TW: Drinking, drug use, mentions of sexual encounters, PTSD
Song of the chapter is Habits (Stay High) by Tove Lo! Stuff is quickly going off the rails for poor Selever here.
---
He wasn't sure where he was.
He didn't even entirely know what day it was.
His Ray Bans hid his bloodshot eyes as he wandered the LA streets, vaguely aware of being jostled by people as he wove through the crowd. No one paid him a second glance; Selever preferred it that way. He was tired of attention.
He blinked, and he was in a club, laughing too loud as he drank with faceless strangers.
Blinked again. He was on a dancefloor somewhere, two girls sandwiching him in, bodies too close and their lips everywhere.
Blinked again. He was back in his penthouse, bodies everywhere in varying states of undress, and staring at the ceiling with white powder on every surface and the haze of smoke in the air.
He didn't even care anymore.
---
Rasazy stared down at the cuff her brother had gifted her, watching the sapphires catch the light of her boudoir. It was beautiful, sparkling...cold. Fitting of a queen. Exactly how she wanted to be.
She vaguely registered the sound of the door opening behind her. A warm hand fell on her shoulder.
"He really does care, despite how broken he is," Julius told her gently. She snorted.
"Selever doesn't care about anyone but himself."
---
Blink.
Two half-gone lines in front of him in the bathroom of another seedy club.
Blink.
Snatching a dime-bag from a faceless dealer in his office at Infamy, Milly ushering him out a back door.
Blink.
A gaunt face in the mirror of his penthouse bathroom, dark circles under the eyes and tears making it shine in the naked bulbs of his Hollywood vanity.
Blink.
Laying in bed over another body, writhing in pleasure while his body just felt empty and soulless.
Blink.
Morning. The sun streamed in through the curtained floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse. He stood and pulled on a robe, and flicked a lighter on as he walked over to the kitchenette with a cigarette between his lips. Selever exhaled the smoke as his partner of the night stirred in his bed and sat up.
"Morning Selever babe," they groaned. He took a drink from his tumbler of gin.
"Get your shit and get out of my apartment."
---
Milly ushered his latest conquest out the back of Infamy, and Selever couldn't care less.
He slumped in his couch, drinking his gin and staring out the window, unseeing. His thoughts were flat, like he was viewing them from a stranger's point of view. Everything around him was fuzzy and unfocused, his body felt like it was floating.
He'd run out of blow last night. The drink was doing little to numb his racing thoughts.
He slid his eyes shut.
A weak spark lit the air pink and Selever flopped onto the ground, flat on his back and limbs loose. His mother cried out, tears on her face. He wasn't moving.
The dam burst.
He hurled the tumbler at the floor, and it shattered against the marble. He flipped the heavy coffee table, the decanter of whiskey and collection of cut crystal glasses crashing to the floor and soaking into the plush carpeting.
His mother was nearly catatonic with panic, and Rasazy was only nine and paralyzed with indecision.
He stood and stalked to his bar and began grabbing every bottle in reach, throwing them over his shoulders and letting them shatter. Picked up his collection of glassware and watched the shards skitter across his floor. Stepped on them and ignored the blood seeping from his feet as he went and hurled every one of his expensive watches at the walls of his room, shredded his fine silk suits.
Selever shot up, drawing in a ragged breath that dissolved into coughing.
He slumped on his bed, chest heaving. He'd spent years avoiding that memory. Spent years shoving it into its own drawer in the back of his mind.
He buried his face in his hands. How could he have been so stupid? Past Selever was an abject dumbass.
He fumbled with his phone, hands shaking. He went to his applications.
He hesitated only a moment before he deleted Instagram and Tiktok.
He let his arm fall to his side, and the phone slipped from his grip with a clatter.
Collecting himself, he got up, dressed, and left the ruins of his apartment behind him in the whoosh of the elevator doors.
---
Rasazy stood on her balcony, gazing out over her domain without really seeing it. She heard someone behind her clear their throat, and she closed her eyes.
"Julius."
He made his way to her side and leaned forward on his elbows. "What do you need, Ras?"
She sighed. "I need you to do me a favor."
"Anything."
"Go to the mortal plane. Go to LA."
Julius straightened. "And?"
Rasazy wrapped her arms around herself. Should she go through with it? Would he even listen?
Her spine straightened, and she steeled her nerves.
"Selever needs you. He's only ever listened to you."
She turned away and started to walk back in. "Find him. Get him clean. Consider it the last thing I ask of you, not as a ruler but as a friend."
He stepped toward her. "Ras, you can't—"
She held up a hand to him, cutting him off. "You aren't my Knight. You're officially under no obligation to me anymore."
She stepped through the door, hesitating one last time before she closed it behind her.
"He needs you more than I do right now."
---
See ya next week :)
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Flip Side
FanfictionIn the aftermath of their escapades in the past, Selever and Rasazy achieve their goals and become the Antichrist and Queen of Hell. But unresolved trauma threatens all they've built, and they find that things aren't alright. Maybe they were never a...
