are you happy where you're sleeping?
This is for smokexscribbles, because she wanted Ravix/Ilfiid and hell, so did I.
Title: Shame
Series: Surreality Complex [opodemien et cetera]
Wordcount: 732
Claimer: All characters and settings belong to me.
A/N: Ravix and Ilfiid are a pair of my most-used characters, second only to Taize. They have issues. Ravix is, if you don't get it from the story, addicted to multiple drugs.
Ilfiid wakes up on the couch and doesn’t remember how he got there. Maybe it’s some sort of subconscious returning to places Ravix has been, now that’s it’s certain that he isn’t coming back. Maybe it’s just an unwillingness to face the bed. Maybe it’s just that he passed out before he could make his way into his bedroom.
The sun is shining on his face, and Ilfiid feels as if he’s betrayed himself. The empty bottle stands next to his head on the floor, a testimony to what he’ll do when he feels poorly enough. And he’s seen enough of what it can do, enough of what it has done. His life has been fucked over enough by this stuff without him actually drinking it. Ravix, drunk and hurting himself and everyone around him, was more than enough.
But Ravix is gone now, and maybe that bottle was also something subconscious. Ilfiid doesn’t feel any better - he feels a lot worse, actually - but there’s a certain comfort in knowing that somewhere, Ravix is almost certainly waking up to the same symptoms.
A certain comfort, yes, but also an overwhelming feeling of despair, because Ilfiid had wanted to change him, had tried, had failed. He’d failed miserably.
Funny, it had only been a little more than a week, and yet he is so sure of this. But before, Ravix had always disappeared only for a few days. Then there had been that one time when he’d left for two years, and after that he’d stopped. Until recently. And even now, this is the first time he’s been gone this long.
Ilfiid is afraid that this will be another two-year disappearance, or worse; that this is simply the end. Maybe Ravix has no intention of coming back; maybe it is too late for any decisions. Maybe he is lying in a gutter somewhere, colour washing out with the rain and breathing long stilled.
It’s these thoughts that have haunted Ilfiid each time Ravix vanished, that haunt him now. He’s desperate to proven wrong. He’s desperate to hear a knock on the door.
He hears one.
He shoves himself free of the couch, disregarding the throb of alarm in his head, and pulls the door open. There’s no one there.
With a sigh, Ilfiid closes the door and looks to the kitchen clock habitually; it’s two past eight in the morning. Too early for anyone but Ilfiid, or so people who know him say.
Knowing what should happen is no comfort. Ravix never does the likely or reasonable thing. He never follows a pattern.
Which probably explains why the door opens as Ilfiid turns around, considering another collapse on the couch. He turns around slowly, afraid to find himself a fool again, but he’s not hallucinating this time. The door is open, and Ravix has staggered up to it and is hanging on the frame for dear life. “Am…” he slurs, “Am I…how long’ve I been…”
“You’re drunk,” Ilfiid observes sympathetically, because he’s suffering from the aftereffects of a similar state and doubts he’s in any place to be critical.
“Ilfiid, ‘m sorry,” Ravix says desperately. “I couldn’t… face you sober.” He drops his hand and staggers, and before Ilfiid knows what he’s doing he’s stepped forward to catch his friend. “You don’ want me here, d’you?” the drunk man asks.
This is a side of Ravix that Ilfiid isn’t used to; the side that he suspects the addictions had been formed to stave off. It breaks his heart to see Ravix like this, so broken himself, laid bare by the effect of some sort of poison that was self-fed, a poison that had probably caused all the problems it is now supposed to cure. Couldn’t you have tried another way? Ilfiid wonders. I wish you had trusted me before.
“I always want you here,” he says aloud.
“You’re angry,” Ravix guesses.
“I will be,” Ilfiid corrects. “When I feel better, I’m going to be furious. But I’m not turning you out because of that. You are going to have a shower and change and eat, and then I’ll yell at you.” He suspects by then that he will have found the appropriate words to say. For now, the relief in Ravix’s face is all that he needs to see. This time, he will do this properly. This time, Ravix isn’t going to leave.
Title: Shame
Series: Surreality Complex [opodemien et cetera]
Wordcount: 732
Claimer: All characters and settings belong to me.
A/N: Ravix and Ilfiid are a pair of my most-used characters, second only to Taize. They have issues. Ravix is, if you don't get it from the story, addicted to multiple drugs.
Ilfiid wakes up on the couch and doesn’t remember how he got there. Maybe it’s some sort of subconscious returning to places Ravix has been, now that’s it’s certain that he isn’t coming back. Maybe it’s just an unwillingness to face the bed. Maybe it’s just that he passed out before he could make his way into his bedroom.
The sun is shining on his face, and Ilfiid feels as if he’s betrayed himself. The empty bottle stands next to his head on the floor, a testimony to what he’ll do when he feels poorly enough. And he’s seen enough of what it can do, enough of what it has done. His life has been fucked over enough by this stuff without him actually drinking it. Ravix, drunk and hurting himself and everyone around him, was more than enough.
But Ravix is gone now, and maybe that bottle was also something subconscious. Ilfiid doesn’t feel any better - he feels a lot worse, actually - but there’s a certain comfort in knowing that somewhere, Ravix is almost certainly waking up to the same symptoms.
A certain comfort, yes, but also an overwhelming feeling of despair, because Ilfiid had wanted to change him, had tried, had failed. He’d failed miserably.
Funny, it had only been a little more than a week, and yet he is so sure of this. But before, Ravix had always disappeared only for a few days. Then there had been that one time when he’d left for two years, and after that he’d stopped. Until recently. And even now, this is the first time he’s been gone this long.
Ilfiid is afraid that this will be another two-year disappearance, or worse; that this is simply the end. Maybe Ravix has no intention of coming back; maybe it is too late for any decisions. Maybe he is lying in a gutter somewhere, colour washing out with the rain and breathing long stilled.
It’s these thoughts that have haunted Ilfiid each time Ravix vanished, that haunt him now. He’s desperate to proven wrong. He’s desperate to hear a knock on the door.
He hears one.
He shoves himself free of the couch, disregarding the throb of alarm in his head, and pulls the door open. There’s no one there.
With a sigh, Ilfiid closes the door and looks to the kitchen clock habitually; it’s two past eight in the morning. Too early for anyone but Ilfiid, or so people who know him say.
Knowing what should happen is no comfort. Ravix never does the likely or reasonable thing. He never follows a pattern.
Which probably explains why the door opens as Ilfiid turns around, considering another collapse on the couch. He turns around slowly, afraid to find himself a fool again, but he’s not hallucinating this time. The door is open, and Ravix has staggered up to it and is hanging on the frame for dear life. “Am…” he slurs, “Am I…how long’ve I been…”
“You’re drunk,” Ilfiid observes sympathetically, because he’s suffering from the aftereffects of a similar state and doubts he’s in any place to be critical.
“Ilfiid, ‘m sorry,” Ravix says desperately. “I couldn’t… face you sober.” He drops his hand and staggers, and before Ilfiid knows what he’s doing he’s stepped forward to catch his friend. “You don’ want me here, d’you?” the drunk man asks.
This is a side of Ravix that Ilfiid isn’t used to; the side that he suspects the addictions had been formed to stave off. It breaks his heart to see Ravix like this, so broken himself, laid bare by the effect of some sort of poison that was self-fed, a poison that had probably caused all the problems it is now supposed to cure. Couldn’t you have tried another way? Ilfiid wonders. I wish you had trusted me before.
“I always want you here,” he says aloud.
“You’re angry,” Ravix guesses.
“I will be,” Ilfiid corrects. “When I feel better, I’m going to be furious. But I’m not turning you out because of that. You are going to have a shower and change and eat, and then I’ll yell at you.” He suspects by then that he will have found the appropriate words to say. For now, the relief in Ravix’s face is all that he needs to see. This time, he will do this properly. This time, Ravix isn’t going to leave.