Fic: Near Life Experience

[stillxmyxheart]

Title: Near Life Experience
Author: Lindsay (nylana)
Beta: Mary (stillxmyxheart)
Rating: R (languge, drug use, sexual situations)
Genre: Angst, Drama
Word Count: 4,592
Characters/Pairings: Simon, Emily, Nathan, Penny, Alex (reference to Simon/April)
Summary: Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person. This is the truth Simon Gates knows.

A/N: The title for this fic and some of its parts come from the Lifehouse song of the same name. It's basically Simon's theme song, so listen now. The Gates men are quite the damaged pair, but I adore them utterly and completely. I hope this sheds some light on Simon's issues and the road he's traveled to get where he is.


There's a phone ringing.

Simon groans through the building pain of a headache and rolls over, trying to ignore the shrill sound. He pulls the pillow up on either side of his head, smashing it against his ears until finally, blissfully, the caller gives up. He relaxes his grip and lifts his head just as the light comes on, stinging his still sensitive eyes.

"Fucking hell, Ang!" he yells, burying his face in the pillow once again and yanking the sheet over his head.

The bed sinks as she sits. "Sorry, baby, but I need to get well."

Simon sighs and lifts his head again, wincing at the light. His head is pounding somewhere just shy of allegro, and his stomach feels like it's eating itself alive. He lets his head flop back down on the pillow and then rolls over, folding his arm over his eyes to block the light. Angie fidgets next to him, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. After a minute she loses interest and looks over at him, poking his calf with her toe.

Simon sighs and peeks out from under his forearm as Angie pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around them, chin resting on her knees. She's pouting and he thinks she'd look almost childlike if it wasn't for the empty syringe wrapped in her fist. Angie's one of those junkies that can't stand to stick herself with a needle, can't handle heating up the powder without burning her fingertips. He wonders sometimes how she got started, who gave her that first fateful high.

He sits up, rubbing a hand over his face and letting the sheet fall to his waist. "Where's the bag?" She gives him a plaintive look and shivers.

"Angie," he says sternly.

She sighs. "It's all gone."

And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart.

I carry your heart.

I carry it in my heart.

Her voice, soft and almost musical, reads him poetry while he drives a black race car around the stacks of leather bound books at her feet. A left turn at Chaucer, a hard right around Dickinson and on to the finish line marked by a length of blue ribbon she pulled from her hair. Poem finished, she folds the book closed and sets it aside. She slides from her chair to the floor beside him, as he pushes a green car past the black one and through the legs of an antique desk complete with a little cup for an ink pot and grooves for holding pens.
Years later he still remembers how the room always smelled like flowers and tea.

She picks up a red car with white racing stripes and spins one of the wheels with the tip of an elegant finger. Simon looks up at her and frowns. "That's Daddy's car."

She laughs and brushes the hair back from his forehead. "I know, sweetie." As she moves to set it down again, the front door opens and Simon scurries out of the room to greet his father.

"What?!" Simon exclaims. "What do you mean 'all gone'? There were two hits left last night." He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands. Shuffling across the room, he snatches his boxers off the floor and tugs them on. He picks up his jeans and rummages in the pockets, finding them empty.

"You shot up again after I passed out, didn't you." He says it like a fact, because he knows how she is. He also knows, from too much experience, that about six to twenty-four hours after a high ends, withdrawal starts. Addicts call the symptoms of withdrawal 'being sick' which leads to the idea that being high is 'being well.'

The irony is not lost on Simon.

This is the Moon.

This is the Sun.

Let me name the stars for you.

Let me take you there.

Simon tugs on her skirt until she sets the large hardcover book aside, pulling him up and settling him on her lap. The green car comes with him. The red remains on the floor, parked next to Shelley.

"That's Daddy's car," he says, pointing.

She smiles softly and rubs a gentle hand up and down his back. "I know, sweetie. He'll be home soon." Then she picks up another book, lays it across their legs, and begins reading again.

The time it takes for the headaches, cramps, nausea, and other unpleasantries to kick in varies with metabolism, and food, and dose, and tolerance. Angie's been hardcore for almost six years. Yesterday they only had enough money for a couple of cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake from McDonald's, but there were four stamps of heroin in his pocket, so who cared really. She's gone through two in about eighteen hours and he hasn't had any for at least ten. There was vodka involved too, and cigarettes of course. Some friend of Mike's had pot, he thinks.

Variables, all of them.

Angie makes a small whimpering sound and he turns to see her curled in the fetal position in the middle of the bed. He pulls on his jeans and wanders into the bathroom, avoiding his reflection in the mirror. By his estimates, he's got about two hours to find money and a dealer before she gets bad and before the withdrawal hits him hard, making him too sick to wander down dark alleys.

It's the only math he's ever been able to do in his head.

But first he needs to piss and kill the unholy taste in his mouth. Conveniently, his toe finds a bottle next to the toilet, and he bends to pick it up.

Whiskey.

He wrinkles his nose. It's not what he prefers, but his drunk bastard father seems to like it just fine. He takes a quick swig, coughing and choking on the burn boiling up from his throat. His head spins and he steadies himself with a hand on the wall, breathing slowly and deeply until the dizziness passes before he dares to move again.

He takes another sip and then spits it out into the sink, catching himself in the mirror as he lifts his head and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. There's a ghost staring back at him, a face he hardly recognizes as his own. His face is thin, pale skin pulled tight over his cheek bones and hollowed. He leans close to the mirror, turning his head left and then right, watching as the dusty light plays over his gaunt features.

Then he lets his head drop, looking down into the sink at the dark rust stain around the drain. In his other life, the rich privileged one he felt so compelled to flee, he would have looked at living in such a place as beneath him, as something that only the scum from the wrong side of the tracks tolerated because there was nothing better for them. But now he's one of them, the same as all the other junkies and felons wandering the streets, content just to have a place with a roof and a bed, happy when there's cash in his pocket and drugs to be had.

Stumbling out of the bathroom, he looks around for his phone, finally locating it under a discarded t-shirt. He flips it open and stares at the display, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs and blinking repeatedly, forcing the numbers to focus. Then he frowns at the caller id information and snaps the phone shut, shoving it in his pocket.

He'll call his father back later, when he's well again and when he can stand to hear the bastard's voice.

Even if I now saw you only once,

I would long for you through worlds,

Worlds.

She hasn't read to him in weeks, and there's an edge to her voice that wasn't there before, in the way she says certain words, as if she is filling them with her sadness. He pulls himself up onto her chair as she sits on the floor, leaning against the sofa.

The red car's headlights stare at him from their customary position. "Did Daddy stop liking his car?" he asks.

She looks up at him and sighs. "No, darling, Daddy's just very busy."

He pouts, but accepts her answer, certain that as soon as Daddy is not busy they will play together again.

It takes three calls and the last of their money to find what they need.

He barely notices the pinch of the needle as it pushes through his skin, or the pressure as his thumb pushes down on the syringe and the drug enters his blood stream.

All he feels is the intense rush and the pounding of his heart. He wobbles on his way across the room and drops to the floor, slamming his knees against the hard wood. His whole body trembles but he forces himself to crawl forward, reaching for the edge of the bed and pulling himself up onto the cool sheets, heavenly against his fevered skin.

For a second it feels like his heart is going to explode, but as he exhales a shaky breath the sensation changes, morphs from a stabbing pain to a quiet tingling as every muscle in his body relaxes at once. He goes numb and slumps against the headboard, staring blankly across the room at Angie's limp body.

Your absence has gone through me like a thread though a needle

Everything I do is stitched in its color.

A fine layer of dust covers the desk, dancing in the late afternoon sun as it spills through a gap in the curtains, over the stacks of books and across the seat of the sofa. Her voice is quiet and dull, draped in sadness and a deep pain that she feels down to her bones. He sits on the floor, green car cradled in his hands.

The red one is covered in dust too.

He doesn't ask about Daddy. And she doesn't lie to him, doesn't try to make it okay anymore. They both know it's not okay anymore.

Simon's hand hangs over the edge of the bed as he watches the glowing orange creep closer to his fingertips. He can just feel the heat of the embers, warm and sharp over the back of his hand as he lifts the cigarette, holding it carefully between his fingers, resting his thumb against the filter. There's a momentary sting and an odd smell as it burns his flesh, but he doesn't cry out, doesn't register it as pain, only another sensation, another flash of chemicals between synapses, proteins settling into receptors and soothing the intangible ache.

Then he flicks his thumb and the column of ash is flung towards the floor, in the general direction of a thick glass ash tray Angie stole from some hotel. A few cinders land on the lip of the Jack Daniels bottle, sitting within easy reach. Dropping the cigarette, he stretches for the bottle and wraps his hand around the neck, causing the soot to fall into the amber liquid.

He rolls over on his back and holds the bottle over his head, watching the ash settle to the bottom, and frowning. Fuck it, he thinks, sitting up and taking a long swig.

On the bedside table his phone rings again.

His father is yelling at the moving men, his mother is crying in the bedroom as she shoves clothes in a suitcase. He stands in the hallway watching her, clutching the green car to his chest.

He doesn't want to move.

Get here soon.

He knows the minute he hits the button and lifts the phone to his ear that it's bad.

She doesn't have long.

His father's voice is so strained and desperate in a way he's never heard before.

Please, Simon.

He has to go now.

The swings are still squeaky, the chains groaning under his weight as he shifts forward. His shoes scuff against the tiny bits of gravel, dusting over the shiny black leather and clinging to his socks. He turns his head to look at Penny, sitting in the swing next to him. Her father says she hasn't spoken in three days.

They buried her mother Amanda this morning. The casket was a pearl white, draped in red roses. He saw his own mother's hand shaking as she laid a rose on the top, pressing her hand over it and not caring when a thorn bit into her palm. He watched Penny as she sat in the back, refusing to go any closer despite her father's coaxing. As soon as Harrison took a step towards her, she ran.

The adults have been looking for her for at least an hour already, and Simon is sure they're worried and fretting as grown ups tend to do, but he'd known right where to find her.

Simon stands and steps away from the swing, moving around behind Penny. He leans forward, taking hold of the chains on either side of her, and sticking his head between them, stretching until he's almost bent over her, looking at her upside down. She tilts her head up a bit, peeking at him with sad brown eyes, wet with unshed tears. Her lip trembles slightly and then she bites it to hold it still. He wants to fix this, wants to make it better, but there's nothing that an almost-older-brother can do to make losing a mom okay.

The last time he remembers seeing her like this he had thrown her favorite doll in the pool, but that was so many years, and so many tragedies ago.

He moves back and she follows, tipping her head backwards until he's staring straight down and she's staring straight up. Neither of them moves, letting the moment settle comfortably between them.

Then he crosses his eyes.

The tension shatters, Penny bursts out laughing, and it's the most magical sound he's ever heard.

He climbs out of bed and picks up his jeans from the floor. Angie stirs as he pulls them on, and stretches her arm over to his side of the bed.

"Where you going, baby?" she mumbles.

"The hospital," he replies, tugging a t-shirt down over his too lean torso. "It's my mum."

Angie moans and rolls over, letting the sheet slide off her body. "You gonna fix me up again first?" She smiles and trails a hand over her small breasts and down her stomach.

His eyes roam over her nakedness, unsure if she means sex or shooting up. Hell, she probably means both. The high had worn off, but they were still hours from feeling sick. It was the time when they usually participated in their other favorite activity.

He watches as she rolls to the side, rummaging around the clutter on the bedside table. Turning back she dangles a small plastic baggy between two hot pink nails and giggles. There's a tiny lump of powder inside, cocaine she'd magically found while he was out standing in a rain-soaked alley.

He doesn't let himself think about what she did to get it.

He gets out of the car and slams the door shut, running into the house ahead of his mother, up the stairs and to his room. He slams that door too and slides his dresser in front of it so no one can get in. Digging under his bed he pulls out a small shoebox. Inside is a bottle he swiped from his father's study and a pack of cigarettes Susie Kane bought for him.

He unscrews the cap on the bottle and takes a sip, gagging at the fiery taste. It's not at all like the sweet wine the older girls give him at their parties, but a few minutes later he doesn't care. Downstairs he can hear his parents arguing. His father calls him a delinquent and a failure, shouting about this being the third school in three years, loud enough that the words are sure to be heard upstairs. His mother just blames herself.

Then it goes quiet.

A moment later his mother trudges up the steps. She pauses outside his room and he can see her in his mind's eye, resting a hand on the door and fighting back her tears before moving on down the corridor to her room. He takes a draw off the cigarette, careful to blow the smoke out his open window, and remembers a room that smells like flowers and tea and old books.

Somewhere in that room is a red race car with white stripes. But he chooses not to remember that.

Angie works the powder in her hand to loosen it. "Come on," she teases. "Just one for the road?"

He swallows hard, torn between wanting to rush to the hospital, wanting to be there for his mother like she always had been for him, and facing his father sober, feeling the withdrawal and the hard glare of Nathan Gates. Angie lies back on the bed, opening the bag and shaking out the drug in a narrow line on her thigh, twirling a thin glass tube between her fingers.

Simon licks his lips and lets his unbuttoned jeans fall to the floor.

Penny's lips are soft and plump, her tongue tastes like pink lemonade. She's so young, so innocent, and she shouldn't be pressed between the sofa and a bastard like him. His hand traces her side, slips around to squeeze her ass and she arches against him. He can think of a million reasons why he shouldn't want this, the least of which is that they are both well on their way to being drunk.

He came over just to get away from all the shit at home, and found her sitting on her old swing in the backyard, crying. He's always been good at cheering her up and she's always been like a little sister, annoying and adorable at the same time, but it's impossible to deny the woman she's becoming.

Especially when she makes sweet little noises like that.

He tries not to think about the consequences of this, how angry their fathers will be. Because it will most certainly be his fault. He should know better. Then again, he should know better about a lot of things, should know enough not to be chasing that next buzz every waking minute of his life.

He's going to end up like his old man, the very thing he detests.

It's that thought that makes him stop and sit up, push himself off the sofa and run his hands through his hair. Penny looks at him, confused and hurt. Her shirt is rumpled and her jeans are unzipped, and it hits him how close he came to ruining one of the last good things in his life.

He bolts for the door, opening and shutting it before she has a chance to run after him.

Simon snaps awake a few hours later, with an unconscious Angie lying on top of him. There's a beep coming from across the room and he vaguely remembers a phone call. Flopping back on the pillow he stares up at the crack in the ceiling, wishing it would expand and swallow him whole, suck him out of this shitty apartment and the hell he calls life.

His dad got clean a little while ago, thanks to his mom getting sick. Simon tried that once before. It lasted about two months and then he was right back out amongst the liars and crooks, slapping money into a hand for a plastic bag full of temporary paradise.

The beep rings out again in the quiet room.

The pearls are smooth and cool, slipping from his hand silently and pooling in the bag. A pair of ruby earrings catches his eye and he stops breathing. He remembers with perfectly clarity the day his father brought them home, how terrible he was at keeping them a secret until Mother's Day. So terrible in fact, that she gave him one curious look over the dinner table and he caved. He remembers his mother's laugh too and the way she ruffled the hair on both their heads when his father said it was from both of her boys.

They were so happy then.

He snatches the earrings from their box and drops them on top of the pearls, adding up how much he can get if he pawns verses trades. It'll be enough for a couple weeks at least, which is good enough for him. He's never been about the long term.

He's just about to close the drawer when the door swings open, crashing violently against the wall and shaking the mirror. Nathan Gates storms in and snatches the bag from Simon with his left hand as his right crashes into Simon's cheek.

His mother screams.

There are no taxis on this side of town, so he has to walk four blocks to the bus stop and then ride twenty minutes to get to the hospital. He leans the side of his head against the cool glass and rubs a hand over his thigh. The aches are starting already.

There's a baggie in his pocket.

He wonders how much time he has.

Her name is Mandy, like the song, and she likes it when he gets just a little too drunk and sings it for her. She tugs on his shirt until he sits up and pulls it over his head, watching as she undoes the last button on hers and tosses it aside. Her bra is hot pink, her skirt is black leather, and he doesn't care that she normally charges a hundred a fuck. They have what each other needs.

There's a noise from the hallway and Simon lifts his head up over the back of the leather sofa to see his father standing in the doorway. There's a snifter of brandy in his hand and a newspaper in the other.

There is shouting and a slap and a shattered glass lying in front of the fireplace.

The front door shuts behind him with a sense of finality. He can hear his father's words, can smell the scent of alcohol on his breath. Good riddance, he thinks, slinging the backpack over his shoulder.

He never sees Mandy again.

It's cold and wet and his shivering has nothing to do with the withdrawal looming in his future. He stands on the curb by the hospital entrance, staring up at the lines of windows, imagining a pattern in the lights.

It would be too easy for fate to spell it out on the side of a ten story building.

He takes another drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke out slowly, watching it curl around and up, fading in the passing breeze. He thinks about lighting up another, or licking his finger and dipping it in the bitter powder in his pocket. Coffee sounds good too.

It's always been one addiction to the next, the perfect way to delay the inevitable.

With a sigh he drops the cigarette to the ground, snubbing it out with the toe of his shoe, and walks towards the red neon glow of the emergency room.

His first overdose is in a hotel off Interstate 83 just outside of Baltimore on Christmas Eve. The dealer cut his cocaine with sugar, and when the usual dose doesn't get him high enough, he takes more.

And more.

And more.

He wakes up sprawled in the bathroom, a stabbing pain in his gut and blood running out of his nose like a faucet. He climbs into the bathtub, huddling under the hot spray and watching rivulets of red water run towards the drain. He passes out again a few minutes later.

In the morning it's snowing. He looks up at the sky, feeling the light kiss of flakes over his cheeks and listening to the distant sound of church bells.

Merry fucking Christmas.

Later, he calls his mum. She meets him at a gas station, folded bills clutched in her hand.

The sight of his mother so still and pale takes his breath away. She looks peaceful though, and it's too easy to imagine the gentle smile and musical voice of his youth. It's also too easy to remember the shouting and sadness of most of his life. He can't help but wonder how much of it was his fault, how many moments he missed out on and messed up because he was too busy being a jerk, too busy being just like his father.

What they say about apples and trees is all too true.

Simon stares at his father, bent over with his head in his hands, shaking. Then he looks at the floor, at his worn shoes, at the dirty t-shirt and jeans he's been wearing for four days, and knows this has to end. He has to stop while there is still life left in him to live.

Nathan sighs, looking over at Simon with haunted red eyes. "Are you ready now?"

Simon nods solemnly and crosses the room to his father's side. His heart is pounding, and it feels like something is pressing on his chest. He holds his breath as he reaches out to take his mom's hand, feeling the cold weight of it against his palm. He missed saying goodbye for one last worthless high and sex with a girl whose last name he still doesn't know.

As the first tears fall, Nathan puts an arm around his shoulders. He leans against his dad and nods again.

He's ready.

The rain falls steadily, running in crooked lines down the window and blurring the world outside. Simon sips at his coffee and listens to the mix of light tapping as drops hit the glass and Alex types on her laptop behind him. He tries not to remember that day at the hospital, but it comes to him at the oddest times. Sometimes the guilt is almost too much to bear.

Unsurprisingly his mind wanders to April, and to the night when he confessed his sins. Her acceptance and love amazed him as he watched her pour every possible temptation down the drain. Until that moment it never occurred to him that someone could look at his past and love him anyway.

Despite the fact that they made up before he came to Boston, he still feels like there is so much unfinished between them. It's just so hard for him to open up, to trust and be trusted, to know that if she didn't reject him then, she isn't going to now. He used to be so full of anger, and now that anger has turned to fear.

He sighs and swirls the last of his coffee around the mug. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Alex slouched on the sofa, frowning at her notes. He knows he has a job to do, and that it's for the good of the world and his relationship with April, but he hates being away from her. The fear that he might return home and find that he's lost her still lingers in the back of his mind.

He wonders if maybe rehab was only the first leg of his journey. Perhaps now he can really become the person he should have been all along, the person his mother always thought he was, the person deserving of someone as incredible as April Newcastle.