Addicted to Company

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

Rated: M for inappropriate language and drug use

A/N: final chapter.

And baby what are you looking for?

What are you looking for?

Why do you come here?

What's inside that door?
-

He wakes up in a muddled haze of confusion, dotted with traces of déjà vu. His mouth is dry and his high has utterly imploded, and the warm body of a naked woman that he doesn't recognize or remember meeting is draped over his torso.

Craig cranes his neck in her direction to get a better look at the woman laying next to him, but all he sees is a mane of unruly brown curls, masking a face his gut tells him he wouldn't recognize even if he were able to see it. He sighs, and lets his head fall back against his pillow, as he tries to recall what happened last night.

Nothing.

His mind is blank and his memory clear, though his conscience is anything but. It's to be expected, though; this is how the past few days have gone for him: desperately and pathetically make an effort to reach out to Ellie only to get silence and nothing in return, play a gig, snort a few lines, meet a girl, snort a few more lines, call Ellie, go home with the girl, more lines, crash at home; lather, rinse, repeat.

Craig groans as the pounding in his head increases and the woman pressed against him finally rolls over, away from him, finally giving him the space he needs to get up and go to the bathroom.

Afterwards, he heads to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. All the blinds in the room are drawn, whatever sunlight remains barely peaking through the inches of space between the window and the counter.

Out of the corner of his eye he detects movement. Craig turns, and notices the girl on his bed is awake and sitting up, his bed sheet wrapped loosely around her body. "Mhm, morning. I think," she giggles. She runs a hand through her hair, paying no mind when a few strands of it fall over her left eye. "Either way, I had a good time last night."

Craig nods, though he says nothing. He's also heard this one before, but today, for some reason, he's just not in the mood toward making the effort to pretend to care about whether or not he comes off as being sincere. Though, she doesn't seem to care; the fact that he can't remember her name and she doesn't appear to know his should be more awkward, but it isn't. It just is what it is. She moves towards him by crawling on her hands and knees. She stops when she reaches the edge of the bed, looking up at him hopefully. She opens her mouth to speak, but before she can get a word out, he stops her.

"You, uh, you should probably get going," Craig insists.

Her face falls, though she smiles weakly in an attempt to cover it up. "Oh. Right. Well, maybe-"

A knock on the door interrupts her and Craig nearly sighs audibly with relief. He waits, a beat, looking at her pointedly before she starts reaching for her clothes and then heads for the door. He pulls it open, not knowing who it is that's pounding on is door with a fury that's rivaling his hangover, but certainly knowing the last person he's expecting to see, despite how much he's hoped, is Ellie.

"Ellie? What-?"

"What the hell is this?" she demands angrily, holding a faded and creased paper that he swears is covered in his handwriting and practically shoving it in his face.

Shit.

The room is empty when he gets there. Nothing but folding chairs stacked on top of each other in one corner and several tables pushed against a far wall, creating an empty space in the middle of the room, that seems to have the opposite effect of creating "openness" by instead making his chest ache with loneliness. Craig stares at the floor, the scratch marks across the linoleum.

The clock on the wall ticks ahead, echoing loudly. It's 12:01 and he is the first and only one here, standing just outside the doorway to the room, waiting for the meeting to start. It's not that he's eager or willing, exactly, but if Craig has to choose between here and being stuck back with his roommate, he'd choose here.

"You're here early." He turns, startled, to find Ingrid leaning against the opposite wall.

"…Needed some time alone," Craig admits reluctantly.

"Oh. Do you want me to go, then?" It's the first time he's been asked what he wants with no obligations or strings attached. It's…unexpected to say the least.

He guesses that's why he says that she can stay.

"So I guess I'll see you around - Oh." The girl whose name he can't remember pauses just in the doorway, standing in between him and Ellie. She smiles, somehow, oddly enough not finding this situation awkward at all. He envies that. "This your girlfriend?"

He and Ellie both answer, nearly simultaneously, though with entirely different reactions:

"No-"

"No."

A moment of silence passes between them as the girl leaves and Ellie moves to stand in his living room, still fiercely clenching the letter Craig wrote. But, once the door slams shut, Ellie whirls on him with an ire he doesn't think he's ever seen before - not even when she walked in on him and Alex in the bathroom at that club. "Why would you send me this now, Craig? I mean just when I finally think that I'm completely over you-"

What? Even in the midst of clinging to the last dregs of a hangover, his mind is still able to catch that detail.

"- you go and do this! I don't understand what you're trying to prove."

"I'm not trying to prove anything, Elle-"

"Don't call me that," she snaps.

"I don't even remember-" And then suddenly he does: A random night in the middle of a random week with a random girl whose face he can barely conjure up, her arms hanging off his shoulders and her chest pressed against his back as she casually suggested, "Just send the letter. Why'd you even you write it if you're not gonna send it? I mean, now she'll never know how you really feel. I would love for a guy to send me a letter. It's so, like, vintage."

He'd grinned, suddenly inspired, and taken the letter to the nearest post office, somehow being able to charm his way into having the woman standing in line behind him pay for the post stamp.

Obviously, he'd forgotten about his decision.

"I wasn't… trying to do anything with the letter. I just… sent it."

She laughs, but not in a good way; she doesn't believe him. "Yeah right."

"What did you mean when you said you finally think you're over me?"

"Nothing."

"It was something."

"No, nothing. You, and me," she gestures between them, "are a bad idea. We always have been. Especially now, Craig."

"I'm trying-"

"What, with that girl?" Ellie scoffs. "No, you're not trying. God, Craig, you can't even function!"

"I can function just fine, Ellie! I'm not like your mother."

It's exactly the wrong thing to say and he knows this. Even if he's right, even if he thinks this or she does, he shouldn't say it. He closes his eyes and sighs, shaking his head slightly in disbelief at his own stupidity.

"I'm sorry-"

"Are you?" Ellie asks dubiously. She looks up at him, still unwilling to let her guard down entirely, but she doesn't seem as angry as she was earlier. "Did you even mean what you wrote? I mean, do you even remember-"

"I remember what I wrote," he interrupts, immediately. Before she can even allow herself to fully voice the thought out loud. "I just - I never planned on sending it to you."

"Why not?"

"Because," Craig admits quietly, "I didn't think it would matter." She's not looking at him now, but she's still holding onto the letter, though her grip isn't clenched as tight as it was earlier. Still, he finds himself compelled to ask, "Does it matter?"

Ellie bites down on her bottom lip, eyes closed briefly. "It matters. …But I just don't know if it changes anything."

It's fair, he knows, but the admission still stings a little. Craig doesn't know if that's why he leans down to kiss her - something to ease the sting - or if this is his default attempt to try to change Ellie's mind about him. He doesn't really know much of anything anymore. Though he does know, and is surprised, when her tongue brushes against his, her hands resting on top of his shoulders, mere moments before she seems to come to her senses and pushes him away.

"No," is all she says before stumbling away from him, the letter still in her hands, and slamming the door behind her.

There are rules against this, he knows. Unwritten or unspoken, he is not supposed to be here, with her. Whether or not it's been done before doesn't matter, shouldn't matter. (Still, he knows what her intentions were when she asked him to meet her here tonight.)

It doesn't matter.

Craig tells himself exactly that when Ingrid opens the door to the rec room. He takes in how she looks then: uncombed auburn hair grazing tanned shoulders, exposed in nothing but a tank top and a pair of shorts. No shoes, either.

"So how did you get a key to this place?"

"Oh, they never lock up. They just bank on the power of authority."

"Oh." He starts to tell her he's changed his mind, starts to tell her that this - they - might not be the best idea. Then, she (or he or they) move toward each other, meeting somewhere in the middle. It happens faster than he anticipated. She hooks her fingers in his belt loops and then suddenly his pants are undone and her shirt is on the floor. He pulls her beneath him and covers her mouth with his. Tongues clash, she sighs his name as he slides her out of her shorts and kisses his way down her stomach. She shivers against him and the sensation alone is more than he can bear. Before he can talk himself out of it, he does what she is urging him to do and fills her completely.

"…Well, that is certainly a nice replacement for group therapy," Ingrid murmurs breathlessly once they've finished.

"Tied with coke though," Craig jokes. (Though he thinks he's only partially kidding.)

After days of absence, Alex pops up at the club in between sets- sometimes, he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Don to suddenly change his mind and realize what he's gotten himself into, and fire him - waiting for him by the bar. "So you're not dead," he greets her flatly.

Alex smirks, though her eyes show sadness not amusement. "You were concerned?"

"You disappear for days and don't answer any calls, yeah I think 'concerned' is a good place to start."

She scoffs. "Please, you were just missing a good fuck buddy."

"…What happened with Paige?"

"Nothing."

"Clearly."

"She's moved on. I need to, too."

"…Easier said than done, right?"

"Alex."

She sighs, twirling the straw in her drink - rum and coke, he knows - and before she even opens her mouth to speak, he already has a feeling he also knows what sent her into hiding. "Paige…had a moment where she said she wanted to try again. Said I deserve better."

"According to you that's what she always says."

"…And then her boyfriend came over and she acted like the entire conversation never happened. She told him that I was an 'old friend from school'."

"Well that's not exactly a lie."

"Not exactly the truth, either." Alex snaps a rubber band against her wrist, in a way that reminds him far too much of Ellie. He wants to reach over and make her stop.

"What did you say?"

"I told her to go fuck herself," Alex informs him.

"Did you mean it?"

"…at the time, yeah," she admits, hesitantly.

"And now?" Before she can answer, a voice that he recognizes easily cuts through the air and the conversation. "Craig?"

"…Ingrid?" He catches sight of her walking toward him. She looks…different from the last time he's seen her. Her hair is lighter, she's definitely thinner, and there's something else, something Craig can't quite put his finger on.

"How've you been?"

"Good." Ingrid pulls up a chair and Alex lights a cigarette.

Alex leans forward, her chin resting in the palm of her hand, the smoke form her cigarette curling up and around her face. "So how do you know Craig?"

"Oh, we met in rehab," Ingrid informs her almost cheerfully, it seems. Craig sighs and Alex smirks, almost meanly. "Kind of a shitty place if the two of you ended up here."

Ingrid shrugs and, despite his best efforts to suppress it, Craig can hear Alyce's voice in the back of his mind, sickeningly sweet as she reassured, "Relapse isn't the end of the journey to sobriety. It's just a speed bump."

Ingrid orders a round of drinks for the table, taking a shot whenever the conversation seems to turn too personal or veer towards why she's here, how she ended up in, of all places, the bar where Craig performs for just enough cash to pay the rent.

He watches from stage, the forlorn look in her eyes, the knowing gaze in Alex's and then their heads bent together before Alex slips her hand in her pocket. From this distance, he can't see what she places on the table, but he has a feeling that he already knows what it is.

"Let's go to your place," Alex murmurs in his ear when he steps off stage, confirming his suspicions. Craig can only nod, knowing what's waiting for him. (And he also knows where his weakness lies.)

"Are you-"

He watches Ingrid tap the needle, her eyes so focused they're nearly criss-crossed. Her arm is wrapped tight in a makeshift tourniquet - her hair tie - one blue vein bulging out just enough for her to have access to. "I've been doing this for a while." She smiles, seconds before inserting the needle with precision. She unties the scrunchie, sets the needle on the bedside table. "Shit," she murmurs, her eyelids drooping. "I've kinda missed you."

"How did you know where I was?"

She shrugs. "Asked around."

"How did you know that I would-" he stops, unsure of how to say it, unable to still admit it. Ingrid climbs onto his lap, the effects of her high probably heightening. She shrugs again. "Same way I knew the first time," she replies before her lips meet his. A dull, but heavy, thud catches their attention and causes them both to pull apart.

Craig hurries to his bathroom, knocks on the closed door only to get no response. "Alex?" He tries the knob and turns it to find Alex, on the bathroom floor, a needle of her own next to her. "Shit!"

"Did you give this to her?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'm not stupid. I don't share needles," Ingrid insists and Craig knows she isn't comprehending any of this or what it means. He checks Alex for a pulse, thankful that there still is one. His hands are shaking - the two lines of coke doing him no favors - as he grabs the phone to dial 911. When the operator comes on the line, Ingrid begins to panic; "I can't go to jail again," she says. "My dad will never pay my bail this time. I can't be here when the cops come. I can't I can't I can't..."

In the bathroom he waits for the ambulance to come, holding Alex's hand, desperate to make sure he can still feel a pulse, Ellie's voice filled with disappointment and regret and heartache playing in the back of his mind once again (and probably forever):

"Was it worth it?"

"My name is Craig and, um…" He sighs, shuffles his feet. He hates this part: admitting acknowledging, seeing himself for what they see. As much as he hates it, though, he knows he needs to say it. His shoulders droop and he rubs his red-rimmed eyes.

He hasn't showered or changed his clothes since he left the hospital last night after spending two days there, waiting for the moment the doctor declared Alex officially recovered from her overdose. He owed her that, he felt. Someone needed to be there, in the way she deserved, even if it would never be the person she really wanted.

He clears his throat, raises his head to meet Alyce's encouraging gaze.

"… I'm an addict."