Author's Note: So this is what happens when you have a combination candy and Three Day's Grace's I hate everything about you. Enjoy my weird imagination. Also, if you get alerts for my story Darkness and that's why you're here, I will be updating that shortly. I am fixing some things in my head for the story so i can plan the outcome a little better. Now that I am out of training I'll be working pretty regularly on writing. I don't know how often I'll update, but I will actually update now.
A little pinch, and then they were in heaven. That's all it took sometimes. A small pinch of the needle in their arms, and then the bright starry world around them just felt so much better. They weren't sure why they needed it, or why they kept coming back, except they would be lost without the feeling. Without that utter bliss. They had seen heaven. They had seen paradise, and they weren't about to give it up.
They took their trips to heaven, and every now and again one would stay. Those were the sad days. The ones that made the others sit and wonder if it was really worth it. The hassle, the pain, the trips to heaven were slowly killing them, and they wondered if that was the price. If the price to heaven was a few years, a few days, those few precious seconds that they had left. To some, it was worth it, it was worth every little minute and they embedded the needle in their skin and pressed down on the plunger again and again until there was nothing left but bones in a grave.
It was Gamzee Makara's job to make sure that as many people went to heaven as he could get. Sure the trips were short and sometimes their stays were long, but it was his job. He had gotten himself far too deep to leave now. Occasionally he too would take those too short trips to heaven. He would see the stars and the universe and laugh at the enormity of it all. He would praise whatever messiah that had conjured that world for him that day and he would thank the stars that he could see it.
It wasn't often he made these trips. Only when she was around. Only when she had him wrapped around her fingers. Only when she had him wrapped around her body, her sheets, her hair. It was always a chaotic storm of needles, gasps and stars. He wondered if she ever really was sober. She was a weekender, but he wondered if she ever imbibed during the week to fight the ever growing urge. He had seen the track marks of needles in her skin and he had seen the scars from things he would rather not ask. He had seen the tattoos, the piercings, the gentle blush that stained her cheeks as they were together, but he couldn't ever recall her face, her voice, that body. They were in too much in a daze to ever remember names.
She never paid, at least, not in cash. Flesh was what she opted for, and Gamzee was fine with that. He was fine with the scent of her skin, the feeling of her soft hair on his hips as she teased and licked and did all those terrible little things that he loved so damn much. He was fine with that little bit of money coming out of his own pocket as they shared a hit. A dose and then a trip to heaven, god it was worth every cent. Every breath, every gasp, every moan. IF heaven was on earth, it was located in that bed.
The little twin bed that could hardly hold them as the two arched and danced and took their trips to a different heaven. The little metal frame that groaned as they gasped and pulled each other closer. The old metal that rocked as they shook and trembled and screamed. They were sure that the world could hear them, that the universe was looking down at them as they slipped from their highs; as they came back from their little heaven. They were sure of it.
As they came back to earth, she kissed his jaw, smirking at the layer of stubble that was already coating the skin that was smooth when they had started. Or maybe it hadn't been so smooth. She wasn't sure. Everything was just a blur of needles, heaven and the feeling of hands on her skin. She wondered if there was something better than the high, the sex, their little trips to heaven, and she quickly squashed the idea as the little monster that ruled her life was already making another appearance for the day.
It was the little monster that grew and grew until it ate them alive. It was the devil that took them to hell. The bad trips, the few times she had stopped using. The little monster got bigger and bigger until it swallowed them whole. Its claws tore at her skin, her brain. Its marks were apparent on her arms that she rubbed for warmth. It was never warm in the little run down house. She grabbed the thin long sleeved shirt that did nothing to hide the evidence of cold on her chest. She slid on jeans that had seen better days, and climbed back in bed with Gamzee, resting her head on his chest.
She wondered if their trips to heaven were worth it. The little monster in her head grew bigger and bigger, and so did her want of him, and she knew eventually one would kill the other. Either the demon inside or the man on the out, and she would eventually make the trip to heaven that all of them took. The addiction would kill her, and she wondered how painful her death would be. The seizures that came with overdosing, she wondered if she would even feel them, or if she would be too lost in heaven to realize that it was becoming permanent. She wondered if she would be able to feel the life escape her, like the books said how they could feel themselves slipping away.
And in the quiet, she laughed. There was a simple answer to all of this. It was easier said than done however. She could get better. She could get her life together, go back to school, do whatever she wanted now that she wasn't stuck in a cycle of inevitable death by the needles in her arm. She had tried it before though, and each time it got harder. The little monster in her head begged and begged until it was so loud she couldn't hear anymore. She always found her way back to the little metal bed in the back of the ramshackle little house that held her grave.
They both knew they would die there. If neither of them killed the monster inside, then they would be buried among the bones and bodies and dust of all their fellow users. They knew it just like they knew the sun would come up tomorrow, and that the moon would rise at night, when their world really got to work.
Everything was more hurried in the dark. The rushed exchange, the quick hits, the small slips from the wagons and trains, the night was their battleground. It existed solely for them and they abused it. Women dressed in smoke stood on corners, selling the same thing the girl paid. Dealers who wore shadows like the waking world wore clothing hid in alleys waiting on their next customer. It was how they had met, how they had begun this spiral into hell.
She knew they were in hell. The highs might have been heaven, but reality was hell. Reality is what had killed the others. Not the drugs. It was the cold had truth of what lay painted in their future. No rational person would take so much at once. No sane person. But they would all be driven mad by the little monster in their head that begged and pleaded and screamed for more. It consumed them from the inside out until there was nothing left of them.
She sighed and got up again. She couldn't stay. If she did they would take another hit and begin the cycle all over again. She wasn't aware how long they had been together this time, only that it was a blur of days and nights. She couldn't even recall when the last time she ate was. All she knew is that she had spent some length of time in the little metal bed with Gamzee.
"Kat?" She had never been good at sneaking out quietly, and Gamzee sat up; wrapping his arms around her waist. "Don't go. It's cold." Somehow even with the expense of the drugs, they never made enough to put heat or electricity in their little hide out.
"I have to." She pulled away, picking up her coat from where she had flung it across the room in her haste to disrobe. She cinched the little belt on the jacket as tight as it could go, and still it fell loose around her frame. Lots of things did that now. She was just a skeleton walking, and she wondered vaguely if it would be the drugs or the starvation that killed her. Either had their perks, the drugs would take her straight to heaven. Starvation from the drugs would give her more time. Either way she would end up a rotting corpse.
Gamzee sighed and got up. They went over this every weekend. How she wanted better, how she wanted more, how she thought she could get out, but it wasn't that easy. He had seen her try and fail and try and fail so many times. The end was always the result however, and it hurt to see her cry on those nights. Those were the sad nights. Not when the others died. He couldn't give a shit about the customers who were too dumb to wait just a few moments longer for their high. He cared when she cried. When she felt so broken, so defeated, that she actually shed a few tears in remorse.
Remorse of what, Gamzee wasn't sure. He wasn't sure about a lot of things in Karkat's life. Only that she was here with him every weekend, making heaven seem like it was so close to the earth. He was aware of the scars, the occasional bruises that graced her skin that made the pale skin seem so much paler. HE occasionally wondered where she would get them, who she was seeing that would leave those marks.
To Gamzee, Karkat's body was a temple that he worshiped every weekend. He knew every inch and curve, every scar, every piercing. He knew just how much her chest rose and fell when she was sleeping. He had watched it enough times. He worshipped her like she was a goddess in flesh, an avatar of bone and warmth. Every touch, every kiss, every fuck was a religious experience in itself and it drove him crazy to think that he might lose it, that he might lose her. "Kat, it's alright. Pretty soon we'll have enough money to fix this place up. Get it looking nice."
"I can't do it anymore…" She gestured to the marks on her arm; shaking her head. It would hurt to give it up again, but she could do it. She knew she could. She wouldn't get locked in the heaven that would be hell. She wondered if she could deal with the reality of the world. The too sharp edges and too bright colours and too loud noises. She had lived in the night for so long, but she could stand the light. She had done it before.
Gamzee laughed sadly. "Kat, come on, don't…don't say that. Don't say that please. I know things look bad."
"Look bad? Gam they are bad…we…we hardly know each other's names let alone where we are for most of the weekend. " And this was true. They had never really introduced themselves when they had started their tryst. Eventually the names just came out in all the gasps and sounds of the bed, but they weren't really names. Just sounds, just the voices of angels that sang in their head. "D-d-don't tell me it isn't bad. Y-you could get killed. T-t-the cops could catch us..So many things could go wrong."
"And? They could go wrong, but they've been going so right. We've almost got enough so you can go back to school. So we can fix everything. W-we can get better. Things can get better. You just gotta be patient."
"Patient? Gamzee we've been doing this for almost a year…I-I'm tired…I'm tired of it. It hurts Gamzee. It hurts." She couldn't explain what hurt the most. The fear, the fact that some nights they fell into other beds, the death, or maybe it was the slow decay of everything normal that hurt the most, but Karkat wasn't sure. She wasn't sure about a lot of things, things like tomorrow, the bills, the groceries, their world. She wasn't sure if there was going to be a sun in the sky in the morning, or if she was even going to be around to see it.
"I know Kat. I know…it's been a long time, but please…don't…don't quit when we're so far ahead. We can make so much more. We can get out of here if we wanted. J-Just pack everything and go…" Gamzee trailed off. He knew they couldn't just leave. He was too far in. It wasn't easy to stop dealing, and they wouldn't be happy about losing their star dealer.
Karkat nodded softly. She knew how hard it was to leave. She had worked for Noir for most of her life. It was a family thing, the drugs were in her blood, but she didn't want that. She wanted to be better.
The sad thing was, she used to be so much better. Karkat was one of those bright up and coming things that the world just couldn't stop. But just like all lights that burn too bright, she was snuffed out. The hands that worked so hard to push her out of the dark world of shadows and snakes pulled her back in. She didn't have a light anymore. It was tossed among the other pieces of broken glass, the other burnouts and washouts that had been tossed into this abominable hell that she woke to every morning.
"Gamzee…I'm leaving."