Disclaimer: Still not mine, mostly. All female characters at the moment are strictly mine. As is Whispering Pines. Quote is attributed, but is from "Lost Souls," if you were wondering.

Warnings: Withdrawal symptoms, some confusing organic writing, and sadly no snogging. Yet.

A/N: I got really lost writing this chapter since I wrote it over the course of more than a week. I apologize earnestly for how muddled pieces of it are. I'm also not particularly good with consistency, but I'm working out ideas for the next chapter already, so I wouldn't worry too much. I'm also going to start writing obscenely long chapters soon, so you might have to wait longer for them. We're talking like, the written equivalent of "the Tain" or something.

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I believe in whatever gets you through the night. Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It lasts so long, and four AM knows all my secrets. Four AM is when my dreams die. – Poppy Z. Brite

It's three in the morning on my second day at Whispering Pines and I am gnawing at my hand so hard I'll be amazed if it survives until everyone starts waking up. I've been lying here all night and pushed myself past the point of exhaustion, but sleep just isn't coming. An image of just what would make this better floats into my mind's eye and I beg myself to forget about it, but I'm scared. I want control over my body again, and I'm starting to realize how much the drugs took that from me.

Yesterday in my private counseling session, Medda announced that I needed to find the source of my addiction. Because E isn't chemically addictive but psychologically addictive, it's evident there is a reason I cannot stop. She decided to work from the beginning onward, so I had to tell her just how I got into drugs. I hate this story, I always come off as idiotic – who actually caves into peer pressure now? Everyone laughs when their health class covers that section, especially in relation to drinking and drugs and yet, I am the poster child. Taking up drugs to impress an older, rebellious boyfriend? It's textbook.

"It actually started in a park during my sophomore year. It was November, probably around midnight, but since I'm from Texas the temperature was probably only about fifty degrees. Either way, I was with my boyfriend, Thom, and his senior friends. Some of the guys were complaining it was too cold, and the next thing I knew one of them – I think his name was Isaac or something like that – pulled out a bottle of pills. I was naïve enough to think they were Advil, initially!" I shouted, angered by how corrupted I had become because of some idiot whose name I couldn't even recall. Medda placed a motherly hand on my forearm and bid me to continue when I was ready. "And everyone started taking it and I heard one of them say it was X, and of course I'd heard all the lectures about drugs and retained most of them, despite mocking the speaker's tie the entire time, but everyone was saying how good it felt and when Thom handed the pills to me, I just took them without a thought."

"When was the next time you took them? What made you continue?" she asked, taking notes on a bright green clipboard that clashed painfully with her hair.

I blushed a little before explaining the true appeal of the drugs after the first night. It was the first time I'd ever hooked up with a boy, and the first time Thom told his friends about our relationship. We went back to his Honda and just messed around for a bit. But, at fifteen, I started to mistake what we had for love. "Of course, when he dumped me two months later because I wouldn't sleep with him, I realized how stupid I'd been. And yet, I kept up with the drugs. If you can tell me why, I'll be amazed."

And while we made a lot of headway according to Medda, one day could not dig up two years worth of psychological dependency. Which is what led me to be sitting with my legs over the side of my bed, trying to eat my own hand, going on twenty-two hours awake, which would turn into forty-two hours without sleeping if I stayed up until the day started. I knew to expect sleeplessness, and I was being warned against anxiety too. In fact, I suppose I was lucky to only be experiencing the withdrawal to the extent that I am. Because Ecstasy is not chemically addictive, I was sent directly to Whispering Pines, which is only for really for dealing with the mental aspect of it. Unfortunately, this left me pretty much alone in terms of suffering through the withdrawal. Specs explained that he and the others with addictions to hard drugs had just recently been transferred into the rehabilitation programs here.

I also learned that while the facilities were for all-purpose "issues," the counseling groups that had met yesterday only met once a week. The idea was for us to discuss our vices so that we could understand the similarities in our addictions, apparently. The other six days the group sessions would be divided between substance abuse, self-mutilation, and eating disorders. I worked through these facts again and again in my head, hoping to at least bore myself to sleep; apparently, counting sheep doesn't dissuade sleeplessness like stories would want you to believe.

The last time I remember looking at my watch it blinked 5:07 AM. I awoke at 7:15 to Specs shaking me, so evidently at some point I did manage to succumb to sleep like a semi-normal human being. Group actually started around nine, despite the fact that we'd had a belated abbreviated session the day before, courtesy of everyone's planes arriving at random times. In spite of that, once I realized that I only had an hour to get ready for they started serving breakfast around 9:15, I ran to the shower with enough energy that no one would have guessed how little I slept the night before.

Specs had already showered the night before, I knew, so I felt no need to hurry my own for any reason other than to do my makeup and hair in time to not miss breakfast. I nearly fell back into sleep standing under the warm water, the scent of my herbal shampoo exuding relaxation. It was an odd contrast to the stark, bare décor of the bathroom; I embraced it, knowing full well that the cheap imitation represented as close as I would get to home for a few months.

Drowsy but oddly content, I opened and was greeted by a very pants-less roommate. That drowsiness I mentioned? Completely gone. Of course I turned around and apologized, but perhaps my eyes lingered too long. Either way, the way his eyes sparkled I had to wonder if it the situation actually was coincidental. Two minutes post-incident, we started talking as I fixed my hair, both fully clothed. The mood fluctuated again when he turned and looked directly at my eyes in the reflection and asked, "So, what kept you up all night?"

Seven words, and really only about four of them were necessary, but I'm a believer in the power of semantics; Specs may not have noticed my hand twitching, but if anyone paid close attention to my eyeliner that day, they would have noticed the uneven lines. I hoped I could play it off with a joke. "Thinking of you, of course," I retorted.

There's a common cliché I heard over and over again in my English classes about people's eyes darkening when they're serious. Specs' eyes didn't darken, but they were extremely serious to the extent that I actually shuddered; something told me he wasn't going to let me off that easy. I sighed, which I seemed to do a lot more in the 48 hours or so since I'd left my house. I turned to make my bed and suddenly felt two hands on my shoulders, fingers playing my back almost like a violin. Apparently I can't handle nonverbal communication, which would explain a number of things including my slight gasp at that point. It was the first real contact we'd had, discounting the proximity of our hands the afternoon before. "You just need the distraction; if they let you come straight here, your withdrawal won't be all that painful. Just relax and don't think about it," a soothing voice whispering.

He wasn't angry, and that contributed to my relaxation just as much as the amazing things he was doing with some surprisingly delicate fingers. I don't know exactly why I expected that reaction, maybe it was the intensity in his eyes. "I'm not trying to hide things from you, you know. I just can't – never mind, I sound stupid. Let's get moving or we might miss group and whatever would we do then?" I said, my voice segueing into flippancy. I walked out of the room before Kallias could get back to me.

My departure was pretty futile considering Kallias and I were both headed towards the same therapy session for narcotics. Whispering Pines was small enough that it didn't separate us more specifically even for these meetings. I went over the people from yesterday in my head, trying to remember who would likely be there today. That Italian… Racetrack? Wasn't he in for heroin? And Arianna. By contrast, Serial, who I was slightly glad for since she always seemed to be able to make the situation awkward enough that I could hide in it. No one else came to mind, but I still had to meet plenty of people. The buildings were relatively close together though, so I ended up in Room 108 quickly enough and, as I'd expected, saw the three people I'd just named, two empty chairs for myself and Specs, and about three or four people I'd never met before.

I jumped into the seat between Racetrack and Arianna, figuring it was the safest place to be. Arianna didn't seem to speak all that much, which would avoid conversation, while Anthony hadn't exactly gotten used to me yet, so I could expect some silence from that side as well. About a minute after I sat down, Specs walked in. Since I knew he'd left right after me, I also assumed he'd been standing in the hall for a bit, waiting to make his entrance – what did he mean by that? Was he giving me space or trying to avoid me? I watched his lithe form make its way towards Kloppman, the counselor for the day (they rotated around so that everyone could have a few different ideas floating around) and whispering something in his ear. It was bizarre, watching him whisper towards the old bespectacled man in the same way as he had me earlier than morning. And yet, I knew the action was the same, but the intent, the approach, was staggeringly different.

"Well, because I hear that there have been some withdrawal problems amongst our members," Kloppman said, with a targeted glance in my direction, "I think that's probably a good way to start off the session. We've all been through it or are in the process, so it'll help us to relate. As you may know, each of your counselors will have a different approach to the group sessions, but this is mine – I deliver you with a topic or you invent your own, and then everyone discusses." With that, he sat back in his chair and left us to our own devices, only speaking a few times to correct facts and moderate anything that was getting out of hand.

When Racetrack, who was the first to speak, talked about his experiences in the hospital, I started to realize how lucky I was. I knew that I'd avoided hard drugs but that they were close behind me – that was the real reason I'd agreed to check myself in. But hearing this boy next to me talking, I finally understood why our nation had made these drugs illegal. Others contributed their histories as well and I just sat there, dumbfounded. I caught Serial's eyes for a minute and realized she had probably done ecstasy herself; the shock in my head resounded within her as well.

And I was spiraling downwards and realizing that these people, kids really, had gone through all of this hell to make themselves better again and they'd started for some pretty fucked up reasons, but nothing was as stupid as trying to look cool in front of a boyfriend and Race was describing the tremors and chills and how the insomnia kept him awake all night which just gave him longer to panic and that boy Swifty was saying the same things and Art knew those pains and the cold flashes and suddenly oh my god Specs and how had he made it through these things and why did I shrug him off when he knew how much pain I felt and more and I suddenly felt so lost and nervous and I thought I was falling falling falling – until two brown eyes matched mine and an arm kept me firmly on the chair and suddenly I was lifted and landing again in my bed almost as if in one movement and I felt those hands again and let my worries subside and drifted and dreamt of my mother and finally slept.

I awoke to a darkened bedroom and a sleeping Specs at the foot of my bed. A note taped to the alarm clock told me I had a fever and that I was excused for the rest of the day. Since we shared the space, they assumed Specs was ill as well and so he would be there with me, which explained why at six in the evening the Greek was lying where he was. I struggled to recall where I'd been, what had happened and I remembered therapy and exhaustion and then "You caught me," I whispered.

"Did you expect I wouldn't?" and those hands were at work again on my back. Had anyone in the history of the word lavished in the attention of this many backrubs in one day? "Oh, and for the record, we're pretty much stuck here for the next three days. A doctor came and looked at us, we've got some virus or something, and they can't risk the others getting sick – we've all got pretty weak immune systems. Don't worry, all we're missing is a couple of days of group they promised we could make up somehow, and they'll reschedule private sessions if we miss those."

"Why did you do it?" I questioned, turning to face Kallias. He seemed confused for a moment before opening his mouth to tell me that it wasn't like he was just going to let me fall to the floor and crack my head open. "No, I mean, why cocaine?"

"I was lonely," he answered cryptically. "You know how much they want you when you've got the drugs? It's like being a king or a general or something equally powerful. These people cannot exist without you, and you're their life source. For once I embraced my father's money and got what I thought I wanted – attention."

He was so beautifully broken and lost that on instinct I reached up and grabbed him. It was so much more urgent than a hug and I don't know that there is a word in any language to describe the action better than dependency, because I knew suddenly that there was a reason we were rooming together, why we were isolated together – we needed this.

I only resented him for breaking the silence before I heard his words. "We're both sick, you know," he started abruptly, "so you can't infect me, so we can be near each other. In fact, we could sleep just like this." My head on the pillow and his breathe on my neck – I lived a dream that night; I didn't stir in the slightest all evening, the cause was plainly evident on top of me and, when I did wake, I couldn't resist placing a slightly kiss on his forehead and whispering.

"You caught me."

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A/N: As I mentioned before, this is not going to be one of those longer chapters. But the next time is definitely going to be pretty long, since it should encompass three days of solitary confinement for our boys. I really didn't even notice I was writing them into this, so I realize it's pretty illogical. Whatever, this is my story and I can muck it up where I wish. Also, I have slightly trouble with consistency since I took so long to write this chapter, so if I say something that doesn't make sense (names don't line up, etc) then let me know.

I'd love some serious constructive criticism as well, so please give me some feedback on what I can improve on to make this story and my writing in general better. But I do feel the need to point out that I don't exactly exert all of my sentence structure efforts into fanfiction, sadly. Oh well, the next chapter might just have some snogging, so hopefully you'll forgive me for how messy this is?