redshiftlogs | [open] i'm high, broke, searching for symbols

Entry tags:

[open] i'm high, broke, searching for symbols

Who: Klaus Hargreeves; OTA
What: just a catch-all for some threads that don't fit in the intro log and an open prompt (might add more later)
When: month of July
Where: various
Warnings: definitely drug use or thoughts of drug use; anything else tba in the subject lines

👻 aspiring horticulturist

It had taken Klaus approximately four days to completely run out of the weed he'd had in his pocket when he came from Hadriel. But since he's not really the type to run rescue missions and doesn't have the technical know-how to fix computers, he's mostly been wandering around the city trying to figure out what he actually can do. Trying to keep his mind occupied now that he doesn't have pot to turn to, trying to keep his mind off the painkillers in his bag back in his room.

When he makes his way to the upper levels, he lifts the bottom of his shirt to hold it over his mouth and nose, because the air up here is awful, and he pokes around a little bit, determined to check out what's going on and get the hell out of here. At least, until he finds the horticultural area. There's a computer there, the screen cracked and flickering, but it seems to be at least a little bit functional. Klaus doesn't know computers, but he's been using a phone since he arrived in Hadriel and that's like a month and a half of experience, so he heads over to the terminal, tapping at buttons under the screen until he figures out which one scrolls through the files of what kind of plants are stored here.

When he hears a sound behind him, he turns halfway to the side, glancing over his shoulder.

"Oh hey, do you know anything about computers?"

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Who else would it be knocking on her door in the middle of the night? She doesn't know too many people here, so barring someone being lost it would only ever be Klaus. When he asks to come in her face softens, and she gives his arm a soft tug.

"Yeah, come on, get in here."

She shuts the door once he's through it, and gets him a glass of water without the question being asked. Some things, you just know to do in a situation like this.

"Okay. Talk to me."

Klaus follows Julie into her room and watches as she shuts the door behind them. As she gets a glass of water, he looks around to see if there are any ghosts in her room - there aren't, at least not right now, and the relief is almost dizzying.

When she hands him the glass, he takes a couple sips, and nods, sits down on the edge of her bed, and rubs a hand over her face.

"The ghosts here are really fucking with my head. And my brother Diego came from some other world before this where I was a dick, and he was mad at me, and I don't think he thinks it counts that I was sober in Hadriel because I didn't have the option to be. And when I went to the MedBay for my shoulder the bots there gave me a bunch of painkillers I definitely shouldn't have and they're still in my bag, and I don't know what to do."

It's rambled out at a relatively high speed, and then he pauses, gulps a mouthful of water, and swallows, eyes on her.

"Uh... wow."

That... is a lot, and no wonder he's wandering around like a lost soul in the middle of the night. She's glad, somehow, that he decided to some to her. It's warming to know that of all people he could have approached about any of this, he chose her. But then, why her, and not his family? She and Ben might not have got off to the best start, but she's quite sure that he does care about Klaus.

"Okay, first thing, it definitely counts that you were sober. Tell Diego he's a dick," she tells him, sliding her hand over his and linking their fingers together. "Second thing... the painkillers."

Yeah, the painkillers could be a fucking problem.

"... Think you could leave them with me?"

The truth is, Julie is one of the few people he doesn't ever feel ashamed of himself around. No matter how much his brothers love him - and he knows they love him a lot, even if they only rarely say it - there's a lot of history there, and they jump to disapproval, to thinking the worst of him very quickly. He can't blame them, because they've seen the worst of him for a really long time, especially Ben. He's disappointed them a lot. But it doesn't make it any easier to talk to them about the more messed up parts of himself. And he knows Drake doesn't disapprove, isn't judging, isn't going to be ashamed of him, but Drake is also so good that it's almost painful for Klaus to admit how fucked up he is.

Julie though, she's never disapproved of him, and he knows she's just as fucked up as he is. She's easy to talk to, he isn't scared she's going to think less of him.

"Diego is a dick. He always has been." Klaus says, but he says it with a little smile. He doesn't really mean it seriously, which becomes obvious when he continues, "But he's given me more chances than any of the rest of them, except Ben. You know? Probably why I don't want to disappoint him."

A little shrug, and when she asks about the painkillers, he glances up at her, eyes on her face. The first instinct is a resounding no. He doesn't want to hand them over. They're his. He wants them. God, everything in him wants to just go home and pop about three or four maybe, or play his favourite game of 'tip the bottle and however many come out is how many I take' just like old times.

He drops his gaze to his knees, and then takes another sip of the water.

"I don't want to." he admits, but it's not defiant. Just honest.

It's strange how she so quickly managed to insert herself into that very particular niche in his life, and yet here they are. She cares about him enough that it makes her heart ache to know that he's struggling like this. Hadriel didn't offer the kinds of temptations that Anchor is already imposing on his mind.

She expects a 'no', and her surprise when that isn't precisely what she gets shows only mildly in her expression. Her fingers squeeze lightly around his. Klaus is undoubtedly stronger than her, physically, and she couldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do, but she can't just let it drop there.

Not when he could so easily put himself in a position to be hurt.

"I know," she replies, rubbing her free hand over his knuckles. "I know you don't want to, babe. But could you?"

Julie's hands are very gentle and soft on his - he can see that she's surprised when he doesn't just say no, and she keeps his hand, she squeezes and brushes her fingers over his knuckles, and he can tell she's trying to soften a blow.

When she says 'I know' and asks if he could give her the pills, every fibre of his being rebels, he can feel his temper spark because he knows he should say yes and give them to her and let her flush them or something, but he doesn't want to. He wants to take them. He wants to feel that amazing floating high again, wants to feel happy and comfortable and like nothing hurts and he doesn't have to think or remember. For a moment, he really and truly hates her for asking him that, for putting him in the position where he has to choose what path to take. Because he can feel it, the panicked temper tantrum that's already building up despite the guilt and the knowledge of what the right thing to do is in this situation. Because no matter what he picks, it's going to suck hard, it's a lose-lose situation.

"I don't know." he says, his voice a little tight, his brows furrowed, expression guarded, "I probably could but I don't want to."

He can't speak anymore for a moment, realizes his breath is coming short and shallow and his heart is pounding, his throat feels tight, he feels like he's about to explode.

"Just one hit. I can take one hit and then I'll give the rest to you after, deal?"

Edited 2019-07-12 19:43 (UTC)

Julie would like to think that Klaus wouldn't lie to her, but she knows what addiction can do to a person. She knows what trauma can do to a person. She knows how those things, and so many other traits that she and Klaus share, can create in their combination the need to compulsively lie whether you want to or not. It creates a selfish driving force that makes you say anything you can to cover the truth.

"Klaus..." she says, and she realises he looks like he did when he showed up at her door the first time, when she offered him a joint and then they--

Well, it hadn't been a poor decision, in the end. She's glad they became so close.

"You really think that's gonna help? C'mon. We know it doesn't work like that..."

The panic claws its way up his throat when she says his name and looks at him like that. And yeah, it mirrors the way they met. Klaus so out of his mind, stressed and upset and angry and in a panic, desperate for something to get him out of his head, get his mind out of his body. Everything feels like too much, he's overwhelmed and hates himself a little and hates Julie a little for not just telling him it's okay to just take the drugs and escape.

"I'm just so tired of feeling. I want to be numb." he says, his voice low and a little shaky, "My brain knows it's...you know, logically it's wasting all the time I already sunk into this being sober thing, but..." And his eyes are filling up with tears now, his throat still tight, "...but nothing is right and I feel like I'm gonna claw myself out of my own skin."

It isn't a lie. It isn't said with a distinct intention of manipulating her, but part of him does hope that she'll give in and say it's okay.

"I just want something to feel good."

And she understands now, just like she understood then, but this time she knows him a little better and she knows that getting out of his head isn't ever going to just be a one time thing. It's a steep, dangerous spiral for him and god knows she's not going to be the one to give him a push.

It's not okay, no matter how hard it is to not give in to him. She wants to, just to be able to make him feel better.

"Yeah. C'mere," she says, and she gently slides an arm around his shoulders. "You've worked so fucking hard at this, right? I know you can do it. Just let me help you."

When Julie slides an arm around his shoulders, the tension goes out of them and he ducks his head, squeezes his eyes shut, sways his body to the side so he can lean against her a little. All those little pinpricks of hate he'd been feeling toward her earlier evaporate and he rests his head against the top of hers, exhaling shakily.

Everything in him still wants to get up and go back to his room and just down half the bottle of pills and just float away into bliss, but he stays put, lifts a hand and scrubs at his face a little, still shaky.

"I know, I know, I know, I know I did. Sorry. I just...fuck. This fucking sucks. Sobriety is not easy. Everything is so much. It's like someone skinned me alive and the whole world is sandpaper."

Dropping his hand from his face, he starts scratching idly at his forearm, trying to distract himself from the bugs-under-skin crawling sensation that comes with cravings.

Julie makes a soft, soothing sound when he leans into her. It's hard, she knows it is, and it's so much harder for him than it ever was for her. She wasn't on the hard stuff for as long as he was, and she had eyes on her to make sure she couldn't go too far down the rabbit hole.

"It's okay. Look, I know it's not like flicking a fucking switch." Without forcing the movement of his hands to stop, she closes her own over his as he scratches at his skin.

"It's okay, Klaus... I want you to go get the stuff, and bring it back here. Right?" Julie cups a hand against his cheek, draws his head around so she can find his eyes. "You can do that, yeah?"

Edited (Fixing a typo) 2019-07-13 20:17 (UTC)

For a few minutes, he's lost in his own head, jaw clenching, teeth grit, eyes squeezed shut, trying to imagine living the rest of his life without anything to take the edge off how he feels. Living the rest of his life without anything to escape into, nothing to make him feel good and happy. Nothing to take away the pain of losing Dave and knowing he's never going to be loved again and all his memories and the flashbacks and the ghosts. It feels intolerable, like he'd rather die than do that.

But Julie's hands are soft over his as she touches his hands, and he stops scratching, taking a shaky inhale through a tense body.

"Yeah, yeah I can do that." he says, his throat dry, then he opens his eyes and looks over at her, licks his lips, "I Just don't know how to live without it. In Hadriel there was so much other stuff to think about, there was the war, and I didn't have any real options, but here..."

He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut again, "I just feel like I'd rather die than keep going on like this."

Oh.

She wishes she didn't understand that, too. She wishes she didn't understand how everything can just get to be too much, and the only way you can see out of it is ending everything.

"Look at me." And she tries to make sure that he does, tries to gently hold his head in place with both hands, keeps her soft blue eyes on his. "... That's okay, too. Really. But... I know you can do it. I know you can. You're so fucking strong, I've seen it, over and over again."

Her fingers brush into his hair, push it back off his forehead, and she leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"You're stronger than this, and I'm not going to fucking lose you, okay? You and me are in this together now."

When Julie tells him to look at her and tugs on his face to force the point, her hands on his cheeks and her eyes on his, he looks at her. Swallows hard when she says that's okay too, but she knows he can do it, that he's strong and she's seen him be strong over and over.

Klaus' throat chokes up a little, and his eyes go wet, and he laughs, shakes his head a little bit, eyes sinking shut as she kisses the corner of his mouth, turns his head to chase the contact, still holding her eyes with his.

This feels good, and that's something he can focus on. It feels good to have someone believe in him and call him strong when everyone from Diego to Ben to his dad have told him for so long that he's weak, that he's running away, that he's a wimp. He knows they're right, but he thinks maybe Julie's right too, or she will be if he does what she's asking him.

It feels good to have warm hands on his face and lips on the corner of his mouth, and so he leans in and presses his forehead against hers, breath coming shaky as she says she's not going to lose him and they're in this together.

"Okay. Okay okay okay..." he murmurs, then leans in and kisses her mouth, a quick soft peck, "I'll go...I'll go get them and bring them back. Okay?"

Julie may have only known Klaus a relatively short time, but there are parts of him that she knows as well as she knows herself. The parts that cry out for the pain to stop, for things to just end, for things to be a little better, just a little better, for a little while. Those things are as familiar to her as the marks on her wrists.

"Okay," she says, and she smiles. He can do this. She chases the peck to her mouth with another kiss before she lets him go.

"I'll be here. Or do you want me to come with you?"

Not something to be forced. She believes he can do this by himself, and she'll give as much support as he wants.

"Come with me?"

It comes out of his mouth before he even really thinks about it, and he remembers when he'd taken the rope down to talk to Luther, how he'd thought that he is really the type of person who needs his options taken away in order to get clean. It's strange to think that he's trying to do it a different way this time, that something about him has changed enough to make this possible, but he still knows he needs Julie to come with him. That he can't do it alone.

He never could.

Standing up, he exhales heavily, and holds his hand out to Julie before heading out of her apartment and walking quietly up the hallway to the apartment he shares with Diego and Ben.

"Just wait out here, okay?" he whispers, "I don't want to wake my brothers up."

She only nods when he asks, and squeezes his hand when he takes it. There isn't a moment while they walk that she lets go of his hand, occasionally rubbing her thumb against the soft part of the back of his hand, or leaning her shoulder into his arm, just to ensure that he knows he isn't alone.

If she has anything to do with it, he's never going to have to feel like he's alone in facing this shit.

"Yeah, sure," Julie tells him once they reach the door, her voice as hushed as it can be. She smiles and gives his hand another squeeze, then lets go. "Just be really quiet. I don't wanna have to explain all this to them."

"No shit. I don't either." he says, his voice a little shaky, and he rubs his hand over his face, squeezes her hand before he lets go, and slips into the room. Padding across the floor barefoot, he crouches beside his bed where Ben is sleeping fitfully, and pulls his bag out from under it.

It only takes a few moments to find the bottle of Oxycodone, and for a long few moments he sits there and stares at it, his mouth dry, his body trembling with desire, every nerve on fire and emotions churned up in his belly so hard he feels nauseous. Taking a breath, he stands and moves away from the beds, pressed up against the wall beside the door where neither Julie nor his brothers will here, and twists the cap off the bottle. Hand shaking, he silently shakes three pills out onto his palm and stares at them. He can feel sweat forming on his brow, he can feel his body trembling, he can feel every nerve screaming, the knot of desire in his gut so tight he can barely handle it.

But he doesn't take them, he heads back over to his bag, crouches down, and carefully unrolls a pair of his clean socks, tucks the pills into the folds of the cuffs, and rolls them back up, shoves them to the bottom of the bag. With a guilty huff of breath, he stands up and slips back out the door again.

The bottle is still closed in his fist, and he bites his lip as he looks at Julie, holds his hand up so she can see.

She waits outside, and she doesn't see the way he stows a couple of the pills away before he comes out again. Doesn't see it, but wouldn't be surprised to know it. It's the kind of thing she would have pulled too.

And it would have been easy enough to spy on him. Easy enough to slip around the door where he wouldn't have noticed and perhaps it's something she should have done (and in hindsight, down the line, may wish she had done) given Klaus' slightly shaky grasp on the entire situation.

When he comes back out again she smiles at him, and that smile widens as he holds up the bottle. She holds her hand out, but doesn't try to take it from him.

"I'll just keep them for you, yeah?"

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[open] i'm high, broke, searching for symbols

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cw: mild suicidal ideation

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