(no subject)
Beepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeep.
He can't sleep like he used to anymore, hasn't for five months now -- when all you've got is a beeper, your body'd better fucking well learn to wake up to it when it's time for your four AM break. Roger doesn't like it any more than he did the first time it happened, and, groaning audibly, he swats a hand at the beeper to shut it up. His back's stiff from the dead springs in the mattress, one foot half-asleep from where he wedged it between the wall and the bed (how the hell had that happened?); rolling to his feet, he half-walks, half-hobbles to the bathroom, trying to shake the blood back into his leg as he goes.
He's never going to get over the bitter, disgusting irony. Drain it out of him, he'll die. Keep it in him and he'll die anyway, only much slower and a hell of a lot more painfully. Not for the first time, he wonders if April had been onto something in June: better, maybe, to go out like a magnesium flash than keep up this half-alive smouldering for far too many years.
And he's so Goddamn sick of taking these motherfucking pills.
He shuts the door behind him and fishes them out of the medicine cabinet, twisting open the vial, dropping one underneath his tongue. The faucet, when he pushes it on, spits a stream of coppery-tasting water into his cupped hands. Roger tries not to gag as he drinks it down. Faintly, a siren whines ten stories below.
Sleep's not going to come back. He knows it. Roger sighs, shoves the vial into his back pocket -- maybe Mark will get off his case if he sees it there at breakfast (yes, Mother, I'm being a good boy and taking my medicine; his mouth twists) -- and pushes open the door of the bathroom.
What's waiting for him beyond it isn't exactly the loft.
He can't sleep like he used to anymore, hasn't for five months now -- when all you've got is a beeper, your body'd better fucking well learn to wake up to it when it's time for your four AM break. Roger doesn't like it any more than he did the first time it happened, and, groaning audibly, he swats a hand at the beeper to shut it up. His back's stiff from the dead springs in the mattress, one foot half-asleep from where he wedged it between the wall and the bed (how the hell had that happened?); rolling to his feet, he half-walks, half-hobbles to the bathroom, trying to shake the blood back into his leg as he goes.
He's never going to get over the bitter, disgusting irony. Drain it out of him, he'll die. Keep it in him and he'll die anyway, only much slower and a hell of a lot more painfully. Not for the first time, he wonders if April had been onto something in June: better, maybe, to go out like a magnesium flash than keep up this half-alive smouldering for far too many years.
And he's so Goddamn sick of taking these motherfucking pills.
He shuts the door behind him and fishes them out of the medicine cabinet, twisting open the vial, dropping one underneath his tongue. The faucet, when he pushes it on, spits a stream of coppery-tasting water into his cupped hands. Roger tries not to gag as he drinks it down. Faintly, a siren whines ten stories below.
Sleep's not going to come back. He knows it. Roger sighs, shoves the vial into his back pocket -- maybe Mark will get off his case if he sees it there at breakfast (yes, Mother, I'm being a good boy and taking my medicine; his mouth twists) -- and pushes open the door of the bathroom.
What's waiting for him beyond it isn't exactly the loft.