A/N: Drug reference warning. None of my knowledge is at all reliable; it's
culled from 'Trainspotting', Ed McBain, and 'The Drawing of the Three', all
of which I would like to take the opportunity to recommend. Don't assume
accuracy, but also don't hesitate to write me with corrections.
Girl 1.
I've been here nearly thirty-six hours and they haven't let me out of their sight. Blue eyes seems to follow me around, making sure I'm alright. She's been up before me the last two mornings, and pretty much lives on sugar, which keeps her bouncing off the walls until well after I go to bed.
I make her nervous.
'You don't like me.' I tell her. I'm eating breakfast, cooked by Angelo, who's been going out of his way either to be nice to me or to get into my pants. I'm reserving judgement on that one.
The other me kind of starts at that, and looks like she's going to argue, but then settles for, 'You don't like me much either.'
'Gee, I wonder why not?' I say.
'Well?' She asks. She has a seriously intent stare.
'I asked first.' I'm evading the question, but she's kind of reluctant to answer me too. I don't need her to, though. 'Could it be because when you look at me you see what you'd probably be if you didn't have super powers and a nice, racially elitist sugar daddy looking out for you as a result?' She reacts like I've just hit her.
'The Professor is not a racist.'
'Give. A. Shit. Whatever his reasons, he's the only reason you're not where I am.' She's on her feet now, tensed and ready, and I suddenly realise that not only does she have the ability to make the air explode at will, which she says she never uses on people, but she's also in much better shape than me physically. I'm skinny and undernourished; she's lean and healthy and probably knows how to fight.
It's Angelo who breaks it up, stepping between us and just staring at her 'till she backs down.
'What do you want?' He asks me. I look down at my hands. They're shaking, and I drop them into my lap, below the tabletop.
'I want to know why you're doing this.' I ask him, but it's Jubilee who answers.
'It's like you said – you're me. That's, like, closer than sisters. You're family, pretty much all I've got – my parents are dead, and I guess yours must be too, otherwise you wouldn't be . . .' She trails off.
'Wouldn't be what? Wouldn't be sucking dicks to pay for my habit?' I suddenly can't take it any more, and I get up and rush out.
Girl 2.
She's been using my room, with me on the living room couch, and that's where I find her after Angelo's gone out, curled up on the bed. She isn't crying.
'Are you okay?' I ask. She turns to stare at me, and I get an answer. She looks ill – trembling and pale.
'I should be working.' She whispers.
'On the street?' The idea is disgusting, all the more so because of who she looks like.
'At least I'd be supporting myself.'
'Your pride that important to ya, huh?'
'What else have I got?' I sit on the bed beside her.
'Me.' I tell her, and I mean it. 'I meant what I said in there. I'm not going to stop looking out for you just because I don't like where you've been.' I grab her hand; it's clammy, and damp with sweat. 'What's wrong with you? Is there anything I can do to help?'
'I dunno. Do you know a good dealer?' She asks, and there's an edge of hysteria to her voice. I shouldn't be surprised – she hasn't bothered to hide the needle marks from us.
'Jubilee.' I tell her. I grab her face and force eye contact. 'You don't need it. It's all in your head. You can beat it.' She grins at that.
'You don't know much about drugs, do you, Jubilee?' She asks, ugly emphasis on our name and self-disgust heavy in her voice. 'What I am is a user, abuser and addict of heroin, an opiate made by refining morphine and notable for dulling the senses, numbing pain, inducing euphoria and eventually killing you. One major side effect of prolonged use of heroin is an enlargement of the nerve bundle situated at the base of the spinal column, leading to massive ill-health, nausea, vomiting, and physical disability unless placated with further application of opiates. The short version is that once you're addicted to heroin you stay that way until it kills you.' She laughs, mirthlessly. 'In other words, no I can't beat it.'
'How much do you need?' I can't believe I just asked her that.
Girl 1.
It's been a long wait, but the knowledge that she can find me a fix makes this part easier. I've been hiding the need since yesterday afternoon, but now it's simply a countdown. She said two hours, and I spend the time getting ready. I left my equipment in Aleister's basement, but I've got the run of this apartment (Emma's apartment, it belongs to a woman named Emma), and it doesn't take me long to find an antique table-lighter and a silver plate serving spoon, all I need to cook up. I take a bottle of water from the fridge and bring them all back to our room. I'll use one of her belts to swell a vein – she's got half a dozen, scattered around – so all I need is a syringe. I could bypass all this and just snort whatever she brings me, but I've been mainlining since my fifteenth birthday, and I really don't think I'm likely to stop now.
Luckily, this Emma lady keeps a well-equipped medicine cupboard. I find two-dozen disposable needles in the bathroom, all nicely plastic- wrapped. I wonder if she's diabetic, or if she just gives really interesting parties.
Probably the latter, as there's also five adrenaline shots neatly lined up on the same shelf.
I take one needle with me and dump it with everything else. Then I flick on the TV and I'm about to start channel hopping when I have to rush back into the bathroom and get rid of the lovely fried breakfast Angelo made for me. It tastes a lot worse coming up, but I barely notice.
I'm still feeling miserable when blue eyes gets back, looking almost as bad as I feel and carrying a twist of paper in one hand and a free clinic needle in the other. I manage to slip the one I dug up under the bed when I see this; never know when she'll decide to cut me off.
Girl 2.
Watching the other me cook up is probably the single most horrifying thing I've ever seen, bar none.
She heats powder and water in a silver spoon and then carefully sucks the mixture up the needle. She taps it, then glances at me.
'Knock out the air bubbles.' She says weakly, and then picks up a belt that she's laid out ready and puts it round her right bicep. She's taken off her shirt for this, and I can see that there's a lot more marks on her left arm than her right.
She holds the end of the belt in her teeth, and reaches for the needle. I glance at her face and have to look away; her eyes make me think of Emplate.
When put my hand over the needle, she just looks tragic.
'Why?' I ask her. I have to know.
'Too late to stop now, blue eyes.' She says quietly.
'Why'd you start?'
'Wasn't doing anything better with my life.' She's whispering now, and I think she's going to cry, but along with the sorrow she's practically radiating raw need. I take my hand away, and she puts the belt back in her mouth and then picks up the needle.
I can't look away.
She squirts a couple of drops from the tip, and then slides it into her arm. I watch as she draws a little blood up to cloud the mixture pink, and it's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen.
That's my blood, mixing with the heroin.
And suddenly Skin is there, his eyes burning red as he shoves me aside, his other hand extending to snatch the needle from her grasp. I didn't even here him come in – neither of us did, too absorbed – and now she leaps at him with a cry of angry need and he just knocks her to the floor.
I start to my feet, and he glances at me once.
'Get out.' He says.
'Ange . . .' I begin.
'Get out. I'll talk to you later.' I have to leave. I can't imagine ever obeying Angelo, but this time I do.
Girl 1.
His eyes are red and his skin stretches, raising his brows and sharpening his cheekbones as he stares at me. Then he looks down at the needle he's still holding in his right hand.
'Please.' I whisper. He looks up at me. 'Whatever you want.' I mean it, too, and I'm already reaching for his fly when I meet his gaze.
He just carries on looking at me, and I'm almost crying.
'Don't judge me!' I yell.
He doesn't say anything.
'I need it!'
He walks past me to the sink, and empties the needle down it. Then he turns back to me.
'Not any more.' He says. 'It ends here, Jubilee.'
'You think I like this?' I'm screaming at him, and right now I hate Angelo Espinoza more than anyone else in the world, and it's only the fact that he's already demonstrated that he can beat me down one handed that stops me going for his throat. 'You think I fucking like needing that stuff?' I'm screaming now, but when he talks I shut up. His voice is quiet and almost gentle, but there's an undercurrent to it that makes me realise – right now he hates me even more than I hate him.
'You made her buy it for you, didn't you.' It's not a question.
'I needed it. It's her choice. She volunteered.'
'Jubilee is my friend.' He begins, and I interrupt.
'I am Jubilee.'
'You're not my friend. And if you ever get Jubilee involved with any kind of drugs, if you ever do anything like this again, I'll break your skinny little neck.'
He's silent for a long moment, pacing the room while I stare at him. I can't look away.
'I need it.' I whisper, and I'm begging.
'You're cleaning up. Cold turkey starts today.' He suddenly reaches under the bed and pulls out the needle I had hidden there.
'It won't work. It doesn't work, not for heroin.' But I think he knows better, better than blue eyes, anyway.
'It'll work. It hurts like hell and feels like dying for a week solid, but it works. People beat heroin all the time, Jubilee.'
'Try it and then say that.' I whisper, staring him in the eye once more. They're brown again, not glowing.
'I already did.' He answers, equally quietly, and I can't help it – I finally start to cry.
Girl 1.
I've been here nearly thirty-six hours and they haven't let me out of their sight. Blue eyes seems to follow me around, making sure I'm alright. She's been up before me the last two mornings, and pretty much lives on sugar, which keeps her bouncing off the walls until well after I go to bed.
I make her nervous.
'You don't like me.' I tell her. I'm eating breakfast, cooked by Angelo, who's been going out of his way either to be nice to me or to get into my pants. I'm reserving judgement on that one.
The other me kind of starts at that, and looks like she's going to argue, but then settles for, 'You don't like me much either.'
'Gee, I wonder why not?' I say.
'Well?' She asks. She has a seriously intent stare.
'I asked first.' I'm evading the question, but she's kind of reluctant to answer me too. I don't need her to, though. 'Could it be because when you look at me you see what you'd probably be if you didn't have super powers and a nice, racially elitist sugar daddy looking out for you as a result?' She reacts like I've just hit her.
'The Professor is not a racist.'
'Give. A. Shit. Whatever his reasons, he's the only reason you're not where I am.' She's on her feet now, tensed and ready, and I suddenly realise that not only does she have the ability to make the air explode at will, which she says she never uses on people, but she's also in much better shape than me physically. I'm skinny and undernourished; she's lean and healthy and probably knows how to fight.
It's Angelo who breaks it up, stepping between us and just staring at her 'till she backs down.
'What do you want?' He asks me. I look down at my hands. They're shaking, and I drop them into my lap, below the tabletop.
'I want to know why you're doing this.' I ask him, but it's Jubilee who answers.
'It's like you said – you're me. That's, like, closer than sisters. You're family, pretty much all I've got – my parents are dead, and I guess yours must be too, otherwise you wouldn't be . . .' She trails off.
'Wouldn't be what? Wouldn't be sucking dicks to pay for my habit?' I suddenly can't take it any more, and I get up and rush out.
Girl 2.
She's been using my room, with me on the living room couch, and that's where I find her after Angelo's gone out, curled up on the bed. She isn't crying.
'Are you okay?' I ask. She turns to stare at me, and I get an answer. She looks ill – trembling and pale.
'I should be working.' She whispers.
'On the street?' The idea is disgusting, all the more so because of who she looks like.
'At least I'd be supporting myself.'
'Your pride that important to ya, huh?'
'What else have I got?' I sit on the bed beside her.
'Me.' I tell her, and I mean it. 'I meant what I said in there. I'm not going to stop looking out for you just because I don't like where you've been.' I grab her hand; it's clammy, and damp with sweat. 'What's wrong with you? Is there anything I can do to help?'
'I dunno. Do you know a good dealer?' She asks, and there's an edge of hysteria to her voice. I shouldn't be surprised – she hasn't bothered to hide the needle marks from us.
'Jubilee.' I tell her. I grab her face and force eye contact. 'You don't need it. It's all in your head. You can beat it.' She grins at that.
'You don't know much about drugs, do you, Jubilee?' She asks, ugly emphasis on our name and self-disgust heavy in her voice. 'What I am is a user, abuser and addict of heroin, an opiate made by refining morphine and notable for dulling the senses, numbing pain, inducing euphoria and eventually killing you. One major side effect of prolonged use of heroin is an enlargement of the nerve bundle situated at the base of the spinal column, leading to massive ill-health, nausea, vomiting, and physical disability unless placated with further application of opiates. The short version is that once you're addicted to heroin you stay that way until it kills you.' She laughs, mirthlessly. 'In other words, no I can't beat it.'
'How much do you need?' I can't believe I just asked her that.
Girl 1.
It's been a long wait, but the knowledge that she can find me a fix makes this part easier. I've been hiding the need since yesterday afternoon, but now it's simply a countdown. She said two hours, and I spend the time getting ready. I left my equipment in Aleister's basement, but I've got the run of this apartment (Emma's apartment, it belongs to a woman named Emma), and it doesn't take me long to find an antique table-lighter and a silver plate serving spoon, all I need to cook up. I take a bottle of water from the fridge and bring them all back to our room. I'll use one of her belts to swell a vein – she's got half a dozen, scattered around – so all I need is a syringe. I could bypass all this and just snort whatever she brings me, but I've been mainlining since my fifteenth birthday, and I really don't think I'm likely to stop now.
Luckily, this Emma lady keeps a well-equipped medicine cupboard. I find two-dozen disposable needles in the bathroom, all nicely plastic- wrapped. I wonder if she's diabetic, or if she just gives really interesting parties.
Probably the latter, as there's also five adrenaline shots neatly lined up on the same shelf.
I take one needle with me and dump it with everything else. Then I flick on the TV and I'm about to start channel hopping when I have to rush back into the bathroom and get rid of the lovely fried breakfast Angelo made for me. It tastes a lot worse coming up, but I barely notice.
I'm still feeling miserable when blue eyes gets back, looking almost as bad as I feel and carrying a twist of paper in one hand and a free clinic needle in the other. I manage to slip the one I dug up under the bed when I see this; never know when she'll decide to cut me off.
Girl 2.
Watching the other me cook up is probably the single most horrifying thing I've ever seen, bar none.
She heats powder and water in a silver spoon and then carefully sucks the mixture up the needle. She taps it, then glances at me.
'Knock out the air bubbles.' She says weakly, and then picks up a belt that she's laid out ready and puts it round her right bicep. She's taken off her shirt for this, and I can see that there's a lot more marks on her left arm than her right.
She holds the end of the belt in her teeth, and reaches for the needle. I glance at her face and have to look away; her eyes make me think of Emplate.
When put my hand over the needle, she just looks tragic.
'Why?' I ask her. I have to know.
'Too late to stop now, blue eyes.' She says quietly.
'Why'd you start?'
'Wasn't doing anything better with my life.' She's whispering now, and I think she's going to cry, but along with the sorrow she's practically radiating raw need. I take my hand away, and she puts the belt back in her mouth and then picks up the needle.
I can't look away.
She squirts a couple of drops from the tip, and then slides it into her arm. I watch as she draws a little blood up to cloud the mixture pink, and it's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen.
That's my blood, mixing with the heroin.
And suddenly Skin is there, his eyes burning red as he shoves me aside, his other hand extending to snatch the needle from her grasp. I didn't even here him come in – neither of us did, too absorbed – and now she leaps at him with a cry of angry need and he just knocks her to the floor.
I start to my feet, and he glances at me once.
'Get out.' He says.
'Ange . . .' I begin.
'Get out. I'll talk to you later.' I have to leave. I can't imagine ever obeying Angelo, but this time I do.
Girl 1.
His eyes are red and his skin stretches, raising his brows and sharpening his cheekbones as he stares at me. Then he looks down at the needle he's still holding in his right hand.
'Please.' I whisper. He looks up at me. 'Whatever you want.' I mean it, too, and I'm already reaching for his fly when I meet his gaze.
He just carries on looking at me, and I'm almost crying.
'Don't judge me!' I yell.
He doesn't say anything.
'I need it!'
He walks past me to the sink, and empties the needle down it. Then he turns back to me.
'Not any more.' He says. 'It ends here, Jubilee.'
'You think I like this?' I'm screaming at him, and right now I hate Angelo Espinoza more than anyone else in the world, and it's only the fact that he's already demonstrated that he can beat me down one handed that stops me going for his throat. 'You think I fucking like needing that stuff?' I'm screaming now, but when he talks I shut up. His voice is quiet and almost gentle, but there's an undercurrent to it that makes me realise – right now he hates me even more than I hate him.
'You made her buy it for you, didn't you.' It's not a question.
'I needed it. It's her choice. She volunteered.'
'Jubilee is my friend.' He begins, and I interrupt.
'I am Jubilee.'
'You're not my friend. And if you ever get Jubilee involved with any kind of drugs, if you ever do anything like this again, I'll break your skinny little neck.'
He's silent for a long moment, pacing the room while I stare at him. I can't look away.
'I need it.' I whisper, and I'm begging.
'You're cleaning up. Cold turkey starts today.' He suddenly reaches under the bed and pulls out the needle I had hidden there.
'It won't work. It doesn't work, not for heroin.' But I think he knows better, better than blue eyes, anyway.
'It'll work. It hurts like hell and feels like dying for a week solid, but it works. People beat heroin all the time, Jubilee.'
'Try it and then say that.' I whisper, staring him in the eye once more. They're brown again, not glowing.
'I already did.' He answers, equally quietly, and I can't help it – I finally start to cry.