Addicted to Company

Summary: Today, he promises himself, he'll start anew. ...Just as soon as he finishes this one last line. Craig, post rehab. AU

Rated M for horribly inappropriate language and drug use.

Too busy looking and never really seen the signs
and maybe I'm just addicted to company

I love places to go and I love people to see

and that's alright.

That's enough for tonight.

This is everything he's been missing:

Craig pulls Ellie into a hug, holding her tightly, unconsciously inhaling the scent of her hair. She's changed shampoos, he realizes. (He shouldn't be surprised. It's been well over a year.)

He knows that he shouldn't even notice this, but he has and will now be hard pressed to forget.

Craig hesitates in releasing her from his grip, wanting to hold on for a little bit longer but knowing, for her sake at least, that he needs to let go. He wishes her disappointment doesn't bother him as much, but it does. Has nothing really changed since she walked away from him at that airport?

He panics for a moment, as he feels her eyes on him. She knows. She has to. She has to.

"What are you doing here?"

"I live a couple blocks that way; had a late night craving." He holds up the bags of jolly ranchers and lollipops, smiling crookedly. She smiles back and he tries not to choke on the guilt lodging itself in his throat.

An awkward silence settles over them for a moment before Craig hears himself admit that he's missed her.

"I've missed you, too." Her smile grows as she says this and he feels his stomach sink.

She doesn't know, though his guilty conscience was hoping to be relieved of some of the burden. He doesn't want to disappoint her, but it's an outcome that seems to be inevitable in spite of what he wants.

He can't remember how long it's been since he saw her last; he's still coming down from his high and it feels like it was just yesterday that he tried to tell her he was sorry, that he really did (does?) love her, that he never wanted to hurt her as badly as he did (but, somehow, he just can't help it.)

"So, what have you been up to?"

"Well, I got a gig playing at this place in downtown Toronto on the weekends. It's not exactly high-paying but-"

"But you totally love it," she finishes for him, her smile widening.

"Yeah." But I wish that were enough.

"Mind if I come by to see you play?"

"Would it matter if I did?" he asks, good-naturedly.

"Of course not."

"You could stop by on Friday... if you want," he adds awkwardly.

Craig isn't sure whether or not he means this, whether or not he wants Ellie to see him that way again but then she rests her hand against his forearm and he remembers then just how much he's missed her.

He doesn't mention to Alex anything about running into Ellie; they don't usually talk about things of substance or anything that matters to either of them, nothing beyond a superficial level—that's not their game. The rule of their game is to use each other and to be used by each other. Craig has not yet determined whether or not he likes this rule, but he doesn't forget it.

He knows this, keeps it in the back of his mind as he crawls into bed next to her. She's leaning over his night stand, the only sound in the room the echo of her deep inhale. "God," she mumbles, reaching for him. Her eyes are wild, pupils wide, and for some reason he tries to get her to actually look at him but she is too far gone right now, only focused and concentrating on the physical feeling, choosing to sever emotional ties altogether.

His chest constricts involuntarily when she rolls over, her knee brushing lightly against his groin.

Her hand follows the action of her knee, and he wonders if she's always been this brazen and bold, until he realizes that he's never really known her before - and he still doesn't, not really - that the only thing they've actually shared with each other is a line.

"Share," he says, leaning over Alex's bare shoulder. He's glad the mirror lying on his dresser is covered in powder, blurring their reflections, obscuring the portrait of who they really are beneath the surface: desperate, pathetic addicts.

Alex tugs on the button of his pants and Craig doesn't have it in him to stop her from taking him into her hands. He's never been strong enough to fight or resist his temptations, not really, he realizes. And he's not sure if he ever will be. (That will always be his downfall.)

"Fuck." In his mind, he is screaming, but the word comes out as barely even above a whisper.

"Want to?" Alex's tongue traces the shell of his ear, and even as he pulls her towards him, he's convinced himself that this is a lovely, drug-induced dream. Or, if it isn't, they're both so high that there really wouldn't be a difference, anyway.

"You feel so good," she says but he can't tell if she means him or the coke. He doesn't think he wants to know, and so he decides it's better that he doesn't ask. Alex's nose is tinged slightly red and in the moment she leans across his chest, her hands pressed flat against his shoulders, he kisses her, mouth covering hers roughly, hips colliding painfully.

She bites his bottom lip, drawing a spot of blood without apology. He wonders what happened before she came to him to make her more viscous than usual, but he doesn't ask, simply tightens his grip on her thighs enough to leave a bruise.

Reciprocation, he thinks bitterly. He is good at causing pain, and Alex is just as good at giving it back.

It's better this way, he reasons, because Ellie is actually trying not to be taken claim by her demons and Alex is not completely ready to let hers go and he...he is caught somewhere in between.

It's better this way.

He's written her a letter. Really, he wonders if he's asking for it. It's stupid, and completely pointless.

"It's good," Dr. McIntosh says, trying to assure him. "It shows remorse."

It shows desperation. He doesn't tell the good doctor he wrote this letter before he came here, not after—on the flight over, coming down all too quickly from a high after snorting the last of his stash—and that he hasn't looked at it since then. He can't even remember if he wrote anything coherent, but he still hasn't been able to bring himself to read it.

"Are you planning on sending it to her?"

Craig shakes his head, resolute. "No."

"…Well maybe that's for the best for now. When you get out and you decide that you're ready—"

"No. She's better off without me. ...Everyone is," Craig insists. "I have this tendency to make everything and everyone around me worse." He laughs humorlessly. "It's a gift."

Dr. McIntosh shakes her head. "Do you honestly believe that, Craig?"

He doesn't answer.

Friday night, he is leaning against a grit covered wall inside the bar, trying and failing to tune his guitar for his upcoming set. His hands are shaking. Craig tells himself it's just nerves, nothing more, and actually manages to convince himself that could be halfway true. He's become a master at self-deception.

"Hey."

He's surprised to see Alex when he looks up, because there's a tremor in her voice that he wishes he hadn't noticed and there is the same determination in her eyes that he saw when she dropped by his apartment all those weeks ago. Something's wrong and Craig wants to ask her what, even though he knows she will only rebuff him, but the second he opens his mouth she pressing herself against the length of him, one hand gripping the back of his neck, the other groping around in his pockets.

When she finally grasps what it is she's looking for, she pulls her mouth away from his and grabs his hand. Alex pulls him into the bathroom, the only place with actual privacy.

"Paige is here, with her new boyfriend," she scoffs, muttering the term as if it were a curse. "What the hell kind of name is Griffin, anyway?" She's trying to steady her hand-held mirror against the edge of the sink. He moves to stand behind her, his mind grappling with comforting her and helping her cut the lines more evenly. "Gimme," he murmurs, taking the razor carefully from between her hands.

Once Craig has the lines straightened into an almost OCD-esque perfection, he leans over, inhaling deeply, vaguely aware of Alex's hands resting on his hips. He waits as she snorts the lines he cut for her, smiling faintly as he feels himself become calmed, alert, and aware as his synapses snapped to life.

"My lips are numb," she mutters through a string of uncharacteristic giggles.

He kisses her, his hands sliding up her skirt and caressing the bare skin of her thigh. "No they're not."

She laughs again as she unbuttons his pants and he wraps her legs high around his waist. His nose buried in her hair, he can't quite place the scent though he knows it's something floral. The moment is strangely intimate and he isn't sure whether he can place the blame solely on the drug-induced euphoria they are both consumed by.

Afterward, when Alex has straightened out her clothes and is breathing a little easier, Craig steps forward and, without thinking, cups her face, his thumb grazing her jaw and settling against her bottom lip. When he kisses her this time, there is nothing brusque or blunt about it. He will never know what brought her crawling to him of all people, but he wants to try to make it better.

She pulls away from him, shaking her head, probably sensing his intentions to make this out to be more than it is, more than it should be. "Don't, Craig."

"Why not?" he asks. She doesn't answer, instead she pushes him back and unlocks the door.

When she opens it, they are both surprised to see Ellie standing on the other side of it, Marco and Paige not too far behind her.

"Oh, hey Elle, long time no see." Alex slides past her, intoxication adding a slight sway to her step. Ellie's eyes dart back and forth between Craig and Alex's retreating form, taking in their frenzied state of dress, the redness of his nose, and, of course, the razor and mirror lying forgotten on the edge of the sink.

"You're an idiot, Craig," Ellie hisses at him, and he feels his throat tighten at the quiver in her tone, the flash of unabashed anger in her eyes. He's never really seen this side of her before. "God, Craig... Was it even worth it? Honestly?"

Hard to say, really.