Work Text:
He couldn’t sleep.
Norman dragged himself out of the shower hours ago, half-crawling across the floor to get to the bed. The triptocaine taunted him from the beside, his brain pulsing in his skull until he’d managed to work up enough coordination to pick it up and hurl it into the bathroom. He told himself the tiny glass vial had broken on the tile floor and that the blue powder was worthless now- tripto lost most its potency after being exposed to air for too long.
He told himself, and didn’t look.
It was never so easy to manage without the triptocaine. A quick hit would bring the nausea, the shaking, the aches and pains all over his body to a halt within a matter of minutes- seconds, even. But gritting his teeth and going without meant a slow decline of the symptoms over the course of hours. The smaller aches would take days to dissipate completely; the longest Norman had gone without a hit was four. If the physical cravings didn’t undo him, the psychological ones did eventually.
Weak, Norman thought, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his face into the blanket. Weak, weak, weak.
He was an idiot. A weak, disgusting idiot.
He was an FBI agent for fuck’s sake- he was hardly the first agent to carry on a drug addiction while on the job, there were plenty that had taken hits of cocaine in the bathroom before going on duty. But being caught at it, especially given the connection between triptocaine and ARI, would be signing the death warrant on his career. Norman was less than a decade into his tenure with the FBI and had no intention of losing his badge so early in the game.
No, things were bad enough as they were.
Norman shouldn’t make it worse.
So he lay in bed and shivered and suffered, still fully-clothed and damp from the impromptu shower. He didn’t feel as horrible lying still as he was now, and didn’t want to risk bringing the symptoms back by getting up and trying to take off his clothes. He stayed in this one position and watched the lights of Philadelphia blink in the dark out the window. Occasionally they blurred together and Norman dreaded the flare of a flash-headache; some symptoms rose and fell randomly, an ache becoming a stabbing pain, or a minor stomach upset becoming raging nausea for a few minutes and then fading into nothing.
I have to do something about this, Norman thought, stomach clenching unpleasantly at the prospect. I’ll lose my job. Hell, I could die from this.
But he couldn’t- not quite yet. There was a case to be solved, a little boy to be saved from a watery grave. Norman could not give up tripto- and by association, ARI- until the case was done and over with. Until the Origami Killer was caught or dead, no longer a threat to the children of Philadelphia.
It was nearly four AM when Norman finally felt safe enough to undress a bit. He sluggishly squirmed his way out of his jacket and shirt, leaving only an undershirt beneath. He kicked off his shoes and managed to push the blankets down far enough to crawl beneath them.
I have to be up at eight AM, he thought with dread, clutching the blanket around his shoulders and wishing that he was at home in his own bed. Norman could sleep longer- but Shaun Mars’s life was on the line, and he couldn’t afford to be sleeping the precious few hours that boy had left away.
Not when it was his own damn fault he felt like shit.
Eight AM, Norman thought with a yawn, forcing his eyes shut. Eight AM. Catch the killer, finish the job, and then kick the tripto. Maybe sleep for the next ten years while I’m at it.
Norman would do what he had to, as always.
For better or worse.
-End