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chapter song lita ford: shot of poison "give me one shot of poison / a little twist is all i need / one drop of your sweet poison / sets me free"
1984
I feel like I'm going out of my fucking mind. My skin is crawling off my bones and onto the floor and up the walls. Maybe Jude had a point. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to come here without smack. I don't want her to see me this way. I'm sweating my fucking dick off and I've thrown up what feels like half my body weight. This is terrible. I guess I'm gonna take a cold shower and hope for the best when I go see her later on.
Nikki's diary spoke for itself. He was sick, real sick. Dope sick, the worst kind of sick as far as he was concerned. His inner monologue was running circles around itself, debating on what the chances were of finding a good dealer in Colorado, which he was betting were slim to fucking none. Doc could maybe provide him with some information, but Doc didn't know that he had all but vanished from California without telling anyone but Jude.
Daylight hadn't begun to set in yet, snow flurries falling from the dark clouds swirling above and Nikki couldn't help but be entranced by them. He focused on the fluidity of their movements, how they faded in and out of each other and he couldn't help but be reminded of how him and El used to be. Languid kisses, slow and warm. She was malleable, fitting the missing piece of his mold without cracking under the pressure, but now he was worried that she had been pushed too far over the edge and she would cut herself on the broken pieces of what she used to be. He tried not to think that way. He tried to be positive, but how positive can you be in a situation like that? His heart and brain were exhausting themselves from arguing with each other. She hurt you, she doesn't love you, she doesn't deserve you versus I love her more than anything, it's me who doesn't deserve her, I just want her to come home. Nikki couldn't keep up with his manic thoughts. He had been up all night feeling like he was going insane from the withdrawal and his meeting with El.
Nikki finally decided there was no way he was going to get any sleep, so he took a shower, the water burning his skin to mimic the sweet, enveloping hug that heroin delivered to him every time without fail. If giving himself third degree burns was the consequence for trying to get by, then so be it. He was desperate by that point.
—
Why the fuck would anyone want to willingly sign themselves away in a place like this? It was almost cryptic, grim nurses pacing the halls with their heads hung low and doctors a bit too trigger happy with shooting their patients up with sedatives. It was too much for Nikki to fathom. He wondered what the doctors had done to El. Did they put her in a straight jacket? Did they load her up with horse tranquilizers? What exactly was the course of treatment in this hell-hole? He had so many questions he wanted to ask, so that's how they spent their morning.
"No," she giggled, "they did not put me in a straight jacket! They did fill me up on some good shit for a few days," she explained, "I went a little bit fucking nuts and they had to sedate me."
"What was it like?" Nikki stared at her with his face in his hands, wide-eyes like a child.
"I mean, I just slept. I was really out of it. I assume it's kind of the equivalent to smack," she shrugged.
Suddenly, Nikki's entire demeanor changed. His shoulders tensed, he clenched his jaw and crossed his arms. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," El furrowed her brows. "I was just saying I assume that's what it feels like, comparatively."
"Well I just don't know why you'd bring that up," he said, still stiff.
"We've never had an issue talking about our junkie lives before," she snapped. Then she looked at him with a sense of understanding, cocking her head to the side as dread started in her toes and slowly filtered through the rest of her bones. "You wouldn't be so defensive if you were clean, but I'm guessing you're not, are you?" When he didn't give her an answer, she reached across the table to pull up his sleeves and examine his arms, but he jerked them away.
"Don't fucking touch me El," he growled, jumping out of his seat and away from her. "I am clean!"
"Then why won't you show me your arms?" She calmly asked.
"Because if you trusted me, you would believe me and wouldn't need proof," he reasoned, "and even if I was using, you'd just degrade me for relapsing."
El's face soured in confusion as she looked up at him with her arms crossed. "Have you lost your fucking mind? Hi, I'm El Everly, former crackhead and queen of relapses. Nice to meet you," she extended her hand out to him and he scoffed at her. "Literally when have I ever berated you for using, Nikki? Shit happens, life is messy. I just want you to be okay."
"I am okay," he said sharply.
"No you're not," she smiled softly, rising to walk to him. She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them together in her palms. "Don't lash out at me," she whispered. "I love you. I want you to love yourself enough to stay off this shit."
"I want you to love me enough to not leave when shit gets hard. Maybe then I won't use smack to fill your place if there's no place to fill."
She pulled his face down to meet her and pressed their foreheads together. "You know you can't blame my leaving on your relapse. Don't do that to me. Please work with me. Try to understand where I'm coming from and let's try to heal from this. Please," she hummed softly.
Before he could respond to her, the quiet hums of MTV caught their attention.
"Hi, I'm Nina Blackwood and this is MTV. Breaking news coming out of Los Angeles early this morning. Singer Vince Neil of Motley Crue was arrested on vehicular manslaughter charges early this morning after driving drunk and crashing into another vehicle, killing one person and seriously injuring at least two others. No details on the identities of the victims at this time. We will continue to update on this situation as it develops. In other news..."
MTV still blazed across the screen, but static was all the two of them could hear. They stood frozen, stuck between a time of peace and a war they knew was coming. Nikki's mind was overloaded with a billion thoughts, the first being how the fuck could Vince do something so selfish to tear up the band? El's heart ached for her friend, both angry and saddened by what he had done. Neither El nor Nikki could bring themselves to look at each other, and so they stood there for a long while, glaring at Nina Blackwood's perfect face and feeling like this was the end of something.
—
a/n: yes hi hello i know i'm the worst. life has been FUCKIN nuts y'all like i can't even explain it. like it's been good, but i want to drop out of college already but it's ok. other than that, everything has been amazing but it's given me like zero time for this and it makes me sad bc i love you guys and i love el and nikki :(( anyway lmk what u think 👀👀👀
