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anything but ordinary (castledown) wrote in halcyon_halls,
@ 2008-05-16 14:53:00

Entry tags:

kat, wes

Week Ten: Monday
When: Late
Where: Just outside of the school
Who: Kat and Wes

There probably wasn't any question that Kat wasn't doing so well. There were dark circles under her eyes, she wasn't studying and she was acting out in class even more than before. Hell, she was lucky she had made it out of bed this morning. To be honest, she was having a difficult time convincing herself that she should stick around at all. Part of her was ready to just pack up her shit and leave while the other part, the part that held all of the common sense, was starting to agree. It hurt so much, so much more than any physical pain she had ever had to endure. Life was easier before she found out about Wes. Lonely, but easier.

Once all of her classes were finished for the day, she headed right on down to Hell to drink herself silly. Drugs, alcohol, more drugs...all were consumed without care of consequence. At one point she had blacked out but before anyone could drag her off, she was up and taking more. With the room spinning and her body sufficiently numb, it was finally time to call it a night and see if she could pass out and for once get some sleep.

Kat didn't know how she ended up making it back to the school, but she did know that she shouldn't have finished off that bottle of tequila along the way. Her stomach churned as she struggled to make her way up the steps leading into the school and her skin visibly paled as everything began to catch up with her. If she had only eaten something today, then she wouldn't have been dealing with the nausea. When was the last time she ate anyway? If pills and booze didn't count, then she couldn't remember and that was probably a bad sign.

With her stomach doing flips, she knew there was no way she was going to make it inside so instead, she headed for the nearest bush. The last thing she needed was to be bitched out by the janitorial staff for puking all of the front door. Somehow managing to pull her hair back, she heaved and vomited off to the side of the entrance, the sounds coming from her small body definitely not human. In fact, she was almost convinced that dying would be preferable to what she was doing. "Oh God, just fucking kill me," she grumbled before hurling again.

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tattooed_skin
2008-05-17 03:48 am UTC (link)

"Hate to break it to you, doll, but... God doesn't care about our kind. Well, not unless we are causing him problems." That calm, sardonic tone rang clear through the night air, as he knelt down next to her on the grassy lawn of the school grounds. He couldn't help but grimace, as she once more became ill under the shade of the hedges. Rough night, that was apparent. It took a lot to make a demon ill. Only part way, or not. That didn't mean it was impossible. There were several nights in his past, that had left him retching in one place or another. Of course, that wasn't always the form of sickness, which too much drugging, or drinking caused him. Cold sweats, shakes, black outs, inability to wake, you name it, it had happened to him... at least twice. That was to be expected when you lived hard, and he had, for many, many years. He'd been hedonistic in his urge to celebrate. It was selfish behavior, which seemed to be apart of their families DNA.

It had been yet another night, that the shop had closed earlier. After a few tattoos had been completed, he found his leg shaking so badly, that he could no longer sit still. The needles waiting in the back room of his shop weren't allowing his body to ignore their presence. Only two had remained.... the last two, he kept telling himself. This was the last day, the last day, then he had the remainder of the week to get over the cravings, and for his arms to heal, before he returned to Vegas. The last thing he wanted, was for Piper, and the kids to suspect that he had been using again. Though, Piper was a smart broad, she likely guessed that this whole situation would be far too much for him to handle, and he would stumble. Wes was all ready expecting to see that disapproving look upon her face when he arrived home. That look he loathed, because it was always deserved.

After his mind unclouded enough for him to walk, he had hauled a taxi back to the school, only to come across a very unexpected sight, on his way towards the front door. At first, he intended to leave her be, not recognizing automatically, just who the illing female was. But, as she spoke, that all too familiar voice struck a cord within his mind. Kat... fuck. The image of her, in this way made him ill as well. Not for the reason it might most people, but because he could recall seeing her mother in such a state... knew he had been in such a state. Fuck, she was going to end up just like them. He really had fucked her over, hadn't he? No, he refused to let this stand. He may have been an absent father, during the time she needed him most, but you could fucking forget it, if you thought he would turn the other cheek, when she obviously needed him now.

Cautiously, his hands moved to her hair, helping her to gather it out of range of the sick. The girl had a temper, and wasn't afraid to use it, he was really hoping to avoid being on the end of that... for now any way. Wes wasn't delusional enough to believe that it would never come to blows eventually. "Given your current state, I won't ask you to reveal what all you've done... because really, the list must be rather impressive." Was he really going to do this? Lecture her, when he was still coming down off a high of his own? "What are you doing, Kat?" He asked softly, once her body seemed to have calmed some what.

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castledown
2008-05-17 01:25 pm UTC (link)

Kat felt like she was going to vomit out her insides if she kept this up and at that point, she was ready to just knock herself out to keep that from happening. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was trying to figure out how she was going to do it when another voice cut in, only it wasn't her own. She was sure she had some snappy retort to throw at him but instead her body heaved and she hurled again. Fuck, how much alcohol had she consumed? There was no way her body should have been able to hold this much and she was pretty sure she had used the bathroom at least twice while she was back there. Christ.

Ahh the comparison to her mother. At least she was living up to the family name or something. Wes hadn't been the only one to watch Sky deal after a rough night. It was like a family tradition while Kat was growing up to hold her mother's hair back while she puked. Whenever Sky would stumble in looking green, Kat would lead her into the bathroom and get a cool washcloth while her mother would hug the toilet. Oh memories, such fond ones she had too. But...as sad as it was, they were probably the best she had. After the worst part would pass, Kat would help her out of her clothes and into something clean and Sky would always tell her how much she loved her right before she passed out. Those were the only times she ever believed them to be true. It was sad.

Normally Kat would have taken a swing at him for touching her but with her hair out the way she was able to brace both hands against the ground and finish what she had started. "Yeah, probably," she scoffed as she stared down at the ground and tried to figure out if the worst had passed. "Not like I remember half of it." Once she had taken a few hits of whatever that one guy had on him, the bartender started to make the demon friendly shots and the rest was history. Though she was fairly certain that she had enjoyed it for the most part. The girl did love to party after all.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Since her stomach felt like it was going to give her a break, she shrugged off his hand and slowly pushed herself to her feet. The world decided it was going to spin and she closed her eyes while she waited for it to finish. One step and she stumbled but she threw her hands up to stop him from helping her. "I was out having a good time and apparently had one too many. Boo fucking hoo." Two more steps were taken and the god damn ground slipped out from under her and she fell on her ass. Shouldn't someone be nailing that shit in place? Fuck.

Deciding that walking probably wasn't the best thing to do, she laid back onto the cool grass and rubbed her temples. "You can move along now. I don't need a babysitter."

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tattooed_skin
2008-05-17 03:40 pm UTC (link)

Wes hadn't bothered standing at all. He'd been in this position enough, to know that she wouldn't get very far in her state. It was rather amazing, that she had managed it this far from the taxi. "I know what it looks like. Looks like you're body is trying to give back, all that you gave it. Must not have liked the type of booze you gave it. I bet it burns too, puking up pure alcohol always does." There was a sarcastic tone to his voice. No, he wasn't going to baby her, or talk to her like she was some idiot kid. Kat was too smart for that, and he respected her far too much, to be that condescending. "A good time, right." He had the good sense to move away from her mess, before planting himself in the grass, only a few feet away, sitting indian style, while his hands rested on the torn knees of his black, and white striped pants.

"During the sixties, LSD was the big thing, aside from pot, of course. My brothers, and I all decided that we were going to try it, so we drove up to Big Sur for our trip. We did it in rotations, because the rule is, that you always have to have some around sober, to keep an eye on you. So, don't think of me as a babysitter. But rather as trip buddy. Besides, if you start puking again, I can always help to keep it off your clothes, and hair." Not a bad idea, all drunks needed them, in his opinion, druggies as well. Someone to keep them from walking off a cliff, or something like that. Yeah, that would certainly make a good night, go bad real fucking quick. "So, how many good nights have we been having recently, Kat?" He questioned, his fingers tugging free a blade of grass, before his eyes moved over to her.

If he had to guess, her nights had began around the same time as his own. He also wasn't going to pretend that he had no idea why this was all happening. That was obvious. "Maybe I should have said something when you pretty much told me out right, but... I didn't, still don't think it's really my right to bitch at you about something, that I myself still struggle with." But, he had those instincts, those dad instincts that carried with all of his children. When it came down to it, she was still his kid, and he should say something, right? No, he wasn't perfect, but that hadn't kept him from tearing into River, when he had been caught at school with drugs. Granted, it had only been pot, but what kind of dumb ass takes it to school? He should have known better. "Is this all helping? 'cause I gotta tell you, no matter how much I do, when I come down... I still feel like shit. Is it any different for you?" He had a feeling that she hadn't really been allowing herself the chance to come down.

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castledown
2008-05-17 06:44 pm UTC (link)

"Just over indulged a little too much," she replied sarcastically. No shit her body wasn't liking the booze she had filled it with. Alcohol and drugs on an empty stomach were always a bad idea but it wasn't like Kat was looking to be good any time soon. "And maybe I like the burn," she added as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Pain was something she knew all too well and it in a sick way it felt like home. That was part of the reason why she lashed out so often and put herself into situations such as this one. Pain made her feel alive and sometimes it was the only thing she knew how to do well.

Kat scoffed. "A trip buddy, right." That jut sounded gay. Besides, DDs were for people who gave a shit that they made it home okay and Kat was not one of those people. "So what are you trying to say? Vomit isn't sexy?" Even fucked up and hurting she could be funny. How about that? But he did have a point. Washing chunks out of your hair, let alone your clothes, was a pain in the ass. That and waking up to a pillow smelling foul was just not a good way to start the day so maybe he could stick around just in case she decided to hurl again. "Every night's a party." She knew she didn't to clarify the exact date she started getting shit faced, he was a smart guy and could figure that out on his own.

"Still, huh? Good to know some things never change." Well fuck if Mr. I'm Gonna Clean Up My Life was using again then she was pretty much screwed. Oh well, might as well go down in a blaze of glory. "Coming down, what's that?" Nope, Kat hadn't allowed herself much down time since she started. Granted in class she wasn't quite so plastered but there hadn't been a moment where she was completely sober. No thanks on that one. Maybe that was why her body decided to rebel tonight?

Silence lingered between the two as she stared up at the night sky and enjoyed the cool breeze blowing across her face. "Why are you doing this?" she asked after the stillness became too much. "I mean I'm going to be twenty next month so it's not like I'm some little kid that you can try to parent or some shit." Kat just couldn't wrap her mind around family being family no matter what. She just wasn't wired that way.

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tattooed_skin
2008-05-17 08:56 pm UTC (link)

He understood all to well about the comforts of pain. How often had he spent hours on end in a parlor chair, being tattooed until the pain made him go complete numb? In his youth, how often had he started fights with the others in his herd, just so he could slam his fist into the satyr, until his hands were bloody, and screaming at him? At times, he had chalked it down to simply being the nature of the demons that they were. Yes, that was likely part of it. It didn't complete the picture. Kat had grown up in a violent home, with a mother that did not treat her in the way she should have been treated... you know his youth wasn't that different. He, and his brothers had been shunned by their herd, bullied, beaten, made to feel as if they were not worthy of being there. Father had told them to expect it, and where had there mother been? No one knew. After Thom's birth, she had disappeared.

The chance to get over some of his issues had been presented as the years passed. Kat had yet to reach that point in her life. That was the thing about being a parent, you didn't care about being cool, when it came to your kids. Not even Wes cared about being cool, when it came to being there for his own. River, and Frida both thought he was a mornon half the time, why should it be any different with her? "No, it's not sexy. It also smells. You don't want to be the smelly, none sexy girl, do you?" Humor was good for taking off the edge in these types of situations. Awkward enough, anything that would kill that a bit was welcomed. "Right, every night." Yeah, he wasn't an idiot.

"Still." He repeated, giving his head a little nod. "When you've been nursing a drug habit for a century, it takes a while to kick it. Especially since I didn't care to get clean, until about seventeen years ago." There were certain aspects that he had managed to kill, but others pretty much still had him by the balls. The needle being the main one. "I had a pretty good hold over it, until... recently." He didn't see the point in lying to her. She knew his past was fucked up, and all lying would do, would be to build walls that they really didn't need between them at this time. "Seems we decided to deal with shit in the same way. Go us." A body, even a supernaturals body could only take too much. When you reached that point, you should really step back, and take a look at the situation before you, because it was no good.

Reaching up, he tucked one side of his hair behind his ears, winching at the soreness of his arms, before he considered her question. "I think it would be pretty shitty of me, to say I'm doing it, because I think I owe it to you. Granted, I do owe you, a lot. But really, do you want someone in your corner, only because they feel obligated? I wouldn't." With that situation, the person was only there, out of guilt, because they felt they had to be. What happened when they thought they had done their share? They took off. "Yeah, because twenty is such an impressive span of time, compared to the several hundred years that you'll be living.... I know you're not a kid, Kat. But, I'm not looking at this, as if we've run out of time, run out of chances. We have all the time in the fucking world." Bringing his hands together, he allowed his chin to rest atop them. "I'm doing this, because we both need it. You may not think you need me, or you might not want to admit that you need, or want me around... that's fine. I'm saying it though, I need you around. Sky fucked us both over, when she didn't come to me, and tell me about you."

It was the truth, he felt angry with the woman. He was angry, that she had allowed so many bad things to happen to his kid. He was pissed off, that she had raised a hand to his child. If she hadn't wanted her, she could have brought Kat to him. No, he didn't have all of his shit together then, but he would have made a better life for her. "I also don't want you being like me, and her. I know it's easier to say 'Well fuck it, it's my blood, why bother fighting it?' I know that's easy. It's also bullshit. You're stronger than that, you have your own mind, use it." He swallowed, feeling his anger rise a bit more, but he wasn't angry with her, not really. "Kick this shit, before it gets you."

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castledown
2008-05-18 01:40 am UTC (link)

His humor did help lighten things up a bit but at the same time she didn't exactly feel well enough to laugh. No, if she did that then her stomach might churn again and the last thing she wanted to do was vomit again. One would think that this wretched experience would be enough to get her to quit but she was glutton for punishment or something. Either that or she just wasn't wired to cope with all that was going on. At least Starbuck had backed off so she didn't have to deal with that on top of everything else. Even if she maybe missed him a little bit but there was no way in hell she was admitting that out loud ever.

Tired blue eyes glanced his way when he admitted to falling off the horse right about the same time she did. Hmm, well at least she wasn't the only one having issues with all of this. Kudos for the honesty thing too. "We should get t-shirts made." Her tone was mostly sarcastic but there was a hint of something else there. Something not quite spiteful. If she really wanted to be honest, she'd admit that this wasn't the way she wanted to go down. How many times had she watched Sky do the same shit? And then how many times had she sworn to herself that she would never go there? None of that seemed to matter now, not with this latest revelation in her life. It was hard...really hard.

She turned her gaze away when he made a point and she didn't want him to see that she knew he was right. But even still, how did she know he wasn't doing it out of obligation? Was she just supposed to take his word for it? Her mother had told her countless times how sorry she was and that she loved her but that never stopped the bitch from slamming her fingers in the window or backhanding her across the face. Not that she expected Wes to physically hurt her but emotionally was what scared the shit out of her. It was why she kept everyone at an arm's distance away.

Need. That sounded so foreign to her ears. "Yeah well in her defense she probably couldn't remember who she fucked during that period of time." Sky would have lost her head if the fucking thing wasn't attached to her body so asking her to remember all of the guys she fucked over a certain period of time was like asking her to remember what she had for breakfast twenty years earlier. It just wasn't going to happen. Then of course he had to make the point earlier about having time and that meant that Kat was going to have to deal with it at some point and she didn't like that idea at all. Fuck.

The "pep talk" was kind of unexpected but he was right. It was easier to just blame it on her shitty parents but she knew better. Hadn't she lasted this long with ever going down that road? Sure she didn't have the daddy issues back then but was it really that bad that she had to turn into a younger version of her mother to cope? She turned back at him then, the blues of her eyes seeming to darken a bit as she examined him. He was pissed about something but whether it was her or Sky or life in general she couldn't tell.

"Tell you what," she said as she sat up, her gaze unwavering. "I'll stop when you do." Ha, what now? There was no way he was going to be able to stay clean and sober after going to tell his kids that they had a bastard sister somewhere. So basically she was already imagining herself finishing off that bottle of Patron once she was able to make her way back to her room. He either needed to practice what he was preaching or accept the fact that she could fuck up her life however she wanted to.

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tattooed_skin
2008-05-18 02:27 pm UTC (link)

At the declaration, that they should have t-shirts, he gave a small gruff laugh, "We should... we are winners all around. Everyone will be envious." Most people would find that type of humor very inappropriate. Hell, maybe it was. It also happened to be a defense mechanism, which they both shared. Generally when you were an over all fuck up, you had to learn to be the first one to put yourself down, to be the butt of a joke. Might keep others from doing it for you. Because really, no one wanted to hear what people really thought about them. No one wanted their mistakes thrown back at them, especially when you were painfully aware of every little wrong turn you had made.

Emotionally, he was very capable of causing others pain, but when it came to his family it was never directly. He had been endlessly disappointing for everyone, because he couldn't get his shit in order. That never meant he stopped trying to make better of himself. That didn't mean he was going to walk away from them... he was worried that they would eventually give up on him, and leave him behind. That scared the shit out of him. His other children had never had a hand raised against them. Not by him, nor Piper. Given his nature, and that which he knew they would inherit, violence had been out of the question. He wanted it to be foreign for them. Did that mean they never eventually discovered it? No, River seemed to have developed quite the taste for fighting, it feed into that thirst for chaos.

"Might have made things easier, if you had been born with the tail." He said with a shrug. Granted, he was glad that she hadn't been, but it would have helped narrow down the candidates quite a bit. Wes knew that he wasn't the only person that Sky had been..."seeing", which was why, even if he had known about Kat, it might not have immediately clicked in his mind, that she was his. She didn't favor him, physically, it was all in the personality. Weird how shit like that worked out. They hadn't known each other for years, yet they were so similiar. Dealing with it was never easy, which is why so many people simply ran away, or self medicated, so that they could forget. It took balls to face everything.

Wes meet her eyes, considering her deal for a moment, before he finally spoke. "Kat, be better than me. Be better than your mom... Prove that just because you had a shitty start, doesn't mean you have to fall down the same spiral." The anger had faded off, and now... he was just sad. Wes knew he couldn't make that promise, because it would be a lie to say this was his last night. That he'd never use again. He wanted that to be true, he really did. Seeing her use him as an excuse though... it broke his heart. "That's the one thing I want, to be able to look at my kids, and know that they are better than me. I want you all to leave me in the dust, to have lives that are a complete one-eighty from the one I had." He didn't want them to be shadows of their parents, he wanted them to outshine him. "I want this to be my last night, but it should be yours regardless. Be brave, don't be a coward, like me. Make me envious, and proud that you're my kid.... just be better than me. I know you can do that."

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castledown
2008-05-22 01:20 pm UTC (link)

Kat wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, pass on the tail, thanks." A tail? Seriously? It was bad enough that he passed along all his other issues and to add a tail onto that probably would have made her suicidal a long time ago. Well, maybe that was extreme, but she wouldn't have liked it. How do you hid that shit while growing up with humans? Seemed like a giant pain in the ass for sure. But maybe if she had been then Sky would have figured things out and she could have been raised and taught how to deal with it. Too bad "what ifs" and "if onlys" weren't something Kat liked to think on.

For a brief second she thought that he was going to step up and play but then again she knew she shouldn't have gotten her hopes up. "Right." That whole "be better than me" was complete and utter bullshit. It was just a cop out that parents used to get out setting a good example. Oh be better than me while I go over here and shoot up. Riiight. How fucking stupid did she look, really? So really, she wasn't the only one using someone else as an excuse. Guess that shit ran in the family too.

A bitter laugh parted her lips as she pushed herself to her feet and looked down at him. "You don't know shit about me so there's no way you could possibly know what I can and can't do." High expectations were all fine and dandy, but he really didn't know her so who was he to say that he did? "I'm going to be whoever the fuck I want to be and it will not now or ever have anything to do with you." If only he had taken her offer, at least tried to show that she was worth trying to give up something up for. Even if he had failed, at least she would have known he was trying for her.

"I'm out of here." Even with the world spinning around her she was able to make her way up the stairs that led to the door. Being stubborn seemed to be on her side because she was able to make it in and down the hall. Tonight there wouldn't be any more pills popped or alcohol ingested, but tomorrow was a new day and she made no promises.

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