InsaneJournal

who MK and Sam
what baaad decisions
when tonight?
where stark penthouse
warning some triggery things -- drug use, suicidal thoughts, etc.


Even days after the Venom attack, MK still could feel the oozing goo slipping up her arms, the panic rumble through her bones, and she still tasted the fear on her tongue. The alien symbiote haunted her nightmares and waking moments the way that everything else that had happened up to this point did. The kidnappings, the heartbreak, the abandonment. It was just another thing in a laundry list of things that tortured her, and oh god, did she wish she had it as easily as this bitch of a teenager did. Mary Jane whined and whined, but oh, she did not get it. Her life was pretty goddamn perfect compared to her (usually) older counterpart. With all the people that loved her, all the people that supported her no matter what, and okay, she had a couple drunk parents, but so what? MK had it way worse. Mary Jane understood some pain, could wrap her mind around the heartache a little, but MJ just didn’t quite get MK. As the redhead sat in the deceased Tony Stark’s penthouse with Sam sitting across from her, she thought about how the Marvel teenager just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand the fear or how consuming it could be. How it clung to your skin the way the dirty smog of New York did. How it made you spiral down further and further as you tried to escape it. How intoxicating it all was.

Or, maybe that was just the line of coke she just snorted.

Whatever, it was okay. She dared anyone to nearly be consumed fully by some fucked up alien symbiote and not want to shoot up or snort something or drink yourself stupid. Why would you want to be conscious of anything after that? She didn’t want to remember anything right then. Not how the goo felt as it nearly suffocated her, not how Adam needed the suit to protect himself from her, not how much she wanted to let herself go with the suit. She had a death wish, yeah, but not at that moment. Adam said he would help her. He promised, right? But, rehab was far enough away that she could have this last hurrah. And, Sam need her. She’d gone through some fucked up shit with her own insane Marvel guy, and oh man, did she need the help. She was just being a good friend, okay. Completely and totally selfless. Rehab would still be there after this bender. If they ever got back to Las Vegas.

“We need to get you some good cover up,” MK said of those bruises on Sam’s neck, waving a couple fingers in their direction before taking a swig from the disgustingly expensive whiskey she’d found at the full­bar in the middle of this penthouse. It burned, but in a good way, and she smiled at the feeling. That she could still feel anything at all.

Sam was on a coke high, and that was a good thing.

Being a teenager made things easier for Sam in ways she couldn't articulate, because fuck articulating at that age. She was equal parts resilience and fucked up kid, but she wasn't sobbing in a corner or twitching away from people in public, which meant she was doing better than she normally did in Las Vegas. Yeah, so she was snorting and drinking, but she was keeping away from her personal Dr. Feelgood ­ no needles, thanks ­ even though she knew she wouldn't be able to do the same thing once she was home. This made three weeks without any of her Methadone or Naltrexone, and the coke high was quick and sweet. Yeah, ok, so she could deal with this shit for now.

Unlike MK, Sam didn't give a fuck about Gwen and her problems. Sure, she knew the little nerd was bummed because Harry had gotten it on with MJ, but that so did not rank on Sam's list of fucked up shit. She currently had no idea where she was going to live once she went back home, and she had no idea if Neil was even going to be himself again. The last thing she wanted to do was make shit worse for him by freaking out around him, but she wasn't sure she was going to be able to help herself. Yeah, no, fuck Gwen's tiny problems and her emo boy.

The comment about the cover up made Sam look up from her spot on the couch, where she was reclining, eyes closed and white powder making everything fucking sweet and slow. "Huh? Oh, yeah, whatever. So I look like some domestic violence fuck up. Nothing new for me," she said truthfully, because she couldn't look in the mirror without thinking of the days after Micah. Yeah, no.

And maybe Sam should have been paying more attention to how much MK was drinking and snorting and popping, but she was too far gone herself to take care of anyone. "I wonder what it would take to fuck up an angel," she mused, thinking of Chloe, because that was so much fucking easier than thinking about Neil. Her unfocused gaze slid over to MK, slow and lethargic. "Where's the fucking suit hiding?"

MK hummed quietly, closing her eyes as she leaned back on the couch and let the high wash over her. The living room floor was a scattered sea of vices on a scale from bad to worse to worst. Anything she could get her hands on from MJ’s little small­time dealer friends from her high school. Cigarettes, weed, cocaine, some colorful pills she could barely pronounce the name of, and maybe she even had a little bit of K hidden somewhere for a little later. They’d been dragging this binge out for hours, and oh god did it feel good not to feel anything. No pain, no fear, no anything. She’d missed that in the last few days of being semi­clean.

“Lin told me about that,” she said slowly, blinking up at her and looking very pissed. “We should fuck that bitch up.” Suit? What suit? The redhead stared for a second, the things slowly clicking into place, and then she nodded. “Duh, suit. Duh. Yeah. You wanna see it? It’s fuuucked up.” Raising herself off the floor slowly, she grabbed the bottle, teetered on her feet, and took a swig before holding out her hand to Sam. “It’s in the bathroom. Flash had me lock it up there after the thing tried to eat me whole.” She leaned in a little for effect and sounded dramatic, but not scared. How could she be scared when she couldn’t feel anything? Her eyes were heavy­lidded, almost closed, and her breath burned of whiskey.

Sam blinked. "Fuck, does Linster know everyone?" she asked, because it was starting to seem like the little hipster twink sure got around. She felt momentarily protective of Daniel, and then she reminded herself that Daniel had claws and really big fucking teeth just now. And, yeah, fuck that. She shouldn't be worried about a bitch that had shut her down so many times that she'd ended up wanting to hide in a bottle for days. Crisis averted, she gave MK a gap­toothed smile that didn't even have a hint of sobriety. "Yeah? Who the fuck knows. Neil might go back to her after this shit. He always believes the crap she tells him, and I bet she made it sound like she was being victimized by big, strong old me." There was a hint of sadness there, and fuck that noise. She reached for a joint, and she toked after lighting up. The joint between her fingers, she stood. "Show me," she said curiously, even as she walked toward the bathroom (or where she thought the spare bathroom might be). Her step was uneven, and she looked over her shoulder as she knocked some tochitsky off a table and sent it smashing to the ground (Oops). "How does the fucking thing work, anyway? It can't eat us without Doc around, can it?"

"He's got the key for the door from me. To get in and come help you. He told me everything that happened, and it's fucked up, baby doll." But that was all MK could say about the matter. It was fucked up. All of it was fucked up, but then again that was their lives, wasn't it? A tumbling of fucked up thing after fucked up thing, and never a break in between. Maybe a quick breath of fresh air that dizzied them enough into thinking that they might have a chance at happiness. Only, of course, to have it so readily ripped out of their fingertips. MK was sickeningly accustomed to all this garbage, and though she was still scared shitless at times, it was hardly something to bat a lash at in her life anymore. Twisted, messed up things happened in her life and in the lives of those around her, and they would keep happening.

She giggled, spluttered even at the stupidly expensive decoration getting broken, and she swiped at another nearby vase to drive it crashing swiftly to the floor. Oops indeed. She swatted at the blonde's wrist to direct her in the right direction, but missed by what seemed like a mile. Everything was going in slow motion, even the way her fingers swiped at air for Sam’s hand. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve made it a habit of like, hanging around it and having chats. And it’s totes taboo with Adam, of course.” She stumbled forward towards the bathroom, which was bigger than like, her entire house, and nearly careened right into the door. But, she caught herself in the doorway, slamming ever so gracefully before taking a healthy chug of whiskey from the bottle. “I don’t think it can eat us though. But whatever, if it tries, right? Whateverrr.”

Sam had known about Lin getting the key, but she hadn't realized who'd given it to him until that moment. Or maybe she had? Who the fuck knew. She couldn't keep anything straight in her head right then, not when the room wouldn't stop playing tilt­a­whirl. "Oh, yeah, he brought the Disney version of Daniel," she explained, which made no sense, but whatever. Point made, she stopped in front of the bathroom door, pretending that the crashing vase hadn't just made her heart beat out of her chest. Shit. No, cool, it was all cool. She could handle this shit. If she couldn't get it together before she needed to go back through the door, then she was so fucked. She wasn't cool with being a basketcase in Las Vegas. No way. Everything was just fucking fine. She ashed on the floor of the penthouse, and then she waited for MK to get the door open. She thought she might have missed the redhead trying to grab her hand, but it was a slow motion thing, and they were already there anyway. "I don't want some fucking suit eating me," she said, because she'd just kept Goblin from doing that shit, and she didn't want an instant replay. "But saying hello is cool," she added, because MK seemed keen on showing her, and what the fuck could it hurt?

MK was momentarily too lost in her own world to even hear what Sam said about Daniel until it was too late. Disney version? Okay, whatever that meant. She vaguely remembered Lin saying something about teeth and violence and cowering, but she shrugged it off mentally. All this nonsense would be done soon, and they would be back in Vegas, and MK could keep Sam away from all this crazy shit. Lin, too. He didn’t seem too bad, but MK was hardly in the mood to wax poetic about good people v. bad people. Everyone was a selfish motherfucker at the end of the day, weren’t they? And she was too wrapped up in herself to notice how freaked out the sudden crash made Sam. She did shoot Sam a look, something like duh, of course I won’t let it eat you. But, that didn’t mean she would stop it from eating her. “Ready?” she asked, hand curling over the knob as if a caged tiger waited within. She stopped suddenly, as if completely forgetting what she was doing, and began to dig into her pants pockets for those pretty little pills. Okay, so maybe she was a little freaked out, but she popped those colorful things in her mouth and took a healthy swig of whiskey and beamed over at the blonde to let her know she was okay.

Things were beginning to blur around the edges, but not enough to panic her. Just enough to calm her down. The knob twisted, and the redhead stumbled in, and there it was. Just hanging over the towel rack where Flash!Adam left it when they were there that night. How long ago had that been? Days bled together when you were so high you could barely stand. “Isn’t it freaky?” she asked over her shoulder, stiffening a little with fear. It looked so innocuous, didn’t it, hanging there like some weird track suit. Like it wouldn’t murder someone in the blink of an eye. And, MK had the most inexplicable urge to reach out and touch it, like the suit whispered in the back of her mind and called her. She rocked on her feet, drunk and high as a kite, and she teetered forward, closer and closer to the suit, until she could brush her hands against it. It soothed her, running her fingers against it, and she didn’t even notice when the thing began to twitch and tickle her fingertips. She looked like she was in a stupor, lost in a world where it was just her and the suit and her blurred mind.

Maybe Sam should have realized that MK didn't need any more fucking pills, but being a messed up teenager didn't actually allow for that. She was having enough trouble standing upright just then, and her weight was heavy against the wall beside the door. She was hella floaty, and she considered suggesting they just forget about visiting the suit and go crash on the couch instead. Fucking hash always made her sleepy after some blow.

Sam laughed when MK stumbled into the bathroom, catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, but not moving from her very propped up position against the flat surface to help. MK hadn't landed on her face or anything. No, Sam was thinking about home, and about what the fuck was going to happen once she was herself again. Because this resilient shit? So not her. Well, not her in Vegas, anyway. She had to force herself to drag her eyes open again (when the fuck had they closed?), and she looked into the bathroom with idle curiosity, unfocused and nothing like MK's attention on the suit. After all, Gwen knew the thing like the back of her hand. And Sam? Sam just wasn't that fucking interested in it. "Hmmm, yeah," she said of the suit being freaky, after just a glance, but it just looked like some fucking suit. No big deal. She didn't hear any whispers like MK. She laughed. "You're fucking fondling it, baby. Should I leave you two alone?" she asked, blissfully unaware of how fucked up this shit was.

In the end, Sam didn't wait for a response. She pushed away from the wall. "Another line," she said, and fuck full sentences. "Will set you up for once you're done with your alone time." Seriously? It was a fucking track suit thing.

Sam's voice sounded so far away, like a whisper lost in a storm, and MK looked over at the other teen slowly, very slowly, with sluggish eyes so heavy­lidded they could be closed. She could see Sam's lips moving but heard little more than a murmur of water. "What?" she asked quietly after a moment that felt like a millennium. Everything slowed down to a snail's pace, and the redhead had no desire to speed it up. No, she could stay in this pocket of time forever if the universe would allow it. Sweet nothings whispered in her ears, promises of power and resilience an numbness all in one dripping­voiced package.

"Yeah, okay, whatever," MK said to the offered line and let the blonde walk out of there. See? No one understood. No one stayed around in the end, and fuck them for that. The redhead turned towards the suit again and spotted that familiar goo crawling up her fingers and across the back of her hand. Good. There was no Adam or Flash to stop the thing from eating her whole. She would let the damn thing do what she never had the courage too. She wasn't scared of that black goo.

But, suddenly, she felt a tingling spread across her body before her body went completely numb. And that? That scared her. The edges of her vision started to blur. "Sam?" she called out, not knowing whether the girl was two feet or two miles from her. She yanked her hand away from the advancing goo just a her knees started to buckle. "I don't feel right."

Sam had just knelt over her freshly poured line and inhaled when MK called her name, and it took her a few seconds to stumble to her feet. Fuck, was the bathroom that far away a minute ago? In the end, she crawled there. She wasn't numb; she was euphoric. This was some really good shit. But MK said something didn't feel right, yeah? Crawl, crawl, and she found herself kneeling at the open bathroom door, watching the redhead as if from a very long distance away. "Baby?" she asked, the first wave of this isn't fucking good hitting her. She seriously wanted to crawl the fuck away but, yeah, she wasn't that person. And what the fuck was that black shit? She reached out a hand as MK's knees buckled. "Come on, baby. We're locking that fucking thing up."

But, there was no moment of recognition in the young redhead's eyes. She didn't even remember calling out for the other girl only seconds before or the slick alien symbiote scrambling to make its cloying, gentle progress up her arm. There was nothing, only the numbness in her legs and arms and a panic building in her chest. Floating, that was what she felt. A lightheadedness not akin to anything she had ever felt before, and in a moment of clarity, she knew this wasn't okay. This wasn't good, this wasn't right, and somehow she knew the suit was to blame. No, she'd finally done it. She'd finally gone too far. She teetered close to the edge before, but this was different. This, finally, was it.

In hindsight, MK would not be pleased with this kind of end. After such a splashy life full of dramatics, overdosing on some bathroom floor felt a little unfitting and anticlimactic. No matter whose bathroom it was.

Sam's hand was ignored, if only because MK couldn't control her body anymore. She fell down hard on the tiled bathroom floor, essentially knocking the wind out of her with an ugly, strangled noise. Bright green eyes glazed over, she stared up at the disturbingly white ceiling as her vision blurred so much she couldn't see straight before the darkness began creeping in through the edges. She attempted some choked out words, maybe a garbled name, but nothing to be deciphered. The last thing she saw before unconsciousness rolled in was the inky black on her fingertips, and then her body went rigid as she began to shake uncontrollably.