A/N:Thanks for the reviews. I'm back with Ch. 11. Enjoy!

Chapter 11

Three days earlier…

Mordecai was completely hooked.. He was convinced that he couldn't go through the day without his fix and no longer pretended that he could. It wasn't enough to wait until he got to Jessica's in the evenings. He now wanted it, needed it, from the time he got up each morning. He found himself disappearing during work when no one was paying attention so he could shoot up. When he started to crash, he felt angry, edgy and anxious. He became short and confrontational with anyone who dared to get in his way. He was in a good mood when he was high, but he also became very quiet and lacked the motivation to do just about anything. The only thing he wanted to do was sit around in a fog with his thoughts. Everyone was starting to notice his bizarre behavior, but they all thought he was still just depressed over Margaret and stayed out of his way for the most part.

Mordecai threw down the hose and kicked over the scrub bucket, sending water and soap suds flying everywhere. Nothing was ever good enough for Benson. He and Rigby had been tasked with cleaning the fountain. He was sure that they were doing a good job, but Benson came along and pointed out all the spots they'd missed. He had told them to stop being slackers and do the job right. Mordecai managed to keep his temper in check, but quickly lost it as soon as Benson was out of earshot.

"I'm so fucking sick of this, dude!" Mordecai complained.

"What's wrong?" Rigby asked. He didn't really want to get Mordecai started, but he didn't know what else to say. Lately, it seemed like Mordecai had a problem with just about everything. Rigby was all about slacking off and doing the bare minimum, but even he had some small sense of responsibility to do what they were paying him to do. Mordecai seemed to get upset if he had to do anything and God forbid that someone should say he wasn't doing it right. The slightest thing that made him angry would sometimes send him on a yelling rampage where he would complain about it for hours. Sometimes he would even lose control and break things out of anger if he was feeling especially intense about a subject. Rigby missed his carefree, fun-loving friend. Mordecai's depressed mood violent outbursts were starting to become worrisome.

"Fucking Benson, man! Nothing is ever good enough for him! We bust our asses around here and all he ever does is call us slackers and tell us how we screwed something up. I'm sick of his shit!" Mordecai ranted.

"I know, dude. That's just the way he is though. You know that. He's always been that way." Rigby tried to calm him down, which was unusual. In the past it was always Mordecai trying to calm Rigby and convince him to do the right thing.

"Well I'm going to tell him where he can stick it the next time he starts calling us slackers!" Mordecai threatened. He felt edgy and irritable because he was crashing and in bad need of another fix. Nothing Rigby could say was going to make him feel any better.

"I don't think that's a good idea if you want to keep your job, dude." Rigby said.

"Dude, fuck this job! I could care less." Mordecai replied, kicking the overturned bucket again.

"Listen to what you're saying, man. What are you going to do? Where are you going to live? " Rigby asked.

Mordecai hadn't thought that far in advance. All he knew was that he was pissed and he was going to stay pissed until he was able to get what he wanted, which was another fix. He ignored Rigby's question and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. He didn't really like to smoke, but Jessica and her friends smoked and he'd joined in a few times. He didn't do it very often, but it was something he could get away with in public and it seemed to help take the edge off whenever he got like this.

"What the hell, dude?" Rigby stared at him with wide-eyed disbelief.

"What?" Mordecai shrugged nonchalantly as he lit up the cigarette.

Muscle Man and High Fives drove up path in the cart on their way to their next job and interrupted them. "Hey Ladies." Muscle Man said as he stopped the cart. "What's burning?"

"It's just my cigarette, dude." Mordecai said casually.

"Your cigarette? Since when do you smoke?"

"Since when do you care, dude?" Mordecai retorted.

"As a matter of fact, I do care, bro." Muscle Man replied. "It's not cool, it smells and I have to breathe in your stinking smoke!"

"Go somewhere else then if you don't fucking like it, bro." Mordecai snapped arrogantly.

"Why don't you make me, bro?"

Mordecai responded by taking a long drag from his cigarette and blowing it directly into the cart where Muscle Man was seated.

"Aw, that's it! You're asking for it!" Muscle Man balled his hands into fists and started out of the cart.

"Muscle Man don't!" High Fives interjected. The ghost grabbed Muscle Man by the arm.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Fives." Muscle Man said, beginning to calm down somewhat. "This loser isn't worth my time. Let's get out of here." He pointed at Mordecai and said "If you ever try something like that again, you're dead, bro!"

"Whatever, dude." Mordecai said. "I don't have to take this shit from you. I'm outta here." Mordecai used the opportunity as an excuse to leave so he could go get the hit that he desperately wanted. Rigby, Muscle Man, and High Fives all watched as he strode off in the direction of the house.

"What's his problem?" Muscle Man asked Rigby.

"I don't know, dude. He's been really weird lately. He leaves every night to hang out with these new people he met and doesn't come back until after midnight, he gets pissed off if anybody tells him to do anything, when he's not pissed he seems out of it, and now this. He seems to be getting more violent every day. I guess he's still depressed over the whole Margaret thing. He's starting to take it to a whole new level though."

"Yeah, we noticed. Well he better watch it because I'll break his skinny ass in half if he tries to mess with me again." Muscle Man threatened.

"I'll talk to him when he's in a good mood and try to find out what's up." Rigby said.

"You better, bro, because something's going on with him and it's not good."

"What are you thinking?" Rigby asked.

"Sounds a lot like he's on drugs to me."

"What? No way. Not Mordecai. That's just not him, dude. It's gotta be something else." Rigby was unwilling to believe, or accept, that his best friend had become a junkie.

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A/N: Thanks for reading and, as always, let me know what you think. More soon!