A/N: I've been wanting to write an alocholic!eli fic for a really long time, and I finally got around to doing it last night. If any of you have ever read Gray by Pete Wentz, (yeah, the bassist of Fall Out Boy) you might notice some similarities between the two. Oh man, I'm actually so excited about posting this because I've wanted to for ages now. Okay, that's it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi.
Summary: He's just a lovesick author who thinks drowning himself away in alcohol will fix everything. One more drink and he's cured.
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There he is, sitting at the bar like all of his wishes are going to be answered. Like he thinks that one more drink is going to satisfy the best of him. When he finishes his third beer he finally starts to feel the tingles that remind him of what being inebriated really feels like. His favorite feeling.
He's just a lonely man, following in his father's footsteps.
Fourth beer. Fifth beer.
He wanders around the bar like it's his second home, and hell, it kind of is. His royalty check is two weeks late on his last novel, so he's a little worried about how he's supposed to pay his tab, and how his rent is going to work out by the end of the month. But at the moment, he's too drunk to care. He's just a lonely man, wasting away his life on alcohol.
He's too proud to call himself an alcoholic, but his receipts tell him otherwise. So does his smell. And the style of his clothes. And the way he drives.
He flirts with girls sitting with their friends, because when he's drunk he thinks he's the old Casanova he was in high school, scooping up girls with his lopsided smirk and an old bad boy line he'd thought of in grade eleven. But he's twenty-eight now, and he hasn't felt loved since he was eighteen. Whatever happened to that girl, anyway? What did She even look like, anyway?
He has dreams about her on most nights, of whatever her smile used to look like and the way She used to laugh. He can't even remember what her name was anymore.
No one bothers to take his keys before he leaves the bar anymore. He's become so obnoxious that people start to think maybe an accident will be good for him. maybe it will knock some sense into that thick skull of his. No one really thinks about how fucked up that is.
When he wakes up in his beyond messy apartment, he forgets how he got back home. It's late afternoon but it feels like morning. He eats toast at the kitchen table and rubs his head like it weighs a thousand pounds, though it really doesn't. Hangovers aren't quite as bad as when this all began; when he was twenty-three and still good looking. It's been five years now? Every night seems to go by too fast. That's eighteen hundred and twenty five days. He doesn't realize how much of his life he's been wasting.
All of this really began after he'd published his first novel. He'd gone out to celebrate with a few of his friends at the time at an old bar a few blocks from the apartment he was living in. He was twenty-two at the time, and when She walked in, it was like all of the old memories flooded back.
Being eighteen, graduating from high school and thinking that university was what would send him skyrocketing into a career as an author. He was too head-over-heels in love with a girl who was more in love with the idea of a Pulitzer. Two writers were chaos. She ended up leaving him because he was too overprotective. At the time, he understood, but as the months passed he realized he needed her more than She ever needed him. More than She ever would, either.
But the celebration drinks – it escalated. He drank two or three too many. She came back to his apartment. They spent the night together, reliving memories that only high school could provide – only this time it was far better than it ever was back then. This time they knew what they were doing. Practice makes perfect, right? She had plenty of practice.
She stayed for a while, living in his apartment and making things a lot more comfortable than they were without her. He forgot all about writing for several months, receiving his royalty checks weekly in the mail for his first novel that had made it to the New York best sellers list. He'd never imagine that would happen. Or that it would ever happen again.
His second novel was far better than the first. He had somehow written it in a matter of months in between fucking and small drinks and business meetings with his publicist. Everyone loved him. Not like before, but they loved him. Life was a dreamboat and he was sailing on a Champagne sea. For a while, that is.
They fought more often than they'd like to, but they knew how much more passionate the sex would be after a disagreement. But eventually fighting would get the better of them and he knew they'd crumble sooner or later. Eventually She would have to get tired of him and She'd leave. And one day She finally did.
His twenty-third birthday, when he first started his phase that never would actually end. The night before, She yelled and screamed and packed her bags all at the same time, claiming that She had lived here a little over a year and that She was tired of the constant bickering. He asked where She'd go. She said She would figure it out after She went to her mom's house. And he let her go, because he was so scared of what might happen if he begged her to stay.
So he went back to the old bar on his birthday, hoping maybe, he'd find her there. Sipping away at a Sex On The Beach and laughing away with her other girlfriends. But She wasn't there and She never would be there.
And that's when things went downhill.
He checks his voicemail, like he does every morning when he wakes up from his hazy drunken sleep. Three messages from his publicist riddled with swear words and threats to drop him from their company. He hasn't written in a few months now, and they were starting to notice. He deletes each message and sits down at his lap top, staring at the screen. He hasn't even gotten dressed yet, just wearing an oversized shirt from some brand named store and his boxers along with a robe wrapped around his shoulders. It's wintertime, so it's a little chilly in his apartment. Mostly because he can't afford to turn on the heater.
He cracks his knuckles, like he thinks he's going to get to writing.
Maybe after a beer.
Beer in hand, he thinks about a plot.
Nah, he thinks, nah, it's not working today.
Another beer, another beer.
He doesn't write today, but he doesn't really write any day so it's nothing really different. He finds himself drinking alone in his room, wondering if maybe tonight he'll be able to bring a girl back to his place. But it's a disaster here, papers and dirty dishes scattered around the open floor-plan. He's got one of those Murphy Beds that he never actually puts back into its place.
He eventually goes back to bed, realizing he'll be up until four in the morning later, anyway, and that he should probably get as much sleep as he possibly can, right?
And when he wakes up again, it's nine in the afternoon. He dresses in the same clothes from the night before, taking soft whiffs of his underarms on the way out the door. He reeks of alcohol, but it doesn't really matter – because he's going to the bar anyway.
He parks in the same spot as he does every night.
Walking in, everyone groans internally because they hate seeing him here every night. The owner doesn't have the heart to tell him to get out of here, even if his tab is getting bigger and bigger by the night.
One beer, two beer, three beer, four.
More flirting. Sometimes there are certain girls that tell him to back the fuck off, but mostly they just look at their friends and roll their eyes. He's not as attractive as he used to be. He just appears drunk and moronic now and days. When he's not making a complete fool of himself, he's buying more drinks that he can't pay for.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
This is all he does, every single night, every day of the week. Even on Sundays, which was previously his 'day off' a couple years back. Now, it's every day, every night. Always drunken and pathetic, all because She left him alone.
He thinks about her too much, wondering every single night if She will come wandering in looking for him. But it has been five years. He can't get over the girl that inspired his second masterpiece. He thinks that She's his muse, but She was really just an idea. He tells his publicist: i've lost my motivation. i lost the only thing that got me going.
His publicist tells him: GET OVER IT.
This all goes on for three more months before the only thing bringing in money cuts him off. The final message on his answering machine is angry and fuming and full of curse words. He ends up deleting it because he can't comprehend what it actually says.
"Look, kid, we took you on too early. You got too into yourself. You're twenty-eight, a fucking waste of space. We know you blow all your money on booze. Get over yourself. You're getting your last check on Monday, from then on – find yourself another goddamn publicist. You're finished with us. Don't call this number back."
Not that he thought about calling the number back.
No, but now, he feels a little better. Like a weight's been lifted off his tiny shoulders. Shoulders that She used to hold so tightly onto and cry out for him. Well shit, now he's thinking about her again.
He often thinks about calling her, but after She left him five years ago – he went a little overboard with the calling. Nightly drunk messages of please come home. i'm sorry. i love you. i need you, you're my sunshine. fuck, baby, what will i do without you? Eventually She just changed her number. And who could blame her? He was a mess.
He thought about emailing her now, wondering if She'd kept the same email address from high school with all the misspelled words and arrays of numbers at the end. Probably not, She was so perfectly professional in every way.
He grabs a beer and heads over to his computer, deciding to look her up on the internet because he doesn't have to work anymore. He doesn't have to stare at a blank Microsoft Word document and think about how great it would be to be wasted right then. He types her name into Google and finds that She's working at the New York Times. Such a little girl had gone such a long way in such little time.
Except, it was a long time. Five years was a long time. Feels like days to him.
He looks at new pictures of her, realizing She still has those freckles that he remembers counting in the middle of the night and that her eyes are just as blue as they always were. Even in pictures She's too beautiful for actual words. He realizes soon that this all makes him too sad and shuts his computer, going to the fridge to get another beer. Only, there aren't any more. He checks the clock.
It's only three.
He goes back to bed and wakes up in the middle of the night – heading out to the bar to get trashed again.
Two more months go by, and he's nearly wasted all of his savings on alcohol and rent. The only food he eats is French Fries and burgers that he can get from the cheap burger place down the street from the bar that's open twenty-four-seven. He doesn't really think about getting a new job, or finding a new publicist. He thinks the money from his best-sellers will last him until he's a hundred. Wrong.
He comes home one morning in July, wandering in at seven to find an eviction notice taped to the front of his door. No more apartment. No more nothing.
He shows up at his parents' house at nine that morning, bags under his eyes and the smell of Jack Daniels on the back of his throat, begging to spend the night. They let him in, not realizing that a night actually means five months.
Five months of coming home plastered at four AM and asking for more money the next day. He's twenty-nine now, thinking about her every single night and living with his parents. He is any mother and fathers worst nightmare and he knows it. He knows it and he doesn't give an absolute fuck.
Every day he thinks about going to the New York Times and walking in to find her. He can imagine the horrified look on her face when he'd walk in. How he'd proclaim that he'd shaped up, that he loves her and he wants her back. He tells himself She'd take him back, that She still loves him too. But of course that's absolute bullshit. He will never even know it, but She's married now with two kids. He'd never be able to give that to her – but he thinks that he could.
His parents finally stage an intervention, claiming that he either has to get a job or get out.
He takes the latter, grabbing the money he has and getting in his car to drive to God knows where.
By seven, he's drunk and wandering around looking for where he parked his car, even though it's in the same spot that it always is in. Some of the people at the bar make jokes about how he's drunk so early. He ends up getting in a bar fight. He's such a mess and he doesn't even know it. No – he knows it. He still doesn't care.
Winter rolls around again and he's living in his car. He spends every last cent he owns on alcohol and twenty-four hour parking spots. He's broke by Christmas and nobody is going to send him a Christmas card. He wonders if he saw her again, would She give him a little bit of money? Would She fuel the fucked up fire inside of him and let him drown more in his own misery?
No – She was always too good for that kind of charity.
It's too cold in his car some nights and he tries to spend all of his time in that stupid bar that ruined his life. He blames it for all of his problems – for the reason he saw her again and what dragged him through this endless state of depression. Alcohol is all he knows, now.
His last night in that bar ends simply. The owner licks his lips and gives him a sad sort of smile, hoping to let him down easy. Hoping he isn't too drunk at this moment so that he won't have to ruin his poor little life. Even though it's ruined beyond repair by now.
"Look, kid," it always starts out this way, being let down, "You've been coming here for about seven years now, and I appreciate it. But I can't afford to keep giving you drinks. You get fucked up every night and drive yourself home, which, technically I'm not allowed to let you do." He tries to intervene and tell him he doesn't have a home anymore, but the owner already knows. "I'm gonna have to stop letting you come in. You're a good guy. Maybe you should get some help, go to one of those AAA meetings. Or AA meetings. Whatever the fuck it is, I could call someone for you; do you want me to call someone for you?"
"No," he's so solemn in his tone. This has broken his heart. "Can you just give me one last drink?"
The owner agrees, pouring him his final beer and he drinks it so slowly. Just to savor the very last flavors of its bitter delight. He wonders why he ever loved this thing in the first place. This was his replacement of her, or something like that.
He finishes his drink and slaps a dollar and fifty cents up onto the counter, telling the owner if i could tip you, i would. But he can't, and everyone in the fucking bar knows that.
So. This was it. This was his final chorus and the last blow of the trumpets before his end. He's driving and it's busy. It's New York, so yeah, it's always busy. He's got the music up loud and he's not paying attention because he's had four drinks – the first three, and his last drink of ever. It's dark, but all the street lights look so much brighter. The green lights are emeralds and the red lights are rubies blaring in his glassy eyes.
He crashes that night. Head on with another man just like himself in a Subaru. Everything goes white just before it goes black, and in the beginning, they think they can save him, just before they realize they can't.
They're right when they say your entire life flashes before your eyes. Because he has visions of her and the way She says his name just before he goes under and doesn't come back up again. She's laughing and smiling and telling him that She loves him when She really doesn't mean it. He wants to come back up, to find her and fix life all over again.
But he missed his chance.
He could have done this years ago. But he waited too long, and here he is now. Nothing. A forgotten waste of space.
No one goes to his funeral.
Not even her, who hears about his death from his mother. She's got the babies to feed, no time to go see the mess of a man She thought She loved years ago. She's too busy writing for her Pulitzer like She always wanted to.
i'm going to be famous for what i write, She always said.
i know you will. i'll buy everything you write. i'll be your number one fan.