Fighters

Both of our heads snapped up to the small man standing in the entranceway. He took in the man crouched before me, nearly naked, and then his eyes turned to little old me, bruised up, still under blankets and again. Let me remind you. Still fully clothed.

"What the shit, Coop," the guy in the doorway said. Coop, I thought, glancing at the man crouched near my puke. No. Doesn't fit him. Not gonna call him that. "You brought home a junkie?"

Huh, I thought. That was a quick assessment. And very judgmental. I glanced over at the man before me and wondered if that's what he'd told him.

He sighed and leaned back. "He's not a junkie." A knot released in my chest; who told that it was okay to be there? Why the fuck did I care what he thought of me?

"Do you even know his name?" the guy in the doorway snapped.

The man and I looked at each other.

"Fuck," doorway man said, and slammed the door closed behind him.

"Slammy sam," I muttered, and I thought I saw the man close to me smile. But I wasn't in the mood for that; I was empty, and this was impossible to be around. I pushed myself up to standing, feeling the world sway around me.

"Jesus, look at him," the doorway man was continuing. I wondered just for a moment if he was referring to my clubbing clothes, which, if he was, fuck him, or the fact that I was struggling to stand. Which then. You know. Kinda fair.

"You alright?"

I rolled my eyes at the question and started to move before I realized I had no idea where I was going. "Bathroom?" I asked, doing my best to sound in control.

He pointed, and I tried not to look at the way that made his muscles super, awesomely defined as I moved past him in the direction he pointed.

***

"What," Bren repeated, "the shit."

I sighed. "I didn't know what else to do with him, Bren."

"Leave him? Let him go home with someone else?"

"He was really fucked up," I told him quietly, the memories of last night pressing up against my skin.

"That isn't your responsibility. This isn't your problem. Shit." Bren passed a hand over his face. "You okay?"

I nodded.

"He didn't try to give you anything?"

I shook my head. "I wouldn't have taken it, you know that."

"Yeah, no, I just." Bren shook his head as we watched the bathroom door open. "I worry about you."

I smiled up at him. It was good to have someone looking out for me. I didn't have that for a long time, which might have been how I got to where I was. "I know, Bren. But he's alright."

But Bren's face was clouding over. "Fuck, no he isn't. Coop, he just took something."

I snapped my gaze back up to the man just in time to watch him coming out of the bathroom, tossing his hand up to his mouth. I caught the hitch in his throat as he swallowed, a look passing over his face that I recognized a little too well. Bliss, anticipation, relief, all rolled into an instant that you can't mask, that you don't even know you're showing. Oh, fuck, I thought, and headed over to him.

***

I saw the guy coming but didn't really care. I'd be up soon, but at the moment I was low, low and empty and bleeding into nothingness after all the things I'd been last night. But I had the ups in my belly and nothing else, so it wouldn't be long until -

He had me pinned up against the wall before I knew what was happening. Both of my wrists fit in one of his hands - I knew that already, but to feel it like this, when I was empty like this, it was different and I didn't love it. He pulled my arms up and over my head, and I turned my gaze away, unwilling to meet his eyes. His body pressed close to mine, his knee sliding between mine. "Coop," I think I heard the roommate say, but he wasn't listening to him. He was looking at me. Looking with that same look, that same danger that he'd worn all over his smile the night before.

I wasn't sure I was as game for it as I'd been back then. But give it 20 minutes, and I'd be on the up, and then. Well. Then I'd be game for anything.

He was looking me over with an intensity that was making me squirm. "I've got ten minutes while you're still sober," he said quietly, and for some reason those words made me very nervous, I think, because my stomach started doing flips.

"Coop." The roommate was right there, sounding more annoyed than anything else. "He's never going to be sober. I told you. Fucking junkie."

I turned to make a face at him but the man up close to me grabbed my chin hard. "What did you take." His voice had dropped low, and smooth, and I felt bits of me melting - shit, why was I always melting for him? - even as other parts of me spiked at the question.

I knew I shouldn't push him. I could feel it in the way he held me, in the cold that he was - cold, I suddenly remembered. That goddamn ice cube. Fuck him and his cold, and his controlling me. "Aspirin," I quipped.

The hand on my chin tightened for a moment, then let go. Immediately his lips were there, tickling my skin, his tongue darting out for tastes. He worked his way down my chin, making me moan and sending my breath from my body in little gasps, until he was just above my neck.

Fuck, I love it when people touch my neck. I tilted my head back and waited.

"What did you take," he whispered into my skin. I shuddered and his teeth scraped lightly against me. "Tell me, or I'll stop."

I didn't want him to stop. I needed him not to stop. "Whites," I heard myself say.

"And those are?" His tongue was flicking against the bottom of my chin. I thought I was going to fly apart - I could feel the ups beginning to spread through my system, the tingling in my arms, the way my body was beginning to want to bounce.

"Uppers," I told him, not caring anymore if he knew. I needed this. I needed him.

"Uppers," he repeated, and it was in a completely different tone than he'd been in. "Speed?"

I nodded, trying to get him back to me, my body starting to shake.

"Jesus," I heard the roommate mutter, but those green eyes never left mine. I was trapped in them, desperate for them, for him, his lips and teeth and hands and anything he would give me.

"How many did you take?"

"Baby," I moaned, arching up and offering my neck. "Baby, let's just have a good time."

His hand pushed me back into the wall, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to pull me out of whatever head space he'd been pushing me towards earlier. Shit, I thought. What the fuck had that been? "How many?" he repeated. He sounded angry, or annoyed.

I was annoyed. I was angry. Who did he think he was, to know how many of anything I had taken? What kind of man was he, to keep me from getting what I wanted? To take me home and leave me, clothed, on his goddamn couch, then throw me up against the wall and demand to know what I did with my life? I'd been totally open for him; why hadn't he just fucking taken me last night? What fucking games was he playing? I wanted to piss him off, wanted to show him that he wasn't in control of me, that I could do whatever I goddamn well pleased. I wanted to slam myself into the feelings that were rocketing up in my stomach and get him to fuck them all out of me. Maybe if I were lucky he'd hit me, hit me until that's all I felt, and then he wouldn't be so goddamn high and mighty, try to act so fucking good, because he was just like the rest of them when it came down to it. They all were the same.

When I'd popped the ups I'd also pocketed one, slipping it between my gum and my cheek. I love the feeling of it, love the acid taste and the quick way it gets into your blood, but I'd give that up if it meant fucking with him. I shifted my tongue over and grabbed up the white disk, then pushed my tongue into his face, letting the pill sit obvious and ragged in his vision. Then I pulled my tongue back into my mouth, smirked, and swallowed.

***

I don't know. I don't know. I shouldn't have done it the way I had, but I just knew, knew he'd tell me if I did. Knew that his neck was the one thing I could use against him, that he'd push himself to get touched. But I hadn't expected this. I mean, X is one thing, and K is another, but speed?

"Junkie," Bren said behind me, and I watched him swallow the pill and something inside of me just dropped.

Maybe it was the thought that if I had tried to kiss him, I would have gotten speed into my system. Maybe it was watching him so cheekily take something so fucking dangerous. Maybe it was that Bren was right, and he was a fucking junkie, and no one in the goddamn bar had seemed to notice or care.

Whatever it was, I fucking snapped.

I had him by the hair and was pulling him toward the bathroom before he had time to react, which was probably good because I apparently didn't know what the fuck he was capable of. "Coop!" Bren shouted, but I slammed the door in his face and locked it before getting the man in my hands over to the toilet.

"What the -" he had time to say before my fingers were in his throat and he was puking.

He fought against me, which was fair, but I was way stronger than him on a good day and this was not a good day for him. "It's alright," I whispered into his hair, trying to get him to calm down, "let it up. It's happening, let it all up."

I don't know if it was my words or the exhaustion of last night and this morning that did it, but he did stop struggling. His hands, which had been slapping and pulling at mine now simply gripped the sides of the toilet like he was afraid he was going to fall in. I let go of his chin when it was obvious he wasn't going anywhere and stroked his shuddering back, apologizing internally.

He was done pretty quickly. I don't think there had been much in his stomach to start with. I looked down and saw a lot of foam and four tablets floating in the bowl.

I reached around him and flushed, holding back any anger. Unless speed had gotten a lot weaker since I'd been around, four, in the morning, on an empty stomach. That was serious. Like "I take speed on the reg and I no longer really feel it" serious. He was leaning back into me, his body spent, his arms shaking. I let go of my grip in his hair and his head found its way to my shoulder.

****

I hadn't even known I had a gag reflex anymore, but I guess the stupid man surprised me and up came what little I had left. I had a lot of practice puking - I had very little practice puking at someone else's hands. Even in the violence of the motion, as my body fought to rip apart my insides, as his hand was tight and hard against my scalp he was talking me through it, and his voice settled against me, soothing, soft and gentle in the face of everything else and I found myself leaning into that, letting myself be lulled into believing whatever lies he was telling me.

My exhausted body did what it wanted when I was done, and what it wanted was to be close to him. My head settled next to his, and he wrapped a loose arm around me. It felt so good, to just be like that. To let myself rest. To let someone catch me for once. My body shuddered without my consent as he pressed a kiss just behind my ear.

"Never," I heard him say, and his voice was quiet, and his words were law, "take speed in my house again."

In that instant, I suddenly remembered what he had just done and how fucking fucked up it was. "Shit," I shouted, pushing away from him. He let me move my body which just pissed me off even more. If you're going to control me, fucking control me. What was this shit? "Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can and can't take?"

"I'm not," he said quietly. "Just don't do that shit in my house."

I glared at him, unsure why him saying that he wasn't trying to stop me from taking drugs made me just as pissed as when he did. "Fuck you," I finally said, and whirled out of the bathroom.

Or I would have, if the creep hadn't locked the fucking door. As it was I spent a good minute fumbling with the lock before finally getting the door opened, where I practically slammed into the roommate.

"Fuck you too," I told him, and this time I did manage to whirl from the room.

***

I sighed as I watched him go, frustrated with myself. That hadn't been the best way to handle that. I should have just thrown him out, let him swallow what he wanted to swallow. There was no need to add in all this hands-on shit. I mean, Jesus. Talk about over the top. I hadn't needed to go that far.

Except I'd wanted to. How fucked up was that? Like, seriously fucked up. Way past the things I should have been doing, the ways I should be acting with a stranger, with anyone. I shouldn't have been trying to control his life, and if he wanted to fucking take drugs, that's his life, and yet. I'd wanted to get those drugs from his system, wanted him to just have a moment where there was a consequence for his actions. A swift, immediate, consequence.

No one had ever done that for me. God fucking knows I'd needed it, and there'd been no one. I mean, there'd been so many people, so many fucking people in and out of my life and they'd all just let it happen, let me go until I was so far gone that -

Bren's figure entered the doorway. I didn't bother to look up.

"So how's your morning going," I tried.

"What," he repeated for the third time, "the shit."

I laid back against the cool tiles and tried to pretend that everything was going to be alright.

***

CH 5

***

"Yo, bitch, I'm talking to you."

I jumped. I'd been zoning, totally lost in thought, still confused as to what the fuck had gone down with that guy - Coop, or whatever - a few nights ago. He'd barely even touched me, and when he had...

But he wasn't here, thank god, and I needed to get my act together. "Yeah, Jimmy. Repeat it."

"Fuckin'." Jimmy took a breath like I was causing him some major inconvenience. "Do you need more whites?"

"Oh." I blinked at him. More whites?

"Pretty simple question, dickhole."

Dickhole. I fought to keep my eyes from rolling. "Nah, Jim. I'm good." I was surprised to hear that answer come out of my mouth. I did need more whites, desperately - they were the only thing I was completely out of. But the last two times I'd taken them, even just the one, my emergency one I'd been saving, I'd puked, which kind of ruined the fun. Besides, I'd found that I hadn't really missed them.

Moved on to better things, I told myself, even as that stupid man's voice slithered through my brain and right to my fucking dick.

"Aight. Got you E and some K, threw in some percs for being such a good customer. Got the cash?"

I sighed, flicking my head with annoyance. This game was getting old. "No, Jim. You know I don't have the cash."

"Oh." He held the bag up with a smirk. "How you planning on paying, then?"

I rolled my eyes. "God, will you get it over with?" I was in no mood for this today.

Jimmy's smirk went into overdrive, and not kindly. "You want these or not." He rattled the pills around in their baggy, watching my eyes dance for them. "Bitch."

Fuck Jimmy, and fuck his games. "Oh, no," I said, my voice sounding bored even to me, "how ever shall I pay you, I am in such distress."

I only made it to "pay" before Jim reached up and grabbed my hair, dragging me down to my knees. God, I thought as he got out his dick. What a prick.

***

It'd been a week, and I was back at that fucking bar.

The bartender laughed, laughed right out loud when he saw me sit down. "Didn't get enough last time?" I scowled at him. I wasn't here by choice. Bren'd had some fight with his man, and was here to try and catch him before he picked up another cub, or something. I don't know. It was important to Bren, so I was here. Mostly to make sure that, if this guy had already picked up someone else, everyone made it out of here alive.

The bartender was back quick with my beer, setting it down with a wave at my offered ID. "John's here, you know." He said it like it was an offhand comment, but he was watching me closely.

My eyes were scanning the dance floor even as my brain was shooting warning after warning. I'd had a lot of time to think about this guy. Bren had told me I should never go near him again, which I kind of agreed with. I mean, I of all people really didn't need some speed freak fucking up my life. Or K addict, or X head. And he was all of that, and probably an alcoholic to boot. And I knew, I knew, as well as I knew myself, as well as I knew anyone and I knew people, I was good at people, that there was nothing I could do to help him. That it wasn't my place to help him. Besides, he didn't want help, or need it. He was his own person; he could make his own choices, chose his own path.

But looking around me, I wasn't seeing a lot of paths. I wasn't seeing spaces being made, avenues opening up. People likely to straight talk an addict out of sitting down at rock bottom, which they always fucking will because that's where they think they belong, because they think they're not worth the fight to get out. Because at least rock bottom is a place with walls and some consistency.

No, people here weren't going to take that effort. Not when it's so fucking convenient to have someone like that around.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, to get them off him. Bren was right. He wasn't my responsibility, and I wasn't going to worry about it.

"Buy me a drink."

Shit.

***

What the fuck was that guy doing back in my fucking bar?

I saw him tense when I pulled up next to him, which made me feel good at least. I had some sort of an effect on him, which I had seriously been doubting in the past week. I mean, who the fuck doesn't fuck someone like me when they get the chance?

And he'd had the chance. He'd had like, three chances. At least. So what was it? Why hadn't he? You don't want me like I want you, he'd said, or something like that, but that was bullshit. I could be anything that he wanted.

This fucking good boy act was getting old. He'd fuck me, eventually. They all did. Especially when I wanted them to. And fuck, did I want him. I hated him, hated the things he said and the way he tried to run my goddamn life for me, hated the things he brought screaming out of my stomach that I didn't want to think about but that didn't mean I didn't want him.

I mean, hate fucking is kind of a specialty of mine.

I arranged myself against the bar and smirked as he shifted next to me. The cool metal felt amazing against my back, the E turning the sensation into a wave of amazing that pulsed through my chest. I was feeling good. I was fucking flying. Come on, buddy, I thought. We both know you want it. Come and fucking take it.

***

I tried not to turn to him, but I'll admit to not trying very hard. He looked good, like, really good, that black hair curling and looking fucking amazing to grab, his single braid catching my eye. He was wearing the same pants as the other night, but a different shirt, just as tight, just as delicious.

"So," he said.

I shrugged. "Yeah, why not."

We were quiet while the bartender mixed up his order.

"I'm not on speed."

I was a little surprised by his honesty, his straight forwardness. By the fact that he felt like he had to tell me that at all. "Okay."

"So." His leg was bouncing, his eyes tracking out over the dance floor. "How 'bout we get out of here?"

I watched that bouncing leg, saw how his eyes never stayed in the same place for very long. "Are you actually not on speed?"

He shot me a look. "I'm not a fucking liar."

"Okay," I said again.

"And I haven't bought it since." He made a face. "It makes me throw up now." His arms were crossed in front of him. "So fuck you for that."

I didn't really know what to say. I hadn't been trying to get him to quit the damn drug, just. I don't fucking know what I'd been trying to do. We sat together in our silence, trying to fit it into the noise of the club, maybe, but I had no fucking clue how to exist in a place like this and honestly, I was way too comfortable just existing around him.