Work Text:
Armond looks down at the pill in his hand, prettily pink and a pressed into a tablet, perfectly harmless. It’s so small, and for a second Armond can’t remember what he should be so scared of. He’s stressed, he’ll take one pill to relax and that’s it. Simple as anything, and sure to be more easily managed than the hotel.
What’s the harm in one Xanax? It’s been five years since he’s so much as touched anything that could be considered intoxicating, surely he can control himself. Besides, he needs to give the bag back eventually, the pharmacy worth of pills hidden in there aren’t exactly something easy to forget about. The owner of the bag will want it back eventually, and it’ll be suspicious if too much is missing.
That settles it.
Mostly.
Don’t do this, he tells himself. Even now, before the pill has passed his lips, Armond can feel his composure slipping, feel his sanity loosening just a bit. He’s been wanting this for so long. Granted, he’s been wanting a lot of things, but let himself be deprived. Sex and drugs aren’t who he is anymore, but part of him, some dark, starving part of him, wants to have that again. It wants the wild, the willingness to throw caution to the wind, the ability not to give a fuck.
It’s been a while since he’s had a night off, and this round of guests is particularly taxing. He deserves to kick back a little, to soothe the worry lines canyoning themselves across his face.
Don’t. You know what will happen, you’ve seen it in yourself, you’ve seen it on other people. When you’re an addict, you’re an addict for life. It’s not going to stop at one; we know how this ends, and it’s not good.
You take one too many and end up laid out on the floor, twitching and foaming at the mouth until someone finds you, or you take ten too many and end up doing something you’ll deeply, deeply regret.
Armond knows he gets weird when he’s high, drunk, or some combination. His inhibitions are lowered, and all logic or reason ends up being replaced by a yawning need for more. More drugs, more drink, more sex. It spirals from there, it always has. He doesn’t know why he needs so badly, but the need has always been there, the emptiness. These vices only fill it for a short time, and Armond only wishes that he could find something to plaster over that gap, to prevent sinkhole in his being from opening up again.
But for now, all he has is drugs.
Relapsing is all part of the process anyway, isn’t it?
The pill goes down easy, in a practiced manner, as natural as breathing. Five years of hard work, down the drain like that.
He feels like throwing up, he tries to after a second’s consideration, even sticks his fingers down his throat, but nothing comes up. Maybe he doesn’t want it to, maybe his gag reflex is just that shot, but it doesn’t work, and that sends a spike of dulled panic through Armond. It’s working already, silencing his fears and letting the hungry, lonely thing inside of him crawl out.
Look at what you’ve become.
Already, Armond knows that this fall will be far worse than the ones before.