Heroin reached out to brush his fingers over Coke’s back after they bumped shoulders, trying to smooth away the sadness in his tone. Even if a small part of him was privately glad that Coke had missed him; perhaps regretted not seeing him sooner? But that was the dark talking and Heroin shuddered, hoping that the club’s lighting would hide it. He didn’t mind slipping into the Shadow, the side of himself that hurt without question, but he hated for Coke to see it. Always had, they had enough problems without Heroin’s darkness. He took a quiet breath to steel himself and clear his head of the clutter; enough that when he settled into the booth next to Coke, he was wearing a warm smile. “I think I’ll just have a Rum and Coke.” He might have winked at his not-date.
"Just getting to watch you all night would have been fun too." Heroin's voice was soft and he dropped his head, a distant voice shrieking in his mind that he sounded like a stalker. Great, that was just what he didn’t need. A few minutes in and he was already sounding clingy and stupid and dumb, why had he agreed to this? Heroin took another quick breath as he tried to regroup. “I, um, I’ve been working at the studio mostly. You know how I get. It’s as much my fault that we haven’t – I just got caught up in everything that’s been going on. But I’m really glad that I get to see you know.” He tried to tuck his hair behind his ear, but got his fingers tangled and only made it worse. With a little sigh he managed to look up and smile uncertainly at Coke. “You look really good.”
And with that, Heroin hoped against hope that the earth would open and swallow him whole. He was, officially, an idiot.