ERROR // CALM AU

4

Warning: drugs, alcohol, violence, and kidnapping.

✇✇✇

"You can't do this, Matt, come on," Luke whined through the phone, taking another swig from his bottle of beer as he stared down at the piece of paper on his coffee table.

The older man sighed, defeated. "It's been four months. I'm not running a charity here."

The drunken blond would have been crying if he was clearheaded enough to fully understand what was going on. Matthew Gale, his landlord and the father of his childhood best friend, was evicting him from his apartment. It was a total blindside. Sure, Luke hadn't paid his rent within recent memory, but he was a busy man. He had more important things to do, like... getting stoned. God, he was pathetic.

"Just give me some–"

"You have seven days. If I don't have four months worth of rent by then, you're out. Got it?"

"Yeah. Thanks," he muttered before hanging up.

Christ, this was just bloody perfect. Not only was he running low on supplies, now he had fucking homelessness to worry about. The drugs would come first, though. The drugs always came first. In the past, he had chosen them over his friends, his family, his career, and now, he was going to have to choose them over his home.

Luke tipped the bottle to be perpendicular with the ceiling, taking as much beer into his mouth as he could before opening another one, and another, until he lost track of how many he'd had.

Drinking was good, he thought. It numbed the senses; numbed the pain and anxiety. He wouldn't have to worry about his rent when he was good and drunk. He wouldn't be able to worry. He would just relax and then sleep soundly; peacefully.

Peace was something that eluded him, though. It always had. That was why he needed the drugs and the alcohol; to give him artificial serenity. The calmness was fabricated; never organic, but it was close enough to the real thing that it didn't seem to matter. As long as he wasn't feeling, he was fine.

It was no way for an adult man to solve his issues, Luke knew, but it was the only way he knew how. He wasn't addicted, he was coping. That was what he had convinced himself, anyway.

Kurt Cobain's voice sang through the speakers of his stereo, intoxicating him more than the drugs ever could. It was moments like these that he would miss when he inevitably lost his home. Lazing about on the sofa, throwing back beers, and nodding his head along to the rhythm of the music. The simplicity of it all was almost enough to satiate his constant yearning for simultaneous stimulation and relaxation.

He thought about how he was going to come up with four months' worth of rent in a single week. Obviously, if he had the money, he would just withdraw it from his bank account, but that wasn't an option. He'd either have to find a job that paid a hundred dollars an hour, or sell some of his shit. Fuck, he didn't even have any shit to sell. He was totally screwed.

Maybe he could prostitute himself, like in that Julia Roberts film. Yeah, rich old men loved waifish little gutter rats like Luke. But, if he did that, he'd have to ride a limp, wrinkly cock, which was gag-worthy to even think about. He'd have to come up with something else.

If only he dealt drugs instead of taking them. Then, he'd be able to prey upon wealthy high school students from Lavender Bay; get them hooked on blow and then charge them up the wazoo for it. He wasn't cut out for that sort of thing, though. He had always been bad with self-control, and he couldn't trust himself not to just take all the drugs for himself.