akihiro says, turning his bottle up as well. "And you don't need coke to look amazing. You already did." He shifts his gaze up to the ceiling, draping his unoccupied arm across the back of the couch. "Apparently. Between you, Killian, and Pedro. And those are just the ones I know about. I should just have you all fight to the death, Hunger Games style. Winner gets to be with me," Anette says, her voice beginning to slur as the mix of drugs and booze take hold. "You wanna be with me that bad?" Akihiro teases, it's clear that he may be a little bit intoxicated himself. A faint grin is now plastered to his face, and every so often his eyes droop closed for a few moments before he slowly opens them. "Please. Killian'd just turn into a shark and bite your head off," Anette teases. "If Pedro didn't just tornado you both to Oz." Anette stretches and readjusts herself. Somehow, making herself comfy includes, leaning up against Akihiro, whether she realizes it or not. Akihiro drops his arm from behind the couch, resting it on Anette's shoulders instead. "You know I don't have to get up close. I'm like.. Katnish." He chuckles quietly, "Just give me a bow and let me hide." "Hey, I never see you use a bow. You totally could be absolute shit..." Anette says. "'Sides, if you're Katniss, then Pedro'd be Pitabread and you two'd end up together and I dunno how that'd turn out." Another swig of booze. "Samurai." Akihiro reminds Anette. "Bow, polearm, sword, riding a horse. Did that shit when I was like... little. " He brings the bottle back up and takes another gulp, before setting the bottle aside. "You wanna watch me shoot a bow?" "Yeah, but you're like...ninety. You even remember that shit?" Anette laughs, looking up to Akihiro with a grin. "Yeah. I'd love to watch. Not now though. You'd shoot someone's eye out. Probably your own." "I'll leave the eye shooting to you then." Akihiro grins down at Anette, reching over to give her thigh a squeeze with his now free hand. "And I'm not quite that old yet."