If Callum survived this latest ordeal he’d gotten himself into and you asked him later, once he was recovered, what the worst part of the whole thing was, he’d say the moment he’d realized that ODing on fae dust was just as pleasant as getting high on it. With every other addiction he’d had, with the other times that he’d overdosed, the aftermath had been so horrible, so painful, that it had been enough to job him into getting clean. Heroin had made him feel like ripping his skin off and the memory of that had haunted him all the way into treatment. But the same couldn’t be said for his latest drug of choice, for how it felt when your body slowly started letting you know that you’d taken in more than it could handle. Cal was only vaguely aware, though the haze of his high, that his breathing had slowed, had become labored, that a sheen of sweat had risen to lay over his skin, that suddenly he was sprawled out on the cold tile floor of he and Shannon’s room and not on the comfortable mattress of his bed. Even then, there wasn’t the pain that had come the times before, wasn’t that sense of natural alarm that had you, even in the throes of it all, panicking at the thought of what might come next. There was no barrage of questions, no hoping that he somehow pulled through or that, by luck, someone happened to come down into the basement at just that time. That rational part of Cal knew that, by now, Jaida had locked herself away in that in-house recording studio and that Shannon was hard at work in the garage. He hadn’t yet figured out what Vivian did during the day, what filled her time, and right now he wasn’t in any shape to guess. The only thing that he found himself perfectly aware of, that his brain seemed to be able to cling to, was the hope that if this really was it, that Shannon wouldn’t be the one to find him.
Cal wasn’t sure if he’d stayed conscious or passed out for however long before he became aware that he was no longer alone in the room, that he could sense someone else there with him. He honestly hadn’t expected anyone to come and check on him – what reason would they have? He’d hidden this new issue from everyone, or so he’d thought, kept it tucked away as his own dirty little secret. He hadn’t wanted Shannon to know, didn’t want his brother to be ashamed of him to think less of him in all of this – a part of Cal couldn’t help but wonder if, given his brother’s ability, he was somewhat embarrassed of his lowly mortal brother. There were things that Callum would never understand, that he never could because he wasn’t a part of that world, and now that Shannon was would there still be a place for him there? None of this had been an issue of course, none of it had come up anywhere else but inside Cal’s head, but that was bad enough. At first, he’d toyed with far dust innocently enough, only using it when he was working, getting a better taste for this new ingredient he was to put in his drinks. But, like all things, it just grew from there. He hadn’t been ready for this new kind of drug, his system hadn’t stood a chance against the likes of something other-worldly. Anyone who had seen that problem developing would have known where it would inevitably end and now, here he was, sprawled out across the floor of his room, suffering through the earliest throes of his latest overdose. Finally, though it felt like she was miles away, he realized that it was Vivian that knelt beside his prone form and he suddenly wasn’t sure if that was a very good or a very bad thing. He felt the cool flesh of her finger slide beneath his chin, forcing him to look at her with dark, unfocused eyes. For a moment he held her gaze before his eyes simply rolled back, the lids falling closed as he slumped, unconscious at her side.