Valerie knows Arthur (takespoint) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-04 00:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | arthur, eames |
Who: Cory and Evan
What: ...Therapy.
Where: Passages, en route, then Evan's apartment.
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: Mature topics, addiction discussion, some swears.
“I still think it’s too early for this,” was the last thing that Arthur said before he helped Eames through the door and a much weaker Cory almost buckled under the weight on the still-stained Passages carpet. His face, now somehow younger, without the competent vibrancy that was so unique to Arthur’s presence, looked sober and tired, and his nose wrinkled as he spread his feet and tried to work Evan’s arm around his shoulders so he wouldn’t fall sideways. Arthur was right there, Cory could feel it, but he didn’t need the other man’s help and, for once, he and Arthur had an agreement. Against his better judgment, Arthur took a metaphorical step back and let Cory do what he would, watching closely, as neither informed Eames--or perhaps Evan--of the change.
Evan agreed, actually. Unlike Eames, he didn't have any experience in being a mercenary soldier. He'd never even broken an arm. It was a perfect example of how much of a bitch life could be that he'd woken up in the hospital after the accident with nothing more than a concussion and a hangover from Hell. For Eames, the pain from the stitches was nothing. He’d grown up taking and giving punches, Eames, and all those jailhouse tattoos didn’t come from a antiseptic tattoo studio. Evan thought his neck hurt like a bitch and, man, he wanted a drink. He leaned heavily on Cory, because he didn’t have any other choice, and he groaned his displeasure. Pills, booze, he’d take either, and they were both waiting at home, which is where he wanted to go, so he stayed quiet in the hopes that Cory wouldn’t withdraw the support of his arm until they made it to the cab.
Cory had been hurt, too. Cory had seen somebody die before. He’d seen somebody bleed before. He wasn’t any more prepared for it now than he had been then. But maybe once just wasn’t enough. Maybe he just needed to see a few hundred more deaths, die a few thousand times, and then he’d be just like Arthur, a really messed up little machine of efficiency and materialism too selfish to even like the person he was in love with. Cory thought it real loud to see if Arthur would respond, but he didn’t.
Cory used Stella’s phone to call a cab. He figured she’d be by to pick it up from Evan’s pretty soon, and he’d give it to her then. Cory pushed Evan into the cab, not exactly dropping him, but maybe not real gentle, either. He got in the other side and looked at the other man. “Address.”
Evan, who was too busy disliking the world in that calm, cottony way he did most things, took longer than he normally would have to give the driver directions to Turnberry. The complex was modern, a high rise that rose high over Las Vegas, and it was undeniably pricey. Evan didn’t stop to think that Cory might react poorly to all that money, but then Evan didn’t stop to think about his own standing very often - well, ever.
The car stopped at Turnberry, and the doorman got halfway down the walk before holding up a hand that indicated Cory and Evan should wait. A second later, he emerged with a wheelchair that Evan gratefully slid into. If he could just get to the apartment, he could take a Xanax and have a shot, he thought to himself as the doorman handed Cory the wheelchair and instructed him to ring once he was ready to return it.
Cory looked a little while longer into Evan’s face, his own clouded with the foggy gray of new mornings and too much knowledge. God, he was so out of it. Still. Completely out of it. This wasn’t going to be easy. He watched the route to Evan’s apartment, his lip slowly curling into a sneer that only got deeper as they got nearer. To Cory, this place and Evan’s money represented all the reasons it was okay for Becky to die and this idiot to be responsible, and nobody said anything.
He looked at the wheelchair that the doorman brought out automatically, and his head sagged against his shoulder. “Aw shit, seriously? Wow, Hampton. Wow.” Cory wheeled the chair back on the curb and stepped on the brakes. He hauled Evan out by the good arm and then, maybe with some grudging more care, put him in the chair. He looked over his shoulder at the cab, and then at the doorman. “He’ll get you back for it, I’ll make sure.” The doorman nodded and went to pick up the tab, because apparently this happened, as there was an account, or whatever. Cory pushed Evan into the elevator. “You sober enough to know which floor you’re on?” he asked, sarcastically. It was obvious Arthur was long gone.
Evan was, impressively, quiet during all of Cory’s sneering and jibes. He felt, to some extent, like he deserved anything Cory dished out at him. He had been responsible for the accident, and no amount of jail time or therapy would change that. So he didn’t bite back, even when he wanted to. The two-days worth of missing Effexor made him irritable, which was a change from his normal “I don’t care” demeanor. As nice as it was to feel something after all these years, anger and pain wasn’t exactly the preferred option. “Top floor,” Evan finally offered, the response a long time coming. “I can take it from there, man,” he added, an arm propped on the arm of the wheelchair and his fingers pressed against his temple, where his head was throbbing. The pain was, somehow, enough to keep Eames at bay now that they were on the Las Vegas side, and the other man didn’t immediately insist that Cory be allowed to remain.
Cory put the wheelchair to a stop, setting the brakes again with stomps of his bald tennis shoes. He didn’t loook down at Evan’s face, he just walked around the chair and pushed open the front door. “Yeah, no, I’m sticking around until you’re clean. You’re going to fucking hate me as much as I fucking hate you. It’s going to be peaches, Hampton.” Cory stepped on his right heel with his left foot and kicked his shoe under the door to prop it open, and then he came back for Evan’s chair, giving him a push to keep him in it, if he had to. In they went.
Evan was about to stand up - or to attempt to - and so that push was probably a good thing.
The apartment was white and pale wood, and someone must come to clean because there wasn’t a bottle in sight. Even the dregs of breakfast with Louis were missing from the small, round table that sat off to the side in Evan’s bedroom, which was visible through the open living room. The entire place gave off the feeling of airy money, and Evan wanted nothing more than to find an orange pill bottle in the bathroom and crawl into bed. He didn’t have the shakes yet, but he knew they would come soon, and he wanted Cory out before they did.
“The phone,” was all that Evan said, and he pointed to it. Easiest way to get Cory out was to call security.
“Yeah,” Cory said, looking at it. “There it is.” Cory’s big toe poked through a hole in his threadbare white sock as he nudged his shoe free and the door swung shut behind the chair. He kept right on rolling the wheelchair forward and then he put the brakes on the chair again. He stood back to view the room, moving in a slow circle, the limp as he shifted from one foot to the other more pronounced because he was missing one shoe. “Okay. This isn’t bad. Just a couple rooms.” And then, ignoring Evan as if he was now part of the scenery, Cory started going through the apartment. Tearing it up, really, in an utterly systematic way.
He turned over the mattress first, shook out the pillows, and then started pulling things out of the white dresser-slash-bookshelf nearby. Any pill bottles he chucked at the kitchen, where they pinged off cupboards and landed on the floor in there somewhere. Any bottles would be set out beside him, destined for the drain.
Evan watched for a few seconds and, for the first time in a very long time, he got pissed. “Hey,” he said loudly, the phone already in his hand. “This is my apartment, and even if they decided you were going to help, you aren’t going to just come in here and tear everything apart.” The dead girl was on the balcony, and she was watching everything with eyes that ping-ponged back and forth, but Evan barely noticed. He dialed security with heavy fingers, his breathing fast with his anger. “I need someone escorted out,” he said into the receiver, blue eyes unfocused but hard as they watched Cory. If he could get out of the chair, he would, but falling on his face didn’t seem like a very good idea just then.
“I kind of have to,” Cory said, pulling out drawers and turning them upside-down over the pile that used to be Evan’s bed. “You can’t have stuff lying around or you just ping right back.” He stopped what he was doing while Evan dialed, sitting back on his heels and looking impassive as he watched the effort. Arthur felt unsure, didn’t like the implications of forcing someone to do this against their will, but Cory didn’t give a fuck about Evan’s privacy. “You want to live, you better not,” he said, indicating the phone with the drawer as he spoke. “And if Eames wants you to live, he won’t. It sounds to me like you got a couple people who don’t want you to off yourself slow-style anymore. Them’s the breaks.”
“I need someone escorted out,” Evan repeated, ending the call a moment later. His attention turned back to Cory a moment later. “Saving my life isn’t something you have any interest in, so why don’t you save us both the headache and go home to mommy,” Evan said unkindly. He generally wasn’t unkind; it wasn’t his thing. But he wasn’t in the best place just then, and the idea of having someone who hated him see him puking up his guts or having the DTs which were, by his timeline, about a day away. “They should have stayed through the door,” he muttered.
Cory was not immune to even the smallest jibes. He lived with his parents, he probably didn’t have a job anymore, and it wasn’t hard to come up with insults, and his mouth flexed as his gaze turned into a glare. “Becky didn’t walk away. We did. I’m not going to let you fucking waste it. I don’t like you, but I don’t have to like you. You don’t need someone to pet you. You need someone to clean you up, someone to really hate while you’re going through it, and guess what!” Cory tossed the drawer aside and it banged against the floor before sliding several feet. He widened his arms. “Here I am!” He turned away and yanked out the next drawer. “If you want me to stick around here, you and Eames better do something about the security or if he starts screaming for the cops,” Cory added, to the open air.
“I don’t want you to stick around,” Evan insisted. “Do you think I want you hating me every day, staring me in the face? I don’t. I have enough trouble living with what I did without you as a constant reminder. Do you know what happens when the body dies? Do you know the process? The steps? I do. I go over them every single day.” He looked away, and he breathed hard through his nose and touched a hand through his throat. “I don’t want you to stick around, and I don’t want anyone saving me.” He was just too chicken to kill himself outright, but he didn’t add that, and Eames didn’t have a chance to chime in. “Anyway, you won’t know what to do,” which was, Evan thought, pretty likely.
Cory dropped the second drawer from shoulder height. He kicked it out of his way in a totally inefficient soccer-type kick that probably hurt and limped his way back to the wheelchair. He put two hands on either side of Evan and leaned in. “I know what happens when ‘the body’ dies, Hampton. I have a really, REALLY good idea. I think maybe once I even saw it happen!” He widened his eyes in false surprise. “Gasp!” His eyes narrowed again, normally so generous in their brown warmth now angry. “So you can shut the fuck up about it. And I helped Becky when she tried to dry out three times. Three. You and your bullshit is going to be nothing compared to that. NOTHING.”
Evan watched whatever was in the drawer go crashing to the ground, and the wince that came along with the sound had everything to do with the drum beating behind his eyes, and not any fear of Cory’s tantrum, or the screaming when he came close to the chair with narrowed eyes. “The difference is you loved her, and you hate me. I’m not going to sit around and let you treat me like shit, man. Not for anything, but I’m a grown man, and you’re just a kid, and you need to do something about that bedside manner.” Evan had grown up too rich, too coddled, too much the heir apparent to take being bullied around, and any intention he had of cooperating was flying right out the window the longer Cory talked.
Cory straightened up and pushed away from the wheelchair. He took a couple steps back, obviously tired and laced with acidic irritation and tension, but not afraid, intimidated, or really insulted. He sat in a lazy slump in the middle of the pile of bedding in the middle of the floor. It was too white for him, this place, but he didn’t miss being at home. What difference did it make where he was, really? “I don’t care about my manner. You don’t act like a grown man, so makes no difference to me.” He shrugged. “But I want to help you. I don’t see a lot of people lining up to do that. You gotta want help, though. You don’t have to want it from me, but you have to want to live or this isn’t going to work, anyway.” Arthur was trying to cajole him, but Cory shook his head and refused to respond.
Evan used his last bit of remaining strength to roll the chair forward, and then he shoved his foot at Cory’s shin. “You don’t know me well enough to know what I act like, man. You’re just a pissed off little boy, and alright, you have a reason to be pissed off, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you treat me like shit. I’m not. If you’re going to keep it up, there’s the door.” He looked toward it, just as security knocked, and he rolled back in the chair. “Up to you, man. This has nothing to do with me wanting to clean up. It has everything to do with me not sitting around and listening to your shit. You think you have a right, fine. But not in my space.”
Cory had to be impressed by the monumental effort obviously required just to get at his shin. He let Evan’s pathetic kick shove at his knee because he had no real reason to avoid it, it wasn’t like it hurt. He didn’t make any effort to answer the door, and he didn’t look afraid of what was beyond it, either. He tipped his head to look at Evan as if he was trying to figure him out, but in the end he just shrugged. “I don’t have a reason to say anything to you. You want dead silence, that’s fine with me. Or I can let Arthur do this shit, because he just can’t wait to get out here and make me and you feel better, which is just fucking weird, but whatever.” Another shrug. “Grown men don’t have hissy fits about taking help from people that offer it, but you want to, go for it.” Please, Cory. Can’t you try to be nice, this is hard for him. Cory didn’t care, and he would not try to be nice, no matter what Arthur said. He was willing to give up weeks of his life, his job, his friends (all... two of them), and all for this jerk who wouldn’t cooperate because there weren’t enough feather beds and please-and-thank-yous. Fuck that.
“Grown men don’t treat other grown men like shit, and they don’t act like little angry kids when they’re trying to help. You don’t like me. I get it, but I’m not going to let you treat me like some dog under your feet.” Evan nodded to the door again. “I’ll do this somehow, but not with someone who can’t wait to kick me when I’m down.” That was a lot for Evan to say, and it was fairly telling about his worry going into this, but there it was. “You hate me too much for this, Cory,” was his final statement, said as he rolled the chair back to the window and through the chaos of his ruining living room. The knock to the door came again, and this time Evan called out “coming!” without looking at Cory. “I know she’s dead, man. I know I made that happen, and I know you have the right to hate me until the day I die. But I don’t need you doing it while I’m puking my guts out and crawling on the floor, so go.”
Cory took all that in. He wrapped his arms around his knees in the coverlet and rocked a little, thinking, wondering what Becky would say, thinking that if she was alive she’d just leave, but if she knew she was dead, she’d stay. She’d say it was just for laughs, but it wouldn’t really be for laughs at all. She’d always been good at hiding her reasons, and Cory had never been able to delve out the truth, except to know for sure that even the stupid stuff she did, she did for a reason, and almost never the reason she ‘fessed up to. She’d probably like Evan, too, which nettled, but was true nonetheless. Cory’s eyes were vague as he blinked quickly. “I’m not here to kick you. But I’ll go. If you want me to go.” Cory rolled up off the remains of the bed and stood on his feet. He limped around the mess he’d made and rubbed at his scalp, still with the unfocused look in his eye, his thoughts still on Becky and the things she would say if she was with him. “Where’s my shoe?”
“Somewhere in the wreckage you made of my apartment,” was Evan’s response, but he didn’t look away from the window when he said the words. His apartment was a careful choice, something bright and organized to sooth the chaos of a mind that hadn’t worked right in a very long time. He kept his attention on the far off mountain range that towered in the distance over Las Vegas. “I’m not on street drugs, Cory. I’m on drugs to keep me from doing things that would have the same result as what I’m doing. It’s not that simple. I see shit that isn’t there, and I can’t always tell if it’s real or not.” He paused. “Find your shoe and go, man.”
Cory limped in one direction, and then another, aimless, and then finally, something made him look over his shoulder at the man in the chair. He hesitated, and for once, Arthur knew when to keep his mouth shut. Cory sighed, very deeply, and then he limped over to the chair. He didn’t touch it this time, he just took a knee so he could look Evan in the face. It was easier to hate someone who looked less human, that was for sure. Cory’s expression was somewhere between resignation and faint regret. “I’m real.” Cory put his hand, fingers splayed, up between their two faces. “We’ll work on the alcohol first, okay? I really don’t want you to just... be a bunch of pill bottles or a splat on the ground.”
Evan heard the movement, the limp he’d noticed that night in the hotel. He noticed Cory’s approach through the haze of not having his meds, and he finally turned to look at the other man when the hand moved between their faces. He trailed the spread fingers with his gaze, and he looked back out the window a moment later. He was quiet, said nothing at first, and then he nodded. He was pretty sure that was Arthur’s influence talking right then, because as far as he knew, Cory had always wanted him to be splat, on the ground. “A.A. is five days a week, therapy is three, shrink on Mondays, psychologist on Fridays,” he said, filling in the necessary outings as a way of conceding without actually have to admit he needed the help. Even in the chair, he felt run down and worn out, and his neck hurt as badly as the throbbing behind his eyes. He was already feeling shaky, fingers restless on the arms of the chair, heartrate picking up. “Some sedatives are probably a good idea,” he said, not even wanting to know where they were amid the mess.
Cory dropped his hand and slowly rose up to his feet. He rubbed at his scalp again, sending his long hair in all directions. “Yeah, for both of us.” He gave himself a vague little smile, because that was a joke, and then he sighed. “I have to call my mom.” He moved away then, slogging through the mess, and went to answer the door and tell security they could escort their asses back to the basketball game.